this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Well... There was this thing called Soviet Union. They decided to try to speed up the transition to communism by using repression and violence. And ended up being a totalitarian state, a direct opposite of what a communist state is supposed to be like.
Of course you can argue that Soviet Union was not communist, it was just a state that had chosen to call itself communist for propaganda reasons... But still, Soviet Union is an example of a communist country that was unsuccessful as a communist project already by itself. Then came outsiders and helped make it even worse, but bad doesn't become good by some people wanting it to be even worse. Burma is another example. I'd say they hacked away their own leg before anyone else, such as CIA, had time to interfere in their business.
The USSR is responsible for the largest decrease in poverty in all of world history
Finland decreased its poverty between 1917 and 1991 more than Soviet Union did. In the beginning of year 1917 Finland was a part of the Russian Empire, so we were extremely poor here as well. Soviet Union could be on the second place, perhaps. But, since there is at least one country that fared better, the claim you made it evidently false. There can very well be other countries than just Finland that decreased poverty more than USSR did. I do not know for sure, though, as I'm not terribly well aware of how faraway places like Chile or Burma were faring in 1917.
China is second place
The 1930s famine was neither intentional, nor a large movement for reducing poverty. It was also the last famine in the USSR outside of wartime, in a country where famine was common and regular under the rule of the Tsar.
What actually caused the reduction in poverty was a rapidly growing economy with robust social programs like free healthcare and education, and a dramatic lowering of wealth inequality.
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
How very Malthusian of you to think killing poor people lowers poverty.
1 apple, 2 people, 1/2 apple per person.
1 apple, 1 person, 1 apple per person.
It's not a good fix, it's not a long-term fix, but in the short term you can claim to have lowered poverty by getting rid of a lot of mouths you'd otherwise need to feed.
What no theory does to an mf
The USSR had to deal with a civil war, rising up during WWI and being sabotaged by the Germans, more civil war, foreign meddling, and all while being the first successful communist revolution. Yet they still managed to raise literacy, raise health outcomes, raise average life expectancy, gender equality, science and technology, end the cycle of famines (after the first one or two they had when they were still building up), had faster growth during that period than any capitalist country (except maybe the US, which was doing imperialism at the time and the biggest hegemon), all while helping sustain other socialist countries, like Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea.
Comparing the Nazis to the Communists is a form of Nazi Apologia, originating with Double Genocide Theory. The truth is that they are in no way comparable, read Blackshirts and Reds..
The Soviet Union existed for the workers. They doubled life expectancy, over tripled literacy rates to 99.9% from the low 30s, dramatically reduced wealth inequality, provided free and high quality healthcare and education, and democratized the economy.
Comparing Finland to the USSR is... odd. Finland funds its safety nets through Imperialism. The Soviet Union was also far larger and far more populous, and yet cared for its people while detached from much of the global economy. The Soviets did 80% of the combat against the Nazis and had half their buildings destroyed and 20 million people killed by the Nazis, while Finland saw no such comparable devastation. The Soviets largely rebuilt on their own, while Western countries had an unscathed United States propping them up. The point is that Finland didn't accomplish any of this on their own, and moreover a lot of these concessions came to prevent revolution like was seen in Russia.
I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds.
I'm not comparing them. I'm saying that doing something good does not mean that the instance that does the good is also good. The Nazis are simply the most extreme example that can be found, and therefore the most efficient way to show that the concept of "doing some good things does not automatically mean you're a good guy" exists in general.
And the only part of the Russia that did not become Soviet did the same things in an even bigger scale. Why?
The eastern block got money from Moscow through Warsaw pact. The western block got money from Marshall Aid. There was only one country in Europe that received neither: Finland. We were considered to be in the eastern block, so we were not allowed to get Marshall Aid. And USSR's aid required accepting that "if the country's independence is endangered, Moscow can choose to send its forces to help". We demanded a change to that rule so that Helsinki decides if the help is needed, not Moscow. And then Soviet Union said, "okay, no money for you people, then". Soviet Union got reparations from Germany and Finland. Finland paid all of its reparations, fully. The last payment was made in the 1990's. While being the only country not getting any money from foreign countries for rebuilding after the war, we also paid huge war reparations to the country that had begun the war in coöperation with Germany by attacking us in 1939. And yes, that does mean that the advances Soviet Union did after the second world war were partially financed by Finland. Which still managed to do better than Soviet Union it was helping. Could you please tell, how precisely does all this mean that Finland was funding its safety nets through imperialism? Was the Finnish imperialism visible in the huge decrease of Finno-Ugric population, from whose colonized territories Soviet Union got almost all of its oil and minerals? Or where did the Finnish imperialism physically take place?
During just three nights in 1940, Soviet Union dropped 16489 bombs in Helsinki alone. How is that not devastation? And of course those were only the most intense nights of bombing, there were of course maaany more of them between 1939 and 1944.
The Soviet Union said that it exists for the workers. But the workers were who got sent to the camps to die, not the ruling class.
You stated that the Nazis did some good things, but that they also did many horrible things, and used that to show that the good the USSR did was outweighed by the bad. That right there is Nazi apologia, the sheer scale of bad in the Nazis far surpassed that of the Soviets, just like the sheer good of the Soviets far outweighed that of the Nazis, to incomparable levels. Using the Nazis as an "easy example" doesn't prove your point better, it serves as Nazi apologia.
No, Finland did not achieve better metrics at a larger scale, and further I already explained that Finland is Imperialist. It's a landlord in country form, like the rest of Western Europe, and especially the US.
As for how Finnish Imperialism works, through various international loans and overseas production, Finland extracts superprofits off of exploitation of the Global South. To get into specifics of this takes up entire volumes, but you can start with Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism to see how the system generally works, though not specific to Finland.
20 million soviet citizens died in World War 2, and half of their buildings were destroyed. The Winter War does not compare, neither in proportion nor in raw quantity, to the sheer amount of rebuilding necessary. That's also ignoring Finland's history of anticommunism and cozying up to fascists.
The Workers in the Soviet Union were not sent to camps to die en mass. The "ruling class' was the Proletariat. There was Prison labor, but overall incarceration rates, even despite having genuine Tsarists and fascists to contend with, were usually lower than the United States as a comparison. Consider reading Russian Justice.
The Soviet Union served the Working Class. Free, high quality healthcare and education, dramatically lowered wealth inequality, support for national liberation movements globally, defeated the Nazis, provided childcare, large movements in women's rights, democratized the economy, and more.
The notion that there was a "ruling class" that exploited the workers is ludicrous, because they would have sucked at their job given that they dramatically lowered wealth inequality. They walked the walk as well as talked the talk.
Nope. I used it to show that it is possible that the good the USSR did was outweighed by the bad. That the concept exists. The Nazis are a warning example of what we must never become. It is super scary that it is not allowed to talk about them. In this case nothing like Nazis actions was under conversation, but sometimes things do look almost 1:1 the same as Germany looked in 1920's when the foundations for Nazism were laid and early 1930's. It is not good that it is considered Nazi apologia, because if we can't say aloud when things are going that way again, we will eventually end up Nazis ourselves.
I used to live in Germany, and it scared me that people there don't see that their way will eventually lead to rise of fascism again, no matter how understandable the principles behind the "do not compare anything to Nazis" rule is! When it comes again, Germans are not going to anything to stop it, and will stop anyone who does try to. Except, of course, if it uses the swastika. Then it will be stopped.
But, now back to the actual subject!
Correct, it was largely based on the ethnic background, not so much on social strata. For example Latvians were sent there in such amounts that now almost 50 % of Latvians speak Russian as their main language. It also does not really matter if they were sent there en mass or not, when several millions from around Soviet Union were sent there and 70 % of them died. Camps where millions are sent and less than a third come back alive is not something that can ever be considered acceptable. Camps where you put six people to sleep in a space built for one or two are not okay. It is not okay, it was not okay, and it never will be okay. And it is not okay to defend them.
Then there are some claims that you just let hanging in the air:
You need to elaborate on those. I did alter the quotes, because in the context of comparing countries' growth 1917–1991 whatever happened after 1991 is not really relevant. The altered parts are marked clearly.
The job of the ruling class is not to maximize wealth inequality. They very often do that, yes, but it is not their job. Lowering wealth inequality is a sign of the ruling class is doing their job correctly, not incorrectly. I do not understand why you would think otherwise.
Everyone can understand that good doesn't outweigh bad, you don't need an analogy to show that. Instead, you went out of your way to compare the Soviets to the Nazis, which I already showed is a form of Nazi apologia. It isn't about not being able to talk about the Nazis, far from it, we should study them, and what gave rise to them (throwback to when I recommended you read Blackshirts and Reds, which you seem to have ignored).
Your next paragraph is unsourced claims of mass killings and deaths in labor camps. Given your tendency to believe literal propagandists uncritically shown in other comments, and that you haven't given a source, it sounds to me that you're probably getting it from Robert Conquest and other anticommunist myth makers from before the Soviet Archives were opened up. Again, throwback to Russian Justice.
Finland has been Imperialist for a long time, and is Imperialist today, correct. You can read the book I suggested from Lenin to see the general process of Imperialism. The vast majority of the labor you consume, in the form of commodities, etc comes from the Global South. The Western countries, with the US at the top, reap the largest benefits off of hyper-exploiting workers in the global south for poverty wages. Finland doesn't rely on its own production, Finland relies on the labor of others.
As for the idea of a ruling class, it wasn't about wealth inequality, but wealth in total. The highest ranking members of the Soviet Union did not live lavish, princely lifestyles. The top and bottom had a difference of roughly 10 times, not 100s or 1000s or more like in Tsarist Russia or modern Capitalist Russia. There was no "ruling class," the Proletariat ran society.
The USSR didn't "do repression and violence to speed up Communism," they had a successful revolution and established Socialism. By all accounts it was quite successful overall, but we can learn from where they erred and adapt for the future.
The only ones who believe the Soviet Union wasn't Socialist are generally Western Trots or liberals/Anarchists who already don't want the form of society Marxists want, which is a government that publicly owns its large and key industries and gradually folds in the new firms that grow to that level until the entire economy is publicly owned.
Have you never heard of bolševiks and menševiks? What you're explaining is what menševiks wanted, but what happened was what bolševiks aimed for.
And that was inhumane horror.
No, the Mensheviks had a poor understanding of Historical Materialism and didn't think the Peasantry could truly be allied to the Proletariat. What I am describing is what the Bolsheviks did. To a better extent the PRC also fulfills this.
I don't think reeducation camps should be considered "concentration camps," which brings to mind the mass killings of the Holocaust, but regardless the reeducation program is pretty much complete.
As far as can be considered a successful country, the PRC absolutely fits that. Conditions for the people are rapidly improving, the economy when adjusted for purchasing power parity is the largest in the world, it's a world leader in renewable energy, and is overtaking the rest of the world in key metrics.
A camp where people are sent because of their ethnic background and where a large part of inmates die is a concentration camp, absolutely. Especially if human experiments are done on the inmates and torture is common.
I would not want my conditions to improve through slavery and torture of others. There is a big difference between you and me regarding that.
See, I don't think there's evidence of that occuring, though. I don't want my conditions to improve through slavery and torture of others either, the difference really seems to be your insistence on trusting unverified claims from the christian Nationalist Adrian Zenz, who believes he was sent by God to stop China, which he believes is the antichrist.
There are reeducation camps, but there's no evidence of systemic torture, killings, or experiments. Meanwhile Palestinians are being genocided without question, with mountains of evidence.
The Palestinian genocide takes place in Palestine, not in China. You are mistaken regarding that.
Who the hell is Zenz? First time I hear the name, and does not seem like a person I should bother to learn something from.
I never said the genocide of Palestinians was in China, I said the Palestinian genocide has mountains of evidence while what you describe comes from Zenz.
Zenz is the sole source of claims of mass killings and torture of Uyghurs, along with claims of forced sterilization. If you aren't even aware of your own sources, why are you arguing against someone who has done some degree of research into the subject?
I recommend reading the UN report, found here. It's a good place to start, I also recommend reading China's response. There's a lot that can be discussed, but it's clear that you care more about taking advantage of the subject to push a political agenda, like the Israelis who claimed Hamas beheaded babies, or the Kuwaiti claims of Iraqi soldiers taking babies from their incubators and leaving them on the floor. Read The Xinjiang Atrocity Propaganda Blitz.
No investigation, no right to speak.
My sources are newspaper articles whose sources are not the guy you're talking about.
Because the Palestinian and Bosnian genocides are not in China, they don't prove anything about China. At best they are whataboutism.
Check the newspapers, Zenz will be listed. Find some sources, they all point to Zenz for claims of genocide.
As for Palestine, it isn't a whataboutism. There's overwhelming evidence of Palestinian genocide, and there just isn't for the Uyghur people.
Start with the UN report, read China's response.
The reports were made by reporters that were named and whose names weren't what you refer to.
Unless Palestine is in China, what happens or does not happen gives no privileges for China. What you're doing is indeed whataboutism.
Show your sources. Claims of genocidal nature all route back to Zenz, claims of reeducation programs are abundant and have many sources.
And no, whataboutism would be saying that "China may be doing genocide, but the US and Israel are doing worse genocide in Palestine." That's not my point, my point is that the Palestinian genocide has mountains of evidence, yet the Uyghur reeducation program's "genocidal nature" only has Zenz, paid for by the BBC specifically to manufacture evidence to be used against China for geopolitical gain.
Least smug shitlib