Thread: Communism: Do Russians think the USSR was communist?

A basic thing that most people know about Communism: There is no money in communism.
But all the "communist" (socialist) used money. So this proved in a very simplistic way to kids and regular people that there was not communism in Eastern Europe.

LOL! I came across a hilarious joke as a kid, that might explain it:

Q. "Will there be money in communism?"
A. "Yugoslavian comrades say there will be; Chinese comrades say there won't be; we merge these two theories, and think there will be money, but not everyone will have it."

Originally Posted by alexsms

But I often here people in Russia today commenting on Norway and Sweden using phrases like У них там социализм (They have socialism there). I think this is quite interesting. The meanings of words are really evolving and changing.

Yes, you are right that the meanings of what socialism is, (or what people think it is..) has evolved.
I have met a several Russians who have this view, and a very idealised view of Sweden. It must be something that's been written about in Russian media? One person actually wanted to emigrate to Sweden for that reason.

Sweden was traditionally much more "red" than Norway, but this has now changed. Only Norway can afford grand "socialist" schemes, thanks to their oil...Sweden is much more restrictive. What extra money there is, goes on funding immigration and attempts at integrating new immigrants.

In my childhood (mainly 1980s), there was lots of socialism going on, and anyone from the USSR would probably have perceived Sweden as a "deluxe" and relaxed version of the USSR. Everyone was constantly throwing around socialist jargon and media in particularly was practically communist. We sang socialist songs in school but at the same time people said "we have enough capitalism to keep the wheels greased". It was all democratically elected. People just kept voting for Social democrats. The state was like an omni-present parent that always knew best. It still is, in Sweden and it can be very overbearing. Socialism worked relatively well in Sweden in the past, because the country was homogenous (no problems with minorities or different cultures). Almost everybody had a strong work ethic, which is part of Lutheran tradition.

It was known to us, that one of the biggest problems in the USS, was people who didn't pull their weight, and the fact that the USSR spent so much of its money propping up backwards Soviet areas and third world allies. The alleged abuses of the Soviet state were sometimes whispered about. My dad did a lot of business in the USSR and sometimes talked about his observations. Many people were interested and wanted to hear what he thought.

In the past, Swedes and Norwegian socialists were concerned about things like social justice and the other traditional objectives of Marx & co. But now people in the left now have forgotten this! Instead they are obsessing about immigration/mulitculturalism, gay rights and feminism. You can't turn on the TV or read a paper without seeing promotion of this. That's what younger people now associate with socialism. Meanwhile class differences are now growing every year. Social democratic work policies don't work with the new "multicultural" society where 1-2 people in 10 simply don't have the same references, because they come from Africa or the Middle East.

In Norway, imo, people just got lazy and entitled from the social democratic system! Lots of young people deliberately don't get a job, but spend a couple of years on benefits, "discovering themselves". Immigrants spend on average 7 years on benefits, before they get a real job. Many are still unemployed after 15 years.
Lots of locally born people people in secure jobs are skiving off, lazy or indifferent, and you can tell when you visit: Poor service, crazy bureacracy etc.

Hope all this made some sense!
So, anyone looking for socialism: You'll find some remnants in Norway, otherwise the only country still doing it in Europe on a limited scale, is Belarus. What Belarus is doing, looks to me like Nordic social democracy from the 1970s. The people there have voted for it, although some criticize the democratic process there.

Originally Posted by Eric C.

LOL! I came across a hilarious joke as a kid, that might explain it:

Q. "Will there be money in communism?"
A. "Yugoslavian comrades say there will be; Chinese comrades say there won't be; we merge these two theories, and think there will be money, but not everyone will have it."

Yugoslavia was just socialist. I don't think it even had communism as the stated objective. It wasn't considered to be properly part of the Eastern bloc, back in those days. They had private enterprise on a limited scale.
I don't think that the USSR, or China which you mention, took them seriously as communists whatsoever. Yugoslavia had mass tourism from Western Europe, just as an example.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Yugoslavia was just socialist. I don't think it even had communism as the stated objective. It wasn't considered to be properly part of the Eastern bloc, back in those days. They had private enterprise on a limited scale.
I don't think that the USSR, or China which you mention, took them seriously as communists whatsoever. Yugoslavia had mass tourism from Western Europe, just as an example.

I know that, and actually, the joke mentions them as "revisionists", and it refers to the "Chinese comrades" as "dogmatists". The punchline is about combining two polar opposite views into something that people under "state capitalism" (and the USSR obviously was one) would rather believe, based on their own experience in such a system. =))