Oh really? How do you hold the people in power accountable, then, if they’re part of the only party that is allowed to exist (which that party itself decided, what a coincidence!)?

Recall elections, consultative democracy, electing candidates, etc.

False, that is the result of capitalism when it goes unchecked, not the definition. And different countries have different levels of checks on capitalism.

Capitalism cannot be “checked.” Capitalism inevitably tends towards centralization of the essential means of production and distribution into fewer and fewer hands, but even in the earliest stages capitalists were far outnumbered by workers.

Yeah, no, that’s not the case. Otherwise explain to me how many western countries have leftist parties and even marxist-leninist parties. It’s just not the will of the majority. Which leads me back to the point: your (or even my) satisfaction with the results don’t measure how democratic a country is, despite the FUD spread by authoritarians and wannabe authoritarians to destabilize democracies by encouraging people to not participate.

Very few leftist parties can get anything done in western countries because the media is largely controlled by capitalists, and the state itself serves capitalists. Taking PSL as an example, a great deal more people agree with their positions than the ~1% of the vote they receive, but they are either actually barred from running, or receive a tiny portion of the vote due to not wanting to spoil your vote, as well as a lack of positive publicity from media (or any publicity, for that matter).

Saying they beat the Americans in the space race several times over doesn’t mean the Statesians didn’t make it to the moon first, it means the Soviets beat them to many major milestones, yet this is brushed under the rug.

The Soviets were the first to space, first to send probes to Venus, first animals in space, first returning animals from space, first humans in space, and more. The moon landing was a huge milestone, sure, but the soviets took a number of firsts themselves.

Do you think that people don’t work in China? Cuba, Korea, Vietnam? Laos? Do you think they didn’t work in the USSR, when they went from feudalism to space in half a century? I really don’t think you understand how socialism works in real life, or how production in the future will be run.

Lenin the GOAT

That’s not how it works, the people work and capitalists make all of the money, and use the state to prevent people from getting uppity.

Money in general becomes superfluous if all production and distribution is collectivized and run along a scientific plan. If you develop beyond markets, why do you need money?

We are talking about communism, it sounds like you’re talking about welfare and getting upset at those on welfare and not the capitalists that plunder all of the social surplus. Of course capitalists control the state, the state serves the ruling class.

You are describing capitalism. Capitalists plunder the surplus value created by the working classes. Production is already socialized and collaborative, but the spoils go to a tiny handful of people.

Elections aren’t democracy, as you said democracy is rule by the majority. Pluralism, the ability to choose between parties, isn’t actually democracy either. A single party system can be more democratic if it’s a consultative democracy and reflects the will of the majority, like how it works in China (though China obviously has many, many elections). That also doesn’t mean pluralism is inherently antidemocratic, countries like the DPRK have multiple political parties with seats (even if the majority are held by the WPK), just that the will of the majority be upheld.

In capitalism, a tiny class of people controls the most essential means of production and distribution for society. The state represents their interests, and any parties that exist must represent them, or instead have strong grassroots support and work against the state (such as the Bolsheviks). Choosing between any number of capitalist parties doesn’t mean workers are going to be represented. No western country represents the will of the majority.

Nah, most seem in support of it.

Cheers back!

History and time are not the same thing. Development continues to happen, and it happens through struggle, the class struggle being primary now.

Did you read my comment? I said the Soviets ended famine in a region where famine was historically common. Further, socialism worked in the USSR, and continues to work in Cuba, Vietnam, Korea, China, Laos, and Venezuela. Greed did not ruin any of these, greed is expressed in greater degrees in capitalist countries where profit is the goal above all else.

I’m aware that they played a critical and heavy role in colonialism, and am not trying to downplay that in any way. I appreciate the added context, but I don’t believe we are opposed in any way here.

If only Putin was actually a communist. If Putin actually was trying to remake the USSR, then the world would be in a much better position.

The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning that still lasts to this day despite capitalism neglecting it. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.

Literacy rates, societal guarantees in the 1936 constitution, reports on the healthcare system over time, and more are good sources for these claims.

The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.

When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski’s Human Rights in the Soviet Union.

The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.

Death rates spiked:

And wealth disparity skyrocketed alongside the newly impoverished majority:

Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism and reintroduction of capitalism, and this is why the large majority of post-soviet citizens regret its fall. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries. A lot of Eastern European countries were swarmed with western capital during the destruction of socialism, which is what temporarily caused the rise of the far-right in these countries, but in time their problems will no longer be able to be ignored.

Even that would not be democratic, as it ignores the role of ownership of production and distribution. In a capitalist economy, such would still be subject to the same mechanisms preventing bourgeois democracy from following the will of the proletariat.

The Soviet Union did not agree to invade Poland with the Nazis, it was about spheres of influence and red lines the Nazis should not cross in Poland. Spheres of influence were not agreements to jointly work together. When the USSR went into Poland, it stayed mostly to areas Poland had invaded and annexed a few decades prior. Should the Soviets have let Poland get entirely taken over by the Nazis, standing idle? The West made it clear that they were never going to help anyone against the Nazis until it was their turn to be targeted.

Further, you’re ignoring the Munich Agreement, where Czechoslovakia was given to the Nazis by the west. Not only was the west on good terms with the Nazis, signing many non-aggression pacts, they fostered healthy relationships. Finally, the Soviets were reasonably highly suspicious that Britain and Germany would ally. This was not unfounded, both were friendly enough until the outbreak of war. The Soviets desperately needed to make sure that the British and Germans would not ally, which reasonably would have happened had the Soviet Union taken unilateral action against the Nazis, rather than waiting to be attacked first.

Stalin was said to have “obsessed over quantitative and qualitative” improvements in arms in the years leading up to World War II, and had soldiers stationed on high alert, preparing for a German attack. Despite the insistence of many Generals to muster forces on the German border, it was Stalin’s insistence that forces not be so concentrated that prevented the Nazis from totally routing the Red Army, enabling the greatest counteroffensive in history.

Hitler himself was quite honest at times, to himself at least:

How can such a primitive people manage such technical achievements in such a short time!

…

The fact that Stalin has raised the Russian standard of living is unquestionable. People don’t go hungry [at the moment when Operation Barbarossa was launched]. In general, it’s necessary to recognize that they have built factories of similar importance to Hermann Goering Reichswerke where two years ago nothing but unknown villages existed. We come across railway lines that aren’t even marked on our maps.

The Soviets expected and planned for it, they were never allies with the Nazis.

It isn’t “a few,” that’s part of the problem. The entire reason the war is even happening is because the west helped install a Banderite regime after the 2014 coup, which caused Donetsk and Luhansk to secede, sparking a civil war where Kiev began ethnic cleansing against the Donbass region that voted for the former president.

The Minsk agreements could have avoided the war, but both were tanked by Ukraine and the west. Nazis were emboldened by the new Banderite regime. That’s also why Ukraine and Israel are such close allies.

To be fair this one is kinda cute