• finitebanjo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    edit-2
    14 hours ago

    Socialism by its barest definition is great.

    Socialism as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is a little sketchier because it makes a lot of unrealistic assumptions about human nature and is just generally super hard to implement without creating a power vacuum.

    Socialism as in the USSR’s Socialism is a century old practice of the cruellest and most war hungry culture imagineable, having taken advantage of the afforementioned power vacuum to starve and torture millions at home, ally with the Nazis in WWII and then change sides halfway through, tear down democracies around the globe, and push us all the closest we have ever been to thermonuclear annihilation. A threat so great that even 30 years into its grave is still a great stone over our heads, having crafted a world power balance that will threaten our destruction for generations to come.

    But Socialism by its barest definition is great.

    • PugJesus@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      2 hours ago

      Socialism as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is a little sketchier because it makes a lot of unrealistic assumptions about human nature and is just generally super hard to implement without creating a power vacuum.

      Marx’s general proposals for the implementation of a socialist government:

      1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

      2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

      3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.

      4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

      5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

      6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

      7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

      8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

      9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries: gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.

      10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc., etc.

      Which of those do you think is hard to implement or makes unrealistic assumptions about human nature?

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      5 hours ago

      Socialism as outlined in Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is a little sketchier because it makes a lot of unrealistic assumptions about human nature and is just generally super hard to implement without creating a power vacuum.

      And is still pretty vague. There was a lot of colouring in for the Bolsheviks to do.

      Socialism as in the USSR’s Socialism is a century old practice of the cruellest and most war hungry culture imagineable, having taken advantage of the afforementioned power vacuum to starve and torture millions at home, ally with the Nazis in WWII and then change sides halfway through, tear down democracies around the globe, and push us all the closest we have ever been to thermonuclear annihilation. A threat so great that even 30 years into its grave is still a great stone over our heads, having crafted a world power balance that will threaten our destruction for generations to come.

      I’m glad it fell (plz don’t ban), but there’s hella artistic licence there.

      The power vacuum came from the Tsar. They were always enemies of the Nazis, although they did temporarily agree not to fight them, and then afterwards they basically won the war themselves. The US went first with the nukes. I don’t even know what you mean about the current power balance - Russia is laughably weak, China is behind where it would have been if it took the Japan path. And, the thing about their cruel culture just sounds like bigotry.

      • PugJesus@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 hours ago

        The power vacuum came from the Tsar.

        The Bolsheviks literally couped the democratically elected and socialist post-Tsar government of Russia, kickstarting several years of civil war.

        They were always enemies of the Nazis, although they did temporarily agree not to fight them,

        Funny, then, that they invaded Poland and the Baltics in tandem with the Nazis and spent several years supplying the Nazi war machine.

        and then afterwards they basically won the war themselves.

        Fucking what.

        Even Stalin regarded the Soviet position as unwinnable without the Western Allies.

    • MathiasTCK@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      13 hours ago

      My dad was Finnish, and I think it helps to remember, Finns were fighting Russians before and during the time Russia called itself Communist and Socialist. The western side of that divide, the Nordic countries, practiced a very different version of “socialism”, with democracy, and they seem to be reaping a lot of benefits.

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      12 hours ago

      Yeah, and capitalism has never lead to the toppling of foreign democracies or threatened thermonuclear annihilation

      Ah, shit wait

        • Deceptichum@quokk.au
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          12 hours ago

          Gonna go bomb a wedding, maybe torture some Muslims at Gitmo? You sick fucks can’t go a year without invading a country or brutally toppling a government. What’s the longest you ever not been in a war/conflict/or any other word you created to downplay your crimes?

          bUt TrUmP iS tHe OnLy PrObLeM wItH aMeRicA

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            5 hours ago

            Yes, you have several EmAiLs to complain about instead of actually addressing anything. I doubt anyone here thinks the US is perfect, but that’s not the question.

            • Deceptichum@quokk.au
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              4 hours ago

              I did address something, I addressed that the US is everything that American thought about the Soviets.

              The question had noting to do with perfect, the question was about unmistakable evil.

    • dandylion@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      13 hours ago

      “Socialism by its barest definition is great.” That’s what I thought too until I learned about the USSR’s Socialism and how it led to starvation, torture, war, and nearly caused a nuclear apocalypse. It’s easy to romanticize socialism in theory, but we must remember the horrors it has caused in practice.