The US is included in my list too with the Native American genocide for what its worth lol. But people tend to forget that Soviet Russia and Communist China killed millions of their own people. They should not be praised or imitated. We should learn from the horrible mistakes of the past.
By millions murdered, you don’t mean people who died in the last famine in China after centuries of famines, and you don’t mean the last famine in the region that became the USSR after centuries of famines, right? Famines that happened during or soon after the bloody revolutions overthrowing the tsars and emperors, under which the previous famines occurred?
I mean in the boxer revolution and the millions that died in gulags in USSR because of famine and the government selecting people at random to starve to death in labor camps.
The boxer rebellion was 50 years before the Chinese Communist Revolution. The CIA’s own unclassified reports show what people in gulags were fed. Why would they choose people at random? That would be dumb. Nazis, kulaks, other prisoners of the revolutionary war, and common criminals were in gulags.
Bruh, they literally picked people from bread lines and threw them into the gulag. Not to mention the majority of clergy for just being christian clergy.
Bruh, they literally picked people from bread lines and threw them into the gulag.
[citation needed]
Do you even think critically about the cold war propaganda we were fed? Why would you pick people out of bread lines and put them into gulags to feed them there? That would mean you’d have to build more gulags and get people to staff them. Why would you do that unless you’re a cartoon villain? It makes no sense.
Not to mention the majority of clergy for just being christian clergy.
I have no great love for clergy, especially when they side with tsars against a worker revolution.
Lemme just unload very blurry memories of junior high school class and add numbers with “millions”, that sounds like enough work to not give 1 minute of my time to actually know anything about the USSR or China
Why don’t you read up on the USSR and read peoples actual experiences with it. Yeah there weren’t millions in the boxer revolution, but tbh the forced abortion 2 kid thing probably puts them into millions category
Lemmy is less popular and therefore more niche, meaning you’ll get smaller communities with stronger opinions, and therefore way more political extremism
It’s only like two guys that have been doing this for the last week, and I have no idea what their game is. Lemmy doesn’t have enough people for the propaganda to make a meaningful difference, even if everyone did buy into it. Are they stupid?
There is a massive difference between liking a concept or the implementation of that concept. Communism is an utopia, socialism is seen as the way to get there.
Socialism did not proof to be viable in reality, with dictators claiming to set up communist states, while not setting up working socialist societies.
The thing is that implementing such a society includes a massive restructuring of government and ownership of goods. Those measures have a very strong tendency to dissolve in civil wars and dictatorships. It is of course an option to label anyone who doesn’t want to give up resources an enemy of the class / state and imprison and torture them, but it does not create a stable society in which people actually choose to live, if they can decide on that.
I would caution you about socialism being a way to get to communism.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the founders of communist ideology, believed democratic socialism was a sham and true communism could only be achieved through a violent overthrow of the bourgeois.
The complex restructuring you mentioned is why they thought a transition from socialism to communism would not work.
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.
Words mean what they’re used to mean. Even the word “government” is wildly different between Europe and the US. We flip out over headlines like the government of Belgium has collapsed! and it’s only as much of a kerfuffle as the House trying to elect a Speaker.
If ever there was a real world example of Newspeak, it is how—thanks to class war and three red scares—the working class no longer even has a word for socialism. So now welfare capitalists like Bernie Sanders call themselves socialist despite never calling for the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production. It’s an amazing achievement of the capitalist class’ propaganda machine.
Man im pretty socialist who lives in ex east germany with my parents actually being parz of that time and i gotta tell you, with what i hear from them, it was horrible
Ah yes the oh so good DDR with exciting features such as
no freedom of movement
constant shortage of any goods
being a dictatorship
(contrary to your first point) a housing shortage
a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time
political pressure
control over the media
the fucking stasi
And what i mean by pretty socialist is: everyone gets equal opportunities no matter what race, religion, gender, political views, etc. I want that chad - who just lost all his belongings - has the same chance to live a fulfilled live as elon musk has. I abhorr the fact that there are billionaire’s or even just millionaire’s while other people have to choose between paying rent or eating, and those people not even being in the worst situation compared to others.
Love how you counter concrete, material facts like “guaranteed housing, employment, and childcare” with fact-free scare mongering like “political pressure” and “control over the media.”
There’s never any analysis about what this shit really means. “The fucking stasi” gets thrown out there like “the boogeyman” without even a thought towards how the U.S. security state violently repressed a nationwide movement against police violence in 2020, or how right now that same security state is violently repressing people protesting the genocide we’re supplying. You’re supposed to belive the stasi is the worst thing possible without ever digging into how it functioned, and certainly without asking how it compared to other states.
Think about why this might be, Friend. Really think hard about it. What large geopolitical things were happening at the time?
being a dictatorship
Yes, of the proletariat
(contrary to your first point) a housing shortage
Again, source? Also, wondering what you think happened before East Germany existed that might have contributed to this. Surely this changed over time
a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time
Because people working 3 jobs under capitalism have so much free time? What does this even mean?
political pressure
Again, what does this mean? All Political cultures and institutions exert pressures on their population… That’s how politics works.
control over the media
I’ll agree that the siege mentality of much of former socialism led to a lack of press freedom, which was ultimately detrimental, but again… Why might this have been?
the fucking stasi
Quick, name the West German secret police!
Let’s assume for a minute that everything you’ve said is entirely true. If we’re to be thoughtful about this. East Germany was a historically poorer, agrarian, region of Germany, much less industrialized, artificially lopped off from the west (not by the USSR, btw, who wanted a unified, nonaligned Germany, like the allies had done with Austria), it was heavily sanctioned, had been bombed to shit, much like the rest of Europe, but was made to pay the USSR reparations, that it wasn’t as capable of paying, as a unified Germany would have been. The USSR even dismantled entire east German factories and shipped them back to rebuild their own industrial base.
How do you expect any country to not come out of that with considerable problems?
And the GDR did have considerable problems. I think you and I would disagree on what those problems were, but in the broad strokes, that much we can agree on.
But I would contend that, even with that in mind, East Germany ended up being a much more positive socialist experiment in many respects then say, Romania, which suffered a much more severe centralization of power, and cult of personality issues, then East Germany did.
In fact, looking at the makeup of the East German Parliament and its mass organizations, there was a much greater degree of representation of various social cleavages then in some other Eastern Bloc states.
While you could say argue that this was only ‘on paper’, that really depends on what period of East German history you’re looking at, as the electoral system was altered a handful of times.
Regardless though, this was an expression of the fact that East Germany had a more open Political culture due to its institutions being establisehed as part of an intended nonaligned, unified, German state. And due to the fact that it had received the socializing effects of industrial capitalism that gave it things like an incredibly progressive Queer movement, that other Eastern Bloc states, which were formerly feudal backwaters, hadn’t developed.
Tl;Dr - this shit is a lot more complicated than listing off bullet points for “why East Germany was Evil”, That I was taught in the 7th grade.
im sorry but you seem to have been fed quite a few western myths about the gdr. you seem to be arguing in good faith though, so lets examine:
no freedom of movement
this is just plain wrong. tourism was possible and encouraged not only within the country, but also to fellow socialist states like czechoslovakia and hungary, as well as, albeit to a lesser extent the soviet union. such trips were enjoyed by virtually the entire population thanks to guaranteed vacation time.
constant shortage of goods
shortages were only a thing in the immediate aftermath of ww2, as well as during the 1980s. in the second case they were caused by the economic liberalization enacted at the time due to western pressure, as well as the general deterioration of conditions in the eastern block at the time, which happened for similar reasons. during the late 60s and 70s per capita consumption was more or less equal to the west.
being a dictatorship
every state is necessarily a dictatorship, as this is important for class preservation. just as liberal states will mercilessly crush revolutionary elements, so must socialist societies crush counterrevolutionary ones. please read engels on authority to understand this point better. it is a short read and very eye opening.
a housing shortage
any source on this claim? the only periods i can imagine this to be the case is in the beginning due to war era destruction and the end due to crisis.
a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time
this is in fact a valid point. a solution for this could have been found within the socialist system though.
political pressure
already answered previously in the point about “dictatorship”.
control over the media
“All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.”
– v. i. lenin
the fucking stasi
the mfs was necessary due to the constant threat of counterrevolution going out from west germany. but its reach and capabilities are much overblown in western propaganda nowadays. in fact, the east spent much less on its intelligence apparatus than the frg while still managing to have a lower crime rate.
the goals you stated are extremely noble and i do in fact agree with every single one of them. you are being idealist though, which means that you absolutely need to read theory, especially lenin. a good reading list can be found here. if you would educate yourself properly you could become a great contribution to the communist movement.
thats exactly what the dictatorship of the proletariat is for! after the exploiting classes are eliminated, the state will wither away, leaving a classless society, aka communism. this takes much time though.
why are reactionaries always assuming that their opponents are children? only because you are a teenager living within the imperial core, consuming nothing but nato propaganda, you shouldnt assume that everyone else is an equivalent.
This is bullshit. I will refute most of your points as someone who has lived in Socialist Hungary before the iron curtain.
Housing was not guaranteed. You were assigned lodging based on need. If you had no children, you were staying with your parents and two siblings in the 1BR apartment. Once you got a kid, if you were a young couple, you got an apartment with an elderly in it, that you had to take care of along with your new born, until their death. After that the apartment would be yours. To overcome the shortages of housing, the government invested into building temporary housing called panel buildings. They were not meant to last for more than twenty years.
Education was discriminatory in the sense that those favoured by the party got a pass. You have long hair? Your dad had long hair? You are a Gypsy? Yeah sure, you can pass elementary grade 8, but you sure as hell won’t be allowed to go into a four-year highschool for your profession and graduation . Best you could hope for is a 2 year middle school for a manual labour job (szakmunkásképző). If at all. Often it’s off to the fields for you to work at the communal fields.
0% unemployment because if you are unemployed you go to prison. Off to the fields or else!
Sales tax (VAT) has been 25% even before 1988
The railway system the country has was all built before the second world war. It got maintained during socialism, but the best they could do was put train drivers on concession show trials and execute them when accidents happened instead of actually improving the system. To this day the max speed on these rail lines is 120kmph and many of the smaller lines are falling into disrepair and unelectrified.
Healthcare was universal, however it was not highly developed nor without discrimination. What was true for education was also true here. You better be a good party member or else. If you were lucky, you had a relative working in healthcare to skip waiting lines (I’ve benefited of this a lot)
This one was a given. Although you still had to pay for meals for your kid at the daycare. But the times were also different back then. Those responsible for child care were not necessarily professionals and hitting children if they had misbehaved was still a thing.
I don’t think this had a measurable comparison in any way. How do you draw comparisons?
Ahh yes, how nice. Went from nazi dictatorship to literal Russia planted dictatorships in both East Germany and Hungary ('56).
“Throughout Eastern Europe and the former USSR, many people grudgingly admitted that conditions were better under communism (New York Times, 3/30/95). Pro-capitalist Angela Stent, of George- town University, allows that “most people are worse off than they were under Communism . . . . The quality of life has deteriorated with the spread of crime and the disappearance of the social safety net” (New York Times, 12/20/93). An East German steelworker is quoted as saying “I do not know if there is a future for me, and I’m not too hopeful. The fact is, I lived better under Communism” (New York Times, 3/3/91). An elderly Polish woman, reduced to one Red Cross meal a day: “I´m not Red but I have to say life for poor people was better before … Now things are good for businessmen but not for us poor” (New York Times, 3/17/91). One East German woman commented that the West German womens movement was only beginning to fight for “what we already had here… We took it for granted because of the socialist system. Now we realize what we [lost]” (Los Angeles Times, 8/6/91).” Michael Parenti - “Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism”.
A new book by Kristen Ghodsee, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that women have better sex under socialism.
If that sounds strange to you, consider this: A survey of East and West Germans after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women (the socialist side of Germany during the Cold War) had twice as many orgasms as Western women.
What in the world accounts for such a wide gap?
According to Ghodsee, it’s about social safety nets. If, she argues, you build a society that supports women and doesn’t punish them for having children or devalue their labor, it turns out they’ll be happier and have better sex.
But it doesn’t matter how many studies or surveys or policy differences you point to – some guy always has an old relative whose story outweighs everything.
What exactly are these quotes supposed to prove? This was what, a few months or a few years after reunification? Any social change that large is going to cause some turbulence. And of course Parenti has an agenda, so he wouldn’t include someone lauding their new experience.
What’s wrong with the DPRK? The only source that life there is terrible are defector’s testimonies, which contradict each other on a daily basis and where the worst, most emotional stories are rewarded with fame and money. Often it’s the only way to make ends meats for them. If you come to the south from the north you are a nobody.
Furthermore, the DPRK has never threatened anyone. They have a 100% literacy rate (literally on the CIA website) and every citizen is guaranteed free healthcare, free education and a place to live. They use all of their arible land for food production but because of the sanctions and their mountainous terrain sometimes they have scarcities, but no one is starving. Their constitution is full of human and political rights and social gurantees.
And to proof that I don’t shill for any country calling itself socialist, I don’t like China at all (while still thinking that they are at least better for the world than the US).
And of course there are things to criticize the DPRK for, like the lack of LGBT rights and their weapons exports and hackergroups. But considering the sanctions (that even China upholds) they are in very dier need of foreign currency.
I would also encourage everybody to study the history of Korea.
The only source that life there is terrible are defector’s testimonies, which contradict each other on a daily basis and where the worst, most emotional stories are rewarded with fame and money.
They turn most of their lights off at night to preserve power. They don’t really have energy resources themselves and it is very difficult for them to get foreign currencies. They are still a poor country but considering that they are the most sanctioned country in the history of sanctions they are doing about at well as they can.
That might be their real problem. I mean, everywhere else on the planet, the value of menial labor greatly exceeds the cost of the lighting a human needs to be able to work. If they are, indeed, only providing lighting during daylight hours, they are only utilizing 1/3 to 1/2 of the industrial capacity they have invested in. They bought a tractor plant, but because they won’t turn on the lights, it’s production is far short of its capacity.
For want of a lightbulb, the production was lost. For want of production, farming equipment was lost. For want of farming equipment, the harvest was lost. For want of a harvest, the people were lost.
First, factory lights only account for a small fraction of the power consumed and second people sleep at night. And third, it doesn’t matter what the electricity costs if you don’t have enough coal/oil/gas.
The DPRK has no shortage of coal. It’s one of their export products. They currently produce 35 million tons a year, and only burn 10 million.
While not commonly used in the rest of the world due to abundant oil and gas supplies, coal liquefaction and gasification are relatively simple and proven technologies. Having coal provides a (somewhat dirty) source of gas and liquid fuels, if utilized for that purpose.
Apparently, electricity is considerably more valuable in DPRK than the opportunity cost of shutting down the entire country overnight. I would think that the factories producing tractors and equipment for converting non-arable land into cropland would be a sufficiently high enough priority to justify burning some excess coal, but apparently not.
one thing i might add is the fact that most if not all of the propagated lies about the dprk are projection. sexual slavery was a thing the american occupation forces engaged in massively and south korean dictator pak chong-hui was killed during a dinner party with a underage concubine present. later, haircut policing was a thing in the south during the 1980s under chon tu-hwan. the most prominent korean defector, pak yon-mi is a white supremacist btw.
i believe that the whole hacking thing is massively exaggerated by western media as part of their whole “the enemy is both weak and strong”-strategy. it is both a way to engineer further fear mongering against korea, as well as to mask their own incompetence. but even if im wrong and they are indeed from the dprk, i still find them quite based and funny tbh.
do you happen to have any resources on the lgbt situation within the county? i would love to educate myself on the topic.
i also slightly disagree with you on china. they never seized being a socialist state, but have sadly become revisionist since deng. that doesnt make them any less worthy of critical support though.
China meets all criteria of Lenin’s definition of an imperialist power, Marxism Today made a good explanation of it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc-3aE8mAlATheir loans might be a good alternative for third world nations to get away from the IMF but are still to further Chinese business interests.
I read/heard somewhere that homosexuality is forbidden in the DPRK but I am sorry to tell you I don’t know where. I would have to look into it freshly too. I mentioned it more to make clear that I don’t simp for any country and that it is possible to have a rational discussion with me.
hey, idk why you got removed, you were talking about an interesting topic.
i obviously didnt watch the stream, since i dont have so much free time on my hands, but having read the comments i believe to have more or less gotten the gist of what they are saying. its the usual talking points.
this old r/genzedong thread does imho a great job on providing evidence that china does in fact not fit lenins criteria for a imperialist nation, even if one were to assume that it has a capitalist economy. (cw coarse language though)
Their average height is much lower than people from South Korea. The most likely cause is malnutrition. When malnutrition affects even the military, your civilians aren’t doing well.
If you’re looking for sources, there are plenty of links should you search for “north korean vs south korean height”. The difference is pretty dramatic for 75 years of isolation.
libertarian “socialists” are a deeply idealist tendency that didnt manage to get anything done ever. the only thing they do is criticize actually existing socialist projects, mostly using state department talking points. the concept of critical support is unknown to them and the only revolutions they like are the ones that fail. they are puppets in the hands of the cia.
It’s not very enlightened to call entire movements like libertarian socialism (AKA anarchism) just idealist, ineffectual, and to imply they’re essentially brainwashed by the US government.
Anti-state movements have a history as long and storied as socialism, and theoretical frameworks for their beliefs far more complex than you give them credit for.
yeah the state department point was probably a little harsh and generalizing of me, though i am indeed quite pissed how reactionaries like vaush or keffals are appropriating leftist aesthetics in order to shill for us imperialism. i am also standing with my statement about ancoms & co not getting anything done, sorry.
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