Those familiar with contemporary ideas of communism, socialism, communalism, left-anarchism, etc. will know there's been a lot of work done since the 50s (and a little earlier) on criticism of Marx, of the Soviet system and of the Chinese system. Modern Marxology actually takes up these issues with regard to their historical context, the USSR in particular. Unfortunately very few people actually get round to reading this wealth of work, especially after the year 1970 or so, in which most departments Marxism was declared dead and refuted.

The question of Marx's meaning and intentions, what does or does not flow from his critique, the idea of revolution, the issue of Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin and Mao are all very much actively discussed today. At the same time, there is a distinct, perhaps irreconcilable, difference of opinion between the liberals who treat property as part of an individual, or an extension of him, and the tradition since Marx which does not take this for granted at all.

And those "translations" were criticized from their inception onward by non-authoritarian socialists/Marxists.

For example, Bertrand Russell only 3 years after the revolution (thus 1920):

In a capitalist state, the Government and the capitalists on the whole hang together, and form one class; in Soviet Russia, the Government has absorbed the capitalist mentality together with the governmental, and the fusion has given increased strength to the upper class. But I see no reason whatever to expect equality or freedom to result from such a system, except reasons derived from a false psychology and a mistaken analysis of the sources of political power.

I am compelled to reject Bolshevism for two reasons: First, because the price mankind must pay to achieve Communism by Bolshevik methods is too terrible; and secondly because, even after paying the price, I do not believe the result would be what the Bolsheviks profess to desire.

I've done XP. It was awesome.

As for the two attempts to implement Marxism (assuming you're speaking of Russia and China here)... in Russia, you can't separate it from Leninism and Stalinism. Is Marxism the problem, or the authoritarian government?

China is more interesting. China is still ostensibly a Marxist nation, right? Per World Bank data I just looked up, China's per capita GDP (in constant US dollars) was lowest in 1962, at $71.91. That's per year. In 2017, it's $8826.99. Constant dollars, mind you. That's 123 times more.

I have a hard time calling that a failure of any sort.

There hasn't been large-scale political violence in China since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. That ten-year period killed 5-10 million on the high end. Which is, of course, quite bad, but in comparison to the 50-80M that died in ostensibly capitalist Europe during WWII, it doesn't seem that outsized.

So for burden of proof, I think you need to argue that an alternative model would have resulted in less political violence and more economic prosperity than that for China. Good luck.

> There hasn't been large-scale political violence in China since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. That ten-year period killed 5-10 million on the high end. Which is, of course, quite bad, but in comparison to the 50-80M that died in ostensibly capitalist Europe during WWII, it doesn't seem that outsized.

> So for burden of proof, I think you need to argue that an alternative model would have resulted in less political violence and more economic prosperity than that for China. Good luck.

The Communist China's Great Famine[0] is said to have caused the deaths of tens of millions of people, as much as 30-40M, depending on who is guesstimating.

I am not sure I would call that a triumph of economic prosperity for China.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2012/11/10/164732497/a-grim-chronicle-of...

Famines were not exactly unusual in backwards agrarian nations recovering from 50 years of nonstop civil war and foreign occupation. European nations, before modernization, had famine problems, even without war. As Hans Rosling pointed out, famine killed much of the Swedish population in the late 19th century. From 1845-1850, Ireland lost a quarter of its population to famine and emigration to escape famine - 10-15% of the country starved to death under ostensible capitalist rule. And there are plenty more examples where that came from.

So blaming it on communism seems a little off to me. Matter of fact, one could easily argue that communist revolution is a consequence of capitalist failure, not a cause of failure on its own.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that Communism was the cause of the famine.

I meant to instead do what you seem to be doing - pointing out a bit of economic turmoil that lead to great loss of life. Mine just happened to be accounting for on the side of the ledger labeled "Communism".

Does it make the Great Famine any less an economic blow to Communist China that there are also historical examples of large famines in capitalist societies?

I'm not sure it does.

There were never famines under capitalist rule.

It is much closer to state capitalism. The economy boomed when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping brought about economic reforms.

The economy boomed under Mao, too, if you think about it. China went from decades of war - Boxer Rebellion, civil war, Japanese occupation, civil war - to a famine that was entirely unsurprising considering the scope of what had happened in the previous 50 years. Mao ended that and put the country on the path to what they are today.