Forecasts and results of the Communist experiment.

Thank you, uncleffred.
Yes, I think many things are taken for granted here, from small things like having toilet paper in the public bathrooms /in Bulgaria no one leaves toilet paper in the bathrooms, one has to carry some with oneself during the day/ to general dispositions and freedoms. My keenest hope is that no one here would have to go through anything similar to what other countries went, and are still going.

True, Russia was a third world country under the tsars, there is no two opinions about it. The question is not about the modernization Stalin did, but about the enormous human cost of the way he did it. It wasn't necessary for 23 million people to die, so flushing toilets be installed, those are 2 different issues. To say that Stalin was right in what he did is the same as to say that Hitler was right to do the Holocaust because of the modernization he did of the military.

It wasn't necessary to rob the peasants of their possessions, or everyone with something - in fact, my grandma was an old communist, so she was fond of telling me how after the Bulgarian communists got the power, after a coup that the Russians supported at the end of the WWII, she and other were going from house to house and taking everything from the people there - down to their clothes, fabrics, food, kicked them out of their homes, so the communist activists get there instead - what is that? Was that necessary for the electrification and modernization of Bulgaria? It was done like that because the Russians did the same to their own people, so their example was followed in other countries. Such robbery has nothing to do with modernization, or industrialization, it has to do with greed for power, and repressions. Needless to say, if you or I were living under Stalin, there would be on Internet allowed, so we can talk about the positives an negatives of communism. Not only it wasn't paradise, it was hell. No one have the right to do that to their own people, and there can be no excuse for it.

The fact is that after 45 years of communism, and after ginormous human cost of what was done as industrialization, the repressions, political etc persecutions, the communist regimes failed economically, the people in those countries were living poorly - exactly that living of 9 people in 2 rooms was in 1988, after 45 years of communism.

As for free medical - my personal opinion is that it has to be payed for people who work, and have a safe net for people who are disabled and cannot work; in this way no one has to pay their way to life, but those who work can contribute to keeping the healthcare on higher level; as for the companies, I agree with you - the private insurance companies in the US are sharks over sharks, and make money of people who pay insurance, with their right to refuse you what you payed to them if they want to. I'm not saying that the private insurance companies are the way to go -  government insurance company would be better, but those how work have to pay their medical. However, the quality of the free medical in the communist coutnries wasn't a little lower, it was extremely low, to a point in which it was injurious. Besides, I'd rather be payed if not 90, at least 60% of what I earned, and pay for health care, not given 10% and forced to such a bad health care that I cannot use it at all.

Suffice it to say that the couple of times I had to go to a hospital I got out with ringworms, and when my son had to go there after falling from the 2 story came out with infections skin disease, that infected me too, lice were rife too. I told you about my teeth - I lost half of them before I hit 33, because of bad dental care, bad materials, so everytime a filling fell out, /which was at least like twice a year at least, because of the bad materials/ the teeth were grinded more till they brake - this is not little lower health standard, this is I don't know what. It had costed me here thousands of dollars to make implants and bridges, so I don't look like some met-user, as I would look if I have stayed in Bulgaria - but here I can afford it because for 4 days subbing I'm payed more than for a month of work in Bulgaria.

As for the welfare, I again agree with you - lifelong welfare is a terrible thing, and has injurious psycological effects on the people who receive it. However, the situation with people being deprived of work happened in the last 10 years, because of the globalization, and has nothing to do with capitalism per se. Also, there wasn't welfare during the communism - and this may sound good, implying that everyone is employed, and doesn't need welfare - but this is not true. People with disabilities got nothing, people with injuries also, so they were on their own, left to die; people who were disliked because of their opinions were deprived from work and left to die of starvation. Welfare as a safety net is a humane idea, that's why it wasn't a part of the communist system.

The ideal situation would be everyone to work -  but the situation during communism was that you worked, but received only 10% of what you worked for, what is that? Then, to retire you have to have 30 years works at least, there is no partial retirement - which means that the 15 years I worked in Bulgaria, since I was 17, before I emigrated, were working for nothing, since I won't be eligible for partial retirement, if I was to return there - is that fair? This is exploitation, because not only you worked for next to nothing, but all you payed for retirement vanished too. Say, you worked 29 years, and got sick - since there wasn't welfare during communism, you got no retirement at all, even though you missed paying retirement fund only for 1 year.

Communism isn't more humane system than capitalism is - the only difference is that communism makes you like what if does to you, to heap an insult after the injury. It lies to your face, robs you of information, so you don't know what is happening, keeps you ignorant, and enslaves you for life - if it wasn't so, people would try to cross the Berlin Wall to get into communist countries, not to cross them to get to capitalist ones. The number of people fleeing communist countries, crossing the borders and getting shot, swimming from Bulgaria to Turkey, etc, was ginormous - would they risk their lives to do so, if life in communist countries was good? In Bulgaria to try to cross the border was a capital crime - you got shot on the spot, and this was up to the 1990s, and this was done for a reason - still thousands of Bulgarians fled and jumped unto the unknown, because life under communism was not only very hard and cruel, it was also extremely repressive, taking one choices away, and such a life is not worth living.


Edited by Don Quixote - 07-Apr-2012 at 00:26

That's right, both National Socialism and Communism are the 2 sides of one coin - both were totalitarian regimes, based roughly on the same principles. This was proven in the works of Hannah Arendt, which I recommend to everyone interested in the subject - the "Origins of the Totalitarianism" is available here online http://archive.org/stream/originsoftotalit00aren/originsoftotalit00aren_djvu.txt
http://archive.org/details/originsoftotalit00aren
http://archive.org/stream/originsoftotalit00aren#page/n5/mode/2up

Originally posted by Don Quixote The factories in the third world are result of globalization, and it fact they are building the economies of those countries. If a worker in a US factory in, say,  China is paid more that the same would be paid in a Chinese factory, how is he a slave? I'm against the globalization because it brings unemployment in the country from which the factory in question came from, not because of something else. Most of my relatives actually miss communism - because my mother's family was in the system, my grandfather was a "fighter against the fashism and capitalism" so all their lives they got perks - my mother and aunt got into university for free and with low grades, got good jobs because of the political connections of their father, were given apartments, etc - this is what they miss; and they would say anything and believe anything they were told to to get them, not even feeling and about it. Me - I spit on it, communism wasted my youth, I have no good word to say about it. I'll eat ash and live like a dog and be happier with nothing, because no one can take nothing from you. Communism is total control - over everything one thinks, wants, dreams, earns, lives, on what one buys /one had to have a political permission to buy a TV, when I was a kid/, on what one says - what good is that? This was far more slavery than anything I've seen, because it takes your choices away, and what good is life without freedom of choice.

Originally posted by medenaywe Communism,experiment or continuity of human cleanse,was idea for National Socialism in Germany.Only differences were:equality for Germans=Aryan race against equality in poverty for workers!Totalitarian ideas created in 19th century,have made sufferings and dead for millions in 20th century.

Sounds like the sort of thing a Cold War-era American propagandist would say. In reality communism and Nazism have distinct origins and goals: Stalinists want to repress their own people while fascists want to conquer and exterminate other races. Stalinism is the result of excessive socialism and failure to adapt. Fascism is the end result of reactionary conservatism. Anarchy is caused  by excessive liberalism.

Originally posted by Nick1986 If the Asian workers were paid the same as Europeans or Americans, fair enough. But many companies pay them ridiculously low wages and employ child slaves. Sweatshops are as terrible a crime as genocide, but the greedy capitalists always seem to escape punishment. Communism may have been repressive, but at least everyone had a job, free healthcare and a reasonable standard of living (not perfect, but things would have been a lot worse without Stalin)

Originally posted by Don Quixote Originally posted by Nick1986 If the Asian workers were paid the same as Europeans or Americans, fair enough. But many companies pay them ridiculously low wages and employ child slaves. Sweatshops are as terrible a crime as genocide, but the greedy capitalists always seem to escape punishment. Communism may have been repressive, but at least everyone had a job, free healthcare and a reasonable standard of living (not perfect, but things would have been a lot worse without Stalin) Well, if the companies pay lower than in the US, but more than the native companies would pay, then the workers there are profit from the difference, no? As for the child slaves - this is another question, it has to be resolved, but it is up to the work laws in the countries themselves to do that. As for the free heath care - there is nothing as ruinous as free health care, I have very few real teeth left due to free dental care, and had to do implants here. Believe it or not, I had root canal done with the root being alive, because the dentists would spare the arsenic that they used to kill the nerve before taking it out, and you cannot go complain about this, because there is no one to complain to; the materials were old and the filling out fall out of your mouth months after being put in. People were habitually misdiagnosed, because the medical implements and mashinery that was used in Bulgaria was outdated with decades, and the meds  prescribed were outdated, bad quality, and wouldn't be approved now in in the US. What good is such health care? On the opposite, I'd rather pay, if I know I'll get what I pay for, and my money will go for paying new mashinery and importing good meds and materials. Everyone had a job - that was paid less that the welfare is here, and was about 10% of what was paid in western countries at the time; no one could just buy an apartment, one had to be approved politically to be allowed to go on line and wait 20 years for a small 2 room apartment, far worse that what I see here as governmentally sponsored homes for unemployed. In fact, people had shelter only because the lived with their relatives, 2-3 families in 2 rooms apartments. I had lived with the family of my ex, 9 people in 2 rooms, believe it or not. I would say that the US unemployed for life people live better than the working people in communist Bulgaria. And old lady I know in Spokane has a Bulgarian retirement that equals $100, for 35 years she worked in a factory, while the welfare she gets here is $300, plus food coupons, free medical, and half payed rent - so she doesn't dare to return to Bulgaria from a fear that she may starve to death - all people who's retirement is based on their working diring communist time have very low retirements, my mother gets like $150 for 30 years working as a magazine editor.  And no matter how one worked, good or bad - one couldn't change his/her lot at all. In such atmosphere all kinds of corruption and harassment were rife - since it depended on a political figure if one was to get a place to live, or to get a job, all kinds of pressing against the wall were used all the time. That one would have a job, or a shelter wasn't guaranteed - it was done only f the person in question was "polticaly reliable" - in other words, repeating as a parrot what the directives are in the moment, and had no personal  opinions per se. If you are looking for slavery - communism was an absolute slavery, slavery of the body and the soul, in which any freedom of thought or action was strictly forbidden, and impossible. What's more, in the factories people worked unprotected, because the government didn't want to spend money for eye-shields, or masks - that's one of the reasons why in Bulgaria the life expectancy if 68 years, and a man over 60 is good practically for nothing. I worked for couple of months in a hospital for kids with infectious diseases - and I got no gloves, no protection at all, changing dirty diapers full with all kinds of bacteria with bare hands. I worked in a factory where people worked metals with no protection at all, and got eye diseases in several years. The works conditions were worse that in  sweat shops, with no choice for anything better. As for Stalin - he was nothing better than Hitler, the genocide that he put of his own people is estimated at 23 mln people /only the political cleansing and the Golodomor/, Hitler, with the concentration camps and the civilians killed, did only half of that number http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html . The worse genocides on the 20th century were committed by communist regimes. The uprooting whole peoples and moving them to Siberia, the Golodomor in Ukraine, the political cleansings, destroying the peasants - I cannot imagine how possibly it could be worse without him.

Originally posted by Nick1986 I never said Soviet Russia was a paradise, but imagine how bad it would have been without the Communists? Under the Tsar Russia was a third world country with few universities, poor healthcare, bad roads and little industry. Stalin's building projects resulted in better accommodation (rather than having to share the same room with three or four other families), more opportunities for workers to go to university, flushing toilets (not holes in the ground), radio, cinema and hospitals. Healthcare should be free as it's unethical to pay for your right to life. The quality may be worse, but it's wrong for private companies to make money off the misfortunes of others: money that could be used to feed your family or pay your bills. However, capitalism's worst crime is depriving workers of employment and forcing them to go on welfare: basically paying them to do nothing

Originally posted by Don Quixote In that case I'll have to reread and  relearn the economic history of Imperial Russia as well, because what  know from school, etc, is that Russia had very low standard of living, in spite of it being an empire, because it kept feudal relationships well into the 19th century, and virtually had no middle class - she had aristocracy and peasantry instead. I'm not sure now how much of that was communist POV on history, and how much was reality. Dostoevky's world is one of utmost squalor, and poverty, material one that drags spiritual one with itself; Gogol's world is one of pitifulness that makes one laugh when not cry - most lamentably he is untranslatable, IMHO. The whole communist rhetoric was based on how backward Russia was, in spite of it's enormous potential. However, Russia was the breadbasket of Europe, up to when the communists came about, after which she saw hunger and starvation that weren't normal for a country with the size and potential she has. As for the military success of Russia in Asia and Europe - my opinion is that it was mostly based on that fact that Russia with it's enormous manpower can weather everyone else on her own territory; but the Russian soldier was very poorly equipped, completely uneducated as to military standards, and easily sacrificed - so the Russians won battles with human cost, not with military innovations and technologies, all the way to WWII. The communists put the stress on developing military technologies, as to compensate for that lack of it before.