Ask Lemmy

You don't think it's important to consider that the specific life expectancy you reported as a cause of Socialism was in-fact during World War II, when the Nazis invaded the Ukrainian SSR (the whole USSR's breadbasket at the time), deliberately starving the populace in an attempt to weaken them? Where the Nazis torched the land they took and destroyed so many buildings that the Soviets were forced to mass produce the "Soviet Bloc" style apartments in order to provide housing after the war? Slavic people were considered genetically inferior by the Nazis and were subject to genocide.

As for the "human waves" tactics, reports of such originate with Americans that went into Russia during the Civil War in order to support the fascist White Army that wished to reinstate the Tsar. Not only is this a dubious source at best, historians agree that during World War II Soviet Tactics were roughly on par with the Nazis. The "Human Waves" myth has always drawn on racism, trying to draw parallels between the asiatic slavic peoples and the idea of the Mongol Horde, a propaganda tactic employed by Goebbels.

There was famine in the USSR, during the 1930s and during World War II. Outside of those periods, food became far more secure over time, as collectivized agriculture was better than the previous system.

As for comparing to thr US, that's akin to comparing a trust fund kid to someone who grew up poor. The United States began the 20th century as one of the most developed countries in the world, while Russia began as a semi-feudal backwater. In the mid 20th century, the US began to profit massively off of World War II, while the Eastern Front saw 80% of the total combat in the entirety of the war. To compare the two directly is just bad science.

As for Marx and Engels, they would see the analytical tools and analysis of Capitalism and classes being used in the Soviet Union and would have generally approved. Today, they'd see the various Marxist states like Cuba, China, and Vietnam learning from the successes and failures of the Soviet Union and likeky approve as well. However, such a thought experiment doesn't mean much, as Marx was no prophet nor a god, just a man who developed a brilliant critique of Capitalism, philosophical framework of Dialectical and Historical Materialism, and broadly described Scientific Socialism as opposed to prior Utopianism.

For one reason part of the massive losses were Soviet Military tactics of meatwaves (which Russia still uses today) during WWII.

Is that the technical term? I'm guessing your source for that is Enemy at the Gates lmao.

Soviet military tactics in WWII were quite innovative and effective. The Soviets developed the military category of "Operations," in between the levels of the strategic and the tactical. Soviet operations focused on breaching the enemy line in order to deal as much damage as possible to the support crew, then evaluating whether the position could be held and frequently withdrawing before reinforcements could arrive. This was reflective of communist ideology, which emphasized the importance of unglamorous work, and therefore, targeted the unglamorous work of the enemy during wartime.

This was in stark contrast to their adversaries, who held the exact opposite ideology act acted accordingly. The Nazis were obsessed with proving their superiority at every turn, and also terrified of disappointing their superiors. The Soviet approach of tactically retreating after a successful breach would've been unthinkable and ridiculed (and punished) as weak and cowardly. The Nazis had little formal doctrine and their military reports were generally full of lies and fluff to impress their superiors, while the Soviets took a much more rigorous and almost scientific approach.

The heroic efforts of the Soviets were the primary reason the world was saved from fascism, and it is absolutely absurd to lay the blame for the men, women, and children who were killed - including the brutal, indiscriminate mass slaughter and burning alive of civilians - at the feet of the people who put the perpetrators in their graves.