Successful Communism

[Zardnaar]

Aye, because the Tsarists would never, for example, have thousands of civilians killed and wounded during a peaceful protest lead by a priest. No, they would merely give the protesters a stern look, thus dispersing them back to their hovels.

And, because a cruel fate adores irony, the protesters weren't even criticising the Tsar himself- they were petitioning him for aid, believing that their conditions were the result of the disinterest of ministers and capitalists, and the Tsar, if only he knew, would act with benevolence fitting his station. They weren't revolutionaries, just hungry, freezing peasants. A few thousand butchered rather put paid to that idealism, I'm afraid to say.

I never claimed Tsarist Russia was a pleasnat place to live, but that it was better than Soviet Russia at least until after 1953. Million died under the communists as a direct result of state sanctioned mass murder. The death rate in Stalins gulags in the worst ones was comparable to Dachau. Not to mention the million or so people purged in 38, the mass confiscation of food from peasants, and numerous famines the Soviets had several deliberate.

 

[Quackers]

You don't seem to actually know what it was like living in the Soviet Union. It's a bit sad that the defenders of Soviet Union are those who do not understand it - or perhaps you defend it because you don't understand what you are defending? I suggest you to actually read Solzhenitsyn, if for no other reason than to know your enemy. I did read Marx, didn't I?

Neither do you seem to understand China. For all the bad things you hear about it, I can assure you the abusiveness of today's authoritarian government is less than a tenth of what it was under Mao. Lead paint, poisonous food, sweatshops, all are nasty. Yet all of those are much preferable to 20,000,000 people starving to death. Do you know what a starved person looks like just before his death?




And this is one of my questions that you haven't been able to answer. Exactly how you can build something greater than the USSR? What would you have done differently? Where did this confidence of yours come from? A well-argued plan with historical precedents, or just blind faith?




Comparing Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union is like discussing whether you should hire a dolphin or a chimpanzee to design a rocket, when you can hire perfectly intelligent humans instead.

POST MOAR

 

[Traitorfish]

Comparing Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union is like discussing whether you should hire a dolphin or a chimpanzee to design a rocket, when you can hire perfectly intelligent humans instead.

Perhaps, but I made no such comparison; I was merely observing that political freedoms in Tsarist Russia were rather less abundant than a certain peculiar brand of Western romanticism, as exhibited by Zardnaar, has declared them to be.

I never claimed Tsarist Russia was a pleasnat place to live, but that it was better than Soviet Russia at least until after 1953. Million died under the communists as a direct result of state sanctioned mass murder. The death rate in Stalins gulags in the worst ones was comparable to Dachau. Not to mention the million or so people purged in 38, the mass confiscation of food from peasants, and numerous famines the Soviets had several deliberate.

See above.

 

[Zardnaar]

I never decleared Tsarist Russia had freedom of expression, but criticising the Tsar was doable and commen. Mentioning Stalin in a bad light could get you the death penalty. The Tsarist gulag system is more comparable to the USA rounding up the Japanese in WW2 or Britain sending convicts to Australia. The Soviet Gulags were essentially death camps.

 

[Traitorfish]

...criticising the Tsar was doable and commen. The Tsarist gulag system is more comparable to the USA rounding up the Japanese in WW2 or Britain sending convicts to Australia.

Do I need to link to the "murdering thousands of civilian protesters" thing again, or is that just something that we're going to ignore?

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm not ignoring it but theres a severe dfference in magnitude between several thousand and around 20 million. Its like comparing the British concentration camps of the Boer war to the holocaust.

 

[Traitorfish]

It would be, if has I made such a comparison. I did not, as I have pointed out previously.

Although, a couple of things: First I can't help but wonder where this "twenty million" figure is coming from; I think, perhaps, you are confusing Stalin's regime with Mao's. Not even the most scathing estimates of Stalin's regime have laid that many deaths at his feet. Second, the above incident was merely one of the more dramatic examples of Tsarist repression, it was not the totality of the crimes of the regime. To suggest as much would be, to use your example, like suggesting that South African concentration camps were the only crime that one could accuse the British Empire of.

 

[civver_764]

And this is one of my questions that you haven't been able to answer. Exactly how you can build something greater than the USSR? What would you have done differently? Where did this confidence of yours come from? A well-argued plan with historical precedents, or just blind faith?

No vanguard.

 

[civ_king]

I never decleared Tsarist Russia had freedom of expression, but criticising the Tsar was doable and commen. Mentioning Stalin in a bad light could get you the death penalty. The Tsarist gulag system is more comparable to the USA rounding up the Japanese in WW2 or Britain sending convicts to Australia. The Soviet Gulags were essentially death camps.

A Japanese internment camp was probably safer and freer than a Tsarist Gulag

 

[Merkinball]

I think it's worth pointing out that communists began to gain traction and credibility after massive famines in Russia that killed millions of peasants due to the inaction of the late czars. This is particularly true of the famine from 1891-92.

I think it is also worth noting that the czars were not at all uniform in how they ruled Russia. Obviously Ivan the Terrible was a pretty terrible guy. But I would have much rather been a newly liberated serf living under Alexander II than any poor person who had to endure the the first few iterations of Soviet Communism.

 

[Zardnaar]

You're probably right but Tsarist Gulags weren't death camps as such. Internal exile was used in Tsarist Russia as a way to populate the region. Stalin himself was a guest of the Tsar. Conditions probably weren't very good by modern standards but alot better than Soviet Gulag.

 

[civ_king]

To populate Siberia now I understand not all of it is bad, but it is in many place a forbidding landscape

 

[kosiosko 1]

A Japanese internment camp was probably safer and freer than a Tsarist Gulag

a tsarist gulag was definitely safer than being a guest in a "Japanese internment camp"

 

[luiz]

It would be, if has I made such a comparison. I did not, as I have pointed out previously.

Although, a couple of things: First I can't help but wonder where this "twenty million" figure is coming from; I think, perhaps, you are confusing Stalin's regime with Mao's. Not even the most scathing estimates of Stalin's regime have laid that many deaths at his feet. Second, the above incident was merely one of the more dramatic examples of Tsarist repression, it was not the totality of the crimes of the regime. To suggest as much would be, to use your example, like suggesting that South African concentration camps were the only crime that one could accuse the British Empire of.

While it is obvious that there was no freedom of expression in Tsarist Russia, it is equally obvious that criticism was not punished as severely as in Lenin's and Stalin's Russia.

Think about how the Tsarist regime treated traitors and revolutionaries such as Stalin and Lenin, and how Lenin and Stalin treated people that tried to do exactly the same thing against their regime.

Nobody in their right minds would deny that the Tsarist regime was evil, but there are gradations of evil, and Lenin and Stalin, with their millions of victims, are in a completely different league.

Edit: Another thing that annoys me is how people defending the USSR will always say "well at least it was better than Tsarist Russia". That statement is quite debatable, but most importantly, it is irrelevant. By the time of the October Revolution the Absolute Power of the Czar was dead and buried. The choice was not between absolute monarchy and communism, it was between the democratic Provisional Government and communist tyranny. And I'll pre-emptively address the apologist argument that the October Revolution was necessary because the Provisional Government refused to betray it's allies and surrender to Germany: what's the point of ending the war with Germany in a shameful surrender, as Lenin did, just to throw the country in a bloody Civil War that brought nothing but death, famine and destruction? By October 1917 Germany was pretty close to defeat, so had Russia kept on fighting it would emerge victorious in just a few months. Yet Lenin chose to surrender and started a Civil War that lasted several years, not months, and completely ruined the country.

 

[Merkinball]

Czarist Russia versus Soviet Russia hinges on whether you'd rather have poverty and modest liberty, or progress under tyranny.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

You don't seem to actually know what it was like living in the Soviet Union.

Of course I do. I would never make such a base error as to praise something I don't understand.

It's a bit sad that the defenders of Soviet Union are those who do not understand it - or perhaps you defend it because you don't understand what you are defending? I suggest you to actually read Solzhenitsyn, if for no other reason than to know your enemy. I did read Marx, didn't I?

I have read Solzhenistyn, but I see no reason to put stock in the ravings of a man who admitted to hating the idea of socialism so much that he made crap up to discredit it.

Neither do you seem to understand China. For all the bad things you hear about it, I can assure you the abusiveness of today's authoritarian government is less than a tenth of what it was under Mao. Lead paint, poisonous food, sweatshops, all are nasty. Yet all of those are much preferable to 20,000,000 people starving to death. Do you know what a starved person looks like just before his death?

Why yes, I do. I have done my share of volunteer work with the urban poor.

I suggest you stop talking down to me like I'm some sheltered, ignorant rich child, and quickly.

And this is one of my questions that you haven't been able to answer. Exactly how you can build something greater than the USSR? What would you have done differently? Where did this confidence of yours come from? A well-argued plan with historical precedents, or just blind faith?

I have said how a thousand times, yet all you ever do is stick fingers in your ears and scream "but look at the USSR!" I'm not stupid enough to waste my time explaining it again.

 

[civ_king]

Czarist Russia versus Soviet Russia hinges on whether you'd rather have poverty and modest liberty, or progress under tyranny.

How much more liberty did the peasants really have?

kosiosko, okay, how about "internment of the Japanese in the United States of America under Executive Order 9066"?

 

[aelf]

And this is one of my questions that you haven't been able to answer. Exactly how you can build something greater than the USSR? What would you have done differently? Where did this confidence of yours come from? A well-argued plan with historical precedents, or just blind faith?

That's my question too. How can venture capitalists succeed at doing something new? What could they have done differently? Where does this confidence of theirs come from? From a well-argued plan with historical precedents?

 

[Alassius]

Of course I do. I would never make such a base error as to praise something I don't understand.

Why yes, I do. I have done my share of volunteer work with the urban poor.

I suggest you stop talking down to me like I'm some sheltered, ignorant rich child, and quickly.

I find it extremely hard to believe you would prefer Soviet Union to modern China, if you truly understand both. I am certain that, for example, nobody actually in China would want another Great Leap Forward. Care to explain in what way the Soviet Union was superior?

I have read Solzhenistyn, but I see no reason to put stock in the ravings of a man who admitted to hating the idea of socialism so much that he made crap up to discredit it.

How much of his writing was made up? As a comparison, how much of Soviet propaganda was made up? Which one do you trust more?

I have said how a thousand times, yet all you ever do is stick fingers in your ears and scream "but look at the USSR!" I'm not stupid enough to waste my time explaining it again.

Let me repeat myself. I'm screaming "but how can you do it differently from the USSR?"

Apologies for being only an occasional visitor to this board. But I have only ever seen "I have said how a thousand times" so far. Could you give some links?

That's my question too. How can venture capitalists succeed at doing something new? What could they have done differently? Where does this confidence of theirs come from? From a well-argued plan with historical precedents?

Er, like all those fancy internet firms? Many silicon valley firms were funded by venture capital. They don't have to do things very differently, because venture capital already works.

My confidence comes from the historical successes of rich capitalist countries. Is that a satisfactory answer?

 

[nonconformist]

I have read Solzhenistyn, but I see no reason to put stock in the ravings of a man who admitted to hating the idea of socialism so much that he made crap up to discredit it.

Yeah, being sentenced to an 8 year prison term in the Gulagags for calling Stalin "the one with the moustache" in private correspondence will do that to you.

Why yes, I do. I have done my share of volunteer work with the urban poor.

I suggest you stop talking down to me like I'm some sheltered, ignorant rich child, and quickly.

Are you seriously comparing America's urban poor to people who are literally on the brink of dying of starvation/

I don't think anyone needs to talk down to you as some sheltered ignorant rich child. You do that already.