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What if communism was never introduced to the world?

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    Posted: 29-May-2005 at 01:29
I'm a student in search for numeral perspectives on the subject of alternate history concerning the existence of communism. What if communism was never introduced to the world?  My main focus is around  the 20th century during the period around the World Wars, but if relevant, I hope to trace it back to Karl Marx and his views, which brings up another question: did his perspective on communism and/or socialism provide a significant foundation to modern communism in the 20th century?  I'm solely looking for preferably a web or chain of events that would or would not occur if communism did not exist or, if relevant to Marx's views, expand beyond his ideas. Hope someone may generously contribute his/her time into giving me an insight and advice on the issue: What if communism was never introduced to the world? Thanks.
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  Quote eaglecap Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 01:37
The world would be different and Stalin would have never been in power to slaughter so many innocent people. Ideally communism is good or at least in theory, but the human factor always gets in the way and makes it evil.
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  Quote Tobodai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 01:39

Well aside from millions of people still being alive today in all possibility, I think the differnces between Marx;s theories and what was practiced in his name is pretty large.  I dont personally agree with either the theory or how it was practiced but there is a noticeable difference.  Techinically Marxism didnt account for the unwillingess of people to give up power and so was (according to Marxist theories I suppose) stuck the societies in a transistion phase.

Of course when we look at communism practiced especially in the USSR we see something so close to facism (its supposed opposite) its amazing they didnt get along better.  The irony being no one was more like nazi Germany than its arch foe, Stalinist Russia. 

So really, I dont think the world would be too different, Russia and others may have just adopted facism instead of communism, and they would have acted in much the same way.

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  Quote baracuda Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 02:15
Funny enough, Russia needs to be communist, democracy/capitalism isnt for every country in the world, it desrupts nations own cultural system, and degrades it to being dependant.. I am not saying that Stalin or the Commies were right.. Being here in '91 when they were still soviet, they had a quality of person in the people that many countries lack. Now '05 and their culture is fading completely..
Karl Marx and his views are a utopia that seems not applicable to real-life.. or one hasnt found a way to do so.. communism although seems to be based on it, its not.
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  Quote Exarchus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 02:33
Stalin would have used another pretext for his dictatorship.
Vae victis!
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 04:12
Although Russia seems a bit dull, I suppose, in that communism was not a real factor, what about China, Korea, Yugoslavia, and any other country which made attempts or succeeded at communism? Maybe something relating to Mao Zedong? And just to spice things up a little, what if fascism were also not introduced to the world by Benito Mussolini? Also, would it have affected the outcome of WWII or Adolf Hitler's motives in any way?


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  Quote baracuda Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 04:18
Yugoslavia.. well my grandad along with his friends faught for the commie's but was deleted from history due to him going back to turkey after the war..
There wasnt so many ethnic maniacism when there was communism there was there?.. now a bunch of countries that fight over some gain..
I belive that the person is more important than the system.. I mean look at the US.. they're going to need some major brainwashing to get rid of Bush's image from people's heads....

Who succeeded in comunism.. tell me a country that succeeded in democracy? in its total form..
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  Quote  Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 11:14

The crimean Tatars wouldt have been deported 1944 and we Tatars would still use the Arabic alafabet.

It would be a better world if you ask me.

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  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 13:23

The Tsar wouldn't have lasted, Russia would have gone the way of China and had an equally murderous military/nationalist dictatorship.

The other main effect is they'd still be fighting in the Balkans (well more than now)

The other interesting what if, is would Hitler have wrote the nasty stuff about Russia in Mein Kampf? Could there have been an alliance and world conquest by them as pals?

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 16:02
Could someone list a couple of significant events that would have never occured or be significantly different in any way if communism and fascism had never existed? Not just Russia, but where communism has been attempted and practiced. Thanks.
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  Quote Beylerbeyi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 16:47

There would be no welfare, no minimum wage, no social security, no decent  healthcare anywhere in the world. Child labour would be commonplace everywhere. There would have been no limit in working hours, or overtime payment, and we'd work 12 hours per day. The rich would have been richer and the poor would have been poorer. Up to here anarchists are also responsible (they can be considered communists in the sense Marx used the term anyway), and to a lesser degree, other socialists.

Also there would have been no government-owned industries or services nor any economic planning. No working class-based parties or politics. Even the 'working class' itself is a communist invention. Until Marx there were 'working classes' which were thought to have little in common, not a single self aware political subject. In many countries, women wouldn't have had the rights they have today, or they would have gained them only recently in many places. Many a third world country would have emerged from imperialist rule much later, if at all.

Nazis would have invaded Europe and have dominated it (without the Soviet industrialisation no way in hell Soviets would have won that war). Millions would have been killed. The map of the world would be quite different. On the other hand, considering how much the fascist movement owes (i.e. stolen from) to the communist mass-mobilization politics, maybe there would have been no nazis in the first place, just some typical repressive conservative regime instead.     

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  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 18:40
Originally posted by Beylerbeyi

There would be no welfare, no minimum wage, no social security, no decent  healthcare anywhere in the world. Child labour would be commonplace everywhere. There would have been no limit in working hours, or overtime payment, and we'd work 12 hours per day. The rich would have been richer and the poor would have been poorer. Up to here anarchists are also responsible (they can be considered communists in the sense Marx used the term anyway), and to a lesser degree, other socialists.

Also there would have been no government-owned industries or services nor any economic planning. No working class-based parties or politics. Even the 'working class' itself is a communist invention. Until Marx there were 'working classes' which were thought to have little in common, not a single self aware political subject. In many countries, women wouldn't have had the rights they have today, or they would have gained them only recently in many places. Many a third world country would have emerged from imperialist rule much later, if at all.

It think most of these ideas pre-dated Marx by several centuries.

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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 20:55

Originally posted by Exarchus

Stalin would have used another pretext for his dictatorship.

 

Exactly Russia was never truely communist but a totalitarian regime. Communism was used as an excuse for their act of savagery.

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2005 at 21:16
So, overall, what would be a proper introduction in paragraph form to introduce history as without communism or fascism whatsoever? I'm having trouble organizing an intro paragraph for an essay, since most of the speculations are scattered and I have next to no chronological or categorical ordering ability. Help would be appreciated ^^
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  Quote Quetzalcoatl Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-May-2005 at 02:37

Originally posted by the4saken328

So, overall, what would be a proper introduction in paragraph form to introduce history as without communism or fascism whatsoever? I'm having trouble organizing an intro paragraph for an essay, since most of the speculations are scattered and I have next to no chronological or categorical ordering ability. Help would be appreciated ^^

 well you can use the french revolution as a reference, in 18-19th century  France was not prepare for a democracy so the revolution eventually lead to a dictatorship as with Robespierre and further dictatorship with Napoleon. russia can be considered as lagging in the trend overhall,  her revolution came later during the early 20th century, but it followed the same pattern as the french revolution.

A revolution is just a start ofa long process, they tried to apply the communist principles in russia but the society is experiencing something new and due  prematurity of application  the communism, some people will exploit the principle of communism (or of the republic  as during the french revolution) to create a totalitarian regime. Infact communism was only transitory, totalitarianism was the intermediate result but disguise as communism. Basically communism never truely took roots in russia, it is the revolution that is important here not communism herself, and the intermediate resultof a revolution is totalitarianism.

Now russia is has a new system closer to capitalism somehow, however russia it is failing. After the fall of the supposed communist regime, the nation seem to undergo a sort of demographic suicide, a sharp fall in fertility rate. although russia  GDP is growing, the wealth is concentrated in the hand of a few known as the oligarch and russia is turning increasing into an oil economy. It seems capitalism would be worst to russia than totalitarianism (disguise as communism, you are getting my point by now) ever was. So they may try to reintroduce communism later, since the society is well aware of the weaknesses and strengths of communism, it may now work as a model.

 Remember after the french revolution it took many attempts to get it right in France.

 

 And fool nobody is going to tell you how to right your introduction here, get your lazy bum to work.



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  Quote Constantine XI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-May-2005 at 08:27

Communism was just a way out of pre-existing social problems which a number of typically middle class intellectual types supported because they saw the injustices inflicted on the poor in the world in which they lived. But I suppose in the absence of both communism and fascism there wasn't really another ideology which held the promise of bringing people forward in the world at the time. Democracy is all well and good, but if you don't live in a stable, secure, fairly prosperous country with good infrastructure its tends to be asking a bit much for it to work.

It is fair to say that something similar to the French Revolution would most likely have happened, a social revolution without an ideology as extensive as communism for it to be guided by and for it to corrupt in the process. Communism and fascism were the responses to the actual problems: the need for political change in a world of the "mass society". So in their absence you would either have something French Revolution style, a military dictatorship which somewhat responds to the need for change or a few lcuky cases of countries with leaders of exceptional vision who guide their nation towards a representative and responsive government.

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  Quote Beylerbeyi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-May-2005 at 09:36

It think most of these ideas pre-dated Marx by several centuries.

Who's talking about ideas? We have these things not because communists thought of them first, but because they fought for them, introduced them where they had power, organised political action to bring them around or the elite was so scared of communism that it was forced to introduce them as a compromise to save capitalism.

Some of the ideas are quite old indeed (though not most of them and surely not several centuries older than Marx), but one pair of hands working accomplishes more than a million pairs locked in prayer. Or it is enough to understand the world, one needs to change it too, if you know what I mean.

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  Quote Komnenos Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-May-2005 at 10:33
Originally posted by Constantine XI

Communism was just a way out of pre-existing social problems which a number of typically middle class intellectual types supported because they saw the injustices inflicted on the poor in the world in which they lived.



There seems to exist a rather strange concept of how Socialism/Communism as a political theory came to life.
It wasnt that Marx and Engels sat down in a Pub somewhere in Bloomsbury, and Marx said: Lets invent Communism, Fritz, Im a bit bored!

The idea that the accumulated wealth of a society should be equally shared by those who actually produce it, is probably as old as the realisition that this usually wasnt the case, so probably as old as human society.
There had been numerous individuals, groups and rebellions throughout history before Marx, who not only had formulated Communist ideas, but on occasions had tried to put these ideas into practice. There exists a long history of social critique and revolt, from the Essenes and early Christian sects, from the German peasant revolts of the 14th and 15th centuries, from the Diggers and Levellers in England, to the immediate predecessors of Marx, Blanqui and Proudhon, to name only a few.
Marx and Engels saw the dramatic changes that industrialization had brought to British and European society, observed the emerging class-struggle between urban protelariat and the property owning classes, and only theorized what was there already in practise, in the context of classical German philosophy and British economic theory, thus trying to establish a coherent ideology and organization that would enable the working class to fight their demands, the immediate and the more long term.
Beyerbeli is right, without the impetus that Marxist theory gave the splintered and direction-less working class movement, many of the immediate demands, the improvement of living and working conditions, would have not have been enforced.
The socialist movement might have been inspired by a couple of Middle-class German intellectuals, but the actual fight for workers rights was fought by the workers themselves, in strikes, boycotts, confrontation with state, military and police, etc. And without this direct struggle there would have been indeed no social welfare etc.

What the absence of a strong working-class movement means, has been clearly demonstrated in the last two decades, in Britain for example, where after the breaking of the power of the trade unions by the Tories, many of the earlier attainments, of welfare state and employment conditions etc., were reversed and are still in process of being so by the Labour party.


Edited by Komnenos
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  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-May-2005 at 13:07
Originally posted by Beylerbeyi

It think most of these ideas pre-dated Marx by several centuries.

Who's talking about ideas? We have these things not because communists thought of them first, but because they fought for them, introduced them where they had power, organised political action to bring them around or the elite was so scared of communism that it was forced to introduce them as a compromise to save capitalism.

Some of the ideas are quite old indeed (though not most of them and surely not several centuries older than Marx), but one pair of hands working accomplishes more than a million pairs locked in prayer. Or it is enough to understand the world, one needs to change it too, if you know what I mean.

OK I'll rephrase it. Many of these things have been fought for and introduced before communism came along.

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-May-2005 at 22:41
Would it be true that without communism, there would be no fascism, and with no fascism, there would be no racism nor elitism, and without those, would the Jews in WWII have been spared due to the nonexistence of racism and elitism? Were the Nazis mainly motivated by racism and elitism, the idea of 'supermen' wiping out the inferiors? Would WWII ever have occurred at all? Also, without communism nor socialism, would there be no anarchism nor syndicalism?

Edited by the4saken328
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