How can people say the USSR was a failure?

[RedStar]

I think, considering the condition of Russia in 1917 (backwater, underdeveloped with minimal industrialization and in the midst of World War I), the Soviet Union achieved great success.

From the very beginning Russia was handicapped because of the failure of the Spartacists in Germany and because of the devastation of WWI. This left Russia isolated. Furthermore, WW2 and the Cold War utterly destroyed the Russian people and leveled entire cities. Casualties in Russia exceeded 25 million.

Despite all of this, in a relatively short period, the Soviet Union was able to industrialize and achieve an economy that directly competed with the United States. It is important to note that the US was already largely industrialized by 1917 and didn't suffer nearly as many casualties or infrastructure damage from the World Wars as Russia did. So, of course the Soviet Union wasn't exactly on par with the United States.

It's all about material conditions and historical context. Despite the world being against it, the Soviet Union was, in fact, a marvel of socialism.

In the Soviet Union, there was no homelessness, or unemployment. Education was quality (after all, it produced the minds responsible for Sputnik and the Space Race) and free through university level. Health care was available and decent for everybody http://www.marxists.org/archive/newsholme/1933/red-medicine/index.htm
Industry was improving and Russian workers enjoyed more rights than their Western counterparts.

The reason for the shortages in consumer goods, by the way, is not because of the "failure of socialism" but because of the fact that the administration was focused on expanding capital resources rather than consumer goods, and because most consumer goods had to be diverted becaue of the Cold War. As it was, the Russian people nonetheless lived better waiting in line for bread than having no bread and dying under capitalism (the Czar). And the reason the USSR dissolved is because of liberal government policies under Gorbachev.

In fact, a large portion of the Russian population regrets the dissolution of the USSR and Russia is worse today than it was under socialism.

Yet considering all of this, people so easily dismiss the Soviet Union as if there is nothing of value to be gained from learning its history.

"Why Did The Soviet Union Collapse"
http://freespace.virgin.net/pep.talk/COLLAPSE..htm

 

[quadraphonics]

I think, considering the condition of Russia in 1917 (backwater, underdeveloped with minimal industrialization and in the midst of World War I), the Soviet Union achieved great success.

It did well in certain terms (certainly not political freedoms, but in terms of development) up until the 1960's. And, indeed, in those days it was not widely considered a failure, but rather a viable alternative system and so a very scary threat to the West. It was the performance of the Soviet Union from 1970 onwards - and particularly, the outright collapse of the whole edifice - that earned it the designation as a failure.

 

[RedStar]

Who was politically free in the West? You can't criticize socialism without examining the horrors of capitalism.

Also, since it was obviously successful to a point, the best course of action is not to throw it away to be lost in history but to examine it critically and think about how it could be done better the next time.

 

[Read-Only]

Who was politically free in the West? You can't criticize socialism without examining the horrors of capitalism.

Also, since it was obviously successful to a point, the best course of action is not to throw it away to be lost in history but to examine it critically and think about how it could be done better the next time.

It's quite clear from your unrealistic, myopic and narrow view of the world, along with what's the current state of nations, that you don't have a clue as to what you're talking about or proposing. It's also clear that you know next to nothing about capitalism nor who the capitalists are NOR why they are capitalists in the first place. <shrug>

I would suggest you get a better education, read up on the current events of the past 20 years and do some serious rethinking before continuing to make yourself appear so perfectly ignorant and foolish here.

 

[quadraphonics]

Who was politically free in the West?

People in the West mostly have lived in functional democracies during the time in question. The USSR produced the Gulag, KGB, etc.

You can't criticize socialism without examining the horrors of capitalism.

Capitalism has plenty of warts, but I do not consider the contention that the West is/was less free than - or even, comparably unfree to - the USSR to be serious enough on its face to merit much response.

Also, since it was obviously successful to a point, the best course of action is not to throw it away to be lost in history but to examine it critically and think about how it could be done better the next time.

The main outputs of that criticism are that you need to keep democratic control of the state, and that central planning hits a hard limit once you get your economy developed. Both of which pretty much rule out repeating the basic Soviet Communist approach.

Tell us, how exactly do you account for the fact that the erstwhile Warsaw Pact countries were in such a rush to ditch that whole approach, once the threat of Soviet invasion was lifted?

 

[Cavalier]

It did well in certain terms (certainly not political freedoms, but in terms of development) up until the 1960's. And, indeed, in those days it was not widely considered a failure, but rather a viable alternative system and so a very scary threat to the West. It was the performance of the Soviet Union from 1970 onwards - and particularly, the outright collapse of the whole edifice - that earned it the designation as a failure.

Those "successful" years, pre-1970, you are counting included some very dark times. The Soviets killed more innocent people than the Nazis did, by a very wide margin. For some reason, we don't use it as a cautioonary tale in the same way we do with the history of Naziism, but that is our failure; it does not suggest in any way that soviet-style government was anything less than the monstrous failure of the human spirit that it actually was.

 

[quadraphonics]

Those "successful" years, pre-1970, you are counting included some very dark times. The Soviets killed more innocent people than the Nazis did, by a very wide margin.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I explicitly excluded political freedoms from the "successful" category there, right in the material you quoted.

For some reason, we don't use it as a cautioonary tale in the same way we do with the history of Naziism,

We don't?

 

[RedStar]

People in the West mostly have lived in functional democracies during the time in question. The USSR produced the Gulag, KGB, etc.

And America produced the CIA, gitmo, etc

It goes both ways pretty equally

Capitalism has plenty of warts, but I do not consider the contention that the West is/was less free than - or even, comparably unfree to - the USSR to be serious enough on its face to merit much response.

Free in what way? Soviet workers were more free than the Western counterparts. There was no ownership class exploiting them, for one.

The main outputs of that criticism are that you need to keep democratic control of the state, and that central planning hits a hard limit once you get your economy developed. Both of which pretty much rule out repeating the basic Soviet Communist approach.

Really? Care to back up your assertion?

 

[spidergoat]

Ha ha, Gitmo. The Gulag made Gitmo look like Club Med.

 

[RedStar]

Fun fact. Most of what you hear about the Gulags is mindless rhetoric.

Edit: And gitmo isn't even the tip of the iceberg of the atrocities the United States has promoted or taken part in.

 

[spidergoat]

I've read Solzenitzen, you can't fool me.

 

[RedStar]

It's actually spelled Solzhenitsyn, and I've read Ivan Denisovich too. It's one account.

And you seem to be ignoring all the other points I made.

 

[Xotica]

Fun fact. Most of what you hear about the Gulags is mindless rhetoric.

Poppycock. This historian has assiduously documented Soviet atrocities... from the annexed Baltic countries to the Siberian Gulags 1932-1954

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
Timothy Snyder / Basic Books / 2010 / 544pp

This murderous anthology doesn't even touch upon Soviet atrocities in the Central Asian SSRs, Africa, the Afghanistan occupation, Chechnya I/II.

 

[The Marquis]

Fun fact. Most of what you hear about the Gulags is mindless rhetoric.

Edit: And gitmo isn't even the tip of the iceberg of the atrocities the United States has promoted or taken part in.

You're making the same basic mistake every dissociated kid with a copy of Marx makes; that the US is representative of capitalism. That US atrocities have anything to do with capitalism, as theory. You're the same one who will claim that we can't know that communism will work because we haven't seen "pure" communism yet; without ever realising that pure capitalism has never existed either. You'll claim communism will work if only people wake up and realise we all should be nice to each other and stop being so greedy, without ever once acknowledging that capitalism is subject to the very same caveat. That is, of course, providing you acknowledge the human element at all.

Have I seen you before? Are you really new? It's a little difficult to tell. I mean you lot should really wear a uniform or something when you come on here, so we don't have to bother reading the same things over, and over, and over.....

 

[Repo Man]

You're making the same basic mistake every dissociated kid with a copy of Marx makes; that the US is representative of capitalism. That US atrocities have anything to do with capitalism, as theory. You're the same one who will claim that we can't know that communism will work because we haven't seen "pure" communism yet; without ever realising that pure capitalism has never existed either. You'll claim communism will work if only people wake up and realise we all should be nice to each other and stop being so greedy, without ever once acknowledging that capitalism is subject to the very same caveat. That is, of course, providing you acknowledge the human element at all.

Have I seen you before? Are you really new? It's a little difficult to tell. I mean you lot should really wear a uniform or something when you come on here, so we don't have to bother reading the same things over, and over, and over.....

This rubbish reads very similar to the stuff United For Communism was posting for a short time. Then he stopped posting. He probably forgot his password, and just signed up with another nick.

As far as human nature goes, and how communists never address it: it's as though they regard the idea that human nature exists at all with the same horror that Christian fundies regard the idea that there seems to be a innate sexual preference hard wiring for most of us, in generally for heterosexuality sex, but for some, for homosexuality. In both cases, they angrily deny it, and in both cases, they seem to think that these are just bad ideas that, once wiped out by sufficient re-education, will never be thought of again, ever. They will vanish into purged history.

 

[RedStar]

Human nature is defined by material conditions. This is undeniable fact, considering the changes from hunter-gatherer societies (communal) to civilized societies (the first stage).

Also, if you want to talk about the Gulags, I can talk about American atrocities, too. It won't be a fruitful debate, especially because gulags are not a part of Marxist ideology.

 

[Cavalier]

Fun fact. Most of what you hear about the Gulags is mindless rhetoric.

Edit: And gitmo isn't even the tip of the iceberg of the atrocities the United States has promoted or taken part in.

Fun fact. If you think the Gulags and mass murder by Stalin and other party elites (and the mass murder of party elites by Stalin) are mere propaganda or that there are comparable examples from analogous capitalist nations, then you are either ignorant, lying or crazy. And that is not to mention China, where the death toll was even higher. Add in the track record of places of "lesser" atrocities like Cuba and Cambodia and you start to get a definite sense that communism just doesn't work the way you claim it does.

 

[spidergoat]

On the contrary, the Gulag is a necessary aspect of communism. Otherwise there would be no means of enforcement regarding the ownership of the means of production.

 

[quadraphonics]

And America produced the CIA, gitmo, etc

It goes both ways pretty equally

Unconvincing.

How about you try to support that assertion in some way? Explain exactly what "ways" you're talking about there, and how establish that they are "equal."

Meanwhile: how many legitimate democratic elections did the USSR hold, during its history?

Free in what way?

Pretty much every way.

Soviet workers were more free than the Western counterparts. There was no ownership class exploiting them, for one.

Instead they were exploited by a putative political vanguard. Great.

If you aren't free to travel, to speak, to vote, to organize, to work or to leave, then how free are you, really?

Really? Care to back up your assertion?

What for? You aren't bothering to back up any of yours, and I've asserted nothing controversial in the first place.

 

[quadraphonics]

Also, if you want to talk about the Gulags, I can talk about American atrocities, too. It won't be a fruitful debate, especially because gulags are not a part of Marxist ideology.

The point you should be getting at there is that the USSR didn't turn out to be much of an exemplar of Marxism. It was a ruthless dictatorship, dedicated to empire and power. Which is to say that you shouldn't be going around apologizing for it in the name of Marxism.

Of course, that will leave you with the No True Scottsman criticism, but that still beats apologizing for the likes of Stalin.