How do communists reconcile the trilemma of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the global dominance of capitalism and NATO?
>Option 1: Capitalism defeated communism because liberal democracy and market economies were superior — implying that Marxist theory was flawed or outdated.
>Option 2: The communist bloc could have defeated NATO and capitalism, but chose not to — even as workers’ movements were suppressed, socialist states collapsed, and inequality soared globally. This implies communist leaders were negligent or lacked conviction.
>Option 3: Capitalism triumphed and communism collapsed because the latter was never truly viable — suggesting that the core ideals of Marxism-Leninism are utopian and unworkable in practice.

Capitalism ends next week. Catch up boomer.

The most common one i tend to see is muh invincible cia

>>17779798 (OP)
Option 1 is closest to what happened, but then its not even entirely what happened because capitalism is always constantly birthing communism despite its resistance. Capitalism on short timescales is a monstrous force to be sure - but over timescales that are completely insignificant to most other modes of production, it faces sharp crises. An event that would equate to fall of the Roman Republic - which took nearly half a millennia - happens once every decade in some country or another.

The USSR certainty was beaten by capitalism. It failed to adapt to the use of computer technology and it became a political oligarchy. But that the first attempt. Capitalism has to last another billion years. So there's a practically infinite amount of time the workers have to innovate their own system.

What's the difference between 1 and 3

>>17779798 (OP)
>trade sanctions
>the cia
>it wasn't real communism they were just pretending

>>17779886
Even as someone sympathetic to socialist thought, the sanctions one always makes me lol
>"We will hang the capitalists with the rope they sell us!"
>ok buddy no more rope for you
>"NO WAIT NOT LIKE THAT"

>>17779798 (OP)
>Option 1
Mostly this. I wouldn't say I'm a "communist," but there are things about Marxist theory I like, but it turned into a dogma and they would not apply the Marxist critique inwards to themselves or to their own governments, their own "superstructure," which had turned into an obstacle to the further development of the forces of production. There were definite reasons why communists came to power where and when they did, though.

>Option 2
I don't think so. Like in a war? That wasn't an option.

>Option 3
The major flaw in the ideology is that by identifying themselves with "history," they assume an exclusive right to change society, and there's no theoretical limit on the amount of power they can take for themselves. It's not just me putting a bullet in your head, it's history that is killing you out of necessity. And it's like the people who own everything in the economy, the government, and the chief purveyors of religion are all the same people. It really turned into a total dictatorship but that also comes with careerism, love of power, and corruption which devours it from the inside.

>>17779798 (OP)
Even Marx and Engels thought Russia was too backwards to become communist. The logic is social domination naturally migrates from aristocrats to borgoise to proletariat with the communist revolution being as inevitable as the decline of aristocratic elites. You can't jump the system as a society like Russia lacks the foundation of educated elites and social infrastructure to maintain a society ruled by the proletariat and by jumping into revolution you're just replacing the old aristocratic elites with new pseuo-aristocratic elites in the form of the Soviet autocrats like Lenin and Stalin.

The failure of the USSR doesn't illustrate a failure of communist thought, the failure of Occupy Wallstreet and continued growth of hypercapitalism is far more damning to communist theory.

>Things were never the same in the party after [1956]. Trust in the USSR was broken or wasn’t the same… Comrades felt tricked; they’d been treated all along as if they were as blind and helpless as newborn kittens, and now they swung between one denial and another… Many did leave [the party], and the remaining members were split between those who were disillusioned with the USSR and those who clung to it as if it were the last life raft…

>I am haunted by a photograph which for me sums up the Hungarian crisis: an official is dangling from a lamppost in front of the Csepel factory, with a broken neck and the distorted face of the hanged, while below him two workers from the factory in revolt are laughing. This was the first time I said to myself, ‘They hate us. Not their bosses; our own people hate us’… The poor and the oppressed are not always right. But communists who make the people hate them are always wrong. And that hatred was massive, deeply embedded: people don’t do these terrible things unless they have suffered a wrong for a long time.

>>17779798 (OP)
>>17779864
1 implies Marxism as inferior, and 3 as Marxism being impossible out right.

Since, even as an anti-communist, the USSR objectively did last almost 80 years and functioned. It was functional at some base levels, but did not have the ability to built long term wealth and prosperity long one and exhausted the people for these very reason with their idealizations of work and labor while keeping ownership and production for the common. Plus the lack of free laws and speech, which also tire and enrage any people who are repeatedly told they are free. So 1 is most likely and theoretically true. As the Soviets themselves were aggressive too in the Cold War, but still uncapable of overthrowing Capitalism for similar statements of inferiority above.

>>17779798 (OP)
The funniest part is, after decades of hardcore brainwashing their citizens, massive budgets for the military, and expansive secret police forces- when the whole thing started collapsing, no one really gave a shit.

>>17780310
The current government Russia calls the Bolshevik a disaster and a failure
Its weird seeing a bunch blue haired trannies who can't even speak Russian act like it was amazing