counterpoint and some reading material for capitalism stans on here https://ia800309.us.archive.org/26/items/fp_Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum/Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum.pdf
7 out of 11 countries believe the end of the USSR harmed their countries rather than benefited them
Reflecting back on the breakup of the Soviet Union that happened 22 years ago next week, residents in seven out of 11 countries that were part of the union are more likely to believe its collapse harmed their countries than benefited them. Only Azerbaijanis, Kazakhstanis, and Turkmens are more likely to see benefit than harm from the breakup. Georgians are divided.
Hungary: 72% of Hungarians say they are worse off today economically than under communism
A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country's economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country's switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary's integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process.
Romania: 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism
The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.
Germany: more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR
Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an "illegitimate state." In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.
28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime
Roughly 28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime, according to a poll conducted by the polling institute SC&C and released Sunday.
81% of Serbians believe they lived best in Yugoslavia
A poll shows that as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -”during the time of socialism”.
The majority of Russians polled in a 2016 study said they would prefer living under the old Soviet Union and would like to see the socialist system and the Soviet state restored.
The above memes are almost always made by Americans, whose brains are riddled with red scare brainworms and are completely devoid of any knowledge or understand of what the left thinks in Europe because Americans do not have a left.
Fuck Communism and fuck unchecked capitalism. People deserve basic human rights. Free heallthcare, education, insurance and liveable basic income is a must. It doesn't make your society full of freeloaders instead it gives all the people a chance to become what they want in the society. I hope that people can see this basic difference and we can work towards for a better future as humanity instead of whatever country title.
I think the way we argue over labels hurts us. If I use heavy regulation and government aid to limit the abuses in a capitalist system, at what point does the label change to "socialism"? I think we do ourselves a disservice to create these strict conceptions of systems like capitalism, socialism, or communism. Then when one fails we get to say "well that wasn't true x". And the labels allow people to boogeyman an idea. And worst of all, we eliminate the possibility to take good lessons from multiple different systems and incorporate them into our system. I think we would be better served promoting policies on a case by case basis instead of using these huge words. And to be clear, I'm a bit of a hypocrite here. I've been mostly telling people I'm a "social democrat" or that I support "capitalism with heavy regulations". But even those words can get picked apart and don't really capture nuance. My main point is that I think this thread is a perfect encapsulation of how these arguments stop us from getting behind good policies when we bicker about the definitions of words that mean different things to different people.
Because the single only way to do communism is how the UdSSR did it, there's no other way.
And of course it's only possible to either agree with the whole of a specific ideology, or none of it. There's no "good parts of communism" or "bad parts of capitalism" it's only ever all good or all bad.
What does "praising" mean? Being critical of what we learned in school about the USSR?
What does "communism" mean here? Advocating for the type of social democracy that's done pretty well in much of Europe?
I mean I know tankies "exist" but I rarely see them. Just because we're all critical of capitalism doesn't mean we're all dumb enough to want to re try what the soviet union did. It's almost like our kids will die under capitalism so we're willing to think outside the box for once.
A lot of eastern Europeans actually miss/look back fondly on the USSR days.... I'm not exactly a fan of them or other "communist" regimes, as they were all basically thinly veiled dictatorships, but standard of living was higher for most of the former block countries.
I really don't get all the china dick riding going on. I gotta think it's driven by bots and Chinese netizens. The west is a little unfair on their views of China, but they grab descenters with secret police and quash any form of opposition to their one party system. People who praise them and act like that's a better system are crazy. Really wish we could build some decent highspeed rail network in America though...
Meanwhile in the real world
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boomers destroyed the earth beyond all belief, poisoned everyone with sketchy ass chemicals, destroyed the economy more than once (twice in my life), most of us will NEVER own a home because the housed your grand pappy paid 100k for is now worth 2.5 million and average yearly wage is less than 30,000... among a million other things. The greed and entitlement is baffling, mix that in with delusional red scare propaganda that a ton of people fall for and yall mfers spending time defending all this insane shit.
we effectively live in a corporate government where what the people want doesn't matter alongside the million other ways we are lied to and exploited. Billionaires and trillionaires run the world and they keep pushing for "the next thing" like the metaverse, blockchain and going mars while most of us cant even afford to fucking eat. Suck it. I guarantee that you cant even define communism and point out how it differs from social policies even on a very basic fundamental level. Fuck dude
I wish we could look at what the ussr did right and how it worked around its restrictions without rose tinted glasses. Some central planning of efficient railways and large industrial machinery might not be a bad idea. Lezz a fair doesn't always produce great results. Walkable neighborhoods and commie blocks aren't such a bad idea but fascist dictators are.
- Universal access to healthcare, food, water, shelter, electricity, and education without cost.
- Prohibit the operation of businesses or investments in basic necessities mentioned in previous point.
- Non-essential amenities such as entertainment, fashion, travel, luxury goods etc continue to be available for purchase.
- A reasonable tax structure that ensures higher taxes for the rich.
Is that Communism? Is that too much to ask for?
Top: Filthy rich capitalists and Boomers that lick up their cool aid
Bottom: Global South that produces both their wealth
Blocking you I don't want another reddit experience
communism is when ussr
Redditors try not to froth and post anticommunism for 120 seconds challenge (impossible!!!)
I mean there is, but all of the major nations fall somewhere in the middle of the capitalism / socialism spectrum.
China, a communist nation, has private businesses. The US, a capitalist nation, has public infrastructure and social safety nets.
It’s a gradient, and very few nations are 100% on the edge of the spectrum.
I am quite certain that there are proportionally more communists in post-socialist countries than in Western countries. According to the results of the "Rendszerváltás 30" public opinion survey conducted in 2020 by Policy Solutions, Závecz Research, and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 52% of the Hungarian population believes that the relative standard of living was better during the Kádár era, while 31% think it was worse. (Page 24) Of course, this doesn't mean that 52% of the respondents are communists, but the results significantly contradict this meme. Is there any source to support the claim that there is a higher proportion of communists in Western countries compared to post-socialist countries?
I cannot speak for other countries, but here, the Kádár-era remains popular for many people even to this day, particularly among those who lived during that time.shit meme
Making this meme took longer than opening a book to understand what communism actually is.
What everyone points to as "communism" shares more in common with capitalism than anything else. They had authoritarian rulers and a small wealthy class that lords over the rest of the populace.
There is nothing "worker owned" about these examples and it only serves to spread FUD about moving away from capitalism towards a more human centric economy
Can we please take the oceanshores back from the rich?
though most brainwashed USAians seem to think having basic shit like Sweden/UK/Australian style healthcare system is some kind of evil communism.
I am from Eastern Europe and I share this sentiment when I see anyone from the West defending communism. The issue is complicated but, to put it bluntly:
No, Timothy, communism didn't fail in Eastern Europe because it was implemented wrongly. This is a very complicated topic but the tldr summary is "It is a broken idea, it did not work and it will never work. The natural and logical outcome of any attempt at Marxism is a bloodbath followed by autocracy."
That being said, communism isn't the only way to achieve a more equitable society. You have social democracy (in Lennin's words - communism's greatest adversary); organized labour movements; collectivist anarchism; communitariasm, etc.
Communism, as applied in the 20th century, violently fought against or oppressed all of these movements and is incompatible with any of them.
Not to mention that in most countries nowadays orthodox communists have been hugely discredited for excusing the Russian war of annihilation against the Ukrainian people.
In conclusion, if you live in the USA or Western Europe and you are unhappy with how corporate greed has ruined society, don't look to communism for answers. There are many other proposed solutions out there - go and research these. Communism is very well known, which makes it easily accessible to people who want change - but it is never, ever the solution.
Okay, let's hear this guy explain what he thinks communism is, and also why it's bad, I'm sure he'll drop some banger theory any second now
By "East Europeans" you of course mean your fellow fascists. The vast majority of post Soviet citizens disagree.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/14/unhappy-russians-nostalgic-for-soviet-style-rule-study
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-youth-idUSL2559010520070725?feedType=RSS&rpc=22&sp=true
http://www.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx
I got to open my eyes more, because I don't see anyone praising communism. What I do see quite a lot is people praising the ultra rich that have made their fortune through exploitation of the poor and public subsidies.
The type of "communism" you accuse some people to be praising is probably rather the democratic and social system of the Scandinavian countries that works super well in Europe.
I don't know basically anyone actually saying UdSSR was good (except tankies but fuck them), because it was obviously not; it was a horrible and oppressive dictatorship. Funny enough, the only people I kind of hear this from are rather the people who actually lived in the DDR and say stuff like "Not everything was bad back there" and having it rather positive in their memory.this is DANGEROUS ground to tread on lemmy ☠️
“The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.”
― Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
Permanently Deleted
To be honest, I've been using Lemmy for a week now, and I'm kind of concerned with all the communism stuff around here.
*rich eastern europeans
welp SAY GOODBYE TO WESTERN EUROPE
As a someone whose country belonged to the western bloc, I can relate xD
There is no such thing as pure capitalism.
Capitalism and Communism aren't a binary thing but instead something on a spectrum. Both ends of the spectrum are terrible and inhumane. The point is finding a balance.
The US is too capitalist and the UDSSR was too communist.
I think many modern european countries strike a good middle ground.
The more you bring it up the more people will respond...
Marxism is a broader less problematic term
Educated people in general have to say on politics the same things that I said earlier, but they are very nostalgic over less criminalized popular culture, better technical education and rules being followed. So am I to some extent actually.
In Moscow? You're not being fair. Educated people in the soviet union from Moscow lived extremely well and have very positive views. Engineers, scientists, etc will all say positive things. You know as well as I do that hundreds of video interviews will confirm this. Be fairer, claiming that everyone that supports the ussr among the over 60s is just uneducated is definitely untrue. This particular video series is in Moscow and this lady is exactly what I am talking about.
You can't live in Moscow and say this is untrue. You're being unfair.
No recollection at all, I’m 1996, but since transition from USSR to modern Russia didn’t happen in an instance, in various institutions and organizations you can still see in some ways how it was. More in my childhood than now, but still.
Brought up in shock therapy then.
if you weren’t in denial.
I'm not in denial. I'm asking you to be fairer. The data does not support your position. You know as well as I do that 75% of the country consider the soviet era to be when the country was at its greatest (and that this is easily verifiable from many sources), and you know damn well that 75% of the country aren't all uneducated people. You are not being fair.
Quality meme
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but if you boil it all down communism is when the state acts as a central power to decide how to allocate wealth and resources to the people. Does anyone here actually think you could trust the state ever ever ever to do this right? You can’t trust a centralized power no matter how much they claim to be of the people. It’s not that the state is inherently evil, it’s that humans are incredibly biased and flawed.
Educated people in general have to say on politics the same things that I said earlier, but they are very nostalgic over less criminalized popular culture, better technical education and rules being followed. So am I to some extent actually.
In Moscow? You're not being fair. Educated people in the soviet union from Moscow lived extremely well and have very positive views. Engineers, scientists, etc will all say positive things. You know as well as I do that hundreds of video interviews will confirm this. Be fairer, claiming that everyone that supports the ussr among the over 60s is just uneducated is definitely untrue. This particular video series is in Moscow and this lady is exactly what I am talking about.
You can't live in Moscow and say this is untrue. You're being unfair.
No recollection at all, I’m 1996, but since transition from USSR to modern Russia didn’t happen in an instance, in various institutions and organizations you can still see in some ways how it was. More in my childhood than now, but still.
Brought up in shock therapy then.
if you weren’t in denial.
I'm not in denial. I'm asking you to be fairer. The data does not support your position. You know as well as I do that 75% of the country consider the soviet era to be when the country was at its greatest (and that this is easily verifiable from many sources), and you know damn well that 75% of the country aren't all uneducated people. You are not being fair.
Not just teenagers sadly.
Top: Filthy rich capitalists and Boomers that lick up their cool aid
Bottom: Global South that produces both their wealth
When I saw this post I thought to myself, this is going to have that crazy tankie writing essays in the comments, and here you are!
Go outside! Being a brain in a vat that rants on social media does not help the revolution.
Thats exactly what i feel when i hear anything good about communism, it killed so many people in Ukraine... NEVER AGAIN!
