• yucandu@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    They democratized the economy,

    They had absolutely no democracy.

    ended famine in a country where that was regular

    They deliberately caused famine.

    dramatically lowered wealth inequality while maintaining high economic growth

    They were ended by the very corruption and wealth inequality you claim they lowered.

    defeated the Nazis,

    With the help of capitalist empires.

    proved that a publicly driven and planned economy works well

    It did not work well.

    provided free and high quality healthcare and education

    We do that in Canada, too.

    The USian fear of countries that went against the US Empire’s dominance and provided an alternative to it based in Red Scare propaganda is a problem that must be confronted, not thrown under the bed and avoided.

    Yet you dismiss everything bad ever said about the USSR as “Red Scare propaganda” to conveniently throw it under the bed and avoid it.

    As for the PRC and Canada, this is much the opposite. The PRC has a Socialist Market Economy driven by Marxist economics.

    China has banks. Stock markets. Billionaires. Absolutely nothing about their economy is socialist or is driven by marxism.

    You can’t back these statements up with any evidence. You just make bold proclamations and assert them as true because you said they were, and if anyone doubts you they just have to “read theory”.

    Large firms and key industries like banking and steel are overwhelmingly in public ownership and control, while the private sector is overwhelmingly populated by self-employed people, cooperatives, and small businesses.

    None of what you just said here is true.

    If you write without reading and learning from your predecessors, you’ll repeat their mistakes and fail to replicate their successes.

    Yes, but unfortunately you have dismissed everything you have read as “Red Scare propaganda”, or likely “Yellow fever propaganda”.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 hours ago

      They had democracy. Read Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan, or read this infographic:

      They did not deliberately cause famine. There is no reason for this in the first place, as that weakened their economy and starved millions.

      The Soviet Union was not ended because it lowered wealth inequality. Wealth inequality was lowered until after the Socialist system dissolved. What caused the dissolution of the USSR was a combination of various factors such as Gorbachev’s liberal reforms ceding power over large firms to Capitalists, a huge amount of GDP spent on the millitary to protect against the US, and the continuing to plan by hand rather than use computers at scale later on as production complicated.

      As for defeating the Nazis, there was some degree of assistance from the Allies, but 80% of the combat against the Nazis was done by the Soviets. They outweighed the contributions of every other allied power combined, by several times.

      As for the economy, it worked very well, actually, until later on in its life. I recommend reading Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? and looking at the following data on GDP growth:

      Canada has some safety nets, sure. I never said you cannot have safety nets without Socialism, we were talking about the effectiveness of the Soviet Union, which had those safety nets before Canada despite being lower in development levels than Canada.

      I don’t actually dismiss everything bad about the Soviet Union as propaganda, only propaganda. I have quite a few critiques of the USSR in this comment alone, however it’s hard to discuss the genuine faults when your view of the USSR is based in fiction.

      China indeed has private property and banks, even billionaires, however the economy is driven by Public Ownership. Marx spoke about how the large firms were to be nationalized, and that small firms would be nationalized as they developed, gradually. This is because of Marx’s concept of Historical Materialism and Socialism as an economic inevitability as time progresses. You yourself have been railing against theory, why should anyone trust your opinion on Marxism?

      Everything I said about the PRC is true, though.

      I never needlessly or dogmatically dismissed anything, and unlike you I brought reciepts. The important issue here is your repeated unwillingness to look at facts, simply denying them without offering anything to support your claims or debunk mine. There’s nothing to work off of that way.

      Read Blackshirts and Reds.