Why capitalism?

What I ment if you remove the class system what your left with is that people look up with people that have talent and talent goes farther then the class system

Jimi Hendrix music is a still listened to, The ideas of Einstein,Copernicus,[size=-1]Confucius,[/size] Marx, Plato and Socrates are still very alive today. Materialism doesn't survive beyond the grave, we don't remember the names of dead rich dudes yet everyone knows who Shakespeare is. So ideas and works are remeber threw the ages along with the people behind them yet the most richest are forgotten almost instanstly. In the end talent and knowledge out lasts wealth, power and status.

 

"The USSR, evil as you may call it, tried to rebuild those countries, fund actual schools using the Soviet education system (which by the way is among the best to ever exist, and if you lived in the USSR you'd have to admit it no matter how proudly you defend your point)."

That's a very good one Syntax! Explain this please to the million people who were forced to leave Eastern Romanian (today Moldova) when it was invaded by the Russians in 1940. And to the million deported in Siberia. And to all the East European countries which knew the following rebuildings: mass rapes, extermination of intelectuals and farmers, creation of so called mixt enterprises through which the Soviets took all their natural resources, the relocation of entire factories in the USSR, and many other humaine mesures to improuve the life in those countries. USA gave money to the Western Europe through the Marshall Plan and it was the beginning of the life standard now existing there. Soviet rebulding in the East generated only chronicle poverty. If Reagan was right about something, he was right calling USSR "the empire of evil".

The US are an empire and as every empire they have many sins. I absolutely agree with that. But to believe in the innocence of USSR, who just continued tzarist imperialism in a new form, it's at least naive. You brag about the books you read. Read more.

And you said something about living in the USSR... Man, I don't know where are you from, but you're only 18... You don't know Brejnev times, you're born under Gorbatchyov. You were 4 years old when USSR fealt, so you just don't know. You're exactly like a neonazi who knows fascism only from books and idealise thigs. And, please, don't tell me I don't know capitalism. I know it too well, with good and bad. But in capitalism I enjoy a freedom which wasn't even imaginable in communism.

Now, about your friends. You don't realise yet but mediocrity was the usual state of mind and way of life in communism and mediocrity has its seduction, like everything wich is easy and doesn't suppose effort. People get out of communism being lazier and afraid of taking responsabilities, so of course you'll find nostalgics, even between the exploited ones. And especially in former USSR, where they had 80 years of continuos brainwashing.

 

Don't think I'm not going to comment on your biased post, but I won't do it now because I am tired and not in the mood. I will, however, comment on this because it's just too sensitive an issue:

Not a single one of my friends can be described as "mediocre", no matter how hard you try. I doubt you'll find many people in Capitalist America who are less mediocre than my ex-Soviet friends. Laziness is also not something that was in their minds, since they all strived to be the best at their fields, and didn't choose easy jobs just because they'd get the same pay anyway. I know artists, musicians, engineers and teachers, all of whom gave 110% in their jobs. Yes, these people fought for their freedoms and did not like communism when living under it. But when seeing Capitalism from up close and having a chance to compare, they admit the advantages of the Communist system. As for continuous brainwashing, please don't think that it doesn't happen in the US.

Also, you said that I am to young to know about communism. Well, it's true, I am only 18 and haven't lived under communism for long, and even then when it was collapsing. You are 30, so you lived under communism for 20 years and obviously have more personal experiences. However, I don't think that just being there gives you the right to be the almighty expert on the issue and allowing you to discredit valid points of the opposition. Especially since much of what you say is biased, exaggerated and untrue.

 

Oh, Syntax, first of all I'm not an absolute expert and I'm not desmissing you and your opinions. I disagree with them but I respect them, otherwise I wouldn't even make the effort to talk with you. Communism is anyway dead, so I'm not debating with you out of some fear about communist revival. I think you're an intelligent person who deserves a good debate, including to see how valid are or there aren't his opinions. Because only a carefull analisys of both communism and capitalism is able to show the validity or invalidity of our arguments. You cann't just claim you arguments valid, as I cann't either. Only the analysis of the facts and history can prouve one of us or both of us wrong.

On the other hand, I politely ask you to stop being a little insulting, because this stops being debate, it starts to be propaganda. When you tell about what I wrote is "biased, exagerrated and untrue" beyond the fact you're making me a liar, which isn't the worst, you act exactly like someone from the Aryan Brotherhood who calls holocaust "exagerrated and untrue". Look, everything I wrote is true, I saw and I experienced myself. This doesn't mean all of us Eastern Europeans had exactly the same experiences. All communist regims were brutal dictatorships, but there were small diffrencies among the countries. Maybe in Brejnev's USSR some of the things which happened in Ceausescu's Romania didn't happened, or didn't happened so often. I don't think the Red Army, as an example, was used usualy as a slave work force, like in Romania, but it happened under Gorbatchyov, with very bad outcomes, during the Cernobyl disaster. Another difference, in the USSR the brainwashing was more intensive that in all other European communist states. I noticed very clearly this difference in contact with the Moldovans, who were subject of a greater preisure then their fellow Romanians, and this left traces.

Now, about your Russian friends. I don't know them, so I made some hypotesis inspired by what I'm seeing every day around me. In a previous post I developped this idea even further that in my last one and along the mediocre and the profitors, between the nostalgics I mentioned people who just cann't adapt to capitalism, which in some ways is tougher then the lifestyle in communism. And this is actualy the greatest perversion of the communist system, it was asuring a minimum mediocre lifestyle to anyone (inhabitation, job), without real hopes of promotion outside the ass-kissing or serving the regim by betraying other people. Because of that, many older people, and when I say older I mean even people who were between 30 and 40 in the late '80s, have real troubles adapting to capitalism and the system isn't truely helping them now. So, I hope this time, you'll better understand what was I talking about. It wasn't something personal against your friends, who aren't even guilty of being, in a way, the loosers of history (as their predecesors were too when communism came and victimised them for polithical and social reasons); unfortunately there are no changes in history without victims.

Another addition. Unfortunately, Russia isn't a true capitalism, and this makes things worse in our days former USSR. During the '90s the highly developped and strong state and party beaurocracy took control of economy by corrupted means, turning the country into an oligarchy and stoping any development of the middle class, which actualy is the engine of modern capitalism. Things became even worse because of the strong positions took by the mafia in the Russian society, and the mafia was organised mainly by former KGB officers. And now, as Putin behaves more and more dictatorial, I see no chances of improuvement. So, what your friends are rejecting, and I think they are right to reject, is monopolistic dictatorial oligarchy, which isn't quiet capitalism, it's actualy closer to communism (many people in countries like Russia, who knew only communism and oligarchy can confuse the last one with capitalism, confusion cultivated by communist propaganda for years who used to describe capitalism as a brutal oligarchic system). But, in Central and Eastern Europe, outside the former USSR, you can see now real improuvements, and I would quote countries like Slovenia or the Czech Republic, but also in various degrees all the others. And Ukraine now, if the orange revolution will be completed and the oligarchy and the mafia will be eliminated will have a real chance of improuvement.

OK, the brainwashing. All states pracitce it in some amounts. But, in the US and in democracies in general, if you desire to inform yourself beyond the brainwahing you'll find the sources, the books and the websites who tell some other things that the officials do. But in communism there was no Internet and many books were just prohibited. In let's say Canada you can find Marx in libraries and read it. Or "Mein Kampf", if you desire to know exactly from the source what was in Hitler's mind. Or the "Red Book" of Mao. But in communism, even if you would read a great thinker like Nietsche, you just wouldn't find it. It wasn't published and the old editions, dating before communism, existing in public libraries, were available only with special governmental permit. The only things you were told about non-materialist and non-marxist philosophers were official negtive opinions quoted in school manuals and other arthicles, but you weren't allowed to go directly to the source and see with your own eyes if the official point of view is right or wrong. So, you just cann't compaire the velvet brainwashing from capitalistic democracies with the iron fist one from communist regims.

 

I should add that in USSR even Marx was subject of censorship. He has a number of writings blaming Russia's imperialism. Those writings were not allowed to be seen by the general public. As an example, Marx blamed Moldova's occupation by the tzars, but as the Soviets continously vindicated the region and reocupieded it in 1940, this writing wasn't published in USSR. And also the articles blaming Russian imperialism wasn't published up to the end, they would make the people to wonder about things like the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and the '80s war there.

 

An important point I see you making is that not all of the USSR had the same freedoms, and -some- parts of it, such as the one where you lived, had it worse than others. While I also don't speak from the point of view of a historian, and can only speak of what I experienced or heard others experience as well as what I read in commonly avaliable media, so I'd say that you may very well be right. However, look at the U.S. Yes, all American citizens have it going pretty sweet, but what of citizens in other parts of the American "empire"? What about the people in Iraq? Seems to me they are mistreated in ways far worse than any region of the USSR post Stalin.

Now, as for my friends, I wouldn't call them "the losers of history" because technically, their quality of life is now higher than in communist times. After all, they -are- talented and intelligent people. Sure, some musicians were forced to give private lessons, some engineers were operating simple machines, some artists were painting walls and doctors had to get new M.D's, but in the end they all reached a "good" life, with many products and services avaliable to them. So, they are not the "victims" of the fall of communism, but simply people who give me a general overview of what life was like in the USSR.

Saying that Russia isn't capitalist now is not a bit better than saying that it wasn't communist 20 years ago. If you can call Soviet communism by the name of communism, I can call modern Russia capitalist as much as I like.

Now, you say that "in communism there was no Internet and many books were just prohibited" but actually you mean that in the Soviet implementation of communism, there were prohibited books (by the way, the US also prohibited its share of books at the time) and there was no internet. As for the internet, well, the country was just slightly less developed in the digital field and didn't get connected as fast as the US. A modern communist society would obviously be connected to the internet. As for the ban on books, well, it is not a part of communism itself.

As for American brainwashing: yes, it's less direct than Soviet one but no better. In a way, its far worse because it allows the illusion of freedom. Allow me to make a Matrix analogy, despite it being so cliche: would you rather live in a dream world, where you believe you are free, or in an actual prison where you know you are not free? American brainwashing makes people believe that its their own educated decisions they are making, while in communism, no matter how hard the government pushed, most people understood that what the government was shoving down their throats were lies, and thus maintained individual points of view. American brainwashing is more effective in my opinion. Let the people think that they are saints for donating money to end child labour while living in a country whos economy is based on it. American brainwashing is based on raising ignorant children, who will not care enough to get the information freely avaliable to them. It's so simple, almost like reverse psychology. The children would strive to read forbidden books, but if properly conditioned, will ignore the chance to educate themselves and be informed citizens. Just like the USSR didn't publish the details of their invasion of Afghanistan, the US made it very difficult to access such information, and made citizens who would not care enough to bother. Besides, American brainwashing is based on patriotism and nationalism. Try to convince an American that capitalism is wrong, and you'd get a "How dare you not love America?" speech.

 

Ok, right on, except you have to wait until you're dead to get any respect...LOL Just kidding but while your living you are judged by society on your bank account..that's all I was getting at... I agree with you

 

Judged by whom? I don't judge people by their bank accounts, do you? Actually, most people you'd want to be around don't. All the appriciation that rich people get is from people I wouldn't want to touch with a 10 foot pole.

 

Well the respect Jimu Hendrix got from the counter culture when he was alive was not do to his wealth infact I don't think anyone in the counter culture at that time cared about his wealth.

 

Syntax, first of all a small clearing. The communist world wasn't reduced to the USSR. And I was never a Soviet citizen. Romania was occupied by the Soviets between 1944 and 1958 and many years was a satelite country, dominated by USSR, but not a colony. I mean most of it, because the Eastern part, which is now Moldova, was forcely anexed by the USSR and even more, Russia still manteins troops there, against the country's will.

You can call Russia capitalistic as much as you wish. It's your opinion and I respect it but according to my judgement Russia is still far of being a typical modern capitalism. It doesn't have a developped middle class, it has a strong oligarchy who controls monopols on the main branches of economy and a very strong mafia which also prevent a true economical freedom.

Your friends living there maybe aren't the loosers of history, but they see a lot of poor people around them who have no chances in the new Russian society, but, as I told you, the problem isn't the capitalism itself, which is weakly developped in Russia and other former Soviet republics, but the mafia and oligarchy. That's why, when you'll travel to Central and Eastern Europe you'll notice now a huge difference between former USSR and former satelite countries (but this doesn't mean there aren't adjustment prblems also in the last ones).

There still are communist regims now like in China and there they do have internet. But, I don't know if this was in the news in Canada, it was here, because we're specialy interested in what is going on in still communist countries, only last year the chinese militia (as communists call the police) closed a lot internet caffes, worried about the acces of young chinese to information.

About the brainwashing. I think every type of government practice it in some amount, so I won't disagree with you about America. But if it's intensive enough, even if the people in communism knew that all that their governments were telling them were lies, they still got influenced by. As an example, in the early '90s when first small private businesses appeared here, people had a great suspicion and even rejection toward the owners of those businesses, out of menthality and not even realising this is coming from 45 years of brainwashing. The former communists even repeated much of that anticapitalistic propaganda with success in the first free elections of 1990. Don't ever underestimate the lack of alternate sources of information! Because it becomes extremely tough to exactly know what's lie and what isn't, and repeted everyday lies will finaly get to you, even when you're rejecting the main government propaganda. This is the mind perversion I was talking about, and you can observe this in all types of dictatorship. What was worse in communism is the fact they were trying to regulate every single aspect of life, even the most private ones, so mind perversion went where no other regim has gone before.

The sins of America are due to the fact the US are an empire. And from that point of view, all empires comitt atrocities. But I don't think they are as brutal and greedy as USSR was and Russia still is (think only about Chechnya; what Russians are doing there is much worse that what Americans are doing in Iraq).

But I noticed you took that marxist idea that capitalism needs war to exist. This is not quiet so. Japan knew its greatest capitalistic development after WW2 and where are Japan's wars? Even more, Japan is forbidden to attack other countries through its constitution.

I also noticed you try to separate communism as an idea from soviet style communism and dictatorship. But dictatorship is a condition of the socialist revolution theoretisesid by Marx in the form of "proletarian dictatorship", which was actualy inspired by the jacobyte dictatorship of the French Revolution, a bloody and brutal regim. And put in reality by Lenin, the "proletarian dictatorship" generated what history recorded: genocide, poverty, totalitarianism.

You can talk about some uthopian unmarxist communism as a real democratic one, but problem with ideal communism is that it cann't work with very divers and selfish individuals, as humans are built by nature. Maybe, if somewhere in the Universe exists some breed who, like ants, posess a hive counciessness, communism is ideal system for them. But humans need more freedom, including economical freedom. The only equality which can realy exist between humans is the equality in front of the law.

 

Hallo, my Romanian friend. And syntax (iyy). If I may add “few” words on your debate.

First, i think, its crucial to make a distinction between what communism (more precisely socialism) actually is, and its deformed Soviet version. As i don’t want to spread about true communism, i’ll only say that it’s a system which offers the greatest freedom from all, and had it been trully implemented before, we would’ve seen an immense progress in those countries. Unfortunately, the version which was presented to the world as “socialism” in most countries was crippled on few crucial points, and that’s why many modern socialists prefer to refer to that system as Stalinism. (i’ll call it soviet communism) So, i’ll talk about it, and point you to some misconceptions you’re having, and mostly to the positive Soviet legacy.
Also, i’m sorry that i’ll refer to ur country and the rest of the members of the Warsaw pact as Soviet, because they were simillar in economic and political aspects.

There were NO mass rapes (heck, no rapes at all) and no extermination of farmers (why would they, when farmers and workers were the backbone of soviet society). Reactionery intellectuals however, yes, they were removed, especially during Stalin (and Causescu; those two were the worst (only) communist dictators in europe), and especially in the immediate after-WW2 period. In the historical moment, its somewhat understandable (though not justifiable) why they did that; when a revolution is underway, its crucial to remove all elements that might threaten its chances for success. Managing natural resources and workforce in Eastern Europe by the Soviets; you may have a point here, but I have to remind you that a centrally controlled economy means just that. And while you may think you were damaged in this way, i’m not entirely convinced (unless u can provide me with statistics over the value of imports and exports between Romania and the Soviet Union) because Romania for one, consumed much economic energy coming from its communist allies and benefited long-term economically if following the timeline from the end of WW2 to 1990. Romania was extremely poor country before WW2, it was pretty poor under Causescu as well, but then it had a strong infrastructural and labour potential whch was built during the Communist era, something that it lacked completely before WW2. Romania, Bulgaria, ex-Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus (that’s only Europe; not to mention Asia) all developed significantly economically and culturally thanks to communism (why do u think the Soviet block succeeded in being considered the most powerful or second most powerful alliance in the world in the first place). Before WW2 the countries were largely agricultural and rural, weakest educational system, socially conservative, pressing social issues etc. the Post WW2 generation eliminated all these plagues, modernized and industrialized them. And whats most important they managed to rise to that level thanks only to themselves. (unlike capitalist protectorates during that time such as Greece, South Korea, which were heavily funded by the West in order to serve as dumper-zones and examples for the superiority of capitalism over communism.) Its wrong to think that Western Europe thrived thanks solely to the Marshal plan and the capitalist system – it had an already established network of economic potential, a result of centuries of hegemonic dominance over other countries.

hehe.. You’re.. 30, meaning you had about 14 when the whole thing collapsed (1989 was when causescu was killed, wasn’t it). How could a kid of 14 have much insight in history and politics, taken that it’d take at least few years of experience in order to be able to say “you experienced it and learned from it”? What you experienced are some reflections from what your parents thought about the situation, but true understanding can only come through detailed research and study, and only later, when we have that time and even geographic distance, if you like, from the events.

So the Red Army was used as “slave labor” to clear up the mess after Chernobil?! This only tells me how biased you are. Were the policemen and army used as slave labor on 9/11? Were the armies of the tsunami-stricken coutnries also used as slave labor? Its actually the army’s responsibility to deal with such major crises, and work on clearing up the sites, and rebuilding, that all goes without saying. Its not like they arent paid at all; but they don’t get paid for overtime work, to put it this way .

I’m telling you; you’re confusing Causescu’s communism with the idea of communism. In Yugoslavia, my parents lived freely (of course, there was the government propaganda present), but everyone felt safe, financially secured, without fear from what the future would bring, high standard of living (higher than Greece and Italy), freedom of movement, both in Eastern and Western Europe. Of course, it had many flaws, but i’m trying to prove a different point now, and i’m limited with time and space.

As for your intriguing analysis of capitalism and post-communist transitional societies…
True hardcore capitalism is exactly that which happenes in Russia right now (posession of the bulk of the capital by few corrupted businessmen, who may come from the communist buearocracy, but in most cases they don’t). You could argue that the process of capitalisation and privatization wasn’t what it was supposed to be according to liberal economic theories, but even if it had been legal, concentration of capital is innevitable in an ideal capitalist society (proven by free-scale network theory and biological Darwinist economic models), which is one reason why no country has implemented the ideal version of capitalism, but some form of, to a degree socialized capitalism (free eduction, health care, wealthfare, state-funded companies and institutions etc). Further more, strong middle class has little to do with capitalism, has been proven in many examples worldwide. Isnt there disemination of the middle class currently in Romania? (u can say no, but its not true; all post-communist countries witnessed that, and only later they experienced growth of the workers class. A middle class in capitalism is an illusionary subclass of the lowest class, the workers.)

As for the rvolution in Ukraine, keep swallowing the propaganda, but you should know that the current regime is more corrupted economically than the previous one. It includes major businessmen suspected for corruption (equivalents of the Russian oligarchs), and one such example was even the primeminister under this new government (Timoshenko, I think was her name). So, what the revolution presented was a sruggle for power manipulating with the emotions of ordinary Ukranian citizens. May I die tomorrow if the economic situation in Ukraine improves significantly more than what the level of improvement under Janukovich would have been.

I’m sorry about your lack of vision and inertness.
I agree with you about most of the things that I don’t comment about. (except Chechnya and Moldova, which was in your recent letter, which i havent considered while writing this post, but nothing of substance in that one, so i’ll leave them out of the discussion.)



Syntax, nice interpretation of the brainwashing phenomenon. Although, you’re off track when you say USSR was “slightly less developed in the digital field” and that Soviet education is the best in the world. Producing outstanding masterminds isnt the only thing that counts, but creating a sturdy workforce base from which the economy would draw needed workers, and that’s not a Russian feature (where education emphasizes the theoretical component, at the expense of practical experience), but that’s just my impression based on my observations.

 

Hi, Cumpaniero, intersting opinions. OK, let me clatify a few things.

I'll start with the historical part, because unfortunately many things are actualy unknown in the West. To say there were no mass rapes, actualy no rapes what so ever, is to ignore everything which happened to the German population of East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, Sudetenland, and East Germany itself during the triomphant march of the Red Army. Soldiers were let free to do what they wish, and this produced numerous cases of mass and repeted rapes, assasinations of civilians, robreries, followed by the mass deportation of Sudets and the Germans from the territories taken by Russia and Poland after the war. You should listen all the testimonies existing, and quiet recently it was a documentary about this on Discovery Channel. As Yugoslavian you should know about the deportation of German ethincs from Eastern European countries, including Yugoslavia, in labor camps in Russia on ethnical and not polithical basis (I know this very well, my own grandfather was deported 5 years; he was only 17 and he had no polithical activites what so ever).

Rapes and roberies followed the Red Army also in the other countries. There were some cases when NKVD executed some of the perpetrators (I know damn well a case, when in my grandmother's town the Russian vanguard raped the priest's wife and daughter; they were found dead in the cemetery after the main troops arrived), but this didn't stoped the phenomenon. Older people here were always compeiring the Germans and the Russians, saying that the Germans were better. And about other things, don't forget Yugoslavia manged to become independent from USSR since 1948; but in Romania were created the Sovroms, joined firms through which USSR took the raw materials in massive amounts: Sovrom-Quartz, who imported without paying uranium in Russia; Sovrom-Petrol, do you remember the Romanian oil supported much of the needs of WW2- well Romania must import oil now. Factories? IAR, top airplane producer, who created the IAR80, one of the best fighter planes of WW2, was taken in USSR and gave back many years later, when the factory was no longer in the technology of the time.

Now, about the reactionary intelectuals... What do you understand through reactionary? People who just weren't communist, a reason enough to be exterminated? Because prisons in Romania were full between 1948 and 1964 with all sort of people, even high school students, taken by God knows what criteria. From 1 million polithical prisoners, only few truely tryed to oppose the regim. And, what am I saying? In prisons were also people like Lucretiu Patrascanu, marxist intelectual, very educated communist leader, who was minister of justice in the fierst communist government, but who was arrested in 1948, falsely acused of espionage and assassinated in 1954.

No extermination of farmers? How about the 1929-1933 famine from Ukraine, induced by Stalin, with 3.5 million dead? But we were talking about the Eastern Europe, so I have to get to historical facts to tell you what I mean. The colectivision in Romania started in 1949. Farmers were forced to join in so called associations, but controled by the state. The ones who had more then 10 hectares of land were declared "ennemies of the people" and immediatly injailed (I'm not talking about great landowners, they were already expropriated and eliminated at that point). The other, also relactant to give up the land, became victims of beatings, blackmail and all sort of other pressure (as a small private story, my own great-grandfather was taken to the party office and brutaly beaten; my grandfather, not the German, the other one, who was in the military air force, came and beat the shit out of the local party secretary; he could do that only because he was military, otherwise he would be injailed many years because of that). Of course, this brutal way of treat people created reactions. There were numerous uprisings like Vrancea in 1950-1952 and 1957, Olt county- 1961, Glavacioc Valley- 1962, and these are only those who I'm reminding right now. All were repressed in blood and were followed by massive arrests. Ceausescu was at the time responsable with the colectivisation and he personaly guned down people in the Vrance and Olt uprisings. Also the farmers became the main participating group to the partisan mouvement from late '40s and the '50s, also pretty unknown in the West. They were almost all killed. From 300000 people killed in jails, labor camps and secret police and army operations, between 1948 and 1964, more then half were farmers. But, when I'm talking about extermination I also mean the fact that as a result of the colectivisation the farmers disappeared as a class, being transformed in an underpayed work force (even now there is a social problem with the former "cooperative peasants", because of their low level of payment, they have very small pensions).

And you're just reproducing a propaganda cliche when you're talking about the poverty of Romania before WW2. Romanians wasn't the richest, but they had a lifestandard greater then Italy or Greece at the time. My own elder had collegues who were Italians came to work in Romania. Actualy, it was harsh during the 1929-1933 world crisis, with the so-called "sacrifice curves" made by the government, but the standard achieved between 1934 and 1938 is still a dream for most of Romanians. Romania knew then its greatest prosperity from its whole modern history and you can see this if you come here and you see how much was build then. Even small functioneries and workers afford then to build small villas, expropriated later by communists, who didn't stop their action to the true bourgeoisie. Actualy the darkest years were the '80s, when public education, healthcare and the quality and quantity of food available decayed to liberate money to sustein the pharaonic building campain of Ceausescu (by the way, this I saw with my own eyes); look at the new "Civic Center" of Bucharest and you'll understand what I mean.

Yes, before WW2, my country was largely rural, and still is (50% of the population now), but the quality of school was very high (there are enough historical evidence available here; I hope some day all proufes will be available in the West, too). About the culture level, the best period was also the '30s. Philosophers like Nae Ionescu, Petre Tutea, Emil Cioran (this one is quiet known in the West), Constantin Noica, writers like Emil Rebreanu, Camil Petrescu, Cezar Petrescu, Gib I. Mihaiescu, Mihail Sadoveanu, George Calinescu, Mircea Eliade (also historian of the religions), Panait Istrati (by the way, a marxist who rejected Stalin after visiting USSR; therefore he was rejected by the European intelectual community) and mny others, poets like Lucian Blaga (also philosopher), Tudor Arghezi, Nichifor Crainic, Radu Gyr, painters like Nicolae Tonitza, Corneliu Baba, Octav Bancila, scuptors like Constantin Brancusi (one of the greatest of the world). There never was such a crowding of great talents expressing themselves in Romanian history as in the '30. Soviet ocupation and communism came like a tsunami. A few (Sadoveanu, Calinescu, the great endocrinologist Parhon) survived by making compromises. The lucky ones got out of the country. The rest were injailed or taken in house arrest. And forbidden for many years, in some cases even to the end. And in the '50s, using "socialist realism" the communists tryed to reinvent culture, with under-mediocre results. Well, especially from the '60s, culture started to be created again, new first rank characters appeared, but such a development like in the '30s never repeated itself.

Now the infrastructure and industry. Actualy Romania had railroads all over the country long before communism. The true highways started to be built now. We inherited only one highway (Bucharest-Pitesti) from communism and it isn't at European level. On the other hand, we have the misfortune to be known for our law quality roads, inherited from communism. The industrialisation was already started in the years before communism (the IAR I already mentioned, the Malaxa steel factories, the Grivita railroad workshop, the oil rafineries of Ploiesti, the steel factory of Hunedoara, the coal mining industry in the Jiu Valley etc.). The industrialisation was a main objective of the liberal party, dominating in the period, and it was undergoing. Most important, it was an industrialisation based on natural development and efficiency cirteria. True, communists industrialised a lot, but they didn't midernised their factory. They were huge, poluting and in 1989 technologicaly remained behind, with huge production costs and huge loses. And not just the factories. The powerplants of Bucharest have only between 50% and 70% randament. So, to produce enough heat you must burn unnecessary quantities of fuel and this is one of the major problems of the city now.

Look, I'm not saying everything communists did was wrong. They electrified regions who weren't, they teached analphabet people to read and write, they developped an industry which partialy is recuperated through retechnologisation and decresing dimensions (but others can be used no more, out of technological reasons or because they were built far from the source of materials, like a great facotry of engine pieces from the city of Alexandria who is far from the raw materials which adds too much costs of transportation; this makes the products too expensive). And all of that, infrastructure, industry, mass education would have been developped anyway and I think better in a capitalistic system that in communism. Look at Spain! Spain was before WW2 exactly like Romania or even worse. Now, it's much ahead. Why do you think?

Many of the things I wrote about you can clearly see if you read a great Romanian writer from the communist period, Marin Preda. It is possible he was translated in English. Well, I recomand you "Morometzi" and "The most beloved man on Earth". The first is two volums novel dedicated to the Romanian village (the guy was a son of a farmer, he knew very well what he is talking about and he wrote about years from its life). In the first volume he makes an exact fresco of the Romanian village of the '30s, a world with its problems, conservatory, but slowly changing. The second volume describe the period which followed WW2 and the colectivisation. The guy was a communist, but he makes an accurate description how a bunch of individuals, most of them uneducated and oportunistic, become representatives of the party, rip out this traditional world with force and brutality. The second novel, published in 1976, a few years before Marin Preda's death, and quickly redrawn from the market (the fact that the guy was a very well known communist tricked the censors), will show you quite clearly what polithical prisons were about and the whole thing with the "reactionary intelectuals".

The army thing, yes armies have a duty as a disciplined force to take part at crisis operations. What I was thinking with the Cernobyl example is the fact that the protective mesures were just symbolic, that the USSR showed its traditional disrespect for human life. Remeber that in WW2 or Afghanistan their strategy was to defeat the ennemy just by the number of soldiers they were sending in the first line. The deathcount was irelevant, they had anyway much more population then their enemmies. But I can admit it was a forced association with the fact that Ceausescu used soldiers, students or simply employees as slave work force (by the way, I personaly was taken with my high school in 1989 to sort anyons and potatoes in a warehouse).

Yugoslavia... It's a known fact they had better lives in communism, but they were never totaly colectivisased, small bussinesses were allowed and Yugoslavian workers were allowed to work in the West on higher payments. So, it's far from typical communism.

You made some personal remarcs about me. Yes, I'm 30. In december 1989 I was 15, but I was very aware of what's around me. Especialy since the events of 1987 (the student uprising of Iasi, the anti-church demolition protest of Bucharest in the summer, the uprising of the workers in Brasov in november). I lived and I saw the '80 damn well, so don't denie my personal experience. About earlier times, well, I have a family who lived those decades and I read a lot, both from communist and uncommunist sources. I was in the street in december 1989, I was beateb and detayned several hours in february 1990, I participated to the marathon-demonstration from the University Square in the spring of 1990. So, don't underestimate me. You accuse me of "lack of vision" and "inertness"... I think we should mesure our words. I'm not acusing you of "blindness" and "denial" just because you refuse to see how a historical failure communism was and how bad things were comitted in the name of a generous ideal, or of "naivity" because you continue to repeat, about Eastern Europe, the old lies of the Soviet propaganda.

Russia and Ukraine... I was talking about modern capitalism, which I admit it's a social capitalism. And I don't think Russia is even a raw, wild capitalism, as log as its market is controled by monopols. Some of the points where Marx was right is that raw, primitive capitalism and monopols exist in different stages. And what exactly do you understand by middle class? Because I'm thinking to small and middle investors, middle farmers, free professionals... None of those are the worker class thought by Marx. Ianukovitch was the exponent of the Donetsk group, a small gang of corupt but powerfull bussinessmen, and of the Putin's regim imperialism, and remember I said "if the orange revolution will be completed", not "when it will be".

OK, you can remind me as much as you wish a centralized economy means that the center must control everything, this doesn't mean the results are fine for the average people. Anyway, the dictatorship and the persecutions were started by Lenin, so I'm not sure we can blame only Stalin for what went so wrong.

About marxism, I already expressed my opinion. So, I won't repeat myself. Just one question: how you're going to motivate people if "anybody is working as he's able to and receives as much as he needs"? Clearly, an important thing which killed communism was the lack of motivation.

 

Oh, sorry, I mean Companiero.

 

Hallo again Sando. I see you’ve refined your remarks and armed yourself with historical data, which cant be bad. Still, I do feel a little handicapped since of course I don’t know Romanian historical factography such as you do, and your claims will seem more objective than mine, but if one thing, I do know the general historical context in the Balkans, and I do think that some of your outlooks are a bit blurred from your political orientation. For a start, I was surprised to find out that you consider yourself “Conservative” (in ur profile), a rather unusual thing to encounter on this forum.

That is entirely different thing from what you said previously. I agree that during the War, the Red Army commited a lot of war crimes, in Germany as well as in Poland. What you said was that the Soviet Army mass-raped during the Rebuilt (post-war period) of the communist countries, which sheds a light of aggressors on their part, and that’s far from the truth. Rather they were liberators (tens of million Russian soldiers died in WW2 in their effort to drive the Nazis out of Eastern Europe)

I don’t justify such practice. However, one must have more sensibility for the time period, and yes, everyone who declared openly non-communist was considered a threat. Remember the post-war era in the US and McCarthy and see that even developed democracies werent immune to political purges in an unstable polarizing world.

Theres substantional difference between “extermination of farmers” and “induced famine”. Its not like Stalin deliberately killed them, but you could call it a tragic error in economic planning (agricultural collectivization).
On your second point that the Communists actually exterminated the famrers who participated in the illegal guerilla anti-communist movements; when someone rebels violently against the government they are considered insurgents, and it doesn’t matter whether they were previously farmers or nuns; they are legitimate targets.
As far as the practice of collectivizetion is concerned, i don’t think u have right to define it as one of the sins of Communism. I highly doubt they imprisoned by default everyone who had more than 10 Ha land. If they refused to obey the law (give up the land), that’s different. You may not like it, but nationalization and collectivization of private property was a communist practice that benefited the masses, eliminated the privileged exploiting class, and had they been managed more successfully later on, I’d have absolutely not a single remark against it. My family also had land which was nationalized. In a classless society, the interests of the people have to be more important than the interest of the individual. This is just theoretical, and doesn’t justify for the many failiures of its implementation via the Soviet way.

Compared to Greece, could be, because Greece’s entire economical growth was achieved after the end of Greek Civil War (1949), but Romania, as well as the other Balkan countries was extremely poor and backward, and that’s not propaganda. There’s no way to compare the progress in educational, industrial, social sphere achieved before and after the Revolution. Only countries such a Czech Rep, Hungary, Slovenia, and to a degree Poland can assert that progress in these areas was hindered by the Communists, as opposed to what it could’ve been under capitalism. And even today, many leading companies in Slovenia, originate from the Yugoslavian era (lucky for them the privitization ran smoothly). The miniscule industrialization started before WW2 was only symbolic, and practically 90% of the industry and infrastructure was built during the Communist era (in all the countries not mentioned above). Problem was, as you said, the system inefficiencies and lagging producation as well as aging technology. So, even though currently much in stagnation, the potential still exists. Its kind of like a dusty apartment which needs a general do up to be functional.
Education, urbanization, massive housing, social services, infrastructure (electricity, communication networks, canalization, water network, roads), secularization and emanicapation of social groups was one important aspect of the country’s transition to modern society, and can only be fast and effective if done planned, and theres no way it would have happened in capitalism, since all these are non-profit areas.
Of course, you may deny it from your political angle of view, but since I’m not a Romanian, I cant argue with you about specific examples. Point is, others to know that we’re not talking here like foregner vs. native about Romanian issues, but rather like a socialist vs. conservative. There are conservatives and nationalists here in Macedonia who also downplay the achievements of the Communists, but they are biased and unrealistic about some things.

It seems to me like you think Romania was some major power before WW2. First, Spain achieved its economic success only after Franco’s regime implemented some socialist practices which increased workers standard; and even more later with the democratic Socialist party government and its policies. Besides, there are much more examples of countries that chose capitalism and stayed stuck behind Eastern Europe years away (almost entire of Africa and South America), and they started out the same (prior to WW2).

I’m concerned if you really think this way. So, according to you, Romanian Golden Ages were the 30’s during the fascist monarchy (and even later dicatorship), and a period of political instabillity? And the Communists came as a tsunami for the beautiful fascist paridise? Interesting, and at the same time alarming. Just thought we should know where everybody’s coming from.
Furthermore, the entire infrastructure and meager economy that was in place prior to WW2 was in the service of exploiting the country’s natural potential (through emphasis on mines and raw materials) for Western industrial needs. I’m not saying the Russians didn’t take advantage of these, but don’t forget all that was built by the Commies.

I didn’t know about your slave past. Sorry.
Excuse my cynicism, but what you’re saying is tendentious and ridicilous. By saying that, you disgrace the true heaviness of the word “slavery”. Today in the US, there are “community useful activities” which every student is required to participate in, without getting paid. In all Communist countries, it was honour to participate in these kind of labour actions, and those were places where young people enjoyed each others company and felt proud for contributing to their community. (today they dont give a damn about the community) I’ve also heard that lately its quite cool for some young Americans to go to China and participate in such activities.

Huh, Theres no typical communism. Causescu’s communism was far from the teachings of Marx, and yet people still equate socialism with that horrible system. As for Yugoslavia, people were allowed to travel in the West, but not many worked there. Why would they? They had much better conditions at home. The financial influx from workers abroad was little related to the economic growth in Yugoslavia under Tito. Besides, the huge emigration started only after 1990.

Yes. I didn’t say “primitive” (as in early stage) capitalism, but hardcore capitalism (uncontrolled, completely unsocialized capitalism).

That maxim applies only to the utopian society of communism. Remember that communists aimed to achieve a socialist society (only later comes communism), which offers a borader base of possibilities for motivation. Marx thought the workers would be motivated by ideology, Lenin by Enlightenment of the masses, Stalin by force, its rarely who understood that only an adequate level of salary corresponding precisely to the work done is the key to efficient and lasting socialism.

 

Hello again, my Macedonian friend. Well, of course this isn't a debate on Romanian issues, it's a historical and ideological one, but some parts of your post forced me to get into national and even personal details which I tryed to avoid before. Now, about my ideology, I choose "conservative" because the options were made after the American model; actualy I'm a liberal in the European sense. But anyway my ideas are more of the right then the left.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. I listed all the "good" things the Russians did in Eastern Europe, both during their advance and their later post-war ocupation. Of course I didn't try to exagerate by talking about mass-rapes after the war, because it's no need. Soviet ocupation was bad enough without axagerating the facts. And anyway,leave away that idea with the liberating part played by the Red Army. They just replaced German ocupation with their own. And, another thing which you should reexamine from your opinions: excepting Yugoslavia, there was no socialist revolutions in Eastern Europe; the Soviets imposed communism the same way as Hitler established fascist governments in Slovakia, Croatia or Norway.

Look I'm totaly against McCarthy and I don't see much difference between him and his communist counterparts. And the excuse with "this was the time then" to justify savage, unprovocated repression in the 20th century, when people were very aware about what they were doing, doesn't work. It's like excusing Hitler saying that antisemitism was a common thing in his time and many countries, including the US, had antisemitic laws. There is no excuse for such barbarities.

About what happened in Ukraine, read more! Stalin deliberated killed them. He redrawed food from the market and isolated large rural areas surrounding them with troops. And then blamed the "culacs", the farmers with some more land, and the private property in general for the famine. The things went so wrong that there were cases of dispair canibalism.

Now, the guerila in Romania was a direct result of the brutal polithics of the regim, especialy during the collectivisation. You, a socialist, are against the idea of fighting injustice and abuse?!... And about the "culacs" or the "chiaburi" as middle farmers were called here at the time, they were no exploiters. Those were family bussinesses. Rural people then had large families, and they were all working the land. Working with your brothers for the common good is exploitation in your view? And how about small craftsmen, working at most with a few aprentices who were forced to become state employees. Who were they exploiting? Or the workers and the functionaries who were expropriated by their houses in 1950? By the way, because your talking about the respect of the law (again interesting position for a socialist who approuves a certain type of revolution, knowing damn well that revolution means breaking the laws), all those 1948-1950 expropriation decrets in Romania were breaking the communist 1948 Constitution... And when I gave you those numbers of injailed and assassinated farmers, only a part of them were participaters to the guerila or the uprisings or were related with the partisans (arrested to blackmail the resistence members). Most of them, like the majority of the political prisoners were arrested to prevent any possible actions of them, being considered categories with higher risk of opposing the regim, without actualy doing nothing or intending to do. Or based on anonymous calomnious dennounces.

Now, about the Balkans. OK, Yugoslavia was extremely poor, I won't contradict you on Yugoslavian issues (even that economical articles I read actualy links a certain prosperity in communist Yugoslavia with the presence of Yugoslavian workers in the West, because they were bringing large quantities of maoney back; it's the same thing as happenes now with Romanian workers in Western Europe). About Romania please allow me to know better. First of all it was poverty, but not so generalised and not so acute as in the 80's, after 30 years of communist rule. And even the pretty good lifestandard of the '60s and early '70s I mentioned you before was under the level of the '30s. Your worry I might have a nostalgia after the fascist monarchy of the '30s (if I'm not mistaken this was the situation in Bulgaria since 1923 and in Yugoslavia in some degree). Actualy, Romania was the last South Eastern European country to gave up democracy. The 1934-1937 Tatrascu government, the liberal government who asured the wellfare of the '30s, was a democratic governament. In the country existed two main polithical parties, the agrarian, who was a sort of a socialist party, and the liberal, democratic right. There were also two important parties, the social-democrat party and the legionary mouvement, who was the main fascist party, but who gained in elections at most 15%. The communist party was very weak and illegal, but illegal not because of his ideas (the socialists were also marxist in great amount), but because since their formation in 1921 they were on total COMINTERN control and they established as a main objective the concesion of the Eastern part of the country to the Soviets (fact recognized and dismissed as a great error of the past by later communist governments); so, after the 1924 Tatar Bunar rebelion organized by Soviet intelligence with agents introduced from Odessa the communist party was forbidden. The last free elections, and the most correct in pre-war Romanian history took place in december 1937. Unfortunately, the elections didn't establish a parlamentary majority, situation which allowed King Charles II to install a personal dictatorship in February 1938. Political parties were frobidden at the end of March and in December he created the first unic-party system in Romanian history. He created structures imitating fascist states and passed the earliest antisemitic laws. But compared with true fascsit regims, the personal dictatorship of the King Charles II was a velevet one. His main confrontation was with the true fascists, the legionaries, with the folowing outcome: a dead prime-minister and some 350 legioneries murdered without trial. The charlist regim fealt appart in September 1940 after the concesion almost without fight of the eastern territories to USSR and the north-western to Hungary (territorial change dictated at Viena by Ribbentrop and Ciano, so by Hitler and Mussolini). The population rebeled, the legionaries got on the wave and the salvation from total fascism was a new dictator, general Antonescu, who became prime-minister and forced Charles to abdicate. He coexisted initialy with the legionaries and for four months Romania was officialy fascist. But, after the murder in November of some 70 injailed or free antifascist politicians and intelectuals by legionary death squads, the conflict ignited. In January 1941, after three bloody days in Bucharest, legionaries were eliminated and the dictatorship became purely military. It's a controversial period, because on one hand the illegal activities of the political parties were tolerated and the country fauhgt to regain its frontieres, on the other hand the politics against the Jews and the Gypsies was quiet harsh (there were no deportations in the nazi death camps, but there were antisemitic laws, confiscations and the worst the deportation of many Gypsies and of all the Jews from the temporary liberated Eastern territories east of the Dnister, where many dyed because of abuses and poor living conditions). The new King and the democratic political parties, with army support overthrown Antonescu in 23rd August 1944, before the arrival of the "liberating" Red Army. When Russians came, Romania was already in war with the third Reich (but the same USSR blocked the recognition of Romania's participation at the war against Hitler at the Paris peace conference; but, if you look the numbers, after USSR, USA and UK, Romania had the haviest participation and losses in the anti-nazi war). Initialy, the King Michael and the democratic politicians tryed to restore the democracy; all finished when the Soviet foreign affairs minister, Vyshinski, forced the King to invest the first communist government in March 1945. With Red Army support, the new government instored media control, organized its first political jails, started a campain of assassinations (the first was actualy a communist, Stefan Foris, former prime-secretary before the future dictator Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej), violent attacks against the Opposition and the students and political cleamsing. In 1946 they falsified the elections in a huge amount (it's a prouven fact) and in 1947 they complitly eliminated the main opposition parties and even some of their allies and they forced the last King to abdicate. What was next, I already told you. Well enough with Romanian history, but I think it will make your image about the Balkans more complete and you'll understand why I said what I said about the '30s.

About the progress made after your "revolution" (I really don't think you can call the brutal imposing of a new system by an ocupant foreign power "revolution"), I told you, general poverty increased during communism, in my country at least, because communist economy didn't generate wealth and only poverty was distributed. About social and education, there were some good things done, but others meant actualy only the disruption of good things from the between WW period. And anyway those would have been done even better in a social capitalism, which was the natural evolution, if WW2 wouldn't happen. The 1937 elections showed an increasing trend for the moderate left, who continued, so the real victor (as the contemporary documents prouves) of the falsified 1946 elections was the agrarian party. Infrastructure and industry, as I showed you in my previous post, were well undergoing in the '30s and there is no reason why this would stop. Yes communists built a lot, some OK, but others full of flaws and the "dust removal" you're talking it's hellish expensive. Isn't the situation the same in Macedonia? Well, it's true, as I recall, Macedonia before WW2 was much more rural then even other regions in the Balkans like Serbia, Bulgaria or Romania... You're partialy right about the old infrastructure, but Romanian was then a great food producer (well, the potential exists also today, but the organization and especialy the technology are still problematic), it also started to produce steel (later commies were very proud about their steel, forgeting the liberals and the capitalists started all) and the reffineries, existing since the 1900's, were not exporting raw oil. Actualy today Romania is importing raw oil to process in its reffineries. Yes, commies developped the heavy industry and infrastructure, but they were only continuing liberal politics and many times not in the best ways, because efficiency wasn't a criteria for them. They didn't developped the services area, which is an important one in today capitalism, it really started after the 1989-1990 revolution.

OK, other things, like secularisation... Well, I don't know in your country, but in Romania this was done in 1864. Your association with Africa and Latin America is a forced one. First of all, as long as tribal structures and economy survives in the rural areas of Africa, I don't know how capitalist you may consider these countries. And excepting South Africa, they are only raw materials providers, they almost have no industry. Latin America preserved many colonial features like the dominant class of great landowners, which is more feudal then capitalist. Romania had the same problem before WW1. The 1864 land reformation, improuved the farmer's situation, but it wasn't enough. O more radical reformation took place between 1919 and 1921. The properties of the great landowners were reduced to maximum 100 hectares, which isn't so much. The exceding land was redistributed to the peasants. As a result of this and of the introduction of the universal vote, the great landowners stopped being a main dominant class, and their representative party, the conservative party, who was the main opponent of rapid modernisation, industrialisation and the development of capitalism disappeared up to 1923. So, I still think that countries like Romania, but also Yugoslavia, would have an evolution similar to Spain, if they would have been allowed to evolve naturaly.

About the "slavery". I gave the army example especially, because they were forced to do extremely difficult works, like in constructions, sometimes with deaths accuring in work accidents. Now, about the outdoor activites in the US... First of all, I don't think they're taken on the fields to take the crops or in warehouses to sort those crops or to clean-up the streets in the Primaverii neighbourhood (where were the houses of the party leaders and their main colaborators), so it's not the same, secondly, who says I agree with that? There are many things in the US I don't agree with... And this honor mambo jambo... Ya, in the earliest years, the most naives or enthuziastic maybe fealt like this. But, not very long. And when all the shops were empty, food was rationalised like in time of war, and heat and electricity were cut up to stop the consumption, but in the same time the state media was talking about the "Golden Age" and the total prosperity and happiness, who do you believe was honoured to do "patriotic work"? Especially if, when you cleaned up the streets of the party aristocracy zone, some of those will make fun of you, puting money into your pocket, or when taken to agricultural "patritic work" you would be body searched to not still a potato for your hungry child at home.

Well, maybe in Yugoslavia, who liberated itself from the nazis and had a socialist revolution of Tito, this was an "honour" up to the end. But for those people who didn't choose communism, it was just imposed by an ocupying power, there was no honour, it was just modern slavery, or, more accurate, feudal servitude.

I disagree with you about the fact you put hardcore capitalism and monopols in the same equation. Hardcore capitalism, the capitalism teached by Adam Smith, means totaly free market, where the law of request and demand and the competition regulates the economy without any expternal interfierence. Monopols makes hardcore capitalism obsolute, because they can dictate (and usulay dictate) to the market and the consumer. They aren't affected what so ever by the market laws, they just control the market. That's why I see this system closer to communism then to capitalism: communism was formed of state monopols, which in countries like Russia, where taken over by private owners; as a result you cann't talk about a truely free market there.

About marxist socialism and communism in earlier posts I described the same idea as you did now about the two stages of achieving communism. I know it too well. And I agree with you about the need of differentiated levels of salaries, but this isn't enough. You need a management to lead all economical units and it's a prouven fact that private property motivates better the managers, either they are the capitalists themselves, either they have shareholders who're watching them, stopping them to become some rutine working beaurocrats, just waiting pension, like in communism. Also many minds judge better then a few. The state, as democratic it might be, is truely conducted by a few number of persons, forming the government. They cann't be able to think to everything, as they tryed in communism. That's why you need private enterprise, to let ideas come to life, without the heavy procedures a state initiative supposes.

Well, I think it's enough for now. Have all a nice day!

 

Hello Sando. Sorry for the delay. Been busy.

First thing, there was no German occupation in Romania, but a puppet fascist government, strictly legally speaking. (I insist on the formal historical facts, in order to keep objectivity.) I do think you give too liberal qualifications and interpretations when speaking about Soviet actions. Consequently, no matter what one’s political affiliation might want to prove, there was no Soviet occupation, simply because there were no Soviet administrative and military bodies active, which is not to say they didn’t have their own ways of influencing Romanian politics and internal matter. Quite the opposite, they had every possibility to intervene whenever they wanted. Like with Hitler, in all the countries where Communist government took hold, there was a reasonable Communist following. We cant tell if the fascist regimes would have withstood as long as the Communist ones, had they lasted even after the wartimes, but it’d be unreasonable to assume that the Communist movement in these Eastern European countries was negligible and that Communism came along with the Red Army. In all countries where Communism happened, the Communists were already an established force (not the majority however) and you might say that the Soviets only helped them to get in power, because no political system (no matter how dictatorial it is) can survive in stable (peaceful) conditions, if it doesn’t have a broad public support. The story of how Hitlers and Stalins regimes came to be is actually a gentle tale about democracy and passionate love relationship between a megalomaniac and his people. I know you’ll deny it, but there was a time in the history of your country (maybe not pre-war period) when the majority were Communists, and it was thanks to these people why the system survived. When this support waned, the system waned also, until it eventually collapsed.

For a socialist/communist the natural state of existence of private property is exploitation. Now, don’t be idealistic and notice that the majority of the land was owned by big landowners, not individual families. You said it yourself that land was taken from those who had more than 10 ha. You make it sound like if it was injustice, but in fact it can be considered so, only under capitalist standards and logic. From a utilitarian point of view (mind you, the foundation stone of democracy), it was a thing that should’ve been done ages ago.

Economists and experts don’t measure a country prosperity by the momental availability of goods. What I’m saying is, food and goods shortages (even complete lack of those) during the 80’s don’t automatically signify a disastrous economic condition (like Ethiopia). A country’s prospects for dynamic development are what mainly counts. Besides, you’re forgetting the massive economic debt that had to be paid off, thanks to which Romania built its economy.

I think we reached an impasse on this point – Romanian economic prosperity, its scale and alternatives. I’ll only mention at last that Romanian growth on an annual level at one moment was the highest in Europe (above 10%). Its good that you admit the Commies brought economic prosperity afterall.

I must object. It is fairly naïve to believe there ever was functioning democracy on the Balkans. The systems imposed by the victorious countries who were all Republics (or parlamentary democracies, such as UK) to the Balkan monarchies in WW1 were in sharp contrast with the erupting nationalistic thirst of the young dynasties, already in place (since Berlin 1878), and such coexistence was impossible. Public conscience wasn’t ripe for democracy and the entire inter-war period was marked with political turbulence and instability (monarchies, dictatorships, fake republics). Formally yes, there were everywhere parliaments, but effectively they had little to no real power, and a period of constant struggle between the king and parties. In this context, Romania didn’t “give up” democracy in 1938, but simply institutionalized the power that controlled her during the past years; there was no real democracy to be given up.

Furthermore, these Balkan monarchies that ruled everywhere (Greece, Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, with one honest exception - Turkey) were all under heavy influence by the major European powers, and served as neo-colonial territories subordinated to their economic interests. The proximity of the Nazi power however, brought all of them (except Greece, but the Metaxas regime was just as fascist, only accepted by the Brits) gravitating round the Third Reich just prior to 1940, and brought about the implementation of many fascist policies.

To cut a long story short – there was no real democracy in the Balkans in the 30’s, but fascist-like regimes (except Yugoslavia), including the one of Karol II.

OK, another impasse. I told u why I think it wouldn’t have been the case. Now I agree that the comparison with Africa might have been inappropriate, but South America was similar to the Balkans in terms of that they were both raw materials suppliers to the West and socially undeveloped. But u’ve got that point about the landowners (that South American plantations were worse than Eastern European landownership). However, that was the case because there were no Western landowners in the Balkans, so they had no interest in maintaining the agrarian structure. However, they invested huge interest in raw materials and mines, and liberalization, industrialization and social reform would have never happened. You’re also right that the Soviets completely neglected services, but in a socialist society, it’s the natural condition (most of them are provided by the state, or discouraged, like marketing).

There are no monopoles in Russia, but there are enormously powerful companies which influence the market, and have concessions over natural resources. That’s what I meant when I said raw capitalism. Anyway, unregulated free market tends to accumulate capital in few centers within a market area, which makes corporatism possible, at the expense of individual producers.

Good argument. I do not believe in central management pretty much ether. However, redistribution of capital and ownership rights (what socialism effectively is) doesn’t require a redistribution of “thinking assignments”. The state neednt think, only regulate; the managers would think as till now, motivated by their salaries, unblinded by their selfish interests. I support a socialist model with some traditionally “non-socialist” elements: free market with state intervention, small business initiatives, and economic decentralization and self-management. Socialism isnt a religious dogma, and I’m not betraying its principles. Since socialism is all about egalitarianism on all fronts, any practice which fulfills that goal is genuine socialism.

 

I didn't get to read all the way through everybody's posts, but I had to throw this out there. Sorry if someone already posted it. Eight


Reasons Why Capitalists Want to Sell You
Deodorant.

1. Body smells are erotic and sexual. Capitalists
don't like that because they are impotent and opposed
to all manifestations of sensuality and sexuality.
Sexually awakened people are potentially dangerous to
capitalists and their rigid, asexual system.

2. Body smells remind us that we are animals.
Capitalists don't want us to be reminded of that.
Animals are dirty. They eat things off the ground, not
out of plastic wrappers. They are openly sexual. They
don't wear suits or ties, and they don't get their
hair done. They don't show up to work on time.

3. Body smells are unique. Everyone has her own body
smell. Capitalists don't like individuality. There are
millions of body smells but only a few deodorant
smells. Capitalists like that.

4. Some deodorants are harmful. Capitalists like that
because they are always looking for new illnesses to
cure. Capitalists love to invent new medicines.
Medicines make money for them and win them prizes;
they also cause new illnesses so capitalists can
invent even more new medicines.

5. Deodorants cost you money. Capitalists are
especially pleased about that.

6. Deodorants hide the damage that capitalist products
cause your body. Eating meat and other chemical-filled
foods sold by capitalists makes you smell bad. Wearing
pantyhose makes you smell bad. Capitalists don't want
you to stop wearing pantyhose or eating meat.

7. Deodorant-users are insecure. Capitalists like
insecure people. Insecure people don't start trouble.
Insecure people also buy room fresheners, hair
conditioners, makeup, and magazines with articles
about dieting.

8. Deodorants are unnecessary. Capitalists are very
proud of that and they win marketing awards for it.
Courtesy of Crimethinc.com

 

lenamarina, your post is just paranoid. And I have to remind you, individualism and individuality were seen as dangerous in communism. More, some communist regims actualy hated sex and saw sexual freedom as a sign of "capitalistic degradation".

Now, Companiero, about Soviet ocupation, I have to remind you that in all the countries excepting Yugoslavia and since the '60s Romania and Albania, there were Soviet advisors in every domain who actualy were more then just advisors, they were real coordinators. Also, the invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakya in 1968, both countries in which communist leaders were trying to establish a more free, but still socialist society, prouves that the Soviets did everything to be in control. You talk about neocolonialism acusing the western powers, but the situation between Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakya and Romania before the april 1964 declaration and USSR was exactly the situation of an empire and its neocolonial satelites. Romania could afford becoming independent in a higher degree only because in june 1958 Hrushtcyov redraw the Red Army (he wanted to prouve his good intentions to the West and Romania was the only country who hadn't capitalist neighbours; also until then the dictator Dej was extremely loyal to the Soviets).

About communists existing in the Balkans, you must understand Romania was a special case. Yes, there were communist mouvements quite strong in Yugoslavia or Bulgaria, but in Romania in 1944 the communist party had only some 800 members. You should also read the documents of the COMINTERN and you'll see it was one of the weakest parties in Europe. As I told you, this is due to the COMINTERN polithics itself, which was blindely followed by the communist party. The greatest polithical desire of Romanians in the past was the complition of national unity, which was realised in 1918. Well, communists were acting exactly against that. That's why young people with revolutionary views during the '20s and the '30s were atracted by the far right parties, who were also talking about social justice, but who also were strongly nationalist and religious. And that's also why the stalinist style persecution was so harsh and with so long duration in my country, compaired to the other countries from the area. Actualy the people who since 1944 joined the communist party were just oportunistic (many of the same joined the far right in the brief period when it was in power). And that's why, unlike other communist parties, there was no real inside opposition, people with other ideas then the dictator's. There were just isolated cases during Ceausescu. And the point when Romanians truely agreed with the regim was between 1964 and 1971, when the regim claimed the independence from USSR and established clode relationships with the West, liberated the polithical prisoners, accepted a cultural relaxation and more cultural freedom. But all of this ended with the july 1971 Ceausescu's "cultural revolution".

Well, I agree with you that Romania wasn't under German hardcore ocupation, but so was Bulgaria. So, how can you talk about Romania's or Bulgaria's liberation when the Red Army came? At least, before 23rd August 1944 Romania was in war with USSR, but Bulgaria was just invaded, without any preexisting state of war.

About the regims existing in the Balkans before WW2, you make a mistake by generalising. All those countries had and hve much in common, but it's not the same thing. Bulgaria became a dictatorship ruled by the far right since 1923. Albania was a republic before the 1928 putsch lead by Ahmed Dogu, who claimed himself king and instaured a dictatorship. In Yugoslavia king Alexander instaled also a personal regim and, even worse, with a clear Serbian domination, which lead to the downfall of that great idea which yugoslavism was. In Romania the dinasty instaled in 1866 (not 1878, then it was only the recognition of the independence) cann't be dismissed so easily as you do. Carol I (1866-1914) didn't acted like a dictator. In the conditions of a partial democracy with censitary and not universal vote, he asured a permanent rotation of the two main parties to power. Ferdinand I (1914-1927) acted like a true constitutional monarch, not trying to influence the elections and to command to the governemnts. During his reign was introduced the universal vote (1919) and one of the most democratical Consitutions in Europe (1923). Michael I (1927-1930; 1940-1947) tryed to be the restaurator of the democracy, even he was very young (in 1944 he was only 23). The "black sheep" is Carol II (1930-1940), smart but imoral, he instaled a dictatorship, but only in 1938, when it appeared a good ocasion.

But, I'm not saying Romanian democracy was perfect. That's because more then half of the population lived at the countryside and had paternalist conceptions. But, it was a developing democracy and a much better regim then the following dictatorships and especially the communist one.

Also, you simplify things when you're saying that nazi influence is responsable for the Balkan dictatorships. Actualy it was a general European tendencie: Horthy, Hungary- 1920, Mussolini, Italy- 1921, Salazar, Portugal- 1928, Hitler, Germany- 1933, Franco, Spain- 1936, even the Paris fascist rebelion- 1934. Also, remember that Carol II, even as a dictator, acted against Hitler up to the bitter end (the bitter end being the conquest of France, Romania's main ally, in june 1940).

Now, again the farmers. Look, man, all land, except the properties from the mountain regions, was taken. The difference between those who had less and those who had more then 10 hectares was that the last ones were injailed out of principal. And about the great landowners, as I told you, after 1921 their importance wasn't so great, because much of their land was taken and given to farmers. Actualy, in 1945 the communists did the same thing, reducing the great properties to at most 50 hectares, only to came in 1949 to request this land from the farmers (which for the land loving farmer of that time was a real tragedy).

About the relationship between West and countries like Romania and your association with South America... It doesn't work. The foreign investments were massive in oil production and oil refining, true. But the steel production, the food production, the clothing and shoemaking industry, all in powerfull development in the '30s were controled by Romanian capital. Communists continued to develop these domains and other new (like the chemical industry), with many mamagement flaws which explain some lack of eficiency compaired to the same industries in the West, but they also destroyed Romanian private capital and this prouved to be a real problem in the '90s (I think in Macedonia is the same). Now, to get to South America, you should read "Memory of Fire", a very good book about the history of Latin America in the last 500 years, written by Eduardo Galeano, a marxist Uruguyan journalist. You'll discover there not only the persistance of a feudal like society, but also the fact that South American societies, many years, rejected local initiatives, prefering to import the final products. The problem was not only with the foreign investors who took advantage, but also with the Latin American upper classes. This isn't the case in the Balkans or at least in Romania. Also, as European countries, the Balkans would have joined the European evolutions. South America, as fascinating as it is, it's a different world. Unfortunately for the Balkans, communism just cut up the links with Europe, and this explains why we didn't evolved the way Italy, Spain or Portugal, then also rural and not very industrialised, did. Anyway, don't confuse economical growth and at some point communist societies had major growth, until the flaws of centralised planed state economy prouved to be too great, with prosperity. You have prosperity when the growth reflects on lifestandard and population comsumption power.

Oh, but there are monopols in Russia (remember Gazprom?), or at least oligopols (only 2-3 companies who controls the market) and this isn't raw capitalism. Anyway, I agree the way you see the evolution of raw capitalism if it's totaly out of supervision (and history prouved that; raw capitalism as it was in the 18th-19th century does no longer exist). But it's better that economy remains dominated by private property, with the state as a sort of arbiter as Keynes thought and Roosevelt did. Problem with contemporary Russia is that the state isn't an arbiter, it's acting on the behalf of the oligarchs only, and until the country doesn't become a real democracy this won't change. Look, if there is a country who resembles the Latin American model it's Russia: like the Latin American countries in the colonial times, Russia was feudal even in the eve of the 1917 revolution; I'm almost sure that Kerenski's socialism would have been bringing a social capitalism, but the communism of Lenin, Stalin and the following only created the basis of the today oligarchic society, because the people got out of communism very poor and a few took control over the state companies.

Well, state must regulate, but it must also be controled by the civil society, against the abuses of the few who form the government. That's why the best working system is democracy and not dictatorship. And I argue you about the great bussinesses. It's better to be in private hands because people are selfish and a good payment sin't enough to prevent dishonest management. An owner or a small obviously motivated group of shareholders control better the management then the state who is large and has a lot of things to do, not all linked to economy.

 

Hallo, Sandu. Forth time, here we go.

First of all I don’t think lenamaria’s post is “paranoid”. She quite hits the nail, and if we drew a parallel between perfumes and the universal capitalist product on the market, you could clearly see all the metaphors which describe the capitalist model. She didn’t even mention communism at all, so if anyone was paranoid, it was you.

Agreed. But this was not true solely for Romania. Stalinism was actually a doctrine successfully incorporating socialism and nationalism, giving nations the right of self-determination, but at the same time underlaying the national spirit of the country, not the civil one. Practically though, Stalins nationalism not rarely morphed into national hegemonism. Maybe the Romanian nationalists were indeed opportunistic, but it was the monolithic political structure of Stalinism that tended to encompass a broader segment of the population that created the political vaccuum in Communist countries for many years following WW2.

Did I say USSR liberated Romania or Bulgaria? No. (see above; it applies to Eastern Europe) To say smth like that would be manipulation with terms. In politics it’s uncommon a foreign power to “liberate” a country from an internal enemy. Though still if you define the fascist government as opprssive, we can talk about liberation (not from the Germans, but from Romanian fascist government). You should be well aware that without the Soviet success in fighting German troops, the overthrowing of the Romanian fascist regime would have been impossible. So, in a way, the Soviets indirectly caused Romania’s “liberation” (provided one considers fascist rule as oppressive)

Just how am I generalizing? It appears that you think Romania was different by having a functional democracy (and not fake one, dictatorship or monarchy, as I claim all of the Balkans experienced). You said: “The "black sheep" is Carol II (1930-1940), smart but imoral, he instaled a dictatorship, but only in 1938, when it appeared a good ocasion.”. So until 1938 you had a democracy, and only after that date you joined the club of rogue regimes? Indeed, mechanized research of dates would suggest the same, but in reality (and in history in general) it wasn’t at all like that. Carol took dictatorian role starting from 1930, and even before that there were turbulences in the government, with the leading Liberal in power acting virtually as a dictator. I will say this once more (and I don’t need you to give me the dates from Balkan history again), its too bold and misleading to think there was a democracy on the Balkans in the interwar period. Obvious reason was it was just a transplanted Western invention whose sustainment required specific social, economic and political conditions which were far from ripe then.

Again, I didn’t. Please read carfully. What I said was: “The proximity of the Nazi power however, brought all of them (except Greece, but the Metaxas regime was just as fascist, only accepted by the Brits) gravitating round the Third Reich just prior to 1940, and brought about the implementation of many fascist policies.”

Are we talking about Britain here, or Romania? There were only embriyonical forms of capitalist domestic production. Very much LIKE in South America, LIKE in Russia, LIKE you admitted the similarities between them. (“if there is a country who resembles the Latin American model it's Russia”) If Romania was so powerful, it wouldn’t have conceded more than half of its territory to neighbours (Bessarabia, North Bukovina, Dobrudza and Transylvania). (I know, i know: USSR and Germany were more powerful… anyway, point still stands.)

Monopol being a situation where the state exclusively protects the control of one company over the market; this isnt the case at all in Russia. (i’m not informed about Gazprom, but i’m almost positive its not a monopoly) There is a legal frame in Russia providing for the free participation of all interested subjects in the market. The dominance of these so called oligopols as you call them, is a result of the plunder of state property which happened during Jeltzin, with excellent starting positions on the market. Although the evolution leading to this state of “raw (pure) capitalism”, is rather different in Russia than the theoretical model (developing corporatism in US), the results are the same (few companies that control the market).

OMG, noo.. First of all, Russia is a real democracy. Second, the problem is the country is, and especially was, exactly that, a mute arbiter of the ruthless privatization of state capital. Many billions of $$ were taken in private hands in an illegal way. Only recently Putin has taken a slightly pro-active role in revision of some of the most criminal deals of the century. That’s why there are judical processes against many oligarchs (Berezovski, Abramovich, to name a few), but to say that Putin acts on their behalf is simply unheard of.

How can you ascribe that to communism!? Was it not the bloody capitalists who implemented the criminal privatization, under the banner of “democratic reforms”, to be held responsible? And last..

Heh heh… OK, lets switch theses for moment. Do you assert as well that no democratic government can govern efficiently a country, since they don’t own it, so its better to award hereditary rights to a private subject? Mind you, this was the reasoning people had when democracy first appeared. And even the greatest thinkers of the time (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) declared democracy the worst possible system. And yet, after two thousand years we consider it the best form of governance. Just a small example how historically limited human mind can be, and how unlimited its opportunities can be, provided it’s nourished in the correct setting.

 

Lenamarina,

Venus of the Deep, don't worry about missing all the other posts; you're not missing much.
Let's face it, exploring our hairy smelly Primate-impulses gets too personal and too real for most.

True, Capitalism is one of many expressions of our repressed Psycho-sexual energy.
But the article's examples are as pale and neutered as the limp Phallic-symbols we publicly hang around our necks.

Capitalism is simply an effective expression of Civilized Man's latent Homo-sexuality.
The impulse to own, control, organize and aquire is a grasping anal-retentive impulse.

A homo-erotic impulse.

As Homo-erotic as the sado-masochistic pleasures of Competition.
Or the self-loathing of the death-drive funeral-march of Civilization.

The impulse behind Anal-retentive Civilization.
And behind every neutered coward who seeks the Authority and Security of a Hierarchical Civilization.


No, Sex and Death are not motivations that most Civilized Primates want to talk about.