Aleksey_aka_al
Smiley
Hats off, you catch me with facts here unprepared. I'll need some time to study this documental footage, then to correlate it with your very grounded arguments and then to prepare my answer.
Would Communism Be Better Than Capitalism?
- Thread starter Traitorfish
- Start date
Hats off, you catch me with facts here unprepared. I'll need some time to study this documental footage, then to correlate it with your very grounded arguments and then to prepare my answer.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
No he wasn't. He was good at political maneuvering. Napoleon's appropriation of the French Revolution is regarded as the culmination of its failure. There's a reason Bonapartism is a slander amongst revolutionaries.
One doesn't have to lead a revolution to be a revolutionary.
There was no direct election of the leader by the masses, but there was a great deal of democratic structure in USSR.
First, the Soviets were democratically elected. Soviet is the Russian word for "council," these were initially industry-managing bodies, but the word later came to refer to political bodies: what we might call county commissioners, state representatives, and federal representatives. Each body was called a soviet, and each body was composed of elected officials. The Supreme Soviet chose the Presidium, which functioned as a sort of "board of directors" for the country.
Second, the Central Committee of the Communist Party was democratically elected by Party members from amongst party members. The CC chose the Politburo members, who ruled in conjunction with the Presidium.
These were the way things wound up hardening out to be. They were very different in the 1920s, before Stalin came to power. Before the nomenklatura and the hard-liners.
Thirdly, a great deal of everyday life was democratic. While worker democracy came and went, communal areas like apartment blocks were run this way.
So as you can see, there was a great deal of democracy in the USSR, just not at the national level. It left a great deal to be desired, but it was most certainly not nonexistent.
1. Their country is not bankrupt.
2. How many times has the CIA tried to assassinate Castro? Forty-something? Sounds like a cause for concern to me.
I guess USA is not highly democratic either, because it repeatedly invaded countries that did not toe its ideological line, banned the communist party and purged its institutions of suspected communists repeatedly, and commits violence against peaceful protesters of the system. Quite the fearful rule indeed.
Bringing communal apartments as a positive example of democracy in USSR is priceless.
Mostly because that´s probably technically correct.
If arming several soldiers with just one rifle and telling them to use it as best as they can was more widespread reality, would you have brought that example too?
US does sound scarily similar to USSR sometimes...
kochman
Deity
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How many millions of American citizens died during these terrible purges of communists by the USA?
Not saying it was ok, how the USA handled it, but to compare the two is like comparing a mountain and a molehill...
No, I am not comparing McCarthyism to Stalinism.
That was more of a general comment related to some contemporary developments.
Aleksey_aka_al
Smiley
10 millions.
kochman
Deity
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I agree that the direction my government is heading does create concern.
Source?
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
You must be a capitalist hack to be low balling those figures.
The real number is closer to 90,000,000-120,000,000
Aleksey_aka_al
Smiley
Well, 10 millions of Americans disappeared during the Great Repression.
(btw, you're getting it, how it is seen from the opposite perspective)
kochman
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The defining difference is there are no (reliable) sources for your claim...
I get that you are being tongue in cheek, but your defense of the brutality of the CCCP (mainly through denial) is rather odd.
NedimNapoleon
Weird Little Human
Well Yugoslavia was awesome, much better than the CCCP and it had a cooler name SFRJ!
Aleksey_aka_al
Smiley
As I said you before, I do not know what SiSiSiPi is, and so I am not defending it.
Here's one of the many reliable sources for you:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5942605640255893956
Also, I've just prepared my answer to the video you gave earlier: THOSE ARE RUBBER DOLLS!
Rashiminos
Fool Prophet
One gets the incentives wrong, and the other ignores the motivations in favor of outcomes.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
He is spelling it in the cyrillic alphabet: SSSR romanized, or USSR in English.
I'd like to see the 10 millions source as well, or at least not in giant conspiracy theorist video format.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Bringing communal apartments as a positive example of democracy in USSR is priceless.
Mostly because that´s probably technically correct.
If arming several soldiers with just one rifle and telling them to use it as best as they can was more widespread reality, would you have brought that example too?
I personally think communal apartments represent the epitome of laziness on the part of the government. I would never want to live in one. I merely brought them up as an example of democracy, against the claim that there was zero democracy in the USSR. I may have gotten carried away
The two are not so different, 1980s USSR and USA today.
I wasn't comparing the two, I was noting that the USA is not exactly the antithesis of the USSR, doing everything it does not and not doing anything it does.
Mass slaughter isn't exactly new to the Russian repertoire. But Americans don't behave that way, if we did, then perhaps the Red Scares would have become something more than a systematic life-ruiner for anyone who opposed the regime in any way, or whom the accusers merely did not like.
You need to specify 'better' from whose perspective? Communism is the better solution if you are used to leeching off other members of society. If on the other hand you are a contributing member, then capitalism offers you greater rewards:
Only in Capitalism, it belongs to you.
Only in Capitalism, it belongs to you.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
BioShock is a horrible example to draw pro-Objectivist arguments from.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
What's the point in asking that question, if the asking of it gives us your answer? Try to contribute to the discussion, don't just fart out rhetoric like anybody wants to hear it.
In capitalism, an arbitrarily defined amount of your work belongs to you. The rest goes to your employer.
How much exactly? Well, as much as he can rip you off legally. At first, working conditions were horrible, and the "sweat of your brow" barely got you anything for a huge toil in mines and factories. Then "socialist" reforms came along and demanded better worker conditions, and hippie BS like that. Now employers can't work you to death as much as they'd want to, and you can live a content livestyle. However, that is still limited by our corporate overlords.
Why should they spread their profits to the people who create the profits for them, the labourers in the factories? Instead, they will try to remit enough of a sum as to keep us quiet and happy. Thanks to the marvels of technological advance, we can get a fairly decent living with only a modest sacrifice from our saints up top.
ParkCungHee
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What? Americans don't behave that way to other Americans. If you want to look at Americans killing communists, you have to look to Korea or something, you know, someplace unobtrusive.
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