I am not going to argue with you, a lot of the actions of the Soviet Union were abhorrent at best. They were led by imperialists with insane blood on their hands.
I’d just like to say that on the one hand, the Soviet Union was still a massive improvement over the Russian Empire in terms of pretty much everything from civil rights, worker’s rights, quality of life, and basically every metric that matters, and that says more about the Russian Empire than the USSR. Most communist countries were like that, they were the result of insane worker’s exploitation that somehow made these regimes make sense. Communist revolutions don’t happen because some people really like the colour red, but because enough people decide that’s a good alternative than what is present.
And on the other hand, a lot of the creature comforts of today, like paid time off, the 8-hour working day, worker’s rights, anti-discrimination laws, etc. are the achievements of socialist politicians and activists, even in nominally capitalistic countries.
I’d argue that organising a society based on pure ideological terms is always going to result in despots twisting that ideology to their own gain. The adherence to ideological capitalism is estimated to be killing around 75000 people yearly through the lack of US healthcare. I don’t see how it’s different than the USSR starving people in the holodomor.
And mind you, I’m not “what about”-ing here. All I’m saying is that being a shithole that kills and maims people has less to do with socialism or even communism, and everything to do with whether those in power have the fear put into them.
And in any case, the discussion is largely moot, since socialism and communism has largely been dead in the West and arguably China for a while now, even socialdemocratic countries in Europe are experiencing a dismantling of the achievements of democratic socialist movements, which - since neoliberal movements have been particularly only fighting the left - leave room for the far-right to come back.
I am not going to argue with you, a lot of the actions of the Soviet Union were abhorrent at best. They were led by imperialists with insane blood on their hands.
I’d just like to say that on the one hand, the Soviet Union was still a massive improvement over the Russian Empire in terms of pretty much everything from civil rights, worker’s rights, quality of life, and basically every metric that matters, and that says more about the Russian Empire than the USSR. Most communist countries were like that, they were the result of insane worker’s exploitation that somehow made these regimes make sense. Communist revolutions don’t happen because some people really like the colour red, but because enough people decide that’s a good alternative than what is present.
And on the other hand, a lot of the creature comforts of today, like paid time off, the 8-hour working day, worker’s rights, anti-discrimination laws, etc. are the achievements of socialist politicians and activists, even in nominally capitalistic countries.
I’d argue that organising a society based on pure ideological terms is always going to result in despots twisting that ideology to their own gain. The adherence to ideological capitalism is estimated to be killing around 75000 people yearly through the lack of US healthcare. I don’t see how it’s different than the USSR starving people in the holodomor.
And mind you, I’m not “what about”-ing here. All I’m saying is that being a shithole that kills and maims people has less to do with socialism or even communism, and everything to do with whether those in power have the fear put into them.
And in any case, the discussion is largely moot, since socialism and communism has largely been dead in the West and arguably China for a while now, even socialdemocratic countries in Europe are experiencing a dismantling of the achievements of democratic socialist movements, which - since neoliberal movements have been particularly only fighting the left - leave room for the far-right to come back.