Thoughts on the USSR?

[u/The_Grizzly-]

Context: I’ve seen Kyle mention the USSR a few times. I don’t remember exactly when, but I know once he did regarding the USSR nationalizing the automobile industry. Considering his progressive views, I want to know your thoughts on the USSR.

91 votes, Aug 14 '24

4 Very Positive

5 Good

3 Neutral

25 Some Good Some Bad

23 Bad

31 Very Negative

[u/OneOnOne6211]

I don't really believe in nationalization very much, I mostly believe in socialization. As in, worker owned co-ops where the workers themselves together own the company and vote on stuff like their leader.

Nationalization should be reserved for everything that is something that just needs to be basic and universal like healthcare.

Beyond that, I don't think the USSR was particularly socialist or communist in practice. I mean, a basic tenet of both communism and socialism is that the workers own the means of production. While theoretically you can do this via nationalization, the fact is that this only works if the state is democratic. And the USSR, while it had voting, was not actually democratic. It was a one-party, dictatorial state.

And then for communism specifically we're talking about a stateless, moneyless, classless society. The USSR had a huge state, it used money and while it didn't have classes on paper it did most certainly in practice.

I think ultimately the USSR was almost a complete betrayal of socialist/communist values. And it's one that did huge damage to the socialist/communist cause into the present day, where its dictatorial and totalitarian state is STILL the first thing that comes to many people's minds when they hear those terms.

So while I'm not going to say every single thing about it is bad, and in fact the dysfunction of its economy is overstated, I still think it was pretty bad.

No authoritarianism for me. I'd like democracy in the state and the workplace.