I’d even replace communism with socialism. Since it’s also vilified in the US, but it’s a broader term which is, to me, more relevant nowadays.
What do you mean? Socialism is generally just the process of building Communism.
There exists socialist theory outside of marxism-leninism
Yes, there does, but the idea of a Socialism that would not eventually work itself towards Communism is silly, that assumes a stagnant system that cannot advance.
Well I’d say communism is a type of socialism, where the latter is the ideal to strive for a better society for everyone, to intervene to help those who cannot help themselves. Communism tries to achieve this goal by making the means of production into communal ownership. With the State enforcing strict wealth equality. But it’s still socialism with economic inequality at the beginning but fair and strong wealth redistribution in the end: equity.
This isn’t really accurate. Socialism is the domination of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, ie worker ownership of the Means of Production, and the path towards Communism, an eventual stateless, classless, moneyless society.
Are you familiar with Communist theory? Equity isn’t the goal, fulfilling everyone’s needs is.
I consider myself a socialist/leftist and my primary concern right now is not to dominate the bourgeoisie. It’s mainly to get them to stop tax evasion so we can fund our public schools and hospitals. And if they could stop voting for candidates who are in coalition with the far right that’d be nice too!
That’s Social Democracy, ie what the Nordic Countries are, not Socialism and not Leftism.
Oh boy I’m no social democrat. A radical socialist if you prefer. You can have radical ideas like ending capitalism or taxing inheritance to 100% while still being for democracy and not being a revolutionary.
All of the policies you described were those of Social Democrats, though. Additionally, Revolutionary Socialists are still for Democracy, just not bourgeois democracy, which makes Socialism impossible.
Downvote spam report: 1/4th of the downvotes on this one (so far) are from zero-content accounts.
zero-content accounts
🙄
Again with this. Just for context, how many of the upvotes are zero-content accounts?
Who could have done this
Interesting. How do you find that out?
Admins can see voting patterns.
Admins can see who upvotes and downvotes, I’m pretty sure.
Removed by mod
Communism works and has worked for thousands of years. People thrive when their needs are met. It’s authoritarianism that doesn’t work
When do you call a system “Communist” and when do you call it “Authoritarian?” Early-human “communism” isn’t what Communists advocate for, instead Communists advocate for moving beyond Capitalism.
authoritarianism has worked for thousands of years.
just because the system isn’t working for you doesn’t mean it’s not working
Depends on the goal doesn’t it?
Authoritarianism archives incredible luxury and comfort for a very small portion of people.
Communism archives collective well being and minimized suffering.
Tell this to the people from the former USSR/Eastern Block. I’m not saying communism can’t work in any way, but I am saying that, at least historically, it has not worked.
The vast majority of Eastern Europeans wished the USSR never dissolved. Furthermore, the vast majority of people voted to retain the USSR, then it was dissolved anyways.
Why do you say “historically it has not worked,” then vaguely gesture towards people who believe it very much did work better than their current Capitalism?
You mean the vote that was boycotted by 6 of the 15 soviet occupied countries due to how it was phrased among other things? There was no independence option in the referendum, just how should the USSR be preserved.
Also most of the Easter European countries voted to declare independence shortly after.
I was around 20 at the time and in one of the boycotting countries. We later had a vote for independence, I think the support was around 80% or 90%.
You mean the vote that was boycotted by 6 of the 15 soviet occupied countries due to how it was phrased among other things? There was no independence option in the referendum, just how should the USSR be preserved.
The graphic shows that. It’s true that at the time, the vast majority of people voted to retain it, and the vast majority of people wish it never dissolved, which is why I included both metrics.
Also most of the Easter European countries voted to declare independence shortly after.
Crucially, Gorbachev and Yeltsin had been liberalizing and destroying the USSR from within, like the creation of a secondary Presidential position that stood against the centralized system and overly beauracratized it. The coup of 1991 further lost people’s faith in the government and they seceded, but they did not get to vote on being Socialist or not in the aftermath.
Then came Shock Therapy and roughly 7 million deaths due to the adoption of Capitalism against the will of the people.
I was around 20 at the time and in one of the boycotting countries. We later had a vote for independence, I think the support was around 80% or 90%.
Based on what you’ve told me about yourself, you may want to look at the figure again, but I won’t dox you.
Yea, the first link was just how people felt like a while ago when a lot of ex soviet countries were still struggling over a decade ago. That would make sense too, if an economic union collapses your country is fucked for a while. Like if the EU collapsed it would have even more severe consequences and any poll would give similar results for decades to come.
I don’t know why they would vote for socialism suddenly during the votes for independence. If Russia couldn’t do that with 60 years of killing, imprisoning, slaving and deporting political dissidents, artists, scientists, gays, jews and people not ethnically russian than a referendum for independence ain’t gonna make socialism happen either. I guess giving people the ability to vote was rather new but yea, it didn’t make socialism happen either.
Yea, the first link was just how people felt like a while ago when a lot of ex soviet countries were still struggling over a decade ago.
Communism and Socialism are still more preferred than Capitalism for the majority of ex-soviets.
That would make sense too, if an economic union collapses your country is fucked for a while. Like if the EU collapsed it would have even more severe consequences and any poll would give similar results for decades to come.
Depends, if the EU shifts to Socialism it will probably repeat polling in AES states with mass popular support, what you’re describing would probably happen if it collapsed into fascism or barbarism.
I don’t know why they would vote for socialism suddenly during the votes for independence.
During the independence votes, the only indicator was that the State would become independent, not that it would become Capitalist. Where are you getting the idea that Socialism was unpopular?
If Russia couldn’t do that with 60 years of killing, imprisoning, slaving and deporting political dissidents, artists, scientists, gays, jews and people not ethnically russian than a referendum for independence ain’t gonna make socialism happen either.
Killing and imprisoning fascists was a good thing. I don’t know what you mean by “make Socialism happen,” it was already Socialist. They wanted to keep Socialism. Additionally, Double Genocide Theory is Nazi apologia and ahistorical. Same with the idea that the USSR was “enslaving people.”
An Anarchist carrying water for the Nazis, color me surprised.
An ML not knowing what double genocide theory is is equally unsurprising. It’s the claim that the USSR committed atrocities to a similar scale as the nazies. I never even mentioned the nazies.
Many gulags were forced labor camps, also known as slavery.
Furthermore, the vast majority of people voted to retain the USSR
Wow, you’re telling me the people who were brainwashed into believing their country is the best (not saying it doesn’t happen nowadays (cough cough USA), voted to retain it?
In my country (Romania) the only point I hear people praising the communist regime about is infrastructure. Why? Because, as it turns out, it’s much easier to build infrastructure when you have
slavesprisoners which you don’t have to pay. Of course, the corruption in our post-communist government doesn’t help either.I agree, capitalism is VERY far from ideal, but, please, stop glazing the USSR regime just because it was “communist”.
Wow, you’re telling me the people who were brainwashed into believing their country is the best (not saying it doesn’t happen nowadays (cough cough USA), voted to retain it?
“Brainwashing” narratives are false, thought-terminating cliches. The people supported the economic system that had free healthcare and education, doubled life expectancies, dramatic improvements in science, made it to space, rapidly industrialized, and dramatically reduced inequality. The idea that they were simply “brainwashed” is an idealist, anti-materialist analysis.
In my country (Romania) the only point I hear people praising the communist regime about is infrastructure. Why? Because, as it turns out, it’s much easier to build infrastructure when you have
slavesprisoners which you don’t have to pay. Of course, the corruption in our post-communist government doesn’t help either.Even prisoners were paid in the USSR for forced labor, this is ahistorical.
I agree, capitalism is VERY far from ideal, but, please, stop glazing the USSR regime just because it was “communist”.
I don’t glaze the USSR, I dispel lies and myths about it in defense of Actually Existing Socialism.
The people supported the economic system that had free healthcare and education, doubled life expectancies, dramatic improvements in science, made it to space, rapidly industrialized, and dramatically reduced inequality.
Free healthcare still exists in all developed countries other than the US, life expectancies increased all over the world same with improvements in science, the space race was very close between the USSR and the US and the moon landing is very often brought up by US nationalists as well. I would say the industrialization was actually a bit too fast, people were, sometimes forcefully, relocated from rural areas to concrete boxes in cities. As for inequality, yes, there were no billionaires, and, while the quality of life for the poorest was maybe higher than it is today, I’d say the quality of life for average people was lower during communist time.
Even prisoners were paid in the USSR for forced labor, this is ahistorical.
While this may have been true at the beginning, later on, there were no wages. Still, conditions were very poor.
Those Capitalist concessions are weakening in Social Democracies, and were only ever brought about by fear of revolt. The USSR paved the way for it.
Of course, there were good things which came out of the communist regime, but I wouldn’t say that “it worked”.
communism always fails because it’s authoritarian, that’s the same reason the west, the east and everything else will fall
Ah yes it was the CIA that did the Holodomor
Famines were common occurrence before the revolution, and were in fact a major driver behind it. USSR doubled life expectancy in just 20 years. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years. By the 1960’s, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union
- https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html
Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition:
During the 1932 Holodomor Famine, the USSR sent aid to affected regions in an attempt to alleviate the famine. According to Mark Tauger in his article, The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933:
While the leadership did not stop exports, they did try to alleviate the famine. A 25 February 1933 Central Committee decree allotted seed loans of 320,000 tons to Ukraine and 240,000 tons to the northern Caucasus. Seed loans were also made to the Lower Volga and may have been made to other regions as well. Kul’chyts’kyy cites Ukrainian party archives showing that total aid to Ukraine by April 1933 actually exceeded 560,000 tons, including more than 80,000 tons of food
Some bring up massive grain exports during the famine to show that the Soviet Union exported food while Ukraine starved. This is fallacious for a number of reasons, but most importantly of all the amount of aid that was sent to Ukraine alone actually exceeded the amount that was exported at the time.
Aid to Ukraine alone was 60 percent greater than the amount exported during the same period. Total aid to famine regions was more than double exports for the first half of 1933.
According to Tauger, the reason why more aid was not provided was because of the low harvest
It appears to have been another consequence of the low 1932 harvest that more aid was not provided: After the low 1931, 1934, and 1936 harvests procured grain was transferred back to peasants at the expense of exports.
Tauger is not a communist, and ultimately this specific article takes the view that the low harvest was caused by collectivization (he factors in the natural causes of the famine in later articles, based on how he completely neglects to mention weather in this article at all its clear that his position shifted over the years). However, its interesting to see that the Soviets really did try to alleviate the famine as best as they could.
To be clear, that was authoritarianism, not communism.
When does a Communist country become authoritarian? This line is always repeated by sympathetic liberals that haven’t read theory yet think they know enough to judge Leftist movements.
It’s a problem of psychology and scale. The communist system becomes susceptible to bad actors the larger the group becomes.
In point of fact: I fully agree that many Latin countries, absent US bullshittery, intervention, and fomenting of coups in the first Cold War, would probably mostly have wound up being successful.
But I absolutely do not agree that the USSR or the PRC should be held up as paragons of virtue of what a Communist system should be. They were very quickly corrupted by authoritarian leaders and cliques from the get go, which is genuinely antithetical to true communism.
It’s a problem of psychology and scale. The communist system becomes susceptible to bad actors the larger the group becomes.
How? What makes it more susceptible in ways that Capitalism is better?
In point of fact: I fully agree that many Latin countries, absent US bullshittery, intervention, and fomenting of coups in the first Cold War, would probably mostly have wound up being successful.
Cuba is doing pretty well despite the brutal embargo.
But I absolutely do not agree that the USSR or the PRC should be held up as paragons of virtue of what a Communist system should be. They were very quickly corrupted by authoritarian leaders and cliques from the get go, which is genuinely antithetical to true communism.
No, they were not. This is vibes-based analysis mixed with Red-Scare propaganda. The USSR and the PRC were both Socialist (and the PRC remains so to this day). What do you mean by them being “quickly corrupted by authoritarian leaders?” You mean that they elected the wrong leaders in your eyes, that they should have gone against democracy?
Inequality shot far down in the USSR, and the Working Class was in control. That was absolutely Communism in action, regardless of your vibes-based analysis. Obviously many things also went wrong, they all had their struggles, but they were actually existing Socialism and should be analyzed as such.
I highly suggest reading Blackshirts and Reds.
Ah, communism is like unicorns. Many people like them but nobody have seen them alive. Because every communist state is not communist but authoritarian.
The endless “that wasn’t Communism, it was authoritarianism” lines come from liberals sympathetic to the ideas behind liberalism, but who have not read theory nor truthfully examined AES states. No more, no less.
aUthOriTarIaN
Actually yeah, I think just about every so called communist state is what would be called a failed workers state by the non authoritarian socialists.
And those “non-authoritarian socialists” are liberals.
Trotskist.
Ah, Trots. Spending more time splintering among themselves and refusing to work together to actually get anything done since Trotsky himself.
