And you keep using different names to describe them. As you should. Communism is not one thing and never was. But when people refer to base or true communism, the answer is just one.
It’s how it was defined in the communist manifesto in 1848. You could say it’s Marxism, but I dislike that naming since others played a big role on forming it as well, like Engels and others who based on Marx’s mostly economic study added the philosophical and political angles.
Every theme or name change after the manifesto (that is not found in later revisions by the communist international) is attempts at adapting it with different angles and for different purposes and circumstances, aka NOT base or pure communism. Don’t bundle everything in one basket and try to make sense, same way that bundling Putin’s Russian form of Capitalism with US’s imperialism and French Revolution’s early capitalism together doesn’t make sense either.
He asked for pure communism, I answered for that. If he asked about Trotsky, I’d focus more on the permanent revolution and the Fourth International. If he asked of Stalin, I’d talk about his socialism in one country theory
Yeah well, so you’re an orthodox Marxist and I disagree with you ¯\(ツ)/¯
But when people refer to base or true communism, the answer is just one.
Aha, is that so?
I dislike that naming since others played a big role on forming it as well
Yeah, you could say that!
So! Let’s talk about Restif de la Bretonne who was using „communist“ and „communism“ 60-70 years before Marx writes the „Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei“. Babeuf (who called himself a „communalist“) already tried to incite a communist revolution in the 1790s. De La Hodde calls the Parisian general strike in 1840 „inspired by communist ideas“. In 1841 the „Communistes Matérialistes“ publish „L’Humanitaire“, which Nettlau calls „the first libertarian communist publication“.
And how come that a certain bloke named Karl Marx in his 1842 essay „Der Kommunismus und die Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung" finds that communism had already become an international movement. Hey, I know that name! 🤔
Tell me, how exactly is Marxism (or whatever you want to call it) the one and only trüe communism™ when there’s decades of different variances of communism and movements of people calling themselves communists before the „Manifest“?
Just face it: your beloved Marxism is just one variant of communism, which for a variety of reasons has become the best known. But it’s certainly not „base communism“.
I’m actually not. I think many approaches have their pros and cons. Anarchy sounds a lot better as a path to a classless system, I don’t disagree with Trotsky’s permanent revolution, though I am heavily against his 4th International (and to a big degree the 3rd one as well) and I think that socialism is the hardest way to make it work, but if it does, is probably the best since it prepares the populace to think in a different way.
But good for you for figuring me out when I haven’t done that myself in over 20 years I’m in politics.
As for that dick contest about communists before Marx and their books, because it is a dick contest at this point, I never claimer Marx was the first to talk about communism, or use that word. Even the manifesto was commisioned by a pre existing party namely the Communist League. A party that existed before Marx and Engels came in contact with them.
But Marx was in fact the first to bring those ideas together, from philosophy to economy to politics etc and describe a full featured system that covered it all (for his time, times changing and things adapt), which is why is the one most well known and remembered with his name attached to it. Take it further, back to ancient Greek philosophers why don’t you?
The original poster asked an ELI5 of communism. While what you say is not wrong, it’s far from ELI5. Even for someone like me who spent years reading on all that, there were a couple of things you mentioned I didn’t know about. At the end of it all there’s a reason that if you look at the history of communism most will refer to Pre-Marx and after. And a simple answer to a simple question of “what be?” has to start somewhere. I chose Marx since it’s probably the best entry point for someone who has no idea.
Nothing of that changes that calling Marxism „the one and only true/base communism“ is ridiculously wrong on several levels and absolutely not helpful for an „ELI5“ on communism.
And if you’re so concerned about leftist infighting you might just stop acting like there was an apodictic definition, that would certainly help. Someone already pointed out the irony to you hours ago, it seems you still haven’t realized that.
I’ve got no horse in this race, I just want to point out the irony of asserting that there is only one “true” communism in reply to a comment about how leftists have spent the last century arguing over what “true” communism even is.
