Andrei Suslenkou, director for ideological work at the Minsk Tractor Factory, is proudly showing off the benefits his company offers, at low or no cost, to more than 30,000 workers and retirees. At the plant’s health clinic, 560 doctors and staff use sleek Western equipment to provide care from routine checkups to surgery, including laser eyesight correction. A Palace of Culture opposite the factory’s ornate, Stalin-era gates includes a plush theater wired for light and sound. It just hosted a concert in honor of the “Day of Machine Builders.” Outside the capital, a woodland sanatorium provides cures, vacations, and summer camps for 300 employees’ kids at a time. “They were smart professionals back then who set up these social services,” says Suslenkou, adding that he audited the system Soviet planners made for the factory and found little “excess” to cut.
Basically shows how good Belarus has had it compared to every other ex-Soviet state up to now. Just look at this graph.
I mostly actually agree with you here. This is where all Soviet nations IMO went at least somewhat wrong, because power structures became immovable.
Thereby they themselves created the disillusionment within their citizens which in the end contributed in many ways towards the downfall of the USSR.
Although I still wouldn't completely condemn them because of this either. I think Parenti gives the USSR a fair shake, so to say, in Blackshirts and Reds, when it comes to problems they had further developing society.
As a side note: I do think the USSR had forms of recalling representatives and shit and other forms of power delegation, which might not seem familiar to us, but if IIRC they unfortunately became more of a formality than much else.(pls don't nail me on this, bit shaky on my history when it comes to the details)
My main point: I was just stating that there is just a need for some form of central organization to firstly immediately defend your revolution and if successful to further your classes interests and develop society.
But how we organize this so that the whole of society stays engaged and is held accountable to each other is probably one of the biggest questions that I think is very hard to answer and maybe each revolution needs to answer somewhat on its own as well.
I mostly actually agree with you here. This is where all Soviet nations IMO went at least somewhat wrong, because power structures became immovable.
Thereby they themselves created the disillusionment within their citizens which in the end contributed in many ways towards the downfall of the USSR.
Although I still wouldn't completely condemn them because of this either. I think Parenti gives the USSR a fair shake, so to say, in Blackshirts and Reds, when it comes to problems they had further developing society.
As a side note: I do think the USSR had forms of recalling representatives and shit and other forms of power delegation, which might not seem familiar to us, but if IIRC they unfortunately became more of a formality than much else.(pls don't nail me on this, bit shaky on my history when it comes to the details)
My main point: I was just stating that there is just a need for some form of central organization to firstly immediately defend your revolution and if successful to further your classes interests and develop society.
But how we organize this so that the whole of society stays engaged and is held accountable to each other is probably one of the biggest questions that I think is very hard to answer and maybe each revolution needs to answer somewhat on its own as well.
Btw I didn't downvote you. :sankara-salute: