Anybody know of an old soviet era book ?

Koa, I've seen him once on Tv, bald man, right? there were news regarding the plastic operation of his nose. I know about real communists of Italy from one italian movie, but I don't know its name.
I remember when Gorbachov visited Turkey, turkish communists met him with tomatoes and eggs.(By the way he deserved it)

except Zamyatn there's also O.Haxly (if I spelled right?)

We went through communizm. It's rather good idea for humanity. But I have to agree with Liina that it's utopia. I'm for sosialism, but not like for one we had in USSR. I'm for Chinese one. You know first when USSR established they let own private properties.
There's one famoes quote "it was not good idea to experiment it in such big country as Russia".
I think if USSR wasn't involved to "A cold WAR" the level of life in it would be much higher. It's true that there was not unemployment in that such big country.

Let's remember those famous persons who were communists:
Teodor Drieser, Nazim Hikmet.

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Originally Posted by crisaor

Actually, that's subject to debate. Communists are "loyal", or "believe in", or whatever, to a system, not a state, so to reduce their presence to individual states is mistaken, although because of some historical conditions, some countries have a communist party more developed than others (and thus, I assume, a higher number of people who subscribe to this ideology). Koa, Italy has been at some point the bastion for communism outside the URSS, thanks to Antonio Gramsci, despite what the current situation might be. Of course, nowadays being communist is just a way of inviting people to laugh at you, considering the majority of the people doesn't really know what communism means, as there are multiple meanings for it. And that's one of the reasons the unnamable owner of Milan blames his own stupidity on "the communists", a categorie so misused that it has already lost its meaning.

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That's what I was meaning... Actually, lately the word 'communist' only makes me laugh cos it makes me think of the unmentionable guy's attacks to a non-existing entity. Yeah, there were pure communists in another era (Togliatti comes to mind too), I must admit I don't know much about them but still I have the impression that even at the time they lacked something in the organisation, so they didn't do much concrete at least in internal politics.
And yes, I know lots of people who call themselves 'communists' but I dont think they really know what it means. Personally, I don't like cathegories...

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Originally Posted by Art

By 'the West' are you simply refering to the USA? Or incorporating Europe as well?

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I meant Western Europe and North America, and I presume South America but I have very little knowledge of its countries so I don't know if any of them are still communist. (I thought Chile and Argentina either used to be and then changed, or weren't but now are. :confused:) Anyway, I don't mean there aren't any people in those places who are socialists -- there just aren't enough of them to have an organized, politically-active Communist Party.

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Originally Posted by emily655321

I meant Western Europe and North America, and I presume South America but I have very little knowledge of its countries so I don't know if any of them are still communist. (I thought Chile and Argentina either used to be and then changed, or weren't but now are. :confused:) Anyway, I don't mean there aren't any people in those places who are socialists -- there just aren't enough of them to have an organized, politically-active Communist Party.

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That's untrue. There's a communist party in Italy (badly organised, of course, but existant), which I assume it's the largest of western Europe. Regarding the US, I have a friend living abroad and he told me that there was a communist party where he was living (Washington). I ignore if it's legally entitled to compete in the elections, but it's there.
Regarding South America, there has never been a communist regime anywhere (Cuba is a different matter), the military dictatorships supported by the US have made sure of that. I think that what you're thinking of is the current government of Chávez (nationalist, refuses to privatize the national oil company) in Venezuela, and the historical governments of Salvador Allende (socialist) in Chile, and Juan Doming Perón (right winged general, personal friend of Franco and Mussolini, sympathetic towards the nazis, who portraited himself as being left-winged, it's a long story) in Argentina. None of them were communists, specially the latter one. I live in Argentina, and today there are plenty of political groups orientated to communism in its very diverse forms (Marxist, Leninist, Trotskist, Maoist, etc.) that are legally recognised. The problem is, there are more partys than members, if you catch my drift. No one is really interested in that ideology, when having some more urgent problems (unemployment, media propaganda, hunger, etc.). Besides, this is pretty much a conservative country, so people are inclined normally to ignore such discussions and just go along with the usual system (which is a very poor democracy), where the upper classes always have control the situation. Also, communists in Latin america have had historically a horrible handling of situations. Being the main rivals of some democratic governments (Perón, for instance); they suppported dictatorships who overthrew those governments. So, as you can see, nobody has a reason to see communism as a way out of problems, including myself.

Discussing George Orwell's view on politics or what he was saying in 1984 is allowed.

Discussing modern politics is not allowed.

This topic has veered off course.