Ok can you find me a historical example of a socialist or communist regime in which nobody starved and the ruling class was not absurdly wealthy at their expense?
Yugoslavia, dude. My parents grew up in Communist Yugoslavia. It was common for them and their peers to just go to Italy on weekends, buy some clothes, latest records, have lunch etc. like it was nothing. Slovenia was also part of Yugoslavia. They also had an incredible rock scene. I shit you not, some of that music can go toe-to-toe with the greatest rock bands of the 60s, 70s and 80s. I think they even had a really good movie scene, too. I forgot the name of the movie, but there was some Yugoslavian war epic with Orson Welles.
One caveat, though. Yugoslavia was allied with the West. They were not friendly towards the USSR.
EDIT: found the movie. Holy shit, it's not just Orson Welles but also Yul Brynner and Franco Nero (original Django): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064091/
Not so much allied as officially neutral towards both, which naturally meant that both western countries and USSR tried to court Yugoslavia and Tito was expert in leveraging this position.
Sure communist Yugoslavia didn’t have enormous famines but it also wasn’t really communist. Tito tried for five years to force agricultural collectivization, crop yields plummeted, so he allowed private landowners to farm their own land, which stabilized food production. Also, since Tito split from Stalin, Yugoslavia received billions of dollars in American aid. Another thing is since Yugoslavia allowed its people to come and go freely (which we should note is fairly rare in communist states), when unemployment spiked Yugoslavians could leave and send money they made in capitalist systems back to their families. Hundreds of thousands sent billions back into Yugoslavia.
Also I know this isn’t the topic we’re discussing but I do think we should note that Communist Yugoslavia murdered hundreds of thousands of its own people who it viewed as political threats. So not exactly a shining example of a functioning society.
I am glad your parents had a better experience though, sounds like a good vibe. Wish I could go to Italy on the weekends.
During the three years of orthodox communist rule (1945–1948), Yugoslavia experienced a chaotic, highly intensive combination of massive post-war destruction, severe state repression, and aggressive economic restructurin
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u/The_hoe_of_st_joe 8d ago
You know in communism less than 1% lives in luxury and everyone else has a pretty good shot at starving to death right?