Memes

Dont confuse authoritarian with fashism.

That's about as accurate as saying Nazis were socialists.

Ah yes the people that killed fascists and put a stop to extermination camps were actually the fascists.

I am very smart 🤓

They were economically socialists, politically authoritarians - and, for better or worse, communism and the Leninist concept of the vanguard party are inextricably linked. At the end of the day, the question is: can a state democratically become socialist? The answer is clearly no, hence the vanguard party, hence Lenin, hence Ho Chi Minh, hence Mao. I'm not talking about a mixed economy, I'm talking about socualism.

Your issue with the soviets is that you're utterly illiterate on the subject of the soviets and should educate yourself instead of posting nonsensical comments in a public forum.

Lot of folks from Eastern Europe will agree on that.

I believe current social issues need fixing - maybe even adopting some radical changes. E.g. I still can't get over the fact that capitalism allows for existence of something as ridiculous as billionaires - real life wealth 'black holes'. And that's just the start. On the other hand, there are some things that capitalism does extremely well, e.g. competitive markets are very good at producing cheap goods and can drive innovation (when disallowing monopolies). So maybe the right path for us is somewhere between the two extremes?

Anyways, while I understand the distaste for capitalism for some folks and the feeling that it failed them and working people below CEO level in general, I still can't get over the fact that lots of neo-communists use USSR as a role model. The only people in that country who benefited from that system were the people at the top and those with connections to them (sounds somewhat familiar, doesn't it?). IMO anybody trying to base their political views on communist ideology should cut off entirely from the USSR and simply deem it as a failed state (that was only communist by name) with too much blood on their hands. Definitely not something that we want to go back to.

That's the main issue. But their approach to the economy was awful as well. Unions just collected money and did nothing, plants and factories produced either copies of goods created in the capitalist world, or things that looked bad. People who wanted to wear good-looking clothes were waiting for the end of the month because shops to gain the desired number of purchases were selling western goods for a day or two. Jeans weren't officially imported and sold. People were buying jeans for two monthly salaries, and it was ok because anyway it was hard to spend the earned money. For a worker, it wasn't beneficial to improve something in the factory, and nobody wanted to suggest such improvements. There was no market and because of this, nobody wanted to make better goods or make the production process more effective. There was no need in economy of resources, and because of this, production was ineffective. The Soviets admitted it, but weren't able to change it. Goods made in the USSR and briefly in the ex-USSR countries after the USSR collapsed, were ugly, outdated and expensive. They just couldn't compete in the market. And there are many people telling capitalism is bad. Capitalism is more effective in providing cheaper good-looking goods because companies have to make profit and compete for customers.

Good