Communist Countries Don't Exist (Script & Sources)

Did you know that there has never been a communist country? It’s true. China’s not communist, North Korea’s not communist, and the Soviet Union wasn’t communist. The reason is that communism was a goal these countries aspired to, but never achieved. So, what is communism and how is it different from socialism?

Well, first of all - it’s easier to understand communism and socialism as reactions to failed and exploitative forms of government like a monarchy, or dictatorship, or late stage capitalism. They are focused on providing solutions to end worker exploitation and the economic class structure that causes it.

In fact, there are like thirty different forms of communism and socialism, here’s a list: Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Dengism, Prachanda Path, Hoxhaism, Titoism, Luxemburgism, De Leonism, Anarcho-communism, and more! 

All of them stem from Marxism, as envisioned by Karl Marx, who was an economist and philosopher who wrote the Communist Manifesto. His big idea was that as Europe started replacing their monarchies with quasi-democratic capitalist economies, the people who got to own all the factories and farms were no less exploitative than the kings and queens they replaced.

Specifically, labor owners were collecting all the profits that their workers were creating, thereby forming two economic classes - owners called the “bourgeoisie” and workers called the “proletariat”. Marx’s idea was simple, just have the proletariat collectively own the means of production, and cut out the bourgeoisie because what are they even doing anyway? So that’s communism, so let’s talk about socialism in part two.

So according to Marx, the way to gradually convert from capitalism to communism was with a bridge called socialism. In socialism, before the workers can control the means of production, a democratic government, which is controlled by the workers, would control the means of production instead of private ownership as is the case in capitalism.

The point being, that capitalism encourages competition which encourages exploitation, so to remove the competitive edge, socialism would have workers collectively working for the greater good, and equally sharing in that greater good. Think of things like universal healthcare or public schools, everybody contributes and everybody benefits. Not just by personally using those services, but by a healthier and more educated society that you get to live in. And truly, in a nutshell that’s socialism.

Once socialism can be established and private ownership can be abolished, the next step is total collective ownership, and not just of production, but of all aspects of society and economy - with the end goal of a classless, moneyless, and stateless society where everyone works towards the same goal of being happy, healthy, and free. You do what you can to contribute and you take only what you need. No billionaires, but nobody dies of starvation.

Now you might be thinking, that sounds great, why hasn’t it ever happened? I’m going to explain why we’ve never had a communist country.

If you remember from part two, the intermediate step between socialism and communism is having a democratically elected government controlling all the means of production. And that’s great if that government is working on behalf of the people. But it rarely is. In fact, what we’ve seen over the last century is that power-hungry sociopaths are very good at convincing the people who would benefit most from socialism that they can individually solve their problems instead. 

And what almost always happen is that the more power a government is able to control in an effort to achieve socialism, the more likely it is that power hungry corrupt officials who are part of the owner class are able to get into office by lying and cheating, and they get their friends in positions of power, and now you don’t have a socialist government, but a kakistocracy, which is a government that is run by the worst, least qualified, and most unscrupulous citizens.

And it’s kind of important to understand that at that point, these countries are not socialist or communist, they’re failed states and kakistocracies. But if you look at countries that implement socialist policies, including the United States but more easily seen in countries like Sweden or Canada, it’s very clear to see that those policies are wildly successful, beneficial to the population, and smaller-scale examples of socialism that succeed in spite of the corrupt owner class.

And so, the problem with socialism is capitalist corruption.

ALSO AMERICA INVADES EVERY COUNTRY THAT HAS EVER TRIED