Why is the Soviet Union held up as a force against imperialism when the Soviet Union invaded a bunch of countries?
Edit: tumbleweed Yeah.
Famines aren’t unique to socialism lol
The soviet famine was directly related to a failure of leadership, much like the entire Soviet empire.
Sorry you break up your retarded tankie party celebrating failure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines
There was definitely nothing that could have been done to prevent the great famine of india (caused by British imperialism 5.5mil dead), or the famine in northern china (caused by british imperialism 9-13mil dead) or the indian famine of 1896-1897 (caused by british imperialism 2mil dead) or the morrocan famine of 1940-1948 (caused by french imperialism 200,000 dead) or the current west supported famine in the gaza strip.
These were and are not deliberate policy choices /s
What even are you trying to argue? That the soviet famine wasn’t a result of abject policy failure?
https://www.historyhit.com/soviet-famine-causes/
Never Forget:
During the 1932 Holodomor Famine, the USSR sent aid to affected regions in an attempt to alleviate the famine. According to Mark Tauger in his article, The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933:
While the leadership did not stop exports, they did try to alleviate the famine. A 25 February 1933 Central Committee decree allotted seed loans of 320,000 tons to Ukraine and 240,000 tons to the northern Caucasus. Seed loans were also made to the Lower Volga and may have been made to other regions as well. Kul’chyts’kyy cites Ukrainian party archives showing that total aid to Ukraine by April 1933 actually exceeded 560,000 tons, including more than 80,000 tons of food
Some bring up massive grain exports during the famine to show that the Soviet Union exported food while Ukraine starved. This is fallacious for a number of reasons, but most importantly of all the amount of aid that was sent to Ukraine alone actually exceeded the amount that was exported at the time.
Aid to Ukraine alone was 60 percent greater than the amount exported during the same period. Total aid to famine regions was more than double exports for the first half of 1933.
According to Tauger, the reason why more aid was not provided was because of the low harvest
It appears to have been another consequence of the low 1932 harvest that more aid was not provided: After the low 1931, 1934, and 1936 harvests procured grain was transferred back to peasants at the expense of exports.
Tauger is not a communist, and ultimately this specific article takes the view that the low harvest was caused by collectivization (he factors in the natural causes of the famine in later articles, based on how he completely neglects to mention weather in this article at all its clear that his position shifted over the years). However, its interesting to see that the Soviets really did try to alleviate the famine as best as they could.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2500600
Arguing that famines were a result of abject policy failure is the height of idiocy given that these famines were happening before Soviets took over and the Soviets actually stopped them. You’re either intentionally lying or you’re ignorant on the subject you’re opining on. Either way not a good look.
Bro has not read the wikipedia holodomor sources 💀
Harvest of sorrow is STILL being cited
Droughts and famines were already happening during the tsarist times and were in fact a major reason behind the revolution. USSR doubled life expectancy in just 20 years. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years. By the 1960’s, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union
- https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html
Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition:
Not only that, but Russia went from a backwards agrarian society where people travelled by horse and carriage to being the first in space in the span of 40 years. Russia showed incredible growth after the revolution that surpassed the rest of the world:
- https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016/
- https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016-wid-world-working-paper-201710/
USSR provided free education to all citizens resulting in literacy rising from 33% to 99.9%:
- http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PubEdUSSR.htm
- http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/anglosov.htm
- http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000013/001300eo.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez
These are just the basic facts that propagandists like @aniki@lemm.ee like to avoid mentioning.
edit: you really gotta love how upset lemmy libs get when presented with basic facts
pretty impressive for such a small cat
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I am the walrus.
