How can people say the USSR was a failure?

[RedStar]

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.

I think you're reading into the rhetoric way too much. Many historians, like Conquest, make no distinction between "died under" and "killed" in their estimates. A man could die of syphillis and they'll attribute it to Stalin or Mao. Exercise caution when looking at the statistics: the people who died of famine or civil war can not be attributed to the USSR because, objectively speaking, fewer people died of hunger under the USSR than under the Czar. It's also important to distinguish between deaths condoned and deaths that happened because of overzealous junior revolutionaries in the countryside. People expect socialism to be unicorns and rainbows, but the reality is you have to work with what you've got.

Again, that's not to say that nobody was killed under Stalin or Mao, but the gulags were not death camps. The majority of inmates were released in 1-3 years. Out of the interest of not posting a monster quote, I'll link you to this http://www.stalinsociety.org.uk/lies.html#political prisoners

Don't mind the name of the website. Instead focus on the hard facts and scroll down to the section on the gulag (these figures are corroborated by other sources).

The interesting bit: there are more prisoners in America than there ever were at any point in the USSR.

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.

Every country has and needs a prison system, yes. Capitalists need to go to prison. They want to undermine revolution and stall progress. Sorry, I don't buy into your idealist bullshit.

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."

What do I need to explain? Have you taken a course in US imperialism?

The CIA has been backing brutal dictators for years. Batista, Diaz, Metaxas, Saddamn, Pinochet, and more.

You don't call that "as bad"? It works both ways, my friend.
Capitalism and imperialism also killed millions:
Philippine Insurrection................220,000
Nanking Massacre.......................300,000
US Selling Poison to Saddam.300,000
Iraq (Desert Storm)......................500,000
Invasion of the Philippines.........650,000
US War Afghanistan....................1,200,00
US War Iraq................................150,000
US Backed Khmer Rouge.......2,035,000
South African Apartheid............3,500,000
Japanese Imperialism.............6,000,000
Vietnam War............................10,000,00…
Korean War..............................10,000,000
British Occupation of India....10,000,000
Dutch East Indies...........................25,000
Japan Occupation of East Timor.70,000
Japanese Bombing of China.......71,105
Second Boer War...........................75,000
Japan Massacre of Singapore..100,000
Burma-Siam Railroad Cons.....116,000
Japan Germ Warfare in China..200,000
Shia Killed by Saddam...............300,000
US imposed sanctions on Iraq.1,00,000
US Backed General Suharto...1,200,000
Irish Potato Famine..................1,500,000
Japanese Democides.............5,964,000
Famine of 1932-33...................7,000,000
The Bengal Famine of 1943.4,000,000
Famine in Held British India.30,000,000

Capitalism has a head count that can create a stack of bodies to the moon, for Pete's sake. Africa was ravaged by capitalists. Asia, too.

Stop ignoring history.

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

This question presumes the democratic elections of the West are inherently good or fair, or that democracy can exist in any form in the first stages of the revolution (I believe it can, but you are being presumptuous).

But yes, the Soviet Union did have elections, especially after de-Stalinization. This is a good read http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv11n2/darcy.htm

Of course, the real joke is your presumption that US democracy is fair or meaningful. The wealthy establishment fund both major parties because neither of them ever propose real change.

Pretty much every way.

Nah. See above. And what, you are saying there weren't national laws passed in the UK and US that persecuted communists and socialists and anybody who dared protest WW1 and WW2 and other wars?
Get real.

Not to mention, where the United States was still segregating black people and treating minorities like crap, the USSR actively fought racism and sexism (women were WAY better off in the USSR).

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

Is the working class free in America? I thought not.
And actually many comrades were free to do all of the above in many ways.

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.

I don't have to apologize for the USSR because the point is not to look at the past but to the future.

The facts remain that the USSR achieved great wealth despite all the odds being against it and it was the first real break for the working class of Russia. And there is something of value to be learned there, on how we can do it better the next time. Capitalism has had centuries to adapt. Don't write off socialism just yet.

 

[RedStar]

I don't understand this thinking that somehow, all socialists are supposed to be saints who can never make mistakes. When socialists do something bad, "socialism doesn't work". When capitalists do, nobody thinks anything of it.

It's an intellectually lazy double standard.

 

[spidergoat]

I think the standard isn't GDP but rather general welfare and quality of life. Were the people of the USSR generally happy with their situation or miserable? From what I have seen, there was so little confidence in the government that most people had to learn to take care of themselves, paradoxically making them better able to survive when it all collapsed.

 

[RedStar]

I already provided links for quality of life. First, again, you have to take into consideration that the USSR was not in the same condition as the United States. Secondly, Russians in the Soviet Union enjoyed health care, education, and public opportunities more than many Western European counterparts.

That's why many Russians regret the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Quality of life and life expectancy went down.

@quadrophonics, I just read your comment on Castro. You've got to be kidding, right? Castro is beloved by his people and internationally and with good reason.

Why is it that capitalist apologists start the clock of history when socialism began and ignore all the atrocities before it? Castro fought a corrupt decades-long American-puppet establishment led by Batista. No child in Cuba sleeps on the streets anymore. And this was all done despite US efforts at undermining the revolution.

 

[quadraphonics]

This question presumes the democratic elections of the West are inherently good or fair,

Sure - but it doesn't require perfection. All that's required for the comparison in question is that they not be total shams.

or that democracy can exist in any form in the first stages of the revolution (I believe it can, but you are being presumptuous).

This kind of dangerous arrogance is exactly where Marxism tends to go off the rails and veer into totalitarianism.

But yes, the Soviet Union did have elections, especially after de-Stalinization.

And those elections were shams, obviously.

Of course, the real joke is your presumption that US democracy is fair or meaningful.

All I've done is observe that it is a much more meaningful instance of democracy than ever occurred in the Soviet Union.

The wealthy establishment fund both major parties because neither of them ever propose real change.

Seems like you're presuming that the masses actually want "real change."

Nah. See above. And what, you are saying there weren't national laws passed in the UK and US that persecuted communists and socialists and anybody who dared protest WW1 and WW2 and other wars?

There was nothing like the level of political repression that characterized the USSR (and Warsaw Pact, and Maoist China).

Is the working class free in America?

The working class in America is substantially freer than anyone except party insiders ever were, under Soviet Communism.

And actually many comrades were free to do all of the above in many ways.

The KGB and regime insiders, sure. The general man on the street? Not so much.

You recall how the Communists had to build walls to keep people in, and how people fled in droves as soon as such became possible?

I don't have to apologize for the USSR because the point is not to look at the past but to the future.

Then why did you create a whole thread dedicated explicitly to apologizing for the USSR, and proceed to do exactly that, right here?

The facts remain that the USSR achieved great wealth

... and then spent decades stagnating before collapsing and leaving everyone involved far less wealthy and free than, for example, the West. That part being where the "failure" designation comes from.

Don't write off socialism just yet.

Nobody has written off socialism. We've written of Communism.

 

[Michael]

You don't call that "as bad"? It works both ways, my friend.
Capitalism and imperialism also killed millions:
Philippine Insurrection................220,000
Nanking Massacre.......................300,000
US Selling Poison to Saddam.300,000
Iraq (Desert Storm)......................500,000
Invasion of the Philippines.........650,000
US War Afghanistan....................1,200,00
US War Iraq................................150,000
US Backed Khmer Rouge.......2,035,000
South African Apartheid............3,500,000
Japanese Imperialism.............6,000,000
Vietnam War............................10,000,00…
Korean War..............................10,000,000
British Occupation of India....10,000,000
Dutch East Indies...........................25,000
Japan Occupation of East Timor.70,000
Japanese Bombing of China.......71,105
Second Boer War...........................75,000
Japan Massacre of Singapore..100,000
Burma-Siam Railroad Cons.....116,000
Japan Germ Warfare in China..200,000
Shia Killed by Saddam...............300,000
US imposed sanctions on Iraq.1,00,000
US Backed General Suharto...1,200,000
Irish Potato Famine..................1,500,000
Japanese Democides.............5,964,000
Famine of 1932-33...................7,000,000
The Bengal Famine of 1943.4,000,000
Famine in Held British India.30,000,000

Capitalism has a head count that can create a stack of bodies to the moon, for Pete's sake. Africa was ravaged by capitalists. Asia, too.

You mean Imperialism and Corporatism.

 

[RedStar]

quadrophonics, you can't "write off communism" until we are in a position to have communism, and that will happen when we have international socialism. Socialism is the revolutionary stage. Communism is the gradual stage that follows.

I can see from your replies that you are dead-set to ignore American crimes, and posit America as being this great hero of freedom and paint a black-and-white view of the USSR. When you're ready for some real discussion, I'll be waiting. And the reason I do end up having to defend the USSR is because of people like you who completely write off all of the numerous accomplishments of the USSR as if there is nothing of value to be learned or as if there were no successes in socialism, just because the USSR wasn't utopia. I'm fighting the revisionism of Soviet and Cold War history that has become a pandemic.

Using your logic, I can point to failed capitalist states and write off capitalism.

 

[RedStar]

@ Michael,
Same difference. Private wealth, private ownership of the means of production, capitalism nonetheless.

 

[quadraphonics]

quadrophonics, you can't "write off communism" until we are in a position to have communism, and that will happen when we have international socialism. Socialism is the revolutionary stage. Communism is the gradual stage that follows.

Yeah, this kind of utopian ideation is just so much pretense for radicalism and totalitarianism. It's exactly why people wrote off that project.

I can see from your replies that you are dead-set to ignore American crimes, and posit America as being this great hero of freedom and paint a black-and-white view of the USSR.

Can you? Sounds to me like you're describing the view of your rectum from having your head wedged so far up your own ass, and not my actual posts or thoughts. You clearly came here with a fixed agenda, looking for a fight in these terms.

When you're ready for some real discussion, I'll be waiting.

Yeah, right.

And the reason I do end up having to defend the USSR is because of people like you who completely write off all of the numerous accomplishments of the USSR as if there is nothing of value to be learned or as if there were no successes in socialism, just because the USSR wasn't utopia.

You'd have to have your head pretty far up your own ass to think that. You started a thread explicitly dedicated to USSR apologia, and you should note that I started by agreeing that it worked okay, in purely developmental terms, for a few generations, and gave an honest appraisal of the lessons learned (keep the democracy and don't rely too much on central planning - criticisms which are likewise propounded by such Imperialist Pigs as Noam Chomsky, for example). You are clearly unable to deal with anyone who isn't either some Imperialist Pig strawman/sheeple, or a doctrinaire Communist as you are.

All of which looks like so much childish chest-beating. Tell us this: are you over age 20?

I'm fighting the revisionism of Soviet and Cold War history that has become a pandemic.

Too bad you have such a flimsy grasp on reality, and instead go around trying to relitigate stale ideological battles from generations ago. The Soviets actually had a term for the likes of you: useful idiot.

Using your logic, I can point to failed capitalist states and write off capitalism.

Not quite - you'd still have a bunch of successful capitalist states to account for. There are no successful communist (or socialist, or whatever term you're going to insist upon) states for me to account for.

 

[RedStar]

Yeah, this kind of utopian ideation is just so much pretense for radicalism and totalitarianism.

Do you know what a radical actually is? Radical means "at the root", and is a term used to describe people who want revolutionary fundamental change as opposed to moderate reform. It is a good thing. Feminists, etc, all at one point were "radicals".

Yeah, right.

Then start addressing all the capitalist atrocities and misinformation I pointed out.

Not quite - you'd still have a bunch of successful capitalist states to account for. There are no successful communist (or socialist, or whatever term you're going to insist upon) states for me to account for.

Nonsense. The USSR, Cuba, and China were all, objectively speaking, examples of socialist success to an extent. Again, why is it that you insist upon the failure of socialism simply because socialism did not achieve utopia? That's what it comes down to: you compare the Soviet Union to the United States and write it off because it wasn't on par. But you ignore the previous conditions of the Soviet Union which distinguished it from the United States, and for all the countries where socialism was implemented.

I take a materialist view of history and economy rather than an idealist view which states that there are universal objective principles that all nations need to abide by or else they are "failures". That's almost religious thinking.

Which is also why I said socialism can only be successful if implemented in a highly industrialized nation such as those of Western Europe. Spanish socialism will be an improvement from Chinese or Russian socialism; the same for French, and once there is a base of operations for workers' liberation in Western Europe, international socialism will follow.

 

[AlexG]

Again, why is it that you insist upon the failure of socialism simply because socialism did not achieve utopia?

The USSR went bankrupt. Bankrupt and utopia span quite a distance.

 

[RedStar]

AlexG, false. The USSR did not "go bankrupt", it dissolved because of political policies by Gorbachev. The myth that the Soviet Union "collapsed" because of economics is erroneous. It was political.

 

[quadraphonics]

Then start addressing all the capitalist atrocities and misinformation I pointed out.

And there you have it, again: there are, apparently, only two roles that are permissable in your "real discussion:" the Marxist Revolutionary, and the apologist for Capitalist Depravity.

Why would anybody bite on something so obviously stilted and inane? Even if it weren't warmed-over pap from ideological battles that concluded decades ago now.

Nonsense. The USSR, Cuba, and China were all, objectively speaking, examples of socialist success to an extent.

I have never denied that - again, I explicitly aknowledged that at the outset.

But you seem unwilling to aknowledge that those societies all subsequently hit a wall, suffered terribly for it, and so fave up on the whole "socialist" project in favor of other, demonstrably superior, alternatives.

Again, why is it that you insist upon the failure of socialism simply because socialism did not achieve utopia?

I don't. I note that it failed because the actual people living in these societies ended up rejecting the ideas in favor of others. And because they demonstrably, objectively reached a point where they were counter-productive or, at best, stagnant. Not to mention the rampant political repression associated with them, which is corrosive and ultimately undermines the whole show.

That's what it comes down to: you compare the Soviet Union to the United States and write it off because it wasn't on par. But you ignore the previous conditions of the Soviet Union which distinguished it from the United States, and for all the countries where socialism was implemented.

No, that's bullshit. It directly contradicts explicit statements I've made. Again, it is clear that you are incapable of dealing with this subject in any terms other than some stilted, warmed-over Revolutionary/Imperialist dialectic. You aren't going to last long here, pushing this nonsense.

I take a materialist view of history and economy rather than an idealist view which states that there are universal objective principles that all nations need to abide by or else they are "failures". That's almost religious thinking.

Yeah, right, I'm the one with the near-religious take on politics...

Which is also why I said socialism can only be successful if implemented in a highly industrialized nation such as those of Western Europe. Spanish socialism will be an improvement from Chinese or Russian socialism; the same for French, and once there is a base of operations for workers' liberation in Western Europe, international socialism will follow.

What is this, 1960? What a laugh...

 

[quadraphonics]

AlexG, false. The USSR did not "go bankrupt", it dissolved because of political policies by Gorbachev. The myth that the Soviet Union "collapsed" because of economics is erroneous. It was political.

That's horseshit. Those reforms were pursued because everyone saw that the old system was untenable, exactly because the economy had stagnated.

 

[RedStar]

Back up your bullshit that capitalism is demonstrably superior, and define "superior" at any rate. I'd rather live in an equal society than a society where a handful can get wealthy.

 

[quadraphonics]

Back up your bullshit that capitalism is demonstrably superior, and define "superior" at any rate. I'd rather live in an equal society than a society where a handful can get wealthy.

As usual, you avoid dealing with my actual positions and statements, and instead blatantly attempt to revise the history of the conversation, and bait me into your preferred, stilted dialectic. What makes you think I'll bite on this? As far as politics trolls go, this is terribly outdated and silly.

 

[RedStar]

Let's just agree to not discuss anything with each other. This is going no where.

 

[RedStar]

That's horseshit. Those reforms were pursued because everyone saw that the old system was untenable, exactly because the economy had stagnated.

Stagnated? Is that way production and growth were double digits every year? Not to mention "everyone" is hardly everyone considering a large portion of the Russian population regrets the dissolution of the USSR and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is the second largest and still very much active party in Russia.

 

[quadraphonics]

Let's just agree to not discuss anything with each other. This is going no where.

Your whole tactic is going to go nowhere, regardless of who does or does not discuss it with you.

If you say things I object to, you're going to hear about it. I am not going to agree to let you run your tactic here without having my say.

Not that you follow through on your suggestion anyway:

Stagnated? Is that way production and growth were double digits every year?

That's nonsense. By all means, provide some citation substantiating that lie. I'd love to see you try.

Not to mention "everyone" is hardly everyone considering a large portion of the Russian population regrets the dissolution of the USSR and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is the second largest and still very much active party in Russia.

Meh, whatever. People are nostalgic for their former geopolitical power, not the actual fact of life in the USSR. The present Communist movement there is hidebound and going nowhere.

 

[RedStar]

Here are some estimates for the rate of growth in net industrial production from 1928-1940:

Official Soviet: 21.7%
Hodgman (not including armaments): 12.9%
Nutter (not including armaments, 1928 prices): 9.2%
Nutter (including armaments, 1928 prices): 10%
Kaplan-Moorsteen: (not including armaments): 8.4%
Unofficial Soviet estimate (in 1980 prices): 9%

(From Davies, The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union)


From Robert C. Allan,

"The Soviet development model implies that allocating capital to the producer goods sector should lead to higher consumption growth than would otherwise have been possible. Bergson and Chapman called the pertinence of this model into question by propounding the view that consumption per head declined in the 1930's. The history of wages, prices, food production and mortality do not support that pessimism. Consumption did, indeed, languish during the First Five-Year Plan. The explanation has nothing to do with the logic of accumulation-collectivisation was the culprit. Once farm production rebounded from that catastrophe, consumption rose rapidly. By the late 1930's, the production of manufactured consumer goods had increased almost 80 percent.
While this increase is important in understanding the growth of the economy in the 1930's, it also has important implications for the study of politics. The totalitarian model views the state as exclusively oppressive and the population as disaffected and controlled through terror. Historians are questioning this monolithic model. Fitzpatrick (1979) has suggested that the upwardly mobile workers and peasants who formed the new intelligentsia and administrative hierarchy supported Stalinism since they were its beneficiaries. Siegelbaum (1988) has suggested that Stakhanovites also gained from the system and, therefore had a reason to support it. Thurston (1996) has gone furthest in suggesting that Stalinism enjoyed wide support among urban workers. The formation of political attitudes is complex and not immediately reducible to economics, but the standard of living does matter. What we have shown in this chapter is that many people did benefit materially from the economic development of the 1930's. The gainers included the new administrative elite and the Stakhanovites. The millions who migrated to the industrial cities were a much bigger group of beneficiaries. By the late 1930's, urban residents and industrial workers, teachers and bureaucrats had economic reasons for supporting the Soviet state."

This is, of course, under the Stalin era. Political freedom and production continued to improve after Stalin.

Soviet health care
http://www.marxists.org/archive/newsholme/1933/red-medicine/index.htm

Seven times as many specialists as in 1940 by 1970
Interestingly enough, even the poorest regions of Kyrgyzstan had access to doctors under the USSR, which is no longer the case today.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7318385.stm

Soviet education also virtually eliminated illiteracy and had excellent mathematics and science test results.

------------------

Regarding the second part of your statement, I disagree. It's large enough in Russia, and France and Spain (the Communist Parties) to be relevant; and they will play a substantial role, at least at some point in the future as people see that capitalism is unsustainable. Germany, too, has a large Marxist base of socialists and communists.

America, of course, will probably never have a solid socialist foundation until Europe starts the spark.

Edit: I can find similar growth statistics for China under Mao, but I suspect you'll only criticize the man and not consider the material reality of China in 1949.