72% of Hungarians say that it was better living under communism than now

[Willin']

A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same.

http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/hungary-better-off-under-communism/

WHY?
In the Soviet era, everyone had a job and a place to live. Everyone had a right to a high-quality education. Crime was really quite low.

Soviet people had pride and self-respect. They used proper language, dressed well, and treated each other respectfully.

Unlike the greed which powers capitalism, the socialist Soviet system was motivated to provide for health, education, and happiness, and it's only our western sense of greed which leads us to believe that they had it so bad. When you stop measuring happiness by possessions, you start to see that Soviets had a pretty good quality of life.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, all of the former Soviet nations have experienced immense financial stress... and while Russia was lucky enough to have their debts re-assessed and luckier in finding themselves in possession of valuable oil and natural gas, the other former-Soviet nations have not been as lucky.

Without the order and rule of the Soviet Union, the countries fell into mob rule, where warlords with access to resources (ie, money) had all the power... and everyone else had little or none. When there is no sense of pride and duty, police are easily bribed and crime is practically unstoppable.

Today, a small percentage of lucky Russians are living it up in their newfound capitalist success, but in many ways life is much harder for everyone else. For Ukrainians, and the rest, there really isn't even that lucky few.

The ideological view of capitalism is blind, and most Americans have been fed the propaganda of the last century to believe that giving people capitalism will magically transform them into better, happier people... much like the similar lies our people spread about religion.

Don't get me wrong, the Soviet system was flawed. Greed is human nature, and any system that ignores that is doomed to fail the way that communism did in the USSR. And worse, it should be noted that starting with Stalin, the overwhelming history of the party leadership was very nationalistic toward Russia, and there was a history of abuse and even atrocities committed against the Soviet nations... probably none worse that those against Ukraine.

However, it is hard to deny that the former situation was better for the majority of the people than what they have now. The truth is, our system is in many ways worse. Capitalism works well for the lucky few at the top, but it's pretty bad for everyone else at the bottom.... in case that 10%+ unemployment and the current healthcare woes have managed to escape your attention...

Source: http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091102175024AAFaIzh

[Geiseric]

It's a good start, but if you're trying to make a solid case you might want things such as unemployment statistics, infant death rate, average living standards, etc. from the days when Hungary was ruled by the fSU to compare with today, when usually finance capital has to fill the gaps. At which point, this article would make great propaganda!

[Tim Cornelis]

It should be noted, before the Marxist-Leninists arive, that this phenomena of political nostalgia is not exclusive to "socialist" states, but exists for apartheid as well (I saw a reported interview two black/African men who said they were better off under apartheid) and for the Saddam Hussein era (a vice documentary shows motorcyclists insisting it was better under Saddam Hussein, despite them claiming to want "Western freedoms" like the US). It is a desire for stability that drives this political nostalgia in all these instances, not the political system an sich.

[KurtFF8]

It should be noted, before the Marxist-Leninists arive, that this phenomena of political nostalgia is not exclusive to "socialist" states, but exists for apartheid as well (I saw a reported interview two black/African men who said they were better off under apartheid) and for the Saddam Hussein era (a vice documentary shows motorcyclists insisting it was better under Saddam Hussein, despite them claiming to want "Western freedoms" like the US). It is a desire for stability that drives this political nostalgia in all these instances, not the political system an sich.


Of course comparing it to Apartheid is silly. But that said, it is objectively the case that standards of living and the state of the economies were better before the early 1990s. But it doesn't translate to a political will to return to those states. It's more of a "mourning" (as Zizek said) than any sort of political position.

These polls are often not contrasted by the Left to the polls about desires to return to those political/economic systems.

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

Nostalgia vision.

[crazyirish93]

I refuse to accept that greed is human nature and what atrocities committed against Ukraine?.

[Delenda Carthago]

Socialism compared to Apartheid. Nice...

[Geiseric]

Socialism compared to Apartheid. Nice...

You think that the USSR was a stateless society? Nice.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

For that many people to say that, they must have done at least some things right. Here you hear nobody say it was better living under fascism, and those who do have never lived in it. Under fascism we had only misery.

[Delenda Carthago]

You think that the USSR was a stateless society? Nice.

Wut?:confused:

[Sam_b]

WHY?

Well, for a start, it's worth not confusing the 'Soviet system' with that of Hungary, which was widely different. It was not a 'former Soviet state' but rather a member of the Warsaw Pact and thus an ideological satellite which had more autonomy than the SFSRs. Even before the Fidesz rise to power at the last election, which has curtailed civil liberties, János Kádár's overseeing of the Hungarian state was relatively popular (you can even get, hilariously, Kádár memorial bottles of wine). This should not be confused with just 'communism', as the Hungarian people in general have no love lost for Rákosi; but the economic and social system which was advocated and put into being by Kádár which raised living conditions, wages and quality of life. The conditions in Hungary in say the late 1970s-1980s were better than many of the Soviet states.

[subcp]

Most Western workers miss the 'good ole days' of the post-war period too. The world economy ran into crisis after a sustained boom period- so it's not surprising that, with the worsening living conditions of the past 30-40 years, people would be nostalgic for whatever was going on before they remember being personally affected by the capitalist crisis. But it has little to do with 'socialism', just like the period before the fall in living standards in the West has little to do with 'Keynesianism'- rising productivity (coupled with rising wages) on both sides of Iron Curtain is what led to the prosperity- and a fall in the rate of profit (which has not recovered since) is why things went downhill.

[Geiseric]

Wut?:confused:

Socialism is a stateless classless society. Outside of the USSR there was still classes, and the capitalists were trying to return it (capitalism and classes) to the U.S.S.R. constantly. Socialism was impossible because half the budget was spent on defense for the economy the ruling bureaucracy eventually was able to own. So the U.S.S.R. wasn't socialist, if we look internationally it was between capitalism and socialism because most of its development was stunted due to capitalism existing outside of the country.

Regardless it was still much better than today's russia.

[Old Bolshie]

If 72% of Hungarians have nostalgia for an oppressive satellite of the Soviet Union I can't imagine how many would have felt the same for a truly independent and democratic Worker's State...

[Delenda Carthago]

Socialism is a stateless classless society. Outside of the USSR there was still classes, and the capitalists were trying to return it (capitalism and classes) to the U.S.S.R. constantly. Socialism was impossible because half the budget was spent on defense for the economy the ruling bureaucracy eventually was able to own. So the U.S.S.R. wasn't socialist, if we look internationally it was between capitalism and socialism because most of its development was due to capitalism existing outside of the country.

Socialism is a stateless classless society? I thought socialism was the phase in between capitalism and stateless society. At least thats what my buddies Karl and Vlad told me.

I mean, thats what it says right here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm) I think.

Now, the idea that since outside USSR there were capitalists, USSR hadnt had socialism, I dont get.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Socialism is a stateless classless society. Outside of the USSR there was still classes, and the capitalists were trying to return it (capitalism and classes) to the U.S.S.R. constantly. Socialism was impossible because half the budget was spent on defense for the economy the ruling bureaucracy eventually was able to own. So the U.S.S.R. wasn't socialist, if we look internationally it was between capitalism and socialism because most of its development was stunted due to capitalism existing outside of the country.

Regardless it was still much better than today's russia.

there still existed petit-bourgeois elements in the fSU and an outright bourgeoisie in the 80s. not to mention a pretty large urban and rural proletariat.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Socialism is a stateless classless society? I thought socialism was the phase in between capitalism and stateless society. At least thats what my buddies Karl and Vlad told me.

I mean, thats what it says right here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm) I think.

Now, the idea that since outside USSR there were capitalists, USSR hadnt had socialism, I dont get.

No. That is not what Marx said. Have you actually read Marx? He makes no distinction between communism and socialism except a brief passage in critique of the gotha program, and there he very clearly makes a distinction between the DotP and socialism. You are objectively wrong.

[Geiseric]

there still existed petit-bourgeois elements in the fSU and an outright bourgeoisie in the 80s. not to mention a pretty large urban and rural proletariat.

Yeah you're right, I meant that the bourgeoisie didn't own the means of production for most of the USSR's existance. Most of the economy was state owned, which is what I meant.

[Sir Comradical]

Not surprising. They had it real good in Hungary. After 1956 that is.

[DarkPast]

I've lived in Hungary. People are just nostalgic for the welfare state and steady employment. The overwhelming majority of the people I've spoken to have absolutely no desire to reintroduce communism. The communist party is almost non-existent and communist figures from the country's past are generally considered traitors of the worst kind. Furthermore, the entire education system goes to great lengths to indoctrinate the youth with anti-communism, more so than in any other country I've been to (and includes the good old "they were the same as Nazis" trick).

Also, the neo-nazi "Jobbik" movement got an astonishing 16.67% of the vote in the last elections in 2010. The ruling Fidesz party (52.73% of the vote) are rabid conservative nationalists. Ironically, the Social-Democrats, their main opposition (with less than 20% of the vote), are actually more neoliberal in their economic policy. Hence people who desire a stronger welfare state will usually vote for the nationalists.

[Tim Cornelis]

There is, of course, also nostalgia for the guilder, drahma, or lira to be re-introduced in place of the euro, because they associate the former currency with stability. Again, this "red nostalgia" is nostalgia for stability, not "socialism" or state-capitalism.


Socialism compared to Apartheid. Nice...

Why are people always so on edge with comparisons, I compare it, not equate it. They both had levels of stability not existing anymore in the current political and social landscape of their respective countries, but had entirely different stabilities. I'm not saying state-capitalism/"socialism" is the same as apartheid. This is a valid comparison.

[Delenda Carthago]

No. That is not what Marx said. Have you actually read Marx? He makes no distinction between communism and socialism except a brief passage in critique of the gotha program, and there he very clearly makes a distinction between the DotP and socialism. You are objectively wrong.
Yeah, I kinda have. You know who else has? Lenin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s3).

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Left-coms taught me socialism was synonimous with communism, and now Delenda Carthago tells me they are different things.

Who am I suposed to beleive?

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

Left-coms taught me socialism was synonimous with communism, and now Delenda Carthago tells me they are different things.

Who am I suposed to beleive?

Now there's something i would like to know! What is what?


Also, as an answer to OP's question: Which communism???

[Delenda Carthago]

Left-coms taught me socialism was synonimous with communism, and now Delenda Carthago tells me they are different things.

Who am I suposed to beleive?
Lenin. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/)

[Captain Ahab]

Because as we all know, what Lenin says overrides what Marx says.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Yeah, I kinda have. You know who else has? Lenin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s3).

This is not a good argument to use with a left-com, lol.

[Delenda Carthago]

Because as we all know, what Lenin says overrides what Marx says.
There is no contradiction between the two. Lenin only blossomed Marx's work to the period of imperialism, something that Marx didnt managed to live up to see.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

There is no contradiction between the two. Lenin only blossomed Marx's work to the period of imperialism, something that Marx didnt managed to live up to see.

Now here is where i disagree. I don't think the two interchangable.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Outside of the USSR there was still classes, and the capitalists were trying to return it (capitalism and classes) to the U.S.S.R. constantly.

It's not a matter of "outside the USSR". This whole ditriabe about socialism in one country is just making a fetish over silly things. If the whole world fell to socialism except for the island of Hawaii then would the whole world be capitalist? Did the closure of the commons in Britain make China a capitalist state? The answer to both questions is no, because it's a more complex question than "either/or socialism" based on the scale of the state or the level of "bureaucracy" which is an unmarxist category. The world has never had a single mode of production and most likely will not until a few decades from now when the process of primitive accumulation is over.

[Geiseric]

Left-coms taught me socialism was synonimous with communism, and now Delenda Carthago tells me they are different things.

Who am I suposed to beleive?

Delinda is completely wrong. In the communist manifesto Marx says plainly that "Socialism is a stateless classless society." Lenin himself said that "While there is a state there can be no freedom! Thus freedom can only exist while there is no state." In State and Revolution, debatably his most important theoretical work.

Delinda is a Stalinist which means he thinks Stalin era USSR was actually socialism, and also thinks that it wasn't socialism as soon as "Khruschevite reforms," took place. Regardless it is an incorrect analyses, which is taken up not only by fellow Stalinists but also bourgeois idealists of every stripe. Every bourgeois scolar talks of the USSR as a "Socialist country," which is an opinion they use not to promote Communism, but to slur it due to the history of repression done by the fSU's state, including but not limited to the history NKVD, KGB, and the Red Terrors of the 30's, which were done to kill the still revolutionary (or opportunist) enemies of Stalin. I mean Zinoviev, Kemenev, Trotsky, and more than half of the original C.C. members from the founding of the party were all murdered.

[Lucretia]

These Soviet nostalgia reports are banal at this point. We get it. Quality of life for much of Eastern Europe was higher before the end of Stalinism than it is now. Just as quality of life in the US right now is higher than it is in present-day Albania. Doesn't mean that what existed in the Eastern Bloc was socialism anymore than the US's higher quality of life vis-a-vis present-day Eastern Europe indicates that Americans have socialism.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Because as we all know, what Lenin says overrides what Marx says.

Expectually because Lenin led an actual revolution while a fair amount of what Marx said was mental masturbation.


Left-coms taught me socialism was synonimous with communism, and now Delenda Carthago tells me they are different things.

Who am I suposed to beleive?

Both and neither. Marxism employs a scientific framework, the words of Marx need to be updated due to their immaterial nature and the words of lenin need to be updated due to the failure of the USSR. Our concept of socialism is in desperate need of rethinking on a scientific basis, rather than this banal quote fest

[Geiseric]

It's not a matter of "outside the USSR". This whole ditriabe about socialism in one country is just making a fetish over silly things. If the whole world fell to socialism except for the island of Hawaii then would the whole world be capitalist? Did the closure of the commons in Britain make China a capitalist state? The answer to both questions is no, because it's a more complex question than "either/or socialism" based on the scale of the state or the level of "bureaucracy" which is an unmarxist category. The world has never had a single mode of production and most likely will not until a few decades from now when the process of primitive accumulation is over.

That's not the point the point is making socialism in Hawaii is impossible on its own, and for its own survival it has to support the revolution in the Phillipines, Japan, and the U.S. or else it will be fucking invaded. When you're being invaded or blockaded you can't build socialism. The army and spreading the revolution are sadly the main necessities during the DotP due to the inevitable reaction coming from the counter revolution. That's the entire point of founding Comintern and basing it in Russia, in the Winter Palace itself, and dedicating a huge amount of resources to it.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

That's not the point the point is making socialism in Hawaii is impossible on its own, and for its own survival it has to support the revolution in the Phillipines, Japan, and the U.S. or else it will be fucking invaded. That's the entire point of founding Comintern and basing it in Russia, in the Winter Palace itself, and dedicating a huge amount of resources to it.

Is it "not the point"? If you're going to say that capitalism is a global mode of production that can not be abolished without abolishing it in every country, then you have to understand that you can easily extend this logic to the absurd.

I don't really think it's helpful to understand socialism in terms of the mode of production because we can't really speak of socialism in terms of the abolition of the law of value or the destruction of the world capitalist system because neither things have happened in the concrete experience of the revolutionary movement. If we are to accept that Marxism is a scientific framework, then if there is a revolution in one country that failed to spread globally then we have to think that perhaps this tells something about the nature of the world imperialist system, the actual realities of the working class on a nation to nation basis, our economic framework, and most importantly what we call "socialism". At this point I don't think there is a clear cut perfect answer to what we can call socialism, however I don't think clinging to Marx is valuable at this junction. And even despite the historic failure of the USSR I think that the view that Socialism is the transitory stage to Communism is just more scientific, regardless of whether Marx or Lenin would have endorsed it or not. But of course, now that the conditions are changing, now that technology will allow us to abolish the law of value faster and more rapidally, now that democratic planning is largely unessecary due to the access to technology that we didn't have back then, and now that the level of democracy can be greater due to the abolition of the peasantry and technology that would make political democracy more efficient, I think that even now we still need a new definition of what a socialist society would be.

[Delenda Carthago]

Delinda is completely wrong. In the communist manifesto Marx says plainly that "Socialism is a stateless classless society." Lenin himself said that "While there is a state there can be no freedom! Thus freedom can only exist while there is no state." In State and Revolution, debatably his most important theoretical work.



Really? Thats weird. I thought that in Communist Manifesto he uses socialism in many ways, to describe the various scholars of socialism. As in "reactionary socialism", "petty bourgeois socialism" etc. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch03.htm) I didnt knew that feudal socialism was according to Marx a "stateless classless society". Seems like dude didnt knew jack of what he was talkin about. :/

But what do I know, right? I m a "stalinist", so fuck me, right? You on the contrary proved that since Lenin said that "where there is state there is no freedom"(and he was so right), and USSR was clearly a state, that wasnt socialism...:rolleyes:

Obviously the revolution lead by Lenin himself was not a socialist revolution either. Nice...

[Captain Ahab]

Expectually because Lenin led an actual revolution while a fair amount of what Marx said was mental masturbation.

Why does leading a revolution allow you to retcon Marxism's definition of the term socialism? This statements is especially odd considering that it comes from an anti-revisionist.

[Buck]

Socialism and Communism are the same thing. The existence of it presupposes the absence of nation-states. What you may be referring to is the "dictatorship of the proletariat", which is not a transitional society, but a political transition period after the workers achieve political power and before socialism, which they then proceed to destroy the state and the capitalist mode of production, although this was not the case in former "communist" states. In referring to the other types of socialism, he was critiquing varies groups claiming to be socialist. Bourgeois socialism refers to the reformist parties, Utopian socialism refers to followers of Robert Owen, feudal socialism is attacking those who call themselves "socialist" because they are enemies of the capitalist class and want capitalism to be overthrown to return to feudal society, etc... the point is that they are mislabeling themselves as socialist when they are not.
Leninism isn't really compatible with Marxism for the reason of vanguardism and the two stage theory(socialism with government, class, money vs communism without). Marx preaches that the working class are the only ones who can bring about socialism. In the manifesto he wrote of the communists’ understanding of ‘the line of march, the conditions and the ultimate results of the proletarian movement’, which they conceived as ‘the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority in the interest of the immense majority', that the "workers of the world unite", not the representatives of the capitalist class unite and create . Lenin, in his What is to be Done? (1902), argued that class-consciousness had to be brought to the workers ‘from without’ by professional revolutionaries, representatives of the capitalist class(same idea as Owen), organised as a vanguard, as a body capable of leading the working class to ‘socialism’. Because workers on their own can only develop trade union consciousness, on this view, self-emancipation is impossible.
Marx wrote in the 1800s, so he said that capitalism wasn't developed enough to allow free access, so he thought of labor vouchers to overcome this. He called this lower-stage communism, which is stateless and money-less(note: labor vouchers aren't money). This is no longer the case today as we produce and abundance of everything, being able to produce 4500 cals a day, with a faction of the work force. In the US alone, 2% of the US population can feed the 1/3 of the world, but because of capital distributive relations and the capitalist mode of production, there are over 10.6 million children between the ages of 0 to 5 who die every year due to the lack of basic necessities.

[subcp]

At this point I don't think there is a clear cut perfect answer to what we can call socialism, however I don't think clinging to Marx is valuable at this junction. And even despite the historic failure of the USSR I think that the view that Socialism is the transitory stage to Communism is just more scientific, regardless of whether Marx or Lenin would have endorsed it or not.

"When it has been shown once and for all that the driving force of the capitalist system is not the individual capitalists desire to enjoy profits, but the impersonal requirements of social capital- a social force which only a revolution will be able to overthrow- to grow by means of surplus-value, one has shown the exact reasons for the necessity of the death of capitalism and thus, as Marx indicates, its scientific determined non-existence. But only a science that is revolutionary and no longer doctrinaire can achieve this result" Camatte paraphrasing Marx's point in the Poverty of Philosophy.

What exactly makes a desire for a 'transitional society', which follows the same subterranean needs of the international economy as the current regimes of international capital (accumulation of capital to circulate and re-enter the production process), 'more scientific'- I'm not sure how it can be characterized that way.

Marx's point about the non-existence of capital, important enough that he repeats it Capital vol. II, as the basis for revolutionary 'scientific socialism'- that the transformation of all things involves abolishing the law of value, the social relationship of capital and commodity form, is on another planet from proponents of command economies as something superior to what exists today, or that social organization of a bureaucracy over an all powerful state-command economy are pointed in the general direction of 'socialism'.

[DROSL]

They should have tough about it before, poor fellows, they were corrupted by greed and the stupid American dream.

[Tim Cornelis]

Europeans Against the Political System's facebook:

"A recent gallup by Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia shows that 30% of Greeks think that things were better during the dictatorship ('67-'73)."

Nostalgia for a different political system is not unique to so-called "socialism." It does not prove the superiority of one system over another.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Europeans Against the Political System's facebook:

"A recent gallup by Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia shows that 30% of Greeks think that things were better during the dictatorship ('67-'73)."

Nostalgia for a different political system is not unique to so-called "socialism." It does not prove the superiority of one system over another.

It just proves the current administrations managed to fuck up pretty badly. I mean the nostalgia is pretty high in Romania, and Romania was very poor and the government there never really popular at all past the early 1960's... yet the post-1989 government managed to suck enough to get nostalgia for the Ceaucescu era.

[Delenda Carthago]

Europeans Against the Political System's facebook:

"A recent gallup by Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia shows that 30% of Greeks think that things were better during the dictatorship ('67-'73)."

Nostalgia for a different political system is not unique to so-called "socialism." It does not prove the superiority of one system over another.
First of all, 30% is nothing comparing to 70%. Especially if you compare a period of time where capitalism was at its growth to a period that is downhill, not the comparasing of two different systems.

Secondly, when you talk about Greece, you have to keep in mind the history of the nation. The fact that the collaborators of the nazis, instead of being chased down to the ground after the end of the Occupation, due to the rising "communist threat", they became national heroes. And after that a civil war came(which ended for example in the slaughter of pretty much every communist that existed in places like Peloponisos). And after that a dicatorship that stopped the rise once again of the working class. This is a percentage that there has always been there. And let me tell, you, 30% might be low.


Thirdly and as important, the fact that that fuckin newspaper,being an unofficial SYRIZA newspaper, has that cover today, with a commentary named "DOOONG" that calls all the parties to form an " antimnemonioum democratic allience", is shown how much spit in the face SYRIZA big heads deserve.

http://newpost.gr/var/photos/blog/newpost/eleyterotypiaskata2004555.jpg

This is the cover. On the "DOOOONG" article it says that the mnemonioum has drove people to the far right and in order to stop it, the parties have to unite under an anti-,mnemonioum flag.To "save democracy".My ass.


In case you dont know, this (http://www.revleft.com/vb/syriza-anel-collaboration-t179607/index.html)is happening. Ie, in order for SYRIZA to prepare its voters for the need of a collaboration with ANEL, they bring up the scarecrow of dictatorship to acomblish it. Fuck Eleftherotipia and fuck SYRIZA too.

[Delenda Carthago]

Btw, exactly as I said in the SYRIZA-ANEL thread:



Of course this is something that they were preparing for a while and it has a longer potensial, the creation of a "antimnemonioum" capitalist government.

[Aleksandr Karelin]

First off, 72% of people asked said that.

Lots of people say that my country was better off before women could vote and when your neighbor was definitely going to be white. Conformation bias is boring wherever it is coming from.

A high percentage of of people in all countries constantly vote right wing parties into office and support austerity, does that give any life to the idea we should support austerity?

[Skyhilist]

The question "Were you better off living under communism?", as I'm sure others have pointed out, is fallacious to begin with. They weren't living under communism. Communism necessarily implies a global system, and the absence of a state.

[hatzel]

Lots of people say that my country was better off before women could vote and when your neighbor was definitely going to be white.

Interestingly enough, other surveys have suggested that very close to 72% of Hungarians think the Jews have too much power and a similarly high number believe that the Roma have a genetic predisposition to crime. Not implying that these 70~% of people are the exact same 70~% of people, simply that no less than half of these socialist nostalgoids have some pretty sketch opinions beside that (if these various surveys are to be believed, and that's up for debate). In fact I wouldn't be surprised if there is a not inconsiderable degree of crossover between certain types of sketch opinion and such nostalgia...

[DarkPast]

Interestingly enough, other surveys have suggested that very close to 72% of Hungarians think the Jews have too much power and a similarly high number believe that the Roma have a genetic predisposition to crime. Not implying that these 70~% of people are the exact same 70~% of people, simply that no less than half of these socialist nostalgoids have some pretty sketch opinions beside that (if these various surveys are to be believed, and that's up for debate). In fact I wouldn't be surprised if there is a not inconsiderable degree of crossover between certain types of sketch opinion and such nostalgia...

Yes, it's no secret that reactionary sentiment was very much present in the former East Bloc, despite all the rhetoric about equality. For starters, there were still strong leftover sentiments from the feudal period (don't forget Eastern Europe was considerably lagging behind the West in industrialization, urbanization and even land reform). This was especially true among the less educated people, particularly agricultural workers and those who had just moved to the cities to take up manufacturing jobs (and there were many such people in the aftermath of WW2).

I know from talking to people who lived in Yugoslavia that even the educated, progressive circles tended to distrust the Roma. The reason given was something like "They don't want to work. We build houses and work in factories, but they still choose to live in shacks and refuse to abandon their traditional way of life. They just aren't receptive to socialist ideas". I would assume it was similar in the other East Bloc countries.

[barbelo]

72% of hungarians are wearing nostalgia glasses.

[Sudsy]

For all post soviet or socialist states most statistics look something like that.

[Bostana]

They never lived under communism........
I assume you're talking about the time that Hungary was under the grip of Soviet Rule? Yes, eastern Europe became more advanced than what they were before. While conditions got better, they weren't great. The proletariat was still oppressed under Soviet rule


....socialist states...
No such thing as socialist state

[Sudsy]

Why is there no such thing as a socialist state?

[Bostana]

Why is there no such thing as a socialist state?

Have you ever read Marx Comrade?

[KurtFF8]

No such thing as socialist state

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat

[Captain Ahab]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat

Considering the bottom paragraph I wouldn't use Wikipedia if I were you.
The three citations(On Authority, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Address of the Central Committee) given in the first paragraph do not support the idea of the DotP being socialist.
Now you also fail to realize that Wikipedia defining the DotP as a "socialist state" can also be influenced by MLs referring to it as such.

[Brutus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_the_proletariat

Socialism and communism are synonyms. The dictatorship of the proletariat is still capitalistic in nature as capitalism is a world system, thus socialism and capitalism can not co-exist

[KurtFF8]

Considering the bottom paragraph I wouldn't use Wikipedia if I were you.
The three citations(On Authority, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Address of the Central Committee) given in the first paragraph do not support the idea of the DotP being socialist.
Now you also fail to realize that Wikipedia defining the DotP as a "socialist state" can also be influenced by MLs referring to it as such.

Claiming that "there is no such thing as a socialist state" or there "has never been socialism" etc. is just as much a fidelity to a particular tendency (some Trotskyist groups, anarcho/libertarian/council Communists, etc.) as proclaiming that places like Cuba are socialist (which is more in line with ML tendencies).

Appealing to Marx (and Lenin to a large extent) is something that many of these varied tendencies share in common yet derive vastly different conclusions.

So to say "pfft, did you even read Marx!?" is not only condescending (yes I know this was another user), but it doesn't really even get you directly to the conclusion that you claim it does (as it ignores the level of debate over this question within the Marxist tradition)

[Captain Ahab]

snip

So? Are all tendencies correct at the same time?

[hashem]

Hungarian people have never lived under communism to judge whether its good comparing to present situation or not.

if communism is so popular in Hungary, then why is far right growing there?

besides, even if 72% of population support communism in any country but capitalism still exists there, it only proves that how miserable and confused are the "communist"s in that country, and that their "communism" is just a cover for bourgeoisie ideas.

[KurtFF8]

So? Are all tendencies correct at the same time?

No, my point was to show that someone was trying to appeal to Marx and presenting it as if it were a "neutral" ultimate source, when in reality it is just as loaded of a statement (thus appealing to a tendency) as is describing these states in question as being socialist.

[Captain Ahab]

No, my point was to show that someone was trying to appeal to Marx and presenting it as if it were a "neutral" ultimate source, when in reality it is just as loaded of a statement (thus appealing to a tendency) as is describing these states in question as being socialist.
So you wouldn't object to Sweden being called socialist then? Or is there a point to your game here?

[The Intransigent Faction]

No, my point was to show that someone was trying to appeal to Marx and presenting it as if it were a "neutral" ultimate source, when in reality it is just as loaded of a statement (thus appealing to a tendency) as is describing these states in question as being socialist.

Except that one "interpretation" is full of shit and claims to justify behavior that is inherently anti-Marxist, and the other is not.

I'm not saying Marx was holy writ or anything, but to suggest that a proper reading of Marx justifies Lenin/Stalin just as much as, say, Paul Mattick, is intellectually dishonest.

/fin.