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by AlexandrB
459 days ago
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Every Marxism-derived political system has been terrible for the proletariat. I lived under communism for the first 6 years of my life. What I remember is a tiny apartment, an elevator that reeked of piss, having to store water in buckets because you never knew when it would stop working, and wiping my ass with yesterday's newspaper (which you obviously couldn't flush). Even at my poorest in Canada, I've never known such terrible conditions. If there is some value to Marxism, we have not yet found a government system that can actually implement it. Edit: What's even funnier is that my parents were well-educated professionals. My dad a mechanical engineer and my mom a lab tech. When my mom and I moved to Canada, my step-dad was a janitor. Technically he owned a janitorial company, but he was the only employee - basically a contractor. And yet, under capitalism, he was able to afford a life far more lavish than anything Communism would allow. |
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I don't think anyone with even a basic understanding of history can say that communism has been bad for the working class. Really? Communism transformed the Soviet Union into a global superpower in just a few decades. It turned a rural, agrarian society into one that launched the first satellite into space. It provided free housing and education to people who, for generations, couldn't even read. It achieved groundbreaking advancements in nuclear energy and developed the atomic bomb.
China, under the leadership of the Communist Party, is now #1 in science, technology, and industry. Its success as a superpower is thanks to communism. And before you argue, "but China isn't communist!!!11," please shut up. Yes, it is. If it were just another average capitalist country, it wouldn't have achieved even 1% of what it has. It would have been exploited by imperialist powers, just like Latin America and Africa. China's rise to #1 is due to the Communist Party's strict control over capital.
The Soviet bloc did decline and collapsed in the late 20th century. You likely lived through that time, as its collapse was caused by competition from the West, bureaucratization of the revolution, and a lack of innovation. However, saying "the revolution stagnated" because "communism was a failure" is entirely false. It wasn't a failure; the most significant story of the 20th century is the resounding success of communism wherever it was applied.
Even if you lived in a capitalist country, as a worker, you have communism to thank. The fear of communism forced the West to implement a welfare state and make reforms that benefited workers they otherwise wouldn't have. They poured billions into workers' hands to prevent them from embracing communism. Communism led to the creation of the Welfare State and the Marshall Plan. Competition with the Soviet Union is why South Korea and Japan received hundreds of billions from the USA. The fear of a revolution was very real, prompting many third-world countries to adopt nationalist and welfare-state policies that improved millions' lives.
Your argument simply doesn't hold up. It is demonstrably false.