Markets are much older than capitalism, and socialism is a very simple economic idea, being the collective ownership of the means of production by the workers.
Capitalism guides innovation towards increasing profits for capitalist, hardly “innovative”. The USSR was the first to the Moon, after being a feudalistic society, thanks to socialism.
Imean, the USSR wasn’t even good socialism. They still used money for quite a large set of things, businesses were very much NOT worker owned in many places, people could be killed by the whims of authorities and a dictator… Yep, not even good socialism got to space first.
I mean, not having money is a communism thing, not socialism.
But most businesses in the USSR were co-ops or state-owned.
I’m not in the “the dictatorship of the proletariat is identical to collective ownership” camp, but I mean, that is in the end a difference of ideology regarding what socialism really is.
And…. What dictator? I mean, all that “there’s no freedom in the USSR, if Stalin thinks you’re ugly you go to the gulag” is 100% propaganda, right? I mean the CIA admitted in their secret reports that not even Stalin was really a dictator, but that disclosing that wouldn’t be politically favourable to the US.
And like… I don’t think the USSR killed anymore people than the US or Europe lmao
And man… please don’t come with this Stalin bullshit. If you really think he was “le big evil gulag no food man”, please for the love of god read a bit more, from non Empire-propaganda sources.
I say this strongly as a non-communist (in the USSR sense).
I don’t have any “labels” like that but I more strongly align with anarchism. I also believed Stalin, Mao, Lenin etc were big evil men. But bro, 90% of it really, truly, is propaganda.
Lol, you say that but… Guess you started the gulag system? You guessed it, Lenin! Who brought it to it’s apex? Staline! Does it continue to this day? Yes!
Here’s another great example of Stalins legacy:
The Road of Bones
“The Dalstroy construction directorate built the Kolyma Highway during the Soviet Union’s Stalinist era. Inmates of the Sevvostlag labour camp started the first stretch in 1932, and construction continued with the use of gulag labour until 1953.”
“The road is treated as a memorial by some, as the bones of the estimated 250,000–1,000,000 imprisoned laborers[3] who died while constructing it were allegedly laid beneath or around the road, although documented sources have yet to confirm this through further evidence”
“Prisoners spent 20 years building the road, from 1932 to 1952, and after that the camp was closed. According to official data, there were roughly 700 thousand prisoners working in this Gulag branch during these years, peaking in 1940, when 190 thousand men worked there in mining and construction works. It’s estimated that more than 125 thousand people perished during the camp’s existence.”
Hum… and? Outside of the propaganda, yea gulags and? I don’t see the point.
Are you saying prisons are bad? I agree, I’m fully a prison abolitionist. But I don’t see how saying “look prisons!” is any argument against the USSR in particular.
Prisons have existed for a long time everywhere. And many times and in many places were much worse than the gulags.
Just keep in mind that again, 90% of what you read on gulags is literal Cold War and Nazi propaganda…
You’re full of bullshit. Cite your sources that Gulags were like a typical prison, because they are obviously not.
Exporting 18 million people to the middle of fucking nowhere where it reaches -53C to work camps outside resulting in millions of deaths is definitely not normal.
And I do do that. But any discussion or discourse on this is muddled with Nazi propaganda talking points, and it’s impossible to truly praise and truly critique the USSR without people calling you a “tankie”…
The Soviet Unions industrial development was ironically funded by American capitalists during the 1920s through the 1940s. Without that massive influx of knowledge, technical expertise and capital, the Soviet Union would never have industrialized at the rate that it did. It might not even have succeeded. However, I am not an expert in Soviet history either.
Albert Khan was a American industrial architect who was responsible for designing and building American car, tractor and other factories for heavy industrial equipment in the United States. Starting in the 1920s, he traveled to the Soviet Union and designed and lead co instruction of ~500 massive state-run industrial plants using American equipment and machines. This is also similar to how Japan industrialized following the end of the Tokugawa shogunate during the Japanese civil War.
“When “the architect of Ford,” Albert Kahn, designed the River Rouge complex outside Detroit in 1917, Calder was one of the field engineers, but he had never worked on a project on the Soviet scale before. Everything from steel to skylights was coming from the U.S. by boat, special-built train, trucks, and, yes, camels. In barely a year’s time the factory would begin pumping out 50,000 tractors per year, operated by workers who lived across a strip of lawn in government apartment blocks that Calder was also building. Close to 400 U.S. workers were supervising the job, mostly from Detroit. Though their families shivered through the Russian winter in underheated homes, Calder and the rest of Kahn’s experts thrilled at the challenge. And there were 500 more factories to go.”
“Though the collaboration has been all but forgotten, evidence suggests that more than 1,200 U.S.-based architects, engineers, designers, and foremen seeded the Soviet industrial revolution. In just three years, they built upwards of 500 factories, trained more than 3,000 Soviet staff, and brought lessons back home that have yet to be fully understood.”
Your point isn’t completely invalid, but it’s a circular argument. Whatever the external force was, the system had the ability to complete the objective.
One could actually argue that sending a person to the moon didn’t directly achieve anything for the people, so that wouldn’t necessarily have been a goal by itself anyway and was a waste of resources.
What’s the point? If there was no space race the USSR would likely just invest even harder on cybernetics and information technology, as they were also pioneers in these areas, for example.
Capitalism =/= markets.
Socialism =/= public services.
Markets are much older than capitalism, and socialism is a very simple economic idea, being the collective ownership of the means of production by the workers.
Capitalism guides innovation towards increasing profits for capitalist, hardly “innovative”. The USSR was the first to the Moon, after being a feudalistic society, thanks to socialism.
Imean, the USSR wasn’t even good socialism. They still used money for quite a large set of things, businesses were very much NOT worker owned in many places, people could be killed by the whims of authorities and a dictator… Yep, not even good socialism got to space first.
I mean, not having money is a communism thing, not socialism.
But most businesses in the USSR were co-ops or state-owned.
I’m not in the “the dictatorship of the proletariat is identical to collective ownership” camp, but I mean, that is in the end a difference of ideology regarding what socialism really is.
And…. What dictator? I mean, all that “there’s no freedom in the USSR, if Stalin thinks you’re ugly you go to the gulag” is 100% propaganda, right? I mean the CIA admitted in their secret reports that not even Stalin was really a dictator, but that disclosing that wouldn’t be politically favourable to the US.
And like… I don’t think the USSR killed anymore people than the US or Europe lmao
State owned is EXACTLY NOT “worker owned”.
What dictator? As if people couldn’t or weren’t put to death at Stalin’s word over simole paranoia??
I would agree, but many socialists wouldn’t.
And man… please don’t come with this Stalin bullshit. If you really think he was “le big evil gulag no food man”, please for the love of god read a bit more, from non Empire-propaganda sources.
I say this strongly as a non-communist (in the USSR sense).
I don’t have any “labels” like that but I more strongly align with anarchism. I also believed Stalin, Mao, Lenin etc were big evil men. But bro, 90% of it really, truly, is propaganda.
Lol, you say that but… Guess you started the gulag system? You guessed it, Lenin! Who brought it to it’s apex? Staline! Does it continue to this day? Yes!
Here’s another great example of Stalins legacy:
The Road of Bones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R504_Kolyma_Highway
This article has pictures:
https://www.rbth.com/history/333033-road-bones-kolyma-gulag
Side note: we have a family friend who had half of his family sent to the Soviet gulags in the 1950s. Most of them died there. He’s Polish.
Hum… and? Outside of the propaganda, yea gulags and? I don’t see the point.
Are you saying prisons are bad? I agree, I’m fully a prison abolitionist. But I don’t see how saying “look prisons!” is any argument against the USSR in particular.
Prisons have existed for a long time everywhere. And many times and in many places were much worse than the gulags.
Just keep in mind that again, 90% of what you read on gulags is literal Cold War and Nazi propaganda…
You’re full of bullshit. Cite your sources that Gulags were like a typical prison, because they are obviously not.
Exporting 18 million people to the middle of fucking nowhere where it reaches -53C to work camps outside resulting in millions of deaths is definitely not normal.
“there’s no freedom in the USSR, if Stalin thinks you’re ugly you go to the gulag” is 100% propaganda, right?
Sure buddy. That was just a psyop that the MAN wants us to believe so we don’t revolt and bring back communism.
Oh no, I’m brainwashed! Lmao
Sure buddy. Go back to believing everything your school textbooks and journalists on TV have been saying since the Cold War.
We can appreciate the achievements of the USSR and still accept its failures
And I do do that. But any discussion or discourse on this is muddled with Nazi propaganda talking points, and it’s impossible to truly praise and truly critique the USSR without people calling you a “tankie”…
You’re almost there buddy.
I think I’m already there friendo.
The Soviet Unions industrial development was ironically funded by American capitalists during the 1920s through the 1940s. Without that massive influx of knowledge, technical expertise and capital, the Soviet Union would never have industrialized at the rate that it did. It might not even have succeeded. However, I am not an expert in Soviet history either.
Albert Khan was a American industrial architect who was responsible for designing and building American car, tractor and other factories for heavy industrial equipment in the United States. Starting in the 1920s, he traveled to the Soviet Union and designed and lead co instruction of ~500 massive state-run industrial plants using American equipment and machines. This is also similar to how Japan industrialized following the end of the Tokugawa shogunate during the Japanese civil War.
https://lsa.umich.edu/lsa/news-events/all-news/search-news/built-in-the-u-s-s-r---by-detroit-.html
I wonder if those accomplishments were meant to happen if they hadn’t had an ideological enemy in the ‘capitalist west’.
Your point isn’t completely invalid, but it’s a circular argument. Whatever the external force was, the system had the ability to complete the objective.
One could actually argue that sending a person to the moon didn’t directly achieve anything for the people, so that wouldn’t necessarily have been a goal by itself anyway and was a waste of resources.
What’s the point? If there was no space race the USSR would likely just invest even harder on cybernetics and information technology, as they were also pioneers in these areas, for example.