The (reletively) good Communist leaders.

[SicN Twisted]

My favorite Marxist leader of all time was Dubcek, the leader of Communist Czechoslovakia. He initiated the Prague Spring, which was the best thing to happen to Soviet style socialism, and actually managed to maintain a socialist state where people are allowed to voice their concerns and say a say in what goes on in their government. Dubcek completely ended state censorship of literature and released thousands of political prisoners. He called it "socialism with a human face." Unfortunately, the Soviet bureaucrats couldn't deal with any sort of democracy and sent in their tanks to crush the Prague Spring and revert the country back to an oppressive dictatorship. Dubcek later became a democratic socialist and was the elected president of Slovakia.

I also like Tito alot, he managed to be independent of the soviet union and allow to reletive amount of freedom to his people. Fidel Castro was also pretty cool - he does imprison desenters, but many less then alot of American allies, and he's actually kept his revolution alive and didn't corrupt it like China.

People like Dubcek are good examples about how Marxism is actually a humanistic ideology, and nutbals like Stalin, Mao and WHeelchair man should be able to give it a bad name.

[sKratch]

The question is, are there any communist leaders that are absolutely (not relatively) good? The same could be said for any system, of course.

[wheelchairman]

Personally I have a lot of respect for Walter Ulbricht (this is before the Wall right now), he sent Beriya packing when Beriya had come to organize a purge in DDR.

Fidel is cool as hell. Allende I can't believe was forgotten. I'll say Mao and Lenin knowing I'm on my own with those two. In a way you could argue for Hugo Chavez, I am satisfied with what he's doing.

W.E.B. Du Bois and Huey P. Newton kick ass. (Communist Leaders inside American).

And that's all I can think of for now.

[HornyPope]

Tukhachevsky!

[SicN Twisted]

Allende wasn't a communist, he was a democratic socialist with marxist leaning. Every developement he made for Chile was done within democratic process, not violent revolution. Hugo Chavez is not a real communist either - that would be like saying Robert Mugabe is a communist. These are just leaders who refer to themselves as socialists but their policies do not live up to the name. Fidel would be cool if he'd only release all those prisoners of conscience.

[The Cheshire Cat]

I'm not sure if you could count Allende anyway, because he was overthrown by a military coup pretty soon after he took office, so it's difficult to say exactly what he would have done.

[wheelchairman]

Allende considered himself a Marxist, and I have seen nothing to prove otherwise. (Revolution through election is not un-Marxist.) Chavez is definitely a socialist, whether Marxist or not, I have not read enough about him to say. However I do think he is a good leader, and hardly comparable to Robert Mugabe. Who did claim to be a socialist leader at one point (or at least his party did.)

[thistissam]

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[wheelchairman]

Spam somewhere else child.

[SicN Twisted]

Allende was a leader in a system in which he had to convince his people that socialism is the way to go because they had the option of voting right wing capitalists into office if he didn't meet their needs. This is inherently anti Communist, since leaders of communist revolutions ruled one party dictatorships and barred the people from having any way to challenge them.