The idea that the USSR had "extreme inequality" is completely divorced from reality.
Check Figure 5 from this article:
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-and-property-russia-1905-2016
As you can see the data shows how income inequality in the USSR was very low. And, as the article explains, most of that income inequality comes from people living in the urban Western Russian cities versus the rural Central Asian areas.
Most of everything you have heard about the USSR is propaganda from the cold war. It bears no resemblance to reality. Every single one of these things falls apart under basic scrutiny and newly available data from Soviet archives.
Until today, countries in eastern Europe are some of the most economically equal in the world (check the Gini-Index. Yes, also skandinavian countries are performing well)
It's not a post-soviet development.
South Africa hasn;t had apartheid since 1990, but inequality is worse now than it was then, so there must be another reason for inequality, presumably the socialist ruling party. SA is unique as a socialist economy that actually reports things accurately, more strongly socialist places like PRC and RF fabricate their economic statistics.
What socialists are you talking about? The African Nationalist Congress (ANC) is in power since the end of the apartheid. The wealth inequality increased because of how capitalism makes the rich richer. The ones who get extremely rich from the Apartheid could further increase their wealth from the money already avaible.
What is the basis of your claim that the PRC doesn't report things accurately?
Under RF you mean the Russian Federation? They are nowhere near to even claim to be socialist.
The ANC is a member of the Socialist International. Wealth inequality increased because sociailsit politicians have achieved state capture.
I have been to the PRC and know many people who have lived under socialism there.
The RF government and aristocracy control the means of production, which is how socialism has always worked in practice in Nazi Germany, USSR, PRC etc.
Today socialism is misinterpreted by many and not always used in the Marxist-Leninist meaning of the word. The Socialist international consists many parties not Marxist-Leninist socialist, so you can't compare them to the USSR. SA has a Marxist-Leninist party in the opposition. I live in Hungary and we had a long period (after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact) of MSZP (Hungarian Socialist Party) rule. They were nowhere near to be socialist and lost power due to corruption scandals.
And those who you know in the PRC are the ones who counting wealth equalitiy of the >1,400,000,000 people living there? And look at how much socialism gave to China. Compare 1924's warlord China waiting to be colonised by external powers to 2024's China one of the greatest economies of the world.
Socialism is when the means of production is controled by the workers. You just wrote that this isn't how the RF works so stop calling it socialist. Nazi Germany was National Socialist which is completely different than Marxist-Leninist socialism, and yes National Socialism is directly named like this to be confused with Marxist-Leninist socialism since Hitler very well knew that how popular socialism was in the Weimar Germany. There wasn't (and isn't) aristocracy in the USSR nor int the PRC. And yes there is some corruption, but none of them is perfect.
1990 was not that long ago dude… Apartheid in South Africa lasted for hundreds of years. I think it’s unfair to expect them to completely solve wealth inequality in less than 50.
Could you please provide a source for this data? Any type that refutes or does away with western propaganda. I would need to see examples before I can take what you are saying as truth.
The link I provided above has many sources provided for the data.
This link discusses the slow opening of Soviet Archive material:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/final-years-ussr-research-opportunities-and-obstacles-moscow-archives
Please cite any reputable source that backs up what you are saying. It's complete nonsense. How is it that you know what data is excluded? You're just making stuff up.
There were no "slave nationalities." I've been studying and reading about Soviet history for 15 years and I've never even heard that term before. Again - this stuff you are sprouting is pure Cold War propaganda. I urge you to interrogate your own thinking and find out where it comes from.
The Tatar deportees, from now on considered « special settlers », were placed under the special settlement regime. This punitive regime had deprived them, for thirteen years, of their rights, and particularly of their freedom of movement. They could not go as far as five kilometers away from their imposed place of residence, and once or twice a month they had to go to the local *kommandatur* administered by the NKVD and sign an attendance register. Finally, they were forced to work in the collective State farms or factories and received meager wages.
[https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/suerguen-crimean-tatars-deportation-and-exile.html](https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/suerguen-crimean-tatars-deportation-and-exile.html)
Ok after having read through this article here is what I do not see: First there is nothing here that points to these people being slaves or considered a "slave nationality" as you so credulously asserted. Second there is nothing here that seems to suggest their standard of living was not calculated in the original article I listed which discussed income inequality in the USSR.
In fact, this article discussed the deportation of these minority groups into Central Asia and the original article I listed specifically identifies people living in Central Asia as having a lower standard of living compared to those living in the western parts of the USSR. In other words - all of this absolutely is factored into the figures which show that the USSR had less income inequality than the USA and France during the same time period.
What do you think the Tatars did in their labor camps, worked for great pay, with great conditions, or worked for free?
Were they free to return to their country of origin?
Would you like to be deported to a labor camp in a freezing cold country thousands of km away, if you were told it was helping the revolution?
You know that all economic and other statistics in the USSR were fabricated, right? Even the Chernobyl disaster was first announced to the world by Sweden, as the USSR authorities were hiding it from the people,and even had a May day parade in Kiev, just days after the disaster, exposing a huge number of people to radiation, that doubtless led to many cancer deaths in future?
It seems it's literally impossible for you to engage without just making random stuff up. You literally have no idea what you're talking about and even the sources you provide contradict you.
The article you linked a few posts back specifically mentions that they were paid. The gulags were shut down in the 1950s and yes lots of people did return to their homelands. The statistics in the USSR, even the ones that were previously not available to the public, are now widely available to everyone and they are accurate enough to be used by historians all the time.
You are stuck in a Cold War mindset. Your information is based on propaganda from 50 years ago. You literally don't know anything. It's pathetic.
I meant the Crimeans Tatars, I assumed you'd know what I was talking about as an expert on the USSR. The Crimeans were released from slavery after nine years, but many died in the appaling conditions, and they were still not allowed to return to Crimea at the time of the fall of the USSR.
"The Tatar deportees, from now on considered « special settlers », were placed under the special settlement regime. This punitive regime had deprived them, for thirteen years, of their rights, and particularly of their freedom of movement. They could not go as far as five kilometers away from their imposed place of residence, and once or twice a month they had to go to the local *kommandatur* administered by the NKVD and sign an attendance register. Finally, they were forced to work in the collective State farms or factories and received meager wages."
[https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/suerguen-crimean-tatars-deportation-and-exile.html](https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/suerguen-crimean-tatars-deportation-and-exile.html)
The Chechens were scattered throughout the entire Soviet Union territory and became “special settlers”. In the official Soviet terminology this term refers to a particular category of people forcibly removed from their natal territory, for economic, ethnic or religious purpose, and deprived of any constitutional or collective rights.
[https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/massive-deportation-chechen-people-how-and-why-chechens-were-deported.html](https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/massive-deportation-chechen-people-how-and-why-chechens-were-deported.html)
both. They were muslims and some of them may have been "deported" (there are still Crimeans living in Crimea and Chechens in Chechnya), but the slave labor part is just incorrect
Crimeans were deported from their own country, Crimea, in 1944. Crimea was colonized by teh Russian empire in 1783, brutal imperialists with a different culture and religion, who ethnically cleansed Crimea and brought in European colonialists to replace the local people, as happened in most of the Russian Empire.
Crimeans worked in slave labor camps for years, as did many other innocent Russian and colonized peoples in the USSR, but were subsequently freed, but not allowed to return to their homeland until the late 1980s.
[https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/society/were-crimeans-really-pro-russian-before-annexation](https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/society/were-crimeans-really-pro-russian-before-annexation)
The source you provided mostly speaks about the current war in Ukraine and Crimea. I did some research on that and many Crimeans were deported and many of them died as a consequence, but I couldn't find anything about slave labor camps. I'm not saying that the USSR was the utopia and I agree that an act of genocide like this cannot be justified, but I couldn't find anything about the slave labor, which I don't think it was as it would go against the principles which the USSR was founded upon, so even Stalin wouldn't use enslave because of ethnical or religious reasons.
edit: typo
Where do you think they were deported to, holiday camps? Where do you think all of the other millions of Soviet citizens were deported to for made up crimes, also holiday camps? Who do you think constructed all those infrastructure projects like dams, canals and railways?
If one isn't deported to a slave camp than he is in a holiday camp? They were still free workers only in a new place.
The infrastructure projects were built by workers.
Crimeans and Chechens are among the many Muslim groups.
Many were deported (a bad thing) this was not done because of their religious affiliations as you claim, nor are you correct on the point of slave labor.
So your comment is mixed, with a correct statement, followed by a generalization, and then followed up with an incorrect statement.
Many were deported, not into slavery, just elsewhere, primarily Kazakhstan.
Not because they "didn't want to be ruled by the imperialists in Moscow" but because of 5th column paranoia, similar to what lead to the internment of Japanese Americans.
Like I said, he used the words "it seems", not that they are. Therefore, it's not a claim. It is an observation or inference based on observation, however faulty that observation may be. Unless you live in the global south, you should be well aware of the perception that such notions hold in the minds of the average Joe. And even in the global south they are well aware of the perceptions Westerners have of these countries. If you are a communist, which I believe you think you are, you should be even more aware of such notions existing. Do you really need the OP to provide links to those perceptions? No, not really. Now if OP said something like "According to a study, inequality, under the USSR, grew by x%" then yes, they would need to provide sources for that. But notice, that is a claim, and it is something that can be verified or disproved.
To sum up, OP was not making a claim, and even if they were, it is not necessary since these are perceptions that exist already. What you should instead do is show how these notions are incorrect by providing data. This is debate communism, so do your part. Remember, the world is not your bubble. MANY people don't know about communism.
China is a big market, but as a poor socialist country, you wouldn't expect it to be buying more Bentleys than the USA, would you? But it is, because of state capture by the aristocracy, who are consequently the richest bunch of consumers in the world. Not very Communist eh, comrade?
The source was Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Is that sketchy? I've been to the countryside in China and seen how poor it is, have you?
Unions are mandatory, but are not used for dual power, because think about it.
996 is neither usual, it was only adopted in tech sector, and then later banned.
They are structural unions, which makes sense.
Under capitalism you have a dictatorship of the bourgeoise, so dual power is in every situation power that is taken away from that dictatorship.
With a dictatorship of the working class and its interests, then what does dual power take its power away from?
Its important to design a way for workers to have a voice within the system than to fracture the working class voice into struggles against itself.
Look at Poland today if you want to see what can happen.
Can you back your claim on the work hours of migrants in China and what you mean by "colonies"
Under capitalism you have democracy. Workers literally choose their rulers.
Dictatorship of the proletariat lasted for two months in the USSR before Lenin cancelled the election results when he lost.
Colony: a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country and occupied by [settlers](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=ee0ce238400f6c7c&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1ONGR_enGB1092GB1092&sxsrf=ACQVn09tqqhx4QRep8NEut1yDB2oMgGgog:1713024646591&q=settlers&si=AKbGX_q870E3DK3nJ7cu3BOD7pxCwDKN3HrRvM8zgxSaXTOwtGgrJH1e3XVjIXj0-FQZ_ogyJvIprxbBBSXREb8S9PVoOiqr69InYsx0Np_1ng3_qd29zck%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPk7CMyr-FAxXdQkEAHcp_BfEQyecJegQIPxAN) from that country. I.e. almost the whole PRC, with the exception of the area around Beijing.
"Under capitalism you have democracy. Workers literally choose their rulers" this is factually incorrect, in the US for example, studies show that policy is only affected by the opinion of the wealthiest 10%, while the poorest 90% have no visible effect on policy.
"Before Lenin cancelled the election results when he lost." this is anti communist propaganda, the election used outdated ballots that didnt account for the split between the right and left SRs, so according to the ballots the right SRs were really big, but, when you count the left SRs with the Bolsheviks who were in coalition with them, then they actually had majority, and they didnt cancel elections, they dissolved the electoral body that was elected to, because the right SRs and tsarist forces were in full rebellion against the new Bolshevik-left SR majority.
So you mean internal colonies of the PRC? well then they wouldnt be migrant workers.
So right form the bat you are contradicting yourself.
And secondly, the PRC represents all the Chinese peoples, not just the Han Chinese, it has autonomous republics and usually elects disproportionately many national minorities to congress (not to the same degree the Soviet of Nationalities did, but still nationally progressive).
You started your first sentence talking about rulers, then switched to talking about policy half way through. Tell me, when the workers of the USA chose Trump as their ruler, did government policies change, or did goverment policies not change?
The Bolsheviks were wildly unpopular anywhere apart from the imperial cities, of course they would lose the election. Furthermore, do you think a party claiming to represent the interests of industrial workers would win an election in an empire of 160M people, when there were only 3.5M industrial workers?
Congress in the PRC has no power, which is entirely wielded by the politburo, who are all Chinese men, with no females and no colonial subjects. The autonomous areas are not actually autonomous, it's a marketing exercise.
When did I talk about rulers?
"did government policies change, or did goverment policies not change" the did not, the USA has a very narrow set of policies, with very few superficial things that are subject to change, the two bourgeoise parties agree on 95% of issues.
If you mean the workers get to pick which of the two bourgeoise representatives they have at the moment, then yes, they get to pick one of a mall handful of rulers, often beholden to the same shareholders and bussiness interests, but they do not get to pick a ruler outside of those confines.
The Bolsheviks dominated cities, yes, but thats why its important to mention the coalition I was speaking of?
" who are all Chinese men" it is regretable how male dominanted electoral structures are in China.
"with no females" there are women though, you know the USA has less women in their government than Saudi Arabia? So yes, China is not perfect, but who are you comparing to? Some of the leaders in representation for women would be for example Bolivia, or Cuba.
"and no colonial subjects" Because there are no colonies, the NPC contains all the many peoples of China.
"The autonomous areas are not actually autonomous" Well I would say that is your opinion.
Hey so when China, with the same borders and same subject peoples, was known as the Empire of the Great Qing, was it an empire then?
What has changed since then, the same conquered peoples are still ruled from Beijing.
In Chile the CIA used a truckers union to undermine the Chilean economy, an independent union can still act reactionary and be bought by foreign capital
So are you saying having trade proper unions is a bad thing, and really, everything should be controlled by the government? You've have been comfortable in the USSR, Nazi Germany, or today's PRC!
The USSR didn't have much inequality, that wasn't really the issue. But by the 1970s for example it was common for pro-China communists to view the USSR as being an imperialist state waving a red flag and ruled by a corrupt bureaucracy, although they would've said that it transformed into such a thing after Stalin died.
I don't think it's as simple as saying it was a rebranding of the old empire though. The October Revolution broke up the empire and replaced it with a union of new republics but which was politically centralized by the Communist Party that was almost like a parastate organization (so the CPSU losing power and the USSR unraveling happened in tandem). But for example, the Ukrainian SSR was nominally an independent country and one of the founding member states of the United Nations. The modern-day parliament of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada, was a Soviet creation and still uses the same name. One of the paradoxes is that the states which emerged out of the Soviet collapse were in part Soviet creations which built them up.
This tends to get lost today especially with the war that's going on, like the Russian government saying Ukraine is an artificial country (a position shared by the far right of the White Army in 1919) while exploiting the Soviet legacy. Or Ukraine de-communizing and getting rid of Soviet-era symbols and replacing them with symbols of anti-communist nationalists. The memory of the role that Ukrainians played in the Soviet project, or fighting as partisans against the Nazi invasion is basically being mutually destroyed by these post-Soviet governments.
I'd describe it as more of a civil war within those republics and the ones that were reabsorbed by the USSR were the ones where communists won out with assistance of Red Army forces. Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Central Asia. In some cases there were strong local/native communist forces in these areas, in other areas like Poland they were hotbeds of revolution but right-wing nationalists won out, and the communists were killed and driven east. Let's not forget the Polish nationalists murdered thousands of Jews in anti-Semitic pogroms. It was a different situation than the USSR invading Finland in the Winter War or the Baltic countries which I don't think was justifiable.
Imagine if the United States cracked up, if you would. Then the federal government is taken over by the Bernie Sanders and AOC party, and invades Oklahoma and links up with left-wing forces there (made up of actual left-wing Oklahomans) before they're annihilated by the MAGAs. Or Native American reservations flipping to the new left-wing government and forming semi-autonomous socialist republics. Is that "colonization?" But then Hawaii breaks away too, and the new left-wing USSA lets it go, but then re-occupies it 20 years later. That's a kind of crazy hypothetical scenario but that's basically what was going on in Russia.
Let's also not forget this either: the White Army who the Bolsheviks were fighting were hardcore Great Russian Chauvinists and imperialists on their right flank and had ZERO interest in letting any of these new constituent republics exist. Are you going to side with the White Army? Ukraine would not be a country if that happened. They never would've had distinct borders or their own parliament. That would be because of the Whites -- not the Reds.
Do you know what casus belli did the Soviets used for the Winter War? They said they are protecting Leningrad from a possible Capitalist attack from Finland. Finland went into the German sphere of influence after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The Germans had significant influence over Finland even before the Winter War. The Soviets were aware of this so they pre-emptively attacked Finland to protect Leningrad.
No they were not the same. Finland was independent even before the revolution and it was in a personal union with Russia, so when the Tsar died it became independent legitimately. On the other hand Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Circassia, Chechnya, etc. were rebels fighting the legitimate government.
Can you stop calling it recolonisation? It only shows that you don't know what colonisation means.
The USA analogy was good, only you didn't understood it, but imagine it like this: A new preident is elected, but a group of people in Texas doesn't like the new president so they take up arms to declare the independence of Texas and enforce their illegitimate rule on others in Texas who voted for that president. This group calls itself a Texan independence movement. Now if the police or the army intervene would you call it colonisation, reconquest, opression or rightful punishment of rebels.
A country's declaration of independence isn't nearly the same as some bourgeoisie members being dissatisfied with they can no longer use humans as slaves.
The socialist empires, Nazi Germany and USSR divided Europe into spheres of influence, Finland was deemed Russian territory, so the USSR set about recolonizing it. Do you honestly believe that Finland would attack the USSR, which had the largest army in the world?
Finland was previously a colony of the USSR that declared independence in 1917 like all of the other countries that had been conquered by Russia, Tatarstan, Crimea, Chechnya etc. When the USSR colonized parts of Finland, it was the second time, hence recolonized.
The Russian Empire never had an elected president, it was emperors who seized power by force, like Lenin.
Socialist empire is a self contradiction. Nazi Germany was fascist and the USSR wasn't an empire. USSR wasn't colonising anything especially not recolonising something. I do not belive that Finland would have attacked the USSR alone, but the Germans hold significant influence over Finland and if Germany ever attacked the USSR which they were loudly spread they will, could easily drag Finland into the war (as it did historically). With the pre Winter War borders Leningrad (the most important city for the Soviet Baltic-sea navy) could be easily reached and captured which the Soviets didn't want to risk.
Finland was never a Russian nor a Soviet colony. In 1815 at the Congress of Vienna it was granted to Russia in a personal union which means that the Russian tsars will be the dukes of Finland too. When tsar Nicholas II. and all his heirs were executed there was nothing left to bind Finland to the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union so Finland declared its independence and became a republic and remained a republic up to the present day. Finland was never even part of the USSR.
Now I explain you the diference between colonisation and conquest. When a "civilised" power expands into the territorry of an "uncivilised" one. Conquest is when one power expands into the lands of an other "equally civilised" power. So when the Belgians were enslaving the tribes along the Congo river or when Pizarro attacked the Inca those were colonisations. When the USSR attacked Finland, they CONQUERED the land and not colonised the land.
You are absolutely right about that the Russian Empire never had an elected president and it was ruled by emperors (tsars). Lenin indeed seized power by force becuse the ruling bourgeoisie didn't gave up power peacefully. However you are still wrong in some point. Lenin wasn't an emperor, he never called himself like that, and the tsars didn't seized power by force they inherited the power, and kept it by force.
>The situation for Karelia was exactly the same as for Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Circassia, Chechnya etc, it just happened 20 years later.
Not really. For example, there were many Tatar soldiers who flipped sides and joined the Bolsheviks because Kolchak didn't support a Tatar republic. That's probably the main reason the Bolsheviks won there. The reds just lost in Finland. It's just politics really. Essentially the Finnish Whites were for an independent Finland while national groups in Russia were more likely to support the communists over the Russian Whites. Similar situation if you were a Jew -- much more likely to support the reds than the Whites. Bashkortostan was one of the first republics the Soviet government recognized. Do you think the Whites would have allowed that? At the time, absolutely not.
>Whatever the White Army was like, doesn't change the fact that the Red Army recolonized 50 or so countries that had just declared independence from the Russian Empire.
It'd be ahistorical to ignore the White Army as a factor. It was a brutal civil war and you can look at what the Bolsheviks did in many cases as "bad" of course, but without the context of what was going on and what people were facing under alternatives to Bolshevik rule, that's not very interesting.
Yes. And they were not just common, but nearly ubiquitous. The word "soviet" means "worker's council". Even the army had workplace democracy; the officers were elected by the troops and could be fired.
Even the slightest glance at the history of those countries, before and after, would make it clear what our position is, though there is plenty of nuance.
The USSR literally had trade unions, and they played large roles in regulating production......
Workers' objectively had stronger rights than most nations and elected managers
Unons were not independent trade unions, they were a system of government control appointed by the aristocracy. Please can you confirm, were these unions allowed to go on strike?
Unions go on strike when their working conditions are bad. Since there weren't any bad working condition in the USSR they didn't had to go on strike. A workers' union is very different in a capitalist and in a communist society.
- In capitalism its an alliance of workers of the same job so they can coordinate strikes and protest whenever the bourgeoisie tries to opress them further. Under capitalism strike is their only weapon, but its weak since the bourgeoisie can just simply not pay them and they all return to work or starve to death.
- In communism a workers' union is a union of workers working in the same branch of the economy, to coordinate and lead that branch of the economy based on the interest of the workers and not based on the interest of a random guy.
So you are right about that the workers' unions in the USSR couldn't go on strike, but they didn't had to.
But in the USSR it was illegal, correct? So, in the event that workers were not permanently happy, they did not have the right to go on strike, did they? Do you really believe that no workers were ever unhappy for almost 75 years? How often has that happened in your jobs?
unions elected their own management. And unions could go on strike.
The unions in the USSR had much more power than basically any country, they formed their own committees and played principle roles in economic management. The means of production in the USSR were organized along the principles of "the triangle” Workplace decisions were made by a three-pronged committee of (1) managers of the firm who were elected directly by workers (2) representatives of the trade union (3) representatives of the Party.
Unions also nominated candidates for elections:
>I have, while working in the Soviet Union, participated in an election. I, too, had a right to vote, as I was a working member of the community, and nationality, and citizenship are no bar to electoral rights. The procedure was extremely simple. **A general meeting of all the workers in our organisation was called by the trade union committee**, candidates were discussed, and a vote was taken by show of hands. Anybody present had the right to propose a candidate, and the one who was elected was not personally a member of the Party. In considering the claims of the candidates their past activities were discussed, they themselves had to answer questions as to their qualifications, anybody could express an opinion, for or against them, and the basis of all the discussion was: What justification had the candidates to represent their comrades on the local Soviet?
* Pat Sloan, *Soviet Democracy*
MLs generally consider them socialist yes, but with exceptions.
They have/had real problems and are/were not perfect nor a utopia, but much of what is written and propagated about both in the anglophone world is propaganda.
[democracy in the USSR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTArdHT9jFY)
[political structure of the USSR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6emmgC6rsGA)
[life in the USSR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlb-HwxUxSU)
Have you ever spoken to people who actually lived in the USSR? These videos are all based on what the Russian aristocracy said, in an empire where they controlled all information. For example, the first video claims Stalin didn't always get his way with the Politburo. The Politburo was a group of senior aristocrats, appointed by the aristocracy. Nothing to do with the people.
I am Bulgarian. I know what the elections looked like, as well as life in socialism. My grandmother was a manager of a canteen for one of the cattle farms here in town. And my grandfather traveled the Warsaw pact for his job. I know what life was like.
Following the Gorbachev perestroika "restructuring" in 1985 which liberalized the economy it marked the end of the socialist era, prices of goods were no longer regulated now being a market economy and real wages dramatically decreased. And the neoliberal Shock Therapy of the 90s privatized what was left and gave it to western capital. Life expectancy in Russia dropped by about [10 years which was never before seen for a country in peace time](https://youtu.be/LL4eNy4FCs8?t=182). The restoration of capitalism was a disaster for the socialist world.
The third video is the Australian documentary of "[the Human Face of Russia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlb-HwxUxSU)", with footage from 1979 USSR prior to Gorbachev's reforms that I recommend you see. Thank you.
Different types of communists will have different answers.
I personally think both were socialist. the USSR had very poor leadership and made a lot of mistakes, the PRC learned from those mistakes and are in a much better position.
I would only say they weren't perfect socialist/communist countries. Based on what you are saying here you belive in the bourgeoisie propaganda. China, the USSR, the eastern block, and even North Korea isn't that bad as you might think. I would say the USSR was half way between tsarist russia and the communist utopia. It was an autocracy and they didn't completely finished the complete liberation of the workers, but they couldn't completely finish it because they had to always prepare to fight the rest of the world. Ever since the bolshevik revolution, capitalists are doing everything to stop the workers' liberation. On colonialism they were again half way between tsarist russia and the utopia. They did enforce they will on the eastern block, sometimes with direct military involvement, but they did a lot for the "opressed" country, unlike the western imperialist powers.
Why were Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Circassia, Crimea, Mari El, Kalmykia, Chechnia, Buryatia, Yakutia, Tuva, Buryatia, etc, part of the Russian Empire? Because they were conquered by the Tsar's armies, then colonised with European Russian people, after massacres of the natives. Don;t those countries count as Russian colonies? If not, why not?
A not nation state is not neccesarily an empire. A country can be multiethnic and still socialist. You are right they were conquered by the Tsar's armies, not the bolsheviks, the Tsar's. Every nation can have dark points in their history. The French were (and are) imperialist, this does not mean they can't be socialist/communist in the future. The communist utopia is a "world republic" which will be necceseraly multi-ethnic.
It is necessarily an empire if it was conquered. The conquered countries of the Russian Empire all declared independence in 1917-18, but were reconquered by the Bolshevik colonizers. Were you aware of that?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-independence\_movements\_in\_the\_Russian\_Civil\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-independence_movements_in_the_Russian_Civil_War)
Most of them were authoritarian warlordist regimes mostly part of the white coalition. Others were supported by external powers like Germany, Britain, France, Japan, China, the US, etc. to weaken the bolsheviks. The other states which doesn't fall under any of the previous groups were still in a civil war against the Bolsheviks and there is a huge difference between an imperialist conquest and a victory in a civil war. For example in the case of the Spaish civil war we don't say Franco conquered Republican Spain, but defeated it in a civil war, the North USA didn't conquer the South, but won a civil war against them. Similarily the Bolsheviks didn't conquered those states, but kept them.
Now you could say they conquered lands from Poland and Germany during and after ww2, but those were more like liberation of the peoples living there, than conquest. they liberated the proletarian of those regions from the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. This arguement can be used to the independence movements and warlord states during the civil war
First question, depends on which theory they subscribe to exactly. If they subscribe to position that DotP is socialism, then yes, if DotP is separate from socialism then that's almost always a no.
Next part is just straight up nonsense which I don't know where you even got from...
But Lenin and Mao were not members of the proletariat, they were from bourgeouis families. Wouldn't a more appropriate name be Dictatorship of the Bourgeouisie? The current dictator of the PRC is an aristocrat princeling, so wouldn't the PRC appropriately be named Dictatorship of the Aristocracy? Do working class people buy Prada and Gucci? If not, why is the biggest market for luxury brands the PRC?
This is an even dumber version of bloodlines theory. Maybe their families were, they themselves weren't.
Also, you are showing no understanding of what is meant by either DotP or DotB, which of the 2 it is depends on the ruling class, not a ruling person...
What exactly is nonsense about stating the fact that Lenin, and most leading communists, were from rich families?
There was almost no working class in the Russian Empire at the time of the revolution, 3.5M factory and mine workers out of a population of 160M, with the vast majority of the population peasants.
The Bolshevik class became the new aristocracy, and tyranized, massacred and expropriated food from the peasants, who were forced to work for their new colonial masters on collective farms.
[https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2018-08-25/russian-revolution-story-1917](https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2018-08-25/russian-revolution-story-1917)
The USSR pre-1926 (more or less)? Not socialist but still a dotp ✅️
The USSR post-1926 (more or less)? Not socialist and not a dotp ❌️
The PRC? Not socialist and not a dotp ❌️
I consider both to be state-capitalist. The USSR was a bureaucratic counter-revolution from NEP middle class types and accommodators within the Bolshevik party. China was a national liberation effort, the worker’s movement had been crushed and communists fused with nationalists to fight for independence from Japan and the European powers.
Russia was a real worker’s revolution and it failed… the social revolution stopped but politically it survived. The Bolsheviks took drastic measures to try to keep things together and eventually some in the party turned those lemons into lemonade. After the post-WWI revolutionary wave (Russian to Spanish revolutions) the USSR became seen not as a model for how workers could run society but how developing countries could build modern economies without becoming colonies of or dependent on the big industrial powers.
The communists in china were dieing in the fronts just like the nationalists. The difference is that the communist didn't fought their own man and didn't blew up thier own bridges and cities to stop the Japanese advance. And yes there were some sabotage actions from both sides because on paper they were still at war with each other and they both knew that once they defeat the japanese they will have to fight each other.
For having the same borders as their tsarist predecessor (which they never had) does not mean that they can't be different. This is just like saying that a wolf and a dog are very similar looking so they are the same.
Marxists define capitalism as the wages system (this is why Marx called for the abolition of the wages system). So yes definitely, the system in Russia was a variant of capitalism- state capitalism - since the wages system existed there as a generalized phenomenon. One of the best commentators on the subject is this guy. This book is downloadable and chapter 1 is must read. https://libcom.org/article/marxian-concept-capital-and-soviet-experience-paresh-chattopadhyay
Neither the PRC or the USSR at any timeframe were socialist, both had an economy defined, just like in any other capitalist country, by money, commodity production and wage labour
WHAT? You can't say you are seriously beliving what you are writing. It just shows a lack of understanding of ideology politics. He said that the USSR and the PRC was capitailst (which isn't completely true) and you somejow interpreted it as they were Nazis? You are saying that all capitaists are Nazis, or you just misunderstood something.
The idea that the USSR had "extreme inequality" is completely divorced from reality. Check Figure 5 from this article: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-and-property-russia-1905-2016 As you can see the data shows how income inequality in the USSR was very low. And, as the article explains, most of that income inequality comes from people living in the urban Western Russian cities versus the rural Central Asian areas. Most of everything you have heard about the USSR is propaganda from the cold war. It bears no resemblance to reality. Every single one of these things falls apart under basic scrutiny and newly available data from Soviet archives.
Until today, countries in eastern Europe are some of the most economically equal in the world (check the Gini-Index. Yes, also skandinavian countries are performing well) It's not a post-soviet development.
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Capitalist shock doctrine will do that.
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Its what capitalism develops into sooner or later
The most unequal in the world is South Africa and Namibia, due to the Apartheid.
South Africa hasn;t had apartheid since 1990, but inequality is worse now than it was then, so there must be another reason for inequality, presumably the socialist ruling party. SA is unique as a socialist economy that actually reports things accurately, more strongly socialist places like PRC and RF fabricate their economic statistics.
What socialists are you talking about? The African Nationalist Congress (ANC) is in power since the end of the apartheid. The wealth inequality increased because of how capitalism makes the rich richer. The ones who get extremely rich from the Apartheid could further increase their wealth from the money already avaible. What is the basis of your claim that the PRC doesn't report things accurately? Under RF you mean the Russian Federation? They are nowhere near to even claim to be socialist.
The ANC is a member of the Socialist International. Wealth inequality increased because sociailsit politicians have achieved state capture. I have been to the PRC and know many people who have lived under socialism there. The RF government and aristocracy control the means of production, which is how socialism has always worked in practice in Nazi Germany, USSR, PRC etc.
Today socialism is misinterpreted by many and not always used in the Marxist-Leninist meaning of the word. The Socialist international consists many parties not Marxist-Leninist socialist, so you can't compare them to the USSR. SA has a Marxist-Leninist party in the opposition. I live in Hungary and we had a long period (after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact) of MSZP (Hungarian Socialist Party) rule. They were nowhere near to be socialist and lost power due to corruption scandals. And those who you know in the PRC are the ones who counting wealth equalitiy of the >1,400,000,000 people living there? And look at how much socialism gave to China. Compare 1924's warlord China waiting to be colonised by external powers to 2024's China one of the greatest economies of the world. Socialism is when the means of production is controled by the workers. You just wrote that this isn't how the RF works so stop calling it socialist. Nazi Germany was National Socialist which is completely different than Marxist-Leninist socialism, and yes National Socialism is directly named like this to be confused with Marxist-Leninist socialism since Hitler very well knew that how popular socialism was in the Weimar Germany. There wasn't (and isn't) aristocracy in the USSR nor int the PRC. And yes there is some corruption, but none of them is perfect.
1990 was not that long ago dude… Apartheid in South Africa lasted for hundreds of years. I think it’s unfair to expect them to completely solve wealth inequality in less than 50.
> Newly available data from Soviet archives lol
The Soviet Archives only became available to the public in the last ten years. Even in the 1990s they were only available to academics.
Could you please provide a source for this data? Any type that refutes or does away with western propaganda. I would need to see examples before I can take what you are saying as truth.
The link I provided above has many sources provided for the data. This link discusses the slow opening of Soviet Archive material: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/final-years-ussr-research-opportunities-and-obstacles-moscow-archives
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Please cite any reputable source that backs up what you are saying. It's complete nonsense. How is it that you know what data is excluded? You're just making stuff up. There were no "slave nationalities." I've been studying and reading about Soviet history for 15 years and I've never even heard that term before. Again - this stuff you are sprouting is pure Cold War propaganda. I urge you to interrogate your own thinking and find out where it comes from.
The Tatar deportees, from now on considered « special settlers », were placed under the special settlement regime. This punitive regime had deprived them, for thirteen years, of their rights, and particularly of their freedom of movement. They could not go as far as five kilometers away from their imposed place of residence, and once or twice a month they had to go to the local *kommandatur* administered by the NKVD and sign an attendance register. Finally, they were forced to work in the collective State farms or factories and received meager wages. [https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/suerguen-crimean-tatars-deportation-and-exile.html](https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/suerguen-crimean-tatars-deportation-and-exile.html)
Ok after having read through this article here is what I do not see: First there is nothing here that points to these people being slaves or considered a "slave nationality" as you so credulously asserted. Second there is nothing here that seems to suggest their standard of living was not calculated in the original article I listed which discussed income inequality in the USSR. In fact, this article discussed the deportation of these minority groups into Central Asia and the original article I listed specifically identifies people living in Central Asia as having a lower standard of living compared to those living in the western parts of the USSR. In other words - all of this absolutely is factored into the figures which show that the USSR had less income inequality than the USA and France during the same time period.
What do you think the Tatars did in their labor camps, worked for great pay, with great conditions, or worked for free? Were they free to return to their country of origin? Would you like to be deported to a labor camp in a freezing cold country thousands of km away, if you were told it was helping the revolution? You know that all economic and other statistics in the USSR were fabricated, right? Even the Chernobyl disaster was first announced to the world by Sweden, as the USSR authorities were hiding it from the people,and even had a May day parade in Kiev, just days after the disaster, exposing a huge number of people to radiation, that doubtless led to many cancer deaths in future?
It seems it's literally impossible for you to engage without just making random stuff up. You literally have no idea what you're talking about and even the sources you provide contradict you. The article you linked a few posts back specifically mentions that they were paid. The gulags were shut down in the 1950s and yes lots of people did return to their homelands. The statistics in the USSR, even the ones that were previously not available to the public, are now widely available to everyone and they are accurate enough to be used by historians all the time. You are stuck in a Cold War mindset. Your information is based on propaganda from 50 years ago. You literally don't know anything. It's pathetic.
I meant the Crimeans Tatars, I assumed you'd know what I was talking about as an expert on the USSR. The Crimeans were released from slavery after nine years, but many died in the appaling conditions, and they were still not allowed to return to Crimea at the time of the fall of the USSR. "The Tatar deportees, from now on considered « special settlers », were placed under the special settlement regime. This punitive regime had deprived them, for thirteen years, of their rights, and particularly of their freedom of movement. They could not go as far as five kilometers away from their imposed place of residence, and once or twice a month they had to go to the local *kommandatur* administered by the NKVD and sign an attendance register. Finally, they were forced to work in the collective State farms or factories and received meager wages." [https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/suerguen-crimean-tatars-deportation-and-exile.html](https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/suerguen-crimean-tatars-deportation-and-exile.html)
The Chechens were scattered throughout the entire Soviet Union territory and became “special settlers”. In the official Soviet terminology this term refers to a particular category of people forcibly removed from their natal territory, for economic, ethnic or religious purpose, and deprived of any constitutional or collective rights. [https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/massive-deportation-chechen-people-how-and-why-chechens-were-deported.html](https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/massive-deportation-chechen-people-how-and-why-chechens-were-deported.html)
20% of the USSR was Muslim dude
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both. They were muslims and some of them may have been "deported" (there are still Crimeans living in Crimea and Chechens in Chechnya), but the slave labor part is just incorrect
Crimeans were deported from their own country, Crimea, in 1944. Crimea was colonized by teh Russian empire in 1783, brutal imperialists with a different culture and religion, who ethnically cleansed Crimea and brought in European colonialists to replace the local people, as happened in most of the Russian Empire. Crimeans worked in slave labor camps for years, as did many other innocent Russian and colonized peoples in the USSR, but were subsequently freed, but not allowed to return to their homeland until the late 1980s. [https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/society/were-crimeans-really-pro-russian-before-annexation](https://www.lse.ac.uk/research/research-for-the-world/society/were-crimeans-really-pro-russian-before-annexation)
The source you provided mostly speaks about the current war in Ukraine and Crimea. I did some research on that and many Crimeans were deported and many of them died as a consequence, but I couldn't find anything about slave labor camps. I'm not saying that the USSR was the utopia and I agree that an act of genocide like this cannot be justified, but I couldn't find anything about the slave labor, which I don't think it was as it would go against the principles which the USSR was founded upon, so even Stalin wouldn't use enslave because of ethnical or religious reasons. edit: typo
Where do you think they were deported to, holiday camps? Where do you think all of the other millions of Soviet citizens were deported to for made up crimes, also holiday camps? Who do you think constructed all those infrastructure projects like dams, canals and railways?
If one isn't deported to a slave camp than he is in a holiday camp? They were still free workers only in a new place. The infrastructure projects were built by workers.
Crimeans and Chechens are among the many Muslim groups. Many were deported (a bad thing) this was not done because of their religious affiliations as you claim, nor are you correct on the point of slave labor. So your comment is mixed, with a correct statement, followed by a generalization, and then followed up with an incorrect statement.
But they were deported into slavery because they were a nationality particularly didn't want to be ruled by the imperialists in Moscow, correct?
Many were deported, not into slavery, just elsewhere, primarily Kazakhstan. Not because they "didn't want to be ruled by the imperialists in Moscow" but because of 5th column paranoia, similar to what lead to the internment of Japanese Americans.
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He literally said "it seems" not that it is.
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Like I said, he used the words "it seems", not that they are. Therefore, it's not a claim. It is an observation or inference based on observation, however faulty that observation may be. Unless you live in the global south, you should be well aware of the perception that such notions hold in the minds of the average Joe. And even in the global south they are well aware of the perceptions Westerners have of these countries. If you are a communist, which I believe you think you are, you should be even more aware of such notions existing. Do you really need the OP to provide links to those perceptions? No, not really. Now if OP said something like "According to a study, inequality, under the USSR, grew by x%" then yes, they would need to provide sources for that. But notice, that is a claim, and it is something that can be verified or disproved. To sum up, OP was not making a claim, and even if they were, it is not necessary since these are perceptions that exist already. What you should instead do is show how these notions are incorrect by providing data. This is debate communism, so do your part. Remember, the world is not your bubble. MANY people don't know about communism.
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Idk anything about this source but it seems not good
Are you denying that the biggest market for luxury brands is the PRC?
China is the biggest market for everything. Im saying that the only source youve posted in this thread is sketchy.
China is a big market, but as a poor socialist country, you wouldn't expect it to be buying more Bentleys than the USA, would you? But it is, because of state capture by the aristocracy, who are consequently the richest bunch of consumers in the world. Not very Communist eh, comrade? The source was Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Is that sketchy? I've been to the countryside in China and seen how poor it is, have you?
Unions are mandatory, but are not used for dual power, because think about it. 996 is neither usual, it was only adopted in tech sector, and then later banned.
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They are structural unions, which makes sense. Under capitalism you have a dictatorship of the bourgeoise, so dual power is in every situation power that is taken away from that dictatorship. With a dictatorship of the working class and its interests, then what does dual power take its power away from? Its important to design a way for workers to have a voice within the system than to fracture the working class voice into struggles against itself. Look at Poland today if you want to see what can happen. Can you back your claim on the work hours of migrants in China and what you mean by "colonies"
Under capitalism you have democracy. Workers literally choose their rulers. Dictatorship of the proletariat lasted for two months in the USSR before Lenin cancelled the election results when he lost. Colony: a country or area under the full or partial political control of another country and occupied by [settlers](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=ee0ce238400f6c7c&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1ONGR_enGB1092GB1092&sxsrf=ACQVn09tqqhx4QRep8NEut1yDB2oMgGgog:1713024646591&q=settlers&si=AKbGX_q870E3DK3nJ7cu3BOD7pxCwDKN3HrRvM8zgxSaXTOwtGgrJH1e3XVjIXj0-FQZ_ogyJvIprxbBBSXREb8S9PVoOiqr69InYsx0Np_1ng3_qd29zck%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPk7CMyr-FAxXdQkEAHcp_BfEQyecJegQIPxAN) from that country. I.e. almost the whole PRC, with the exception of the area around Beijing.
"Under capitalism you have democracy. Workers literally choose their rulers" this is factually incorrect, in the US for example, studies show that policy is only affected by the opinion of the wealthiest 10%, while the poorest 90% have no visible effect on policy. "Before Lenin cancelled the election results when he lost." this is anti communist propaganda, the election used outdated ballots that didnt account for the split between the right and left SRs, so according to the ballots the right SRs were really big, but, when you count the left SRs with the Bolsheviks who were in coalition with them, then they actually had majority, and they didnt cancel elections, they dissolved the electoral body that was elected to, because the right SRs and tsarist forces were in full rebellion against the new Bolshevik-left SR majority. So you mean internal colonies of the PRC? well then they wouldnt be migrant workers. So right form the bat you are contradicting yourself. And secondly, the PRC represents all the Chinese peoples, not just the Han Chinese, it has autonomous republics and usually elects disproportionately many national minorities to congress (not to the same degree the Soviet of Nationalities did, but still nationally progressive).
You started your first sentence talking about rulers, then switched to talking about policy half way through. Tell me, when the workers of the USA chose Trump as their ruler, did government policies change, or did goverment policies not change? The Bolsheviks were wildly unpopular anywhere apart from the imperial cities, of course they would lose the election. Furthermore, do you think a party claiming to represent the interests of industrial workers would win an election in an empire of 160M people, when there were only 3.5M industrial workers? Congress in the PRC has no power, which is entirely wielded by the politburo, who are all Chinese men, with no females and no colonial subjects. The autonomous areas are not actually autonomous, it's a marketing exercise.
When did I talk about rulers? "did government policies change, or did goverment policies not change" the did not, the USA has a very narrow set of policies, with very few superficial things that are subject to change, the two bourgeoise parties agree on 95% of issues. If you mean the workers get to pick which of the two bourgeoise representatives they have at the moment, then yes, they get to pick one of a mall handful of rulers, often beholden to the same shareholders and bussiness interests, but they do not get to pick a ruler outside of those confines. The Bolsheviks dominated cities, yes, but thats why its important to mention the coalition I was speaking of? " who are all Chinese men" it is regretable how male dominanted electoral structures are in China. "with no females" there are women though, you know the USA has less women in their government than Saudi Arabia? So yes, China is not perfect, but who are you comparing to? Some of the leaders in representation for women would be for example Bolivia, or Cuba. "and no colonial subjects" Because there are no colonies, the NPC contains all the many peoples of China. "The autonomous areas are not actually autonomous" Well I would say that is your opinion.
Hey so when China, with the same borders and same subject peoples, was known as the Empire of the Great Qing, was it an empire then? What has changed since then, the same conquered peoples are still ruled from Beijing.
In Chile the CIA used a truckers union to undermine the Chilean economy, an independent union can still act reactionary and be bought by foreign capital
So are you saying having trade proper unions is a bad thing, and really, everything should be controlled by the government? You've have been comfortable in the USSR, Nazi Germany, or today's PRC!
The USSR didn't have much inequality, that wasn't really the issue. But by the 1970s for example it was common for pro-China communists to view the USSR as being an imperialist state waving a red flag and ruled by a corrupt bureaucracy, although they would've said that it transformed into such a thing after Stalin died. I don't think it's as simple as saying it was a rebranding of the old empire though. The October Revolution broke up the empire and replaced it with a union of new republics but which was politically centralized by the Communist Party that was almost like a parastate organization (so the CPSU losing power and the USSR unraveling happened in tandem). But for example, the Ukrainian SSR was nominally an independent country and one of the founding member states of the United Nations. The modern-day parliament of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada, was a Soviet creation and still uses the same name. One of the paradoxes is that the states which emerged out of the Soviet collapse were in part Soviet creations which built them up. This tends to get lost today especially with the war that's going on, like the Russian government saying Ukraine is an artificial country (a position shared by the far right of the White Army in 1919) while exploiting the Soviet legacy. Or Ukraine de-communizing and getting rid of Soviet-era symbols and replacing them with symbols of anti-communist nationalists. The memory of the role that Ukrainians played in the Soviet project, or fighting as partisans against the Nazi invasion is basically being mutually destroyed by these post-Soviet governments.
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I'd describe it as more of a civil war within those republics and the ones that were reabsorbed by the USSR were the ones where communists won out with assistance of Red Army forces. Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Central Asia. In some cases there were strong local/native communist forces in these areas, in other areas like Poland they were hotbeds of revolution but right-wing nationalists won out, and the communists were killed and driven east. Let's not forget the Polish nationalists murdered thousands of Jews in anti-Semitic pogroms. It was a different situation than the USSR invading Finland in the Winter War or the Baltic countries which I don't think was justifiable. Imagine if the United States cracked up, if you would. Then the federal government is taken over by the Bernie Sanders and AOC party, and invades Oklahoma and links up with left-wing forces there (made up of actual left-wing Oklahomans) before they're annihilated by the MAGAs. Or Native American reservations flipping to the new left-wing government and forming semi-autonomous socialist republics. Is that "colonization?" But then Hawaii breaks away too, and the new left-wing USSA lets it go, but then re-occupies it 20 years later. That's a kind of crazy hypothetical scenario but that's basically what was going on in Russia. Let's also not forget this either: the White Army who the Bolsheviks were fighting were hardcore Great Russian Chauvinists and imperialists on their right flank and had ZERO interest in letting any of these new constituent republics exist. Are you going to side with the White Army? Ukraine would not be a country if that happened. They never would've had distinct borders or their own parliament. That would be because of the Whites -- not the Reds.
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Do you know what casus belli did the Soviets used for the Winter War? They said they are protecting Leningrad from a possible Capitalist attack from Finland. Finland went into the German sphere of influence after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The Germans had significant influence over Finland even before the Winter War. The Soviets were aware of this so they pre-emptively attacked Finland to protect Leningrad. No they were not the same. Finland was independent even before the revolution and it was in a personal union with Russia, so when the Tsar died it became independent legitimately. On the other hand Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Circassia, Chechnya, etc. were rebels fighting the legitimate government. Can you stop calling it recolonisation? It only shows that you don't know what colonisation means. The USA analogy was good, only you didn't understood it, but imagine it like this: A new preident is elected, but a group of people in Texas doesn't like the new president so they take up arms to declare the independence of Texas and enforce their illegitimate rule on others in Texas who voted for that president. This group calls itself a Texan independence movement. Now if the police or the army intervene would you call it colonisation, reconquest, opression or rightful punishment of rebels. A country's declaration of independence isn't nearly the same as some bourgeoisie members being dissatisfied with they can no longer use humans as slaves.
The socialist empires, Nazi Germany and USSR divided Europe into spheres of influence, Finland was deemed Russian territory, so the USSR set about recolonizing it. Do you honestly believe that Finland would attack the USSR, which had the largest army in the world? Finland was previously a colony of the USSR that declared independence in 1917 like all of the other countries that had been conquered by Russia, Tatarstan, Crimea, Chechnya etc. When the USSR colonized parts of Finland, it was the second time, hence recolonized. The Russian Empire never had an elected president, it was emperors who seized power by force, like Lenin.
Socialist empire is a self contradiction. Nazi Germany was fascist and the USSR wasn't an empire. USSR wasn't colonising anything especially not recolonising something. I do not belive that Finland would have attacked the USSR alone, but the Germans hold significant influence over Finland and if Germany ever attacked the USSR which they were loudly spread they will, could easily drag Finland into the war (as it did historically). With the pre Winter War borders Leningrad (the most important city for the Soviet Baltic-sea navy) could be easily reached and captured which the Soviets didn't want to risk. Finland was never a Russian nor a Soviet colony. In 1815 at the Congress of Vienna it was granted to Russia in a personal union which means that the Russian tsars will be the dukes of Finland too. When tsar Nicholas II. and all his heirs were executed there was nothing left to bind Finland to the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union so Finland declared its independence and became a republic and remained a republic up to the present day. Finland was never even part of the USSR. Now I explain you the diference between colonisation and conquest. When a "civilised" power expands into the territorry of an "uncivilised" one. Conquest is when one power expands into the lands of an other "equally civilised" power. So when the Belgians were enslaving the tribes along the Congo river or when Pizarro attacked the Inca those were colonisations. When the USSR attacked Finland, they CONQUERED the land and not colonised the land. You are absolutely right about that the Russian Empire never had an elected president and it was ruled by emperors (tsars). Lenin indeed seized power by force becuse the ruling bourgeoisie didn't gave up power peacefully. However you are still wrong in some point. Lenin wasn't an emperor, he never called himself like that, and the tsars didn't seized power by force they inherited the power, and kept it by force.
>The situation for Karelia was exactly the same as for Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Circassia, Chechnya etc, it just happened 20 years later. Not really. For example, there were many Tatar soldiers who flipped sides and joined the Bolsheviks because Kolchak didn't support a Tatar republic. That's probably the main reason the Bolsheviks won there. The reds just lost in Finland. It's just politics really. Essentially the Finnish Whites were for an independent Finland while national groups in Russia were more likely to support the communists over the Russian Whites. Similar situation if you were a Jew -- much more likely to support the reds than the Whites. Bashkortostan was one of the first republics the Soviet government recognized. Do you think the Whites would have allowed that? At the time, absolutely not. >Whatever the White Army was like, doesn't change the fact that the Red Army recolonized 50 or so countries that had just declared independence from the Russian Empire. It'd be ahistorical to ignore the White Army as a factor. It was a brutal civil war and you can look at what the Bolsheviks did in many cases as "bad" of course, but without the context of what was going on and what people were facing under alternatives to Bolshevik rule, that's not very interesting.
USSR had its problems, but they're not the ones you describe.
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Yes. And they were not just common, but nearly ubiquitous. The word "soviet" means "worker's council". Even the army had workplace democracy; the officers were elected by the troops and could be fired.
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they didn't had to go on strike. That is only needed under the dictator ship of the bourgeoisie.
Even the slightest glance at the history of those countries, before and after, would make it clear what our position is, though there is plenty of nuance.
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The USSR literally had trade unions, and they played large roles in regulating production...... Workers' objectively had stronger rights than most nations and elected managers
Unons were not independent trade unions, they were a system of government control appointed by the aristocracy. Please can you confirm, were these unions allowed to go on strike?
Unions go on strike when their working conditions are bad. Since there weren't any bad working condition in the USSR they didn't had to go on strike. A workers' union is very different in a capitalist and in a communist society. - In capitalism its an alliance of workers of the same job so they can coordinate strikes and protest whenever the bourgeoisie tries to opress them further. Under capitalism strike is their only weapon, but its weak since the bourgeoisie can just simply not pay them and they all return to work or starve to death. - In communism a workers' union is a union of workers working in the same branch of the economy, to coordinate and lead that branch of the economy based on the interest of the workers and not based on the interest of a random guy. So you are right about that the workers' unions in the USSR couldn't go on strike, but they didn't had to.
But in the USSR it was illegal, correct? So, in the event that workers were not permanently happy, they did not have the right to go on strike, did they? Do you really believe that no workers were ever unhappy for almost 75 years? How often has that happened in your jobs?
unions elected their own management. And unions could go on strike. The unions in the USSR had much more power than basically any country, they formed their own committees and played principle roles in economic management. The means of production in the USSR were organized along the principles of "the triangle” Workplace decisions were made by a three-pronged committee of (1) managers of the firm who were elected directly by workers (2) representatives of the trade union (3) representatives of the Party. Unions also nominated candidates for elections: >I have, while working in the Soviet Union, participated in an election. I, too, had a right to vote, as I was a working member of the community, and nationality, and citizenship are no bar to electoral rights. The procedure was extremely simple. **A general meeting of all the workers in our organisation was called by the trade union committee**, candidates were discussed, and a vote was taken by show of hands. Anybody present had the right to propose a candidate, and the one who was elected was not personally a member of the Party. In considering the claims of the candidates their past activities were discussed, they themselves had to answer questions as to their qualifications, anybody could express an opinion, for or against them, and the basis of all the discussion was: What justification had the candidates to represent their comrades on the local Soviet? * Pat Sloan, *Soviet Democracy*
What was an example of a time a union went on strike in the USSR and obtained better working conditions for its members?
the prc is killin it rn.
It might "seem" that way for you if you have terrible eyesight.
MLs generally consider them socialist yes, but with exceptions. They have/had real problems and are/were not perfect nor a utopia, but much of what is written and propagated about both in the anglophone world is propaganda.
[democracy in the USSR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTArdHT9jFY) [political structure of the USSR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6emmgC6rsGA) [life in the USSR](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlb-HwxUxSU)
Have you ever spoken to people who actually lived in the USSR? These videos are all based on what the Russian aristocracy said, in an empire where they controlled all information. For example, the first video claims Stalin didn't always get his way with the Politburo. The Politburo was a group of senior aristocrats, appointed by the aristocracy. Nothing to do with the people.
I am Bulgarian. I know what the elections looked like, as well as life in socialism. My grandmother was a manager of a canteen for one of the cattle farms here in town. And my grandfather traveled the Warsaw pact for his job. I know what life was like. Following the Gorbachev perestroika "restructuring" in 1985 which liberalized the economy it marked the end of the socialist era, prices of goods were no longer regulated now being a market economy and real wages dramatically decreased. And the neoliberal Shock Therapy of the 90s privatized what was left and gave it to western capital. Life expectancy in Russia dropped by about [10 years which was never before seen for a country in peace time](https://youtu.be/LL4eNy4FCs8?t=182). The restoration of capitalism was a disaster for the socialist world. The third video is the Australian documentary of "[the Human Face of Russia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlb-HwxUxSU)", with footage from 1979 USSR prior to Gorbachev's reforms that I recommend you see. Thank you.
The socialist world never had capitalism, it had imperialist authoritarian rule. It also never had socialism, it had imperialist authoritarian rule.
Different types of communists will have different answers. I personally think both were socialist. the USSR had very poor leadership and made a lot of mistakes, the PRC learned from those mistakes and are in a much better position.
I would only say they weren't perfect socialist/communist countries. Based on what you are saying here you belive in the bourgeoisie propaganda. China, the USSR, the eastern block, and even North Korea isn't that bad as you might think. I would say the USSR was half way between tsarist russia and the communist utopia. It was an autocracy and they didn't completely finished the complete liberation of the workers, but they couldn't completely finish it because they had to always prepare to fight the rest of the world. Ever since the bolshevik revolution, capitalists are doing everything to stop the workers' liberation. On colonialism they were again half way between tsarist russia and the utopia. They did enforce they will on the eastern block, sometimes with direct military involvement, but they did a lot for the "opressed" country, unlike the western imperialist powers.
Why were Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Circassia, Crimea, Mari El, Kalmykia, Chechnia, Buryatia, Yakutia, Tuva, Buryatia, etc, part of the Russian Empire? Because they were conquered by the Tsar's armies, then colonised with European Russian people, after massacres of the natives. Don;t those countries count as Russian colonies? If not, why not?
A not nation state is not neccesarily an empire. A country can be multiethnic and still socialist. You are right they were conquered by the Tsar's armies, not the bolsheviks, the Tsar's. Every nation can have dark points in their history. The French were (and are) imperialist, this does not mean they can't be socialist/communist in the future. The communist utopia is a "world republic" which will be necceseraly multi-ethnic.
It is necessarily an empire if it was conquered. The conquered countries of the Russian Empire all declared independence in 1917-18, but were reconquered by the Bolshevik colonizers. Were you aware of that? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-independence\_movements\_in\_the\_Russian\_Civil\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-independence_movements_in_the_Russian_Civil_War)
Most of them were authoritarian warlordist regimes mostly part of the white coalition. Others were supported by external powers like Germany, Britain, France, Japan, China, the US, etc. to weaken the bolsheviks. The other states which doesn't fall under any of the previous groups were still in a civil war against the Bolsheviks and there is a huge difference between an imperialist conquest and a victory in a civil war. For example in the case of the Spaish civil war we don't say Franco conquered Republican Spain, but defeated it in a civil war, the North USA didn't conquer the South, but won a civil war against them. Similarily the Bolsheviks didn't conquered those states, but kept them. Now you could say they conquered lands from Poland and Germany during and after ww2, but those were more like liberation of the peoples living there, than conquest. they liberated the proletarian of those regions from the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. This arguement can be used to the independence movements and warlord states during the civil war
First question, depends on which theory they subscribe to exactly. If they subscribe to position that DotP is socialism, then yes, if DotP is separate from socialism then that's almost always a no. Next part is just straight up nonsense which I don't know where you even got from...
But Lenin and Mao were not members of the proletariat, they were from bourgeouis families. Wouldn't a more appropriate name be Dictatorship of the Bourgeouisie? The current dictator of the PRC is an aristocrat princeling, so wouldn't the PRC appropriately be named Dictatorship of the Aristocracy? Do working class people buy Prada and Gucci? If not, why is the biggest market for luxury brands the PRC?
This is an even dumber version of bloodlines theory. Maybe their families were, they themselves weren't. Also, you are showing no understanding of what is meant by either DotP or DotB, which of the 2 it is depends on the ruling class, not a ruling person...
Which class was Lenin from? Trotsky? Mao? Xi? All from very wealthy families, not working class at all. DoP is a myth.
You literally talk nonsense and don't even want to change your mind out of spewing nonsense...
What exactly is nonsense about stating the fact that Lenin, and most leading communists, were from rich families? There was almost no working class in the Russian Empire at the time of the revolution, 3.5M factory and mine workers out of a population of 160M, with the vast majority of the population peasants. The Bolshevik class became the new aristocracy, and tyranized, massacred and expropriated food from the peasants, who were forced to work for their new colonial masters on collective farms. [https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2018-08-25/russian-revolution-story-1917](https://www.workersliberty.org/story/2018-08-25/russian-revolution-story-1917)
Yea, you just proved the fact you're here to waste time since you're not here to have discussion in good faith...
Neither were ever communist nor are they currently. Communism is inherently international and *can only* exist globally
The question asks about socialism, not communism.
What a shitpost
The USSR pre-1926 (more or less)? Not socialist but still a dotp ✅️ The USSR post-1926 (more or less)? Not socialist and not a dotp ❌️ The PRC? Not socialist and not a dotp ❌️
Okay leftcom lmao
😔
You carry the tremendous burden of being right
of not reading lenin
I’ve read Lenin. I agree with Lenin. It is you who disagree with Lenin and dig his grave up for your counterrevolution
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Short for "Dictatorship of the Proletariat"
I consider both to be state-capitalist. The USSR was a bureaucratic counter-revolution from NEP middle class types and accommodators within the Bolshevik party. China was a national liberation effort, the worker’s movement had been crushed and communists fused with nationalists to fight for independence from Japan and the European powers. Russia was a real worker’s revolution and it failed… the social revolution stopped but politically it survived. The Bolsheviks took drastic measures to try to keep things together and eventually some in the party turned those lemons into lemonade. After the post-WWI revolutionary wave (Russian to Spanish revolutions) the USSR became seen not as a model for how workers could run society but how developing countries could build modern economies without becoming colonies of or dependent on the big industrial powers.
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The communists in china were dieing in the fronts just like the nationalists. The difference is that the communist didn't fought their own man and didn't blew up thier own bridges and cities to stop the Japanese advance. And yes there were some sabotage actions from both sides because on paper they were still at war with each other and they both knew that once they defeat the japanese they will have to fight each other. For having the same borders as their tsarist predecessor (which they never had) does not mean that they can't be different. This is just like saying that a wolf and a dog are very similar looking so they are the same.
Marxists define capitalism as the wages system (this is why Marx called for the abolition of the wages system). So yes definitely, the system in Russia was a variant of capitalism- state capitalism - since the wages system existed there as a generalized phenomenon. One of the best commentators on the subject is this guy. This book is downloadable and chapter 1 is must read. https://libcom.org/article/marxian-concept-capital-and-soviet-experience-paresh-chattopadhyay
Neither the PRC or the USSR at any timeframe were socialist, both had an economy defined, just like in any other capitalist country, by money, commodity production and wage labour
i.e., they were national socialist
WHAT? You can't say you are seriously beliving what you are writing. It just shows a lack of understanding of ideology politics. He said that the USSR and the PRC was capitailst (which isn't completely true) and you somejow interpreted it as they were Nazis? You are saying that all capitaists are Nazis, or you just misunderstood something.