Sure, you have a point, just wanted to remind people that western European countries enacted many genocides to similar scale than Nazi Germany (or greater)

Was he, though? How many millions did he murder in the manmade Bengal famine?

The downfall of democracy is the existence of the US. The downfall of the US is the birth of democracy elsewhere.

1931 is full-on collectivisation period. Only by 1929 the Soviet economy recovered from the brutal civil war in which it was invaded by 17 countries.

In 1929 it was a feudal country starting the fastest process of industrialisation humanity had ever seen. In 1929 5% of the budget was military, by 1939 it was 40+%. The USSR was preparing for the inevitable invasion that it would suffer as a consequence of opposing capitalism and fascism, which came in 1941. 27 million people died in 1941-1945 as a consequence of the war. Hadn’t it been for the preparation for war, the entirety of Eastern Europe would have been genocided in a similar but worse fashion than Poland.

This preparation literally SAVED Europe from Nazism. There were problems in the process, such as during collectivisation, but if you deny that the Soviet preparation and economy SAVED Europe from fascism, you’re falling into Nazi apologia. You really, really can’t see why the USSR had to prepare thoroughly for the impending war that they successfully predicted? You really can’t see why 1930s weren’t a peaceful period, but actually a process of class war against landlords and former nobility, and a preparation to defeat fascism?

these things were not because of some economic power disadvantage or even connected to it

Ok, the conversation is over then, you’re just denying political and economical concepts such as colonialism or industrial development. Can’t have a serious conversation with someone who denies reality.

The Soviet Union lifted 300 million people from feudal poverty and a life expectancy of 30 years, to the second most powerful industrial power on earth, without exploiting the global south in the process. It had GDP growth rates of 10% for decades, and even when growth slowed down the material conditions of people kept improving at a faster pace than the material growth of the country.

Please try to educate yourself on imperialism and colonialism if you give the slightest shit about the billions of exploited of the world.

90% of your comment boils down to “there were better material conditions in a 200-year-old industrial power that leveraged its political, economic and military power to exploit billions of people from the global south and extract their wealth, than in a 50-years-ago-industrialised self-sufficient country without exploitation of the global south”.

Yes, it is hard to buy certain things when your economy doesn’t rely on exploiting 5 south american / African / southeast Asian workers for every person in your country. What do you prefer for the world as a whole? Do you not understand, or do you not care about the billions exploited outside the US in this equation?

Literally the three examples you brought are wartime extreme measures, either in a war that took the lives of 27 million soviet citizens (WW2) or in a war against absolutism and tsarism in which 17 western countries invaded the RSFSR for the sin of being communist. Funny how you can’t find examples after the situation normalised in the Soviet Union and it stopped being under immediate threat of genocide at the hands of Nazis?

the US currently has 1.8 million incarcerated people. In 1931, there were 2 million in gulags

Sorry, my numbers were off by 10%. Still, we’re comparing the eve of WW2 and the process of collectivisation of land, to a period of relative quiet and global power by the US. Not relevant?

Idk what the AI used as source, but most western sources on the Soviet Union are intentionally biased against it.

In the Soviet Union, the union membership rates were astronomically high, higher than essentially anywhere else at the time. Unions provided training after work for workers who wanted a basic education. For workers who wanted higher education while working, the concept of “night degrees” was conceived, in which workers could attend special classes at night in university, with reduced number of lessons to be given a certain title. This is still a thing in post-soviet states like Russia.

I can confirm all of this. Sources: Albert Szymanski’s “Human Rights in the Soviet Union”, A. Zverev’s “Lo que percibe el trabajador soviético además de su salario”, and personal accounts from Russian and Ukrainian acquaintances.

Sorry I brought facts to the conversation

Sorry to reply late.

You were distributed to a place by the state after finishing your education

Only really true for higher education. It was seen as a sort of “social payment” in exchange for the free education. Better than tuition loans IMO.

labor book (USSR had such a document)

Uhhh… Do you think that doesn’t exist in the west right now? What do you think the SCHUFA does in Germany? Do you seriously think high tech companies don’t have a gray-legal-area history of your employment? At least back then it was a thing you could check…

you could get such a “flattering” characteristic by a superior not liking you

…as opposed to capitalism, where you’ll be left unemployed and without a wage if your boss doesn’t like you. What do you prefer?

Being unemployed for too long was literally, seriously, illegal in the USSR

Housewives existed, what are you talking about?

The only way to obtain an income in the Soviet Union was throughout work or throughout a pension (think widows, disabled, or retired people). This was by design, and it’s in my opinion a moral good. You don’t have any capitalist owner exploiting the profits generated by their workers. You have a system in which everyone contributes to the society. How is that not positive?

German after the war, being Jewish in a wrong period of time) had problems finding a place that would accept them

Colour me surprised: there were racist people in the mid-20th century?! I’m sure that’s exclusive to the Soviet Union!

conditions very bad by US measure

Tell that to the millions of unemployed and homeless in the USA.

The average material conditions in the Soviet Union, a country that begun to industrialize in 1929, were worse than in the USA, the literal core of world colonialism and imperialism which relies on exploited labour all over the global south, which industrialised in the 19th century. Hmmm, I wonder why that was…

it took one google search

“It took one google search to find unsourced claims against the greatest geopolitical enemy of my country”

centralized labour programs

What exactly are you talking about?

liquidation of foreign ethnic groups

Nothingburger made up by the west. The greatest possible claim against any ethnic group is the relocation of some minority in Crimea (I think Tatars) in the context of WW2 as a result of the paranoia against nazis, nothing compared to the Japanese concentration camps in the US dedicated to one specific ethnicity.

and militarization of labour

Again, what do you mean?

This isn’t even counting the estimated 10 million or so people in forced labour gulags

At the height of the GULAG system, there were fewer prisoners than currently in the USA. Forced labour was a bad thing, I agree, but it was nothing compared to that of modern western countries such as the USA.

The USSR didn’t have any limits to choosing an employment since shortly after WW2, what are you talking about? By the late 70s, around 10% of positions in the economy were vacant and there was full employment, and people weren’t forced to work anywhere. The average unemployment duration was 15 days.

Please, what’s your source on your claim?

The woman who had to endure constant misogyny during her scientific career. You’re placing the responsibility on her instead of the people oppressing her

in an equal world, grants aimed specifically at either sex should not be necessary

Not quite, I’m afraid. Her point was essentially “I had very good grades, so I would have been hired anyway, but instead of hiring me normally, they hired me through this grant for women, which is a form of discrimination”. She’s not explicitly saying “kick the ladder when I’m up top”, but it’s essentially the conclusion. She mentions it on the “what’s wrong with academia” thingy video.

Victim blaming, classic

Love the part on the video where essentially she says “I was given my first research position thanks to a grant for women. Also, there should be no research grants for women”. Piece of shit.

Socialists predicted that Ukraine would be betrayed by the US, there’s literally a 2+ year-old meme in the comment section of this post with the picture of Zelensky being welcomed by Gaddafi, Saddam and Bin Laden

“Espouses but fails to uphold” sounds more like negligence to me. Negligence would be allowing fascism through inaction (like democrat administration). But the US does far worse than that (funding genocide and propping up fascism elsewhere)

ALL third-party candidates combined for less than 2% of total votes

So finally you admit it’s not third party voters to blame for Trump?

It depends. AI can help writing good code. Or it can write bad code

I’ll give you a hypothetical: a company is to hire someone for coding. They can either hire someone who writes clean code for $20/h, or someone who writes dirty but functioning code using AI for $10/h. What will many companies do?