From the book "Stalin" the seminal work of Historian Domenico Losurdo

  • ddkman@lemm.ee
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    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Yes, this is an awful thing phased as a good one. "The standard of living in russia in 1950 was so incredibly low, that not even an entire world war made all that much of a difference in the standard of livng."

      • Dolores [love/loves]
        ·
        1 year ago

        The US that had a couple hundred years of head start

        tsarist russia wasn't a barren patch of dirt, they'd also collected a bunch of capital from imperialism, it was certainly behind the US or germany in the 1890s but not so severely as to constitute 'hundreds of years' of development. the bolsheviks actually in large part came from and used a genuine industrial proletariat, in contrast to China which had to have a much higher reliance on the peasantry. let's not muddle our narratives of communist development here

          • Dolores [love/loves]
            ·
            1 year ago

            that Stalin quote is a perfect support for what i said, thanks!

            i'm urging against exaggeration, i'm not ignorant of the civil war & challenges of industrialization

          • Sinister [none/use name, comrade/them]B
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            1 year ago

            Besides the Tsars literally prevented industrialization like many other european royalties (like poland or two sicilies for example). So there were only foreign-owned industrial zones in the big cities.

    • SuperNovaCouchGuy2 [any]
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      1 year ago

      DAE PENSIONS AND SOCIAL SAFETY NETS = LOW STANDARD OF LIVING HURR

      Least illiterate neoliberal

      • ddkman@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Yeah have you ever lived in the USSR? Have you ever been to a post soviet country? Yeah...

        • ilyenkov [she/her, they/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          post soviet

          Damn, countries suck AFTER the socialist system was abandoned and everything was looted by liberal vultures??????????????????

        • Omegamint [comrade/them, doe/deer]
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          1 year ago

          The USSR took a backwater state that was still stuck in feudalism (meaning fucking serfdom) and within a single human generation sent the first person into space. They started from a way worse state than the west and made incredible achievements. They did this without the help of first world powers, and were even hindered by constant economic warfare to boot.

          Yeah, you can visit ex Soviet states and see the degradation. Most of their failing infrastructure was built under Soviet planning and has since gone to rot. Economic liberalization has brought nothing to the table, and has obviously failed utterly at whatever promises we're made initially.

          None of what I'm saying is even debatable. The economic truths of the USSR are easily learned. YOU are a western chauvinist dipshit who looks at the achievements of actual socialism and without a single bit of historical material understanding spouts some ignorant bullshit. I'll be clear: save your breath to instead talk about whatever authoritarian atrocities were supposedly dealt out. When you talk about the economic failures of the USSR you are treading on ahistorical bullshit that has no real ground.

        • SuperNovaCouchGuy2 [any]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yes I do wish I lived in the USSR at it's prime. gigachad

          Also it's a bit rich to use the "muh post soviet poverty shit hole" line when it was the wests neoliberal economic shock doctrine that caused such a tragedy in the first place.

          • ddkman@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Yes because you have no idea... Which is fine, but then you should be less confident about your world views on isolated political systems full of self propaganda...

            • Omegamint [comrade/them, doe/deer]
              ·
              1 year ago

              No one here is being propagandized. You do not get Marxist propaganda defending the USSR in the west. Almost all of us grew up with the very opposite. The majority of us have had to spend our own time reading and learning. Sorry mate, but you are the one steeped in propaganda and I'd love for you to prove otherwise

                • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
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                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  we had an 80s lada riva when i was a kid
                  it was fine
                  my mum preferred it to the austin montego we had next

                • Omegamint [comrade/them, doe/deer]
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  Most of us have, obviously. Please, educate me on your experience with soviet cars.

                  Not that I give a shit. I don't know if you've noticed but cars haven't been a very intelligent mode of transportation for modern civilization, given the fact that they're wildly inefficient and the fuel they burn is literally destroying the worlds ecosystem. Guess there's trains though, right? Can't imagine the Soviets being much good at trains though. I wonder how the Chinese are doing with trains?

                • Goadstool
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                  2 months ago

                  deleted by creator

                • Fuckass
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                  1 year ago

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            • puff [comrade/them]
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              1 year ago

              you should be less confident about your world views on isolated political systems full of self propaganda...

              Oh the irony.

            • SuperNovaCouchGuy2 [any]
              ·
              1 year ago

              Yes that's true... I have no idea about the sheer trauma... Of having to share 1 communal toothbrush with the entire city... Or when Stalin took out his big spoon and ate literally 70% of everyone's cheerios in one bite... Truly horrible...

            • Fuckass
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              1 year ago

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          • ddkman@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Yes because this is how geopolitics work. The USSR basically entirely in Europe. The living standards should be comparable to what europe was like. And not what africa was like. Or Mars.

                • Ossay [he/him]
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                  1 year ago

                  man got owned so hard he dropped the mask, went straight for homophobia, then dropped the dorkiest line i've ever read on lemmy lmao

                  • Fuckass
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                    1 year ago

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                • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]
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                  1 year ago

                  I hardly think the guy who beat the nazis and raised standards of living in the USSR from borderline starvation to comparable with western Europe in a couple decades a failure. There were regular famines before Stalin; after Stalin there were none until capitalism reversed all that progress, immiserated the populace, and decreased all measurements of human development by similar numbers to WWII.

                  The CIA admits he wasn't a dictator, merely representing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

            • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
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              1 year ago

              The living standards should be comparable to what europe was like. And not what africa was like. Or Mars.

              I don't think geographic location is as significant as a country's, you know, history. Just because they were in Europe doesn't mean that they were starting out on equal footing. If you compare the state of Russia under the tsar to somewhere like Britain or France, then it's clear that the Soviets were starting from a disadvantage. Moreover, they were under constant economic and military threats from most of the developed world. In spite of all of that, they were able to develop quickly enough to defeat the Nazis and become a global superpower.

            • Staines [they/them]
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              1 year ago

              I'm curious, what do you mean by low living standards?

              What do you think people were lacking?

              • Fuckass
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                1 year ago

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            • Awoo [she/her]
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              1 year ago

              This is a child's understanding of how development works.

                • NPa [he/him]
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                  1 year ago

                  smuglord Since Russia has several tiles inside Europe, they should have a permanent +5 to industry from the Occidental Brainpan trait.

            • Fuckass
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              1 year ago

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        • AbbysMuscles [she/her]
          ·
          1 year ago

          If you look for it, you can find a video of children offering themselves up as prostitutes in post-Soviet collapse Russia. Please really stop and think about what would force someone to have to do that. When we think of some generic image of an Eastern Bloc, post-Soviet shithole, whatever your mental picture is wasn't created by that nation. You're thinking of a post-collapse nation. We have our own in America called the Rust Belt. We don't blame the existence of ford and general motors as causing the dilapidation of Detroit. Their departure and subsequent economic collapse destroyed that region. It's a similar story writ large all over the former Second World.

          And sure, Soviet cars sucked. Fortunately most people didn't need them.

        • Fuckass
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          1 year ago

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    • CyborgMarx [any, any]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      Making shit up and hoping no one will notice huh? You really aren't giving it your best

      The Soviet Union was the fastest industrializing state in the interwar period, come up with better propaganda

    • Awoo [she/her]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Lmao mate you can't just make shit up what are you doing. Read a fucking book.

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, Russia was just a dirt farm and the Nazis killing 27 million people was just kinda whatevs. I have a serious conception of history.