I’m going to stick with the countless eye-witness reports and first hand experiences of older people who lived through it over the American lie machine pretty much any day of the week.
Since you care oh so much about what other people think, particularly from the people that actually lived in communism, you will 100% change your view if the majority of them have a positive opinion right? Yes? Yessssss? (I doubt it, but let's get some real data in here shall we?)
Reflecting back on the breakup of the Soviet Union that happened 22 years ago next week, residents in seven out of 11 countries that were part of the union are more likely to believe its collapse harmed their countries than benefited them. Only Azerbaijanis, Kazakhstanis, and Turkmens are more likely to see benefit than harm from the breakup. Georgians are divided.
A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country’s economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country’s switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary’s integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process.
The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.
Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an “illegitimate state.” In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.
Roughly 28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime, according to a poll conducted by the polling institute SC&C and released Sunday.
The majority of Russians polled in a 2016 study said they would prefer living under the old Soviet Union and would like to see the socialist system and the Soviet state restored.
The claims you have read in reddit comments are almost always made by Americans, whose brains are riddled with red scare brainworms and are completely devoid of any knowledge or understand of what the left thinks in Europe, because Americans do not have a left.
Let's end on something a bit more scientific than polls of people's feelings:
In 28 of 30 comparisons between countries at similar levels of economic development, socialist countries showed more favorable PQL outcomes.
I think that should just about cover it all. I don't think any of this will change your mind because you're clearly ideologically committed to your anticommunist brainworms, but someone with more intelligence and less stubbornness might happen by that has fewer personal failings.
I can't find it right now but Ghodsee regular brings up in interviews that a (I think) World Bank study of post re-united Germany showed that unification was so disadvantageous to the former GDR that years later the population's children were stunted in height at levels typically found in countries that experienced famine, or something like that.
reactionaries like you believe everything the CIA says today, then disbelieves everything they declassify 60 years later. Which is funny, since they only declassify things once they're low stakes, and have fallen out of public attention, and no longer matter strategically. If the CIA said "we have nothing to do with this coup against socialists in Latin America" 60 years ago, you'd have believed them. But if today they were like "yeah we totally did that shit." suddenly you're willing to call them The Lie Machine. You believe them whenever they are lying, and you disbelieve them whenever they finally admit the truth. This is because you believe what is convenient to your reactionary anti-worker national chauvinist ideology.
FWIW, even though I think @Awoo@hexbear.net is probably right in her assessment that you won't, it would genuinely be the coolest shit you ever did if you read the replies to your comment, accepted even some of the maelstrom of data provided that undermines what you said, and opened yourself up just the tiniest little bit to the pathway out of the propagandized worldview you've been blasted with your entire life.
Yeah. It’s a lot to go through and a lot more than I was expecting. I’m open to being wrong here, most of the people I’ve met don’t seem to indicate anything similar to the above, but that could still be broadly anecdotal. Certainly a lot to think about and read up on here, and I’m not anti communist at all, but I think that WWII alone is enough for me to be anti-Stalin and make me less likely to believe that his people were treated well. I could be wrong there too.
I’ll point out though that I’m not making an argument. It’s literally impossible to “undermine” someone’s experience unless they’re lying about it. And I’m more likely to believe someone about their experience over the numbers which describe what their experience should have been. I still see some humility in that, but I would understand if not everyone does
What experiences are you actually talking about? Because I will gladly take an hour out of my day just to fish for a few first-hand examples of people who lived in the USSR talking about how much better life was before its dissolution.
There's a popular youtube channel called Bald and Bankrupt, and the guy who does it generally sucks, but almost universally whenever he talks to someone who actually lived in the USSR, they talk about how much better it was before its dissolution. There's also statues and portraits of Stalin all over the dang place.
For the sake of covering "both sides", I did find another clip while skimming of a woman talking about how her family was sent to Siberia by Stalin (as soon as she said this, I knew her family was probably very wealthy, which she confirmed immediately, lol). Her family wasn't sent to a gulag, but rather to another village. Eventually they were allowed to return. If you'd like to know more about what the kulaks did to deserve being sent to another village, and you're not aware already... well, that's a whole other can of worms that frankly I don't feel like getting into right now. But basically, by withholding the harvest of crops en masse from the people who needed them for the sake of their own profit, the kulaks - who were dissatisfied with communist redistribution of wealth (kulak means a person who is wealthy enough to own land and hire labor) - caused the deaths of many, many citizens of the USSR.
There are more examples of older folks speaking positively about the USSR, but that's all I feel like combing through right now.
Anyway, I wanna go play video games now. I hope some of this was of actual interest to you, and helps you feel a little more open-minded. I appreciate you actually making the effort to confront your viewpoint, not many people make that step.
I’m going to stick with the countless eye-witness reports and first hand experiences of older people who lived through it over the American lie machine pretty much any day of the week.
Since you care oh so much about what other people think, particularly from the people that actually lived in communism, you will 100% change your view if the majority of them have a positive opinion right? Yes? Yessssss? (I doubt it, but let's get some real data in here shall we?)
7 out of 11 countries believe the end of the USSR harmed their countries rather than benefited them
Hungary: 72% of Hungarians say they are worse off today economically than under communism
Romania: 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism
Germany: more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR
28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime
81% of Serbians believe they lived best in Yugoslavia
Majority of Russians
The claims you have read in reddit comments are almost always made by Americans, whose brains are riddled with red scare brainworms and are completely devoid of any knowledge or understand of what the left thinks in Europe, because Americans do not have a left.
Let's end on something a bit more scientific than polls of people's feelings:
Socialist countries objectively provide a better quality of life to their populations than capitalist countries when compared at an equal level of development
I think that should just about cover it all. I don't think any of this will change your mind because you're clearly ideologically committed to your anticommunist brainworms, but someone with more intelligence and less stubbornness might happen by that has fewer personal failings.
Drops mic
I can't find it right now but Ghodsee regular brings up in interviews that a (I think) World Bank study of post re-united Germany showed that unification was so disadvantageous to the former GDR that years later the population's children were stunted in height at levels typically found in countries that experienced famine, or something like that.
reactionaries like you believe everything the CIA says today, then disbelieves everything they declassify 60 years later. Which is funny, since they only declassify things once they're low stakes, and have fallen out of public attention, and no longer matter strategically. If the CIA said "we have nothing to do with this coup against socialists in Latin America" 60 years ago, you'd have believed them. But if today they were like "yeah we totally did that shit." suddenly you're willing to call them The Lie Machine. You believe them whenever they are lying, and you disbelieve them whenever they finally admit the truth. This is because you believe what is convenient to your reactionary anti-worker national chauvinist ideology.
most people in the USSR voted to preserve it
Damn, this pretty much sums up modern libs and reactionaries in a sentence.
deleted by creator
FWIW, even though I think @Awoo@hexbear.net is probably right in her assessment that you won't, it would genuinely be the coolest shit you ever did if you read the replies to your comment, accepted even some of the maelstrom of data provided that undermines what you said, and opened yourself up just the tiniest little bit to the pathway out of the propagandized worldview you've been blasted with your entire life.
Yeah. It’s a lot to go through and a lot more than I was expecting. I’m open to being wrong here, most of the people I’ve met don’t seem to indicate anything similar to the above, but that could still be broadly anecdotal. Certainly a lot to think about and read up on here, and I’m not anti communist at all, but I think that WWII alone is enough for me to be anti-Stalin and make me less likely to believe that his people were treated well. I could be wrong there too.
I’ll point out though that I’m not making an argument. It’s literally impossible to “undermine” someone’s experience unless they’re lying about it. And I’m more likely to believe someone about their experience over the numbers which describe what their experience should have been. I still see some humility in that, but I would understand if not everyone does
What experiences are you actually talking about? Because I will gladly take an hour out of my day just to fish for a few first-hand examples of people who lived in the USSR talking about how much better life was before its dissolution.
There's a popular youtube channel called Bald and Bankrupt, and the guy who does it generally sucks, but almost universally whenever he talks to someone who actually lived in the USSR, they talk about how much better it was before its dissolution. There's also statues and portraits of Stalin all over the dang place.
"Many old people like me lived better in the USSR" ...later on in the video... "In the USSR it was better ... [now] the poor people have to pay for their apartments, they don't have enough for medicine, don't have enough for housing fees"
Here is a woman who describes her time in the USSR as "living wonderfully" before restructuring.
Here is a woman who talks about how her community was cooperative right up until the USSR's collapse. Later in the video another woman talks about being forced from her home overnight while the USSR was being picked apart in 1992.
"After the collapse of the Soviet Union, everything in Russia became dirty"
For the sake of covering "both sides", I did find another clip while skimming of a woman talking about how her family was sent to Siberia by Stalin (as soon as she said this, I knew her family was probably very wealthy, which she confirmed immediately, lol). Her family wasn't sent to a gulag, but rather to another village. Eventually they were allowed to return. If you'd like to know more about what the kulaks did to deserve being sent to another village, and you're not aware already... well, that's a whole other can of worms that frankly I don't feel like getting into right now. But basically, by withholding the harvest of crops en masse from the people who needed them for the sake of their own profit, the kulaks - who were dissatisfied with communist redistribution of wealth (kulak means a person who is wealthy enough to own land and hire labor) - caused the deaths of many, many citizens of the USSR.
There are more examples of older folks speaking positively about the USSR, but that's all I feel like combing through right now.
Anyway, I wanna go play video games now. I hope some of this was of actual interest to you, and helps you feel a little more open-minded. I appreciate you actually making the effort to confront your viewpoint, not many people make that step.
Big "I'm going with the constitution and the rule of law" energy
We should have a Jennifer Rubin emote. I would use it all the time
I’m sure the “constitution and rule of law” types are against the illegal dissolution of the Soviet Union. Right?
Sorry Padme. That's just the rules based world order sweaty
Did you request it at !emoji@hexbear.net?