Why did communism always turn into a kind of dictatorship?
Why did communism always turn into a kind of dictatorship?
Afaik this happened with every single instance of a communist country. Communism seems like a pretty good idea on the surface, but then why does it always become autocratic?
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Many informed responses already so I'll add my uninformed opinion.
Political change has never occurred in a vacuum. Communism is a direct threat to capitalism. So
the UScapitalists will do everything in their power to undermine and disrupt communism.It's a bit cheap to just try and blame all the problems on the opposition with no evidence though.
No evidence? Aren't there a ridiculous number of cases where the CIA openly destabilised communist regimes?
The CIA openly destabilises monarchies, republics and democracies as well.
There is little evidence that the CIA specifically targets communist countries, more that they target anything thats not America.
You should check out Willam Blum's "Killing Hope" (pdf link), and/or "America's Deadliest Export", by same (pdf link).
“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”
― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
.. Dude, I don't know if you've heard about this thing, but it was pretty big. They called it "the cold war".
I didn't say they didn't overthrow Communist governments.
You may have heard of this thing called Iran? They aren't picky about who they hurt.
The argument for Iran was that Mossadegh was "turning towards communism". Same for Allende, same for Arbenz. Hell, just the concept of "domino theory" was all about stopping the spread of communism. Pretending they were some sort of equal opportunity saboteurs is deeply disingenuous.
It would be if it wasn't extremely well documented.
It's definitely not impossible that communist regimes would consolidate into dictatorships on their own but if it was a guaranteed thing then the CIA wouldn't have spent so much time and effort making it happen.
Of course they would. And communist regimes literally did consolidate into dictatorships on their own from the very beginning. At the end communism is inherently authoritarian, which is the core problem.
The current downfall of capitalism could likewise be blamed on Russian influence to make it look less awful, which is likewise documented. While it holds truth it still is a really bad argument.
They didn't sprout from nothing. Even from the beginning, they were being interfered with by capitalist and anti-revolutionary forces who started out with all the money and resources, like the white army or the black hundreds, not to mention being neighbors with reactionary imperialist countries, like Germany, and coming from authoritarian countries, like Tsarist Russia, where those ruling elements (old regime nobles, business interests, rich landowners, generals, etc) still existed and were in power or at least a place to sabotage the effort.
We did kind of spend 60 years demonizing, embargoing, and physically destroying communist countries.
People are blind to the current propaganda, too. Just look at how many articles demonize China every day, which has never bombed a country, while ignoring other authoritarian countries and their imperialism that bomb countries every day (like Saudi Arabia or Turkey). Meanwhile, we need to turn to sources like Al Jazeera to find out what's happening in Israel with our own government money. Just look at how freaked out the country got to Bernie Sanders and how the capitalist class (including the media) closed ranks to stop him. Look at how the US treats Cuba and Biden still signed a law against them. Until Russia's war, the most sanctioned countries were all communist (Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela) while other authoritarian countries got a pass. But nobody notices. The propaganda has never stopped.
I agree with all of that but China is literally trying to bully everyone else out of the South East Asia Ocean area and is working hard to build up a Navy that can project force. They aren't Cuba.
Capitalist countries have never tried to stop communist ones? Holy bad take
Communist countries have tried to stop monarchies, democracies, capitalist, communist, too.
What makes communist countries special in that they turn out authoritarian, and the reverse, a communist country trying to stop a capitalist democracy, not?