The USSR absolutely had oligarchs, donāt be absurd. Iām not strictly talking about the Politburoā¦who stole plenty and took the fall, Iām talking about the oligarchs - who didnāt blink into existence out of the ashes of the USSR - but rather came to be because of what they amassed at the expense of the people duringĀ the USRR. The savvy middle managers, the smugglers, the entire KGB.Ā The Art of the BribeĀ is an excellent book that methodically outlinines how these proto-oligarchs came to be and how they destroyed and corrupted socialism. Telling me about the idealistic version of the USSR isnāt interestingā¦Iām more interested in reality.
Mehā¦save the āMarx wasnāt an egalitarianā stuff for the people who arenāt socialists. There absolutely was a very large wealth and power class in the USSR as there is in China nowā¦both would be abhorrent to Marx. Thereās a difference between being somewhat better off because you work harder and/or are responsible for administering a novel conceptā¦and literally never working because you have so much power and influence you donāt need to: those people were lousy in the USSR, and exist to a lesser extent in China.
Itās an apples and oranges conversation because it can be argued that the Chinese billionaires hurt their people less than the oligarchs/kleptocrats did in the USSRā¦but you first must acknowledge they exist - if you want to move past the mass intentions of their systems and have the conversation about how the classes in communism were/are bad and why.
The reason I prefer Cuba isnāt because their system is a superior application of socialismā¦but rather because Cuba is so small and their rich people tend to be more enmeshed in the population and steal less/have less to steal.
Iām not saying all this because I donāt like socialism and dismiss The USSR and China as failures out of hand - quite the contrary - Iām saying it because socialism is a project that we need to achieve and we have to learn from whatās been done/being tried to achieve it.
Iām not being absurd, you are. Youāre defining the mode of production of a majority collectivized and planned economy that was oriented towards satisfying the needs of everyone as a ākleptocracy.ā This is ridiculous and requires an extreme level of evidence explaining why such a focus was both put on satisfying everyoneās needs, and on this ākleptocracyā you claim. Youāre confusing the capitalists that rose from the ashes of the USSR with the USSRās mode of production. Iām aware that China has billionaires, and again, you seem to be under the impression that Marxism is about equalitarianism and not about gradually collectivizing production and distribution to satisfy the needs of everyone.
Good reading for you would be China has Billionaires. Marxists donāt deny the struggles of the USSR and PRC, we do learn from them, what we donāt do is dismiss their successes or take liberal perspectives on them like youāre doing here.
Iām aware that you consider yourself a socialist, but your analysis is far from that of a socialist.
I gave you evidenceā¦and you ignored it. I can provide additional evidence beyond ā54, if you acknowledge those archives.
You believe Marxism allows for the billionaire and political classes in China that control the means of production? Bold.
You donāt āownā Marxism, btw. Most Marxists I know at least acknowledge and criticize the very large problems in the USSR and China. I meanā¦I also could be considered a Marxistā¦but I consider myself a post-Marxist because heās been improved on. I also think we can do better than Marx the man as a foundation - donāt get me started on Lenin, lol. The weird thing is I likeĀ Stalin (but Che all the way).
This isnāt zero sum: Iām not saying either is all badĀ because they have kleptocrats and billionaires. We havenāt even broached the topic of what I think about the USSR and China as a whole (because youāre so hung up on denying their systematic problems in favour of focusing on the positives?) in contrast to what we see in the western democracies (for example) youāre typing as if i condemn them and I prefer the USA, or somethingā¦not a thing.
Yes, you indeed linked a US Federally funded liberal historian that is paid to present a certain view of the USSR. If you want sources on the socialist economy of the USSR, and how it was run, here are some great ones:
I donāt own Marxism, correct. I also study it a great deal, organize in real life with a communist party. I do acknowledge real faults with the USSR and PRC, but I donāt acknowledge fake ones. You should read the essay I linked called China Has Billionaires, it explains Chinaās position as an early socialist economy and its process of gradually collectivizing production and distribution. The class that controls the state and holds the principle aspects of the economy in China is the proletariat, as it was in the USSR, as it is in Cuba.
You defining Cuba as more correctly socialist because its rich people are poorer is what I mean by you being anti-Marxist, this poverty fetishism isnāt Marxist in the slightest.
Thatās a ridiculous way to frame a public university employeeā¦but Iām just going to declare an impasse and drop it if we canāt agree on facts.
Talk about virtue signalling and purity testing, yikes. Still, thank you for the conversation, I will admit Iām a little amused at you trying to āout socialistā me, but I donāt feel I need to list my credentials in returnā¦Iām comfortable with how militantly virulent I am on the subject of socialism ;)
Like I said: put two leftists together, and theyāll find a way to argue. Iāve been guilty of it tooā¦it is what it is.
Financial support for this research was provided by a number of foundations and organizations, including the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH), the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER), the Archives and Library of the Hoover Institution for War and Peace at Stanford University, the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Open Society Archive (Budapest). His first book was Inventing a Soviet Countryside: State Power and the Transformation of Rural Russia, 1917-1929 (2004).
Thereās a concerted effort within western academia to keep demonizing socialism, and funding is one of the ways the state keeps that going. I provided more than plenty sources given an alternative view. None of this is about me trying to āout-socialistā you, nor virtue signal nor purity test. Itās about trying to come to a consistent understanding grounded in reality, from a proletarian point of view, rather than accepting liberal framing of socialism.
Seem like heās a typical academic. I get itā¦you prefer to muddy the waters and shoot the messenger then engage with the content. Alternate view toā¦something you didnāt read? I assure you it doesnāt ādemonize socialismāā¦it just chronicles events according to disclosure/a ādata dumpā of declassified files. Itās not ideologicalā¦itās for eggheads who donāt want to read thousands of documents. When I read it it just helped me understand the playing field better.
The problems with the USSR werenāt with socialism, youāre missing my message. They were with capitalists corrupting it from within. Thereās certainly an argument to be made that too muchĀ control was allocated to regional bureaucrats - when targeted positive/idealistic authoritarianism was more appropriate while socialism was in its infancy. But this in the context of justĀ Russia, because I donāt agree with the expansion that created the USSR: my opinion is it created an unmanageably large state with too many ādistractingā regional issues that were ripe for capitalists to exploit. Those faithful to the cause were simply stretched too thin and they couldnāt deliver a meaningful improvement to enough people, largely because the guilty regional bureaucrats werenāt loyal to the cause and they created systematic exploitation of the people they were tasked to help. Obviously Iām being unrealisticā¦just trying to get closer to 20/20 hindsight.
You havenāt read the sources I linked either. We have a western academic, state funded, and based on your arguments here thereās what you believe evidence that causes you to describe the USSR not as socialism, but a kleptocracy. This is why Iām heavily skeptical, because I have read on the structure of the USSR, I know how it functioned, and it was unquestionably socialist. Iām not saying no corruption ever existed, Iām saying that corruption was nowhere near relevant enough to be the base mode of production, because thatās an absurd statement to begin with.
The advent of socialism in Russia democratized the economy, doubled life expectancy, dramatically reduced poverty, provided free, high quality healthcare and education, had assured jobs and free or low cost housing, over tripled literacy rates, and turned a feudal backwater into a spacefaring nation in just a few short decades. Wealth disparity, which you seem to place an over-emphasis on, was dramatically lowered as compared to the Tsarist era and the capitalist era. The economy was based on collectivized production and distribution, and fulfilling the needs of everyone.
When you have all of that undeniably true, then statements like āRussia wasnāt socialist, it was a kleptocracyā become silly. Of course there was some degree of corruption, every country has some level of corruption. The USSR wasnāt a perfect utopia, as the first socialist state there were missteps and struggles. However, it was absolutely socialist, and because of that it delivered incredible results for the working classes.
The USSR absolutely had oligarchs, donāt be absurd. Iām not strictly talking about the Politburoā¦who stole plenty and took the fall, Iām talking about the oligarchs - who didnāt blink into existence out of the ashes of the USSR - but rather came to be because of what they amassed at the expense of the people duringĀ the USRR. The savvy middle managers, the smugglers, the entire KGB.Ā The Art of the BribeĀ is an excellent book that methodically outlinines how these proto-oligarchs came to be and how they destroyed and corrupted socialism. Telling me about the idealistic version of the USSR isnāt interestingā¦Iām more interested in reality.
Mehā¦save the āMarx wasnāt an egalitarianā stuff for the people who arenāt socialists. There absolutely was a very large wealth and power class in the USSR as there is in China nowā¦both would be abhorrent to Marx. Thereās a difference between being somewhat better off because you work harder and/or are responsible for administering a novel conceptā¦and literally never working because you have so much power and influence you donāt need to: those people were lousy in the USSR, and exist to a lesser extent in China.
Itās an apples and oranges conversation because it can be argued that the Chinese billionaires hurt their people less than the oligarchs/kleptocrats did in the USSRā¦but you first must acknowledge they exist - if you want to move past the mass intentions of their systems and have the conversation about how the classes in communism were/are bad and why.
The reason I prefer Cuba isnāt because their system is a superior application of socialismā¦but rather because Cuba is so small and their rich people tend to be more enmeshed in the population and steal less/have less to steal.
Iām not saying all this because I donāt like socialism and dismiss The USSR and China as failures out of hand - quite the contrary - Iām saying it because socialism is a project that we need to achieve and we have to learn from whatās been done/being tried to achieve it.
Iām not being absurd, you are. Youāre defining the mode of production of a majority collectivized and planned economy that was oriented towards satisfying the needs of everyone as a ākleptocracy.ā This is ridiculous and requires an extreme level of evidence explaining why such a focus was both put on satisfying everyoneās needs, and on this ākleptocracyā you claim. Youāre confusing the capitalists that rose from the ashes of the USSR with the USSRās mode of production. Iām aware that China has billionaires, and again, you seem to be under the impression that Marxism is about equalitarianism and not about gradually collectivizing production and distribution to satisfy the needs of everyone.
Good reading for you would be China has Billionaires. Marxists donāt deny the struggles of the USSR and PRC, we do learn from them, what we donāt do is dismiss their successes or take liberal perspectives on them like youāre doing here.
Iām aware that you consider yourself a socialist, but your analysis is far from that of a socialist.
I gave you evidenceā¦and you ignored it. I can provide additional evidence beyond ā54, if you acknowledge those archives.
You believe Marxism allows for the billionaire and political classes in China that control the means of production? Bold.
You donāt āownā Marxism, btw. Most Marxists I know at least acknowledge and criticize the very large problems in the USSR and China. I meanā¦I also could be considered a Marxistā¦but I consider myself a post-Marxist because heās been improved on. I also think we can do better than Marx the man as a foundation - donāt get me started on Lenin, lol. The weird thing is I likeĀ Stalin (but Che all the way).
This isnāt zero sum: Iām not saying either is all badĀ because they have kleptocrats and billionaires. We havenāt even broached the topic of what I think about the USSR and China as a whole (because youāre so hung up on denying their systematic problems in favour of focusing on the positives?) in contrast to what we see in the western democracies (for example) youāre typing as if i condemn them and I prefer the USA, or somethingā¦not a thing.
Yes, you indeed linked a US Federally funded liberal historian that is paid to present a certain view of the USSR. If you want sources on the socialist economy of the USSR, and how it was run, here are some great ones:
Is the Red Flag Flying? The Political Economy of the Soviet Union Today
Soviet Democracy
Russian Justice
This Soviet World
Blackshirts and Reds
All much better sources.
I donāt own Marxism, correct. I also study it a great deal, organize in real life with a communist party. I do acknowledge real faults with the USSR and PRC, but I donāt acknowledge fake ones. You should read the essay I linked called China Has Billionaires, it explains Chinaās position as an early socialist economy and its process of gradually collectivizing production and distribution. The class that controls the state and holds the principle aspects of the economy in China is the proletariat, as it was in the USSR, as it is in Cuba.
You defining Cuba as more correctly socialist because its rich people are poorer is what I mean by you being anti-Marxist, this poverty fetishism isnāt Marxist in the slightest.
Thatās a ridiculous way to frame a public university employeeā¦but Iām just going to declare an impasse and drop it if we canāt agree on facts.
Talk about virtue signalling and purity testing, yikes. Still, thank you for the conversation, I will admit Iām a little amused at you trying to āout socialistā me, but I donāt feel I need to list my credentials in returnā¦Iām comfortable with how militantly virulent I am on the subject of socialism ;)
Like I said: put two leftists together, and theyāll find a way to argue. Iāve been guilty of it tooā¦it is what it is.
Not just any public university employee:
Thereās a concerted effort within western academia to keep demonizing socialism, and funding is one of the ways the state keeps that going. I provided more than plenty sources given an alternative view. None of this is about me trying to āout-socialistā you, nor virtue signal nor purity test. Itās about trying to come to a consistent understanding grounded in reality, from a proletarian point of view, rather than accepting liberal framing of socialism.
Seem like heās a typical academic. I get itā¦you prefer to muddy the waters and shoot the messenger then engage with the content. Alternate view toā¦something you didnāt read? I assure you it doesnāt ādemonize socialismāā¦it just chronicles events according to disclosure/a ādata dumpā of declassified files. Itās not ideologicalā¦itās for eggheads who donāt want to read thousands of documents. When I read it it just helped me understand the playing field better.
The problems with the USSR werenāt with socialism, youāre missing my message. They were with capitalists corrupting it from within. Thereās certainly an argument to be made that too muchĀ control was allocated to regional bureaucrats - when targeted positive/idealistic authoritarianism was more appropriate while socialism was in its infancy. But this in the context of justĀ Russia, because I donāt agree with the expansion that created the USSR: my opinion is it created an unmanageably large state with too many ādistractingā regional issues that were ripe for capitalists to exploit. Those faithful to the cause were simply stretched too thin and they couldnāt deliver a meaningful improvement to enough people, largely because the guilty regional bureaucrats werenāt loyal to the cause and they created systematic exploitation of the people they were tasked to help. Obviously Iām being unrealisticā¦just trying to get closer to 20/20 hindsight.
You havenāt read the sources I linked either. We have a western academic, state funded, and based on your arguments here thereās what you believe evidence that causes you to describe the USSR not as socialism, but a kleptocracy. This is why Iām heavily skeptical, because I have read on the structure of the USSR, I know how it functioned, and it was unquestionably socialist. Iām not saying no corruption ever existed, Iām saying that corruption was nowhere near relevant enough to be the base mode of production, because thatās an absurd statement to begin with.
The advent of socialism in Russia democratized the economy, doubled life expectancy, dramatically reduced poverty, provided free, high quality healthcare and education, had assured jobs and free or low cost housing, over tripled literacy rates, and turned a feudal backwater into a spacefaring nation in just a few short decades. Wealth disparity, which you seem to place an over-emphasis on, was dramatically lowered as compared to the Tsarist era and the capitalist era. The economy was based on collectivized production and distribution, and fulfilling the needs of everyone.
When you have all of that undeniably true, then statements like āRussia wasnāt socialist, it was a kleptocracyā become silly. Of course there was some degree of corruption, every country has some level of corruption. The USSR wasnāt a perfect utopia, as the first socialist state there were missteps and struggles. However, it was absolutely socialist, and because of that it delivered incredible results for the working classes.