[kj] politics

[P]

> Firstly, I guess we mean different things by "communism". I'm talking about the form of government practised in the eastern block for the bulk of the 20th century. You're right that this wasn't communism as conceived by Marx, nor probably by the revolutionaries in Tsarist Russia - however, it's what was understood by most of the world to be communism, including many "communist" parties in the rest of the world. I agree that the similarity between this and "true" communism is about the same as the similarity between the Spanish Inquisition and the teachings of Jesus.

Yes, you are right , Jamie. What I mean by Communism is what Communism actually is. But I am not aware of any "communist" party in the rest of the world understanding eastern block as "communist" - as far as I know they blinly followed the line by Kremlin (or Beijing) which was never that describing their own regimes as "communist". 
It was mostly US official propaganda that did this.

> Yes, you're right that the differences are very important. (As indeed I said.) However, my point was that all forms of government so far have resulted in quite a lot of misery (not just poverty). Isn't that true?

Yes, it is true.
 
> And, leading on from that, if we're going to avoid repeating the mistakes and misery of the past, we need to try something new.

Something NEW, yes. Something new than capitalism or stalinism. but not really new to Marx. I think it is utopian to develop blueprints for a new society (as it was tried many times before by utopian socialists such as St. Simon, Owen or Fourier and then number of anarchist thinkers), but that is exactly what Marx avoided in his approach since he based the idea of new society on actual study and understanding of how society develops. For this he is more modern than any other later thikers.

> Agreed wholeheartedly. Let's continue this one over a beer the next time you're in London or I'm in Prague...

Sure, I hope my English will be sufficient for such a debate. -)) (it is quite difficult to discuss complex things in foreign language but I try). Certainly I know much more about Communism and so on much more than about the music.-)

PAVEL
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