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  • 34 Comments
Joined 28 days ago
Cake day: February 19th, 2025
  • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyztoMemes@lemmy.ml•Communism in theory vs in practice
    12·
    2 days ago

    A camp where people are sent because of their ethnic background and where a large part of inmates die is a concentration camp, absolutely. Especially if human experiments are done on the inmates and torture is common.

    I would not want my conditions to improve through slavery and torture of others. There is a big difference between you and me regarding that.

  • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyztoMemes@lemmy.ml•Communism in theory vs in practice
    11·
    2 days ago

    used that to show that the good the USSR did was outweighed by the bad.

    Nope. I used it to show that it is possible that the good the USSR did was outweighed by the bad. That the concept exists. The Nazis are a warning example of what we must never become. It is super scary that it is not allowed to talk about them. In this case nothing like Nazis actions was under conversation, but sometimes things do look almost 1:1 the same as Germany looked in 1920’s when the foundations for Nazism were laid and early 1930’s. It is not good that it is considered Nazi apologia, because if we can’t say aloud when things are going that way again, we will eventually end up Nazis ourselves.

    I used to live in Germany, and it scared me that people there don’t see that their way will eventually lead to rise of fascism again, no matter how understandable the principles behind the “do not compare anything to Nazis” rule is! When it comes again, Germans are not going to anything to stop it, and will stop anyone who does try to. Except, of course, if it uses the swastika. Then it will be stopped.

    But, now back to the actual subject!

    The Workers in the Soviet Union were not sent to camps to die en mass.

    Correct, it was largely based on the ethnic background, not so much on social strata. For example Latvians were sent there in such amounts that now almost 50 % of Latvians speak Russian as their main language. It also does not really matter if they were sent there en mass or not, when several millions from around Soviet Union were sent there and 70 % of them died. Camps where millions are sent and less than a third come back alive is not something that can ever be considered acceptable. Camps where you put six people to sleep in a space built for one or two are not okay. It is not okay, it was not okay, and it never will be okay. And it is not okay to defend them.

    Then there are some claims that you just let hanging in the air:

    No, Finland did not achieve better metrics at a larger scale

    I already explained that Finland [was between 1917 and 1991] Imperialist

    Finland extract[ed] superprofits off of exploitation of the Global South [between 1917 and 1991].

    You need to elaborate on those. I did alter the quotes, because in the context of comparing countries’ growth 1917–1991 whatever happened after 1991 is not really relevant. The altered parts are marked clearly.

    “ruling class” – would have sucked at their job given that they dramatically lowered wealth inequality.

    The job of the ruling class is not to maximize wealth inequality. They very often do that, yes, but it is not their job. Lowering wealth inequality is a sign of the ruling class is doing their job correctly, not incorrectly. I do not understand why you would think otherwise.

  • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyztoMemes@lemmy.ml•Communism in theory vs in practice
    14·
    2 days ago

    I’m not comparing them. I’m saying that doing something good does not mean that the instance that does the good is also good. The Nazis are simply the most extreme example that can be found, and therefore the most efficient way to show that the concept of “doing some good things does not automatically mean you’re a good guy” exists in general.

    They doubled life expectancy, over tripled literacy rates to 99.9% from the low 30s, dramatically reduced wealth inequality, provided free and high quality healthcare and education

    And the only part of the Russia that did not become Soviet did the same things in an even bigger scale. Why?

    Finland funds its safety nets through Imperialism.

    The eastern block got money from Moscow through Warsaw pact. The western block got money from Marshall Aid. There was only one country in Europe that received neither: Finland. We were considered to be in the eastern block, so we were not allowed to get Marshall Aid. And USSR’s aid required accepting that “if the country’s independence is endangered, Moscow can choose to send its forces to help”. We demanded a change to that rule so that Helsinki decides if the help is needed, not Moscow. And then Soviet Union said, “okay, no money for you people, then”. Soviet Union got reparations from Germany and Finland. Finland paid all of its reparations, fully. The last payment was made in the 1990’s. While being the only country not getting any money from foreign countries for rebuilding after the war, we also paid huge war reparations to the country that had begun the war in coöperation with Germany by attacking us in 1939. And yes, that does mean that the advances Soviet Union did after the second world war were partially financed by Finland. Which still managed to do better than Soviet Union it was helping. Could you please tell, how precisely does all this mean that Finland was funding its safety nets through imperialism? Was the Finnish imperialism visible in the huge decrease of Finno-Ugric population, from whose colonized territories Soviet Union got almost all of its oil and minerals? Or where did the Finnish imperialism physically take place?

    Finland saw no such comparable devastation

    During just three nights in 1940, Soviet Union dropped 16489 bombs in Helsinki alone. How is that not devastation? And of course those were only the most intense nights of bombing, there were of course maaany more of them between 1939 and 1944.

    The Soviet Union existed for the workers.

    The Soviet Union said that it exists for the workers. But the workers were who got sent to the camps to die, not the ruling class.

  • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyztoMemes@lemmy.ml•Communism in theory vs in practice
    27·
    2 days ago

    Finland decreased its poverty between 1917 and 1991 more than Soviet Union did. In the beginning of year 1917 Finland was a part of the Russian Empire, so we were extremely poor here as well. Soviet Union could be on the second place, perhaps. But, since there is at least one country that fared better, the claim you made it evidently false. There can very well be other countries than just Finland that decreased poverty more than USSR did. I do not know for sure, though, as I’m not terribly well aware of how faraway places like Chile or Burma were faring in 1917.

  • Tuukka R@sopuli.xyztoMemes@lemmy.ml•Communism in theory vs in practice
    1918·
    3 days ago

    Well… There was this thing called Soviet Union. They decided to try to speed up the transition to communism by using repression and violence. And ended up being a totalitarian state, a direct opposite of what a communist state is supposed to be like.

    Of course you can argue that Soviet Union was not communist, it was just a state that had chosen to call itself communist for propaganda reasons… But still, Soviet Union is an example of a communist country that was unsuccessful as a communist project already by itself. Then came outsiders and helped make it even worse, but bad doesn’t become good by some people wanting it to be even worse. Burma is another example. I’d say they hacked away their own leg before anyone else, such as CIA, had time to interfere in their business.