• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      It was complicated. Kruschev, and later Gorbachev’s reforms really weakened the Socialist system because they didn’t properly retain strong control of the larger firms and heavy industry (a lesson the CPC took to heart), however the CIA and really the US absolutely worked tirelessly to weaken it. The Soviets also had to spend a much larger portion of their production on the millitary in order to keep parity with the US, meaning that development rates began to slow.

      • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        What is complicated about it?

        The reforms you refer to allowed for political dissent. If the Soviet Union was some worker’s paradise, then allowing people complain wouldn’t change anything.

        The simple reality is that the Soviet Union was a dictatorship that only survived as long as it did because it was a dictatorship. Once people had the option of opposing Communist rule, they did. And that is what killed the Soviet Union. Not some conspiracy by the United States or the kulaks.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          1 month ago

          The reforms didn’t just allow for “political dissent,” they worked against the Socialist system, that was based on central planning. Rather than running in a more efficient manner, it ran against itself.

          Further, nobody says the Soviet Union was a “worker’s paradise.” It had tremendous strides for workers, but it wasn’t perfect by any means.

          The Soviet Union wasn’t a dictatorship. Read Soviet Democracy. It lasted as long as it did because it had tremendous GDP growth while lowering wealth disparity, free and high quality education and healthcare, doubled health expectancies, full employment, and over tripled literacy rates to 99.9%.

          Read Blackshirts and Reds.

          • Antiproton@programming.dev
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            1 month ago

            The Soviet Union was, if not a traditional dictatorship, absolutely a totalitarian autocracy. Stalin was a brutal dictator and his successors were chosen by the communist party. Elections in the USSR were for show.

            Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people. The USSR’s implementation of communism was so bad, it’s become cliche.

            • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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              30 days ago

              Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people.

              People like you should be forced to live under conditions like Tsarist Russia.