Sure, Cuba is being kept down by western blockade, but truly you can’t blame the Eastern-Western Europe divide on western shenanigans.
Don’t get me wrong, most of Europe’s ‘healthy’ democracies are from colonial wealth or oil money (except Finnland… They’re weird bootstrap folk). But anyone directly under direct Soviet occupation kinda sufferred for it one way or the other.
Reflecting back on the breakup of the Soviet Union that happened 22 years ago next week, residents in seven out of 11 countries that were part of the union are more likely to believe its collapse harmed their countries than benefited them. Only Azerbaijanis, Kazakhstanis, and Turkmens are more likely to see benefit than harm from the breakup. Georgians are divided.
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.
Roughly 28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime, according to a poll conducted by the polling institute SC&C and released Sunday.
The majority of Russians polled in a 2016 study said they would prefer living under the old Soviet Union and would like to see the socialist system and the Soviet state restored.
The claims you have read in reddit comments are almost always made by Americans, whose brains are riddled with red scare brainworms and are completely devoid of any knowledge or understand of what the left thinks in Europe, because Americans do not have a left.
Let’s end on something a bit more scientific than polls of people’s feelings:
Companies literally still sell the products from east germany, despite it being claimed to be inferior in quality to western ones. Like Vita Cola is one of best-selling products in germany.
I cannot emphasize enough, that I am not against communism, or socialism. My initial comment was mostly against a blanket statement that Eastern Europe is where it’s at, because of capitalism.
Even I remember the communist times fondly, even though I didn’t live through it. I am working toward it myself, or at least the common win. Which just confusesed me further with all the fallout I got in this thread.
I also see our future along lines that implement the best of what we can from communism, but learns from the problems of the initial implementation.
So like how do we make sure to not have selfish assholes in places of power? Not live in fear because we have questions. And I am not saying this is ingrained in communism…just something people do.
I guess I’ll have to read up on my dialectic materialism.
Yes, yes, I understand. But isn’t there the phrase that the revolution eats its children?
Excuse me as it has probably been discussed into the ground, but I am worried about the same power struggles experienced during after 1917. People in power not trusting each other or wanting more power. Will it be just a continual revolution, or a refresh when someone malicious gets too close to the reigns? If we had most of the core literature back then, why did it turn authoritarian?
I don’t need answers to my question (unless you got em!), I just wanted to share my main gripe with power structures in general.
“Consumerism” isn’t an actual system. It’s just describing people consuming goods with a negative connotation. There’s nothing to critique or change about consumerism, there’s no way to attack it outside of personal blame games of saying “individuals needs to be less greedy” (idealism). Capitalism is an economic system, one well studied and implemented throughout the world. Something that controls our societies, something that could be changed via political will. You really have only stuck your toe in the water here and lecturing people who swim all day.
This would be like a medieval peasant saying “I don’t oppose Feudalism, I only oppose pilgrimage and the constant festivals”. Like ??? You are mistaking a coping tendency under certain conditions for the system setting the conditions itself.
One is an epoch spanning economic system, a thing unto itself, the other is just some small offshoot describing what some people do. Not a thing itself, just a description of personal tendencies as they arise from the conditions they exist within.
Also, Capitalism =/= Markets. Markets and trade existed before capitalism in feudal and pre-historic societies even. Markets existed under socialism as well. Please learn what capitalism is.
While I did enjoy your verbose writing, it kinda feels to be coming off a pedestal. I get that this place gets a lot of trolls, but just looking at the reactions I’m getting from a good faith comment (heck, maybe it wasn’t good faith… Maybe I should have asked) feels pretty harsh and looks super circlejerky.
Also, Capitalism =/= Markets
I guess my superfluous simile doesn’t hold water.
I don’t know if we are properly understanding each other, as I see consumerism as a push to buy happiness. If it’s just one of those things that’s inherent to capitalism, sry for wasting your time.
I’m glad you think I’m verbose, English is my second language
You and I have fundamentally different methods of thought. I’m trying to say it in ten different ways to convey my alien, to you, materialist outlook. You have been raised in an idealist Liberal world to be an idealist Liberal subject, you think naturally in idealist ways (concerned about things like “consumerism” which are not real things but second order ideas). I am more concerned with changing the base structure of society itself, and the ideas will follow.
This is the first major hurdle that Liberals will face when radicalizing and breaking out of their confined worldview. Liberals fundamentally believe that ideas form reality. That people can agree on something from an argument in the marketplace of ideas and everyone just changes.
I believe that reality forms ideas. That the underlying economic relationships that people are placed in are the base from which all justifications and rationalizations (ideology, ideas, culture, religion, etc) arise
Until we can come to terms on this fundamental underlying discrepancy between our world views there won’t be much progress. I can dabble in your world, because I was also raised partially in a Liberal idealist society - but I can also dabble in mine where you cannot follow. I know all of your Liberal precepts and notions, you know none of mine.
After the end of the USSR, all post Soviet countries experienced a massive drop in quality of life comparable to war time. Unemployment sky rocketed, government social safety nets were gutted, organized crime skyrocketed, and wealth inequality rise in kind. Western capitalists accelerated the liquidation of post-Soviet governments with IMF loan sharks and neoliberal austerity, which made a few people incredibly rich at the expense of millions.
And we’re still seeing the remnant of the system crumble (in the form of healthcare & schooling). I am not saying the crunch that Eastern Europe is facing is clearly the Soviet Union’s fault. I am saying it is a one-two punch, that probably started before the first communists came to power in the Soviet Union.
Again, no advocating for capitalism from this lemmyng. I wasn’t alive for most of the communist times, but from the shows and movies produced around and after the hardest times, you can get a good sense of what problems people faced. Most are ingrained into humanity (craving power, yaddayadda). Sure, we can all have a hate boner for Bezos&co, but that won’t fix our problem.
This place is pretty radical sometimes for my taste, but I hover around, as I do feel kinship. I am happy for the dialogue, despite all the shade.
I appreciate you engaging. People here are just a bit on-edge about contrary takes because it’s tough to tell who is in good faith (we’ve had a huge amount of trolls and bad faith bullshitters over the years)
I think you need to learn more about why we have our perspective on this issue.
For instance the reason why most of us would say there was no liberation after the fall of the USSR is because it was a giant mess that indirectly killed millions and impoverished tens of millions more. The former Soviets found out that a good deal of the ambient hostility coming from the Capitalists wasn’t just anti-communist or because they hated the Soviet government but the natural hostility of capitalism toward the working class. A hostility that previously they had been protected against. It was a hell of a shock to find that out. And again, that shock killed millions. So we tend to think that despite the flaws in execution the Soviets had the right ideas about who the enemy of their citizenry really was.
I’m out on a limb here a bit as well. I’m usually on the other side of this argument.
I’m not too familiar with the history of the core soviet states, just the one satellite. I am sure of the harm the ‘free’ market style world view causes, but as I do with anyone just bashing communism, I raised word here too, when I noticed a blanket statement that didn’t feel right.
Again, thanks for the words. I’ll stick around and check in. I’ve never seen anything like hex.
Well, just based on one country I have personal experience living in, it seems like a multi-faceted issue. It feels like the people have their heads down and don’t speak out of fear of retribution.
I am not flawing the communistic ideal in this case. I just wanted to point out, that no, it’s not just capitalism that is causing the problems, and I wouldn’t be posting on a hexbear server if I think capitalism is a solution to anything besides problems caused by it. Hell, I say down with democracy in it’s current iteration, we have reached its limits.
Just to drive the point home, when Hungary wanted it’s own flavor of socialism (I guess like Tito), soviet tanks came rushing in. I am all for the common win, but this looked more like imperialism than spreading the message of love and sharing.
Oh sorry, it’s a meme about people who clearly don’t know what they are talking about being sure about the subject matter. You just put “the x understander” where x is the topic the person is acting like they understand, but doesn’t.
Lots of users came in to explain why, check out some of their comments!
But anyone directly under direct Soviet occupation kinda sufferred (sic) for it one way or the other.
Oh noes, I can’t oppress people with my inherited capital or be openly fascistic, what a nightmare! Here I go, burning my crops and murdering my livestock, can’t have those filthy underpeople share what’s mine in a time of drought!
“The current system is bad, the the only alternative (successor) is super horrible! No freeze preach, no grain, no consumerism. How could anyone live like that?”
Imagined ideal my right bollock. You’ve never met a communist advocating for some ideal, let me tell you that much. Although against whatever you imagine happened in the USSR, it might as well have been a proper utopia. No night raids nor thousands of dissidents killed daily, for a start.
You can take it as you wish. I am talking about red terror. When the black car comes to pick us up. I’m not arguing against communism. I just feel that people forget that men are fallible.
We have the right mind set in here, but it feels that wepeople are talking in the extreme ideals here.
the death toll of white terror is tenfold that of red terror, and most red terror deaths were nazis or fascists or the rich. We need more red terror, not less
Just take the L and log off, I’m sure you’ve got a life to live somehow.
Btw when a comrade called you “Hungarian Revolution understander” they were being sarcastic. MLs have been able to surmise as much for decades now, but with the JFK files it’s been proven it was a CIA operation, not a real revolutionary movement.
Sorry. Some of us get awfully prickly when somebody comes in saying things we know aren’t true. Even when it’s very recently proven stuff—like how we now definitively know that the Hungarian “revolution” was a CIA-backed operation. The USSR correctly clocked it as American intervention, and responded like you’d expect a country to during a foreign invasion.
Gestures broadly to everything in Eastern Europe for last 36 years.
Sure, Cuba is being kept down by western blockade, but truly you can’t blame the Eastern-Western Europe divide on western shenanigans.
Don’t get me wrong, most of Europe’s ‘healthy’ democracies are from colonial wealth or oil money (except Finnland… They’re weird bootstrap folk). But anyone directly under direct Soviet occupation kinda sufferred for it one way or the other.
Brother capitalism ravaged eastern europe once they were “liberated” from “soviet occupation”?
Duh. Consumerism is a blight on humanity that will take decades to wash off.
But why use the quotation marks? Many countries had native communist movements, but there was definitely soviet aggression involved in some.
7 out of 11 countries believe the end of the USSR harmed their countries rather than benefited them
Hungary: 72% of Hungarians say they are worse off today economically than under communism
Romania: 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism
Germany: more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR
28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime
81% of Serbians believe they lived best in Yugoslavia
Majority of Russians
The claims you have read in reddit comments are almost always made by Americans, whose brains are riddled with red scare brainworms and are completely devoid of any knowledge or understand of what the left thinks in Europe, because Americans do not have a left.
Let’s end on something a bit more scientific than polls of people’s feelings:
Socialist countries objectively provide a better quality of life to their populations than capitalist countries when compared at an equal level of development
Companies literally still sell the products from east germany, despite it being claimed to be inferior in quality to western ones. Like Vita Cola is one of best-selling products in germany.
Hey, thank you for bringing the data.
I cannot emphasize enough, that I am not against communism, or socialism. My initial comment was mostly against a blanket statement that Eastern Europe is where it’s at, because of capitalism.
Even I remember the communist times fondly, even though I didn’t live through it. I am working toward it myself, or at least the common win. Which just confusesed me further with all the fallout I got in this thread.
I also see our future along lines that implement the best of what we can from communism, but learns from the problems of the initial implementation.
So like how do we make sure to not have selfish assholes in places of power? Not live in fear because we have questions. And I am not saying this is ingrained in communism…just something people do.
I guess I’ll have to read up on my dialectic materialism.
Thats what the revolution is for
Yes, yes, I understand. But isn’t there the phrase that the revolution eats its children?
Excuse me as it has probably been discussed into the ground, but I am worried about the same power struggles experienced during after 1917. People in power not trusting each other or wanting more power. Will it be just a continual revolution, or a refresh when someone malicious gets too close to the reigns? If we had most of the core literature back then, why did it turn authoritarian?
I don’t need answers to my question (unless you got em!), I just wanted to share my main gripe with power structures in general.
You should read this, “revolution eating its children” is mentioned there.
consumerism? do you mean capitalism? why do liberals always play these word games
No, my main beef is with consumerism. Capitalism props up consumerism. I don’t have a huge problem with a market, as long as it’s supervised.
“Consumerism” isn’t an actual system. It’s just describing people consuming goods with a negative connotation. There’s nothing to critique or change about consumerism, there’s no way to attack it outside of personal blame games of saying “individuals needs to be less greedy” (idealism). Capitalism is an economic system, one well studied and implemented throughout the world. Something that controls our societies, something that could be changed via political will. You really have only stuck your toe in the water here and lecturing people who swim all day.
This would be like a medieval peasant saying “I don’t oppose Feudalism, I only oppose pilgrimage and the constant festivals”. Like ??? You are mistaking a coping tendency under certain conditions for the system setting the conditions itself.
One is an epoch spanning economic system, a thing unto itself, the other is just some small offshoot describing what some people do. Not a thing itself, just a description of personal tendencies as they arise from the conditions they exist within.
Also, Capitalism =/= Markets. Markets and trade existed before capitalism in feudal and pre-historic societies even. Markets existed under socialism as well. Please learn what capitalism is.
While I did enjoy your verbose writing, it kinda feels to be coming off a pedestal. I get that this place gets a lot of trolls, but just looking at the reactions I’m getting from a good faith comment (heck, maybe it wasn’t good faith… Maybe I should have asked) feels pretty harsh and looks super circlejerky.
I guess my superfluous simile doesn’t hold water.
I don’t know if we are properly understanding each other, as I see consumerism as a push to buy happiness. If it’s just one of those things that’s inherent to capitalism, sry for wasting your time.
I’m glad you think I’m verbose, English is my second language
You and I have fundamentally different methods of thought. I’m trying to say it in ten different ways to convey my alien, to you, materialist outlook. You have been raised in an idealist Liberal world to be an idealist Liberal subject, you think naturally in idealist ways (concerned about things like “consumerism” which are not real things but second order ideas). I am more concerned with changing the base structure of society itself, and the ideas will follow.
This is the first major hurdle that Liberals will face when radicalizing and breaking out of their confined worldview. Liberals fundamentally believe that ideas form reality. That people can agree on something from an argument in the marketplace of ideas and everyone just changes.
I believe that reality forms ideas. That the underlying economic relationships that people are placed in are the base from which all justifications and rationalizations (ideology, ideas, culture, religion, etc) arise
Until we can come to terms on this fundamental underlying discrepancy between our world views there won’t be much progress. I can dabble in your world, because I was also raised partially in a Liberal idealist society - but I can also dabble in mine where you cannot follow. I know all of your Liberal precepts and notions, you know none of mine.
After the end of the USSR, all post Soviet countries experienced a massive drop in quality of life comparable to war time. Unemployment sky rocketed, government social safety nets were gutted, organized crime skyrocketed, and wealth inequality rise in kind. Western capitalists accelerated the liquidation of post-Soviet governments with IMF loan sharks and neoliberal austerity, which made a few people incredibly rich at the expense of millions.
And we’re still seeing the remnant of the system crumble (in the form of healthcare & schooling). I am not saying the crunch that Eastern Europe is facing is clearly the Soviet Union’s fault. I am saying it is a one-two punch, that probably started before the first communists came to power in the Soviet Union.
Again, no advocating for capitalism from this lemmyng. I wasn’t alive for most of the communist times, but from the shows and movies produced around and after the hardest times, you can get a good sense of what problems people faced. Most are ingrained into humanity (craving power, yaddayadda). Sure, we can all have a hate boner for Bezos&co, but that won’t fix our problem.
This place is pretty radical sometimes for my taste, but I hover around, as I do feel kinship. I am happy for the dialogue, despite all the shade.
I appreciate you engaging. People here are just a bit on-edge about contrary takes because it’s tough to tell who is in good faith (we’ve had a huge amount of trolls and bad faith bullshitters over the years)
I think you need to learn more about why we have our perspective on this issue.
For instance the reason why most of us would say there was no liberation after the fall of the USSR is because it was a giant mess that indirectly killed millions and impoverished tens of millions more. The former Soviets found out that a good deal of the ambient hostility coming from the Capitalists wasn’t just anti-communist or because they hated the Soviet government but the natural hostility of capitalism toward the working class. A hostility that previously they had been protected against. It was a hell of a shock to find that out. And again, that shock killed millions. So we tend to think that despite the flaws in execution the Soviets had the right ideas about who the enemy of their citizenry really was.
Thank you for the tone.
I’m out on a limb here a bit as well. I’m usually on the other side of this argument.
I’m not too familiar with the history of the core soviet states, just the one satellite. I am sure of the harm the ‘free’ market style world view causes, but as I do with anyone just bashing communism, I raised word here too, when I noticed a blanket statement that didn’t feel right.
Again, thanks for the words. I’ll stick around and check in. I’ve never seen anything like hex.
I know I was pretty snarky in the other comment but as the other user said we get a lot of bad faith around here
Hehh… It almost feels like a right of passage.
Even if they did suffer from ”Soviet occupation” like you say, why haven’t things improved in the 34 years of capitalism since then?
the cranial structure of an eastern european person does not allow them to comprehend such logical ideas such as “healthy democracy”
Well, just based on one country I have personal experience living in, it seems like a multi-faceted issue. It feels like the people have their heads down and don’t speak out of fear of retribution.
I am not flawing the communistic ideal in this case. I just wanted to point out, that no, it’s not just capitalism that is causing the problems, and I wouldn’t be posting on a hexbear server if I think capitalism is a solution to anything besides problems caused by it. Hell, I say down with democracy in it’s current iteration, we have reached its limits.
Just to drive the point home, when Hungary wanted it’s own flavor of socialism (I guess like Tito), soviet tanks came rushing in. I am all for the common win, but this looked more like imperialism than spreading the message of love and sharing.
The Hungarian revolution understander has entered the chat.
Thank you.
CIA documents have been released recently proving this “revolt” was a CIA backed fascist putsch
Surprise, surprise the red tankies were right again.
Oh sorry, it’s a meme about people who clearly don’t know what they are talking about being sure about the subject matter. You just put “the x understander” where x is the topic the person is acting like they understand, but doesn’t.
Lots of users came in to explain why, check out some of their comments!
I replied sardonically in kind. Sry if it was too tame.
you want to know how I can tell you’ve never read any Marxist theory and have no idea what historical materialism means?
Oh noes, I can’t oppress people with my inherited capital or be openly fascistic, what a nightmare! Here I go, burning my crops and murdering my livestock, can’t have those filthy underpeople share what’s mine in a time of drought!
Haha, good one. What about raising a word against a corrupt official? How well does that go in any regime?
I mean you can act like I’m advocating for current world order, but I am just questioning the sanctity of our imagined ideal.
“The current system is bad, the the only alternative (successor) is super horrible! No freeze preach, no grain, no consumerism. How could anyone live like that?”
Imagined ideal my right bollock. You’ve never met a communist advocating for some ideal, let me tell you that much. Although against whatever you imagine happened in the USSR, it might as well have been a proper utopia. No night raids nor thousands of dissidents killed daily, for a start.
You can take it as you wish. I am talking about red terror. When the black car comes to pick us up. I’m not arguing against communism. I just feel that people forget that men are fallible.
We have the right mind set in here, but it feels that wepeople are talking in the extreme ideals here.
the death toll of white terror is tenfold that of red terror, and most red terror deaths were nazis or fascists or the rich. We need more red terror, not less
Just take the L and log off, I’m sure you’ve got a life to live somehow.
Btw when a comrade called you “Hungarian Revolution understander” they were being sarcastic. MLs have been able to surmise as much for decades now, but with the JFK files it’s been proven it was a CIA operation, not a real revolutionary movement.
there was already strong evidence of MI6 involvement
Really? I guess we can’t all be edgy teenagers larping as communists.
Sorry. Some of us get awfully prickly when somebody comes in saying things we know aren’t true. Even when it’s very recently proven stuff—like how we now definitively know that the Hungarian “revolution” was a CIA-backed operation. The USSR correctly clocked it as American intervention, and responded like you’d expect a country to during a foreign invasion.
I appreciate you engaging in good faith.
Sometimes I wish it would hide which instance people are posting from so I can just correctly assume without knowing beforehand.
Operation Bloodstone
Operation Gladio
And so on and on
The west deliberately armed Nazis all over the world to fight communism