6isco

4y

who actually read all that?

Enpax

4y

A lot of communist rhetoric centers on the fact that the living conditions for citizens in the former Russian empire and Cuba improved thanks to the socialist governments that were put in place. The truth is, these improvements were largely the results of a worldwide trend in improved living standards rather than the leadership outperforming expectations. In fact, in many cases Russia and Cuba fell behind their contemporaries but first, let’s establish some background

In the eve of the Russian Revolution, the Russian empire was not some “third world country” By modern (and even then west European) standards, it was a pretty lame place to live. But that’s literally comparing it to the very richest countries. In reality, the Russian empire had one of the top 7 economies in the world (with Russia proper actually having a larger economy than France proper). “But what about per capita?” In that case, in 1913, Russia had a larger gdp per capita than Japan, Greece, Portugal, and Iran. At that time, it’s per capita figures were 3,040, with it actually shrinking to 2,979 by 1929. But that was on the heels of a civil war, so to give them the benefit of the doubt, we’ll look at their massive improvement to 4,634 by 1939.

By that time Greece had gone from 2,264 to 5,327. Oh well, they didn’t have a civil war (they just had a regular war) so unfair comparison. Ok. In that case, we’ll compare the growth of the Soviet gdp per capita between 1960 and 1973 with the countries it is as ahead of. In this time period, the Soviet Union had largely found its footing, created its satellite bloc and had international community of fellow socialist nations to trade with. In many cases it was the golden age of the country. Well during this age, the gdp for the Union as a whole rose from 8,481 to 13,026. For Russia alone it was 8,972 to 16,939 Again rather impressive, until you see what other countries achieved.
War torn Japan went from 6,273 to 17,993
Borderline Fascist Portugal went from 5,115 to 12,222
Iran went from 6,003 to 15,205
Greece went from 6,052 to 14,727
Venezuela went from 5,913 to 17,529.

While Greece, Iran, and Portugal are still below Russia proper 1. They had been for the past century. 2. They each showed much higher growth than the Soviets in comparison to starting point. On top of all that, even during the Soviets massive growth, they still never exceeded the Western European countries that socialists were comparing the Russian empire with anyway. There are countries that performed far worse than the Soviet Union economically, but in no way is the centrally planned model the most effective one

(These economic figures come from The Maddison Project in 2011 dollars, so if you want to deny them based on being from “capitalist sources” then go ahead, but keep in mind that by doing so you should have sources that are not from the Soviet government itself or something.)

When it comes to literacy, the Soviet rate went from 32% in 1920 to 75% by 1937 according to the census. Once again in borderline fascist Portugal it went from 39.2% to 59.6% between 1930 and 1950. Not quite as impressive, but while the Soviets focused on educating the entire population, the Portuguese focused on educating the children strictly, with the literacy rate for children going from 33% to 77% in the same time period. That’s not to say the Soviets obviously didn’t have a better approach, just that mass literacy campaigns are not a product of socialism as much as it is an active government.

On to Cuba, the common perception that socialist like to say is that it used to be some poor illiterate U.S. colony until Castro kicked the “slave owners out” and now in-spite of US sanctions, the Cuban economy continues to thrive. Many things wrong about this characterization. The truth is, before the revolution, Cuba was already one of the leading countries in Latin America. It had a lower infant birth mortality than Japan. The gdp per capita of Cuba since then has slugged behind some of its former contemporaries, only rising from 4,360 to 50,763 in the same 1960 to 1973 time period.

Now socialists are quick to blame U.S. sanctions but a more adequate explanation is the general failure of central planning. Despite U.S. sanctions, Cuba was free to trade not only with the entire socialist world, but also any country that wasn’t America. Even though the U.S. government tried to threaten other countries from not trading with Cuba, these measures were unsuccessful, in fact even Western European countries engage in trade with Cuba then and now. On top of that, the Soviet Union was subsidizing Cuban sugar at the time at a level that far exceeded the negative value on the loss of American trade. The loss of the Soviet Union sent the economy on a downturn in the 90s, but even during its heyday its success could not be attributed to the policies of a centrally planned economy.

The last point to go over is the myth that Cuban Americans are all slave owners. The truth is there are three waves of immigration, the first wave was shortly after Castro took power from 1959 to 1962 and it saw the exit of the mostly lighter skinned upper and middle class. That was 248,000 people. After that there was the freedom flights between 1865 and 1973, the majority of whom were salespeople, small farmers and semi skilled workers. These amounted to 260,600 people. Then there was the wave of Mariel Cuban immigrants in 1980 which consisted of around 124,800 mostly working class young Cuban men. In 1994 another small wave of light skinned, educated men came through, this time around 30,900. Finally around 649,700 Cubans have immigrated to the U.S. since 1995 and these immigrants are largely from the lower and middle parts of society. In total there are now over 1.3 million Cubans in the United Stares, of which only a small minority consist of the “golden exiles” from the initial period following the revolution.

Socialist rhetoric depends on the idea that these emigrants are largely rich capitalist slave owners who left because there was no stake in the country if they couldn’t continue exploiting the people, but the truth is a large number of these immigrants are the very working class that were supposed to benefit from the revolution.

The point of making this thread has not been to convince communists of anything. They are lost. It is so that people who are on the fence but somewhat sympathetic to socialist ideologies do not fall for their lies. In particular, I made this thread after seeing @EuroNymous credit Stalin for transforming the Soviet Union. If he had actually been a socialist this thread wouldn’t exist, but given that he denounced Stalin the next post I figure there’s still some time left to change some minds. At the end of the day it is true that Castro and Stalin improved various aspects of life for the Soviets and the Cuban people, but to act as though their achievements were worth the cost or as if what they did was in anyway impressive compared to the their contemporaries would be to ignore the historical realities of the time. I don’t think that communism necessarily has to be a death sentence for any country that adopts it, but it is clearly not a model worth pursuing or admiring for future social or economic planning.

americana

4y

productivity is not a good indication of economic health either

america is one of the most productive countries in the world (once again on a per capita basis) and people cannot afford health care, afford houses, and is rife with people who are working to make ends that can't meet because they are not being paid fairly

americana

4y

this thread is literally hunks of liberal dogshit

OP is literally defending the expellation of racist middle class cubanos who exploited the S*** out of their darker skinned compatriots after castro introduced social justice measures

Enpax

4y

People in America enjoy some of the highest standards of life. You bringing up its very real problems doesn’t take away a from that. So yes, it’s high gdp per capita absolutely translates to its high income on average.

Hamington

4y

Too bad those 20,000 Cubans killed in Bautista’s last several years didn’t get to experience remarkable capitalist growth

americana

4y

what could possibly make you think americans have the highest living standards in the world?

The UN said that Alabama has the worst living conditions of ANY developed nation. Flint is STILL an issue. We have hundreds of thousands of people who work multiple jobs but cannot feed their kids. What the F*** does the average american have going for them right now that isn't frivolous luxury goods like home appliances or some stupid ideological abstract bullshit like "freedom of speech" or "the market" or "democracy"

Hamington

4y

US doesn’t even have towel warmers standard and we’re #1 in luxury

americana

4y

imagine living like this

americana

4y

america became totally priced out of its labor because of greedy capitalism and free market airheads like @op think that we can bounce back with the "guiding hand of the market"

rnb sponge

4y

bruh.... Russia ain't undergo an insane industrial change in a short period of time that led them to be able to help win WWII for the allies and s*** on hitler?

americana

4y

this thread is literally hunks of liberal dogshit

OP is literally defending the expellation of racist middle class cubanos who exploited the S*** out of their darker skinned compatriots after castro introduced social justice measures

americana

4y

so you're saying that it doesn't matter where the money is in a society, even when there is massive disparity between the two extremes to the point of the poorer end experiencing food insecurity and starvation, as long as the "average" is high (when the reality of the situation is that said average is meaningless because it doesn't reflect what the layman actually can do)? What kind of positive is there to not being able to properly distribute resources of value to people equally to meet material needs?

Hamington

4y

In pursuit of counterrevolution and in the name of freedom, U.S. forces or U.S.-supported surrogate forces slaughtered 2,000,000 North Koreans in a three-year war; 3,000,000 Vietnamese; over 500,000 in aerial wars over Laos and Cambodia; over 1,500,000 in Angola; over 1,000,000 in Mozambique; over 500,000 in Afghanistan; 500,000 to 1,000,000 in Indonesia; 200,000 in East Timor; 100,000 in Nicaragua (combining the Somoza and Reagan eras); over 100,000 in Guatemala (plus an additional 40,000 disappeared); over 700,000 in Iraq;3 over 60,000 in El Salvador; 30,000 in the “dirty war” of Argentina (though the government admits to only 9,000); 35,000 in Taiwan, when the Kuomintang military arrived from China; 20,000 in Chile; and many thousands in Haiti, Panama, Grenada, Brazil, South Africa, Western Sahara, Zaire, Turkey, and dozens of other countries, in what amounts to a free-market world holocaust.

Official sources either deny these U.S.-sponsored mass murders or justify them as necessary measures that had to be taken against an implacable communist foe. Anticommunist propaganda saturated our airwaves, schools, and political discourse. Despite repeated and often factitious references to the tyranny of the Red Menace, the anticommunist opinion makers never spelled out what communists actually did in the way of socio-economic policy. This might explain why, despite decades of Red-bashing propaganda, most Americans, including many who number themselves among the political cognoscenti, still cannot offer an informed statement about the social policies of communist societies.

The anti-Red propagandists uttered nary a word about how revolutionaries in Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua, and other countries nationalized the lands held by rich exploitative landlords and initiated mass programs for education, health, housing, and jobs. Not a word about how their efforts advanced the living standards and life chances of hundreds of millions in countries that had long suffered under the yoke of feudal oppression and Western colonial pillage, an improvement in mass well-being never before witnessed in history.”

Excerpt From
Blackshirts and Reds
Michael Parenti
This material may be protected by copyright.

Enpax

4y

“Win ww2 for the allies” lol
It’s clear that the majority of German forces were spend on the eastern front against the Soviet Union. But why do you guys very conveniently forget about the lend lease act from America that bailed the Soviets out?

But ok, let’s say the USSR didn’t need the lend lease act to win the war, which there’s a decent chance they didn’t. In that case, once again the Russian military was already one of the strongest in the world. The L they took against Japan before WW1 and Germany during WW1 is not indicative of a need for communism to fix their armies so much as its a reflection of a crumbling social order at the time with poor planning on the part of Imperial Russian leaders. I don’t see why a Non socialist government couldn’t have reformed the Russian army to its full potential after WW1

americana

4y

so you're saying that it doesn't matter where the money is in a society, even when there is massive disparity between the two extremes to the point of the poorer end experiencing food insecurity and starvation, as long as the "average" is high (when the reality of the situation is that said average is meaningless because it doesn't reflect what the layman actually can do)? What kind of positive is there to not being able to properly distribute resources of value to people equally to meet material needs?

americana

4y

this thread is literally hunks of liberal dogshit

OP is literally defending the expellation of racist middle class cubanos who exploited the S*** out of their darker skinned compatriots after castro introduced social justice measures

Enpax

4y

You’re a brainless moron. I literally show that your “white slave owning Cubans are the only ones that left” narrative is false