>state gives you a guaranteed job, housing, food, pension, etc for life>all you have to do is follow the rules and not complain about the state and it's all goodwhat was the big deal about that?
>>18465504What do you do when you are a loyal citizen but think the state is making a massive strategic mistake, or want to report government corruption but the corrupt officer is part of a patronage network with the local police captain and tells him to arrest you in exchange for a "gift"?
>>18465504I mean, in perspective it wasn’t. By American standards the Stalin era USSR was mostly a dystopian nightmare but by your average Ivan’s standards, it was awesome compared to the Somalia-tier famine and bloody chaos during the ‘20s. From the ‘50s to the ‘80s the USSR was pretty mediocre by world standards. In between the Congo on one side of the standard-of-living scale and Norway on the other, it was throughly in the middle. Life kinda sucked but wasn’t outright awful
During the Cold War a mediocre life in the West was better than a mediocre life in the Eastern Bloc.Now we can no longer afford homes, jobs are based around the gig economy where you compete with hordes of immigrants and can be fired for no reason at any time, and our pre-existing infrastructure is collapsing we say "maybe they had the right idea", but it's not that they were good, it's that we became worse.
>>18465504>Forced to work a job you don't want, while being cramped into a three-family, single-room apartment with no plumbing or radiation in the walls.>Neither your pension nor your wage can cover your daily expenses because nothing is ever in stock.>Food is almost never on the shelves because your central planner forgot to account for it, and the local agricultural collective doesn't have enough tools or fertilizer to harvest crops.Going to the hospital has a chance of making you sick because government hospitals are poorly maintained (or unsanitary) due to a lack of modern medical equipment and trained staff—a situation worsened by corruption.>While your western counterparts had cellphones and cars, you still have to communicate through messenger pigeons and take a shitty bus to work that is often late because the bus driver isn't paid enough to do his job and buses are in short supply because the state can't afford repairsSounds great.
what if you're assigned a job in a desolate part of Siberia? well you can't refuse so too bad.
>>18465504except there's never any decent food, you can't leave town without permission, and the rules change routinely and you can be arrested for owning a book that was legal last month
>>18465611I already live in a frozen shithole and can't realistically leave.
The state gives you a job which you can't turn down and it could involve digging ditches somewhere or other forced physical labor.
>>18465504Well, if you used to own property that the state is now handing out to people who you as a former land owner, see as especially low class and coming from far away.It was a colonial empire just like what western euros did in africa, by every metric.
>>18465513using america as analogy and replacing russian with spanish.if everyone's property was nationalized and spread evenly so we deport canadians to some harsh remote area of mexico and turn their larger single family homes in to apartments for guatemalans - to promote the spread of spanish language in the non spanish areas.net total, a lot of non us or canadian citizens would probably be pretty happy with the arrangement and not ask too many questions
>>18465504wait until your co-worker wants your job or has a disagreement with you and denounces you to the secret police as a CIA or MI6 spy
>>18465737
>>18465504Idk I never lived there, but I like to read stories from people who grew up there. The political repression during the Stalin era was very bad (you could get grabbed basically at random) but that wouldn't describe the post-Stalin decades. People regularly say fear of the government and getting snitched on for something was real though. Also there was a dire lack of products (people bought a lot of things on the black market), atrocious medicine, a class of party elites that lived like kings, no impartial justice system, and lots of thievery. Like just a weird penetration of the nastiest elements of criminal subculture into a common culture through prisons and the army. Also the all-consuming presence of alcohol. And if you saw a line, you got in line, because whatever "they" were "giving" might not be there the next day."The Irony of Fate" is a screwball comedy that is a really popular movie from the USSR and its main joke is how depressing Soviet housing is. Also alcoholism is part of the plot.It was really hard for enterprises to fire you though and social competition was far far weaker. Probably less stress in some important respects.Soviet cult underground band DK:https://youtu.be/_0FwxgrajiI
>>18465748>It was really hard for enterprises to fire you though and social competition was far far weaker.In China before the Deng reforms this was called "the iron rice bowl" where it was basically impossible to fire someone for incompetence. Being a supervisor/manager in China meant being a professional tard wrangler, finding ways to warehouse incompetent people without getting in trouble for paying people to not work.
>>18465512>implying normies have any control or say in that hypothetical scenario in a non communist country eitherWhen was the last time corruption was voted out of America? The government pulls insider stock trading shenanigans during a fucking war they started.
>>18465504> >state gives you a guaranteed job, housing, food, pension, etc for lifeSlavery with extra steps sounds pretty fucking awful.
>>18465504>what was the big deal about that?But then how are we going to have child rape islands and international networks of dark money and rich/powerful families who'd coordinate and use their combined wealth to influence the world to make it better for us and worse for everyone else? that shit doesn't exist in communism and therefore it must be destroyed by any means necessary:>it is a Judeo-Bolshevist jewish plot to kill christians and it is also the most anti-semitic country that carried out many pogromsWhat the Soviet Union did do is arm the various liberation movements in Western colonies. Sure they supported only communist guerrillas, but at least they were local communist guerrillas. They didn't support someone who'd sell all the land to corporations and turn their people into indentured servants.The existence of the Soviet Union also forced the West to pretend to be humane. They paid workers high wages, built nice infrastructure, only to compete with the Soviet Union. After fall of the Soviet Union it was back to business as usual, stagnating wages, aging infrastructure, austerity. "Banks lost all your money gambling, and now you're gonna face hardships."After the SU, the Western oligarchs could just take take take. First they ripped apart and sold everything from the SU. Then they did it to Yugoslavia. They spread their liberal tentacles all over the world, sucking up everything they could from every place that the SU was helping defend. Of course, all of this has to be justified. So they say the SU was evil, everyone suffered in a gulag or a cold apartment. Any country around the world that the SU supported were monsters and people eaters, and that's why we have to control their resources. For the good of the planet.
>>18466201>Cries child rape while glazing pedophiles such as Beria and Stalin that murdered and starved millions of peopleEpstein didn't even rape or kill as much people communists did little bro, stay in your line.>After fall of the Soviet Union it was back to business as usual, stagnating wages, aging infrastructure, austerity. "Banks lost all your money gambling, and now you're gonna face hardships."I'm not sure what shit hole you live in, but where I live, people are building mansions and have multiple limos in their drive way. Seems like a skill issue
>>18466205>but where I live, people are building mansions and have multiple limos in their drive wayshow us your mansion and limos
>>18465504Go back on Reddit
>>18465504>master gives you a guaranteed job, housing, food, pension, etc for life>all you have to do is follow the rules and not complain about the master and it's all goodAll leftists need to be enslaved desu. There is a reason leftism was invented after the abolishment of slavery: some people are biological slaves and they yearn for their chains.
>>18466153The difference Americans could still potentially do so but choose conmen anyway as long they hear enough venom spewed at the groups they hate.
>>18465748>a class of party elites that lived like kingseven top ranking party or army guy had lifestyle that was just middle class by Western standard which is why they intentionally blew up whole Soviet system in early 90s so they could live like real millionaire with Ferrari and mansion
>>18466411>sure I might be broke as shit living in a communal apartment eating stale cabbage soup>but at least it’ll make life bad for my biological superiorsLeftism in a nutshell
>>18465591>>18465611>>18465703>dude you're heckin forced to do le workI wonder if you guys realize you can't exactly neet for life unless you're given free handouts in capitalist countries.Also you weren't given a job at random. You'd specialize based on which education you wished to pursue and where you decided to live. After 1950s, they weren't going to make mathematicians or doctors work in factories>>18465504It wasn't that awful, it was just worse than the west. It still is better than most third world countries, whether capitalist or socialist. The only major problem that you had in the USSR was essentially the constant shortages. Had they been able to fix these (which they could've but decided not to because of the challenge it would've posed to the higher ups), there's a chance that the wall wouldn't have fallen.It's somewhat paradoxical, the social contract was based on you accepting the state in exchange of material security, but it simultaneously forced the party elites to either >accept to fix the shortages by introducing OGAS/manager autonomy and destroy their own political power>keep the shortages but make your population unhappyThe soviets picked number 2. The GDR is the prefect example of this : 0.92 HDI yet massive shortages and rampant political corruption/oversight>but the cramped appartments !!!This is just the reality of living in major cities whilst being relatively poor. The alternative was just to have an enormous homeless population which is pretty much what the west chose. In the US, this means massive amounts of tents and suburbs. In Europe, this means a bit of homeless and soviet blocks for the poorest.
>>18465504>guaranteed job, housing, food, pension, etc for lifeWere any of those things good though.
>>18465504You get these things with classical fascism too.The difference is that the state doesn't hate you and your people and isn't actively working to undermine and replace you.
>>18465504>guaranteed foodVery much not guaranteed in certain periods and even when it was there, it was usually only the bare minimum a human needs not to starve >all you have to do is follow the rules and not complain about the state and it's all goodSoviet state was constantly hunting for potential dissidents, arresting people for pettiest shit and encouraging the people to report on others in exchange for benefits, creating an atmospere of constant mistrust and paranoia. How bad it was strongly varied depending on the priod. Also the militia (police force) was incredibly corrupt and prone to violence. Overall life quality and development in most areas (although there were a few notable exceptions) was also way fucking worse than in the West during a given period.Most important of all though, the system didn't really work, Soviet economy was in total shambles near the end of USSR and most attempts at improving the life of citizens were made at a cost of massive debts. Don't get me wrong, if it actually worked as advertised (perhaps minus the political repressions) I wouldn't mind living under such a system at all. The problem is it didn't
>>18466486>and isn't actively working to undermine and replace you.But enough about modern liberal capitalist states.
>>18466404>Americans could still potentially do soHahahaha you are so stupid, police captains have even arrested innocent pol users when they start calling out corruption like what happened with chitwood. The usa does NOT allow civilians to call out corruption. You can't even criticize Israel without being kicked out of higher education
>>18466232He is an underage retard>>18466205Sure thing little bro, we know you zoomers idolize epstein. It will be awesome seeing you beg for your life after society collapses due to rampant uncontrollable capitalism :)
>>18465504>>all you have to do is follow the rulesfuck the rules.
>>18466201>The existence of the Soviet Union also forced the West to pretend to be humane. They paid workers high wages, built nice infrastructure, only to compete with the Soviet UnionThat's true but there were specific, very unusual (historically speaking) "material conditions" from 1945-1973 (or so) that created an opening for both the (relatively) comfy period of the USSR and also the high-wage / full-employment / welfare state Keynesian capitalism of the Western countries. There are legitimate economic reasons why people miss those times, but remember that the U.S. economy was entering into pretty serious stagflation in the 1970s and Reagan was elected in 1980, although neoliberal reforms were already underway in the 1970s. The socialist countries tried to prevent raising costs on their population for longer but at a cost of going deep into debt with Western banks ironically enough, they were going broke.A lot of this came unglued because of the oil shock in 1973. There was a combination of cheap energy and economic growth in industry after WWII with high effective demand with both rising wages and increasing profits at the same time. The shock caused by OPEC generated both inflation while destroying demand leading to the "Rust Belt" phenomenon in the U.S., while something similar happened in the socialist countries (other than China, although to some extent there too, because the country was still mostly really poor and agricultural). Also Britain was hit hard.Look up the book "The Triumph of Broken Promises." The basic argument is that economics made those systems untenable but Western leaders were better able to impose discipline on their populations without undermining their own political systems. I think an aspect is that capitalist democracies have an ideology that your fate is your own "responsibility" so they can pivot to rejecting the common welfare, but the socialist countries couldn't do that (even though they had to).
for me it was the lack of night clubs bars and restaurants and it was enough to piss Lee Harvey Oswald off enough to return to the states after he defected
>>18466153I was thinking more in terms of the corruption that directly touches individuals. Like your hot water is broken and the state operating agency has not fixed it. You go to an officer at the agency to complain. He says he wants to help but there is a shortage of spare parts to fix it. Then says maybe you could give him a reason to move you to the top of the waiting list. You report him for soliciting bribes, but the prosecutor is a friend of his, so in exchange for some bribes from him you are arrested on trumped up charges, are not given a fair trial, and the corruption complaint goes away. Such things happen in a dictatorship, and the fear of them causes people to not stick their necks out and just try to steal what they can themselves. It's not conducive to a high trust society.
>>18466828>lack of night clubs bars and restaurants Not sure about Russia itself, but those absolutely did exist in at least some Soviet Republics. Of course the scope of what exactly could be done with such establishments was much more limited than in the west (especially with night clubs), but they were a thing. Contrary to what most people probably think, privately owned small businesses were allowed, although it was much harder to get a permission to start one and you would constantly run into massive supply issues. But then again people were generally more laid back about this kind of stuff
>Khrushchev was heckled at a party meeting in 1961 by an old Armenian woman who yelled "Why is there no meat in Armenia?" He stared at her, grabbed an obviously well-fed Armenian party functionary, and yelled "Does this man look malnourished to you?"[2]
>>18466201I am quite sure there were plenty of epstein islands in soviet union as well as rich powerful families coordinating to make the world a worse place for everyone else.Leaving aside true epsteins of ussr, you also have the numerous cases where the epsteins themselves didn't even think they were doing anything morally wrong, because their victims were political prisoners / enemies of the state.Soviet union was a beautiful myth to brainwash the lower class across eastern europe and russia to grab power and colonize eastern europe, russia and central asia. A lot of people who initially sympathized with communism at first, later regretted, when they got stalinism instead.the oligarch part, i am not even going to argue, since everyone knows how bad things are in most post soviet countries with that...
>>18467798>as well as rich powerful familiesThat's where you're wrong. The rest of your post is similar nonsense betraying a lack of understanding.>A lot of people who initially sympathized with communism at first, later regretted, when they got stalinism instead.Just this sentence alone shows the level of your understanding.>Soviet union was a beautiful myth to brainwash the lower class across eastern europe and russia to grab power and colonize eastern europe, russia and central asia. Here you show you don't know what "colonization" means, among other things. I'm sure you can impress your high school friends with your words, but I am telling you now that what you wrote is not only wrong, it is actually nonsensical. The words may be strung together in a grammatically correct way, but they lack any sort of meaning or coherence.
One of the peculiarities of Russia, that most westerners don't think about is - most Russians went from slavery (sefdom) in to communism, without a period of real freedom in between (like Baltics for example) and so, this meant the change was positive for vast majority of Russians.
>>18467821>a period of real freedom in between (like Baltics for example)lmao. You mean when the Baltics were part of Reichkommissariat Ost, that freedom? Or before that when they were part of the Polish empire? These Buthurt Balt myths are getting wilder every year.In ten years the last 400 people remaining in the Baltics will be saying they were traveling to other planets in the 1930s before the evil Soviets came and stole their space tech!
In the Communistic shitholes, the political policy kidnap you and bring you into the gulag if you disgaree with the state.And there where planty of reasons to disagree with communistic bullshit.While in the West, you could literarly shit on your own country and Free Speech protects you.This alone is worth to keep the struggle. The Weste and the Westen alone has had the opportunity to improve my critique.Nowadays, things change and currently, a "wrong" opionion, frequently even a true one, can cause that you lose your job, your friend circle, your family and, in Europan shitholes, even got you jailed.From the perspective of a Z00mer, who already life in early stage kind of Sowjet republic, the old communism wasn't so bad... It's because the leftoids toke over here in the west and copied the Sowjet style thought police.
>>18467846You are brown hahahaha, esl.
>>18467825I mean the interwar period, when Baltics were capitalist countries. Leaving aside the occupation part, this is part of the Baltic seethe against USSR.Russia went from the empire to soviet union, where serfdom had been abolished just few decades ago and people were dirt poor.In Baltics, most of the people were land owners, had small businesses and farms.The idea of communism was appealing to the masses with no private property. In Russia, there was a small wealthy elite and the state that owned most of the stuff that the commies took and funded all the public projects - so the masses gained a lot.The people were riled up to go and "take from the man".Except in case of Baltics "the man" was not some wealthy land owner, but often enough, farmers with 2 cows and 3 chicken that were nationalized.So people who had had a brief period of capitalism, saw communism as a bunch of thieves taking the little they had earned with their hard work, why it was never that popular and the overall quality of life lowered. (of course, it's easy to say it didn't because of the advances in technology, following ww2 that DID make life easier, but there is no question, without the occupation, the Baltics would have been better off like the rest of the non communist countries throughout the period.)It's also this mentality of "taking from the man" and the different situation in the Baltics, why an average Russian red army soldier from rural Russia, was more prone to not see Balts as people who had been living in similar conditions as they themselves, just 30 years ago and made it easier to commit atrocities against the general public, which obviously ended up fueling the Baltic seethe against Russia.
>>18467867You and your peers are such retarded, you bring the worst part of sowjet ideology back.
>>18467846I believe a lot of this has been funded by Russia as a psy op on the west.Russia is a big and powerful country. We only hear of USA secret missions of CIA toppling governments and so on.America / west had a powerful media "psy op" on the entire world to westernize it. Seeing the only true beneficiary of dismantling the fabric of western society and values is Russia, I do believe it's Moscow behind funding a lot of these "useful idiots" in the west to fuel all kinds of disruptive movements. Let alone starting civil wars in 3rd world countries and funneling immigrants in to countries not aligned with Russia.And they have a clever trick of masking it by often enough having people of Jewish descent as the public figures for the organizations, so people would 'blame jews', so nobody would take them seriously.
>>18465504Problem is, the majority of people are mostly corrupt and self serving, putting themselves, their family, friends and allies first. Trying to make them to act socially and for the good of others rarely works, they always fuck it up in the end.
