Talk:Communist state/archive 8

message: I think it should be included, but should be modified, and maybe trimmed. I can see both your points for including and excluding it. It's a sort of elaborated disambiguation paragraph preventing a possible misconception about communist states and other communist political entities. -- Natalinasmpf 23:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That subject would be off topic here, where the subject deals with Communist states (i.e. Communist Party-run states), not communities. The distinction between communities and states in political science is a huge one. 172 23:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  about communist entities that aren't states  

message: Despite the fact that we have a separate Criticisms of communism article, the criticisms section of this article has grown to a considerable length - by duplicating material from the main criticism article. Why is that material duplicated? There should be a summary of criticisms and counter-criticisms of communism in this article. Granted, you might want the summary to give some specific examples, but what we have now is far too long. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 02:02, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See my conversation with Squiddy above. This article needs a big overhaul along the lines of what Squiddy and I were discussing. 172 22:38, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are criticisms duplicated? 

message: Why is this relevant to the concept of communist states? CJK 22:36, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is useful as a form of disambiguation - i.e., these do not fall under this definition of communist states and you will not find them discussed further in the article. Warofdreams talk 17:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: And you oppose clarifications... why? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:47, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is also useful to counter the common misperception that a Communist Party has never been elected to power. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 18:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: It's not meant to "annul" anything. The article does not claim that communists won most elections they participated in. It only presents the undeniably true fact that they won some elections. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:47, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Me too. Excellent work by Squiddy once again! 172 19:16, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I've added it to the end of the def section as CJK suggested. --Squiddy 11:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Communist party performance in democratic elections

message: why is nicargua on the map of former and current communist states but not in the chart naming former communist states? - Konulu
It shouldn't be on the map. Reagan-era rhetoric notwithstanding the Sandinistas weren't Communists per se (in fact, the small Nicaraguan Communist Party was in opposition). The FSLN were and are members of the social-democratic Socialist International. The Sandinistas did not expropriate the private sector as a whole and nationalisations were limited. Homey 03:07, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nicaragua

message: 'A Communist state is a state governed by a single political party which declares its allegiance to the principles of Marxism-Leninism'
Isn't this incosistent with the 'schools of communism' box right next to it? I feel it should be changed to:
A Communist state is a state governed by a single political party which declares its allegiance to the principles of a Communist School (see right), most commonly Marxism-Leninism.'
This would stop confusions, since the implication is that the other communist schools are not really communists.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Evrae (talk • contribs) 
:I think you have a point there. Maoism and Juche are derived from Marxism-Leninism, but have different emphases if not contradictions with M-L thought. What do others think? --Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 10:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistencies in definition of Communist State 

message: Shouldn't the title have an (historical) added, given that it talks about historical Communist states.  In theory it's possible to have a two-party communist state, it's just never been tried. --211.28.123.16 12:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title 

message: Have I clarified why there is such a big dispute over usage of the term "Communist" to describe states such as USSR, China, Cuba, etc?
It seemed to me that commies (I mean this affectionately) make a big deal over the concept of socialism. "This is a socialist country, and soon it will be communist!"
In my experience with anti-communists (should I say "red-baiters"?), they always call Stalin and Mao "Communists" and they governments they ran "Communist". They oppose "Communism" (meaning the totalitarian system which Communist leaders used to rule 1/3 the world's population) because these "Communist" countries never seem to advance to Marx's next theoretical stage of "communism" (small c).
So we have supporters using one definition and opponents using another. How can we contributors work together to write an article, when the thing being described can't even be named without arousing an intense dispute? Shall we sprinkle phrases like the following?
*what Marxists call "socialism"
*what Marxists call "communism"
*what anti-Communists call "Communism"
Is there at least an agreement on what "socialism" is? :-) --Uncle Ed 13:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Usage of the term

message: why are these states not in list?? during the '70 and part of '80 they were ruled by a single (socialist) party
:Guyana is a little more complex than most of those on this list, but Burma is a pretty clear-cut example - why not add it to the list? Warofdreams talk 20:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, Burma cannot be added. The definition cannot be reduced to totalitarianism with socialist rhetoric. In Burma there was no communist party leading the state, it was a military junta that constructed an artificial party for propaganda purposes. --Soman 08:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added a note in the article about this, but it's difficult to produce a definition of a communist state which includes the nations listed and not Burma - how do we decide if the party has real power? Warofdreams talk 09:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Politics is not always very exact. However, I think Somalia illustrates the point quite well. The regime of Siad Barre was adviced by their Soviet donors to construct a political party, in a step towards institutionalization. However, it was never a marxist-leninist party per se, it just imitated some structural features and rhetoric of the communist parties. One could well argue that the communist parties of Eastern Europe had little real manouvering space for carrying politics independently from the USSR, but at least they were real functioning m-l parties before the communist takeover. --Soman 09:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Guyana and Burma

message: In a bit sceptical about the wordings on HK & Macau. IMHO, hybrid economies are frequent in present 'communist states' (even North Korea has announced plans for a 'special economic zone'). Just because the political set-up is different in HK&Macau than the rest of PRC, does not change the political fundamental characteristics of PRC. --Soman 13:42, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  HK&Macau 

message: It should be pointed out that the mixed socialist/capitalist economies under Communist leadership have had economic reforms but not had "market-reforms", they've opened to foreign direct capital investment, which is a completely different thing; they changed the economy from purely collectively owned to mixed with some private ownership, they did not create a capitalist market economy as China, Vietnam etc. still practice strict central planning.  This is for instance, why the issue with the Yuan/US-Dollar is problematic to the Americans.  NoJoyInMudville 17:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "market reforms"