If ever there was a real world example of Newspeak, it is how—thanks to class war and three red scares—the working class no longer even has a word for socialism. So now welfare capitalists like Bernie Sanders call themselves socialist despite never calling for the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production. It’s an amazing achievement of the capitalist class’ propaganda machine.

They turn most of their lights off at night to preserve power. They don’t really have energy resources themselves and it is very difficult for them to get foreign currencies. They are still a poor country but considering that they are the most sanctioned country in the history of sanctions they are doing about at well as they can.

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Love how you counter concrete, material facts like “guaranteed housing, employment, and childcare” with fact-free scare mongering like “political pressure” and “control over the media.”

There’s never any analysis about what this shit really means. “The fucking stasi” gets thrown out there like “the boogeyman” without even a thought towards how the U.S. security state violently repressed a nationwide movement against police violence in 2020, or how right now that same security state is violently repressing people protesting the genocide we’re supplying. You’re supposed to belive the stasi is the worst thing possible without ever digging into how it functioned, and certainly without asking how it compared to other states.

no freedom of movement

Source?

• constant shortage of any goods

Think about why this might be, Friend. Really think hard about it. What large geopolitical things were happening at the time?

• being a dictatorship

Yes, of the proletariat

• (contrary to your first point) a housing shortage

Again, source? Also, wondering what you think happened before East Germany existed that might have contributed to this. Surely this changed over time

• a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time

Because people working 3 jobs under capitalism have so much free time? What does this even mean?

• political pressure

Again, what does this mean? All Political cultures and institutions exert pressures on their population… That’s how politics works.

• control over the media

I’ll agree that the siege mentality of much of former socialism led to a lack of press freedom, which was ultimately detrimental, but again… Why might this have been?

• the fucking stasi

Quick, name the West German secret police!

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Let’s assume for a minute that everything you’ve said is entirely true. If we’re to be thoughtful about this. East Germany was a historically poorer, agrarian, region of Germany, much less industrialized, artificially lopped off from the west (not by the USSR, btw, who wanted a unified, nonaligned Germany, like the allies had done with Austria), it was heavily sanctioned, had been bombed to shit, much like the rest of Europe, but was made to pay the USSR reparations, that it wasn’t as capable of paying, as a unified Germany would have been. The USSR even dismantled entire east German factories and shipped them back to rebuild their own industrial base.

How do you expect any country to not come out of that with considerable problems?

And the GDR did have considerable problems. I think you and I would disagree on what those problems were, but in the broad strokes, that much we can agree on.

But I would contend that, even with that in mind, East Germany ended up being a much more positive socialist experiment in many respects then say, Romania, which suffered a much more severe centralization of power, and cult of personality issues, then East Germany did.

In fact, looking at the makeup of the East German Parliament and its mass organizations, there was a much greater degree of representation of various social cleavages then in some other Eastern Bloc states.

While you could say argue that this was only ‘on paper’, that really depends on what period of East German history you’re looking at, as the electoral system was altered a handful of times.

Regardless though, this was an expression of the fact that East Germany had a more open Political culture due to its institutions being establisehed as part of an intended nonaligned, unified, German state. And due to the fact that it had received the socializing effects of industrial capitalism that gave it things like an incredibly progressive Queer movement, that other Eastern Bloc states, which were formerly feudal backwaters, hadn’t developed.

Tl;Dr - this shit is a lot more complicated than listing off bullet points for “why East Germany was Evil”, That I was taught in the 7th grade.

im sorry but you seem to have been fed quite a few western myths about the gdr. you seem to be arguing in good faith though, so lets examine:

no freedom of movement

this is just plain wrong. tourism was possible and encouraged not only within the country, but also to fellow socialist states like czechoslovakia and hungary, as well as, albeit to a lesser extent the soviet union. such trips were enjoyed by virtually the entire population thanks to guaranteed vacation time.

constant shortage of goods

shortages were only a thing in the immediate aftermath of ww2, as well as during the 1980s. in the second case they were caused by the economic liberalization enacted at the time due to western pressure, as well as the general deterioration of conditions in the eastern block at the time, which happened for similar reasons. during the late 60s and 70s per capita consumption was more or less equal to the west.

being a dictatorship

every state is necessarily a dictatorship, as this is important for class preservation. just as liberal states will mercilessly crush revolutionary elements, so must socialist societies crush counterrevolutionary ones. please read engels on authority to understand this point better. it is a short read and very eye opening.

a housing shortage

any source on this claim? the only periods i can imagine this to be the case is in the beginning due to war era destruction and the end due to crisis.

a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time

this is in fact a valid point. a solution for this could have been found within the socialist system though.

political pressure

already answered previously in the point about “dictatorship”.

control over the media

“All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.”

– v. i. lenin

the fucking stasi

the mfs was necessary due to the constant threat of counterrevolution going out from west germany. but its reach and capabilities are much overblown in western propaganda nowadays. in fact, the east spent much less on its intelligence apparatus than the frg while still managing to have a lower crime rate.

the goals you stated are extremely noble and i do in fact agree with every single one of them. you are being idealist though, which means that you absolutely need to read theory, especially lenin. a good reading list can be found here. if you would educate yourself properly you could become a great contribution to the communist movement.

Many capitalist countries have a lot of that now.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=KoJ0Pih0Ssc

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.

why are reactionaries always assuming that their opponents are children? only because you are a teenager living within the imperial core, consuming nothing but nato propaganda, you shouldnt assume that everyone else is an equivalent.

so all youre telling me that after the county was almost completely destroyed during ww2, the situation was dire? no fucking shit, sherlock.

i originally wanted to point out how ironic it is that a .world user wants to talk about site culture, but considering that you arent even capable of writing the word lemmy, its probably pointless.

во-первых, социал-демократы ни в коем случае не являются социалистами, они обычно даже не претендуют на это. их истинная лояльность была достаточно продемонстрирована тем фактом, что меньшевики встали на сторону белых, а германский спд приказал фрайкорпусу (будущему ss) убивать спартакистов. анархисты, с другой стороны, представляют собой большую группу различных типов людей, из которых только часть претендует на социализм (синдикалисты, анкомы итд).

однако все это не имеет никакого значения, поскольку эти группы никогда не смогли добиться ни хрена. все их начинания провалились весьма плачевно, например, в испании. в отличие от мл, которые действительно смогли улучшить жизнь людей, поскольку они понимали, что репрессивные меры абсолютно необходимы для выживания государства. просто посмотри, как быстро соцблок превратился в абсолютно дерьмовую ситуацию, в которой мы находимся сегодня, после того как горби сделал то, что он сделал.

о кндр достаточно хорошо известно, что ложь, распространяемая западными сми, в основном является лишь проекцией того, что исторически делалось в оккупированной южной корее. почитай на эту тему книгу “патриоты, предатели и империи” стивена гованса. даже если ты все равно хочешь быть против северокорейского правительства, именно в этом и заключается критическая часть критической поддержки.

By millions murdered, you don’t mean people who died in the last famine in China after centuries of famines, and you don’t mean the last famine in the region that became the USSR after centuries of famines, right? Famines that happened during or soon after the bloody revolutions overthrowing the tsars and emperors, under which the previous famines occurred?

yeah the state department point was probably a little harsh and generalizing of me, though i am indeed quite pissed how reactionaries like vaush or keffals are appropriating leftist aesthetics in order to shill for us imperialism. i am also standing with my statement about ancoms & co not getting anything done, sorry.

I straight up don’t believe you.