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Why does Parentti criticize the USSR so much (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 2 weeks ago by znsh@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml
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Reading Blackshirts & Reds and am at about 40% through the book. The amount of critique he is giving to how poorly the economic situation in the USSR was, how Stalin's way of running things and how people were negligible about their jobs because there was no reason to be competitive or to do a good job is honestly a bit stark. Is this anti-communism or is this just good faith criticism?

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[–] ghost_of_faso3@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Should keep in mind people forget how much inherent poverty and slum conditions are involved in almost every transition from feudal serf states to industrial states. Look at how long the UK took - they had an industrial era that took about 500 years to transition to a 'service' liberal economy arguably not until 1990. At the peak of UK industrialism the proles average lifespan was under 30 years conditions where so bad.

The fact that the USSR accomplished this transition under worse circumstances in the span of 30-40 years is like with China, nothing short of a miracle.

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

The quote refers to the jscobin revolution but it pretty much applies to any progressive revolution. Media will always obfuscate the present reign of terror that has brough countless of injustices and try to focus on the immediate reign of terror of a revolution, which is something we must grapple, revolution is a bloody business but it needs to be done to end the perpetual reign of terror of imperialism.