Socialist protagonist

Creatures theme

The protagonist participates on behalf of governmental socialist ideals including socialism, communism, or marxism.

Alternate names: Marxist protagonist, Communist protagonist

Characters

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, Ernesto Che Guevara
(view all the 2 "Socialist protagonist " characters)
Sadly, most people that object to marxism, socialism, and/or communism do so because of what others have told them; never having investigated these things themselves. In the USA, Red Scares and their long lasting effects continue to support this attitude.

Welfare Disambiguation: The word "Welfare" in American English often refers to a government funded system financial aid theoretically given to those in need for the duration that is it needed. There are both federal and state systems, each with their own set of regulations. Welfare for people is usually what the word means. For distinction, Welfare for businesses is called "corporate welfare". Both forms are inaccurately seen by some as widely abused and/or discouraging of recipients to discontinue receiving welfare payments once the need has past. This image is cultivated by politicians who promise "welfare reform" to gain votes. However, some states do have regulations that tend to discourage recipients from discontinuing payments. For instance, in some states, it is illegal to collect welfare and any other type of payment (defined as welfare fraud). This sometimes means that an unexpected payment to the recipient from another source, which may even be an insufficient about to provide for the recipients needs, disqualifies a welfare recipient even through no fault of their own. Such payments may come from 3rd parties or even the government itself. There can be a significant amount of bureaucracy and even a waiting period before payments can be resumed or reapplied for, leaving a gap during which the needs of the recipient are not being funded. Re-approval may not entitle the recipient to retroactive payments for this gap. This encourages some recipients to be vigilant to prevent receiving funds from any other source. This of course applies in cases of expected payments, and the bureaucracy can be even more time consuming. For instance if the recipient is able to work and gets a job, welfare could be discontinued immediately even if the job does not provide a paycheck immediately or if the initial paycheck is insufficient to provide for their needs (first paychecks from a new job are notoriously smaller than subsequent ones in the USA due to taxes, retirement plans, job expenses and other fees taking their initial payments from the first pay check. It is not unheard of to actually end up owing money for receiving one's first paycheck.) Some states set such a high standard for prevention of welfare fraud that welfare is discontinued if the person is looking for a job, or even suspected of looking. Or even if the recipient is deemed able to work (no time is allowed for actually finding a job and getting hired). This encourages some recipents to maintain their inability to work (some times fraudulently), not seek employment, seek employment secretly and/or be paid 'under-the-table' (paid secretly), and/or build up a money reserve to provide for their needs during payment gaps. Cash reserves also are a problem. Welfare recipients have a cap on how much money and capitol they are allowed to own before payments are discontinued and violations of this cap may increase the time consume bureaucracy of reinstating payments if needed. These and other discouragements are collectively referred to as the "welfare trap" because of their strong tendency to discourage any efforts for recipients to find another source of income. Some people are ignorant of the "welfare trap", rather they perceive welfare recipients as being lazy or fraudulent. Some systems are less strict and simply reduce welfare payments by subtracting the amount of other incomes up to and including receiving $0 of welfare, even allowing the person to officially remain on welfare for long periods or indefinitely. Which can be very beneficial to some who's status fluctuates; a person with a chronic condition that prevents employment only for limited times for example. Since ownership caps usually still apply, the recipient at some point may have to decide to discontinue welfare or somehow get rid of excess capitol. It is especially common in corporate welfare for businesses to purposefully waste in order to continue receiving payments. For all of these reasons, "welfare" is maligned word for some people in the USA (regardless if the are right or not).
Many people lump marxism, socialism, communism, and social democracy into the same form of government (even though this is inaccurate). "As a political ideology, communism is usually considered to be a branch of socialism" - Wikipedia. For devotee's to capitalism, communism purposes socialism with the purpose of a revolution against them then promises to take what they've earned returning to them the same portion as everyone in return regardless of how hard they worked, how productive they were, or how efficient they are. No capitalist propaganda is required to believe these, because Karl Marx himself said so. He saw communism as the "first phase" towards revolution and socialism. Karl Marx wanted an end to the exploitation of workers (a great idea) yet purposed a system that would not reward them for doing a good job. Notable is the inclusion of democracy within communism under the term "democratic centralism". Described by Lenin as "freedom of discussion, unity of action" among party leaders. Democracy was reserved for a privileged few only at certain times. Democracy, elections, and free speech were reserved for party leaders only and these privileges did not extend beyond closed doors. No other democracy was allowed. Lenin himself warned that "democratic socialism" would fail. Also notable is the eventual goal of eliminating of the state (government) altogether. The idea was that the state would fix people then would disolve, with no need to maintain anything and no objection be the leaders to giving away their power. For devotee's of democracy, communism is additionally seen as a people of the state, by the state, and for the state rather than a state (government) of the people, by the people, and for the people. Again, no propaganda is necessary because according to communists, "Man is made for the state and not the state for man". Many think of communism as a type of dictatorship. Again, this in not an off-the-wall idea that requires propaganda to convince people of; Lenin describes it as a "the dictatorship of the proletariat"
Some people object to communism (and/or marxism, and socialism) due to their morals or faith and their perspective of communism. They believe communism is based on a materialistic and humanistic view of life and history with no consideration of spiritual intervention nor intervention from God. Which is perhaps not precisely true, rather it elevates importance the importance of materialism as supreme (over God and morality). That it is based on ethical relativism and accepts no stable moral absolutes but instead defines right and wrong as the most expedient methods for dealing with class war for the truly noble means of creating a classless society without exploitation. "We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truth." - Lenin. For example, [the government must] "dispel the societal false consciousness of religion and nationalism that are culturally instilled by the bourgeoisie in facilitating exploitation." was said while sparking the "revolutionary nationalism of the poor". Thus they believed nationalism false and an evil perpetrated on the poor by the ruling upper classes. Yet to achieve their rulership, they would perpetrate the same evil on the same people (the upper class was supposed to be their enemy, not their teacher & cohort). This is fundamentally opposed to the idea of absolute moral values and, for some, God's ability to affirm and love humans despite our flaws. It is basic to the belief in God that He created humans for His own purposes and that God's authority is supreme (anything less is believing in something other than a god). While founders of communism state, "Man is made for the state and not the state for man". In addition to discounting God's purpose or any spiritual and authority, it purposes to devalue God's creations (humans) in both spiritual and earthly realms. In communism, food, rights, wealth, worth, indeed life itself, are defined as privileges provided by the state rather gifts of God or basic rights of humans, and thus revocable by the state. In a way they also perpetrated religion on people; telling them to believe that following a set of imposed rules would heal the social ills of man, provide for all materialistic needs, and lead to a classless & stateless future when all evidence continuously showed contrary (the goals of communism must be accepted on faith). Some former communists agreed about the religious nature of communism as evidenced by the 1959 book, The God that Failed ('God' referring to communism in this case.) Ironic it is, that instances of communism before its marxist forms were voluntary, meant for spiritual progress, and did not promise that man could heal the social ills of man (Hussites, Anabaptists, Cathars, etc...). Further ironies comes from the fact that Karl Marx was Jewish by birth but later baptized as a Lutheran, he married into nobility, inherited wealth, wasted it on bourgeois luxuries, supported socialism over communism, allowed his lover and illegitimate son to live in poverty, criticized atheists and was apparently a deist. Although these ironies should not matter, one or more of them is a factor for some people's opposition to marxism and related forms. And yes its true, some of these same objections to communism apply to capitalism and democracy. Despite an ultimate moral rejection of communism, there are some things moral people find good about it. Its goals of eliminating class war, poverty, exploitation, and false religion for example. Economic factors did have a significant role in history; historians tended to ascribe less importance to this before the relative popularity of communism forced them to rethink this idea. Laissez-faire capitalism did promote a type of selfish and perverted individualism that lead to exploitation and poverty for many. In theory, communism from its very beginnings did not discriminate on race, nationality, sex, creed, or caste; membership was open to all. At it roots, communism is concerned about social justice where capitolism is definitely not. Communism is in fact the only government successfully formed (for a time) for the sole purpose of social justice. It had an extremely strong unity. Supporters of communism had a zeal and commitment to recruit more communists and create a better world that should put any moralist to shame.
The principles of the Bible would tend to agree with the moral opinions both negative and positive (see above). But specifically in Christianity, communism has been called "Christianity's most formidable rival" and "is the only serious rival to Christianity" when compared to all other faiths in the world. Communism purposes to use materialistic means to change the world in hopes of changing people. Jesus taught that people are powerless to do such and must rely instead on God to change their hearts. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." "what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person." "How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." - Jesus.
Specific Bible verses are thought by some to speak against communism :
Proverbs 1:10-19
1 Timothy 5.18
1 Corinthians 9:9
Colossians 3.22-4.1
1 Thes. 3.10-12
Matthew 10.10
Luke 10.7
Matthew 6.25-34
Deuteronomy 8.18
1 Peter 2.18
1 Timothy 6.1-10
Ephesians 6.5-9
Titus 2.9-14
Deuteronomy 25:4
Leviticus 19:13
Deuteronomy 24:15
1 Corinthians 9:7-14
Jeremiah 22:13[/url]

Modern welfare states are socialist (not communist, mind).

The opposition against socialism comes mostly from capitalist propaganda, and some of the flaws associated with socialism are actually more evident in capitalistic systems.

Popular tags

civilianprotagonist clickadventure communists parentprotagonist realprotagonist runandgun terrorists

Games by year

75777981838587899193959799010305070911131517 41230 A
1917 - October Revolution
1922 - Creation of the USSR
A1991 - Official Dissolution of the USSR

The first Socialist protagonist video game was released in 1975.

3909, monochrom and Buka published most of these games.

Platforms

Linux 10
Windows 2
NES 2
Altair 8800 1
Mac OS X 1
Apple II E 1