the U.S.S.R - what are your opinions?

[yuriandropov]

what does everyone think of the USSR's attempt of socialism? as a soviet citizen i think we made massive gains in the years 1922-1980 due to socialism. from backward illiterate country to world superpower.

[Aleksander Nordby]

The people lived better in the soviet time and then they live now.

[Danified]

I'm not in any way saying you are wrong, because I can definitely see that as the truth, Nordby. However, some data or sources for the information provided about their lifestyle would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

The fact that they were a superpower simply comes from the fact that they produced massive amounts of nuclear arsenal and other weapons of mass destruction.

I think that the early CCCP was quite succesful in bringing the golry to the proletariat and giving full power to to the common worker, perhaps the most succesful in doing so. The post-Stalin Soviet Union though, is not. The Stalinist CCCP was fascist, beurocratic, hierarchal, prejudice, and not at all Marxist-Leninist. The Stalinist CCCP gave Communism all over the world a bad reputation.
Read CiaranB's thread titled "Commemorating the Russian Revolution" or something like that. I don't know where it is, but it's really good.


(Edited by Victorcommie at 9:58 am on Dec. 13, 2002)

[antieverything]

Do you mean the "commemorating the russian revolution" in politics?

Well, the USSR wasn't that bad when you look at things in perspective...Russia was a fuedalist country only 100 years ago, after all.

The USSR did go to show, however, that "democratic" centralism is doomed to failure. Alot of the problems encountered by the USSR were do to the fact that it had no previous capitalist industrial infrastructure to act as a shell for the new socialist economy. No pre-wrought market advantages and the CP sure didn't do alot to remedy the problem through most of the USSR's history.

Cappies can say what they want but you have to give some props to a country that was championing full racial and sexual equality at a time when women couldn't vote and racism was an intrinsic part of society here in America.

(Edited by antieverything at 10:00 pm on Dec. 12, 2002)

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

As a proud citizen of the former Soviet Union, I just wanna say that I enjoyed life there. Streets were clean, crimerates were low(although the last few years)and ppl were happy just to call up few things.

One thing that missed in the soviet union(altough pretty good for a first try to create a socialist state) was that selfexpression missed there. Ppl were (a lil less) braindead like in the US right now. Believing almost everything they said. The repression of the freedom of speech caused that ppl weren't thinking for themselfs. And turned into zombies following the governm will without a qeustion.

[Communist Chris]

I think that the former Soviet Union was one of the best places to live.

[antieverything]

...because you never lived there. I'd rather not have to wait in a line to get my food.

[American Kid]

Or be on Stalin's bad side.

Which could qualify as having done...........well, anything. Not even anything he didn't like, just anything in general..

Fuck the Soviet Union.

It's long dead. We won. The end.
-ak

[American Kid]

As a few side notes:

1) there's a really cool couple of books out there, from back in the sixties (I think.....) called, "Meet Soviet Russia" by a guy named John Gunther.

They come in two volumes, one is called, "Leaders, Politics, Problems" and the other is called, "Land, People, Sights". They're both very, very interesting and a cool peek into a world a lot of people probably don't know much about.

Surprisingly, they're not exactly too pro or con-Soviet Russia one way or the other. They're just accounts, written by a reasonably objective British journalist, about the innerworkings and daily life in (like the books are called) Soviet Russia. They're very interesting. Especially for someone like me who grew up fearing Russia and all it's missles *wink*. The picture it paints of the Russian citizens primarily are that of a hard-working, respectable people, who are very much as curious (and sort of afraid) about the Western world as it is of them (seeing as how the two govs weren't exactly promoting, uh, them becoming pen-pals or anything).

I can't sum it up here because I'll be typing all night----- and so would might as well just cut and paste the whole goddamn book while I'm at it. I'll just sum it up by assuring all that it's fucking fascinating.

2) And my second side-note is that CCCP is a confused kid who'd better get his head out of his ass about US people being brain dead.

In other words, smarten up, dumbass.

-ak

[Jaha]

i think that the ussr showed that people truely do want communism but more importantly, i think it shows that there is a good way to bring communism and a bad way.

in the ussr there was a dictator, whose supposed job was to supervise the transition to communism.

"power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."

the supervisors were corrupted and failed their duties. russia produced exports like crazy, but stalins policies killed around 20,000,000 people.

that is one crappy supervisor.

[kidicarus20]

Stalins economic policies didn't kill 20 million people, that's ridiculous.

People were generally happier under Stalin than today's capitalist russia.

[American Kid]

At least they can display Picasso paintings publicly now.
-ak

(what's more important than free thought? As HUMAN BEINGS, answer that)

[American Kid]

And yes, I know Picasso was a communist

And no, it didn't matter. They felt he was a comrade, but that his work was shit.
-ak

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

to AK what a warm speech to me.

I didnt say that if u are an american u are braindead, I said that that the far the greatest part of the americans are braindead. How can u know more about the happyness that the USSR citizen had if u have never been there. The captalist world can say whatever they want about the USSR but the ppl were happy and u didnt need to be afraid of beeing robbed(the chance was there but much less than in the US)

I think that u are mad at me cause I interfiered with ur nationalistic feelings. Sad.

[American Kid]

First, a fine example of my seething, over-flowing nationalism, which CCCP so callously bruised just now:

http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...ic=1302&start=0 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=22&topic=1302&start=0)

Second, CCCP's asinine-at-best post above ^^^^ is true proof of his:

a) ignorance

B) arrogance

"Oh! Oh, well then apology accepted CCCP! Gee, what a swell guy! Hey, guys did you hear that? Not all of us are braindead (sic?), just the greatest part of us! Whoo!"

Key sentence in dude's post by the way is the second one in the paragraph under the initial statement (which.......I don't know guys.......but I think.......I think that's him being....sarcastic).

What I love about that sentence is he inadvertantly contradicts himself. He asks me how I can know more about happyness (sic?) than the Soviet-era Russians since I've never been there. Meanwhile, in the sentence before that one, he conveniently shares with the world the conclusive findings of his latest "scientifc" study, which are:

"not all american r braindead. just the far greatest part are braindead"

Which is, and there's no doubt that it speaks for itself but I'm gonna do it anyway, profound.

And it's funny because in none of my posts did I say anything about how miserable the people were. In fact, in my second post I recommended a book which is quite clearly sympathetic to them. But I guess, weened on al-jazeera as I'm sure he is, CCCP reads what he wants to read.

And even funnier, CCCP loves to talk about how dumb American are, yet I would count this as yet another in a seemingly endless series of ass-whuppings he's recieved, courtesy of the lacerating words and ideas jolting down like lightning bolts from my supercharged brain (!), directly through the tips of my nimble little fingers.

And yes, soy americano.

-ak



(Edited by American Kid at 9:33 am on Dec. 15, 2002)