Yeah, maybe. But is it usually better to err on the side of caution and often the devil you know is better than an unknown one (as shown by history over and over again).
Having actually lived in USSR, and experienced both systems I can tell you that living under capitalism is far worse than living under Soviet style socialism. However, you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s what other people who got to enjoy both systems have to say.
All anarchists do is perpetuate the horrors of capitalism because of their fear of “authoritarianism” necessary to mount an actual effective resistance. All the suffering that’s perpetuated, and our potential extinction at the hands of capitalists is squarely on you lot.
All the suffering that’s perpetuated, and our potential extinction at the hands of capitalists is squarely on you lot.
Playing blame games is not gonna help anyone. It would be much more effective if anarchists and communists could find ways to work together. Sure there are a lot of disagreements between both groups, but also a lot in common, and its better to focus on the latter.
I’m all for anarchists and communists working together, but the idea that capitalism is preferable to any form of socialism must be challenged forcefully. Soviet style communism may have had problems, but it was a far better system than capitalism in practically every way. Millions of lives were ruined when USSR fell, and my own family suffered greatly. It is incredibly frustrating to see people from the imperial core glibly claim that they prefer the devil they know. People saying that are invariably those who are personally benefiting from capitalist system, and have comfortable lives built on the back of the exploitation inherent in it.
What I disagree with is specifically the quoted sentence.
On a side note, I dont really understand this obsession with the Soviet Union. Sure it was a good place to live, and you probably have many positive memories from there. But the USSR hasnt existed for 30 years, and it wont come back. So it would be much more useful if we thought about how to improve things in our workplaces and neighborhoods, instead of arguing about our interpretations of history. If you are trying to unionize your workplace, what difference does it make what your coworker thinks about the Soviet Union?
The problem is that misinformation about USSR and China is used to propagandize people against effective methods for combating capitalism. The idea isn’t to bring USSR back, but to convince people that the methods advocated by communists are valid and that a state modeled on USSR results in a tangible improvement over the current state of things.
Doing things like unionizing your workplace or building community aid networks are coping mechanisms for existing within the capitalist system. Doing such things is necessary, and this does lead to tangible immediate benefits. However, we also need a real vision for a post capitalist world and how to achieve it.
So far, Marxist-Leninist approach has been pretty much the only effective formula for overthrowing capitalism and establishing a socialist society. We’re literally running out of time as the climate crisis continues to escalate. We have a few decades left to turn things around, and we simply don’t have the luxury to fuck around anymore. We need to use methods that have been proven to be effective while there is still time to act.
People who talk about authoritarianism to scare people away from communism by saying that they’d rather stick with the devil they know are actively working against change that we desperately need.
The Soviet Union was formed in 1917, over a century ago. Sure we need to learn from their successes and mistakes, but its not possible to simply repeat their methods, because society today works completely differently.
Marxism-Leninism has been successful in some places, but in the west it has been a complete failure so far. Blaming others for that failure is not going to help, again we need to learn from the successes and mistakes. Panicking because of climate change isnt helpful.
And people talk about authoritarianism because thats what they have been told all their live, and they worry about it. Its important to take such concerns seriously. Talking down to them and dismissing their concerns means that they will definitely ignore what you have to say.
I completely agree that we live in a very different world today, and the methods used need to be rooted in the current conditions. This is basically the whole premise of the dialectical approach. We must look at the material conditions and adapt our methods based on these conditions as opposed to acting dogmatically.
I understand where you’re coming from. Ideally, we should all be focusing on finding common ground and working together while putting our differences aside. This is basically the idea of left unity, and unfortunately we haven’t seen this work well in practice. There’s also a bigger picture here to consider as well. The reality of the situation is that both communists and anarchists are niche groups in the west right now. My view is that the focus needs to be on the people who aren’t politically active currently, but are starting to realize that the current system isn’t working in their interest. This is a far larger demographic than all the western anarchists and communists combined, and it would be far more productive to focus on steering such people towards effective methods of resistance.
Hence my view is that it’s important to challenge critiques of communism and to provide good answers to people who have reservations but haven’t yet formed strong opinions. Combating dishonest portrayals of USSR is important precisely because the negative image of USSR is used to scare people away from communism. The typical argument that we see is that capitalism is bad but USSR was worse and therefore doing nothing would be preferable to building a communist state. This is precisely the line of argument @poVoq@lemmy.ml is taking.
My view is that anarchist approach is fundamentally flawed and it’s been proven to be ineffective at combating capitalism. However, I’m perfectly fine working with anarchists when there is common ground to be found. On the other hand, I don’t think there is much to be gained trying to change minds of anarchists who are firmly set in their ideology. My experience is that people who’ve already formed strong views aren’t going to be swayed because they’ve already seen the arguments you present and found their own rationalizations for them. So, the focus needs to be on presenting a better argument to those who haven’t yet formed such strong opinions. That’s the real audience for such discussions.
I’m also not suggesting panicking over climate change, but rather noting that it is a huge immediate problem facing all of us. I don’t think people fully appreciate the scope of this disaster or its urgency. For example, Antarctic ice shelf the size of Britain could collapse within 5 years leading to significant sea level rise. This would obviously be devastating for coastal communities, but it would also have an incredible impact on global supply chains as all the ports would become inoperable. Countries that rely on shipping for their economies to function would be plunged into chaos overnight. Climate change will be an increasingly destabilizing factor in the world, and as it progresses it will also impact our ability to deal with it in any sort of organized fashion. The severity of the problem cannot be overstated.
The typical argument that we see is that capitalism is bad but USSR was worse and therefore doing nothing would be preferable to building a communist state. This is precisely the line of argument @poVoq@lemmy.ml is taking.
I feel a bit mis-represented here :) My argument is that both suck (for different reasons) and it would be wise not to rush into something and repeat all the same mistakes again that the people of the USSR did. Especially when it is evident that the people promoting it like @yogthos@lemmy.ml exhibit a fundamentally flawed understanding why the USSR as a socialist project failed.
I’m not sure what “left unity” is, other than a slogan which i’ve never seen clearly defined. What i am talking about are tactical alliances. In my previous example, communists and anarchists could work together to create a union in a specific workplace. For that its not necessary to agree on ideology or long-term goals (which would be a strategic alliance). Exactly because anarchists and communists are such small groups would it be useful to work together where possible (and do things seperately where it is not).
Combating dishonest portrayals of USSR is important precisely because the negative image of USSR is used to scare people away from communism.
It would probably be more effective to explain that USSR and communism are not synonyms. Again, the USSR is in the past, and any future communist state would be quite different. People are probably also discouraged when they when they notice that others see discussions as a “combat”, instead of a way to understand each other better. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, and thinking that your opinion is the only “correct” one which others have to follow will get you nowhere.
Climate change might be a problem, but i think its also used to distract from a much bigger event on the horizon, which is the collapse of the US empire. The country is close to going bankrupt, and is trying to solve that by picking wars with China and Russia (which it would most definitely lose). When the US collapses, the changes will be at least as big as those after World War 2. So yes, the severity of climate change is overstated.
The “fall” of the USSR was squarely caused by themselves. I hope you don’t believe the NATO propaganda that somehow the West caused the USSR to collapse. In fact the opposite was true… for example West Germany was frenetically trying to prop up East Germany for quite some years.
What came after (the very bad Jelzin years) was in fact partially caused by the West, but for the collapse itself you can only blame yourself.
You’re an incredibly ignorant individual. USSR was never allowed to develop peacefully. It was invaded by western powers in 1918 right after its formation, then it was plunged into WW2, and after that the Cold War. Saying that the fall of USSR was squarely caused by themselves is the height of idiocy. The west forced USSR into spending incredible amounts of productive power in order to simply to be allowed to exist. It’s also worth noting that the collapse was in no way inevitable, and largely a result of Gorbachev’s privatization and liberalization policies. The west was also directly involved in propping up Yeltsin and suppressing communism after Russia opened up.
and largely a result of Gorbachev’s privatization and liberalization policies
And Lenin’s and Stalin’s policies of State capitalism and abolition of communism as practiced by the soviets since early 1917. Lenin and his fellow psychopath Trotsky are the ones who truly ruined any hope of communism in Russia by producing a “dictatorship of the proletariat” in which a new class of rulers watched over workers for whom life conditions barely changed, which is arguably not a “stateless, classless society” (what communism is about).
Look, I am not claiming that everything was bad about the soviet states. Those surveys are probably influenced by nostalgia and the typical rose-tinted glasses look back on your own history, but even if they aren’t… you can’t turn back time and a new authoritarian socialist state would not be the same as those found in the past.
Yeah, must be nostalgia for things like guaranteed food, housing, healthcare, education, and retirement. Old people in particular are really nostalgic for the times when they didn’t have to scavenge for food in the garbage and live under bridges. I just love how you just keep bleating about authoritarianism like a broken record. You literally live in an authoritarian capitalist state that’s destroying our planet while exploiting and murdering countless people across the globe to provide you with your quality of life. People like you are responsible for perpetuating the imperialist nightmare that’s western civilization. The blood of the world is on your hands.
I did, and that’s why I take a lot of offense when people slander it. People lived there just fine, and things were a hell of a lot better than they are today under capitalism.
The Anarchists’ fear of authoritarianism is completely valid. Nobody who lived under Mao and emigrated from China before the propaganda machine ramped up (before 2010) believes he was good, even though he was supported by the USSR. In fact, all the Chinese people I know are fiercely anti-communist, and I am a second-generation immigrant who is also fiercely anti-communist. (I support social democracy, and I hope that counts as leftist enough to be here?)
Besides, Mao and Stalin killed over a tens of million combined, and Mao’s cultural revolution caused the suicide of my grand-uncle, according to my dad.
You can also get a good idea what the USSR was like by looking at Belarus, which is arguably the former SSR that preserved socialism the best. After their leader, who thought that Vodka could cure COVID, was elected in a sham election, protests which lasted for months were responded to with what were considered to be human rights violations.
TL;DR Fears of authoritarianism are justified; and Belarus shows how the USSR was bad.
In order to get an accurate picture though, you can’t cherry pick and you have to account for nostalgia.
In order to get an accurate picture you really need to look at what happened to southern republics like Georgia or Kazakhstan. Westerners tend to focus on places like Ukraine or Poland and completely ignore the real horrors that followed the collapse.
That’s not to mention that the Anarchists’ fear of authoritarianism is completely valid.
Except it’s not given that capitalism is just as authoritarian and it’s responsible for far worse horrors than anything that ever happened under communism. The default state of the world isn’t some Platonic ideal of society, bu a living nightmare that subjugates vast majority of human population to a brutal rule of capitalists. Westerners generally don’t see the real horrors that prop up their own lifestyles.
Besides, Mao and Stalin killed over a tens of million combined, and Mao’s cultural revolution caused the suicide of my grand-uncle, according to my dad.
Thanks to the wonder of capitalism roughly 3.5 million people die from lack of clean water, 1.5 million people die from vaccinable diseases, and 9 million people die from hunger each and every year. That’s over a 140 million deaths every decade.
Meanwhile, life expectancy actually increased under Mao. The context you seem to be missing is what living conditions in China were like prior to the revolution. You should really read up on that some time.
You can also get a good idea what the USSR was like by looking at Belarus, which is arguably the former SSR that preserved socialism the best.
I have a good idea of what USSR was like because I actually lived there. And thinking Belarus today is an example of that is incredibly ignorant. This is how USSR handled pandemics.
TL;DR Fears of authoritarianism are justified; and Belarus shows how the USSR was bad.
TLDR you have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.
Yeah, maybe. But is it usually better to err on the side of caution and often the devil you know is better than an unknown one (as shown by history over and over again).
Having actually lived in USSR, and experienced both systems I can tell you that living under capitalism is far worse than living under Soviet style socialism. However, you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s what other people who got to enjoy both systems have to say.
All anarchists do is perpetuate the horrors of capitalism because of their fear of “authoritarianism” necessary to mount an actual effective resistance. All the suffering that’s perpetuated, and our potential extinction at the hands of capitalists is squarely on you lot.
Playing blame games is not gonna help anyone. It would be much more effective if anarchists and communists could find ways to work together. Sure there are a lot of disagreements between both groups, but also a lot in common, and its better to focus on the latter.
I’m all for anarchists and communists working together, but the idea that capitalism is preferable to any form of socialism must be challenged forcefully. Soviet style communism may have had problems, but it was a far better system than capitalism in practically every way. Millions of lives were ruined when USSR fell, and my own family suffered greatly. It is incredibly frustrating to see people from the imperial core glibly claim that they prefer the devil they know. People saying that are invariably those who are personally benefiting from capitalist system, and have comfortable lives built on the back of the exploitation inherent in it.
What I disagree with is specifically the quoted sentence.
On a side note, I dont really understand this obsession with the Soviet Union. Sure it was a good place to live, and you probably have many positive memories from there. But the USSR hasnt existed for 30 years, and it wont come back. So it would be much more useful if we thought about how to improve things in our workplaces and neighborhoods, instead of arguing about our interpretations of history. If you are trying to unionize your workplace, what difference does it make what your coworker thinks about the Soviet Union?
The problem is that misinformation about USSR and China is used to propagandize people against effective methods for combating capitalism. The idea isn’t to bring USSR back, but to convince people that the methods advocated by communists are valid and that a state modeled on USSR results in a tangible improvement over the current state of things.
Doing things like unionizing your workplace or building community aid networks are coping mechanisms for existing within the capitalist system. Doing such things is necessary, and this does lead to tangible immediate benefits. However, we also need a real vision for a post capitalist world and how to achieve it.
So far, Marxist-Leninist approach has been pretty much the only effective formula for overthrowing capitalism and establishing a socialist society. We’re literally running out of time as the climate crisis continues to escalate. We have a few decades left to turn things around, and we simply don’t have the luxury to fuck around anymore. We need to use methods that have been proven to be effective while there is still time to act.
People who talk about authoritarianism to scare people away from communism by saying that they’d rather stick with the devil they know are actively working against change that we desperately need.
The Soviet Union was formed in 1917, over a century ago. Sure we need to learn from their successes and mistakes, but its not possible to simply repeat their methods, because society today works completely differently.
Marxism-Leninism has been successful in some places, but in the west it has been a complete failure so far. Blaming others for that failure is not going to help, again we need to learn from the successes and mistakes. Panicking because of climate change isnt helpful.
And people talk about authoritarianism because thats what they have been told all their live, and they worry about it. Its important to take such concerns seriously. Talking down to them and dismissing their concerns means that they will definitely ignore what you have to say.
I completely agree that we live in a very different world today, and the methods used need to be rooted in the current conditions. This is basically the whole premise of the dialectical approach. We must look at the material conditions and adapt our methods based on these conditions as opposed to acting dogmatically.
I understand where you’re coming from. Ideally, we should all be focusing on finding common ground and working together while putting our differences aside. This is basically the idea of left unity, and unfortunately we haven’t seen this work well in practice. There’s also a bigger picture here to consider as well. The reality of the situation is that both communists and anarchists are niche groups in the west right now. My view is that the focus needs to be on the people who aren’t politically active currently, but are starting to realize that the current system isn’t working in their interest. This is a far larger demographic than all the western anarchists and communists combined, and it would be far more productive to focus on steering such people towards effective methods of resistance.
Hence my view is that it’s important to challenge critiques of communism and to provide good answers to people who have reservations but haven’t yet formed strong opinions. Combating dishonest portrayals of USSR is important precisely because the negative image of USSR is used to scare people away from communism. The typical argument that we see is that capitalism is bad but USSR was worse and therefore doing nothing would be preferable to building a communist state. This is precisely the line of argument @poVoq@lemmy.ml is taking.
My view is that anarchist approach is fundamentally flawed and it’s been proven to be ineffective at combating capitalism. However, I’m perfectly fine working with anarchists when there is common ground to be found. On the other hand, I don’t think there is much to be gained trying to change minds of anarchists who are firmly set in their ideology. My experience is that people who’ve already formed strong views aren’t going to be swayed because they’ve already seen the arguments you present and found their own rationalizations for them. So, the focus needs to be on presenting a better argument to those who haven’t yet formed such strong opinions. That’s the real audience for such discussions.
I’m also not suggesting panicking over climate change, but rather noting that it is a huge immediate problem facing all of us. I don’t think people fully appreciate the scope of this disaster or its urgency. For example, Antarctic ice shelf the size of Britain could collapse within 5 years leading to significant sea level rise. This would obviously be devastating for coastal communities, but it would also have an incredible impact on global supply chains as all the ports would become inoperable. Countries that rely on shipping for their economies to function would be plunged into chaos overnight. Climate change will be an increasingly destabilizing factor in the world, and as it progresses it will also impact our ability to deal with it in any sort of organized fashion. The severity of the problem cannot be overstated.
I feel a bit mis-represented here :) My argument is that both suck (for different reasons) and it would be wise not to rush into something and repeat all the same mistakes again that the people of the USSR did. Especially when it is evident that the people promoting it like @yogthos@lemmy.ml exhibit a fundamentally flawed understanding why the USSR as a socialist project failed.
I’m not sure what “left unity” is, other than a slogan which i’ve never seen clearly defined. What i am talking about are tactical alliances. In my previous example, communists and anarchists could work together to create a union in a specific workplace. For that its not necessary to agree on ideology or long-term goals (which would be a strategic alliance). Exactly because anarchists and communists are such small groups would it be useful to work together where possible (and do things seperately where it is not).
It would probably be more effective to explain that USSR and communism are not synonyms. Again, the USSR is in the past, and any future communist state would be quite different. People are probably also discouraged when they when they notice that others see discussions as a “combat”, instead of a way to understand each other better. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, and thinking that your opinion is the only “correct” one which others have to follow will get you nowhere.
Climate change might be a problem, but i think its also used to distract from a much bigger event on the horizon, which is the collapse of the US empire. The country is close to going bankrupt, and is trying to solve that by picking wars with China and Russia (which it would most definitely lose). When the US collapses, the changes will be at least as big as those after World War 2. So yes, the severity of climate change is overstated.
The “fall” of the USSR was squarely caused by themselves. I hope you don’t believe the NATO propaganda that somehow the West caused the USSR to collapse. In fact the opposite was true… for example West Germany was frenetically trying to prop up East Germany for quite some years.
What came after (the very bad Jelzin years) was in fact partially caused by the West, but for the collapse itself you can only blame yourself.
You’re an incredibly ignorant individual. USSR was never allowed to develop peacefully. It was invaded by western powers in 1918 right after its formation, then it was plunged into WW2, and after that the Cold War. Saying that the fall of USSR was squarely caused by themselves is the height of idiocy. The west forced USSR into spending incredible amounts of productive power in order to simply to be allowed to exist. It’s also worth noting that the collapse was in no way inevitable, and largely a result of Gorbachev’s privatization and liberalization policies. The west was also directly involved in propping up Yeltsin and suppressing communism after Russia opened up.
@yogthos@lemmy.ml , @poVoq@lemmy.ml calm
And Lenin’s and Stalin’s policies of State capitalism and abolition of communism as practiced by the soviets since early 1917. Lenin and his fellow psychopath Trotsky are the ones who truly ruined any hope of communism in Russia by producing a “dictatorship of the proletariat” in which a new class of rulers watched over workers for whom life conditions barely changed, which is arguably not a “stateless, classless society” (what communism is about).
This comment is so incoherent, I don’t even really know where to begin addressing it.
Look, I am not claiming that everything was bad about the soviet states. Those surveys are probably influenced by nostalgia and the typical rose-tinted glasses look back on your own history, but even if they aren’t… you can’t turn back time and a new authoritarian socialist state would not be the same as those found in the past.
Yeah, must be nostalgia for things like guaranteed food, housing, healthcare, education, and retirement. Old people in particular are really nostalgic for the times when they didn’t have to scavenge for food in the garbage and live under bridges. I just love how you just keep bleating about authoritarianism like a broken record. You literally live in an authoritarian capitalist state that’s destroying our planet while exploiting and murdering countless people across the globe to provide you with your quality of life. People like you are responsible for perpetuating the imperialist nightmare that’s western civilization. The blood of the world is on your hands.
You lived in the USSR? Fuck, that’s awesome.
I did, and that’s why I take a lot of offense when people slander it. People lived there just fine, and things were a hell of a lot better than they are today under capitalism.
The Anarchists’ fear of authoritarianism is completely valid. Nobody who lived under Mao and emigrated from China before the propaganda machine ramped up (before 2010) believes he was good, even though he was supported by the USSR. In fact, all the Chinese people I know are fiercely anti-communist, and I am a second-generation immigrant who is also fiercely anti-communist. (I support social democracy, and I hope that counts as leftist enough to be here?)
Besides, Mao and Stalin killed over a tens of million combined, and Mao’s cultural revolution caused the suicide of my grand-uncle, according to my dad.
You can also get a good idea what the USSR was like by looking at Belarus, which is arguably the former SSR that preserved socialism the best. After their leader, who thought that Vodka could cure COVID, was elected in a sham election, protests which lasted for months were responded to with what were considered to be human rights violations.
TL;DR Fears of authoritarianism are justified; and Belarus shows how the USSR was bad.
Edit: removed inaccurate part.
In order to get an accurate picture you really need to look at what happened to southern republics like Georgia or Kazakhstan. Westerners tend to focus on places like Ukraine or Poland and completely ignore the real horrors that followed the collapse.
Except it’s not given that capitalism is just as authoritarian and it’s responsible for far worse horrors than anything that ever happened under communism. The default state of the world isn’t some Platonic ideal of society, bu a living nightmare that subjugates vast majority of human population to a brutal rule of capitalists. Westerners generally don’t see the real horrors that prop up their own lifestyles.
Thanks to the wonder of capitalism roughly 3.5 million people die from lack of clean water, 1.5 million people die from vaccinable diseases, and 9 million people die from hunger each and every year. That’s over a 140 million deaths every decade.
Meanwhile, life expectancy actually increased under Mao. The context you seem to be missing is what living conditions in China were like prior to the revolution. You should really read up on that some time.
I have a good idea of what USSR was like because I actually lived there. And thinking Belarus today is an example of that is incredibly ignorant. This is how USSR handled pandemics.
TLDR you have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.