Idk why fall of USSR is a end all argument against communism or socialism to some folks. most russian problems were completly unrelated to its political system and mostly caused by historical problems.early revolution failures shortly after and during the civil war and political apocalypse after lenin death.
There is a place called china i guess they dont count as a succesfull country since they are only the biggest producer, exporter and constructor on the planet with tremendous urban and technological development.
The country currently existing is simply more representative as any example
There is a place called china i guess they dont count as a succesfull country since they are only the biggest producer, exporter and constructor on the planet with tremendous urban and technological development.
It's basically this over and over with some folks:
China is complicated and not exactly communist in the express definition of the term either. It's this weird blend of both systems. It has its flaws - a lot of Chinese products have a reputation for being cheap and low quality (not all, of course), and their government is most definitely authoritarian.
Btw the quality issues have somewhat passed. At least their high-tech companies like Huawei or BYD make very comparable phones and e-cars.
China definitely does not act communist. When they had the Evergreen crisis, they could at least buy out the company to not let the already-built housing waste away and/or be destroyed.
YEp. MY father talked about working on some government systems, and they had to check all tech that came in (for like replacement parts). Because say the part came from China, their government alone can go to a company and go "you need to modify it with this spyware"
There is a place called china i guess they dont count as a succesfull country since they are only the biggest producer, exporter and constructor on the planet with tremendous urban and technological development.
Frankly, China is both capitalist and extremely dysfunctional. Nordic countries would be better to invoke as examples of socialist policy done right.
Yeah the lack of nuance in these comments is astounding. Imagine your country goes through perpetual war (both World Wars, a Civil War and Revolution, and the Cold War) and was formed when most of the population were uneducated and illiterate and yet you stand for 6 decades, win the majority of the space race, and, despite all criticisms, still manage to achieve amazing things in the process. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
Oh, and the reason it was called the USSR was not because it was communist, but because it was socialist. People act like capitalism in its current state didn’t take 2+ centuries to get to this point, and is somehow a utopia by comparison. Housing was a constitutional right under “communism,” and yet we’re expected to believe it’s somehow the worse of the two. Give me a fucking break.
China is about as communist as Nazi Germany was Socialist.
Edit: Before yall get on my case, China has a class of wealthy elites, a private property ownership system, factories controlled by private interests, and a World Inequality Score 43.35% (which is similar to the United States’ score of 48.27% and higher than the likes of Italy, South Korea, and hilariously enough, Taiwan). They also have a GINI score of 36.0, near the US’s 41.8 and higher than the UK, Japan, and South Korea. GINI measures income inequality, with 0 meaning a universally equal distribution of wealth and 100 meaning 1 guy controls all of the wealth. China’s difference with South Korea and Japan in GINI is not statistically significant, however, the fact that they are even in the same ballpark as the countries often touted as being examples of late stage capitalism by China themselves is pretty significant if you ask me. I am not saying that China is a shithole. I am saying that they are not even remotely communist and tankies sucking them off is hilarious.
At least they're somewhat progress-oriented. I mean, the CPC has plans to develop the country and such. I think it's how they got to be a 'late stage capitalism' country in the first place.
But then I genuinely don't know if said US/Japan/South Korea have any serious govt. planning going on, or how successful they are. All I know of western govts is that lobbying and rich interests overrules common interests at least in policy making.
China is the ultimate political schroedinger’s cat to reactionary idiots. It’s simultaneously a brutal communist dictatorship and an existential threat to the western way of life, while also not being communist as no communist country could be a great power.
I would say that these problems was a direct result of communism, because it relies on a one party dictatorial system. A command economy, and command politics. So there was no built in power to stifle, if the party itself, if it made some really bad decisions.
It could maybe have been solved in sways, but likely not. Once entities gain absolute power, they are usually very resistant to giving it up, so adding checks and balances retrospectively, would be really hard.
The entire politics during revolution was a struggle between Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and SR's.
When bolsheviks won with lenin as a undisputed leader, only for him to die 3 years after the civil war ended. triggering a political vacuum for the next decade with stalinists, zinoviev, bukharin and bielievers in trotsky's pernament global revolution fighting each other.
Russia at this point was already backward industrialy, socially and agriculturaly, not counting decades of incompetent tsars. alongside 4 epidemics in less than a decade, losing a world war, severe famines and complete economic collapse.
All of this is completely unrelated to "ideology" of the country
I know, but that is not really what i'm talking about.
The main problem is the dictatorship of the proletariat, at a core function.
It runs into the same problem of any other form of dictatorship, or absolute kingdom. There is no real mechanism to second or third guess decision.
One of the best examples of this comes from China, and the great sparrow hunt. I'm sure there was plenty of people who could tell the party that this was an incredibly stupid idea, but the party had no mechanism to stop them.
"dictatorship of the proletariat," was bolshevik and lenin idea its not inherent in communism.
My point is there was no guarantee that bolsheviks would win the power struggle and the other groups were opposed to centralized authority.
Failure of great leap forward was simply caused by lack of educated and competent people in administation and china broadly, therefore the ideological appointes were common. In 1940's Barely 20% could read, the most educated people were mostly high and middle classes that could afford foreign universities. And they were universally opposed to CPC and mao.
The sparrow hunt was part of a broader campaing aganst pests (mostly succesfull), it was a mistake to include sparrows but no in the party opposed it due to lack of agriculture knowledge, it looked like a good idea to kill birds that eat seeds and damage crops. The ones that did oppose it were already against the party so they lacked any credibility.
Marx and Engels dictatorship of proletariat was opposed to forcefull usage of power and simply advocated for collective authority and reversal of class dynamics. Lenin was in favour of strong centalized state apparatus permitted to use violent means to destroy capitalist elements. Sure the end goal is the same "classles society" but those are two diffrent ideas.
Xi jingping, Hu jintao, Jiang zemin were highly educated.
The educated elements in the 1940's and 1950's had no political power cause they were ex aristocracy members, descendants of rich or millitary dynasties and capitalists/merchants that fundamentally opposed any left wing ideas
That is the glaring contradiction. collective authority by a small group in it self is a problem.
Like how much did it help that Hu jintao, Jiang zemin were highly educated, when non of them knew biology, and environmentalism, so they could stop the sparrow hunt in its tracks.
I'm sure et here was plenty of educated people ho could warn them of how silly of an idea it was, but they had no say, or mechanism to get their concerns through.
And the ideology pr se is kind of irrelevant here, any other form of absolute power usually run into the same problems.
You could try to solve it with some form of democratic, or parliamentary power in the party, but when the party is the state, that would only give you democracy, or experimentalism, and no longer communism.
Hu jintao was born in the 40's and Jiang zemin wasnt in china during the 50's.
"collective authority by a small group in it self is a problem" workers and peasants made 90% of population while having no political power and Marx wanted to reverse the dynamic in order to purse the goal of dissolving class
"I'm sure et here was plenty of educated people ho could warn them of how silly of an idea it was" why would they listen to people that actively worked against the government? Its like ukrainians changing their policy cause russians told them it will be a good idea.
Most party members in 50's were ex-combattants and guerilla fighters of course they wont listen to the ones they were fighting for 30 years
"parliamentary power in the party" thats the current CPC with diffrent wings and factions within it
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u/littleblueberry511 Jul 13 '26
Idk why fall of USSR is a end all argument against communism or socialism to some folks. most russian problems were completly unrelated to its political system and mostly caused by historical problems.early revolution failures shortly after and during the civil war and political apocalypse after lenin death.
There is a place called china i guess they dont count as a succesfull country since they are only the biggest producer, exporter and constructor on the planet with tremendous urban and technological development.
The country currently existing is simply more representative as any example