kravietz 🦇 @kravietz@social.privacytools.io

@thor @feld

Absolutely - the problem being that when you talk to gangsters (and this is literally where the current "elites" come from) they don't understand diplomacy or pragmatic. For them it's about demonstrating who's got balls. Therefore the soft approach as presented by most of EU for most of 2000's was a total failure and only encouraged them to grab for even more. If you look for a perfect model of language that works with them - it was 2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown by Erdogan.

@thor @feld

They are rigged and falsification of ballots at all levels is common, there's plenty of videos of that. The main issue is that suppression of the opposition with people aspiring to enter politics subject to all kind of organised harassment (Navalny) or killed (Nemtsov).

However, on the ground it looks much more optimistic than in the media. There *is* strong civil society in Russia and thousands of people are active in politics. The regime is weak, it's a bit like 80's now.

@thor @feld

You're reading my thoughts here. In the history of Russia at the beginning of 20th century there were so many opportunities to avoid the revolution and there were some reforms (e.g. Stolypin) but they were eventually rendered useless by those who preferred the status quo. And the status quo lasted, until 1917 when it didn't...

@thor @feld

Well, half of London luxury properties are owned by Russians. Some are certainly successful businessmen (Russia is a huge market) but many of them are regular gangsters and crooks who became "oligarchs". Same in Switzerland, Spain etc.

European countries took the attitude of "if Russia lets the money out, it's all fine" and they did exactly the same with some of the most corrupt African regimes. Money is money, but that was strategically stupid.

@thor @feld

As result you had countries like Poland whose economy literally skyrocketed after 90's... and Russia, which got many of the freedoms it missed before (freedom of speech or of moving around the country or leaving it) but was still controlled by oligarchy.

Unfortunately, greed and contempt for their fellow citizens is deeply rooted in the Russian elites. Their attitude is purely opportunistic: if the masses don't protest, why bother?

@thor @feld

The problem with what happened in Russia in 90's was caused by the same people who exploited it while USSR lasted. The same cynical and greedy party officials then and now.

The main fault of the West in it was it happily accepted all the corrupt money flowing from Russia. This led to completely absurd situations where IMF was sending 2 billion loan to Russia which then disappeared and reappeared back in London as luxury properties of new Russian oligarchs.

@thor @feld

You're very much right here, but you need to remember that there's Kremlin and there's actual Russia. Two different things. Majority of people in Russia aren't nationalists and they just care about what everyone else: have job and live decent life.

The West perceives Russia as uniform nation, but it's not. As a matter of fact, today only around 30% of Russians trust Putin and his paranoid worldview.

@thor @feld

Well, just express more of them as this increases chances we will understand each other. This is why I'm quite verbose :)

In this topic you might have an impression that I'm quite picky, and I am
but only until we get the terminology (socialism/communism/social democracy) right.

We're talking about the same things really.

@thor @feld

As it comes to what works, the whole challenge is that there's no simple answer.

You can easily say that what they have in the US doesn't work in the long run. You can say USSR did not work in the long run either. But what works?

On high level we know that large inequality is bad, but some inequality is unavoidable. How much exactly, it depends. It's a classic multivariate problem that cannot be solved once and needs a flexible, evidence-based approach.

@thor @feld

Ok, but the thing is that communism cannot be really mixed with anything else. How can you mix "a bit of violent revolution" and "zero private property" with democracy?

And if it's non-violent and even "some private property" it's no longer communism, Marx wrote a lot of angry tirades about this.

@thor @feld

The thing is that the latter - social welfare and public services - was not invented by Marx. Adam Smith wrote about the need for free, public schools etc like 50 years before Marx was even born.

It's a double manipulation: communists are trying to own anything that even loosely mentions "non profit" or "public", while neocons are falsely trying to make Smith "a father of capitalism" meaning greedy exploitative ideology as in Ayn Rand.

@thor @feld

Ok, but you're mixing up the ideologies again.

"Communism" was violent revolution, public ownership of means of production and central planning of everything in economy, from tractors to toilet paper. If you can own a firm privately, it's simply not communism.

"Socialism" today is meaningless so let's forget it.

"Social democracy" is capitalist, market economy with varying focus on social protection and public services. This is probably 90% of high income countries today.

@thor @feld

"This" -- meaning exactly what?

@thor @feld

Exactly - but you also need to remember that USSR was a bit like Great Britain. Moscow and other large cities were leeching resources from all other regions, and especially from satellite states such as most of Eastern Europe. Those who tried reforms were invaded by Red Army such as Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

So the actual crisis - like food rationing - only hit Moscow in 90's and this is why they attribute it to fall of communism.

@thor @feld

I was very surprised to learn that in 1980 the Polish People's Republic government secretly notified its Western creditors ("Club of Paris") that it's unable to pay back the loans they took decades earlier in promise to perform economic reforms, which they didn't perform due to opposition from Moscow and die-hard commies inside. Effectively, for the whole 80's decade Poland was a bankrupts state, yet it continued boasting about the benefits of socialism 🤦‍♂️

@thor @feld

The whole point of Marxism was that market economy is crap and communist economy is going to be much more effective.

Since 30's USSR was unable not only to compete but even catch up with Western economies, specifically due to central planning and ideologic bias. It survived the WW2 only to help from Allies and then since 60's it was living of Western loans and exploitation of its colonies - while bashing the "imperialist economy" in the press all the time.

@thor @feld

I can assure you that we in the Eastern Bloc have not seen a single penny from that solidarity 😂 It only allowed the corrupt bastards in the Soviet-led communist government to last for 10 years longer.

@thor @feld

This is because most of the Western left has no fucking clue about the communist ideology and Soviet Union.

@thor @feld

Regarding Sanders, apart from his occasional rather imbecilic remarks on USSR, so typical for many Western leftists, I suppose he's more of a social democrat than a communist. As long as he doesn't call for revolution and abolishment of private property that is.