@Stealth,
I'm still at work but fuck it, it's friday and I'm hung over...
Do you think communist countries (Cuba, NK, USSR) have a better political system in place than America? If not...what are the flaws?
Just to clarify, I don’t think any of the countries are (or were) truly communist.
Communism is a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production and the absence of private property. Under this definition none of the three countries you listed are (or were) communist.
They are socialist, yes, and in many cases some things are better than Amerika while other things are not.
The flaws and failures of the Soviet Union are pretty complex and you have to go back to shortly after the October Revolution.
You have to remember that 1917 Russia was a very backwards and poor country. It was predicted by Karl Marx that communism would first appear in an advanced capitalist society, which would have the means and wealth to transform society over to communism. It was the theory of the Russian communists (introduced by Trotsky) that the only way for the Russian revolution to be successful, is if other, developed countries (such as Germany) would also have revolution and help/support the country during their transition period. The idea was that if Revolution occurred in Russia, it would spark international socialist revolution and would spread across Europe. This is known as
The Theory of Permanent Revolution.
This theory was later demonstrated when revolution did in fact spread across Europe after the October Revolution. Unfortunately the German communists, which the Russians were relying on, were unsuccessful on carrying over the revolution against the monarchy into a revolution against capitalism and ultimately failed (both in 1918 & 1919).
In the early 20’s when Lenin was very ill, during his absence, Stalin and the bureaucracy were able to gain much influence. After Lenin’s death, Stalin and his faction seized complete power over the party (for more details on why and how that was possible, you can read
How the Bureaucracy seized power and Trotsky’s
The Revolution Betrayed). After which, Stalin put forward the unheard of idea that socialism could be built in Russia without the victory of the working class in other developed countries, known as "Socialism in One Country." This went against everything the Marxists such as Lenin, Trotsky, etc. believed in and were fighting for.
The problem with this was that because Russia was so economically backwards and poor, isolating themselves prevented them from advancing socialism because it did not have the "highest productive forces" within its boundaries to do so.
Stalin pretty much doomed the Soviet Union once he consolidated power (in 1924/25) and the working class was politically dispossessed (never again would they see power). The whole idea is of revolution in the first place was to overthrow their oppressors and to establish democratic control of the state by the workers, not a totalitarian control by an elite stratum of bureaucrats.
The problem with many or most other countries that later had socialist/communist revolution was that they tended to follow Stalinism and not true Marxism/Leninism, which was their downfall. It’s true that the Soviet Union exploded very rapidly under Stalinism, because of which other countries saw this as a huge success, ignoring the fact that it was a totalitarian country. Regardless, Stalinism in many cases was a better alternative to capitalism (I guess you can say the lesser of two evils), especially in countries hardest hit by imperialism but eventually they would fail do to lack of democratic control over the planning of the economy and because only a handful of bureaucrats at the top of the "Communist Parties" and the state apparatus dictated everything. (If you read Lenin's
State and Revolution you can see how he establishes a series of conditions for the functioning of workers' democracy.)
The reason I ask this is because I'm curious as to how you would implement the perfect communist system.
I consider myself a Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyist, so I believe the only way for this to be implemented in amerika is through a working class revolution.
Why do you think this would be the best system
Because the working class would have control over the wealth and the means of production rather than an elite group. This would guarantee that we work for the common interests of the people as a whole, and not the select few. Capitalism only stands like a roadblock in the path of human progress and socialism would advance it. No more outsourcing, no more minimum-wage or lack of health insurance, no more dumbed-down education, etc. Not only would this be better for society and advance technology and the human race faster, it would be better for our environment (we wouldn’t have greedy corporations whose only concern is maximizing profit and dumping hazardous waste and polluting our air/water/soil).
This is the only way to save humanity (I mean look at what capitalism is doing to this world. The exploitation of the poor is mind-boggling; Imperialism is killing millions of people daily). If we do not eventually change, well as Rosa Luxemburg put it, the choice is either “socialism or barbarism.”
and how does the "true" communist system deviate from the communist nations we've seen in the world today?
Well, the definition I provided early on should be able to explain why no country in the world is currently communist. There are socialist countries indeed, but not communist.
