Can communism/socialism work?

[K. A. Pital]

I'll concede the "far" part, but not the "better off" (nor the fact that they started out lower).

I didn't object to the "better off" part - the industrial development of SEA nations has been quite remarkable in it's own right. It was a super-rapid industrialization which leapt from low-tech base to high-tech base in mere decades. A feature worth it's own close look, and quite different from traditional First World nations of the West.

Did they suddenly become much more important after 1970? Because that's when your chart shows their growth really skyrocketing, even though the US had been supporting both of them (and Japan) since the 1950s.

If you'll carefully look not only on this graph, but also on many others, you'll note that a slow slope of industrial growth precedes a "leap" in GDP per capita for many nations. That includes even the USSR itself.

The slow-growth phase is where you make investment and build up very intensive infrastructure from what basically is an agrarian nation (no industry to speak of). Then, when the industrialization's first phase is complete, the second phase where the industries start growing more and more rapidly, kicks in. Industrialization is not a simple process where you have just one phase.

Moreover, a common pattern of "shooting" industrial growth is common for all First and Second World economies post-1950:


It's really a little more complicated than what I've said too; not all "US enclaves" or military outposts in the Cold War likewise got high growth. It's a combination of the efficiency of a given economic order on a large scale, some geopolitics and set/fixed economic-demographic factors.

One of them is the massive birth reduction

[Autokrat]

In the context of Communism practiced by the Soviets. I do not believe it would ever work. True Communism was in fact, practiced by Lenin after the October and February Revolutions. However, because the system he developed was unable to cope with the damage to Russia after Civil War, Lenin had to make a strategic retreat and institute the New Economic Policy, a tacit admission that his Communist Economic model had failed. The NEP, which included a number of Capitalist principles actually did revive Russia's (excuse me, at this point the U.S.S.R) economy and was working rather well.

Then in 1928, Stalin did away with NEP and instituted the first of his Five Year Plans, which called for rapid industrialization. You can even see when it started thanks to the first graph Stas Bush posted. The Five Year Plan did work, but it came with the horrific cost several major famines and the “dekulakization” of the populace. (along with events such as the Ukrainian Holdomore, which resulting in another three to ten million deaths.)

One ironic aspect of the Five Year Plan is how it was made possible by the deals Stalin made with American companies. Ford Auto, Boeing, Dupoint Oil and many more all had multi million dollar contracts with Stalin during the height of the Depression. The Five Year Plan was able to take place, because Stalin invited in around twenty of the major American corporations of the time to provide the manpower and experience (specialists and technicians had been killed off in the Revolution) required to develop a industrial complex.

Another issue I have with Communism is its near universal creation of autocratic or totalitarian regimes. How many did Mao kill? (20-40 million) How many did Pol Pot kill? (2.8 million) How many did Stalin? (20 million) Perhaps I am missing something, but I have yet to read about or learn about a benevolent Communist state that actually worked and did not create an oppressive dictatorship.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Do you count the deaths incurred during colonization by the Western imperialist power against capitalism? How about the textile industrialization in New England and the UK, fueled with cheap slave labor picked cotton?

I recommend this thread. Ask yourself whether the standards, concepts, and framework of most mainstream academic political and historical commentary is principled or whether it serves similar domestic political interest to every other group of kept intellectuals spouting the domestic ideology for any other Power of history.

Also, as Stas pointed out, geopolitics warped "scientific" political economy in many ways; the U.S. deliberately financed the reconstruction of allied powers on the periphery of official enemies, such as Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea. Other areas which were subject to de-emphasis and were useful for economic exploitation were less important, vis-a-vis, South America.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Ghetto edit: Also, why is "Import Substitution Industrialization" not a representative or fair sample of capitalist industrialization but "Export-Oriented Industrialization" is? How come the U.S.'s crimes and protectionism of the American System, or the general historical role of imperialism and colonialism in the economic performance and strength of major capitalist powers not on the table?

[Autokrat]

Do you count the deaths incurred during colonization by the Western imperialist power against capitalism? How about the textile industrialization in New England and the UK, fueled with cheap slave labor picked cotton?

I recommend this thread. Ask yourself whether the standards, concepts, and framework of most mainstream academic political and historical commentary is principled or whether it serves similar domestic political interest to every other group of kept intellectuals spouting the domestic ideology for any other Power of history.

Also, as Stas pointed out, geopolitics warped "scientific" political economy in many ways; the U.S. deliberately financed the reconstruction of allied powers on the periphery of official enemies, such as Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea. Other areas which were subject to de-emphasis and were useful for economic exploitation were less important, vis-a-vis, South America.

There appears to be a measure of confusion here. At the very least your statement supposes that I believe capitalism is the shining path of righteousness that can do no wrong. This is not the case. Capitalism, like any system has its flaws and capacity to abuse. I do not excuse the crimes of imperialism any more than I would the horrors of the U.S.S.R. That being said, the fact that crimes have been committed in the name of imperialism, does not lessen the truth Communism has yet to produce a working state any of us posting here, would want to live in. You could perhaps cite China or Cuba as an example that proves otherwise, but I invite you to question the idea of living in a state where the precious right to disagree with the government and debate over matters social and political, has been revoked.

Atrocities have been committed on both sides of the political spectrum, but notice something. You are free to speak of how horrific some of the crimes the U.S committed are. A member of the CIA or the FBI is not going to knock on your door at 3 A.M and drag you off to be interrogated and shot or say sent to a prison camp in conditions creating an average lifespan of four months. (Kolyma anyone?)

Were you to try such brazen attacks on the actions of The Party in the U.S.S.R, you could expect the NKVD to make you suddenly and silently vanish, never to be seen again. I imagine you would receive a similar response in China or Cuba and most certainly North Korea.

In terms of your thread, you will forgive me if I place my faith in my professors and the peer reviewed academic sources they have provided me as opposed to the argument of a Communist apologist on the Internet.

[ray245]

In the context of Communism practiced by the Soviets. I do not believe it would ever work. True Communism was in fact, practiced by Lenin after the October and February Revolutions. However, because the system he developed was unable to cope with the damage to Russia after Civil War, Lenin had to make a strategic retreat and institute the New Economic Policy, a tacit admission that his Communist Economic model had failed. The NEP, which included a number of Capitalist principles actually did revive Russia's (excuse me, at this point the U.S.S.R) economy and was working rather well.

Then in 1928, Stalin did away with NEP and instituted the first of his Five Year Plans, which called for rapid industrialization. You can even see when it started thanks to the first graph Stas Bush posted. The Five Year Plan did work, but it came with the horrific cost several major famines and the “dekulakization” of the populace. (along with events such as the Ukrainian Holdomore, which resulting in another three to ten million deaths.)

One ironic aspect of the Five Year Plan is how it was made possible by the deals Stalin made with American companies. Ford Auto, Boeing, Dupoint Oil and many more all had multi million dollar contracts with Stalin during the height of the Depression. The Five Year Plan was able to take place, because Stalin invited in around twenty of the major American corporations of the time to provide the manpower and experience (specialists and technicians had been killed off in the Revolution) required to develop a industrial complex.

Yes, but that was done under a command economy. I failed to understand why do you consider that communism in Russia did not work just because they implemented a number of captialistic principles.

[septesix]

My two cents: A planned economy will never work as well as a perfect market. This is even assuming that people are all nice and honest and follow the plan to the dot without question.

The reason for so is very simple: In a planned economy, it is required for you to know beforehand how capable each person is, how productive they can be, what they can contribute, etc. And yet just how well do we know ourselves? We might honestly think we are only capable of , say, 1 unit of productivity, when in fact we can easily be pushed for more with the right incentives. Therefore, a perfectly effective market will always (in theory) result in higher productivity and more wealth for everyone involved.

Plus, 'PLANNED" Economy by its very nature cannot account for variables such as innovation and creativity. At best it can hope to incorporate anything new into the master plan as soon as possible. At worst the changes are too drastic and the entire plan had to be abandoned.

[Autokrat]

My two cents: A planned economy will never work as well as a perfect market. This is even assuming that people are all nice and honest and follow the plan to the dot without question.

The reason for so is very simple: In a planned economy, it is required for you to know beforehand how capable each person is, how productive they can be, what they can contribute, etc. And yet just how well do we know ourselves? We might honestly think we are only capable of , say, 1 unit of productivity, when in fact we can easily be pushed for more with the right incentives. Therefore, a perfectly effective market will always (in theory) result in higher productivity and more wealth for everyone involved.

Plus, 'PLANNED" Economy by its very nature cannot account for variables such as innovation and creativity. At best it can hope to incorporate anything new into the master plan as soon as possible. At worst the changes are too drastic and the entire plan had to be abandoned.

I'm not opposing NEP; it was in fact working. I oppose the Five Year plans that followed as well as the horrors created by the Collectivization. Most of all, I oppose the oppression that seems to be a frequent offspring of Communistic regimes. However, I firmly believe in moderate levels of socialism and strong social safety nets. The U.S idea of equal opportunity is just as absurd as true communism.

[Patrick Degan]

My two cents: A planned economy will never work as well as a perfect market. This is even assuming that people are all nice and honest and follow the plan to the dot without question.

The reason for so is very simple: In a planned economy, it is required for you to know beforehand how capable each person is, how productive they can be, what they can contribute, etc. And yet just how well do we know ourselves? We might honestly think we are only capable of , say, 1 unit of productivity, when in fact we can easily be pushed for more with the right incentives. Therefore, a perfectly effective market will always (in theory) result in higher productivity and more wealth for everyone involved.

Plus, 'PLANNED" Economy by its very nature cannot account for variables such as innovation and creativity. At best it can hope to incorporate anything new into the master plan as soon as possible. At worst the changes are too drastic and the entire plan had to be abandoned.

The problem with that theory is that the "perfect market" is a myth. And a planned economy is not about knowing beforehand the capabilities of each worker or counting on their "niceness" and "honesty", it is about the mass mobilisation of industrial assets to meet specific goals. This formulation worked very well for the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union in World War II. Winning the all-important Battle for Production against the Axis was what won the war.

[Guardsman Bass]

Ghetto edit: Also, why is "Import Substitution Industrialization" not a representative or fair sample of capitalist industrialization but "Export-Oriented Industrialization" is?

Both usually involved state support (even if that consisted of solely tariffs), but Export-Lead Industrialization was still heavily subject to market forces in terms of output. The state may have put export earnings in the form of grants and loans into a certain company, but that company's products still had to actually be able to compete in the export market and succeed. Otherwise, the firm lost its support, or the state started piling on support and protection to the point where competitiveness in economic terms ceased to be the goal, turning the whole enterprise into a case of ISI.

Import Substitution Industrialization, on the other hand, was not necessarily subject to market forces. It was usually the state deciding that the country needed factories and industry, and piling on support and protection whether or not the firms themselves (or firm, since most of the economies in question simply couldn't support more than a single large firm in a certain industry) were competitive in either the domestic market or export market. The result, in many countries that tried it, were bloated, highly inefficient firms that also generally doubled as patronage machines for the state.


There's debate on how protectionism affected US industrialization, and why it avoided some of the pitfalls the ISI economies often fell into in the twentieth century. I think there are two reasons it worked better for the US. The first was that the US internal market was large enough that domestic competition was a major factor once the regional markets in the pre-Industrialization US were tied together, even when most foreign competition was pushed out due to high tariff walls. The second was that US protectionism generally didn't get to the degree of single-firm patronage and protection from competition that you saw in a lot of the ISI economies - the government might be protecting the textile industry from competition via tariffs, but they weren't dumping a shit-ton of money and special privileges on Joe's Textile Mill of New England during this period.

[K. A. Pital]

That being said, the fact that crimes have been committed in the name of imperialism, does not lessen the truth Communism has yet to produce a working state any of us posting here, would want to live in.

I'd want to live in the USSR of 1980s. Probably not in the Stalin era, but then, neither would you choose to live in the era of British colonialism, right?

I invite you to question the idea of living in a state where the precious right to disagree with the government and debate over matters social and political, has been revoked.

All my life I've been living in such states and believe me, I know a little more about it than you do. To be honest, the precious right to debate costs very little in extreme poverty. The USSR fell because it already had a decent life standard, but failed to provide political freedom. In some ways, I believe, this problem is manifested in all rapidly industrializing nations. However, after a high life standard is attained, the nation has to liberalize. It just happens so. South Korea, an example provided here, was a dictatorship during it's super-industrialization which was built on sweatshops, extreme labour exploitation and yet now, it's a democracy. Nothing comes quickly. The USSR did not have a culture of democracy as a practice which could help it's system to be more democratic; the Stalinist times had destroyed most of the public mechanisms of feedback.

Atrocities have been committed on both sides of the political spectrum, but notice something. You are free to speak of how horrific some of the crimes the U.S committed are. A member of the CIA or the FBI is not going to knock on your door at 3 A.M and drag you off to be interrogated and shot or say sent to a prison camp in conditions creating an average lifespan of four months. (Kolyma anyone?)

Yeah, except in the 1940s and 1930s, which we're talking about, even in the USA with it's extremely high life standard, a person could be deported to a place called Manzanar just for being Japanese. Or lynched because he's black.

Were you to try such brazen attacks on the actions of The Party in the U.S.S.R, you could expect the NKVD to make you suddenly and silently vanish, never to be seen again.

In the 1930s? Certainly. However, things like that were happening all over the world. For example, the British Empire commited over a hundred thousand extrajudicial arrests of Indians during their struggle for independence. The USSR was, after all, a dictatorship, and Stalinism is hardly a benevolent order.

In terms of your thread, you will forgive me if I place my faith in my professors and the peer reviewed academic sources they have provided me as opposed to the argument of a Communist apologist on the Internet.

I'm not sure why you chose to attack IP as a "communist apologist". I'm not sure either why would you put any trust in "your professors", instead of doing your own homework.

I oppose the Five Year plans that followed as well as the horrors created by the Collectivization

The collectivization was not necessary for the Five Year Plans; if anything, it only harmed the Soviet productivity by causing the light industry to collapse. Why do you oppose the Five Year Plans? They were efficient at creating an industry which was critical to the very survival of the Soviet Union, not to mention increasing the life level of it's populace by providing modern medicines (pennicilin, for one), etc. etc. I'm not sure why exactly they are a bad thing.

The Five Year Plan did work, but it came with the horrific cost several major famines and the “dekulakization” of the populace. (along with events such as the Ukrainian Holdomore, which resulting in another three to ten million deaths.)

The collectivization and anti-kulak campaigns were harmful to the industrial growth. The Ukrainian famine had a lower death toll, however. The prime problem was the export of food during famine, as always - the famine of 1930s followed the common pattern of Tsarist-era famines, British Empire famines like the Bengal famine or the Irish famine.

How many did Pol Pot kill? (2.8 million)

Pol Pot didn't industrialize Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge just killed the population of Pnom Penh. That's hardly common for other Communist nations - Cuba, USSR, etc. didn't actively destroy their own capital cities, kill all educated population or the like. Pol Pot's actions were opposite to the actions of most communist nations. Incidentally, Pol Pot was opposed by the USSR and Vietnam, who effectively ended the rule of Khmer Rouge. It seems not all communist nations and "communists" are equal, nes pa?

How many did Stalin? (20 million) Perhaps I am missing something, but I have yet to read about or learn about a benevolent Communist state that actually worked and did not create an oppressive dictatorship.

I'm not sure you could count 20 million dead, unless you were to ascribe all the Great Patriotic War dead to Stalin's policies. His faults were obviously the famine of 1930s (3-4 million dead), executions (800 000 dead) and finally labour camp deaths (~1,8 million dead). That's a lot of deaths, however they occured through a long period. Most of the labour camp deaths occured either due to the famine or due to the Second World War; the 1937-1938 executions, however, are solely the result of a massive purge in peacetime without any real reasons for such a massive death toll.

Returning to your previous question - working and being benevolent are two different things. Many nations worked as dictatorial regimes, far from benevolence (re: British Empire), engaged in mass repressions and mass killings and yet, however, they worked.

So the problem is communist regimes work. However, their Stalinist versions are extremely brutal to the population. Not all communist nations passed a phase of Stalinism, though. Cuba was formed in a post-Stalinist environment and thus evaded many of the purges and violence generally connected with Stalinist systems. Another example is Yugoslavia.

DPRK, on the other hand, is stuck in it's own brand of Stalinism forever since the 1950s.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Autokrat:

My two cents: A planned economy will never work as well as a perfect market. This is even assuming that people are all nice and honest and follow the plan to the dot without question.

The reason for so is very simple: In a planned economy, it is required for you to know beforehand how capable each person is, how productive they can be, what they can contribute, etc. And yet just how well do we know ourselves? We might honestly think we are only capable of , say, 1 unit of productivity, when in fact we can easily be pushed for more with the right incentives. Therefore, a perfectly effective market will always (in theory) result in higher productivity and more wealth for everyone involved.

Plus, 'PLANNED" Economy by its very nature cannot account for variables such as innovation and creativity. At best it can hope to incorporate anything new into the master plan as soon as possible. At worst the changes are too drastic and the entire plan had to be abandoned.

I'm not opposing NEP; it was in fact working. I oppose the Five Year plans that followed as well as the horrors created by the Collectivization. Most of all, I oppose the oppression that seems to be a frequent offspring of Communistic regimes. However, I firmly believe in moderate levels of socialism and strong social safety nets. The U.S idea of equal opportunity is just as absurd as true communism.

Do you think that the U.S. was not oppressive for Native Americans, British Crown loyalists, Mexicans, black African slaves, or Hawaiian natives that were its original inhabitants aside from its original citizenry and voluntary immigrants? Does it get a pass for annihilating, expelling, or oppressing them? Of course that misses the fact that poor farmers and laborers (and women) were disenfranchised for much of its early history, and had no political mechanism for consent to the U.S. Constitution which now constrains and limits their political will and activities. Their political consent was no more sought by the rulers of the U.S. than the actual working class or general population was by the Bolshevik Party. Is that just? Are you aware that efforts to resist these intrinsic disparities in formal human, political, civil, or legal rights were opposed at the tip of a bayonet by the government authorities of the United States? Tell me, do you think the deaths, anguish, suffering, extrajudicial torture and deprived liberty of the black slave, the Amerindian, the Crown loyalist, the Mexican, the Hawaiian, the propertyless farm laborer or townsman of the early U.S., the women of the prior to their amendment awarding them the franchise, the poor workers of the Gilded Age, the political dissident or leftist from the Gilded Age until the 1960s, the Chinese in California and the West, the Japanese-American in World War II, the blacks of the Civil Rights Movement, the political activists of the 1960s and 1970s, ad nauseum. Was their suffering less meaningful or poignant than that of the Russian dissident or resister in the USSR? I don't see why. You are aware that substantive free speech rights did not exist in the U.S. until the 1960s, are you not? The Sedition Acts were largely upheld until then, and it was not until the "liberal judicial activism" of the mid-20th Century that the First Amendment (along with much of the rest of the Bill of Rights) was incorporated against the State governments (of course this being the basis of substantive rights, because do you fear harassment by local cops, or the FBI or DEA?).

Of course that's the U.S. Clearly you didn't read the provided link at all, but human suffering, conquest, state theft, slave or forced labor, coercive markets, preferential treatment of elites, political oppression are, though subject to differences in kind, pretty consistent features of statist capital accumulation and economic modernization and development. I do not see any reason in principle why the capitalist states deserve a free pass because they did it before World War I and frequently to subject races or foreign nations, and the Communist Bloc followed afterward and were pretty autarkic about their exploitation. I don't see any reason why "white people with similar names which proceeded my intellectual, cultural, and social institutions" is a pass for the same inflicted human anguish. However, that does not mean I would abandon South Korea for solidarity with some supposedly communist DPRK. Do not red-bait or strawman me, do not reply or smear me with arguments or insinuated positions I do not make.

That being said, the fact that crimes have been committed in the name of imperialism, does not lessen the truth Communism has yet to produce a working state any of us posting here, would want to live in.

Certainly that is true, but most of the states produced by capitalism are miserable as well, and arguably capitalism may require enormous global disparities in development and resource control. That ought to be intolerable to a consistent humanist.

You could perhaps cite China or Cuba as an example that proves otherwise, but I invite you to question the idea of living in a state where the precious right to disagree with the government and debate over matters social and political, has been revoked.

To echo Stas Bush, if I were a poor person, I would suffer less fear of the "structural violence" (to quote Roy) of poverty and the resultant risk of starvation, malnutrition, vulnerability to endemic crime, early death, poor social services, and access to medicine if I were in Cuba or 1980s USSR. I think one requires a basic security in these respects before one's political and social expressiveness is really meaningful or useful (and of course, if I live in a society which intrinsically tolerates such insecurities socially, one questions how useful your political and social formalisms are, if you cannot alter your circumstances already). I would rather be a dirt-poor person in Cuba or the 1980s USSR.

Of course with this reply, you draw a false dichotomy and beg a question. By poising existing Leninist Communism with the best of Liberal State Capitalism you suggest there are only two possible social-economic-political models for an advanced, modern industrial society. That may be the case, but I do not think it is fair to presume without argument that it is so. Furthermore, it suggest that history has ceased its march and no other alternatives or evolutions yet to unfold. I do not think that is a position which can be supported scientifically either.

Atrocities have been committed on both sides of the political spectrum, but notice something. You are free to speak of how horrific some of the crimes the U.S committed are. A member of the CIA or the FBI is not going to knock on your door at 3 A.M and drag you off to be interrogated and shot or say sent to a prison camp in conditions creating an average lifespan of four months. (Kolyma anyone?)

How were the concentration camps for Filipino Moro rebels during our bloody occupation and subjugation of the Philippine islands? Or for the indigenous Americans? How about conditions for black slaves? How about workers and organizers throughout the Gilded Age? Blacks during Jim Crow? How about the Left during the Palmer Raids? World War I? How about Japanese during the World War II internment? How about the continuous harassment, theft, police attacks, and occasional outright assassinations (Fred Hampton) of the Left through COINTELPRO from the FBI?

Of course in many cases in the above, this was on-going, characteristic American state and cultural oppression against people for who they were when they were born, whereas you gave an example of people oppressed for things they chose to say or do during a particular and extreme period of Soviet state oppression and violence against the population. That doesn't mean they were equivalent or the same, but it is not BLACK and WHITE as you imply.

Were you to try such brazen attacks on the actions of The Party in the U.S.S.R, you could expect the NKVD to make you suddenly and silently vanish, never to be seen again. I imagine you would receive a similar response in China or Cuba and most certainly North Korea.

Try being a black man stirring up public trouble in a town square in Alabama against Jim Crow in 1905. Maybe you'd like to preach your love for a white girl? Try to avoid available trees nearby. This, after all, was endemic and was only 30 years before your horrors that you refuse to compare in the Stalinist USSR.

In terms of your thread, you will forgive me if I place my faith in my professors and the peer reviewed academic sources they have provided me as opposed to the argument of a Communist apologist on the Internet.

You'll excuse me if I think you're red-baiting in order to unread political heresy. You'll excuse me if I think you're looking for a reason to discard inconvenient truths. And lastly, name-calling and the ad hominem will get you nowhere here.

I am not a Communist, by which I ostensibly assume you mean a Marxist-Leninist. I actually reject Leninism entirely as an elitist and anti-democratic movement, and I'm generally opposed to the Marxist tradition in general, though I find some its more libertarian and democratic fringes tolerable, and I think one should read Marx. I am a libertarian socialist, or classical (that is to say, socialist) anarchist. I am actually more or less unwelcome in the local chapter of Students for a Democratic Society because I disputed the local orthodoxy -- what I consider to be Leninist lies and apologetics for state terror and totalitarianism by Trotskyists and even worse, Stalinists. I think genuine socialism died in the USSR when the soviets (nested workers', soldiers', and citizens' councils) were co-opted as instruments of state rule by the Bolshevik Party and the factory committees (shop-by-shop institutions of workers' self-management) were dissolved in favor of production by fiat from Bolshevik bureaucrats by 1918 and the USSR was indelibly on the road to Stalinism by the time of the bloody suppression of the the libertarian Kronstadt Soviet. I think that Mikhail Bakunin (the father of collectivist anarchism) was right when he called the Marxist aim the "Red bureaucracy" and dubbed it "the vilest and most fearful lie of our century." You may disagree with my politics if you wish, but at least have your criticisms be accurate and don't strawman me with positions I would never make. I think there's plenty to criticize about Leninism (and especially the Stalinist subset) but I don't see why it would be economical to make a case which is (however correctly, but not by principle) routinely and reflexively made by mainstream academics and cultural-media producers in the interests of attacking official enemies. I don't think I need to bother denouncing the USSR's crimes, but I do do so when it is necessary (as already mentioned, such as against Leninist ideologues).

In essence, I think your problem is your (apparent) cloying need to find yourself apologizing for one of many varieties of bloody state terror and authoritarianism, rather than rejecting all of them. History is not over, and I think insisting on such a position is like asking "what kind of feudalism is best?" in 1700. No one knew what liberal democracy was yet, there was no example of it. But it was worth experimenting, challenging, and striving for humanist Enlightenment values.

[stormthebeaches]

Internal competition might be destroyed, but what about external competition? Are you seriously saying that the USSR could have competed with the First World powers and won? The same First World powers which, save for a few counterexamples, spent ages to concentrate capital (including human capital obviously) and industrial power?

I doubt even the most efficient and ruthless system of capital accumulation would've "won" here and not failed. Displace the US or European and Soviet industrial potentials in c.1920, and you'll get a completely different situation. Economy is more complex than just "planned economy fails UH HUR".

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the gap between the West and the USSR growing bigger post 1960's? From what I understand, the Soviet economy was booming during Stalin and Khrushchev but stagnation soon set in after that. Brezhnev stagnation and all that. Gorby tried to end the stagnation with his reforms but these lead to the collapse of the USSR.

Do you count the deaths incurred during colonization by the Western imperialist power against capitalism? How about the textile industrialization in New England and the UK, fueled with cheap slave labor picked cotton?

I'd count the deaths caused by Western imperialist powers as deaths against Imperialism, not capitalism. Plus, it wasn't only capitalist countries that took part in Imperialism. I'd say that what the USSR did in Eastern Europe qualifies and Imperialism.

Of course, this whole argument is absurd because very few people outside of the USA want pure capitalism. Most want a mixed economy.

I recommend this thread. Ask yourself whether the standards, concepts, and framework of most mainstream academic political and historical commentary is principled or whether it serves similar domestic political interest to every other group of kept intellectuals spouting the domestic ideology for any other Power of history.

What are you saying? That Western academia is secretly under the payroll of the elite? I'd think the existence of people like Chomsky would prove you wrong there.

I'd want to live in the USSR of 1980s. Probably not in the Stalin era, but then, neither would you choose to live in the era of British colonialism, right?

The USSR was a better place to live in in the 1980s due to the reforms Gorby but it through. Sadly these reforms lead to the collapse of the USSR as they allowed nationalist tensions to rise and many nations to break away from the USSR.

All my life I've been living in such states and believe me, I know a little more about it than you do. To be honest, the precious right to debate costs very little in extreme poverty. The USSR fell because it already had a decent life standard, but failed to provide political freedom. In some ways, I believe, this problem is manifested in all rapidly industrializing nations. However, after a high life standard is attained, the nation has to liberalize. It just happens so. South Korea, an example provided here, was a dictatorship during it's super-industrialization which was built on sweatshops, extreme labour exploitation and yet now, it's a democracy. Nothing comes quickly. The USSR did not have a culture of democracy as a practice which could help it's system to be more democratic; the Stalinist times had destroyed most of the public mechanisms of feedback.

But what was the chance that the USSR could realistically reform itself? Khrushchev tried to issue some serious reforms that would have helped the nation but his was kicked out of office and his successor undid most of his reforms. Brezhnev stagnation sets in and we all know what happened next.

Yeah, except in the 1940s and 1930s, which we're talking about, even in the USA with it's extremely high life standard, a person could be deported to a place called Manzanar just for being Japanese. Or lynched because he's black.

The deportations pale in comparison to Stalin's purges. Not to mention, the US has officially apologized and has offered compensation to the families of those effected. The lynchings were not a state policy.

In the 1930s? Certainly. However, things like that were happening all over the world. For example, the British Empire commited over a hundred thousand extrajudicial arrests of Indians during their struggle for independence. The USSR was, after all, a dictatorship, and Stalinism is hardly a benevolent order.

Pointing out that other crimes were happening won't make the USSR any better.

I'm not sure you could count 20 million dead, unless you were to ascribe all the Great Patriotic War dead to Stalin's policies. His faults were obviously the famine of 1930s (3-4 million dead), executions (800 000 dead) and finally labour camp deaths (~1,8 million dead). That's a lot of deaths, however they occured through a long period. Most of the labour camp deaths occured either due to the famine or due to the Second World War; the 1937-1938 executions, however, are solely the result of a massive purge in peacetime without any real reasons for such a massive death toll.

The famine of the 1930s killed a lot more than 3-4 million. The deaths in Ukraine alone are at 3-5 million. Of course, what is really telling of the famine was that Stalin was exporting huge amounts of food out of the country during this time period and kept a large store of grain in Moscow whilst people were starving to death by the million.

Records of execution deaths and camp deaths are somewhat in accurate. People are suffer serious health problems in the gulag, get released and then die later won't be counted in Soviet archives for example. Likewise, people who die during interrogations also won't be counted. Also, whilst this may sound like a cop out, large portions of Soviet archives still have not been released.

Of course, these are only counting the domestic deaths. If we count things like the Winter war, and the reconquests of former territories of the Russian empire (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact), the death toll becomes even higher. Then there is also the removal of dissidents in Eastern Europe after the second world war then the USSR set up its satellite states.

So the problem is communist regimes work. However, their Stalinist versions are extremely brutal to the population. Not all communist nations passed a phase of Stalinism, though. Cuba was formed in a post-Stalinist environment and thus evaded many of the purges and violence generally connected with Stalinist systems. Another example is Yugoslavia.

Cuba is still a miserable dictatorship and Yugoslavia must have been doing something wrong because it collapsed.

Do you think that the U.S. was not oppressive for Native Americans, British Crown loyalists, Mexicans, black African slaves, or Hawaiian natives that were its original inhabitants aside from its original citizenry and voluntary immigrants? Does it get a pass for annihilating, expelling, or oppressing them? Of course that misses the fact that poor farmers and laborers (and women) were disenfranchised for much of its early history, and had no political mechanism for consent to the U.S. Constitution which now constrains and limits their political will and activities. Their political consent was no more sought by the rulers of the U.S. than the actual working class or general population was by the Bolshevik Party.

I am aware that the United States has its dark moments in history. However, your statement that the American population supported the Constitution as much as the Russian population supported the Bolshevik party is false. It is estimated that 45-50% of the US population supported the Patriots during the war of independence whilst 15-20% supported the British. Not to mention the loyalist population was on average older and much more wealthy than the patriots as they has a lot of business ties with Britain. Whilst more native Americans fought for the loyalists than the Patriots, African support was pretty even between loyalists and patriots as both sides offered freedom for black slaves who fought for them. In comparison, when the Bolsheviks held an election it was revealed that on 20% of the Russian people supported them.

Of course, most of these atrocities were committed during the 19th century. A dark age full of imperialism. Imperial Russia itself did its fair share of imperialism. Now, I know that you are going to say that the Bolsheviks are a completely different leadership and in response I shall point out the reconquest of former parts of the Russian empire during an alliance with the Nazis. You can't claim that Imperialism is behind you when you are actively trying to reconquer parts of the empire that your predecessor conquered through imperialist conquest.

The next part of your post brings up things like the Palmer raids and Japanese internment camps but these still pale in comparison to what went on under Stalin. The Palmer raids departed 500 Americans, was roundly critised by US official and was against US law. To compare to to the USSR's way of dealing with subversives is absurd. The US government has formally apologised and provided compensation for victims of internment. However, internment was still nothing compared to the Siberian prisons that the Soviet Union would stick its undesirables in. Other things you bring up, like the lynchings, were not state policy but rather the actions of bigoted individuals. Repression done by the US government pales in comparison to the repression done by the USSR. Were their any mass executions in 20th century America? Can you imagine the counter culture movements and mass protests during the 1960s and 1970s occurring in the USSR? Can you imagine any kind of mass protest occurring in the USSR?

Finally, the biggest different between the Western nations and the USSR is that the Western nations were capable of reforming themselves whilst the USSR couldn't. Blacks now have civil rights, women have rights, the gilded age if over, workers have a lot more rights and gays are slowly getting their rights. In the USSR, reform was every difficult. Khrushchev tried to issue reforms only to get booted out of office and for his successor to undo most of his reforms. Gorbachev also tried to reform the system only to get deposed in an attempted military coup by Communist hardliners. There was a very strong resistance to change and reform within the Soviet system.

[Samuel]

I'd count the deaths caused by Western imperialist powers as deaths against Imperialism, not capitalism. Plus, it wasn't only capitalist countries that took part in Imperialism. I'd say that what the USSR did in Eastern Europe qualifies and Imperialism.

Given that the USSR had to constantly provide payments to prop Eastern Europe, it doesn't really count as imperialism.

The USSR was a better place to live in in the 1980s due to the reforms Gorby but it through.

He was in power from 1985 to 1991. I think Stas means the early 80s because they didn't have the same cool toys in the 60s or 70s.

Khrushchev tried to issue some serious reforms that would have helped the nation but his was kicked out of office and his successor undid most of his reforms.

Wasn't he kicked out for the Cuban Missile Crisis- trying to go up against the US and failing badly?

Pointing out that other crimes were happening won't make the USSR any better.

That is his point- the USSR wasn't exceptionally evil.

Yugoslavia must have been doing something wrong because it collapsed.

Because of ethnic seperatism exacerbated by economic turmoil caused by the elimination of the communist system. I'm not sure how it could have been handled better by any other system- make it capitalist and the poorer minorities would attack those better off. Really, it was like the Austrian Empire.

It is estimated that 45-50% of the US population supported the Patriots during the war of independence whilst 15-20% supported the British.

Source? I've heard 1/3 1/3 1/3 (pro/neutral/against).

Not to mention the loyalist population was on average older and much more wealthy than the patriots as they has a lot of business ties with Britain.

Or because young and poor people are more likely to go against their elders, do stupid things and commit treason. Of course, the fact that New England was the center of the rebellion and the wealthiest section of the colonies that traded the most with England sort of means what you are saying isn't true.

In comparison, when the Bolsheviks held an election it was revealed that on 20% of the Russian people supported them.

So the communists were ounumbered 4 to 1 and managed to win?

Finally, the biggest different between the Western nations and the USSR is that the Western nations were capable of reforming themselves whilst the USSR couldn't.

The USSR essentialy had 5 leaders. And it reform itself and reduce its Stalinism. For an example of gradual reform that is working, China is the obvious counter example. Heck, it managed to change in less than 40 years from a Maoist totalitarian state to a market capitalist state. Political freedom isn't so good, but it is improving to the point where the government is no longer totaltarian.

[K. A. Pital]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the gap between the West and the USSR growing bigger post 1960's? From what I understand, the Soviet economy was booming during Stalin and Khrushchev but stagnation soon set in after that. Brezhnev stagnation and all that. Gorby tried to end the stagnation with his reforms but these lead to the collapse of the USSR.

Stagnation means slower growth, not a decline. The growth tempoes peaked in early 1970s.

The USSR was a better place to live in in the 1980s due to the reforms Gorby but it through. Sadly these reforms lead to the collapse of the USSR as they allowed nationalist tensions to rise and many nations to break away from the USSR.

Wrong. The Gorbachovian reforms only set in after 1985 (and in 1987 started to cause adverse effects). I meant the Brezhnew USSR at it's peak obviously.

But what was the chance that the USSR could realistically reform itself? Khrushchev tried to issue some serious reforms that would have helped the nation but his was kicked out of office and his successor undid most of his reforms. Brezhnev stagnation sets in and we all know what happened next.

Isn't that sort of an answer? A tautology of sorts? The USSR did reform. However, sometimes reforms fail.

The deportations pale in comparison to Stalin's purges.

The US was much more wealthy and peaceful. Of course they "pale". It's still remarkably huge a violation for a First World state.

Pointing out that other crimes were happening won't make the USSR any better.

Why must a nation be better than others to exist? Is that some sort of racism or nationalism? Yes, the USSR was not better. The point was not that.

The famine of the 1930s killed a lot more than 3-4 million. The deaths in Ukraine alone are at 3-5 million.

Deaths in Ukraine were most of the deaths in 1930s. They peak at 3 million (5 million is excessively unrealistic), but that aside, it's not relevant to my point.

If we count things like the Winter war, and the reconquests of former territories of the Russian empire (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact), the death toll becomes even higher.

Why then not count foreign wars for other nations? US war in Vietnam and SEA - several million deaths. That's easy.

Cuba is still a miserable dictatorship and Yugoslavia must have been doing something wrong because it collapsed.

I'm sure you can prove Cuba is much worse than other Latin American nations, right? And collapse sure means something is wrong. You missed the point again.

[stormthebeaches]

Given that the USSR had to constantly provide payments to prop Eastern Europe, it doesn't really count as imperialism.

The USSR did its fair share of economic plundering of Eastern Europe under Stalin. Plus, the regimes in Eastern Europe that the USSR was propping up were very unpopular and it was only the fear of Soviet military intervention that kept the people in line.

He was in power from 1985 to 1991. I think Stas means the early 80s because they didn't have the same cool toys in the 60s or 70s.

Understood.

Wasn't he kicked out for the Cuban Missile Crisis- trying to go up against the US and failing badly.

Khrushchev's destalinization programs pissed off a lot of Stalinist hardlines in the system. They were looking for any excuse to get rid of him and the Cuban missile crisis provided them with that excuse.

Because of ethnic seperatism exacerbated by economic turmoil caused by the elimination of the communist system. I'm not sure how it could have been handled better by any other system- make it capitalist and the poorer minorities would attack those better off. Really, it was like the Austrian Empire.

The Serbs could have treated the other ethnic groups better.

Source? I've heard 1/3 1/3 1/3 (pro/neutral/against).

Check out some of the writings of Robert Calhoon and Robert Middlekauff. Check this link http://www.blackwellreference.com/subsc ... uscode=202

Really, the American revolution wouldn't have been successful of the patriots had such little support.

Or because young and poor people are more likely to go against their elders, do stupid things and commit treason. Of course, the fact that New England was the center of the rebellion and the wealthiest section of the colonies that traded the most with England sort of means what you are saying isn't true.

Not everyone who lived in New England was a merchant who traded with England. Only a minority of the people were.

So the communists were ounumbered 4 to 1 and managed to win?

The opposition to the Communists was far to divided and fought against each other as much as they fought against the Bolsheviks. The Russian civil war had four main factions. The Reds (Bolsheviks), the whites (monarchists and capitalists), The Greens (social democrats) and the blacks (anarchists). The biggest advantage that the Reds had was that they were the most unified and organized of all the factions. The whites in particular had some nasty infighting.

The USSR essentialy had 5 leaders. And it reform itself and reduce its Stalinism. For an example of gradual reform that is working, China is the obvious counter example. Heck, it managed to change in less than 40 years from a Maoist totalitarian state to a market capitalist state. Political freedom isn't so good, but it is improving to the point where the government is no longer totaltarian.

As I already mentioned, there was a huge amount of resistance to Khrushchnev's reforms and and he was eventually kicked out of office. The next big reformer was Gorby and he was kicked out in an attempted military coup by Communist hardliners. The phrase Brezhnev stagnation does more than refer to economic stagnation.

[stormthebeaches]

Stagnation means slower growth, not a decline. The growth tempoes peaked in early 1970s.

Does this change the fact that the gap between Western nations and the Soviet Union was growing larger, not smaller? I would also like to point out that towards the end of Gorby's rule economic growth had stopped almost completely?

Wrong. The Gorbachovian reforms only set in after 1985 (and in 1987 started to cause adverse effects). I meant the Brezhnew USSR at it's peak obviously.

Sorry, when people mention the 1980's USSR, Gorbachev is what comes into my mind.

Isn't that sort of an answer? A tautology of sorts? The USSR did reform. However, sometimes reforms fail.

I meant reliable reform without collapsing.

The US was much more wealthy and peaceful. Of course they "pale". It's still remarkably huge a violation for a First World state.

500 vs over a million executions and over a million dying in labor camps.

Why must a nation be better than others to exist? Is that some sort of racism or nationalism? Yes, the USSR was not better. The point was not that.

When did I ever say that a nation must be better than others to exist? Is that some sort of Stalin era paranoia?

Deaths in Ukraine were most of the deaths in 1930s. They peak at 3 million (5 million is excessively unrealistic), but that aside, it's not relevant to my point.

The Ukraine deaths were more than 3 million. The lowest estimate from the Soviet archives puts them at 3.5 million.

Why then not count foreign wars for other nations? US war in Vietnam and SEA - several million deaths. That's easy.

By all means, go for it. Although I would point out that the US war in Vietnam wasn't quite the same Stalin's reconquest of the former Russian empire. The US war in Vietnam was a police action that escalated into a full blown war whilst Stalin's conquests in Eastern Europe where flat out land grabs.

I'm sure you can prove Cuba is much worse than other Latin American nations, right? And collapse sure means something is wrong. You missed the point again.

Cuba's economic growth is lagging behind the rest of Latin America. The country only did well when it was receiving huge amounts of foreign aid from the Soviet Union.

[stormthebeaches]

The USSR essentialy had 5 leaders. And it reform itself and reduce its Stalinism. For an example of gradual reform that is working, China is the obvious counter example. Heck, it managed to change in less than 40 years from a Maoist totalitarian state to a market capitalist state. Political freedom isn't so good, but it is improving to the point where the government is no longer totaltarian.

I was talking about the SU, not China. And considering how China did not become an economic powerhouse until it introduced free market reforms, I'm not entirely sure how China is an example of Communism working. At best, you could say that Communism makes a useful stepping stone for a countries economic development.

[Guardsman Bass]

Given that the USSR had to constantly provide payments to prop Eastern Europe, it doesn't really count as imperialism.

I'd argue that. The USSR was helping to prop up local communist regimes with both direct force (Soviet troops in the Warsaw Pact countries) and indirect aid (technological and financial assistance). The British did similar stuff, sponsoring client regimes under their thumb and military power, and lending them support.

Moreover, the constant financial support doesn't affect it either. Most of the late 19th century empires (including Great Britain's) cost more to keep than they returned in revenue, and the economic output they produced for the Imperial countries was a small percentage of said countries' economic output over that whole period. As this article points out, British trade with countries and territories outside its empire was far more important than trade within its empire (which is one of the reasons why the British de facto propped up the Monroe Doctrine with their naval power throughout the 19th century - they had valuable trade going on with much of Latin America).

The above point tends to be lost because certain companies did make hefty profits off of investment in the colonial and third world areas, particularly with regards to oil and mining. It's just that the money they made was dwarfed by the costs involved in acquiring, keeping, and maintaining those empires, and the colonies themselves never represented more than a small fraction of economic output and even overall trade for the imperial countries (the industrializing countries, including much of western and central Europe, the United States, and Canada, generally did most of their foreign investments . . . in each other).

Weirdly enough, this coincided with a widespread belief that overseas markets in colonies were important in the late 19th century - it was one of the rationales of US imperialism, the idea that the US market had become "saturated" and that they needed colonies to absorb their excess production.

[Samuel]

Yeah, but communist nations don't exactly have companies that individually profit from colonies. I think the sole purpose of the Warsaw Pact was keeping the West as far from the border as possible... which is actually about as screwed up as colonialism.

the colonies themselves never represented more than a small fraction of economic output and even overall trade for the imperial countries

True even today- most of the first world's trade is with other first world countries.

The USSR did its fair share of economic plundering of Eastern Europe under Stalin.

Wasn't that mostly Germany (Which they proceded to screw over as much as humanly possible)?

The Serbs could have treated the other ethnic groups better.

The Croats had sided with the Nazis to kill the Serbs during WW2. It wasn't exactly a situation that lent itself to stability. It is incredible the country was able to hold together for so long. Of course a slow down of growth under communism meant they would turn against each other... while inequal growth under capitalism would probably get the same result. Really, I can't think of something that could hold the region together effectively.

Check out some of the writings of Robert Calhoon and Robert Middlekauff. Check this link

Needs a log in.

Really, the American revolution wouldn't have been successful of the patriots had such little support.

Why not? The loyalist and revolutionary forces were able to call up approximately equal numbers of troops against each other in the South and the revolutionaries won. If you act first and eliminate your enemies you can get the undecided to side with you.

Not everyone who lived in New England was a merchant who traded with England. Only a minority of the people were.

40 years later during the war of 1812, the region threatened succession because trade was so important. Lets not forget that while not everyone was a merchant, shipbuilding and other businesses depended on them- think trickle down except with the urban economy crashing.

The opposition to the Communists was far to divided and fought against each other as much as they fought against the Bolsheviks.

This is the same thing that happened in China, isn't it?

[stormthebeaches]

Wasn't that mostly Germany (Which they proceded to screw over as much as humanly possible)?

It was mostly Germany but other nations got plundered as well. But even without the economic plundering I'd say that what the USSR did in Eastern Europe still qualifies as Imperialism. Imperialism is mainly about many nations being ruled under the thumb of one nation. Which is what happened with Eastern Europe. The USSR put a series of puppet governments into power and proceeded to prop them up indirectly or through direct military action.

The Croats had sided with the Nazis to kill the Serbs during WW2. It wasn't exactly a situation that lent itself to stability. It is incredible the country was able to hold together for so long. Of course a slow down of growth under communism meant they would turn against each other... while inequal growth under capitalism would probably get the same result. Really, I can't think of something that could hold the region together effectively.

True but the Serbs, as the group in power, really treated the other ethnic groups like shit which certainly inflamed the ethnic tensions in the region.

Needs a log in.

What's a log in?

Why not? The loyalist and revolutionary forces were able to call up approximately equal numbers of troops against each other in the South and the revolutionaries won. If you act first and eliminate your enemies you can get the undecided to side with you.

It wasn't just American patriots against American loyalists. Plenty of British regulars and German mercenaries were involved. The patriots would need a numerical advantage of counter the superior quality of the British and German soldiers. If your numbers are correct then it means that the patriots would have been up against a force than was superior and quality, quantity and was much better armed.

40 years later during the war of 1812, the region threatened succession because trade was so important. Lets not forget that while not everyone was a merchant, shipbuilding and other businesses depended on them- think trickle down except with the urban economy crashing.

Sorry, I worded it wrong. What I am trying to say is that whilst the owners and managers of such businesses would support the loyalists the actual workers themselves would support the patriots. And since the workers vastly outnumber the business owners and merchants, New England as a whole supported the patriots.

However, the loyalists still did have some influence in New England. The city that would become New York was the Head Quarters of the British forces and they did manage to whip up a good number of loyalist militia.


This is the same thing that happened in China, isn't it?
Yeah, but communist nations don't exactly have companies that individually profit from colonies. I think the sole purpose of the Warsaw Pact was keeping the West as far from the border as possible... which is actually about as screwed up as colonialism.

the colonies themselves never represented more than a small fraction of economic output and even overall trade for the imperial countries

True even today- most of the first world's trade is with other first world countries.

The USSR did its fair share of economic plundering of Eastern Europe under Stalin.

Wasn't that mostly Germany (Which they proceded to screw over as much as humanly possible)?

The Serbs could have treated the other ethnic groups better.

The Croats had sided with the Nazis to kill the Serbs during WW2. It wasn't exactly a situation that lent itself to stability. It is incredible the country was able to hold together for so long. Of course a slow down of growth under communism meant they would turn against each other... while inequal growth under capitalism would probably get the same result. Really, I can't think of something that could hold the region together effectively.

Check out some of the writings of Robert Calhoon and Robert Middlekauff. Check this link

Needs a log in.

Really, the American revolution wouldn't have been successful of the patriots had such little support.

Why not? The loyalist and revolutionary forces were able to call up approximately equal numbers of troops against each other in the South and the revolutionaries won. If you act first and eliminate your enemies you can get the undecided to side with you.

Not everyone who lived in New England was a merchant who traded with England. Only a minority of the people were.

40 years later during the war of 1812, the region threatened succession because trade was so important. Lets not forget that while not everyone was a merchant, shipbuilding and other businesses depended on them- think trickle down except with the urban economy crashing.

The opposition to the Communists was far to divided and fought against each other as much as they fought against the Bolsheviks.

This is the same thing that happened in China, isn't it?

I'm not familiar with the Chinese civil war.

Regardless, the Russian civil war wasn't just a case of Communists vs non-Communists. It was about several different factions fighting for power. And the Reds weren't the only ones to win. The Blacks also had a far degree of success and managed to gain independence for Ukraine. Of course, this independence was short lived but it was still an impressive victory.

[Samuel]

What's a log in?

I can't access the articles without being signed into the site. Also you screwed up the formating and quotes. Happens all the time.

Plenty of British regulars and German mercenaries were involved. The patriots would need a numerical advantage of counter the superior quality of the British and German soldiers. If your numbers are correct then it means that the patriots would have been up against a force than was superior and quality, quantity and was much better armed.

Why do you think they kept on losing?

the actual workers themselves would support the patriots.

Because being unemployed was such an exciting prospect. They still need those jobs. Of course the correct answer is "English acting like dicks and blockading after the tea party" as well as other actions which pissed the merchants off.

I'm not familiar with the Chinese civil war.

Nationalists versus Japan versus Communists versus warlords versus warlords versus, etc.

The Blacks also had a far degree of success and managed to gain independence for Ukraine. Of course, this independence was short lived but it was still an impressive victory.

I think the success of Poland, the Baltic states and Finland were more impressive

[JBG]

It has no fucking chance of working. Now fuck off and die.

"It has demonstrated that it has no fucking chance of working"

There, fixed it for you Ryan.

Whether thereafter you want to wish people well is up to you!

[K. A. Pital]

Does this change the fact that the gap between Western nations and the Soviet Union was growing larger, not smaller? I would also like to point out that towards the end of Gorby's rule economic growth had stopped almost completely?

The gap wasn't growing larger - it was much smaller in 1989 than it was in 1917, say. In 1917, Russia had most of it's population illiterate, agrarian and with a life expectancy twice lower than that of the developed nations, around 30 years. In 1989, the USSR had a life expectancy that was not far behind the developed nations (certainly not a twice the time disparity in living conditions). Both the USSR as the most powerful Second World nation and the First World nations were industrialized nations with a high caloric intake, high public security, high life expectancy. I can hardly call it "a growing gap".

When did I ever say that a nation must be better than others to exist? Is that some sort of Stalin era paranoia?

You said the actions of others do not mean the USSR was better. That was a strawman - I never implied the USSR was "better" than First World nations; quite the opposite in fact. Your strawman can only be interpreted in a sense that nations below the First World are bad and that's the end of it.

The Ukraine deaths were more than 3 million. The lowest estimate from the Soviet archives puts them at 3.5 million.

Oh, you're right - the archives put it at 3,5-3,6 million. Serves me right for not looking. However, that's a tangent.

By all means, go for it

Why? Wars are a separate business. Besides, Stalin's reconquest of the former Russian Empire (the 1939-1940 territorial grabs) had a far lower death toll for the combatants, than Vietnam, a supposedly "benigh" intervention into a "police operation" like you said (a police operation where SEA was subjected to bombing on a scale that's only eclipsed by WWII).

Cuba's economic growth is lagging behind the rest of Latin America. The country only did well when it was receiving huge amounts of foreign aid from the Soviet Union.

Cuba's growth is lagging behind other LA nations? Didn't seem so to me - they obviously suffered from the Soviet collapse, but after that they regained their GDP per capita figures, and did so at a rather fast growth tempo.

You can see that Cuban GDP in the period 1995-2005, the post-crisis restoration, grows faster than most similar (postcolonial) nations of the Carribean, with the exception of Dominican republic. During the Soviet times, Cuba had the best GDP/capita among the nations displayed.

And I'm not sure, but Cuba and Dominicana seem about equal here in 2010:
http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=Cuba
http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx? ... 20Republic

I may be mistaken, but the perception that Cuba is lagging certainly doesn't follow from here.

[stormthebeaches]

The gap wasn't growing larger - it was much smaller in 1989 than it was in 1917, say. In 1917, Russia had most of it's population illiterate, agrarian and with a life expectancy twice lower than that of the developed nations, around 30 years. In 1989, the USSR had a life expectancy that was not far behind the developed nations (certainly not a twice the time disparity in living conditions). Both the USSR as the most powerful Second World nation and the First World nations were industrialized nations with a high caloric intake, high public security, high life expectancy. I can hardly call it "a growing gap".

I know that the USSR was better off in 1989 than in 1917. From what I understand, the USSR experienced a massive economic boom under Stalin and Khrushchev. The USSR was catching up to the West and Khrushchev himself predicted that it would pass the West in 1980. However, once Khrushchev was kicked out of office Brezhnev stagnation set in and economic growth began to decrease. By the 1970s the gap between the Western nations and the USSR was growing. By the late 1980s economic growth stopped and according to one of those economic graphs that you posted on here, the economy of the USSR started to decline. If anything, what this shows is that Communist can be viewed as a useful stepping stone for developing nations but is unsustainable in the long term. Although considering the high body count most Communist regimes go through when developing, even the stepping stone part is debatable.

You said the actions of others do not mean the USSR was better. That was a strawman - I never implied the USSR was "better" than First World nations; quite the opposite in fact. Your strawman can only be interpreted in a sense that nations below the First World are bad and that's the end of it.

You drew comparisons between the USSR's treatment of political prisoners with the actions of the British empire in India. In response I stated that the actions others (in this case the British empire) do not excuse the USSR's crimes. Very few people justify what the British empire did in India. And no where did I state that all nations under the first world are bad and don't deserve to exist.

Why? Wars are a separate business. Besides, Stalin's reconquest of the former Russian Empire (the 1939-1940 territorial grabs) had a far lower death toll for the combatants, than Vietnam, a supposedly "benigh" intervention into a "police operation" like you said (a police operation where SEA was subjected to bombing on a scale that's only eclipsed by WWII).

Whoa, I never said that the war in Vietnam was benigh. What I am saying is that Vietnam was a police action to protect South Vietnam (the nation was internationally recognized at the Geneva conference of 1954) which soon escalated into a full blown war. However, the high death toll during this war is inexcusable and the blame for that lies in the incompetence of the LBJ administration and the criminal nature of the Nixon administration. So, if you want to count the dead in that war against America, go for it.

Wars can be a separate business but that only depends on the kind of war. Stalin doesn't get blamed for all the deaths the Soviet's endured in WW2 because the USSR was defending itself from Nazi aggression (although I'd argue that Stalin deserves some blame as he failed to prepare his nation for war with Nazi Germany). In the annexation of the former territories of the Russian empire and the Winter war, the USSR was almost certainly the aggressor, violating international law at the time in a blatant land grab. Since Stalin ordered these acts of aggression it is fair to blame him for the deaths in those conflicts.

As for Cuba, I was referring to Latin America as a whole, not just the Caribbean nations. Besides, Cuba still enjoys far less political freedom than the other nations in Latin America despite some reforms put into place by Raul Castro.