[pjlegato]

Perhaps you have heard of the People's Democratic Republics of East Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czechoslovakia, and Albania? Socialism was imposed by a foreign occupying army.

Or take the Soviet Union itself. The democratically elected Provisional Government was overthrown by force. Even the socialists-only Constituent Assembly election was simply voided and ignored by the Bolsheviks when they overwhelmingly lost.

Your claim is empirically false. Socialism has historically been imposed involuntarily at gunpoint in almost all cases where it has achieved any measure of real power. Moreover, once established, its show elections are a farce, with only pre-selected Party approved candidates allowed to win.

You will no doubt reply that none of this was done by "real" socialists, and that <insert your favorite sub-sub-branch of socialism here> are the only "real" socialists. This is the "No True Scotsman fallacy".

[AnimalMuppet]

History is split. Marxist-style socialism was installed by force in Eastern Europe, Russia, and other places. Democratic socialism was installed by free elections in northern Europe, and continued there in later free elections, with candidates of multiple parties allowed to run.

[John23832]

Ideally, political change can happen without violence or bloodshed. But we don' live in an ideal world. We never have, and we never will.

Pretty much ANY political system gains power through bloodshed. The United States, Canada, England, France, Germany, pretty much the entirety of South America, Africa and Asia... With the wide ranges of political systems that span all these places, each and every one of them was put in place by violence.

You point out the horrible regimes that adopted the word "Socialist" or "People's" in their name and point out all the atrocities that they have committed. While adopting those monickers != actual socialism, you've headed off that argument, so I'll give you that. However, don't lay violence as a means of gripping power at the feet of Socialism... That's a human trait.

[JoeAltmaier]

Disengenuous to ignore the appallingly violent way Socialism has historically grabbed power and suppressed their populations. Very different from rebellions for independence for instance.

[John23832]

Sure. The Stalinist were a horribly violent.

So were the US backed gorrillas in every violent uprising in South America in the 1980's.

So were Belgian trading companies in the Congo.

So were the French people during the Reign of Terror.

So were the Catholics during the all of the Inquisitions.

So were the Spanish during the expulsion of the Moors.

I could go on. The point being that this is not a Socialist trait. The first two were done with Capitalist intent. The last two were carried out with both political and religous power in mind. It's clear that you don't like Socialism, and that's fine... to each his own. But it's "disingenuous" to ignore history for the sake of proving your point.

[JoeAltmaier]

Ok lets make a list of Socialist societies that formed through rebellion and the formation of popular governments? Its seems to be a Socialist trait that it cant happen without being forced on a population by intelligentsia. Is that fair?

[John23832]

> Its seems to be a Socialist trait that it cant happen without being forced on a population by intelligentsia. Is that fair?

No, given the evidence, it's not fair. You could say the exact same thing for Capitalism.

Please. Now you're just being purposefully insulting.

[JoeAltmaier]

I'm not confusing Colonialism with capitalism.

[pjlegato]

It's disingenuous to call attention to US-backed guerrillas in South America without also noting that the supposedly "indigenous people's movements" in the region that these guerrilas were fighting against were not actually local in origin at all.

They were universally created, armed, trained, and funded by the KGB as part of a massive decades-long social engineering program designed to make people think that there were organic third world socialist movements which had spontaneously emerged from the local population's great love of socialism. In reality they were all -- 100% of them -- created and operated by remote control from Moscow.

They served the interests of the Soviet Union exclusively. They were interested in the needs or betterment of local peoples only insofar as this also served to expand Soviet control and influence in those places.

As the local third world socialists usually naively did not realize this reality, the locals who actually worked and fought in the "indigenous" movements were internally referred to as "useful idiots" within the KGB.

Communism has always been an explicitly internationalist movement with the conversion of all countries worldwide -- and especially highly industrialized countries, above all the United States -- to Communist rule as the open goal. Under these circumstances, the US response of funding counter-operations abroad to counteract these KGB operations was appropriate.

See e.g. the Mitrokhin archive, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2006-0..., etc.

[John23832]

Everything you said is irrelevant.

You completely ignored (or didn't understand) my point. I spread the attributions of violence around to show that using abhorrent violence to grip power has nothing to do with political inclination, economic system or religion. It is innately human.

[pjlegato]

That's all entirely beside the point. The post was responding to another post claiming that historic socialists have been particularly great advocates of democracy, which is empirically false.

Whether other systems have also been undemocratic is irrelevant (the "tu quoque fallacy").

[John23832]

> Socialism has historically been imposed involuntarily at gunpoint in almost all cases where it has achieved any measure of real power. Moreover, once established, its show elections are a farce, with only pre-selected Party approved candidates allowed to win.

I simply making the point that gripping power through undemocratic means is not a trait of a particular political belief, but rather a trait of human kind in general. Not agreeing with huac, and not agreeing with you.

You're quoting fallacies while not understanding what's being said around you.