Picking Up in the Middle of the Argument...

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by DanaC

The fact is that communism and socialism exist in their pure form only in the realm of theory. Attempts to implement them have either been softened or distorted to the point that they no longer bear close relation to theory from which they were derived.

Right - we've all heard that before - Soviet Communism wasn't 'real' communism, etc. etc. They just didn't do it 'right' - even Lenin admitted he'd made mistakes. He regretted not having killed far more people. Now that's communism for you!

It's pretty much intellectually dishonest to claim that communism 'works', but that every country in which it has been implemented, and failed, just hasn't done it correctly. Those who ran it figured they were doing it 'correctly'. If every political system can be claimed to not be what it claims to be and holds itself to be, just because others are embarrassed about its failure, it becomes nonsensical to try to discuss political systems. It's like saying there are no democracies in the world because they are all imperfect. Well, yes, they are imperfect - but they are still examples of the best we can do, so far, with democratic systems. The same goes for communism.