- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmit.online
- worldnews@lemmit.online
Summary
China condemned JD Vance on Tuesday for calling Chinese people āpeasantsā in a Fox News interview, where he said, āTo make it a little more crystal clear, we borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.ā
The Chinese Foreign Ministry labeled the remarks āignorant and disrespectful.ā
The backlash exploded on Chinese social media, garnering 140 million Weibo views.
Critics mocked Vanceās own āhillbillyā background and pointed to Chinaās advanced tech and infrastructure, highlighting rising tensions amid Trumpās trade war.
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They are so laughably bad at this stong man act. They talk politics like either a particularly stupid playground bully or a guffawing British colonial moron from the time of the empire.
Also, I suppose it would help if your opponents found you even the least bit intimidating
Theyāre WWE grads
they donāt even have good entrance music
They tried but the artists keep suing to make them stop using it.
Linda MacMahon is literally the Secretary of Education.
Yet they canāt cut a promo!
I feel like itās due to American privilege. They donāt understand the real world and authentic humanity.
Only Democrats seem to find their act intimidating.
Here it is again, a desperate attempt to blame Democrats.
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Substantially more than most of the people on this site have been doing.
Thank fuck i would say. It literally their fucking job isnāt it? I have to card in every morning at 9am till 5. Their equivalent of card in is to oppose this shit, and to be perfectly honest, if I put as much effort as they did so far, my manager would have fired my ass for being a slacker
Yeah. Fucking Schumer is really leading the opposition. /s
And what specifically have you done?
I havenāt voted to confirm Trumpās nominees
Not voted Yes on anything Republicans want, for starters.
No cabinet picks. No poison pills. No sneaking in expansions of power in yearly budgets. No tax cuts for the rich.
It costs as much energy to vote no as it does yes. But it doesnāt look good for the lobbyistsā bank accounts when they pay for Trumpās demands, so why even bother fighting for whatās right?
Like they were elected to do. I sure hope theyāre doing more than the people trying to balance rent and food as they worry about if their senator is going to vote yes on Trumpās wants.
Can you be any more specific?
What the fuck have you done other than echo the right wing spin?
The right wing spin of āPlease stop doing what Trump wants you to doā?
Or the right wing spin of āStand up for the people who voted you in to stop Trumpā?
Theyāre not blameless. Theyāre not entirely to blame, but they couldāve regulated social media to dampen disinformation when they had the chance.
And now that would be the reason they didnāt get elected.
holy shit these fucking libs
āThey should have cracked down on how weāre allowed to communicate with each otherā
and not
āThey shouldnāt have committed a genocideā or āThey shouldnāt have taken tens of millions of people off medicaid and doubled child povertyā
You canāt tame the beast anymore. Itās in control and itās bigger than governments. Itās more of poltergeist than something physical. Humanity is dying and the lifeboats that were government and religion have been overtaken.
This is a whole new war beyond law and order.
Natural law prevails, but many of us have been taught to not live by natural law. In turn we are losing the battle by being submissive to man-made law while the evil side of humanity thrives as it has never followed the law of man. They know the laws are for the poor and easily controlled and not meant for them.
Or something?
You canāt tame the beast anymore
Yes we can. It requires effort, will and risk, though, and these are things Americans lack one of.
The answer is never censorship. Look at who would be in charge of your āregulatedā social media nowā¦ It would be all of it instead of just the now hyper-regulated X.
I didnāt say censorship. They couldāve regulated social media as actual Media outlets, which puts them on the hook for libel lawsuits if blatantly fake disinformation is advertised on their platforms. In other words, they have to follow the same rules as traditional media outlets.
Social media isnāt a news source. Perhaps forcing them to remove all the āalgorithmsā might be the answer. Keep the echo chamber effect to a minimum. Excluding people from being able to speak based on the current administrationās definition of blatantly fake disinformation is a bad idea. Once again, look who is now in charge of what is āblatantly fakeāā¦ Theyād be suing the crap out of Lemmy under that lawā¦ Europe is all in on censorship, so we can only hope the Nazis donāt take over there again or weāll be boxed in from every direction.
Example?
You could look into it yourself, but hereās a general overview on the US response to disinformation:
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/disinformation-governance-board/
The Democrats couldāve been pushing harder to address such a serious problem, but they didnāt. And here we are.
Like I said, theyāre not entirely to blame, but theyāre not blameless.
I was aware of the dangers and am now aware of the cited committee to establish regulations that somehow counter foreign and domestic disinformation without infringing on the First Amendment; I was moreso asking for your personal idea of a regulation that you would put in place if dictator for a day.
āPlease stop capitulating to Trump and signing off of his bills, theyāre fascists and youāre enabling them.ā
āWhats with the blame for Democrats? You must hate them for no reason.ā
The budget bill? Things were going to be worse if there was a shutdown that hands more power to the executive.
If they wanted a shutdown, Republicans would have voted no and shut it down.
Instead they voted yes along with 11 Democrats.
Big talk from hillbilly white trash.
I read this in Kahn from King of the Hills voice.
"Hey, Minh! Mascra wearing Hillbilly is fondling his couch! You owe me a dollar! "
Poor manās idea of a rich man,
Stupid manās idea of a smart man,
Weak manās idea of a strong man,
Cowardās idea of a brave man,
And a moronic voterās idea of a President (or Vice-president in this case).
These days they can update it with ādonāt waste your eggs, there are kids in America whose family canāt even afford themā
Does he have to be an asshole to everybody? Even the way he speaks is like he talks down to people, itās just so cringe.
Hate is the GOP platform.
Hard to look at the policy when you are always whipped into a frenzy about those trans mexican chinese peasants
Criminals. Donāt forget they are all criminals. Half the world is in La Tren de Aragua, or whatever they made up last
I mean he was an asshole to his mum, wife and kids. (His mum is Appalachian American and in his book he said all Appalachian Americans are drug addicts. His wife is of Indian descent and so are his kids. He still defended the doge douche who was racist towards Indians.). So he pretty much has no assholeness filter and know no boundries.
Yeah he is unfiltered white trash he has no creed, ethnicity, or kin. He technically has a race but only by the American standards, anywhere else and heās lacking even that.
he was brought out of obscurity by THIEL, to be nothing more than his puppet to push his agenda.
Thiel needs to get his money back then because Iām pretty sure Vance is a charisma void who would struggle to inflict his will onto a ham sandwich.
You havenāt even said thank you, once!!!
Does he have to be an asshole to everybody?
Itās his only skill.
yes, that is his only skill
I honestly despise Vance so much, even more so than Trump. Heās such a vile, spineless, cunt of a man that makes me want to punch him whenever he opens his mouth.
A lifetime of being a loser can really do a lot to a person.
Do you think Fox should yoink him, and yeet him to the street. That would be based, but Foxās stans would be sus.
āChina lashes outā
Did they also āslamā home the fact that this is quite literally a world leader directly insulting the people of their closest rival? The bad news writing mixing with clown world politics is why all this seems so unreal to people, we are talking about a collapse of global world order but this reads like a TMZ piece.
JD Vance is such a little bitch.
Hopefully china will sanction JD Vancer.
Does anyone believe he does not see American citizens as peasants, too?
Not just American citizens. The people he grew up with. His own community. He even wrote a book to exploit it. The guy is all sleaze.
And tries to separate himself from his peasant heritage?
after THIEL plucked him from obscurity and gave him a job.
by recent voting history would that not be somewhat accurate?
Explain what you think a peasant is .ml user.
well, .zip userā¦ in this context I would go with one living under neo-feudal oppression. but please, do elucidate if you care to.
I was going with someone tied to the land, unable to move or better their situation.
Which would make sense in the context of Appalachia but doesnāt really make sense in the context of American citizens at large.
I got ya. you may be surprised to learn that, in the us, declining geographic mobility is very much a part of the new feudalism.
by all metrics I can think of, the us is becoming more and more a feudal estate with lords and peasants.
Wonder how my friend whoās a Chinese immigrant who supports Trump and wanted to move to Singapore if Kamala won, feels about this.
You should ask them if you havenāt already. In a kind way of course.
At some point I will.
Rising tensions with China? I was told thatās what the Democrats were going to do if they won. š¤·āāļø
Maga said that Biden was under CCP control.
Now looks who is under Kremlin control.
Projection.
Wait, I thought Trump is Putinās puppet and Putin is Xiās puppet?
They did.
Pardon my ignorance, but how so?
ā¦I hate laughing at the downfall of my own country, but we definitely had it coming. I guess Chinese is the new lingua franca. Anyway, can someone help me understand why āMaā in Mandarin means both weed and mom? How do I buy weed in Beijing?
Mandarin has 4 (technically 5) tones so āmaā could be any one of those 4 different pronunciations. Furthermore, there are many completely different words that have the same tone/pronunciation. You just learn through context (same way as you do with English homophones)
Mom in mandarin is åŖ½ (mÄ) whereas weed is éŗ» (mĆ”). Colloquially you can also say 大éŗ» (dĆ mĆ”) for weed.
Also, even before you go into the nitty gritty, there are homonyms in English too, so I donāt get why OP needs an explanation.
How legal is weed in China? I get the impression the regime is anti drugs
take this as you will, it is copy pasted from a site. most other sources i saw up to reading this said the same shit, so it is probably fairly accurate
The Punishment for Marijuana in China
Possession & Use: Individuals caught with marijuana or using marijuana will face administrative detention between 10 to 15 days, as well as fines of up to 2,000 yuan ($280 USD). Trafficking and Distribution: Selling or distributing marijuana is a crime. Punishment for those found guilty of handling over 50 grams includes a minimum three-year prison sentence, with life incarceration or death being possible penalties for larger weights (or in special cases). Marijuana Cultivation: Growing cannabis is another criminal offense, no matter how many plants. People arrested for growing marijuana could spend five years in jail and pay a hefty fine. For larger amounts, the punishment is even steeper.Thanks!
Possession is much lighter than I was expecting.
There is probably a lot of pressure to give up the supplier.
yeah, i have no idea, on the granular level like that i would image it is quite a complicated thing, as it is anywhere
Just spit balling here but probably execution level legal.
I think you get a fine up to 2000 Yuan? I could be wrong.
you also use ma at the end of the sentences to form a question, to make it more confusing
Removed by mod
Not to mention Chinese is quite the endeavor to learn, Esperanto would make way more sense.
U can ask Mom for weed by saying ma ma
Make it a question with a third ma.
So āma ma ma?ā (å¦éŗ»å?)
You canāt. At least not legally.
There goes the already remotely slim chance of any tariff negotiations. There is now a negative chance of China giving in.
Yep. China is not gonna lose face by negotiating. Theyāre gonna go all in to fuck the US over now.
China wins this war in a landslide.
USA needs China: walk into any American home, and itāll be minimum 50% China-related goods.
The reverse situation, American goods in Chinese homes, would have a tough time approaching 10%.You know that isnāt good for China either, right? Itās the same twisted trade deficit logic that Trump is using. Chinaās economy depends on selling those goods.
While trade war isnāt good for anyone US is clear looser here since Chinaās export to US (as of 2023 stats) is only 15% from its overall export. They can sell more other countries to smoothen impact. Meanwhile who gonna buy US stuff? āBest friendā Russia with total GPD of less than California?
āonly 15%ā? Thatās a huge percentage when you look at global trade. In 2023, their next biggest export partner is Hong Kong at 8%, which is now part of China. After that itās Japan at 5%, followed by South Korea at 4.5%.
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-by-country
The point is, China doesnāt want this trade war at all, and neither do we. Trump and Co. are complete morons that are fucking up the global economy for nonsensical reasons. Yes, other countries can eventually establish new trade deals without the US, and they likely will, but letās not pretend they all can just bounce back within a few months if these idiotic shenanigans continue.
That use of āonlyā before ā15%ā is a serious underestimation in absolute terms, but wholly appropriate when those 15% are relative to the USās self-inflicted trade damage: itās still immensely better when 15% of your trade goes to a trading partner which has picked a fight with you than when 100% of your trade goes to trade partners you have picked fights with.
Further, in the last 2 decades or so China has both been growing its internal market (so that its Economy is less dependent on exports) and diversifying the countries they export to, likely in preparation for the death throes of empire as the US falls from its top position, which were entirely expected for decades, as was that they would include some form of trade pressure on its closest adversary.
Absolutely, this is going to hurt China in the short-term (and possibly mid-term, depending on how easy or not is to redirect those exports to other destinations), but the Trump trade war with the World is going to totally fuck up the US and itās the kind of harm that gets worse the longer these measures remain in place because it will be further eating away at the US brand (so even after the tariffs are removed many customers wonāt be coming back) and accelerate the demise of the Reserve Currency status of the USD (which will in turn be reflected in massive inflation as those dollars flood back in and way bigger deficit related problems because the costs of debt servicing will go up when there is little demand for US Dollars abroad).
I wanted EU but the closest breakdown was Europe at 22%. Russia is 3.4% and assuming thatās included in Europe puts it closer to 18.6%.
The US is just one country out of ~190 with a population of 300m out of 7b. Losing some exports to the US will sting a bit, but in the grand scheme itās nothing.
The US needs to get its head out of its ass and realize its not as important as it thinks.
300m not 300k
Corrected, thatās what I meant
Yeah, except America isnāt the only country in the world
Certainly, but weāre the biggest consumer economy by a long shot. Trying to replace roughly $600 billion in exports isnāt an easy ask, especially since the next biggest economic bloc after the US and China, the EU, has been trying to move away from over reliance on China for years.
They may be trying to move away from China, but theyāre going to be moving back fast with these tariffs in place. Everyone loses in a trade war, but China is very much going to be the winner. No matter what happens after today, the US has lost itās bargaining position and value as a trading partner and ally.
Putin has won his war against the US, itās just a matter of how we fall at this point.
I donāt disagree, Iām just pointing out that no one wants this and China isnāt going to just magically replace their biggest trading partner overnight, which is why they were legitimately trying to work out a new deal originally.
Trust me, I fully agree the US will be the biggest loser from all of this.
Not to mention many of those Chinese products are designed by and built for American companies or nonamerican companies that sell in the US, which complicates things even further. This is much more complicated and much messier than simply looking at how many US goods there are in a typical Chinese household. Everybody loses thanks to Trumpās idiocy.
China has the entire rest of the world to sell to.
Yay! Cheaper goods for everyone else. Thanks USA!
In over 50 years, I have never seen a worst accounting of ourselves.
Our leaders, elected officials, are absolutely corrupt, inept, and eaten up with greed . They are diseased in their souls.
They need to be jailed , now.
Itās an excellent accounting by the person running the country. Itās going better than planned.
In over 50 years, I have never seen a worst accounting of ourselves
You should have taken the hints with the Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, but better late than never I guess.
š±š· š„ š±š· š£ š„ š STUPID POWER YEAH š š±š· š„ š±š· š£ š„
COPE CHYNAH
these stupid mother fuckers
CHI-nuh.
I wish I never had to hear his voice again. And no, I donāt want him dead, just put in a retirement home.
Hey man, not to be pedantic, but thatās a Liberian flag, on brand for the targets of your sarcasm but š¤·š¾āāļø
100% intentional.
Ah, splendid then.
LIBERiA IS A NEW WAY TO SAY LIBERTY š±š· š±š· š±š· šš„
I think this is the plan. They want to be able to blame China for the massively increased cost of consumer goods.
One of the most frustrating things about the current US administration, is I keep having to side with China. wtf is going on when we can no longer even get together to hate on an external trading partner? When the enemies are not at the gate but in the keep? When I have to agree with actions to punish my own country as well earned and expected?
Maybe the enemies arenāt the ones weāve been made to believe. Our homegrown capitalists export jobs to the āpeasantsā then they turn around and say to the jobless - look, the peasants took your job!
The enemies have never been the Chinese proletariat who toil and slave for scraps to feed the demands of a capitalist, consumerist society and always the greedy, totalitarian faux-socialists with a love for concentration camps that form the ruling party.
totalitarian faux-socialists with a love for concentration camps that form the ruling party
Could you please tell me whatās the incarceration rate in China and compare it with the US?
First: No I cannot, the people of China do not enjoy freedom of press or freedom of expression, so finding out the actual statistics can be very difficult.
Second: What is your point? Two governments can be bad simultaneously, and even more than just two. Just because I oppose Israelās genocide doesnāt mean I suddenly support Iranās totalitarian leadership.
finding out the actual statistics can be very difficult
Nah, youāre just a racist US-propagandized individual who refuses to believe statistics from āle evil countryā because they donāt suit your ideology. Trials in China are as public as in the rest of the world, and incarceration rates are easy to calculate, and they match the government data because China doesnāt need to lie about it becaude itās not a police state in the way USians believe it to be. I can attest to that as someone who visited China freely and without visa, and who has had the pleasure of having several Chinese coworkers.
Second: What is your point?
My point is that Chinaās incarceration rate is 5 times lower that of the USA, which makes it kinda obvious that thereās no ātyrant police state jailing everyone who disagreesā.
Iāve been looking for Chinese prison-crime-etc. data. Do you have a link?
It being in Mandarin isnāt a problem.
The United Nations Crime Trends Survey data seems to match pretty well with the data from World Prison Brief regarding prison population. Hopefully nobody will accuse the UN or a London-based organization of skewing the data in favour of China.
Youāre either an apologist for totalitarian dictatorships who falls for propaganda as easily as MAGA cultists or youāre just straight-up trolling. The racism accusation was really the cherry on top.
I have never even visited the US, nor do I have any intention to.
You donāt need to live in the US to fall to US State Department propaganda, Iām west-European myself and Iām surrounded by people with the same brainworms as you do. But if you insist Iāll give you two sources that give similar numbers (i.e. 5 times smaller imprisonment rate than in the USA): source 1(London-based institute) source 2(UN data). Are those also totalitarian sources for this faulty information that we canāt believe because the evil politicians from the evil country are plotting to destroy the west?
Thatās not how it works around here. No shades of gray Iām afraid, simple black and white only. (/s)
If itās one thing Iāve learned in my years itās the the truth is always somewhere in the middle. Just look at global warming.
Same as it ever was, governments sucking ass while the people are justā¦ Peopleā¦ Even EU governments suck ass, just maybe ever so slightly less in recent history and even that Iām not sure of (not counting the current slide to the far right obviously).
Maybe the real enemeies were the friends we made along the way? Waitā¦ no probably not.
As someone who is trying to live in a democracy itās still insane to accept a dictatorship IMO
The kings and dictators are gonna be a fundamental wedge between east/west for a long time.
I do feel like every 4 yearsā¦ thereās a new enemy in the world. Kim > Putin > Bibi =/= Donald > whoās next?
The enemy was never China. The current US administration is worse than the previous one, but it was never China imprisoning black people en-masse, keeping your healthcare unaffordable and your life expectancy below that of Cuba, keeping your tuition prices out of reach for the majority, not guaranteeing a retirement pension, and having the largest incarceration rate on Earth. It just took orange man for you to realize. Hopefully you wonāt turn back to anti-chinese sentiment and pro-US-imperialism when the cheeto is gone.
Hopefully you wonāt turn back to anti-chinese sentiment and pro-US-imperialism when the cheeto is gone.
The guy literally said that the most frustrating thing is that he canāt be anti-chinese anymore.
Ehhhhhhhā¦
I donāt disagree that the āwestern hemisphereā is a corrupt, increasingly fascist, capitalist hellholeā¦
China arenāt known for their stellar human rights record either. Uyghurs, Tibetans, anyone that jokes about Winnie the Poohās lookalike, etc.
Letās not pretend either side is righteous here, every single one of us is getting fucked, itās just a matter of degree and direction.
Uyghurs, Tibetans, anyone that jokes about Winnie the Poohās lookalike, etc.
If you think the
nazisAmericans are bad, wait until you hear what they have to say about thesovietschinese!Removed by mod
Anyone else becoming consciously aware of things they just canāt say because China is now going to be the next superpower?
ā¦at least their list of banned statements are coherent and predictableā¦I guess. With the Trump admin, you could say āI like Gouda cheeseā and a few years later find yourself in El Salvador because Trump, or some other moron, got upset that The Netherlands wouldnāt willingly be annexed.
Thatās what Iām talking about the oppressive dictatorship with poor human rights is the voice of reason, if sanity, the āgood oneā? How did that happen?
You shouldnāt be siding with any country. All states are evil. The future of humanity is a stateless, classless, egalitarian society with worldwide co-operation, and the existence of states are a threat to world peace.
This was also not on my bingo card as well. Itās a damn weird timeline weāre living in.
At some point, The Onion is going to have to close up shop. Because the absurdity of reality goes way beyond any satire they could dream up.
Satire has been dead for many yearsā¦
I remember that late night talk shows basically said that they donāt have to write comedy during Trumpās first term, because everything he was doing was comedy. This second term is far darker, but the lunacy of whatās happening on a daily basis makes all comedy and satire writers obsolete!
Even actual news reporting on serious things like āexplaining Trumpās tariffsā, end up being almost unbelievable, like you have to question whether what youāre listening to actually happened or not. Take a few minutes to learn about how Trumpās team came up with the tariff numbers, and youāll think that youāre watching a Pixar movie.
Those āpeasantsā are going to weather a tariff war far better than the āpeasantsā in the United States who are not used to the hardship and scarcity that will result.
far better than the āpeasantsā in the United States who are not used to the hardship and scarcity that will result
Iām not sure of this, Chinese system has quirks, like subway stations in the middle of nowhere or, say, USSR-like shortages in some places as opposed to abundance in others. In case of all-out mercantilism boogaloo we might see peopleās well-being drop harder than expected in many places, and such a quirk might hit worse than ānot being used to hardship and scarcityā.
After all, having enough to eat is not just matter of habit.
Those subway stations in the middle of nowhere that were being touted a while back now are surrounded by bustling cities. Planned infrastructure takes time to fill, but it works much better than suburban sprawl
It is also safer to do subway tunneling works without worrying about the buildings around you.
Examples please. Specific ones.
but it works much better than suburban sprawl
āBetterā is always tied to a specific criterion, thereās nothing absolutely better than something else.
Sure, give me an example since you are the one who claimed it, and Iāll do the legwork for you on what it is today.
We have been sanctioning Russia for decades to no avail, similar situation.
We have been sanctioning Russia for decades
This is not true. There have been plenty of surface, symbolic sanctions, some on those with no power to overcome them and some on those with power, but not enough for them to notice - even if they lose atrocious amounts of money, they have a country and feel themselves kinds.
That wasnāt a blockade or a siege, and if it were, then again those to suffer would not be anyone with decision-making power.
We cut them out of the SWIFT payment system. All our economists were saying they wouldnāt last more than a few months. That was four years ago.
SWIFT is not the only way to exchange money. The actual power doesnāt suffer from it being cut off. I do. And also from problems with card payments in the interwebs where MC or Visa is expected.
Also I donāt think you realize how much money the Russian gang had in the open and hidden, one can basically say their credit is infinite. Other than trading national resources, they can, unlike American governments, cut local businesses and entities like lifestock to get more. They can do drugs trade, with their size it doesnāt bear any consequences at all, Russian (and Azeri, and Israeli, and which not) embassies have been caught with smuggling industrial amounts of heroine all over the world, nothing followed after those cases. They can just catch people on the streets and sell them for organs and they do. They can extort. They can confiscate. They can enslave.
They are inefficient, for gangsters they are cowards, for mafia they are dishonorable, for cutthroats they are weak, for fanatics they are dirty, for thieves they are tainted. Nobody respects them. But that doesnāt matter when you have such a shitload of resources.
Theyāve spent hundreds of thousands of people in the last few years just for fun, to come to the same idea of war that has been found in Syria and in Latin America and in African conflicts without such a process. No way they are this stupid, but they wanted to feel this kind of power because there are not many things for them to want anymore. And also to kill brave people.
Chima has sociaIism. Their people will be fine. The murican people will be left to fend for themselves/starve or become sIaves in the newly expanded guantanarno bay prison.
sociaIism
This word doesnāt mean anything. It was what they call āmemeā today in the late XIX century, and then a political-religious term.
China has a bureaucratic, one can say imperial, system with laissez-faire economy, except for the moments when the empire has a project.
USA has an economy less free in fact due to oligopolies, monopolies and use of lobbying instead of competition, but a freer political system.
Not quite. China is far from being a socialist society.
Norway is more socialist than China
The governments of both the USA and China can fuck themselves.
China is far from perfect but they donāt leave their people to die in the streets.
subway stations in the middle of nowhere
āInefficiencies of central planningā. Itās wasteful and kind of amusing but at least they got something done and may even have a city coming next
For new development, It is easier to build subway first and then build around it or build concurrently at the same time but the trains/busses and road need to work before people will occupy the buildings there. It is common practice for new development.
In some countries like Singapore that is how it is done for new development because most people donāt drive in Singapore, they donāt even own cars. Public transport like buses and subway/mrt need to start operating in those new areas before people move in. People need to be able to get to their home and offices by bus or train, if not no one will move in to their new homes except for the few with cars. Other countries with high car ownership they just need roads to be operational so they might not understand this.
Itās wasteful and kind of amusing but at least they got something done and may even have a city coming next
If something can be unintentionally wasteful, there are fewer steps to make it intentionally wasteful, and itās not just theft and loss of efficiency, but way to build up power to do more of the same. Which eventually corrupts a society fully. Which is what has happened to the USSR.
Well, this is happening to all of the world now, so nothing specific for planned economies.
Maybe USSR actually did the heroic sacrifice of detecting the minefield ahead.
Like with writing programs, some people prefer exceptions somehow handled with try-catch, and some prefer logically complete processes. If a language supports exceptions, youāll use them if you want to work with other people, but there are benefits to being strict to yourself too. Same with the USSR - it failed encountering a problem, but that other big powers didnāt fail right then doesnāt mean they didnāt encounter the same problem or did process it correctly.
subway stations in the middle of nowhere
This has been endlessly debunkedā¦ The āghost citiesā of China are majorly inhabited now, itās just a centrally planned way of building cities rather than laissez-faire house constructionā¦ which leads to available public transit, mixed use areas, parks and amenities, opposed to the suburban sprawl of the US.
USSR-like shortages
You really donāt know what youāre talking about, are you? The USSR rarely had āshortagesā, believe it or not. People having to go on waiting lists to acquire luxury products was a feature, not a bug, that guaranteed better distribution of scarce goods in a limited system. In capitalism, the consumption capabilities of people are limited by their income primarily. In the Soviet Union, because the basic necessities were extremely cheap (housing costing on average 3% of the monthly family income, transit ride prices being maintained from 1930 to the 70s without change, and inflation being on average 0% between the end of WW2 and the late 70s), people generally had money to spare.
When you live in a self-sufficient economy where you canāt extract more resources than you do or put more people in factories because employment rate is 100%, producing more of one thing implies producing less of another. The distribution of some luxury goods like cars, was handled through waiting lists, because the idea wasnāt that a wealthy class would be able to appropriate all the goods and leave the rest without anything (as it happens in capitalism). Itās not a shortage, itās just another more equitable form of distribution of goods than āpoors can go fuck themselvesā.
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āAnyone who doesnāt uncritically swallow US State Department propaganda against China is a āCCPā trollā. Why the need for the homophobia though?
You really donāt know what youāre talking about, are you? The USSR rarely had āshortagesā, believe it or not.
MWAHAHAHA, I live in fucking Russia
People having to go on waiting lists to acquire luxury products was a feature, not a bug,
Were it a feature it would match the social adverts and state propaganda, where you have ads, USSR had centrally determined propaganda posters. They didnāt say it was a feature.
that guaranteed better distribution of scarce goods in a limited system.
Oh yes, better distribution via acquaintances and relations and via ministry hierarchies and to employees at work, LOL.
Say, in parts of USSR far from anything with a sea port people would see something like oranges or bananas extremely rarely and mostly given at work.
While someplace south there would be shitloads of those oranges, no shortage at all.
Thatās a clear result of bad logistics.
In the Soviet Union, because the basic necessities were extremely cheap (housing costing on average 3% of the monthly family income,
Housing wasnāt bought, it was assigned and sometimes given, so talking about cost is useless. There were people still living in communal apartments (a few families living each in their room, with one kitchen and bathroom and shower for all) all across the USSR in 1991.
Still, housing is one thing I wonāt blame USSR for, despite the picture of āa young family having their own apartmentā was impossible there, young families would live stacked in a small place with grandparents.
people generally had money to spare.
You clearly donāt know anything about USSR, what you needed wasnāt money (of course it was necessary too and no, many people didnāt), but knowledge, connections, relations and wits to āgetā something, by āgettingā it means that having money to buy the thing wasnāt enough, having the opportunity to spend it required work.
It was a miserable society requiring more bootlicking than you can possibly imagine to do something you consider a given in your land. Better goods required a permission to buy, you couldnāt just walk in with the money, you also needed a paper that you can buy those boots. And there were stores where you could buy something only via āspecial rublesā only ministry workers, party workers, foreign communists (like Linus Torvaldsā dad, just so you knew, he was something of a god in that status), such kind of people possessed, but yeah, no other permission required. And there were stores where only military people could buy something, or only workers of some specific area, etc.
And groceries youād mostly buy on markets or from familiar people growing something etc, not something official likely. Technically breaking the law, LOL.
When you live in a self-sufficient economy where you canāt extract more resources than you do or put more people in factories because employment rate is 100%, producing more of one thing implies producing less of another.
Building so many tanks that most of them just slowly turned into rust after 1991 is a useless direction of resources in your book?
USSRās economy since early 70s was built on selling oil and gas for everything it needed. All other areas of its economy had negative margin, one can say, and were intended to keep production of strategic goods, like weapons, in place, and the whole system of society.
Of course it was more intelligent than todayās Russia, but praising it is bullshit. The older it gets, the more numerous are its fanboys.
The distribution of some luxury goods like cars, was handled through waiting lists,
Cars in the 70s were less of a luxury good than today. You live in a post-industrial society where cars are really something one can live without.
because the idea wasnāt that a wealthy class would be able to appropriate all the goods and leave the rest without anything (as it happens in capitalism).
You are fucking joking. You really donāt know how it was in the USSR, yes, LOL?
You should have met some of those people whose parents were Soviet hereditary elite and who are now Russian hereditary elite, how their parents and grandparents lived, and how they live. Youād learn to appreciate Elon Musk.
Itās not a shortage, itās just another more equitable form of distribution of goods than āpoors can go fuck themselvesā.
Itās āserfs can go fuck themselvesā instead of āpoors can go fuck themselvesā. Poors can stop being poor and sometimes do. Serfs are forbidden from becoming something else, unless they are permitted.
MWAHAHAHA, I live in fucking Russia
Yes, you live in Russia, not in the Soviet Union. Unfortunately for you Iām afraid.
Were it a feature it would match the social adverts and state propaganda
You surely donāt expect the material limitations of an industrializing, isolated and besieged economy to appear in propaganda? It was a feature in the sense that it was a known effect of āsocialism in one countryā, not in the sense that itās the desired goal. You surely understand that, no matter how good the policy, there are limitations to material reality?
Oh yes, better distribution via acquaintances and relations
Corruption DID happen, unsurprisingly, itās something that happens in all systems. Itās just that, when it happens under socialism, itās a scandal, but when it happens in capitalism itās normalized. In my country thereās a 6 month waiting list for going to a specialist doctor many times in public healthcare, and I could skip that by paying a sum of money to a private physician and getting examined in their private clinic legally. Itās essentially the same concept, except that for some reason itās normalized and even praised under capitalism (which leads to it being much more prevalent than in socialism), whereas socialism fought against it. Speaking of corruption and propaganda:
Surely the state with active anti-corruption propaganda and regular purges of its party and social systems was less corrupt than the capitalist states that normalize corruption in economic activity under the guise of āfree contracts between individualsā?parts of USSR far from anything with a sea port people would see something like oranges or bananas extremely rarely
Wait, youāre telling me that an economically isolated country focusing on a self-reliant economy which is located in one of the northernmost regions of the planet, had difficulties with the availability of certain fruits? (bananas are tropical and canāt be grown in the USSR for the most part). This just proves how to you, the default-normal is the availability of produce with origin in exploited regions of the world. Please, go check where the bananas at your supermarket are coming from, and how the workers in the plantation are treated. Thatās the problem with Russian libs: you guys donāt understand that NOW your country engages in exploitation of the global south, just like any other developed capitalist country. THATās why you have fucking bananas.
Housing wasnāt bought, it was assigned and sometimes given, so talking about cost is useless.
āPeople had universal, guaranteed access to free or affordable housing, so talking about housing is uselessā. Truly a big-brain take. You probably are lucky enough that you donāt have to spend half of your salary in housing as most people are forced to do, otherwise you wouldnāt be making that point.
There were people still living in communal apartments
Yes, a few people after the 70s still were living in such communal apartments, but it was a minority. Most housing by the time the USSR was industrialized were Khruschyovki and Brezhnevki, famously non-communal. Iād love it if you brought me a source telling me how many people lived in communal housing by the 80s, Iāll respond to you with data of 2024 Spain (my homeland) of how many people have to share a flat with one kitchen and one bathroom (and pay 1/3rd of their income in the process instead of 3% of their income).
It was a miserable society requiring more bootlicking than you can possibly imagine to do something you consider a given in your land
Poor Soviets, having the highest unionization rates in the world and being able to actually bargain through their union at work instead of having to bootlick their corporate overlord 8h a day 5 days a week. Wait, we donāt count that right? Being a wage-slave in a capitalist company isnāt bootlicking, we call it ānetworkingā and ācorporate cultureā itās actually cool. Fucking hell give me a break.
Building so many tanks that most of them just slowly turned into rust after 1991 is a useless direction of resources in your book?
Are you really Russian? Donāt you understand the absolute fear of another invasion that the Great Patriotic War (after WW1 and after the civil war) installed in Soviet people and leadership? Thereās a reason why even many opposition supporters in the modern Russian Federation go to parades in the Victory Day, itās not because they support Russian Nationalism and the status-quo. Itās because they understand the immense sacrifice of 20+mn lives that the Soviet Union undertook to SAVE EUROPE FROM NAZISM AND FASCISM. If you donāt understand that the USSR was under constant attack by the USA in the cold war, you donāt understand Soviet history. It fucking sucks spending 10-15% of your GDP in military, but siege socialism is what it is, the USSR tried to de-escalate and was met with nuclear weapons in Turkey. Youāve listened to too much āRadio Svobodaā I think.
USSRās economy since early 70s was built on selling oil and gas for everything it needed
Uhā¦ If you check the trade balances of the USSR with other countries, youāll find out that that wasnāt the case. The USSR traded mostly with COMECON countries, and yes, it exported natural resources like fossil fuels or minerals at international prices to COMECON countries and bought manufactured products. Again, itās a consequence of siege socialism and of not engaging in imperialism. The USSR could have profited massively from exporting manufactured goods and importing raw materials with the global south, engaging in unequal exchange. But it didnāt do so because it understood that thatās immoral, and the exploitation of the global south goes against the very nature of socialism. Iām sorry that your ancestors didnāt pillage and loot the rest of the world as mine did. For a detailed discussion on this, you may wanna check Robert C Allenās book āFarm to Factoryā, or āIs the Red Flag Flyingā by Albert Szymanski. I would bet my ass though, that you havenāt read a single book on soviet economic history, otherwise you wouldnāt be saying the nonsense youāre claiming.
All other areas of its economy had negative margin, one can say, and were intended to keep production of strategic goods, like weapons, in place, and the whole system of society.
Wow, an economy oriented towards the necessities of the people and the state rather than the profit of a few capitalist overlords? Disgusting, isnāt it? Thereās a fucking reason the entire rural Russia is being depopulated: the state stopped investing in rural areas and people are suffering the consequences. Enjoy your free market.
You live in a post-industrial society where cars are really something one can live without
The Russian Federation, famous for building more public transit than the USSR? I really donāt get your point. If thereās a part of the world that excelled in building public transit, thatās the Eastern Bloc, out of socialist ideals, of intelligent central planning, and of economic necessity (public transit being more efficient than private combustion engine vehicles).
You should have met some of those people whose parents were Soviet hereditary elite
Ughā¦ really, you have no fucking idea what youāre talking about. Hereditary wealth was incredibly less important in the USSR than in essentially any other country on Earth at the time, possibly with the exception of Sweden during some years. Iāll show you a Russian lib source youāll love claiming as much, hopefully you wonāt accuse them of being biased towards communism:
As you can see, wealth distribution has never been more equitative in Russia than it was during Soviet times. Please, PLEASE, read a book before repeating anticommunist mantra.Itās āserfs can go fuck themselvesā instead of āpoors can go fuck themselvesā.
The Soviet Union lifted hundreds of millions of people from poverty without engaging in economic imperialism or unequal exchange. Life expectancy was below 30 years-old in the 1910s, most people couldnāt read, and most people were essentially feudal serfs under the rule of Kulak and noble landowners. Education became free for everyone to the highest level, medicine was universal and free, men retired at 60 years old and women at 55 with guaranteed pensions, the 45h working week was standardized and people got holidays every year, economic standards rose massively, access to housing became universal, unemployment was eliminated legally and in practice, life expectancy rose above the 60 years of age and kept growing progressively, there were at some point more female engineers in the USSR than in the rest of the world combinedā¦ Really, thatās not āserfs can go fuck themselvesā, thatās one of the most successful emancipatory experiences in the history of mankind. And the fact that youāre here on Lemmy, instead of breaking your back for your local exploitative English/French/German company that didnāt allow your country to industrialize and develop (or, worse, your bloodline exterminated by Nazis as they openly intended to do), is all thanks to the Bolsheviks.
I told you I was not exaggerating when describing things, you didnāt understand that apparently. About ācorruptionā - it wasnāt corruption, it was pretty formalized and normal what I describe.
Any stats about USSR and shares of income, inequality and such are bullshit from the start. Iāve described how it worked for individuals, it also worked the same for organizations, there was such a thing as āfundsā, a permission to purchase from another organizations something in a certain quantity.
You donāt seem to get it worked like in some adult scout camp or whatever with some coupons - collecting coupons wouldnāt help you buy more or less soda, because you were permitted to buy soda only in a specific place at specific time and with specific frequency.
Or in the military, or in prison.
Soviet ruble wasnāt real money. Thatās why they jokingly called coupons for āspecial distributorsā (a kind of stores, something available only to the elites) the āreal rublesā.
The elites didnāt formally own anything - well, neither they do in Russia today, but they do control that property and use it freely.
My bloodline on the Volga German side did undergo an attempt, itās rather chilling to look at digitized documents of half a villageās male population executed for something like āhiding grainā or ābeing a Japanese spyā.
My bloodlineās male part on the Jewish side mostly vanished on the frontlines.
rule of Kulak
This word is a propaganda marker. Such a thing never existed. It was invented to justify mass repressions.
and noble landowners
There were no noble landowners in 1914 anymore, it was approaching something like US south at the same time.
Anyway, no, it wasnāt feudal by 1914. It wasnāt feudal even by the turn of century. Again, similar to US south.
Education became free for everyone to the highest level
Have you met people who received that education? There are two kinds - those who were taught in universities basically by those nobles you seem to vilify, and those like my grandma on my paternal side and the majority of those āfemale engineersā youāve read about. The latter is not all that impressive.
Soviet LikBez program was more or less about training technicians to work as bad engineers. Training as in ātraining dogsā. Because the industrialization required some kind of engineers.
And the fact that youāre here on Lemmy, instead of breaking your back for your local exploitative English/French/German company
Why didnāt this happen in Finland?
Any stats about USSR and shares of income, inequality and such are bullshit
The elites didnāt formally own anything - well, neither they do in Russia today, but they do control that property and use it freely.
This word [kulak] is a propaganda marker
training technicians to work as bad engineers. Training as in ātraining dogsā. Because the industrialization required some kind of engineers.
Essentially half of your rebuttal is unsourced āno bro, thatās not trueā, when Iāve given you my sources for the information. Youāre just showing cognitive dissonance. I was too considerate in my original comments assuming that youād listen to actual evidence and data. Income inequality figures are bullshit, elites didnāt own and they dont own today either (false, oligarchs in modern Russia do own their companies), kulaks didnāt exist (Do you think peasants in 1917 majorly owned the lands they were working??), university studies werenāt real (I guess the first satellite and human in space and the pioneering research and military industry were just false too)ā¦ Youāre just desperately denying and holding on to your propagandised version of the reality of the Soviet Union, with your greatest issue being that you couldnāt buy the soda you wanted, and discarding things like guaranteed housing, while ignoring most of my previous comment.
My bloodlineās male part on the Jewish side mostly vanished on the frontlines
My utmost respect to your ancestors who gave their lives in the fight against Nazism. I hope youāll show more respect to them and to the emancipatory project they defended with their lives.
it was approaching something like US south at the same time
Lmao, so essentially slavery, just without the racial component of the US. Please, tell me again: what percentage of the farmers owned in 1917 the lands that they were farming. Oh wait, I forgot you donāt care about data.
Why didnāt this happen in Finland?
I already explained but here we go again: the USSR was a shining example of what socialism could achieve, right in Europe. If Finland had been colonised, they would have risked a socialist revolution there.
As I said, conversation over. Youāre not willing to listen.
essentially half of your rebuttal is unsourced āno bro, thatās not trueā
Itās both information and argumentation - the statements you can discard, maybe Iām lying, but the fact that itās possible for a bureaucratic elite to not formally own anything yet factually own a country by itself should be something easy to agree with, no? And Iām bringing your attention to it.
Really hard to find sources for something as obvious.
Income inequality figures are bullshit
Yes, because the stated value of Soviet ruble was irrelevant in a planned economy in a bureaucratic state. Should be easy to grasp the causation.
elites didnāt own and they dont own today either (false, oligarchs in modern Russia do own their companies)
Yes, Putin doesnāt own his palaces, and any high-ranking official in Russia most likely has much more than they own. What they show is a drop in the sea of what they really control and use.
Oligarchs are a bit like publicity figures, they are one order of magnitude less significant that anybody in the actual ruling group. Sort of ambassadors.
Think of it like of mafia properties. It was similar in the USSR, the elites used and controlled a lot of state properties which nobody else used and controlled. Why would you need to formally own that if you own the state machine?
kulaks didnāt exist (Do you think peasants in 1917 majorly owned the lands they were working??),
Peasants who owned the land they were working were called ākulaksā in propaganda and repressed, because they were a bit less of a herd of ignorant illiterate animals whoād just obey orders.
And Stolypinās reforms were aimed exactly at changing the ratio. And they were succeeding, except WWI happened.
and military industry were just false too
Military industry is the main thing all this was intended for until Stalinās death.
Lmao, so essentially slavery, just without the racial component of the US.
You do realize USSR didnāt change that part, just rearranged it, right? At least until Khruschev.
the USSR was a shining example of what socialism could achieve, right in Europe.
Even in the 30s people were starting to doubt its shine. In 20s - oh yes, when you read things from that time, you feel amazed at how real it feels, people really believing into that steel monster.
Oh wow, a Russian lib in Lemmy, thatās a rare sight. Iāll answer your comment later, but know this: it is thanks to the USSR that you LIVE. If it wasnāt for the Bolsheviks, your country would either be a colony of France, England and Japan and wouldnāt have been allowed to industrialise. That is, if it would have survived Nazism in the 40s. Nazis had the express objective of eliminating the āAsiatic hordesā and the āSlavic Untermenschenā. You can thank your sorry ass that Lenin existed and set in motion what allowed your life to be that of a developed country and not a western colony or a genocided barren German slave field.
Kerenskyās provisional government would either have been ousted by the whites (there were attempts already), or would have become colonised by western powers. Seeing as the whites received half a million troops from western countries to destroy bolshevism, most likely a combination of the two, Allende style minus the socialism. There is no alternative timeline where Russia was allowed to develop along with Western Europe in peace and to exploit the profits of imperialism in the rest of the world.
Oh wow, a Russian lib in Lemmy, thatās a rare sight.
I didnāt express any political positions, just informed you of history.
Iāll answer your comment later, but know this: it is thanks to the USSR that you LIVE.
No. The possible alternative to USSR is some other development, not no development at all. By mostly the same people, just without professional revolutionaries ignorant in anything else on top.
If it wasnāt for the Bolsheviks, your country would either be a colony of France, England and Japan and wouldnāt have been allowed to industrialise.
Russia was industrializing and even politically reforming (thatās how Bolsheviks were a legitimate party) while being an ally of France and England. Unfortunately WWI happened, and then the revolution. By the way, you mentioned whites - the revolution I blame on both these sides, Bolsheviks and proto-fascists. Neither is better than the other.
You can thank your sorry ass that Lenin existed and set in motion what allowed your life to be that of a developed country and not a western colony or a genocided barren German slave field.
You simply donāt know what you are talking about, Iād bet you donāt read Russian.
Kerenskyās provisional government would either have been ousted by the whites (there were attempts already), or would have become colonised by western powers.
Finland wasnāt. About whites again. Why?
Seeing as the whites received half a million troops from western countries to destroy bolshevism
Those troops were there to defend their economic interests, like Odessa port, Far East ports. Not to turn the tide fighting in a war. They basically left when asked.
There is no alternative timeline where Russia was allowed to develop along with Western Europe in peace and to exploit the profits of imperialism in the rest of the world.
Except the one that happened, where USSR did just that, only its colonies were called Central Asian republics and its own Siberia.
I didnāt express any political positions, just informed you of history
āMy vision of history isnāt attached to a political ideologyā is a telltale of libs. Tell me, are you a russian oppositionist or not?
The possible alternative to USSR is some other development, not no development at all
Thatās the problem with libs: you truly donāt understand the nature of imperialism. Ask Iran under Mosaddeq how much they were allowed to develop. Ask Chile under Allende. Ask Guatemala, or Argentina, or Haiti how much they were allowed to develop. Ask Vietnam whether US interference did anything to their country. Go ask Korea how many people died in the struggle against imperialism. For fuckās sake, Iām Spanish, my own country had a US-adjacent fascist coup in the 1930s under a liberal government and while Nazis and Italian Fascists bombed the antifascists, the rest of the world stood to the side because a fascist regime is better than the possibility of socialism. Well, the rest of the world except your brave ancestors of the USSR, the ONLY country in the world that supplied weapons, tanks and planes to the anti-fascists. Sadly it wasnāt enough, and instead of enjoying a socialist state, my country fell into fascism. Seriously, Russia was under-industrialised (on par with Argentina at the time of 1917). Thereās no country of such characteristics that industrialized under a capitalist liberal-democratic government, with only a few exceptions such as Japan (US-subsidized colony). There is NO POSSIBILITY of an alternate history in which Russia miraculously rid itself of French/English capitalists and industrialised by itself instead of becoming a source of cheap labour and natural resources for western Europe.
even politically reforming (thatās how Bolsheviks were a legitimate party)
Thatās an insane thing to say. The fact that the February revolution even happened is due to the decades of agitation, propaganda, unionization and struggle for the rights of the workers that the Bolsheviks carried out. Without that, there wouldnāt have been a possibility of mutiny against the Tsar. Itās not a few smartasses like Kerensky who did nothing in their entire lives for the people except somehow enter a liberal-bourgeois government representing the interests of the rich and the russian nationalists who wanted to continue WW1. Itās the decades of agitation, of death sentences, of exile in Siberia, and of deportation, that Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries suffered out in Russia.
the revolution I blame on both these sides, Bolsheviks and proto-fascists. Neither is better than the other.
āThe fascists who kept people enslaved under the Kulaks and the nobles were just as bad as the people that freed the people from themā. Truly one hell of a take. Your country is now starting to suffer the consequences of actual fascism, howās your healthcare going? Howās education? How are the rights of women and of minorities? Howās inflation? Howās the price of housing? How are salaries going? Wonderfully arenāt they?
You simply donāt know what you are talking about
Surely you know better, Mr. āI believe that through the power of love, Russia would have been allowed to industrialize unlike any other underdeveloped country in the world. After all, weāre white, not like those browns in the global south, weād have done betterā.
Finland wasnāt.
Finland was precisely allowed to be a western developed and industrialized country BECAUSE of the existence of the Soviet Union. It was this beacon of worker rights, of antifascism and anti-imperialism, and of improving living conditions, that forced the rest of Europe to give their citizens the rights that the USSR pioneered: 40h week, universal healthcare and education, state-subsidized pensions, and the entire welfare-state apparatus. All of that is historically developed by the Soviet Union, and then mimicked by the West in order to prevent possibilities of socialist revolutions in those countries. The USA being not in Europe and relatively far away from the reach of socialism is exactly the reason why they have extremely shitty welfare state, healthcare, education, pensions and worker rights. Itās the red scare that repressed workers and unions against the possibility of carrying out such improvements. Europe was FORCED by the USSR to have such good quality of life to prevent internal stress and revolution.
Those troops were there to defend their economic interests, like Odessa port, Far East ports
Thatās EXACTLY what I meant. You see? The economic interests of the āallied western countriesā in Russia were AGAINST the industrial development of the region. Thatās why they wanted to control the ports: for exports of cheap raw materials and grain, at misery wages for Russians. The whites were willing to defend those interests of the west. Thank you for acknowledging it.
USSR did just that, only its colonies were called Central Asian republics
Thatās insultingly ignorant, not gonna lie. The Central Asian republics were republics of their own right: people got to study in their own language (unseen before and still unbelievable in many modern colonies and post-colonies, I have Moroccan and Tunisian coworkers and they studied in French), the number of hospital beds per capita was the same all over the Union, as was the number of teachers per capita; these regions were industrialized to a degree never seen before, and the Soviet Union liberated them from the yoke of Russian Imperialism under Tsarism. Thereās a reason why these Central-Asian regions were overwhelmingly in support of the Union, as seen for example in the 1991 referendum to maintain the Soviet Union:
: these regions were LIBERATED by the Soviet Union, and developed to levels not seen anywhere else in Central Asia. For reference, compare the Human Development Index of Central-Asian Soviet Republics such as Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan to those of non-Soviet countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan: 
. If it wasnāt for the Soviet Union, people like Alexandra Elbakyan, the Kazakh scholar behind the SciHub project (and proud communist), simply wouldnāt have had access to an education AT ALL, let alone in their own language. Again, proving once more that you have not the slightest idea of what youāre talking about.Iāve roasted you enough with actual knowledge, rather than your vibes-based analysis whose entire premise is āwe could have been an exploitative capitalist imperialist country like those of western Europe, trust me bro, somehow without the centralized industrialization drive and the redistribution of wealth that made the country the most egalitarian of history up to that point, we would have defeated western imperialism and Nazismā. You made no mention to my point on Nazism because you simply canāt: the USSR saved you, your ancestors, and the rest of Europe from Nazism; and liberals will never forgive it for that. Iāll now extract myself away from the conversation. Iāll save these two comments to respond similarly to other Russian libs (that I may encounter) in the future.
Iāve looked diagonally through this wave of bullshit, I repeat again - do you speak or at least read Russian?
If not, then thereās nothing more to say.
Would be weird if someone able to wrote this.
