This can be a problem in parliamentary democracies that hold elections for every seat in Parliament at once - you can get radical change through a single election that way, and I agree that this is dangerous. However many democracies have Constitutional safeguards designed to prevent precisely this danger: staggered elections. In the US, for example, half our national elections (the “midterm” elections) can only touch the legislature, while leaving the Presidency untouched. And we can never replace more than a third of the Senate in any one election. This acts as a check against some sudden surge of popular sentiment effecting radical change. The people need to be and stay very annoyed with the party in power for some years to drive it out entirely.
BTW, you raised a fair point with regard to the transfer of power in China - the PRC does, indeed, deserve some praise for managing that successfully. It would deserve far more, however, were it to allow free and fair elections, and then peacefully hand over power to another party altogether if the Communists lost.
Sorry, but I believe the fact is that while no one can prove there is a God, no one can prove there isn’t, either. In other words, it’s not a ‘fact’ that there is no God.
Martin Amis recently said that he believes atheism carries with it a certain amount of arrogance due to a certainty it can’t actually posess, given the tremendous amount we don’t know regarding creation and the universe itself. He feels the most rational standpoint in regard to the existence of God should be agnositicism which teeters on the brink of atheism.
It seems to me also that this would the most reasonable stance to take for someone who finds themselves unable to believe in God.
Economic assistance to Cuba followed a different model; unlike the West’s dumping of money into its puppet states’ coffers, the USSR attempted to forge long-lasting economic relationships with friendly socialist administrations.
In Cuba’s context, this meant trading Soviet manufactured goods and resources for Cuba’s agricultural products (chiefly sugar). Cuba was satisfied with this arrangement, and did not invest in heavy industry (probably a smart move - finished goods would need to be shipped extreme distances in order to be sold, given the ongoing US embargo against this small nation). Unfortunately, once the Soviet Union disintegrated, so did its subsidizing of the Cuban economy.
Having said that, Cuba is certainly not a “shit hole,” as you allege. All things being relative, you must realize that it enjoys a higher standard of living, a higher rate of access to basic human services, and a higher per capita GDP than most of its Caribbean neighbors. If you want to pick on a Caribbean “shit hole,” you’re barking up the wrong tree; I would focus my attention on that happy capitalist paradise known as Haiti, instead.
As for divided nations with disparate economic theories, you’re extrapolating from a very limited set of only two cases (North/South Korea and East/West Germany). That is hardly a large enough sample size to support a defensible theory. But let us look at these cases, anyway:
First, Germany. Keep in mind that the Western part was bigger, had a stronger economy before the war, and was not damaged in the same way by the Red Army counterattack during the Great Patriotic War. Western nations, being largely unscathed during the war, could afford to pour outrageous amounts of money into West Germany, which the USSR could not afford to do with the East, given its priorities of rebuilding its own country following the German ravages.
Next, Korea. You may be interested to know that, after partition, the North’s economic growth far outpaced that of the South. This only changed after the North became obnoxious enough in its corruption of socialist ideals to lose most of its economic support from the USSR and the PRC. The South, meanwhile, kept receiving Western funds.
As you can see, with satellite states like this, it really is all about the money. If you really want to compare socialist and capitalist economies, you should look at big players rather than minor dependent states. A good comparison would be China vs. India. Both are approximately the same size, have a huge population, and achieved real independence at approximately the same time. One became socialist, one became capitalist. Sixty years later, which one is better off? Hint: it’s not the capitalist one.
But what happens if THE PARTY makes a mistake? In a single-party state, there’s no peaceful way to undo it. So the mistakes pile up and multiply until they become unsustainable. Throwing away years of progress is bad. Perpetually enshrining error is worse.
The fact that the people freely choose some flavor of capitalism over and over again is certainly inconvenient for your argument. If they wanted more socialism they’d vote for it.
And, in fact, I hope they do. I’d be quite happy if the people of the United States decided to move this country much farther to the left. However, I want that move to occur with the consent of the citizenry, not imposed by fiat by commissars.
Things never go smoothly. Sooner or later an idiot or a monster will rise to power and your benevolent collective will become a prison camp.
Communism in practice is an exploitative ideology that co-opts the natural struggle of the workers against the owners and uses it to enrich a narrow, repressive ruling elite. It is a betrayal of the common man, made all the more odious by its subversion of the true struggle for fairness and justice for all.
As with any major political development, I see the lamentable collapse of the USSR as being instigated by a large number of separate factors.
The single most important factor was Stalin. As I mentioned previously, he left a dark mark on the heart of our nation that lasted for decades to come (and is still around, to a certain extent). His dictatorial and vicious style made the people fear the government and distrust those in power, which is never conducive to national stability.
Of course, that alone would not have sufficed. For the entire picture, we need to take a look at other factors:
(1) Political imperfections. The political structure was unwieldy and top-heavy. Too much power was centralized under one individual, and regional ruling bodies had little leeway to act for the good of the their local people. This made the system too slow to react to challenges on the ground level.
(2) Economic imperfections. The economy was too thoroughly nationalized. It was effective at providing the basic human necessities to all, but this alone is not enough to make people happy. Without at least a small private economy, there were not enough luxury goods and services to go around, resulting in popular discontent and the growing presence of black markets.
(3) Soviet generosity. Unlike the West, we did not make usurious loans to our friends - we gave them full support, no strings attached. Unfortunately, this was extremely costly. We could simply not afford to single-handedly support the economies of Cuba, China, North Korea, Vietnam, all our satellites, and a dozen quasi-aligned states at the same time.
(4) Unexpected expenses. As if #3 were not enough, we also had to shell out vast amounts of money for the failed attempt to prop up the failing Afghan government with our military might. At the same time, we were forced to play an expensive armament game due to the US’s incessant war-mongering and aggression.
(5) Agricultural woes. The Soviet Union was a big country, but that is misleading. Most of the land was unsuitable for sustained agriculture, making it difficult to feed the expanding population. The Soviet Union should have banked on relying on time-tested crops: potatoes and rye. Instead, there was a campaign to begin massive cultivation of corn. Corn did not take well to our growing conditions, and food shortages ensued.
(6) Black propaganda. While all this was going on, the West continued to poison the minds of our people with myths about the wonders of democracy and capitalism. The West was aided in this nefarious course of action by a small number of Soviet traitors, chief among them being Solzhenitsyn. This further served to demoralize the populace.
Gorbachev was not really a factor leading to the collapse; he was more of a catalyst that took advantage of the situation. When his country needed him most, he instead chose to betray and topple it, plunging his people into a dark age from which most of them are only now beginning to recover.
Would the country have collapsed without him? That is an impossible question to answer. Had he been marginalized, a similar monster may have done what he did. On the other hand, a visionary may have come along and been able to heal and rebuild the weakened system. Unfortunately, we can never know what may have happened but for the betrayal.
LOL … so in other words the Soviet Union failed because it was stagnant and fragile. It couldn’t cope with failures of leadership at the top. It doubled down on stupid mistakes. And it couldn’t compete effectively with the capitalist nations.
I love the bit about the mistake of massive cultivation of unsuitable crops. This is exactly the sort of foolish inefficiency that command economies are famous for.
This is interesting. You earlier stated that you’d fully support freedom of speech, with the (reasonable) caveats that violence and exhortations towards the same would not be permitted. However, you’ve also stated that you believe treason merits a bullet to the back of the head.
You now say that Solzhenitsyn was a traitor. He commanded no legions, raised no armies, and only ever fired a weapon in defense of the Soviet Union, during WWII. He only spoke, and wrote, and criticized. Would you have had him sent back to the gulag for this? Or shot?
Stalin? 23,000,000
Or was it Mao? 49,000,000 - 78,000,000
Or was it Il-sung? 1,600,000
Or was it Pot? 1,700,000
Or was it Lennin? 30,000
Or was it Castro? 30,000 http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html
Or was it Jong-il who prefers to let his people starve rather than give up on communism? 600,00 - 3,500,000
No, Commissar, the single most imporant factor is that communism has a solidly established track record of having leaders who kill their own people on a horrendous scale.
If you are not ashamed of your gulag, then you should not be bothered by Solzhenitsyn telling the world about it.
You should also take some time to learn a bit about Solzhenitsyn and the reason he was put into a forced labour camp in the first place – he had expressed concern about Stalin.
If Stalin was the problem, as you assert, then you should celebrate Solzhenitsyn for speaking out against Stalin, rather than calling him a chief traitor.
Of course I have, and you are misapplying the term. Banana republics are the result of the exploitation of small agrarian states by large capitalist powers. The outcome is that the small states become poorer as the capitalists fleece them for their own benefit.
Cuba was not a banana republic but more of a charity case. We didn’t need their sugar, since our own domestic sugar beet production was more than enough to meet our demands at a much lower cost. However, we felt duty-bound to help out a fledgling fellow socialist state, and we did so. They benefited, and we ate the costs. Hardly seems exploitative to me.
You are correct; I erred in my terminology. I have a strongly negative view of this loathsome individual, but I admit he cannot really be accused of treason. So, no, I would not see him either shot or imprisoned in a proper socialist nation. We must be prepared to tolerate certain levels of dissent, and his opinions would rightfully fall under that protection. I am simply saying that his lies were harmful to the overall cause, though not enough to make them truly criminal.
That’s laughable. If you met your own demands at a lower cost, then you should developed Cuba’s economy rather than keep it as an impovershed Banana Republic.
As far as being duty bound goes, that flies in the face of the economic support being given to permit you to stay in the face of the USA.
It is not his gulag stories I find most disappointing (though I do thing he took great literary liberties with them), but rather his anti-USSR campaign following his exile. Solzhenitsyn went out of his way to tarnish our image abroad, usually by claiming to be knowledgeable about internal matters that he had clearly never been privy to in his life. The West swallowed his fairy tales hook, line, and sinker, which reinforced its own black propaganda against socialism and socialist nations.
Ironically enough, Solzhenitsyn himself undermined his claims simply by being alive. According to him, any and every perceived criticism of the Soviet government would get you shot on the spot… And yet, he openly criticized the government, served time for it, criticized it again, served more time, criticized it again, got exiled. Anyone else notice the curious absence of any shooting? If we were as bloodthirsty and trigger-happy as he alleged, how is it that we let the worst and most prolific critic get away? Was the executioner sleeping on the job? Very strange. :rolleyes:
Pedantic nitpick: In Korea, the family name comes first, so these men should be called “Kim”, since that’s their surname.
Also, Solzhenitsyn was sent to the gulags because he was a POW during WWII. Anyone who allowed himself to be captured by the Germans rather than fighting to the death was considered a traitor by Stalin, and all the Russian POWs liberated from Nazi slave-labor camps were sent straight into Soviet slave-labor camps.
