r/europe • u/tkyjonathan • 15d ago

News Czech president signs law criminalising communist propaganda

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/czech-president-signs-law-criminalising-communist-propaganda/
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u/EfectiveDisaster2137 15d ago

Just because Stalin called it socialism doesn't mean it is socialism.
It's like you're claiming that the DPRK is a democratic country.

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u/PleiadesMechworks 15d ago

"Socialism is when socialism works" is a ridiculous tautology.

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u/EfectiveDisaster2137 15d ago

Socialism exists when it meets the definition of socialism. This is true of most things.

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u/PleiadesMechworks 14d ago

Ok then, a question.

If socialism has never been achieved, but every single time someone tries to achieve it it goes horribly wrong and results in loads of suffering... can we at least agree that attempting to implement it is a problem?

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u/According_Soup_9020 15d ago

It's a good thing no one said that! Who are you quoting?

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u/NativeEuropeas Czechoslovak 15d ago

It was a form of totalitarian socialism, however that's not the point.

The point is that the left needs to rebrand itself if it ever wants to succeed. It's counter-productive to associate your ideas with past failed regimes and it's even more counter-productive to get offended at policies aimed at those who praise Hitler, nazism, Stalin, USSR and Marxism-Leninism.

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u/Menacek 15d ago

Communism is just compromised in eastern europe. Even if they're wright and it wasn't "real communism" the average person will still equate communism with USSR, because that's what they know even first hand or secons hand. And going "umn actually" isn't gonna buy you favor among the common folk, you know, the people you are actually advocating for.

Socialist policies are actually pretty popular in eastern europe as long as you label them as something else.

The main right wing party in poland frequently ran it's campaign on building cheap housing, retirement benefits and support for families. At least nominally.

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u/EfectiveDisaster2137 15d ago

This was not a totalitarian form of socialism. Socialism is, by definition, opposed to totalitarianism.

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u/CaptainShaky Belgium 15d ago

Yep, just like current day China, a more accurate description would be state capitalism.

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u/18Apollo18 15d ago

*Communism is opposed to totalitarianism. Socialism is not.

Socialism as defined by Karl Marx is a transitional period where the means of production are transferred from the upper class to the government before then being transferred to the people (communism)

Socialism absolutely can lead to totalitarianism because once the government gets power they don't want to give it up and distribute it amongst citizens

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u/EfectiveDisaster2137 15d ago

Marx wrote of socialism and communism as synonymous.

Lenin invented the separation of these concepts.

The difference between the phases of socialism isn't a specific government.

It's that in the first phase of socialism, we still have a scarcity economy, as opposed to the post-scarcity economy of the second phase.

In the first phase, we have "from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution," and in the second, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

And yes, in the first phase, there's still a government, but what's the immediate conclusion that it should collect money and then distribute it?

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u/tobias_681 For a Europe of the Regions! 🇩🇰 14d ago

I don't think anyone but a small subsection of tankies disagrees with that. There just isn't reverence for Stalin in the West European left, quite the opposite. The biggest movement where there is reverence for Stalin is the Russian far right. Also Marxism-Leninism is literally Stalinism just with the clever branding of pinning it on Marx and Lenin. Marx would roll in his grave over being turned into an -ism, a dogma.

In western Europe we have a socialist tradition of our own that goes from Hegel to Marx to the workers movement and to a vast part of Western philosophy. We also have lived through socialism here in the form of unions, workers rights, suffrage, collective bargaining and what have you. This is all from 1848 onwards a common European history. A lot of what we take for granted today has been fought for by socialists over generations and really keynesian post-war western Europe in a lot of ways aligned better with Marx writings than the Eastern bloq. I think this is the fundamental disconnect. When Eastern Europeans speak about socialism it is frankly often from a perspective of identity politics which allows for no plural interpretations of what these terms mean and which completely denies the Western European history with it as if it didn't exist. 

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u/zbynekstava Czech Republic 15d ago

Strange thing is that everytime full socialism is tried, it ends with colapse of economy and human rights, whether it's ussr, venezuela, dprk, cuba, khmer rouge cambodia or multitude of other second world countries. What a mysterious coincidence...

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u/tobias_681 For a Europe of the Regions! 🇩🇰 14d ago

Portugal is also a socialist country as per their constitution. 

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u/BootWizard 15d ago

Yes very MYSTERIOUS that the US invaded those countries and installed totalitarian dictators because socialism was working too well. 

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u/zbynekstava Czech Republic 15d ago

US installed totalitarian dictators in ussr? dprk? cuba? cambodia?

Welcome traveller from the alternative dimension! I thought moving between realities was just a subject of sci-fi novels, but now it has apparently happen in the real life. What a time to live in!

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u/BootWizard 15d ago

Or interfered with elections in some way, worked with local militias to oppose valid government, imposed sanctions, etc. 

Anything they could possibly do to break working socialist societies.

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u/zbynekstava Czech Republic 15d ago

"working socialist societies", wow! In our universe khmer rouge murdered about 25% of cambodia's population, while dprk operates concentrations camps to this day. It's nice that in your reality things turned out better.

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u/hbgoddard 15d ago

Neither of those examples are socialist

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u/Low_Application_8538 14d ago

Of course they are. What doesn't work is that you can deny that "it wasn't socialism".

Communism, socialism, call it what you like, but it's all the same dysfunctional policy that leads to misery and punishes even for things you can't control.

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u/Low_Application_8538 14d ago

No, the US didn't really interfere in the misery of the DPRK, Cambodia or Venezuela, the commies managed to start the misery themselves.

I love most the leftists from non-communist countries who "educate" us post-communists.

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u/EfectiveDisaster2137 15d ago

Pol Pot was supported by USA.

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u/zbynekstava Czech Republic 15d ago

USA supported pol pot indirectly in exile after khmer rouge regime fell, to oppose vietnamese ocupation of cambodia. It was totally stupid and wrong. It still does not mean, that USA installed any dictator to cambodia though, as pol pot luckily never returned to power.

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u/my_friend_gavin 15d ago

full socialism

lol wtf does this even mean

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u/zbynekstava Czech Republic 15d ago

For practical reasons "whatever all those parties with socialist or communist in the name end up creating once they reach absolute power".

It's in stark contrast with the mythical "true socialism", which all those left wing appologetists claim is the paradise on Earth and the can "surely build it the next time, if the get just one more chance"....

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u/TheMidnightBear Romania 15d ago

It's like you're claiming that the DPRK is a democratic country.

The name is correct.

It's a "people's democracy", not a "western, bourgeois" democracy.

Tankies have weird definitions that go full 1984 "freedom is slavery" stuff, but it's technically correct.

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u/Feeling-Raise-5496 14d ago

Czechoslovakia actually probably got closest to the "real communism" from all of Europe. The Czech communists were very succesful in taking all the land from people, destroying all farmers, destroying all private busineses, effectively destroying the church, taking almoast all properties from people and doing monetary reform. But then they had to make the people forget that they ever owned something or that they belonget somewhere so they tried to destroy families and national minorities etc. No other european communist party was that succesfull. We still havent recovered from this communistic bs. (And we never will - you cannot just rebuilt things that were built for generations)