The demonization of Communism

[Toppler]

Where to begin? I am just a 17 year old boy from a currently burgeois family, however, I am getting sick from the propaganda we are currently being brainwashed in the media. I am from Slovakia, which was CSSR between the years of 1948-1989, and all of my older relatives, like most Slovaks, lived under the state socialist Eastern bloc regime. I have never lived under it for obvious reasons, but here, I must defend it because of the dissonance between the Western media's portrayal of Communist regimes as fascist-like regimes of terror, and the reality about which I've talked with my parents, grantparents and family acquitances about.

So, in short. Both my parents and grandparents lived under socialism in the CSSR, except for my mother who was born in the 1970s in the Ukrainian part of USSR. Nobody of them remembers any supposed "state terror" or "mass killing", although my dad remembers that some old woman he knew was really unhappy because during the Stalinist 1950s the goverment took her son for punishment to work in the uranium mines because she refused to let her farmland to be collectivised. My grandpa still remembers the 1950s fondly through, as it were his student days. Nobody remembers anybody being persecuted after the 1950s.

The advantages of socialism were: no poverty (everybody had a guaranteed job and even the minimum wage was more than enough for a decent life), cheap and high quality foodstufs (the standards were high, the sausages were pure meat instead of half soy, the milk was actual milk and not watered down shit), no shit from sweatshops (almost everything was Made in Czechoslovakia) an atmosphere of solidarity (people helped each other, the income equality probably played a large role in this), the goverment support of culture (thanks to the Communists there is now a "cultural house" in almost every town with more than 10 000 people), high quality domestic music (the radios were forbidden to play Western music after the 1968 Soviet invasion [you could still buy Western music in the record and casette shops through], so the domestic musician were more original), the good education and childraising (my dad rembebers his childhood fondly, he says that they spend most of their time doing mischiev outside instead of being glued to the TV or computers like kids nowadays the entire day) and low crime and atmosphere of safety (you could have walked on 4 AM at night on the street during socialism, and nobody would rob you), free quality heathcare and of course, free schooling etc.

There were disadvantages too: no freedom of travel to the West (it was really hard for an ordinary person do go to the West, unlike, say from Hungary, travel to Yugoslavia was frequent, but it required complicated procedures too, travel to other socialist countries was easy), the secret police StB (spying on citizens, having a network of informers, occasionaly doing arbitary petty repression such as cutting of a part of a TV antenna of some people because they though they must be recieving Austrian TV, during the 1950s even state terror), the double life most people had (basically pretending that the Communists have a light shining out of their rear end at work and school, then making sarcastic jokes at them at home), the fact that during the Stalinist 1950s you could get imprisoned for simply having the wrong family background, people getting executed at Stalinist show trials in the 1950s for political reasons, little freedom of speech (you could get prison for simply shouting the Slovak equivalent of "Husak is a dick" in the street or for drawing a caricature of an important politician), the Soviet invasion of 1968 shattering hopes of democratic socialism by Dubcek and turning the view of the people of the USSR from liberators to oppressors, the banning of Western songs in the radio, limited selection of Western music available as LPs or casettes, cca 3-5 years technological backwardness (up to mid 1985 our family had only a small BW TV and the domestic computers were available mostly in schools and being either ZX Spectrum clones such as Didaktik Gama or domestic computers that were basically like Spectrum with a shitty processor and monochrome graphics (PDM-85)), the fact that you had to wait 2 year on average for a car, the lines for mandarines, bananas and when the only quality toilet paper factory in the country burned down in mid 1980s and was not recovered for a few months, for toilet paper too etc.

So, in conclusion, it was a system just like any else. It was definitely not a system full of poverty and gulags (in fact the only gulag in the country was closed in 1961, when destalinization was complete, and communism pretty much eradicated poverty). I've seen some poll, I think from 2004, that showed 66 percents of people here say they lived better under socialism.

I don't think it was an utopia, but I think, for the working class it was a far more humane system (nobody died on the streets from cold and hunger in the winter, no homeless until the 80s when the system started collapsing) than the shit we have here today. Socialism was pretty bullshit, but this "democracy" is a far worse lie.

[Red Commissar]

Interesting account. What is the attitude in Slovakia to the old Czechslovakian government in general though? It seems you're showing me that indeed people are not pleased with their transition to the liberal democratic system and capitalism's effects on their social nets.

I remember seeing some stories from your neighbors in the Czech Republic about the issues the KSCM faces there and how the state opened up a "Victims of Communism" memorial. Is it the same in Slovakia?

[Toppler]

I don't know about any museum being build there, anyways, the KSC party still enjoy cca 15 percent voting support in Czech Republic I think so it is a bit of a parodox, the goverment enjoys building such "memorials" because it masks the fact that much of today's politicians are really just sold out ex-KSC members (basically opportuninsts, the kind of people who would support Hitler if it benefited them, with no backbone).

And the Czechs are generally more supportive of the current regime because they are better off than most Slovaks. The most nostalgia for communists is in the poorer regions (Ukraine, eastern Slovakia etc.).

There is a lot of anti-communism and neo-nazism here through, mostly because the young people who have grown up in the 1990s and don't talk with their parents and relatives about the past tend to get brainwashed by our current school history curicullum and media that basically blame communism for every bad thing present in the post-communist Slovakia (even through these ills appeared after the communists fell and neoliberal cronies set it (many of them opportunists who infested the communist party before the "Velvet revolution" came).

[Toppler]

I would post some links to articles and some pictures/music/videos relating to the old socialist regimes too, but I cannot do that yet.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

From going to Prague and Budapest I get the impression these museums are just tourist traps. Kind of funny, actually, you arrange tours for American tourists who pay a hefty fee to go look at the same statues of Stalin that the Hungarians or Czechs used to see any day, for free. That's capitalism for you.

[Toppler]

Yep, they are just tourist traps, and cheap propaganda too. And the Stalin statues were mostly taken away/demolished in 1961 too, so it wasn't like you saw them anywhere after destalinization anyways.

[RedSonRising]

See the first part sounds like a great progressive regime, but it's only great if you are lucky enough to have the right family background and occupation, as you later said. In a world of classlessness, such separations between decision-makers and the people within communities shouldn't exist, or at least not so vastly. You are correct in saying that it was a more humane system for the working class and that it had its drawbacks like any other system, but I think we are aiming for something unlike almost any other system in existence.


I really appreciated the personal account. Very detailed and informative. Thank you.

[Rakhmetov]

" The boys of capital, they ... chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century-- without exception-- has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement--from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the EMLN in El Salvador-- not one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.

It's as if the Wright brothers' first experiments with flying machines all failed because the automobile interests sabotaged each test flight. And then the good and god-fearing folk of the world looked upon these catastrophes, nodded their heads wisely, and intoned solemnly: Humankind shall never fly." Killing Hope by William Blum



http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II--Updated/dp/1567512526/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1295974733&sr=8-1

[Toppler]

See the first part sounds like a great progressive regime, but it's only great if you are lucky enough to have the right family background and occupation, as you later said.

That would more fit the current regime. The apparatchiks were better off - but the difference was far less than the rich-poor difference today. As some other poster on this forum wrote, the most unequal Eastern Bloc countries were about as unequal as the most equal capitalist ones. And not party members were some spoiled apparatchiks either - the party membership was more than a tenth of population in 1989, and probably a lot more before. My grandfather was a studied chemist, he worked in a chemical factory, but he was a party member too. On the other hand, nobody on my mother's side was a party member, yet they still lived good (through more modestly than the side of my family that is from Slovakia as Ukraine was never rich and my mother's side of the family lived in a small Western Ukrainian village [the poorest part] while my father and his side of the family lived in a small town in Slovakia)

The most dumb and tragic freature of the regime were probably the travel restrictions - and the fact you would get shot on the borders if you tried to go illegaly. Very dumb - we were talking with our history teacher about the socialist regime today, and she said that socialism would probably not collapse if they allowed travel to the West - as people would see the evils of the West too, not just the whitewashed American movie utopia - she managed to get to Netherlands somehow, and see, among other things, stuff like junkies dying on the street, and remembers saying to herself "I don't want to see this in our country, ever" (as even homelessness was unknown in the CSSR until the 1980s).

Maybe if the communists allowed the people to see uncensored misery of poor people in ghettos in the so called advanced "Western world" and the uncensored 3rd world poverty, people would not get drawn to the superficial shine of the western lifestyle (Mercedeses, Neon signs everywhere etc.) and would accept that even considering the disadvantages, living in a socialist country was pretty good.

The regime would be fantastic if - there was more freedom and no censorship, - the economy was a sort of market socialism (many here would call this counter-revolutionary, I know, but the reality is that everybody envied Hungary and Yugoslavia which had a market socialist system, worker self-management, more freedom, and no shortages [basic food was always available and high quality, but other stuff was always in demand, with queues for bananas, mandarin oranges, and as I said, when the toilet paper factory burned down also queues for toilet paper for a few months]) and - free foreign travel.

Is there any allowed way to add links for a newcomer? I would love to post some links, including some music from the socialist era, some pictures of goods manifactured during that era etc. but it would probably take some time for me until I hit the 25 posts mark.

Has anybody here read the articles written by Zsuzanna Clark, her husband's Neil Clark blog and Bruni de la Motte's articles? Both Zsuzanna and Bruni lived in Eastern Bloc countries, Hungary under Kadar and the GDR respectively. They pretty much tell the truth about Czechoslovakia too (even through here things were a lot more bittersweet, because of the shortages in the shops etc. ... still, the positives apply).

Still, capitalism sucks. There are half million unemployed people from the entire population of 5 million, chaos, every day news report some new murder, rape, theft, robbery ... the crime rate has quadrapled since 1989, and the general atmosphere of pessimism.

As many people here say, under socialism, towns were full of gray, ugly buildings, but the people were happy and their needs met. Nowadays, everybody is huddled in Tesco or at home glued to a computer screen, that is, when they aren't working, with a sad face. The old gray buildings were repainted, but the atmosphere is dreadful. Socialism, for all its faults, provided a sense of safety and purpose. I have grown up in a country with full shops, shiny new buildings and the new relative wealth of my family. Still, half of my family drinks, I see a lot of bums in the front of any supermarket, many of them, as my father told me, his ex-classmates who worked hard under socialism, even recieved awards, then lost jobs afterwards and sunk into despair.

[Toppler]

Also, many people think that Communist countries were "pre-industrial". That's bullshit - Czechoslovakia had the industrialization started in the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the 19th century, continued under the first CSR, and fully finished under socialism in the 1960s (hell, it was more instrialized than current China already in the mid-1950s, and even with the Stalinist unpleasantness of the 1950s the life for the average man was far better than of the average man in China now in 2010, from what my grandfather told me).

[Toppler]

As I have already surpassed the 25 post limit; here is some interesting stuff:

Some links, and music from the socialist era:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221064/Oppressive-grey-No-growing-communism-happiest-time-life.html

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2009/10/goulash-and-solidarity-as-happy-as.html

(This is about Hungary, but it applies to communist Czechoslovakia too, althought the socialism here was not as good, and definitely more restricting and authoriataritarian)

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2009/10/hungary-and-great-myth-of-1989.html

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-people-are-so-ostalgic-for.html

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2010/05/countries-unite-for-russias-victory-day.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/08/1989-berlin-wall

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2009/11/those-dreadful-communists.html

Some 80s music from the old CSSR, mostly the pop-rock band Elan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmoestEChoI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HesRB5gT5QI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3HITWfOkcA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiQMUnlGx48
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH4i9oZWbzY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqgLkUJLz3s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6aJNKZywLo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H9ym1sUChQ&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_stronger_r2-2r-12-HM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5WW869J7zM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmFwvr1ISaE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xhk-90Jb2c

[Tommy4ever]

Great thread Toppler. Some really interesting insights into Czechoslovakia. It is perhaps the most interesting of the Eastern Bloc States as it is the only country that was highly industrialised when it first became socialist. (I guess you could also count the DDR but it was so ravaged by war and the Soviet removal of much of its industrial equipment by its creation that it had some way to go).

I think that some of your relatives might be looking back with rose tinted glasses but it still sounds like a decent life. :)

[Toppler]

Well, much of the industry and infrastructure of CSR was destroyed in the WW 2, but this applies to all of Europe.

Were countries like Poland and Hungary really pre-industrial before state socialism through? I doubt that they were in the same sense as China, India, Latin America etc. Were they any less industrialized than Portugal and Greece at the same time?

[Tommy4ever]

Well, much of the industry and infrastructure of CSR was destroyed in the WW 2, but this applies to all of Europe.

Were countries like Poland and Hungary really pre-industrial before state socialism through? I doubt that they were in the same sense as China, India, Latin America etc. Were they any less industrialized than Portugal and Greece at the same time?

Hungary was almost entirely agricultural when it was taken over by the Stalinists.

Poland wasn't that industrial, certainly not to the same degree as Czechoslovakia.

You must also note that Poland and the DDR had to deal with much more destruction of their industry. Also, when Poland annexed the once highly industrial region of Silesia the Soviets striped this area of industry just as they did in the DDR.

[Toppler]

That's true. I know that state socialism in Poland was shit (permanent shortage of toilet paper, the first president was a NKVD agent), but if that bit about Hungary being almost entirely agricultural is true, then the Communists did a good job modernizing it (Rakosi was horrible, but Kadar was one of the best Communist leaders as you can read here http://www.anonym.to/?http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2009/10/goulash-and-solidarity-as-happy-as.html ).

And true, everybody looks at the past with rose colored glasses, including my parents and relatives. This does apply to everybody's past (if it was not atrocious), but considering the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968 by the USSR, it is not like the regime was adored. Most people started to miss it only after capitalism came and suddenly people discovered that having a job is not taken for granted in capitalism (unlike in socialist states), that capitalism does not mean Mercedeces for everyone, but economic fear, erosion of values, the destruction of our agriculture (under socialism the percentage of people employed in agriculture was 25 percent, now, "thanks" to shitty foreign imports and the closure of the state owned farms, it is just 2 percent, under socialism, CSSR was almost entirely self sufficient in food, very little imports, and high quality standards), worsening educational standard etc.

Anyways, the life in the CSSR was better than life in more than 70 percents of the world.

As the post-Soviet (not ex-CSSR) joke goes, what did capitalism do in 20 years that (state)socialism was not able to do in 70? Make socialism look good.

And the point I made still apllies. Regardless of their initial status, Communists brought modernization, equality and decent living standards to many countries. Yes, there were some queues. Yes, the flats were not exactly the best looking buildings. Yes, the political regime was not democratic. Despite all that, it was not a "failiure". The Comunists built up our country. If ugly flats and queues for imported fruit are the criteria for "failiure", then I can say capitalism fails because it keeps half of the world's population (50 percents of world's people live on less than 2 dollars a day, in PPP terms) in desperate poverty.

I know that Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia etc... were horrible. They were to communism what Francisco Macías Nguema's Equatorial Guinea (and Obiam now is not much better) was to capitalism. Criticising communism by mentioning them is about as intellectualy honest as saying capitalism is evil because Nguema was evil (not that capitalism is not an unjust system, just that it is intelectually dishonest to hate it because of Nguema just as it is dishonest to hate communism because of Pol Pot).

BTW, Pol Pot's atrocious fake "socialism" was reported in the CSSR media. It was not whitewashed, unlike Pinochet's Chile or the genocide of East Timorese by Indonesia in the West.

P.S - have you looked at the links too?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Interesting information. Kind of confirms some general beliefs I have:

(1) The Soviet intervention in Hungary and Czec were huge mistakes; the Brezhnev doctrine was basically a Socialist Monroe doctrine, and made E Europeans feel Imperialized instead of Liberated (therefore the republics fell like dominos when Gorbachev pulled Soviet backing-side note, hungary was obviously prior to the Brezhnev doctrine). The states would have been more likely to either return to socialism on their own, or maintained a socialist system that was independent of the USSR. The invasion instead was Moscow's way of dictating to other people what their government should be (I presume based on narrow national interest, ie the fear that w/out a buffer zone they were in trouble).
(2) Harsh soviet rules against emigration were unproductive; they were designed to keep "valued labourers" in who could get better wages in the West, but this was no pretext to shoot people trying to cross the border.
(3) Cheap imports from the 3rd world help to make Capitalism "efficient" and also appealing to people, keeping down inflation and providing the illusion of universal wealth (Its easy to be bourgeoise in places like America, England and W Germany when your working class is in places like Bangladesh, Ecuador and China)
(4) Socialist states were capable of criticizing fascist-socialisms, like the Khmer Rouge (mind you, Communist Vietnam invaded Rouge Cambodia, so that may have had something to do with it too)


As the post-Soviet (not ex-CSSR) joke goes, what did capitalism do in 20 years that (state)socialism was not able to do in 70? Make socialism look good.

This.

[Toppler]

(4) Socialist states were capable of criticizing fascist-socialisms, like the Khmer Rouge (mind you, Communist Vietnam invaded Rouge Cambodia, so that may have had something to do with it too)

Well, AFAIK, Khmer Rouge tried to invade-genocide Vietnam, and Vietnam turned an attempted full scale invasion of Vietnam by Cambodia to a full scale invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam.

[Ligeia]

You must also note that Poland and the DDR had to deal with much more destruction of their industry. Also, when Poland annexed the once highly industrial region of Silesia the Soviets striped this area of industry just as they did in the DDR.
What do you mean by that? I don't know that much about these regions' history. I thought there were industries build in the DDR and Poland (Silesia)?

Well, my father lived in a silesian village. He said life wasn't as bad as most make it out to be and some things were good enough to have been preserved until now (like the whole social infrastructure). He also wouldn't want to return to his home town because it's not as green, taken care of and full of people as it was before (the dissolution).
Just as a little anecdote...

[Toppler]

Well I think the industries were first dismantled, then rebuilt again. It was a question of reparations for the war loss, and Silesia was in Germany before the end of WW 2.

[Ligeia]

Well I think the industries were first dismantled, then rebuilt again. It was a question of reparations for the war loss, and Silesia was in Germany before the end of WW 2.
Not the whole of Silesia was german territory in pre-WW2.... I was talking about post-1945 Silesia, as well.
That's off-topic anyway.

To get a little bit on topic: I haven't met anybody who lived in DDR or any Soviet state who demonized this period or thought it was horrible. The only criticism I've heard of is that there was no private property, no means to make more money.

[Tommy4ever]

What do you mean by that? I don't know that much about these regions' history. I thought there were industries build in the DDR and Poland (Silesia)?

Well, my father lived in a silesian village. He said life wasn't as bad as most make it out to be and some things were good enough to have been preserved until now (like the whole social infrastructure). He also wouldn't want to return to his home town because it's not as green, taken care of and full of people as it was before (the dissolution).
Just as a little anecdote...

Before WWII Silesia was one of the greatest centres for industry in Germany. After WWII Silesia, just like East Germany, had its industrial capital stripped bare. Yes there were still factory buildings and the resources (like coal) there but most of the machinery etc was gone. These areas obviously also lost most of the expert labour as the German majority population was deported.

It seems that the communists are roundly hated in Poland, the Baltics, Rumania and Hungary, moderately liked in Russia and the former Czechoslovakia and very much liked in Eastern Germany.

Does this have to do with the level of political repression in these countries or their economic achievements? I know the DDR greatly outstripped the growth of the other Eastern Bloc countries and East Germany's GDP per capita was considerable higher in 1989.

[Toppler]

Hated in Hungary? http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2009/10/goulash-and-solidarity-as-happy-as.html http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2009/10/hungary-and-great-myth-of-1989.html http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2007/05/grave-matter.html Definitely not amongs those who experienced it, the neo-fascist youth is a different matter entirely.

And Rasyte is from Lithuania, yet he remembers the USSR fondly. The hate is mostly amongs young, brainwahed people who think communism is responsible for the bad state of their countries and who never lived under communism.

[syndicat]

So, in conclusion, it was a system just like any else.

yes, it was just like the capitalist west in that there was a boss class and workers were subordinate to them. a class system.

[Toppler]

More about Hungary: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221064/Oppressive-grey-No-growing-communism-happiest-time-life.html

(Zsuzanna Clark too)

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2008/10/hungary-is-counting-cost-of-capitalism.html

[robbo203]

More about Hungary: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221064/Oppressive-grey-No-growing-communism-happiest-time-life.html

(Zsuzanna Clark too)

http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2008/10/hungary-is-counting-cost-of-capitalism.html


See, the thing that gets to me about the sentiments expressed in this article and others is just how utterly conservative and bourgeois they really are. There is no sense of an argument about what William Morris called "how we live and how we might live". It is all backward-looking and gushily notalgic. It is ironic indeed that Clark should be reminiscing about the airbrushed joys of so called Hungarian communism in that essentially middle brow and most conservative paper of middle England, the Daily Mail

The claims she makes about Hungary could equally be made by a worker who lived through the 1950s in the UK. Unemployment was relatively low, there was a NHS, crimes levels were not the same as they are today. And yes there was the bonhomie and the camaraderie then too. Of course, while state capitalist countries like Hungary were said to have "guaranteed a job" for everyone - like I said before this is only true in a formal sense. In reality what happened is that some workers were simply kept on the payroll even if there was no work forthcoming. It is simply a way of manipulating the figures - disguised unemployment . In western capitalist countries they call it job creation schemes. Hungary if I remember correctly was one of the first state countires to acknowlege the existence of unemployment there.

Maybe life under pseudo communism wasnt all that bad as it is made out to be and that there was more going for it than bread queues and grim austerity. Workers in any situation have a capacity to humanise and make the best of things.

But lets for heavens sake not go to the opposite extreme of trying to hold up examples of life in places like Hungrary or the Soviet Union as though it were some kind of bed of roses for the workers. Because it wasnt and anyone who thinks it was is seriously deluding themselves . Not only that, they would also of course be begging that all important question - if it was so hunky dory under state capitalism how come the whole friggin system came to an end?

[Aurorus Ruber]

Not only that, they would also of course be begging that all important question - if it was so hunky dory under state capitalism how come the whole friggin system came to an end?

Quite. That's the one question that really stands out to me. That, and why the Communist regimes seemed to provoke so much rebellion and opposition throughout their existence.

[Crimson Commissar]

Quite. That's the one question that really stands out to me. That, and why the Communist regimes seemed to provoke so much rebellion and opposition throughout their existence.
I believe a big cause of the dissent in Socialist states is due to reactionary ideas that still linger in people's minds even after socialism comes to power. In Poland, for example, catholic fundamentalism and nationalism was pretty much the main reason people were protesting against socialism. It seems to be similar in the Baltic states too. Every damn anti-communist eastern european person I've talked to has been extremely reactionary, a radical nationalist, a fascist sympathiser and a christian fundamentalist. If these are the sort of people who are protesting against us, then we shouldn't hesitate to crush their pathetic counter-revolution. I don't understand why people are so concerned when the vast majority of people who acted against Soviet socialism were reactionaries who's only intention was to bring back capitalism, or even worse, fascism.

[Toppler]

What rebellion? The 1989 revolution was orchestrated by the StB secret police and sold out party members as they felt the system was going to collapse anyways and that they could get even more priviledged positions in the new goverment. See http://neilclark66.blogspot.com/2009/10/hungary-and-great-myth-of-1989.html . If you believe that 1989 was about "people's rebellion" then you are a fool.

The 1956 Hungarian revolution was about insane hardline Stalinism vs. liberal communism. The 1968 event in CSSR were not a rebellion, but a supression of liberal Dubcek's communism by the Soviet army. West sure loves to maintain the illusion that the communist regimes were always being revolted against.

If there was a restoration of monarchism in France after the French Revolution would you say burgeois democracy is bad because it fell to monarchism. There are countless palace coups going on in the world right now. The fact the socialist bloc fell in 1991 does not mean anything. Regime change does not mean the death of an idea and of the possibility of new socialist nations.

[Toppler]

I believe a big cause of the dissent in Socialist states is due to reactionary ideas that still linger in people's minds even after socialism comes to power. In Poland, for example, catholic fundamentalism and nationalism was pretty much the main reason people were protesting against socialism. It seems to be similar in the Baltic states too. Every damn anti-communist eastern european person I've talked to has been extremely reactionary, a radical nationalist, a fascist sympathiser and a christian fundamentalist. If these are the sort of people who are protesting against us, then we shouldn't hesitate to crush their pathetic counter-revolution. I don't understand why people are so concerned when the vast majority of people who acted against Soviet socialism were reactionaries who's only intention was to bring back capitalism, or even worse, fascism.

Well, not always. Poland had severe economical problems under socialism, including severe toilet paper shortages. Plus, many people wanted more freedom. But yes, many anti-communist people are not for freedom, but for fascism/nationalism/theocracy.

[Aurorus Ruber]

I believe a big cause of the dissent in Socialist states is due to reactionary ideas that still linger in people's minds even after socialism comes to power. In Poland, for example, catholic fundamentalism and nationalism was pretty much the main reason people were protesting against socialism. It seems to be similar in the Baltic states too. Every damn anti-communist eastern european person I've talked to has been extremely reactionary, a radical nationalist, a fascist sympathiser and a christian fundamentalist. If these are the sort of people who are protesting against us, then we shouldn't hesitate to crush their pathetic counter-revolution. I don't understand why people are so concerned when the vast majority of people who acted against Soviet socialism were reactionaries who's only intention was to bring back capitalism, or even worse, fascism.

In that case, the question is why tens of millions of people clung so tightly to these odious and discredited ideas for so long? If the Soviet system worked significantly better than the fascist or capitalist regimes that previously existed, one would expect people to drop such ideas like a hot potato and embrace socialism. It strikes me as somehow non-materialist thinking to suggest that millions of people (the bulk of a country even) would prefer to starve under an old regime rather than prosper under a new one simply for some vague notion of nationality.

[Crimson Commissar]

In that case, the question is why tens of millions of people clung so tightly to these odious and discredited ideas for so long? If the Soviet system worked significantly better than the fascist or capitalist regimes that previously existed, one would expect people to drop such ideas like a hot potato and embrace socialism. It strikes me as somehow non-materialist thinking to suggest that millions of people (the bulk of a country even) would prefer to starve under an old regime rather than prosper under a new one simply for some vague notion of nationality.
That's often how things work unfortunately. Many people simply will not abandon reactionary beliefs just because socialism came along. There will always be counter-revolutionaries for as long as socialism, and eventually communism, exists. It's our duty to destroy their movements and make sure they NEVER have any chance to come to power again.

Like I said before, religion played a huge part in it. People read the bible and saw all this crap that contradicted with socialism. Therefore, due to their extreme religious beliefs, they refused to accept socialism. This is also probably why so many Americans would never accept socialism if it suddenly came to power in the US.

[milk]

Well, AFAIK, Khmer Rouge tried to invade-genocide Vietnam, and Vietnam turned an attempted full scale invasion of Vietnam by Cambodia to a full scale invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam.

No. Instead of the DK government rethinking or adjusting its internal and failing polices of planning and distribution, the central authorities set in motion a series of violent interventions in the affairs of the regional administrations, or 'zones' of the country, at the local government structures, and as failures in production matters continued, and the circles or arrests became wider and wider, these failures were seen more and more as the work of subversion and wrecking by Vietnamese infiltrators or Khmer agents of the Vietnamese inside the Communist Party. As the intra-party conflicts became more paranoid and bloody (also coming to encompass ordinary people labouring in suspect zones), from 1977 the Khmer Rouge began cross-border attacks into Vietnam, eventually escalating to the point where, by 1978, to stop the interruption of their own reconstruction efforts, the Vietnamese decided 'regime change' in Phnom Penh was the best option.

[milk]

(4) Socialist states were capable of criticizing fascist-socialisms, like the Khmer Rouge (mind you, Communist Vietnam invaded Rouge Cambodia, so that may have had something to do with it too).

The Vietnamese offered fascist analogies to explain the Khmer Rouge regime, but later and in the main, framed their criticisms of them within their own Marxist-Leninist politics, and instead tied DK deviations, 'ultra-leftism' and excesses to the supposed worst influences of the Cultural Revolution. Both of them were inaccurate.

[MarxistMan]

Capitalism in USA is a hell of pain and poverty. My sister has some dental problem and some weeks she has to live with her dental pain, because she doesn't have money for dental work. I only earn 25 dollars and i haven't seen 100 dollars in a long time. There are millions of families who live with less than 300 dollars a month. We need Hugo Chavez to save us

.


Where to begin? I am just a 17 year old boy from a currently burgeois family, however, I am getting sick from the propaganda we are currently being brainwashed in the media. I am from Slovakia, which was CSSR between the years of 1948-1989, and all of my older relatives, like most Slovaks, lived under the state socialist Eastern bloc regime. I have never lived under it for obvious reasons, but here, I must defend it because of the dissonance between the Western media's portrayal of Communist regimes as fascist-like regimes of terror, and the reality about which I've talked with my parents, grantparents and family acquitances about.

So, in short. Both my parents and grandparents lived under socialism in the CSSR, except for my mother who was born in the 1970s in the Ukrainian part of USSR. Nobody of them remembers any supposed "state terror" or "mass killing", although my dad remembers that some old woman he knew was really unhappy because during the Stalinist 1950s the goverment took her son for punishment to work in the uranium mines because she refused to let her farmland to be collectivised. My grandpa still remembers the 1950s fondly through, as it were his student days. Nobody remembers anybody being persecuted after the 1950s.

The advantages of socialism were: no poverty (everybody had a guaranteed job and even the minimum wage was more than enough for a decent life), cheap and high quality foodstufs (the standards were high, the sausages were pure meat instead of half soy, the milk was actual milk and not watered down shit), no shit from sweatshops (almost everything was Made in Czechoslovakia) an atmosphere of solidarity (people helped each other, the income equality probably played a large role in this), the goverment support of culture (thanks to the Communists there is now a "cultural house" in almost every town with more than 10 000 people), high quality domestic music (the radios were forbidden to play Western music after the 1968 Soviet invasion [you could still buy Western music in the record and casette shops through], so the domestic musician were more original), the good education and childraising (my dad rembebers his childhood fondly, he says that they spend most of their time doing mischiev outside instead of being glued to the TV or computers like kids nowadays the entire day) and low crime and atmosphere of safety (you could have walked on 4 AM at night on the street during socialism, and nobody would rob you), free quality heathcare and of course, free schooling etc.

There were disadvantages too: no freedom of travel to the West (it was really hard for an ordinary person do go to the West, unlike, say from Hungary, travel to Yugoslavia was frequent, but it required complicated procedures too, travel to other socialist countries was easy), the secret police StB (spying on citizens, having a network of informers, occasionaly doing arbitary petty repression such as cutting of a part of a TV antenna of some people because they though they must be recieving Austrian TV, during the 1950s even state terror), the double life most people had (basically pretending that the Communists have a light shining out of their rear end at work and school, then making sarcastic jokes at them at home), the fact that during the Stalinist 1950s you could get imprisoned for simply having the wrong family background, people getting executed at Stalinist show trials in the 1950s for political reasons, little freedom of speech (you could get prison for simply shouting the Slovak equivalent of "Husak is a dick" in the street or for drawing a caricature of an important politician), the Soviet invasion of 1968 shattering hopes of democratic socialism by Dubcek and turning the view of the people of the USSR from liberators to oppressors, the banning of Western songs in the radio, limited selection of Western music available as LPs or casettes, cca 3-5 years technological backwardness (up to mid 1985 our family had only a small BW TV and the domestic computers were available mostly in schools and being either ZX Spectrum clones such as Didaktik Gama or domestic computers that were basically like Spectrum with a shitty processor and monochrome graphics (PDM-85)), the fact that you had to wait 2 year on average for a car, the lines for mandarines, bananas and when the only quality toilet paper factory in the country burned down in mid 1980s and was not recovered for a few months, for toilet paper too etc.

So, in conclusion, it was a system just like any else. It was definitely not a system full of poverty and gulags (in fact the only gulag in the country was closed in 1961, when destalinization was complete, and communism pretty much eradicated poverty). I've seen some poll, I think from 2004, that showed 66 percents of people here say they lived better under socialism.

I don't think it was an utopia, but I think, for the working class it was a far more humane system (nobody died on the streets from cold and hunger in the winter, no homeless until the 80s when the system started collapsing) than the shit we have here today. Socialism was pretty bullshit, but this "democracy" is a far worse lie.

[Le Socialiste]

Your account of life during pre-USSR collapse is interesting, to say the least. I can't help but wonder if the positives you mentioned necessarily cancel out the negatives commonly associated with living under the Soviet government. While unemployment may have been low and people led fairly comfortable lifestyles, the repressive nature of the regime is what most people (including myself) will latch onto. While there certainly may have been relative stability compared to the Capitalist-led rape of Central/Eastern Europe today, the governmental systems/styles were much too oppressive. Basic rights and liberties weren't met, and while people may not have had to deal with lack of health-care and education, the Stalinization of the region was enough to reverse any potential gains made under the Russian state (I'm no fan of Stalin, or his ideology).

Additionally, the Soviets dominated and stifled any socialist/communist-led dissent, going so far as to entrench itself internationally in many Communist and Socialist parties. It became less about the furtherance of the workers-led revolution, and more about sociopolitical/economic clout. Its interference in the Spanish Civil War (an event I pay particularly close attention to) led to a crackdown on any anti-Stalinist socialist, communist, anarchist or syndicalist party/organization - resulting in the collapse of the peoples' revolution there and Franco's subsequent victory. There are numerous other examples of this, but this is the one that immediately comes to mind.

I'm curious - is your overall view of the Soviet Union positive, negative, or neutral? Nothing that I said above is meant to insult or offend (just thought I'd put that out there). For the record, it's always great to hear from those who have either lived or had relatives who lived within the USSR/Eastern bloc. Historical accounts are nice, but personal accounts are better.

[Impulse97]

I think I'm gonna have to agree with Le Socialiste here. It seems to me that while the quality of life and reduction of inequality was quite good, the repression was inexcusable.

One thing that I see as important is the fact that we can use the USSR and Eastern Bloc to learn how to fix Socialism in the future. For all their faults these nations where a big step in advancing Communism. I think most future Socialist states will be able to avoid the mistakes of the USSR etc. Perhaps, that fact will help win the people over.:hammersickle::che::hammersickle:

[Toppler]

My general view of the USSR is fairly positive, I don't like an unipolar, USA dominated world.

And the repression - it was definitely not Stalin level. The goverment control was higher than in the West, but cultural imperialism lower. My father says that we weren't having forced Soviet movies, music, culture etc. down our throats, unlike what is going on now, when radio stations are playing Lady Gaga all day and night long and the TV is full of mindless reality shows instead of documentaries which were made frequently under socialism. And seriously, I don't mind the goverment restricting freedom of the speech when scenes like this occur in capitalist nations http://www.mumbailocal.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Dharavi-Slum-Mumbai-1.jpg http://blogs.yogajournal.com/youthaids/dharavi-slum.jpg WARNING: DISGUSTING AND NOT SAFE FOR WORK http://www.rotten.com/library/crime/prison/abu-ghraib/ . For me human rights like the right to food and shelter are a priority. Why is "the largest democracy in the world" India not condemned for letting hundreds of millions of kids starve while Eastern Bloc goverments were condemned for violating "freedom of speech" etc. Not that I desire repression. But considering the situation in the world repression is least concern.

Also, I think you are using the word "Stalinist" too liberally. The administration cannot really be called "Stalinist" after 1960. And in 1968 there were attempts in liberalization, and sucessful, but crushed by tanks later...

That is why I'll always admire Dubcek. Abolished censorship, repressions, made the socialist economy run better. His dream was crushed by Brezhnev's tanks, at least it was without a declaration of war or major bloodshed.

And I would say the level of surveillance using cameras, data mining, ECHELON etc... is actually higher now than under socialism. While StB agents used crude phone tapping machines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IDET2007_Jitka_phone_tapping_device.jpg such as "Jitka", the goverment in "modern" "Western" "englightened" countries can tap anybody's mobile with no effort. StB spied on only those citizens who were classified as potentially dangerous for the state, now, in the digital age, goverment can spy on anyone.

[Toppler]

By the way, the man in my avatar/profile picture is Alexander Dubček.

[RedScare]

You won't find any big fans of Brezhnev here, I hope. The bastard let the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc stagnate and rot underneath him.

[Toppler]

You won't find any big fans of Brezhnev here, I hope. The bastard let the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc stagnate and rot underneath him.

I know. He was still better than any US sponsored rightist military dictator in the Latin America (just see this http://friendlydictators.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=21512 , this is such sadistic shit that Hitler would be disgusted with, the headline "Castrated, Then Thrown Down A Live Volcano: The Work of USA Vampire Dictator"says all), and while the economy and society stagnated under him, at least the social safeties remained stable along with the fairly high living standard, he was an asshole, but at least he was not actively, sadistically evil, just a bumbling, stupid, control-freak bureucrat.

Anyways, even the bad 1968 invasion just restored the stagnating Brezhnevite system, as opposed to US interventions which tend to install fascist, sadistic dictatorships (the USSR under Brezhnev just enforced the same system in the Eastern Bloc as was present in the USSR under Brezhnev himself, while USA maintains a relatively affluent burgeois democracy at home while it supported sadistic dictatiorships abroad, basically, if USA installed borgeois democracies in Latin America then it would be at least as moral as the USSR).

And if somebody mentions secret police in the EB to you as an attempt to discredit communism, mentioned that a US pet dictator has made millions by selling the blood of starving peasants and has castrated and thrown a man live into a volcano. Even Stalin didn't do this type of shit. Not that I defend the secret police, but still, it was nothing like rightist death squads, at least not after the 1930s in the USSR.

[Toppler]

By the way, if anybody wanted a HDI table here it is, through the scores are not comparable to present scores as the methodology changed over time, here it is for 1987-1989, when socialist countries started to severely decline, but they have still not collapsed
http://www.ondrias.sk/images/1.bmp .

Anyways, back then CSSR was 1 place above USSR (I think it had something to do with rejecting katastroika) and the 24. most advanced country in the world (now Slovakia is 31. and Czech Republic 28., it was not long time ago that we were 45.).

The richest socialist bloc country, GDR, was 20th most advanced country in the world, 9 places below FRG, but this is not surprising considering the decline of the socialist bloc by that time and the low size of GDR compared to the FRG, meaning less natural resources.

Still, as you can see, the claims that people in socialist countries lived in "shitty third world conditions" is disproven not only by the testimonies of people who lived there, or their relatives lived there, but also by UN data.

[Toppler]

It is interesting too that the GDR is only 2 places below the USA (and 1 place above Greece, 2 places above Hong Kong, only 1 place below Israel [if the miserable quality of life for the Palestinians in Israel was counted into it then it would probably far higher up than Israel, even considering Stasi repression it still respected human rights more and did not commit a genocide, unlike Israel]and it didn't need to use global sweatshop 3rd world slavery for achieving a good living standard).