Memes

There were no actual efforts to establish communism in eastern europe. Only autocratic regimes backed by soviet russia.

The US political spectrum is leaning so far to the right. A US left is a France center or moderate right. So what Americans consider communism is merely what French consider moderate leftist.

• I’m French living in the US

McCarthy propaganda go brrrr

Well we're not praising fascism and corruption.

7 out of 11 countries believe the end of the USSR harmed their countries rather than benefited them

Reflecting back on the breakup of the Soviet Union that happened 22 years ago next week, residents in seven out of 11 countries that were part of the union are more likely to believe its collapse harmed their countries than benefited them. Only Azerbaijanis, Kazakhstanis, and Turkmens are more likely to see benefit than harm from the breakup. Georgians are divided.

Hungary: 72% of Hungarians say they are worse off today economically than under communism

A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country's economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country's switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary's integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process.

Romania: 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism

The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.

Germany: more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR

Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an "illegitimate state." In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.

28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime

Roughly 28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime, according to a poll conducted by the polling institute SC&C and released Sunday.

81% of Serbians believe they lived best in Yugoslavia

A poll shows that as many as 81 per cent of Serbians believe they lived best in the former Yugoslavia -”during the time of socialism”.

Majority of Russians

The majority of Russians polled in a 2016 study said they would prefer living under the old Soviet Union and would like to see the socialist system and the Soviet state restored.

The above memes are almost always made by Americans, whose brains are riddled with red scare brainworms and are completely devoid of any knowledge or understand of what the left thinks in Europe because Americans do not have a left.

Communism isn't the issue the same way Capitalism isn't the issue, the issue is rich people abusing working class and poor people. Removing democracy from these systems just make them absolutely horrid in the long run. Also China isn't communist it's state capitalist dictatorship.

More like: People on the internet being critical of the current system, Americans on the internet saying "COMMUNISM BAD" as if USSR style state capitalism is the only other possible option.

Didn't the USSR just do state capitalism, and not actual communism or socialism? And weren't they also totalitarian & also not a democracy? Are people actually asking for what was happening in astern Europe or something else?

comment section frustratingly filled with McCarthy-brained liberals who have never critically examined their preconceptions about communism

A meme like this is what happens when you believe the GOP that doing anything to benefit regular people is communism.

Define communism.

I think the way we argue over labels hurts us. If I use heavy regulation and government aid to limit the abuses in a capitalist system, at what point does the label change to "socialism"? I think we do ourselves a disservice to create these strict conceptions of systems like capitalism, socialism, or communism. Then when one fails we get to say "well that wasn't true x". And the labels allow people to boogeyman an idea. And worst of all, we eliminate the possibility to take good lessons from multiple different systems and incorporate them into our system. I think we would be better served promoting policies on a case by case basis instead of using these huge words. And to be clear, I'm a bit of a hypocrite here. I've been mostly telling people I'm a "social democrat" or that I support "capitalism with heavy regulations". But even those words can get picked apart and don't really capture nuance. My main point is that I think this thread is a perfect encapsulation of how these arguments stop us from getting behind good policies when we bicker about the definitions of words that mean different things to different people.

western teenagers praising capitalism

the children sewing their clothes, harvesting their food, mining their metals, ...

How dare teenagers not become Neoliberals while growing up in a late capitalist hellscape where climate change can't be taken seriously because it isn't a profitable problem to solve.

Because the single only way to do communism is how the UdSSR did it, there's no other way.

And of course it's only possible to either agree with the whole of a specific ideology, or none of it. There's no "good parts of communism" or "bad parts of capitalism" it's only ever all good or all bad.

Politics is the mind-killer.

What does "praising" mean? Being critical of what we learned in school about the USSR?

What does "communism" mean here? Advocating for the type of social democracy that's done pretty well in much of Europe?

I mean I know tankies "exist" but I rarely see them. Just because we're all critical of capitalism doesn't mean we're all dumb enough to want to re try what the soviet union did. It's almost like our kids will die under capitalism so we're willing to think outside the box for once.

A lot of eastern Europeans actually miss/look back fondly on the USSR days.... I'm not exactly a fan of them or other "communist" regimes, as they were all basically thinly veiled dictatorships, but standard of living was higher for most of the former block countries.

I really don't get all the china dick riding going on. I gotta think it's driven by bots and Chinese netizens. The west is a little unfair on their views of China, but they grab descenters with secret police and quash any form of opposition to their one party system. People who praise them and act like that's a better system are crazy. Really wish we could build some decent highspeed rail network in America though...

Idk if I speak for other people here but being critical of capitalism doesn't necessarily mean you want to copy paste North Korea. Or the Ukrainian SSR.

I really find all these posts entertaining, there are a bunch of reddit refugees that are trying to impose their ideology on Lemmy. It's almost like they're trying to ironically colonize the space.

Fuck Communism and fuck unchecked capitalism. People deserve basic human rights. Free heallthcare, education, insurance and liveable basic income is a must. It doesn't make your society full of freeloaders instead it gives all the people a chance to become what they want in the society. I hope that people can see this basic difference and we can work towards for a better future as humanity instead of whatever country title.

boomers destroyed the earth beyond all belief, poisoned everyone with sketchy ass chemicals, destroyed the economy more than once (twice in my life), most of us will NEVER own a home because the housed your grand pappy paid 100k for is now worth 2.5 million and average yearly wage is less than 30,000... among a million other things. The greed and entitlement is baffling, mix that in with delusional red scare propaganda that a ton of people fall for and yall mfers spending time defending all this insane shit.

we effectively live in a corporate government where what the people want doesn't matter alongside the million other ways we are lied to and exploited. Billionaires and trillionaires run the world and they keep pushing for "the next thing" like the metaverse, blockchain and going mars while most of us cant even afford to fucking eat. Suck it. I guarantee that you cant even define communism and point out how it differs from social policies even on a very basic fundamental level. Fuck dude

I wish we could look at what the ussr did right and how it worked around its restrictions without rose tinted glasses. Some central planning of efficient railways and large industrial machinery might not be a bad idea. Lezz a fair doesn't always produce great results. Walkable neighborhoods and commie blocks aren't such a bad idea but fascist dictators are.

I am from Eastern Europe and I share this sentiment when I see anyone from the West defending communism. The issue is complicated but, to put it bluntly:

No, Timothy, communism didn't fail in Eastern Europe because it was implemented wrongly. This is a very complicated topic but the tldr summary is "It is a broken idea, it did not work and it will never work. The natural and logical outcome of any attempt at Marxism is a bloodbath followed by autocracy."

That being said, communism isn't the only way to achieve a more equitable society. You have social democracy (in Lennin's words - communism's greatest adversary); organized labour movements; collectivist anarchism; communitariasm, etc.

Communism, as applied in the 20th century, violently fought against or oppressed all of these movements and is incompatible with any of them.

Not to mention that in most countries nowadays orthodox communists have been hugely discredited for excusing the Russian war of annihilation against the Ukrainian people.

In conclusion, if you live in the USA or Western Europe and you are unhappy with how corporate greed has ruined society, don't look to communism for answers. There are many other proposed solutions out there - go and research these. Communism is very well known, which makes it easily accessible to people who want change - but it is never, ever the solution.

communism is when ussr

• Universal access to healthcare, food, water, shelter, electricity, and education without cost.
• Prohibit the operation of businesses or investments in basic necessities mentioned in previous point.
• Non-essential amenities such as entertainment, fashion, travel, luxury goods etc continue to be available for purchase.
• A reasonable tax structure that ensures higher taxes for the rich.

Is that Communism? Is that too much to ask for?

Top: Filthy rich capitalists and Boomers that lick up their cool aid

Bottom: Global South that produces both their wealth

Blocking you I don't want another reddit experience

Oh yes because those same westerners are talking about Soviet Union 2, not democracy in the workplace.

Meanwhile, Eastern Europeans:

I mean there is, but all of the major nations fall somewhere in the middle of the capitalism / socialism spectrum.

China, a communist nation, has private businesses. The US, a capitalist nation, has public infrastructure and social safety nets.

It’s a gradient, and very few nations are 100% on the edge of the spectrum.

Does it matter?

In America nothing means anything anymore. It's just soggy cardboard deteriorating. It can't be fixed. It's dead and not coming back. This is life now.