Yes but not for the reason you think. While the USSR still existed, countries like mine still had to show that they were better than it. That they could offer higher quality of life and that capitalism could be the superior system not just for the elites but the average person as well. That impetus is gone now.
this is a great dive into the whole mechanic incidentally https://web.archive.org/web/20250818144537/http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/046.html
Wow, I’ve never read much theory but it seems I’ve come to the same conclusions as Michael Parenti just by using the old noggin. Thanks for the link.
It’s always nice to get validated.
Yep, all funded through imperialism and neocolonialism too, which is also on the downhill.
True but again, I’m not sure that the average person in the former colonies benefits from this as they should. Being exploited by your fellow countrymen or global corporations instead of a colonial power offers no inherent improvements, after all.
Progress can only begin once the chains of imperialism are overthrown. The difference between domestic exploitation and international is where the resources and wealth go, in the country or outside it. Further, colonialism is largely gone, but imperialism and neocolonialism are very much still alive, even if they are dying away. That’s how the US Empire and Western Europe function.
I think the fall of Chilean cybernetics and Spanish anarchy are more significant factors. The role of the USSR as a symbol isn’t particularly unfulfilled with the likes of China and North Korea, imo. Beyond that it squandered its revolutionary potential too soon.
The more I learned about how the world actually works, the truer this became.
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First draft dark souls npc dialogue
“No, don’t look at it, noo, it’s unimportant, nooo, it doesn’t matter, noooo!”
It almost seems like you’re scared of people learning how the world actually works.
They prove that people would rather die in misery than admit they were wrong
And if there are some things in your life that don’t suck as badly as they could, you probably owe that to the USSR. Like if you’re not (yet) forced to work 75 hours a week:
Thank you!
Feel like shit, just want her back 😔💔 (“her” being the USSR)
The amount of the libshits invading the post proves the post.
I believe it would be better Stalin should’ve purged and executed all those wannabe bougies and succeeded by another ML instead.
Eh, if we’re playing this game it’s because the Arch-Duke of Austria Hungary’s driver didn’t know his way around Sarajevo.
That was just the catalyst for what was already long-predicted.
The fall of the USSR was predicted too… mostly by those responsible 😅
Not really, up to the very end it was seen as absurd that it would fall.
maybe fell a bit sooner and faster than expected, but surely the USA/UK etc. wouldn’t have employed sanctions, trade restrictions, and embargoes against the USSR if they didn’t expect it to work …
They expected it to have an impact, my point is that from within the USSR dissolution didn’t seem to be a real probability until the very end. It was killed by the Yeltsin faction, not unsustainability.
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Did you know that you can avoid exposing yourself being an ignoramus by simply not writing these idiotic comments?
As the world’s first socialist states, the USSR had many accomplishments.
The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning that still lasts to this day despite capitalism neglecting it. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.
Literacy rates, societal guarantees in the 1936 constitution, reports on the healthcare system over time, and more are good sources for these claims.
The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski’s Human Rights in the Soviet Union.
The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.
Death rates spiked:
And wealth disparity skyrocketed alongside the newly impoverished majority:
Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism and reintroduction of capitalism, and the large majority of post-soviet citizens regret its fall. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries.
When you look at the US Empire and western Europe as having higher quality of life than the USSR, you are looking at the benefits of imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism and wishing the USSR also practiced this, instead of helping liberate colonies and the global south. Russia in particular was a semi-feudal backwater in 1917, and made it to space 5 decades later. The USSR was not the picture of wealth, but was for its time the picture of development and rapid progress.
Capitalism brought with it […] lowered life expectancy.
But your first graph clearly shows life expectancy stagnating after the initial post-WW2 climb, and only climbing again post-collapse of the USSR?
It shows a slump, then a rise around 1985, when life expectancy began to climb again. It fell sharply after the dissolution of socialism, and began climbing once again after the western imperialists were kicked out and the nationalists took charge. Wealth distribution remains highly imbalanced, and much of societal ills remain, but kicking out the imperialists did manage to stop the absolute terror of the early 90s.
There was an increase up until 1970-ish, after which it stagnated. In western countries the life expectancy did better and kept rising. There’s a brief bump around 1985, right up until the fall of the Union (which crashed it). Still, it was only after the fall of the Union that life expectancy started rising again, well above the earlier figures that were achieved under the Union.
The stagnation was due to the so-called “cardiovascular revolution” (or rather the lack of one): treatments for many cardiovascular related diseases developed in the west, didn’t reach the Soviet Union well. The Union focused on more general diseases, which helped younger people. This, combined with the severe disbalance in age groups post-WW2, caused life expectancy to stagnate. Healthcare in the USSR wasn’t bad in general, just bad at dealing with diseases older people tend to get.
Traumas and injuries from WW2, plus a somewhat stagnating Soviet economy then saw a significant rise in alcoholism (which in turn causes liver and cardiovascular diseases, for which the treatments lagged behind). So much so that in the 80s they tried to limit access to alcohol (likely causing the brief rise around 1985). Post-collapse life expectancy again fell due to the economic hardship suffered.
The increase and gradual rise post-collapse is not due to “imperialists being kicked out by nationalists”, but due to a slowly improving economic situation (compared to the poor state immediately after the collapse) and most importantly: a slowly balancing age demographic and finally significant improvements in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases spreading through the former Soviet states.
Nothing you said really contradicts what I had said. Life expectancy did begin to climb before the dissolution of socialism, then it collapsed along with the dissolution of socialism, and then kicking out the western imperialists brought economic improvements that helped end the disastrous plundering. The nationalists managed to improve economic conditions by kicking out the plunderers.
You’re ignoring that life expectancy stagnated under the Soviets and primarily started rising post-collapse due to the spread of treatments for cardiovascular diseases. It’s why post collapse life expectancy finally rose above what the Soviet Union achieved. It’s why “lowered life expectancy” is an odd claim to make if it’s now higher than it ever was before. Short term, sure, but long term a higher life expectancy was reached.
Life expectancy rose towards the end before the dissolution of socialism. By all indication it was a temporary stall before climbing again. Capitalism brought with it sheer devastation, and it took a good deal of time to manage to recover to where they were before the dissolution. My point has never been that life expectancy cannot grow under capitalism, but that socialism brought with it a massive expansion while capitalism brought skyrocketing problems, many of which are still unresolved.
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I’d be so insulted by this if I had a shred of respect for you little fash.
Lol how’d you switch from sepirothposting to 9 hear old posting
The enemy is desperately raging, throwing weak insults, and begging for a ceasefire. Total victory.
I thought the USSR was nothing more than a state capitalist society like China is today?
State capitalism refers to economies where the state is heavily involved in capitalism, and private property is the principal aspect of the economy with the capitalist class in charge of the state. Both the USSR and PRC are socialist, public ownership was and is the principal aspect of their economies and the working classes control the state. An example of state capitalism is South Korea, not the USSR or PRC.
And pray tell, who told you this?
While USSR was not state capitalist, it did change vastly over time.
As a reminder, at the end even Mao was calling it socio imperialist shit (he was more verbose and polite, but still)
You didn’t answer my question
You never asked me any questions.
He’s asking you now.
And how can I possibly answer on behalf of the Pirate2377? I’m not their attorney.
Oh damn, my bad. I thought you were Pirate2377. Have a good day
Not really, Gorby did seem to be vaguely moving in that direction but not to the same extent as China did around when it was transitioning. The USSR right up until the end kept a command economy overseen by Gosplan, could be debated this is what helped kill it though.
You did get market activity on the small scale particularly around farmers markets etc & ofc the black market along with some small time business ventures but the overarching industrial economy never ceased being overseen by Gosplan & owned by various state run companies.
I’m gonna bet author of this post never lived anywhere near anywhere near actual USSR.
I get it, I hate capitalism too. But USSR was dictatorship that murdered milions and didn’t care about the little “you”. Stop glorifying authoritarian regimes.How many millions, what is your source for that figure, and how did you verify it?
I lived in Soviet Union. Kyrgyz Socialist Soviet Republic to be precise. And you?
I grew up in USSR, but do tell me more how terrible my life was.
100% serious and sincere question: could you say more about what growing up in the USSR was like?
One great thing was how safe it was. My parents just left me alone when they went to work, and I’d hang out with friends after school. Everything was really convenient as well cause all the things you needed were in walking distance. You didn’t even need public transit most of the time.
In summer, my family timeshared a coop dacha with a couple of other families and I’d hang out with their kids.
We only had a black and white TV though, even in the late 80s. And there weren’t a lot of shows to watch. But my parents got me reading at an early age, and I ended up loving sci-fi which is still my fav genre today.
There wasn’t any consumerism, and no ads blasted in your face. You didn’t buy stuff often, and things like clothing or gadgets all the time. Stuff was generally meant to last. There were no malls really either. There were a lot of parks though, and my parents really liked going for walks. So it’s another habit I’m glad I developed.
School was pretty intense. You had to juggle a bunch of subjects, and that was pretty tough.
Otherwise, life is just life.
First part of this is something I think the Soviets truly got right, city planning. Huge shame it was maligned after all the public run services were thrown to the dogs so the intertwined housing blocks then became increasingly shit.
It’s kind of funny how the whole 15 minute city idea that people keep talking about has been right there this whole time. Incidentally, China structures cities very much in a similar way as well. Everything is walkable there.
This literally just reads like what I hope my retirement will look like. I’m done with this consumerist hell. I just want some peace and hopefully my friends in close vicinity so we can visit each other and cook/bake things that we share over a cup of tea
Indeed, capitalist society has a drive to monetize every human interaction, and that’s just fucked. We need places to just hang out and be ourselves without being expected to constantly buy shit.
In summer, my family timeshared a coop dacha with a couple of other families and I’d hang out with their kids
Of course an affluent Russian family would remember USSR childhood foundly lol.
(Oh, sorry, no, it was called “lucky”, not “affluent”).
It was literal labour benefit vacation in state owned or coop resorts for which most of workforce was legible, which you would know if you actually read that one line instead of fixating over the word “dacha” like the pavlov’s dog fed on anticommunist propaganda.
And if you knew how to read both comments and statistics, you’d be able to tell that in the 80’s access to coop dachas had… What, from 3 m in 1970’s to 8 million families by the end of 80s - So about 5-12% of population? (Source: T.G. Nefedova’s 2012 article “Gorozhane i dachi”)
But no, instead you focus on your imagination that I must’ve mean luxury villas like in the 50s?
You clearly do, since from my memory (granted, from Poland, not USSR) i never met any worker or worker children who was not going to vacations yearly before 1989. So either Poland was vastly better than USSR or your article is shit, or the definition of “dacha” and “vacations” vastly vary.
Sounds more like the time you grew up in and less about where you grew up.
You could be describing my childhood in canada
Likely yeah, my family moved around a lot after the collapse. And that’s the main thing I noticed, people aren’t that different wherever you go. We all have the same needs and drives. We hang out with friends, do stuff to pass the time, go to school, work, etc. But there are some important differences that come from having guarantees in life. For example, nobody in USSR worried about losing their job and ending up on the street or not being able to retire in dignity. These were a category of thoughts that simply didn’t exist because these were considered to be inalienable human rights. Today, living in Canada, I always have the thought of what will happen if I lose my job in the back of my mind. It’s an ever present worry hanging over you. You can be making good money, and like you work, and then the company you work for could go out of business, or you can get laid off because some a spreadsheet didn’t line up the way investors want. I’d give anything to have the guarantees my parents had back in the Soviet days.
That gives me a much more meaningful idea of what you experienced. Thanks for doing that
Great, good for you. I grew up in one of USSR satellite states, and it sucked balls.
Poverty was widespread, and if you dared to complain you were disappeared.
Surprisingly, my life is not that bad now. If anything, I wish USSR had fallen sooner.Well, if it helps, sooner or later, all of the world will follow in the footsteps of the USSR. That part is inevitable. Only other alternative is complete ecological collapse and extinction.
Personally, I can’t wait for the socialist world to follow. I hope all the Western countries that refuse to embrace socialism stay in their capitalist hellscape and not start shit with the rest of the world
You said in other post that you grew up in post-communist country. Stop lying.
Tbf, pretty much all Soviet satellite states were/are post communist states.
But if they grew up in a post communist state their experience about USSR doesn’t hold, they didn’t live during USSR, they lived after it.
I’m sure there is some conflating going on with the fall of communism and the “shock therapy” after. Even if not, it’s not really like the 80s under Gorb were really what any left leaning person likes to recall when we think of the Soviet union.
Ah yes, the good old, fuck you I got mine. The fall of USSR meant that millions of people had their lives destroyed. But little scumbag here is doing fine.
Lol. You weren’t even born when the USSR fell
Uh huh, and Hamas beheaded 40 babies and Saddam Hussein was building nukes and Iran invisibly killed 40,000 protestors
Sure, and how does this relate to the topic? All of those are horrific, but that doesn’t make USSR’s abuses any better.
They’re all horrific fantasies, that was the point. None of them are true, yet you’re parroting them just like you’re parroting Red Scare mythos.
This mf thinks Hamas actually beheaded babies and Sadam was actually building nukes.
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The USSR wasn’t a utopia, but it was a better, more advanced form of society than capitalism. It was real.
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The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning that still lasts to this day despite capitalism neglecting it. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.
Literacy rates, societal guarantees in the 1936 constitution, reports on the healthcare system over time, and more are good sources for these claims.
The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski’s Human Rights in the Soviet Union.
The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.
Death rates spiked:
And wealth disparity skyrocketed alongside the newly impoverished majority:
Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism and reintroduction of capitalism, and the large majority of post-soviet citizens regret its fall. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries.
When you look at the US Empire and western Europe as having higher quality of life than the USSR, you are looking at the benefits of imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism and wishing the USSR also practiced this, instead of helping liberate colonies and the global south. Russia in particular was a semi-feudal backwater in 1917, and made it to space 5 decades later. The USSR was not the picture of wealth, but was for its time the picture of development and rapid progress.
I don’t really know what you mean by saying you aren’t opposed to socialism when you’re clearly following the Red Scare playbook.
“All those things the Nazis did are bad, but what does that have to do with the crimes of the Judeo-Bolsheviks?”
The same people who pinky swore that all the things I said are true are the same people who held a flashlight under their chin and told you about the scary USSR when you were a child. All these fairytales come from the same source, and believing any one of them is just as stupid as believing any other.
Stop letting the Epstein Empire tell you what to think about it’s enemies
Great, I however grew up in post-communist country and seen with my own eyes the fallout of it’s existence.
Exchanging one propaganda for another is just as bad. Fuck USA, but also fuck USSR. Both of those can be true.I however grew up in post-communist country and seen with my own eyes the fallout of it’s existence.
A footprint doesn’t describe the boot.
Nah, fuck the US. Not the USSR. Every American who has any level of worker protection should get on their knees and thank the USSR
“Anyone who loves freedom owes such a debt to the Red Army as can never be repaid”
-Hemingway
I however grew up in post-communist country and seen with my own eyes the fallout of it’s existence.
“I grew up during the feeding frenzy of capitalist pillaging that immediately followed the death of the Soviet Union and it sucked, so fuck communism for that.”
Bro what are you even saying. “I grew up in Hiroshima after the US nuked it and it sucked, so fuck Japan.” You grew up under capitalism, take up your issues with the rich western pedophiles who actually engineered them.
Ask an anticommunist to describe the horrors of communism, and every time…
Edit: I cannot wrap my head around this level of dumb bullshit.
"I grew up during the Spanish occupation with morion-clad assholes raping and pillaging everywhere, so I know how bad life was in Aztec Tenochitlan "
“I grew up with US bombs and napalm raining down of my family, so I know how horrible Communist Vietnam is”
“Psh, you think Indonesian society was acceptable? You should have seen how fucked up it was under Dutch colonial rule. Fuck the natives for that.”
Let’s hope children of this generation all over the world currently growing up with high oil prices are not as stupid as Liome and understand that it’s capitalist Usonia doing all of this.
Great, I however grew up in post-communist country and seen with my own eyes the fallout of it’s existence.
But you didn’t see the fallout of the USSR’s existence. You saw the fallout of its ceasing to exist.
Oh so you were just lying when you replied to me earlier. Can’t even keep your own bullshit straight in the same thread loser?
The dissolution of socialism and the reintroduction of capitalism was an economic disaster. What you’re blaming on socialism was in fact capitalism doing what capitalism does. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism and reintroduction of capitalism, and the large majority of post-soviet citizens regret its fall.
Death rates spiked:
And wealth disparity skyrocketed alongside the newly impoverished majority:
Just because two statements can be true does not mean any two statements must be true. The facts have shown that capitalism has been a disaster, and that a return to socialism is necessary for post-soviet states.
Why do you attribute to communism what you remember from growing up in a capitalist system?
So you saw how bad the fallout of it’s collapse was.
Exchanging one propaganda for another is just as bad. Fuck USA, but also fuck USSR
What other propaganda! The USSR doesn’t exist to put out propaganda, all you are getting is pro US propaganda.
Both of those can be true.
They can be but they aren’t
They are strawmannig you because u dared to talk bad about %200 socialist regime and our glorious leader Stalin.
Liome didn’t even talk bad of a socialist government.
Liome talked bad of a capitalist regime being sucked dry by another capitalist regime and likely moved to the capitalist regime that exploited her motherland, which she praises, and is about to fall apart from exploiting its own population.Oooooh eglin seems to be leaking in. No one mentioned Stalin, yet you immediately started the capitalist propaganda
No one mentioned Stalin, so clearly you’re lying
I know. I wouldn’t expect anything else from here. Just disappointing.
Then leave buddy?
You’re such a brave truth teller
Mate. That’s not what happened and you know it
we’ve got the least dishonest liberal on our hands here
But USSR was dictatorship that murdered milions and didn’t care about the little “you”. Stop glorifying authoritarian regimes.
“murdered millions” intentional? targeted? What millions are you talking about? Some policies were not that effective or maybe even wrong but the deaths were in most cases not intentional. Get some sources or at least hints to what you are talking about…
bro dont comment on these communities. it’s no use. nobody here listend to reason. i also agree that capitalism is bad, but is capitalism under a red flag and dictatorship really better?
You literally don’t even know the meaning of the words you’re using
Here’s the problem, you think “reason” is “whatever the Epstein empire told you about the people it’s afraid of”, and you’re talking to a bunch of people who have actually fact checked their bullshit.
We aren’t talking about Japan or Denmark, but the USSR, which was socialist and democratic.
when you definitely know what capitalism is
arguably my life would have sucked worse if USSR was a thing. not to mention all the infrastructure that was built and left in shambles
All of the infrastructure built and maintained by socialism, then neglected and crumbling under capitalism, is the problem of socialism? How?
The infrastructure is in shambles because the USSR fell and neoliberalism replaced it.
I don’t think you can read.
The infrastructure STARTED in shambles under communism. Do I also blame the execution of bookwriters, of scientists, of priests, of many people on “neoliberalism” too?
Or maybe do I blame the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes because the government back then wanted a building on neoliberalism? (P.S: it was the homes of ethnic minorities mainly! isn’t that sweet?)
Or maybe the forced labour camps if you didn’t do well enough in school/if you criticised the system/etc. I’m sure lots of neurodivergent people LOVED failing school due to things outside of their control, and instead of getting supports built in place and any form of aid, they got sent to dig and mine and farm.
Or maybe the forceful movement of populations from rural areas to urban centers and it’s consequences on agriculture. The examples are endless (might vary per country), you just gotta open a damn history book.
Or maybe waiting in line at 5am to get food, or the scheduled blackouts at 10pm, or maybe the closed borders. I’m sure these were great lovely aspects, right?
And before you misread again, I am not saying whatever the hell is going on now is perfect or does not do similar things. But you seem to be under the false impression that USSR was this nice little union, with it’s nice little system. It wasn’t, unfortunately.
Meanwhile I can look towards countries that were under capitalism in that same era, and it seems most of them are thriving (see: most of western Europe), whereas it’s only been the last decade or so eastern Europe has been getting a foothold.
So don’t tell me people sacrificed their lives against this system because it was too good and nice. People don’t go spilling their blood on the streets to change a system they like, do they?
The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning that still lasts to this day despite capitalism neglecting it. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.
Literacy rates, societal guarantees in the 1936 constitution, reports on the healthcare system over time, and more are good sources for these claims.
The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski’s Human Rights in the Soviet Union.
The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.
Death rates spiked:
And wealth disparity skyrocketed alongside the newly impoverished majority:
Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism and reintroduction of capitalism, and the large majority of post-soviet citizens regret its fall. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries.
When you look at the US Empire and western Europe as having higher quality of life than the USSR, you are looking at the benefits of imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism and wishing the USSR also practiced this, instead of helping liberate colonies and the global south. Russia in particular was a semi-feudal backwater in 1917, and made it to space 5 decades later. The USSR was not the picture of wealth, but was for its time the picture of development and rapid progress.
2 of your charts are the same
Oof ty
When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed
at least where I am from it seems the represeion and punishment was for anyone that was anti-communist. This includes anyone with left-leaning views.
Anyway, it seems that most of your comment does hold up. However, looking deeper into the why of the statistics, it kind of seems grim.
(Unless otherwise specified, I will be speaking of where I live)
For example, the rise of birth rates is owed to aggressive natalist policies, abortion bans, and legal discrimination against childless people. These resulted in a short-term population boom, and then in a massive decline due to many deaths caused by illegal abortions. I believe coercing people into having children, and not letting people have control over their bodies is messed up.
Another one: In the aftermath of an earthquake, a lot of monuments, historically significant buildins, and even an important railway station were set up for demolition. A lot of them were demolished, despite being in very good condition. Another tactic that was employed was intentional neglect and abandonment, to justify demolition.
A lot of growth did happen here though. But the debt had to be repaid, so rationalisation came into effect. This led into a massively lowered living standard, a lot of cut corners which were public hazards, and general discontent.
Towards the end of the regime, it grew more and more totalitarian, censorship was widespread, and any form of protest was stomped out. Arrests and terrorising of protesters & their families. And it all eventually culminated into a bloody revolution.
So yes, there were benefits, but as far as I seem to read from history, it was very hard to maintain, and it came at the cost of more and more social liberties.
Regarding punishing “left-leaning anti-communists,” opposition to socialism within socialism isn’t left in any capacity, but reactionary. Considering the intense siege placed on the USSR by the imperialist countries, and the lingering holdouts of prior ruling classes, this was taken incredibly seriously. Had they not done so, it’s likely they would have ended after mere years, rather than near a century.
As for abortion, I am really not sure what you’re talking about here. Abortion was fully legalized for the majority of the soviet union’s existence, and the eras where it was not so were seen as a mistake. More than abortion, however, what impacted birth rates were the dramatic and rapid industrialization, the folding of women into the workplace, and the impact of World War II.
As for the curbing of certain civil liberties, it’s important to ask why, and against who. States don’t restrict civil liberties for fun. The USSR, as previously mentioned, was in a massive state of siege by the west. As a consequence, it built up systems to defend its system internally and externally. It was never allowed the breathing room for “normal” development, like China comparatively is due to being connected to the global marketplace. Instead, the USSR was sanctioned and cordoned off. Reaction grew over time and overthrew socialism, resulting in the modern humanitarian crisis we see today.
Had socialism continued, steady improvements would have also continued, and the post-soviet countries would be in a far better position today. A return to socialism is the only path forward.
I whole-heartedly agree with socialism and replacing capitalism. I disagree with the notion that USSR and it’s satellite states implemented it properly. I wouldn’t want to live in a state that actively criminalised homosexuality, implemented anti-semitic policies in education, and did not allow (in practice) freedom of religion. Maybe if the USSR had the chance to cool down into actual socialism it wouldn’t have had the issues mentioned above. But looking at how things unfolded, it failed for a reason.
P.S: I do appreciate the actual sources, and upon some reading I did clear out some misconceptions I had about my country under soviet rule
The USSR implemented socialism successfully. The bumps it ran into along the way were bumps any socialist state would have to run into, especially the first set of socialist states. After all, it was socialism that ended famine, doubled life expectancies, went from squalid shacks for most people to functional apartments for all, and much more.
Re-criminalizing homosexuality was certainly a mistake, but was not especially repressive compared to peer countries. Moreover, this wasn’t particularly straightforward. The soviet union was still enormously socially progressive contextually, even if existing in siege did end up hampering that progress.
The USSR was also the opposite of anti-semitic. Anti-semitism was punishable by death. Moreover, Nazis and their sympathizers warned of “Judeo-Bolshevism,” as the soviet union fought heavily against the popular anti-semitism at the time. George Orwell in fact kept a list of Jews and communists, and was a professional snitch for the British government.
As for freedom of religion, it still existed in the USSR. The CPSU took an active stance against religion, as dialectical materialism leaves no room for religion, but one thing we did learn from the soviet experience is that you cannot force people out of religion. They have to develop out of it, though you can help that along. Still, the USSR had churches and existing religion, just preventing it from gaining a hold over society.
The USSR didn’t fail, it was dissolved from the top-down. The economy didn’t explode until after it dissolved. Nobody really believed it would dissolve until right before it did. It’s dissolution was not inevitable.
No worries on the sources, being a communist in the English-speaking world pretty much requires doing a good deal of research due to the sheer number of anti-communists.
Meanwhile I can look towards countries that were under capitalism in that same era, and it seems most of them are thriving (see: most of western Europe)
Your daily reminder that western liberals don’t consider non westerners to be people
Mfw mass killing campaigns by the US and colonial domination by Western europe during the cold war = thriving under capitalism 🫥
???
“Most” of the capitalist countries exist outside of western europe, yet you convieniently ignore them.
Because you think western Europe was "most’ of the capitalist world. Africa, India, and all the other places that very much were not thriving under capitalism don’t exist to you
Capitalism requires Infinite growth in a finite world which historically frequently leads to powerful capitalist countries competing for who can colonize and brutalize other countries and peoples in search for resources and new markets. Western capitalism is built on top of the bodies of those who aren’t western or benefiting from capitalism. Hence the claim you don’t consider us human, otherwise you’d consider that even though almost every country out there is capitalist most countries are extremely poor and overexploited.
I see.
My main point was limited to Europe and vicinity of the USSR. I did not mean for it to come off as dehumanising.
I am more than aware of the faults and harm or capitalism, I am aware of how colonialism wrecked anything in it’s path.
To clarify: I was trying to explain how my country was poor, exploited and abused under soviet rule. I was trying to point out how these things did not just magically start after a change of regime, and that they were not happening before.
Thank you for the clarification
I am more than aware of the faults and harm or capitalism, I am aware of how colonialism wrecked anything in it’s path.
Clearly you aren’t, if you think the prosperity of western Europe can be separated from the brutal exploitation it used to gain its wealth. Essentially saying “my main point was limited to plantation owners, I’m well aware how bad slavery was to the slaves”.
My main point was limited to Europe and vicinity of the USSR. I did not mean for it to come off as dehumanising.
Deciding to arbitrarily ignore the largest most sophisticated immiseration machine in history to only look at the benefits for the core of the empire is disingenuous at best and very clearly dehumanising to the millions who suffered so the core could enjoy those benefits.
You got mad at someone for not reading something you didn’t write. And then you started mashing the edit button for a running gish gallop. Absolutely unhinged behavior.
I edited a single thing which was the (P.S line). Please do tell me how that’s a mashing of the button.
And do tell me how presenting a list of items & examples of the USSR failings is “gish gallop”?
And do tell me how presenting a list of items & examples of the USSR failings is “gish gallop”?
I don’t think you can read. You replied to a comment that said a single thing about a single subject: the condition of soviet infrastructure AT THE TIME IT WAS BUILT
You are observably an extremely unhinged and extremely stupid person.
You hate infrastructure?
i hate not having proper infrastructure. Do you love shit infrastructure?
Capitalist invaders neglected your infrastructure, but you said it’d be worse if the socialist state still maintained them.
But also, you hate neglected infrastructure.
Therefore, my logical conclusion is that you hate functioning infrastructure even more.
(Or one of your statements is wrong, which would make way more sense)
Upon further reading, it does seem I was mistaken in saying that the infrastructure built was miserable. However, in my case, it started spiraling downwards long before the capitalism took over.
So the socialists built your infrastructure. And the capitalists stole it and never repaired it. And you lived only during the time where infrastructure was neglected by capitalists.
But if the same infrastructure were under socialism, then, you assume that they also wouldn’t repair it. Therefore, the infrastructure would be the same in your what-if scenario as in real history.
But that would be worse somehow?
in my case, it started spiraling downwards long before the capitalism took over.
Wow first 60+ year old Lemmy user
not 60+, just meant to say “in the case of my country”
Lmfao. Bro, pack it up. You’re either a fed or a bootlicker
Stalinists: “this or none.”
