Typically, the biggest issue people have with really existing socialist countries is the Gulag (or the Stasi, or censorship, or any of the famous repressive practices by these societies). The criticism goes something like this:
Communism is so focused on equality and the group that individual rights get ignored. Further, since groups are made up of individuals, the group ends up without rights anyway. You’ve robbed Peter to pay Paul.
I'm going to show the two most common counter-arguments. The first is a more left-communist or anarchist argument which seeks to condemn these actions by really existing socialist countries. The second is from defenders of really existing socialist countries.
Note: this is sidestepping a common reaction to such an argument on the left which is to point out the worldwide mass murder, support of genocide, incarceration, and political repression committed by the capitalist West. While important to consider, that doesn't actually address the argument above directly.
The Left-Commies and Anarchists Cry Out: You're Blaming the Wrong Thing
Note: this is sidestepping a common reaction to such an argument on the left which is to point out the worldwide mass murder, support of genocide, incarceration, and political repression committed by the capitalist West. While important to consider, that doesn't actually address the argument above directly.
The Left-Commies and Anarchists Cry Out: You're Blaming the Wrong Thing
Freedom is always freedom for dissenters. -- Rosa Luxemburg
Libertarian strains on the left are just as (in fact more) anti-Gulga, anti-Stasi, etc. as anyone. They often point out that anarchists and left-communists were often targets of state repression in these societies.
Their counter-argument insists that it was the mechanism of the state (they often point to the philosophy of Lenin as a right-wing deviation from the norm of the left at the time of the Russian Revolution) as the problem in really existing socialist societies. These states were running a state-capitalist society (an economy based on the exploitation of workers, just with the state owning the means of production).
By eliminating poverty (capitalists probably celebrate poverty as the "freedom to starve") and pursuing "actual" communism, you evade the Gulag of the USSR and the extreme poverty, imperialist invasion, genocide, and social oppression so pervasive in the capitalist West.
The "Tankie" Response: History Will Absolve Me
A lot of scholarship goes into refuting capitalist claims of different "crimes" of socialist countries. Not all of them can be listed here, but a very popular one is Another View of Stalin by Ludo Martens, the work of Grover Furr, and Dongping Han to name a few. Because the West has so much to gain by taking these either wholly fabricated or greatly exaggerated stories as historical fact, it follows that the capitalist West would promote this as the gospel truth.
Still, many will agree that political repression occurred and that, while struggled for, "communism" was never reached. That being said, these societies had massive gains in the quality of life for the citizens, progressed these societies out of poverty and feudalism and fear of Western imperialism, and if they have ended, were done so against the democratic wishes of the people and only with disastrous consequences.
An uncommon (but not unheard of) sentiment among these defenders goes along the lines of: there were prisons, there were executions, there was not tolerance of dissenting views, and that is because the revolutions defended themselves and the gains were worth the necessary sacrifices.
Their counter-argument insists that it was the mechanism of the state (they often point to the philosophy of Lenin as a right-wing deviation from the norm of the left at the time of the Russian Revolution) as the problem in really existing socialist societies. These states were running a state-capitalist society (an economy based on the exploitation of workers, just with the state owning the means of production).
By eliminating poverty (capitalists probably celebrate poverty as the "freedom to starve") and pursuing "actual" communism, you evade the Gulag of the USSR and the extreme poverty, imperialist invasion, genocide, and social oppression so pervasive in the capitalist West.
The "Tankie" Response: History Will Absolve Me
Condemn me, it does not matter: history will absolve me. -- Fidel Castro, History Will Absolve MeSo defenders of the really existing socialist societies ("tankies" as they are lovingly and not-so lovingly called) have two points in their argument: the West has lied about the true nature of the Gulag and other "repressive" elements of these societies, and what repression did exist were required to defend the real gains of these revolutions against the ongoing military and economic violence of the capitalist nations.
A lot of scholarship goes into refuting capitalist claims of different "crimes" of socialist countries. Not all of them can be listed here, but a very popular one is Another View of Stalin by Ludo Martens, the work of Grover Furr, and Dongping Han to name a few. Because the West has so much to gain by taking these either wholly fabricated or greatly exaggerated stories as historical fact, it follows that the capitalist West would promote this as the gospel truth.
An uncommon (but not unheard of) sentiment among these defenders goes along the lines of: there were prisons, there were executions, there was not tolerance of dissenting views, and that is because the revolutions defended themselves and the gains were worth the necessary sacrifices.
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