[anovikov]

Well, after WWII, America saved the world from the spectre of Communism, firstly by blunt threat of total nuclear annihilation (which was sadly never put in practice when it could be), then when it became impossible, by continuous overt and covert work to undermine it, until success in 1991.

I come from the Soviet Union and i know what i'm talking about. Blessed are those who never had to live under this dystopian system of dehumanisation and torture - and if not US efforts, sometimes heavy-handed and sometimes not so, a lot more countries if not all the world would be subject to it.

It won't be much of a 'conflict'. No one except US had much power to resist.

[goku12]

This is exactly what I was referring to in the first comment. To the American fans, America is the hero who swoops in to save the day and can do no wrong. This is exactly how it is depicted in popular media too. But the reality is that the US is hardly the benevolent savior you imagine it to be. I will need an entire book to just list out the atrocities since WWII that the US is responsible for or complicit in. Even the inhumane suffering people had to suffer outside the US that you're referring to, often had a US hand in it. To you, communism is nothing more than a convenient bogeyman that you don't understand in reality, while the numerous warhawks of the US (like Kissinger) have caused unimaginable suffering on this planet. Honestly, you ought to see the world a lot more to even start to understand the depth of the problems that the US has left on this planet. Even the problems within the US right now is merely the birds coming home to roost.

[anovikov]

I come from Soviet Union. I know what i'm talking about. I lost family members to Bolshevik repressions in multiple generations and so did my wife's family.

[goku12]

How does that change the fact that the US style capitalist imperialism is equally, if not even worse? This isn't a zero sum game. Two opposing sides can be evil at the same time.

For that matter, I wasn't the one who introduced communism into this discussion. On top of that, you're talking about the Leninist and Maoist streams of communism. The original Marxist style communist revolution is what is happening in the US right now - something explained splendidly by an American. The US power elite must have recognized this early on and demonized Communism as whole for it. If you're going to argue about communism, at least get that much right.

Look, I am not at all interested in a debate about political systems here. The real topic is what an empire did to the world for its expansion and its consequences. That too is politics, but an entirely different matter from the capitalism vs communism debate.

[ben_w]

> The original Marxist style communist revolution is what is happening in the US right now

Having read the communist manifesto, I'd say what's happening in the US right now is the sort of thing Marx was complaining about, not what he was in favour of.

The only similarities I see are that Marx would approve of women's liberation over the last century. But my sense is that's not what you meant by "right now".

Marx was anarchic, sure, but he was *actually* anarchic and viewed corporations as the exact same kind of problem as states, so tech bros saying "I'm an anarcho-capitalist" are who Marx would have chosen to put up against the wall first when the revolution comes.