Matthew (from the newsgroup seattle.politics) wrote:
Below, Todd lists a number of social problems in this country. He seems to make the unstated assumption that these problems would be solved, or at least ameliorated, under a Communist government.
If one looks at the actual history of Communist governments in this century, this assumption looks optimistic, to say the least. Perhaps Todd assumes that American Communists are a stronger, purer breed than the Communists who ruled Russia and who still rule China. I would like to see some evidence to support that assumption.
First off, it is incorrect to lump countries together, no matter what thier political or economic system. Would it be fair to say that the capitalist parties of the USA and the capitalist parties of Apartheid South Africa are the same? No. Same goes for grouping USSR and China. I'm more informed and more sympathetic to the USSR, so that is which country I'll be responding to charges about.
When Matthew asserts that if the Russian Communists had such a tough time of it, why would the "American Communists" (more correctly, US Communists) be any different. Well, take into consideration times and circumstances. In 1917, the birth of the first Worker's state, Russia was surrounded by hostile nations on every front: Invaders from Japan and the US in the east, from the Mongols in the south, from numerous western nations in the west (including the US). Compare that to the US revolution in 1776. We had a pretty easy go of it for a couple of reasons: No unified front of invasions and slavery to provide cheap and plentiful goods and labor. There are many reasons that the infant worker's state of Russia had a tough go of it, the least not being it was the FIRST TIME it had ever been tried in the history of mankind. Now that the USSR and other Communist countries have fallen, we in the US and elsewhere in the world can look at mistakes made in the former Communist countries and learn from them. It is not inevitable that they be repeated.
Top Ten Reasons the USA should become Communist:
10. Dumb ads. The commercialization of EVERYTHING, from Christmas to the olympics, for corporate profits.
Vs. government propaganda. Ever read Pravda back when it was the official line of the Soviet government? Ever read the stuff that comes out of the official (Red) Chinese news agency today?
I could've done the Top 50 reasons the USA should become Communist, because one that I didn't have room for was our "free press." Who owns the major media in the US? ABC=Disney. CBS=Westinghouse. NBC=GE. Interesting that the two largest nuclear manufacturers (with a definite interest in continuing a cold-war sized military budget) own the lions share of non-cable, commercial television. Face it, the majority of the "free press" is owned by the same special interests that fight every advancement the for the workers brought before our elected officials. Look at the minimum wage debate. $5.25 is too much??? In what stretch of the imagination is this true? The health care debate focused on the "managed competition" (untested, untried and a big pork barrel for the HMOs and insurance companies) from the White House, and nothing at all from the Republicans. Where was Single Payer mentioned in the mainstream press? Same thing with the recent elections in Russia. Never did I read a mainstream media article, or hear a mainstream media show that didn't mention how horrible it would be for Zyuganov to win. This is "non-biased" reporting? The cold war is only over in reality, not in the distorted minds of those controlling the mainstream media in this country.
9. Environmental degradation caused by capitism's persuit of profits (i.e., Love Canal, Times Beach, salvage logging, etc...)
Environmental conditions all over Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR are such as to make the USA look like Eden.
This is pure hypberbole without substance or reference.
Chernobyl is just the most famous example.
Did you follow what happened in the USSR after Chernobyl? They were much more cautious with nuclear power after that. How about in the US? Nope. Look at Hanford. 50 years later and it's STILL a health hazard.
8. Homelessness due to capitalist speculation in real estate and Reagan's purges of state hospitals in the 1980s.
It is now developing* that poverty was rampant in the old Soviet Union, just concealed by censorship.
(*One could substitue "being created in right-wing think tanks" for "developing" in this line.--TT)
If poverty was "rampant" in the USSR, a look at the caloric intake of the population should show us how badly, correct? Here's a look:
| Calories......................................3,443 | 3,552 | |
| Protein (in grams)..........................103 | 107 | |
| (Source: Food and Agricultural Organization, _Production
Yearbook_,1978
and 1981, Tables 97, 98; see also "World Military and Social Expenditures" by Rugh Legar Sivard, WMSE Publications 1980.) |
7. Lack of affordable higher education for the majority. Education should be a right.
Education in the USSR was indeed free (it is still free in China). Access was rationed, and the children of Party members got most of the choicer slots. (Ordinary people's children had to pay large bribes). Also, intellectual freedom was unknown in the old USSR, and is still unknown in China.
Where is your citings for these alleged bribes? Who was bribed? How much? I happened to meet a tourist from the Czech Republic in Seattle this past weekend and we talked about Communism (which he was vehemently against--so much so he didn't mind that the CP of the Czech Republic was banned). I asked him about his education (he was fluent in English, Czech, Russian and French). He claimed it was quite difficult for anyone who was not a child of a Party member (he was not) to get an education in Communist Czechoslovakia. I replied that he seemed to get quite an education, for not being in that "elite group." He said then that as long as one was a child of a worker, you could go to school for free. Well, since in the former Communist countries virtually EVERYONE of working age was a worker, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who didn't qualify! (Even Matthew admits that "the old USSR did guarantee everyone a job.")
6. 37 million uninsured Americans. Health care should be a right.
Health care was indeed free in the old USSR, and barely worth it. The Party had a network of private clinics and hospitals which got the best of everything. Hospitals for the common people often didn't have heat, running water, or even simple drugs like penicillin. Patients had to pay bribes to get bedpans emptied or linen changed, or to be fed.
Again, a lot of unsubstantiated statements. Do you have ANYTHING to back up ANY of your assertations? I do.
| USSR.......36.4/10,000 | 121.3/10,000 |
| US............17.6/10,000 | 63.0/10,000 |
| UK...........15.3/10,000 | 89.4/10,000 |
Now let's look at infant mortality and life expectancy in the USSR, USA and currently in Russia.
| USSR.........70.4/1975 | 12.06:1,000/1975
US..............71.0/1975 | 10.81:1,000/1975 |
| Russia........69.1/1995 | 26.40:1,000/1995
US..............75.9/1995 | 7.88:1,000/1995 |
If the USSR was so bad, you'd think with the influx of capitalism, an increase in health care would follow. Not so. The drop in life expectancy and the huge rise in infant mortality shows that capitalism is deadly to the Russian population.
5. Corporate downsizing of employees (and runaway plants) for private profits.
Here Todd has a point - the old USSR did guarantee everyone a job. That was one of the main reasons the country was so poor - people were kept on the job whether or not they were producing products which anyone wanted to buy.
True, the USSR did make mistakes in what was needed in their country, or failed to keep up with the times. One example is shoes. After the 1917 revolution, many people didn't have shoes, so it was prioritized that all citizens would have shoes. Unfortunately, they continued this emphasis on shoemaking long after the crisis had been solved. Dumb? Yes. Criminal? Not quite.
If he is trying to argue that Communism produced more material abundance than Capitalism, anywhere in the world, then all I can say is that Todd's senses are receiving input from a different dimension than the rest of us.
"Material abundance" is another way to say "wasteful overproduction." Look at how much the US throws away. Go to a McDonalds and ask how much food is thrown away in a day. Then multiply that by all the 1,000s of fast food restaurants around the country. This is enough to feed thousands of people! But, it's not profitable, so it's not done. Another thing to look at is how much energy (electric, fossil fuel, etc.) we use in the US. It's more than EVERY country on the planet combined! (Source: "Bill Nye the Science Guy" television show, PBS.) Waste and overproduction is what capitalism is all about. Whereas in the USSR, basic needs of the people (food, clothing, housing, education, health care) were met for all.
4. Sex discrimination, white women still make less than $.80 to the $1 a white man makes. It's even worse for women of color.
Sex descrimination was and is rampant in the old USSR and in China. Far worse than here from everything I read.
You need to read more. Income differential between men and women in former Communist countries in general was somewhat less than in the advanced capitalist countries--the USA in particular:
| USSR.....................................66/1973 |
| Czechoslovakia and Poland...67/1972 |
| Hungary.................................73/1972 |
| USA.......................................59/1972 |
| UK.........................................62/1972 |
| France and Switzerland.........63/1972 |
by Alastair McAuley, George Allen and Unwin 1981. |
(Source: "Soviet Women," by William M. Mandel, Anchor Press 1975.)
The number of women in all elective positions in the USA in 1977: 6.1%
(Source: US Department of Commerce, "Statistical Abstract" 1980A, p.513.)
The general opinion of most Soviet women, that their position had greatly improved under the Soviet system, is shared by the majority of women emigres.
"Although the female emigres I spoke with view the Soviet politcal system as a contaminated environment, they share with women in the Communist countries their enthusiasm for what the Communists have done for women through legislation and the provision of communal facilities. In one emigre's view, a girl who gets an abortion in Israel or the US is a social outcast, but this was not true in USSR. Others criticize the absence of pre-school facilities and the prevailing attitudes toward women who have large families in Western nations."
"The emigres comments taken together appear to reflect a sense of injustice about the Communist system which does not include Communist policies toward women. The injustice covers such areas as the monolithic state, but not discrimination on the basis of sex."
"Indirectly, the attitudes of the emigre women confirm the positive identification with the Party and government of the sucessful women interviewed within the Communist contires: emigre women tend to view the Party and government as having taken progessive steps with regard to women."
3. The rich get richer and the poor get the picture. The wage disparity in 1996 is the worse it has been in the US since the Great Depression.
Ever read about how the Party lived in the old USSR? Leonid Breshnev's salary really was 900 rubles per month, less than a steelworker's, but the Nomenklatura had a network of dachas, resorts, and special stores where prices were nominal. Ordinary people lined up to buy bread Party members got buckets of caviar for free.
Sources? Citings? Or hearsay?
It would be hard to calculate the true wage disparity for the old USSR, because the information you would need was and is a state secret, but I don't know anyone who would guess it was less than in the USA.
Let's take a look at the wage disparity in the USA right now, and compare.
"If there were 100 people living in the U.S., with a total of $100, then one person would have $40 while the others, on average, would have 60 cents each. In fact, since the next-richest 4% of the population controls an additional 20% of wealth, it's more like one person with $40, four people with $5, and ninety-five people with just 42 cents each."
Also, the percent change in household incomes from 1979-94 was found to be an increase of 17% for the top fifth, and a decrease of 4% for the bottom fifth.
You REALLY think that's the way it was in the USSR? Who are the billionaires who emerged from it then? Who owned the means of production; the mines, the factories? The workers/state did! To claim that a small group of people amassed fortunes during the USSR (especially without ONE FACT to back it up) is ludicrous. Now, if you were talking about the current state of Russia...
2. Lesser of two evils elections. The main parties are just factions of one party--the business party. Workers need a party to represent our voice.
Under the Communists, you get "lesser of one evil" elections. What a difference!
At least it's a party that represents people, not profits. Haven't seen that in the US lately. Also, it's similar to elections in unions. There aren't "parties" running against each other when the election of officers in a union are held; does that make them "undemocractic"?
...and the number one reason the USA should become Communist: Racism is the trump card played by capitalists to divide workers, scapegoat for a failing economic system and fan the flames of hatred by the right wing (lynchings, church burnings, militia movements, etc.).
This is the most laughable assertion of them all. The Communists in China and the USSR have genocided almost 100,000,000 people, racial and ethnic minorities prominent among them. This is a level of racism never equalled anywhere in the West.
Hmmm... the dissident Roy Medvedev estimates around 425,000 killed (1), NATO suggests that 2 million were executed, Warrl (from this newsgroup) said 10 million, and now you assert that 100 million were "genocided"? With the numbers going up so fast, eventually I'll probably hear someone say that EVERYONE on the planet was executed by Stalin, and that s/he and I are the only two people alive! Again, Matthew, do you have ANY facts, sources, citings?
Here's a few:
A claim of 4 million or more deaths in this time period would mean that EVERY death that happened was an execution! (2)
The total number of people who left the CPSU (for any reason) between 1935 and 1939 (during the "Great Purge") was between 160,000 and 180,000 (3). Of that number, it has been calculated (by two separate sorces) that roughly 10% of these people were executed (4). That means around 20,000. If you overestimate, and say 1/2 of all those purged were killed, you still only end up with 90,000 ("only" in comparison to the wild exaggerations by your and other estimations). If it is 20,000 dead, that would mean around 0.01% of the population of Russia; at 90,000 dead, it would be 0.045% of the total. Compare that to the Jacobin terror of 1793-94 in France. 17,000 French were executed, which was 0.065% of France's population at the time (5). (I don't hear you railing against the brutality of capitalist France and its revolution.) It also pales in comparison to terrors of the propertied class to prevent or take vengeance against social revolutionaries in El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, Argentina and so on.
See "The Question" by Eugene Genovese - Communists all over the world knew or should have known that Communism was based on mass murder and could not exist without it, and they accepted this.
I've not read this book, but I will look into it. One thing, however, is if Mr. Genovese was never in a Communist Party (I'm assuming), how would he know this? I'm in the CPUSA and I've never been told this; nor do I know of any publications that we have that say this. As a matter of fact, after the McCarthy era died down, and people once again embraced the Constitution, the 11 CPUSA members who were put in jail for "advocating the violent overthrow of the government" were let out. If Mr. Genovese's assertion is correct, why would these "dangerous" people have been let out of jail and the laws used against them found unconstitutional?
So, Todd, when did you learn about Communist genocide, and what made you decide to continue being a Communist once you knew? How many people are on the to-be-disposed-of list for the USA after the Communists take power?
I don't see much to your assertions, so I think I'll hold off on believing the "Communist genocide" fallacy for now. When you think you can prove some of what you spew forth, I'll gladly take a good, long look at it.
PS: Since you offered a book for me to read (and I will try to find it), here's one for you: "Human Rights in the Soviet Union; including comparisons with the USA", by Albert Syzmanski, 1984 Zed Books, Ltd.
His research relies deliberately almost exclusively on Western sources of information. It has reference from over 200 different books and publications.
