[gostsamo]

Surprisingly, communism was antiracist which explains why it was popular outside the US. There is the fact that many communists were racist on a personal level, but the state policies were inclusive due to the very nature of the ideology. As someone who also comes from the former block, I think that communism was a bad idea with terrible implementation but it also had its moments no matter what the US propaganda is trying to present it as.

[canjobear]

Are there particular successes that you have in mind? Because what comes to my mind is stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tat...

[gostsamo]

Yep, worker's rights, universal health care, women's rights (voting, divorce, abortion, generous maternity leave). Compared to Switzerland which allowed women voting rights in the seventies, communism was putting uncomfortable comparisons at some moments. If you wonder why communism was attractive, it wasn't just because of propaganda or because people were stupid, but because communism was addressing actual problems of the time that the christian conservative establishment of the west was preferring not to handle.

The fact that you put the tatars as the only thing to know about communism shows that you've learned one thing and found it sufficient. At the same time, the link you share shows how later communist leaders acknowledged Stalin's actions as a crime... I'm not here to defend communism though (mainly because it is not defendable), just to provide a perspective beyond the standard tropes.

[m4rtink]

Well, voting rights in Soviet Union & the whole eastern block were not really that useful. :P

[dijit]

People can’t think anything good of communism because they’re conditioned to feel that way.

Whats interesting is how equal it was for everyone, one comment I got when asking people who lived through the soviet era was that.

“there’s no advantage given to any religion” (hence, new years being the traditional family get together time). and “we were all comrades, men and women”. A lot of what they hear from the US about gender equality falls on deaf ears because thats what they had and they were told was bad.

A weird perspective, but certainly an interesting one.

It’s always difficult to hear things that doesn’t fit our narrative.

[m4rtink]

Even if you can point to some positive outcomes the is the main issue of the whole system being so easy to corrupt and coopt for personal gain & power trips.

You might get lower infant mortality, better access to healtcare ans aeducation (as long as the party considers you worthy) but you will almost immediately get crooks and incompetents in leadership positions, whose only qualities are the set of morals to get to a position of power no matter the cost.

And those leadership positions are appointed by or even part of The Party - and the party is never wrong. There is no free press to critisize them and if you do speak up, then you are logically an spy from The West, undermining the perfect communist utopia & need to be punished.

Only if someone is really epically incompetent they might get purged by the inner circles, but it is even more likely they will purge someone actually doing things right who still has some morals left.

You could be the most ideological communist trzing to build the bright future & will still end up sidelined or worse by the corrupt pigs holding to all the power in the communist state.

When the Soviets crashed the Prague Spring in the 1968 there were some interbrigadists that went to fight agains Francos fascists in Spain during the interwar period with international communist brigades. Only now they were watching soviet soldiers shoot people in the streets and crush them with their tanks...

[gostsamo]

> You might get lower infant mortality, better access to healtcare ans aeducation

literally, "what has communism done for us?!"

In a thread where everyone agrees that communism was a bad thing, you come up with this one fact that proves ?

[rini17]

Have you heard about Roma? The communist states tried to help them but in a hamfisted ways like separating kids from parents. They did nothing to actually resolve racism. Many Roma ended up in squalor in segregated settlements. That goes on to this day and improves very slowly. It definitely was not "its moment".

[estimator7292]

Blaming Roma hate on communism is like blaming the Nazis for antisemitism.

If you believe that for even a moment you need to read a book.

[rini17]

Depends. Written by whom?

[gostsamo]

So nice of you to teach me about the roma. I was sure to have never heard about them. /s

The history of gypsies and their segregation is much older though and the regimes inherited much of their attitude based on prior prejudices. The treatment differed in different times and locations. I've heard accounts of casual police brutality and of good integration in the local community and of a "leave everything as it is without engaging with hard problems". None of those was sanctioned on the bases of race theory and in fact the official stance was for equality. Compare it to the US where it was part of local and state legislation. On the other hand, the higher ups in the regimes were often repainted nationalists and common criminals of old so adherence to the ideals was often perfunctory and positive actions and outcomes were falling short of what was possible.

[rini17]

If it's part of legislation, you can fight it. If the official ideology is equality and racial prejudices "don't exist", then any problems are suppressed and you can't do anything.

Soviet union was defacto an apartheid when you consider how non-white ethnics were treated in practice. They just were so good at suppressing everything that it was never "an issue".