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People are starting to get it (lemmy.ml)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/socialism@lemmy.ml
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[–] [S] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

So, going back to my original point, had Germany gone communist instead of fascist, we would be living in a very different world right now where communist was the dominant system in the world.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    had Germany gone communist instead of fascist, we would be living in a very different world

    Depends on how long the communist moment lasted. Italy had a big communist movement in 1919, but it had fully collapsed within five years. The USSR was a dominant economic system across the world for nearly a century. It couldn't endure in the face of the productive forces of a capitalist rival.

    I might suggest that a German communist movement was doomed in the face of the American, English, and French aggression. Especially if it was caught in the same kind of schism that divided Russia and China for so long. You get a Communist Germany that does about as well as Nasser's Egypt or Allende's Chile or Lula's Brazil. Or it gets watered down by perestroika as Gorbachev's Russia and Mandela's South Africa, such that it dissolves into a weak nationalist socialism.

    Or maybe the Germans really did have the secret sauce to make Global Communism work, in a way Communists in Russia and India and Latin America and the Middle East didn't? I just don't think so. Not given how easily the country collapsed into the most enthusiastic kind of self-immolation.

    I don't think there's any economy in the 1930s that was going to come off the plate, swing one, and do International Communism right on the first try. Maybe Berlin gets to be the center of the experiment instead of Moscow or Beijing for a generation or three. But it seems like there's still a lot of headwinds no matter where it started. Not unlike how liberal democracy and industrial capitalism had to sputter and fail and restart itself for centuries before it finally got enough traction to envelop the globe.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 4 months ago

    Once again, you're omitting key facts in your narrative. The USSR suffered massive destruction during fascist invasion, and then was thrown into a cold war by a the US which was able to develop its economy, and used that leverage to suffocate the socialist bloc. It wasn't 'productive forces of a capitalist rival.' that USSR couldn't endure. It was the advantage of the US not being a direct participant of the war. If you ignore this reality then you end up with absurdist analysis as a result.

    And of course, you can suggest anything you like, but that wouldn't make it true. The German communist movement lacked the will of the Bolsheviks and they thought they could attempt reformism and work within the system. Then they were summarily betrayed by social democrats who aligned with the nazis. Had German communists been more principled and achieved a revolution, then they would have been able to ally with the Soviet Union and there was no chance of English or French capitalists overthrowing them. In fact, western capitalists tried doing exactly that in USSR in 1918 and they failed there too.

    Or maybe the Germans really did have the secret sauce to make Global Communism work, in a way Communists in Russia and India and Latin America and the Middle East didn’t? I just don’t think so. Not given how easily the country collapsed into the most enthusiastic kind of self-immolation.

    You're once again entirely missing the original point I was making which is that the reason capitalist world has the advantage is due to the fact that the second world war happened because Germans fell into fascism. Had that that not happened, then the advantage would have been reversed.

    I don’t think there’s any economy in the 1930s that was going to come off the plate, swing one, and do International Communism right on the first try.

    Great, because nobody has been making that argument here. Let me know if my point is still unclear for you.

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