A world beyond Capitalism

@ArishMell sure they are a human thing but Socialist systems have diminished -isms like sexism, racism, ...

@Gloomy Many have, indeed, and so have many democratic countries that may have left-leaning governments from time to time, but never need words like "Socialist", "Democratic" or "People's" in their names.

The problem is that such traits are usually deeply-ingrained social, not "socialist" (nor "capitalist"), attitudes; and they are not restricted to any one race, religion or economic model.

While at government level, though the theory may be fine the reality is often just the opposite, as China's largely-Muslim Uyghurs could tell you in the face of the nation's drive to destroy their culture.

@ArishMell I see you are conflating socialism and liberalism. They are not the same.


As for the Uyghurs everyone seems to just skip over the part that the communities impacted are ground zero for the local branches of ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Closed Gitmo yet?

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow ISIS and Al Qaeda are CIA propaganda.

@sree251 Tell that to their surviving or bereaved victims, or to the Taliban who are fighting ISIS for power.

@sree251 No those are actually real threats. Thanks to the US we have to deal with Taliban for example had the USSR been successfull we wouldn't have to deal with them.

Anti-communism is CIA propaganda just thinking of all the regime changes the US has set in motion just because countries stood up against exploitation and imperialism.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow No I am not.

By "liberal" I mean by its genuine meaning, including freedom of thought and speech.

Not by the artificial equivalence with socialism given by some politicians and political pundits who anyway have their own definitions of "socialism".

A country can have systems some might call "socialist" but be liberal, such as the UK; or it might call itself "socialist" but be a hard-line dictatorship as did the old USSR. Or it can be strongly right-wing but be either liberal, such as the USA; or a hard-line dictatorship as are some South American and African ones.

(Or of course, be totally illiberal with traits common to both Right and Left extremists, but under a theocratic rather than political dogma, like Saudi Arabia.)

@Gloomy If the USSR had been "successful" we not would be able to talk about it like this on a public, internation forum like this... Or at least would dare not express any opinion not that set by the Kremlin or its branch office in our country.

@ArishMell Way off also the USSR wouldn't dominate the world that's way off also Soviet Afghanistan would be way better than current Afghanistan.

@Gloomy They would not have done but that was their aim, by both direct control as in Eastern Europe, and by aligned-nation status. They never made their Communist world dream a secret. That's why I used "if they had succeeded".

I agree though that life in the former USSR was marginally better than it is now in Afghanistan.

Stalin's dreadful. paranoid regime apart, at least the USSR, despite being an utterly brutal dictatorship, did at least try to look after its citizens - only as long as they toed the Party line. It also tried to be cultural, but the arts had never to offend the President's or KGB's limited tastes; and often had to reflect "Socialist Reality". The irony was lost on the tacky-minded little men running the nation.

The Taliban cannot help the drought; but does not care at all who suffers as long as its intensely mysoginist, intensely anti-cultural dogma, dictated by its obscure supreme leader in Kandahar, is upheld. It is endeavouring to destroy the country's opium-trade, which is good itself; but doing nothing to help the farmers made to grow legitimate but far less financially valuable crops.

The Soviets wanted to destroy other nations' cultures and ideologies.

The Afghan government is not interested particularly in destroying other countries, only its own.

The likes of ISIS, parallel to the Khmer Rouge of very different ideology, want only to destroy...

@ArishMell I see you learned your cold war propaganda well.


Oh and the Khmer Rouge and the groups that created the ideology of ISIS and the Taliban were all backed by the CIA.

@ArishMell And according to the CIA the USSR even under Stalin was not a dictatorship, but it was a useful political narrative. There are many valid criticisms of the USSR and Stalin, but even the most anti communist organization on the planet doesn't support this narrative.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow It was necessary in WW2 for the Allies not to ask too many questions about Josef Stalin's regime, but if that was the CIA's assessment of the USSR I'd like to know how it defines a dictatorship.

@ArishMell The USSR was run in a democratic centralist way. Stalin held massive power and did create a personality cult yet he wasn't ever a fully fletched dictator.
Doesn't mean he was a good leader.

@ArishMell It had nothing to do with looking the other way. Everything you have said on this thread is decades old propaganda that is either false or so distorted as to be the same as a falsehood.

And the CIA is based out of a country where you can lose the popular vote and still be leader so hardly in a position to criticize any nation on their democratic bona fides.

@ArishMell Also something to keep in mind with the centralization of power under Stalin is he spent almost his entire time in power either at the tail end of a war or at war. The civil war didn't really end till 1925 and just a few years later they were preparing for the next war. That tends to happen in most countries during times of war in general.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow They were not at war after 1944 though, and whilst any country at war may have to introduce a lot of quite draconian regulations on its own population for the duration of the war, that still does not excuse Stalin's behaviour.

Especially in later years as he became increasingly paranoic, illogical and cruel.

@ArishMell No one is making excuses for Stalin here but did you forget the Cold War?

@Gloomy Of course I haven't, and that continued long after Stalin's death.

@ArishMell As Gloomy says nobody is making excuses for Stalin but simply explaining how the "dictatorship" narrative always seems to coincide with a period of near constant war.

And I would say you need to look into your history. Things didn't just state in 44.

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow If it does seem that, it is usually because the war is by, or to stop, a dictator; or between dictators.

I am perfectly well aware of history - there have always been dictators of one sort or another around the world, and there are many now, irrespective of any wars.

At one time most were kings and emperors; helped in some places by religious institutions.

These days, apart from the royal families of Saudi Arabia and a few other Arabic monarchies, most tyrants are presidents of republics; as caretakers-for-life of a political continuum as in China, dynastic as in North Korea, over-promoted "generals" as in Myanmar, religious extremists like the Taliban, or just there for their own lives without care for the country's future.

The last are usually in some smaller countries but we should note some larger, developed ones like Turkey and Hungary are becoming increasingly authoritarian. Both are NATO members, Hungary is in the EU but that bloc refused Turkey's request to join while President Erdogan continues his growing oppression.

Whichever ideology they follow, whatever wars may or may not have been involved in the first place, they do not need, nor usually want, a war to continue ruling over their citizens; and peace does not reduce their lust for absolute power, does not make them any less shallow, selfish and inhumane.

@ArishMell
The fight against Hitler was a war to stop a tyrant ever since then wars have been only about power and resources. Especially the US engages in warfare for very selfish reasons.

Turkey and Hungary worry me as well

@ArishMell Your posts here prove you know very little about actual history and seem determined to go off on tangents of propaganda to force a narrative that doesn't hold up.

@ArishMell Also I hope you judge Churchill as harshly as Stalin.
It always bothers me when people talk about the Holodomor only to then start defending the crimes of Churchill.

@Gloomy What is also worrying but will get you labeled all kinds of things is if you point out that Ukraine is now more dictatorial than Hungary according to the NGO Freedom House. But because of the current war that gets skipped over. Or that the war with Russia is now a convenient cover for crackdowns on internal unrest that predated the war by several years thanks to the American coup of 2014,

We also are supposed to ignore the fact that the Kurds were thrown under a bus to get Turkey to approve Sweden's membership to NATO. So Rojava is likely to be a footnote as another socialist experiment crushed by a right wing tyrant.