Commie says hi!

[Dystopia]

Theists and religious people can be communists, but they can't be Marxists as Marxism is inherently atheist (when it's logically consistent at least). There are exceptions as there always is, which is Islamic Marxism which started in central asia in the 1920's and 30's and spread amongst academic circles for a bit. the latter had a vague influence over Islamism/political Islam, and they borrowed the Leninist theory of the vanguard and state. I don't know too many details other than there was actually an influence.
There were also the "god builders" in the early bolshevik party and in Russia in the 20's who wanted to turn communism into a religion; it was a fascinating idea and for a breif period there were some odd experiments (e.g. babies weren't baptized but were "octobered"). I have had some sympathy with them but it was not overall consistent with Marxist ideology at a philosophical level as Lenin pointed out. it's rests on the same ideas as saying atheism or science is a faith.

Just as I thought - There is also this doctrine named Christian Communism that says Jesus Christ was the first communist ever and they believe Christianity is compatible with communist ideology - They just ignore the materialist atheistic part. Would you say that someone like a pantheist or deist (some of those folks are technically atheists) can be a Marxist?

I've been a communist sympathizer for nearly ten years, and it is only recently that I've started to "understand" it. I think Marxism is widely misunderstood and misrepresented, but that is a reflection of the complexity of "dialectical" thinking. I think Stalin won over his opponents, notably Trotsky, as he took the more pragmatic root; Socialism in one country was the best they could do at the time although it did strongly diverge from the original internationalist goals of communism as a movement.

Can I ask where are you from? I'm always curious to know because there's some countries where you can find a higher number of communist sympathizers. I am Portuguese and my country lived in an authoritarian fascist leaning (not as fascist as Mussolini) regime for 60 years so communists were hated. After the revolution in 1974 some militant communists who back then had finally freedom of expression to speak their minds tried to forcibly take the country down the path to socialism - It worked poorly and moderate, centrist, liberal-capitalist left-wing leaning parties won the elections and then Portugal signed up for the EU, so the opportunity for communism was lost. However, there's still a lot of members in the communist party and it gets about 10% votes every election depending if it's local or national.
I agree with you that's widely misrepresented - The typical strawman argument of "everybody gets the same shit", when realistically speaking if you wanted more you only needed to work more - The difference is that you would get the fruits of your labour directly. 
Socialism in one country seems to me a more plausible and realistic, perhaps even pragmatic option - If I was ever to become a communist I would probably be a Stalinist with some Leninist influences, but I would never worship Joseph Stalin or think everything he did was right.

I wouldn't chuck liberalism out just yet as there is a long way to go before communism- or indeed any alternative system- becomes credible. Stalinism (or Marxism-Leninism) was what worked and it is where any future communist ideas are going to have to drawn from. I nevertheless hope that any future communist system would be less bloodthirsty. From an intellectual point of view, that Marxist-Leninist also worked out the ideology more and so I'm drawing from them a lot.

Certainly - Theoretically the one party system violated Marx's proposal because the dictatorship of the proletariat wasn't supposed to be a dictatorship in the literal sense of the word. Apologies if I'm about to make a mistake, but since communists are anti-capitalism they are also, by definition, anti-liberalism (liberalism is the root of capitalism), right? I think people mistake being anti-liberalism as being anti-rights and anti-compassion - We could organize society without liberalism and capitalism and still keep the people's rights - It wouldn't make sense otherwise.

Despite being a Trotskyist in my very early days,  getting closer and closer to being a Marxist-Leninist/Stalinist by default. I think you're friend made a wise choice as being a Stalinist has the advantage of sticking with more orthodox ideas and learning the history and also having be honest enough about the mistakes that were made. the latter is hard and being an out and out supporter of Stalin, etc is political suicide, but there are good reasons to be skeptical about how far the history can be evaluated according to western-liberal moral standards particularly when you consider the influence of Judea-Christian morality which would be incompatible with atheism and materialism.

Of course it is, many people think being a Stalinist means you support murdering people arbitrarily or a totalitarian State - She does not worship Stalin or think he was a good moral person, she just believes his writings on the "socialism in one nation" idea and some pragmatic approaches are better than the internationalist harder to achieve proposal. She also says that we need to place ourselves abstractly back in the way in Soviet Russia to understand that much of the killings were not Gulags or deliberate executions but simply side effects of policies that still weren't perfect like people starving, etc.
Two other replies to further points you made to other members:
- I think that for the most part human nature is ambiguous and the reason we think capitalism is human nature is because we are used to it. I'm tired of telling people that no one before liberalism ever thought such system would ever exist or be invented by some lone writer in a cubicle - Just like no one thought the classical period would ever end and Rome would fall to the barbarians. People are severely limited by the ideas and mentality of the time they are born in, so it's productive to be impartial and consider that we don't know everything. Quite honestly, we have seen people commit acts of greed and cruelty but there's also many historic and contemporary figures who did acts of good, charity, compassion and cared for other human beings. To say that a 300 years old system is going to stay forever is childish and naive. From where I'm standing, we are largely a product of nurturing and if we grow up in a society that values success, competition and greed we will become greedy and egotistical. 
- Yes, I post in a forum for politics discussion and I see fascists getting along with Marxists/communists because they share extreme ideologies and that means other members are not nice to both groups. I think fascism isn't racist in it's original conception (Mussolini said 95% of race is a myth) - Hitler liked the idea, but contemporary neo-nazis are not fascists because they don't support imperialism. Portugal had a kinda fascist political period and our leader allowed interracial mixing in the colonies and gave Portuguese citizenship to mixed race children of interracial couples (I guess we aren't very racist, historians say without any intent of joke that Portuguese created mullatoes). My biggest problem with fascism is the fact modern fascism (very underground) supports eugenics to a degree I cannot stand - Not to mention their fetishism for conquering the world and being emperors.

[Alex K]

If you're interested, I recently found this on the internet; it makes some fascinating reading about Soviet Physics and the problems with the origin of the universe (there is a brief mention of China at the end);
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1204/1204.1625.pdf

Thanks, very interesting!

[Hatshepsut]

She also says that we need to place ourselves abstractly back in the way in Soviet Russia to understand that much of the killings were not Gulags or deliberate executions but simply side effects of policies that still weren't perfect like people starving, etc...

...the reason we think capitalism is human nature is because we are used to it. I'm tired of telling people that no one before liberalism ever thought such system would ever exist or be invented by some lone writer in a cubicle - Just like no one thought the classical period would ever end and Rome would fall...

So how is Mr. Silva doing in Portugal with the North/South thing in the EU Bailout Era? I admit my ignorance regarding political theory and the mechanics of the world system. The historical failure of imagination you speak of, combined with knee-jerk hostility to Marx, blinds us to his demonstration that capitalism predicates for its stability on unlimited economic growth. That just about guarantees capitalism will share the fate of all bacteria growing in finite petri dishes. It will have to be replaced by something else once it exhausts its resources. I don't know if that entails abolition of private property, but it will mean the slaying of its status as a sacred cow. The Australian Aborigines did fine without private property for more than 40000 years.

I'm less willing to see innocence in the killing phenomena of Soviet Russia; the famine in the Ukraine was imposed. We have long been condemning it from our own position of comfort, however, as if this is a thing that monsters do which couldn't happen to us. It may well have went beyond what even Stalin intended, without his full control over it all. Nor was it in the original 1917 game plan, which was ruthlessly cruel yet not unmeasured as the purges came to be. The Gulag was a machine capable of grinding meat on its own, with enough inertia to make it hard to stop.

[Red Economist]

Theists and religious people can be communists, but they can't be Marxists as Marxism is inherently atheist (when it's logically consistent at least). There are exceptions as there always is, which is Islamic Marxism which started in central asia in the 1920's and 30's and spread amongst academic circles for a bit. the latter had a vague influence over Islamism/political Islam, and they borrowed the Leninist theory of the vanguard and state. I don't know too many details other than there was actually an influence.
There were also the "god builders" in the early bolshevik party and in Russia in the 20's who wanted to turn communism into a religion; it was a fascinating idea and for a breif period there were some odd experiments (e.g. babies weren't baptized but were "octobered"). I have had some sympathy with them but it was not overall consistent with Marxist ideology at a philosophical level as Lenin pointed out. it's rests on the same ideas as saying atheism or science is a faith.

Just as I thought - There is also this doctrine named Christian Communism that says Jesus Christ was the first communist ever and they believe Christianity is compatible with communist ideology - They just ignore the materialist atheistic part. Would you say that someone like a pantheist or deist (some of those folks are technically atheists) can be a Marxist?

Marxism divides into natural philosophy (dialectical materialism) and social philosophy (historical materialism). Dialectical materialism specifically excludes the possibility of a deity and is profoundly anti-religious in so far as the existence of a spiritual/supernatural realm is beyond our control/comprehension and it's existence poses serious problems to a system based on economic planning.
Historical Materialism can and does exist without employing dialectical materialism and you will find it in sociology and history departments as it is relatively harmless and compatible with liberalism. The dialectics matters because it expresses itself in class struggle and reduces the need for an external cause for understanding phenomena in favor of 'internal contradiction', thereby taking 'god' out of the equation.
Marxism places a heavy emphasis on logical consistency as (courtesy of Hegel) logic is considered a science in the same way physics uses mathematics. So it is possible, but given the logical contradictions involved I seriously doubt it is a sustainable position.

I've been a communist sympathizer for nearly ten years, and it is only recently that I've started to "understand" it. I think Marxism is widely misunderstood and misrepresented, but that is a reflection of the complexity of "dialectical" thinking. I think Stalin won over his opponents, notably Trotsky, as he took the more pragmatic root; Socialism in one country was the best they could do at the time although it did strongly diverge from the original internationalist goals of communism as a movement.

Can I ask where are you from? I'm always curious to know because there's some countries where you can find a higher number of communist sympathizers. I am Portuguese and my country lived in an authoritarian fascist leaning (not as fascist as Mussolini) regime for 60 years so communists were hated. After the revolution in 1974 some militant communists who back then had finally freedom of expression to speak their minds tried to forcibly take the country down the path to socialism - It worked poorly and moderate, centrist, liberal-capitalist left-wing leaning parties won the elections and then Portugal signed up for the EU, so the opportunity for communism was lost. However, there's still a lot of members in the communist party and it gets about 10% votes every election depending if it's local or national.
I agree with you that's widely misrepresented - The typical strawman argument of "everybody gets the same shit", when realistically speaking if you wanted more you only needed to work more - The difference is that you would get the fruits of your labour directly.
Socialism in one country seems to me a more plausible and realistic, perhaps even pragmatic option - If I was ever to become a communist I would probably be a Stalinist with some Leninist influences, but I would never worship Joseph Stalin or think everything he did was right.

I'm from the UK.

I would strongly advise you against being a Stalinist, unless you have a really good background knowledge of communist history to know what you are getting yourself into. In thinking you would 'never' worship Stalin or 'think everything he did was right', I think you grossly under-estimate the power of ideology to change a persons behavior. ideologies can tell us what is and is not possible and give us a set of rules to work with; we then operate within those rules. Whilst an ideology is not inherently evil or anything like that- it does change how we think, feel and behave. it is therefore best to treat it with skepticism and caution.
Speaking from personal experience, the better I understand Communism, the more I have come to agree with Anti-Communists that Stalin's atrocities were not an accident of the system, but were- to one extent or another- a necessary product of it in some form. I've also noticed how my own thought patterns have changed to fit into a "system" and whilst this has some benefits on an individual level as it can be very empowering, I am less certain about the aggregate effect on a society would be. there is a long process of maturation that goes with understanding a system of ideas and it takes time to see it's pitfalls.

Most of the stuff about totalitarianism is nonesense, but there is a grain of truth in it; a libertarian views 'ideas' and 'thoughts' as the private property of the individual. an individual creates their ideas by free will and spontaneous process of thought, and are therefore considered their 'property'. From this an individual has a 'right' to own/think their own thoughts.
Communism doesn't accept this view; it does have a conception of individuality, but it is subordinate to the rights of the 'collective'. In the Marxist view, Ideas are the product of social activity and social labor. Our ideas are determined by our physical interaction with the environment in the labour/production process and by our social interaction with other people. Ideas are therefore 'social', not individual. Under a Communist system of government, the ideas of society- like it's wealth become common property; to protect this common property, the 'group' has the right to decide which ideas a person can or cannot hold. Those that advance the communist cause are "progressive", those work against it are "reactionary". The 'rights' of the individual do not belong to the individual, but are given to them by the state. Consequently, the individual does not have an inherent right to 'liberty of thought' but only has the 'freedom' to think what is considered 'good' for the society. This has some extremely bizzare effects on ethical ideas in that they are no longer derived from the individual, but from the interests of waging the class struggle and of the state as the protector of the common property of society; someone who is openly stalinist would say that it is in the common good to eliminate certain ideas hostile to the cause of socialism from society (such as religion). it is a very small step indeed to seeking to eliminate the people who hold those ideas.  

I wouldn't chuck liberalism out just yet as there is a long way to go before communism- or indeed any alternative system- becomes credible. Stalinism (or Marxism-Leninism) was what worked and it is where any future communist ideas are going to have to drawn from. I nevertheless hope that any future communist system would be less bloodthirsty. From an intellectual point of view, that Marxist-Leninist also worked out the ideology more and so I'm drawing from them a lot.

Certainly - Theoretically the one party system violated Marx's proposal because the dictatorship of the proletariat wasn't supposed to be a dictatorship in the literal sense of the word. Apologies if I'm about to make a mistake, but since communists are anti-capitalism they are also, by definition, anti-liberalism (liberalism is the root of capitalism), right? I think people mistake being anti-liberalism as being anti-rights and anti-compassion - We could organize society without liberalism and capitalism and still keep the people's rights - It wouldn't make sense otherwise.

it is true that Communism is not anti-rights; it is simply that these rights are the common property of society (as they are dependent on the social wealth) and are given to people by the state. In theory Communism is not nihilistic, but there is a considerable difference between a liberal and a Marxist conception of rights.
Anti-Communists and Communists agree that private property (and therefore capitalism) is the basis of individual liberty (liberalism). By getting rid of private property, communist have and would change the conception of freedom from being a property of the will of the individual, to the freedom of action in society (and therefore possibly the state).
The problem is that all forms of collectivism could be described as totalitarian, even if they led to desirable outcomes. (this is a major issue for moderate centre-left politics which are clearly not totalitarian, but are accused of being so, particularly in the US). This doesn't factor into anti-communist ideas, but the change in how freedom and ethics is defined does mean that the very definition of "desirable" outcomes for society changes to. all forms of communism from an individualistic and liberal perspective are considered dictatorial because they hold the rights of the group as being more important than the rights of the individual. But there is significant variation in the 'degrees' of collectivism and dictatorship under a communist society.
Marx didn't argue for a one-party state, but it does logically follow on; if you eliminate competition in the economic sphere, it follows that the necessity of planning economic activity as a common resource necessitates a single economic-political authority and a single party.

Despite being a Trotskyist in my very early days,  getting closer and closer to being a Marxist-Leninist/Stalinist by default. I think you're friend made a wise choice as being a Stalinist has the advantage of sticking with more orthodox ideas and learning the history and also having be honest enough about the mistakes that were made. the latter is hard and being an out and out supporter of Stalin, etc is political suicide, but there are good reasons to be skeptical about how far the history can be evaluated according to western-liberal moral standards particularly when you consider the influence of Judea-Christian morality which would be incompatible with atheism and materialism.

Of course it is, many people think being a Stalinist means you support murdering people arbitrarily or a totalitarian State - She does not worship Stalin or think he was a good moral person, she just believes his writings on the "socialism in one nation" idea and some pragmatic approaches are better than the internationalist harder to achieve proposal. She also says that we need to place ourselves abstractly back in the way in Soviet Russia to understand that much of the killings were not Gulags or deliberate executions but simply side effects of policies that still weren't perfect like people starving, etc.

from what I've said so far, it should be clear that traditional concepts of individual responsibility DO NOT APPLY to Communism. it is easy for anti-communists to demonize the 'system' of government or the 'ideology', but the reality is far more complex; it was the ability of a communist system to turn millions of people into it's accomplices that enabled them to commit atrocities on that scale.
Totalitarianism was a new historical phenomena unique to the twentieth century and the great fault of liberalism is that it is abjectly refusing to try to understand any of these systems on their own terms and from the inside. we still trying to under what happened in 18th and 19th century terms.
Overall, it mattered very little whether a persons individual intentions were good or bad, as all that needed to happen was that they went along with the 'system'; language itself changed to reflect the need for 'shared' meanings and became highly politicized. it was the ability of the system to get you to join in, in what it was doing that mattered. The group and not the individual was the source of ethics and so if the group felt it was necessary to "liquidate" those who did not belong; so be it. it was in the interests of the group to do so and the rights of individuals were subordinate to the group.

Two other replies to further points you made to other members:
- I think that for the most part human nature is ambiguous and the reason we think capitalism is human nature is because we are used to it. I'm tired of telling people that no one before liberalism ever thought such system would ever exist or be invented by some lone writer in a cubicle - Just like no one thought the classical period would ever end and Rome would fall to the barbarians. People are severely limited by the ideas and mentality of the time they are born in, so it's productive to be impartial and consider that we don't know everything. Quite honestly, we have seen people commit acts of greed and cruelty but there's also many historic and contemporary figures who did acts of good, charity, compassion and cared for other human beings. To say that a 300 years old system is going to stay forever is childish and naive. From where I'm standing, we are largely a product of nurturing and if we grow up in a society that values success, competition and greed we will become greedy and egotistical.
- Yes, I post in a forum for politics discussion and I see fascists getting along with Marxists/communists because they share extreme ideologies and that means other members are not nice to both groups. I think fascism isn't racist in it's original conception (Mussolini said 95% of race is a myth) - Hitler liked the idea, but contemporary neo-nazis are not fascists because they don't support imperialism. Portugal had a kinda fascist political period and our leader allowed interracial mixing in the colonies and gave Portuguese citizenship to mixed race children of interracial couples (I guess we aren't very racist, historians say without any intent of joke that Portuguese created mullatoes). My biggest problem with fascism is the fact modern fascism (very underground) supports eugenics to a degree I cannot stand - Not to mention their fetishism for conquering the world and being emperors.

Marxism is largely an attempt to hijack the process of socialization that spontaneously forms human behavior and consciously employ it for political ends. So I agree with you on what you've said; shamefully a great deal of what we believe in our society know is the product of mass media and popular culture changing our behavior, and making consumption a value which we measure our self-worth by. this runs contary to notions of individual liberty of thought and does represent a massive shift towards shared ideas, values and patterns of behavior. I hope it can be used for good, but as with everything else- the conception of "good" itself changes depending on the system and the context.

Communists and Fascists do share a similar set of collectivist values in common and given both of them are stigmatized by the 'liberal' majority, it's not surprising we can get along from time to time on an individual level. on a larger scale, the differences are too extreme for anything more than a temporary departure from conflict as where we want to go are simply too different. That's especially true regarding, race, eugenics, and imperialism.

She also says that we need to place ourselves abstractly back in the way in Soviet Russia to understand that much of the killings were not Gulags or deliberate executions but simply side effects of policies that still weren't perfect like people starving, etc...

...the reason we think capitalism is human nature is because we are used to it. I'm tired of telling people that no one before liberalism ever thought such system would ever exist or be invented by some lone writer in a cubicle - Just like no one thought the classical period would ever end and Rome would fall...

So how is Mr. Silva doing in Portugal with the North/South thing in the EU Bailout Era? I admit my ignorance regarding political theory and the mechanics of the world system. The historical failure of imagination you speak of, combined with knee-jerk hostility to Marx, blinds us to his demonstration that capitalism predicates for its stability on unlimited economic growth. That just about guarantees capitalism will share the fate of all bacteria growing in finite petri dishes. It will have to be replaced by something else once it exhausts its resources. I don't know if that entails abolition of private property, but it will mean the slaying of its status as a sacred cow. The Australian Aborigines did fine without private property for more than 40000 years.

I'm less willing to see innocence in the killing phenomena of Soviet Russia; the famine in the Ukraine was imposed. We have long been condemning it from our own position of comfort, however, as if this is a thing that monsters do which couldn't happen to us. It may well have went beyond what even Stalin intended, without his full control over it all. Nor was it in the original 1917 game plan, which was ruthlessly cruel yet not unmeasured as the purges came to be. The Gulag was a machine capable of grinding meat on its own, with enough inertia to make it hard to stop.

On the latter paragraph; I'd say that's a fairly wise position. but mainly because I agree with it.  

[Dystopia]

Communists and Fascists do share a similar set of collectivist values in common and given both of them are stigmatized by the 'liberal' majority, it's not surprising we can get along from time to time on an individual level. on a larger scale, the differences are too extreme for anything more than a temporary departure from conflict as where we want to go are simply too different. That's especially true regarding, race, eugenics, and imperialism.

Curiously some fascists consider themselves socialists but they have a different conception of the word - Hitler's party was the national-socialist party, in a certain way they were socialist because of the collectivist view. One of the biggest differences is the fact Fascists have an immaterial conception of certain realities like the State and therefore are not materialists.

Since fascism is inherently nationalist, I distinguish between civic and ethnic nationalism - My experiences in politics websites is that most fascists favour eugenics but they differ on how it should be done, and there's basically one category that doesn't care about race (specially if you consider that imperialism leads to interracial relationships and multi-ethnic societies) and another that thinks people should be split into racial groups (while I've met some national-socialists, most don't follow the Hitler philosophy and simply think it's about preserving our origins; in fact I've met black and asian fascists). We've had some problems in a forum I post because of discussing eugenics (for fascists) because while it is free speech there are certain limits, even on internet boards, that may constitute hate speech or incitement to hate - Some people were very close to openly say "X group should be exterminated" while others simply argued that we should promote reproduction between people with more desirable traits.

I mostly disagree with fascists on eugenics and I dislike what I call IQ fetishism - But I don't think all fascists support eugenics.Another curious thing is that despite the stigma and stereotype the people I've met who identified as fascists were not religious but mostly atheists and many hated Christianity simply because it is incompatible with imperialism and allows people to worship someone more than the State. Mussolini was an atheist, he just knew how to use the Catholic church to his advantage. Hitler may have been a Roman Catholic but his program was based on secularist eugenic ideas developed and popularized in countries like the US and others (In fact, I would argue that you cant' justfiy the holocaust with the bible nor Eugenics and racial purity)

I do notice there's some small agreements because both are anti-establishment and against liberal-capitalists and neo-liberalism so there's some common points - And both defend the need for the individual to submit to something greater than himself like the State or the collective group/society.

Red, are you a revolutionary or democratic socialist?


Edit - I believe that everyone who lives in a capitalist free market society (like most people do) have to adapt themselves to the system to develop their skills and survive. Since no one is free from propaganda and limitations of human psychology we all have at least a minimal desire for individualism and consumerism - I just ordered a smartphone and I'm quite happy. Curiously you can notice a difference in mentalities if you talk to people who lived in non liberal societies. My dad lived during the dictatorship and so he had different ideas of how society should work (more towards the common good) despite not wanting to go back.

How would you classify the People's Republic of China considering the capitalist cities like Xangai, etc?

[Alex K]

One of the biggest differences is the fact Fascists have an immaterial conception of certain realities like the State and therefore are not materialists.

Really! That's something interesting I have never heard stated before. How is this viewpoint justified?

---

(In fact, I would argue that you cant' justfiy the holocaust with the bible nor Eugenics and racial purity)

Much of the bible is incredibly racist and genocidy, and most of all about segregation. The question is whether you can translate the message to your tribe.

[Red Economist]

Communists and Fascists do share a similar set of collectivist values in common and given both of them are stigmatized by the 'liberal' majority, it's not surprising we can get along from time to time on an individual level. on a larger scale, the differences are too extreme for anything more than a temporary departure from conflict as where we want to go are simply too different. That's especially true regarding, race, eugenics, and imperialism.

Curiously some fascists consider themselves socialists but they have a different conception of the word - Hitler's party was the national-socialist party, in a certain way they were socialist because of the collectivist view. One of the biggest differences is the fact Fascists have an immaterial conception of certain realities like the State and therefore are not materialists.

I have only just recently taken an interest in Fascist ideology, but yeah that does appear to be right. The state is the embodiment of an idea, a collective consciousness or something along those lines. "Socialism" is a word which changes depending on whose using it, the centre-left social democrats mean a peaceful, evolutionary progression by a electoral democracy from a capitalist society to a mixed economy; Leninists, use socialism to refer to the 'lower stage of communism'; liberatarians use it to describe almost anything involving the government.
There was an kind of internal rift between the Nationalist and Socialist wings of the Nazi Party in it's history; this is why Hitler destroyed the SA in the Night of the Long knives because they wanted as 'second revolution' that would be socialist, but this made the Nazi's financial backers deeply uncomfortable.

Since fascism is inherently nationalist, I distinguish between civic and ethnic nationalism - My experiences in politics websites is that most fascists favour eugenics but they differ on how it should be done, and there's basically one category that doesn't care about race (specially if you consider that imperialism leads to interracial relationships and multi-ethnic societies) and another that thinks people should be split into racial groups (while I've met some national-socialists, most don't follow the Hitler philosophy and simply think it's about preserving our origins; in fact I've met black and asian fascists). We've had some problems in a forum I post because of discussing eugenics (for fascists) because while it is free speech there are certain limits, even on internet boards, that may constitute hate speech or incitement to hate - Some people were very close to openly say "X group should be exterminated" while others simply argued that we should promote reproduction between people with more desirable traits.

I mostly disagree with fascists on eugenics and I dislike what I call IQ fetishism - But I don't think all fascists support eugenics.Another curious thing is that despite the stigma and stereotype the people I've met who identified as fascists were not religious but mostly atheists and many hated Christianity simply because it is incompatible with imperialism and allows people to worship someone more than the State. Mussolini was an atheist, he just knew how to use the Catholic church to his advantage. Hitler may have been a Roman Catholic but his program was based on secularist eugenic ideas developed and popularized in countries like the US and others (In fact, I would argue that you cant' justfiy the holocaust with the bible nor Eugenics and racial purity)

There was a Eugenics movement in Russia in the 20's until it was banned in the 30's and I think there were Marxists around that time who supported some kind of Eugenics (j.b.s.Haldane perhaps?). It is likely that with the increased knowledge of genetics, similar ethical and political questions will come up; my personal view is that the most likely source of genocidal behavior could be the environmental movement, as the Malthusian fears of 'over-population' also play into social darwinist views about 'who' constitutes the "surplus population".
The Nazi's were anti-Christian I think because it had some egalitarian interpretations. A certain religiosity and mysticism is probably helpful to a fascist mentality but there is no reason they can't be atheists. I think it is unlikely, they would be materialists though, but actually- your knowledge of the subject is probably better than mine.

do you have an address for one of these forums? I might have a browse just to see what comes up.

I do notice there's some small agreements because both are anti-establishment and against liberal-capitalists and neo-liberalism so there's some common points - And both defend the need for the individual to submit to something greater than himself like the State or the collective group/society.

Red, are you a revolutionary or democratic socialist?

My head is a democratic socialist and is fairly conservative; but my heart is a deep dark shade of red.

Libertarians and Marxists are both opposed to big business because of the power it bestows on a few to exploit the many, but they have different remedies for it; libertarians favor more competition, whilst Marxists- believing that monopoly is partially the result of technology, favor state or social ownership. But collectivism is the main similarity between fascism and communism.

Edit - I believe that everyone who lives in a capitalist free market society (like most people do) have to adapt themselves to the system to develop their skills and survive. Since no one is free from propaganda and limitations of human psychology we all have at least a minimal desire for individualism and consumerism - I just ordered a smartphone and I'm quite happy. Curiously you can notice a difference in mentalities if you talk to people who lived in non liberal societies. My dad lived during the dictatorship and so he had different ideas of how society should work (more towards the common good) despite not wanting to go back.

How would you classify the People's Republic of China considering the capitalist cities like Xangai, etc?

classifying one state or another is 'complicated'; most of the factional tendencies in Marxism are derived from different and competiting interpretations over how 'socialist' this country or this leader was. Personally, I think China is still 'socialist' by virtue of being ruled by a communist party- but that would also include North Korea. I lean towards this view as I think classifying them as anything else is sort of cowardly; they were the product of a communist ideology and therefore communists have a responsibility to recognize their mistakes, even if they may or may not 'technically' be our vision of what such a society would be like. Again, it's also really stupid to throw out so many experiences that we can learn from because we don't like them.

My dad is deeply conservative and a socialist because he thinks it will keep the people happy enough not to 'kick off' and become violent basically. talking politics with him is one of the reasons I'm so deeply into the far left as his ideas don't really work in a contemporary setting; if you want any form of social ownership, you going to have to go against the neo-liberal consensus and that forces you into the margins. That said, I'm still very individualistic and liberal by communist standards, and I wouldn't last long in the Soviet Union; so yeah, I agree there are sharp generational differences.

p.s. My laptop has burnt out, and so I may not be online for a few days. it's creaking along for the moment but only just. If don't get back in touch, that is why.

[Dystopia]

Really! That's something interesting I have never heard stated before. How is this viewpoint justified?

Basically one of the aspects that separates communists/marxists from fascists, integralists and other authoritarian alike individuals is the fact that Marx proposed a materialistic conception of history and mankind (I think Red Economy knows better than I do) - To put it simply, we could say most atheists are materialists in the sense that everything comes from matter and there is no afterlife, gods, etc. Fascists can be atheists but they propose an immaterial, even spiritualist viewpoint that says some institutions and values cannot be measured and even if you can explain it scientifically there's still a certain degree of impossibility to measure it. The State, for example, despite the association with the government, is not merely the former, it is the people, the territory, shared values, ancestors, etc - So this becomes a sort of immaterial, non measurable value (physically) that unites the people. Social institutions could be classified as immaterial - Marriage, for instance, is a contract on paper but you can't measure a marriage physically because there is nothing literally uniting two people, it's an immaterial bond both agree on - Of course institutions have people, buildings and measures to work but their basic conceptualization is immaterial and abstract. 

You can be an atheist and not believe in anything but still support these immaterial concepts of society - Mussolini does this quite well in his book and he says fascism is spiritualist

Much of the bible is incredibly racist and genocidy, and most of all about segregation. The question is whether you can translate the message to your tribe

Considering the message of Jesus and the fact he was a Jew himself it is very complicated to justify the genocide of 7+million people not to mention eugenics because to a certain extent religion creates a union between believers in god's eyes and is thus a little egalitarian to support eugenics. Could you support some anti-semitism? Probably. Some racism? Maybe. But probably not something like the Holocaust and nothing like Eugenics which is, for the most part, based on misinterpretations of Darwin about survival of the fittest (And Nietzsche's Ubermersch)
[/quote]

The Nazi's were anti-Christian I think because it had some egalitarian interpretations. A certain religiosity and mysticism is probably helpful to a fascist mentality but there is no reason they can't be atheists. I think it is unlikely, they would be materialists though, but actually- your knowledge of the subject is probably better than mine.

I don't think atheism is incompatible with the mysticism and immaterialism/anti-materialism of fascist ideology, even if you don't believe in afterlives and gods, ghosts, etc. Since you mentioned you are interested you probably know where to start - But in case you don't, just read The Doctrine Of Fascism by Mussolini (short and concise) and then maybe some Plato, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, The Prince by Maquiavel, etc.

[uniquepegasister]

I actually agree with the idea of communism, however, i am not sure that it can be put to practice the way it was intended due to human corruption. Though not much can be justified for other governments either.

[Lucanus]

Dude, what's wrong with you? We have a specific rule in place that says not to necropost. Why the hell are you doing just that?