this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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The USSR did good things and bad things but reactionaries like to pretend it was all bad. There are hard numbers about life expectancy increasing, better life for women, research achievements, general quality of life and happiness metrics, and more that increased. There was lots of bad parts, but same in the US.
There were anti gay laws on the books for the US, and towns you couldn't even walk in while black. Hell, there are still some sundown towns in places in the US. If you just point out that stuff, or if you lived in such a horrible area or had family who did spreading their stories, then it will just come off as a hell hole. The US does suck, but it's not just Skid Row, the projects, lynch mobs, coups, wars, etc. Same for the USSR. There were good things we can save and build on, and bad things we need to avoid for future socialist projects.
It's not like the first attempts for democracy went well, either. But I wouldn't diss it in the Middle Ages and say we can only do monarchies, the pinnacle of political achievements, just because " it never succeeded. It fell in Greece and the Roman Republic and every other time it's been tried, and has never worked ever and thus is always doomed to fail."
My problem with people citing those metrics is that they are true for Russia itself while ignoring that a large reason for those improvements was colonialism done to the occupied regions. Industrialisation was another thing that improved those metrics but that was hardly unique to the USSR. Some of those regions may have had benefits but here in Estonia it was pretty much all around bad. After the occupation ended the quality of life here improved rapidly.
As far as examples for socialism I'd say the USSR was an all around failure but people still defend it and even Stalin who basically guaranteed it's failure as a socialist project. In the baltic region the word communism is basically poisoned because of the USSR.
You need to look at the referendum to maintain the soviet union before you say shit about imperialist Russia. Non-russian SSRs were most enthusiastic about keeping the USSR around.
The one boycotted by 6 of the 15 territories? Or the ones that followed in each that led to them declaring independence which in turn led to the collapse of the soviet union?
The baltics were 3 of those boycotting territories and we had similar referendums for independence which, I'm pretty sure, all got over 70% support.
That's the one, where Russians had less interest in the USSR than the participating territories.
Sure, and not the presidential coup. Get real.
And the Baltics are doing so much better now.
I'm reminded of a story of Lithuania charging holocaust survivors for fighting as partisans against the nazis in WW2. It happened in 2009. They've gotten more fascist since. Wonder what itd be like if the USSR was never overthrown.
The baltics are actually doing much better now yea, by pretty much every metric.
Yes, slightly improved metrics sure compensate for the systemic nazi rehabilitation /s
And for the overall lowering of living conditions across the former USSR /s
Nope, living conditions have improved massively and way less nazies here than Russia as well.