25 Jan 2024 7:49 am
(PART II) Cannonpointer: "I believe that dismissing national socialism as 'not real' begs the question: given its tremendous ability to uplift its people, why isn't it superior to 'real' socialism?"
Again, since socialism's character is, at its core, international and necessarily anti-nationalistic, "National Socialism" is not only not real socialism, it isn't socialism at all. And yes, much like the way Trump's demagoguery has uplifted many marginalized Americans, so, too, did Hitler's emotional appeals comfort many German workers. But, unless we are to deem being bombed an uplifting experience, those German workers allowed themselves to be duped.
Cannonpointer: "I have bias neither toward nor against any particular ism. My concern is with the welfare of the people on whom the isms are enacted. My ism is humanism. The Russians' ism certainly appeared to **** the Russian people - and to really **** the Ukrainians." As I have delineated in some detail within this thread, the Bolshevik Revolution didn't negatively affect the majority of Russians - indeed, the lives of the social majority improved immensely. Socialism transformed Russian society from a backward semi-agrarian, mostly peasant society to an industrial powerhouse with one of the most educated populaces on Earth in fewer than fifty years. It increased Soviet society's average life expectancy from 32 years in 1917 to 68 years by 1975. It nearly eliminated all social ills, including illiteracy, unemployment, homelessness, and malnutrition. It significantly reduced rates of infant mortality and neonatal death. And, among many other positive socioeconomic indicators, it beat the U.S. vis-a-vis the space race.
Cannonpointer: "Reading you blaming the Kulaks was a shocker. I was under the impression that the agreement the kulaks were scapegoated was universal." If I gave the impression that I blamed anything solely upon the Kulaks, which I did, I do apologize. The Kulaks, like anyone else in Soviet society, were not exclusively to blame for anything, let alone the demise of the U.S.S.R. I am trying to remember the context in which I discussed the Kulaks. Still, many factors contributed to understandable and expected challenges faced by the Soviets early on, including but not limited to the Kulaks.
First and foremost, there was the problem concerning the civil war and the armies of nineteen (19) countries that invaded the Soviet Union beginning in 1918, including the U.S. Army. The most severe domestic problem was illiteracy, which negatively affected the country's industrial capacity and, thus, its economy. A downstream effect of illiteracy was the problem of relying on the previous owners of various manufacturing facilities and their managers due to insufficiently educated workers to operate those plants. Those understandably bitter owners and like-minded managers often sabotaged equipment and sold it to the highest bidders, which was a considerable problem. For their part, many Kulaks killed livestock and burned crops to hamper the Revolution, but they were not the only source of problems for the Bolsheviks. Again, I apologize for not being clear.
(END PART II)