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

Sure. When I mean comparison, I mean in trends. If a country scores lower in one year while another scores higher, and this trend repeats, it’s a sign of improving and decaying conditions. Democracy isn’t really something you can measure directly, which makes the entire subject pretty muddy.

Yes, I by no means meant to downplay that. Just to highlight that even though they were not as heavily involved, neocolonialism and imperialism are still the driving force behind their safety nets, so anyone trying to point to them not being as heavily involved in old colonialism as a way to dismiss their modern neocolonialism and imperialism can be safely countered.

And to clarify my earlier point, colonialism proper is still around, just not as much as it was at the peak.

Trends in perception, as well as comparison, does tell a good story. In many ways it’s a superior method of data gathering on democracy than the standard method of defining democracy as whatever the Nordics are doing, and then grading everyone based on how closely they follow that.

Elections are not indicative of democracy. The fact that capital is what determines which parties are viable, what candidates are allowed to run, and controls the entire economy means that elections in capitalism are more of a pressure valve than an actual way to get your voice across. Capitalism is incompatible with working class democracy.

Try looking at it from our side. Day in, day out we get bombarded with disinformation (intentionally or not), and have had these same arguments day in, day out. I don’t think it’s particularly surprising when some communists become jaded and snappy over time, even if I think it’s counter-productive. The point on Sankara is apt, Sankara was just as good a person as many other demonized socialist leaders, but was not as heavily targeted due to Burkina Faso’s socialist project getting strangled in the crib, rather than flourishing and thus getting demonized.

The communists were never allies with the Nazis. A non-aggression pact is not an alliance. The communists spent the decade prior trying to form an anti-Nazi coalition force, such as the Anglo-French-Soviet Alliance which was pitched by the communists and rejected by the British and French. The communists hated the Nazis from the beginning, as the Nazi party rose to prominence by killing communists and labor organizers, cemented bourgeois rule, and was violently racist and imperialist, while the communists opposed all of that.

When the many talks of alliances with the west all fell short, the Soviets reluctantly agreed to sign a non-agression pact, in order to delay the coming war that everyone knew was happening soon. Throughout the last decade, Britain, France, and other western countries had formed pacts with Nazi Germany, such as the Four-Power Pact, the German-French-Non-Agression Pact, and more. Molotov-Ribbentrop was unique among the non-agression pacts with Nazi Germany in that it was right on the eve of war, and was the first between the USSR and Nazi Germany. It was a last resort, when the west was content from the beginning with working alongside Hitler.

Harry Truman, in 1941 in front of the Senate, stated:

If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances.

Not only that, but it was the Soviet Union that was responsible for 4/5ths of total Nazi deaths, and winning the war against the Nazis. 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. 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.

Churchill did not take the Nazis as a serious threat, and was horrified when FDR and Stalin made a joke about executing Nazis. Churchill starved millions to death in India in preventable ways, and had this to say about it:

I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.

Meanwhile, the soviet famine in the 1930s was the last major famine outside of wartime in the USSR, because collectivized farming achieved food security in a region where famine was common. As a consequence, life expectancy doubled:

The Nazis and soviets were never allies. A non-aggression pact is not an alliance, and the non-aggression pact between the soviets and the Nazis was unique among the other non-aggression pacts in that it was on the eve of war. The soviets knew war was coming, and so bought more time to prepare.

Westerners in general don’t have democracy, capitalists have democracy in the west. That’s why the implementation of socialism is necessary, bringing democracy to the working classes and kicking out the capitalists.

No, I’m referring to the invasion by countries like France, the US, UK, Germany, etc. With the overthrow of the Tsar, the soviets frees the Russian Empire’s colonies. You are speaking of conspiracy theories and blaming modern peoples for the practices of an Empire over a century dead, and doing so along ethnic lines.

From the latest Perceptions of Democracy index, from NIRA Data:

Ukrainians are among the most skeptical of the democratic processes in their country. Meanwhile, even a country as hotly contested as Venezuela, faith in elections is skyrocketing. And this is gathered by a western org run by a NATO official.

Venezuela is more democratic than western countries. Why is it that westerners demonize revolutionaries for not following the political process, and demonize electoralists for following the political process anyways? Because both are threats to capital.

Regarding Russia, it’s certianly no Paradise, and it’s fallen dramatically from its proud Soviet roots. It’s a modern tragedy. However, the US Empire is the global hegemon, the premier imperialist power, while Russia is a strong friend to Cuba, China, Iran, Venezuela, and many other anti-imperialist countries like Burkina Faso. It’s playing a progressive role, despite being dominated by capitalism in the current era.

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.