So why didn’t they? Clearly they never wanted to be a part of the union because prior to WW2 the foreign policy of those countries was neutrality. They created the Baltic entente and at end the of 1938 all three countries passed neutrality laws, Here’s the Estonian law. Furthermore after the union collapse all three countries designated the soviet era as an era of foreign occupation. Which part of of history gives you the indication that they actually wanted to be in the union?
Well, why didn’t they leave? You now know that they could have left. So why did they choose to stay until the whole bloc collapsed? Are you open to the possibility that the people and the leaders of the time wanted to be part of the USSR? And the people and the leaders who got what they wanted when they left:
Now have the power to be the dominant voice, and
Continue to say what they used to say now that they had power?
You said that you would be considered a socialist in the US, soYou probably know that capitalist states are run by a minority of wealthy people. It’s the same in post-Soviet capitalist states, right? (Like Russia, which we agree is a capitalist hellhole like every other capitalist state.)
If you’re still with me, could it be that a minority of liberals who complained about ‘conditions’ in the USSR are the same minority of liberals who today praise capitalism and criticise/slander the USSR?
Edit: realised I was talking to a different person.
Well, why didn’t they leave? You now know that they could have left. So why did they choose to stay until the whole bloc collapsed? Are you open to the possibility that the people and the leaders of the time wanted to be part of the USSR?
Are you open to the possibility that the USSR weren’t the good guys and didn’t allow those countries to leave? Because the rest of what you’re saying is on the premise that the USSR had to have been the good guys.
You said that you would be considered a socialist in the US
Maybe the other guy said that? I haven’t said that.
That a union of nations that has been dead for 30 years is still tricking people with evil commie propaganda to make them think it was a fairly normal place, and not a pointlessly cruel hell on earth,
Or that the capitalist class, in the capitalist west, the US especially, the heart of global capitalism, would want its citizens to think that socialism never works and that the people should just resign themselves to a life under capitalism, the system in which they are in charge and benefit the most from? And so lie to their citizens in order to achieve this goal?
As I mentioned in the other comment, I’m pretty sure which is more likely because I actually live in one of those countries. I know the history of my country and the sentiment people have about the union. The regular folk who lived in that era don’t really have anything good to say about the union. I’m pretty sure people who lived it trumps whatever alternate shit you’ve read on the web.
I just realised I was talking to two people and edited my comment.
My other points still stand. You’ve proved my point: there isn’t a ‘right’ answer, there’s only, like always, a class-based answer. If you believe the ruling class you reach one conclusion. If not, you reach a different conclusion.
It’s up to you which side you find more authoritative. For me, I’m skeptical of every word that leaves the mouths or pens of people who keep the working class oppressed and living in shit conditions.
You could always ask the people who lived there during that era, which is what I’ve done. I live in one of those countries. I know how my parents and grandparents lived during the soviet era. I know how my wifes parents and grandparents lived. I’ve had discussions about the union with people who actually lived in the union. My opinion isn’t some “choose which class answer you like”, it’s based on what people actually went through during that period. If you want to believe whatever you’ve read on the internet go ahead, but the truth from the actual proletariats (because none of them were capitalists, otherwise I’d not be talking to you as my grandparents or parents would be in Siberia, probably dead) is far from what you people here want to believe. None of them had anything good to say about the union. None of them wanted the union and once they were in the union at no point (until the very end) did they have an option to not be in the union.
If you talk to certain people in my country, they’ll tell that neoliberalism has been a success because it lifted their standard of living. It doesn’t make what they say generally true.
Lucky for you, your loved ones survived the shock therapy implemented from the 90s onwards. Then do a survey of the people who didn’t survive. Or who had to leave. Or who were trafficked. Or who were bombed by NATO. Or whose shipyards and factories were asset stripped. Then speak to the people who lived under the Tsar or the Nazis or whoever else preceded the Soviets. Then find some people in Ukraine and Russia, who were comrades until the 90s, and ask them what it’s been like in the slow, violent aftermath of letting the capitalists back in.
because none of them were capitalists, otherwise I’d not be talking to you as my grandparents or parents would be in Siberia, probably dead
Except if that followed logically, then who was it who took the post-Soviet states into capitalism? Not to mention that the fact that they survived leaves open the possibility that if they were ‘capitalists’ through that time, that ‘capitalists’ might not have probably died in Siberia.
Look, I’m not saying the USSR was perfect. I’m not saying I have a perfect understanding of the USSR. I’m saying you need to understand that whether it’s explicit or subconscious, you are doing a class analysis by virtue of living in a class society. Most of your information is shaped by the ruling class, which controls the production and distribution of knowledge. It’s the same for the people you’re going to talk to. You can’t escape it. The ruling ideas of the epoch are the ideas of the ruling class. Individual anecdotes based on an insignificant sample size of respondents doesn’t change anything.
Lucky for you, your loved ones survived the shock therapy implemented from the 90s onwards. Then do a survey of the people who didn’t survive. Or who had to leave. Or who were trafficked. Or who were bombed by NATO. Or whose shipyards and factories were asset stripped. Then speak to the people who lived under the Tsar or the Nazis or whoever else preceded the Soviets. Then find some people in Ukraine and Russia, who were comrades until the 90s, and ask them what it’s been like in the slow, violent aftermath of letting the capitalists back in.
Well clearly also lucky for me to not have my ancestors be deported to Siberia. Soviet union did not come without costs either. Radical change will always have negative aspects. Ushering in socialism could arguably be considered just as violent as letting capitalism back in.
Except if that followed logically, then who was it who took the post-Soviet states into capitalism? Not to mention that the fact that they survived leaves open the possibility that if they were ‘capitalists’ through that time, that ‘capitalists’ might not have probably died in Siberia.
So we can say the USSR failed to create socialism? Because after half a century of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” the bourgeoisie still existed in those countries as none of them stayed socialist after the collapse.
Look, I’m not saying the USSR was perfect. I’m not saying I have a perfect understanding of the USSR. I’m saying you need to understand that whether it’s explicit or subconscious, you are doing a class analysis by virtue of living in a class society. Most of your information is shaped by the ruling class, which controls the production and distribution of knowledge. It’s the same for the people you’re going to talk to. You can’t escape it. The ruling ideas of the epoch are the ideas of the ruling class. Individual anecdotes based on an insignificant sample size of respondents doesn’t change anything.
The people I talked to, their ruling class for the majority of their life was the “proletariat” class. Their point of view of the world didn’t magically change after the union collapsed and capitalism was introduced. If they can’t be trusted to give accurate insight into how the world was back then then who can you trust?
Well clearly also lucky for me to not have my ancestors be deported to Siberia.
Or your ancestors were just among the vast majority of people—who were not deported to Siberia. Perhaps they were even supportive enough of the Soviet project that they were happy to live in it without rebelling so much that they would be punished.
Soviet union did not come without costs either. Radical change will always have negative aspects. Ushering in socialism could arguably be considered just as violent as letting capitalism back in.
Yes. This is not controversial. The question is, why? (The answer is because capitalists will never willingly let socialists take power and will do everything possible to stop socialists from succeeding.)
So we can say the USSR failed to create socialism?
Considering the USSR doesn’t exist and the world is not socialist, I don’t think it’s controversial to say the USSR failed to create socialism. They succeeded in implementing a socialist experiment and brought underdeveloped and war torn parts of Europe to a position there they could compete on an equal footing with the most advanced capitalist countries.
They also helped bring about an end to colonialism and we’re so successful the advanced capitalist states had to implement a welfare state to prevent revolutions in the imperial core.
If they can’t be trusted to give accurate insight into how the world was back then then who can you trust?
They can be trusted to give an account based on a memory of things that happened over 30 years ago, based on their own experience, their class position during and after the USSR, all influenced by folk knowledge and propaganda by Soviets and capitalists. Their view is valid data. But it is not universal data. There is no such thing.
There are few sources that I would ‘trust’ on their face. Oral history, ethnography, and auto-ethnography have their uses, but they have limitations. Such accounts must be understood in their political economic context.
While I believe that people had differing opinions (they always do), I find it hard to accept that your anecdotal evidence speaks for all of the Baltic states populations that lived under the USSR.
By reducing everyone’s arguments against you to, “you just read what you did on the internet, I talked to real people therefore my argument is more valid”, the stance that you’re trying to take is not rooted in good faith.
Perhaps being able to cite surveys or census data, or at least some form of statistic, would add some foundation to your argument.
Not to mention that for us, these personal testimonies are just more statements read on the internet. By the standard set, we should treat them no differently to any other information found on the internet.
They are also pretty clearly in the camp of bootlicking US imperialism including participating in their wars, supporting neonazism and celebrating original nazism.
You could always ask the people who lived there during that era, which is what I’ve done.
All nearly 1.6 million of them? Never mind that hundreds of thousands of people left after the USSR’s dissolution…
Your family in particular might not be particularly representative, or there might be other context we’re missing, such as why they wouldn’t want the USSR when it was increasing its people’s standard of living.
Why don’t you give up Hawaii and Puerto rico which you illegally annexed ? What about Mexcian lands that you stole ? Baltic states were given up by Lenin to Germany in Brest treaty , they were vassals of Germany and became fascistic in later years , why would Soviet Russia give up Baltic states when they got it back from Germany in 1939?
Why don’t you give up Hawaii and Puerto rico which you illegally annexed ? What about Mexcian lands that you stole ?
How about you don’t assume my nationality, my country isn’t even close those areas. Also nice whataboutism.
Baltic states were given up by Lenin to Germany in Brest treaty ,
You do realize that there were wars of independence after that treaty, that ended up with new treaties? There was the treaty of Tartu between Estonia and Soviet union, the treaty of Riga between Latvia and Soviet union and the Moscow peace treaty between Lithuania and Soviet union. The Soviet union recognized the independence of those countries so the Brest treaty is irrelevant.
they were vassals of Germany and became fascistic in later years ,
I know people like you love to throw the word around but authoritarian is not the same as fascist. And I have no idea where you take that they were vassals of German. You’re clearly not aware that the independence war in Estonia and Latvia wasn’t just against the Soviet union, it was also against Germany, more specifically the Baltic Germans who were in the Baltische Landeswehr.
why would Soviet Russia give up Baltic states when they got it back from Germany in 1939?
This is so far into historical revisionism there’s nothing to correct, it’s complete fiction.
I was asking why it didn’t happen earlier because before the Union those countries were “We don’t want to be in the union” and after the union those countries were “We said, we didn’t want to be in the union”. If before the union they didn’t want to be in it and after the union they still said they didn’t want to be in it then why should we assume that during the union they wanted to be in it? The answer is that they didn’t, they simply weren’t allowed to leave.
There are a ton of old as fuck Cuban-Americans and their children in Miami and elsewhere in the US who would swear a pledge before god himself that “the people” never wanted the revolution in Cuba.
And yet we know from every historical document available they these people are at best misled but usually just right wing liars who had their land confiscated (rightly btw. And compensated for! (Which I wouldn’t have done- Castro was far too nice in that regard)) and they never stopped crying about their “stolen land.” The irony being, yeah, it was stolen land. Stolen by them! Or their ancestors, their father or grandfather, anyway. Castro just helped return it to the rightful owners.
So you see why it’s important to distinguish the cry-bully right wing fascist tears from the legitimate hardships of the workers who, yes, may well have suffered? But their suffering is almost always because of the US and allied European countries. It certainly wasn’t caused by Castro or Soviet leaders, anyway. And in the case of former landlords and bourgeoisie losing what their families had exploited from others: good. I hope it makes them cry. They are an enemy of humanity hoarding wealth, exploiting others, and demanding wars to regain their former possessions. They do not represent the workers ie the people.
Did you read your own source? The first source literally states that Estonian government was forced to hold a manipulated election to elect the communist party that then joined the union. It also contains several example of anti-soviet sentiment from the late 60s all the way to it’s publication’s date. It’s proving my point that the people never wanted to be in the union.
Did you read it or just skip to the parts you liked? Your question was why they didn’t leave the USSR.
From p. 78 of the first source:
While there is some sentiment in favour of secession from the Soviet Union, this does not reflect majority opinion. There is little or no evidence of any significant inclination to replace socialism with capitalism, despite significant dissent about the particular forms of Soviet institutions existent today. The benefits to Estonia of being part of the
Soviet Union have proved to be immense.
They could. Article 17 of the 1936 Constitution (can be found on https://marxists.org > English > History > Soviet Union > Soviet Government) explicitly allowed every Republic to secede from the U.S.S.R.
So why didn’t they? Clearly they never wanted to be a part of the union because prior to WW2 the foreign policy of those countries was neutrality. They created the Baltic entente and at end the of 1938 all three countries passed neutrality laws, Here’s the Estonian law. Furthermore after the union collapse all three countries designated the soviet era as an era of foreign occupation. Which part of of history gives you the indication that they actually wanted to be in the union?
Well, why didn’t they leave? You now know that they could have left. So why did they choose to stay until the whole bloc collapsed? Are you open to the possibility that the people and the leaders of the time wanted to be part of the USSR? And the people and the leaders who got what they wanted when they left:
You said that you would be considered a socialist in the US, soYou probably know that capitalist states are run by a minority of wealthy people. It’s the same in post-Soviet capitalist states, right? (Like Russia, whichwe agreeis a capitalist hellhole like every other capitalist state.)If you’re still with me, could it be that a minority of liberals who complained about ‘conditions’ in the USSR are the same minority of liberals who today praise capitalism and criticise/slander the USSR?
Edit: realised I was talking to a different person.
Are you open to the possibility that the USSR weren’t the good guys and didn’t allow those countries to leave? Because the rest of what you’re saying is on the premise that the USSR had to have been the good guys.
Maybe the other guy said that? I haven’t said that.
Which do you think is more likely though?
That a union of nations that has been dead for 30 years is still tricking people with evil commie propaganda to make them think it was a fairly normal place, and not a pointlessly cruel hell on earth,
Or that the capitalist class, in the capitalist west, the US especially, the heart of global capitalism, would want its citizens to think that socialism never works and that the people should just resign themselves to a life under capitalism, the system in which they are in charge and benefit the most from? And so lie to their citizens in order to achieve this goal?
As I mentioned in the other comment, I’m pretty sure which is more likely because I actually live in one of those countries. I know the history of my country and the sentiment people have about the union. The regular folk who lived in that era don’t really have anything good to say about the union. I’m pretty sure people who lived it trumps whatever alternate shit you’ve read on the web.
Just because Yeonmi Park lived in the DPRK doesn’t mean her obvious lies about her experience trump anything else
I just realised I was talking to two people and edited my comment.
My other points still stand. You’ve proved my point: there isn’t a ‘right’ answer, there’s only, like always, a class-based answer. If you believe the ruling class you reach one conclusion. If not, you reach a different conclusion.
It’s up to you which side you find more authoritative. For me, I’m skeptical of every word that leaves the mouths or pens of people who keep the working class oppressed and living in shit conditions.
You could always ask the people who lived there during that era, which is what I’ve done. I live in one of those countries. I know how my parents and grandparents lived during the soviet era. I know how my wifes parents and grandparents lived. I’ve had discussions about the union with people who actually lived in the union. My opinion isn’t some “choose which class answer you like”, it’s based on what people actually went through during that period. If you want to believe whatever you’ve read on the internet go ahead, but the truth from the actual proletariats (because none of them were capitalists, otherwise I’d not be talking to you as my grandparents or parents would be in Siberia, probably dead) is far from what you people here want to believe. None of them had anything good to say about the union. None of them wanted the union and once they were in the union at no point (until the very end) did they have an option to not be in the union.
If you talk to certain people in my country, they’ll tell that neoliberalism has been a success because it lifted their standard of living. It doesn’t make what they say generally true.
Lucky for you, your loved ones survived the shock therapy implemented from the 90s onwards. Then do a survey of the people who didn’t survive. Or who had to leave. Or who were trafficked. Or who were bombed by NATO. Or whose shipyards and factories were asset stripped. Then speak to the people who lived under the Tsar or the Nazis or whoever else preceded the Soviets. Then find some people in Ukraine and Russia, who were comrades until the 90s, and ask them what it’s been like in the slow, violent aftermath of letting the capitalists back in.
Except if that followed logically, then who was it who took the post-Soviet states into capitalism? Not to mention that the fact that they survived leaves open the possibility that if they were ‘capitalists’ through that time, that ‘capitalists’ might not have probably died in Siberia.
Look, I’m not saying the USSR was perfect. I’m not saying I have a perfect understanding of the USSR. I’m saying you need to understand that whether it’s explicit or subconscious, you are doing a class analysis by virtue of living in a class society. Most of your information is shaped by the ruling class, which controls the production and distribution of knowledge. It’s the same for the people you’re going to talk to. You can’t escape it. The ruling ideas of the epoch are the ideas of the ruling class. Individual anecdotes based on an insignificant sample size of respondents doesn’t change anything.
Well clearly also lucky for me to not have my ancestors be deported to Siberia. Soviet union did not come without costs either. Radical change will always have negative aspects. Ushering in socialism could arguably be considered just as violent as letting capitalism back in.
So we can say the USSR failed to create socialism? Because after half a century of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” the bourgeoisie still existed in those countries as none of them stayed socialist after the collapse.
The people I talked to, their ruling class for the majority of their life was the “proletariat” class. Their point of view of the world didn’t magically change after the union collapsed and capitalism was introduced. If they can’t be trusted to give accurate insight into how the world was back then then who can you trust?
Or your ancestors were just among the vast majority of people—who were not deported to Siberia. Perhaps they were even supportive enough of the Soviet project that they were happy to live in it without rebelling so much that they would be punished.
Yes. This is not controversial. The question is, why? (The answer is because capitalists will never willingly let socialists take power and will do everything possible to stop socialists from succeeding.)
Considering the USSR doesn’t exist and the world is not socialist, I don’t think it’s controversial to say the USSR failed to create socialism. They succeeded in implementing a socialist experiment and brought underdeveloped and war torn parts of Europe to a position there they could compete on an equal footing with the most advanced capitalist countries.
They also helped bring about an end to colonialism and we’re so successful the advanced capitalist states had to implement a welfare state to prevent revolutions in the imperial core.
They can be trusted to give an account based on a memory of things that happened over 30 years ago, based on their own experience, their class position during and after the USSR, all influenced by folk knowledge and propaganda by Soviets and capitalists. Their view is valid data. But it is not universal data. There is no such thing.
There are few sources that I would ‘trust’ on their face. Oral history, ethnography, and auto-ethnography have their uses, but they have limitations. Such accounts must be understood in their political economic context.
While I believe that people had differing opinions (they always do), I find it hard to accept that your anecdotal evidence speaks for all of the Baltic states populations that lived under the USSR.
By reducing everyone’s arguments against you to, “you just read what you did on the internet, I talked to real people therefore my argument is more valid”, the stance that you’re trying to take is not rooted in good faith.
Perhaps being able to cite surveys or census data, or at least some form of statistic, would add some foundation to your argument.
Not to mention that for us, these personal testimonies are just more statements read on the internet. By the standard set, we should treat them no differently to any other information found on the internet.
This good enough for you?
The Baltic states are pretty clearly in the camp of the collapse not being a bad thing.
They are also pretty clearly in the camp of bootlicking US imperialism including participating in their wars, supporting neonazism and celebrating original nazism.
All nearly 1.6 million of them? Never mind that hundreds of thousands of people left after the USSR’s dissolution…
Your family in particular might not be particularly representative, or there might be other context we’re missing, such as why they wouldn’t want the USSR when it was increasing its people’s standard of living.
Why don’t you give up Hawaii and Puerto rico which you illegally annexed ? What about Mexcian lands that you stole ? Baltic states were given up by Lenin to Germany in Brest treaty , they were vassals of Germany and became fascistic in later years , why would Soviet Russia give up Baltic states when they got it back from Germany in 1939?
How about you don’t assume my nationality, my country isn’t even close those areas. Also nice whataboutism.
You do realize that there were wars of independence after that treaty, that ended up with new treaties? There was the treaty of Tartu between Estonia and Soviet union, the treaty of Riga between Latvia and Soviet union and the Moscow peace treaty between Lithuania and Soviet union. The Soviet union recognized the independence of those countries so the Brest treaty is irrelevant.
I know people like you love to throw the word around but authoritarian is not the same as fascist. And I have no idea where you take that they were vassals of German. You’re clearly not aware that the independence war in Estonia and Latvia wasn’t just against the Soviet union, it was also against Germany, more specifically the Baltic Germans who were in the Baltische Landeswehr.
This is so far into historical revisionism there’s nothing to correct, it’s complete fiction.
Maybe the part where there were still a lot of people even in 1991 that wanted to stay?
(Yes, there were also independence referendums in 1991, but you were asking why it didn’t happen earlier.)
Source: https://www.sudd.ch/event.php?lang=en&id=su011991
I was asking why it didn’t happen earlier because before the Union those countries were “We don’t want to be in the union” and after the union those countries were “We said, we didn’t want to be in the union”. If before the union they didn’t want to be in it and after the union they still said they didn’t want to be in it then why should we assume that during the union they wanted to be in it? The answer is that they didn’t, they simply weren’t allowed to leave.
Who is we? The bourgeoisie or the proletariat? There’s going to be severe conflicts of interest here.
The people
There are a ton of old as fuck Cuban-Americans and their children in Miami and elsewhere in the US who would swear a pledge before god himself that “the people” never wanted the revolution in Cuba.
And yet we know from every historical document available they these people are at best misled but usually just right wing liars who had their land confiscated (rightly btw. And compensated for! (Which I wouldn’t have done- Castro was far too nice in that regard)) and they never stopped crying about their “stolen land.” The irony being, yeah, it was stolen land. Stolen by them! Or their ancestors, their father or grandfather, anyway. Castro just helped return it to the rightful owners.
So you see why it’s important to distinguish the cry-bully right wing fascist tears from the legitimate hardships of the workers who, yes, may well have suffered? But their suffering is almost always because of the US and allied European countries. It certainly wasn’t caused by Castro or Soviet leaders, anyway. And in the case of former landlords and bourgeoisie losing what their families had exploited from others: good. I hope it makes them cry. They are an enemy of humanity hoarding wealth, exploiting others, and demanding wars to regain their former possessions. They do not represent the workers ie the people.
Well, let’s take Estonia as an example.
During WW2, the capitalists supported the 1941 Nazi invasion, to the point that many people retreated back with the Nazi armies (source (pp. 78-9)).
After dissolution, the poverty rate skyrocketed from 1% to 38% (source (p. 68)).
You may also want to read this RT article if you’re willing to do so.
Did you read your own source? The first source literally states that Estonian government was forced to hold a manipulated election to elect the communist party that then joined the union. It also contains several example of anti-soviet sentiment from the late 60s all the way to it’s publication’s date. It’s proving my point that the people never wanted to be in the union.
Did you read it or just skip to the parts you liked? Your question was why they didn’t leave the USSR.
From p. 78 of the first source:
I’ll let others comment on the elections.