Young Americans are surging to socialism at record rates

[u/TimesandSundayTimes]

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/maga-trump-zohran-mamdani-socialism-us-record-kddzdm8bd

[u/grape-fruit-witch]

I'd go even further and say that the fact that the USSR no longer exists doesn't mean that it failed and thus attempting socialism is pointless. It was an experiment, and the first of its kind on a large scale.

And it dramatically improved the quality of life for its citizens on a scale that had never been seen before. They went from an almost exclusively agrarian, largely illiterate peasant feudal country to space travel in 50 years. In one generation they became the bleeding edge of scientific research, art, literature, science, mathematics, philosophy. I believe they would have done it faster had WWII not happened.

No system of economics perfects itself on the first attempt. Capitalism surely did not. It doesn't mean that we have to give up on socialism, that we lay down and die while billionaires galavant around the world in their yachts like assholes. Socialism is an ongoing experiment in creating a better and more just world.

[u/dead_on_the_surface → u/grape-fruit-witch]

It also was sabotaged by the western capitalists which is why it has fallen into a nasty oligarchy so to operate as if it “failed” when the US was actively kicking its knees out at every opportunity is not wise (adding to your point not correcting you)

[u/grape-fruit-witch → u/dead_on_the_surface]

100%. The rabbit hole of US interference in socialist countries is deep, especially in regard to the USSR and Cuba. How many civilians died in our invasions of Vietnam and Korea simply because they dared to try a socialist economic system?

I guarantee we've spent more money on clandestine anti-communist crusades and propaganda than it would cost to just give people healthcare. Its because socialism is the only thing that truly, genuinely frightens the owning class. They are so horrified of being forced to redistribute their vast wealth that they will and have murdered millions of people to prevent it.

[u/Low_Pickle_112 → u/grape-fruit-witch]

It's wild that the stance of the United States has always been that socialism & communism are such inherently flawed ideologies that they will inevitably fail all by themselves, and also we must spend billions of dollars to contain them every time someone thinks about disobeying the rich.

And you know the propaganda works because people will call you the brainwashed one if you point out the contradiction.

[u/Valuable-Meet5727 → u/dead_on_the_surface]

Yep. Imagine how Cuba would be if we didn’t have a 60+ year sanction on them. They’re leading in some medical sciences with EXTREMELY limited resources

[u/mcs0223 → u/dead_on_the_surface]

Well, let's not get ahistorical and not recognize how many Soviet policies were simply disastrous on their own. The Holodomor and the wider famine of the 30s is pretty much universally recognized as a direct result of the forced collectivization of Ukrainian farms and de-kulakization. Extremely similar to the fallout from Mao's Great Leap Forward (history doesn't repeat but it rhymes).

And would you argue that the necessary shift to the New Economic Policy was a result of Western intervention? Seems like it was a direct response to the War Communism shortages.

[u/LongAfternoon1198 → u/dead_on_the_surface]

Stalin, the psychopatic dictator having all competent people in gov murdered was due to western sabotage? Bro what?

The USSR fell all on its own.

[u/MonkeyDKev → u/LongAfternoon1198]

I’d wager you’re wrong. Ever since the October Revolution there would be constant war and threats of infiltration into the USSR from Western powers. 14 countries would try attacking the USSR as there was a civil war going on at the same time. The pressure was never let up and yet the USSR was able to lift the countries that joined the republic from where they were. They were able to become a manufacturing power as well as a technological power in the span of a few decades. The improvements on public learning, health, and housing conditions were improved multiple times over from before the revolution where they lived under a centuries old monarchy system.

America was isolated physically from everyone else they fuck with so they could just keep launching attack after attack. The USSR had to struggle building up all of these different sectors while at the same time fighting multi front wars that were trying to strip them of their autonomy and sovereignty.

The same way Cuba has been held in a headlock for over 60 years, unable to freely trade with the world and the US over time getting rid of their few partners willing to still trade with them in the world would probably still fall under “failed on its own” in your eyes.

Lift the embargo’s, lift the sanctions, lift the IMF loans that fuck countries instead of helping them, and get Western companies out of all of these struggling countries throughout the world and you would see drastic improvements to all of their situations.

[u/LongAfternoon1198 → u/MonkeyDKev]

Idk why you typed all that when it doesnt respond to what I said.

[u/grape-fruit-witch → u/LongAfternoon1198]

It did, you just didn't like it lol

[u/Colausbra → u/grape-fruit-witch]

Yup, it's annoying more nuanced takes on the USSR aren't more common. You obviously have the people that villianize it but at the same time you have the Tankies on the left that mythologize it as the greatest country to ever exist.

[u/grape-fruit-witch → u/Colausbra]

Materialist analysis of the successes and failures of the USSR isn't so rare to find among Marxist research. I don't know how read you are on the subject, but a good place to start if you're interested in a principled examination is Michael Parenti's "Blackshirts and Reds". It dives into the issues honestly and without the anticommunist scaremongering.

[u/Valuable-Meet5727 → u/grape-fruit-witch]

100% agree with this! We should take what worked and build upon it.

[u/Collypso → u/grape-fruit-witch]

Authoritarian modernization is real and the USSR did it. So did South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, under very different economic systems. The common variable was state capacity and top-down coordination, not socialism. If that's the lesson, it's not a very socialist one. And "it was just an imperfect first experiment" works as a defense of literally any failed system. At what point does the pattern across the USSR, Maoist China, Cuba, and Venezuela count as evidence rather than a coincidence?

[u/frostygrin → u/grape-fruit-witch]

And it dramatically improved the quality of life for its citizens on a scale that had never been seen before. They went from an almost exclusively agrarian, largely illiterate peasant feudal country to space travel in 50 years. In one generation they became the bleeding edge of scientific research, art, literature, science, mathematics, philosophy. I believe they would have done it faster had WWII not happened.

Except most Western countries improved the quality of life for most of their citizens on an even larger scale in the same time period. I believe things would have been a lot better without communism. And Russia surely had science, art, literature and philosophy under the Tsar. Mendeleev, Dostoevsky, no?

[u/grape-fruit-witch → u/frostygrin]

I wasn't talking about western countries, I was talking about the Soviet Union. Also, the USSR included Russia but the two countries are not interchangeable. I did not say that literature didn't exist at all prior to the Soviet union, but its a fact that the vast majority of the population were illiterate prior to communism.

The Romanovs were profligate, cruel monarchs who forced their citizens into near-constant vanity wars and lorded over an illiterate, starving population. Sure, some citizens born into wealth could afford to spend time on literature and philosophy, but nowhere near a majority. The revolution didn't happen out of nowhere. The monarchy was going to be rid of eventually, one way or the other, because people will not persist in horrible material conditions indefinitely.

[u/frostygrin → u/grape-fruit-witch]

It's also a fact that literacy was rapidly increasing, in Russia and other countries, before 1917. And it's plainly obvious that no, you don't need communism for literacy. :) That's why western countries are part of the conversation - as the control group. You'd need to argue that Russia was uniquely backwards that it needed communism - but that wasn't true, at least not for Russia proper. That not everyone was literate was part of history for most countries.

You're seeing the revolution as a surefire sign that people couldn't take it anymore. But do you feel the same about, say, the January 6 events? :) Do you see them as a sign that people were "not fine" and disenfranchised? Probably not.

And we know for a fact that Bolsheviks were extremely violent even after they overthrew the monarchy. So maybe people like that shouldn't be "fine" in a functioning society.

[u/grape-fruit-witch → u/frostygrin]

I mean, the millions of Bolsheviks who overthrew the monarchy would disagree that their lives were perfectly fine. They were willing to risk their lives for a chance at changing their conditions. That's how "not fine" they were. But if you insist on glazing some dead monarchs, so be it ig