On March 2016, a survey conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Center (VTsIOM) showed that:
More than half of Russians (64%) would vote to maintain the Soviet Union if a referendum were held today. This figure increases from 47% among those 18-24 to 76% among respondents age 60 and more. Only 20% of Russian citizens would vote negatively for preserving the Soviet Union, according to the poll results.
During the same period (March 2016), a similar survey by the Levada Center Survey in Russia showed that:
More than half (51%) of the Russians said that the collapse of the Soviet Union could have been avoided.– More than half (56%) of the Russians regret the collapse of the USSR (in fact, the victory of counter-revolution).– The majority of the participants in the survey (58%) said that they would welcome the revival of the Soviet Union and the socialist system.
Polls conducted in the previous years have produced similar results. A survey by the Russia’s Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) back in 2013, showed that 60% of Russians think that the life in the Soviet Union had more positive than negative aspects. Furthermore, in the same poll, 43% of the respondents would welcome the re-adoption of communist ideology, while 38% were not happy about such a perspective.
While reading the above, we must take into account the powerful anti-communist propaganda of the last two decades, the slanders and lies against the socialist system by the bourgeois media and political parties. ”
“On June 2009, a survey conducted in Germany showed that 57% of eastern Germans defend the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Of those polled, 49% said “The GDR had more good sides than bad sides. There were some problems, but life was good there.” The poll was reported on Spiegel Online (which, however, tried to vilify GDR with anti-communist lies) and consists a proof that, according to historian Stefan Wolle, “a new form of Ostalgie has taken shape”.
“In a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.
In a 2014 survey by the INSCOP Research poll revealed that 44.4 percent of the respondents believed that living conditions were better under communism.”
“According to a report by the Pew Research Center, on April 2010, 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same.”
http://communismgr.blogspot.ca/2016/08/life-was-better-under-communism-says.html
The pre-1989 Eastern European governments were able to fulfill the “needs” of their population. But neglected to consider the “wants factor” I spoke of. Because of that reason in particular they failed and were dissolved.Their enemies were able to promise to give the populace “wants as well as keeping their needs available”. After years,we’ve seen they were able to satisfy the “wants” of the elites in those countries. But they have destroyed the “needs” for the vast majority of people. But still the new power of propaganda pervasive in Eastern Europe and the ability for the people to flood Western Europe for a better life has kept the lid on popular discontent.
I lived in communism.
Dark times.
Can remember the cold, hunger, fear and darkness.
Not enough heat in winter.
No food to buy in stores.
Frequent power outages.
Censorship.
No freedom of travel to other countries.
Demolition of churches.
No freedom of speech.
Speak against the “dear leader” and soon you disappear, nobody ever hears again from you.
Which country,and which years (and which class did you belong to)? Your opinion seems to be different from many of the other people in those countries So I’m curious as to which Communist country you lived in. I know at least something about all of them,and so would be able to understand the reasons for the circumstances you mention.And what time period are you talking about living there. That ,like in all countries,has a huge basis on conditions in a country. And lastly ,which class did you come from.That also reflects on how conditions in a country affects people and their perception of them.
I bet on Rumania… late 80ies.
Hi Uncle Bob,
Sputnik has done their own poll project too with residents of 11 Countries comparing life before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union:
http://sputniknews.com/agency_news/20160817/1044346654/compare-life-before-after-soviet-union.html
Yes, Romania, before 1989.
Class ? Not rich. My parents were teachers.
Thanks for your reply. I’ve always found Romania to be one of the most interesting countries in Eastern Europe. Their experience in the Communist era was most non-typical They were the furthest removed of the Warsaw Pact from the Soviets influence. There were no Soviet bases there. And Romania had good friendly relations with Western countries,especially the US and West Germany (hard to figure ,right). The Soviets were constantly worried if they could trust them.It was notorious as the least free internally of the countries claiming to be Communist.Communism it should be remembered is an economic theory,more than political.Though that’s little acknowledged today.Romania did have a very dictatorial government during that period.But it should also be remembered that many countries under a Capitalist economic system,were/are dictatorships.And yet no one seems to blame the economic system because of that. During much of the worst of the Romanian dictatorship,Chile and Argentina also suffered repressive regimes,that killed,disappeared,and imprisoned thousands of their citizens. All the while operating under the Capitalist economic system.And that is just two of many that come to mind.
Maybe you could tell us how teachers are paid in the current capitalist society, and compare it with the communist/socialist one.
Also could you make a comparison of the degree of education, healthcare, and wealth in general?
That would be good to know. But we would need to compare that with benefits that existed then against those available now. And also in money terms the purchasing power of the amount then compared to now.
I was a teacher back then (also, a mid-class worker) and the salary in terms of purchasing power was equivalent to what is now in the west, relative to the prices of that time. Since the electricity costs were something like 0,3 % of my salary, the housing in general was less than 7% . The education was entirely free, from the elementary school to the University. The healthcare was the same, free for everyone. The common wealth was growing till the 1982 when began the problems as I noted earlier in my other comment, on how and why.
Do you still live in Romania? I know some people from Romania who moved to Canada about 7-8 years ago. If you do not mind, I would like to compare.
R
What you mean by class ? there were no classes, as mid or low class. A teacher, a doctor, an engineer is regarded as mid-class. A worker in a factory is regarded as low-class. But back then, a worker who did a hard work was payed more than his director. The gap in salaries between various people was non existent or at least minimal.Compare it to nowadays.
The word “class” includes nobility and clergy. People of these classes were exterminated by Lenin and Trotsky, who did not overthrow them, by the way, KErensky (emphasis on the first syllable) did, they just kind of stole his achievement, and killed everyone in Russia who happened to have the wrong DNA.
Here is Kerensky’s book “The Catastrophe” about the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kerensky/1927/catastrophe/
It should be mentioned, however, that most of the anti-Communist individuals in Russia and in it’s neighbouring countries, are Russia hating Liberals, and are not better than Communists in term of torture and mass murder. So it’s kind of hit-or-miss whether to be against Communism or not against it.
Tragically some where. And many also moved to other countries. But some also remained in the USSR. If you look at bio’s of some of the leaders,and other famous figures of the era,you’ll find that they came from noble class backgrounds. Certainly not in the numbers of the pre-revolutionary period. But also not as many believe,that they were all killed.As in all the histories of nations, there was no “one size fits all” in the USSR. It’s just in the interest of Western propaganda to convince people it does.
@ Septik
Round here ‘Mericans are called Seppos, supposedly because of the source of their utterances or the contents of the cranial cavity. But this shouldn’t affect you in the least because you lived under communism and have first-hand experience of the rigours of life under that dreadful regime wherever it was (Siberia?). Yet you chose an apt name, all that is missing is the Tank bit, as if by osmosis, or ‘going native’.
Under capitalism 15% of the population is suffering from starvation. 25% don’t have access to safe drinking water. Every year capitalism starves to death over 30 million people. 168 million children are trapped in child labor. Over 46 million people – more than before in human history – are enduring life as (sex-)slaves (many of them children). To enforce this system of mass murder and slavery the US empire threatens humanity with a nuclear holocaust. So even if you see yourself as a winner in capitalism. This system could still kill you and your family.
Even the anti-communist ideologue Havel admits that the standard of living collapsed under capitalist rule:
“Address by Václav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, before the Members of Parliament Prague, 9 December 1997
…
Did we really have to pay for the fast progress of our privatization, which certainly was a good and desirable thing, a price in the form of stolen billions, or rather of tens of billions? If it was inevitable let somebody clearly say it.
…
I am convinced that the more clearly and understandably this is explained, the more acceptance can be won among the people for temporary sacrifices that may still be required. In the present situation, marked by a strange, almost cryptic silence, it is quite likely that the next attack on their living standard, be it progressing liberalization of rents or of electricity tariffs, may bring a real social unrest, not just a would-be one, as has been mostly the case until now.”
http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=projevy&val=144_aj_projevy.html&typ=HTML
The economy suffered more from the IMF/NATO imposed capitalism than from the nazi imposed version:
http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/press/pr2000/00gen14/00gen14b.jpg
Sometimes the IMF/NATO imposed version does not differ from the nazi imposed version of capitalism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB2JydomU0o&t=11m
SeptikSceptik
I don’t know how long did you lived in communism, when the communism has never been achieved. What you felt as communism, was the way to it, after a hard beginning, starting with the end of the war. But the leaders of the party later became negligent and weak, this weakness on the moral and spiritual level has led to corruption and thus to treason of the cause. What you perceived as difficulties enumerated in a easy-beasy manner, was the direct consequence of the above mentioned treason by the second wave of leaders. Therefore comes the date of the 1982-1989. I lived in a much earlier stage of that period and everything was fine, although these times (1960 – 1979) is less mentioned. What you wrote : – “dark times” ( is simply not true, and now ? tere are brilliant times ? ) – “can remember the cold, hunger, fear and darkness” ( regarding the cold, just imagine, Romania had and has it’s own gas fields -today is sold out to foreigners. I can’t remember that somebody has died out of hunger. Fear ? from what ? if you were innocent and made your work, there was no problem. Darkness ? Romania had huge and many hydro-electric power stations, even enough for export of electricity. “No food to buy in stores” this was partially so only after 1983 because of the imposed debt to foreign (western) banks. Even so, there was a so called ration-food process by which every single person has got a ticket containing 2 Kg of meat, 1L of oil, 2 Kg of sugar. Everything else was free. You could get what you wanted from the free market where people from the countryside could sold them freely, without any charge. “Censorship” (my god, what are you talking about ? the real censorship and propaganda have been the very weak part of that society, just compare it to today, when the Empire has a whole apparatus – MSM – all around the world. “no freedom to travel in other countries” yes, here you are right, partly, but there were possibilities to travel outside with organised tourism. “demolition of churches” – man, this is also not true, provide me an example or more and I give you the why. “no freedom of speech” – now you have it. just try to question the Holocaust publicly. Then, back in the communist times, the Zionism was prohibited officially, by the state as a form of fascism. I assure you, there were many jokes about the “dear leader” as you put it, yet the people had a good sense of humor. Everybody had a job, with a decent payment, a roof over their head. The state had a program of construction for the needs of the working people. Everyone could have a flat who wanted to work. The sad thing is, that many east-europeans have no proud at all, speaking against their native land in such manner. Even if the half was true, why the need to dirt your country where you’ve been raised ? See, the act of treason is not just at the high level, so can you imagine those people now are great Europeans and NATO friends and above all, great capitalists, exploiting their own compatriots together with “their partners”.
Ioan, your counterarguments are generally valid.
Agree, my initial post ( double post, sorry for that ) mentioned only the extremes, was directed to those suffering from nostalgia.
Agree, today there is also censorship, on a larger scale.
Times are not brilliant, obviously.
But you make it sound so rosy, as if life was bearable. Reading your long post, I remember some good things, almost become nostalgic myself, but then I wake up and remember 1989.
“Everyone had a job, all ok” – not true.
Proof : December 1989.
Thanks for your answer, it is welcomed. As for nostalgia, Romania has lost her independence. And her proud with it. At those times, having the best gymnasts of the world, now, look at the Olympic results in Rio.
Me personally, not following the Olympics. But now i remember some news here in Romania about the sorry state of gymnastics. Something about politics & money.
Agree, the way I see it, now Romania is a colony of EU, which in turn is a US colony.
Things changed so much, now I feel completely disconnected from the times before 1989, can no longer relate to those times, at a social and mentality level it was a different universe.
I think the difference is that in the past,you had a well developed Western propaganda machine to constantly attack Romania and the other East bloc states. Which of course fed paranoia in those states,causing them to look on any dissent as part of that Western attack. Today,corruption and poverty in those states is hidden by the same Western media that was “happy” to expose it in the past. And on Russia’s part,they don’t have a policy of attacking those states. So there is no campaign to discredit them to their population.Strangely (though not unpredictable) those states jumped from the frying pan into the fire.Thinking they were “escaping” a system that wanted their souls (to embrace Communism). They have fallen under the heel of a system that wants their “bodies” as well as their “souls” (global elite Capitalism).The new system doesn’t “care” what the people “think” in their “soul”,only that their bodies obey their masters in their vassal states.
Communism and socialism seem to be both used interchangeably for the former Soviet Union and I find this a bit confusing.
Although Communism, Socialism and Capitalism are loosely defined political ideologies, I take it that communism is a system where the state owns everything, Capitalism is total privatisation and socialism is somewhere in between.
Capitalism and Communism seem to be two extremes where the average person owns very little.
Perhaps the difference being that under communism, the basics for the average person are provided by the state.
Peter AU
There is very little ‘loosely defined about Communism…’ and it does not take long to find reputable sources for what it is. No country has ever been communist although the political parties are so called as a guiding principle towards a classless society.
And in Communism the State does not own anything; after all the ultimate goal of Communism is to ban the State itself for it is incompatible with the principle of equality. There is an old Slavonic saying: “If you give a man a title he starts believing that his shit doesn’t smell”. Hence to titles and no State.
Agree. Even the USSR has the name of Socialist Republics. Communist, was the only party, having the legacy of this good ideology. The way of implementing it is the gordian factor over which we are arguing here.
I have always enjoyed comments by Uncle Bob 1, because they are straight from the heart and Uncle Bob 1 has got a great heart.
Nevertheless, there is this human problem of viewing the past through rose-coloured glasses – especially when the present seems to be worse.
I have not personally lived under communism, but my family – on both sides – lived under it in Russia and there was not so much good to talk about, compared to what their families had before communism. In any case, comparisons can go on forever – they are tainted with subjectivity. What is one’s man’s meat is another man’s poison, as the saying goes.
One thing is clear, however – and that is the horrendous cost in human lives and suffering that occurred during communism.
Was it worth it?
Only God knows.
And how about the horrendous cost in human lives and suffering ocurred ( and sadly still occurring ) during Capitalism?
I bet that pales in comparison. Is Capitalism worth it?
I am really fed up of this recurring speech on the cost in human lives duirng Communism, which is not more than the message with which have been brainwashed every generation since the fall of the USSR.
To ilustrate my point I left an article on all these cognitive dissonances and double standards:
“40 Helpful Tips For Anti-Communists” By J. Slavyanski
1. Constantly insist that Marxism is discredited, outdated, and totally dead and buried. Then proceed to build a lucrative career on beating that supposedly ‘dead’ horse for the rest of your working life.
2. Remember, any unnatural death that occurs under a ‘Communist’ regime is not only attributable to the leaders of the state, but also Marxism as an ideology. Ignore deaths that occur for the same reason in non-Communist states.
3. Communism or Marxism is whatever you want it to be. Feel free to label countries, movements, and regimes as ‘Communist’ regardless of things like actual goals, stated ideology, diplomatic relations, economic policy, or property relations.
4. If there was a conflict involving Communists, the conflict and all ensuing deaths can be laid at the feet of Communism. Be careful when applying this to WWII. Fascist movements who fought against the Soviets or Communist partisans are fine, but try not to openly praise Nazi Germany. Save that for private conversations if you must do so.
5. You decide what Marxism “really means”, and who the rightful representatives of Communism were. Feign interest that Trotsky was somehow robbed of power by Stalin, despite the fact that you hate him as well.
6. Constantly talk about George Orwell. Quote from Animal Farm or 1984. Do not worry about the fact that Orwell never set foot in the Soviet Union and both of those books are novels.
7. Quote massive death tolls without regards to demographics or consistency. 3 million famine deaths? 7 million? 10 million? 100 million deaths total? You need not worry about anyone checking your work, which is good for you seeing that you probably haven’t done any.
8. Everyone ever arrested under a Communist regime was most likely innocent of any crime. Communists only arrested harmless poets and political prophets who had a beautiful message to share with the world.
9. Everything Stalin did or didn’t do had some sinister ulterior motive. Everything.
10. Keeping with the spirit of #9, remember that Stalin was an omnipotent being, perhaps an incarnation of the Hindu deity Vishnu, who had full awareness of everything going on in the Soviet Union and total control over every occurrence which took place between 1924 and 1953. Everything that occurred during that time was the will of Stalin. Stalin knew the exact details of every criminal case that took place during that era and out of his boundless cruelty, had tons of innocent people shot for no reason regardless of where they were or their position in life. Being omnipotent, he was not dependent on information passed up from tens of thousands of subordinates.
11. Constantly attack ‘Communist’ regimes for actions that occur in capitalist regimes up to this very day.
Key theme of know-nothing anti-communism
12. Claim that Marxism is utopian because of its description of a possible future society. Alternately claim that Marxism failed because it never gave a detailed description of how a Communist society would look. Do not pay attention to the massive contradiction here.
13. Start referring to Marxism as being some kind of religious faith, Messianic, or whatever other spiritualist bullshit you can come up with. When people point out that you can draw similarities between virtually any political ideology and other religions, ignore them.
14. Remember the one-two anti-Communist attack: Attack the post-Stalin system on economic grounds, and claim it just doesn’t work. Since an informed opponent will most likely point out that actual socialist economics did indeed work during the Stalin era, and in fact worked very well, attack that era on human rights grounds.
15. Two words – Human nature. What is human nature? For your purposes, human nature is a quick explanation why political ideas or systems you don’t like are wrong.
16. Bolshevik revolutions were carried out with violence and bloodshed. Bourgeois revolutions were all carried out by democratic referendums, and there was no violence whatsoever.
17. Use words like ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ constantly. Do not accept any challenge to define these terms.
Communists are gay AND homophobic
18. Communists can be for or against whatever is popular in your particular area. If you are preaching to a right-wing crowd, Communists are for degeneration and homosexuality. If you are preaching to a more mainstream audience, Communists were homophobic. Essentially, Communists are for moral degeneration and puritanical prudery at the same time. Again, do not notice the contradiction.
19. Constantly flog Stalin over the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, while totally ignoring massive support and collaboration with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan on the part of America, Britain, and France, long before the war and even after in some ways. As usual, do not allow your opponent to examine the context of the non-aggression pact.
20. Praise the newfound “freedom” of Eastern Europe. Ignore the massive depopulation via migration, plunging birthrates, huge alcohol and drug problems, political instability, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, sex trafficking and child prostitution, organized crime, high suicide rates, unemployment, disease, etc. Who cares about all that when you have freedom of speech?!
21. Constantly talk about the culture of fear in Communist nations, about that ‘knock on the door’ in the middle of the night. Ignore the ‘kick in your door in the middle of the night, stick a shotgun in your back, and haul your ass out of bed etc. because you are suspected of dealing,’ a normal occurrence in the American War on Drugs.
22. Attack Communists for suppression of religion. Attack Islamic fundamentalists for not being secular. What contradiction?!
23. Do not notice the irony that the US is currently fighting an incredibly expensive, losing war against an opponent which it funded, supported, and even handed its first victory in Afghanistan.
24. What should you say when confronted with all the continuing and often worsening problems in the world today, and asked for a solution? FREEDOM!! (Repeat as necessary until your opponent goes away)
25. Nothing from “Communists” can be trusted. Unless it somehow works in your favor, ala Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’ from 1956, or anything Trotsky wrote.
26. Communist leaders were ‘paranoid’ for devoting so much time to security against counter-revolution. Ignore the mountains of evidence, including the restoration of capitalism in the East Bloc, that this threat was indeed real.
27. Communist regimes were never popular. If proof is presented in various cases to show otherwise, claim that the people were brainwashed. Make no effort to consider the budgetary and logistic constraints on such an undertaking.
28. Communist propaganda is crude and primitive. If someone mentions Red Dawn or worse, mentions the J. Edgar Hoover-endorsed comic book series known as The Godless Communists, run away.
29. Praise secularism in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘pluralism’ until faced with a Communist. Then play the religion card.
30. Atrocities and other bad things that happen under non-Communist regimes are the fault of individual ‘bad people’. Anything bad that happens under a ‘Communist’ regime is the fault of the ideology and system. And Stalin.
31. Being an anti-Communist means not having to have any sort of ideological consistency whatsoever. Preach populist left-wing pseudo-socialism 90% of the time, and then compare the capitalist system to “Stalin’s Russia”(if you never really studied the subject, just read 1984 and Animal Farm). Bitch about capitalism 99% of the time, but balk when someone suggests Communism as an alternative. Far right wing Fascist? Constantly bitch about cultural degeneracy under capitalism, while remaining fanatically opposed to Marxism for no discernable reason save for your affinity for historic nationalism.
32. If you’re an anarchist, keep pointing out the ‘failure’ of Marxism while ignoring the fact that your ideology has a 100% failure rate throughout its entire history. Blame those failures on Communists, or stronger military powers. Ignore the fact that the most wonderful society is worthless if it can’t defend itself from reaction.
33. Neo-Nazi? Communism is Jewish!! Debate over.
34. Neo-Hippy? Tibet! Portray communism as one big prison
35. Constantly condemn the genocide that allegedly occurred under Mao, while ignoring the US’ relations with China established by Nixon, and the massive role capitalist China has played in the modern US economy. When you want to talk positively about China, it’s a capitalist country. If you need to criticize it, it’s still ‘Communist’.
36. Claim Marxism is not empirical. Neither are neo-liberalism, ‘democracy’, or ‘freedom’, but don’t worry about that.
37. Always insist that despite the location, country, historical era, past experience, and all other factors, Communists must want to recreate a modern-day copy of Stalin’s Russia, and all that entails according to you. Do not notice the inherent idiocy in this concept, such as your particular country being already industrialized, and not having a historical problem of severe backwardness.
38. Learn to use the magic word ‘totalitarian’. This word allows you to link two ideological opposites, Communism and Fascism.
39. Ignore the fact that socialist states experienced more economic problems parallel to the number of market reforms they made.
40. When challenged about numbers or historical context, resort to labels like “ruthless tyrant”, “cruel murderer”, and such. Remember, people like Stalin were mass-murderers because of all the people they killed, and we know they killed all those people because they were mass-murderers. It totally tracks!
Nobody here seems to be is arguing that capitalism is better or less bloody.
The point is that the process to install communism was not as holy as some people think.
Suggesting that lives lost under Soviet times is brainwashing is an insult to the families who suffered and the memories of those who perished during those times.
@Yuri
This is the major flaw in humans, they cherish beliefs over reality and binary arguments over nuance. You offer any opposing view regardless of it’s veracity and they create a caricature that bears no resemblance to who you are that they can lash out at.
I doubt many people would disagree that much suffering happened. I for one won’t.But at the same time I believe the West expands the numbers.And includes wartime,and natural disaster losses in them.I also recall as I mentioned before,in human history,certainly the history of colonial expansion under the capitalist system, where killed millions. I don’t think those lives lost were any less tragic. And yet they mostly go unreported.While those claimed to be because of Communism are used as a stick to attack and undermine the very real achievements brought about under that system.I don’t believe in 2016 it should be recreated as it was. The times today are different. But some parts of that system should have been kept,or should be recreated.
Fatima – nice work. Thank you. I look at Putin, the product of USSR training. He serves his people and his country. The two are indivisible in his mind, and apparently in his training. I always judge a country by its security services, which are always its closest insiders. I can’t fault the USSR when I look at Putin.
He could fault the USSR of course, and did. And he was right. But now we’ve had the priceless chance to see the openness that the former closedness was so afraid of. And a chance to see that the openness is pretty scary also.
The balance lies always between the two extremes. Those who promote the extremes seek to nudge their targets off-balance. We here seek agreement. We are winning in this battle of extremes every time we establish the balance between them.
Please keep your comments coming :)
@ Fatima Manoubia
A flash of lighting got through the cracks and I stuck my neck out of the rock where I have been in hiding after getting a hiding from the PC brigade in charge of the proceedings at Café Saker.
The flash of light was your post of J Slavyanski’s “Primer for Anti-Communists” and I had to get out from under the rock to tip my hat to that priceless jewel, author and you.
I have been compiling a list of themes I had intended to include in a similar piece as a standard reply to rabid anti-communists, mostly Users, who know next to nothing about politics or history. However, I got side-tracked and, instead, started working on another piece likely to have the title “Why you Are a Communist!” to challenge bigoted minds and confront the readers with the fact that most of them profess the ideals and values of Communism.
This idea came about from a recent recollection of an assignment I was involved in back in my student days (Sociology) when my group conducted a random survey about political tendencies and it revealed that well over 80% of respondents agreed (not being aware of it though) with the fundamental principles of Communism!
Thanks for giving me a chance of a breath of fresh air. Good work comrade.
Kim
Where are you hiding Kim ? I haven’t seen you here for long and you are missing even at the Cafe, wait you come back soon !
@ Kim 16-8-15.05:14
Hi Kim, I am happy, too, to see you again, your insightful comments are always a pleasure to read and evaluate. It‘s a pity to lose comrades on the way, as ioan remarked lately in a Café.
Hello ioan, I did not react to compliments from you and S113 some days ago (thanks!) – on a trip to the Balcans, fighting with phone, tablet, notebook and local SIMcards for extracting a bit of my daily dope from the environment in the absence of LAN or WLAN. Having a new Café every few days is a good idea, but with practical problems, like commenting after a few days.
I found this 16-8-12-café-comment of Uncle Bob‘s excellent, too, and congratulate the Mod for giving it an extra place. It seems every now and then some elements come together in one head to produce an overview of a situation that others somehow wanted to have, too, but did not synthesize themselves. UB1‘s Short History of So Many Jews in UA and RU (some weeks ago) was such a case, and now the distinction of wants and needs, as seen in several Eastern countries today (and so are FM‘s „40 tips…“ – excellent, thanks). The question whether today‘s assessments are THE truth or A truth, remains however (as others pointed out already).
In all that I have an urge to express an idea which is not yet ready to be well formulated, at least not in my head. This is the idea about *justice“ being a fundamental necessity, „without which everything else is nothing“ (as Saulus/Paulus said about love). Ok, I‘ll try…
[continued down under]
Fatima Manoubia,
No amount of thanks is enough for your post !
The ’40 Tips’ are so relevant that it can be used by any activist anywhere in the world if he/she wants to logically engage with opponents (who thrive on lies and damn lies about Marxism & Communism).
Comrade, wish you success in the fight against inequality-injustice-servitude.
Thanks to you all, comrades, and glad to renew the momentum of your brave hearts for the fight.
@Yuri and others with the same argument here, i.e. “I know people who were exterminated by the communist regime”:
Without denying that in the process of purges may have fallen innocent people of the charge of “counter-revolutionary activities” ( as has been suggested in some point of the 40 tips above ) and not being in favor at all of the death penalty, simply, I would like you to expose the details of the case against your family/relatives ( which you for sure will know very well ), more than anything so as we can form our own idea about it.
I will say in advance that “fighting in the enemy ranks” ( by providing intelligence data from inside the USSR, negligence when fighting in the ranks of the Red Army or directly fighting in the enemy battallions by changing sides ) against the Soviet Government and the Red Army, I consider guilty of charge.
I am more of a Christian Conservative Social Democrat, but I agree wholeheartedly with Fatima. I grew up during the Cold War and slowly learned to see the propaganda against Communism. I later learned the system was not as bad as they said. I went through a great change when I studied Marxist economics and studied economic systems. Yugoslavia and the Sovjet Union had their faults like all systems, but they also had great successes. So did DDR, East Germany, but that is forbidden history.
It is expensive to have colonies. The weakness of the Sovjet Union was it had to keep the colonies afloat. Russia bought whatever Bulgaria and some other countries produced, though some goods were low quality and the gas flowed. Ukraine produced high tech and DDR was also not a load.
Yugoslavia was independent and selffinancing. Somebody pointed Bill Clinton to a ”blank spot” on the map and had him destroy the country in 1999. I am using Clintons own words. He will be back in the White House instructing his wife if Trump does not win.
The fall of the wall started a cruel process. All Slavic nations, except White Russia (Belarus), saw their populations diminish. People went to work without being paid. Oh, happy capitalism! The oligarchs took over and the old guard changed shirts and stayed in power. It is no wonder some 50 percent of the Russians want the Sovjet Union back. Vladimir Putin says no and you can ignore the propaganda against him in that respect. He builds a strong Russia without the load of colonies and is successful. The purchasing power was trippled in about a decade under his and Medvedevs watch. Do you see that happening in North America or Europe? Of course not. The last I heard the median income in the US has stood still since the year 2000. Americans haven’t had a pay raise since 2000.
Not if you consider “inflation”. But that is the point. What the “purchasing power” of salaries today is as opposed to then. As an old example. I remember seeing an old (even when I saw it) movie make during WW2. Two soldiers were painting the roof of a building to camouflage it from air attack. They were complaining that if they “were under Union overtime pay rules” they’d be getting $1.25 an hour for that work.So in those days that was “big money wages”. But today the minimum wage in most of the US is around $8.00 an hour,and living on that is a joke. It would be almost impossible for one to do.Yet 70 years before the purchasing power of $1.25 an hour was probably that of $25-$30 today. So in purchasing power salaries haven’t improved at all (except for the upper classes). And if anything decreased,even if the actual amount of the salary has gone up.
That’s a huge amount of text to critique, so I’ll take issue with #2 & #4. Mass deaths associated with Communism and Red Revolutions are almost entirely neglected. Stalin, though he was responsible for more far greater numbers of deaths, is ignored in favour of Hitler. The Hitler meme is what’s being perpetuated in the media, in schools, in Western culture. Of course this is because a certain group has a vested interest in keeping it so, G-d forbid their involvement in any atrocities are made mainstream.
Whether it’s Slavyanksi or Shlomo, it’s all propaganda. Is anyone interested in truth anymore?
Yura, somehow Soviet population was growing under all so called horrors of communism and even after WW2, while population started mysteriously collapsing after the end of communism and reintroduction of capitalism. Note, Western Europe and Eastern Europe too are unable to basically procreate. it is the most basic test of what is good for humans and what is not. So please.
Unlike you I was born and lived under socialism and was happy along with my numerous friends.
Having visited my relatives under the yolk of Communism behind the Iron Curtain, I can tell you straight it was nothing anyone would want to return to, least of all my relatives who suffered under it. People are complainers, they may say things were better, thinking it will improve their present lot, but that’s all it is. Life under Communism was harsh in a way that Westerners can’t even begin to comprehend. I have stories. Articles like this are Western romanticism, just fantasy. That’s not an endorsement of liberal democracy, which most Eastern Europeans I talk to can see through, just a cold appraisal of how it was.
Hey joe, which country are you talking about and which pindo military base are you posting this spam from?
I’m talking about Poland … ad hominem sentence removed … mod-hs
And me being on a pindo military base and that I’m spamming is based on what evidence? If you can’t meet people in good faith how can you expect them to be even be vaguely interested in your arguments.
@ mod
How is this not an ad hominem or are some baseless slurs more equal than other. If you can’t be even handed, at least try not let your bias be too obvious.
joe … I agree but we have different mods through out the day. I am not interest in our comment section develop into name calling.
@ Joe
“I have stories”
I know you have stories, even tall-tales and fables, yarns and hogwash galore if you measure life by the trinkets of capitalism. The first ‘Merican I came across (in Europe) spoke endlessly of the number of TV channels they had (1988) and how backwards the Europeans were for having so few!
I met an American doctor in Paris in 1976. He said he worked 60-80 hours a week and made me personally responsible for our 40 hour week. I was 24-25 years old and I was responsible? We Europeans were a backwards bunch in need of American instructions. That was the first time I became aware of American arrogance and ignorance. This impression has been confirmed several times since then.
“Life under Communism was harsh in a way that Westerners can’t even begin to comprehend.”
So it was.
Well if I remember correctly Sceptik, we are in agreement about many things. Good to read your comments. We simply don’t learn from history or at least we ignore what doesn’t fit our ideology. I will say that I think Putin has a more balanced understanding of history, so I haven’t completely lost faith yet. I understand that Putin has said that the Gulag Archipelago be made required reading for school children in Russia, perhaps some of the comment writers here ought to read it.
When Putin had previously called the breakup of the Soviet Union the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.” The “Western media” obviously misunderstood this and twisted this to mean something it did not.
He also made a further comment earlier this year about Lenin. I think it summed up how the destruction of the USSR was able to take place:
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160125/1033697183/putin-lenin-destroed-ussr.html
Where he stated “Lenin had planted a “nuclear bomb under the building which is called Russia, and it exploded.”
Uncle Bob – another survey stating 30% of Russians see failed coup in 1991……:
https://www.rt.com/politics/356023-third-of-russians-see-1991/
I think that that statement by President Putin was quite unfair, since Lenin died in 1924 and the USSR collapsed in the 1990 ( so time enough to reverse whatever lenin could do wrong for the future of Russia ) with the inestimable help of the Americans and the invaluable collaboration of some Russian leaders interested somehow in imploding it.
For what we could read here from the old strategist, seems to have been a controlled blasting by some, taking advantage of the wishes and mainly the funds coming from the US ( those funds coming form Harvard University ). Unfortunately some of those who could guide us on this, as Mr. Andropov or Mr Primakov, are dead and, to my knowledge, have not left memoirs. But Mr. Putin held positions relevant enough when all this was being cooked to get to know the details of the blast .
We hope some day, when it suits him better than now, tell us in his memoirs……
Or perhaps you could illuminate us in Lenin´s determinant paper in the implosion of the USSR….
Look, it is that I support that each stick hold its candle, always, there is nothing I hate most that charging an innocent with the guilt of others.
I think Mr.Putin meant that Lenin (Trotzki, Bukharin, etc. ) divided Russian empire in republics, which in the 90s separated. Well, Russia was the first to separate in 1990 – The act of sovereignty, if you remember. I visited Russia in middle 90s, they were as Ukrainians are now.
R
And, btw, Lenin and Stalin died poor and of an stroke or its consequences ( because of the worries in managing such an enterprise as carrying out a revolution and then developing such a huge and varied country from the middle ages to modernity in only 30 years. Molotov also lived his last years almost in poverty.
Could you name me another communist or post-communist Russian leader after them who had lived and finished in such a low standars of life or died of an stroke in a relatively early age?
As far as I know, Lenin died from the continued problems with the wounds from the attempt on his life on 1918-08-30, so he has been murdered with delayed result.
As far as I know, Stalin thought he was poisoned bio his zio doctors (and told one of the last visitors so), and the data fetishist date for his death „ 5 3 53“, make it plausible to have been a staged event meaningfully placed on the calendar, thus no natural death but again murder. The signature looks like that of the pseudo „peace“ (=war) speach by MI6 prostitute Weizsäcker Richard (on „8 5 85“), so that the same signature seems to point to the same perps, the zionazis and MI6 (Victor Rotschild).
bp
@ Joe: on August 15, 2016 · at 12:55 pm UTC
I think, you have misunderstood something here, nobody is trying to white wash the killings of innocent people in the Soviet gulags. The communism was born in blood, as the capitalism in the same way, the difference is, that the communist system has not been achieved, the time was too short – only 70 years. The capitalist system had enough time and in this time period, the killings have surpassed the short lived communist ones. This is a fact. Now, the system of welfare in the west, could be less good if there was no communism at all. Even so, if not reformed, the capitalist system is doomed to fail. The skyrocketing inequalities are a good example, not to mention the core of the system based in money printing and thus, huge amount of debt. Guess, who’s gonna pay back these debts ? The capitalist trap is in the kitchen, prepared for the cheerful chicken.
Is this what you heard on RFE?
While I tend to agree with certain points, I cannot help but strongly disagree with others, mostly this: “Under Socialism their major problems had been solved: Free education, free healthcare for all, social security, jobs, free vacation and holidays for everyone, etc.”
We see a declaration, but no arguments to support it. The problems of implementation of socialist system across Eastern Europe were profound. Although there was indeed a robust social welfare, the economies of most of Eastern bloc countries could not support it. The economies of Eastern bloc were sclerotic and completely vulnerable.
The whole economic system just relies on the state to provide for it, and this has proven to be extremely negative in practice.
Now, of course, we have a problem that the majority of population in the Eastern bloc countries look with envy to Western capitalism and many migrated to Western Europe. Why is this when they lived in their socialist paradise?
People are always unhappy by default. They always remember ‘good old times’. And now when they experienced the boons of Neo-liberalism, some of them wants Socialism back.
However, the main fault was in the policies adopted in the USSR during the Gorbachev era. He could have looked to China which implemented a genial system: almost complete economic liberalization but retaining complete control over the political system. It brought fantastic results to China which could reap the benefits of economic opening, but remain politically stable.
The West could not and still cannot subvert China because it lacks the mechanisms to do so. They cannot do so because to hurt China economically means they severely endanger their own economic position. Most important of all, China decides it own destiny.
When you look at Russia, it becomes obvious that the West could subvert it. This did not happen accidentally. We must look for the fault in the system itself.
Ultimately, the ideological problem must be tackled. The USSR could not withstand the pressure of Neo-liberalism and Imperialism. Stalin’s ‘Socialism in One Country’ doctrine was successful on the short term, but failed on the long-run.
As it was, USSR could not compete with the West. We only need to look at military spending which crippled Soviet economy. Arms race with the US damaged Soviet economy, while the other side had significantly more capacity.
So I have to mention the model of China once again. Beijing is now trying to build a parallel global economic system which will eventually rival Western one. Asian Investment Bank was founded. Shanghai Cooperation Organization is also extremely important. China is making strategic investments and projects in Africa and Latin America. Recently, they started important projects in Central and Eastern Europe also.
The West is now producing almost nothing. Real engine of global economy is China. For example, prior to WWII, the US was world largest producer, now it is the world largest consumer.
To sum up, the greatest fault of Socialism is its inability to produce. If you don’t produce, you cant spend. People must realize that. When you produce and generate value, you can invest in Social welfare. Hence, China will be slowly converting its economic surplus into higher living standard of its citizens.
And when the global virtual economy inevitably collapses, we will be back to healthy economic model where growth is based on capacity to produce, and is not a speculative bubble like we have now.
So, I don’t think we should resurrect the USSR. The globalists would like nothing better.
It’s ultimately a war of attrition between the heartland & the pirates.
After China it will be up to the fringes ie India Vietnam & Japan to carry the banner.
However, the anglo-zionist-arab alliance will not win.
m
“People are always unhappy by default”.
Then why are they not commiting suicide en mass? Why isn’t the human species extinct then?
Any old bs to promote bs spam.
I meant to say that the majority of people will always complain, but rarely take any action. Most people are conformists.
You made some excellent points Mairon and you are right in regards to discontent being essentially a default position of most people. We moan about our children, our parents, our wages our waistband, but don’t dare agree with us or you’ll cop it. But the woes of living behind the Iron Curtain were very real.
My father used to send parcels to Poland and he’d hide razor blades in cocoa, writing: ‘enjoy the cocoa, but beware it’s a bit sharp’. There were many things, not luxuries, that we take for granted that they simply did not have, or at least they were not available to anyone who was not an apparatchik. I remember being in a supermarket that had very little on the shelves and a woman in front of me struggling to make up the money for the little she had bought, I was debating to myself whether she’d be offended if I offer to give her the difference the cashier was demanding. The deficiency of the system was what I grew up with, but from the privileged side of the curtain in the UK. We had the occasional visit, as many Polish families did, and the stories were always the same and of course they’d take back stories of what they’d seen ‘over there’.
To contrast this though (I’m getting all sorts of aspersions made about me, as you do when attacking sacred cows) I had many a discussion with Greek peasants back in the 70s about how having the many material goods and advantages over poorer countries did not make us anymore happier. I couldn’t quite get to the crux of why that is back then, apart form having vague notions of mammon and spirit being involved, but my understanding of the problem has evolved somewhat. I now believe that it’s about connection and belonging, which liberalism, especially in it’s progressive form, undermines, with it’s refusal to honour anything that went before and it’s constant drive to atomize and control. What I saw and experienced in those small agrarian villages way back when, was how human beings coalesce naturally. I saw the village idiots, widows and those down on their luck, clothed and fed and taken care of. Indeed, I was a recipient of such communal largesse. What I found remarkable and it has stayed with me to this day, is how happy many of these villagers seemed me, an emasculated, vacuous hippy. I’m sure this isn’t the whole picture, especially lack of decent healthcare, but they dealt with such things and remained good hearted people. It’s been an absolute tragedy what has befallen them.
That is very interesting. And I don’t mean it derogatorily. When I lived in Cuba we also had a hard time (sometimes, not always) getting “some” consumer goods,the really good razor blades included.We did have razor blades available. But they weren’t the fancy “US” kind. But a lot of that had to do with importing priorities. And also the Western sanctions. The idea there by the West (and I suspect in Poland as well) was to make the people discontented. I strongly doubt that the Polish government of the time said “lets punish our people,no high quality razor blades for them this month”. Its also important to remember that even more than the USSR,Poland suffered immense damage in the war years.And it took many years to overcome that.While providing for the “needs” of the population.
I am curious also on the trip to Greece.Before WWII Greece and Poland were very similar in the quality of life their peoples lived with. In fact Greece might have been ahead of Poland at that time.Certainly after the suffering in the war,Greece would have been better off than Poland (not by much,but some).And yet the misery you describe in the peasant villages of Greece,wasn’t to be found anymore by that time in Communist Poland.Why do you think that was. It was because the government worked to bring a decent (not rich,but decent) life for its people in Poland. While in Greece then,and as we see now as well,didn’t. Today,Poland has gotten untold billions from the EU over years. And still around 5 million Poles have fled to find employment in other areas of the EU. And articles are written in the Polish (and Western) press about the villages dying.The young fleeing West for a better life.Youth unemployment being one of the highest in the EU.And the people now competing with Ukrainians fleeing the junta,for the lowest end jobs in Poland.I don’t doubt for the elites and middle classes in Poland their standard of living is higher today. But for the workers and peasants (the majority of Poles),I also believe it is lower.And doesn’t look to be improving unless they “head West”.
There is one word for all this : sabotage.First, from the leaders and second, from some people.Every human being is a singularity, with his talent, with his own ideas on achieving something. Some individuals may need other individuals to achieve that something, they form a community. Others are more individualists and want to go on their own way. The communism is for those who want to progress within a community. The capitalism is for those who want the progress alone, but he needs others from the community to work for him. (in a nutshell)
Several points I’ll touch on. First,Socialism was supposed to be the “middle period” of transition.And Communism was the end result. But instead the Soviets,because of circumstances broke the planned chain. They tried to skip both the developed Capitalist period called for in early Marxism, and the Socialist transition period, to move directly to Communism.And as they were the “first” Communist state the others that followed imitated them. Personally,I believe in a “mixed” economy. In which anything that is essential for the populace (the “needs” factor) is influenced by the state.In a Capitalist system profit is the only motive an elite cares about. The needs of their population is secondary at best,or not even considered. But I believe the “wants” of the people could/should be in private hands. There is only so much a government can organize and provide for.That isn’t to say the government can’t have input in the private sector. Just that there is no need to control or own it.Only to regulate it.And make sure it is dealing with the “wants” in society.
Second,comparisons between the Communist and Capitalist systems are flawed at the start. The Capitalist nations from the very start did everything they could to destroy the USSR,and later the other Communist states as well. There was no period in which there was a “level playing field” to compare them together. The European Communist states all were created from the most backward nations in Europe. None of them had World class economies when Communism took over there.They also had suffered the most damage in two World Wars.Far more than any of the Capitalist Western European states had.So again they started with a large disadvantage. And yet,with all that.They advanced to where East Germany was the World’s 8th largest economy,and the USSR the World’s 2nd largest economy before the fall of Communism. Health care,education,housing,jobs,were freely available to all levels in their societies. They had many,many,problems,in the “wants” areas. But the “needs” area was not a factor.Its also important to remember how the Capitalist states industrialized their economies in the first stages. In was done in a period where the suffering of millions of common people counted for nothing. It was barely noted and written about. And as horrible as their own people suffered. The looting of wealth from the European colonies to build up European industrialization was even worse.Around 10 million Africans died to benefit the economic elite in Belgium alone. Those type of things,people may recall were a main factor in the rise of early Socialism.The Communists weren’t able to freely industrialize in that manner,in silence.They were forced to make good on their ideology of benefiting the workers.And spreading a modern society to the immensity of the Worlds largest landmass. Inhabited by millions.Lenin’s statement that “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country” explains part of that.
Third,unlike the Capitalist states in which the leading states “feed” off of the lessor states.The USSR devoted more resources to the other Communist states.So that some of them had a higher standard of living than was found in the USSR itself.. Something unheard of in the Capitalist World.They also allowed ,strangely as it seems,the other allied states more freedom of movement than we see in the relationship between many Western states today.Romania,and especially Yugoslavia and Albania were free from any direct Soviet control. Hungary experimented,with different forms of Communist economics without the Soviets complaining.And even Poland,was freer in many ways to run a “Polish road to Communism” than many Latin American countries are from US control.And until Czechoslovakia tried to totally undo Communism they weren’t under strict control. The two states most tied to the USSR where Bulgaria,which benefited enormously economically from their relations with the USSR. And East Germany which was the front line of the Cold War.
Fourth,being constantly threatened,sanctioned,and held back economically.They also were forced to devote massive funds for self-defense. On top of the funds needed to repair the war damage,and keep the promises of a safety-net for the population as a whole.I think instead of bemoaning their failures (which to be honest,they had). We should instead be amazed that under those conditions what successes they were able to have.It was said of Augustus,that he inherited a Rome build of brick.And left a Rome built of marble.I believe that the Communist states inherited nations with abject poverty.Almost no industry,peasant populations with little education,and health care. And left industrialized nations,working class educated,and healthy populations.Did they have the most modern gadgets,a wealthy elite population,a car, two,or three,per family. No they didn’t. But neither did they have masses of poverty stricken people,uneducated,and unhealthy,homeless,and unemployed. The best recognition of those times is the fact that majorities of people that lived then,say times were better for them.
Fifth,I believe that the USSR collapsed for a couple of reasons. One,internal treason.and the power of Western population. Which was able to conflate in peoples minds the difference between “wants and needs”.Second,that Gorbachev,tried the impossible.He attempted “perestroika”,the reforming and restructuring of the economy. With “Glasnost”,opening the system to dissenting opinions.Common sense tells you when you are making massive economic changes you are going to experience many problems.And “if” you also open a closed system to free propaganda influx. Those problems will be exploited to undermine the system. The Chinese were quite aware of that. And only worked to restructure their economy. They realized you can’t do both at the same time. They succeeded because of that. And the USSR collapsed.
The mixed economy you refer to:
what limit (by way of taxation) would be applied to the income/capital accumulation of an individual?
what limit (by way of taxation) would be applied to the inheritance of an individual?
That’s a good question. But probably better asked of an economist I think. In the US under the Eisenhower regime (far from a Socialist or Communist I’d say) the highest level I believe was 93%. I don’t recall the the US lacked rich people in that era. So I’ll reason the wealthy “somehow” were able to profit even with that high a level of taxation. My concern really isn’t with the “gods of the earth” though. Its for the well being of the common people. Who make up in most societies,merely the play toys of those gods.
I see it more as a moral question – not one for an economist. With income, for example, of $1B (and 97% tax) net is $30M – that will still spawn oligarchy and reliance on the benevolent monarch (until the not so benevolent arrives).
I can’t argue well against the total abandonment (at some relatively meagre level) of the mixed economy to stimulate creativity (and perhaps differentiate sloth from energy) but that seems it may be a difficult system implementation. However, on balance, for the well being of the common people (perhaps more so physcologically than physical standard of living) the Communist system seems the pragmatic solution.
The events of 1917 are demonstration that not all is yet lost for the common people but it does seem that the extraordinary actions of some extraordinary individuals will be required to make that happen.
Yours was an interesting post.
Yes,I’d agree. But I’ve seen that sometimes the complexities of the micro part of an economy. Are too much for central planning to bring the best benefit for the people.Certainly I think that what would be called craftsmen’s or “mom and pop” stores should stay in private hands. They assure widespread availability of goods and services (and increased employment) for the populace.But a little thought of fact is, that many restaurants,stores,gas stations,etc,are today “corporate stores”. So in a manner,they already run in a “socialized” manner. But for the benefit of private corporate owners.Which somehow negates the old wives tale that socializing some smaller businesses won’t work. It is seen to work,but for corporations today.So when thinking about the best economic policy for a countries benefit and that of its people. I think a doctrinal “one size fits all” is not workable. It must be more flexible,and fit particular situations and countries.While making sure to assure the “needs” of the nations people through state control. The “wants” factor is much more open for compromise.With the only proviso that it benefits the people and nation.
@ „extraordinary actions of some extraordinary individuals“
I think it was an eternal commie litany then to be remembered today, that not the extraordinarity of some persons did a revolution make, but the prestructured („scientific“, „methodologic“, “planned“) approach and the decades long work of „organization“ (building a party against its being forbidden from the start, finding collaborators safe rountes and houses, finances, fighting faction fights without ruining the whole work) – without all of that (= today) *nothing at all* will be ever achieved however great the persons are that wished it would nevertheless. The „coming revolution in the West“ will either not come about, or be a secret service travesty, or will be aborted quickly without result.
bp
“And the USSR collapsed”
This is the refrain mantra of most commenters on the dissolution of the USSR. This is not only a semantic exercise; “collapse” carries a connotation of crash, bankruptcy, failure or catastrophe when in fact the dissolution was an act of trickery by the elites through the so called Referendum to obtain popular approval for the ransacking of the Soviet Union’s assets.
The Soviet economy was a self-sufficient, debt-free system and its capacity to generate productive investment was limited to its own surplus formation, a slow but firmer process for wealth accumulation over time for the improvement of living standards.
The echo-chamber of “Soviet sclerosis” is constantly repeated as the ignorant explanation by the capitalist supremacists for the demise the SU when in fact the economic miracle achieved by the Soviets surpasses anything ever achieved anywhere in such a short time: from a backward semi-feudal society to a superpower in twenty years!
“…the trickery by the elites…” , yes. As far as I remember, the result of the vote in the Referendum in Soviet Union was against dismantling of SSSR. Correct me if I am wrong. So, what happened?
R
Indeed, this is what the constant slanders against Stalin are all about: In the mere course of 30 years’ time — encompassing total destruction by invading Western supremacist terror armies twice over — Stalin and the USSR that he led accomplished what took the West 500+ years of worldwide rape, enslavement, and genocide to achieve for its home constituencies. Putin elicits the same emotions for very similar reasons.
This is another great comment, Uncle Bob 1.
https://cont.ws/post/344160
“Former citizens of the GDR: the Soviet Union abandoned us, and the West Germans robbed us and turned into a colony”
Dirty Boulevard – Lou Reed
Pedro lives out of the Wilshire Hotel
he looks out a window without glass
The walls are made of cardboard, newspapers on his feet
his father beats him ’cause he’s too tired to beg
He’s got 9 brothers and sisters
they’re brought up on their knees
it’s hard to run when a coat hanger beats you on the thighs
Pedro dreams of being older and killing the old man
but that’s a slim chance he’s going to the boulevard
He’s going to end up, on the dirty boulevard
he’s going out, to the dirty boulevard
He’s going down, to the dirty boulevard
This room cost 2, 000 dollars a month
you can believe it man it’s true
somewhere a landlord’s laughing till he wets his pants
No one here dreams of being a doctor or a lawyer or anything
they dream of dealing on the dirty boulevard
Give me your hungry, your tired your poor I’ll piss on ’em
that’s what the Statue of Bigotry says
Your poor huddled masses, let’s club ’em to death
and get it over with and just dump ’em on the boulevard
Get to end up, on the dirty boulevard
going out, to the dirty boulevard
He’s going down, on the dirty boulevard
going out
Outside it’s a bright night
there’s an opera at Lincoln Center
movie stars arrive by limousine
The klieg lights shoot up over the skyline of Manhattan
but the lights are out on the Mean Streets
A small kid stands by the Lincoln Tunnel
he’s selling plastic roses for a buck
The traffic’s backed up to 39th street
the TV whores are calling the cops out for a suck
And back at the Wilshire, Pedro sits there dreaming
he’s found a book on magic in a garbage can
He looks at the pictures and stares at the cracked ceiling
“At the count of 3” he says, “I hope I can disappear”
And fly fly away, from this dirty boulevard
I want to fly, from dirty boulevard
I want to fly, from dirty boulevard
I want to fly-fly-fly-fly, from dirty boulevard
I want to fly away
I want to fly
Fly, fly away
I want to fly
Fly-fly away (Fly a-)
fly-fly-fly (-way, ooohhh…)
Fly-fly away (I want to fly-fly away)
fly away (I want to fly, wow-woh, no, fly away)
Audio:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7z3TPwOT31g
Not everybody in pindoland lives in such “luxury” as described above, so no problem, capitalism is our saviour. Let us worship those who rip us off and keep us down, yes?
Thanks Vot Tak, a timely reminder of what Capitalism is all about.
Thanks vok tak for the well targeted poem, a wonderful piece from Lou Reed !
Uncle Bob 1,
Excellent summation about the feelings of the post-USSR countries/societies…
“Under Socialism their major problems had been solved: Free education, free healthcare for all, social security, jobs, free vacation and holidays for everyone, etc. The restoration of Capitalism brought an unprecedented barbarity in almost every sector of public life: Social inequalities, unemployment, privatization of major public sectors from healthcare to education, etc.”
People across the world should look back to the past socialist societies and its achievement, as well as its drawbacks. Instead of being passively nostalgic, people should actively join the ‘Resistance’ movement and strive to bring back the equal and just society with enough care that ‘peoples democracy’ is not sidelined by ‘authoritarianism’.
Are there any African Americans here? Native Americans? Latin@s?
Flint,MI? Pavillion,WY? Veteran? Prisoner? Student loan?
@ Otter
Does that matter? Capitalism is colour-blind and it will exploit you whatever colour you are. See what’s happening in Africa: the old white colonists have been replaced by an even worse black plutocracy.
Well, we have been mostly talking about Communism here, or maybe Stalinism, or Orthodox Monasticism, whatever. And how awful it was or wasn’t. And how excusable or not. And how misunderstood, or misrepresented, and who has the one true accurate laundry list.
As you sort of say, the same sort of oppressions and abuses were inflicted right here in America at the same time. Almost a competition … can’t let those Russkies think they are meaner sons of bitches than we are. Of course, Mississippi is not as cold as Siberia, etc, etc. Sort of but not exactly the same. Also, you know, many of us could watch it on television. We had books, too, although ‘Gulag Archipelago’ is more challenging to read than ‘Grapes of Wrath’. But there was a movie for the overwhelmed, and an opera, and a rock band.
Is North Korea communist ?
That would depend. They claim to be,and in some things are. But the permanent rule of the Kim family. And the disregard at times, for the people,isn’t anything I would call “communist”, as Marx thought of it.Nor in the way modern Communism is envisioned.
How about China ? Is it communist ?
Just asking.
Coz i see no clear-cut, working definition of the term.
Is it just an “-ism” like any other religion ?
It was called the “Communist Party”. It ruled the country. But when using the word “communism” to describe those times, some people jump and say “it was not communism, because communism is some kind of heaven which has never been yet achieved under the sun”.
Huh ? What ?
And then they say “It was an excellent, outstanding idea. Only its implementation failed. Yes, we had to kill all who opposed us, but we almost succeeded.”
Well, if it failed so miserably, I say, how about calling it a bad idea from the start ?
Yes, it failed. When you put in a leading position an uneducated person, with a bad heart, just because he is a party member, then you have it, you can just wait for reforms for a while. The membership to the Communist Party has been viewed by some idiots as a good chance to have some privileges. We know what happened when some persons of this kind have been promoted as a director of a factory. Because of fear, the director, has just simply lied in statistics, thus producing waste. This weakness of the party, to verify his own members accordingly with their knowledge and good will, has led in time to more and more problems. With the slogan “which is not ours, who cares ” , the things have gone in the wrong direction. The party couldn’t explain why is this or why is that, in a form, which could be adopted easily by the majority of the people. Other slogan was “if you left me, I left you” which sound peaceful, but led to fraud and corruption.
The ideal has been compromised by those who were totally incompetent, without an ear and heart to the needs of the people.
I agree that to some extend it was almost thought of as a religion (by some). Though it was never conceived that way. But if we were to consider it that way. Then we’d need to consider other religions as well.Have they worked as their founders intended. I don’t think we could honestly say yes to that. Have the meek inherited the earth,has “thou shall not kill,or “thou shall not steal”. Stopped killing and stealing.One of the pillars of Judaism,Christianity,and Islam is “have no other Gods before me”,and yet the modern “Gods” (in the past as well many times) are “wealth,greed,money,lust” and they do ,for many,come “before me”. Has the World converted freely to Christianity (or Islam for that matter) No, none of those have come about So holding to that same standard. Would we now say,they’ve failed, and should be replaced. I doubt any religious people in the World would agree with that.And yet,again,if Communism is seen as a religion.Then what would be the difference. A failure is a failure. Many in the World,certainly in the West,see Capitalism as a kind of religion as well.And we can say without doubt it has failed to benefit the majority in most countries as it was said to do.So by the same standard used for Communism,it should be replaced. And yet the “very thought” of that ,for those that “have” benefited by it would be considered “sacrilegious”,and you’d be condemned as a “dangerous radical” .Whatever in reality that would mean.
For to put an end once and for all to the lies about Lenin and Stalin I leave here a translation of a translation of an extract from the work by Valentine Iúrevitch Katassonov, you can find in hist-socialismo.net, on the “underground economy” in the USSR. As you will be able to see, was Khruschev who opened the tap to the “underground economy” giving rise to the birth of the “Russian Mafia” of “Oligarchs”, who, when they saw that the amount of profits earned in this “underground economy” did not give more of itself in a socialist economy, they conspired with the “Reformists” in the CPSU to implode the USSR:
“Dangers and consequences of the development of the underground economy in the USSR”
Researchers, both Soviet and American, analyzed some specificities of the underground economy and its influence on the overall situation of the USSR.
1. The underground economy, as remarkable phenomenon, emerged in the late 50s, early 60s All researchers relate this phenomenon only with the coming to power of Khrushchev, who besides other ill-considered decisions, made out of the bottle the genie of the underground economy. It should be noted that even those authors who made a rather negative assessment of the figure of Stalin, are obliged to recognize that there was not virtually submerged or underground economy in the period when Stalin was in power. Instead there was a small commodity production, including artisanal and industrial cooperatives in the cities. Khrushchev liquidated the small commodity production, and its place was occupied by the underground economy.
2. The underground economy was more developed in the central regions of the USSR than in the periphery of the country. Grossmann estimated that by the end of the 70s, the income resulting from the informal economy accounted for about 30% of the income of urban population of the USSR. In the Republic of Russia, these gains were in line with the national average, but in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine totaled about 40%, and in Transcaucasia and Central Asia reached nearly 50% of the income of the urban population. In Armenia, between Armenian nationals, this indicator soared to 65%. Hypertrophy of the underground economy in a number of republics of the Union created the illusion that such republics were “self-sufficient”. Since it seemed to have a level higher than the standard of living in Russia life, they could then survive and develop outside the USSR. All this created fertile ground for national separatist movements in the republics.
3. The underground economy existed at the expense of state resources. A significant part of its activities could only be developed through stoning of material resources and state organizations. However, the illusion that the shadow economy complemented the shortcomings of the official economy was created. What actually happened is that it was a “redistribution” of resources from the state sector (and kolkhosiano) for the underground economy.
4. The underground economy generated corruption. The owners of underground structures bribing leaders and officials of companies and state organizations. For what? For at least not disturbing dark business; maximum accomplices became, collaborating in the supply of raw materials, goods, transportation, etc. This was the first level, of micro-corruption. Then came the regional level, which was linked to the bribery of the judiciary and, in general, of regional bodies of state power. A system of regional protection of illegal business was well established. Finally, corruption reached the third level in the central state. The men of the underground economy began to press for their economic interests in ministries and departments. The economy was still only formally developed in a planned manner and important economic decisions began to be taken at the central level under the influence of men of the underground economy.
5. The owners of illegal businesses accumulated such an important capital that could start pressing along with the political power of the country. But the limits of the socialist mode of production, although they are already in many normal aspects, became tight for entrepreneurs in the informal economy. Then they began to prepare the complete restoration of capitalism. This happened in the period when Gorbachev was in power, under the pretext of false slogans thrown in perestroika. This perestroika, ultimately, was not initiated by Gorbachev and Yakovlev. It was organized by the clandestine capital who acted by order of the “reformers” of the CPSU. (5)
Extracted from:
https://culturaproletaria.wordpress.com/2015/01/09/la-economia-sumergida-en-la-urss-como-comenzo-todo/
Also would be interesting reading the last work of I.V.Stalin:
“Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByP565N0sPRSWkpTSmlvR2ZuRDA/edit?pli=1
The blog, Critica Marxista-Leninista present the work as follows:
“Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” is the latest masterpiece of Stalin in the theoretical field. Developing Marxism-Leninism creatively and bringing Marxist political economy to a higher level, Stalin discussed the fundamental problems of economic construction of developed socialism, outlines the basic economic laws of monopolist capitalism and of socialism, and establishes principles for the solution of economic problems in socialism.
This work also allows a better understanding of the ideological roots of revisionism that took power in the USSR. Stalin criticized many of the theories that Khrushchov revisionists would take as the basis of its policy of restoration of capitalism.
This time we offer the worker and communist movement Spanish-speaking, “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” in the full version which includes annexes, although they are as separate items in the complete works, are omitted in almost all individual publications circulating in Castilian work. The main work and those controversial annexes constitute a coherent theoretical unit that deserves to be read together to learn in depth the thought of Stalin in his later years.
“Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” has a prominent place in the heritage of Marxism-Leninism and is the theoretical reference work on the construction of socialism, nourished by the unique and rich historical experience of the Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin. Rightly can be called the masterpiece of Marxist political economy of socialism.
The index is as follows:
-The character of economic laws in socialism
-Commodity production in socialism
-The law of value in socialism
-The suppression of the opposition between town and country, between mental and manual labor, and the settlement of differences between them
-The disintegration of the single global market and the deepening of the crisis of the world capitalist system.
-The inevitability of wars between capitalist countries
-The fundamental economic laws of modern capitalism and socialism
Another questions
-On the inclusion in the manual a special chapter on Lenin and Stalin as the founders of the political economy of socialism
-International importance of a Marxist political economy manual
-How can you improve the draft manual of political economy
-Reply to Comrade Aleksandr Ilich Notkin (21 April 1952)
-Errors of Comrade L. D.Yaroshenko (May 22, 1952)
I. The main mistake of Comrade Yaroshenko
II. Other errors of Comrade Yaroshenko
-Response to Comrades A.V. Sanina and V. G. Vénzher (28 September 1952)
1. The character of the economic laws of socialism
2. Measures to raise collective-farm property to the level of ownership of all the people
In bold ( mine ) the chapters I consider of interest in the current discussion of this thread, although the full reading would be mandatory, of course.
Some curiosities from Wikipedia:
“With the fall of socialism and opening to capitalism, Lenin’s name would be significantly cleared. Although his embalmed body continues exhibited in his mausoleum.
of overthrown Nicholas II, joined one of the many who are asking the government Lenin’s burial.
On the other hand, the Russian Orthodox Church preaches is not right to expose corpses for years, so also called for the burial of Lenin. Orthodox Vsevolod Chaplin asked to his relatives.
Although according to political scientist Valeri Kedov (also Russian) «There is no a clear demand from society for the authorities to take action on the matter. So I believe that power will do nothing to alter the existing balance. Most likely in the foreseeable future Lenin’s body will continue in the Mausoleo».
I do not know why but from the above post have dissapear some tex, before Nicholas II there was some text:
“Therefore, the Russian Imperial House, which represents the Romanov dynasty of overthrown Nicholas II, joined one of the many who are asking the government Lenin’s burial”
Lets post it again to quote exactly.
Also from Wikipedia:
“The embalmed body of Iosif Stalin stood next to Lenin in the mausoleum of this since his death in 1953 until October 31, 1961, when it was removed during the campaign of de-Stalinization promoted by Nikita Khrushchev and buried outside the walls of the Kremlin behind the mausoleum. His tomb is among those of Suslov and Mikhail Kalinin.”
[continued from further up]
What I think may be useful to add to this discussion of „right” and „wrong” in the past, and thus (un)justified nostalgia, is a return to the idea of *justice“ being a fundamental necessity, „without which everything else is nothing“ (as Saulus/Paulus said about love)…
You, Uncle Bob, advocate Russian retaliatory strikes on several occasions – but the existing justice system (the one which IS, whatever other laws are made or abolished) includes: ‚He who begins a war will lose it alone on the justice level by this trespassing of a no-no line‘ – RU seeks to avoid that necessary, automatic verdict by all means. The brain-surged ones do not, start wars and lose them by this fact alone from the beginning, and this verdict will be executed in the end. The same question of the right to do certain things is discussed here: Weren‘t the Commies right in doing the communism they did – werent‘t the critics right then, when they saluted the arrival of „freedom“ in huge mass rallies in 1989? The truth is surely somewhere inbetween, but where? The answers are surely somewhat different in each case (country). Let‘s take two of them, Romania and East Germany.
Romania was for me, a politically interested nice chap in West Berlin, a lost case and dead issue like Mobutu‘s Kongo – this was the general picture we got from our media. There were „our folks“ there who were „bought free“ by the Bonn government, obviously a political/propaganda move, since on the other hand „we“ always want to have „our“ people in-place everywhere, useful material like the present president Klaus. I never read anything positive about this country, and was ready (as I confessed some day in a comment) to wipe it off the map, in case I was ever asked. Luckily this did not happen. Instead I made the acquaintance of a RO lady from Constantia in HU who happened to have my initials and my day of birth (both inverted, whatever that means) so that I started to pay attention to people from there and that country, and had some small expeditions into it since then. Last time, last fall in Timisoara, there was a candle-to-the-streets ceremony going on, understandable only from the internet, weeks later: a satanistic operation had finished off a night club in Bucarest under circumstances which look like a rehearsal for the Paris Bataclan operation. The candle distributors blamed it all to „corruption“, so someone wanted to prove someone had to go (the prime minister, as far as I remember, perhaps for not being a BND asset).
In time, several interesting bits came together… like the memory of Serbian military analyst Miroslav Lazanski, published in Beograd‘s Politika 20 years after the event (www.politika.rs/scc/clanak/117246/KAKO-SRUSITI-DIKTATORA – their caps, sorry) of the Ceausescu‘s last interview with a foreign journalist in August 1989: After the interview of 160 min he was invited for lunch. and some personal remarks followed. Ceausescu knew then already that Eastern European socialism and he personally had been „sold out“ already by the traitor at its centre, Gorbachev (in Malta, in his plot with Bush1), and was about to be destroyed in the near future. „Why don’t you go public?” asked Lazanski, and C’s answer was:„Communists never ever wash their dirty laundry in public, and we are still a family, if only formally“, and so he waited for the end: „Let history have it‘s way“. Then there was his and his wife‘s murder – the shooting like pieces of cattle – which repeated the death scenery of an earlier RO Nazi (must be Antonescu, but not mentioned in his wiki entry) at the end of WWII – so that in 1989 there was not a „Romanian trial“, but just a tit-for-tat operation steered from outside supporters of nazism to make a propaganda point. Then, the false „Timisoara massaker“ – alledgedly 60,000 brave Romanians killed by the Ceausescu regime in its last days – when in reality some dead corpses had been placed somewhere for photographing – a mega False Flag much, much surpassing the stinking lies of Gliwice and MH370, and appearently invented by France and her nazzio media. Who then invented the Srebrenica genocide and Libya as a failed state afterwards: dégoutant! The TM „mass murder” served for „justifying“ the unhuman execution that nobody else in the Eastern bloc had to suffer. Today RO looks nice – TM is to be the European culture capital in 2020 or 2021 and rebuilds its old centre for that occasion- recommended for visiting. I am happy to have learned now from ioan that RO had been a habitable place even before we brought them „freedom“.
Now for Germany. Some have hopes in this country, hä, hä… Our best excuse for doing nothing (we never do anything but feel uncomfy without good excuses) is the juridical situation that does not allow us anything at all. So, just in case somebody wants to do something, say about the „unity“ of the plump Westgermans with the mostly slavic Eastgermans which in polls a majority does not want: we should do something about it, but can‘t. Because:
First, we have the most freedomly-democratic constitution in the history of mankind, so we do not have and cannot possibly have any right to revolt against anything.
Second, we have the „allied provisions“ (a secret paper every chancellor has to sign that all our „freedom“ and „independence“ is only BS, and we are their property and slaves, obliged to fulfill all their wishes in every question they want to raise).
Third, we have a state of affairs which cannot possibly be in any way lawful, since our constitution, the best in the world, contains the provision that after reunification a new constitution must be drafted and acceped by the majority of the reunited burghers – since this command of the constitution is acted against, we are in a perpetual state of anti-constitutional activity perpetrated by the government.
Fourth, the endless debile anti-Russian propaganda of Angela Hitler (continuing hitlerism? anticonstitutional, see #3!) re Crimea reminds us that the German Democratic Republic, protected by the system of Helsinki that Frau Hitler dares to mention, too, was annexed in an impudent manner repeated in the usurpation of power by the nazis in UA: the BND infiltrated its nazi stooges into the first and last „free elections“ of the GDR, then contracted with itself through its prostitutes in the GDR‘s „democratic government” (Maiziere-Merkel(Hitler) then, Merkel(Hitler)-Maiziere now) to the effect that the GDR was happy to cease to exist and be stolen („annexed“) by Westgermany. This is certainly not lawful, and thus a juridical problem of biggest magnitude which should be judged in a second edition of a renewed Nuremberg War Crimes‘ Tribunal.
Fifth are several points repeated from time to time by several gentlemen to the effect that the IIIrd Reich is still alive, that the Kaiserreich is still alive, that Admiral Dönitz was an honest man and is until today our only lawful führer etc. etc.
Sixth, obviously, the personal future of every german burgher depends on the goodwill of the renazification machinery of the BND, so anybody’s „doing something about it“ can and will be definitely hazardous to their well-being, *must be* avoided.
Seventh, however, may be a spark of hope: we have started a wicked war or two, and we are all guilty, everybody knows that, we know that they know, and they know that we know that they know. In short we must behave well and not wickedly, and we do indeed some things at some fronts to appear „well-behaved“, most at all to the blind. Point #2 follows from that: although we promised to be nice and take some pains to make believe we are nice now, *nobody believes us*, least of all our best friends and eternal instigators, the angloamericans, that‘s why they make our führers sign the self-indictment, but that‘s not enuff, and they have military bases everywhere, spy upon us etc etc.
A certain minuscule spark of hope for a change for the better, I think, is the juridical fact that apart from the bad experience of the AAs with us, which gave them all the right in the world to make us sign self-crippling documents and occupy whatever places they want here, there is a party with even much worse experience with us, which therefore has the same rights upon us as the AAs, only to a much greater degree: Russia, which we devastated much more than England and America. IF Germany must not be sovereign and „free“ at all, and put into place by subordination and occupation by foreign victors, THEN this same right, only more so, has also Russia – only the general confusion after 1989/1990/1991 can have led to a temporary obliviousness of this matter: IF we must have official allied overlords, THEN we must have Russian overlords before everybody else among them, and it is necessary for our renazification führers like Angela Hitler to not only sign a paper saying she will obey, no questions asked, all orders coming from Russia, America or England, but also to organize the reoccupation of military installations on german soil by Russian troops.
Also there is allied and westgerman legislation about how unlawful and unthinkable any resistance against the allied occupators would be. While it seems Westgermany never putsched against England or North America it definitely did against Russia, beginning with Gehlen‘s secret warfare since 1945, continued with the treacherous promises Kohl gave Gorbee in 1989 in exchange for the so-called reunification (which cannot have taken place legally in a supressed and occupied territory), and brought to a new height of insolence and international government crime by the western, and prominently großwestgerman subversion activities in Ukraine before, during and since the Maidan putsch. The driving element behind this UA war adventure is Angela Hitler (with her cronies, mainly Steinmeier) in a bid to be just as underhuman, infamous and criminal as her father against the same targets for the same reasons, with the same goals. German acting against Russia is simply a breach of the capitualation of 1945, a continuation of WWII, and thus a crime to be punished by hanging in Nuremberg.
While it would be against the international law, and thus no wise and forbidden for RU to bomb jihadi camps in Jordan, Uncle Bob, it would be completely lawful fur RU to retake her positions in Germany which she left in the 90s under false assumptions and promises. Russia‘s allied right to do with the defeated whatever they want can not have been touched by a temporary emptying of their former locations.
So… unfortunately, we Germans can do nothing to improve anything, only much to deteriorate everything, but Vlad could. As a jurist he cannot deny the validity of these points.
bp
[On June 2009, a survey conducted in Germany showed that 57% of eastern Germans defend the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Of those polled, 49% said “The GDR had more good sides than bad sides. There were some problems, but life was good there.”]
The results of this poll do not surprise me at all. They confirm in a way what my sister-in-law, who grew up in East-Germany as the daughter of one of Erich Honecker’s staff members (her mam being multilingual and dolmecherin), told me once about how many folks in East-Germany felt a couple of years after the transition to the capitalist(ic) system. Before the transition everybody had a job, functional or not; but after the transition many of them found themselves jobless and completely unprepared to compete for one in an (capatalistic) environment where there weren’t too many jobs available. So to me it is very understandable that those (I’m not talking here about my sister in law’s family) who couldn’t make that transition in a smooth way, picture the past a bit nostalgically. For those people life was certainly better before the transition than after.
As a way of enabling historians in all of us to see the human numbers of effective human governance under the socialism of Communism versus that of Capitalism, this is excellent.
In order for Western (all, European Union nations plus US, Britain New Zealand, Australia, just under one billion of the total seven billion of us) hegemonicaly obsessed to be able to create an actual uni-lateral empire extra humans, approximately two to three billion of us, must be “erased”, both genetically and actually. All those races of us who can think for ourselves and say:”No!”
Sadly for that insane West, there are no such human races at all. We would not have made it to the 21st century with out :”No!”
Out of the post in question I did not get much else out of it, glad it was chosen though.