Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

I've got to jump in here and point out that some of our ancestors found the British Empire to be neither liberal or reasonable, and thus the USA was born.

Insofar as the wacky inheritors of the Puritans, like the evangelicals and Pentecostals and so forth, yes, they are here, but so long as they don't try to make everyone worship Jesus or take away the porn no one cares what they do..

That's one side of it, but remember-- a fair number of the American revolutionaries were motivated by their suspicion that Britain might limit slavery.

The America Revolution, in the South, looks a bit like Rhodesia's "Unilateral Declaration of Independence" from Britain in 1965.

There's a fair case to be made that if you were African American -- or just opposed to slavery-- the case for the American Revolution wasn't that convincing.

See: The Counter Revolution of 1776, Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America

The book is perhaps a bit polemical in some points, but the argument has some legs
https://nyupress.org/books/9781479893409/

[Enrico32]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

being on the wrong religious side

Have you discovered yet the real reason behind these religious changes?

For example, I still don't understand why the Catholics resisted the Tudors?
Of Spain and France they were still the rival, of tax -- first they paid it to the Pope then to the King, the volume hardly changed. All priests were English, so........any involvement of Papacy, of benefit therefrom, seemed insignificant.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

That's one side of it, but remember-- a fair number of the American revolutionaries were motivated by their suspicion that Britain might limit slavery.

The America Revolution, in the South, looks a bit like Rhodesia's "Unilateral Declaration of Independence" from Britain in 1965.

There's a fair case to be made that if you were African American -- or just opposed to slavery-- the case for the American Revolution wasn't that convincing.

See: The Counter Revolution of 1776, Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America

A pretty fair number of Southern slaves fought for the British during the Revolutionary War because of promises of freedom. Quite a number were evacuated to the dismay of their former owners. The whole war was pretty much of a mess in the southern states.

A major factor in the Americans securing their freedom was the threats the French were posing in India. Britain really couldn't adequately defend both theaters and made the decision to concentrate on lucrative India instead of the marginally profitable and frequently troublesome North American bunch.

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

Insofar as the wacky inheritors of the Puritans, like the evangelicals and Pentecostals and so forth, yes, they are here, but so long as they don't try to make everyone worship Jesus or take away the porn no one cares what they do.

From what I've seen over the past 30 years or so-some them are quite keen on both those initiatives..........MM anyone.....

[Enrico32]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

A major factor in the Americans securing their freedom was the threats the French were posing in India. Britain really couldn't adequately defend both theaters and made the decision to concentrate on lucrative India instead of the marginally profitable and frequently troublesome North American bunch.

True!
But what did the French win?
From the first sight, France won a lot of battles between 1700 and 1814 but politically........lost all colonies, gained nothing in Europe (even the French Bernadottes turned Sweden against them), felt internal turmoils.......

Or were their real victories kept private, perhaps?

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by Enrico32

True!
But what did the French win?
From the first sight, France won a lot of battles between 1700 and 1814 but politically........lost all colonies, gained nothing in Europe (even the French Bernadottes turned Sweden against them), felt internal turmoils.......

Or were their real victories kept private, perhaps?

It took a few years, but they wound up getting rid of a government that concentrated all power in the hands of the king and a few aristocrats. Ironically, all of Louis XVI's anti-British actions backfired and he literally lost his head.

[bowlinggreen]

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

From what I've seen over the past 30 years or so-some them are quite keen on both those initiatives..........MM anyone.....

It's unlikely these people will ever push things "back the way they used to be". Even though they would like to, very much.

It's interesting to note that both religious fundies and commies promote some of the same strictures upon the masses, even though one side insists that you worship Jesus, and the other side insists that you worship the Party.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Enrico32

True!
But what did the French win?
From the first sight, France won a lot of battles between 1700 and 1814 but politically........lost all colonies, gained nothing in Europe (even the French Bernadottes turned Sweden against them), felt internal turmoils.......

Or were their real victories kept private, perhaps?

Well, they stuck it to the Brits. The 1770s were a very brief period when France enjoyed something close to naval parity with Britain, which was a strategic aim of France. With Britain dominating the oceans, France wasn't going to be able to have colonies across the Atlantic or Pacific.

One of the interesting moments in world civilization is the colonization of the globe in the 18th century: the cultural provinces are essentially fixed by the end of that century. 1763 is effectively the end of the French language in the Americas, other than two small pockets. There reason we're writing in English here today has a lot to do with Britain's victories in 1763. French strategists, men like Choiseul, knew that France was in a battle with Britain for an overseas empire, and France's aid to the American Revolution was part of that-- some like Lafayette really believed in the American idea of liberty, but most were simply happy to stick it to Britain.

By the same token, despite the fact that Portugal is a basket case as a nation in the 19th century, the fact that you have Brasil means that, from the 19th century on, the overseas Portuguese speaking world is very large -- much larger than, say, the overseas German speaking world.

Trying to connect this interesting topic to communism-- belongs in some other thread -- but I'll do my best, and the segue is imperialism.

You often used to hear the Soviets talk about Marxism-Lenism, but what was "Leninism"? One of the things Lenin talked a lot about, which was less of a topic for Marx, was Imperialism. Lenin's pamphlet "Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism" is worth a read if you've never skimmed it.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/len.../1916/imp-hsc/

In particular his chapter 6 "Division of the world among the great powers".

This was written in 1916, against the backdrop of the devastation of WWI, then underway. It makes the argument that this results from an economic imperative -- I think this is wrong-- but its a big part of what "Leninism" as distinct from Marxism is about.

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

It's interesting to note that both religious fundies and commies promote some of the same strictures upon the masses, even though one side insists that you worship Jesus, and the other side insists that you worship the Party.

Apart the emancipation of religion, just tell me what are the differences between Christianism and Marxism ?

Nothing. Both are against the exploitation of the man by the man...
Both are tolerant about the exploitation of the nature by the man... (even if Marxism understood better the risk to exploit too much nature compared to Capitalism.)
Apart that...

Ah yes. Marxism allows exploited people to defend themselves, while Christianism preachs to accept to be crucified.

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Apart the emancipation of religion, just tell me what are the differences between Christianism and Marxism ?

About 1900 years of survival for one thing