Ah yes, life was just a peach for ppl living behind the iron curtain for the bulk of the 20th century.
Overall it was indeed pretty good, and got significantly worse after the dissolution of socialism and restoration of capitalism.
Was it peach for others?
Compared to where they were, their progress was quite cool. Their revolution also motivated a lot of the anticolonial movements.
To be fair, I’m not endorsing capitalism. Capitalism is the 21st century blight as communism was in the 20th.
Socialism was never a blight, while capitalism in the 20th century absolutely was, and had already reached the imperialist stage.
I can get onboard with socialism. I understand the need to have a strong social safety net. But many here seem to be falsely conflating socialism and communism.
Socialism isn’t safety nets, it’s a mode of production characterized by public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy with the working class in control of the state. Communism is a post-socialist mode of production by which all of production and distribution have been collectivized, are oriented towards satisfying the needs of everyone, and the state, class, and money have withered away. States like the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, the former USSR, etc are socialist, not communist yet, even if most of those are governed by communist parties.
How can you not know what socialism is if you’re gonna bark all fucking day long about it? How sad are you?
straight up nazi shit
Removed by mod
The majority of people who lived in the USSR want it back. This is increasing over time, a desire for socialism is on the rise, especially in Russia and Belarus.
So, uh, did communism work for them?
Socialism did work in the USSR, yes. They doubled life expectancies, ended famine, passed prison reforms, dramatically expanded democracy, nearly eliminated homelessness, transformed a semi-feudal backwater into a modernized industrial country, passed free universal healthcare and education, and plenty more. There were problems and struggles, and obviously it no longer exists, but socialism absolutely worked for the soviets for neaerly a full century.
The dissolution of socialism in Eastern Europe was multi-faceted and complex, and had more to do with conditions particular to the soviets as compared to universal to socialism. Today, the CPRF is rising in popularity and is the most significant opposition to United Russia, and the majority of Russians wish to return to socialism.
It was socialism and yes it worked tremendously considering the fact that they sacrificed 20M+ lives in WW2 and were subject of western imperialism forcing them to spend most resources on the cold war
Yeah, right up until the US successfully ruined it as usual
My confusion is why collapse back to capitalism?
Let’s start with some axioms. There is a continuum of stages of human societal progression with socialism following after capitalism. Under socialism the workers run the state. USSR socialism was great for the worker.
Given the axioms, why would the USSR decide to create a capitalist class again?
The USSR’s results in the face of outside pressure were great however. Why buckle after putting up such a fight?
Why can struggle against external power move human societal progression backwards?
The USSR didn’t “decide” to do so, it was couped and hollowed out by Yeltsin and co. These are the new “oligarchs.” While the economy had started to slow, the combination of the devastation of World War II resulted in the deaths of 27 million soviets, many of which were some of the most dedicated to socialism and defending it. This was also combined with growing nationalist movements, often supported by the west. This complicated mish mash gave favorable conditions for a coup, despite popular support for retaining the soviet union.
On the spaceflight note, it’s rather sad that the Soviets harassed and imprisoned Yuri Kondratyuk since his work was vital in the moon landing and orbital mechanics in general.
If his work in space flight was supported and not repeatedly crushed by authorities, the USSR might’ve landed on the moon first. Instead, he was imprisoned by the NVKD for some of his engineering designs (for “sabotage” of not using nails, which is a dumb thing on its own).
And eventually, he gave all his aerospace notes to a friend to smuggle them out of the country because he feared the govt would accuse him of treason like they had Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (the guy who made Sputnik 1).
The Soviets could have won the space race, if it weren’t for the “authoritarianism” you’re trying to make light of
The Soviets could have won the space race
A) that’s actually good meme haha
B) the space race ended when the US landed on the moon, if you run a 5k and get to 4.9k ahead of everyone but then don’t cross the finish line, you’ve still lost the race
Anyway the point of my comment wasn’t “the US beat the Soviets because they’re authoritarian” it was “the Soviets had everything they needed to absolutely dominate space travel but their authoritarianism hindered their scientific progress significantly”
B) the space race ended when the US landed on the moon, if you run a 5k and get to 4.9k ahead of everyone but then don’t cross the finish line, you’ve still lost the race
Im not sure how to explain to you that if youre the one declaring what the goal is, you essentially declare yourself the winner. If I declare that the first person to be in space is the winner of the space race, the UDSSR won? It’s what the meme is hinting at
the Soviets had everything they needed to absolutely dominate space travel but their authoritarianism hindered their scientific progress significantly
A) every single state in this planet is authoritarian. What matters is the class character. Read this: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
B) habe you considered that the reason the Soviet had everything they needed to absolutely dominate space travel was due to the system they had?
You’re placing far too much importance on the potential excessive actions taken by a state under constant infiltration and siege against a scientist. As we showed, the soviet space program, without said scientist, took numerous firsts over the US. The soviets weren’t incompetent and needed a super-scientist to save them, they had an extremely competent team that took them to space before the US while being a semi-feudal backwater 50 years prior. If anything, the fact that they took so many firsts despite their dramatic hinderances, including recovering from World War II, is an excellent showcase of the effectiveness of soviet science.
Oh hey it’s that weird undergrad who keeps lying about being being involved in research (and who keeps calling himself an engineer while still in school). Now you’re here vomiting up garbage about how bad the USSR was? When aren’t you cringe as fuck?
Oh look it’s the creep who calls me a liar for not specifying I was a student in a single comment section where I’d previously mentioned I was a student.
I even apologized last time you made a comment like this (once I figured out that was the “lie” in my comments), and I edited that old comment for clarity just for you. Your reply to my apology ended up getting removed by the mods before I could see it, so I guess that didn’t help, and here you are again this time claiming I’m not even involved in research.
Idk what to say anymore man, just block me if my username pisses you off enough that you feel compelled to keep bringing this shit back up. It’s not healthy
Yeah it’s crazy what you can achieve when you turn millions of people into a slave army for a dictatorship
You’re thinking of Tsarist Russia, not the USSR.
