The Cold War.....

the soviets and western sympathysers have always claimed that the one main reason that communism seemed imperfect was that the soft liveing of the evil bourgeois in the decadant hedonistic capitalist west was to much of a magnetic effect on the weak willed in the worker paridise .

ie . that in order for marxism to thrive the compartive wealth and personal freedoms of western europe would need to be exorcised . in other words when the whole world is a communist utopia there wont be any evil corrupting effects of western consumerism and everyone can at last be the true soviet man

this is why the soviets never ceased in trying to spread their ideology and revolution in greece ,korea ,italy ,vietnam ,el salvador ,chile ect ect .,almost all communist partys in europe america and africa were bankrolled by the kremlin . it is preposterous to pretend that the east block communists were happy with the status quo and and the berlin wall , and that absent nato ,the usa, and nukes that they would have been content to live peacably with the 1945 borders

if the only way you can keep your own people inside their own borders is with electric fences and attack dogs , then lets face it , you have a big problem .

 

It proves the fact that no matter how preposterous an ideology might seem to us, or may have proven to be in hindsight, it might still seem both plausible and attractive to many people in other times. They do not need to be "fooled" if they are prepared to believe that indeed the Communist alternative society is preferrable, which it seemed to many in the late 19th and early 20th century and all the way up to the 1960s. Besides, the common idea that "if I lived in those times I would never have allowed it to happen" is based on nothing but hindsight; most people do not object to anything unless it affects their most basic needs and concerns.

Of course, when people get such a clear view of the alternative as the people of Eastern Germany did, many of them will decide to make a run for it - but it should be noted that the far majority of those trying to get across the wall were highly educated upper class people. These were both the most aware of their political situation and the most threatened by the new system of forced equality and totalitarian control.

For the Communists this kind of exodus was not a matter of "weak" people succumbing to the lures of the decadent west, but merely evidence that the revolution had not been completed yet - since, in Marxist theory, Communism is the inevitable final stage of all human development. Everyone who did not live under Communism had simply not yet realized that they were enslaved by the bourgeios elite (or that they were the bourgeois elite). Meanwhile, in practice the Soviet Union was a nation-state like any other, and it too thought in terms of cost and gain.

 

Corporals post before that last one was almost perfect grammar...I was amazed

I think most people tend to be Socialists.

 

Most of the guys jumping the wall and getting delbretely evicted didnt seem to be doctors, enginners, etc

I think most of the skilled people left in the 50's

 

Some of us paid attention in English class.

I am curious as to why you think most people are socialists; what do you bas the belief on?

 

Probably giving government money to the needy, for education and the such

 

That's the government, urged on by a relatively small number of people. I'm talking about the average citizen.

 

Still applies. The avergae citizen could use all that stuff. Plus, its seen as charity of sosrts, sorts.

 

This summer I workd with 2 guys (collage students and Obama supporters) who said they werent communists but socialists and that theres a diffrence. they didnt really tell me anything to back that up.

anther interesting fact but these 2 were fired on the last day, for snorting egg naug and eating some herbs that can get you high or something (probably Marijuana, since that was in abundance were i worked), Also this is a Christian Camp. ha.

 

Revere;
True communism is a Utopian ideal that everyone realizes can never work due to human nature. What the free world generally calls communism is really Marxism (like that practised by the USSR), Maoism (think Red China) and a few others of similar designs.

Socialism is a society where the government provides practically everything the citizens need. This is generally considered to be education, health care, welfare stuff, and to a lesser extent employment, housing, transportation, recreation, etc. all of which are paid for by the citizens. Socialist societies can exist in democratic and totalitarian governments.

 

Thanks I knew that about communism but I never really thought that about socialism.

 

JCalhoun, isnt socialism a preperation for communism ? I think you may be referring to social democracy

 

Not at all. Britain is (or at least has been) a Socialist country since 1945.

 

You can apply socialist ideas, but that dosent really make you a socialist. True socialism is the intent to eventually go communist. Social democracy is similar but dosent want to prepare for communism.

Our new Democratic party or NDP would be social democratic or the British labour in the 70's. A liberal government may have features of socialism, even for time, but that dosent make it socialist

 

The Nazi's were socialists and they were definitely not communists.

 

In Marxist theory, Socialism is the preparatory stage, in which everything belongs to the State and is redistributed among the people. In ultimate Communism there supposedly would be no state. However, in reality, what we call "Communism" is generally Marxism-Leninism (where Lenin was responsible for the hard edges and the execution of the ideas), and what we call "Socialism" is usually Social Democracy.

Social Democracy, though, is different from Communism in that it does not seek to overthrow the Capitalist system or the Democratic state. It is supposed to operate within these institutions; to have a powerful, but democratically elected state, that influences the economy but only to make sure that it serves the people rather than seeing the people serve it.

 

.
To JCalhoun

"The Nazi's were socialists and they were definitely not communists "

The Nazis came to power following the devastation of the great depression
through the world free enterprise and banks had the same popularity amongst the ordinary folks as devil worship , including in the U.S.
Roosevelt was elected on a strong socialist line

In the early thirties in hamburg the battle for the workers heart was between the Sozis socialists and the Nazis nationalists both on very social democrat platform as against the communists
Goebbels won the working class suburbs of Berlin by being more socialists than nationalist
The Strasser brothers spoke of national Bolshevisms and were in correspondence with such soviet Bolsheviks as Raddek and Zinoviev
ernest Roem chief of the S.A. talked loudly of this rat Hitler cozying to the generals and reactionaries , stopping the people second
revolution

Hitler first act in power was to liquidate the communists , the second was to liquidate the S.A. and all the radical left of the Nazi party

A strong populist streak still remained in the party , the Nazi always insisted on identifying and controlling all popular activity and needs

With the Bolsheviks , and following the Italian fascist state , they invented the modern society of the total state .
Nowadays it's much more cool , less directive but the total state remain ,
from the cradle to the grave individuals are manipulated in a matrix like existence

.

 

Germany was actually in worse shape than most nations during the Depression, thanks largely to the huge reparations the Allies had forced Germany to pay after WW1 as part of the Treaty of Versailles.

 

.

Of some military significance is the fact that Hitler and the top leadership believed that, during WW1 , the german people turned against war because of the great human sacrifices and privation it brought them .
There was an explicit policy of guns and butter ,the nazis had brought comfort to the people and were loath to expose the civilians to the trials and mobilisation of total war , less they turn against the regime ,
The decision couldn't be avoided after Stalingrad and significantly it's not Hitler who announced it but Goebbels .

.

 

Thats kinda of what I was driving at lol You just expanded and made it look smarter