Thread: Does Communism still have a role to play, or is it dead?

Part of communism is going to be restored in Russia, since Russia's head sanitary inspector Onischenko has proposed reintroducing the Soviet practice of compulsory prisoning for alcoholics. Now this practice is in action in Belarus.

That explains why I saw only 1 alcoholic in over 2 months in Belarus.
The police were practically charitable to him though - that was the amazing thing. Asked him if he was ok etc. He collapsed on the street and was very drunk.
They might have saved beating him up until they got to the prison, what do I know...

Originally Posted by Hanna

That explains why I saw only 1 alcoholic in over 2 months in Belarus.
The police were practically charitable to him though - that was the amazing thing. Asked him if he was ok etc. He collapsed on the street and was very drunk.
They might have saved beating him up until they got to the prison, what do I know...

I think the chief doctor means special prison camps the ones where doctors torture their aloholic pacients with sulfa (sulfadiazine injections). My schoolmate was in such a camp for a year term, he said sulpha was real hell.

Originally Posted by mishau_

I think the chief doctor means special prison camps the ones where doctors torture their aloholic pacients with sulfa (sulfadiazine injections). My schoolmate was in such a camp for a year term, he said sulpha was real hell.

sulfa doesn't do anything to alcoholism, well there could be a side effect but not all the time
However it does do something to particular STDs

And how comes that other former USSR countries (that do not have oil or gas) can maintain higher standard of living than Russia without raw material export?

Really? Why do we have so many migrants from the former Soviet Union?

Are you serious? That is disgusting!

And a serious comment: People might think I have taken the position of the USSR in this discussion. I am doing that because I think that many people who are not Russian have misguided or incorrect information about the USSR, based on propaganda and exaggerations. I think it helps if a native English speaker (more or less) who has no sense of old patriotism etc invested, like me, takes the opposite perspective. Plus I genuinely do think there were some good sides to the USSR.

USSR is not the same as communism though. It was more a rather rigid type of socialism... or maybe "state capitalism" as my dad said. If there is ever a country that manages to achieve communism, it probably won't look anything like the USSR. It would probably be a very small country and a people with quite different national characteristics from the Russians.

However this kind of thing really makes me dislike aspects of the USSR!

Freezerbox Magazine - Inside the Zone

Ruthless, uncaring and incredibly unfair treatment of good people who had done absolutely nothing to deserve it. Their own citizens. This was the kind of stuff that came out in the 1990s with a new horrible story every week. Growing up. I had considered myself marginally socialist before then, without even reflecting on it much. But this kind of stuff made me turn my back for a very long time!

While talking about world peace, solidarity and lots of rosy ideals, decent people were allowed to die in what almost certainly must have been an experiment in the effects of radiation.

I know that the USA has been doing stuff like this too, including cruel experiments on their own citizens. But I do think that the USSR did this on a bigger scale than the USA did, and more respect for its own citizens. (The US tends goes abroad for their evil deeds.) The USSR did stuff like this right in their own backyard and people had no fair chance to find out the truth and do something about it, or even protest.

Originally Posted by Hanna

(The US tends goes abroad for their evil deeds.) The USSR did stuff like this right in their own backyard

Are you serious? What's the difference between the presence of the US in Afghanistan and the presence of the USSR in Afghanistan?

Trust you Croc to jump on the one sentence that stands out.

Yeah, I think the USSR should have left Afghanistan alone. I have mentioned that several times here in this forum.
Definitely a cause I sympathised with in my teens - I even had a little button for it on my school bag for a while. "Sovjet ut ur Afghanistan!" But it's over 20 years ago now. It's hard to muster up strong feelings about it.So much has been happening since then.

But at least it was next door, so they had some kind of half reasonable excuse of ensuring stability at their borders, whereas the USA has no excuse that makes any sense unless you factor in regional politics or the Afghanistan oil pipeline. I don't buy for a second that anyone in the US is so stupid that they thought they'd finish moslem terrorism by taking over Afghanistan.

But if you compare the USAs invasions in the last 20-30 years, with the record of the USSR, I think it's pretty obvious who is the most aggressive. They USSR did not operate at a rate of a new war or invasion every 2-3 years like the USA has been for a very long period of time.

Originally Posted by Hanna

But if you compare the USAs invasions in the last 20-30 years, with the record of the USSR, I think it's pretty obvious who is the most aggressive. They USSR did not operate at a rate of a new war or invasion every 2-3 years like the USA has been for a very long period of time.

The USSR had done it more effectively. One wave of a magic wand, and the entire Eastern Europe has now new communist governments. Any uprising in Checholosvakiya or Hungary, would have to welcome the Soviet Army. The US with all its aggressiveness has yet to achieve that outstanding record.

Originally Posted by Crocodile

The USSR had done it more effectively. One wave of a magic wand, and the entire Eastern Europe has now new communist governments. Any uprising in Checholosvakiya or Hungary, would have to welcome the Soviet Army. The US with all its aggressiveness has yet to achieve that outstanding record.

Yeah, and what's most amazing, 20 years have passed since the collapse of the evil empire, and still Europe is de-facto divided into two parts, the western one which is doing great, and the eastern one which is not. It's like it was an unfixable screwup.

The US with all its aggressiveness has yet to achieve that outstanding record.

Oh yes, but it certainly seems we are trying We are the "Empire of Good" don't ya know.

Originally Posted by Eric C.

Yeah, and what's most amazing, 20 years have passed since the collapse of the evil empire, and still Europe is de-facto divided into two parts, the western one which is going great, and the eastern one which is not. It's like it was an unfixable screwup.

Most of the countries that you are referring to were always rather poor, invaded by first one power then another. Only a few of them ever had power or wealth that was their own.

And secondly, you also have Greece and Spain which are still suffering from having been right wing dictatorships for the better part of the Cold War, largely curtesy of the US -apparently this was the only safeguard against Communists winning elections and taking over unaided. The EU has literally poured money into their economies since they became EU members, which was way before Eastern Europe. Still there are quite fundamental problems.

Originally Posted by Crocodile

The USSR had done it more effectively. One wave of a magic wand, and the entire Eastern Europe has now new communist governments. Any uprising in Checholosvakiya or Hungary, would have to welcome the Soviet Army. The US with all its aggressiveness has yet to achieve that outstanding record.

We have been through the discussion about this before in this forum and what happened after the war is a matter of interpretation and whose propaganda you choose to believe. Since I did grew up in a country that tried to stand on the side, I got both sides of story growing up, with no strong prejudice. Things have shifted a bit in favour of the US version of events since the end of the Cold War though. And unlike you Crocodile, I obviously never experienced the frustrating and unfair sides to the USSR, so I have no score to settle.

The allied powers split up the continent in areas of interest after the war. Eastern Europe fell in the Soviet sphere of interests. This was agreed by the victorious powers of the time.

All these countries had very strong Communist movements before the war, all the USSR needed to do was give things a push in the direction they wanted and then the local socialists did the rest. Several of the Eastern European countries had their own brand of socialism and did not work with Moscow at all.

The USSR should not have interferred with the way things were going in the Prague spring.

But still today, there are more American troops stationed in Western Europe, than the USSR ever had in Eastern Europe! I guess we cannot be trusted to stay out of mischief without them being there to keep a watchful eye. They have been politely asked to leave a number of times, most recently in Okinawa but just want have it.

Apart from setting up a number of ghastly right wing dictators, in South America and the Middle East, and apart from the many countries where the USA already has military bases (no need to invade, let me know if you need a list, it would be pretty long...) the USA has already invaded or fought wars in the below locations between WW2 and now.

1. Korea (depending on your outlook - but that is a different discussion)
2. Vietnam.
3. Laos
4. Cambodia
5. Dominican Republic
6. Granada
7. Haiti
8. Panama
9. Iraq v1
10. Afghanistan
11. Iraq v2
12. Libya

Roadmap: Iran, Syria, North Korea...

Note that this list does NOT include failed invasion attempts and covert operations.

Can the USSR really top that? Let me see a list in that case!

Korea (depending on your outlook - but that is a different discussion)
Vietnam.
Laos
Cambodia
Dominican Republic
Granada
Haiti
Panama
Iraq v1
Afghanistan
Iraq v2
Libya

Roadmap: Iran, Syria, North Korea...

Note that this list does NOT included failed invasion attempts and covert operations.

Yugoslavia and many small interventions or air attacks.

But still today, there are more American troops stationed in Western Europe, than the USSR ever had in Eastern Europe!

It doesn't seem to be the trueth, but they are more widespread and it is impossible to make them go away.

Obviously if you include the Baltic states, then it's a different story, but they were technically part of the USSR. Other than that I think it was only in Germany and maybe one or two other countries where they had a military presence. Unlike Western Europe where America has some absolutely massive bases nowhere near any sensitive border.

Korea is an example which shows this in modern time since it is still split in a brutal way according to the same Cold War borders as Europe was.

The USSR or China never had any bases there - yet in South Korea there are a number of US bases, not to mention WMDs and nukes.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Obviously if you include the Baltic states, then it's a different story, but they were technically part of the USSR. Other than that I think it was only in Germany and maybe one or two other countries where they had a military presence. Unlike Western Europe where America has some absolutely massive bases nowhere near any sensitive border.

Korea is an example which shows this in modern time since it is still split in a brutal way according to the same Cold War borders as Europe was.

The USSR or China never had any bases there - yet in South Korea there are a number of US bases, not to mention WMDs and nukes.

That's why if you, say, had to move to Korea, you would pick the northern part? =)

USA and USSR used to support different sides in many conflicts. For example, in Arab-Israeli conflict. Also in Nicaragua:

Communism became a powerful ideology all over the world because the country who spread it has the best intelligence agencies like the GRU, KGB and Stasi. Depravity and ruthlessness became the byword that is why they have disciplined spies and counterspies. Death to spies also became a byword in SMERSH! If only I could relive my life all over again going in and out of the Soviet embassy and Vietnamese embassy in Manila rubbing elbows and playing footsies with _______. I used to bring Russian vodka to my army officer neighbours during the era of the Soviet empire. Those were the days oh yes those were the days...

Originally Posted by heartfelty

Communism became a powerful ideology all over the world because the country who spread it has the best intelligence agencies like the GRU, KGB and Stasi.

Oh, that's just a brilliant example of a person who doesn't know history but repeats lies that he has been told
Marx's communism has been born in Europe. France, Germany and UK were the pioneers of Marx's communism, long before Russia. Karl Marx is German BTW, if you didn't know
In USA Marx's communism has been developed as CPUSA in 1919. By that time Russia is in the middle of the civil war, no GRU or KGB, they were form way after that German's STACI has been founded in 1950, after WWII

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Originally Posted by Deborski

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It's not pretty much of a threat unless you're Iranian. I won't be supporting those backward aggressive fanatic sons of a b*tch just because some tell me to.