Ukraine famine? Red August? Note this isn’t in “support” of capitalism, especially since the US did do those things and it’s a late stage capitalist nightmare but the claim of this pic just rings false. Unless the Soviet Union or CCP circa early-mid 1900s aren’t/weren’t communist.
You’re right there was a long history of famines like everywhere else on earth, but Ukraine’s famine was unambiguously caused by the Soviets. It’s well documented that essentially all of the grain was being shipped out for export to fund the state’s expenses, and Ukrainians weren’t left enough calories to survive. You would get shot for “stealing grain” by picking spilled kernels off of the ground. It was manufactured just like the Irish famine being manufactured by the British.
The soviets did not have the technology to control the weather, nor did they ask the Kulaks to burn their crops and kill their livestock. Grain was exported because it was necessary to acquire agricultural machinery from the west, which ended up accelerating grain production and ending the famine. Moreover, the Ukrainian communists hid the true extent of the famine from the Central Committee, resulting in more grain being exported than was sustainable. Once the lies were uncovered, grain was redirected back to Ukraine and the surrounding areas.
The idea that the 1930s famine was caused by the soviets is false. Mismanagement definitely played a part, on the side of the Ukrainian communists deliberately hiding information from the CC. However, it is blatantly false that the export of grain was an intentional measure to create or extend famine.
Ukrainians and Irish are obviously too stupid to handle their own agriculture and desperately needed guidance from Moscow or London.
Pretty much every place in the world suffered from famines before modern farming techniques were introduced, and while under the rule of extractive nobles/landowners. It has nothing to do with being “too stupid” or “needing guidance.”
Famines in Ireland and India continued frequently under British rule. The famine in Ukraine was in a large part caused by political upheaval from overthrowing the power of the landowners (who responded by burning their stores), which is why it only happened once.
Ukrainians and Irish are obviously too stupid to handle their own agriculture
There’s a huge difference between the drought-induced famine in the wake of a horrible civil war and a systematic regime of mass starvation implemented by landlords against an ethnic underclass. The East European Plain Drought wasn’t unique to Ukraine nor was it the product of Soviet policies. Countries as far removed as the UK were experiencing droughts and food shortages during the same years (1932 - 1935). These were the same years as the US Dust Bowl.
The Irish Potato Famine was most notable because the English were harvesting a bumper crop of grain at the time. Grain prices crashed while the Irish were starving and grain rotted by the ton in warehouses that the Irish were locked out of. The Irish Famine was fully manufactured by English economic policies.
It’s not unlike the Bangladeshi famine following WW2, resulting from Churchill’s explicit strategy of diverting the bumper crop from Australia away from a territory he wanted to punish for its independence movement. Curiously, the Bengal Famine of 1943 only ended when the US under FDR intervened with its own aid. In the 1950s, the USSR also began contributing enormous surplus food aid to the subcontinental region, cultivating a large and popular leftist community of Russia-friendly South Asia Communists as a result.
What we’re seeing in the Middle East in the modern day - Israeli embargo of foodstuffs into the Palestinian Territories, US strategic bombing of Iranian agricultural transit and irrigation infrastructure - and in Latin America - the US energy embargo of Cuba, strategic strikes on major energy and water infrastructure in Venezuela - is similarly engineered to induce mass famine as a strategy of regime change.
Idk why I didn’t put together it was the same time as the US great depression, really funny to consider how often I’ve seen the communism = famine = bad argument without that little tidbit mentioned.
Crazy how it’s almost impossible to find an accurate death count during the Great Depression. We had an enormous famine. We had mass depopulation of urban centers. We had that famous Grapes of Wrath line.
Historical research shows that the Great Depression of the 1930s did not produce a large overall increase in excess deaths across the U.S. population. In fact, some studies found improvements in population health during the worst years of the Depression.
No citation, incidentally. Just something the AI prompt wants you to know.
People often point to “whataboutism,” but comparistics is enormously useful for occasions like these. The actual track record of socialism for developing and achieving life metric improvements like food security is astoundingly good.
Huh? The ukrainians weren’t in control of their land or grain prior to the communists setting them up with their own socialist republic. Their food was extracted like it was during the man-made famines in ireland prior to the communists freeing them.
Salty indeed. I can take the intended joke of a username and use it too.
Either way, minus the communism stuff, can’t disagree that capitalism in its current form, especially in the US, is a cancer. Though, I think that’s unfair to cancer, as it’s natural and its suffering an unintended byproduct.
No field of communist thought believes the party is always correct, nor have any rejected the concept of democracy. Interlinking the party with the masses is core to all Marxist branches, especially Lenin onward, and the adoption of democratic centralism is core to how socialist democracy functions.
Claiming Leninists aren’t communist is a bit like claiming Jeffersonians aren’t capitalist. “No no! He purchased Louisiana with state money! Adam Smith explicitly said you shouldn’t do this!”
That user is suggesting that the Party administration, by virtue of controlling the means of production was definitionally not proletariat, but in fact the most concentrated group of bourgeois administrators.
the Party administration, by virtue of controlling the means of production
Before the Russian Civil War was even over? An incredible feat of administrative enginuity.
the most concentrated group of bourgeois administrators
The Soviet Bureaucracy was 5.4M people strong by 1920. Even assuming you dismiss the existence of Communes as autonomous self-governing bodies, that’s 4% of the total population.
This is what we’re describing as highly concentrated bourgeois wealth?
And we’re comparing it to King George V who - as a singular person - controlled 37% of the entire national economy through his titles, lands, and equity in various British conglomerates?
Administration is not a class in Marxist understanding. Classes are relations to ownership of the means of production and distribution. Principals and teachers are both proletarian, despite having different managerial levels.
While I accept that may have some degree of merit RE the Soviet Union at least; so the post may as well be meaningless. Multiple countries and their variation of economics fall under capitalism. Seemingly none fall under communism. So the picture is essentially claiming “communism, a supposedly purely hypothetical system of governing/economics has never done anything bad” which ok so? By the same logic it’s never done anything good either, because it’s allegedly never really been implemented. It’s comparing real life to ideals/fiction.
the picture is essentially claiming “communism, a supposedly purely hypothetical system of governing/economics has never done anything bad” which ok so? By the same logic it’s never done anything good either, because it’s allegedly never really been implemented. It’s comparing real life to ideals/fiction.
You’re ALMOST getting it.
The point isn’t that communism is great. It’s that the communist threat that capitalist demagogues love to bandy about is purely hypothetical, unlike the very real and present harms of capitalism.
To add to this I’m pretty sure the early capitalist thinkers like Locke didn’t aim for the late stage capitalism society that America had become. If we are comparing ideology that’s what we should compare with but if we are comparing actual real life scenarios communism is stuck with Soviet, China and Cuba.
Oh, I can point to a historical example of communism. Australia. Australia has 60,000 years of classless, stateless, moneyless history. And it was great!
Primitive communism[1], meaning pre-primitive accumulation, pre-capitalism, and pre-industrial revolution, is a vastly different mode of production from post-capitalist, post-industrial revolution socialism or communism.
Marxist-Leninists are the most widely adopted school of communist theory and practice. You’re horribly butchering your understanding of Marxism when you conflate class with administration. Classes are relations to ownership of the means of production. In the USSR, industry and the land were collectively owned (for the most part, there were cooperatives called Artels under Stalin that were abolished under Khrushchev, etc.), and administrators received their pay in wages. They did not own capital and did not profit off of capitalism.
As for the DPRK, their model of democracy is based on approval voting. As of 2024, they have begun to roll out multi-candidate primaries, but prior to 2024 they had a Democratic Front which decided on what candidates to put to the vote, and then you can vote to approve or not. It’s a very different democratic model from western countries, but it’s inaccurate to call it non-democratic.
Just because groups like the Nazis have used names for their own advantage does not actually mean all groups are the opposite of their claimed ideology. I think it would do you good to study Marxism a bit more, both in theory and practice.
Ukraine famine? Red August? Note this isn’t in “support” of capitalism, especially since the US did do those things and it’s a late stage capitalist nightmare but the claim of this pic just rings false. Unless the Soviet Union or CCP circa early-mid 1900s aren’t/weren’t communist.
Which one? There were so many. Thank god the communists took over and saw to it that once it happened under their reign it would be the last one.
You’re right there was a long history of famines like everywhere else on earth, but Ukraine’s famine was unambiguously caused by the Soviets. It’s well documented that essentially all of the grain was being shipped out for export to fund the state’s expenses, and Ukrainians weren’t left enough calories to survive. You would get shot for “stealing grain” by picking spilled kernels off of the ground. It was manufactured just like the Irish famine being manufactured by the British.
The soviets did not have the technology to control the weather, nor did they ask the Kulaks to burn their crops and kill their livestock. Grain was exported because it was necessary to acquire agricultural machinery from the west, which ended up accelerating grain production and ending the famine. Moreover, the Ukrainian communists hid the true extent of the famine from the Central Committee, resulting in more grain being exported than was sustainable. Once the lies were uncovered, grain was redirected back to Ukraine and the surrounding areas.
The idea that the 1930s famine was caused by the soviets is false. Mismanagement definitely played a part, on the side of the Ukrainian communists deliberately hiding information from the CC. However, it is blatantly false that the export of grain was an intentional measure to create or extend famine.
Thank god the British took over Ireland and saw to it that no famines happened under their control after 1879.
Ukrainians and Irish are obviously too stupid to handle their own agriculture and desperately needed guidance from Moscow or London.
Pretty much every place in the world suffered from famines before modern farming techniques were introduced, and while under the rule of extractive nobles/landowners. It has nothing to do with being “too stupid” or “needing guidance.”
Famines in Ireland and India continued frequently under British rule. The famine in Ukraine was in a large part caused by political upheaval from overthrowing the power of the landowners (who responded by burning their stores), which is why it only happened once.
There’s a huge difference between the drought-induced famine in the wake of a horrible civil war and a systematic regime of mass starvation implemented by landlords against an ethnic underclass. The East European Plain Drought wasn’t unique to Ukraine nor was it the product of Soviet policies. Countries as far removed as the UK were experiencing droughts and food shortages during the same years (1932 - 1935). These were the same years as the US Dust Bowl.
The Irish Potato Famine was most notable because the English were harvesting a bumper crop of grain at the time. Grain prices crashed while the Irish were starving and grain rotted by the ton in warehouses that the Irish were locked out of. The Irish Famine was fully manufactured by English economic policies.
It’s not unlike the Bangladeshi famine following WW2, resulting from Churchill’s explicit strategy of diverting the bumper crop from Australia away from a territory he wanted to punish for its independence movement. Curiously, the Bengal Famine of 1943 only ended when the US under FDR intervened with its own aid. In the 1950s, the USSR also began contributing enormous surplus food aid to the subcontinental region, cultivating a large and popular leftist community of Russia-friendly South Asia Communists as a result.
What we’re seeing in the Middle East in the modern day - Israeli embargo of foodstuffs into the Palestinian Territories, US strategic bombing of Iranian agricultural transit and irrigation infrastructure - and in Latin America - the US energy embargo of Cuba, strategic strikes on major energy and water infrastructure in Venezuela - is similarly engineered to induce mass famine as a strategy of regime change.
Idk why I didn’t put together it was the same time as the US great depression, really funny to consider how often I’ve seen the communism = famine = bad argument without that little tidbit mentioned.
Something something free market
Crazy how it’s almost impossible to find an accurate death count during the Great Depression. We had an enormous famine. We had mass depopulation of urban centers. We had that famous Grapes of Wrath line.
What was the excess death during this period? Hey Google! What were the excess deaths during the Great Depression?
No citation, incidentally. Just something the AI prompt wants you to know.
People often point to “whataboutism,” but comparistics is enormously useful for occasions like these. The actual track record of socialism for developing and achieving life metric improvements like food security is astoundingly good.
Huh? The ukrainians weren’t in control of their land or grain prior to the communists setting them up with their own socialist republic. Their food was extracted like it was during the man-made famines in ireland prior to the communists freeing them.
Dropped your /s there buddy
Dummy indeed.
Salty indeed. I can take the intended joke of a username and use it too.
Either way, minus the communism stuff, can’t disagree that capitalism in its current form, especially in the US, is a cancer. Though, I think that’s unfair to cancer, as it’s natural and its suffering an unintended byproduct.
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If a government solely relies on competant politicians it’s a government that won’t last.
You mean that it’s bound to fail if it assumes that all the politicians are competent and acting in good faith?
I agree COMPLETELY. And the perfect example of THAT would be the antiquated constitution and kakistocratic government of the US.
Correct. Probably much more graceful way to put it. But this sentiment is why I’m an anarchist
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No field of communist thought believes the party is always correct, nor have any rejected the concept of democracy. Interlinking the party with the masses is core to all Marxist branches, especially Lenin onward, and the adoption of democratic centralism is core to how socialist democracy functions.
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Claiming Leninists aren’t communist is a bit like claiming Jeffersonians aren’t capitalist. “No no! He purchased Louisiana with state money! Adam Smith explicitly said you shouldn’t do this!”
Leninist created a government with a extremwly powerful class, that owned all means of production. Please explain us how’s that communism
The… proletariat class? Are you suggesting a working class in Russia didn’t exist prior to 1917?
That user is suggesting that the Party administration, by virtue of controlling the means of production was definitionally not proletariat, but in fact the most concentrated group of bourgeois administrators.
Before the Russian Civil War was even over? An incredible feat of administrative enginuity.
The Soviet Bureaucracy was 5.4M people strong by 1920. Even assuming you dismiss the existence of Communes as autonomous self-governing bodies, that’s 4% of the total population.
This is what we’re describing as highly concentrated bourgeois wealth?
And we’re comparing it to King George V who - as a singular person - controlled 37% of the entire national economy through his titles, lands, and equity in various British conglomerates?
The workers didn’t own the means of production!
They literally do.
Administration is not a class in Marxist understanding. Classes are relations to ownership of the means of production and distribution. Principals and teachers are both proletarian, despite having different managerial levels.
While I accept that may have some degree of merit RE the Soviet Union at least; so the post may as well be meaningless. Multiple countries and their variation of economics fall under capitalism. Seemingly none fall under communism. So the picture is essentially claiming “communism, a supposedly purely hypothetical system of governing/economics has never done anything bad” which ok so? By the same logic it’s never done anything good either, because it’s allegedly never really been implemented. It’s comparing real life to ideals/fiction.
You’re ALMOST getting it.
The point isn’t that communism is great. It’s that the communist threat that capitalist demagogues love to bandy about is purely hypothetical, unlike the very real and present harms of capitalism.
To add to this I’m pretty sure the early capitalist thinkers like Locke didn’t aim for the late stage capitalism society that America had become. If we are comparing ideology that’s what we should compare with but if we are comparing actual real life scenarios communism is stuck with Soviet, China and Cuba.
And Catalonia and Australia
Oh, I can point to a historical example of communism. Australia. Australia has 60,000 years of classless, stateless, moneyless history. And it was great!
Primitive communism[1], meaning pre-primitive accumulation, pre-capitalism, and pre-industrial revolution, is a vastly different mode of production from post-capitalist, post-industrial revolution socialism or communism.
inb4 the inevitable bad-faith reading of primitive in this context: also called previous accumulation, original accumulation ↩︎
There is, after all, no true communist.
Marxist-Leninists are the most widely adopted school of communist theory and practice. You’re horribly butchering your understanding of Marxism when you conflate class with administration. Classes are relations to ownership of the means of production. In the USSR, industry and the land were collectively owned (for the most part, there were cooperatives called Artels under Stalin that were abolished under Khrushchev, etc.), and administrators received their pay in wages. They did not own capital and did not profit off of capitalism.
As for the DPRK, their model of democracy is based on approval voting. As of 2024, they have begun to roll out multi-candidate primaries, but prior to 2024 they had a Democratic Front which decided on what candidates to put to the vote, and then you can vote to approve or not. It’s a very different democratic model from western countries, but it’s inaccurate to call it non-democratic.
Just because groups like the Nazis have used names for their own advantage does not actually mean all groups are the opposite of their claimed ideology. I think it would do you good to study Marxism a bit more, both in theory and practice.
I wish you people would bother to learn at least as basic a thing as what a fucking class is before you spout off.
Like a wind tunnel.