What was good and what was bad about 20th century socialist economies?

What was good and what was bad about 20th century socialist economies?

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Depends which ones we're talking about. For example, there was increase in production and living standards in Anarchist Catalonia, and the USSR suffered little effects from the Great Depression

nothing

People that lived under communism Russia, Romenia etc.) liked the job stability the most, and resented the lack of consumer goods the most.

Also everybody pretty much knew the system was bullshit. "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us" was a proverb.

Communism turned the bread basket of Europe in Ukraine into a nation that had deficit of agricultural products. It takes a very fucked up economic system to accomplish that.

people did tend to have a higher standard of living when communism was introduced

bad agricultural and economic policies caused famines sometimes and long term stagnation

Is it true that the reforms associated with the Ukrainian famine ultimately eradicated abject poverty and rapidly improved standard of living?

Source?

Why did that happen?

>rural peasants practice primitive communism for centuries
>Communists show up and instead force them to work for a wage and leaves them to starve

Really makes you think.

Yeah it's hard to be poor when you're dead.

Kek. This. They sure eradicated poverty by eradicating the poor.

not capitalist and not market

up until the 1980s, Soviet Union did well enough to house, feed, educate, and give medical care to everyone. though you had little freedom in any way.

members of the government were more equal. they had luxury goods and multiple houses. while Ivan Ivanovich Ivanovov lived in a commie block apartment with the bare essentials. Ivan was lucky his living unit got a phone some time in the 70s.

Source on Catalonia claim? I don't see how they could improve standard of living in wartime without foreign experts or concerted programs (and the anarchists were very unorganised). If you're talking about redistribution of property and productive means, that's not really a change in living standard so much as a fundamental reconstruction of the basis of society at large. What's changing is the relative proportion of wealth owned by a class, not the overall state of economic development .

> USSR suffered little effects from the Great Depression
The currency crisis in the Soviet Union triggered by the Great Depression is believed by some scholars to have played a major role in the inability of the Soviet Government to provide adequate relief for the areas worst affected by the Famine of 32'-33'.

The Soviet Economy operated on the Bukharinite principle of State Capital Reinvestment well up until that point. One of the main tenets of this fiscal policy was the accumulation of foreign currencies by the Soviet government to barter for equipment (particularly tractors which could not be produced to meet the demand of collectivization in the still under-industrialised republic), while the Ruble remained relatively static.The devaluation of these currencies could drastically reduce the trading power of the Soviet state and this is what did happen during the crisis. On this matter, I recommend Moshe Lewin's eminently readable and insightful text: Political Undercurrents in Soviet Economic Debates.

Not an anti-communist or contradicting you out of pure ideology, by the way. I'm Chair of my country's Communist Youth and I have spent much of my life studying these topics. If any of you would like to ask me any questions I would be happy to attempt to answer, though I should state forwardly that my primary areas of interest and knowledge are the Hegelian tradition in Leninism (Lukacs, Gramsci, Karl Korsch) and Soviet historiography and economic planning.

Millions of deaths due to famine

By the way, if you wiki or google the currency crisis you won't be able to find it

It's

> rare

And the internet really sucks shit for Soviet-related research for some reason. I only first read about it in a Ph,D thesis trying to analyse different approaches to the genocide status of the """""Holodomor™""""" and could only verify it in one English journal and in Russians soruces and journals. You will find it mentioned in some books however.

Just to prove that I'm not bullshitting (because that's what it sounds like desu):

wiwi.hu-berlin.de/de/professuren/vwl/wg/economic-history-research/publications/wolf-publications/wolfcoordinationfailureafterww1

See pic.

Good:
>Not dependant on foreign imports
>Almost inert to fluctuations of global market
>Ability for moblization
>Equality (to a certain degree)

The bads are obvious

Why does it always devolve into strongman despotism?

people say the ussr could only have a relatively decent standard of living in russia because it ransacked its satellite states, which were generally much worse off.
this is used as a critique of communism

but when you think about it, the US had, during the same period, a great dependence on exploiting latin america for bananas and cash crops, which benefited US companies and left the latin american states in poverty and dismay.

so at the end of the day, it doesn´t matter if it´s communism or capitalism, small foreign countries are the ones getting fucked

Modern states can only really prosper with trade.

If you were "socialist" you were pretty much instantly embargoed, sanctioned, or bombed.

You were destined to fall behind everyone. What's the point of equality when you're all poor?

>hurr durr it wasn't their fault

Yeah, well, you live in the world that you have, not in the one that you want.

It doesn't. See: collective consensus-based leadership in Chinese party today.

Stalin and Mao were hard men living in rough times. After their deaths, their respective countries drifted to shared spheres of executive and administrative power and non-violent solution of political schisms. Vietnam is another example of this "enlightened" and practical technocratic approach. All of the socialist states that ended up with crazy dictators like Romania and DPRK were generally speaking shitholes to begin with. People like Honecker in Germany and Zhivkov in Bulgaria were more like out-of-place headmasters than strongmen. If there was a true "hard power" to be had, it was deep within the intelligence and security services. If there was a complaint the youth had against their authorities in these places, it was not that they were vicious, but that they were dull, geriatric and sheepish. Autocracy is a very primitive and ineffective way of governing a society, and generally takes place only in special periods and in economically backwards locations.

Even with Russia, Stalin's special status wasn't formalized explicitly until after World War 2. Prior to that, he had been party General Secretary, and just a Secretary after the office was extended to others in the 30s. The power he wielded for the most part was implicit and organic, and you can see this in internal votes, for example how easily he crushed Trotsky in the vote on World Revolution.

Anyway, your question is a shit troll one and I've spent far more time on it than it deserves.

They killed 600 Billion people, maybe more.

Bureaucratic/government/soviet control over most of the economy was unprecedented, however it introduced politically motivated decision making in complex industries where efficient administration is crucial. When attention was focussed on something like fighter jets or the potential of space travel they shocked the west with their progress, however the general economy failed to see the same inspiration and dedication from its overseers.

>good
jews got new lower-class slaves
massive population reduction
war based industry brought new military equipment
products were made to last for a long time
>bad
loss of culture and morals
philosophy and religious works destroyed
intellectual class completely eradicated
history revisionism
huge toll and burden on future generations and work ethic

Anyone could bypass the Cuban embargo through a small business in Guatemala owned by their nephew.

>Anyway, your question is a shit troll one and I've spent far more time on it than it deserves.
China moved away from despotism as it moved towards capitalism.

>culture
>morals
>philosophy
>religious works
>class
>future generations
>work ethic
these are all spooks, their only real crime is historical revisionism and that was only going to be believed by tankies anyway

All modern economies are socialist to some extent and have been for some time. Even freedumb lovin murica. The only thing that varies is the nature and extent of the blend.

I have been taking a shitload of drugs, though. Did I miss a meeting where everyone's militaries were completely privatised?

There are plenty of bad things about socialism, that I'm sure everyone can tell you about

one thing, though, the fine grained control the USSR had over factory production made it possible for them to quickly and efficiently move their factories and production centers East as the Germans rapidly approached during Barbarossa, setting shop back up where it was safe and pumping out a shitton of war material on an unprecedented scale

that kind of thing would not be possible in a distributed industrial environment like the United States (at the same emergency pace)

Social democracy =/= socialism

It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.

China has necessarily adapted to a framework of global trade and investment, and even excelled in it, but remember that the Communist party never lost power, never went away, and never underwent a reconstitution of private or public political ideology. The Communist Party still attends the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties (IMCWP) without fail, as does my own party, and consistently its delegation is one of the largest.

If you study or track the development of thoughts of party intellectuals in China, it is glaringly apparent that regardless of the hodgepodge of tweaks and twists that is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, the fundamental groundwork of Marx's theories nor the felicity to their vision for emancipation were abandoned.

The Chinese have a middle class now, sure, even a resurgent and prosperous capitalist class, but they seem to die from corruption charges an awful lot and they all seem very blocked and far away from even the trappings or semblance of political agency or power. They are rich prisoners, given the wildest luxuries but incapable of affecting or influencing their situation.

>Communist party is in power = it's communism
Didn't know it was that simple. The "Communist" party of China is such a collection of robber baron Dickensian capitalism promoters that Stalin or Mao would've gulag'd them if they saw what they're doing.

Probably, but their day is gone, is it not? Their interpretation and application of Marxism passed the trials of its day, but failed to stand the test of time. A China-like State here in developed Europe isn't what I'm proposing (that would be shit enough to be quite frankly desu). The Chinese model works well enough when applied to other middle-development countries like Vietnam, and probably would have worked in Syria too if it wasn't for those meddling snackbars.

I never said or even remotely implied in any way that China was a communist. I was saying the Communist Party is Communist, retard.

Do you really think I would sacrifice the joy I get from berating people who refer to the USSR as a communist society by making such a silly mistake >:^)

Communism =/= Socialism

>application of Marxism
Marx was advocating that workers kill the bourgeois and seize the means of production. I don't know where you can see this happening in China considering it's exploitative wage capitalism stripped to the bone.

Do you still adhere to the LTV?

I don't think Marxism is valid for a lot of reasons, mostly to do with the LTV. Also if you're a more Hegelian Marxist I'd be interested to know how you reconcile that with historical materialism.

In fairness to that guy what they're doing is compatible with Marxist theory. They are probably telling themselves that they have to bow to the historical inevitability of a capitalist transitionary stage.

>What was good about 20th century socialist economies
Their end

China is essentially what happens when you have a pragmatic, collectivist approach in a society with extremely limited resources. By careful management, the CP has managed to improve the position of the economy and the working class. China itself as a sovereign state, let alone this kind of conscious management and direction of principles of shared interest could not have existed under any other agent in its conflicts had they emerged from the furnace in its stead. Contrast with the vaunted capitalist economies of Asia like South Korea, which is in such a profound and dire state of ethical bankruptcy that it turns a blind eye to slave labour and indentured workers, or Japan, which can give boast to one of the world's largest and most successful modern Communist parties.

All of the achievements of Chinese party and people aside, I agree that the party is ridden with corruption and special interests today and needs a good cleansing. but there is another side to it that China could not have had Capitalism without Socialism or Socialism without Capitalism. If China had remained hardline centrally planned, it could not have adapted to the new international environment. However, if it had become capitalist totally and at the beginning, probably it would be home to some of the worst inequality and most unspeakable depredations against human dignity in the world right now. (basically India up until very recently) As it stands, there are multiple Chinas occupying the Rural - Urban continuum, but the state provides economic security and unity, it plays a role that could not be accomplished by your run of the mill Keynsian social democrat.

Despite all my warm feelings for their adaptation, I am totally against it in principle here in Europe in any way, shape or form. Full Space Communism desu

And nothing you said has anything to do with Marx.

The fundamental kernel of Marx's theory isn't the need for the insurrectionary, this is a quality that comes and passes with ideas in their context. At its raw core, Marxism is the recognition that people's link to the necessary labour required to produce their material existence ultimately determines their social, political and economic interests. It also postulated the first paradigm of scientific economics that was not nearly passive obedience to unchangeable process, but one in which we can be active agents, and in certain conditions, prescient designers. These are the important aspects as they relate the Chinese interpretation.

I don't think "careful management" or "extremely limited resources" are in any way accurate terms here.

On resources, the capacity of China has always been obscene. It is a civilisation which has been the most powerful on Earth for all but a small window of history since its inception. It has natural resources and fertile farmland in abundance, not to mention the population.

In terms of carefully managed, this is somewhat misleading. They have prodded the economy in certain directions, yes, and they have given various social securities and assurances to people. They are not, however, responsible for the economic growth itself. That is the achievement of economic liberalisation and international free trade.

It also has numerous advantages over India in terms of ethnic homogoneity (comparatively, I am well aware that China is diverse but not to the degree India is), deep and long history of a unified, independent government and comparatively unified ethical traditions. I don't think the difference in poverty and inequality in India can be attributed to capitalism versus communism.

>prescient designers
>planned economies invariably can't cope and revert to the market

>passive obedience to unchangeable process, but one in which we can be active agents
This is the most irritating bit of Marxist theory. The free market is a construct where everyone is an active agent. What Marxists don't like about the market isn't really that it's an unchangeable process or that it's alienating; it's that they have a fetish for exercising control over things and want to see their personal conscious direction in action. Your Marxist credentials go out the window if you advocate markets, and your credentials as anything but someone who wants to regulate and dictate other people's lives to them regardless of their subjective opinions go out of the window if you advocate a planned economy.

The market's course is not unchangeable, it is determined by everyone participating in it through the manner of their participation. Planned economies simply centralise this power into the hands of people who can't tolerate ambiguity and want to see all other ideas subjugated before their own.

Public enterprises comprise the majority of the Chinese economy and form the bread and butter of its productive and infrastructural projects. While the high density private-oriented zones do account for most of the growth, at the end of the day concepts like economic growth are enmeshed with the particulars of what they are supposed to measure. Capital, stock, and other such fictional signifiers forming the units examined. This does not take account of a whole other vital dimension in human economic life, namely availability and the role of consumer in civil and political society.

As for the veracity of my claims, I'm standing by careful management. The level of public organisation in China is not matched by any other country in the world in scale presently.

As for extremely limited results, I was under the impression that historically China lacked arable land proportional to it's population, and that political instability in the 20st century combined with the absence of an industrial base left little prospect for an exploding population. If you can prevent an argument or even link a source to the contrary I would be satisfied my conception is malformed, as I am no expert on China.

collectivized farms run by someone that knew nothing about farming. all the grain was taken to feed the cities or exported for cash.

food intentionally withheld so populations opposed to communism are killed off through starvation.

>While the high density private-oriented zones do account for most of the growth
If you believe this then we don't have much disagreement. I was under the impression you were arguing that economic growth in terms of the metrics you discussed (capital etc.) wasn't driven by the private sector. I don't debate that China has an unmatched level of public organisation, just that this isn't the driving force of that kind of growth.

I of course appreciate on some level the argument you make about other dimensions of human economic life. I am by no means an AnCap or anything. Nonetheless, centralisation of economic decision making power is something I am concerned with precisely because of the role in society it reduces consumers to. I also don't think you can underestimate the positive transformative effect trade with capitalist nations has had on the country.

>I was under the impression that historically China lacked arable land proportional to it's population
This is true, but not a refutation of my point. China had more than sufficient arable land to sustain its population, with famines becoming more irregular and less severe in the 20th century (before the great leap), and those that did occur being invariably caused by war and extreme economic repression rather than the lack of arable land. China has a greater amount of arable land per capita than a significant number of more successful countries. Pertinent local examples in that bracket are Japan and South Korea. They also have absolutely and proportionately more mineral and fuel resources than those countries and many others.

Bitter Harvest rated 11% on Rotten Tomatoes.

How do you like that grain, Hohol?

Soviet population grew substantially, dumbass

Communism is socialism with a state or market economy.

When you say communism you're probably thinking of Marxist-Leninist states, which operate on the belief that socialism via state control of industry, usually by a single party state, is the best instrument to build communism.

>food intentionally withheld so populations opposed to communism are killed off through starvation.

What's the evidence of this? As far as I know this claim was invented by Ukrainian nationalist politicians looking for reparations to develop their new capitalist economy.