Opinions on Socialism/Communism

KB seems unable to admit that communism resulted in tens of millions of deaths because he is so in love with communism and his pet ideology cannot be guilty of any wrong. Even the mistakes just become "unfortunate historical events."


It should be pretty obvious that I believe in most of the platform of the NSDAP and fascism, but I will admit that mistakes were made, wrong decisions/bad decisions were made, in how things were implemented.

The Serbs were not treated with justice and fairness, many in Eastern Europe in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, suffered because of unjust policies, but it is not an indictment against National Socialism as an ideology.

I don't believe in the Jewish fable that six millions Jews [more than the total number of Jews in ALL of Europe] were gassed to death in homicidal gas chambers in death camps. I believe that easily 200,000 Jews starved to death [hence the bone thin skeletons found by the Allies at the war's end] in the closing months of WW2 and perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 [mostly the hardcore communists/agitators, those likely to be partisans] were shot to death in the East between 1941-1943. But I generally agree with those particular policies.


Having read Mein Kampf it is clear that Hitler valued Germans above all, but he did not hold the Russians in contempt, not on racial terms anyway, but I believe Himmler absolutely did, Himmler was a ruthless careerist and an opportunist as well as pretty much a back-room schemer. Himmler would have killed anybody who stood in the way of his dream of an SS super state that would possibly supplant Hitler and the NSDAP.

Hitler always thought the best thing for Germany of the 1890s-1910s would have been to ally with Russia to dismantle Austria-Hungary and divide up the key territories. If the Bolshevik revolution had not taken place, it is likely Hitler would have tried to form a continental alliance between Germany and Russia to check British/French/American power.


I don't have a problem admitting that National Socialism made mistakes and some policies [primarily those regarding their treatment of Russian POWs] were just plain wrong and unacceptable, but it seems that some people have problems even conceiving of the possibility that Stalin's Soviet Union was something other than a triumph of democracy and human rights.

BTRfan wrote:KB seems unable to admit that communism resulted in tens of millions of deaths because he is so in love with communism and his pet ideology cannot be guilty of any wrong. Even the mistakes just become "unfortunate historical events."

If that's your claim about my political opinions you're spectacularly wrong. I don't believe socialist(stop naming it communism, communism has never existed yet, you using that term reflects your knowledge of leftis economic systems) governments in the past didn't do bad things( the purge of the red army by Nikolai Yezhov being one of them) but how can I admit that its resulted in "millions of deaths" when these claims are spectacularly inflated, with very big difference in numbers( some people say 30 million were killed in the USSR while others say even more preposterous numbers near 100 million), and most importantly without any correlation with the demographics.


[quote]It should be pretty obvious that I believe in most of the platform of the NSDAP and fascism, but I will admit that mistakes were made, wrong decisions/bad decisions were made, in how things were implemented.[quote]
So you basicly believe in a xenophobic dictatorship in which any leftist group is exterminated, the working class is exploited, and seeks to exterminate part and enslave the other of a number of ethnic and racial groups(slavs, Africans, Asians, romas, jews,)until the only ethnic groups that haven't been subjugated are the anglosaxon, Scandinavian and romanic

The Serbs were not treated with justice and fairness, many in Eastern Europe in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, suffered because of unjust policies, but it is not an indictment against National Socialism as an ideology.

Its exactly an indictment against your beloved Nazism since it shows the treatment of peoples that its advocates considered untermensch and viable for enslavement and replacement by "Aryan" population.

I don't believe in the Jewish fable that six millions Jews [more than the total number of Jews in ALL of Europe] were gassed to death in homicidal gas chambers in death camps. I believe that easily 200,000 Jews starved to death [hence the bone thin skeletons found by the Allies at the war's end] in the closing months of WW2

There are numerous documents and accounts of extermination of people Nazis considered untermensch started in 1940 with the Final Solution being started in 1942. Give me evidence from Nazi archives or eyewitness accounts that proves that zyklon B wasn't used and there weren't extermination efforts early in the war.
BTW Jews weren't the only ones killed. At least 12 million people in all dies during the holocaust including: sintis, romas, slavs, homosexuals, political dissidents, jehovas witnesses, and soviet POWs.

and perhaps 100,000 to 200,000 [mostly the hardcore communists/agitators, those likely to be partisans] were shot to death in the East between 1941-1943. But I generally agree with those particular policies."

Perhaps 600000(convicted agitators and sabotageurs)were given death sentences by the soviet courts between 1934-1953. but I generally agree with these particular policies.

I don't have a problem admitting that National Socialism made mistakes and some policies [primarily those regarding their treatment of Russian POWs] were just plain wrong and unacceptable, but it seems that some people have problems even conceiving of the possibility that Stalin's Soviet Union was something other than a triumph of democracy and human rights.

I don't have a problem admitting that the soviet regime made mistakes and some policies(primarily regarding the purging of the red army high ranking leadership) were just plain wrong and unacceptable, but it seems that some people have problems even conceiving the possibility that Hitler's 3rd reich was something other than a triumph of patriotism, modern western culture and prosperity.

BTRfan wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:Started by the faschist Hearst corporate media the notion that the famine of the 30s in ukraine was caused artificialy by the soviet government to the "freedom loving ukrainian people" has widely been considered historical fact.

However many little mentioned facts convince me more and more that all this "holodomor ukrainian genocide" thing is a lie created to demonize the USSR even more. While there was indeed a famine in Ukraine that caused the deaths of many, was it only ukrainians that died? During the same period there was a similar famine on the volgawhere the people who died were russians or tatars so how can it be said that it was targeted solely at the ukrainian people. Even if it was in Ukraine there was a very large amount of russians and other peoples there so again was it really at the ukrainians? If the soviets were really wanting to exterminate a huge portion of ukrainians they wouldve resorted to more efficient methods such hand pickingb them and putting them to starve in camps just like the nazis did to the jews and such.

Was the famine completely artificialy caused by the government? Collectivisation has been largely blamed for being the chosen tool of stalin to murder ukrainians. It isnt kept in mind that there were numerous periodical climatic famines in ukraine even before the soviet union starting from 1870. In fact the collectivisation mightve been helpful to stop the famine. During that time there were starving landless peasents and rich landlords. When the landlords realized about the collectivisation they destroyed their crops and livestock which prevented the distribution of food to the cities causing the starvation. Most of the anticommunists claim these sabotages were rightful because it is "completely normal" to destroy what you own to keep it from being stolen which I find a very sick argument. So its okay to deprive the starving from resources just because you want it to be completely yours?
If collectivisations were so bad for agriculture why wasnt there never a famine again after it?

Let us suppose I have some chickens on my property... If the government announced they were going to send a DHS/FBI squad to my property and take all of my chickens, let us suppose 500 chickens so they could distribute them to other people in the other, I would act. I would rather slaughter my chickens and have them rot in the field than have them stolen from me and given to those who refuse to work for their daily food.

So you basicly advocate wasting of resources and that they should only be used for a small amount of individuals instead for the common good.

So you're blaming the famine on the landless peasents and townsfolk in the Volga and Ukraine regions. because they "refused to work"? As I've said there are numerous sources that confirm that the famine was caused by a periodic drought and subsequent drastic decrease of availability of crops, not due to human factor. Food had to be distributed also among cities and that's how the grain supply ran low. The deplorable acts of the kulaks of destroying their crops and livestock instead of them being distributed in a relief effort only worsened the famine. You're supporting forced starvation.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:

BTRfan wrote:KB seems unable to admit that communism resulted in tens of millions of deaths because he is so in love with communism and his pet ideology cannot be guilty of any wrong. Even the mistakes just become "unfortunate historical events."

If that's your claim about my political opinions you're spectacularly wrong. I don't believe socialist(stop naming it communism, communism has never existed yet, you using that term reflects your knowledge of leftis economic systems) governments in the past didn't do bad things( the purge of the red army by Nikolai Yezhov being one of them) but how can I admit that its resulted in "millions of deaths" when these claims are spectacularly inflated, with very big difference in numbers( some people say 30 million were killed in the USSR while others say even more preposterous numbers near 100 million), and most importantly without any correlation with the demographics.

Only a communist would say "communism has never existed yet" because he doesn't want his pet ideology to have to take ownership of the crimes done in the name of that ideology.


Communism has existed and for almost a century it enslaved a third of the world's population.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:

BTRfan wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:Started by the faschist Hearst corporate media the notion that the famine of the 30s in ukraine was caused artificialy by the soviet government to the "freedom loving ukrainian people" has widely been considered historical fact.

However many little mentioned facts convince me more and more that all this "holodomor ukrainian genocide" thing is a lie created to demonize the USSR even more. While there was indeed a famine in Ukraine that caused the deaths of many, was it only ukrainians that died? During the same period there was a similar famine on the volgawhere the people who died were russians or tatars so how can it be said that it was targeted solely at the ukrainian people. Even if it was in Ukraine there was a very large amount of russians and other peoples there so again was it really at the ukrainians? If the soviets were really wanting to exterminate a huge portion of ukrainians they wouldve resorted to more efficient methods such hand pickingb them and putting them to starve in camps just like the nazis did to the jews and such.

Was the famine completely artificialy caused by the government? Collectivisation has been largely blamed for being the chosen tool of stalin to murder ukrainians. It isnt kept in mind that there were numerous periodical climatic famines in ukraine even before the soviet union starting from 1870. In fact the collectivisation mightve been helpful to stop the famine. During that time there were starving landless peasents and rich landlords. When the landlords realized about the collectivisation they destroyed their crops and livestock which prevented the distribution of food to the cities causing the starvation. Most of the anticommunists claim these sabotages were rightful because it is "completely normal" to destroy what you own to keep it from being stolen which I find a very sick argument. So its okay to deprive the starving from resources just because you want it to be completely yours?
If collectivisations were so bad for agriculture why wasnt there never a famine again after it?

Let us suppose I have some chickens on my property... If the government announced they were going to send a DHS/FBI squad to my property and take all of my chickens, let us suppose 500 chickens so they could distribute them to other people in the other, I would act. I would rather slaughter my chickens and have them rot in the field than have them stolen from me and given to those who refuse to work for their daily food.

So you basicly advocate wasting of resources and that they should only be used for a small amount of individuals instead for the common good.

So you're blaming the famine on the landless peasents and townsfolk in the Volga and Ukraine regions. because they "refused to work"? As I've said there are numerous sources that confirm that the famine was caused by a periodic drought and subsequent drastic decrease of availability of crops, not due to human factor. Food had to be distributed also among cities and that's how the grain supply ran low. The deplorable acts of the kulaks of destroying their crops and livestock instead of them being distributed in a relief effort only worsened the famine. You're supporting forced starvation.

Every tyrant in history has proclaimed himself a guardian of the "common good" the utter nonsense that it is.


If you want to eat, then work. Nobody has a right to expect others to sustain their existence or subsidize their lifestyle.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:


Perhaps 600000(convicted agitators and sabotageurs)were given death sentences by the soviet courts between 1934-1953. but I generally agree with these particular policies.

If there had been 500 lynchings in one single year in the 1920s or 1930s in the USA you would use it as an example of a policy of brutal racist oppression, but you see nothing wrong with 600,000 executions/murders in the Soviet Union because they were the result of verdicts passed down by a kangaroo court troika system.

About 4,000 lynchings [unauthorized/illegal hangings/executions] took place in the USA between 1870 and 1950, 1/4th were against White people, 1/4th were Blacks executing other Blacks who had perpetrated an outrageous crime against a member of their own community, and 1/2 were White against Black. In a period of approximately 70 years, about 4,000 lynchings... So you call the USA a land of brutal racist oppression and rant about eugenics and racism.

By your own admission, 600,000 Russian citizens executed for "agitating" in a 20 year period.

I suppose 57 lynchings per year makes the USA a bastion of oppression... While 30,000 summary executions per year makes the Soviet Union a bastion of freedom, peace, love, happiness, and it represents a triumph of democracy which is owed to the most merciful and magnificent leader of all time, Stalin, the people's happiness, liberator of the peasants and workers, he loved them so much he liberated them from their horrible, dull, boring lives.


Of course you would agree with Stalin's policies, you're a communist.


Bulgaria was the only Warsaw Pact nation that didn't have a Soviet garrison because the Soviets realized the regime was so thoroughly communist/pro-Soviet and the masses were behind the ruling regime.

Bulgaria was thrilled to be able to send forces to participate in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia while Romania denounced the invasion and refused to participate, Albania finally officially withdrew from the WP over the invasion, and the other WP forces were very reluctant participants.


As the collapse of communism was imminent, the Bulgarian Communist Party simply did a name change and overnight it became the Bulgarian "Socialist" Party and then this former communist party went on to decisively win in the elections in 1990 because the thoroughly communist population wanted more of the same, which explains why they elected "former" communists who were now calling themselves social democrats.


I would wager big money that you are the child of hardcore Bulgarian communists and you have received a full education in communism, which would explain your early rant about dialectical materialism.

It was nice to know that You could become enemy of state that gave You "freedom" from Nazis just by having 5 cows, horse and two barns. It was enough for my grand-grand father to be deported and told to work till he died in Siberia.
Sometimes it was enough just to be in wrong place wrong time to get deported and Your property repossessed. For example if You are in a village that was planned to be Kolhoz. You refuse to leave Your life belonging to Government that is somewhere deep in Moscow under Stalins moustaches and You can say bye bye to Your everyday life. Prepare to eat nettles in Siberia as a desert.
Even Red army soldiers Who passed by to fight on the west warned my family to prepare for hardships. It wasn't soviet soldiers that went through country side pillaging, it was almost untouched by war. Soldiers politely asked for food and some even tried to trade with locals.

Soviet union with so called "freedom" that only existed on paper brought deprivation, insurgency and fear for 20 years at least. And still I hear from some Russians say MI VAS OSVOBODILI, MI VAM KULTURI NESLI. (We freed You, we brought You culture) How delusional it sounds from my POV??
Soviet union was more oppressive to biggest group of people living in it- Russians, it sickens me to see people who never had chance to live there to be glorifying fucked up system. Starting from terrorism against then legitimate government, then revolution, contra-revolution, power games and etc...

GarryB wrote:

If you want to eat, then work. Nobody has a right to expect others to sustain their existence or subsidize their lifestyle.

The redistribution of land from the rich land owners to the common people/peasants was not about taking from people who work and giving it to the idle poor.

In fact most of the land owners were just that... they owned the land but didn't work it themselves... they had serfs to work their land for which they gave them a small allowance.

If you want to eat then work?

What is the point of working when there is no food anyway because selfish landowners like yourself either hoard the food or destroy it?

Even the food that was collected often sat in warehouses and rotted because there was no transport organised to move it to where it was needed.

It is no surprise the result was a famine, and any claim that was attributed to communism or any other ism is amusing... you can't break an important infrastructure like your food production and expect your people to keep eating like nothing has happened.

Mugabe found the same thing in Zimbabwe when he allowed the locals to take land from the rich white farmers... the result was a change from massive surplus and export of food to collapse of food production and imports required to feed the people.

At its heart there was no real change in terms of manpower... the blacks were the labour before and after the change, but the real difference was that before the white man wanted to make lots of money, which meant working the blacks hard, whereas after the whites were removed the blacks worked to feed themselves and their families and were not so interested on feeding the whole country and region so production dropped to self sufficient levels...

Nothing to do with communism or democracy.

Well said Garry

Regular wrote:It was nice to know that You could become enemy of state that gave You "freedom" from Nazis just by having 5 cows, horse and two barns. It was enough for my grand-grand father to be deported and told to work till he died in Siberia.
Sometimes it was enough just to be in wrong place wrong time to get deported and Your property repossessed. For example if You are in a village that was planned to be Kolhoz. You refuse to leave Your life belonging to Government that is somewhere deep in Moscow under Stalins moustaches and You can say bye bye to Your everyday life. Prepare to eat nettles in Siberia as a desert.
Even Red army soldiers Who passed by to fight on the west warned my family to prepare for hardships. It wasn't soviet soldiers that went through country side pillaging, it was almost untouched by war. Soldiers politely asked for food and some even tried to trade with locals.

Soviet union with so called "freedom" that only existed on paper brought deprivation, insurgency and fear for 20 years at least. And still I hear from some Russians say MI VAS OSVOBODILI, MI VAM KULTURI NESLI. (We freed You, we brought You culture) How delusional it sounds from my POV??
Soviet union was more oppressive to biggest group of people living in it- Russians, it sickens me to see people who never had chance to live there to be glorifying fucked up system. Starting from terrorism against then legitimate government, then revolution, contra-revolution, power games and etc...

I've spoken with citizens of the former Yugoslavia who explained that they were allowed to travel and work in other nations, but it was not so with the USSR.


One of them put it best when he said, "that place was one giant prison" describing the Soviet Union.

BTRfan wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:


Perhaps 600000(convicted agitators and sabotageurs)were given death sentences by the soviet courts between 1934-1953. but I generally agree with these particular policies.

If there had been 500 lynchings in one single year in the 1920s or 1930s in the USA you would use it as an example of a policy of brutal racist oppression, but you see nothing wrong with 600,000 executions/murders in the Soviet Union because they were the result of verdicts passed down by a kangaroo court troika system.

About 4,000 lynchings [unauthorized/illegal hangings/executions] took place in the USA between 1870 and 1950, 1/4th were against White people, 1/4th were Blacks executing other Blacks who had perpetrated an outrageous crime against a member of their own community, and 1/2 were White against Black. In a period of approximately 70 years, about 4,000 lynchings... So you call the USA a land of brutal racist oppression and rant about eugenics and racism.

By your own admission, 600,000 Russian citizens executed for "agitating" in a 20 year period.

I suppose 57 lynchings per year makes the USA a bastion of oppression... While 30,000 summary executions per year makes the Soviet Union a bastion of freedom, peace, love, happiness, and it represents a triumph of democracy which is owed to the most merciful and magnificent leader of all time, Stalin, the people's happiness, liberator of the peasants and workers, he loved them so much he liberated them from their horrible, dull, boring lives.

Of course I don't agree with Stalin's purges, I used sarcasm to show how ridiculous your previous quoted comment sounded.

Of course you would agree with Stalin's policies, you're a communist.

Except I don't. But that doesn't mean I accept every BS claim of the western media about for example how he personally signed the executions of 20 million people during his lifetime, he totally had the time and was physically capable of that
/sarcasm
And no, I'm a socialist anticapitalist, not a communist.

As the collapse of communism was imminent, the Bulgarian Communist Party simply did a name change and overnight it became the Bulgarian "Socialist" Party and then this former communist party went on to decisively win in the elections in 1990 because the thoroughly communist population wanted more of the same, which explains why they elected "former" communists who were now calling themselves social democrats.

If the BSP is so secretly communist then why didn't it endorse a single communist policy(collectivization for example) throughout its existence. Thruth is, that all Bulgarian parties are comprised of corrupt Aholes that's only mission is how to steal national wealth for their own purposes or in the case of the Turkish ethnic party how to apply islamisation to Bulgaria.

I would wager big money that you are the child of hardcore Bulgarian communists and you have received a full education in communism, which would explain your early rant about dialectical materialism.

As always you're spectacularly wrong . None of my parents are communist but my grandparents and to some extent my uncle are sypathisers of the USSR and warsaw pact countries since the current anemic pensions, large eunemployment, inflation and elimination of former public assets and services under privatization by the current capitalist government. When I was younger I was constantly told how is the best thing to ever exist and brainwashed by the media about the alleged "millions" of deaths. From the start I sensed BS by looking at the current capitalist average living, working and economic conditions of my countries people, industry and cities.

Of course Stalin wasn't only bad mofo that was killing people left to right. After his death he became scapegoat and I bet big number of crimes were just written on him, but other figureheads just redeemed themselves and washed their hands.

There is certain thing I'm not sure. Holodomor wasn't targeting Ukrainians as ethnic group, but only their Kulaks. It was widely used in Russia before, only thing is that peasant revolts, low harvest, previous state of Ukraine din't help them either.
Still I had no sympathy for them, we all had such things under occupation but differently then them we don't whine about it. Even now don't let Your children close to Ukrainian as they might it eat:) We have a saying if someone eats like an animal, big bites, no chewing - he eats like Khokhol. I was growing up in late Soviet union and even then jokes about ukrainians(banderovci) was common, especially about their unlimited hunger. I always thought that it was their own fault that they starved, we didn't learn much about famines or other bad things and etc.

If you would like for us to discuss abuses of communism we can talk about Trotsky [who oversaw the execution of several million during the Civil War in Russia], we could talk about Lenin, Pol Pot, Ulbricht, Honnecker, Hoxha, Mao, the list goes on...

GarryB wrote:Funny how people so upset with communism always refer to Stalin and what he did...

When People are upset about Stalin but lived in countries that weren't affected by his actions then it's funny. Same with people who are so fond of communism. Communism had it's Ups and Downs, can't argue with that. But the way it was implemented was ridiculous.
To say something about Soviet politicians - The biggest anti-russian sentiments in my country are propagated by.... Same people who were in high positions in Soviet Lithuania and were loyal to Kremlin. Prodazhnaya shkura (turncoats) like Russians would say. How could anyone be happy by communism when Soviet policians were the likes of Yelcin, Gorbachov and other idiots.
Our biggest communist who was against independence finally became President in free Lithuania and before he died he built himself ...guess what? Massive mausoleum in the middle of the capital.
Where Russia would be now if not someone not from that circle would come in? Sylovik- Putin. There is not much communism left in Russia, apart sentiments perhaps? But Russia is doing very well without it by it's own, no countries to suck on it's tits.

I don't remember Soviet Union properly, because I wasn't adult and I only have very good memories of my childhood, what came later was deep depression and people where trying to survive by stomping on each other. For 10 years at least. My parents are only missing Soviet times because they were Young and life was so easy, they didn't have to worry about anything.
Russians where living as second class citizens in Soviet union while Baltics had massive factories that were making Tauras, Silelis TV's, Snaige freezers, Guitars and loads of other stuff. Still no matter how You feed the wolf it wants to get back to the forest.
I can still remember Polish people coming to my city with their miniature polski fiats and puting snaige freezers on the roof because it was so hard to buy. Freezer was bigger than their cars. Polish were even worse than everybody else. Taking even broken stuff from scrapyards and bringing it to Poland. No wonder they hate everything that has to do with communism. It simply didn't work.

To be honest, I'm myself a product of Soviet union, without it my father would never meet my mother, I wouldn't exists, so it puts in position when I have to question my existence Still it wasn't all milk and honey or fire and lava, if You are living in late 70ies in Soviet Union You would not imagine how brutal it was to live about 20 years ago and Soviet people in 50ies would never ever dreamt to have living standards as good as 20 years later.

The fact is that communism in any form is uncapable of developing. It can make progress in some areas but only by directing all available resources to it eg. building new factories at the expense of consumer industry or agriculture.

Do you know that at the time of the great famine USSR was one of the biggest cereal exporters of the world? It was almost impossible to expand heavy industries withoout starving the population, that's the nature of this system.

One example of communist inefficiency was that during the 1950s private gardens of soviet peasants produced about 25-30% of food in USRR, despite constituting just a few % of all arable lands. In a year an average soviet farmer produced food for 8 people, a US farmer - for 60 people. A big difference, isn't it?

Communism in the Soviet Union didn't work for the same reason communism or democracy in Cuba couldn't work... All countries need good international relations and trade and the west pretty much shut out the Soviet Union after WWII and isolated it and created a threat that required enormous expenditures to keep parity with the richest ex colonial powers of the world... the Soviet Union didn't have a chance. Ironically if it had been weaker then the West might have sucked up to the Soviets instead of the Chinese and provided investment... but that sort of thing had already been done by the Soviets.

Eastern bloc wasn't especially isolated. It exported to the west and imported some products from the west. I still have an airgun produced in the Soviet Union with a nice English inscription "MADE IN USSR". It was made for export.

I'd say that in terms of quality only products of soviet arms industry rivaled those of USA/BRD/France/Whatever. Consumer products were so bad that in Western Europe nobody would've taken them for free, yet in Warsaw Pact countries they had to rationed. Since the beginning of the 1980s even such luxurious articles as meat, sugar and toilet paper had to be rationed.

Actually the irony is that a communist economy is a managed economy that western management techniques might have provided tools to allow rather less waste than having 50 different companies making toothpaste.

If there are 50 different brands of toothpaste, then they all compete with each other for customers. If someone produces bad quality toothpaste, then they have to either sell it for a lower price or... get bankrupt.

The irony is that democracy seems to lead to mega companies that own everything and control the media and are actually not democratic at all anyway...

On a really free market it'sreally hard for big corporations to survive. Big company is hard to manage so it either has to split up or bankrupt.

Big, powerful corporations exist only if they are helped by the state, and that means - in socialism.

Yeah, because in the 1950s everything was fixed from WWII and there were no problems of UXO in fields... not to mention all 27 million killed were brought back to life in the early 1950s, while in the US the less than quarter of a million mostly men killed had to stay dead....

And what...? It doesn't change the fact that collective farming doesn't work under any conditions. It failed everywhere - in USSR, Cambodia, Ethiopia, China.... USSR alone had such good soils (in Ukraine and Kazakhstan - most fertile lands on the planet) that it should've been able to feed the entire Europe with ease, yet it had to import food. It should've been that way, right?

Garry - have you ever been to any communist country? I was born to parents who have lived most of their lives in communist Poland (both born in early 1950s) and know this system a little better than someone who has lived the whole life in a rich, western country.

Well according to Russian tv their farms today are doing well, especially those modern ones with german equipment and even cctv to watch over animals. Even small family farms are so effective they out produce what bigger kolkhoz used to produce.

I remember Poland being exceptional poor by all standards.
Well one has to remember how things worked then, everything was done under table. Corruption was normal and thriving. Does anyone still remember Aluminium spoons, kettles? You couldn't eat with them because they were too hot. My father was working as director/ warehouse manager. Our house was filled with those tools. They even started throwing them away to make room for new batch!!! Even at radiotehnikal factories same things happened only thing was that you couldn't steal there
Anyone here had Russian car? Should I start how hard was to get it and how terrible they were? Even today Russian cars are crap. Bought 3 Gazelles new in 2007. Terrible piece of crap, do we went for used Ford transits instead.

Regular wrote:Well according to Russian tv their farms today are doing well, especially those modern ones with german equipment and even cctv to watch over animals. Even small family farms are so effective they out produce what bigger kolkhoz used to produce.

I remember Poland being exceptional poor by all standards.
Well one has to remember how things worked then, everything was done under table. Corruption was normal and thriving. Does anyone still remember Aluminium spoons, kettles? You couldn't eat with them because they were too hot. My father was working as director/ warehouse manager. Our house was filled with those tools. They even started throwing them away to make room for new batch!!! Even at radiotehnikal factories same things happened only thing was that you couldn't steal there
Anyone here had Russian car? Should I start how hard was to get it and how terrible they were? Even today Russian cars are crap. Bought 3 Gazelles new in 2007. Terrible piece of crap, do we went for used Ford transits instead.

This is something most people who advocate the command/planned/prohibition economy either ignore or do not realize.


Despite the thousands of pages of laws, rules, and regulations. There was no real rule of law in the Soviet Union, it was a nation of "understandings" and "agreements."

The police investigate you for something and once they realize you have an understanding with some local party leader, the investigation stops.


Perhaps some bureaucrats are wondering why so many parts have gone missing at a factory, but once they realize the factory manager has an "understanding" with a high KGB officer, the investigation never goes anywhere. Or maybe they come to some agreement with the factory manager and he cuts them in for 10 percent or 20 percent.

BTRfan wrote:
This is something most people who advocate the command/planned/prohibition economy either ignore or do not realize.


Despite the thousands of pages of laws, rules, and regulations. There was no real rule of law in the Soviet Union, it was a nation of "understandings" and "agreements."

The police investigate you for something and once they realize you have an understanding with some local party leader, the investigation stops.


Perhaps some bureaucrats are wondering why so many parts have gone missing at a factory, but once they realize the factory manager has an "understanding" with a high KGB officer, the investigation never goes anywhere. Or maybe they come to some agreement with the factory manager and he cuts them in for 10 percent or 20 percent.

Well maybe You are saturating colours. As far as I can remember that it wasn't that easy to get away. You can't bribe all of them. If it comes to investigation, you are generally already blown. No point in finding scapegoat or pray that Your book-keeping and accountancy will pull You off.
Everyone was afraid of "stukachi", whistle blowers. But small scale corruption was more or less ignored and punishment was really light if unfortunately You were caught. Even militsia man could shut his eyes if he would see You selling jeans. Just don't forget to sell him pair of them cheaper.
Large scale of theft was very harsh crime. Worse than rape or murder. I really hope they would bring back death penalty to bankers and politicians
Only thing good, that crime was very low because we never heard about it Don't even remember any property theft back then.

GarryB wrote:
I have never lived in a rich western country... just New Zealand... a poor semi socialist country.

Is it poor now? I know people who left their countries and went for New Zealand. They said they had to work in a farm to get permission to stay there (Good decision in my opinion).

I have read a lot about the problems of the Soviet era, from people with direct experience... I am not a communist and never have been, but I do recognise that democracy and free market economies don't work either.

Then what's left? There is no perfect system. For example in Soviet Union there was thriving free market- unofficial one of course. There were rich and not so rich people, there were people who were more equal than You. Somehow massive Dachas (country side house) apeared next to the lakes, even reservations. Not a fan of unjust and inequality, but I can't be sided with pure communism, it simply didn't seem to work. Economy was one thing, another thing was ideology that was falling apart.
What can I say, on paper even Soviet constitution was most democratic in the world, the other thing how it was implemented. Now we can access all information that is available, it's up to You to filter it what to believe and what not, but it was time when You were spoon-fed with propaganda, sometimes so blatantly stupid even people spreading it didn't believe it.
What we are told that we have freedom, it's not entirely true. Freedom of speech is very restricted, cause Your statements can be used against You and called a slander, political correctness is a form of shutting Your mouth too. But ask middle class Russian if he wants to go back to Soviet union, he would say no. Had discussion with many Russians even the ones that sympathise it, but it turns out because back then they were Young and life was easy.

All the banks in New Zealand are Australian owned... do you think it serves NZ better having all the profits from banking going directly to Australia?

So Australia played You out and You are economically dependent on them. It's a sign of weak government. Same thing with Swedish banks buying Easter European banks too.

Would you like a guy called Rupert Murdoch controlling all your news media?

Still better than only having state controlled media. You can choose what to watch.

Regarding cars... British cars are crap too... and there are not many American cars I like either. Most of the cars I have had are Japanese.

Controversial statement. I didn't own hundreds of British cars, just few of them. Can't really afford Aston Martin or new Jaguar or Range Rover. I owned Land Rover freelander 2004 and it was crap, because of underpowered 1.8 engine with weak head, there was no diff lock and etc. Targa roof is a nightmare to remove. Car itself was good for it's year, not really the one You would take off-road, but good for British winter.
And I owned Jaguar X-Type. Not really realible, but the way this car was finished was good, not to mention stylish cream leather and wood interior, that is trademark in any British luxury car. And used X-Types are dirt cheap, I have only heard serious problems with their 4wd and automatics.
On other hand, now defunct British MG-Rover used to make cars on the level of Moskvitch. Cheap metal, big gaps between parts (probably no one bothered to use precise machinery).

Oh and LDV vans are terrible too.
I don't want to bash British car manufacturers, they must be strong when it comes to luxury cars I think. I'm too poor to find out. ))

I love german cars, but only the older ones, new cars don't interest me at all. Too much useless fancy shit fitted in to them.
Audi S2 quattro probably fastest car I've owned. BMW E30 with m88 engine was the most thrilling car I have driven.
I presume You get loads of Japanese import cars in You country.
Japanese import always seemed to be interesting, but it wasn't for my pocket.

I have read a lot about the problems of the Soviet era, from people with direct experience... I am not a communist and never have been, but I do recognise that democracy and free market economies don't work either.

You seem to mistake free market with corporatism. Corporatism can work only in cooperation with the state, and it's therefore a contradiction of free market.

Paradoxically, socialist countries with oversized bureaucracy are more prone to corporate lovvying than more liebral ones.

And communism itself can be described as one big corporation, controlling every aspect of economy, with no competition.

Regular wrote:
Controversial statement. I didn't own hundreds of British cars, just few of them. Can't really afford Aston Martin or new Jaguar or Range Rover. I owned Land Rover freelander 2004 and it was crap, because of underpowered 1.8 engine with weak head, there was no diff lock and etc. Targa roof is a nightmare to remove. Car itself was good for it's year, not really the one You would take off-road, but good for British winter.
And I owned Jaguar X-Type. Not really realible, but the way this car was finished was good, not to mention stylish cream leather and wood interior, that is trademark in any British luxury car. And used X-Types are dirt cheap, I have only heard serious problems with their 4wd and automatics.
On other hand, now defunct British MG-Rover used to make cars on the level of Moskvitch. Cheap metal, big gaps between parts (probably no one bothered to use precise machinery).

Land Rover is absolute crap.


I would recommend a GAZ 469 for off-roading before going with the Land Rover.