Funny how 76 percent voting to keep the soviet union in tact wasn’t enough to stop Yeltsin from dissolving it. Its almost like it was purely performative and the will of the people didn’t actually matter. Almost like Yeltsin was compromised by capitalism.
First of all the vote wasn’t for the whole Union because there were countries that outright rejected the idea of the union and never voted in the first place. 76% is only of the number people who voted actually voted, that’s not indicative of the whole union.
And secondly the vote was for a reformed Union, not a continuation of the existing union. If the course of events had continued in the reformation of the union the union we know in the history books still would’ve ceased to exist.
And finally, with this not being a fact but generally accepted in the academia, people voted for stability not for the union. When it became apparent there won’t be any stability people decided to fend for themselves. By the time Yeltsin dissolved the union it was already on its death bed.
It’s also why none of the countries stayed socialist, because soviet socialism was a failure and instead of taking the time to figure out what a functional socialism would look like countries went with what seemingly worked, capitalism. Stability was more important than staying socialist, especially when the only empirical evidence of socialism was ultimately a failure.
calling soviet socialism failure is crazy. You know that it made semi feudal russia and other soviet countries and turned them into global superpower? More women rights, no homelessness, food on everyones table (except famines in early years), free education, free healthcare, rapid industrialization and much more.
Truth is, soviet union broke due to 3 decades of revisionism they went into after death of stalin and the uncontrolled bureaucracy. Soviet socialism was a big success and improved lives of people massively.
Almost all former soviet countries are worse off in multiple indicators today than they were in soviet.
Wasn’t Chernobyl the main reason the Soviet Union collapsed and wasn’t Chernobyl due to mismanagement because of wrong incentives (they had to achieve certain runtime numbers so they performed a critical test at night) one could argue were because of the Soviet socialism system?
The book Socialism Betrayed is an excellent book if you want to understand the reasons for the collapse of the USSR (Chernobyl was not a major factor, but I wouldn’t say it had zero impact). Or, if you would prefer to read a book not written by Marxists, Revolution From Above would fit that and IIRC the authors of the later largely come to the same conclusions as the former.
Much like the collapse of the Roman Empire, it’s a very complex topic that isn’t easily boiled down into simple answers.
Nope, chernobyl was a disaster but I wont call it being the reason of collapse of SU. It may have been a catalyst for sure but SU was already struggling with slow growth in its last 2-3 decades. This myth was propagated by gorbachev who was an incompetent AH.
Slower growth was a problem from circa 1975 to 1985. By the mid-80s, the Soviet economy had problems but none of them were catastrophic (and tbf, consider how various capitalist economies right now have very serious issues but those economies are not collapsing). That was the view of Western intelligence agencies in the mid 80s btw - that there were problems but that everything was more or less fine.
A former unnamed CIA director once told historian Eric Hobsbawm that had Andropov lived another 15 years, the USSR would still be around today. I do think as late as the Andropov era, the leadership in the USSR had a good understanding of their problems and were starting to put the country on a better path. Then Andropov died and a lot of the changes made by Gorbachev and the leaders around him really threw a bunch of spanners into the works.
I don’t know much about East Germany, but people do leave North Korea. There’s like 100,000 North Koreans abroad at any given time. It’s UN sanctions that prevent countries from employing North Koreans so they usually only wind up in China or Russia.
The “wall” shit is the demilitarised zone which is the space between two countries technically still at war.
If communism is so bad and crumbles on its own, why did USA went on cold war with a country far more war torn and backward than them? why USA always tried to overthrow communist govt? why USA assasinated allende (who was a democratically elected marxist leader) and established pinochet (who was a authoritarian fascist dictator) in chile? why did USA embargo Cuba? Why did France assassinate thomas sankara? Why did USA bomb vietnam? If communism is so bad, just let it crumble on its own? But no worlds biggest powers will try everything they can to break revolution, ofcourse they will succeed but our time will come. Dw
I am no expert but isn’t it enough that the Sowiet Union was the next biggest superpower and they were in war mostly because they were afraid of each other and/or each one wanted to be the only superpower regardless of the economic system?
And even if it was about the economic system. One system can be much better than the other without the worse one automatically crumble on its own. Also both systems work best when they are the only system everyone is participating in.
What? It was absolutely about the economic system. Churchill and the Dulles brothers and like every important political figure in the west didn’t just dislike Russia as a superpower, they outright stated at every point that it was the economic ideology of communism they hated. Why in the world would they do things like invading Vietnam (who wanted to work with the US and considered them allies) or funding terrorism in Indonesia while they were ACTIVELY allied? They were very open about this. Where are you getting the basis of your opinions from exactly?
The United states, and most of Western europe, were fucking with the Soviet Union long before it became a superpower. Technically they were fucking with it before they even became the Soviet Union. During the Civil War while the whites and the reds were still fighting the United States and other countries were putting their fingers on the scales trying to help the whites.
Because they were satellite states of Russia. In the same vein, the capitalist satellite states (much of Africa, the Arab world, and South Asia) faired FAR worse injustices under capitalism.
The vote for the dissolution of the USSR that voted not to dissolve but they dissolved it anyway? No, that part of the history of the soviet union was not communism. Nobody here is arguing that it was.
My original comment was talking specifically about that vote and what happened with Yeltsin SPECIFICALLY as being the instance where they were ignoring the will people. I’m not entirely sure how you can in good faith try and misconstrue that into a situation where I need to tell you when the point the soviet union stopped listening to the people therein, when its also a really complex situation that requires a century’s worth of explanation.
Funny how 76 percent voting to keep the soviet union in tact wasn’t enough to stop Yeltsin from dissolving it. Its almost like it was purely performative and the will of the people didn’t actually matter. Almost like Yeltsin was compromised by capitalism.
This is wrong in so many levels.
First of all the vote wasn’t for the whole Union because there were countries that outright rejected the idea of the union and never voted in the first place. 76% is only of the number people who voted actually voted, that’s not indicative of the whole union.
And secondly the vote was for a reformed Union, not a continuation of the existing union. If the course of events had continued in the reformation of the union the union we know in the history books still would’ve ceased to exist.
And finally, with this not being a fact but generally accepted in the academia, people voted for stability not for the union. When it became apparent there won’t be any stability people decided to fend for themselves. By the time Yeltsin dissolved the union it was already on its death bed.
It’s also why none of the countries stayed socialist, because soviet socialism was a failure and instead of taking the time to figure out what a functional socialism would look like countries went with what seemingly worked, capitalism. Stability was more important than staying socialist, especially when the only empirical evidence of socialism was ultimately a failure.
calling soviet socialism failure is crazy. You know that it made semi feudal russia and other soviet countries and turned them into global superpower? More women rights, no homelessness, food on everyones table (except famines in early years), free education, free healthcare, rapid industrialization and much more.
Truth is, soviet union broke due to 3 decades of revisionism they went into after death of stalin and the uncontrolled bureaucracy. Soviet socialism was a big success and improved lives of people massively.
Almost all former soviet countries are worse off in multiple indicators today than they were in soviet.
Wasn’t Chernobyl the main reason the Soviet Union collapsed and wasn’t Chernobyl due to mismanagement because of wrong incentives (they had to achieve certain runtime numbers so they performed a critical test at night) one could argue were because of the Soviet socialism system?
The book Socialism Betrayed is an excellent book if you want to understand the reasons for the collapse of the USSR (Chernobyl was not a major factor, but I wouldn’t say it had zero impact). Or, if you would prefer to read a book not written by Marxists, Revolution From Above would fit that and IIRC the authors of the later largely come to the same conclusions as the former.
Much like the collapse of the Roman Empire, it’s a very complex topic that isn’t easily boiled down into simple answers.
Nope, chernobyl was a disaster but I wont call it being the reason of collapse of SU. It may have been a catalyst for sure but SU was already struggling with slow growth in its last 2-3 decades. This myth was propagated by gorbachev who was an incompetent AH.
Slower growth was a problem from circa 1975 to 1985. By the mid-80s, the Soviet economy had problems but none of them were catastrophic (and tbf, consider how various capitalist economies right now have very serious issues but those economies are not collapsing). That was the view of Western intelligence agencies in the mid 80s btw - that there were problems but that everything was more or less fine.
A former unnamed CIA director once told historian Eric Hobsbawm that had Andropov lived another 15 years, the USSR would still be around today. I do think as late as the Andropov era, the leadership in the USSR had a good understanding of their problems and were starting to put the country on a better path. Then Andropov died and a lot of the changes made by Gorbachev and the leaders around him really threw a bunch of spanners into the works.
If communism is so great why did east germany and north korea need to build giant walls to prevent people from leaving?
I don’t know much about East Germany, but people do leave North Korea. There’s like 100,000 North Koreans abroad at any given time. It’s UN sanctions that prevent countries from employing North Koreans so they usually only wind up in China or Russia.
The “wall” shit is the demilitarised zone which is the space between two countries technically still at war.
If communism is so bad and crumbles on its own, why did USA went on cold war with a country far more war torn and backward than them? why USA always tried to overthrow communist govt? why USA assasinated allende (who was a democratically elected marxist leader) and established pinochet (who was a authoritarian fascist dictator) in chile? why did USA embargo Cuba? Why did France assassinate thomas sankara? Why did USA bomb vietnam? If communism is so bad, just let it crumble on its own? But no worlds biggest powers will try everything they can to break revolution, ofcourse they will succeed but our time will come. Dw
I am no expert but isn’t it enough that the Sowiet Union was the next biggest superpower and they were in war mostly because they were afraid of each other and/or each one wanted to be the only superpower regardless of the economic system?
And even if it was about the economic system. One system can be much better than the other without the worse one automatically crumble on its own. Also both systems work best when they are the only system everyone is participating in.
What? It was absolutely about the economic system. Churchill and the Dulles brothers and like every important political figure in the west didn’t just dislike Russia as a superpower, they outright stated at every point that it was the economic ideology of communism they hated. Why in the world would they do things like invading Vietnam (who wanted to work with the US and considered them allies) or funding terrorism in Indonesia while they were ACTIVELY allied? They were very open about this. Where are you getting the basis of your opinions from exactly?
The United states, and most of Western europe, were fucking with the Soviet Union long before it became a superpower. Technically they were fucking with it before they even became the Soviet Union. During the Civil War while the whites and the reds were still fighting the United States and other countries were putting their fingers on the scales trying to help the whites.
Not true. Capitalism without a mix of socialism is complete disaster.
Social safety nets under capitalism isn’t socialist. That’s just capitalists throwing a few crumbs to people so they don’t revolt.
Truth is only capitalism had a chance to prove its worth without real external threats, and failed miserably.
Edit: I meant it failed for the people. It actually did wonders for the ones who imposed it.
Because they were satellite states of Russia. In the same vein, the capitalist satellite states (much of Africa, the Arab world, and South Asia) faired FAR worse injustices under capitalism.
No no you have it backwards. The wall was to stop the capitalists getting in.
If the will of the people didn’t matter, was it ever communism?
The vote for the dissolution of the USSR that voted not to dissolve but they dissolved it anyway? No, that part of the history of the soviet union was not communism. Nobody here is arguing that it was.
At what point did the will of the people shift from mattering to not mattering?
I’m not interested in entering into bad faith discussions with you.
I don’t understand the bad faith part. Obviously the Soviet Union decided at some point to ignore the will of the people, when did that start?
My original comment was talking specifically about that vote and what happened with Yeltsin SPECIFICALLY as being the instance where they were ignoring the will people. I’m not entirely sure how you can in good faith try and misconstrue that into a situation where I need to tell you when the point the soviet union stopped listening to the people therein, when its also a really complex situation that requires a century’s worth of explanation.