“Weirdo ideological reasons” such as belief in equality of opportunities, belief in universal free education, healthcare and pensions, belief in worker rights or belief in the right to housing and of employment. Those weird to you?

I understand despising the Russian Empire, but Bolsheviks really were the best Europe had to offer. Estonians had the right to an education in Estonian, had political representation of their own, Estonia was industrialised more than the rest of the Soviet block as a purposeful policy of development of minority ethnicities, Estonia had better salaries and working positions (hence many Russians migrating there during Soviet times)…

What would have been of Estonia were it not for the Bolsheviks? What would have happened under the rule of Nazism? Would you be able to talk Estonian today? Would you even be alive? Finno-Ugric peoples were certainly not as demonized as Slavs by the Nazi racial theories, but still they didn’t want you to be equal to them, unlike it can be said of Soviets.

Keep being a western chauvinist who thinks knows more about socialism than the literal best of the nations which implemented it

Sure buddy, you as a westerner know more about Chinese socialism than the literal ideological heirs of the Chinese revolution whom are still in government. Xi Jinping’s dad was a hardcore commie leader all his life, and Xi himself has a PhD in Marxism. Getting high up the Communist Party of China is one of the higher-functioning meritocracies, requires extremely high educational standards in the history of socialism, and a high degree of involvement and being a good example of party activity and hard work. But you, from your western sofa, know more than the Chinese who literally became the strongest country in the world and uplifted 800 million people from poverty (you keep not answering to why India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines and Indonesia didn’t achieve this feat).

Give me a historical example of properly functioning, regulated capitalism

“Mate, I’m American. Get the fuck out of here with any Mexican praise.” This is how you sound to anyone who sees through your thinly veiled racism and russophobia.

The soviet way was to have the elites be rich

Patently false propaganda. The Soviet Union was the most egalitarian that the region has ever seen.

They were doing pretty much what ICE is doing in the US right now - complain that your neighbour is a kulak, and they get removed

So you agree that people should be dying at 30 years of age in absolute poverty while working the lands for the landlords on exchange for a misery wage, dying of disease of starvation? Because that’s what led to the mass popular support for dekulakization.

Plus the 5 year economic plans brought with them lovely things like the Holodomor.

The famine of the early 30s is a sad tragedy in Soviet history, but it’s one of many famines that took place in the region from the time it was settled to begin with until the Soviets eliminated famines through industrial agriculture. While the first 5-year plans brought some misery such as the unforeseen sabotage of agriculture by kulaks, they also allowed the Soviet Union to industrialize at the quickest pace any country had industrialized up to that point, which is the main reason the Soviets were able to defeat the Nazis and save hundreds of millions of lives in the process.

China is going to have the most billionaires of any nation in probably less than a decade.

I have disagreements with some Chinese policy such as that, but the results are out there. If it weren’t for communism, China would be a western colony, and would be on a similar standing to India, to which it can be very much compared at the beginning of the 1900s. Why is China so much more developed than India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia or Philippines? It’s not a perfect country, but it’s some of the best the world has to offer.

If you want an actual example of the success of communism, there’s always Cuba.

I fully agree, but why do you criticise dekulakization in the USSR and not the repressions against landlords in Cuba? Most Cubans were literal slaves under the landowners, and worked the lands for next to nothing. There was a measurable degree of repression against landlords, why aren’t you crying your eyes out for them? Maybe just because you, as an Estonian, have been injected Russophobic racism in your life, in the same way that USians are injected anti-Mexican racism and Spaniards (like me) are injected anti-Moroccan racism? Why aren’t you complaining about the lack of freedom of press in Cuba? Why aren’t you complaining about the Cuban leaders having so much more than the Cuban people?

You’re literally coming up with the argumentation as you go. Firstly it was “Deng already in the 70s” explaining the 1965-1970 growth of life expectancy, now it’s internal power struggle. You’re just making shit up as you type, deeply unserious analysis. The Cultural Revolution from Mao is precisely this 1965-1975 period, it wasn’t “internal power struggle”. Surely this is the stable point of Chinese history in which Chinese were left to themselves?

I’m gonna stop arguing with you because you’re simply talking from ignorance of Chinese history and making up shit as you speak. Maybe consider for one second why India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia or Philippines aren’t as developed as China are, having a comparable starting point in early 1900s. Spoiler: they’re not communists

Yes. The serious analysis is that the Communist Party of China didn’t just “go capitalist”, it’s socialist with Chinese caracteristics. They did allow for a massive inflow of capital, but they reigned it in in such a way that the country would industrialize and develop, and not just be exploited for resources and cheap labour as it happens with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia or Philippines.

If I brought up South Korea it was to explain why the capitalist model doesn’t seem to work for everyone, not because I like the south-korean fascist dictatorship. It’s very easy to industrially develop when the American policy is to industrialize you through massive investment in industry and with tech transfer because they want you as a loyal military base, and not as an enslaved peripheral colony. The problem isn’t “corruption in poor countries”, because China was poor and it did develop, and the Soviet Union was poor and it developed. The problem is finding the correct formula for industrialization while not allowing the western empire to demolish you for trying. The Soviet way was self-suficient economy, state-directed 5-year economic plans, and safety through nuclear deterrence. The Chinese way was to antagonize the Soviets to become a western pseudo-ally, attracting investment from the western capitalist companies in the sectors of the economy they wanted, and to reign in these investments so that China wouldn’t be a colony but an industrialized country with sovereignty of its own. Without communist parties at the head, Pakistan, India, Phillipines and Indonesia couldn’t manage this.

Why not India? Tough to say

i.e. you don’t have a serious analysis.

The other countries you mentioned could never have the economies of scale that China does

So why don’t they have South-Korean style development?

Uhhh China has been embracing capitalism for a few decades now, sorry to say.

China hasn’t been embracing capitalism, China has been reigning in capitalism through Dengism and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Why did China develop and industrialize while India didn’t? Why didn’t the same process as in China take place in Indonesia or Philippines or Bangladesh or Pakistan, all of them capitalist countries? Why didn’t Mexico or Brazil have similar growth rates?

Again: what part of my second paragraph of the previous comment is a Russian talking point. If it’s so obvious you can definitely explain?

then there was a significantly delayed improvement during Mao’s reign of terror, and when he was sidelined due to illness in the 1970ties and capitalist policies adopted, China finally caught up to its peer counties.

You’re misreading the data. The biggest step in the graph is from 1965 to 1970, full Maoism, and from 1970 to 1975 it’s still during Mao. I explicitly said at the beginning that life went from 35 to 60 and you said that’s false, you literally didn’t know the data, and now you’re moving the goalposts from “Maoism didn’t increase life expectancy” to “maybe it did but less so than in South Korea”.

As for why China developed slower than South Korea, South Korea is an American military base with a population of just a few tens of millions. It received humongous investments and tech transfer from the US as part of a specific policy. If you want to compare to something more akin to China, you could compare China to Indonesia or Philippines, which didn’t receive the same amount of American resources. What does life expectancy and poverty reduction tell you there?

Mao delayed the improvements seen during that time all over the world

All over the world? South Korea is the exception. Look at life expectancy evolution in India, Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh or Pakistan, all countries with a much greater population than South Korea. China industrialised because of communism, there’s a reason why it’s more developed than any of the aforementioned countries even if it had a very similar starting point in the early 1900s.

Also, you really think that telling me “Dengism in China uplifted 800mn people from poverty” is an argument against communism? The communist party of China literally envisioned the policies necessary to attract the level of western investment to grow so fast, and managed to direct this investment in a way that would industrialise the country and not just exploit it as the west does in South America and Southeast Asia. It’s the best example in history of poverty alleviation through conscious state policy. Dengism in China is not “capitalism”, it’s socialism with Chinese characteristics, and it’s what allowed China to become arguably the most powerful country in the 21st century in a way that Europe and the US can’t even begin to understand. I take it you’re a supporter of the modern Communist Party of China, which enabled all of this?

Also: what a fucking anarchist, mate, defending the literally fascist dictatorship of South Korea up to 1990 as the growth model of a country. You’re dirtying the name of anarchists, and I say it as a Marxist Leninist

Life expectancy from the graph was stable at abourt35 years old from 1850 to 1945, then Mao wins the war, and dies in 1976 with 60 years of life expectancy. Can you please tell me how to misread that?

An anarchist is indistinguishable from a lib when it comes to uneducated criticism of communism.

So easy to prove libs wrong man

“You disagree with my point of view, so I’m not gonna respond to any of your arguments because my state propaganda told me your point of view is forbidden and ontologically evil and I can automatically discard any discussion about it. Yes, I’m the one whose opinion is founded on logic”

Please explain me how my concerns about the far right rising (arguably pro-russian) and the worries about the welfare state in Europe and my support for a EU-wide military alliance are Russian talking points.

Fake news. Life expectancy in China before Mao was 35, by the time he died was close to 60, Maoism saved hundreds of millions of lives.

Capitalism with controls is great

Please, can you give me the historical example you’re thinking about when you say this?

What we’ve got now looks more like a corporate oligarchy. The free market only applies to small players

Tell me, how free was India to develop in free competition against England in the 19th century? How free was Congo to compete against Belgium? Oh, wait, you’re only talking for a white minority, I see. When exactly was capitalism better, when English children lost their fingers trapped in machinery in coal-powered factories in England in the 1850s and died at 30-ish years of age? Maybe it was better in 1917, when the ambitions of capitalism and imperialism triggered WW1 and ground tens of millions of lives? Or was it good in the 1950s/60s when the US murdered millions in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Korea through the most horrific bombing campaigns just because they didn’t want to be capitalist? What good capitalism are you exactly talking about?

Huh, what an ignorant peasant. Thou proclaimeth that thou doeth not like toiling away all thine day in the fields under the scorching sun and giving most of the produce as tributes to thine lord. But, thou use the protection of the lord. Hypocrisy, I tells thou

The antagonism between Ukrainians and Russians is a project the west has been pushing for a century. First it was Nazi Germany weaponizing a hunger episode that hurt Ukraine disproportionately more in order to create anti-russian sentiment (see Stepan Bandera), then it was Europe+US talking of Ukraine as a Russian colony during Soviet times.

In the 1991 referendum, Ukraine voted to remain part of the Soviet Union which was illegally dismantled against the democratic will of the majority of the Soviet population. Despite this, the country was dissolved, the economy was auctioned to the most corrupt bidder, the industry was dismantled, and by 2022 Ukraine still hadn’t recovered the economic level it had before 1991. The dissolution of the Soviet Union literally caused a demographic crisis in Ukraine comparable to the ongoing war.

Until 1991, the tensions between Ukraine and Russia were minor and the countries had a benign, sisterly relationship. It is the breaking of the eastern block that primarily triggers anti-russian nationalism in Ukraine and vice versa in Russia. It’s the broken promise of the west not to push NATO eastward that puts Russia on its toes, and it’s western-backed colour revolutions like the Euromaidan that proved Russia that Europe would always position itself against Russia, and not establishing friendly economic and diplomatic ties.