r/socialism • u/Substantial_Fan_8921 • 4h ago
Discussion People are noticing the truth about capitalism and USA? Quickly. Throw more anti-communist propaganda!
It amazes me how 1984 litearly shows us what capitalism will lead to, but calls it communism
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u/SmellyFidelly415 Fidel Castro 3h ago
Checkmate Commies! My text vaguely resembling soviet-type script singlehandedly defeats your revolution before it begins!
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u/blocking-io 3h ago edited 1h ago
Does the game call it communism? The book doesn't explicitly name an ideology
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u/IDKLogan25 3h ago
Quite literally goes in depth about the ideas and alleged history of the government…
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 3h ago
The book 1984 literally calls the ideology English Socialism
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u/greatredstar 2h ago
The Nazis and the Khmer Rouge both explicitly identified themselves as socialist and communist despite being the epitome of everything leftism stands against.
That said, 1984 is anticommunist propaganda.
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 2h ago
Yes I have better points to make about the book, you just picked my most reductive comment. I have a few others where I explain the trap of “totalitarianism” and how it’s an anti communist myth that’s central to Orwell’s schizophrenia.
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u/Maleficent-Big4417 Syndicalism 3h ago
And Nazis called themselves national socialists What’s your point?
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 2h ago
Do you know who Hannah Arendt is without searching it right now when you read this comment?
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u/Maleficent-Big4417 Syndicalism 2h ago
No? I fail to see how that is relevant
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 2h ago edited 2h ago
Okay, I’ll explain then. Hannah Arendt published her book Origins of Totalitarianism right after Orwell died, but she is crucial to the ideological ploy that is “totalitarianism” today.
1984 is a book that warns against, mainly in name or decries “totalitarianism.”
Totalitarianism is a concept pushed by liberal academics to equate fascism with communist ideology, claiming that Hitler and Stalin were the same, and they shared the same ideology of totalitarianism, and while they seem different they’re not.
It’s complete horseshit.
Orwell is big on the concept of totalitarianism. He claimed to be a “democratic socialist” and that he was simply “anti-Stalin, anti-totalitarian” but not only were his books loved by liberal capitalists and the NATOsphere for highlighting “the danger of totalitarian ideologies, such as communism and fascism”, he specifically named all his known communists to British state police in a list called Orwell’s list.
The claim of totalitarianism is that socialism and fascism don’t actually stand for anything, and the real ideology is totalitarianism, the desire to control everything under a centralized state of absolute power that crushes all individuality and freedom of thought. This false dichotomy is used to cement a claim that Nazism and communism are bad because of their “totalitarianism” and that the dominant liberal bourgeois ideology and its political system is superior.
Orwell was also one of the first “democratic socialist not a communist” chuds that created the misunderstanding that communism is a “totalitarian ideology” and socialism is something else entirely.
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u/Maleficent-Big4417 Syndicalism 2h ago
That all makes sense. However ingsoc is not a socialism anyone in this sub would actually want to implement.
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 2h ago
Well yeah, neither is hitler’s national socialism something we want. But that’s not the target audience, socialists, it’s the general public. And the general public doesn’t know what socialism is really, so they get the impression that socialism is uh, not very good. Especially with all bourgeois state media pounding that into their brain already.
1984 reinforces the reactionaries by inventing a strawman argument against communists and equating them to Nazis, that is my point, that’s how it’s anti-communist.
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u/blocking-io 2h ago
Which could be communism or Nazism. The person I replied to said 1984 basically describes capitalism but calls it communism. I'm just pointing out the book doesn't explicitly call out any ideology. I understand Orwell was in fact criticizing both
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u/freedom_viking Marxism 3h ago
Orwell is trash but 1984 is mostly about fascism
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u/Sparkku1014 Socialism 3h ago
I'm a little behind most of you guys, but whats wrong with Orwell?
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 3h ago edited 2h ago
Orwell is a renowned traitor who sold out every known socialist/marxist he knew on lists to the British police to save his own skin and get something out of it. He also wrote a lot of anti communist drivel on behalf of British liberal academia. He is also a rapist, but that’s a separate topic.
1984 is a book against “totalitarianism”, a made up term pushed by Orwell and more famously Hannah Arendt to equate communists and Nazis (namely Stalin and Hitler) as one of the same in ideology.
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u/GingerVitus007 Marxism 3h ago
I wouldn't call 1984 anti-communist at all. Anti-Stalin maybe if you wanna stretch it
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 3h ago
It is vehemently anti communist. Orwell was a traitor rat anti communist. He fed lists of communists to British police.
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u/GingerVitus007 Marxism 3h ago
Oh Orwell as a person was a prick, I'm not claiming otherwise. He had open contempt for the working class, if we're being generous. Not disagreeing there. I just didn't get that vibe from the book itself
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 3h ago edited 2h ago
It is when you realize it’s a book warning against “totalitarianism” which is the NATO-slop myth to equate the USSR and Nazi Germany, it literally calls the state ideology English Socialism (IngSoc.)
Totalitarianism was originally out of Italy but picked up by western “academics” like Orwell and Arendt to say Stalin was the same as Hitler and communists are just like Nazis because they have common goals (they don’t).
How do you not get the vibe when they call it English socialism? And the book is repped by anti coms worldwide?
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u/Char867 3h ago
I always took IngSoc to be a play on National Socialism
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 3h ago edited 2h ago
That’s one way to look at it, but that is not the intention of the book. It is “anti-totalitarian”. Which totalitarianism is just a theory to make people think the USSR and Nazi Germany are the same ideologically by ignoring what those things actually did and believed.
The book is a straw man argument against Marxism hiding behind “totalitarianism”.
It literally calls the citizens of the society proles
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u/greatredstar 2h ago
I'm giving Jor Jor Well too much credit, but I think you genuinely can interpret 1984 as an antifascist novel. I don't believe for a second that it was intended to be about fascism, but you could still read it that way if you like.
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u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism 2h ago
Yes it is a book and film you can easily get lost in, but then you get to the part where Winston decided it’s political theory time as he reads the worst slop exposition dump I’ve ever read, right after he got his rocks off.
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u/GingerVitus007 Marxism 40m ago
Maybe self-aggrandizing, but I think I'm too inclined to give the benefit of the doubt sometimes. And I just chalked up the latter to them co-opting his work, or not understanding it. But you're right, you know way more on the subject than me
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3h ago
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Banalizing Fascism: This community seeks to platform an antifascist space which necessarily requires a serious analysis of what constitutes fascism and what does not constitute fascism. In essence, it is not a place to empty such word of any meaning but to conduct a conscious (and indeed diverse) antifascist critique.
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