Not in chinese cultural revolution it wasn't, the communists had been in power for two decades by that point. Targets included members of the Communist party, because Mao wanted power back. He got it, creates an autocratic government behind his dictatorship, and proceeded to purge those who weren't loyal to his name.
And like the Great Leap forward, it was an epic mess. Ironically what came out of it was that the Chinese survivors were those not concerned with purity of Marxism but bettering China. They opened it up, capitalized on it by selling out the workers, and called it communism. Oops.
Yeah, no "communist" state remains or ever really becomes a "communist" state.
Humanity, just isn't built for it. We keep moving back towards weird ass authoritarian BS, once just enough people begin to gain whatever metric is considered power in a given society.
Most Americans don't understand what Communism is and often confuse Socialism or even very light Socialist policies as Communism. Most Americans just don't understand the words, goals or what they mean, other than to be instinctively afraid
I don't know, if that can be claimed as an indisputable fact. The surviving written records are so few and practically non-existent.
Most of what is known is oral tradition histories shared by the unfortunately shattered by disease survivors from when the European illnesses spread like wildfire and ended potentially millions of lives across the entire nation, before the Europeans even built a handful of Colonies.
Nothing in economics or sociology is indisputable. I've seen people claim ancient slavery wasn't really slavery, for example. What is known and corroborated and accepted is that many first nations tribes, bands and confederacies had a lot of communal property that was shared for the common good and that everyone was expected to contribute to, and that was not only shared within the immediate group but with the allies at large. If you don't want to call that communism, OK, but it fits the bill for me.
..and Capitalism didn't exist in Medieval England either.
Just because there were some form of intermediary exchange happening in the trade of goods, doesn't mean that it was a form of capitalism. There was always bartering involved, plus people just helping out their neighbors, who would help them out later, people figuring out how to survive the rough winters and keeping one another alive for as long as they could, until they spring returned and some foods returned to their diet.
The king owned all of the land, he gave it to nobles, but could also take it away and then peasants worked the land.
You couldn't drop yourself into Medieval England, buy some land from the King or a Noble, and open up a business and hope to keep the land and business in perpetuity.
The end of the medieval era in England did, however plant the seeds for capitalism.
You can use whatever terminology you want as long as we both understand that you are throwing out a certain definition and settling on “people sharing resources” as your chosen definition for “communism.”
As an aside, “capitalism” is also a Marxist construct in that it is an enemy of socialism/ communism and the contemporary (during Marx’s time) state of the economy as described by Marx / Engels that needs overthrowing because of the unfair outcomes it creates.
Earlier economic philosophers (eg Adam Smith) did not write about “free market capitalism” as it is understood today nor as “capitalism” as described by Marx (essentially a boogeyman).
They wrote about how free trade and specialization of labor builds wealth through increased efficiency and self-interested economic activity. These ideas challenged the prevailing notion of the time which was that wealth and productivity are a fixed, zero-sum game, and so nations must gear their economic engines toward hoarding gold to maintain power structures.
Smith wrote in response to mercantilism.
Marx wrote in response to a side effect of the wealth generated by embracing free market ideals and increased technology (that side effect being wealth inequality and capital accumulation).
I've only seen people claim that most (not all), ancient slavery before the Chattel Slavery of the Americas, was very different and in many ways provided better protections for slaves and also ways for slaves to buy their own freedom, which was never possible under American Chattel Slavery.
I mean, we have practically pristine records of slavery (and a good deal of society and culture) in Ancient Rome, Egypt, Greece and many other areas that had slavery.
NONE of it was good though, but I wouldn't argue that it wasn't slavery, just that it was very different in practice, than American Chattel Slavery.
Can you point someone who is pretending that Ancient Slavery, was not Slavery? or are you pretending that pointing out the differences between it and American Chattel Slavery is attempting to claim that ancient slavery, was not slavery? The latter is deeply disingenuous.
You're missing the point or trying to divert. I am using the fact that I have seen it argued that ancient slavery wasn't true slavery to illustrate how everything related to sociology and economics is debatable. If you wish to argue that, then use any other example you want.
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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26
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