Defending The Soviet Union

[steve_bank]

Putin has said publicly he thought the great tragedy of the last century was the fall of the Soviet Union. He also said he would like to rebuild it/

Are there any saving graces of the Soviet Union? It appeared as a grey grim system with low standards of living. Walls were built to keep people in. An economy never evolved. IMO in part due to purges that eliminated an educated middle class substituting ideology for ability..

Oliver Stane did a somewhat anti American series called History in which he claimed Stalin was a good guy and the Soviet troubles were due to Truman and his strong anti communism

I watched a documentary on a Soviet famine in the early 1900s. It was due to the failure of collectivization, poor infrastructure, and poor govt management.

Stalinism followed by other versions were abysmal failures. Putin continues the traditions, suppression of free speech and liberty. Large scale economic corruption and profiteering.

In contrast when Chinese Communism failed, they reinvented themselves and made an spectacular comeback.

 

[Ford]

Putin has said publicly he thought the great tragedy of the last century was the fall of the Soviet Union. He also said he would like to rebuild it/

Well he's an asshole.

Are there any saving graces of the Soviet Union?

Not really. No.

Oliver Stane did a somewhat anti American series called History in which he claimed Stalin was a good guy and the Soviet troubles were due to Truman and his strong anti communism

Well Oliver Stone is an asshole. If you're talking about his series "The Untold History of the United States" then that's like if Art Bell were tasked with producing an objective documentary on UFO visitations.

In contrast when Chinese Communism failed, they reinvented themselves and made an spectacular comeback.

The thing about China is that they switched to a market economy but kept the totalitarianism. For the better part of the last 30 years "Communist" China has been a capitalist dictatorship. It has been very successful...unless of course you were looking to them for freedoms.

 

[barbos]

Putin has said publicly he thought the great tragedy of the last century was the fall of the Soviet Union.

He did say that. But what he meant is not what media tried to paint. You need to see the whole interview.

He also said he would like to rebuild it

Nope, he never said that.

Are there any saving graces of the Soviet Union? It appeared as a grey grim system with low standards of living. Walls were built to keep people in. An economy never evolved. IMO in part due to purges that eliminated an educated middle class substituting ideology for ability..

Yes, it was a crappy economic system, the rest is just result of that.

Oliver Stane did a somewhat anti American series called History in which he claimed Stalin was a good guy and the Soviet troubles were due to Truman and his strong anti communism

I watched a documentary on a Soviet famine in the early 1900s. It was due to the failure of collectivization, poor infrastructure, and poor govt management.

Stalinism followed by other versions were abysmal failures. Putin continues the traditions, suppression of free speech and liberty. Large scale economic corruption and profiteering.

In contrast when Chinese Communism failed, they reinvented themselves and made an spectacular comeback.

So you agree that, things could have been done better during/after the fall of USSR?
That's basically what Putin meant when he talked about tragedy of the fall of USSR.
A lot of people in Russia look at China with envy.

 

[barbos]

And since it is about "defending Soviet Union". What about free health care and free higher education? I could be wrong but were not they the first who implemented it? Leftists should appreciate it.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Well, the Soviet Union was responsible for the deaths of more communists than the enemies of communism could hope to achieve.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

So Putin is going to make Russia great again by turning it into a totally corrupt kleptocracy. Yeah, baby!

 

[barbos]

So Putin is going to make Russia great again by turning it into a totally corrupt kleptocracy. Yeah, baby!

What gave you this idea?

 

[laughing dog]

So Putin is going to make Russia great again by turning it into a totally corrupt kleptocracy. Yeah, baby!

"Turning"?

 

[laughing dog]

And since it is about "defending Soviet Union". What about free health care and free higher education? I could be wrong but were not they the first who implemented it? Leftists should appreciate it.

The Soviets were not the first to implement free health care ( Universal_health_care).

 

[Horatio Parker]

It's a Russian variant of MAGA. Or vice versa.

IOW, just rhetoric for the gullible.

 

[Copernicus]

And since it is about "defending Soviet Union". What about free health care and free higher education? I could be wrong but were not they the first who implemented it? Leftists should appreciate it.

No health care is free. Somebody has to pay for it by one means or another. The problem with the Soviet Union was that the quality of the government-managed health care was abysmal--far below the standards of government-managed systems in the West. When I was there in 1965 on a Russian language study tour, one of our group came down with a severe case of the flu. He was sent to a hospital. Conditions there were so abysmal that he literally grabbed his clothes and escaped in a hospital gown. A stranger on the street helped him get back to the hotel we were staying in.

The educational system in the SU was good in some respects, but the Communists did not invent free higher education. Land grant universities in the US offered it before there even was an October Revolution.

Unfortunately, science and academia suffered greatly under Communist rule. Whatever else the Soviet Union invented, it also invented  Lysenkoism. When I was in Russia for an academic conference in 1997, I had a chance to visit Moscow University. They were suffering greatly from loss of funding that had been caused by the collapse of the SU. For example, the lobby of the Faculty of Humanities building was filled with people peddling everything from books to clothing as a means of sustaining themselves. One of the faculty members told me that, despite their hardships, her greatest fear was that the same people who had ruled under Communism would find a way to come back into power. Putin has made her fear come true, but Russia is still far better off under Putin's kleptocracy than it was under Communist domination. It is too bad that his greed and corruption have tended to ruin the progress that was being made before his ill-conceived invasion of Ukraine. Russia and the rest of the world would be so much better off without his Soviet-inspired method running things.

 

[barbos]

And since it is about "defending Soviet Union". What about free health care and free higher education? I could be wrong but were not they the first who implemented it? Leftists should appreciate it.

No health care is free. Somebody has to pay for it by one means or another. The problem with the Soviet Union was that the quality of the government-managed health care was abysmal--far below the standards of government-managed systems in the West. When I was there in 1965 on a Russian language study tour, one of our group came down with a severe case of the flu. He was sent to a hospital. Conditions there were so abysmal that he literally grabbed his clothes and escaped in a hospital gown.

Well, I was not born then, so can't provide counter-anecdote.

A stranger on the street helped him get back to the hotel we were staying in.

The educational system in the SU was good in some respects, but the Communists did not invent free higher education. Land grant universities in the US offered it before there even was an October Revolution.

By that logic US still has "free" higher education.

Unfortunately, science and academia suffered greatly under Communist rule. Whatever else the Soviet Union invented, it also invented  Lysenkoism.

Lysenko was ahead of his time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

When I was in Russia for an academic conference in 1997, I had a chance to visit Moscow University. They were suffering greatly from loss of funding that had been caused by the collapse of the SU.

Well, yes in 1997, capitalists were in power

For example, the lobby of the Faculty of Humanities building was filled with people peddling everything from books to clothing as a means of sustaining themselves. One of the faculty members told me that, despite their hardships, her greatest fear was that the same people who had ruled under Communism would find a way to come back into power. Putin has made her fear come true, but Russia is still far better off under Putin's kleptocracy than it was under Communist domination. It is too bad that his greed and corruption have tended to ruin the progress that was being made before his ill-conceived invasion of Ukraine. Russia and the rest of the world would be so much better off without his Soviet-inspired method running things.

Well, I got my "undergrad" degree in mostly Soviet Union and PhD in US. I can say education vise, USSR was better, US higher education is mostly a vehicle to extract money from students, don't know what it was in 1965 though.

In any case, it's an accepted fact that commies put a lot of effort of providing free stuff (education, health care, housing), it was really their thing with socialism and all that. Quality suffered but quality in general was not that great in USSR.

 

[rousseau]

The Soviet Union was largely a result of the scientism of the early 20th century. People thinking they had it all figured out.. but didn't. After Stalin passed they tried to push things back to reality but the damage had been done.

I don't know much about the Putin era, but Putin strikes me as a psychopath who has no interest in world order, and even if he does, he has no idea how to actually achieve it. Maybe destabilising other nations is the only way forward for Russia in the short-term, but if the U.S. and the EU crumble I can't see how that's good for them in the long-term. He's just another in a long line of over-confident leaders with a bad case of Dunning Kruger.

 

[barbos]

The Soviet Union was largely a result of the scientism of the early 20th century. People thinking they had it all figured out.. but didn't. After Stalin passed they tried to push things back to reality but the damage had been done.

I don't know much about the Putin era, but Putin strikes me as a psychopath who has no interest in world order, and even if he does, he has no idea how to actually achieve it. Maybe destabilising other nations is the only way forward for Russia in the short-term, but if the U.S. and the EU crumble I can't see how that's good for them in the long-term. He's just another in a long line of over-confident leaders with a bad case of Dunning Kruger.

Destabilising other nations is kinda US thing. So yeah, western media paints rather incorrect picture of Putin, judging by what you said at least.

 

[rousseau]

The Soviet Union was largely a result of the scientism of the early 20th century. People thinking they had it all figured out.. but didn't. After Stalin passed they tried to push things back to reality but the damage had been done.

I don't know much about the Putin era, but Putin strikes me as a psychopath who has no interest in world order, and even if he does, he has no idea how to actually achieve it. Maybe destabilising other nations is the only way forward for Russia in the short-term, but if the U.S. and the EU crumble I can't see how that's good for them in the long-term. He's just another in a long line of over-confident leaders with a bad case of Dunning Kruger.

Destabilising other nations is kinda US thing. So yeah, western media paints rather incorrect picture of Putin, judging by what you said at least.

So you explain Putin meddling in the elections of every major, Western nation to promote nationalism, how? What's his end-goal?

If maybe not to destablize, it's at least to promote an anti-global world, which is no more of a noble goal.

 

[barbos]

The Soviet Union was largely a result of the scientism of the early 20th century. People thinking they had it all figured out.. but didn't. After Stalin passed they tried to push things back to reality but the damage had been done.

I don't know much about the Putin era, but Putin strikes me as a psychopath who has no interest in world order, and even if he does, he has no idea how to actually achieve it. Maybe destabilising other nations is the only way forward for Russia in the short-term, but if the U.S. and the EU crumble I can't see how that's good for them in the long-term. He's just another in a long line of over-confident leaders with a bad case of Dunning Kruger.

Destabilising other nations is kinda US thing. So yeah, western media paints rather incorrect picture of Putin, judging by what you said at least.

So you explain Putin meddling in the elections of every major, Western nation to promote nationalism, how? What's his end-goal?

I explain it as a western media exaggeration and simple involuntary reaction. Don't blame a sleeping bear after you poke it with a stick.

If maybe not to destablize, it's at least to promote an anti-global world, which is no more of a noble goal.

Well, what do you expect after global world (meaning USA) tries hard to isolate you?
Let me gave you a separate example. US did not get that Israel-Palestine vote right in UN. Next thing they do? They cut UN funding. You think there is no cause and effect here?

 

[rousseau]

So you explain Putin meddling in the elections of every major, Western nation to promote nationalism, how? What's his end-goal?

I explain it as western media exaggeration and simple involuntary reaction. Don't blame a sleeping bear after you poke it with a stick.

If maybe not to destablize, it's at least to promote an anti-global world, which is no more of a noble goal.

Well, what do you expect after global world (meaning USA) tries hard to isolate you?
Let me gave you a separate example. US did not get voting that Israle-Palestine vote right in UN. Next thing they do? They cut UN funding. You think there is no connection?

I definitely don't mean to be an apologist for the U.S. either, just that I don't think Putin is a particularly smart or caring person.

I think it's just something about the political organisation of humans. Leaders tend to be sociopaths and good social actors, not necessarily good at bringing the overall quality of life up for the people around them.

 

[barbos]

I explain it as western media exaggeration and simple involuntary reaction. Don't blame a sleeping bear after you poke it with a stick.

Well, what do you expect after global world (meaning USA) tries hard to isolate you?
Let me gave you a separate example. US did not get voting that Israle-Palestine vote right in UN. Next thing they do? They cut UN funding. You think there is no connection?

I definitely don't mean to be an apologist for the U.S. either, just that I don't think Putin is a particularly smart or caring person.

I agree. He is only smart as your typical world leader, which is not much.

I think it's just something about the political organisation of humans. Leaders tend to be sociopaths and good social actors, not necessarily good at bringing the overall quality of life up for the people around them.

So it's "yes, he is a sociopath but he is our sociopath"

 

[Ford]

So you explain Putin meddling in the elections of every major, Western nation to promote nationalism, how?

The explanation is whatever the Kremlin tells him is the explanation. Questions like "how" and "why" are irrelevant, because barbos' job is not to question at all.

 

[Copernicus]

The educational system in the SU was good in some respects, but the Communists did not invent free higher education. Land grant universities in the US offered it before there even was an October Revolution.

By that logic US still has "free" higher education.

The situation has changed over time, because land grant universities charge considerably more these days. Higher education was actually cheaper before the Reagan era, because there were plenty of opportunities to get scholarships and grants, if one qualified. In countries where higher education is "free", you still have to qualify for entrance, which is equivalent to winning a scholarship or grant. (Most of my undergraduate and graduate education was government-funded, even though I had to pay for tuition and other expenses. I also had a government-backed low interest loan that would be impossible to get nowadays, thanks to Republican rollbacks in spending for education.)

Unfortunately, science and academia suffered greatly under Communist rule. Whatever else the Soviet Union invented, it also invented  Lysenkoism.

Lysenko was ahead of his time - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

I take the smiley to acknowledge your awareness of the bullshit. And Lysenko was not the only damage that Stalin perpetrated. Outside of certain protected fields, such as rocket science, Communist interference played havoc with the quality of education. Even as late as the 80s and 90s, libraries lacked materials from the West because of the wall of censorship. Soviet colleagues that I corresponded with had to beg me to send them materials.

When I was in Russia for an academic conference in 1997, I had a chance to visit Moscow University. They were suffering greatly from loss of funding that had been caused by the collapse of the SU.

Well, yes in 1997, capitalists were in power

Again, the bullshit-eating grin. There was utter chaos, and education funding had been slashed because the country's economy was in transition.

...Well, I got my "undergrad" degree in mostly Soviet Union and PhD in US. I can say education vise, USSR was better, US higher education is mostly a vehicle to extract money from students, don't know what it was in 1965 though.

Soviet education excelled in some areas and was miserable in others. Soviet engineering, science, and engineering were always quite excellent, but not better than in the US. The problem was primarily that Soviet academics and scientists simply lacked access to materials that were widely available to Western scholars, especially historical materials that had been censored. Soviet academics could not travel or interact freely with their counterparts in the West, so they simply could not keep up with the latest developments. The social sciences were particularly devastated.

In any case, it's an accepted fact that commies put a lot of effort of providing free stuff (education, health care, housing), it was really their thing with socialism and all that. Quality suffered but quality in general was not that great in USSR.

Socialists in general put a lot of effort into providing free stuff for the masses, but Western socialism was far superior to Soviet socialism in that respect, because the quality was much higher in non-Communist countries that guaranteed basic human rights. The good things that the Soviet system brought about do not excuse the abuses that held the country back for so many decades.