Man im pretty socialist who lives in ex east germany with my parents actually being parz of that time and i gotta tell you, with what i hear from them, it was horrible
Ah yes the oh so good DDR with exciting features such as
no freedom of movement
constant shortage of any goods
being a dictatorship
(contrary to your first point) a housing shortage
a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time
political pressure
control over the media
the fucking stasi
And what i mean by pretty socialist is: everyone gets equal opportunities no matter what race, religion, gender, political views, etc. I want that chad - who just lost all his belongings - has the same chance to live a fulfilled live as elon musk has. I abhorr the fact that there are billionaire’s or even just millionaire’s while other people have to choose between paying rent or eating, and those people not even being in the worst situation compared to others.
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!
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.
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.
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.
thats exactly what the dictatorship of the proletariat is for! after the exploiting classes are eliminated, the state will wither away, leaving a classless society, aka communism. this takes much time though.
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.
This is bullshit. I will refute most of your points as someone who has lived in Socialist Hungary before the iron curtain.
Housing was not guaranteed. You were assigned lodging based on need. If you had no children, you were staying with your parents and two siblings in the 1BR apartment. Once you got a kid, if you were a young couple, you got an apartment with an elderly in it, that you had to take care of along with your new born, until their death. After that the apartment would be yours. To overcome the shortages of housing, the government invested into building temporary housing called panel buildings. They were not meant to last for more than twenty years.
Education was discriminatory in the sense that those favoured by the party got a pass. You have long hair? Your dad had long hair? You are a Gypsy? Yeah sure, you can pass elementary grade 8, but you sure as hell won’t be allowed to go into a four-year highschool for your profession and graduation . Best you could hope for is a 2 year middle school for a manual labour job (szakmunkásképző). If at all. Often it’s off to the fields for you to work at the communal fields.
0% unemployment because if you are unemployed you go to prison. Off to the fields or else!
Sales tax (VAT) has been 25% even before 1988
The railway system the country has was all built before the second world war. It got maintained during socialism, but the best they could do was put train drivers on concession show trials and execute them when accidents happened instead of actually improving the system. To this day the max speed on these rail lines is 120kmph and many of the smaller lines are falling into disrepair and unelectrified.
Healthcare was universal, however it was not highly developed nor without discrimination. What was true for education was also true here. You better be a good party member or else. If you were lucky, you had a relative working in healthcare to skip waiting lines (I’ve benefited of this a lot)
This one was a given. Although you still had to pay for meals for your kid at the daycare. But the times were also different back then. Those responsible for child care were not necessarily professionals and hitting children if they had misbehaved was still a thing.
I don’t think this had a measurable comparison in any way. How do you draw comparisons?
Ahh yes, how nice. Went from nazi dictatorship to literal Russia planted dictatorships in both East Germany and Hungary ('56).
“Throughout Eastern Europe and the former USSR, many people grudgingly admitted that conditions were better under communism (New York Times, 3/30/95). Pro-capitalist Angela Stent, of George- town University, allows that “most people are worse off than they were under Communism . . . . The quality of life has deteriorated with the spread of crime and the disappearance of the social safety net” (New York Times, 12/20/93). An East German steelworker is quoted as saying “I do not know if there is a future for me, and I’m not too hopeful. The fact is, I lived better under Communism” (New York Times, 3/3/91). An elderly Polish woman, reduced to one Red Cross meal a day: “I´m not Red but I have to say life for poor people was better before … Now things are good for businessmen but not for us poor” (New York Times, 3/17/91). One East German woman commented that the West German womens movement was only beginning to fight for “what we already had here… We took it for granted because of the socialist system. Now we realize what we [lost]” (Los Angeles Times, 8/6/91).” Michael Parenti - “Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism”.
A new book by Kristen Ghodsee, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that women have better sex under socialism.
If that sounds strange to you, consider this: A survey of East and West Germans after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women (the socialist side of Germany during the Cold War) had twice as many orgasms as Western women.
What in the world accounts for such a wide gap?
According to Ghodsee, it’s about social safety nets. If, she argues, you build a society that supports women and doesn’t punish them for having children or devalue their labor, it turns out they’ll be happier and have better sex.
But it doesn’t matter how many studies or surveys or policy differences you point to – some guy always has an old relative whose story outweighs everything.
What exactly are these quotes supposed to prove? This was what, a few months or a few years after reunification? Any social change that large is going to cause some turbulence. And of course Parenti has an agenda, so he wouldn’t include someone lauding their new experience.
nobody made this argument except you, what was said was that Biden supporters are just like the people whom this flag represents, they’re ok with an actual genocide being committed against other people as long they’re comfortable
I’d be surprised if opponents of genocide would vote Republican instead, given how some GOP reps seem to be opposing even the half-measure of delaying arms shipments.
A two party state where you choose between “fucked up” and “less fucked up, but constantly ceding ground” just does a poor job of accurately representing the opinions of people favouring actual progress, so they’re doing what they can to pull the Overton Window their way.
This is what perpetuates the insanity in US. When your choices are Hitler and 99% Hitler, then the vote is meaningless. A lot of people will just choose not to participate in this circus.
If you support Biden then you are supporting a genocide that US is currently involved in. Period. The fact that you can’t even admit this just further underscores your utter lack of morality and intellectual honesty.
Ok, but if I don’t support Biden, the other guy is going to continue doing the genocide. Maybe even at a worse pace. So what’s the answer than? Voting on every other decision
Genocide sucks, but America dug this hole for generations. It’s not all on Biden
Your actions are what matter, and if you’re going to vote for the guy who is conducting a genocide then you are complicit. No amount of hand wringing will change that.
Not voting is also an action. And if your refusal to vote allows someone to take power that will not only continue the genocide, but also start more genocides, then you are complicit. No amount of hand wringing will change that.
Yeah, not voting for either genocidal scumbag is indeed an action. To frame what’s happening in US as the fault of people who refuse to vote for either scumbag is the height of idiocy. No amount of liberal sophistry will change that.
It’s the trolley problem with a single track: you can pull the lever and the trolley will run over 5 people before it stops, or you can not pull the lever and the trolley will run over 10 people.
If you’re standing beside the lever with your arms crossed refusing to pull it, saying “the fault is on the person who tied the people to the track. Getting involved makes me complacent.” Then yes, people are going to blame you because even if you didn’t cause the problem there is something very easy you can do to make it less bad.
You can’t save all 10, but you can save 5. So you do what you can, and then you also go after the guy who tied the people to the tracks.
Learn how resisting actual repressive regimes works instead of making a clown of yourself here. You’re not saving anyone here. Biden is the one doing a genocide as we speak, not Trump. But I suppose racists like you don’t even consider Palestinians to be humans, so you won’t lose any sleep over that.
Nah, it’s just people who use a trolley analogy to dismiss an actual genocide they’re supporting who are racists. Clearly you place no value on the lives of Palestinians that the party you keep telling people to vote for is massacring. At least have the decency to own up to your beliefs openly little fash.
Change comes from outside the ballot box. Vote for Biden, sure, but join and support the ongoing protests forcing his hand currently. Historically, meaningful change has come from collective action.
If your choices are Hitler and 99% Hitler, you still do what you can to stop 100% Hitler. Less bad is less bad.
Nobody cares about your smug sense of superiority when 100% Hitler is in charge and you proudly announce “I did nothing to stop this, other than try to encourage other people to also do nothing to stop this.”
Considering I specifically suggested doing something is better than doing nothing, I’m going to go ahead and guess that listening to what other people are saying isn’t a strength of yours.
Doing something is what the students protesting the genocide are currently doing, not voting for the guy doing the genocide. The fact that you don’t understand these basic things is truly phenomenal.
I understand that the people protesting are doing something. This is the first time you’ve actually advocated for an action.
People are fully capable of both protesting and voting to keep someone worse from doing worse things. The fact that you don’t understand these basic things is truly phenomenal.
Protesting a genocide is real tangible action, voting for a guy committing the genocide is the opposite that action. Hope that helps clear things up for you since you seem to have trouble grasping this concept.
Stalin and Mao liberated hundreds of millions of people, provided them with food, healthcare, education, and jobs. Imagine comparing that to a senile manager of the empire doing a genocide. What is wrong with you?
Meh, you and I both know that we cannot have an honest discussion of Mao or Stalin’s flaws on this instance, the same way we can have an honest discussion of Biden’s.
I disagree. In my experience having a lack of restrooms just makes the place nasty and hostile. You can still visit places with plenty of public restrooms, and it’s so much nicer. Every light rail station in Seattle smells like a toilet, the ones in Vancouver are way nicer. Removing restrooms doesn’t remove the need to pee.
Your response is a symptom of a much larger problem you have, misinformation and fear. You’ve presented a weird MSM scenario where everyone is a druggy. You’ve been disconnected from reality and have lost your way from being “stoic”.
“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” – Seneca
People shoot up drugs on the street, too. Should we just get rid of public streets while we’re at it?
Personally, I would rather have drug users go to a more private spot(like a public bathroom stall), than on the street in broad daylight, to use their drugs.
What’s wrong with the DPRK? The only source that life there is terrible are defector’s testimonies, which contradict each other on a daily basis and where the worst, most emotional stories are rewarded with fame and money. Often it’s the only way to make ends meats for them. If you come to the south from the north you are a nobody.
Furthermore, the DPRK has never threatened anyone. They have a 100% literacy rate (literally on the CIA website) and every citizen is guaranteed free healthcare, free education and a place to live. They use all of their arible land for food production but because of the sanctions and their mountainous terrain sometimes they have scarcities, but no one is starving. Their constitution is full of human and political rights and social gurantees.
And to proof that I don’t shill for any country calling itself socialist, I don’t like China at all (while still thinking that they are at least better for the world than the US).
And of course there are things to criticize the DPRK for, like the lack of LGBT rights and their weapons exports and hackergroups. But considering the sanctions (that even China upholds) they are in very dier need of foreign currency.
I would also encourage everybody to study the history of Korea.
one thing i might add is the fact that most if not all of the propagated lies about the dprk are projection. sexual slavery was a thing the american occupation forces engaged in massively and south korean dictator pak chong-hui was killed during a dinner party with a underage concubine present. later, haircut policing was a thing in the south during the 1980s under chon tu-hwan. the most prominent korean defector, pak yon-mi is a white supremacist btw.
i believe that the whole hacking thing is massively exaggerated by western media as part of their whole “the enemy is both weak and strong”-strategy. it is both a way to engineer further fear mongering against korea, as well as to mask their own incompetence. but even if im wrong and they are indeed from the dprk, i still find them quite based and funny tbh.
do you happen to have any resources on the lgbt situation within the county? i would love to educate myself on the topic.
i also slightly disagree with you on china. they never seized being a socialist state, but have sadly become revisionist since deng. that doesnt make them any less worthy of critical support though.
China meets all criteria of Lenin’s definition of an imperialist power, Marxism Today made a good explanation of it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc-3aE8mAlATheir loans might be a good alternative for third world nations to get away from the IMF but are still to further Chinese business interests.
I read/heard somewhere that homosexuality is forbidden in the DPRK but I am sorry to tell you I don’t know where. I would have to look into it freshly too. I mentioned it more to make clear that I don’t simp for any country and that it is possible to have a rational discussion with me.
hey, idk why you got removed, you were talking about an interesting topic.
i obviously didnt watch the stream, since i dont have so much free time on my hands, but having read the comments i believe to have more or less gotten the gist of what they are saying. its the usual talking points.
this old r/genzedong thread does imho a great job on providing evidence that china does in fact not fit lenins criteria for a imperialist nation, even if one were to assume that it has a capitalist economy. (cw coarse language though)
The only source that life there is terrible are defector’s testimonies, which contradict each other on a daily basis and where the worst, most emotional stories are rewarded with fame and money.
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.
That might be their real problem. I mean, everywhere else on the planet, the value of menial labor greatly exceeds the cost of the lighting a human needs to be able to work. If they are, indeed, only providing lighting during daylight hours, they are only utilizing 1/3 to 1/2 of the industrial capacity they have invested in. They bought a tractor plant, but because they won’t turn on the lights, it’s production is far short of its capacity.
For want of a lightbulb, the production was lost. For want of production, farming equipment was lost. For want of farming equipment, the harvest was lost. For want of a harvest, the people were lost.
If the value of electricity to run a lightbulb so greatly exceeds the value of human labor, I would expect that they would have human powered generators to convert low-value human labor into high-value lighting, so that other laborers would have the light they need to produce.
First, factory lights only account for a small fraction of the power consumed and second people sleep at night. And third, it doesn’t matter what the electricity costs if you don’t have enough coal/oil/gas.
The DPRK has no shortage of coal. It’s one of their export products. They currently produce 35 million tons a year, and only burn 10 million.
While not commonly used in the rest of the world due to abundant oil and gas supplies, coal liquefaction and gasification are relatively simple and proven technologies. Having coal provides a (somewhat dirty) source of gas and liquid fuels, if utilized for that purpose.
Apparently, electricity is considerably more valuable in DPRK than the opportunity cost of shutting down the entire country overnight. I would think that the factories producing tractors and equipment for converting non-arable land into cropland would be a sufficiently high enough priority to justify burning some excess coal, but apparently not.
Their average height is much lower than people from South Korea. The most likely cause is malnutrition. When malnutrition affects even the military, your civilians aren’t doing well.
If you’re looking for sources, there are plenty of links should you search for “north korean vs south korean height”. The difference is pretty dramatic for 75 years of isolation.
Thank you for putting the meme in text too. I wish it was more commonplace, not just for screenreaders but also for people like me whose internet loads pictures slowly. Saves me a click and is just as funny.
Also, yeah, fuck their hypocrisy. They’d gladly push both buttons and see no issue.
libertarian “socialists” are a deeply idealist tendency that didnt manage to get anything done ever. the only thing they do is criticize actually existing socialist projects, mostly using state department talking points. the concept of critical support is unknown to them and the only revolutions they like are the ones that fail. they are puppets in the hands of the cia.
It’s not very enlightened to call entire movements like libertarian socialism (AKA anarchism) just idealist, ineffectual, and to imply they’re essentially brainwashed by the US government.
Anti-state movements have a history as long and storied as socialism, and theoretical frameworks for their beliefs far more complex than you give them credit for.
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.
Его поинт в том что социализм это не только исковерканный марксистско-ленинистский брэйн рот жёстко социально репрессивных стран как бест корея, полно и анархистов и соц демократов которые так же зовут себя социалистами но они не будут симпить за Ким Чин Ина, лол
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.
Это делюжон жёсткий, даже базовые факты не правильны, не только в соц блоке и так уже все убого было, но и то что социалистические государства с их жёсткими репрессиями ради выживания государства (оч по Марксу, ахуенно прям) улучшили жизнь это очень спорно, и в Украине и в Испании анархисты добились намного более конкретного прогресса в плане строения социализма и коллективизации чем СССР не говоря уж там про ДПРК.
Меншьивики с белыми просто сделали альянс из того что у них не было даже шанса против большевиков без этого, по этой логике я могу про молотов-риббентроп так же говорить что из этого следует то что Сталин и Гитлер идеологически сходились.
Соц дем не обязательно имеет ввиду нородскую модель, и абсолютно так же социализм.
Я не говорю что в совке всем совсем всегда было плохо, и более того я все равно топю за революцию так как в империи жизнь была ещё хуже, но с того что я вижу (хоть я и не особо начитана а этом плане, спс за рекомендацию) тут намного более поддержки чем критики.
Edit: I do love how even though we’re on opposite sides of this discussion we are both downvoted for speaking Russian. Lol. Lmao even.
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.
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