Since the feds are watching you, make sure to keep the most cursed searches in your browser history. Make that agent really re-evaluate their career options.
@@avigailpekelman8239 Sorry, I didn't quite understand the question. If you were asking about Ayn Rand personally, then I don't know much about her besides that she emigrated to the US from USSR and wrote a bunch of garbage anti-communist pamphlets that some view as great literature. If you meant her most famous book "Atlas Shrugged", then I read it and it was hilarious. Give it a go, you won't be disappointed - in a nutshell, Rand is saying that without capitalists and oligarchy our entire civilization is doomed, because regular people (everyone except the oligarchs) are a bunch of cretins that are absolutely incapable of sustaining a functioning society without a ruling hand. Also, greed is good and it's immoral not to pursue personal enrichment. Like I said - libertarian garbage.
@@vadimk3484 That's why it is better for everyone that she doesn't know how to read and write. ANCAP are the kind of people who gonna laugh at Rick and Morty joke "you hate the government so much you became your own fucking government" without realising that the joke was aiming at them.
JT: Having worked at a low level in the US Government before, they literally have nothing better to do. Theres so much money pissed away everyday on stupid shit. From what you experienced to simple complaints.
0:00:00 - Introduction 0:05:30 - Anti-religious laws 0:19:50 - Anti-western culture laws 0:25:35 - Ancient leaders 0:30:10 - Lack of consumer goods 0:39:40 - Intrusive nationalisation of houses 0:44:30 - Small business owners and personal property 0:48:05 - Limited democratic participation 0:57:53 - "These States' economies always fail!" 1:07:35 - "The government spies on people!" 1:12:42 - "The government kills dissidents!" 1:22:00 - Outro
That last story from JT really impacted me, i didn't knew that sort of things could actually happen on a country that constantly claims to be the number one bastion of freedom.
Its less we want to look like X, but more of a result of social order and representation within it. We have seen the wealthy wear literal garbage because that was considered appropriate of their station. Now this is very much driven by the wealthy in our current society, however humans are a species that place massive importance on social status. Decentralizing economic power will reduce a lot of the dumb things we do to "belong" in our societal order.
We experienced a lot of this too in Mongolia. My grandfather's father was a monk, but he was killed, and my grandfather was derobed as a boy. A lot of monastaries were burned, and a lot of history/records were lost too; people couldn't even talk about Genghis Khan for some God damn reason. As a result, socialism has become a bit of a dirty word to a lot of people, synonymous with cultural suppression.
@@wysanniksikondominium584 Tbh, this sounds pretty weird. The USSR had pretty good historians, who were specialists on the Mongol Empire and its rump states - especially the Golden Horde. And the Soviet school of Mongol studies wasn't anti-Mongolian or anything, at least in the post Stalin era, don't know anything prior to the period, sorry.
It depends on the religion. Pagan religions and Buddhism aren't very profitable, but Christianity, catholicism, Islam, or even Judaism? Yeah, you can make a killing manipulating more mainstream religious folk lol. But should profitability and gullibility really warrant suppression of ones beliefs? No. It was wrong of the soviet union to do what they did to religious people. Even i, a communist myself, can see this. Of course, I am also staunchly religious but still.
I’d like to hear you guys talk about the current socialist project in Vietnam and how it’s going. It’s difficult for me to find information that isn’t strictly influenced by a bias in favor of capitalism.
You should listen to Dr. Luna Oi - She is a marxist-leninist comrade in Vietnam who does really good podcasts and is also contributor for means morning news. Her husband is Emerican Johnson of non-compete, which is his own channel on anarchism.
I don't disagree with your point about Roosevelt, but you have to be aware that a lot of people also opposed him because he ordered the unjust imprisonment of thousands, maybe millions, of Japanese Americans.
The only reason why I'm not on the streets is because my parents are still willing to let me live with them (even though they're still brainwashed by capitalism)
@@emmasilver2332 no its not just work 2 fulltime jobs 3 part time jobs and also do uber, dropshipping stock trading and run a faceless youtube channel on the side. Then you can afford rent and only rent!
I’m 32. I STILL live with my parents I make just about 30k a year before taxes. I help pay the bills and pay my share, work full time. But even the cheapest 2 bedroom apartments here would leave me spending every penny of my monthly income and having to ration food and electricity with 0 money left over for emergencies. I also don’t have health insurance
As a black man in America, denying religion and the religious will do the opposite of build class consciousness within the black community. I am myself an atheist but have moved out of my edgy atheist phase where I thought religion was the cause of the woes of society. Anyone claiming themselves to be socialists/communists who espouse anti-religious frames of a socialist utopia, I am very wary of.
I just have concerns about religious people in the USA legislating how to live for the people in the name of them in A secular nation. There are many right wing/facist atheist and left religious people as well.
I totally understand your feelings. I was raised catholic, by two reactionary parents and in young years having heavily identified with these ideas. I went through a phase of heavy rejection after seeing my parents be goated into antisemitic, bigoted, christian Nationalist propaganda, spread by the Polish church itself through their own media conglomerate. For the US the threat of Christian Nationalism is increasingly growing, especially with the rise of conservative and fascist Ideas becoming mainstream. But you can see it all over the capitalist world. Where culture has not yet moved away from religious dogma to more of a philosophical treatment of religion and debate based in anthropology, please do show me that place , there is a growing threat of fascist allying themselves with Christians, or even plain Theocrats. It's ridiculous to me how the church manages to overlook the portrayal of the rich and powerful by Jesus. Throughout history the church consistently managed to be a reactionary force instead of absolutely rejecting capitalism with any other class based society. This shit has been going on since the beginning of the movement, how fucking emberassing to want to be a part of that club, after all the suffering they have brought down on the planet through out history. To end on a more hopeful note, I see a huge opportunity to bring those people in they have a very similar revolutionary idea of the end goal of a classless society that is based on collective respect like utopian communists and they only need to realise how their history has failed this end goal time and time again by allying themselves with the powerful. Remind them that Jesus opposed exploiters and the institutions of his religion, as they alienated themselves from the people through elitism, created unnecessary divides among the people and working with their exploiters, like the Christians themselves would later do. So they can decide to retake their own religion from the reactionaries, that have been suppressing their right to voice their thoughts on their own religion.
@@piratenflipper Sry you had 2 go through that. I assume we're going realigus nationalist at the speed we're going at. Especially with reactionary tribalism and racism being so American.
I m from Morocco, a third world country and I always say "Islamic socialism", I just take socialist ideas and try and find justifications for them in Islam. And it s really really easy. Like Hakim said, all religions are about "let s all share stuff and live in harmony"
As for Russia and USSR, anti-religiousness of communists was based on 2 things: 1. Church was the main propaganda corporation and the second largest landlord (the emperor house) 2. Many church leaders were organising para-military or, at least, armed groups of anti-communists. The church patriarch Tikhon has asked European countries for military intervention. If Russian patriarch had called for military intervention into Russia today, he would have probably been imprisoned the same day. 3 the church pastors were one the most hated cast of people, because for peasants they were the representatives of the state, whom they saw every day, whom they were obliged to subordinate to, and who kept track of taxes (because in Russian empire church was officially fused with government from 17th century). I would also disagree on soviet "ageism". I don't think ever before or after in Russia young people have had such career perspectives. I mean, if you read classic Russian literature, you'd notice that even very educated young people had to struggle very hard to achieve something meaningful. This has created a large group of young intellectuals who were very upset about their social position and from time to time would throw bombs or shoot the empire officials.
About the dissidents from Cuba (I'm Cuban, by the way, that doesn't mean I'm an expert, but at least I'm not completely random), there is more than the extreme cases Hakim talks about. I don't think it's an issue of socialism or communism per se, but the execution of the power by the people in power. In Cuba, the ossification of the system is a real problem, and even though there is a new generation replacing the old "Rebeldes", the structures of the party and the electoral system are ossified. I wish I had the ability to convey what I'm trying to say more clearly, but I guess I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say.
With intervention at the beginning of the Soviet Union and the properly understood need for ability to protect yourself, the government had to put elimination of illiteracy and industrialization on turbo speed. One can argue that without these efforts the end of WWII could have been different. After the war it was hard to revert economy back to consumer goods - they couldn't do it efficiently, cold war was preventing it etc. But in general I see great value in reassessing the mistakes of the past and draw conclusions. There's a saying in Russian "Moscow was not built overnight" - human progress is based on learning from your mistakes.
Hey guys, would it be okay with you guys if I edited the swear words out of your podcast so my religious friends and family would feel comfortable listening to it? I really want to spread this but a lot of people I know would immediately turn it off at the first or second F bomb.
Swearing in another language comes more easily, I understand why Hakim do that But in my case I say slurs a lot in my native language too (ok I'm southern French...putain is our equivalent to f work and in informal situation it's almost a ponctuation to express surprise joy etc...)
What Hakim said about the small business class is so important. Any revolutionary socialist project should support small businesses (but not without restrictions). Forgiving loans for small businesses, etc
A government ruled by old people actually has a name. It's called a Gerontocracy; as in "Geriatric". It's only really viable if you have incredible medical technology that can combat dimensia, memory loss and simply the rigors of aging. While I don't remember her name, there's a member of the United States House of Representatives that was so old (87 iirc) that she was literally falling asleep in meetings and forgot where she was half the time. Granted, I'm pretty sure that in ye olden days when they first named the term Gerontocracy, the Greeks practicing it only lived a max of 60-70 years, which isn't bad, but isn't what we can do now, and so their faculties were probably fairly intact by then, making it a viable form of governance on the surface, at least for the weight of their experience, their existing biases and preferences notwithstanding.
I was gonna suggest that you turn location off as I did several years ago, but it just occurred to me that shutting it off probably just makes it appear *TO ME* to not be recording my location. Shit.
That said, the more insidious goal of this type of electronic surveillance (mostly) isn't to target individuals for action, but rather is a massive data mining operation whose goal is to figure out how best for capitalists to keep milking us...
@@LexiH36 Don't get me wrong: The 🐷🐷🐷 are *definitely* still doing targeted, illegal surveillance, and I don't mean to downplay that aspect of the operation. I just think that they gain far more by using data to organize the superstructure in such a way as to keep workers down and themselves up! Solidarity from occupied Omamíwininí (Algonquin Anishinaabe land), a.k.a. Ottawa. ✊
@@fun_ghoul yeah, but I'm thinking they're reaching their lower limit and thet may start finding new, creative ways of using that data. That's what concerns me currently.
Hoarding and compulsive collecting is caused by not having a fulfilling, satisfying life. People seek out knick-knacks to fill the void left by living in a society that requires they be exploited at all costs. Capitalist societies only take, they never give back. There's the illusion of the promise you can have, but no actual, concrete way TO have.
Fun fact. Even the owners of vast tracks of agricultural land are basically debt slaves to whoever gives them loans to fund their farming. So even their owning of private property doesn't mean much for them.
I can never really get behind the idea of intentionally co-opting religion into socialism because it feels like it leaves every minority demographic eternally fighting identity politics struggles and leaves it open for communities to decide 'we're going to be a straight community' and push all the gays to another city's industries if they don't fit into the structure of the local churches, even though the country as a whole has more inclusive values. the point on people hiding plain old xenophobia under being anti-Islam is fine, a ton of people like Dawkins and Hitchens have fallen into that trap. but trying to work with organized religion almost feels like trying to work with capitalism or anarchism - like it's inherently going to want to identify a bunch of exclusive 'freedoms' it gets to do while other people don't and then label that Freedom. religion is now incredibly individualized, not that that's a bad quality, but it leads to each christian/mormon church having really arbitrary sets of values about what is and isn't okay. which in my mind is part of what leads the US to try to tear itself apart into anarchy. from 1950 to now it's like part of the arc of the grand reaction to the Black Panthers has been 'we need to destroy all communists _so we can keep every state/church arbitrarily different_ and they won't same-ify all our churches even though many of the backward ideas we're defending are actually the same' I don't trust religious movements after qanon and the whole 'vaccine is from satan' thing going around that boosted a parallel movement of Libertarians and which both merged into this push for a disorganized anarchist revolution to free everyone from vaccines and transgender rights and national government all at once while preserving "the rights of business owners" which somebody decided to label 'not from satan'
You don't do either. You don't "work with" religion, nor do you suppress it. You just focus on improving the material conditions of the people, including their education, and religion will gradually fade away.
Slowly working my way through the episodes XD Idk what's happening sooner: me catching up on the podcast episodes or the number of people who know the YT channel FRED reaching 0
Wow! For almost 1.5 hour discussion, it is spectacular how small is the percentage of actual criticism on former soviet republics and "socialist" experiments - plus, the last 30 min is just criticism of capitalism. The whole discussion evades the real, important questions (what failed, why and how can we do better?), with a lot of "self-criticism" being "yeah, but capitalism is worse" (which is a very low bar, to compare with a bankrupt system) and the main (sort of) cause that was mentioned was that "people in command were old"... For the most interesting/important points, there is no real discussion or a marxist analysis. For example: - For the question of *nationalities and their oppression*: Actually the Bolsheviks, immediately after the revolution passed the "declaration of rights of the people of Russia", in practice supporting the free development of national and cultural (eg language) aspect of the many nationalities living under the tsar. Lenin his whole life gave very serious struggles on this question. The real discussion should be "why/when did this change"? Hint: one of the last fights of Lenin was against Stalin's and Ordzhonikdze's approach to Georgians... - For the question of *encirclement of imperialist powers*: The most important point, from a marxist point of view - *PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM* - is totally ignored. No mention on the one of the most important battles of the bolsheviks and the communist movement to spread the revolution, to help the communists and masses of the most economically developed countries to gain power and actually help the young soviet republic. Nothing about the destruction of the "communist international". No criticism about the anti-marxist "theory" of "socialism in one-country"! - For the question of *democracy/oppression of opposition*: "Corruption" is just named in passing, that "peoples didn't really care to participate" just mentioned. These points are of outmost importance. How could they be so prevalent in "socialist" countries? How they emerged and why they weren't fought against? Actually, wasn't one of Lenin's last struggles, before his death, against "bureaucratisation" of the young soviet state? In the question of opponents, were really all of them fascists? (even then, shouldn't a much more developed, socialist country provide the material conditions to put on the side these currents. In other worlds in a society of wealth, equality etc, why would any fascist idea gain a massive base?). What about the majority of the CC of the Bolshevik party at the time of revolution that were all exiled/murdered by the middle 30s? Did they all become counter-revolutionaries?
If you are planning to have a communist revolution that kills or maims over a million people in civil war then you better have a damn good plan to make a significantly more free society beyond "but capitalism does surveillance too".
socialist society with direct democracy would be great, we have the tech to do that on a large scale now and power will be spread out among the workers instead of for a few people in the government. One of the shit things about the USSR was the amount of beurocracy there was in it, you got to vote for someone who then voted for someone who then votes for someone and so on. The actualy wants of the working class get lost in that. We should have democratic control of the workplace and of the government
"A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else..." lenin
"[...] But Marxism is not a materialism which has stopped at the ABC. Marxism goes further. It says: We must know how to combat religion, and in order to do so we must explain the source of faith and religion among the masses in a materialist way. The combating of religion cannot be confined to abstract ideological preaching, and it must not be reduced to such preaching. It must be linked up with the concrete practice of the class movement, which aims at eliminating the social roots of religion. Why does religion retain its hold on the backward sections of the town proletariat, on broad sections of the semi-proletariat, and on the mass of the peasantry? Because of the ignorance of the people, replies the bourgeois progressist, the radical or the bourgeois materialist. And so: “Down with religion and long live atheism; the dissemination of atheist views is our chief task!” The Marxist says that this is not true, that it is a superficial view, the view of narrow bourgeois uplifters. [...]" Lenin, from the same text (The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion)
I agree with you. The west definitely has better laws and rights for free speech and criticism than communist China or Russia. However, it seems that the west is slowly taking tips from those communist countries in limiting free speech to support their far left agenda. Look at England and their persecution of ‘hate speech’ compared to actual hate speech from LGBT members.
Hi guys. I've been listening to your old podcasts after finding them via second thought. As a bit of an anarchist I've always tried to raise class consciousness around me and in my family and I think your content are great tools to help with this so thanks' for all the work you guys do! I do have some personal doubts about communism, and if you have the time I had a couple of questions regarding this episode and communism in general that I hope you can answer. When you spoke about the bad thing's people say about socialism you touched on surveillance and censorship. While I agree with what you said about the current system, I was left feeling a bit concerned because you kinda did some "what about ism". Do you think mass surveillance/censorship is acceptable or necessary in a socialist society? I also have some concerns about separatists and people who don't want to be part of the socialist society. Do you think socialism should consider those people, or are they just to be absorbed by any means? Basically I am educating myself about communism with your help and I just want to put my mind at ease before getting my little brother involved. I know you guys don't speak for all the socialists in the world, but I wanted your personal take because I find your content so well put together I want to share it. Thanks again for the work you're doing! Keep it up!
I know I’m super late to your comment but if you still want to, some people might be able to help you out if you ask on their subreddit r/TheDeprogram Asking questions and finding posts from people who asked similar questions to the ones that I have are basically the only reasons I have reddit
I’d recommend the anarchist RUclipsrs ‘Anark’ series “The state is counter revolutionary” for a real anarchist critique of the ideas of state socialism It has 2 amazing episodes about the USSR and Moas China and the series dives into the actual systemic issues of the state and how it can never produce socialism rather than just surface level ideas of this podcast like “they had no religion” I would highly recommend
I find their analysis is very superficial, and mostly based on "stalinist" ideas, that have no connection (but in name) with socialism/marxism. You should probably look elsewhere for a basic marxist criticism of USSR and similar states (i.e. check "revolution betrayed" by Trotsky).
@@Splooshua. Hey! You mean Trotsky? His work "revolution betrayed", is written in 1936, so covers much of the USSR leadership policies till the "socialist constitution" and shortly before the 2nd WW. Also, I think it is an important text, in terms of the method - i.e. how you can criticise the soviet states from a marxist perspective and still supporting several of their achievements. You got a point that it doesn't cover the full USSR era, Mao's China, Cuban revolution, Yugoslavia etc, but I still consider it a very good starting point.
44:46 the way I see it now in the US is that we would just take stuff from the corporations and give it to those that want it at first. Like with houses you could make a thing of how many houses and what sizes there are in what areas and then people could sign up to say we would like to get a house in this area Permanently or move to this area Permanently and we could see if we could make that happen with what is available and go from there. But prioritize the people who don't plan on moving again bc if people are just gonna move around all the time there's no point in the aforementioned.
I: I feel like you´ve engaged in a lot of whataboutism in this episode. Yes, surveillance runs rampant in today´s age, yes, the US murders and imprisons and otherwise harrasses its political enemies/opponents/criticizers; it is effed up and wrong, and we _must_ fight against it. But it does not make the USSR having been doing the same in the past _any less_ effed up and wrong. I´d say it´s the other way around, actually. Since we (very much rightfully) criticize the current states and system for these things, it makes no sense to go easier on the USSR for having engaged in them, even if "others are doing it (even) worse". The goal is to create a _better_ system, not just a "less awful" one. signed - a leftist from Slovakia ps/summary: It _is_ good that/how you´ve called out the common hypocrisies in condemning the USSR´s regime. People do need to recognize that the dystopian grievancies they have about past socialist-tendencies countries can be found just as present, if not worse, in the current system. But pointing out a hypocrisy doesn´t make the hypocrites´ assessments _wrong._ All it does is expose them as hypocrites.
Been thinking the same thing. The whataboutism about the topic of surveillance really pissed me of. As the topic began I was eager to hear what they have to say about it, but I was totally disapointed by the comparison with todays surveillance (which I wont deny)..
Christianity in post-revolution Soviet Russia (rightly) suffered much more, because it was a huge and disgustingly rich part of the Tzarist oppressive apparatus (don't forget, the Russian Empire was a theocratic Orthodox state). And the worst mistake the Soviets made with that kind of beginning, is go soft on religion and effectively condone it(hello 1943), instead of actually wiping it out properly. That's largely the reason the post-Soviet religious reaction was there, it didn't just come out of nowhere, it brewed as an increasingly mild taboo topic for decades (cue photo of Brezhnev mingling, cognac in hand, with Soviet religious heads). There is value in preserving the rituals that people are used to and that are inevitably part of culture, and abruptly turning temples into concert halls, museums, and planetaria, or just ruins, is not that great, especially given that good education turns them into that anyway. But even with any kind of 'soft' attitude towards traditional religion, it must be completely reformed post-revolution, given its reactionary tendencies and support for undeserved authority. 100% secularism in most public life and especially education (but sure, have your cake on Easter, and dip your babies in water, or go hungry for a month), zero special treatment for religious organisations, and the clergy must be educated in a controlled way, in terms of the values they should be allowed to teach. Otherwise, you'll get informal 'alternative' sources of information spouting destructive patriarchal nonsense in spaces that people hold dear and are most vulnerable. Recent example: Cuba's just voted for a new marriage act, which mainly enshrined same-sex marriage in law, but also did a bunch of progressive changes to the institution, empowering women and other family members. They managed it on second try. Why? Because of the evangelical wave of the recent decades (guess where that's coming from), and the ugly stink those cunts raised.
I think a policy of pluralism, that is equally assisting / supporting all religion equally is a better way of securing support from all religious people. I've said this before but most religious people (myself included) if presented with the choice of marxism or their religion, will always choose their religion. So i say don't make us choose
They just built an entire new community of houses by me and those have been going up all around my county and I am now making more than probably 90% of real workers in this area and I can barely afford to get a place on my own. And definitely can't get a house even if I wasn't single bc of how expensive it is to rent and you have to make even more to buy if your credit isn't perfect and homie don't play those games so my credit isn't considered good bc I don't have much of it. They are like, "well I can't tell how good you are at managing your debt so...", and I'm like that's bc I don't get into it bc I'm not dumb. But it'd take me more than 10 years saving everything I could living with my mother to be able to buy a house outright. And that's without having health insurance or a car payment, and without paying on my student loans.
Hakim, Yugopnik, YOU WRONG!!!!!! komunist molls DOES NOT called "GUMS" ГУМ, as well as ГУЛаг can be only one in the country. ГУМ = Главный Универсальный Магазин (main universal shop), and malls was called универмаг (univermag). btw there also was ЦУМ (Центральный Универсальный Магазин) and those was in ever region center. as for GULAG - its not even place where prisoners held. ГУЛаг = Главное Управление Лагерей (main control of camps, or smthn like that - no idea how it should translate)
5:25 I´d say it really depends. Anti-religious practices can be a good thing, especially, when they basically just help to speed up an already existing trend, for example, the number of christians in germany has been going down since, idk, forever ( it has gone down significantly in the last few years, because a few cases of priests liking children to much became publicly known), and in the GDR, nobody really cared about the antireligious stuff, especially the generations who were born in the GDR didn´t really had much contact with religion anymore, and even in the 80s and 90s, most east german church members were just members of a church, because churches became centers of resistance against the GDR regime, so even many church members weren´t really religious. Right now, roughly 4/5 of the east german population are still atheists or agnostics. We east germans might be racist as shit, constantly drunk, uneducated etc., etc., but at least we´re absolutely not religious. In my opinion, that´s one of the best things, the GDR achieved. But of course, dogmatically trying to eradicate religion, whenever socialism comes to power, is stupid, Afghanistan has shown that. And marxist religious scholars have shown, that marxism and religion aren´t neccessary "natural enemies", religion can do a lot of good, if it is somewhat flexible, and doesn´t interfere with politics to much. I still think, the end goal of a society, that wants to move towards communism must be, to eradicate all religion eventually and I think, advancements in sciences will make more and more people question the neccessity of a god, but that´s maybe just my opinion as someone, who grew up in a very atheistic part of the world. Either way, if religion will have to cease to exist, this must come as a long, natural process, not by using forcefull measures against it. If it doesn´t, then religion can and probably will continue to exist, as long as it is compatible with marxism. And especially during the early stages of the development towards communism, religion will and must play an important role, no matter how the state´s stance towards it is
As we transgress towards Socialism, i believe religion should be left behind. In a state, it should be completely separated from church, should be taxed and put under heavy surveillance all the time.
I take issue with the handwaving of the issues on democracy in the Soviet Union - whenever the Bolsheviks or Bolshevik-aligned parties weren't elected they were couped, and during WWI it became less democratic and instead of returning to democracy the state maintains this abstraction from the worker. Like for real read up on the Kronstadt rebellion and tell me the Soviet Union was democratic
What abstraction from the worker are you referring to? Also you seem to be focusing only on early issues when the Bolsheviks were still at war, then extrapolating that to all points.
@@Kurotarosama But were the Soviet government in a war in 1962 where the infamous Novocherkassk massacre happened? So my point is that there were actual issues with democracy in the Soviet Union.
@@ΑρτεμισίαΠλοκαμίδου Is this an alt account? Also, having issues and having democracy are different things. Such as when unwarranted police deaths happen in western countries. However yes, democracy does begin to struggle against authortarian structures that are not responsible to the people. That said, it seems to be a singular data point showing an issue, but not establishing a non-existence of democracy. Flawed democracies are still democracies, just flawed.
@@Kurotarosama I absolutely condemn police brutalities in western countries, as well as all the undemocratic practices of bourgeois regimes. I try to read a lot on the Soviet history to see it as objective as one can acknowledging its achievements and flaws. As far as I know there was at least the Novocherkassk massacre, and although in the post WW2 union existed some forms of democratic participation they mostly were powerless to meaningfully impact the government and the actual decision making. The methods the Soviet government used to control information flows and opinions and to suppress the opposition within the country were rough, obvious and oppressive, compared to more soft and sophisticated methods of the western governments. So I don't see the Soviet union as democratic, although some attempts (before the Gorbachev era) were made. Do you have different vision? Can you suggest some facts to consider?
alright, seems like a decent video. i'm still wary of MLs, but you don't seem like bigots or anything, so i think i trust you guys, for the most part anyway. i trust you more than a Liberal at least.
I also take issue with the big brother surveillance state thing - whataboutism isn't a good argument. Not to mention state surveillance and police enforcement being equivocated with fucking voice recognition adverts
Currently all states on earth surveil their people to one degree or another. Also since we live in a world that can be chaotic and dark, sometimes bad things are the best option. That doesn't make them good, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't push for a society where such things are unnecessary, but we must still accept today for what it is.
The state is working with private surveillance. If your argument is that it's not the government listening to you, than you're just wrong. The government is listening to you, AND they're using it to make more money.
The light industry vs heavy industry thing is a red herring. The same industry that produces telecommunication systems for the army could also produce it for civilians. The same industry that produces military uniforms can... also make it for civilians. The same industry that produces military vehicles can.... make vehicles for civilians. As we have seen in the USA the same tooling used for making small arms is quite adaptable to other production projects. Remington not only has manufactured rifles (a very low profit industry in the USA in spite of what people think) and simultaneously manufactured even washing machines to keep one hair away from bankruptcy. In fact this dual use is how the USA wound up being a leader in electronics because the army wanted smaller and lighter, which financed the industry to develop those things that civilians weren't willing to pay the premium on and the knock on was eventually smaller and lighter got so much development capital that it became affordable for civilians too. You're portraying this requirement for one path or another with no option in between. The United States spent more money in the 1950s developing the electronics technology behind a unified air defense network than they did for the entire army in all of ww2. You have no freaking idea how much money that is. And this was before foreign production was anything of a factor in the US economy. This proved not to detract from the economy but CONTRIBUTED toward it. Civilians would eventually see genuine material benefit from this investment. This is the difference. The Soviet Union.... as long as people weren't starving in the streets the society seemed pretty uninterested in sharing those material benefits from military capital investment with the civilian sectors and the government of the Soviet Union was wholely uninterested in investing in capital for civilians one iota beyond what was necessary for human survival apparently. Education and health? that grew the capital stock they could give the army. But allowing the civilians to benefit from the technology and productive capacity developed initially for the army? no way.
Here is the thing tho, the soviet military industry produced for civilians aswell. There were no private companies in the USSR so the military plants werent forced to produce other products to bail their asses after bankrupting themselfs. The technology developed by the army was however used in the civilian sector, but again, the soviets werent fans of making shit consumer goods to fuel the consumerlandia that existed in the west. But in the end it all comes down to the fact that people here lived better lives. We enjoyed our lives so much, we lived so carefree that eventualy, particurarly young people, not having to worry about their future and with an abundance of money wanted to have the consumerlandia the west had. Beliving they could have socialism but with the consumerlandia, and oh boy they were proven wrong in the 90s, instead of that, they got pain, missery, they watched their lives, their future disapear overnight. Already by the mid 90s communist were wining everywhere but the west didnt let US win, and in the case of the Balkans they fueled and caused war and missery. Get that trough your thick skull, we were so much better for our people you cant even make a comparision to the west, its like comparing caveman levels of living to advanced industrial societies, well actualy, caveman lived better than westerners and anyone under capitalism for that matter.
@@barbarapitenthusiast7103 "consumerism" is just a phrase tyrants use instead of saying what they really mean. "The people shouldn't have any stuff beyond their basic needs."
@@colonel__klink7548 but as i said prior, we lived like actual gods compared to the average american, Its not even funny. When is the last time you had a month long vacation with pay?
@@barbarapitenthusiast7103 I get two weeks, no questions asked, leave work at any moment paid time off, plus two weeks (+1 day) paid vacation time if I ask for approval in advance. That's on top of the generous unpaid absence policy. This is an entry level position in the company. And frankly such a thing would have been wasted in the soviet union because it's an anti consumer society, so the people don't have anything. All you get to do witb your time off is sit and think about how you have nothing and apparently it's wrong to want something.
@@colonel__klink7548 the more you speak the dumber it gets. The USSR had extensive consumer goods production, Just not as big as the west. The goods were harder to get but the quality was so much higher, thats why you still see 40 years old stoves, furniture and everithing else you can immagine. You bought something once and you didnt have to buy it again, unlike under capitalism where goods are designed to break down after a few years. The soviets also didnt overproduce goods and cause market crashes. But as i said before, Life was better, people were better and people were much more happy. Even anti-communist goons will addmit that People were happier. Thats because what realy makes a person happy and satisfied is a purpose. Its not having to worry about losing their job and barely making it trough the month. Under capitalism consumerism serves the purpose of distracting people from their shitty lives with fancy goods. Thats why were were happier, thats why se had better sex, thats why se were better.
You guys didn’t really answer the last question. Yes, we all know America spies on its own people but the question was are socialist governments of the past (&China today) repressive. As someone who has read a lot of history, I found that the answer is yes. China is well known for all its rampant human rights abuses and you guys admitted that the USSR repressed religion. Don’t get the wrong idea though, I do like your podcast. I just think you guys really dropped the ball on making your point here.
I haven't finished the video, but this seems like a very fair point, however there are some caveats. So one thing we have to consider is that no matter what, different places believe different things at different times. This means what might be unpalatable to you, is palatable to others. This means that even a repressive government can be the preferred option, to what was before or what could be after. It also means, that some cultures will find X or Y to not be repressive. Now that said, as far as I can tell from a lot of stuff, the USSR had plenty of flaws, and did many bad things, however we cannot just look at one side of the coin. It did many great things for what happened. Now when it comes to China, its a lot more complicated. A big part of that is that misinformation campaigns are still active to this day, which makes it hard to qctually know and understand the nuance of some things. However there are still issues. But without the actual context we can only discuss surface level aesthetics, which does little more then to act as moral grandstanding. However that said, I would be very interested in continuing discussion on the topic and discussing certain issues.
Any government (capitalist, socialist, feudal, whatever) is essentially a repressive machine in the hands of the ruling class. In socialist states, the proletariat is the ruling class, so the repressions are mostly happening in the interests of the working class against any opposing forces. In case of USSR, for example, the majority of "Stalin's Gulag victims" were in fact convicted felons who were prosecuted for murder, rape, stealing, arson, etc. Also, the famous repressed "kulaks" that the modern media likes to cry about, were not the "hard-working successful peasants" that the media paints them nowadays - they were in fact rural capitalists, petty bourgeois that earned their wealth by robbing their neighbors: "sure, I'll lend you that sack of grain, but you'll return two sacks later, or me and my boys will break your legs". Basically, a microcredit organization with sky-high interest rates that were often impossible to pay off. TL;DR: most Soviet repressions that modern media condemns were well deserved and absolutely made sense at the time. In fact, most would make sense now - I mean, capitalist society condemns felons too.
@@vadimk3484 While I would agree that many things made sense during the time, one of the issues of academia is processing the bad things. Which it seems you understand, so this is more for any potential readers btw. A good example, the USSR would arrest and sometimes kill political enemies. The US today has hands in assassinations of political enemies and also arrests political enemies. The recent protests and black van incidents in the US are a great example of arresting and charging political enemies. The Wall street protests are another. The point being that the governments have had to do some sketchy dark stuff, but every other government is doing the same. It is important to remember that sometimes the reason we need to defend dark unsavory things is because that is how the world operates, not because we want it to operate that way. However denial solves nothing, we must accept, adapt, and then change it for the better.
@@Kurotarosama yeah, it's definitely possible to dig up some genuine dirt on the Soviet intelligence and/or special forces, I'm not saying that they were always objectively "the good guys". However, on the other hand I'd argue that arresting or killing political enemies is but a means of repression and is not always objectively bad. For example, if assassinating or capturing a few key leaders of an enemy regime would prevent a war or lay the foundation of a socialist revolution there, then why the heck not? I mean, sure, in an ideal world the socialist block would inspire and trigger proletarian revolutions all around the globe merely by shining example and clever propaganda, but IRL a global "cultural influence victory" is probably impossible, because it could only happen over a very long period of time, during which some military conflict is bound to happen, if only statistically. And since some violence is thus inevitable, I'd say that socialists should first and foremost always keep class theory in mind, to minimize any collateral damage to fellow proletariat in enemy states, and, whenever possible, surgically remove only the reactionary forces. In practical terms, IMO, this means that assassinations and tactical spec-op strikes behind enemy lines are actually better suited for a socialist military than bombers and armored divisions, simply because it's impossible to use massive military power precisely enough to only target the actual "bad guys". P.S. only after writing all this I realized that you might have been talking about the Soviets killing/imprisoning dissidents inside the country, not external enemies. That's also true to an extent, and I kinda agree that extradition would have been a better choice. Which, by the way, actually happened at some point - after the war, dissidents were mostly just thrown out instead of hurting them. Maybe internal repressions were more brutal before the war because the country was in a terrible rush to prepare for the said war on time, and there were simply not enough available resources to express humanism. The thirties were hard in the USSR, but, clearly, if not for that immense crunch and effort, the Nazis would have probably won, since Soviet heavy industry was basically non-existent just 10 years before the war.
You need to watch it again then because you weren't paying attention. question was about spying and watching citizens which you typed in your comments and the question was answered in the video. Yes past projects and china today did do that. the difference being why did that happend. one group did that to protect the larger citizens from fascist uprising/ Prevent reverting to old ways where the bourgeoisie controlled everything and the other group did that to because of opposite and for profit reasons. they said they could talk about this for hours but this isn't a 12 hour pr vid podcast. and ''China is well known for all its rampant human rights abuses'' ? Yes they do but you know you could talk more in-depth about that I mean lmao If you have lose definition of human right abuses then every country is guilty and some count abuses, against fascist/nazi which I dont cuz fuck em. shit aint perfect and capitalistic countries are worse, when not fucking their own citizens they fuck people over seas. not excusing but if you're gonna comment this then go more in-depth otherwise its kinda shit critique but you do you. im just a comment in a endless sea of other comments.
"the problem was that most communists in power were old." No... the problem was a society in which it was socially acceptable for authorities with such absolute totalizing power that they get to decide what you sing, what you paint, what you write all in the effort to control your mind, your very soul in order to achieve THEIR (ie not democratic) desired outcome.
I’m not a fan of religion but state atheism was a terrible idea and I don’t like that Marx’s measured and intelligent view of religion and how it functions eventually became distorted into “metaphysics isn’t real”
"They say the Kibbutz life ended in 1912 [In Degania]. A member of the community, an Austrian woman, wanted to have her own teapot. Deliberation over the teapot almost broke up the community. At Degania people had always shared everything, just like every kibbutz that came before them" "Gil" Tour Guide As quoted by Sarah Glidden Socialism almost collapsed because somebody wanted to own a teapot. And you want to let these raving fanatics who want to collective teapots control the entire country.
Based professor. Fuck Lingerie, make more Sputnik’s. Consumer culture should only be endorsed once capitalism has become a memory or it can become counter revolutionary pretty quick.
@@sarveshmunde9846 Because it leads to idiots with no idea how indurstrial development works wanting ransom luxury consumer goods before a strong enough industrial base exists to supply and physically construct consumer industries. Because bitching about lingerie while people don’t have adequate food, medical care, shelter and work is asinine. Just living in America is proof of how obsessed we are with things
I'll share a thought I shared on Hakim's latest video: many trots will talk about this stuff and many of you here in the comments will just bash the sh out of them. try to have the same mindset with them. and read trotsky.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor And you read this. "Suppressing the counter-revolutionaries" my ass. Before you bring up any genocides by the capitalists countries (mainly US), I'm aware, you don't need to tell me. I know capitalism has done some horrible shit, but that doesn't excuse socialists/communists from ignoring USSR's war crimes and genocides, if anything it actually discredits the socialists themselves. Turns out, lying to people tends to make those people distrust you. "B-but capitalists lie about this all the time!" Exactly. Which is why YOU shouldn't, because y'know, you're trying to oppose the people that do this? Does this really need to be explained?
I disagree on term limits. I dont it should be just two terms but should be like 20 years max your in govt or up until you hit 75 or something. Way to keep the politicians young and prevent a gerentocracy. Plus everyone gets old and once you become old enough your not with it which is alright but you shouldn't be in govt if your not with it
@39:00 it's really dark listening to the theory that you can essentially break people over several generations so that they won't want fun, they won't want interesting or new things. They will be happy with their grey apartment, their grey furniture that looks just like everyone else' drinking out of their grey coffee cup absent any decoration or individualization... It's just dark. And you wonder why your movements get so much pushback?
This is the most "i have zero clue how real socialism looked like" comment. We were much, much more colorful, happy and we enjoyed Life on leves People living under capitalism cant even dream off
@@barbarapitenthusiast7103 Dude, most everyone's apartments looked the same because there wasn't a variety of furniture even. You're living in a fantasy land. This very podcast denounces the idea that you would get to enjoy stuff. They even call that "hoarding" in this podcast. "consumerism" is just a slur invented by petty tyrants because they don't want to say what they really mean. "You should have less and be happy for it."
@@colonel__klink7548 are you literate enough to read my comments? Consumerism is literaly a way for the bourgeoisie to distract you from your shitty life. There was variety in furniture, the soviets produced different furniture of different sizes, you could buy from the warsaw pact, or you could buy the yugoslav produced furniture which was very popular. My great grandma has a 5 room, two bedroom appartment she bought with one month Worth of pay. Its very evident you have never actualy Been inside a conmiebloc. As i said earlier, we didnt need 100 gazilion different brands of the same product, our products were quality made and last forever. But you have Been ignoring that and going with your "more brands equals more freedumb" retardation. We had less and we were happy, what we owned was made to last and work, and it did. Not the planned obsolesence garbage made to last not a day longer than the ensurance. And again and again you keep being to illiterate to read my comments, or frankly jeust trolling. Trolling which has and Will continue to work because I cant stand this level of retardation. But back to the Point, we had fun. Fun which you are never going to understand, we had joy, which you will never understand. And yes, i am living in a fairy tale or whatever you said. The fairy tale, which existed in reality, the fairy tale of some of the first truly free people in "modern" society. A fairy tale which was true for some 70 and 45 years respectively.
Ahh hakim bro happiness is the elimination of alienation so of course when you only relate to others through objects you’re going to think they make you happy. See also: why white USAians love their dogs so much lmao
14:15 this is how we deal with the problem of religions. We just educate everyone, especially the kids in a couple generations later. There won't be nearly as many religious people and then by that time we will outnumber them enough to where we can just wipe them all out. That would be the best course of action. The problem at its core is intelligence, or a lack thereof. That is why the more non-religious United States has only gone downhill since then, even though that is not directly correlated at all. People have gotten even dumber even though they are considered less religious. If you educate people and make them at least a basic level of intelligent then they will not even have a reason to want to have faith in something as silly as a god. But most importantly, if we actually educated people on the sources of these religious texts and the hidden meanings within them that the high priest still hide from you, then people would probably want to completely do away with the institutions of religion.
@AzureStar623 call me what you want but at the end of the day I'd actually get stuff done and further humanity while the position you people take keeps you locked in your room changing nothing
![ATEEZ(에이티즈) - [GOLDEN HOUR : Part.2] Preview](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/X4PfgRPBUVo/mqdefault.jpg)
Since the feds are watching you, make sure to keep the most cursed searches in your browser history. Make that agent really re-evaluate their career options.
Meh. Anything you could fake-search likely pales in comparison to what these swine sincerely get up to online.
Make him read the whole volume of Das Kapital
@@minhducnguyen9276 Ha! 😁
@@fun_ghoul as a perosn who enjoys hollow knight fanfiction and/or r34 I would have to agree
Get VPN. Even better, learn how to build your own VPN so you're not supporting capitalism.
The greatest mistake of former socialism was they gave Ayn Rand free education.
I dunno, I kinda enjoyed that idealistic piece of libertarian garbage. It's hilarious to anyone who knows a thing or two about real political economy.
@@vadimk3484 I don't really know anything about her, can you please describe how she was?
@@avigailpekelman8239 Sorry, I didn't quite understand the question. If you were asking about Ayn Rand personally, then I don't know much about her besides that she emigrated to the US from USSR and wrote a bunch of garbage anti-communist pamphlets that some view as great literature. If you meant her most famous book "Atlas Shrugged", then I read it and it was hilarious. Give it a go, you won't be disappointed - in a nutshell, Rand is saying that without capitalists and oligarchy our entire civilization is doomed, because regular people (everyone except the oligarchs) are a bunch of cretins that are absolutely incapable of sustaining a functioning society without a ruling hand. Also, greed is good and it's immoral not to pursue personal enrichment. Like I said - libertarian garbage.
@@vadimk3484 That's why it is better for everyone that she doesn't know how to read and write. ANCAP are the kind of people who gonna laugh at Rick and Morty joke "you hate the government so much you became your own fucking government" without realising that the joke was aiming at them.
She went abroad in 1920s
The theme song of this podcast goes hard for no reason
JT: Having worked at a low level in the US Government before, they literally have nothing better to do. Theres so much money pissed away everyday on stupid shit. From what you experienced to simple complaints.
0:00:00 - Introduction
0:05:30 - Anti-religious laws
0:19:50 - Anti-western culture laws
0:25:35 - Ancient leaders
0:30:10 - Lack of consumer goods
0:39:40 - Intrusive nationalisation of houses
0:44:30 - Small business owners and personal property
0:48:05 - Limited democratic participation
0:57:53 - "These States' economies always fail!"
1:07:35 - "The government spies on people!"
1:12:42 - "The government kills dissidents!"
1:22:00 - Outro
That last story from JT really impacted me, i didn't knew that sort of things could actually happen on a country that constantly claims to be the number one bastion of freedom.
Tbh, so happy you guys brought it to YT. I put at least 3 episodes each day in the playlist i listen to at work to keep sanity.
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime so I watch the Deprogram on company time
That point about consumerism is such a big one. Humans like looking rich and other people can't help but be jealous of rich looking people.
Its less we want to look like X, but more of a result of social order and representation within it. We have seen the wealthy wear literal garbage because that was considered appropriate of their station. Now this is very much driven by the wealthy in our current society, however humans are a species that place massive importance on social status. Decentralizing economic power will reduce a lot of the dumb things we do to "belong" in our societal order.
So socialism means we're not allowed to have nice things? 🤦♂️ Whatever happened to wanting our bread, and roses too? 🌹
@@freeofavia Soshalism is when no iPhone and no toothbrush
@@mrmoth26 the less iPhone the more socialism
I don't want to look rich and I couldn't care less about social status. I just want to live a minimalistic fulfilling life.
We experienced a lot of this too in Mongolia. My grandfather's father was a monk, but he was killed, and my grandfather was derobed as a boy. A lot of monastaries were burned, and a lot of history/records were lost too; people couldn't even talk about Genghis Khan for some God damn reason. As a result, socialism has become a bit of a dirty word to a lot of people, synonymous with cultural suppression.
Apparently, you couldn't talk about Genghis because, I kid you not, russians didn't like it
@@wysanniksikondominium584 Tbh, this sounds pretty weird. The USSR had pretty good historians, who were specialists on the Mongol Empire and its rump states - especially the Golden Horde. And the Soviet school of Mongol studies wasn't anti-Mongolian or anything, at least in the post Stalin era, don't know anything prior to the period, sorry.
"socialism has become a bit of a dirty word to a lot of people, synonymous with cultural suppression"
shocking!
Hey JT, congrats on the visit from the feds, that means you guys are doing things correctly!
I mean, religion will always have the prophet motive lol
Underrated comment, hahaha
Nice
lmao
Brilliant 😂😂😂
It depends on the religion. Pagan religions and Buddhism aren't very profitable, but Christianity, catholicism, Islam, or even Judaism? Yeah, you can make a killing manipulating more mainstream religious folk lol. But should profitability and gullibility really warrant suppression of ones beliefs? No. It was wrong of the soviet union to do what they did to religious people. Even i, a communist myself, can see this. Of course, I am also staunchly religious but still.
I’d like to hear you guys talk about the current socialist project in Vietnam and how it’s going. It’s difficult for me to find information that isn’t strictly influenced by a bias in favor of capitalism.
You should listen to Dr. Luna Oi - She is a marxist-leninist comrade in Vietnam who does really good podcasts and is also contributor for means morning news. Her husband is Emerican Johnson of non-compete, which is his own channel on anarchism.
state run capatilism.
@@freeofaviaShe's got a doctorate?
I don't disagree with your point about Roosevelt, but you have to be aware that a lot of people also opposed him because he ordered the unjust imprisonment of thousands, maybe millions, of Japanese Americans.
The only reason why I'm not on the streets is because my parents are still willing to let me live with them (even though they're still brainwashed by capitalism)
same
Same here, buying a house is impossible now a days
@@tomatosoup6949 Even renting is impossible nowadays
@@emmasilver2332 no its not just work 2 fulltime jobs 3 part time jobs and also do uber, dropshipping stock trading and run a faceless youtube channel on the side. Then you can afford rent and only rent!
I’m 32. I STILL live with my parents
I make just about 30k a year before taxes. I help pay the bills and pay my share, work full time. But even the cheapest 2 bedroom apartments here would leave me spending every penny of my monthly income and having to ration food and electricity with 0 money left over for emergencies. I also don’t have health insurance
As a black man in America, denying religion and the religious will do the opposite of build class consciousness within the black community. I am myself an atheist but have moved out of my edgy atheist phase where I thought religion was the cause of the woes of society. Anyone claiming themselves to be socialists/communists who espouse anti-religious frames of a socialist utopia, I am very wary of.
I just have concerns about religious people in the USA legislating how to live for the people in the name of them in A secular nation. There are many right wing/facist atheist and left religious people as well.
I totally understand your feelings.
I was raised catholic, by two reactionary parents and in young years having heavily identified with these ideas.
I went through a phase of heavy rejection after seeing my parents be goated into antisemitic, bigoted, christian Nationalist propaganda, spread by the Polish church itself through their own media conglomerate.
For the US the threat of Christian Nationalism is increasingly growing, especially with the rise of conservative and fascist Ideas becoming mainstream.
But you can see it all over the capitalist world.
Where culture has not yet moved away from religious dogma to more of a philosophical treatment of religion and debate based in anthropology, please do show me that place , there is a growing threat of fascist allying themselves with Christians, or even plain Theocrats.
It's ridiculous to me how the church manages to overlook the portrayal of the rich and powerful by Jesus.
Throughout history the church consistently managed to be a reactionary force instead of absolutely rejecting capitalism with any other class based society.
This shit has been going on since the beginning of the movement, how fucking emberassing to want to be a part of that club, after all the suffering they have brought down on the planet through out history.
To end on a more hopeful note, I see a huge opportunity to bring those people in
they have a very similar revolutionary idea of the end goal of a classless society that is based on collective respect like utopian communists and they only need to realise how their history has failed this end goal time and time again by allying themselves with the powerful.
Remind them that Jesus opposed exploiters and the institutions of his religion, as they alienated themselves from the people through elitism, created unnecessary divides among the people and working with their exploiters, like the Christians themselves would later do.
So they can decide to retake their own religion from the reactionaries, that have been suppressing their right to voice their thoughts on their own religion.
@@piratenflipper Sry you had 2 go through that. I assume we're going realigus nationalist at the speed we're going at. Especially with reactionary tribalism and racism being so American.
I m from Morocco, a third world country and I always say "Islamic socialism", I just take socialist ideas and try and find justifications for them in Islam. And it s really really easy. Like Hakim said, all religions are about "let s all share stuff and live in harmony"
@@Darloss9508 it will work then it won't.
I already listened all episodes on Spotify, i shall commet for the algorithm!
Obligatory algorithmic reply
As for Russia and USSR, anti-religiousness of communists was based on 2 things:
1. Church was the main propaganda corporation and the second largest landlord (the emperor house)
2. Many church leaders were organising para-military or, at least, armed groups of anti-communists. The church patriarch Tikhon has asked European countries for military intervention.
If Russian patriarch had called for military intervention into Russia today, he would have probably been imprisoned the same day.
3 the church pastors were one the most hated cast of people, because for peasants they were the representatives of the state, whom they saw every day, whom they were obliged to subordinate to, and who kept track of taxes (because in Russian empire church was officially fused with government from 17th century).
I would also disagree on soviet "ageism". I don't think ever before or after in Russia young people have had such career perspectives. I mean, if you read classic Russian literature, you'd notice that even very educated young people had to struggle very hard to achieve something meaningful. This has created a large group of young intellectuals who were very upset about their social position and from time to time would throw bombs or shoot the empire officials.
About the dissidents from Cuba (I'm Cuban, by the way, that doesn't mean I'm an expert, but at least I'm not completely random), there is more than the extreme cases Hakim talks about. I don't think it's an issue of socialism or communism per se, but the execution of the power by the people in power. In Cuba, the ossification of the system is a real problem, and even though there is a new generation replacing the old "Rebeldes", the structures of the party and the electoral system are ossified.
I wish I had the ability to convey what I'm trying to say more clearly, but I guess I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say.
felt called out when hakim listed the three (3) things i, as a socialist, own
Speaking of freedom of speech: Julian Assange.
With intervention at the beginning of the Soviet Union and the properly understood need for ability to protect yourself, the government had to put elimination of illiteracy and industrialization on turbo speed. One can argue that without these efforts the end of WWII could have been different. After the war it was hard to revert economy back to consumer goods - they couldn't do it efficiently, cold war was preventing it etc. But in general I see great value in reassessing the mistakes of the past and draw conclusions. There's a saying in Russian "Moscow was not built overnight" - human progress is based on learning from your mistakes.
Mashallah daddy The Deprogram has uploaded.
i doubt this is a human making these comments
@@sometimessamantha7135 same this naheed guy hasn't really been a human since 2020
@@Naheed_Ahmed14 sorry, i thought you were a bot
@@sometimessamantha7135 it's okay Samantha. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day comrade.
@@Naheed_Ahmed14 you too comrade
I can't tell you how much I like these videos, also I think it would be useful to link everyone's channel in the description of the vids
Did not expect the grinch's ultimatum reference lol
Lots of illuminating points . Kisz from Romania
Hey guys, would it be okay with you guys if I edited the swear words out of your podcast so my religious friends and family would feel comfortable listening to it? I really want to spread this but a lot of people I know would immediately turn it off at the first or second F bomb.
Just do it! :)
Considering the subject matter (dragon dildos) I'm not sure you're gonna have an easy time with this.
Swearing in another language comes more easily, I understand why Hakim do that
But in my case I say slurs a lot in my native language too (ok I'm southern French...putain is our equivalent to f work and in informal situation it's almost a ponctuation to express surprise joy etc...)
What Hakim said about the small business class is so important. Any revolutionary socialist project should support small businesses (but not without restrictions). Forgiving loans for small businesses, etc
no red sun in the sky 0/10
it has the hammer and sickle.
Quit yer whinin'
socialist criticisms of former socialism are so refreshing after hearing liberal "critiques" all my life
every episode gets better and better, gonna be a sad day when I reach the end and have to wait for new episodes like working class plebs.
56:33 parliamentry democracy is the WAY FORWARD!!!
A government ruled by old people actually has a name. It's called a Gerontocracy; as in "Geriatric". It's only really viable if you have incredible medical technology that can combat dimensia, memory loss and simply the rigors of aging. While I don't remember her name, there's a member of the United States House of Representatives that was so old (87 iirc) that she was literally falling asleep in meetings and forgot where she was half the time.
Granted, I'm pretty sure that in ye olden days when they first named the term Gerontocracy, the Greeks practicing it only lived a max of 60-70 years, which isn't bad, but isn't what we can do now, and so their faculties were probably fairly intact by then, making it a viable form of governance on the surface, at least for the weight of their experience, their existing biases and preferences notwithstanding.
Literally I can track both my and my husband's location on Google. Eff all the way off with that surveillance bs
I was gonna suggest that you turn location off as I did several years ago, but it just occurred to me that shutting it off probably just makes it appear *TO ME* to not be recording my location. Shit.
That said, the more insidious goal of this type of electronic surveillance (mostly) isn't to target individuals for action, but rather is a massive data mining operation whose goal is to figure out how best for capitalists to keep milking us...
@@fun_ghoul yeah.... For now.
@@LexiH36 Don't get me wrong: The 🐷🐷🐷 are *definitely* still doing targeted, illegal surveillance, and I don't mean to downplay that aspect of the operation. I just think that they gain far more by using data to organize the superstructure in such a way as to keep workers down and themselves up!
Solidarity from occupied Omamíwininí (Algonquin Anishinaabe land), a.k.a. Ottawa. ✊
@@fun_ghoul yeah, but I'm thinking they're reaching their lower limit and thet may start finding new, creative ways of using that data.
That's what concerns me currently.
Religion and poverty go hand in hand imo.
More poverty stricken a country, the higher ratio of religious people
103:30 pretty sure JT just suggested to read a book by Mike Wasoski from Monsters Inc.
Good work lads fantastic pod
Hoarding and compulsive collecting is caused by not having a fulfilling, satisfying life. People seek out knick-knacks to fill the void left by living in a society that requires they be exploited at all costs. Capitalist societies only take, they never give back. There's the illusion of the promise you can have, but no actual, concrete way TO have.
50:24 Did Hakim just say ossification (the process of bones forming) as a substitute to solidification and stagnancy ; Doctor Brain is something else
Fun fact. Even the owners of vast tracks of agricultural land are basically debt slaves to whoever gives them loans to fund their farming. So even their owning of private property doesn't mean much for them.
Great discussion episode!
I can never really get behind the idea of intentionally co-opting religion into socialism because it feels like it leaves every minority demographic eternally fighting identity politics struggles and leaves it open for communities to decide 'we're going to be a straight community' and push all the gays to another city's industries if they don't fit into the structure of the local churches, even though the country as a whole has more inclusive values.
the point on people hiding plain old xenophobia under being anti-Islam is fine, a ton of people like Dawkins and Hitchens have fallen into that trap.
but trying to work with organized religion almost feels like trying to work with capitalism or anarchism - like it's inherently going to want to identify a bunch of exclusive 'freedoms' it gets to do while other people don't and then label that Freedom.
religion is now incredibly individualized, not that that's a bad quality, but it leads to each christian/mormon church having really arbitrary sets of values about what is and isn't okay. which in my mind is part of what leads the US to try to tear itself apart into anarchy. from 1950 to now it's like part of the arc of the grand reaction to the Black Panthers has been 'we need to destroy all communists _so we can keep every state/church arbitrarily different_ and they won't same-ify all our churches even though many of the backward ideas we're defending are actually the same'
I don't trust religious movements after qanon and the whole 'vaccine is from satan' thing going around that boosted a parallel movement of Libertarians and which both merged into this push for a disorganized anarchist revolution to free everyone from vaccines and transgender rights and national government all at once while preserving "the rights of business owners" which somebody decided to label 'not from satan'
You don't do either. You don't "work with" religion, nor do you suppress it. You just focus on improving the material conditions of the people, including their education, and religion will gradually fade away.
For the disbanding of the Algorithm!
Slowly working my way through the episodes XD
Idk what's happening sooner: me catching up on the podcast episodes or the number of people who know the YT channel FRED reaching 0
29:12 Bro really felt the need to say that
Wow! For almost 1.5 hour discussion, it is spectacular how small is the percentage of actual criticism on former soviet republics and "socialist" experiments - plus, the last 30 min is just criticism of capitalism. The whole discussion evades the real, important questions (what failed, why and how can we do better?), with a lot of "self-criticism" being "yeah, but capitalism is worse" (which is a very low bar, to compare with a bankrupt system) and the main (sort of) cause that was mentioned was that "people in command were old"...
For the most interesting/important points, there is no real discussion or a marxist analysis. For example:
- For the question of *nationalities and their oppression*: Actually the Bolsheviks, immediately after the revolution passed the "declaration of rights of the people of Russia", in practice supporting the free development of national and cultural (eg language) aspect of the many nationalities living under the tsar. Lenin his whole life gave very serious struggles on this question. The real discussion should be "why/when did this change"? Hint: one of the last fights of Lenin was against Stalin's and Ordzhonikdze's approach to Georgians...
- For the question of *encirclement of imperialist powers*: The most important point, from a marxist point of view - *PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM* - is totally ignored. No mention on the one of the most important battles of the bolsheviks and the communist movement to spread the revolution, to help the communists and masses of the most economically developed countries to gain power and actually help the young soviet republic. Nothing about the destruction of the "communist international". No criticism about the anti-marxist "theory" of "socialism in one-country"!
- For the question of *democracy/oppression of opposition*: "Corruption" is just named in passing, that "peoples didn't really care to participate" just mentioned. These points are of outmost importance. How could they be so prevalent in "socialist" countries? How they emerged and why they weren't fought against? Actually, wasn't one of Lenin's last struggles, before his death, against "bureaucratisation" of the young soviet state? In the question of opponents, were really all of them fascists? (even then, shouldn't a much more developed, socialist country provide the material conditions to put on the side these currents. In other worlds in a society of wealth, equality etc, why would any fascist idea gain a massive base?). What about the majority of the CC of the Bolshevik party at the time of revolution that were all exiled/murdered by the middle 30s? Did they all become counter-revolutionaries?
If you are planning to have a communist revolution that kills or maims over a million people in civil war then you better have a damn good plan to make a significantly more free society beyond "but capitalism does surveillance too".
socialist society with direct democracy would be great, we have the tech to do that on a large scale now and power will be spread out among the workers instead of for a few people in the government. One of the shit things about the USSR was the amount of beurocracy there was in it, you got to vote for someone who then voted for someone who then votes for someone and so on. The actualy wants of the working class get lost in that. We should have democratic control of the workplace and of the government
"A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way, on the basis of the class struggle which is going on in practice and is educating the masses more and better than anything else..." lenin
In other words don't kill religious people
Where is this from?
"[...] But Marxism is not a materialism which has stopped at the ABC. Marxism goes further. It says: We must know how to combat religion, and in order to do so we must explain the source of faith and religion among the masses in a materialist way. The combating of religion cannot be confined to abstract ideological preaching, and it must not be reduced to such preaching. It must be linked up with the concrete practice of the class movement, which aims at eliminating the social roots of religion. Why does religion retain its hold on the backward sections of the town proletariat, on broad sections of the semi-proletariat, and on the mass of the peasantry? Because of the ignorance of the people, replies the bourgeois progressist, the radical or the bourgeois materialist. And so: “Down with religion and long live atheism; the dissemination of atheist views is our chief task!” The Marxist says that this is not true, that it is a superficial view, the view of narrow bourgeois uplifters. [...]"
Lenin, from the same text (The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion)
A vast majority of socialism's failures directly correlate with capitalist intervention.
Is that cevapici on the coffee table?
It must be.
As a CIA agent in Nigeria, I can confirm we enjoyed been radicalized. Lol
1:16:53
Very interesting how JT talks about the DHS visiting him after making that video. Sounds reminiscent of the Gestapo.
I agree with you. The west definitely has better laws and rights for free speech and criticism than communist China or Russia. However, it seems that the west is slowly taking tips from those communist countries in limiting free speech to support their far left agenda. Look at England and their persecution of ‘hate speech’ compared to actual hate speech from LGBT members.
Hi guys. I've been listening to your old podcasts after finding them via second thought.
As a bit of an anarchist I've always tried to raise class consciousness around me and in my family and I think your content are great tools to help with this so thanks' for all the work you guys do!
I do have some personal doubts about communism, and if you have the time I had a couple of questions regarding this episode and communism in general that I hope you can answer.
When you spoke about the bad thing's people say about socialism you touched on surveillance and censorship. While I agree with what you said about the current system, I was left feeling a bit concerned because you kinda did some "what about ism". Do you think mass surveillance/censorship is acceptable or necessary in a socialist society?
I also have some concerns about separatists and people who don't want to be part of the socialist society. Do you think socialism should consider those people, or are they just to be absorbed by any means?
Basically I am educating myself about communism with your help and I just want to put my mind at ease before getting my little brother involved. I know you guys don't speak for all the socialists in the world, but I wanted your personal take because I find your content so well put together I want to share it.
Thanks again for the work you're doing! Keep it up!
I know I’m super late to your comment but if you still want to, some people might be able to help you out if you ask on their subreddit r/TheDeprogram
Asking questions and finding posts from people who asked similar questions to the ones that I have are basically the only reasons I have reddit
I’d recommend the anarchist RUclipsrs ‘Anark’ series “The state is counter revolutionary” for a real anarchist critique of the ideas of state socialism
It has 2 amazing episodes about the USSR and Moas China and the series dives into the actual systemic issues of the state and how it can never produce socialism rather than just surface level ideas of this podcast like “they had no religion”
I would highly recommend
I find their analysis is very superficial, and mostly based on "stalinist" ideas, that have no connection (but in name) with socialism/marxism. You should probably look elsewhere for a basic marxist criticism of USSR and similar states (i.e. check "revolution betrayed" by Trotsky).
@@mk3c But he doesn’t talk about Stalin or “Stalinist ideas” at all he stops his anyalsis after Lenin dies and doesn’t really mention Stalin
@@Splooshua. Hey! You mean Trotsky? His work "revolution betrayed", is written in 1936, so covers much of the USSR leadership policies till the "socialist constitution" and shortly before the 2nd WW. Also, I think it is an important text, in terms of the method - i.e. how you can criticise the soviet states from a marxist perspective and still supporting several of their achievements. You got a point that it doesn't cover the full USSR era, Mao's China, Cuban revolution, Yugoslavia etc, but I still consider it a very good starting point.
44:46 the way I see it now in the US is that we would just take stuff from the corporations and give it to those that want it at first. Like with houses you could make a thing of how many houses and what sizes there are in what areas and then people could sign up to say we would like to get a house in this area Permanently or move to this area Permanently and we could see if we could make that happen with what is available and go from there. But prioritize the people who don't plan on moving again bc if people are just gonna move around all the time there's no point in the aforementioned.
The peoples republic of Walmart- Mike Wazoski!
I: I feel like you´ve engaged in a lot of whataboutism in this episode. Yes, surveillance runs rampant in today´s age, yes, the US murders and imprisons and otherwise harrasses its political enemies/opponents/criticizers; it is effed up and wrong, and we _must_ fight against it. But it does not make the USSR having been doing the same in the past _any less_ effed up and wrong. I´d say it´s the other way around, actually. Since we (very much rightfully) criticize the current states and system for these things, it makes no sense to go easier on the USSR for having engaged in them, even if "others are doing it (even) worse". The goal is to create a _better_ system, not just a "less awful" one.
signed - a leftist from Slovakia
ps/summary: It _is_ good that/how you´ve called out the common hypocrisies in condemning the USSR´s regime. People do need to recognize that the dystopian grievancies they have about past socialist-tendencies countries can be found just as present, if not worse, in the current system. But pointing out a hypocrisy doesn´t make the hypocrites´ assessments _wrong._ All it does is expose them as hypocrites.
Been thinking the same thing. The whataboutism about the topic of surveillance really pissed me of. As the topic began I was eager to hear what they have to say about it, but I was totally disapointed by the comparison with todays surveillance (which I wont deny)..
More like degenerate Slovakian liberal go watch vaush
Christianity in post-revolution Soviet Russia (rightly) suffered much more, because it was a huge and disgustingly rich part of the Tzarist oppressive apparatus (don't forget, the Russian Empire was a theocratic Orthodox state). And the worst mistake the Soviets made with that kind of beginning, is go soft on religion and effectively condone it(hello 1943), instead of actually wiping it out properly. That's largely the reason the post-Soviet religious reaction was there, it didn't just come out of nowhere, it brewed as an increasingly mild taboo topic for decades (cue photo of Brezhnev mingling, cognac in hand, with Soviet religious heads).
There is value in preserving the rituals that people are used to and that are inevitably part of culture, and abruptly turning temples into concert halls, museums, and planetaria, or just ruins, is not that great, especially given that good education turns them into that anyway.
But even with any kind of 'soft' attitude towards traditional religion, it must be completely reformed post-revolution, given its reactionary tendencies and support for undeserved authority. 100% secularism in most public life and especially education (but sure, have your cake on Easter, and dip your babies in water, or go hungry for a month), zero special treatment for religious organisations, and the clergy must be educated in a controlled way, in terms of the values they should be allowed to teach.
Otherwise, you'll get informal 'alternative' sources of information spouting destructive patriarchal nonsense in spaces that people hold dear and are most vulnerable. Recent example: Cuba's just voted for a new marriage act, which mainly enshrined same-sex marriage in law, but also did a bunch of progressive changes to the institution, empowering women and other family members. They managed it on second try. Why? Because of the evangelical wave of the recent decades (guess where that's coming from), and the ugly stink those cunts raised.
I think a policy of pluralism, that is equally assisting / supporting all religion equally is a better way of securing support from all religious people. I've said this before but most religious people (myself included) if presented with the choice of marxism or their religion, will always choose their religion. So i say don't make us choose
I love being radicalized 😍🥰
Your dragon 🥒 is bugged
They just built an entire new community of houses by me and those have been going up all around my county and I am now making more than probably 90% of real workers in this area and I can barely afford to get a place on my own. And definitely can't get a house even if I wasn't single bc of how expensive it is to rent and you have to make even more to buy if your credit isn't perfect and homie don't play those games so my credit isn't considered good bc I don't have much of it. They are like, "well I can't tell how good you are at managing your debt so...", and I'm like that's bc I don't get into it bc I'm not dumb. But it'd take me more than 10 years saving everything I could living with my mother to be able to buy a house outright. And that's without having health insurance or a car payment, and without paying on my student loans.
Hakim, Yugopnik, YOU WRONG!!!!!! komunist molls DOES NOT called "GUMS" ГУМ, as well as ГУЛаг can be only one in the country. ГУМ = Главный Универсальный Магазин (main universal shop), and malls was called универмаг (univermag). btw there also was ЦУМ (Центральный Универсальный Магазин) and those was in ever region center. as for GULAG - its not even place where prisoners held. ГУЛаг = Главное Управление Лагерей (main control of camps, or smthn like that - no idea how it should translate)
Please do the episode on religion in socialism
5:25 I´d say it really depends. Anti-religious practices can be a good thing, especially, when they basically just help to speed up an already existing trend, for example, the number of christians in germany has been going down since, idk, forever ( it has gone down significantly in the last few years, because a few cases of priests liking children to much became publicly known), and in the GDR, nobody really cared about the antireligious stuff, especially the generations who were born in the GDR didn´t really had much contact with religion anymore, and even in the 80s and 90s, most east german church members were just members of a church, because churches became centers of resistance against the GDR regime, so even many church members weren´t really religious. Right now, roughly 4/5 of the east german population are still atheists or agnostics. We east germans might be racist as shit, constantly drunk, uneducated etc., etc., but at least we´re absolutely not religious. In my opinion, that´s one of the best things, the GDR achieved.
But of course, dogmatically trying to eradicate religion, whenever socialism comes to power, is stupid, Afghanistan has shown that. And marxist religious scholars have shown, that marxism and religion aren´t neccessary "natural enemies", religion can do a lot of good, if it is somewhat flexible, and doesn´t interfere with politics to much. I still think, the end goal of a society, that wants to move towards communism must be, to eradicate all religion eventually and I think, advancements in sciences will make more and more people question the neccessity of a god, but that´s maybe just my opinion as someone, who grew up in a very atheistic part of the world. Either way, if religion will have to cease to exist, this must come as a long, natural process, not by using forcefull measures against it. If it doesn´t, then religion can and probably will continue to exist, as long as it is compatible with marxism. And especially during the early stages of the development towards communism, religion will and must play an important role, no matter how the state´s stance towards it is
35:41 This what people mean when they say "indivisualism"
Has Hakim admitted to living in the US? He made a couple of references to 'here' in the US
Hakim lives in Iraq
As we transgress towards Socialism, i believe religion should be left behind. In a state, it should be completely separated from church, should be taxed and put under heavy surveillance all the time.
I take issue with the handwaving of the issues on democracy in the Soviet Union - whenever the Bolsheviks or Bolshevik-aligned parties weren't elected they were couped, and during WWI it became less democratic and instead of returning to democracy the state maintains this abstraction from the worker. Like for real read up on the Kronstadt rebellion and tell me the Soviet Union was democratic
What abstraction from the worker are you referring to? Also you seem to be focusing only on early issues when the Bolsheviks were still at war, then extrapolating that to all points.
@@Kurotarosama But were the Soviet government in a war in 1962 where the infamous Novocherkassk massacre happened? So my point is that there were actual issues with democracy in the Soviet Union.
@@ΑρτεμισίαΠλοκαμίδου
Is this an alt account? Also, having issues and having democracy are different things. Such as when unwarranted police deaths happen in western countries. However yes, democracy does begin to struggle against authortarian structures that are not responsible to the people.
That said, it seems to be a singular data point showing an issue, but not establishing a non-existence of democracy. Flawed democracies are still democracies, just flawed.
@@Kurotarosama I have no connection to the guy above if it is what you are asking.
@@Kurotarosama I absolutely condemn police brutalities in western countries, as well as all the undemocratic practices of bourgeois regimes. I try to read a lot on the Soviet history to see it as objective as one can acknowledging its achievements and flaws. As far as I know there was at least the Novocherkassk massacre, and although in the post WW2 union existed some forms of democratic participation they mostly were powerless to meaningfully impact the government and the actual decision making. The methods the Soviet government used to control information flows and opinions and to suppress the opposition within the country were rough, obvious and oppressive, compared to more soft and sophisticated methods of the western governments. So I don't see the Soviet union as democratic, although some attempts (before the Gorbachev era) were made. Do you have different vision? Can you suggest some facts to consider?
23:58
NORGE MENTIONED!!!!
Norway mentioned 😎
alright, seems like a decent video. i'm still wary of MLs, but you don't seem like bigots or anything, so i think i trust you guys, for the most part anyway. i trust you more than a Liberal at least.
1:3:30 yes, people’s republic of Walmart by Mike Rizzowski 💀
Вижу плакат Молчат дома
as an american, i agree
I also take issue with the big brother surveillance state thing - whataboutism isn't a good argument. Not to mention state surveillance and police enforcement being equivocated with fucking voice recognition adverts
Currently all states on earth surveil their people to one degree or another. Also since we live in a world that can be chaotic and dark, sometimes bad things are the best option. That doesn't make them good, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't push for a society where such things are unnecessary, but we must still accept today for what it is.
The state is working with private surveillance. If your argument is that it's not the government listening to you, than you're just wrong. The government is listening to you, AND they're using it to make more money.
The light industry vs heavy industry thing is a red herring. The same industry that produces telecommunication systems for the army could also produce it for civilians. The same industry that produces military uniforms can... also make it for civilians. The same industry that produces military vehicles can.... make vehicles for civilians. As we have seen in the USA the same tooling used for making small arms is quite adaptable to other production projects. Remington not only has manufactured rifles (a very low profit industry in the USA in spite of what people think) and simultaneously manufactured even washing machines to keep one hair away from bankruptcy. In fact this dual use is how the USA wound up being a leader in electronics because the army wanted smaller and lighter, which financed the industry to develop those things that civilians weren't willing to pay the premium on and the knock on was eventually smaller and lighter got so much development capital that it became affordable for civilians too.
You're portraying this requirement for one path or another with no option in between. The United States spent more money in the 1950s developing the electronics technology behind a unified air defense network than they did for the entire army in all of ww2. You have no freaking idea how much money that is. And this was before foreign production was anything of a factor in the US economy. This proved not to detract from the economy but CONTRIBUTED toward it. Civilians would eventually see genuine material benefit from this investment.
This is the difference. The Soviet Union.... as long as people weren't starving in the streets the society seemed pretty uninterested in sharing those material benefits from military capital investment with the civilian sectors and the government of the Soviet Union was wholely uninterested in investing in capital for civilians one iota beyond what was necessary for human survival apparently. Education and health? that grew the capital stock they could give the army. But allowing the civilians to benefit from the technology and productive capacity developed initially for the army? no way.
Here is the thing tho, the soviet military industry produced for civilians aswell. There were no private companies in the USSR so the military plants werent forced to produce other products to bail their asses after bankrupting themselfs.
The technology developed by the army was however used in the civilian sector, but again, the soviets werent fans of making shit consumer goods to fuel the consumerlandia that existed in the west.
But in the end it all comes down to the fact that people here lived better lives. We enjoyed our lives so much, we lived so carefree that eventualy, particurarly young people, not having to worry about their future and with an abundance of money wanted to have the consumerlandia the west had. Beliving they could have socialism but with the consumerlandia, and oh boy they were proven wrong in the 90s, instead of that, they got pain, missery, they watched their lives, their future disapear overnight. Already by the mid 90s communist were wining everywhere but the west didnt let US win, and in the case of the Balkans they fueled and caused war and missery.
Get that trough your thick skull, we were so much better for our people you cant even make a comparision to the west, its like comparing caveman levels of living to advanced industrial societies, well actualy, caveman lived better than westerners and anyone under capitalism for that matter.
@@barbarapitenthusiast7103 "consumerism" is just a phrase tyrants use instead of saying what they really mean. "The people shouldn't have any stuff beyond their basic needs."
@@colonel__klink7548 but as i said prior, we lived like actual gods compared to the average american, Its not even funny. When is the last time you had a month long vacation with pay?
@@barbarapitenthusiast7103 I get two weeks, no questions asked, leave work at any moment paid time off, plus two weeks (+1 day) paid vacation time if I ask for approval in advance. That's on top of the generous unpaid absence policy. This is an entry level position in the company. And frankly such a thing would have been wasted in the soviet union because it's an anti consumer society, so the people don't have anything. All you get to do witb your time off is sit and think about how you have nothing and apparently it's wrong to want something.
@@colonel__klink7548 the more you speak the dumber it gets.
The USSR had extensive consumer goods production, Just not as big as the west. The goods were harder to get but the quality was so much higher, thats why you still see 40 years old stoves, furniture and everithing else you can immagine. You bought something once and you didnt have to buy it again, unlike under capitalism where goods are designed to break down after a few years. The soviets also didnt overproduce goods and cause market crashes.
But as i said before, Life was better, people were better and people were much more happy. Even anti-communist goons will addmit that People were happier.
Thats because what realy makes a person happy and satisfied is a purpose. Its not having to worry about losing their job and barely making it trough the month. Under capitalism consumerism serves the purpose of distracting people from their shitty lives with fancy goods.
Thats why were were happier, thats why se had better sex, thats why se were better.
You guys didn’t really answer the last question. Yes, we all know America spies on its own people but the question was are socialist governments of the past (&China today) repressive. As someone who has read a lot of history, I found that the answer is yes. China is well known for all its rampant human rights abuses and you guys admitted that the USSR repressed religion. Don’t get the wrong idea though, I do like your podcast. I just think you guys really dropped the ball on making your point here.
I haven't finished the video, but this seems like a very fair point, however there are some caveats. So one thing we have to consider is that no matter what, different places believe different things at different times. This means what might be unpalatable to you, is palatable to others. This means that even a repressive government can be the preferred option, to what was before or what could be after. It also means, that some cultures will find X or Y to not be repressive.
Now that said, as far as I can tell from a lot of stuff, the USSR had plenty of flaws, and did many bad things, however we cannot just look at one side of the coin. It did many great things for what happened.
Now when it comes to China, its a lot more complicated. A big part of that is that misinformation campaigns are still active to this day, which makes it hard to qctually know and understand the nuance of some things. However there are still issues. But without the actual context we can only discuss surface level aesthetics, which does little more then to act as moral grandstanding.
However that said, I would be very interested in continuing discussion on the topic and discussing certain issues.
Any government (capitalist, socialist, feudal, whatever) is essentially a repressive machine in the hands of the ruling class. In socialist states, the proletariat is the ruling class, so the repressions are mostly happening in the interests of the working class against any opposing forces. In case of USSR, for example, the majority of "Stalin's Gulag victims" were in fact convicted felons who were prosecuted for murder, rape, stealing, arson, etc. Also, the famous repressed "kulaks" that the modern media likes to cry about, were not the "hard-working successful peasants" that the media paints them nowadays - they were in fact rural capitalists, petty bourgeois that earned their wealth by robbing their neighbors: "sure, I'll lend you that sack of grain, but you'll return two sacks later, or me and my boys will break your legs". Basically, a microcredit organization with sky-high interest rates that were often impossible to pay off.
TL;DR: most Soviet repressions that modern media condemns were well deserved and absolutely made sense at the time. In fact, most would make sense now - I mean, capitalist society condemns felons too.
@@vadimk3484
While I would agree that many things made sense during the time, one of the issues of academia is processing the bad things. Which it seems you understand, so this is more for any potential readers btw.
A good example, the USSR would arrest and sometimes kill political enemies. The US today has hands in assassinations of political enemies and also arrests political enemies. The recent protests and black van incidents in the US are a great example of arresting and charging political enemies. The Wall street protests are another. The point being that the governments have had to do some sketchy dark stuff, but every other government is doing the same. It is important to remember that sometimes the reason we need to defend dark unsavory things is because that is how the world operates, not because we want it to operate that way. However denial solves nothing, we must accept, adapt, and then change it for the better.
@@Kurotarosama yeah, it's definitely possible to dig up some genuine dirt on the Soviet intelligence and/or special forces, I'm not saying that they were always objectively "the good guys". However, on the other hand I'd argue that arresting or killing political enemies is but a means of repression and is not always objectively bad. For example, if assassinating or capturing a few key leaders of an enemy regime would prevent a war or lay the foundation of a socialist revolution there, then why the heck not? I mean, sure, in an ideal world the socialist block would inspire and trigger proletarian revolutions all around the globe merely by shining example and clever propaganda, but IRL a global "cultural influence victory" is probably impossible, because it could only happen over a very long period of time, during which some military conflict is bound to happen, if only statistically. And since some violence is thus inevitable, I'd say that socialists should first and foremost always keep class theory in mind, to minimize any collateral damage to fellow proletariat in enemy states, and, whenever possible, surgically remove only the reactionary forces. In practical terms, IMO, this means that assassinations and tactical spec-op strikes behind enemy lines are actually better suited for a socialist military than bombers and armored divisions, simply because it's impossible to use massive military power precisely enough to only target the actual "bad guys".
P.S. only after writing all this I realized that you might have been talking about the Soviets killing/imprisoning dissidents inside the country, not external enemies. That's also true to an extent, and I kinda agree that extradition would have been a better choice. Which, by the way, actually happened at some point - after the war, dissidents were mostly just thrown out instead of hurting them. Maybe internal repressions were more brutal before the war because the country was in a terrible rush to prepare for the said war on time, and there were simply not enough available resources to express humanism. The thirties were hard in the USSR, but, clearly, if not for that immense crunch and effort, the Nazis would have probably won, since Soviet heavy industry was basically non-existent just 10 years before the war.
You need to watch it again then because you weren't paying attention. question was about spying and watching citizens which you typed in your comments and the question was answered in the video. Yes past projects and china today did do that. the difference being why did that happend.
one group did that to protect the larger citizens from fascist uprising/ Prevent reverting to old ways where the bourgeoisie controlled everything and the other group did that to because of opposite and for profit reasons.
they said they could talk about this for hours but this isn't a 12 hour pr vid podcast. and ''China is well known for all its rampant human rights abuses'' ? Yes they do but you know you could talk more in-depth about that I mean lmao If you have lose definition of human right abuses then every country is guilty and some count abuses, against fascist/nazi which I dont cuz fuck em. shit aint perfect and capitalistic countries are worse, when not fucking their own citizens they fuck people over seas. not excusing but if you're gonna comment this then go more in-depth otherwise its kinda shit critique but you do you. im just a comment in a endless sea of other comments.
1:16:38 bastion of freedoom my ass
"the problem was that most communists in power were old." No... the problem was a society in which it was socially acceptable for authorities with such absolute totalizing power that they get to decide what you sing, what you paint, what you write all in the effort to control your mind, your very soul in order to achieve THEIR (ie not democratic) desired outcome.
1:12:16 random fade in and out
I’m not a fan of religion but state atheism was a terrible idea and I don’t like that Marx’s measured and intelligent view of religion and how it functions eventually became distorted into “metaphysics isn’t real”
❤
more plz
"They say the Kibbutz life ended in 1912 [In Degania]. A member of the community, an Austrian woman, wanted to have her own teapot. Deliberation over the teapot almost broke up the community. At Degania people had always shared everything, just like every kibbutz that came before them"
"Gil" Tour Guide
As quoted by Sarah Glidden
Socialism almost collapsed because somebody wanted to own a teapot. And you want to let these raving fanatics who want to collective teapots control the entire country.
31:04 - 31:24 😂
Selcrit? Holy shit, maoist praxis!
1:02:00 NATIONALIZE AMAZON AND WALMART!!
Based professor. Fuck Lingerie, make more Sputnik’s. Consumer culture should only be endorsed once capitalism has become a memory or it can become counter revolutionary pretty quick.
?? How
@@sarveshmunde9846 Because it leads to idiots with no idea how indurstrial development works wanting ransom luxury consumer goods before a strong enough industrial base exists to supply and physically construct consumer industries. Because bitching about lingerie while people don’t have adequate food, medical care, shelter and work is asinine. Just living in America is proof of how obsessed we are with things
The fact that this episode isn’t titled something about Leftist L’s should be a crime
I'll share a thought I shared on Hakim's latest video: many trots will talk about this stuff and many of you here in the comments will just bash the sh out of them. try to have the same mindset with them. and read trotsky.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
And you read this. "Suppressing the counter-revolutionaries" my ass. Before you bring up any genocides by the capitalists countries (mainly US), I'm aware, you don't need to tell me.
I know capitalism has done some horrible shit, but that doesn't excuse socialists/communists from ignoring USSR's war crimes and genocides, if anything it actually discredits the socialists themselves. Turns out, lying to people tends to make those people distrust you.
"B-but capitalists lie about this all the time!"
Exactly. Which is why YOU shouldn't, because y'know, you're trying to oppose the people that do this? Does this really need to be explained?
I disagree on term limits. I dont it should be just two terms but should be like 20 years max your in govt or up until you hit 75 or something. Way to keep the politicians young and prevent a gerentocracy. Plus everyone gets old and once you become old enough your not with it which is alright but you shouldn't be in govt if your not with it
1:16:00 💀 💀
47:17
@39:00 it's really dark listening to the theory that you can essentially break people over several generations so that they won't want fun, they won't want interesting or new things. They will be happy with their grey apartment, their grey furniture that looks just like everyone else' drinking out of their grey coffee cup absent any decoration or individualization... It's just dark. And you wonder why your movements get so much pushback?
Yeah dude, THATS EXACTLY what he meant😂😂
@@sarveshmunde9846 yeah I guess you can have one funko pop he concedes
This is the most "i have zero clue how real socialism looked like" comment. We were much, much more colorful, happy and we enjoyed Life on leves People living under capitalism cant even dream off
@@barbarapitenthusiast7103 Dude, most everyone's apartments looked the same because there wasn't a variety of furniture even.
You're living in a fantasy land. This very podcast denounces the idea that you would get to enjoy stuff. They even call that "hoarding" in this podcast. "consumerism" is just a slur invented by petty tyrants because they don't want to say what they really mean. "You should have less and be happy for it."
@@colonel__klink7548 are you literate enough to read my comments?
Consumerism is literaly a way for the bourgeoisie to distract you from your shitty life.
There was variety in furniture, the soviets produced different furniture of different sizes, you could buy from the warsaw pact, or you could buy the yugoslav produced furniture which was very popular. My great grandma has a 5 room, two bedroom appartment she bought with one month Worth of pay. Its very evident you have never actualy Been inside a conmiebloc.
As i said earlier, we didnt need 100 gazilion different brands of the same product, our products were quality made and last forever. But you have Been ignoring that and going with your "more brands equals more freedumb" retardation.
We had less and we were happy, what we owned was made to last and work, and it did. Not the planned obsolesence garbage made to last not a day longer than the ensurance.
And again and again you keep being to illiterate to read my comments, or frankly jeust trolling. Trolling which has and Will continue to work because I cant stand this level of retardation.
But back to the Point, we had fun. Fun which you are never going to understand, we had joy, which you will never understand. And yes, i am living in a fairy tale or whatever you said. The fairy tale, which existed in reality, the fairy tale of some of the first truly free people in "modern" society. A fairy tale which was true for some 70 and 45 years respectively.
Ahh hakim bro happiness is the elimination of alienation so of course when you only relate to others through objects you’re going to think they make you happy. See also: why white USAians love their dogs so much lmao
I love America, I love living, I love the CIA, I'm not scared.
Too bro-y
nice to know we can joke about Stalin not going far enough. this totally makes me agree with you and support your movement.
people who say he only killed 100 million are revisionaries he actually killed 170 million
1:19:55 whoah, you went a bit far with that. Heard about China? Russia? North Korea is tricky, as they prob dont have much technology.
The biggest L of Socialism is its existence
Least reactionary HOI4 player
@@TheCrazyLemon235 Reactionary? My friend, Socialisms mere existence is reactionary
@@heartsofiron4ever Least Nazi HOI4 player
@@TheCrazyLemon235 average tankie with no real arguements
@@heartsofiron4ever Average Nazi with no real arguments
14:15 this is how we deal with the problem of religions. We just educate everyone, especially the kids in a couple generations later. There won't be nearly as many religious people and then by that time we will outnumber them enough to where we can just wipe them all out. That would be the best course of action. The problem at its core is intelligence, or a lack thereof. That is why the more non-religious United States has only gone downhill since then, even though that is not directly correlated at all. People have gotten even dumber even though they are considered less religious. If you educate people and make them at least a basic level of intelligent then they will not even have a reason to want to have faith in something as silly as a god. But most importantly, if we actually educated people on the sources of these religious texts and the hidden meanings within them that the high priest still hide from you, then people would probably want to completely do away with the institutions of religion.
@AzureStar623 call me what you want but at the end of the day I'd actually get stuff done and further humanity while the position you people take keeps you locked in your room changing nothing
54:16 There should atleast be a retirement age..🫤