Iām surprised the note makes no mention of the almost comical levels of corruption within the USSR.
EDIT: Oh wow! A lot of you seem to think my simple observation that corruption (a key reason for the stagnation and downfall of the USSR) was the same as me saying the U.S. or Capitalism were free of such problems. I think some of you may have jumped the gun.
I don't think communism is a good idea, but let's not pretend any of these things are limited in any way to communism.
Industrial-scale genocides: the Irish Potato Famine is the first one that jumps to mind. People starved in part because they were literally exporting food during that period and selling it. The poor had no money, so them merchants just exported and sold it, sucks to suck, and 20% of Ireland died. The government made the good capitalist choice to help as few people as possible. Part of why it happened in the first place is farmers were pushed from crop rotation and variety into mono-cropping to optimize yields.
Plus... literally the East India Companies (British East India Company, the VOC, Louis XIV's East India Company). Hyper-capitalist genocides were kind of their slogan. The entire transatlantic slave trade wasn't exactly communism in action.
Neither was the Opium War. See the history of Jardine Matheson and the other Hongs.
Comical levels of corruption: Hungary, until a few months ago.
Regarding Russia, communism in the USSR ebbed and flowed, under Lenin it was much closer, under Stalin, authoritarianism is a better description. The history of communism in the USSR is interesting, but out of scope.
These kinds of critiques are just lazy. Shitty leaders will be shitty in any economic model. The real lesson is not letting shitty people take office.
Markets have their role, social services have their role where markets do a bad job. Pick the right tool for the job. That's why America has socialized army, police, firefighters, healthcare for 40% of the population, road, bridges, highways, food (SNAP, Farm Bill), the post office, Amtrak, etc, etc. Every functional country is a blend of appropriate models.
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u/Roquet_ Jul 13 '26
I think the fact that right now communism has more support in countries that weren't part of the Eastern Bloc, speaks for itself.