How the USSR implemented socialism was pretty great in practice, the real history of it has just been hidden from you behind the thick fog of cold-war anticommunist propaganda.

Here’s a good intro video: Michael Parenti - Reflections on the overthrow of the USSR

Legit question, what country is a better real world example?

This entire thread is based on this. If comments are truthful.

deleted by creator

Don’t forget racism

Spot on.

These are the kids (OP included) calling you a tankie online:

Sir we are not doing reasons here, this is a meme sub.

An Excerpt from Parenti - Blackshirts and reds:

The upheavals in Eastern Europe did not constitute a defeat for socialism because socialism never existed in those countries, according to some U.S. leftists. They say that the communist states offered nothing more than bureaucratic, one-party “state capitalism” or some such thing. Whether we call the former communist countries “socialist” is a matter of definition. Suffice it to say, they constituted something different from what existed in the profit-driven capitalist world–as the capitalists themselves were not slow to recognize.

First, in communist countries there was less economic inequality than under capitalism. The perks enjoyed by party and government elites were modest by corporate CEO standards in the West [even more so when compared with today’s grotesque compensation packages to the executive and financial elites.—Eds], as were their personal incomes and lifestyles. Soviet leaders like Yuri Andropov and Leonid Brezhnev lived not in lavishly appointed mansions like the White House, but in relatively large apartments in a housing project near the Kremlin set aside for government leaders. They had limousines at their disposal (like most other heads of state) and access to large dachas where they entertained visiting dignitaries. But they had none of the immense personal wealth that most U.S. leaders possess. {Nor could they transfer such “wealth” by inheritance or gift to friends and kin, as is often the case with Western magnates and enriched political leaders. Just vide Tony Blair.—Eds]

The “lavish life” enjoyed by East Germany’s party leaders, as widely publicized in the U.S. press, included a $725 yearly allowance in hard currency, and housing in an exclusive settlement on the outskirts of Berlin that sported a sauna, an indoor pool, and a fitness center shared by all the residents. They also could shop in stores that carried Western goods such as bananas, jeans, and Japanese electronics. The U.S. press never pointed out that ordinary East Germans had access to public pools and gyms and could buy jeans and electronics (though usually not of the imported variety). Nor was the “lavish” consumption enjoyed by East German leaders contrasted to the truly opulent life style enjoyed by the Western plutocracy.

Second, in communist countries, productive forces were not organized for capital gain and private enrichment; public ownership of the means of production supplanted private ownership. Individuals could not hire other people and accumulate great personal wealth from their labor. Again, compared to Western standards, differences in earnings and savings among the populace were generally modest. The income spread between highest and lowest earners in the Soviet Union was about five to one. In the United States, the spread in yearly income between the top multibillionaires and the working poor is more like 10,000 to 1.

Third, priority was placed on human services. Though life under communism left a lot to be desired and the services themselves were rarely the best, communist countries did guarantee their citizens some minimal standard of economic survival and security, including guaranteed education, employment, housing, and medical assistance.

Fourth, communist countries did not pursue the capital penetration of other countries. Lacking a profit motive as their motor force and therefore having no need to constantly find new investment opportunities, they did not expropriate the lands, labor, markets, and natural resources of weaker nations, that is, they did not practice economic imperialism. The Soviet Union conducted trade and aid relations on terms that generally were favorable to the Eastern European nations and Mongolia, Cuba, and India.

All of the above were organizing principles for every communist system to one degree or another. None of the above apply to free market countries like Honduras, Guatemala, Thailand, South Korea, Chile, Indonesia, Zaire, Germany, or the United States.

But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic, cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.

The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

deleted by creator

Shhh we only believe facts that back up what we were told to think

1. The victors write history

Flashback to stories of Rus conquests written by the Rus that said the people asked to be conquered

Trotsky would have ruled.

Mask off trot lmao

“History is written by the victors” is a tired cliché that doesn’t always hold up super well if you spend a moment to consider it.

Who conquered Rome? Surely, it was a people remembered for their great military prowess, right? Nope, still commonly remembered as barbarians thousands of year later.

The Mongols had one of the largest empires in history, and yet in much of the lands they conquered, they’re remembered as being monstrously ugly brutes, which is where words like “mongoloid” and “mongrel” come from.

Average Trotskyist shitting on MLs

Just like China.

And Cuba. And North Korea.

One of those funny coincidences that keeps happening.

To be perfectly clear: I’m not strongly opposed to what any “14-year-old white girl” means when she promotes communism. I understand leftist goals as distinct from what these countries actually did. But the fact these countries had those goals, and then did this shit instead, demands a better explanation than ‘that doesn’t count.’ Especially when leftist philosophy has a lot to say about liberals and capitalism inevitably producing terrible outcomes.

Stalin believed in the values of communism, he just also believed everyone was out to get him. Economically he followed Lenin’s plan of nationalization and collectivization even more zealously then Lenin would have. Lenin wasn’t as paranoid as Stalin and probably wouldn’t have killed and gulaged millions of “suspicious” people but he was still very much a dictator and was willing to use any means necessary to achieve his goals, same with Trotsky.

With any of them the super structure of the state and how it’s organized may vary a bit, but it would have all been built off a nationalized and collectivized base. Whether you want to call that base communism is up to you, but you can’t say one is and one isn’t.

Trotsky was as much a tyrant and potentially even more blood would have been spilled. Trotsky was a strong proponent of war communism which was brutal towards the Russian civilians.

Until the next tyrant came along. It’s a system that is always bound to fail.

Did you still use money to buy goods and services? Was your father able to do speak up at work? Change jobs? Go on vacations?

Just because something called itself communism didn’t make it communism. The state owning everything is the opposite of communism. In extreme communism, there isn’t even a damn state as we know it.

The people in the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea do not live in a democracy nor a republic.

Erm pushes up glasses that wasn’t real communism because real communism works.

This certainly never happens with liberalism. Africa has never seen war since democracy and liberalism freed it obviously. And putin is the prime example of a communist I guess.

You’re technically describing the downsides of authoritarianism, bordering on dictatorship, not communism. That being said, I don’t believe communism would work either. Communism isn’t the only system at play in those scenarios. Again, not defending communism as a good thing, just that the given reasons aren’t actually due to communism but other parallel systems that were implemented at those times.

Also adding to the list of nice things - a picture of the current dictator on all public offices and classrooms. Work and school weeks from Monday to Saturday and a Sunday in which you had to do mandatory free time activities, like go to communist youth clubs, participate in parades for the glory of the state, or plant flowers or do random maintenance work in the park.

I’ve noticed the arguments tend to center around the notion that ‘that wasn’t true communism’ and that the notions presented by Marx et al. were not properly implemented.

Fair enough, I can agree with that, but I’d wonder what makes us think that we would do it better next time? How do you actually prevent consolidation of power in the hands of the select few (in any system, for that matter, not just the ideal communism)?

Obligatory capitalism is bad too (but at least I’m in less danger of getting vanned in the middle of the night for insulting random great leader - attemtping to undermine the social order or whatever they called thoughtcrimes).

I don’t think anyone is advocating for literal communism. They are advocating for social programs like, you know, universal healthcare and good public schools. Which the Gop and Fox have to scream is communism to scare people.

I think you are confusing communism for authoritarian socialism. If only you’d spent a few minutes on google.

deleted by creator

That’s literally nothing to do with communism and everything to do with iron fist rule under an authoritarian dictatorship.

It amazes me that the most vocal opponents of communism are the same people creaming their pants over handing their democracy over to the next Putin / Kim Jong Un, who have equally demonstrated the horrors of “democracy” when implemented in bad faith by sociopathic authoritarian dictators.

None of that is communism though, that’s authoritarianism. Like this isn’t even a “not real communism” thing, it’s just objective facts. Communism is an economic system, NOT a government system.

But you know what, I AM gonna say not real communism anyways, because they weren’t. The direct stated goals of communism by Marx is the workers owning the means of production, and the abolishment of both private property(which is different than PERSONAL property, btw. i.e It’s still “your” toothbrush, not “ours”) AND the STATE. Many definitions also include the abolishment of money in of itself.

Only one of those goals were achieved by the USSR. Private property was abolished, but the state owned the means of production, which is a double fail as not only do the workers not own them, the state owning them means the state still exists. Money still existed as well. So overall, they met 1 out of 3/4 of the minimum requirements to be communism, and thus they weren’t communist.

Same story with China and basically every other “communist” country you could gotcha me with, abolishing private property is the only requirement they have met.

Meeting only one of multiple requirements to be something and calling yourself it anyways does not mean you actually are that thing. By that logic, I’m a good singer; I’m not good at it, but I CAN sing, so calling myself a good singer is perfectly valid.

I’ve never met anyone who hates communism more than the colleagues of mine who grew up under communism

Of course they do. They grew up in an authoritarian country calling themselves communist. Whether that country was actually communist or not doesn’t really matter; if you don’t actually know what communism IS, you won’t be able to recognize that the entity harming you is communist in name only. If they hadn’t actually read stuff like Marx, which most people likely didn’t seeing as google didn’t exist and you had to research stuff the old fashioned way(and even if you did do research, censorship is a concern), their definition of communism will be entirely based of the actions of their authoritarian government that claims to be communist.

To put a more modern perspective on this, North Korea calls itself a Democratic Peoples Republic despite being none of those things. But to a North Korean citizen isolated from outside information, NK is ALL of those things; if NK collapsed, there would definitely be some former NK citizens proclaiming the horrors of democracy, and there would definitely be people replying explaining how that “wasn’t true democracy”; sound familiar?

Communism is a flawed system because it can never work in reality, not because it’s inherently bad. For it to work, all forms of inequality have to be not just abolished, but abolished by total unanimous agreement by humanity; which will never happen, because there will always be people who care only for themselves or their “chosen people”.

Capitalism, on the other hand, is inherently bad. Evil, even. It “works”, but only by exploiting those beneath you. If you’re on the bottom rung with no one under you to exploit, or if you’re just too ethical to exploit those under you, it no longer works and you are left being a wage slave just to survive.

Sounds a lot like FL.

Holy shit lmao

Yeah this is fairly common opinion of russian occupants in post-soviet countries outside russia. Wonder why.

What? The guy subscribing to anti-white racism rhetoric would also be a raging fascist? Say it isn’t so.

Removed by mod

What did the comment say?

Yeah that’s me! Wow, you really took the time. Nice.

LOL how is it racist? You do realise “Russian” is not a race, right?

And how is it “nationalist”? Because it mentions a nationality?

deleted by creator

I live in former ussr state, 90% of those people are very old, and as to why ? Nostalgia. They always overlook the bad and only bring up the good.

Well yea, most people prefer quality of life not going down

The vibe when you’re a 30 year old software developer and still could never afford a house in this economy…

Wait are you telling me the Democratic Republic of North Korea is neither Democratic or a Republic?? Like they’d just lie?

I can name several countries that tried to do a communism, and wound up being what communists insist doesn’t count.

Communism IS a dictatorship. There’s no other way.

Rule of thumb: If the US is sanctioning or at war with them, they’re communist.