Was the Soviet Union an Empire?

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Though, from a few threads I viewed today, I finally understand where Cheezy is coming from: he's a 22 yr-old working as a cook in a restaurant, with no paid vacation and doubtless ill-paid as well. Experiencing the worst of US capitalism, the Soviet system must look pretty good, when all you know of it is from books, of which he seems to have read quite a few. I actually sympathize.

I have been to Russia before, you know. And I'm hardly a layman on the subject of Russian History.

The Soviet Union certainly wasn't Reagan's 'Empire of evil', but it wasn't any 'worker's paradise' either, Cheezy.
You'd do far better in Europe than you ever would have in the Soviet Union, trust me on that.

It should be understandable and unsurprising then that I do not wish to recreate the Soviet Union, and that overall I am probably more critical of it than most people in this thread. But I do not think I have jaundiced eyes like many others, and my criticism is constructive, on how to make socialism better and more correctly. The USSR was a trial run in many ways, but prematurely so, like putting dough in the oven before the yeast has risen. You still get bread, and it might even taste alright, but it could and should be better, if only time and patience had been in more plentiful supply.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

socialism is wrong because it starts from a wrong premise. It's assuming ppl. are more altruistic then it's the case in reality.

the funny thing is that exactly the ppl. who are supposedly helped by this system are in reality probably the least altruistic ones. Usually ppl. facing tough conditions don't become more altruistic, and rightfully so; which proves that natural instincts beat armchair philosophy by a longshot. Also rightfully so, because otherwise we wouldn't have survived as a specie...

there's a saying over here(which survives even 20 years after communism failed - a proof that bad mentality takes tens of years to change) "we make it look like we're working, they make it look like they're paying us". That's what happens when "the people" owns everything - almost everyone simply simulates work instead of actually doing it. Guess what - since none really works you'll have big issues when you try to spend your money.

while capitalism is crappy, it's rather absurd to try something that doesn't even work. Either come up with a better system or let it be; don't come up with a worse one just because you don't have a good idea...

 

[warpus]

DUDES

None of what you are discussing matters to the question being asked here! Even if every single Soviet citizen, as well as the citizens of the vassal (err satellite) states slept under sheets made of silk, received free unlimited milk and honey, and were given daily massages by Stalin himself, this would not change the fact that the Soviet Union was an empire.

I have plenty of horrible stories of life under the Soviets in Poland. I'm not going to share any of it here because that's not what we're supposed to be talking about.

 

[LightSpectra]

Hmm.. on-paper benefits?
First 15 years of my life I lived in nice 2-bedroom apartment which my parents - simple workers, not members of party or nomenclature, got for free. I personally got all the other mentioned benefits - free child and medical care, free elementary, secondary and good high education. At least my Canadian employers don't consider it bad.

My paternal grandparents fled Soviet-occupied Lithuana and Ukraine because they were essentially forced into slave labor by the communists. Excuse me for not being equally optimistic about the fruits of the USSR.

 

[red_elk]

My paternal grandparents fled Soviet-occupied Lithuana and Ukraine because they were essentially forced into slave labor by the communists.

What does it mean, essentially forced into slave labour? Even GULAG prisoners were paid for their work. What they were forced to do?

Excuse me for not being equally optimistic about the fruits of the USSR.

I'm not optimistic, there were serious problems in USSR as well, especially after mid-1980s.
What I said about benefits which I and millions of other people were receiving, is factual information.

 

[Karalysia]

Blaaaaaaaaaaarrr

 

[LightSpectra]

Opting out of the system results in death in the capitalist system also.

If you're a violent anarchist, perhaps. If you're referring to the fact that you have to buy food, then I point out that there are so many charities and religious organizations in developed countries, that it would be almost impossible to unintentionally starve to death. Also, there's the fact that a person starving to death would likely be fed for medical reasons at any hospital.

Furthermore, I point out that the only successful long-term conclave of socialism in history would be religious monasteries; if you wanted to become a Benedictine, you could easily opt out of the capitalist market. (The thought of deeply religious fellows being the only ones magnanimous enough for socialism to succeed probably made Marx's stomach churn.)

The choice is work for the wages we deign to pay you or die. The capitalist system is a slave system more than the socialist system ever was. In the USSR you were assured a fair wage, a living wage, for the value of your work. The US doesn't even provide a living wage, it provides no stability, no security, and results in mass involountary unemployment every decade. That is why the capitalist system is doomed to collapse, because it can never provide for the masses.

I'm astounded at your prediction. Whilst the Western world is beginning to escape the global recession, and former bastions of socialism (India, Vietnam, the People's Republic of China) are liberalizing their markets, you simultaneously proclaim the end of capitalism.

 

[Karalysia]

Blaaaaaaaaaaarrr

 

[LightSpectra]

Please demonstrate your contention of long-term negative economic growth in Western democracies.

 

[Karalysia]

Blaaaaaaaaaaarrr

 

[SnowlyWhite]

In the USSR you were assured a fair wage, a living wage, for the value of your work.

posting it for the xth time in this thread still doesn't make it true. Unless by a "living wage" you mean a wage with which you could buy crappy goods once in a blue moon.

The choice is work for the wages we deign to pay you or die.

you realise that in most communist countries you really had to do that? contrary to western societies. I mean, obviously, none shot you, but you could have problems with the police if you didn't have a workplace(even if somehow you had all the money in the world and didn't need to).

 

[Smellincoffee]

The Soviet Union was nothing more than a Russian Empire under new rulers.

 

[RedRalph]

The Soviet Union was nothing more than a Russian Empire under new rulers.

what makes you say that?

 

[Traitorfish]

The Soviet Union was nothing more than a Russian Empire under new rulers.

Well, give or take profound social, economic and political reform, I suppose you're right. The same applies to the Russian Federation, of course, and we must similarly assume that all three are in fact the Grand Duchy of Muscovy in a cunning disguise, but let's not disrupt our lovingly crafted pop-history, eh?

 

[Karalysia]

Blaaaaaaaaaaarrr

 

[Yeekim]

The achievements of the Soviet Union included physical elimination of the capitalist class - and replacing unemployment with forced employment. That's about it.

Here, fixed this for you.

 

[Traitorfish]

The Soviet Union embodied the essence of socialism a society that had overthrown bourgeois property, the “free market,” and the capitalist state and replaced them with collective property, central planning and a workers state. There was also equality when it came to security, healthcare, housing, education, employment, and culture for all citizens who included the workers in factories and farms. The achievements of the Soviet Union included elimination the exploitation of the capitalist class, ending inflation, unemployment, discrimination against racial and national minorities, poverty, and inequality in wealth, education, income, and opportunity.

Pity they forgot about democracy, which is, y'know, kinda key.

 

[LightSpectra]

The Soviet Union embodied the essence of socialism a society that had overthrown bourgeois property, the “free market,” and the capitalist state and replaced them with collective property, central planning and a workers state. There was also equality when it came to security, healthcare, housing, education, employment, and culture for all citizens who included the workers in factories and farms. The achievements of the Soviet Union included elimination the exploitation of the capitalist class, ending inflation, unemployment, discrimination against racial and national minorities, poverty, and inequality in wealth, education, income, and opportunity.

I suppose that's why millions of people every year fled to the USSR in order to partake in this Utopian civilization, right? Oh wait.

You value human equality higher than human beings.

 

[Traitorfish]

You value human equality higher than human beings.

What an utterly glib statement.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

That definition is missing an important part: exploitation. Empires conquer other areas for their resources and subjugate their peoples, exploiting them in order to increase their own wealth. This was not the case with the Soviet Union, so though it may have ruled over a great variety of peoples and places, it did not behave imperially, so it was not an Empire.

Stalin pretty much exploited every single Soviet citizen by degrading them to nothing more than exchangeable tools for his plans of industrialization and militarization.
From a certain point of view the Stalinist Soviet-Union could be described as the most exploiting country in mankind's history.

And tell me, who rebuilt Poland? Who built Poland's heavy industries, who rebuilt its cities, its railroads,housing, infrastructure? It was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union gave far more to the members of the Warsaw Pact than it got from them.

In case of the GDR that is not true by any stretch of the imagination.