Why communism failed in Poland?

Nature invented informed choices. If it's a human thing, it's an animal thing. When people act barbarically, they are still using powers that seem only to be available to human beings, even if we say they are not using their brains.

Can we be sure of the power of the mind or lack of it in other animals - dolphins, elephants, chimpanzees, donkeys, etc.?

You know, I am probably in a minority when I tell you that I believe that animals are soul, like humans, and that some animals have abilities even above the rest of their species group. But still, there is something about humans that supersedes other species. They have the ability to imagine, to create, to study and understand circumstances.....that is far beyond what we (at least up until now) know about the animal world. I don't know if dolphins dream, for example, but i know that they "feel". But dolphins are highly developed mammals.

In regards to politics.....there will always be a base element in some humans that want to conqueror and horde...no matter what government form we call it (communism, capitalis, socialism). All the "isms" are kinda the same in the respect, no?

Opposable thumbs help a lot.

"isms" suck! :(

I thought Pope John Paul II wanted no communism in Poland because he became 1st Polish Pope and wanted Poland to be independent country. Communists soldiers had respects for Pop John Paul II and they cease and went back to their country. I think. Can't remember it.

Pope did go back to Poland few times which is good for him but bad news he is buried in Rome, Italy. Oh well.

He wanted to be buried in the Vatican which is not part of Italy.

i repeating

Communism was stupid. Extremly stupid

Most Popes are buried in Vatican.(except some in Avignon).


I haven't heard of any red Pope.


Marxist dolphins are still unlikely to appear.

I think it’s funny when someone denounces the evils of Communism but then advocates Socialism. They’re virtually the same thing! Communism is an ideology, a political system while Socialism is an economic system of (dunt-dunt-duuuuun) Communism! With only minor differences, Socialism without the overt social controls of Communism is like Commie Light.

What Chavez is currently doing to Venezuela is not merely Socialism, as everyone has been referring to it, but Communism. Same for what Obama is trying to do to America. Although our Leftist Media won’t call it this as they protect their Leftist Commie friends...

One of the differences between communism and socialism is that the name communism was applied to the countries of the Eastern Bloc and how they developed what Marx wrote and turned it into what most of us know that it became. The word communism has become almost synonymous with that. It is extremely authoritarian and anti-religion (religion in the traditional sense). Socialism came to mean something much broader, including communism, but also including state-funded welfare, Christian socialism (an early branch that predates the Russian revolution) and other ideas. In fact, socialism predates communism.

Terms like left and right are also ambiguous, maybe even more so, considering for starters that in France, where not only the terms left and right originate, but also the word socialism, left has the meaning of radical or non-conservative. Now, if you consider conservatism to simply mean maintenance of the status quo, then in a country with a socialist political setup, conservatism will have the opposite meaning to what it does in a country like, say, the United States. The French fascists use the term left (gauche) to describe themselves because they mean to change the social and political order, even though in the English speaking world, they are generally considered to be far right.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”

This is a basic tenet of Marxist Communism. Gee, who does that sound like today?... Obama spouts exactly this crap at every turn to justify his Commie Socialist wealth spreading.

Commie Leftists today avoid using the term Communism due to the historic negative emotion associated with the word. But they don’t denounce it the way our Righties used to. Today’s American Leftists (Liberals/ Democrats, as we call them) are just modern day Commies. Period.

Do you really have more than half an iota of socialism in the US?

You are the upmost stupid serb I encountered in my live. allready forgot how the capital bombed ya? they bombed factories where cars where produced to thereafter sell their own ones. weapons were produced there, they said! Such hypocrisy! you will come crawling back! what have your new western 'firends' brought you? they lure you just with luxury and decadence to open borders - but where is your pride you are so renowned for?

for the record, the few serbs I call my friends are decent, upmost respectable fellows. Hope you change some day instead of allways trying to, as we say in Poland, "enter the masters a$$ without butter". remember what I told ya - how can you be so stupid!

Exactly. I heard NATO messed up the power grid in the bombing and then sold the restoration contract to a British company. Very lucrative number for them.


Good one! How do you say it in Polish?

przestan wchodzidz amerykanom w dupe bez masla
= stop trying to get into americans ass without butter

This is a mute and somewhat treacherous debate. After all communism failed as much as capitalism.

Oh, and one of the Right's idols byt the name of Jesus was somewhat of a commie. Btw. Christianity failed too.

As they say - Christianity. A great religion. It's just never been tried.

Oh, we absolutely do. And our new Commie-in-chief is shoving us harder to the Left by the day. He just nationalized our banks and Auto industry yesterday. Well, just about.


Jesus was an old-school, truly do-gooder Lib. Nothing at all like our problem Leftist Libs of today.

It's not like there is much of substance to nationalize. So what they really did was try to nationalize an idea of a couple of virtually non-existent businesses. I see nothing wrong with that. :)


He was. And he wanted the rich to part with their riches.

the degree of stupidity in this thread is epic.
in three years you dariusz will be back where you were three years ago, studing milton friedmann, and the times now will just stay in your mind as the ones you used to read keynes and spend less on sushi.

in times like this I as a communist feel somehow spiteful. as brecht used to say "communism is not hard to understand". in capitalism its all like with a lotto-jackpot. the poor see the oportunity to get rich and thereby they support the system which makes it hard for them to cope with life. "But maybe my kids will have it better", he might think.

In communism all the manly needs are satisfied. But one does not see the option "to grow into the league of exploiters" have a job comanding others i.e.

true the communist experiments humanity underdid up to now, were not completly satisfying, but they achieved to get rid of advertising sector for example.

and were they not pressed to produce weapons and surplus to sell to the west, for the nomenclatura to import the stuff to ease their dirty desires, they would work only 4 hours a day and produce as a community multiple shostakovichs and tarkovskis.

Every day he's heading us more in that direction. Every time he opens his mouth or picks up a pen. Right now the Commie Dems in the House are preparing a bill that would have the government dictate salaries. No, not just for execs of bailed out banks and Auto but for line workers too. Commieism here we come...


But he didn't leverage and coerce and legislate and steal from some to spread the wealth to others. Holding charitable beliefs is different than underhandedly acting on them.

Point taken. Somebody told me that some of these goings-on in the States mean that Manchester Utd. football club is now property of the US government, whereas Newcastle Utd. football club is property of the UK government through Northern Rock. If this is the case and I'm not simplifying everything too much, perhaps communism failed in Poland because they weren't good enough at football.

are you realy Polish?

Lol... Or soccer!

What's that about?
And where was I three years ago?


It's not hard to understand. But its impossible to implement.


"manly needs"? That's funny :)
I think you mean human needs. And who decides what they are? We're not producs of the same manufacturing plant coming off a conveyor every 3.7 seconds. Complexity and diversity of human mind is something that communism simply has to reject as the number of jigs and drawers we can be fit in is quite large.


Yes, they got rid of millions of innocent people too. Ones who had nothing to do with advertising, and ones whose guilt was propagated using none others but some of the shrewdest advertising techniques.


You need a refresher course in the New testament :)


Agreed. That what is meant that Christianity hasn't been really tried.

This is a great topic, I'm so excited to have found it! (YAY!) I was actually just thinking about this same question last night. Yes, this is fun for me.

I came up with several reasons, some of which have already been discussed here. Sorry, I had to skip a few pages of posts.

1. Communism hasn't really worked anywhere, so... I guess that's one answer.

2. It was imposed by the Soviets/Russians. Sure, there were Communists in Poland before Poland was incorporated under Soviet influence, but they weren't the ones in control. I wonder if things would have been different had the Soviets backed off, and let Communism take root in Poland on its own. (Obviously, that wasn't the plan.) And we all know how the Polish feel about taking orders from everybody else:)

3. The Church. Obviously Church leaders were against Communism (well, some played both sides, but we all know about that), and in Poland that means a lot.

4. Poland's level of industrialization was not up to the standards of say... Czechoslovakia, which did better under Communism. Really, if you look at the former Communist countries, the ones that did the best (comparatively) were the most industrialized. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Baltic Republics of the Soviet Union (which weren't all that industrialized, but compared to other Republics, they were). The countries that did the worst were the more agrarian ones: Poland, Romania, Albania, etc.

Also, these more industrialized countries that did "better" under Communism seem to have adapted to capitalism much faster than their less industrial counterparts. Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, for example... have done very well for themselves over the past several years, joined the EU, had high GDP growth, rapid modernization, etc. The former Yugoslavia is a mess because of their ethnic issues (with the exception of Slovenia, which is already on the euro, I believe, and Croatia, which is doing ok), but the other countries that are struggling somewhat are Poland, Romania, Ukraine, etc. The more rural ones. Communism was a very urban-centered ideology.

Does this all make sense?

I hope in reality you are all disguised communists promoting anti-communism with the upmost idiotic arguments. You can't be all that dumb!

Wanna laugh? see that:

Krakowiak, how old are you and where are you from?

Krakowiak, would you care to enlighten me with some of YOUR opinions? Where, in your view, am I wrong?

Or, you know what, never mind. You seem to be trolling.

Your arguments are what they teach kids in western schools. As I quoted in an early post, "The communism is not hard to understand", but it's hard to explain why it did not work, coz the whole world, together with all of us, indirectly supporting the exploitation of the poorer, are working against it!


Depends what you demand. Do you demand a decent living for the majority or an extravagant living for few while the majority, the old, poor, live in slums, as it is nowadays with the world. We should not put the Soviet implemantation of communism as the communism. And everytime soem country tried to go its way with communism, the west with it's money interfered.


What was made wrong in Poland by the communists was repreated by the allies in Vietnam. Poland as well as Vietnam underwent a long period of occupation so Poland as well as Vietnam fought in their big wars to get independance primarly. The Vietkong were nationalists first, they didn't want foreign troups fighting their war. They wanted them all out, the French, the US. The Polish would maybe have rather embraced communism were the russians not the worst during the partation of Poland, were there not Trotsky who tried in the twenties to bring communism to Europe over "the dead body of Poland".

So yes partly that was the reason why Poles did oppose communism out of frowardness.

The soviet leaders were not unquestionable. But things done wrong, and there were many, were part of a bigger picture. The soviets planned for a world revolution. This plan demanded in their eyes a harsh treatment of some subjects and an involvement in weaponrace with the west, which they ultimatevly lost due to unability to deliver the additionary consumegoods the public demanded. And besides the real hardcore army-guys, the nomenclatura of the sovietunion was decadent. The weapons they produced were supportior.


This had partly historic reasons, as the church was regarded part of a burgeouise system to ease the demands of the proletariate. Therethrough the church grew into the role of supporting exploitation systems. Though in Poland the church had a positive role in my eyes, in opposite to say Franco Spain, during the socialistic times, as it eased the peoples pain done by a regime which did not understand the peoples resistance. Or maybe better put, understand it, but due to the bigger goal (World Revolution) chose to overlook it and play it down.


Its rather the level of infrastructure you are refering to. Poland had some industrial sectors which were regarding pure output on the top of the world.

Everytime you buy a new Nokia-handset, produced in Romania, due to lower wages there, you support the system. You may say, well the Romanians at Nokia get paid quite well for Romanian measures. But ask yourself, why is it cheaper to live in Romania? And secondly, what is the conclusion of the Nokia-worker buying from his hardearned money a Metabo-powerdrill made in Germany, which will allow the German Metabo-worker to buy a handset for each of his family?

answer:
It's the exploitation of workpower. An hour lifetime given by a Romanian is less worth than one given by a German. And lets not start with Peruans, Chinese, Indians ....

People repeating same thing over and over.

Hey, Soviets were never communism because Russians' intention was to use communism as a tool to be a superpower only. And, they did.

But, it still was much better than capitalism.

Btw, socialism/communism in the world has not failed. Follow South American countries who are making the system socialism by "vote." Example; Venezuela. Also, note that 1/3 of world population already live in either full or semi-socialism systems. Soon, Obama too will make USA as United Socialism of America. Don't be surprised if whole American continent becomes socialist. If USA does this by Obama and his fellows, many small Europian countries too will follow USA.

Anyway, follow news. Everyday, tens of tousands of workers are being kicked out. Companies are collapsing. Capitalism has failed many many many times throughout the history and we see now another fail, but, those supporters of capitalism here who too are poors are unable to see this. Pity!