naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
If one wanted to continue the same train of thought, which I personally don't share, they might argue that all the communists who stopped supporting Soviet Union and became anarchists, Trotskyists, Maoists, New Left etc. did so because Soviet Union was strong and successful.
I'm not actually sure what the exact point would be. A lot of people would have at least seen the Soviet Union as strong right to the very end. However, there was a steady drip of people from a pro-Soviet left to various anti-Soviet left positions even before that, and these were often connected to open displays of strength (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 etc.)
A lot of people would have at least seen the Soviet Union
Who ? Soviets were clearly stagnating. It was obvious when despite what looked like an advantage in launches, they fell behind, didn't even manage to send people to the moon, their economy was growing far slower, etc..
Having your satellite states break with your political program so that you have to crush them militarily doesn't look strong, it looks weak. Not as weak as open defiance would have been though.
Soviets were clearly stagnating in hindsight, but at the time? Direct comparisons were few and far between, and the people who had a chance to make them certainly seemed surprised enough.
He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, "there would be a revolution."
The Soviets didn't even manage to send people to the moon, but until they were at the brink of dissolution they also didn't even admit they had been trying. Walter Cronkite even bought the Soviet line, ''It turned out there had never been a race to the Moon.'' The fact that Soviet lunar lander hardware and a Saturn-V-scale launcher had ever existed was only revealed decades later, by accident.
Soviets were clearly stagnating in hindsight, but at the time? Direct comparisons were few and far between, and the people who had a chance to make them certainly seemed surprised enough.
Mainstream opinion didn't want them to stagnate, but it's usually shit and honestly, wasn't anyone who ever visited convinced of that ?
Warsaw Pact countries couldn't even provide cars to people who wanted them, couldn't keep facades of buildings looking reasonably good, couldn't provide the goods people wanted to buy.
If you compared 1970s lifestyles and prosperity in Austria vs Czechoslovakia, with both countries starting from basically the same starting line, it'd have been undeniable communism wasn't working well.
This wasn't as obvious before 1970, but after ? Famously, a demographer predicted the dissolution of USSR based mostly on health data.
Todd deduced that the Soviet Union had stagnated in the 1970s and was falling behind not only the West but its own Eastern European satellite states economically. In addition to this, low birth rates, a rising suicide rate, and worker discontent all were factors in an increasingly low level of productivity in the economy. Todd also predicted that poorly carried-out political and economic reforms would lead to a break-up of the Soviet Union with non-Russian republics seceding.
In the case of the anarchists and the Trotskyists, this requires ignoring a lot of what they said, without a clear justification.
Maoists did support the Soviet Union until Mao didn't. They also rejected China as soon as it stopped being Maoist and while it was still far from being a superpower, suggesting that ideology really was their big motivator.
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Notes -
If one wanted to continue the same train of thought, which I personally don't share, they might argue that all the communists who stopped supporting Soviet Union and became anarchists, Trotskyists, Maoists, New Left etc. did so because Soviet Union was strong and successful.
The greatest losses in support came when it stopped looking strong and successful (Brezhnev era) no ?
I'm not actually sure what the exact point would be. A lot of people would have at least seen the Soviet Union as strong right to the very end. However, there was a steady drip of people from a pro-Soviet left to various anti-Soviet left positions even before that, and these were often connected to open displays of strength (Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968 etc.)
Who ? Soviets were clearly stagnating. It was obvious when despite what looked like an advantage in launches, they fell behind, didn't even manage to send people to the moon, their economy was growing far slower, etc..
Having your satellite states break with your political program so that you have to crush them militarily doesn't look strong, it looks weak. Not as weak as open defiance would have been though.
Soviets were clearly stagnating in hindsight, but at the time? Direct comparisons were few and far between, and the people who had a chance to make them certainly seemed surprised enough.
The Soviets didn't even manage to send people to the moon, but until they were at the brink of dissolution they also didn't even admit they had been trying. Walter Cronkite even bought the Soviet line, ''It turned out there had never been a race to the Moon.'' The fact that Soviet lunar lander hardware and a Saturn-V-scale launcher had ever existed was only revealed decades later, by accident.
Mainstream opinion didn't want them to stagnate, but it's usually shit and honestly, wasn't anyone who ever visited convinced of that ?
Warsaw Pact countries couldn't even provide cars to people who wanted them, couldn't keep facades of buildings looking reasonably good, couldn't provide the goods people wanted to buy.
If you compared 1970s lifestyles and prosperity in Austria vs Czechoslovakia, with both countries starting from basically the same starting line, it'd have been undeniable communism wasn't working well.
This wasn't as obvious before 1970, but after ? Famously, a demographer predicted the dissolution of USSR based mostly on health data.
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In the case of the anarchists and the Trotskyists, this requires ignoring a lot of what they said, without a clear justification.
Maoists did support the Soviet Union until Mao didn't. They also rejected China as soon as it stopped being Maoist and while it was still far from being a superpower, suggesting that ideology really was their big motivator.
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