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Comment on If Marx was alive during the Cold War and beyond, how would he react to the communist states that rose to power? Would he approve or disapprove of them?

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NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

I think if he were honest with himself he would see that what he got wasn't what he had envisioned in any of the countries that claimed to be communist/socialist.

I mean... obviously? Bolshevik theory (which is what all future socialist/"socialist" states would adopt) was their own take on Marxism with a lot of original thought. That's where the authoritarianism comes from, and it's not like the Bolsheviks were trying to hide it. Odds are Marx would denounce the Bolsheviks as heretics.

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FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
You’re citing my text but cutting off just before the point I was trying to make. I think be would still side with the people who claim to follow his ideology (yes, piss poor efforts objectively speaking but that’s irrelevant to him because he would prefer them over the folks entrenched in capitalism on the other side).

Ideologs are a dangerous breed because they are surprisingly flexible under realpolitik conditions when the alternative is having to admit defeat. Or in Marx’s case admitting that his ideas didn’t work or the fact that they didn’t work as intended cost the lives of millions. Surely he wouldn’t like Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China and well apoortioned crticism thereof (or of the GDR or wherever) would have eventually spent his good will capital (pun intended) with the local leadership and he would end up in a gulag or erased from history. Karl-Marx-Stadt would have been renamed sooner.

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- NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  You're citing my text but cutting off just before the point I was trying to make.
  
  Yes, because my point is that your point doesn't make sense.
  
  I think be would still side with the people who claim to follow his ideology
  
  Why...? That's not how leftwing politics worked, ever, and it's not like there has ever been a shortage of leftwing criticism of Leninism and Stalinism.
  
  r in Marx's case admitting that his ideas didn't work or the fact that they didn't work as intended cost the lives of millions.
  
  Yeah that's my point: They're not his ideas; they're their ideas. Lenin for example, aside from being an authoritarian dickhead, was an intellectual juggernaut and a lot of his ideas would be baked into the foundation of the Soviet Union. There's simply nothing to support what you're saying.
  
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  - FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website ⁨26⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    
    Yes, because my point is that your point doesn’t make sense.
    
    That’s a remarkable statement in the context of a hypothetical, counterfactual scenario where we are attempting to interpret the possible thinking of a long deceased man displaced in time for the benefit of said scenario.
    
    You may disagree with me. You haven’t changed my mind either. So let’s leave it at that.
    
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