(Expect the more thorough review of the June update as I had said sometime in the coming week. In the meantime, LORE)
...
Augustus had always seemed to be busy... Managing a war, expanding Rimskaya's border, and now countering a massive outbreak of some creepy fog. Nonsense it all seemed.
The fog had indeed crossed the water, and had been declared a threat to the entire country. A National Emergency was declared, and military weapons were authorized to neutralize the fog by any means necessary. It had not yet reached the peninsula, as the water did slow it down, but it was not stopping at any point anymore.
And he was afraid.
This "he" is young Tiberius Democraticus, Augustus' adopted son (as he remains unmarried), named appropriately after the Roman emperor after Augustus Caesar.
Since his father was always busy dealing with the problems of the country, Tiberius could spend little time with him. As such, he had grown up so far very independent of his father, spending his days wandering Novogo Rima, as the state had all but eliminated crime and the streets were safe for even children of his age.
Today he found himself in his bedroom though, with the state of emergency threatening a lock-down, and the streets littered with preparations for if the invading fog reached the capital.
And he was bored.
He didn't believe he had any kind of power or influence. Sure, he had done is nightly readings of Marx and Trotsky, gone to school and nearly memorized parts of the Manifesto, but he still didn't understand the Marxist-Trotskyist ideology. From his view, it had made Rimskaya a prosperous state... but failed to keep it safe.
Rimskaya was constantly faced with invasions, disasters, international condemnation, economic drawbacks... it could never advance except in words and empty land, which only seemed to worsen its conditions and reputation.
And so, with no one to really watch over him, he began reading elsewhere to search for a potential answer to this problem; the way to make Rimskaya safe from the inside-out, while preserving the general liberty and proletarian democracy.
In the end, he couldn't find much, even after hours of research and study.
He soon found himself watching movies and TV, trying to drown out the sorrow and worry from the impending dangers to the south. Augustus was out, overseeing the military preparations in the south, as well as attempted bombing runs to clear the fog.
Eventually, Tiberius found some Star Wars, his favorite movie series. He of course liked the lightsaber fights and the massive battles, but today he watched a little differently.
The movie playing was Revenge of the Sith, the story of Palpatine's rise to power, and Anakin Skywalker's descent to the Dark Side. Tiberius found something interesting amongst the narrative though... something about the Sith beyond the power lust of Darth Sidious and his new apprentice.
He found the Sith to have faced the same fate as Marxist-Trotskyism: it was not inherently evil, and nor was the Dark Side. It was simply the easier way for evil to take to gain power, as opposed to the Jedi and Light Side. The Sith allowed openly expressed emotions when the Jedi ordered emotional control, and allowed for liberty of the self while still protecting the group. Yet because of such evil as Palpatine, its named and reputation was tarnished, and could only be portrayed as bad and needing destruction: just as Stalin had done to the Marxist ideal.
He put some thought into it: Dark does not mean evil. Without dark, light cannot shine; it would be blinding, as if the night sky were white instead of black, and not a star could be seen.
He redirected his research entirely to the origins and ways of the Sith. In the end, he resolved that this idea, decades old with the franchise of its origin, was the key to saving Rimskaya. He had to keep it secret, of course, developing his thinking beyond a crude irrational thought, until it was ready to present, first to his friends at school, then they would spread it, and perhaps...
It would mean something.
He titled this new thought of his appropriately, "Marxist-Sithism", titling himself under the personal nickname "Darth Equalus", and revised the Sith motto to fit his new ideology:
"Peace is the truth, and with it, compassion.
Through compassion, we gain strength.
Through strength, we gain power.
Through power, we gain victory.
Through victory, our chains are broken.
We shall set ourselves free."
Replies
Interesting idea, using the Sith as a stand in for Communism. It works though because of how both Sith and Communists use false promises to gather support from society and in the end only enriching themselves. Similarly to a lesser degree, the Jedi and Capitalism both market themselves as helping the common man while actually only maintaining the status quo. The comparison continues if you think about how the Sith/Communism can only work on a small scale without collapsing while the Jedi/Capitalism can function on a large scale but will ultimately only serve the ruling class. An example being the success of of the Sith rule of two and small scale communism, vs. the collapse of every iteration of the Sith Empire due to infighting and the failure of every communist country due to corruption and infighting. If we look even closer we can see how both Communism and Capitalism are terrible ideas that need to be replaced, just like the Jedi and Sith because they only serve to empower the ruling class at the expense of the overall society. Anyway NRI, I just wanted to thank you for coming up with such a great analogy that explains why Communism is a terrible system and I hope I was able to further contribute with my comment.
interesting and great bulletin
Canadian Empire,
first of all you completely misinterpreted using the Sith here, why would we, Marxists, want to stain our own ideology?
I am intrigued by your further study though. The ideas of Capitalism and Communism as conflicting ideologies entails a winner eventually, but I will agree with one notion: in the end, both will pass their time. The point of Communism is progressing; and we know that eventually there will come an even better idea that will end up replacing Marxist thought and further improving society. Capitalism, on the other hand, insists it is the final stage of human development, and that nothing exists beyond it. It resists the natural march of progression and time with extreme violence.
The idea of Communism being built on false promises cannot be tagged directly to the ideology. With that mindset, we might as well throw any kind of republic or democracy out the window, for under the bourgeoisie's control, they are just as much built on lies. The building on lies is tie-able to individuals, not ideas. Capitalism was not always built on lies, and in fact was just another step in advancing humanity out of feudalism. Today it stands to be such, as was Stalin's USSR, because they both had the same unattainable goal: perpetual power and permanent control.
As for small scale Communism and your correlation to the Rule of 2, there is no such thing as small-scale Communism. The states that claim the ideology are of no allegiance to Marxist thought, as Marxism was built to oppose the state as an entity. It was made to be international, but the idea was forcefully limited to national boundaries by the bourgeoisie and nationalists within the Comintern fighting amongst themselves, effectively strangling it. The Sith Empire was meant to last for eternity, but was likewise strangled by corruption and infighting.
Remind me to respond back to your comment in our marxism v capitalism bulletin or maybe just remind me to find a new topic to broach with you. I still think I can at some point show at least the minor flaws in "Marxism" to you at some point and then get on to the major ones. In any case I'm glad you're back to producing bulletins albeit "Marxist" ones
I mean Rimskaya is a Marxist state, of course our publications will be of that nature.
I am a Marxist too, and your words are completely correct.
Capitalism is built on lies too. Capitalism promised a way beyond feudalism, whereas today maybe just the attire of the lords changed, feudal lords still rule the society.
Capitalism destroyed democracy of nations all over the world, encouraging crony capitalism, corruption, oligarchical policies, suppression of free speech against the MNCs, suppressing workers' protests and brainwashing people.
Capitalism was a promise, a promise by the bourgeoise, who promised to bring prosperity to the working class via industrialisation, investment in machinery, employment and more wages, but at one point, there is no need for a bourgeois capitalist to invest. He is rich, and why should he care for the workers? That point stops innovation, progress and destroys the livelihood of people.
Why are people of America unemployed? Why they live such a sorrow life of paycheck-to-paycheck while the Soviet Union, regardless of its depressing architecture (which was due to its practicality) and state capitalism, lived to compete with the west? USSR saved not only Russia, but also all the former-USSR nations from becoming like the modern Latin-American or the South Asian nations. Russia in the 1900s was comparable to that of Colonial India, and by 1950s, it was competing with the western bloc.
Now I would like to differentiate between the words socialism and communism though. These two are pretty different concepts, and communism is in fact a state, where the society is stateless, classless and moneyless. People work for their own livelihood, but is made sure that no person dies due to being unfortunate or starving after completing two degrees and yet not getting a job.
That is true, and although Marxism is the greatest ideology in theory and sounds so amazing and great, it doesnt work in practice. We cant create utopia, thats exactly what Marxism wants. Thats why we cant have it, and thats why Marxism fails. Marxism isnt some evil ideology that doesnt care about its people, and thats exactly what makes it not work. Capitalism is an evil ideology that doesnt care about its people, and thats exactly what makes it work.
Its literally the Imperium of Man, yes its a horrible opressive tyrannical system that makes life painful to live, but its the only way for humanity to survive. Thats what capitalism is, we tried Marxism so many times and it failed. Its too flawed beacuse we try to seek a utopia, it shoots so far up into the sky straight for the sun and burns up in its own ambition.
Every time it led to some ruler becoming corrupted and failing his people, it lead to famine and destruction. China, 500 million dead, the USSR - MILLIONS dead, cambodia 42% of the population dead, it failed. Closest thing we got to was Vietnam, which was not marxist but rather mainly socialist JUST like cuba. Communism in a large country is recipe for disaster, and so is pure communism.
And so even if it is great in theory, in practice it just doesnt work. Communism was made as a happy wishful ideology hoping to give people great lives without taking in consideration HOW you would go about doing that stabily.
I've explained this before and I will explain it again: Marxism does not and never will seek Utopia. Marx wrote his manifesto having already seen the failures of Utopian Socialism, hence his ideology's more formal name, "Scientific Socialism".
If Capitalism works because it is evil and doesn't care about its people, then why does it fall flat on its face every 8-10 years when we have global recessions? Why was it unable to stop a global pandemic within months having access to billions that could be spent on research instead of assets and political power? Why has it been unable to stop the continuous cycle of nationalistic warfare that continues to tear humanity apart? In its "working" form, Capitalism doesn't appear to work at all: It's just breaking down constantly, like watching a giant mountain fall apart.
And since when was Capitalism the only way for humans to survive? Since when did humans ability to survive depend on a select few being able to rake in insane amounts of wealth per year while the masses fight and starve at their command? Even the earliest of civilizations weren't that far gone.
Addressing each country individually:
The USSR: Originated as a Workers' Democracy, with Lenin trying to ensure that the bourgeois parties didn't seize back power while it was young, but his poor health and death led to Stalin's rise to power, with all others such as Trotsky pushed into the shadows. For all future "Communist" states, Stalin was the only model they had to work off of, since Trotsky had become so censored for trying to make a democratic Communist state work. The USSR eventually faced predictable economic downturn from the forced collectivization, and Stalin's idiotic belief of "Socialism in One State" where the USSR would have all the resources it needed to care for itself, which it didn't, hence the Holodomor and other deaths. Capitalism offered a low-key solution, with the USSR already repressing the workers in its later life, until finally it fell apart from nationalist tendancies caused by the restoration.
China: Again, all Mao had to work with in his view was Stalin. The Great Leap Forward was indeed a disaster, proving that China needed to industrialize its agriculture before shifting to only steel manufacturing and other industry. The Cultural Revolution was also flawed, as intellectual persecution is the hallmark of any dictatorship. That said, The Red Guard poses an interesting model, as it was formed as independent action committees: Mao didn't have direct control over them, because at first, he didn't need to. Only when the Red Guard began fighting amongst itself, and believing that there could be a more radical way Chinese Communism could work, that may threaten democracy, did Mao send the PLA to crack down. From there China rapidly transformed into a Capitalist state, but the CCP managed to hold onto power through sheer military power, and changing with the economy. The CCP should really be called the Chinese Capitalist Party at this point.
Kampuchea: There is no excuse for what Pol Pot did massacring so much of his population. Such a small country trying to care for itself under Socialism in One State is a death sentence; what happened was predictable by anyone's standards beforehand. The same can be said for North Korea, which has no means to produce the food it needs to feed its population, and most of the food that is produced going to their leader. North Korea is more akin to an absolute monarchy than any kind of workers' state.
Vietnam: I cannot say I know exactly how Vietnam worked out, as I haven't researched enough prior on what happened after the war. But from what they are today, I can safely say that whatever "socialism" Ho Chi Minh implemented was not nearly enough, as Vietnam is now almost purely a market economy.
Cuba: Cuba is nowhere near Socialism, so I'm not sure how you could draw a line from Vietnam to them. They are just as much a crackpot dictatorship as most of their predecessors. And to go on for the region, Venezuela isn't Socialist either; their government is full of corrupted and wealthy individuals.
Communism was well made with thought on how it would be created, implemented, and rule with stability and equality, along with democracy. The idea of how it "just doesn't work" is honestly a terrible argument. One could go back and say to America's Founding Fathers "Democracy is a bad idea, it has never worked before. Athens fell, and Rome turned into a dictatorial empire. Democracy has never worked". The best instance of it "working" would be the Paris Commune, though it didn't have the time to prove it as its members were quickly massacred by the French Army. The RSFSR was the next closest, had Trotsky beat Stalin, but history said different. I could say for the better though, as now we have something more to warn against in the continuing struggle for Marx and Trotsky's full vindication.
It is confirmed
Rimskaya is a north korean style dictatorship 🙏🏻
Communism still sucks though you should try Nukeyism. Much better ideology to help the people
Also wrong, we hold free elections, with multiple candidates. Other parties may be formed, but there has been no opposition in our history.
Nukeyism just sounds like a good way to massacre half our population via ionizing radiation.