Post B5QKZQEYVkEs61N6Fk by vbabka@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by vbabka@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #B5QKZPzJQQ2tKkEvUe by kimapr@ublog.kimapr.net
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“communists DNI” is wild like hi yeah i love when society is blatantly unfair and exploitative dont @ me
(DIR) Post #B5QKZQEYVkEs61N6Fk by vbabka@mastodon.social
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@kimapr @ozzelot or perhaps it's because stuff like this https://agora.echelon.pl/objects/b6fc6d1f-7a3d-4fa8-b195-f6190486df31
(DIR) Post #B5QKZQPtpZJSfCg9w0 by lizzy@social.vlhl.dev
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@vbabka @kimapr @ozzelot imagine using the rare ""left-conservative"" brainrot larp as an anti communist argument 🤡 literally nobody takes these people seriously
(DIR) Post #B5QKZQbx6kxDGaJmim by vbabka@mastodon.social
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@lizzy @ozzelot @kimapr so why was the first response I got here that the EU flag is a nazi flag, is that a common communist opinion or what?
(DIR) Post #B5QKZQlAYUKJjAd95U by kimapr@ublog.kimapr.net
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@vbabka @lizzy @ozzelot im smudging things a bit here but if you think about it a bit they’re basically the same thing. the EU along with the US, Israel, Canada etc etc are all part of the same empire that has exploited the rest of the world for centuries and constantly kills brown children etc etc. Geopolitically it’s like the embodiment of evil.Not to mention that in most of the EU actual literal fascism is increasingly taking more power.
(DIR) Post #B5QKZR0lcUnsVXvbOq by kimapr@ublog.kimapr.net
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@vbabka @lizzy @ozzelot If im being honest my “why do you have the nazi flag in your display name” was only half-serious and was more of a passive-aggresisve jab to piss you off because i saw the link preview in your post that says “Why do communists always support the most vile totalitarian regimes? thinking emoji” (which i assume is about the Soviet Union i didnt actually read the post) and then i saw the europen flag in your display name and i found it vile that you would shit on the most successful communist project in history that uplifted millions of people, even if there were lots of bad things about it, while glazing the literal death murder torture capitalism machine in my replies of all places.that you didn’t immedeately get pissed off and block me is pleasantly surprising but i’m not too interested in arguing politics so i might bounce from this thread soon
(DIR) Post #B5QKZREEoPZxBKEMOe by vbabka@mastodon.social
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@kimapr @ozzelot @lizzy by "the most successful communist project in history that uplifted millions of people" you mean the Soviet Union? Yeah then I don't think we can agree about much here.
(DIR) Post #B5QKZRNoEpEdf0i0Jc by lizzy@social.vlhl.dev
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@vbabka @kimapr @ozzelot Russia went from a backwards agrarian society where people travelled by horse and carriage to being the first in space in the span of 40 years. Russia showed incredible growth after the revolution that surpassed the rest of the world:https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016/https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016-wid-world-working-paper-201710/USSR provided free education to all citizens resulting in literacy rising from 33% to 99.9%:http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PubEdUSSR.htm http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/anglosov.htmhttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000013/001300eo.pdfhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LikbezUSSR doubled life expectancy in just 20 years. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. The Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years. By the 1960’s, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Unionhttps://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.htmlUSSR ended famines: https://artir.wordpress.com/2017/02/04Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition:https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84b00274r000300150009-5USSR moved from 58.5-hour work weeks to 41.6 hour work weeks (-0.36 h/yr) between 1913 and 1960: https://books.google.com/books?id=x8JYjwEACAAJhttps://web.archive.org/web/20210509140019/https://b-ok.cc/book/2669908/77497fUSSR averaged 22 days of paid leave in 1986 while USA averaged 7.6 in 1996:https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdfhttps://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htmHad the 2nd fastest growing economy of the 20th century after Japan. The USSR started out at the same level of economic development and population as Brazil in 1920, which makes comparisons to the US, an already industrialized country by the 1920s, even more spectacular.Free Universal Health care, and most doctors per capita in the world. 42 doctors per 10k population, vs 24 in Denmark and Sweden, 19 in US.Had near zero unemployment, continuous economic growth for 70 straight years. The “continuous” part should make sense – the USSR was a planned, non-market economy, so market crashes á la capitalism were pretty much impossible.In 1987, people in the USSR could retire with pension at 55 (female) and 60 (male) while receiving 50% of their wages at a at minimum. Meanwhile, in USA the average retirement age was 62-67 and the average (not median) retiree household in the USA could expect $48k/yr which comes out to 65% of the 74k average (not median) household income in 2016:https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdfhttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/could-you-get-by-on-the-average-americans-retirement-income/All education, including university level, free. 299% literacy.Combatted sex inequality. Equal wages for men and women mandated by law, but sex inequality, although not as pronounced as under capitalism, was perpetuated in social roles.Combatted Racial inequality.Soviet power production per capita in 1990 was more than the EU, Great Britain, or China’s in 2014. GDP took off after socialism was established and then collapsed with the reintroduction of capitalism:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soviet_Union_GDP_per_capita.gifThe Soviet Union had the highest physician/patient ratio in the world. USSR had 42 doctors per 10,000 population compared to 24 in Denmark and Sweden, and 19 in US:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0735675784900482 (use sci-hub for access)USSR defeated a smallpox epidemic in a matter of 19 days https://www.rbth.com/history/331857-how-ussr-defeated-black-smallpoxThe Social Consequences of Soviet Immunization Policies https://web.archive.org/web/20240218132709/https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/1997-812-03g-Hoch.pdfUSSR produced many firsts in the realm of science and technology:1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 Semyorka1957: First orbiting satellite, Sputnik 11957: First living in orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 21957: First nuclear powered icebreaker “Lenin” weighing in at 19,240 tons of steel1958: First Tokamak thermonuclear experimental system1959: First man-made object to leave the Earth’s orbit, Luna 11959: First communication to and from Luna 1 with Earth1959: First object to pass near the moon, and the first object in orbit around the Moon, Luna 11959: First satellite hit the moon, Luna 21959: First images of the dark side of the moon, Luna 31960: First satellite to be launched to Mars, the Marsnik 11961: First satellite to Venus, Venera 11961: First person to enter orbit around the Earth, Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 11961: First person to spend a day in orbit, Gherman Titov – Vostok 21962: First flight of two astronauts, Vostok 3 and Vostok 41963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 61964: First flight of several astronauts, Voskhod 11965: First spacewalk, Aleksei Leonov, Voskhod 21965: First probe to another planet Venus, Venera 31966: First probe to descend on the moon and send from there, Luna 91966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 101967: First meeting of unmanned Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188, this aws not achieved by US until 20061969: First docking and crew exchange in orbit, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 51970: First signals sent to the moon by Luna 161970: First mobile robot, Lunokhod 11970: First data sent by a probe from another planet (Venus), Venera 71971: First space station, Salyut 11971: First satellite in orbit around Mars and landing on Mars 21975: First satellite in orbit around Venus and sending data to earth, Venera 91984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaja on Salyut 71986: First team to visit two space stations Salyut and Mir1986: First permanent space station in Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, MIR 1987: First team to spend more than a year aboard Mir, Vladimir Titov and Musa ManarovThese are just some of the biggest technological and social achievements of the Soviet Union.What happens after the USSR collapsed, and what came with capitalist privatization:Life expectancy decreases by 10 years. 2. 7.7 million excess deaths in the first year. 240% of population drops into poverty.GDP instantly halves.One in ten children now live on the streets. Infant mortality increases. Was 29.3 in 2003 which is around (current) Syria and Micronesia, 7.9 in 2013. Infant mortality in USSR was 1.92, literally the lowest in the world.1996 election rigged by the US, Yeltsin sends in tanks to disperse the supreme soviet.For an overview of the soviet experiment, watch this brilliant talk by Micheal Parenti, or read his article, Left anticommunism, the unkindest cut.Also read this great article by Stephen Gowans, Do publicly owned, planned economies work?. Audio on youtubeAcademic studies on USSR:Professor of Economic History, Robert C. Allen, concludes in his study without the 1917 revolution is directly responsible for rapid growth that made the achievements listed above possible:https://web.archive.org/web/20200119044114/https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.507.8966&rep=rep1&type=pdfStudy demonstrating the steady increase in quality of life during the Soviet period (including under Stalin). Includes the fact that Soviet life expectancy grew faster than any other nation recorded at the time:https://www.jstor.org/stable/2672986?seq=1A large study using world bank data analyzing the quality of life in Capitalist vs Socialist countries and finds overwhelmingly at similar levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646771/pdf/amjph00269-0055.pdfThis study compared capitalist and socialist countries in measures of the physical quality of life (PQL), taking into account the level of economic development.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2430906/This study shows that unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the 1990s, causing around 7 million excess deaths. The first quantitative analysis of the association between deindustrialization and mortality in Eastern Europe.https://academic.oup.com/cje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cje/beac072/7081084?guestAccessKey=01c8dd9f-af1c-48b3-b271-eb5d3a45017c&login=falseRomania, the inustrialization of an agrarian economy under socialist planninghttps://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/888851468333915517/pdf/multi0page.pdfSo, how do people who lived under communism feel now that they got a taste of capitalism?A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country’s economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country’s switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary’s integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process.The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an “illegitimate state.” In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.A poll shows that as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -“during the time of socialism”. The survey focused on the respondents’ views on the transition “from socialism to capitalism”, and a clear majority said they trusted social institutions the most during the rule of Yugoslav communist president Josip Broz Tito. The standard of living during Tito’s rule from the Second World War to the 1980s was also assessed as best, whereas the Milosevic decade of the 1990s, and the subsequent decade since the fall of his regime are seen as “more or less the same”. 45 percent said they trusted social institutions most under communism with 23 percent choosing the 2001-2003 period when Zoran Djinđic was prime minister. Only 19 per cent selected present-day institutions. 75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union over the years. Only a small portion of those surveyed said they had negative associations with the Soviet Union. The economic deficit, long lines and coupons were named by 4% of respondents each, while the Iron Curtain, economic stagnation and political repressions were named by 1% each, the Levada Center said.Adult mortality increased enormously in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union when the Soviet system collapsed 30 years ago. https://archive.ph/9Z12uFormer Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspxThe Free market paradise goes East chapters in Blackshirts and Reds details some more results of the transition to capitalism.