Go Socialism!

well, i will not be seen defending Soviet Russia or any of the Soviet bloc systems for that matter, but the truth is that the situation was NOT better for vast majority of the people in pre-revolutionary Russia. That's a misrepresentation of facts. It's also absurd to show pre-revolutionary Russia as some sort of an example of successful capitalism. Russia skipped capitalism entirely and launched into its distorted vision of marxist society (which has little to do with Marx's ideas, in fact Marx did not see Russia fit for the kind of community he envisioned) straight from deep feudalism, accompanied with de facto slavery, pogroms, you name it... That is not to say that other societies at the time did not have serious shortcomings, I am just saying let's not romanticize something that just wasn't there. Pre-revolutionary Russia was hell for your common Russian.

Eh.

Yes, the Soviets systematically neglected agriculture, to just use a gross understatement.

But re your apparent larger point - there isnt much good one can say about the Soviet Union, but to compare its overall economy anno 1955 unfavourably with that of pre-WW1 Tsarist Russia requires a feat of imagination.

Sure, there had been some burgeoning capitalist expansion around/after 1900, even if it had already stalled by 1914; and sure, much of the Stalin-era mass industrialisation was based on the equivalent of slave labour. But the transformation the country went through was still enormous.

Also, one cant just equate how the Soviet industry stacked up in comparison by the late 1980s with how it looked in the 50s and 60s either.

Hi Dag - GMTA

And as usual, nimh said it better... pfffft.

Tsarist Russia was enjoying enormous economic growth and investment in infrastructure, particularly including new railroads in the decades before WWI. Significant advances in science and technology were also occurring in fields as far ranging as statistical analysis, biology, Aeronautical engineering and physics. What might have followed in the decades ahead had there been no Leninist revolution is something about which we can only speculate.

Many are inclined to credit the Soviet system with great strides in industrial development, and no note in passing that some elements of slave labor and servitude were involved. I believe that is a gross distortion of the truth. While great progress was indeed made in Russia between (say) 1917 and 1938, even ngreater progress occurred in the rest of the Western world, and at much lower social and human cost.

Political and economic change was inevitably coming in Russia at the turn of the century. There were many other paths available than the Leninist Revolution. Almost any of them would likely have achieved more at a much lesser cost.

Authoritarian? freedom? Yes, very important issues.

Here are the "free speech zones" where some Americans tried to communicate that Iraq war was a bad idea during the Democratic national convention. They got no press.

sigh. russia did not go through a boom before 1914 on an isolated island. it wasn't because of some innate russian genius that that happened. russia was tagging on industrial revolution, and lagging behind the rest of europe that experienced a greater boom and for longer, starting earlier than russia.

plus, nobody's denying servitude during the lenin's and stalin's rule. have you even read nimh's post?

I did. Did you read mine? The servitude and murder during the Soviet regime was of horrendus proportions - unparalleled in the then contemporary world. That had its own economic costs.

While the industrial revolution did indeed come late to Russia it came, as in other countries, with very high initial rates of development. It is very hard for me to believe that, had the Social Democrats prevailed, and the civil war been avoided, Russia would not have been in far better shape by the end of the 1930s.

we were discussing pre-1914 russia. i doubt that there was any chance for russia to start developing democratically at the end of the WWI. "If" it did, and "if" civil war could have been avoided are far too great speculations for them to be worthy in endulging.

once again, since it does not seem to be registering with you: not defending stalinism at all. believe me, my parents grew up during it. merely talking about the idealization of the period before 1914 as false. things have usually good reasons. the industrial boom did not line the pockets of peasants and workers. war didn't help either. after that, any extreme ideology will do rather well.

the united states of america in it's entirety is a free speech zone. some have managed to forget that in their partisan circle jerks.

that crap will be done away with when we have a president that doesn't wipe his keester with the constitution.

I agree with that. I also recognize the value (and necessity) of the political and social shocks administered by the revolution, the "NEP", and what followed. My point is there were other proven models available, and the historical evidence shows that they were able to accomplish more, in less time, and with far less human suffering, that what was done by the Bolshevick tyranny. Good examples are provided by the 19th century histories of Britain, France,, Germany, and the United States.

19th century was no paradise for British workers either. in fact, especially the cities were a living nightmare.

Plus, Russia wasn't in 1920 where Britain was in 1830.... so those models wouldn't work even if Russias cared for them at the time. And they didn't. Disenchanted masses went after the tsar's family's throats... why should they care about capitalist models? even if they have ever had heard about them, i doubt that the thought would be appealing to those starving (heard about the cases of cannibalism in Krymea during the war?), freezing and working to death.

When I ask george questions like;

If under capitalism If get paid 70 cents an hour to barley stay alive and sleep in the dirt to pick coffee for starbucks where i could grow food for my family... am I free?

I never get an answer. It's a yes or no question.

Instead I get;

rates of development in pre-1914 russia speculations idealization capitalist models economic growth and investment in infrastructure Leninist Revolution statistical analysis, biology, Aeronautical engineering and physics (say) 1917 and 1938 Social Democrats prevailed.

By the way, you can probably substitute communism for capitalism in the same questions and depending on the person get the same results.

Did you see the mule with the books?

Hey! who are you calling a mule?! just because i'm a bit stubborn i don't have to....oh...not talking to me? well then.

Eh. But it's not a yes or no question. It depends how much you get for 70 cents. 70 cents an hour - that's 7 or 8 dollars a day. That's 40 or 50 or 60 dollars a week. Depending on the country, that can be quite some money.

I mean, if you're an American, and you're making $7.50 an hour working at Starbuck's - are you free?


....


Also depends what "free" means to you. That's a rather philosophical question.


....


But I like the idea with the mule.

It's"Chavo" the propaganda mule boys and girls.

So cool.

I wish I had a mule.

Strange thread - hard to tell what is meant and where it is going.

My points are 2:

1. Several models are available in the histories of contemporary modern nations for the transition from agrarian economies to a modern industrial states. All involved one or two generations of fairly wrenching changes that mostly affected the poor, and all involved elements of the exploitation of labor and the excess accumulation of wealth and power by some. Gradually each of these nations & models found ways to mitigate the worst effects industrialization and tolerable distributions of the economic fruits of the effort.

Of all these models, the authoritarian socialist one, especially as it was practiced in the Soviet Union, involved the maximum of human suffering and sacrifice. Worse, like other Socialist models, it didn't produce a particularly effective or productive economic state, and it required a substantial loss of individual freedom that eventually proved intolerable to the people it afflicted. The result was the collapse of the regime and the sacrifice of yet another generation in the transition to a market economy. What could be worse?

2. Socialism proclaims that the underclass is not free by virtue of its relative poverty. It promises end to that poverty through authoritarian management of the economic activities of all. In the end, it deprives everyone (except the managing elite) of their freedom and yields only economic mediocrity for all. Real freedom is better.

Despite the age difference I'm going to "dude" you on this one.

1) I'm sure that "it is very hard for you to believe that, had the Social Democrats prevailed, [..] Russia would not have been in far better shape by the end of the 1930s". It is hard for me to believe too. For Dag surely as well. How that relates to anything either of us has said, God knows. Nothing either of us said remotely implied that Russia was better off economically under Stalin than it would have been if the Social Democrats had prevailed.

2) You started out asserting that the economy in Tsarist Russia was stronger than that of the Soviet Union in the fifties. Then you backtracked to saying that, well, the Tsarist-era industrialisation had gotten off on a good late start, and we can only speculate about how it would have contrasted against post-Stalin Russia if it had been given another fourty years. Well, yes of course: but saying that a Tsarist Russia would or could have developed into something better than what Soviet Russia ended up as in the 1950s doesnt at all equate with your earlier assertion that pre-1914 Tsarist Russia was already in a better state than 1950s Soviet Russia was in, which is what Dag and I were addressing.

And now, you're backtracking even further into comparing 1950s Soviet Russia not only to what Tsarist Russia might have developed into, but to how Russia would have fared after the revolution (and deposition of the Tsars) had the Social Democrats (I assume you mean the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, or Kadet liberals), rather than the Bolsheviks, won out. That has nothing at all to do anymore with the point in your initial post that we were addressing.