Stolen from r/marxism_memes
-
1936: The Rights the U.S. Still Won't Guarantee - Lady Izdihar (3 min 51 sex)
-
Constitution of the Soviet Union - 8th All-Union Congress of Soviets
-
This Soviet World / (Audiobook) - Anna Louise Strong (1936)
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
161 points (83.4% liked)
Memes
54725 readers
1209 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Rights? In the USSR? All I know is that they bled dry their satellites, kept under severe pressure their so called allies and it was run by a dictator. Weird nostalgia, but misplaced.
The soviet union wasn't run by a dictator. To the contrary, the USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski's Human Rights in the Soviet Union.
The soviet union did not "bleed dry" their member-states, or anyone else. As a socialist economy, it did not need to run on the same mechanisms of capital expansion the west does. Instead, all socialist countries saw dramatic growth over time, and riding key life metrics.
Do you want me to take you by the hand and show you the spectacular progress made in the eastern European countries? All run by dictators , all answering to the Bolshevik boss. Stalin was a dictator by definition. The USSR was just another colonizer. And I say all this because I have first hand experience, most some nostalgic books. That does mean the current system is good, I want it gone. But the romanticization of USSR remains nonsense.
Repeating the same dogmatic claims isn't evidence. Stalin was definitionally not a dictator, and even offered to resign half a dozen times. The USSR was immensely liberatory.
I am just telling you how things were from the perspective of someone that lived those times and their aftermath. Long lines to everything, incompetence and kafkaesque bureaucracy, one factory that produced stuff efficiently had to be a crutch for the inefficient ones, people that had to work in mandatory coops including children. Oh, and the means of production never went to the people, it stood within the party. And that’s just the general stuff in both EE and USSR. I won’t go into details on how Stalin was the head of a single party which had absolute control over the people, ergo dictator. And I am sure he wanted to step down, just like Putin allowed Medvedev to be a puppet for a few years. Oh wait, this new Russian dictator actually truly stepped down for a bit unlike the pretend attempts from Stalin. Let’s be real.
Nobody is saying the USSR was perfect, but all you've brought is just personal anecdote. I've spoken to people that say much the opposite!
I know exactly who thrived during those times. Party members. If you only listen to them, sure, you’re going to get a different story.
Cool story but I've never spoken to a party member, and the historical books I read aren't from party members either.
First 100 year old Lemmy user?
Because the USSR fell 100 years ago.
You both were talking about Stalin and living through his dictatorial times? He died 76 years ago and if you lived through it I assumed you were an adult by the time he died.
Obviously it was implied that I meant the USSR times. I do have parents and grandparents that could narrate how awesome the gulags were.
Yeah I was joking about you being one hundred obviously, you are like 30 max, you lived through shock therapy and blame communism for it for some reason. Prisons do tend to suck but I'm not particularly interested in hearing your gulag archipelago tier "recalling" of those events.