Quote:
Originally posted by taxwonk
You keep on saying that these people who may have flirted with communism as an intellectual exercise in the 20s and 30s (which is when the bulk of the people brought before the HUAC were involved) was 'attempting the violent overthrow of the U.S. government.
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I have studied communism pretty extensively. I have rad Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto many times. I have read many communists authors including John Reed (I even studied for a while in Moscow while it was still the Soviet Union - ask Less for confirmation if you don't believe me).
In any event, you clearly don't understand the difference between communism and socialism. The communist idea was that capitalist democracies were not true democracies and the only true way to get to democracy was through a temporary dictatorship of the propletariate. That is at the heart of communist ideology. In order to get to true communism (a complete withering away of the state) you had to move through the one party dicatorship part. In addition, one got to communism in any way necessary. If it could not be done by democracy then it would be done by force.
When Lenin took over the Karensky government it was a coup. The communists were not elected. They overthrew a democratically elected government that had replaced the Czar. But according to John Reed and other American communists this was necessary because the masses were always dupes of the capitalist. In other words, the workers did not know what was good for them. The communist party of America supported the coup in Russia. ]Every communist in America in the 1930s knew how the bolsheviks came to power and supported the coup.
Yes the communist party fractured during the 30s because of the Trotskyte Stalin divide, but no faction ever questioned the violent take over of the democratically elected government of Russia. If you were a communist party member in the 1930s with a half a brain you supported the implementation of the dictatorship of the proletariate by whatever means necessary. If you didn't, youdidn't really understand the ideals of the party you belonged to.
Communists critisized socialists and anarchists etc. because they did not understand the basic tenet of the dictatorship of the proletariate. Communists scoffed at the idea that you could have a true workers revolution in a liberal democracy. LIke the Nazis, the communists wanted to rip up the "liberal constitutions" that kept the workers subjugated.
That is why so many socialists and labor unions distanced themselves from the communists. Socialists believed that you could have a democracy, a multi party state, and nationalized industry. The communists believe that in a multiparty state the Capitalists would always dupe the working classes and retain control.
This ideology is evidenced by the fact of wherever the communist party took over all other partys were made illegal. Can you name a country where a communist party took over where it did not turn into a dictatorship of the proletariate?
These peole that flirted with communisim (many famous writers and artists etc) all believed in the dictatorship of the proletariate. Otherwise they were flirting with something else.
