[nicoffeine]

Totally and completely false. The UK in 1930 was much more polluted than the USSR and China at that time. Making that argument today is possible if you ignore moving practically all manufacturing to a country that happens to be communist. There would be far less pollution in China if they weren't making all of our stuff. It's actually a good example of how unchecked capitalism is always looking for new ways to externalize costs, regardless of the consequences for whoever is left holding the bag.

Also, any country that builds infrastructure with taxes and regulates industry is socialist, including the US. The difference is usually that "capitalist" countries have safety net for corporations and the wealthy, while "socialist" countries have safety nets for everyone.

[throwaway0a5e]

>The UK in 1930 was much more polluted than the USSR and China at that time.

And how industrialized were the USSR and China in 1930?

When a larger part of your economy is agrarian you're going to be incapable of polluting the shit out of everything to the same extent as more industrialized nations.

[nickff]

Well, China wasn't communist in 1930; that aside, I think it's tough to get an accurate idea of one specific time in the past, as such I think we're better off trying to understand the general situation over the situation over a longer-term in the USSR. Here is a quote from a self-professed socialist on a socialist website about the environmental situation there:

>"On this basis, let me agree with Adam that the damage done to the environment by the Soviet regime and its successor doesn’t remotely bear comparison with that in the West. It was, and remains, catastrophically worse. Particular countries elsewhere, especially in the developing world, have suffered one or another ecological disaster, sometimes of mind-bending dimensions. The USSR managed something in just about every sector of heavy industry to match the worst of them."

https://socialist-alliance.org/alliance-voices/ecological-di...