Talk:Communism

Problematic redirect
I think this is quite a controversial redirect. Communism could refer to workers' movements but especially in a travel context, it usually refers to countries run according to Leninist, Maoist or generally dictatorial methods, which is not about independently organized labor at all. Since this is not a destination and would need a disambiguation, I would really prefer deletion to turning this into a disambiguation. User:The dog2, I know you like history, but do you understand the problem and would you agree to delete this redirect, so we don't have to spend time on vfd, where I believe it would be deleted in the end? Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:43, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I was thinking that this could be a redirect to a page where we list sites related to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, since they were the ones who came up with the name in the first place. Of course, no country actually managed to achieve the state of communism the way Karl Marx envisioned it, and Stalinism is nowhere close to the ideals that Karl Marx envisioned. And for that matter, even Lenin would be turning in his grave if he knew about Stalin's ethnic cleansings. But if it's going to be controversial then it's fine. Just go ahead and delete it. The dog2 (talk) 02:08, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Let's discuss this further. How much are communist countries dealt with in the article about organized labor, and how much should they be? Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:10, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know. I'm not sure if workers in the Soviet Union have many rights. But communism really started as a movement for workers' rights, as you know. At least Karl Marx envisioned a revolution led by the workers to overthrow the "bourgeoise" and establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat" as part of the transitional stage called "socialism", but he envisioned society eventually reaching a perfect state of "communism" where social classes did not exist, in other words meaning that bosses did not exist, and everybody was equal and worked for the common good. Of course, no country managed to achieve Karl Marx's vision. But still, it is a fact that in its original version, not the version Stalin corrupted it to, communism was about workers' liberation. The dog2 (talk) 02:20, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Marxism was absolutely about the proletariat running things, which of course didn't happen at all in so-called "communist" countries. "Trade unions" in "communist" countries like the Soviet Union were government organizations set up to control workers. Remember Solidarity in Poland? They worked to suppress it in part because it was an independent union actually fighting for workers' rights, though it went beyond that.


 * So here's what I'm thinking: Marx and Engels were all about workers' rights, but no-one is going to be looking for their names in a travel guide, such that redirects would make sense. I still feel like deletion is the best course of action for this term. Should we get a third opinion? Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:00, 25 July 2022 (UTC)


 * OK, if it's not usual for people to search "communism" to look for sites connected with Marx and Engels, then I'm fine deleting this redirect. The dog2 (talk) 03:07, 25 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Not on a travel site. Done. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:43, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I see this is already deleted and I don't really object to that, but this could be a pretty "extra-topic" article in the style of what extra-region articles do for the actual locations on earth (travel topics are our other type of articles, right?). Such as providing a barebones description to the reader, and then going on listing the relevant articles.
 * In my mind, "communism travel" evokes things like Budapest's Szoborpark or going to North Korea (although NK is not technically communist but is a Juche state, and even if North Koreans claimed they were communist, I don't think what Marx had in mind was what is essentially a xenophobic, hereditary monarchy), so that's probably a legit topic. We have plenty of articles that could be relevant to such a "communism travel" index-like page, including Cold War Europe (although communism is only half the story here), Soviet Union or even a joke article for East Berlin from the perspective of a traveller before the wall came down. Vidimian (talk) 04:53, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd have no objection to a travel topic on Communism along the lines you mention, just not having it be a redirect to Organized labor. If we did have such a topic, the huge statue of Marx in Chemnitz could also be covered, and obviously the huge photo of Mao at Tiananmen. There'd be a lot to cover. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:58, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, those sights sure could be covered. A link (and not a redirect) to History of organized labor among many others from an article on communism would be less objectionable, I guess. Vidimian (talk) 05:23, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, a "See also". Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:29, 25 July 2022 (UTC)