Why "everybody knows"

[Toppler]

- that socialist countries were full of mass poverty
- that socialist countries were starving
- that the main concern of average USSR citizen/Eastern Bloc citizen was "repression by the evil goverment"
- that everybody was a peasant in socialist countries
?
None of these things are true, yet even most Western leftists do not challenge them. Instead they respond with some bullshit about how "It is all true but it wasn't really socialism!". If anybody bothered to actually ask someone who lived under socialism or at least read some fucking UN statistics, they wouldn't believe this bullshit. Or is the totalitarian capitalist propaganda so deeply ingrained into the brains of "priviledged Western people" that they don't bother to even check the information they are told is true?

See an example of this:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/some-good-reasons-t20650/index.html

I fucking curse every "leftist" who respons to such slander with "err, not socialism". It is your fucking duty to defend the legacy of the nations who brought up millions from poverty, educated everybody and presented an alternative to capitalism. What has your "nice anarchist/trotskyist etc. communism" done?

[PhoenixAsh]

well...for one they did not start a crypto-capitalist state which basically prevented socialism from getting a foot n the ground?

I have no intention of getting even into a debate we for obvious reasons can not even win. If you have ever, ever truely debated a leftwinger or a burgeoisie apologist or progenist I would think you would know that debating about this is debating the existence of God with religious people.

And for what? To prove these crypto capitalist states which have a political hierarchy which I do not support nor would even want to live under were not so bad while I have better things to do like, you know, convince people capitalism sucks big time and something needs to get done?

Its not our "fucking duty" to defend by gone and failed systems which could not keep their people happy enough to fight for them and more often than not fought to get them overthrown. Its our "fucking duty" to fight for a better system against the current one...NOT live in the past. but you know...feel absolutely free to do whatever the hell you want....just do not have the audacity to state the claim your `socialism´ is better for it tham the ´socialism´ of others.

[Dumb]

If anybody bothered to actually ask someone who lived under socialism or at least read some fucking UN statistics, they wouldn't believe this bullshit.

I'm a little UN statistic-illiterate - would you be able to point me towards some resources online where I could access these sources? And how do we know the UN statistics are trustworthy themselves? I'm not asking this as a leading question - I honestly know nothing about how the UN measures poverty or how it obtains its data, and I'd appreciate anything I could learn from you.

[Toppler]

Try http://www.gapminder.org/ .

However, if you really believe most socialist countries were "poor", you are an idiot.

[$lim_$weezy]

I think that the stigma toward those states is so negative that by defending them we do more harm to our causes than help, REGARDLESS of the actual conditions of those countries (which, as Hindsight made clear, is quite debatable).

However, people also point out those states and their downfalls as reasons why socialism won't work. This is a pragmatic reason (there are of course many ideological objections they may have as well) why many leftists would denounce those states as "untrue socialism" or whatnot.

[Toppler]

The stigma against these states is strong only in your little "Western" bubble. In almost all post socialist countries, there is tremendous nostalgia for the past era for reasons of job security, food security and general livelihood security. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhAXtVRopaw

I am saying this as someone whose parents have lived in a socialist country, the CSSR.

But whatever, keep thinking the opinions in your little precious "West" apply to the world in general.
I won't tolerate anyone who insists that the regime that gave food and education to my grandfather's rural family is an "evil dictatorship". It is easy for middle class liberals to criticize "evil dictatorships".

Guess what? My grandma had stunted growth due to the malnutrition suffered as a consequence of being born in 1940 during WW2 and under a Hitler sponsored fascist regime. I outgrew her in height when I was 12 year old. They barely ate anything besides bread with butter and dumplings with only a little fat and salt added, even through they lived in the city (in fact the malnutrition there was worse because the rural people grew their food while city shops were empty). My father born in 1963 has not only never been hungry, he has even gotten fat and every year they traveled on a holiday to Yugoslavia. So much for "communism starving the people".

Go read this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221064/Oppressive-grey-No-growing-communism-happiest-time-life.html . If you want to propagate capitalist lies, go ahead with your "stigmas". Oh, but I see you're from Alabama. USA and South ... I am not surprised... You've got people who think creationism is right in your state yes?

[$lim_$weezy]

No reason to be unpleasant, I just think the gains brought about by defending these governments (whatever those gains are) aren't worth alienating the West. Ideological issues aside for the moment, if bringing over others to the cause is aided in the former socialist states by defending their past achievements, then by all means go ahead!

[Dumb]

Try http://www.gapminder.org/ .

However, if you really believe most socialist countries were "poor", you are an idiot.

At the risk of sounding wishy-washy, I'm keeping my mind open just because I realise I don't have enough information to say one way or the other. I'm suspicious of what I've been taught in schools, in the news, etc., but haven't had much exposure to alternate view points.

[Toppler]

I think it is worth it, because most people are against communism because they believe in total lies.

Also, please read the article. It might enlighten you a bit.

[Toppler]

At the risk of sounding wishy-washy, I'm keeping my mind open just because I realise I don't have enough information to say one way or the other. I'm suspicious of what I've been taught in schools, in the news, etc., but haven't had much exposure to alternate view points.

Try reading this for a start http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221064/Oppressive-grey-No-growing-communism-happiest-time-life.html .

Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbbWIRhJbgc&feature=related .

[jake williams]

I think that the stigma toward those states is so negative that by defending them we do more harm to our causes than help, REGARDLESS of the actual conditions of those countries (which, as Hindsight made clear, is quite debatable).

However, people also point out those states and their downfalls as reasons why socialism won't work. This is a pragmatic reason (there are of course many ideological objections they may have as well) why many leftists would denounce those states as "untrue socialism" or whatnot.
No, that's opportunism. In a lot of places, defence of gay rights or even legal racial equality is unpopular, regardless of their actual merits. The actual conditions of socialist countries are major historic resources for all anti-capitalist revolutionaries in learning about the successes and failures, the challenges and the triumphs of socialist revolutions past. Ignoring them isn't just narrow opportunism; it is a sort of defeatism which suggests that never before has anyone been able to even come close to fundamentally altering or even abolishing capitalist relations - which societies have, however imperfectly and incompletely.

[Toppler]

http://www.ondrias.sk/images/1.bmp

HDI ranking from 1987-1989
I am so sure poor countries would get to the top 30. By the way, USSR is 25th (and that's when Gorbachev has almost completely ruined it), CSSR (Czechoslovakia) is 24th and the great bogeyman of pussy Western liberals, the evil Wall builder and Stasi oppresser, the German Democratic Republic (rest in peace) is the 20th most developed country on Earth.

Surely there were commie conspirators in the UN who skewed the HDI ratings because really GDR was worse than Uganda .

[Toppler]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvKDKPCC0j0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNlAGbu3U-w

Do these places seem like third world shithole to you? The vast majority of capitalist world is poor. Don't associate capitalism with development, it is only a minority of countries that are livable under capitalism. Almost all socialist countries were very good to live in after cca 1950 or so. USSR is my mother's motherland. I ask anyone who thinks capitalism is great, go to India or Haiti. You'd be begging to have a chance to live in say 70s USSR. There were serious chronic shortages of non-essential consumer goods, but food was abundant and high quality, good healthcare etc. A sixth of humanity cannot even fucking afford food. I know a man who's been on a tour to Africa, and he says he saw people treking hundreds of kilometers for water while there were rich supermarkets all around them. What good are those African supermarkets if nobody but the African rich can buy anything in them?

[PhoenixAsh]

yeah...probably...but they weren't socialist. Simple fact.

Now...for all that nostalgia...where are these huge popular socialist movements in those countries which get wide support from the people who just love to go back to the way it was??

Because...not happening.

Not because the current state is so great or that it is not a big set back from what they had. But because you are confusing nostalgia for something entirely different: class awareness.

[$lim_$weezy]

I didn't mean to come off like I was defending a throwing-out of all ideals to get anything done. Historical facts do not stand on the level of ideals in this context. Therefore, not fighting a losing battle that is simply based on historical facts and can bring at best little benefit seems like a reasonable course of action to me.

[Toppler]

I don't want to reentact the past. The past regimes were maybe socialist, maybe not. I still defend them from lies and slander. I do it for the same reasons you'd say, defend your dead relative who was pretending to be a social scientist - he might have not been a scientist. That does not mean he has not helped people and that he was a psychopathic kitten rapist/killer. You get my point?

Plus, the more ''fluffy" and "gentle" versions of socialism are generally held by people who'd piss in their pants if an actual revolution was coming. American kids who want to be some cool fighters against oppression, but don't want to be associated with regimes they learned to be "nasty and evil" in their propaganda 8th grade history class. Interesting that most third world movements tend to be either Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, or in former SFRY Titoist.

If it not for cappie propaganda, people wouldn't be asking things like Red Future asked on ComradeErich's profile:

"You know all those photos are so striking in that the cities are so clean and the populace look healthy !!, was this really the case in the GDR??"

Citizens of the GDR were probably way more healthy that most USA obese people.

[Omsk]

Too much lies,half-truths and myths have been created by the Western world propagandists,nowadays,i 'should' almost feel ashamed that my relatives (now deceased) were communists.Its like that everything they stood for and died for is meaningless,now that communist states were gone from Europe.
Like these many brave people only wanted deaths,repression of non-communists and killings,like they were all criminals.The situation saddens me,the previous held-high positions and achievements have been thrown to dirt by the 'democrats'.They place lies and slander on heroes who defeated Nazism,for them,every crime committed in the days of communism outweights the heroic deeds of good and justice.Like all the millions of men and women who gave their lives suddenly fell into the shadow of one individual who did wrong.Im even more sad that there are so much people like that even on this forum.It makes me sick.

[RedSonRising]

The way I see it, if one or a few "Dengist/Revisionist" leaders or party members can screw over an entire political economy, then the structure wasn't a holistically desirable model for proletarian democracy anyway. What kind of worker-oriented political organization successfully building a classless society gives a few self-interested politicians the ability to wholly betray the system in such a way?

[Robocommie]

Toppler, what would be particularly interesting to me would be to compare the standards of living of Czechoslovakians prior to WW2, with the post-Soviet CSSR. After all, things could not have been very "normal" even for capitalism under Nazi occupation, and I imagine it'd create a more compelling argument.

That said, it couldn't hurt to be a little less hostile. I understand your frustration, but as the saying goes, you really do catch more flies with honey.

[$lim_$weezy]

RedSonRising: Toppler and ComradeErich are saying, I think, that REGARDLESS of things that could've been better, the things these states DID achieve are worth noting and worth defending. Basically, they are attempting to defend the material conditions under those governments even while their socialist nature was ambiguous.

That's what I understand them to mean, at least.

So I guess they're not necessarily defending those models as desirable for future implementation, but as historically successful in some way?

[Omsk]

No.I am just saying that people should understand the great sacrifices of the people of the socialist states,and their great effort to stop Nazis.
And that the capitalist propaganda is so overwhelming,that a lot of the 'leftists' fell for it.

[Robocommie]

Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbbWIRhJbgc&feature=related .

What's interesting about this is how the west Germans are so convinced that the positive East German memory of the GDR is entirely based on nostalgia and kitsch, and that the only reason they think it was so good is because they don't actually know the truth.They're essentially wiping out the legitimacy of their own memory, by asserting that they couldn't possibly know the reality despite the fact that they or their parents and grandparents lived it. The West German capitalists want to focus on negative things like the Berlin Wall and the Stasi that they're not willing to consider that there were other aspects of the GDR that East Germans miss, and for good reason other than "kitsch."

[Robocommie]

So I guess they're not necessarily defending those models as desirable for future implementation, but as historically successful in some way?

I would argue that anyone who advocates building a socialist state with the intention of replicating past regimes is not truly a Marxist-Leninist. The idea of Leninist theory is to build the best revolution you can based on the present conditions, not to uphold some idealized blueprint of the past. All of the unfortunate aspects of the old Leninist regimes (and the current ones) were the results of unfortunate political or social realities at the time.

[Toppler]

Toppler, what would be particularly interesting to me would be to compare the standards of living of Czechoslovakians prior to WW2, with the post-Soviet CSSR. After all, things could not have been very "normal" even for capitalism under Nazi occupation, and I imagine it'd create a more compelling argument.

That said, it couldn't hurt to be a little less hostile. I understand your frustration, but as the saying goes, you really do catch more flies with honey.

The Czech part was relatively rich, the Slovak part was pre-industrial and really poor. The working families ate meat only on weekends and infant mortality was terrible, even in the Czech part (the Slovak part had the additional burden of widespread alcoholism and almost no industry), despite CSR being the 16th richest nation in the world by GDP per capita. It did great things in science and produced many good professional people (educators, aviators etc.), but the living standards for the common man sucked very much. Plus, following the global economic crisis, the little industry that was in the Slovak part was dismantled.

When it comes to Nazis, the worst thing is, we were one of the priviledged Nazi puppet states, with our economy being better than that of Nazi Germany itself, and our currency koruna called the "Tatra dollar" and us the "Tatra Switzerland" (or something like that) at the time. We weren't directly occupied by the Nazis until the Slovak National Uprising against fascism (in which communist forces played a big role) in 1944 (but once they came, they burned like 100 villages to the ground and Gestapo and SS members terrorized the country). Despite all the capitalist sucess, the standard of living for the average person was still piss poor, shops in the cities were empty, malnutrition was widespread and of course if you were a Jew you got shipped off to an extermination camp. The only people who really benefited it all were those who got the confiscated Jewish property.
Still, some old people see our fascist era president Tiso as a hero, because we've been spared the worst fascist excesses that prevailed in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, our neighbours, which experiences far greater terror.

[Toppler]

I would argue that anyone who advocates building a socialist state with the intention of replicating past regimes is not truly a Marxist-Leninist. The idea of Leninist theory is to build the best revolution you can based on the present conditions, not to uphold some idealized blueprint of the past. All of the unfortunate aspects of the old Leninist regimes (and the current ones) were the results of unfortunate political or social realities at the time.

I wholeheartedly agree.

[Toppler]

RedSonRising: Toppler and ComradeErich are saying, I think, that REGARDLESS of things that could've been better, the things these states DID achieve are worth noting and worth defending. Basically, they are attempting to defend the material conditions under those governments even while their socialist nature was ambiguous.

That's what I understand them to mean, at least.

So I guess they're not necessarily defending those models as desirable for future implementation, but as historically successful in some way?

Yes. We don't want to replicate the past, we just defend these regimes because the reality our parents and grandparents and all the other people in our countries experienced is entirely different from the propaganda. Socialist countries were not starving or poor. They brought a lot of good to very many people. Around 70 percents of people in the world today would rather live in the socialist bloc than in the capitalist third world hellholes that they suffer now.

[Dumb]

What's interesting about this is how the west Germans are so convinced that the positive East German memory of the GDR is entirely based on nostalgia and kitsch, and that the only reason they think it was so good is because they don't actually know the truth.They're essentially wiping out the legitimacy of their own memory, by asserting that they couldn't possibly know the reality despite the fact that they or their parents and grandparents lived it. The West German capitalists want to focus on negative things like the Berlin Wall and the Stasi that they're not willing to consider that there were other aspects of the GDR that East Germans miss, and for good reason other than "kitsch."

I agree with you 100%, but allow me to play devil's advocate and assume hypothetically that you're wrong. Let's say the GDR was, in fact, as bad as the west Germans say, and that the East German memory is only based on nostalgia. If the GDR really was that bad, what does it say about present-day East Germany that such "nostalgia" is still present today?

[Toppler]

That would mean that it is a total shithole now. That's bullshit however. However, compared to most countries, the Eastern part of Germany is still super-rich, so obviously the GDR must have been even better. The conditions in today's Eastern Germany are not bad, but for example unemployment was zero in the GDR, totally free healthcare ... name me one capitalist state that has that. In some things, the Eastern Bloc were not just comparable or equal to the best, but actually better. Even a hardcore anti-communist must agree that say the 1970s GDR was preferable to the semi-feudal Portugal under Salazar in the 1970s that had 30 percent of its people illiterate and 5 percents of the people owning 95 percents of the land (making this little fascist state worse than most of Latin America) http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/EurMEast.html .

Just consider this: citizens of the Eastern Bloc and the USSR were not used to any unemployment at all.

[Lorax]

- that socialist countries were full of mass poverty
- that socialist countries were starving
- that the main concern of average USSR citizen/Eastern Bloc citizen was "repression by the evil goverment"
- that everybody was a peasant in socialist countries

Straw man argument. I'm sure you can find some ignorant people that would argue this but even the most bitter opponents of the Soviet Union and allied countries would acknowledge this was not the case if they are reasonably diligent students of history. However there were some pretty terrible famines in the Soviet Union and China that were at least partially attributable to government mismanagement. This is not to say that a capitalist or feudal government never caused a famine; of course they did.

The average Soviet/eastern bloc citizen was neither a dissident nor a potential threat to Stalin within the Communist Party who had to worry about being purged, so obviously repression was not a major concern for most people. Clearly the Soviet Union changed over time- the Stalin years were a pretty nasty time to be in the Soviet Union, and not just because of the Nazi invasion.

In my understanding, socialism is all about empowering the proletariat. In the case of the Bolsheviks, they essentially replaced the old ruling class with the vanguard party, rather than having the proletariat as a whole in power, which is why I wouldn't call it socialism. Civil liberties like freedom of speech and the right to travel may not be integral to socialism but the contempt the Bolsheviks showed for them is repugnant. This is not to denigrate what they did accomplish in defeating the Nazis and so forth. I just think authoritarian socialism is a contradiction in terms.

New here by the way, glad I finally heard about the site.

[Tim Finnegan]

No, that's opportunism. In a lot of places, defence of gay rights or even legal racial equality is unpopular, regardless of their actual merits. The actual conditions of socialist countries are major historic resources for all anti-capitalist revolutionaries in learning about the successes and failures, the challenges and the triumphs of socialist revolutions past. Ignoring them isn't just narrow opportunism; it is a sort of defeatism which suggests that never before has anyone been able to even come close to fundamentally altering or even abolishing capitalist relations - which societies have, however imperfectly and incompletely.
Of course, this rather assumes that the Marxist-Leninists states are something worth defending, which is a debate in itself. We argue for sometimes-unpopular such as minority rights because they are fundamentally necessary to our cause, something which can not be said of the defence of historical bureaucracies, or at least not uncontentiously.

[Toppler]

It is easy to say they are "not worth defending" if you are from Scotland...

[Tim Finnegan]

It is easy to say they are "not worth defending" if you are from Scotland...
Easy to get a pint of McEwans Export, too. What's your point?

[Omsk]

You dont have a connection to socialist states (usually originated from the family,since these countries are now our homelands) like some members here do.

[DrStrangelove]

It is easy to say they are "not worth defending" if you are from Scotland...
I think it has less to do with him being from Scotland, and more to do with him not being a Marxist-Leninist. Libertarian Socialists, Left Comms, Anarchists, and Trotskyists have little to no interest in defending Leninist states because they more than likely don't want a Leninist state.

[Per Levy]

That's bullshit however. However, compared to most countries, the Eastern part of Germany is still super-rich, so obviously the GDR must have been even better.

that eastgermany today would still be richer then most countries is also because of the "unification" with the west, there was a lot of money put into east, other east block countries didnt had that help.

@toppler: i get your sentiment, i live in east germany, i know from my family and my colleges how it was in the gdr/ddr, many of these people have a bit of nostalgica for reason you posted earlier(jobs/social security and so on). still you cant overlook the bad stuff that happend in the east block states, and if "we" defend these we would also defend the bad stuff. i mean there were a lot of good reason why the people of the east block states rose up in opposition to their goverments, very good reasons. that these people were betrayed in the end by the new order doesnt change the fact that the old order deserved to die(as the current one deserves to die too).

the east block states wernt hellholes, very true, still i dont see them as worth defending, they're social security yeah thats something to hold up, but the whole order not.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The tradition of the dead generations hangs like a nightmare on the mind of the living...;)

[jake williams]

Of course, this rather assumes that the Marxist-Leninists states are something worth defending, which is a debate in itself. We argue for sometimes-unpopular such as minority rights because they are fundamentally necessary to our cause, something which can not be said of the defence of historical bureaucracies, or at least not uncontentiously.
My argument wasn't that if you genuinely believe all proclaimed socialist revolutions in the past were entirely reactionary, you should nonetheless defend them. That would be silly. The point is that if a political position is worth defending, especially if it's important, then denying it because it's unpopular is an opportunist position. If you accept that the Russian or the Chinese revolutions made important historic advances - which I think they did - then pretending they didn't is obfuscating history for short-term political gain, and not just that, but intentionally misleading workers, which is anti-democratic to say the least. If you think that, say, the Cambodian "revolution" was a reactionary feudalist bloodbath of no historical utility, a position to which I might be sympathetic, then defending it is equally silly.

[Impulse97]

Plus, the more ''fluffy" and "gentle" versions of socialism are generally held by people who'd piss in their pants if an actual revolution was coming. American kids who want to be some cool fighters against oppression, but don't want to be associated with regimes they learned to be "nasty and evil" in their propaganda 8th grade history class. Interesting that most third world movements tend to be either Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, or in former SFRY Titoist.



It is easy to say they are "not worth defending" if you are from Scotland...


Hooray for internationalism and solidarity.....

True, I'd probably piss my pants if I was thrust into a revolution, after that was over and I'd changed my pants, I'd go join my Comrades and continue the fight. Most people have this reaction when they first see combat. It's also true that Americans are indoctrinated to hate communism from an early age, but this does mean that when we become class conscious that we are incapable of fighting for our ideals? Do you really think we're that shallow and weak?

We're a bunch of hardheaded bastards who dislike rapid change, but will generally finish what we start if we agree with the cause. A conscious American proletariat will be a force to be reckoned with. Hell, if the Tea Partyers put half the effort and energy into achiving Socialism that they do in being idiots we'd have Socialism world wide inside of a year.

[Toppler]

I am not denying the 1932-1933 and the 1947 USSR famine neither the 1958-1962 Chinese famine. My point is, outside these 2 states during the famine years (interesting how there was no famine in the Eastern Bloc or Yugoslavia, anytime, anywhere), there are dozens of ML states that never experienced any famine. In 1988, some of the highest caloric intakes in the world were in socialist countries http://elections.thinkaboutit.eu/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/offley1991foodthefacts.gif .

By the way, interesting that there were no famines anywhere in proper socialist countries that were not under Stalin or Mao. Curious how no famine happened after Stalin in the USSR or Mao in the PRC. Even in these countries, during the non-famine years, people ate properly for the first time, as they have starved all the time under Tsarism/feudalism. There is a reason why the starvation death rate during the 1958-1962 Chinese famine was the same as the general starvation death rate all the time in pre-revolutionary China and the same as in 1950s-1960s India. In India, this famine would not even be considered a famine, as it was "normal" at the time. Even in 2011 India has around 51 percents of children under 5 malnourished. Stop talking shit about the few communist "famines" that happened and consider how capitalism kills more than 14 million people by hunger in the third world annually. When this happened in a communist country half a century ago for 4 years, it is a "famine", when this is happening all over the world all the time, "capitalism has eradicated famine". Fuck this "communist famine" bullshit. 90 percents of socialist countries never experienced hunger. ALL THE THIRD WORLD STATES SUFFER FROM IT. Want to know about a great famine? The colonial goverment in India has caused a series of famines in which around 60 million people starved to death in the 19th century. In colonial Africa, genocide especially by Belgian king Leopold and the Germans killed 85 percent of people in some areas. This does NOT count the number of people dying from "everyday" poverty and hunger in India, which would bring the 19th century Indian death by starvation number to over a billion. In pre-revolutionary China, starvation was normal, plus a disastrous famine happened EVERY YEAR IN SOME PROVINCE. In Tsarist Russia too, starvation was daily life, and every 15 years a major famine occured.

Also, the 3 famines in Stalinist/Maoist PRC happened because of disastrous basic industrialization and rapid collectivisation drives, combined with wheat rust/drought/stupid Stalinist overprocurement. Curious how in the Eastern Bloc countries, that already had basic industrialization, no famine occured, and during the collectivisation years food was just as abundant as otherwise.

Capitalists calling out communist goverment for "murder" are like a Nazi bureucrat from an extermination camp condemning a wife who killed her abusive man.

[Tim Finnegan]

Also, the 3 famines in Stalinist/Maoist PRC happened because of disastrous basic industrialization and rapid collectivisation drives, combined with wheat rust/drought/stupid Stalinist overprocurement. Curious how in the Eastern Bloc countries, that already had basic industrialization, no famine occured, and during the collectivisation years food was just as abundant as otherwise.
This is one which I will admit that I tend to take people up on. When you're merrily kowtowing to a state that let over a million Irish peasants die when there was more than enough food being grown in Ireland to feed the entire population, you don't have any right to get pissy about famines. Stalin wasn't a patch on Good Queen Vic and her ministers when it comes to barbaric indifference to human suffering, not by a long shot.

[Toppler]

I confronted my dad today in a talk about the typical Western beliefs of anything east of Berlin. I said "in the West they think we starved under socialism". My dad, who runs a medium sized company for years said "No, it is actually the socialist countries where the people did NOT starve".

When somebody who owns a company calls upon the bullshit that the West peddles about our history you can be sure the stuff that West propagates is a total lie.

Anyways sometimes I almost have the temptation to post some of our old family photos here. For example, my late grandma has been a teacher under communism, and in one photo she is photographed with her class of pupils. The exact photo I remember is from 1959. Western propaganda would probably try to tell me that the children on the photos are malnourished and terrorized by the secret police for not calling their friend "comrade".

West, dear West, how stupid are you.

And while the DPRK is undoubtedly a non-communist monarcho-fascist hellhole, I must say the goverment is not purposefully "starving the people". The people there were well fed from 1945 to 1992. When the USSR collapsed, the aid from USSR stopped and the oil they were sold cheaply stopped flowing too. Result = oil price went up 10x in a moment and suddenly there was nothing to fuel agricultural machinery with. DPRK followed the idiotic policy of "no cooperation with "capitalist nations" [the fact it is a cappie state disregarding]"" did not import food. As long as the USSR was giving aid and the agriculture worked, DPRK people were OK. When the agriculture broke down, a famine ensued. This is simple economical reality caused by total isolation, breakdown of their former breadgiver (USSR) and ridiculous spending on military. Also, Kim Jong Il seems to be a lot more of a sociopathic asshole than his father. While his father was a narcisst who made himself into a percieved god, at least he fed the people. His son just does not give a shit. DPRK has such a collapsed economy through that it would be starving anyways, regardless of goverment.

The oil price collapse is more explained here http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/anti-communist-bullshit-about-north-korea/ .

I am always angered by people who say "Why if communism is so good, most people who are starving are in North Korea?". This ignorance about third world hunger is astonishing. In India, the "normal" starvation rate is as bad as in the DPRK during the worst famine year. Repeat it until your head gets it. "The largest democracy on Earth" has worse starvation than DPRK.

[Toppler]

By the way, Impulse, I have nothing against people who believe in libertarian schools of communism. Hell, Dubcek was really liberal too, agaist censorship etc... that's why Soviet tanks overthrew him. I just hate pretentious teens who wear T-shirts of Che while thinking the USSR was worse than Nazi Germany. The CSSR was under Soviet control for 48 years, and I personally know no one "terrorized" or "persecuted" under it. On the other hand, I know several old people who survived Nazi extermination camps and that's real terror.

[Omsk]

This is not a surprise,for many years the bookshelves of local libraries are full of the 'new' literature: Some of them like:

"The Red Menace!"
"The Red Terror!"
"The Nazi Communist pact!"
"The fall of freedom in Russia!"
Etc etc

This is probably the case in Slovakia too,Toppler,correct me if i am mistaken.

They want to alienate the newer generations,to present the socialist countries like some kind of a dreaded prison,and to present the 'west' (ie capitalist imperialist war-mongering states) like the paradise,which was idiotic.

But this is not just reserved for books,this is also present in movies,songs and much more.
We have a huge amount of movies where the main point is that Stalin had a giant moustache and liked to kill people.The millions of men who gave their lives in the struggle against fascism in the east is dwarfed.
Another thing is the fact that the deaths of the Red Army soldiers are presented as something ordinary,and the men who die are given no attention,like they were cattle.No one cares about them.There is a lot of them and they are there just to suacide charge at the Nazis.That is west movie logic.
While the every death of the brave American G.I is presented in an spectacle of slow-motion and drama.

[Red Future]

This is not a surprise,for many years the bookshelves of local libraries are full of the 'new' literature: Some of them like:

"The Red Menace!"
"The Red Terror!"
"The Nazi Communist pact!"
"The fall of freedom in Russia!"
Etc etc

This is probably the case in Slovakia too,Toppler,correct me if i am mistaken.

They want to alienate the newer generations,to present the socialist countries like some kind of a dreaded prison,and to present the 'west' (ie capitalist imperialist war-mongering states) like the paradise,which was idiotic.

But this is not just reserved for books,this is also present in movies,songs and much more.
We have a huge amount of movies where the main point is that Stalin had a giant moustache and liked to kill people.The millions of men who gave their lives in the struggle against fascism in the east is dwarfed.
Another thing is the fact that the deaths of the Red Army soldiers are presented as something ordinary,and the men who die are given no attention,like they were cattle.No one cares about them.There is a lot of them and they are there just to suacide charge at the Nazis.That is west movie logic.
While the every death of the brave American G.I is presented in an spectacle of slow-motion and drama.

Also the books in the west only talk about the Five year plans as positive because it helped the USSR win World War 2 , not because it allowed the first country in the world to industrialize without capitalist class exploitation but because it saved them from defeat in WW2.

[Toppler]

Also, when propagandists or their victims try to present the communist states are some hellholes that "starve their people", why the fuck would ANY state do that?. The socialist states were just as much interested in the wellbeing of their people and progress as the West, at least except for Stalin in the 1930s (who essentialy did an industrial revolution in 20 years instead of 200 years so it is not surprising that USSR was suffering in the 1930s).

[Toppler]

Here are some historical class photos (from 1920s until today) of a primary school in a rural area (not the one in which my grandma taught, but you get the idea)

http://www.zsockomjatice.edu.sk/pedaghist.htm

Can any anti-commie point me about any children that look neglected or malnourished? Here is a photo from 1986 http://www.zsockomjatice.edu.sk/triedyfoto/1986%20-%203.A.jpg . Yes, there are no hungry kids on the photo. Teens (9th grade) from 1980 http://www.zsockomjatice.edu.sk/triedyfoto/1980%20-%208.C.jpg . Do they look any different from any other normal teenagers?

1965

http://www.zsockomjatice.edu.sk/triedyfoto/1965%20-%207.C.jpg

Again, no starving children.

1955

http://www.zsockomjatice.edu.sk/triedyfoto/1955%20-%206.B.jpg

Again.

But noo, this must all be commie propaganda! The children smile because they are scared of the gulag! Their bellies appear to be full because they are scared of the gulag! The school building looks normal because it is scared of the gulag! Communism starves children, dammit! That is why we must spread freedom by our bombs! That is why our dear General Patton should've invaded the Eastern Bloc and nuked China right after WW2! .

By comparision, here is a Nigerian orphanage in the 1960s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kwashiorkor_6903.jpg

[Toppler]

By the way here is a link for a little tool where you can look at some sortiment of goods available in the CSSR during the communist era:

http://ekonomika.idnes.cz/ekonomika.aspx?y=ekonomika/od.htm
http://ekonomika.idnes.cz/ekonomika.aspx?y=ekonomika/samoobsluha.htm

True, the shelves were not always full, but food was always available in huge quantities, even if some varieties were in shortage. Only an idiot could made up such things like "socialist countries were starving, and when they were not, people stood 12 hours for bread and potatoes and ate nothing else".

The "people stood 12 hours for bread and potatoes and ate nothing else" was true only for the USSR under the Gorbachev's "miracle" (fortunately, most of the Eastern Bloc did not implement his katastroika, so there were only lines for orange and not for bread). It almost seems like he purposefully made socialism unbearable enough to destroy it.

[Red Future]

The young people in 1980 look well indeed..much better than their "free" fellows in towns like my own City of Sheffield where there was unemployment and in places still malnutrition among working class families.

[Omsk]

The young people in 1980 look well indeed..much better than their "free" fellows in towns like my own City of Sheffield where there was unemployment and in places still malnutrition among working class families.

That was common in the CSSR and in the GDR,the people were healthy,and generally had everything they needed,there was no starvation,gross-unemployment,drugs and generally the things that bother the region this day.
Those countries were not 'socialist paradises' but they were regular,European,socialist countries who's citizens were living normal lives.
Its sad that so many people have an entirely different version,and wrong assumption when talking of these countries and linking them with slave labor,famines and almost fascist like dictatorships.

[tbasherizer]

Of course the old "real, existing" socialism wasn't the worst thing ever. The bourgeois types who say that the Soviet Union was the world's biggest prison camp are made of nonsense. But how good or bad the Soviet Union (or China or Yugoslavia or Albania or...)was really isn't that relevant. It's (They're) gone, and we have a whole new set of material circumstances under which to promote socialism. To get inflamed about misconceptions about the old days just makes you look like more like a Soviet fetishist (someone who cares more for the aesthetic of the hammer and sickle and stars and such than for the quasi-socialism it maintained) than an actual socialist with relevant solutions for the future.

[Omsk]

This is not a Soviet fetishist thread,this is a thread regarding the demonization of the socialist countries of Europe,which we all are (i think,although there are always exceptions) against (the demonization,of course).
Look to the horizon but don't forget the past.(and let the capitalists revision it for their own needs).
We should learn from the mistakes of the old regimes and try to gather all the positive points they had,in order to get a better perception of how would it work (since it was,after all,implemented in normal life not so long ago)

But,lets not get off topic,this thread is about the negative influence the capitalist propaganda has on the masses.

[bailey_187]

The myths u are attacking arent held by most historians etc. In all the bourgeois history books i get told to read, we they always recognise the economic and social acheivments of these states. One of my history lecturers who grew up in the Czechoslovakia and was part of 1989 as school student (an certainly is no communist/socialist), always points out the great benefits the Communist Parties brang to Eastern Europe. Even most anarchists on here will recognise the social and economic benefits too.

The myths u are attacking only come from hysterical ideologues, for the most part.

[Ocean Seal]

Toppler makes an excellent point. Every socialist should dispel these myths. Keeping them alive and just saying well that isn't socialism hurts our cause as a whole. It divides us into sides of ***holes and starry-eyed idealists. The USSR had mistakes but its contributions to the workers of the world should never be denied nor should the USSR be slandered. Saying that the USSR wasn't any good means that we as socialists have not done any good. If you want to criticize the Soviet Union that's fine, but don't ignore the false criticisms of your opponents.

I don't support Hilary Clinton but when someone says that she's unfit to lead because she is a woman, I don't walk away saying well she's a capitalist so I don't care. I say no she is just as capable as any man to lead and I ask them would you like to show me any evidence otherwise? As a bourgeois politician she is of high experience and standing and I see no reason to believe that she cannot do the job of reactionary in chief as well as any man.

Not because I defend Clinton, but because I oppose sexism and because I don't want to allow reactionaries to get away with blatant lies.

I don't support Barack Obama, but when people spout xenophobic and racist b.s. like the Barack Obama is creating "white slavery" I militantly oppose that stance and I challenge the b.s.

I am not an uncritical supporter of the USSR, but when people want to push lies about it, I stop them. In the same way that I stop people when they use anarchy and chaos as synonyms. It doesn't help to keep any flank of the movement weak.

[Toppler]

The myths u are attacking arent held by most historians etc. In all the bourgeois history books i get told to read, we they always recognise the economic and social acheivments of these states. One of my history lecturers who grew up in the Czechoslovakia and was part of 1989 as school student (an certainly is no communist/socialist), always points out the great benefits the Communist Parties brang to Eastern Europe. Even most anarchists on here will recognise the social and economic benefits too.

The myths u are attacking only come from hysterical ideologues, for the most part.

Not historians. But from what I've read on the Internet from Western people, most of them seem to believe the bullshit I mentioned. Especially people from the USA. I know historians have a brain, but most history books in school are not written by true historians, but by hysterical ideologues you mentioned.

Of course there was propaganda against the West in the East just as there was propaganda against the East in the West, but while communist propaganda was saying "Capitalist countries suffer from unemployment and drug abuse" (which is true and was true), capitalist propaganda was saying "THEY ARE EVIL THEY STARVE THEIR PEOPLE IT IS ALL OPRESSSION!!!!!!!!!".

[bailey_187]

Not once have i heard Czechsoslovakia accused of starving its people.

[Aurorus Ruber]

Not once have i heard Czechsoslovakia accused of starving its people.

Yes, the usual criticisms I hear of Communist states are utter lack of political freedoms and shortage of (non-essential for the most part) consumer goods.

[Tim Finnegan]

Yes, the usual criticisms I hear of Communist states are utter lack of political freedoms and shortage of (non-essential for the most part) consumer goods.
You can usually infer a lot about an individual's politics by the relative weight they place on each of those criticisms. There's a lot of Republicans, Tories, and so forth, who seem to consider the limited availability of colour televisions at least as heinous as the gulags.

[Jose Gracchus]

Just consider this: citizens of the Eastern Bloc and the USSR were not used to any unemployment at all.

Bullshit. Unemployment existed secretly, and was one of the admissions of perestroika and glasnost in the USSR.

I support the social gains made by workers and common people in the Eastern Bloc, even if this often came at the expense of any substantive political or individual freedoms. I regard the Eastern Bloc states as essentially a kind of authoritarian and highly-statist social democracies. These weren't socialism, were not the dictatorship of the proletariat, and not moving toward communism.

However, the social gains of the population should be remember, recalled, and defended from slander and deceit. We should remember these were flawed, repressive systems, however, and their economic model was often based on subsidy and unsustainable practices. It was also based on a continuing regime of dictatorship in the bourgeois sense and exploitation of proletarians, which manifested itself in a continuation of the class struggle. The working class still struggled against exploitation in the Eastern Bloc. We should not obscure these realities, even while we defend the workers' [not the state or party's] efforts in gaining concessions and substantial social gains.

[Robocommie]

Toppler, I'd like to recommend talking to your parents and any of your grandparents who may still be with you, and see if they'd be willing to talk about their lives and memories. Get it down on paper or on a recording or something, if you haven't already done so. They represent a first-hand account of life in several very interesting periods of European history, and I think it'd be great to have that recorded for posterity. You never know how useful such information may be to historians, one of the best sources of knowledge about life in Ottoman Jerusalem, for example, is the personal diary of an oud player named Wasif Jawaharriyeh. Not a king, not a general, just an everyday man from Jerusalem.

[Robocommie]

Oh, and on this subject, there is a very interesting book I would like to recommend called "Russia's Sputnik Generation." It's a collection of interviews with Russian baby boomers talking about their lives during the Krushchev/early Brezhnev years. Very informative book for anyone interested in the subject, particularly since a number of them make comparisons with the current market economy in Russia.

[Toppler]

You can usually infer a lot about an individual's politics by the relative weight they place on each of those criticisms. There's a lot of Republicans, Tories, and so forth, who seem to consider the limited availability of colour televisions at least as heinous as the gulags.

While color TV were in shortage in the CSSR, they were not unavailable. It is true that their introduction was late, in 1980. My family had a first BW TV in like 1960 but the first color TV in 1985-1986 (although it was a quality imported Toshiba one and lasted 20 years).

It is a meaningless point to make because before the communist era, most people didn't even have radios. Radios were becoming universal ... in the 1950s.

[Toppler]

Not once have i heard Czechsoslovakia accused of starving its people.

It is the typical idiot propaganda aimed at communism in general, pretending that 1. communist states are like North Korea 2. North Korea is a communist state and not a weird fascist theocracy.