United Germany & The Beginning of the End for the Socialist System in Eastern Europe

[Sasaki Kojiro]

It seems like a stretch to say that the USSR wasn't communist. They certainly had their own brand of communism, and I don't know that anyone can claim any particular philosophy as "true communism".

[jabarto]

They are all stains on the human soul. What other political system has so thoroughly crushed art?

Liberal socialism has brought success and prosperity to millions and millions of people. I wouldn't call that a blight on the soul.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Huh, not a single answer from CA. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Do I really have to point out just how stupid this sentence is?

You've never heard of nation and state being synonyms?

I re-iterate. I'm not.

Whatever. Collectivist then?

I can't think of a single one.

Oh, man, that was good. A classic fallacy, and so poorly played. The USSR destroys all art and throws artists into gulags; one Senator holds some hearings before being brought down by a reporter and the army is supposed to erase that!

What do we do with those who want to live outside of Capitalism now?

Here, we let them live as they will. You dodged the question though; I doubt capitalists in your society would enjoy such generosity.

EDIT: I just can't be any more... I'm leaving until people can at least identify the most basic terms of political ideology.

Gee, it's because of that and not because you've been unable to provide an answer to any of my criticisms of communism?


CR

[CountArach]

Gee, it's because of that and not because you've been unable to provide an answer to any of my criticisms of communism?


CR

It's because I'm not a Communist, I have never claimed to be one, and I will never be one. I'm blocking myself from the Backroom for a while because I'm so sick of people getting away with completely misusing the names of ideologies to tar their political opponents and not getting called on it. THAT is the reason I've defended Marxism in this thread; not because I believe in it, but because calling your opponent a Communist is the closest thing to an acceptable ad hominem attack without resorting to Godwin's Law, something I also loathe.

So yeah, I won't be back for a little while.

[Husar]

Bah! And when a crime is committed in your democracy, who will be sent to arrest the perpetrator? A mob, or a professional chosen by the democracy? Who will investigate crimes? Who will run the transportation systems, the water lines, hand out welfare?

Aren't you usually the guy who is in favour of replacing the oh so oppressive police with mobs of guys with guns who can defend themselves?
Aren't sheriffs in the US professionals chosen by the democracy? Or are they just random nothingainer joycampsitters chosen by a democracy?

quote of inappropriate post deleted

Well Dave, I can't really decide what to be most thankful for, the lend-lease program, the Potsdam treaty or the invasion of Normandy...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This thread is how Germany, in the eyes of Americans, went from supportable trade partner to devilish barbarians to supportable beacon of capitalism to commie paradise of socialised healthcare and leftist euronannies in less than 100 years, right?

[Fragony]

And stay dead

[Furunculus]

for those of you that appreciate the irony of this momentous event:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ge...-as-democrats/

Funeral in Berlin – of freedom, buried by EUSSR commissars posing as democrats

By Gerald Warner Politics Last updated: November 9th, 2009

As farces go, it has Brian Rix beaten to a cocked hat. The spectacle of the leaders of the EUSSR marching solemnly through Berlin to celebrate the “fall” of communism and the restoration of freedom, just a few days after completing their plan for a new Soviet-style empire based on Brussels is one that will be relished by connoisseurs of irony. It will not be appreciated by anybody else.

Twenty years ago Angela Merkel, then a scientist, walked into the West out of the debris of the Marxist slum set up by the Soviet Union as a client state in 1945. She was looking for freedom. She found it, then joined with the rest of the EU nomenklatura in destroying it. After the EU constitution was democratically rejected in referenda by the electorates of France and the Netherlands, it was during Germany’s tenure of the EU Presidency in 2007 that the “period of reflection” was formally ended and the Berlin Declaration resurrected the project under the thin disguise of a “treaty”.

Marching with Merkel were Nicolas Sarkozy, whose government has adhered to the Lisbon Treaty after its repudiation by the French electorate; Gordon Brown, who refused to allow Britain any say at all; and Mikhail Gorbachev, creator of the comedy twins Glasnost and Perestroika, in a vain attempt as First Secretary of the freedom-loving Communist Party of the Soviet Union to shore up his collapsing empire – now hailed as an icon of “democracy”.

He is that, all right, since “democracy” has displaced freedom. It was obvious to all egalitarians, bureaucrats, social engineers, Frankfurt School Marxists and rag-tag big-government socialists of all flavours that the sclerotic Soviet Union was no longer fit for purpose. So it has moved westwards, is now headquartered in Brussels, is sharp-suited and technocratic. But it has also accomplished two much more important transformations.

The first is to have uncoupled Marxism from Leninism. The abject failure of the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, of collectivisation and all the other delusions of the economically illiterate Marx and his followers resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Empire. The control freaks are determined not to make that mistake again. Instead, replace the command economy with the “social market” economy: let business create wealth, then bleed it off remorselessly into the coffers of the state.

Marxism, as an economic theory, is dead. But Leninism, which was always more concerned with social control, is very much alive. Through the refinements of Frankfurt School Marxism – also more concerned with society and culture than economics – Political Correctness has been enthroned. That is the EUSSR’s second great achievement.

Survivors of the East German dictatorship have recently testified that the greatest victory of the regime was to have created an atmosphere in which citizens engaged in self-censorship – avoided uttering even some sentiments that might not have concerned the authorities. Look at 21st-century Britons, tongue-tied in conversation, groping for some PC euphemism (“If I’m allowed to say that…”) in what was once the most iconically free-spoken country on earth. Who needs a Stasi with people censoring themselves?

We should tell our hypocritical leaders, going through the charade of celebrating “freedom” in Berlin, the unvarnished truth. You are not the heirs of John F Kennedy, of Ronald Reagan, of Margaret Thatcher – still less of the brave individuals who lost their lives trying to escape from behind the Iron Curtain into the Free World that you have dismantled.

You are the heirs of Ulbricht, Honecker and every other despised puppet leader that built and maintained the Great Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier – the weasel euphemism for the Berlin Wall that prefigured the Newspeak you are imposing on EU citizens. One day, sooner or later, you will go the same way as your infamous predecessors, into the dustbin of history.

[Subotan]

I think there's a difference between the likes of the revolutionaries and idealists, such as Marx, Engel and many revolutionaries in their early stages, and the later "Communists" who maintained such a horiffic and malevolent regime. Certainly, the goal of Communism is a noble one (Only a Fascist would disagree that the basic idea of Communism can be appreciated, even if it's recognised to be impossible.), and I would say that the majority of Communist revolutionaries had noble goals, even if they didn't try to achieve them with noble methods. However, once it was realised Communism did not provide the fruits it promised, that's when things started to go wrong, especially when Stalin comes into the picture. It would be fair to say that Communism as an idea is not evil, but it is always corrupted by self interest and paranoia.

However, maybe Communism was a nessecary evil. It's doubtful that Russia could have had the industrial might to resist Fascism in WWII had all the land from the Vistula to Kamchatka bowed it's head to the Tsar.

[Pannonian]

Survivors of the East German dictatorship have recently testified that the greatest victory of the regime was to have created an atmosphere in which citizens engaged in self-censorship – avoided uttering even some sentiments that might not have concerned the authorities. Look at 21st-century Britons, tongue-tied in conversation, groping for some PC euphemism (“If I’m allowed to say that…”) in what was once the most iconically free-spoken country on earth. Who needs a Stasi with people censoring themselves?

It's become politically correct to attack political correctness. The easiest way is to exaggerate a target, then attack the self-made strawman with all vigour. Speech was never free in the way that it's portrayed to be. Find the most conservative, most old-school Tories who were brought up way before PC was supposed to have been invented, and you'd find that even they self-censor their speech, depending on whom they're talking to. Except they weren't taught that as political correctness, they were taught it as manners, respecting whom one is talking to for the sake of a cordial society. The main difference would probably be Thatcher's dissolution of society, so people no longer respect the ties that bind society together, and no longer have the self-discipline to temper their actions so they can get what they want without having to stir trouble. Instead, the default is to be outrageous, and ask "I want to do this - what can't I?". They want absolute freedom to do whatever the hell they want, without regard for other people, and the only thing stopping is rules, and enforcement of them.

Go talk to little old ladies. While they may have views which one may see as outdated, they will almost always show regard for the listener. When asked why they do so, they'll answer that it's polite to do so, and to be deliberately oppositional (not put that way of course) is rude. An attitude that post-Thatcher UK has dumped in favour of ego uber alles.

[Kralizec]

Communism is both an ideology and a (as of yet) purely hypothetical model of society where there's no state hiearchy, just collective ownership at the local level.
In Marxist-Leninism the socialist state is just a transitional form between a capitalist state and the absence of a state, a communist society. There's a reason why it's called the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. In theory, the communist party wich ran the whole thing would just give up all its power and let the state wither away

Also this fad of comparing the EU with the USSR is really quite pathetic. Especially when it comes from the same people who (rightfully) complain when Polish nationalists are compared to nazis.

[Meneldil]

I'm a bit puzzled by this commemoration. A bunch of people who never had to live in a communist regime or weren't even born by them all go "OMG awesome, freedom won 20 years ago, let's celebrate !"

What a bunch of crap.

May I remind you that after novembre 9th 1989, we've been told repeatedly by thinkers, writers, politicians, leaders and what not that we were on the eve of a new world. A peaceful, democratic, and fair world.
People who dared to disagree with this point of view were dismissed, and called pessimist of communist-apologists.

Now, what do we see? There are just as many dictatorships nowadays than there used to be in 1989, and some of them are indeed bloodier than the communist dictatorship. The US' power goes unchecked, leading to the futile war in Irak. Communism has been replaced by various other ideologies, most of which are much more subtle and threatening. Capitalism goes rampant and doesn't play by the rules anymore, leading to a growing disparity of income between the higher classes and the rest of the population.
And many people from Eastern Europe think life was better back then because at least, they had a job and a dignity.

Liberty and freedom my ass.

[Furunculus]

Also this fad of comparing the EU with the USSR is really quite pathetic. Especially when it comes from the same people who (rightfully) complain when Polish nationalists are compared to nazis.

i confused by your parallel, there doesn't appear to be any reason to logically link one with the other..............

[Ser Clegane]

And many people from Eastern Europe think life was better back then because at least, they had a job and a dignity.

Liberty and freedom my ass.

The problem would of course have been that the old system was not sustainable. IIRC, the GDR was already getting into severe financial problems.

I agree with you that it would be good if everybody would have a job that would allow them to take care of themselves and their family - unfortunately, a system in which this works properly still seems to be a utopia.
Should not mean however, that because one thing failed, the complete opposite is the way to go...

As for the reason to celebrate - I was born (and lived until I was 26) in a city very close to the border to the GDR. I have been on on a school trip to the GDR in 1986, and I can tell you that it was a very surreal experience.

After the border opened in 1989, thousands of people came over from the other side of the border to enjoy to celebrate and visit their "neighbors". These people were genuinely happy - not because of promises that came from politicians - we did not reach that stage at that time yet - they were indeed simply happy to be free to get into their car and just drive beyond the border.

It is hard to describe the weeks directly after the border opened with people from both sides going back and forth - but I wouldn't want to have missed it - and it is a good time to remember after 20 years.

[Subotan]

Co
Also this fad of comparing the EU with the USSR is really quite pathetic. Especially when it comes from the same people who (rightfully) complain when Polish nationalists are compared to nazis.

It's pathetic when British people do it; but it's disgusting and repulsive when people who lived under that system do the same. (Vaclav Klaus )

[Furunculus]

quite the opposite; it is precisely because Vaclav Klaus lived under communism that he is a position to understand the loose parallels with the the EU.

did you live behind the iron curtain?

i find it equally ridiculous when western people pronounce on the limited value of freedom, when they have never lived in a dictatorship in order to have a useful comparison you can assess merit against.

[gaelic cowboy]

Everyone seems to be ragging on CountArach for stating the truth here

Just coppied this from Wiki

"Pure communism" in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of

This means of course that the soviet Union was not communist in the true sense but actually a perversion of the idea in reality. I believe I read somewhere that the road to revolution was supposed to be a movement from capitalism then socialism and finally communism.

Hence we can see that the Soviets straight away called themselves Socialists in order that they could continue to rule by ensuring that true comunism would never happen.

Course this is all semantics but it is true in a litteral sense of the word.

Twenty years on and Europe is all the better for landing those fellas on the scrapheap hopefully the last few holdouts will follow them soon too.

[Pannonian]

quite the opposite; it is precisely because Vaclav Klaus lived under communism that he is a position to understand the loose parallels with the the EU.

did you live behind the iron curtain?

i find it equally ridiculous when western people pronounce on the limited value of freedom, when they have never lived in a dictatorship in order to have a useful comparison you can assess merit against.

I've talked to people who can remember a world before the Iron Curtain. They had a very different view of freedom than that which anti-PC polemists moan about having been lost. The freedom they had has not been lost, and in many ways is more widespread than ever. The freedom which has been lost is the freedom to be as pointedly obnoxious as one chooses to be, to impose oneself on others at the expense of others. That freedom they never had, and would never choose to have.

[Furunculus]

wow, that post had nothing to do with PC.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

how does Euroslavia sit with the objectors to the EUSSR?

[Pannonian]

wow, that post had nothing to do with PC.

Survivors of the East German dictatorship have recently testified that the greatest victory of the regime was to have created an atmosphere in which citizens engaged in self-censorship – avoided uttering even some sentiments that might not have concerned the authorities. Look at 21st-century Britons, tongue-tied in conversation, groping for some PC euphemism (“If I’m allowed to say that…”) in what was once the most iconically free-spoken country on earth. Who needs a Stasi with people censoring themselves?

Really?

[Furunculus]

Really?

yes.

my post addressed Subotan's statement about Vaclav Klaus.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Everyone seems to be ragging on CountArach for stating the truth here

Just coppied this from Wiki

"Pure communism" in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of

This means of course that the soviet Union was not communist in the true sense but actually a perversion of the idea in reality. I believe I read somewhere that the road to revolution was supposed to be a movement from capitalism then socialism and finally communism.

Hence we can see that the Soviets straight away called themselves Socialists in order that they could continue to rule by ensuring that true comunism would never happen.

Course this is all semantics but it is true in a litteral sense of the word.

Twenty years on and Europe is all the better for landing those fellas on the scrapheap hopefully the last few holdouts will follow them soon too.

Is it not really the "No true Scotsman" fallacy?

Either the extant and exstinct Communist State's were oppressive, or they weren't Communist because Communism is about as workable as Moore's Utopia, which also never existed, and never could.

[Beskar]

You can talk forever; but that won't change the facts. Show me the nation I asked for - the un-oppressive communist state. But you can't; you and other communists can only talk, denying the USSR had anything to do with communism. Lots of cheap talk because you've got no proof, no facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz Did I just win the Internets?

[Ser Clegane]

Not really a nation

It shows though that communism as a concept can work - rather on a small scalle though, where the very individual component of "each give according to their abilities, and receive according to their needs" can actually be put into practice.

Communism fails on a large nation scale when the necessary feeling of the individual to be responsible for the success of the whole disappear.

[Kralizec]

I'm a bit puzzled by this commemoration. A bunch of people who never had to live in a communist regime or weren't even born by them all go "OMG awesome, freedom won 20 years ago, let's celebrate !"

What a bunch of crap.

If you're referring to the politicians, Merkel is an east-German. The others were at leat old enough to remember the Cold War.

May I remind you that after novembre 9th 1989, we've been told repeatedly by thinkers, writers, politicians, leaders and what not that we were on the eve of a new world. A peaceful, democratic, and fair world.

Uh, you're 23 according to your profile. Wich means you were an infant when they supposedly made all those promises. Just thought I'd point out the irony compared to the first part of your statement.

Now, what do we see? There are just as many dictatorships nowadays than there used to be in 1989, and some of them are indeed bloodier than the communist dictatorship. The US' power goes unchecked, leading to the futile war in Irak. Communism has been replaced by various other ideologies, most of which are much more subtle and threatening. Capitalism goes rampant and doesn't play by the rules anymore, leading to a growing disparity of income between the higher classes and the rest of the population.

How gloomy.

Do you mean income disparity in western countries, or the former east bloc? If you mean the first I'll need some sources.

And many people from Eastern Europe think life was better back then because at least, they had a job and a dignity.

Liberty and freedom my ass.

Yeah, that always slightly puzzled me- it seems most east-Germans were extatic when the wall fell and nowadays a majority of them think it was actually a great place to live.

I think that the older generations simply were to optimisitc - the DDR was on the verge of ruin, and abruptly switching to a capitalist system at the last moment wasn't going to make all problems away.

I'm curious how many people of those who left the GDR in 1989/90 returned at a later point...

[Beskar]

Communism fails on a large nation scale when the necessary feeling of the individual to be responsible for the success of the whole disappear.

Not really, I believe there are ways around that.

The biggest problems with real communist nations is that they get invaded or crushed by governments early on. It was Franco who won the Spanish Civil War, but what would have happened if the Anarchists won? What about if the Paris Commune took over the bank and survived till today?

Then you have the diggers in 1649. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers

You have back in pre-history, you have indian tribes, you have all sorts of living examples around the world.

There is the other problem that communism is pretty pacifist ideology. As a whole, they don't have standing armies, so when big military machines come along, they are at a disadvantage. By producing a state army, and producing state control and all these other measures, they stop becoming communist.

Communism isn't a new idea, it is a very old one. However, communists aren't Empire builders. Hence, in theory, you would need the World-Wide Revolution to overthrow all the possible enemies and threats.

This also goes into this fact, how did the "mainstream communism" examples such as the USSR survive? They had the largest military force on Earth, they used totalitarian practises. This things are not what communism is, they are people hijacking the bandwagon.

[Kralizec]

i confused by your parallel, there doesn't appear to be any reason to logically link one with the other..............

I think the comparison is obvious?....

Yeah, the EU is a bureacratic mess that is only accountable to voters in a very indirect way. I think that the comparison with a country wich habitually executed political dissidents, used inmates for slave labor and generally opressed its populace in almost every way possible is a bit off though.

[Furunculus]

agreed, but to quote ed west - "when we compare the EU with the Soviet Union we’re not talking about the era of Stalin, Beria, the gulags, and the mass murder of middle-class peasants, Balts, Kazakhs and Tartars – no, we think of the EU as being more like Andropov or Chernenko-era Russia, a decrepit, corrupt, bankrupt superstate run by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats with negative charisma."

but while we are on the subject, how are you with Euroslavia as a mocking parallel?

[Louis VI the Fat]

agreed, but to quote ed west - "when we compare the EU with the Soviet Union we’re not talking about the era of Stalin, Beria, the gulags, and the mass murder of middle-class peasants, Balts, Kazakhs and Tartars – no, we think of the EU as being more like Andropov or Chernenko-era Russia, a decrepit, corrupt, bankrupt superstate run by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats with negative charisma."

The problem with this sort of puerile rhetoric - which unfortunately passes for insightful political debate within half the British Conservative Party - is not that it insults the EU.

The problem is that it trivialises the nastiness, the crimes and repression of a system that held half a continent in its grip for half a century. And which end we celebrate as we speak.

[Furunculus]

sure, sure, i sympathise with the view and agree to some degree.

how do you feel about Euroslavia?

[Louis VI the Fat]

'Euroslavia'


Yugoslavia was a federal state. Me, I'd be happy if within my lifetime I see the EU move ahead to a confederacy. Euswitzerland then, a shiny example of how a confederacy of very democratic states with vastly different languages, religions and customs can team up to become the envy of the world.