Communism is an ineffective system.

Please stop referring to yourself in the third person, it's confusing as all hell...I would also like to point out that the resolution of this debate is not supported in your arguments. Your arguments have nothing to do with the resolution at hand. I would have titled it:'Communism cannot function without the pre-existence of an altruistic society, which cannot be achieved' Now, let's just assume that that was the resolution you had in mind. Before we get into the arguments that are remotely related to the resolution, let's just get my supposed no true scotsman fallacy out of the way. No, I never stated that they were not 'True socialists'. I merely stated that the systems enacted in aforementioned societies were not in line with socialist ideas. Now, in some cases socialism did succeed (Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam and the short-lived reign of Maoist china until the revisionists destroyed it), however, these states were destroyed by interior turmoil or outside forces, such as the Yugoslav civil war, the breakup of Czechoslovakia, the death of Mao Tse-Tung and the implementation of Dengism along with the execution of the gang of four... The only case that I stick with is that Stalin was not a socialist by any means, or a communist for that matter. Stalin's social outlooks were much closer to fascism than true communism. Stalin's system collective farming was akin to subsidized farming, an aspect only found in a completely capitalist nation. The Stalinist model of collective farming functioned on the pretense of 'foreign exchange', meaning that Stalin would allow foreign investments to be made on part of subsidies regarding larger or even smaller farms, meaning that Stalin never implemented an actual form of collective farming. The soviet union was based on various forms of State capitalism. Goods were produced, not for use only, but for sale at a profit. Industry was carried on largely on lines familiar to State-capitalist organisations outside the USSR. The soviet Government borrowed from investors (mostly Soviet citizens) hundreds of millions of pounds for investment in industry, and payed them a high rate of interest on their investments; this payment to the investors being the first charge on industry. One of the most significant events of the cold war was the Tito-Stalin split. Tito advocated the abolition of collective farming and the 'Tito standard' which stated that the needs of an individual socialist nation would be of higher significance than the needs of a one-socialist-nation, which Stalin opposed (A one-world-socialist state is a mark of imperialism. Definition of Imperialism from the Oxford thesaurus: 'advocacy of imperial or sovereign interests over the interests of the dependent states.'). On 22 May 1943, Stalin announced the formal shutting-down of the Communist International, the association of revolutionary socialist parties across the world set up after the October Revolution. Finally, and the most important distinction between fascist Stalinism and Marxist Communism was the preserved class hierarchy. Most branches of Fascism include an extreme fixed Hierarchy, whether the elite class was the Leader, the Military, the Capitalists, or just the State. The "Communist" Party of the Soviet Union was an elite class of its own, while the rest of the people were left in dire conditions... something that the Revolution sought to put an end to. Now, to continue the debate: 1. It is true that the holocaust occurred and it is true that not all people are altruistic by NATURE. I do not concede that people CAN be altruistic, though. Let's look at it from the angle of the Paris commune. During the period of the Paris commune, collectivization of all property was begun, people began co-operating in pure altruistic spirit and brought their children up in an altruistic manner. Society influences worldviews. 2. Societies impact and influence our thinking, even to the slightest sliver of a degree they do. Humans are social creatures, as we live and interact with other people. People, in the form of society, will have an impact and influence on our behaviors. Empirical evidence from the Asch Conformity Experiments support the resolution. The Asch experiments, in which there was one real participant who didn't know the intentions of the experiment, and all the others were aware of the intention of the experiment. A small society, which can be as small as two individuals in this scenario, had a slight influence on the "real" participants behavior. The more confederates (the people aware of the intentions of the experiment) their influence over the participant grew. The consensus here is that there is empirical proof that society, even in small amounts, influences and/or effects the decisions and therefore the actions of the individual. This proves my position, that a society, even a very small one, influences a person's behavior and actions. In psychology, it has been concluded with various studies that people have two psychological needs that makes people conform to the expectations of others. We are even if we don't think so influenced by society to a degree, since we have a psychological need to conform to others.. The reasons we conform to the expectations of others is for our need to be liked or to be right. So, even unconsciously, society is influencing us to conform to others, which influences our actions. We need to conform to others, and with this need, our actions passively are trying to achieve this need. Thus, we are influenced by society in our actions to meet these psychological needs to be liked or to be right. 3. We can therefore logically deduce that a society that promotes altruism and an altruistic worldview is likely to produce an altruistic population. With that in mind, we can logically conclude that altruism IS achievable. References: http://soviethistory.macalester.edu... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://en.wikipedia.org... Deutsch, M. & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment.Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,51, 629-636.