As an Anarchist even I have to acknowledge that to date the Soviet Union has been the most successful socialist state, of course I am also of the belief that if the Republicans in Spain or the Anarchists in Ukraine they would have established far more successful implementations of socialism. Still the fact remains that the Soviet Union was by all metrics available successful and even until the very end the majority of people in nearly every SSR supported keeping the Soviet Union alive (if not with reforms), they suffered CIA and western backed reactionary rebellions and I don’t belive any other socialist state would have handled it any better
(yes according to polling made by the reactionaries to gage how much the Soviet population wanted to end to the Soviet Union the majority did not, they promptly ignored the results)
Typo there I meant to say Anarchists in Catalonia, still the fact remains that demanding absolute purity and claiming anything else isnt socialist doesn’t result in socialism. That line of thinking objectively only results in the creation of more fascist states.
Quite frankly the entire world would become fascist before a single nation in the global south accepts your specific definition of pure socialism
demanding absolute purity and claiming anything else isnt socialist doesn’t result in socialism.
Pretending that socialism is “when the gubment does stuff” hasn’t resulted in socialism, either.
Quite frankly the entire world would become fascist before a single nation
Yes, that’s what political elites do when the power and privilege of the class they serve is threatened - and that includes the ones pretending to be “socialist.”
We’ve known this since forever - and your solution to this is to render an enduring political concept so impotent and hollow that it ceases to have any meaning to the very people it is supposed to liberate?
The solution is to be pragmatic and support various socialist groups when it makes sense to do so. For example I voted for Mamdani and I dont regret it whatsoever, obviously he’s not going to declare revolution and instate a pure socialist utopia.
The solution is to be pragmatic and support various socialist groups when it makes sense to do so.
And this excuses buying into tanies’ warped and self-serving narratives of what socialism is… how?
For example I voted for Mamdani
And If I was a New Yorker I would have voted for him as well… but that doesn’t mean I confuse him or the anti-democratic electoral spectacle he was a player in as having anything to do with socialism at all.
Because I know what the polls look like for people who actually lived there, because I know my families’ opinion and because I know the results of the 1991 referendum
The ones that didn’t give up & dismantle themselves, because they couldn’t deliver on their promises[1] or beat the west even on their own terms & measures of success[2]?
labor, free from exploitation, as the source of growth
continuous improvement of their living standards (art. 39)
steady growth of the productive forces (art. 40).
It never fulfilled its founding promise of a communist society. ↩︎
Forced labor camps/Gulags are the opposite of labor free from exploitation.
When the wall fell, East Germany was significantly poorer than West Germany: GDP per capita less than half with lagging living standards.
Other economies that started poorer than East Germany beat it or caught up to West Germany.
The Soviet experience of socialist ownership and the concomitant centrally planned character of the economy showed the difficulties of realizing economic growth in order to ensure an increasing standard of living. Growth in the Soviet Union had been high in the nineteen thirties and early fifties, but had been deteriorating ever since.
The end of the Cold War has changed the focus of the debate on human rights. The West, with its focus on civil and political rights, no longer opposed the Soviet states, with their emphasis on economic, social and cultural rights. The demise of the communist systems gave rise to a certain extent of triumphalism in the West, which had proven to be not only superior in political and civil rights, but also in economic and social rights. The economies of the western countries produced much more income and the material welfare of their populations was much higher than that of those living in Eastern Europe.
Social democracy is not socialism. How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man. Having characteristic of socialism does not make something socialist otherwise capitalism would be socialist. If the workers dont own the means of production, it is not socialism.
Socialist isn’t entirely the opposite of authoritarian. In some dimensions it is. In others it’s unrelated. The USSR can be both socialist and authoritarian. Many argue it was both.
“Dictator of the proletariat” didn’t mean the proletariats needed a dictator. It meant they needed to be the dictators. The common people must decide what the common people need, is what that sentence means.
I’m very interested to hear your thoughts on how it is possible to have a dictatorship of the proletariat, while simultaneously having an actual dictator.
I’m actually not disagreeing that the USSR was socialist, by the way. For most intents and purposes, they were. But “dictatorship of the proletariat” at least to me, sounds like a democracy which is antithetical to authoritarianism
When you establish a socialist nation, the resources of the ruling must be extracted by force, as they cannot be reasoned with. They will not simply give up their wealth because socialism won. The only option is to take the resources by force. The exact same sort of force they use on us today.
Feel free to provide any other realistic solution to wealth redistribution. That is the issue with people like you that don’t read theory. You think socialism just magically happens. The countries that ACTUALLY did this shit know that isn’t how this works.
There has never been a transition from a large mature capitalist republic to a socialist republic society(ussr certainty didn’t). No one can predict how it will happen, certainly not you and certainly not me. The ussr is no model at all for the future of the United states.
Does pre-revolution Cuba qualify as a comparable stage of capitalist development to the US today? Methinks no and I don’t expect things to go the same way in the US as they did in Cuba. I think the US is closer to the state of capitalism Marx thought would start a transition towards socialism than Cuba or tsarist Russia.
Some significant differences from past iterations:
Many developed industries that don’t have to be built from scratch
The most powerful military in the world
Just based on those two, if a socialist revolution is to occur in the US, there would be no immediate (or any war) waged on it, so no resources would need to be dedicated on that. There would be no need to scramble to develop almost all industry. Due to the extreme consolidation, taking control over the system would likely be easier - fewer levers control everything.
This is just a link for an anarchism FAQ. Feel free to just name the nations. You can type it out.
And yes, I do consider a nation that went from millions of peasants, to exploring space, providing free education, free healthcare, and women’s rights, while going toe to toe with the greatest capital super power of all time as a success.
The one of the largest problems with any state system or really any system that includes involuntary hierarchies is the decoupling of economics and morality. Power not only is a corrupting force but the people who want power over others tend to have the basest morality. Both western capitalism and the Chinese implementation of socialism are both perfectly happy destroying the environment, utilizing slave labor, and implementing surveillance states all in the name of “progress” and the continuation of a world order that primarily benefits an elite few while grinding billions under their boot heels.
you have got to be kidding me. Tankies gonna tankie i guess
As an Anarchist even I have to acknowledge that to date the Soviet Union has been the most successful socialist state, of course I am also of the belief that if the Republicans in Spain or the Anarchists in Ukraine they would have established far more successful implementations of socialism. Still the fact remains that the Soviet Union was by all metrics available successful and even until the very end the majority of people in nearly every SSR supported keeping the Soviet Union alive (if not with reforms), they suffered CIA and western backed reactionary rebellions and I don’t belive any other socialist state would have handled it any better
(yes according to polling made by the reactionaries to gage how much the Soviet population wanted to end to the Soviet Union the majority did not, they promptly ignored the results)
The Republicans did win in Catalonia - that’s why anarchist Catalonia had essentially ceased to exist before any fascist even set foot in it.
And no…
…as an anarchist you should understand perfectly well that the USSR was about as “socialist” as the US is “democratic.”
Typo there I meant to say Anarchists in Catalonia, still the fact remains that demanding absolute purity and claiming anything else isnt socialist doesn’t result in socialism. That line of thinking objectively only results in the creation of more fascist states.
Quite frankly the entire world would become fascist before a single nation in the global south accepts your specific definition of pure socialism
Pretending that socialism is “when the gubment does stuff” hasn’t resulted in socialism, either.
Yes, that’s what political elites do when the power and privilege of the class they serve is threatened - and that includes the ones pretending to be “socialist.”
We’ve known this since forever - and your solution to this is to render an enduring political concept so impotent and hollow that it ceases to have any meaning to the very people it is supposed to liberate?
The solution is to be pragmatic and support various socialist groups when it makes sense to do so. For example I voted for Mamdani and I dont regret it whatsoever, obviously he’s not going to declare revolution and instate a pure socialist utopia.
And this excuses buying into tanies’ warped and self-serving narratives of what socialism is… how?
And If I was a New Yorker I would have voted for him as well… but that doesn’t mean I confuse him or the anti-democratic electoral spectacle he was a player in as having anything to do with socialism at all.
Westerners gonna western. None of your fam is from there probably ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How would you know that?
Because I know what the polls look like for people who actually lived there, because I know my families’ opinion and because I know the results of the 1991 referendum
Name a more successful iteration of socialism. I’ll wait. You seem very confident about this lol.
Edit: they were never heard from again 🤣
The ones that didn’t give up & dismantle themselves, because they couldn’t deliver on their promises[1] or beat the west even on their own terms & measures of success[2]?
Other communist states still exist: Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea. China is a strong contender. However, it achieved its economic edge by liberalizing its state capitalist economy. Its economic inequality is worse than that of liberal democracies in Europe, Canada, East Asia, Australia: check out the detailed view of this world map of gini coefficients. Its civil & political rights are difficult to understate & its recent campaign to repress its LGBT+ population is only the latest episode. Nonetheless, it’s credibly a “more successful iteration of socialism”.
Beyond communist states, social democracies in the West are “successful iteration[s] of socialism” with lower economic inequality.
The Soviet constitution of 1977 made a number of promises it couldn’t realize.
It never fulfilled its founding promise of a communist society. ↩︎
Forced labor camps/Gulags are the opposite of labor free from exploitation.
When the wall fell, East Germany was significantly poorer than West Germany: GDP per capita less than half with lagging living standards. Other economies that started poorer than East Germany beat it or caught up to West Germany.
Chronic shortages increasingly led people to the second economy with its blat (favors) network. They were unable to sustain economic growth to increase living standards.
Eventually, the last Soviet leaders, conceding failure by their own standards (economic, social, & cultural rights) & western standards (civil & political rights), dismantled the system from within: Western governments had exceeded their communist state by all standards.
↩︎Social democracy is not socialism. How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man. Having characteristic of socialism does not make something socialist otherwise capitalism would be socialist. If the workers dont own the means of production, it is not socialism.
It’s concerning that you think the Soviet union was socialist and not authoritarian.
Socialist isn’t entirely the opposite of authoritarian. In some dimensions it is. In others it’s unrelated. The USSR can be both socialist and authoritarian. Many argue it was both.
Socialism requires a dictatorship of the proletariat. Have you never read theory?
“Dictator of the proletariat” didn’t mean the proletariats needed a dictator. It meant they needed to be the dictators. The common people must decide what the common people need, is what that sentence means.
That’s what I’m saying.
I’m very interested to hear your thoughts on how it is possible to have a dictatorship of the proletariat, while simultaneously having an actual dictator.
I’m actually not disagreeing that the USSR was socialist, by the way. For most intents and purposes, they were. But “dictatorship of the proletariat” at least to me, sounds like a democracy which is antithetical to authoritarianism
That is “state socialism” as pushed by cold war propaganda (marxism-leninism interpretation). Socialism certainly doesn’t require a dictatorship.
The only other option would be magic.
When you establish a socialist nation, the resources of the ruling must be extracted by force, as they cannot be reasoned with. They will not simply give up their wealth because socialism won. The only option is to take the resources by force. The exact same sort of force they use on us today.
Feel free to provide any other realistic solution to wealth redistribution. That is the issue with people like you that don’t read theory. You think socialism just magically happens. The countries that ACTUALLY did this shit know that isn’t how this works.
There has never been a transition from a large mature capitalist republic to a socialist republic society(ussr certainty didn’t). No one can predict how it will happen, certainly not you and certainly not me. The ussr is no model at all for the future of the United states.
Cuba
Does pre-revolution Cuba qualify as a comparable stage of capitalist development to the US today? Methinks no and I don’t expect things to go the same way in the US as they did in Cuba. I think the US is closer to the state of capitalism Marx thought would start a transition towards socialism than Cuba or tsarist Russia.
Some significant differences from past iterations:
Just based on those two, if a socialist revolution is to occur in the US, there would be no immediate (or any war) waged on it, so no resources would need to be dedicated on that. There would be no need to scramble to develop almost all industry. Due to the extreme consolidation, taking control over the system would likely be easier - fewer levers control everything.
Sure, you could call most of these socialist: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-anarchist-faq-full#text-amuse-label-seca5
It seems like you did not, in fact, wait. I have better stuff to do than debating tankies.
Also, the fact that you consider the USSR a successful iteration of socialism is… concerning.
Stating historical fact makes you a tankie apparently
🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥
Reality has a leftist bias
This is just a link for an anarchism FAQ. Feel free to just name the nations. You can type it out.
And yes, I do consider a nation that went from millions of peasants, to exploring space, providing free education, free healthcare, and women’s rights, while going toe to toe with the greatest capital super power of all time as a success.
It’s an anarchism FAQ :P
It was a brutal dictatorship. What they achieved does not excuse that.
Yeah, I’m getting the impression I’m dealing with a political lightweight here.
Socialism is an economic system, not a moral one.
Best of luck of on your journey.
The one of the largest problems with any state system or really any system that includes involuntary hierarchies is the decoupling of economics and morality. Power not only is a corrupting force but the people who want power over others tend to have the basest morality. Both western capitalism and the Chinese implementation of socialism are both perfectly happy destroying the environment, utilizing slave labor, and implementing surveillance states all in the name of “progress” and the continuation of a world order that primarily benefits an elite few while grinding billions under their boot heels.