this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 44 minutes ago (1 children)

Yeah.

The CIA is why the Soviets fell. Not corruption or incompetence.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 40 minutes ago* (last edited 35 minutes ago) (1 children)

It was complicated. Kruschev, and later Gorbachev's reforms really weakened the Socialist system because they didn't properly retain strong control of the larger firms and heavy industry (a lesson the CPC took to heart), however the CIA and really the US absolutely worked tirelessly to weaken it. The Soviets also had to spend a much larger portion of their production on the millitary in order to keep parity with the US, meaning that development rates began to slow.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 minutes ago (1 children)

What is complicated about it?

The reforms you refer to allowed for political dissent. If the Soviet Union was some worker's paradise, then allowing people complain wouldn't change anything.

The simple reality is that the Soviet Union was a dictatorship that only survived as long as it did because it was a dictatorship. Once people had the option of opposing Communist rule, they did. And that is what killed the Soviet Union. Not some conspiracy by the United States or the kulaks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 minutes ago (1 children)

The reforms didn't just allow for "political dissent," they worked against the Socialist system, that was based on central planning. Rather than running in a more efficient manner, it ran against itself.

Further, nobody says the Soviet Union was a "worker's paradise." It had tremendous strides for workers, but it wasn't perfect by any means.

The Soviet Union wasn't a dictatorship. Read Soviet Democracy. It lasted as long as it did because it had tremendous GDP growth while lowering wealth disparity, free and high quality education and healthcare, doubled health expectancies, full employment, and over tripled literacy rates to 99.9%.

Read Blackshirts and Reds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 minutes ago

That's what dissent is.

Nothing you said disputes it being a dictatorship. The people could not choose their leaders, there were no limits on the power of their leaders, er go it was a dictatorship. None of your "pros" matter. And that's before we get into the lack of freedom of speech and press and total absence of transparency, meaning that I have no reason to trust those supposed accomplishments.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (6 children)

Communism only works on a small scale. The second society gets bigger, you require a state with militaristic presence to keep the people in line. To this very day, the Marxist ideal of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" has ALWAYS resulted in centralized power structures that became brutal dictatorships.

No matter which country you pick, large ones like china or the soviet union or smaller ones like cambodia under pol pot or vietnam under the CPV, all of them have devolved into a dictatorship. Even "experiments" like yugoslavia under tito were, in the end, still dictatorships where political opposition was disallowed, a secret police was founded and tito still had absolute control. Now, you might say: "But the people lived well!", yes, for about 10 years until the 1960s where the country suffered a massive economic crash, insane debt (because commies suck at economics) and inflation. Tito was able to hold it together with sheer force until he died, and after his death, yugoslavia completely unraveled into the mess it is today.

I know you like to cope with "oh no the evil CIA again >:(" but in the end, communism is a failed ideology that will never work on a large scale without completely suppressing individual freedom and brutally knocking down any sign of dissent.

Edit: By the way, I'm more than willing to argue about this - however, I just noticed that I'm on lemmy.ml so I'll most likely get banned for not conforming to the tankie-ideals.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (4 children)

All communist states were/are dictatorships (Soviet Union, China, North Korea).

What the society really needs are strong democracies with a free, well regalemented market and strong social welfare (mixed economy). This is already happening in northern europe with great succes.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

What if the answer to all of our worldwide problems is finding a balance between decentralized and centralized structures, balancing technology and the environment, finding a balance between currency and a moneyless society, and achieving balance between authority and liberty (with the goal of individual and societal sovereignty), and so forth?

In this thread, I see Anarcho-Communists (or final stage Communists/ideological purists) taking bat at Marxist-Leninists (who espouse mostly outdated theory, but not always) and Liberals who fail to understand really any ideology that differs from their own because of how thick the propaganda is (and who espouse ideals like Democratic Socialism while failing to realize that their social support is still enabled by modern slavery - such as the exploitation of third world countries).

I think a direct democracy, with authoritative and libertarian elements (such as enforcing liberty/a universal bill of rights for individuals) would be ideal.

It could have an economic system with built-in social supports (each according to their need) that emulates cash and all the best parts of blockchain (that isn't hoardable or worth hoarding, that also doesn't enable slavery/other forms of parasitism, and is generally private at the transactional stage - yet is auditable at a larger-scale), with centralized control of natural resources that still respects decentralized development and balance with the environment. And also does not have debt or parasitism of any form, instead encouraging diplomacy - such as contracts/agreements taking the place of debt to better the planet and encourage societal responsibility and stewardship (e.g. contracts that result in the stabilization of the society incurring the would-be debt).

Instead of total anarchy or various forms of authoritative control/dictatorship, we could simply combine direct democracy and hierarchy by electing leaders based solely on merit in the areas that are most needed, with strong controls so we get the best out of leadership and hierarchy and the resultant clarity and direction, without letting leaders and other experts become drunk on power. While also preventing the corruption of the individuals in power and the various forms of stagnation that result from entrenched power not conceding to new developments or advances.

I know I'm an idealist, but I'd like everybody to turn the chapter and realize that we are in 2025, not the 1900s. Technology and science have advanced every area of our society. We are so beyond scarcity that we are producing well beyond our needs with conditions and methods that are not even close to ideal (with ideal and emergent solutions and methods ready to take the place of those unsustainable methods).

We also have a global communication network - we can understand foreign languages without any human intervention in some cases, we can bridge cultural gaps, we can seek understanding and truth with our fingertips, and also we can push past the propaganda we are served on a platter, etc.

We can achieve something better than anything that has ever been conceived of previously, and it starts by crumpling up all of the things that no longer serve us. Concepts like racism, nationalism, really all of the isms that promote superiority over others. Bridging gaps, joining hands, while also countering disinformation (not misunderstanding) and bad faith.

We truly are not facing the same limitations that we did in the 1900s, although we may be facing new challenges like the rise of AI and the misuse of it by those currently in power.

There really is no more room in society for mucking about and fighting others while everything is in such disrepair, with so much needless suffering happening.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I just think it's funny when you call ML's outdated despite not really disagreeing with them, and then calling Anarchists "final stage Communists" when Anarchists want decentralization and "final stage Communism" is fully centralized. It more reads that you haven't actually engaged with theory, especially considering the PRC is Marxist-Leninist and is outpacing everyone else at the moment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 56 minutes ago* (last edited 43 minutes ago)

You can think it's funny all you like. Perhaps I wasn't clear, but you misunderstood my grammar. I was detailing two distinct types of people, with different views. The latter (after the or) are more on the side of purity testing other Communists because they see what would unfold after many, many years of Communism as de-facto Communism and proof that others are not true Communists (hence the slash ideological purists part).

I currently choose to engage with emergent (and divergent) thought, not snapshots and echoes of the past - but I'm not trying to devalue it - I'm just very interested in modern Marxist-Leninist discourse and thought. I have previously engaged with the theory and understand the history that surrounded it and level of technology that we had in the 1900s.

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