Guys like yeltsin and gorby being able to rise through the party ranks screams incompetency to me. Even khruschev taking over screams incompetency.
But then again, only socialists goverments are under constant attempts to getting toppled by external agents, capitalist states have had plenty of incompetent people in charge yet theyre not under constant siege.
It was complicated. Krushev, and later Gorbachev’s reforms really weakened the Socialist system because they didn’t properly retain strong control of the larger firms and heavy industry (a lesson the CPC took to heart), however the CIA and really the US absolutely worked tirelessly to weaken it. The Soviets also had to spend a much larger portion of their production on the millitary in order to keep parity with the US, meaning that development rates began to slow.
The US played a part, I outright stated that it was a complicated situation made more complicated by having the world’s largest Empire, the US, permanently hostile and putting nukes on their doorstep.
The reforms didn’t just allow for “political dissent,” they worked against the Socialist system, that was based on central planning. Rather than running in a more efficient manner, it ran against itself.
Further, nobody says the Soviet Union was a “worker’s paradise.” It had tremendous strides for workers, but it wasn’t perfect by any means.
The Soviet Union wasn’t a dictatorship. Read Soviet Democracy. It lasted as long as it did because it had tremendous GDP growth while lowering wealth disparity, free and high quality education and healthcare, doubled health expectancies, full employment, and over tripled literacy rates to 99.9%.
The Soviet Union was, if not a traditional dictatorship, absolutely a totalitarian autocracy. Stalin was a brutal dictator and his successors were chosen by the communist party. Elections in the USSR were for show.
Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people. The USSR’s implementation of communism was so bad, it’s become cliche.
The Soviet Union wasn’t a dictatorship. Read Soviet Democracy. It lasted as long as it did because it had tremendous GDP growth while lowering wealth disparity, free and high quality education and healthcare, doubled health expectancies, full employment, and over tripled literacy rates to 99.9%.
Yep. Democracy doesn’t mean “choose between parties,” it’s about the actual impact you can have on policy. More people in China feel that they have a voice in politics than people in the US, despite the US having 2 parties.
Choosing between parties is arguably less democratic because in many countries with such a system, like the USA, you basically just have corporations/corporate media choosing the candidates, so your “choice” is between corporate candidates, so corporations always win. There is no option to reject the nominee entirely, while in China’s system you can reject the nominee. you can just straight up veto candidates.
Westerners often also look at the very end of the process and ignore everything leading up to it. They will say “there’s only one candidate on the ballot!” as proof it’s undemocratic (even though this happens all the time in the US too…). But this ignores the entire democratic process leading up to how the candidate gets on the ballot in the first place. In Cuba for example, candidates getting on the ballot is a two-year long process resulting from local elections and meetings with mass organizations, but they ignore this entire process and just focus on the final election at the very end.
Regarding the impact you make, ppl you vote for can be undemocratically removed from the party by party leadership at any time and therefore must comply fully with the will of the party.
Btw, Kalinin’s (the head of the state) wife was held hostage in prison camp by Stalin (party leader). I guess that says as much about great Soviet democracy.
The USSR’s implementation of communism was so bad, it’s become cliche.
So bad that after the fall of the Soviet Union, its former republics all had an immediate, sustained downturn in their quality of life, and a corresponding uptick in mortality.
You are being presented with sources for the claims disproving you, but your anticommunism is clearly more important to you than engaging with actual rvidence.
No, that isn’t what dissent is, it was a fundamental liberalization of the economy that favored private property over public.
Secondly, they absolutely chose their leaders.
Finally, you say life expectancy, literacy rates, and worker rights “don’t matter?” That strong, sustained economic growth doesn’t matter? You must be trolling.
As for distrusting the sources, you can look into them yourselves, they are well-respected.
Glasnost allowed for liberalism to expand as an ideology, sure, alongside other reforms that weakened the economy and erased its foundations. You can’t cherry-pick the reforms to make it seem like the system worked poorly and only was dissolved because the “people had a choice.” In fact, most post-Soviet citizens regret the fall of Socialism and prefer it over Capitalism.
We were debating a great many things, one of which being the economy and the well-being of the people, because that helps explain why it was democratic.
Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan is quite literally used as a reference on the Wikipedia article for Soviet Democracy. You are incapable of being honest or looking at facts that disprove you because you care more about appearing morally righteous than being correct.
Healthcare? Doesn’t matter.
Education? Literacy? Reading is how the communist get you, remain illiterate.
Full employment? You don’t need to feed your family.
Life expectancy? Why prolong the suffering?
Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.
A lot of the cold war propaganda about the USSR turned out to be bullshit, now that US & Soviet archives have been released, as contemporary Western academic historians will tell you, like Domenico Losurdo and Grover Furr.
Do you really believe that we could have retained power and have had the backing of the vast masses for 14 years by methods of intimidation and terrorization? No, that is impossible. The tsarist government excelled all others in knowing how to intimidate. It had long and vast experience in that sphere. The European bourgeoisie, particularly the French, gave tsarism every assistance in this matter and taught it to terrorize the people. Yet, in spite of that experience and in spite of the help of the European bourgeoisie, the policy of intimidation led to the downfall of Tsarism.
How exactly is USSR succeeded by PRC? And how exactly 70 years is not pathetic if history has countless countries that existed for many centuries and some even existed for several millenia? Egypt existed for like 3000 years. I guess absolute monarchy is just that better than communism
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Guys like yeltsin and gorby being able to rise through the party ranks screams incompetency to me. Even khruschev taking over screams incompetency.
But then again, only socialists goverments are under constant attempts to getting toppled by external agents, capitalist states have had plenty of incompetent people in charge yet theyre not under constant siege.
It was complicated. Krushev, and later Gorbachev’s reforms really weakened the Socialist system because they didn’t properly retain strong control of the larger firms and heavy industry (a lesson the CPC took to heart), however the CIA and really the US absolutely worked tirelessly to weaken it. The Soviets also had to spend a much larger portion of their production on the millitary in order to keep parity with the US, meaning that development rates began to slow.
Oh, so US is guilty in the collapse of USSR bc US were just that good that USSR need to overexert itself to keep parity with them.
The US played a part, I outright stated that it was a complicated situation made more complicated by having the world’s largest Empire, the US, permanently hostile and putting nukes on their doorstep.
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The reforms didn’t just allow for “political dissent,” they worked against the Socialist system, that was based on central planning. Rather than running in a more efficient manner, it ran against itself.
Further, nobody says the Soviet Union was a “worker’s paradise.” It had tremendous strides for workers, but it wasn’t perfect by any means.
The Soviet Union wasn’t a dictatorship. Read Soviet Democracy. It lasted as long as it did because it had tremendous GDP growth while lowering wealth disparity, free and high quality education and healthcare, doubled health expectancies, full employment, and over tripled literacy rates to 99.9%.
Read Blackshirts and Reds.
The Soviet Union was, if not a traditional dictatorship, absolutely a totalitarian autocracy. Stalin was a brutal dictator and his successors were chosen by the communist party. Elections in the USSR were for show.
Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people. The USSR’s implementation of communism was so bad, it’s become cliche.
People like you should be forced to live under conditions like Tsarist Russia.
“Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people”, said the romanovs.
Were they wrong?
Allow me to repeat myself:
It was one party democracy lol.
Yep. Democracy doesn’t mean “choose between parties,” it’s about the actual impact you can have on policy. More people in China feel that they have a voice in politics than people in the US, despite the US having 2 parties.
Choosing between parties is arguably less democratic because in many countries with such a system, like the USA, you basically just have corporations/corporate media choosing the candidates, so your “choice” is between corporate candidates, so corporations always win. There is no option to reject the nominee entirely, while in China’s system you can reject the nominee. you can just straight up veto candidates.
Westerners often also look at the very end of the process and ignore everything leading up to it. They will say “there’s only one candidate on the ballot!” as proof it’s undemocratic (even though this happens all the time in the US too…). But this ignores the entire democratic process leading up to how the candidate gets on the ballot in the first place. In Cuba for example, candidates getting on the ballot is a two-year long process resulting from local elections and meetings with mass organizations, but they ignore this entire process and just focus on the final election at the very end.
Regarding the impact you make, ppl you vote for can be undemocratically removed from the party by party leadership at any time and therefore must comply fully with the will of the party.
Btw, Kalinin’s (the head of the state) wife was held hostage in prison camp by Stalin (party leader). I guess that says as much about great Soviet democracy.
So bad that after the fall of the Soviet Union, its former republics all had an immediate, sustained downturn in their quality of life, and a corresponding uptick in mortality.
I wonder what Novocherkassk workers think about Soviet democracy
Bit of a non-sequitor, I could bring up Kent State and use that to say the US isn’t a democracy. The US has a far worse track record than the Soviets.
Soviets have civil war with 6 million losses in their track record lol. I’d like to see what USA has to compete with that.
Numerous mass killings and/or genocides in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guatemala, East Timor, Cambodia, and much, much more.
I thought we were talking about US/USSR killing their own civilians…
And wtf with Cambodia? It was communists who killed 3 million ppl there
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You are being presented with sources for the claims disproving you, but your anticommunism is clearly more important to you than engaging with actual rvidence.
No investigation, no right to speak.
No, that isn’t what dissent is, it was a fundamental liberalization of the economy that favored private property over public.
Secondly, they absolutely chose their leaders.
Finally, you say life expectancy, literacy rates, and worker rights “don’t matter?” That strong, sustained economic growth doesn’t matter? You must be trolling.
As for distrusting the sources, you can look into them yourselves, they are well-respected.
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Glasnost allowed for liberalism to expand as an ideology, sure, alongside other reforms that weakened the economy and erased its foundations. You can’t cherry-pick the reforms to make it seem like the system worked poorly and only was dissolved because the “people had a choice.” In fact, most post-Soviet citizens regret the fall of Socialism and prefer it over Capitalism.
Read Soviet Democracy.
We were debating a great many things, one of which being the economy and the well-being of the people, because that helps explain why it was democratic.
Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan is quite literally used as a reference on the Wikipedia article for Soviet Democracy. You are incapable of being honest or looking at facts that disprove you because you care more about appearing morally righteous than being correct.
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Healthcare? Doesn’t matter.
Education? Literacy? Reading is how the communist get you, remain illiterate.
Full employment? You don’t need to feed your family.
Life expectancy? Why prolong the suffering?
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Declassified CIA report:
A lot of the cold war propaganda about the USSR turned out to be bullshit, now that US & Soviet archives have been released, as contemporary Western academic historians will tell you, like Domenico Losurdo and Grover Furr.
Stalin:
Exactly, and this didn’t last for 14 years, but nearly the entire 20th century, and is succeeded by other AES countries like the PRC.
Yeah, not 14 years, but 70 or so. Still pathetic.
Not at all, plus they are succeeded, like I said, by other AES states like the PRC.
How exactly is USSR succeeded by PRC? And how exactly 70 years is not pathetic if history has countless countries that existed for many centuries and some even existed for several millenia? Egypt existed for like 3000 years. I guess absolute monarchy is just that better than communism