Sure it wasn’t. And, say, attempts to limit citizens’ freedoms of [speeh, movement, religion (although I personally think it’s cancer)] or even music they listen to are just a coincidence. Look, I’m not saying USSR was all bad, but, frankly speaking, trying to depict it as some kind of heaven on earth is just as flawed as the red scare you’ve mentioned.
Don’t know what you’re trying to say with “it wasn’t,” it was absolutely a Socialist state working towards Communism. I never said it was heaven on Earth either, in fact I linked a critique of the USSR from a Marxist perspective that doesn’t dogmatically reject or uphold it. The USSR was real Socialism, that doesn’t mean it was heaven or hell.
I’ve asked a couple of history nerds, and I stand corrected: my impression that totalitarianism was a form of autocracy was wrong (rather both are a form of dictatorship). They’ve mentioned that under Stalin it could’ve been considered one, tho, but given he was the 2nd gensec, it’s not exactly relevant to undissolving.
I don’t really know what you’re trying to get at with totalitarianism or autocracy, neither is a particularly useful descriptor for the USSR. The perhaps mundane fact is that the USSR was neither heaven nor hell, it was merely real, and history’s first Socialist state. Trying to analyze it from a moralistic point of view with baked-in desires for it to either have been a success or a failure just obscure the historical reality of it.
Sure it wasn’t. And, say, attempts to limit citizens’ freedoms of [speeh, movement, religion (although I personally think it’s cancer)] or even music they listen to are just a coincidence. Look, I’m not saying USSR was all bad, but, frankly speaking, trying to depict it as some kind of heaven on earth is just as flawed as the red scare you’ve mentioned.
Don’t know what you’re trying to say with “it wasn’t,” it was absolutely a Socialist state working towards Communism. I never said it was heaven on Earth either, in fact I linked a critique of the USSR from a Marxist perspective that doesn’t dogmatically reject or uphold it. The USSR was real Socialism, that doesn’t mean it was heaven or hell.
I’ve asked a couple of history nerds, and I stand corrected: my impression that totalitarianism was a form of autocracy was wrong (rather both are a form of dictatorship). They’ve mentioned that under Stalin it could’ve been considered one, tho, but given he was the 2nd gensec, it’s not exactly relevant to undissolving.
I don’t really know what you’re trying to get at with totalitarianism or autocracy, neither is a particularly useful descriptor for the USSR. The perhaps mundane fact is that the USSR was neither heaven nor hell, it was merely real, and history’s first Socialist state. Trying to analyze it from a moralistic point of view with baked-in desires for it to either have been a success or a failure just obscure the historical reality of it.