How Does a Communist Economy Work?

[Mark44]

The damage done to communities by the Section 8 program is described in the current best seller by https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0166ISAS8/?tag=pfamazon01-20https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0166ISAS8/?tag=pfamazon01-20.

This book was reviewed in National Review, to which I subscribe. I'm going to have to get this book now. Thanks!

 

[Sophia]

Free market capitalism is not an ideology or value system. Its an economic reality. A civilization requires a value system applied along side to govern human behavior to survive for long.

That's exactly what I meant by posing the question.
Capitalism and democracy and freedom are not the same thing. Obviously, there can be capitalism without freedom and respecting human rights, such as in some Islamic countries. So it is incorrect that sometimes they are used as synonyms.

 

[Pepper Mint]

...
Capitalism and democracy and freedom are not the same thing...

True, in a strict sense they are unrelated. And I think capitalism is more about an economic system while democracy and freedom are more about socialization.
The former always needs human interactions and operations so it concerns the latter. Then how people treat each other reveals how much socialized their living environment is regardless of what economic system is being in use.

 

[zoobyshoe]

That's exactly what I meant by posing the question.
Capitalism and democracy and freedom are not the same thing. Obviously, there can be capitalism without freedom and respecting human rights, such as in some Islamic countries. So it is incorrect that sometimes they are used as synonyms.

In the US political values are generally thought of as falling somewhere on a line between the two poles of conservatism on one side and liberalism on the other. Mheslep is a bit disingenuous, IMO, in that he presents staunchly conservative links and other material without announcing himself as a staunch conservative, which creates the erroneous impression he is presenting something more universally agreed on. His link and book are conservative propaganda, not neutral literature.

I found this link, which describes conservatives as I understand them:

https://abelsvoice.wordpress.com/20...s-the-conservative-view-on-the-welfare-state/

Earlier I mentioned I was a mainstream Democrat, which is automatically understood by anyone in the US to mean my political leanings are liberal, not conservative.

 

[Sophia]

In the US political values are generally thought of as falling somewhere on a line between the two poles of conservatism on one side and liberalism on the other. Mheslep is a bit disingenuous, IMO, in that he presents staunchly conservative links and other material without announcing himself as a staunch conservative, which creates the erroneous impression he is presenting something more universally agreed on. His link and book are conservative propaganda, not neutral literature.

I found this link, which describes conservatives as I understand them:

https://abelsvoice.wordpress.com/20...s-the-conservative-view-on-the-welfare-state/

Earlier I mentioned I was a mainstream Democrat, which is automatically understood by anyone in the US to mean my political leanings are liberal, not conservative.

I know you are not Conservative in that way. I just wanted to pinpoint the distinction because I noticed that in some posts, there seemed to be a tendency to equate democracy and capitalism (Eg @Mark44 and his mention of citizen rights). I used your post, but not to necessarily accuse you of doing that. It was meant more generally.

 

[Salvador]

Everyone who has some clue about life knows @mheslep is a conservative , and quite frankly let him be I agree with him on some points but here's where I don't agree when some of you here (I will not mention names to not cause excessive fire) talking like misguided Americans pretend to know how things happen in a foreign state in which you have never been and are even afraid to go to , and have only read books about it or watched Tv shows which have tons of bias.But sure when talking is concerned everyone seems to be very smart about everything.

@Mark44 , ok yes the Ukrainian Holodomor killed many and yes they took their crops away but don't take it out of context , when I talked about the taxes in the USSR I was referring to the post Stalin era , when the Ukrainians were starved to death it did not happen because there were no food around , the Soviet land was vast and huge and it gave plenty of food , the food was taken away because Stalin used starvation as a political means of pushing a society to surrender to the ultimate absolute power of "God" (Stalin) himself.
So it has nothing to do with taxes , nothing , but it has all to do with making a certain group of people accept an idea to which they showed resistance at first ,
in the later soviet years in my country for example you could have your own farm and grow pigs and cows and you did not have to give anything away , and then there were the big "Kolkhoz" which was basically just the same a modern big farms owned by companies which produce meat and wheat and etc.
after all modern agriculture is all about mass production as we are too much to simply each grow our own carrots in our own backyard.The only difference is that in the USSR the farm was state owned but in west it's privately owned.
and the only reason why these big collective farms did not work so well was not the farms itself it was simply that the oversight was not good enough since they were state owned and so people kind of developed the attitude that their job is not important enough because they will get paid anyway.
Look at modern Europe for example , most food comes from such big farms , they have much technology in them and they basically resemble the big collective mechanized farms in the USSR , the only difference is that their privately owned so the CEO gives everyone a wage deal and if they agree they have to work and work hard , they are monitored by supervisors and cameras and so they feel the need to make their job good.But basically apart from the fact that they can buy more products for what they get in terms of money they are the same collective workers in a big collective "animal farm" just this one has the much beloved capitalist title on it's door.

Also please don't go into the previously already disputed "grass soup" argument , just because you think and have heard that in some communist areas there was not even toilet paper doesn't meant you can simply apply this reasoning to all states who were socialist like a universal "one size fits all " sticker.
That is both disrespectful to me and it shows a lack of knowledge and ignorance.
Although I know from my various experiences that Americans have a tendency for the "one size fits all " approach , and you should not feel insulted about this because quite simply it's the truth and many have admitted that it's such, even as high as foreign policy goes this approach is used.

I don't want to deny that there were socialist states were maybe even air became a rarity at some points , sure there was such situations and just to make you happier about how you feel about other parts of the world I can say that yes there were times when bananas and cake was indeed a luxury item , for fruits like bananas it was mainly because they don't grow in areas were the USSR was and had to be imported and I guess the government did not care about it that much , but to assume we were wiping our buts with the morning newspaper pushed on our pointing finger is a bit rude I think.

But then again I understand your sentiment , can't blame people who feel hate towards a foreign adversary which wanted to destroy your country and is still working on the very goal both covertly and openly.@zooby , well I wouldn't be so sure the KGB plan backfired , just because the west still has capitalism and in Russia there are oligarchs and many wealthy capitalists doesn't mean the plan backfired , if you listen closely you can see that the subversion is not about turning America away from capitalism , no let them have it , the idea is to divide the country and it;'s society , to make a large part of the population believe and see that their culture needs a change , the fun part here is that capitalism is just an economic system , the KGB focuses more on the inner cultural emotional system of a human because a society is made up of humans or individuals and once a large enough group of those individuals feel differently the society will change and capitalism will follow because capitalism isn't an independent entity , all on it's own , capitalism is nothing more than just the way the majority have agreed to interact economically based on the human nature , so instead of fighting a system which is only a result of the human nature they are fighting to very core - human nature itself.

The focus is on stuff that can really make a human tsunami, things like equality , woman's rights , homosexuals , the twisting and readjusting of morale , once you change those everything else follows like a landfall , think what the man said in that video is very deep and needs some time to understand but there are powerful forces at play in the world and things will change soon as they have been doing so ever faster for the past decades , ideas are like unbreakable viruses , they simply ride on top of a organism or in this case system when that system fails (the USSR) they simply reshape and carry on .
Every country that is divided is a risk to itself , it's like a dam trying to push against the water , but if parts of the dam give up pushing against other parts can no longer stand and so the whole dam fails.
Look at the modern US , it's not the McCarthy era conservative nation that pushed against a clearly defined outer adversary anymore , it's a divided society which changes it's core values and faces a front of multiple incoming "projectiles" of which some are so confusing that no one really knows how to respond to them.

The Cold war I think was actually America's best time and golden age , you had a clear and visible enemy with which you counterbalanced the world , you knew your job and ordinary folks just went along without even worrying much, now everything is mixed up and much different.

 

[Salvador]

Also I think , if we want to understand the difference between social systems and economic ones and how they interact we should also critically approach capitalism , I haven't slept good so I will postpone my attempt at this but , one good example of capitalism still being the very bad side of human nature is that all these big conservatives in the US talk about bringing jobs back to the US , Trump probably being the most notable at this moment , but when you look at the reality this will never happen , because as much as many say they love the US , they love money just a bit more everytime.
And unless the wages and workforce in the US will resemble that in the Asian and 3rd world countries there will be no more jobs in the US , because quite frankly they all just want to make profit as that is what capitalism is all about , and even with all the regulations the rich corporations and their lawyers will find ways to counteract them and use to their advantage.
There is nothing you can do to change the selfish and "fallen" human nature , Christ said in the bible John 3:19 "Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil."

Our deeds are selfish and evil and capitalism has only worked because it plays out to what we want it to be , so talking about freedom in the context of capitalism as just as much of an utopia as thinking communism could one day change human thinking.There is no freedom in capitalism , you are only as free as your wallet allows you to be , in communism you were only as free as the amount of luxury items and obedience to government allowed you to be , on a distant island being alone you are only as free as the nearest tiger being hungry and the lack of ready available food allows you to be.
There is no true freedom in this world , the only freedom there is is the freedom to keep your opinion and die with it and this freedom is universal no mater what regime you are living under.

@Mark44
you mentioned that you as a US citizen enjoy various freedoms like the right to keep and bear arms , freedom of press , now look at it from a different viewpoint , your freedom of bearing arms can be stopped and crushed when someone else who takes that very same freedom uses his ideas to kill you with the very freedom you have.Let me give you a good example , Germany has now close to million immigrants, they pay them enough welfare money to afford a gun , if Germany would have just as open and sometimes lazy gun laws as the US , then God have mercy , those low educated fools would go buy those guns and then Allahu Akbar , your head rolls down the street. Sure guns are fun and cool when they are used by sane people with a motive to live a normal life but when you are living together with folks who have no motive to live and have a good enough motive to kill your very freedom which you love so dearly becomes your "Achilles heel"

 

[zoobyshoe]

Salvador, are you unhappy the Soviet Union collapsed?

 

[Sophia]

The focus is on stuff that can really make a human tsunami, things like equality , woman's rights , homosexuals , the twisting and readjusting of morale , once you change those everything else follows like a landfall.

Can you give us an example how KGB is responsible for this?

 

[Salvador]

@zooby , hmm that's an interesting question , why you ask? I guess my writing seems like I am a communist , well I am a communist but not in the usual way and definitely not one that will ever try to do something more about it than simply talk.I don't think it can work or has ever worked and I think I have given good arguments as to why, and quite frankly everyone with a "head" can give those arguments.
I would call myself a spiritual communist yet it has nothing to do with Marx , and I'm religious so in the official USSR I would feel oppression in this regard.

I am not that old so I got to taste only the cherry on top of the Soviet cake in it's final years so I can't say much about whether I would actually enjoy my life if I were say 70 years or older now.If I was 70 or older I would probably sit in my "dacha" right now cook some meat and drink some vodka with my comrades who fought alongside in WW2.
You know as funny as it is the answer to your question zooby would actually be answered very differently depending on whom you ask.
Someone like me comes off like neutral and can assess the dangers and evils of such a system , older people that I know usually go into mainly two camps , those who liked the USSR and those who didn't , those who didn't usually have some deep reason , either they were repressed and tortured under Stalin or later , they were artists sometimes etc, then those who will definitely say they liked are the ones who like to drink often , those who simply had a good work back then and did not try to be "hippies" in terms of their political views and many of the Jews by the way who were sort of saved by the USSR from the nazies , I know actually quite a few living near me some older folks who are Jewish and they praise the USSR , but again mostly because they themselves made up the ranks of the USSR system and did not try to be a "free thinker"
Actually the folks who hate the USSR the most are the ones who either accidentally or deliberately went against the Kremlin. Christians , monks, hippies , all sorts of free loaders and some artists as others did quite well , they just adapted to the system.

One rare but quite nice detail about the USSR is that art was actually very high quality , because artists had to think deeper and make a hidden message an underlining statement in their work and they had to do it in such ways as to get their work past the all seeing eye of the KGB , the KGB had a special unit that simply checked every book and piece of art and then either approved or denied release.

All I want you as westerners to see is that the USSR was so complex and huge both in numbers and territory and different cultures that speaking about lacking toilet paper and grass soups is such an absurd stupidity that my ears fall off when I hear that.And yes many of the countries like Azerbaijan or Moldova or Georgia may indeed have folks in their countryside that use an outside shed with a hole in it as their toilet and the morning newspaper with Lenin's face printed all over it as their toilet paper but so what ? Are you trying to prove this as a proof that we are so behind you "glorious" and "free" western world , no that is not a proof , all that it proves that there are tribes and societies in this world whose mentality of life is so different and they live in their hilly regions and grow sheep and go to the mountains to pray their God and they don't even want to know about your Hamburgers and luxurious free market economy etc. I say this because I know , yes sure many folks like to bite into the "American dream" a sort of absurd view of life that drives a materialistic lust for it.
And I don't deny it has managed to make a great deal of good stuff, stuff I enjoy too , many good artists , films, products.But we can't deny the other societies and their way of life.

Maybe in Tibet they don't use toilet paper at all , so would we now call them communists for that ?
All in all , I don't think the Marxists and Russian Soviets did a good job but I dislike the American "materialistic freedom" too, my biggest complaint against capitalism is actually one which goes deep and soon becomes philosophical and religious.The very fact that us humans came into this planet and we created none of the things we have , NONE , we only learned to use them in our favor , but somehow we like to play the "king of the sandbox" I resist and despise the idea that a single man can have an island or huge land territory even lakes etc as his private property , I don't dislike that a human can have his own scissors to cut his own hair or his car to take his sick child to the hospital etc but owning large things you don't even use is nothing but a fallacy, it's an absurd materialistic "wet dream" that our selfish little egos like to play out.Just look at children when they play in the sandbox (not being a pedophile :D) some of them just go along while others act violently and want to take over the whole sandbox , taking away other kids toys because "little Johny" thinks he needs to have them all.Sure may seem cute when his a kid but this is the very reasoning behind capitalism as adults are nothing more than slightly larger and better versed kids and this world has become our sandbox.

Sure this logic too has it's drawbacks ,for example say there is someone who got rich because of his talent , and that's great basically the only case which I approve is when you get your wealth from something genuine you created and which makes the human race better , like a scientist or an artists etc the ones I especially despise are the stock brokers and folks who simply speculate on other peoples hard work and make money off of it.
Ok but the point goes that if one would simply redistribute all this wealth the few posses to the masses it would be pretty much wasted and that's a sad reality , the masses are also very lazy and the USSR proved very good that all these folks who drink at their jobs do their jobs badly but they were still allowed to work.

I won't try to answer right now what would be my golden middle road for this as it takes some thinking.
I have to say I agree with John D. Rockefeller with when he said quote :"Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it."
This can be seen in Africa and with the black community , liberals think that giving more freedom solves crime and throwing money at the poor makes them rich.
It doesn't happen that way , but throwing education at them now that could do much better than money.
You see I'm definitely not a Marxist in this regard.
I actually don't like labeling myself or labels at all , I simply want to see what is real and what works , it doesn't matter if some of it comes from the east and some from the west.

OMG , my posts are so long.sorry for that

 

[Salvador]

@Sophia Well we are running essentially two different and only somewhat correlated themes here now but ok
the example of how secret services and agencies like the KGB influence the world can be seen with the immigrant crisis, do you think Putin went to Syria by accident ? Or maybe you think he is there to make a point to the US , no I don't think so , the way I see he looks into Obamas face and the way Obama seems afraid of him when watching body language in their filmed meetings I think he already has all the strength he needs , the reason for Syria is and the middle east is to fill the empty hole left by the unfinished job of the US and surely to gain tactical advance but I think most importantly , it's to destabilize Europe , his first major goal for world domination which was also the goal of the former USSR.
Only this time the cards are playing out even better than back in the 20th century.
You see bomb the middle east especially civilians , then supply covert organized means and spread the news that they can simply run to the helpless Europe which doesn't have any strict borders or idea how to handle this situation , knowing that Europe is filled with blind liberals pushing the law and they will feel sorry for the immigrants and let them in which is happening , then Europe begins to divide because even though the liberals are at play there are still many older folks or simply those who dislike such a scenario unfolding , many pf them dislike the idea of Europe and think that it doesn't work anymore. What you effectively get is a divided Europe ,Brexit is the best example , largely spurred by the immigrant policies of the EU.Once Europe is gone , Russia moves forward if not physically at first then economically and via covert subversion and it is already going on strong.

If you look at it all these factors are playing in Russian favor , there are rumors and quite logical ones that Brexit was very beneficial to the Kremlin, next step is to dissolve Europe , ally the middle east with Russia of which many countries are already pro Russia there, and then finally destroy the west most notably the US.
Surely the US is being destroyed slowly for quite some time now.And what;s funny that it;'s being done mostly by westerners themselves , so in that regard folks like Beria , Andropov , Khruschev , Stalin and many other dead comrades are probably turning in their graves appreciating the stupidity of the modern liberals.
History does repeat itself , it's just that the outcome is different but the lies are the same.
The world is like an impressionist painting , looking up close you see nothing but rubbish and random colors but looking from far away or from aside you start to see who benefits what and how this might work

Remember the road to hell is paved with good intentions

 

[Sophia]

@Salvador , yes, I see that there are attempts to destroy Europe. It is true for Russia and certain other forces but I won't write about them here because it would go totally OT. It would also make some readers angry.

I really like your reply to zooby. You said it perfectly. I hate when people from Western countries treat us like some peasants from middle ages and belittle us.
I'll never forget how humiliating it was when I stayed in the UK in a host family for 10 days when I was at high school and the lady felt the need to show me how to use the toilet. There are many examples of Western people insulting people I know in similar ways , it would be too long to describe everything.
They don't understand that we are not so rich but we are not primitive.
I also don't like the idea of labeling one self, but if I had to, I'd call my philosophy voluntary simplicity. And it's something that is totally against capitalism, because in capitalism, one always wants more and more stuff and never has enough, is never satisfied with his life.

 

[Salvador]

I don't think zooby is as guilty as he first seemed to be , he might be a nice guy , it's just that on an internet forums it's hard to distinguish.Actually I think most of the posters here on PF are rather nice folks , just that for many the background from which they come from is very strong in terms of the ideas that they were taught in the US schools and society as a whole that's why they might say something which they find perfectly reasonable even though be way off the mark in reality.

In the end information is key , it just so happens to be that we know both our history and culture as we live here and we know a lot of western stuff but the westerners usually don't know as much about "eastern stuff" , this isn't meant to be insulting it's just the way it is , the east knows more about the west i'd say way more than the west knows about the east , I think it has mainly to do with the fact that everyone who is rather well off doesn't care as much about those are poor as everyone who is poor cares about everyone and every place that is better off. AKA the immigrants for example.

for the folks on the former USSR the reason to know much about the west isn't so much to do because we are dirt poor which we are not , it's more because as the iron curtain went down people went to the west for better paid jobs and also searched a lot of info about the west , in other words we have done our homework.

 

[Mark44]

ok yes the Ukrainian Holodomor killed many and yes they took their crops away but don't take it out of context , when I talked about the taxes in the USSR I was referring to the post Stalin era , when the Ukrainians were starved to death it did not happen because there were no food around , the Soviet land was vast and huge and it gave plenty of food , the food was taken away because Stalin used starvation as a political means of pushing a society to surrender to the ultimate absolute power of "God" (Stalin) himself.
So it has nothing to do with taxes , nothing , but it has all to do with making a certain group of people accept an idea to which they showed resistance at first ,

"yes they took their crops away" - sounds like a 100% tax to me. I guess exterminating people who are resistant to the ideas you're forcing on them is an excellent way of getting around that resistance. Going back to the early posts in this thread, the extermination of 5-10 million Ukrainians is a big part of the reason that the Stalinist and Leninist forms of communism should be vilified as being equivalent to Nazism.

after all modern agriculture is all about mass production as we are too much to simply each grow our own carrots in our own backyard.The only difference is that in the USSR the farm was state owned but in west it's privately owned.

That's a huge difference.

and the only reason why these big collective farms did not work so well was not the farms itself it was simply that the oversight was not good enough since they were state owned and so people kind of developed the attitude that their job is not important enough because they will get paid anyway.

If a farmer owns his land, he has a strong motive to work hard to produce the crops he sells. If the government owns the land, there is no such motivation.

Also please don't go into the previously already disputed "grass soup" argument , just because you think and have heard that in some communist areas there was not even toilet paper doesn't meant you can simply apply this reasoning to all states who were socialist like a universal "one size fits all " sticker.

It has been well documented that ordinary goods, such as bread, meat, cheese, and the like were in short supply in many communist countries, including much of the Soviet Union and its satellites such as East Germany. And when such items were available, getting them required standing in long lines, hoping the supply didn't run out when it was your turn at the counter. This is a direct consequence of the workers in the kolkhozes not having a stake in the quality or quantify of food they produced.

I can say that yes there were times when bananas and cake was indeed a luxury item , for fruits like bananas it was mainly because they don't grow in areas were the USSR was and had to be imported and I guess the government did not care about it that much

Although bananas grow in a few parts of the US, virtually all bananas sold in the US are imported from other countries. Even so, they can hardly be considered a luxury item. I have met people who lived in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall, who told me how rare it was to find any fresh fruit, with bananas being particularly exotic.

I guess the government did not care about it that much.

-- what you're describing is why a system of central planning by bureaucrats is inferior to a free market economy.

 

[Salvador]

Nobody atleast not me is saying that a centrally planned economy is better than a privately pushed free market one, all I was hoping you would grasp is that nobody was starving in the USSR as some of you might like to think or actually do think.
If my father did well even with being a sort of political prisoner growing up in Siberia , mind you the toughest living place in the world , then do you really think that ordinary folks in soviet cities did not have the most basic food elements like bread , some meat and potatoes etc?
Are you really under that impression Mark or is there something else that makes you think that way ? Because whatever it is I can tell you you are wrong in this regard as I have a first hand eye witness account.
As I've said the spectrum of food was no where near what you would find in a wall mart or any other western mall , no thousands of breakfast serial or hundreds of cakes to choose from , definitely no mcdonalds and such not so many colors etc and yes bananas were sometimes missing to that I can agree simply because that's the truth.
I am not defending the system here but purely out of everyday life , the food even though with much less of a variety than the westerners had was more natural and we really didn't have any such widespread overweight issues like the people have in the west especially the US .People were generally healthy and strong , also one good aspect was that the state sort of mandated physical norms by which all citizens must abide , they were called the GDA in my local language , sure it wasn't because of some fitness idea the norms were invented so that every citizen in an age that suits military service would be sort of ready to fight and be mobile when the time will come to destroy the "capitalist pigs"
A sad contrast with today's youth of which some are having problems to climb the stairs to the fifth floor , even though I must say we are still pretty well off in terms of what we eat thanks to our history , not so much the communism one but history in general.You see , Mark one must also make a distinction between the Stalin era USSR and the USSR after the 1950's , if we are talking about the war time and purges in the 1930 then yes , not only cheese was of short supply , oxygen was in even shorter supply... especially for those who dared to say their personal dislike.
But this has nothing to do with taxes , it's not a tax thing , it's a cleverly thought out scheme one of many by which the Kremlin forged the USSR together by force much like a blacksmith forces a piece of steel using a hammer to bend it.
It has no meaning to talk about taxes here , taxes only have a meaning when the government hopes that those who pay them stay alive until the date when they have to give in their taxes , in this case nobody cared about their property or money , they were simply unwanted "enemies of the state" and this was a cheap and solid way of getting rid of them.
Would you also talk about taxes in terms of Jews living in Nazi concentration camps ? Taxes under the soviet government only have a meaning to talk about in case we talk about the soviet population considered citizens and workers , not the enemies of the state.

So for people like my family the taxes were actually modest , if you would calculate them in terms of modern day US I think you would find out that maybe you pay even more.But as I said earlier taxation wasn't the problem for the USSR , planned economy was, maybe if they changed just the economic bit , just maybe Stalin could have pulled off his great pushing forward policies without millions of dead bodies simply because those were the ones that resisted and so got killed.

 

[Salvador]

My friend from school is a photographer and he once said the well know fact that a photo not to mention video can speak a thousand words , I thought maybe we need a thread here in which everyone could put up some sort of link or whatever to youtube or whatever where clips , movies , videos , pictures of the history of the USSR , and eastern Europe could be seen , both the good and the bad , maybe that would be interesting for some.

Personally me one of the greatest photo emotions was when I saw a pile of dead Jewish bodies just thrown against the wall after 1945 in one of the nazi concentration camps.Such a picture speaks volumes of the things that went on there.

 

[Sophia]

My friend from school is a photographer and he once said the well know fact that a photo not to mention video can speak a thousand words , I thought maybe we need a thread here in which everyone could put up some sort of link or whatever to youtube or whatever where clips , movies , videos , pictures of the history of the USSR , and eastern Europe could be seen , both the good and the bad , maybe that would be interesting for some.

Personally me one of the greatest photo emotions was when I saw a pile of dead Jewish bodies just thrown against the wall after 1945 in one of the nazi concentration camps.Such a picture speaks volumes of the things that went on there.

are you reading my mind? I'm just trying to look up some photos!

 

[Salvador]

Yes but I think we need a separate thread for that , photos and video links get lengthy and this thread is already filled with lengthy posts I don't think this place would be suitable for that.Quite frankly I'm not sure many would be interested but you or I or anyone for that matter can make up a new thread with a new title and put them there.

 

[Sophia]

Photos of random people. Do they look malnourished or sick to you? Of course, they didn't have exotic fruit, but as you can see, they look quite normal. It is true and no one denies that there was a lack of certain products and you had to wait in line. But that wasn't something that was everyday reality when basic needs were concerned. I hear all kinds of ranting about socialism from older people. They do complain. But trust me, when speaking about food, all they mention is that it was cheaper and better quality than today.
Plus, there was a large emphasis on sports, so youth was kept in a good physical shape.

 

[Mark44]

Nobody atleast not me is saying that a centrally planned economy is better than a privately pushed free market one, all I was hoping you would grasp is that nobody was starving in the USSR as some of you might like to think or actually do think.

Here's from a site that describes the situation in 1989 (http://chnm.gmu.edu/1989/items/show/182)

The 1980s posed many challenges for the everyday lives of the average citizens of East Europe countries, including daily difficulties created from shortages. Buying such necessities as food, clothing, and hygiene products was recurring obstacle to the average consumer. Food shortages were the result of declining agricultural production, which particularly plagued the Soviet Union. This chart reflects the widespread underproduction throughout the Soviet Republics. Only Ukraine, Belorussia, and Kazakhstan produced a surplus. The most populous republic, Russia, was dependent on imports of all food categories in order to reach subsistence level. While these statistics are from 1991, the CIA estimated that production was only a small percentage (5.4%) below its average throughout the 1980s. In other words, the Soviet Union never produced sufficient food to feed itself.

The same page has a chart based on official Soviet statistics for food production from the various republics.
The chart shows that Russia had deficits in meat, milk (including butter and cheese), grain, potatoes, and vegetables. Other republics, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Turkmenaya, and Uzbekistan, all had deficits in meat, milk, grain, with some republics having deficits in potatoes or vegetables or both. Ukraine was the only republic with surpluses in all five areas.

If my father did well even with being a sort of political prisoner growing up in Siberia , mind you the toughest living place in the world , then do you really think that ordinary folks in soviet cities did not have the most basic food elements like bread , some meat and potatoes etc?

If he was "sort of" a political prisoner, he was certainly better off than the zeks who were actually prisoners in the Gulag.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag:
Of the 10,000 to 12,000 Poles who were sent to Kolyma in 1940-1941, fewer than 600 survived when released in 1942.

Mortality in Gulag camps in 1934–40 was 4–6 times higher than average in the Soviet Union. The estimated total number of those who died in imprisonment in 1930–53 is at least 1.76 million

BTW, I'm a big fan of Alexandr Solzhenytsin, and have read many of his books, including "The Gulag Archipelago," "Cancer Ward," "First Circle," "August 1914," and "One Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich."

 

[zoobyshoe]

taking away other kids toys because "little Johny" thinks he needs to have them all.

We all hate the same guy, then. Here we call him, "Stalin." That stands for any big power, left wing or right wing that tries to take over everything.

There's a subset of modern humanity who have been trained to specifically focus on "little Johny" taking the form of rapacious capitalists, and there's another subset trained to focus on him taking the form of a totalitarian leader. Despite the differences in the fixed idea of what form he must necessarily take, everyone, really, hates the same guy.

It's the fixed idea of what form he must necessarily take that needs loosening up and constant revision.

 

[mheslep]

... His link and book are conservative propaganda, not neutral literature...

Hillbilly Ellegy is an autobiography and a history of the generation migrating out of the abject poverty of Eastern Kentucky and moving into the Ohio rustbelt.

 

[mheslep]

We all hate the same guy, then. Here we call him, "Stalin." ..., everyone, really, hates the same guy...

Not everyone. That's the point raised earlier in the thread, that Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, are not all interchangeable bad guys around the world. There is no country where a majority have a "positive view" of Hitler or Mussolini. Not so for Stalin. The Pulitzer prize for Stalin’s apologist Duranty still hangs on the wall at the NYT.

Over half of Russians have described their attitude to Stalin and his methods of state management as positive in a recent public opinion poll. Researchers say this could be due to the community’s demand for a harsh but effective ruler in a time of crisis.

https://www.rt.com/politics/337183-sympathy-for-stalin-among-russians/

 

[mheslep]

BTW, I'm a big fan of Alexandr Solzhenytsin, and have read many of his books, including "The Gulag Archipelago," "Cancer Ward," "First Circle," "August 1914," and "One Day in the Live if Ivan Denisovich."

As am I. I particular like Solzhenytsin's commencement address at Harvard, 1978:

...The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the titlehttps://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895268779/?tag=pfamazon01-20; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death. Shafarevich's book was published in France -- Shafarevich's book was published in France almost two years ago and so far no one has been found to refute it. It will shortly be published in the United States.

But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. ...

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenitsynharvard.htm

 

[Mark44]

I'll never forget how humiliating it was when I stayed in the UK in a host family for 10 days when I was at high school and the lady felt the need to show me how to use the toilet. There are many examples of Western people insulting people I know in similar ways , it would be too long to describe everything.

I doubt that the woman's intent was to insult or belittle you -- I believe she was simply ignorant. I'm going to guess that the woman hadn't traveled very much. .

They don't understand that we are not so rich but we are not primitive.
I also don't like the idea of labeling one self, but if I had to, I'd call my philosophy voluntary simplicity. And it's something that is totally against capitalism, because in capitalism, one always wants more and more stuff and never has enough, is never satisfied with his life.

Always wanting more and more stuff and never being satisified with one's life isn't what defines capitalism, in my view. What you're describing is someone who is greedy or empty or both. I think you'll find people like this in any society.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Hillbilly Ellegy is an autobiography and a history of the generation migrating out of the abject poverty of Eastern Kentucky and moving into the Ohio rustbelt.

So, I'm assuming my calling the "Capitalism means Freedom" link "propaganda" is not controversial.

Calling Hillbilly Elegy "propaganda" was inaccurate due to my phrasing what I meant too compactly. What I meant was that you were presenting it for propagandistic purposes; to disparage section 8. One guy's memoirs are basically mere anecdote.

Not everyone. That's the point raised earlier in the thread, that Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, are not all interchangeable bad guys. There is no country where a majority have a "positive view" of Hitler or Mussolini. Not so for Stalin. The Pulitzer prize for Stalin’s apologist Duranty still hangs on the wall at the NYT.
https://www.rt.com/politics/337183-sympathy-for-stalin-among-russians/

There are people in the former Soviet Union who are still afraid to stop clapping. Post-traumatic stress and Stockholm Syndrome.

Western apologists are harder to explain, or, more honestly, I haven't bothered to try and understand them. Mao and Stalin and others don't get the rightful share of condemnation they deserve because people have a very limited capacity to examine real-life horrors. To the extent they allow themselves to examine it, Hitler gets the most attention for being the most horrifying. That's my take on it: you learn a few things about Hitlerism, and you can't take anymore horror.

 

[mheslep]

There are people in the former Soviet Union who are still afraid to stop clapping...

Ha, something like that. I can't put a finger on the exact reason for the difference in sentiment between post-generic-dictator and post Stalin. Even with all the violence in Iraq and misgivings about the 2003 invasion, there's no lingering majority "positive view" of Saddam Hussein. I don't know if it was the multi-generational length of time the Bolsheviks held power in the USSR, or a deeper, Orwellian damage to the soul done by Marxism's demands.

 

[russ_watters]

Always wanting more and more stuff and never being satisified with one's life isn't what defines capitalism, in my view. What you're describing is someone who is greedy or empty or both. I think you'll find people like this in any society.

As described it also sounds like "ambitious" and "competitive" to me. So, not necessarily a bad thing in that context.

 

[Sophia]

I doubt that the woman's intent was to insult or belittle you -- I believe she was simply ignorant. I'm going to guess that the woman hadn't traveled very much. .

Always wanting more and more stuff and never being satisified with one's life isn't what defines capitalism, in my view. What you're describing is someone who is greedy or empty or both. I think you'll find people like this in any society.

She and Westerners who do similar things are not rude intentionally, but it shows how little do they actually know and that their opinions are only based on prejudices and few reports they read. And they always look so surprised when they come and say things like oooh you even have a wi-fi! Last year, we had a visit from Australia (cousin's husband) and we took them to spa with healing thermal water in Turcianske Teplice. It is the same one that was there during socialism. Both during socialism and now, all insurance companies cover 3 week stay in the spa for many patients. Sure, the interior design has been reconstructed recently, but the Spa and all healing procedures were there before 1989. There are plenty of them in the country, each suitable for different diseases. And the man said he didn't expect to see something like that here. The way he said it didn't sound like praise, more as a surprise that in this ugly hole, there could be something nice.
The main problem I see in this thread is similar. You (not only you personally, Mark, I'd say majority of you from the West) simply can't believe me and Salvador when we are trying to describe our personal experience. You saw documents and heard a few anecdotes and your picture is complete, you don't need to hear anything else.

You know, I could have similar prejudices towards the USA. Most of the reports we see are about shootings and various crazy people and ridiculous cases why people sue each other. I also saw documentaries about how difficult it is when someone is sick and doesn't have money. Or how expensive universities are. So I could think that all you do is carry guns everywhere and someone attacks you at least once a year, that you become homeless if you get sick and live in constant fear that your female friend will sue you because you opened the door for her and she considers it sexual harassment. Really, I could think this based on media and anecdotal evidence.
But you know what? when I ask you and you tell me it is not quite so, I do believe you. I believe that you, common US citizens who live there know better what life in your country looks like then what the media present in sensational reports.
What I don't see in this discussion is the same will on your side. You have the same prejudices towards socialistic countries, yet you don't believe us, who live here, when we are trying to explain the reality. And neither Salvador nor I claim everything was great. We've openly admitted the problems many times. All we are trying to explain is that it wasn't as bad as you think. Since 1960's, unless you caused ideological problems, you could live a decent life. It was modest and no one denies it, but it was sufficient. I really don't understand why you have such a problem to get that.

 

[Mark44]

What I don't see in this discussion is the same will on your side. You have the same prejudices towards socialistic countries, yet you don't believe us, who live here, when we are trying to explain the reality.

You're pretty young, if I recall your saying so in some other thread, so you didn't live through some of the worst horrors of Soviet-style communism, such as the Gulag Archipelago that Solzhenytsin and Nathan Scharansky and many others endured and wrote about, or when the Soviet T-34 tanks rolled into Budapest in 1956. These are things I remember. My feelings about communism aren't prejudices - they come from witnessing over a long period the inhumanities perpetrated on millions of people by a unbelievably cruel system. A question asked very early in this thread was, why is it that Hitler and the whole Nazi system are despised by most of the world (but not all), while Stalin and Lenin and Beria et al. are not, even though the system of government they set up was responsible for the deather of millions of its own citizens.

Much of this thread is in rebuttal to Salvador's claims of how rosy life was in the Soviet Union. Maybe from his perspective of the relatively recent past it has been, but the sources we've cited paint a different picture.

As I recall, you live in Slovakia.(or possibly the Czech Republic) I've never been there, but I have been to countries near there, including Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Yugoslavia (in '74, when it was still one country), and more recently in Slovenia and Croatia. When I go somewhere I spend time studying the language, enough so that I can carry on at least a simple conversation with people. In the countries I've visited, people genuinely appreciate it when you try to speak their language. Slovakia and the Czech Republic are both places i plan to go in the not-too-distant future. At any rate, don't lump all of us Americans together as being completely ignorant of other cultures..

And neither Salvador nor I claim everything was great. We've openly admitted the problems many times. All we are trying to explain is that it wasn't as bad as you think. Since 1960's, unless you caused ideological problems, you could live a decent life. It was modest and no one denies it, but it was sufficient. I really don't understand why you have such a problem to get that.

"unless you caused ideological problems" -- a key difference between life in a communist dictatorship such as the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and any number of "workers' paradises."