What was Russia's greatest contribution to mankind?

War and Peace, both the book and actual war and peace.

They own the LIBS!!!!!

I'd say: the novels of Tolstoy and sacred (Orthodox) music.

I'm not religious, but these opening measures are almost enough to make me believe in God:

Also, the films of Tarkovsky.

Vladimir Nabokov, the absolute genius.

Also, Tchaikovsky.

And I love borscht, too.

Vodka.

Vodka?

Yes, vodka.

Boris And Natasha

The periodic table

Dancing men.

Chekov

Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky. Sublime, both of them.

r12, are you my cerebral doppelganger?!

Borscht!

Nureyev, Yul Brynner, Dostoevsky, Pasternak, Sergei Eisenstein, Anna Pavlova, Ballets Russes

Cheap pee hookers. Tremendous!

STOLICHNAYA®

Roulette.

Umm, defeating the nazis?

Dmitri Shostakovich (although Russia attempted to "eradicate" him on numerous occasions).

My older brother wrote to Pадио Москва (Radio Moscow) for a copy of the National Anthem on a 33 rpm record. He was taking high school Russian, and probably ended up on an FBI watch list. My bro is gone, but the record lives on in my collection.

Krokodil, violent porn, mail order brides, and bootleg software.

Another vote for borscht! If made correctly it can be quite dee-lish.

I like Martha's recipe of cold borscht with a dollop of sour cream and fresh dill. It's very refreshing in summer months.

The Sputnik program spurred America into the space race, and so much of our technological advancement over the past 60 years is rooted in that race.

Vlad on horse was the greatest contribution! So manly and macho with big muscles!

That story about Catherine and the horse. It's false, but it will live forever as a fine cultural artifact.

We perfected what we pretended the Russians tried!

R19 after enabling the Nazis with a non-agression pact and helping them slaughter the Polish army in a combined move.

Dostoyevski

Not the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, not the Katyn Massacres (which the Soviets blamed on the Nazis), not the Gulag, not the Cold War. Russia did emancipate the serfs and have made an outstanding contribution to the arts: Diaghilev, Shostakovich, Pasternak. And they did help defeat the Nazis they had enabled for years, but only after the Nazis attacked them: the initial plan was to divide up eastern Europe between the Soviets and the Nazis (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact). On balance, Russia is a burden to us all.

Rasputin

Chicken Kiev

Borscht, blini, babushkas, Bolsheviks, ballet, balilikas, and bears

Or R31 as he was called by my neighbors, Rice-pudding.

[quote]Chicken Kiev

A-hem!

Sorry, chicken Kyiv whose neck is about to be wringed.

Where are all the Russian bears???????

La Seesaw

Gordeeva & Grinkov!

Tasteful decor.

Chaturbaters.

Russian born artists like Kandinsky and Chagall.

Crazy engineering like the ekranoplan.

Chagall was a Belorussian Jew.

Dotty Loudon knows.

Not killing my forebears, who conveniently hid when those Cossacks came knocking.

Aeroflot.

Inspiring a quite funny American TV ad in the 1980s, the Soviet Fashion Show.

The Aeroflot promo video in R47 is hilarious. I am 100 percent that Aeroflot never offered any of the items requested by the would be passengers except maybe the juice or magazine.

R48 We used to loudly proclaim "SVIM-VEAR!" at a job I had in an archaeology lab, when we'd catalog fragments of whiteware (a catchall for ceramics/dishes). We were just wacky that way.

I flew on Aeroflot during Soviet days. They offered nothing. The FAs hid the entire flight.

The official theme song of internet trolls everywhere.

Scaring the fuck out of and helping freeze Nazi scum freeze to death during the Siege of Leningrad.

Apologies for the extra "freeze" added in R53. The idea of Hitler's Nazis freezing to death makes me happy, what can I say?

[quote] What was Russia's greatest contribution to mankind?

Answer: the destruction of the Soviet Union

Doping in sports!

Giving Crimea to Ukraine (not taking it back).

Modern Russia is not a country that contributes anything to greater mankind anymore.

Prostitutes.

Russian baths and platzas!

Faberge eggs

I had a butt like Baryshnikov.

Gorbachev.

No homo, comrade.

(quote) Modern Russia is not a country that contributes anything to greater mankind anymore.

Unlike US with Kardashians and Middle east oil wars.

Russian Orthodoxy and Doestoyesky

Mail brides

Krokodil (desomorphine).

Saving Europe's Jews from total extinction at the hands of the Nazis.

But I guess some antisemite DLers would have gladly sided with the Nazis on this one...

Oligarchs

R69 As another poster said, "only after the Nazis attacked them: the initial plan was to divide up eastern Europe between the Soviets and the Nazis (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact)"

Mendelev’s Table of Elements-brilliant!

Just another example of the fact that socialism doesn't work and only leads to dictatorship.

Tarkovsky: "A man writes because he's tormented, because he doubts."

[quote] the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact

R71, you and R30 don't know European history. Look up all the "Pacts" that Poland, Britain, etc signed with Germany way before the Soviets did. The original German-Polish pact actually included a plan to divide up Eastern Europe. That's why even Churchill called Poland "the Hyena of Europe". Churchill was a racist white-supremacist who could give Hitler a run for his money, but that statement of his was indeed correct.

1933 - Bush’s Capitalist grandfather bailed out the Nazi party and saved it from bankruptcy;

1933 - 4-Powers Pact between Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Britain and France;

1934 – Polish-German Pact between Piłsudki (Poland's dictator who came to power after a coup) and Hitler's Germany (a.k.a. the Piłsudski Pact);

1935 – British-German Naval Pact;

1936 – Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan against the USSR and any socialist movement;

1938 Sept – British-German Pact;

1938 Dec – French-German Pact;

1939 March – Romanian-German Treaty;

1939 May – Lithuanian-German Pact;

1939 May – Danish-Germany Pact;

1939 June – Estonian-German Pact;

1939 July – Latvian-German Pact;

1939 August – USSR-German Pact.

It’s ironic that ignoramuses like you, R71, only remember the last pact and have total daytime soap opera-style amnesia about the preceding pacts that half of Europe made with Germany. And, to its credit, the USSR held out for as long as it could and was one of the last to agree to such a pact, once it saw that everyone and their grandmother already signed pacts with Germany.

Poland ironically used its earlier pact with Germany to try to cajole Germany into invading the USSR. Poland’s dictator Piłsudski also officially published a plan to “incorporate” most of Eastern Europe into a “Greater Poland” state and “Polonize” all its neighbours. That was the reason for the Polish-Ukrainian war, Polish-Lithuanian war, Polish-Russian war, and eventually Poland’s carve-up of Czechoslovakia along with Germany. Poland’s plan was called the “Inter-Marium” Plan (“Sea-to-Sea” Plan) with the goal of 'resurrecting' the ‘old’ Polish empire and extend it from the Baltic to the Adriatic - but the dictator Piłsudksi's megalomaniac plan blew up in Poland's face. Better luck next time.

Dostoevsky, Space Race. Attempting Communism despite all its failures and excesses - there is a lot to be learned by their failed experiment.

R76 is the ghost of Pol Pot.

The homoromantic writings of Vladimir Makanin. His work is not studied or appreciated near enough in the West.

Moishe Shagal was born in the Russian Empire. He therefore is most definitely one of Russia's greatest contributions.

The arts, hands down in certain categories, they are among the best, if not the very best, ballet, literature, very early film. I'm not going to say anything else because I will be bitched at for I already have said.

[quote] the Cold War

R30, the Cold War was declared not by the Socialists, but by Capitalists like Britain and the U.S. Britain’s Imperialist Racist-in-Chief, Churchill, famously said that he actually would have preferred Nazism over Socialism/Communism. He added that any type of socio-economic and racial equality is “impossible”, and that Britain did the right thing by invading all continents and pushing out the ‘Untermensch’ ‘lower’ races. The Soviet Union was a mixed-race union whose leadership was Georgian, Armenian, Slav and Jewish – and therefore Churchill hated such mixed-ethnic leadership with a passion.

[quote] the Katyn Massacres (which the Soviets blamed on the Nazis)

The Nazis actually found it (it was a mass grave of mostly Polish military corps officers) and the Nazis were the ones who originally blamed it on the Soviets. The Katyn event was beneficial to Nazi Germany, which used it for an out-of-context press attack against the Soviet Union. On 14 April 1943, Goebbels wrote in his diary: "We [Nazis] are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, killed by the GPU, for anti-Bolshevik propaganda on a grand style. We sent neutral journalists and Polish intellectuals to the spot where they were found. [...] The Führer has also given permission for us to hand out a drastic news item to the German press. I gave instructions to make the widest possible use of the propaganda material. We shall be able to live on it for a couple of weeks."

It is reportedly true that some of the deaths are attributable to the Red Army, however this wasn't done in a vacuum. Many of the top commanders in the Red Army were Ukrainian and Jewish and therefore loathed Polish military officers because of the preceding Polish-Ukrainian War when many tit-for-tat atrocities against civilian families were committed, including by the Polish military elite against Ukrainians and Jews. There was no mutual love lost there.

According to a note from Beria (Georgian Chief of State Security of the USSR) to Jugashvili/Stalin (fellow Georgian leader of the USSR), 6 members of the Socialist top leadership - which included Jugashvili/Stalin (Georgian), Lazar Kaganovich (Jew), Kliment Voroshilov (Ukrainian-Russian), Mikhail Kalinin and Molotov (both Russian), and Anastas Mikoyan (Armenian) - signed an order to execute Polish military officers/POWs. This wasn't a "Russian" decision, this was a collective decision by representatives of multiple ethnic/national Republics that comprised the USSR. The Polish POWs were seen as a threat because of the actions of the Polish elite and military in the preceding Polish-Ukrainian War, Polish-Lithuanian War, Polish-Russian War and Polish-Czechoslovak conflict and the Polish-German Pact of 1933. This was also before the days of the Geneva Convention on POWs.

[quote] they did help defeat the Nazis they had enabled for years

Lol, “help”, r30? They defeated 80% of the Nazi Army. The U.S. and its Capitalist allies only fought 20% of the Nazis.

As for “enabling” the Nazis – better check in with Bush's grandpa on Wall St who funded and bankrolled the Nazi Party’s rise.

[quote] Gulag

Gulag was just a continuation of the Katorga (penal colonies) system that was used in the region for centuries. At no point did anyone outside of the country have a problem with it existing earlier under Capitalism – but once the Socialists organised a revolution, suddenly all the Capitalist countries started pearl-clutching about the penal colonies (acting as if they’ve never heard of them before – even though they openly existed since the 17th C).

Even in the early-to-mid 20th C, similar camps were used all across Europe during wars, Civil Wars and volatile periods. Even Poland had concentration camps for Ukrainians during the Polish-Ukrainian war in the 1920s (where ca. 100k people were kept and ca. 20-30k perished due to lack of food). However, most people in the Gulag penal colonies served their sentences and were released. Like that cunt, Alexander Solzhenitsyn – the Soviets should have kept him in the penal colony, he was a rabid ultra-nationalist and white-supremacist. He later said that his main objection to the USSR was the fact that it was an “inter-racial” Union. In the 1990s and 2000s Solzhenitsyn advocated for kicking all Asians out of the country. The Soviets did the right thing when they kicked his ass into a penal colony.

Commie ^

Ballet!

Origins may have been from courts of French kings, but the Russians refined and perfected the art.

Even the great Paris Opera Ballet has a strong Russian influence.

Fat uncut dick.

Look at that technique!

What was Russia's greatest contribution to mankind?

The USSR - the greatest failed experiment on communism.

R86 that's un.bear.a.bly beautiful! I had to stop. And it looks like a dance academy show for parents, nothing more. Wow. Why can't ballet be male only!

The Bolshoi ballet - which produced hundreds of mistresses for Russian royalty. The Bolshoi is to Russian royalty as Grindr is to horny gay men.

small smelly dicks.

R90 This one was yours. You don't have to be modest and give away your credits.

The socialist revolution.

Yes, a Commie and proud of it. Join the workers' fight, R83, don't be a Capitalist/bourgeois reactionary.

[quote] Attempting Communism despite all its failures and excesses - there is a lot to be learned by their failed experiment.

[quote] The USSR - the greatest failed experiment on communism.

R76, R87, the USSR (Union of soviet *Socialist* republics) had Socialism, not Communism. Communism is when there's no central government and no currency. Socialism is when there's a central government that has a centrally planned economy, plus centralised currency and some private property.

Socialism is a transitional phase - it's the next stage after Capitalism and the penultimate stage before Communism.

Communism was not "attempted" in the Socialist USSR - they openly said that they're not ready for such reforms yet. They successfully implemented Socialist reforms instead (not "attempted" it). Whereas Communism can only be "attempted" when there's a high level of conscious cooperation between citizens, when people are educated enough to put communal interests higher than personal greed.

For example, many historic monasteries essentially work on a somewhat Socialist basis: all monks pitch in to help and work the gardens together and each receives an equal share of the produce from communal gardens. Monks are specifically taught not to be greedy, so it works fine. The main difference between them and Socialists is that Socialists (and Communists) believe that the impetus for such communal work should be a deep understanding of human brotherhood (and thus the realisation that holding all main resources in common is in everyone's interests), instead of service to some singular tooth-fairy (Communists are largely atheists).

And Socialism in the USSR didn't "fail" - it succeeded in helping initially very agrarian countries develop and industrialise very quickly (and not at the expense of African slave workers like England, France and the U.S. did). Compare Socialist USSR to Capitalist India: the USSR achieved universal healthcare, a more egalitarian society, racial equality (the leadership of the USSR included non-Russians) and high literacy rates. Whereas India still has mass illiteracy (over 20% of India's population still can't read or write) and deep class ("caste") divides. So the USSR actually succeeded in many of its top objectives (like improving social welfare, industrial production and education for its originally agrarian population).

The fact that it dissolved was largely due to external hostility and embargoes against the USSR. Greedy Capitalist countries WANTED the USSR to fail, so that Capitalist countries could then swoop in and plunder all of the region's resources (just like Capitalist countries did before to Africa and South America). When the USSR dissolved, millions were suddenly left without any social security, without pensions and wages, leading to a demographic crisis. This affected the entire region (Kazakhstan, etc) - meanwhile greedy Capitalist countries clapped their hands with delight at the fact that Asian people suddenly lost everything.

Their greatest contribution has been showing the rest of the world the impact of alcohol abuse.

You're an idiot R94, the Soviet Union lasted only 69 years. Socialism and communism created the worst mass murderers in human history with Mao and Stalin.

R90 smelly, maybe; small, you kidding???

[quote]helping them slaughter the Polish army

Poland enthusiastically assisted the Nazis to slaughter Jews.

You stupid woman. Karma doesn't come in advance.

And though Poland was a deeply anti semitic society, just like the rest of the world in these days, in which way were they assisting in slaughtering Jews. After Russians they were the biggest victims of Nazi slaughters.

[quote]After Russians they were the biggest victims of Nazi slaughters.

It is no coincidence that the vast majority of extermination camps were in Poland. The few remaining Jews that Poland didn't slaughter returned to their homes after the Holocaust and were slaughtered by the Poles.

Poland is a staunchly Catholic country that was and remains deeply Jew hating.

R100 Can't deny that anti Semitism is deeply rooted in Poland. But you can't generalize and put the collective guilt on all Polish. As if someone put the blame on all of you Americans for the destruction of Middle Eastern countries in recent wars for oil.

R101 Another apologist for Jew-hating Poland of the "but . . . but . . . we were victims too" kind. No, Poles were most certainly NOT victims. They were and remain perpetrators, Jew exterminators. Good Catholics, doncha know.

And now it's illegal in Poland to mention its gleeful complicity in the Holocaust.

[quote] As if someone put the blame on all of you Americans

R101 Never assume. You will invariably ERR.

Doping in the Olympic games.

R102 Your accusations against Poles are silly coming from the member of the nation that committed the worst crimes against Native Americans, Africans you enslaved, Mexicans in war for Texas, Latin American countries in which you were arranging coups and installing the worst criminals because of the interest of your capitalism. And very recent complete destruction of Middle east in wars for oil. And now, destabilizing the ex Soviet union region and enticing new wars.

And the fact that you are so self righteous and unaware of yourself because of your North Korean media.

You really are deplorables.

Poland produced more Righteous Among the Nations than any other European country. Many Poles died trying to save their Jewish neighbors.

When I visited Poland and went to Auschwitz, I was treated very kindly by the Polish family I stayed with. They even made me a sack lunch to take on my tour.

[quote]Your accusations against Poles are silly coming from the member of the nation

R105 Your rant is misdirected. You have ERRED.

R106 And for every Pole that saved a Jew, there were millions happy to assist in their extermination. Just as there would be today.

Oh, and R105, you really do need to look up the word genocide. Because that is THE WORST!

R108 I have never heard of Poles committing genocide. Unlike Americans against Native Americans.

[quote] I have never heard of Poles committing genocide

R109 That's because you're pretending to be stupid per your deplorable agenda.

Borscht and pelmeni. Everything else has been sadness, corruption, and Leninism.

Didn't we already came to conclusion that you are deplorable R110. With your North Korea level of information and awareness.

I meant come, not came

[quote] You're an idiot [R94], the Soviet Union lasted only 69 years.

So, R96? In those 69 years they achieved more for their region's social welfare, universal healthcare, universal education and racial solidarity than they had in the preceding years. They definitely achieved more in that period than they had under cunt-ish Capitalism (the rule of the wealthy over the poor).

Moreover, at least Socialist countries develop by means of using their own resources. Whereas swindler Capitalist countries "develop" by means of invading the entire Global South and stealing the Global South's raw resources. That's how Britain & France "developed" by stealing resources and diamonds from 90% of the African continent. That's how the U.S. "developed" by stealing all the best land in North America and then looting oil from the Middle East. That's how the war-loving greedy Big Corps and Big Banks in Capitalist countries still get the resources for their pyramid-scheme "business". And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Al Capone said: "Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class".

General Major Butler (most decorated Marine in U.S. history) said the following in his candid exposé of Wall Street's bloodthirsty war-profiteering:

[quote] "I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from a second Lieutenant to a Major General. And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a Racketeer for Capitalism. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916."

R114 - give it up. You will never be glamour and you will never be nomenklatura.

Capitalism being garbage doesn't prove socialism isn't - see every attempt at real socialism (e.g. not the retarded MAGAT definition).

R115 I don't think that comrade is interested in glamour.

[quote] Socialism and communism created the worst mass murderers in human history with Mao and Stalin.

Lol, "created", R96? Both Mao and Jugashvili (Stalin's real surname, he came from the Republic of Georgia) were born and raised under violent Capitalism. They didn't grow up in Communism or even Socialism. They learned violence EXACTLY from their Capitalist overlords (big landowners and big factory owners) - because the only language that Capitalist Tycoons understood was violence.

Mao was raised in a country which was militarily invaded by British, French and American Capitalists. Britain's bloodthirsty East-India Company decided to push opium to locals to turn everyone into junkies, just so that British Capitalists could line their pockets with bloodstained narcotics profits. And when the Chinese tried to stop the East-Indian Company's drug racket - the Company used the British military to invade China and put it on its knees.

Jugashvili was also born and raised in a violent atmosphere (when Capitalist wars happened every few years, including the war racket that was WW1, and when the lower class were treated as sub-human cannon fodder for endless wars). Jugashvili was a harsh person, but he at least strived for a more egalitarian world and ultimately saved millions by defeating Nazism, by resisting White-Supremacy/Racism, and by introducing universal free healthcare (something that so-called "rich" Capitalist countries like the U.S. still can't provide even in the 21st century).

And Mao and Jugashvili don't hold a candle to the real "worst mass murderers in human history" - i.e. the militant Capitalists who took over entire FOREIGN CONTINENTS (North America, Australia, etc) and genocided the native populations (so that the Capitalists could steal all their resources only for themselves, for their selfish personal enrichment).

Hitler famously said that he drew inspiration from the 'successful' way that the 'white-race' U.S. took over a foreign 'Red-skin' continent:

[quote] "From boyhood on, Hitler devoured [Western-genre movies and books].

[quote] "What did Hitler see when he looked to America for inspiration? [...] After George Washington ordered the “total destruction and devastation of their settlements” so they would be “driven” out by “terror,” the American military established its pattern for the next century by expelling Native people from their homeland through a campaign of brutally indiscriminate violence."

[quote] As for what he called the “doomed red race,” [Thomas] Jefferson wrote that those not willing to leave would “be exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi.”

[quote] "It was, in Jane Cazneau’s famous formulation, part of the country’s “Manifest Destiny.” As racially inferior, uncivilized “savages” who did not make productive use of the land, it was inevitable that they would “disappear” as white settlers moved in. As an 1854 article in DeBow’s Review put it, their “race is run” and are “gradually disappearing, to give place to a higher order of human beings.” Andrew Jackson viewed Native Americans as a “disease” that was “constantly infesting our frontier” and needed eradication. In the 19th century, white Americans commonly used the term “extirpate,” meaning to clear away by uprooting, destroying or annihilating, when referring to Native Americans."

Cont'd:

[quote] "Once the Nazis gained power in Germany, Kakel details how the American West became an “obsession” for Hitler and his closest followers, such as SS leader Heinrich Himmler. Their goal was to remake the demographics of Europe the same way the United States remade the demographics of North America. The Nazi leadership routinely referred to Eastern Europe as “the German East” or the “Wild East,” and its inhabitants as “Indians.” Admiring how the United States had “gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage,” Hitler spoke of his intention to similarly “Germanize” the east “by the immigration of Germans, and to look upon the natives as Redskins.” Echoing American justifications for westward settlement, he stated, “It is inconceivable that a higher people should painfully exist on a soil too narrow for it, whilst amorphous masses, which contribute nothing to civilization, occupy infinite tracts of a soil that is one of the richest in the world.” His answer? “Here in the east a similar process will repeat itself for the second time as in the conquest of America.” For Hitler, “Our Mississippi must be the Volga.” "

[quote] "Writing in “Mein Kampf” in the 1920s, Hitler praised the way the “Aryan” America conquered “its own continent” by clearing the “soil” of “natives” to make room for more “racially pure” settlers ... Indeed, the concept of Lebensraum was coined and popularized by Friedrich Razel, who said his theory of colonization and racial replacement drew inspiration from the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis” and its identification of “colonization of the Great West” as central to American history and identity."

The Method-Stanislavsky.

Drug resistant Hep C!

[quote] Capitalism being garbage doesn't prove socialism isn't - see every attempt at real socialism (e.g. not the retarded MAGAT definition).

R115, Capitalism teaches people that "greed is good". Socialism teaches people that, in order for the human species to survive and not kill each other in wars over LIMITED resources, we need to learn to be brothers and share resources.

Now you tell me - which system is more "garbage"? The one based on greed & competition, or the one based on sharing & cooperation? We, as humans, achieve much more through brotherly cooperation than through wars and cut-throat competition and wars.

R115 not to butt in...in theory of course Socialism sounds better. In theory. And that and 25 cents will get you a cup of coffee.

R121 - capitalism. Although I do prefer it in attenuated form. Socialism is based on the fairytale of the brotherhood of man, quite like many religions. But, you do you. Keep being a tinymeat loser who believes in fairytales.

[quote]Socialism teaches people that, in order for the human species to survive and not kill each other in wars over LIMITED resources, we need to learn to be brothers and share resources

[quote] We, as humans, achieve much more through brotherly cooperation

And then there's reality . . .

Stalin's purges. 50 million of his brothers murdered. Stasi totaltarianism. Mao's Famine and Cultural Revolution. Tito's Slaughter. Khmer Rouge Genocide.

Some "brotherly cooperation".

R122, "in practice" Capitalists funded their "rich" Industrial development by invading other Continents and looting other Continents' raw resources. Britain 'owned' 22 African countries (plus all of the Indian sub-continent). France 'owned' 20 African countries, etc. Before Europe started invading other continents - Europe was dirt-poor. Capitalism didn't 'work' in Europe until Europe started literally robbing the rest of the Planet.

"In practice" Socialists didn't invade other Continents and didn't loot other Continents' resources.

[quote]In practice" Socialists didn't invade other Continents and didn't loot other Continents' resources.

Only because they had plenty of neighbors to loot, invade, etc.

R126, how many "neighbors" did China "loot and invade"? Did it invade Kazakhstan? No. Did it loot India? No. Did it loot Russia? No. Did it loot Capitalist Japan? No, it was the other way round.

[quote] Umm, defeating the nazis?

The people they allied with, helped rearm, helped secretly train their army (in violation of treaty), helped to destroy Poland, and refused to believe they were going to be attacked by even as troops massed on the border?

Those Nazis?

R127 I don't remember Mao asking anyone within China's border if they were on-board with his vicious brand of totalitarian socialism. Invasion/conquest by another name. And let's not overlook Tibet, whom no one asked if they wanted to be made subservient to China.

[quote] [R126], how many "neighbors" did China "loot and invade"?

They didn’t invade and annex us, that’s for sure! Good point!

R127 Cambodia, another client of China. Invasion doesn't preclude conquest. There are other means, mostly material/materiel.

I had a Russian ex who was annoyed about borscht supposedly being Russian. Apparently it's actually Ukrainian.

As fish swimming by one of the artificial missile bases China built outside its territorial waters in order to fire missiles at American aircraft carriers in time of war, we completely agree that China isn’t aggressively expansionist!

[quote] But, you do you. Keep being a tinymeat loser who believes in fairytales.

R123, I’d be happy with this “you do you, and I do me” approach – but Capitalist cunts similar to you keep invading all Continents every time anyone even so much as “attempts” Socialism. Chile elected a Social Democrat Allende (he wasn’t even a full-blown Socialist, just a SocDem) – and the U.S. immediately swooped in and backed a coup against him, installing Pinochet in his place (that’s officially confirmed by the CIA itself, the cunts even openly bragged to the press later about their ‘successful’ operation).

Vietnam opted for Socialism – and the Pentagon (the Capitalists’ military goons) immediately sent war-ships and war-planes across the entire Pacific Ocean to invade Vietnam.

Libya tried to resist the U.S. dollar and set up its own currency not tied to the USD, plus institute some pro-socialist land reforms – the U.S. and its Capitalist goons immediately swooped in into Africa and ordered drone-strikes against the country.

The USSR implemented Socialist programs – and the U.S. immediately freaked out and funded Islamist jihadists on the Union’s southern border. This was again confirmed by the CIA, they bragged about funding Islamist terrorists against Socialists.

Etc, etc.

So Capitalist Cunts like you won’t let anyone alone (on any island or continent on this planet) make their own choice. Whenever countries choose socialist reforms – the U.S. and its Capitalist lackeys immediately try to stamp it out. Why? Because socialism (sharing of main resources) is not ‘profitable’ for Big Banks and Big Corporations – they need resource-producing countries to be under their thumb in order for their pyramid-scheme to work and for their stocks to keep rising.

teeny tiny stink cocks!

R134 👍

R135 Stop putting yourself down.

137 = Triggered Ruskie!

R137 masturbates with tweezers!

[quote] Stalin's purges. 50 million of his brothers murdered.

R124, where on earth did you get that "50 million"? The population of the USSR at the outset was less than 150 million. You Capitalist fantasists are now claiming that 1/3rd of the population (every 3rd person) just up and vanished? *Facepalm* The population actually *increased* because life conditions under Socialism were better than under Capitalism before:

1926 -148,656,000

1937 - 162,500,000

1939 - 168,524,000

1941 -196,716,000

1946 - 170,548,000

1951 - 182,321,000

1959 - 209,035,000

1970 - 241,720,000

1977 - 257,800,000

1982 - 270,000,000

1985 - 277,800,000

1990 -290,938,469

1991 -293,047,571

[quote] Stasi totaltarianism.

Pffft, Germans always have some form of "totalitarianism". It's a national thing - whether under Capitalism or Socialism, they always lean towards it. After re-unification, Chancellor Helmut Kohl was in power for almost 2 decades. Then later Chancellor Merkel was in power for almost 2 decades. At least the Stasis taught them to stop being such genocidal racists after WW2.

[quote] Mao's Famine and Cultural Revolution.

Why is it "Mao's Famine", but the famine in e.g. Ireland is simply called "the Potato Famine" (and not "Queen Victoria's Famine")? And the famine in Bengal (a territory 'owned' by Britain) is likewise simply known as the "Bengal Famine" (and not "Churchill's Famine").

Recently de-classified CIA documents actually state that even the CIA (who were in China at the time and observing the situation very closely) noted that the main reason for the famine was severe draughts across the Asian Continent. As for Mao and China in general - they were in a race to industrialise asap - because they were afraid that if they didn't industrialise fast enough, they would again be invaded and colonised (like during Britain's invasion of China and Japan's invasion of China). The cataclysmic Japanese invasion of China showed that China had no other choice but to industrialise fast, for its own protection from foreign colonisers. And fast-paced industrialisation is often a very painful process and requires the agricultural sector to be reformed for industrial needs. Mao himself acknowledged that it was a harsh process, that mistakes were made and he stepped down from the position of Chairman. But if China hadn't industrialised, if it had stayed a largely agrarian country like India - a lot more people would have died. And after they industrialised - things improved because industrialisation (and mechanisation) helps prevent famines.

[quote] Tito's Slaughter.

The Yugoslavs were "slaughtering" each other for centuries before (including during WW1 and continued to do so in the 1990s). Ironically, it was exactly the Socialist period that brought the most peace and stability to the region. I have a Kosovar acquaintance and he said that during Socialism, all the tribes there were far less radical ethno-nationalist, and inter-marriage between tribes was more accepted.

R140 You sound so fucking dumb when you capitalize random words that don't need to be capitalized.

[quote] You sound so fucking dumb when you capitalize random words that don't need to be capitalized.

I capitalise them to highlight them, Capitalist grammar Nazi at R141. You "sound so fucking dumb" yourself when you write 'capitalise' with a "z". Well, either "dumb" or North American (which sadly coincides way too often these days).

The Yugoslavs were "slaughtering" each other for centuries before (including during WW1 and continued to do so in the 1990s). -completely false, comrade, you have fallen for the western propaganda about wild Balkans.

Yugoslav nations were living peacefully besides each other and intermingled (the concept of nation was created late on Balkans, in 19th century, people were divided by religion Catholic or Orthodox Christians and Muslims).

The first slaughter was in WW2,done by quisling forces, domestic Nazi’s allies, while in Tito’s partisans were members of all nations united in the anti fascist struggle. The second slaughter was in 1990s and it was basically a war created to conquer and appropriate the national wealth remained of socialist state.

What some poster referred to as Tito’s slaughter must have been the execution of Nazi’s allies after the end of WW2, which was conducted vengefully, without the court and without the application of rules of International war laws to be honest.

Socialist period didn’t only bring stability, but industrialization, education, free housing, general health insurance and a general well being that many Americans would be grateful for.

There was less nationalism, in fact, nationalism was forbidden , but it seems it was only put under the rug (Yugoslavia reminded of modern woke America as you could have been cancelled for the political incorrectness) as it was unbelievable how strongly the worst sentiments erupted and there were stories about neighbors who were drinking together every day started killing each other. Of course, the opposite also happened and some people were risking their life defending their friends of different nationality.

I read in the autobiography written by Mira Furlan, Croatian actress, who played in TV series The Lost and Babilon 5, how she was astonished by the poverty she has never seen before when she first came to New York. It was in 80 s, the times of Socialism and it was the first time she has seen a homeless person. Regretfully, there are homeless in her hometown today.

I think probably their greatest contributions were in fighting Hitler and probably some literature.

R144 Croatia has a long history of killing off unwanted. No Nazi needed to kill any Jews/Roma there in WWII - the local populace committed atrocities with eagerness and glee.

Today, the Roma are an impoverished minority, subjected to mistreatment and racism.

R146 Fuck off with your North Korea style propaganda. Croatia had the greatest anti fascist resistance in WW2, Tito’s partisans. More inhabitants of some small Croatians towns and islands were killed in battles against Hitler than inhabitants of capital of Serbia Belgrade and members of entire European nations.

Agreed, apologies, R143, duly noted. I was mainly referring to the situation on the eve of WW1 when (some) Balkan groups in Bosnia apparently sided with Austria against the Serbs (who were at that time fighting against Austria's Imperial domination over the Balkans). I accept your correction that that inter-Slav conflict didn't span back "centuries" before WW1.

I didn't mean that the Balkans are "wild" by nature - I understand that division between Slavic groups in the run-up to WW1 was, to a large degree, fomented by Austria's Imperialist Capitalist Monarchy that ruled over large parts of the Balkans and stoked inter-Slav division, in order to hold on to the Balkans' resources and avoid a collective Pan-Slavic revolt against Austria's Monarchy.

R140 rationalizes the political murder of the unwanted masses by quibbling about whether Stalin murdered 30 million or 50 million. To say nothing of the authoritarian, absolute rule that engendered "peace and stability" and "industrial advancement". Despots doing horrible things for the "good of the masses" and the "greater good". Except the only people who actually benefited were the despots.

You're like the Nazis in Bavaria and Paraguay who still believed that Hitler had the right idea, was on the right track. If only . . .

As soon as someone says, "Hitler has some good ideas," then they have lost the argument and should be mocked and dismissed as unserious and offensive.

R148 Bosnians, Croatians and Slovenians who were a part of Austro Hungarian empire were mobilized in Austrian army, even Tito was an Austrian soldier as a young man. He was captured by Russians, there he came in contact with communist ideas. But there was a strong Pan Slavic and Yugoslav movement. People wanted to unite South Slavic nations in order to form a stronger state.

[quote]all the tribes there were far less radical ethno-nationalist, and inter-marriage between tribes was more accepted.

Tito ruled with an iron fist, kept the centuries of ethnic hatreds at bay. Once he was gone, the Serbs (Orthodox), Croats (Catholics) and Muslims illustrated yet again that they have no desire to co-exist.

Inter-marriage occurred in very few cases. The Balkans have always been intensely tribal, due mainly to on-going Muslim invasions as well as enmity between the various Xtian sects.

Michael Lucas

R152 Americans always know better, even though they have never been here, than I who have lived my whole life here.

Probably how wars in Vietnam, Iraq and elsewhere started, cause you had to explain them a few things about themselves.

Math and physics - of course, all these scientists were Jews and they were able to get to the US where their scientific discoveries flourished.

My brother was getting a PhD at the time the Wall fell, and the job market was flooded with Russian Jews.

Thanks racist Russia!

R155 Says the guy from the country that kept Black people as slaves for centuries. Good one.

R153 - to be clear, the enormous uncircumcised dong is Russia's greatest contribution. The plumped up lips and face lift are courtesy of the USA.

[quote] The arts, hands down in certain categories, they are among the best

Are or were?

[quote] rationalizes the political murder of the unwanted masses by quibbling about whether Stalin murdered 30 million or 50 million.

Again, where the heck do you get this out-of-space fantasy that Jugashvili "murdered 30 or 50 million", R149? In your wet dreams? Admit it – you’d have loved it if a random Georgian guy had murdered "30-50 gazillion" ‘Russkies’. You probably jack off to that fantasy nightly. “Better dead than Red!” – isn’t that what the militant Crapitalists in North America kept chanting?

You have no critical thinking skills whatsoever if you believe (and moreover promote) such urban myths. Tell me, when Capitalist Cunts like Bush and the entire Crapitalist press corp promoted the idea that an ‘evil’ country in West Asia (Iraq) has “WMDs which can be used to attack the U.S. border within 45 minutes” – did you fall for that hook, line and sinker too? Because that’s in the same Capitalist tradition of scaremongering & smear-campaigning used to condition the gullible public to hate foreign countries that they know little about.

There were no “unwanted masses” in the USSR – there was earlier a (very bloody) Civil War between the Imperialist/Monarchist Capitalists and the Socialists. The Civil War happened because the Imperialist Capitalists were privatising all the main resources for themselves, pocketing all the money, and abusing the destitute workers to such an extent and for such a long time (e.g. pushing people to fight in the nonsensical WW1) that big parts of the country rose up against the Capitalist Monarchy in a collective Revolution. The Socialists won the Civil War and the country soon became the most socially and industrially developed it ever was in all its preceding history – a massive achievement.

As there was a (very difficult, complex) Civil War – there were at first some lingering tensions in society post-Revolution. For example, the Imperialist Capitalists had previously murdered and pogrom-ed Jews before the Revolution – so after the Revolution, (some) socialist Jews settled old vendettas with people who mistreated & hurt them before the Revolution. Some of the early top chiefs of the State Police were Jews (e.g. Yagoda/Yehuda) and they loathed the antisemite Imperialist Capitalists for hurting Jews before. So there were some revanchist actions. But whenever things went too far, the top officials were punished. After an initially volatile period, everything calmed down, old vendettas were set aside, there was reconciliation and people moved on together to build a better society based not on greed-fuelled competition for resources, but on resource distribution that helped everyone.

[quote] To say nothing of the authoritarian, absolute rule that engendered "peace and stability" and "industrial advancement".

There was no “absolute rule”. Leadership was in the form of a Council comprised of various main ethnicities (Georgians, Ukrainians, Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, etc). Jugashvili wasn’t the President – he was the General Secretary.

And, unlike some modern Monarchies that moonlight as 'world-leading' democracies, the Soviet Union didn’t pass down leadership positions from Daddy to Son (like the Bush Clan, the Trudeau Clan, etc) or from Hubby to Wifey (like the Clinton Clan).

The soviet socialist leadership was strong-handed – and that’s because the country emerged from a cataclysmic WW1, then a very difficult Civil War, then was soon plunged again into WW2, and as soon as it barely emerged from WW2, the Capitalist countries announced a “Cold War” against the USSR. So, during most of its existence, the country was besieged either by Imperialists, or by genocidal Nazis, or by neo-Imperialist warmongering McCarthyites who wanted to destroy it. So the country was constantly in a state of emergency, and yet still managed to significantly improve its citizens’ social welfare.

[quote] Despots doing horrible things for the "good of the masses" and the "greater good". Except the only people who actually benefited were the despots.

Incorrect, R149. According to all polls, the majority of that population say they benefited a lot during Socialist times. The leaders weren’t total war-profiteering cunts like Bush Jr. and his old pal Biden who start transcontinental genocidal wars just for the sake of their own self-enrichment. Most leaders of the USSR led more humble lives than modern U.S. Presidents and their Wall St sponsors like war corporations Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

[quote] You're like the Nazis in Bavaria and Paraguay who still believed that Hitler had the right idea, was on the right track. If only . . .

The Nazis openly said that they took inspiration from racist, exploitative, land-stealing, resource-thieving U.S. Capitalists, pal. So Capitalists who still think they have “the right idea” need to take some time to self-reflect on that.

19th century novelists: Dostoevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, Turgenev

20th century novelists, Nabokov, Paternak, Solzhenitsyn

Film: Eisenstein

Music Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky

Ballet period

R161 Finally someone who likes Sergei Eisenstein.

Classical music (composers and performers).

Shostakovich's String Quartets

Pussy Riot

[quote] I don't remember Mao asking anyone within China's border if they were on-board with his vicious brand of totalitarian socialism.

R129, do you seriously think Mao single-handedly became the leader of a country numbering 550+ million people? That’s almost twice the size of the U.S. population, for Pete’s sake. Newsflash: Mao had huge popular support. Without popular support, the Revolution would have never succeeded.

And his “brand of socialism” was way better than the previous Capitalist Monarchist system (which weakly capitulated to European white-supremacist domination) and the “vicious” brand of ultra-nationalism of Chiang Kai-shek - whom the U.S. merrily backed in that conflict (because the U.S. loves installing puppet-regimes all across Asia).

Mao’s system was both generous in some respects and harsh in other respects. Teaching 500+ million (previously mostly illiterate) people to read and write (and providing them with basic welfare) is "vicious" in Western eyes - it was so much "kinder" when Brits et al. invaded China and treated it as its illiterate doormat. The real reason you think the reforms were “vicious” is not because of a deep contextual analysis of the region’s history and its anti-Imperialist struggle – but because China had a socialist Revolution that made the Wall St gangsters quake in their boots, sweat in their sleep and pop Xanax. That’s why they’re drumming into you the notion that socialism is “evil” – b/c the Wall St Mafia dreads the idea of workers unionising and nationalising resources that Wall St wants privatised.

Let’s be clear: there’s nothing on this planet more “totalitarian” and “authoritarian” than war. And it’s not socialist China starting inter-continental wars every few years – it’s Capitalist countries, fighting over limited resources.

[quote] Tibet, whom no one asked if they wanted to be made subservient to China.

R123, R130, Tibet became a part of China in the 1700s. Tibetan officials even possessed Chinese passports. So the Socialists aren’t the ones who started this.

Funnily, the U.S. State Dep’t was totally fine with Tibet being part of China … until the Socialist Revolution. During World War 2, the U.S. Government recognised that Tibet was part of China. In 1948, when Tibetans claimed autonomy, the U.S, State Department even accused Tibet of showing "ill-faith". But as soon as China introduced socialist reforms – Wall St-run lobbies on Capitol Hill suddenly did a 180 and claimed they supported an “independent Tibet”. Funny how that works!

And the cherry on top of the cake: “According to officially declassified CIA documents, from 1952-1958, the CIA admitted that it trained rebels, mostly from the [Tibetan] upper classes, in Colorado to "launch an effective resistance movement." The U.S. also airdropped an overwhelming number of arms, including machine-guns, bombs, grenades, and mortars during this time, most of which was stored in the biggest monasteries.”

The reality is that the State Dep't doesn't care two hecks about Tibet itself - Tibet is a theocracy where wealthy landowners owned serfs until 1949 and Dalai Lama is a charlatan who acts like the leader of Scientology. The only reason the U.S. bothers with Tibet is because it's a handy tool to use against Socialists (and we all know how much Wall Street fears socialist reforms). If China had been fully Capitalist and bowed down to U.S. hegemony - the State Dep't would immediately forget about Tibet's existence. Just like the State Dept' doesn't care that its ally, Capitalist theocracy Saudi Arabia, is b0mbing neighbouring Yemen.

R166 types Slavic with vodka breath.

R166 mostly sounds so fucking stupid and uneducated.

Lay off the Musta Makkara, R167. Eating too much blood sausage will clog your arteries.

R168, she is also all over DL defending Russia.

[quote]What was Russia's greatest contribution to mankind?

Whole raw onions as a main course.

You know how you can tell a Russian apart?

They get very, very defensive and cannot accept any criticism of their decaying shithole of a nation whatsoever.

Some literature from good writers. They did fight to the death against Hitler. But the bad outweighs the good.

R170 is all over DL pissing on Asians and Slavs.

Aren't you late for your weekly Swastika knitting circle, R170?

Faberge Eggs.

R156 You ignoramus. Russia maintained serfdom/slavery for over a THOUSAND years.

Try again, hard to do when you are defending a cesspool of corruption and depravity.

[quote] [R166] mostly sounds so fucking stupid and uneducated.

R168, well, at least that's better than sounding like a dimwit all the time (like you, dear).

If you want to "educate" me (a mixed-race Asian) about Asians and "Tibet" - go on then. I'd love to hear your brainwashed dithyrambs about the Dalai Lama (a confirmed CIA asset).

R166👍 Kudos comrade.

R177 You can go suck Putin and Xi's tiny little dicks elsewhere. You won't get very far here peddling their propaganda.

The New York Times is Chinese propaganda now? I told you to lay off that Musta Makkara - it's affecting your mental faculties in an irreparable way.

And how is your crochet Swastika coming along, R179?

CDMA... the foundation of every modern RF modulation scheme.

Had Leonid Kupriyanovich been American, he would have ended up as one of the wealthiest Silicon Valley engineers in history.

Day vear.

R166 could be Johnny Weir, but Johnny is not that articulate.

[quote]The Civil War happened because the Imperialist Capitalists were privatising all the main resources for themselves,

The Revolution happened because Vlodya saw Nicky as weak and ripe for challenge. As happens in all power challenges world-wide. Nothing to do with "capitalists", no matter how many times you repeat it.

[quote]the Imperialist Capitalists had previously murdered and pogrom-ed Jews before the Revolution

"Capitalism" had nothing to do with centuries of Russian Jew hatred. Church fomented Jew hatred did.

[quote]There was no “absolute rule”.

Of course there was. Calling someone a "general secretary" rather than a authoritarian despot doesn't change that reality.

[quote] Leadership was in the form of a Council comprised of various main ethnicities

Which rubber stamped the diktats of the authoritarian despot.

[quote]According to all polls, the majority of that population say they benefited a lot during Socialist times

Polls are notoriously subjective. Especially in societies where no one cares what the masses think. Especially in societies where offering an opinion about the ruling despot to a stranger could be hazardous to your health.

[quote]The leaders weren’t total war-profiteering cunts

Of course they were. Russian hegemony was couched in political spin such as "fraternal cooperation" and "internationalist duty". Same cunts, different spin.

R166

[quote]do you seriously think Mao single-handedly became the leader of a country numbering 550+ million people?

It doesn't take a huge army to terrorize people into submission, especially when you have the guns against an unarmed population and there's no one around stronger than you. As in, when you've got them by the balls and a gun to their heads, their hearts and minds soon follow. There was a power vacuum, Mao was the most powerful of the various power contenders. "Popular support" played no part.

[quote]The real reason you think the reforms were “vicious”

Assumption based on personal bias. Mao was a brutal, vicous despot. See the Great Leap Forward and resultant horrific famine ("When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.") See the Cultural Revolution for examples.

[quote]there’s nothing on this planet more “totalitarian” and “authoritarian” than war.

War is about power and control, and the wealth that goes with it. It's about the human condition that has seen men warring for dominion over one another since they crawled out of the slime.

[quote]So the Socialists aren’t the ones who started this.

Yes, they did. When they waltzed into Tibet without bothering to ask the Tibetan people their opinion on the matter. Neither the CIA nor the Dalai Lama are relevant.

[quote]Just like the State Dept' doesn't care that its ally, Capitalist theocracy Saudi Arabia, is b0mbing neighbouring Yemen.

Just as you don't care about the theocratic mullahs of Iran and their hegemony/proxy wars in Yemen (against the Sauds), Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

I’d say The Nutcracker. It truly is an enchanting, timeless classic, and the music is among the best ever composed.

R184/R185, oh, you’re the Capitalist Cuck who jacks off to the fantasy that a Georgian man killed ‘50 gazillion’ ‘Russkies’. How did your weekly wank go?

It was already proven that you can’t even do basic math – so quit embarrassing yourself further.

[quote] The Revolution happened because Vlodya saw Nicky as weak and ripe for challenge. As happens in all power challenges world-wide.

No, you simpleton, the Revolution happened because your precious Emperor “Nicky” (who was German/Danish-ethnic) and his Capitalist entourage exploited his subjugated population for way too long: 12-hour work days for factory workers without any access to healthcare; no access to public education for destitute landless agrarian workers; conscription of soldiers to fight in that nonsensical WW1 bloodbath; pogroms; 1905 Bloody Sunday massacre by pro-Capitalist Imperial troops of protestors asking for socialist land re-distribution; etc. The population finally had had enough and rose up against the Germanic Emperor and his German wife en masse.

But it’s funny that you assume that the Revolution happened because of 1 solo person (in a country which had over 150 million people) whom you strangely call “Vlodya” (there’s no such short name). As if 1 socialist person just woke up one day, had breakfast and decided to overthrow the Capitalist Imperial regime. If only it were that easy, pal.

[quote] Nothing to do with "capitalists", no matter how many times you repeat it.

It had everything to do with Capitalists, you dune. One (of many similar) triggers for the Revolution was the 1912 Lena Massacre: when Capitalist bosses and goons massacred workers in a gold mine. The gold mine was partly owned by British ‘investors’ and the Emperor’s Danish mother. The workers unionised and protested for better work conditions and re-distribution of resources from the mine. The super-rich Capitalist Tycoons used the military to gun down the workers. This event caused civil unrest across the country. Ulyanov took the nom de plume “Lenin” in homage to that event.

And then WW1 conscription was the final straw. Even big sections of the army & navy mutinied against the Imperialist Capitalists (who were lining their own pockets during that war). Even U.S. top-brass military major-generals said that WW1 was a racket by Capitalists who enriched themselves via selling ammunition supplies for a pointless war.

[quote] Calling someone a "general secretary" rather than a authoritarian despot doesn't change that reality. Leadership was in the form of a Council comprised of various main ethnicities. Which rubber stamped the diktats of the authoritarian despot.

He was elected as General Secretary by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU. He tried to resign from the GS position several times.

There were no “diktats” – like in any country, there were Emergency Powers because the country was in the middle of a Civil War and then in the middle of 2 World Wars and then Capitalists declared a Cold War against it. In war times and emergency situations, all countries worldwide issue Executive Orders. The Brits and the U.S. invaded the USSR in the 1920s – so the whole country was on high alert.

If you want to see what an actual “authoritarian despot” looks like, [R184]/[R185] – see U.S. fave allies like Saudi Arabia (where “despots” hand over rule only exclusively to their spawn and relatives). And if you want to see countries which vote for “authoritarian” policies despite being nominal democracies – see modern-day Is**l (its ethno-supremacist Apartheid policies were voted in).

[quote] Polls are notoriously subjective.

When all polls (both foreign pollsters and local pollsters) show similar results – then they’re objective.

[quote] Especially in societies where no one cares what the masses think.

The masses wanted universal healthcare, universal access to higher ed, provision of basic housing for the landless and homeless, nationalisation of main resource companies and re-distribution of resources. The Committee of the CPSU exactly listened to the masses and provided the reforms that the masses requested.

Providing universal healthcare & access to universities for the masses – how despotic! how authoritarian! what tyrants! Not like the “nice, freedom-loving” Imperialist Capitalists earlier who fed the masses empty babble about “freedom” without even providing basic life-essential healthcare.

[quote] Especially in societies where offering an opinion about the ruling despot to a stranger could be hazardous to your health.

Giving an “opinion” wasn’t hazardous. But undermining the emergency authorities in a country that was invaded by a superpower from another continent and besieged is often considered treason anywhere.

If e.g. Japan invades and then besieges (declares a Cold War against) Texas tomorrow – go try and give a pro-Japanese “opinion” in Dallas. The “masses” in Texas will headbutt you, throw you in jail and burn your “Jap” car faster than you can even finish declamating your “opinion”.

And we’ve all seen how McCarthyism shuts down any dissenting opinion.

[quote] The leaders weren’t total war-profiteering cunts. Of course they were.

How did they “war-profiteer”, you loon? They weren’t billionaires like the selfish Capitalist Cunts on Wall St. They were driven by socialist ideas to help society, not by money. If they had wanted money – they’d have simply kept Capitalism, privatised all the resources only for themselves and sailed off to the Caribbean on personal 500-foot yachts.

[quote] Russian hegemony was couched in political spin such as "fraternal cooperation" and "internationalist duty". Same cunts, different spin.

Lol, “Russian hegemony”? What are you smoking? The longest-running General Secretary was Georgian (Jugashvili) and his 2nd-in-command (chief of state security) was Georgian too (Beria). The previous most influential chief of state security was Genrikh Yagoda/Jehuda (Jew). The Deputy Chairman of the Council (and later Chairman of the Presidium) was Mikoyan (Armenian). The 2nd longest-running GenSec was Brezhnev (born and raised in Ukraine). Chernenko was another Ukrainian leader of the Union. After Chernenko, the next GenSec was Gorbachev (half-Ukrainian whose mother was from Chernihiv, Ukraine).

[quote] It doesn't take a huge army to terrorize people into submission, especially when you have the guns against an unarmed population and there's no one around stronger than you. As in, when you've got them by the balls and a gun to their heads, their hearts and minds soon follow.

Ha, R184/R185, you’ve just described how the vicious Capitalist Brits and other Westerners invaded China and terrorised, subjugated the Asian population while stealing Asia’s resources. And now that the Socialists instituted reforms to protect China from further Western terrorist invasions – you’re suddenly pearl-clutching about ‘Chinese people’s well-being’ and fantasising about grabbing them “by the balls” and putting “guns to their heads’. Two-faced cunts like you don’t care about Chinese people’s welfare – you’re just butthurt that they’re on course to be the biggest economy in the world (unlike Pentagon bootlickers like you).

[quote] There was a power vacuum, Mao was the most powerful of the various power contenders. "Popular support" played no part.

Go on then – present a source for your moronic claim that “popular support played no part” in one of the biggest Revolutions in history.

Even the official U.S. State Dep’t website (which is vehemently anti-China and anti-socialist) admits that “during World War II, popular support for the Communists increased. U.S. officials in China reported a dictatorial suppression of dissent in [Chiang Kai-shek’s] Nationalist-controlled areas. […] The CCP, for its part, experienced success in its early efforts at land reform and was lauded by peasants for its unflagging efforts to fight against the Japanese invaders.”

[quote] Assumption based on personal bias.

Says the person who jerks off to personal assumptive, biased fantasies about Jugashvili killing every 3rd person in the country.

[quote] Mao was a brutal, vicous despot. See the Great Leap Forward and resultant horrific famine

Even the freakin’ CIA said that the famine was triggered by regional droughts and WW2 destruction.

Mao was such a “brutal, vicious despot” that he acknowledged that policy mistakes were made during the transition to industrialisation and stepped down from his leadership position. Wow, how “despotic” of him.

As a mixed-race Asian, I find it ironic that Westerners never gave a heck about the (many, many) famines that Asia had *before* the Socialist revolution. Westerners hated the Chinese, called them the “Yellow Peril” and in the early 20th C even outlawed inter-racial marriages with Chinese men.

But when the Socialist movement began to gain momentum in Asia – the Capitalists suddenly reached for their smelling salts and starting sabre-rattling: “Omg, a famine! Those poor Asians! We need to invade them, dump Napalm b0mbs on them and save them from themselves! Better dead than Red!”.

[quote] War is about power and control, and the wealth that goes with it.

For capitalists, the only point of power is wealth, R184/185. The whole raison d'être of Capitalism as an ideology is “the accumulation of personal wealth and exclusive property – to the exclusion of everyone else / the rest of society”. Capitalism justifies people privatising almost everything as “mine, mine, mine” – that meadow or that hill as “mine, only mine!”. But resources are limited (especially with a big population) – so in Capitalist societies, only a relative few (the most cut-throat and racketeering) are landowners and Capital owners, and the rest of society has to sell themselves (their bodies’ work) to those few. E.g. the 5 largest landowners in the U.S., all white, own more rural land than all of black America combined.

Capitalism celebrates egoism and ego-centrism. That’s why Capitalist Thatcher said: “there is no such thing as society, there are only individual men and women”. Capitalists don’t want society to exist – they only want “individualist” mindless consumers and debtors. Because together society is a powerful force and can stand up to Capitalist bosses, but individually people can’t stop Capitalist Tycoons hegemony.

Capitalism promotes near-sighted, short-term “individual greed-based happiness” (for the lottery-winning few) as one’s main goal in life, even if it’s at the expense of exploiting and stealing raw materials from the many, from most of the Planet, specifically from the Global South. E.g. up to 45% of the world’s cacao farmers are children/minors (because developing countries were looted by Europeans and then turned into debtors by the Capitalist IMF which orders cutting social programs for children as a condition of the debt) – but Capitalists don’t care as long as they can get raw cacao at low ‘market’ prices and then re-sell ‘fancy’ chocolate products at higher prices, keeping the fat margin profits for themselves.

[quote] When they waltzed into Tibet without bothering to ask the Tibetan people their opinion on the matter.

Learn to follow threads, this was already covered above. China was Capitalist before 1948 and Tibet was part of China since the 1700s. Before that Tibet was ruled by the Mongols.

As for “asking the Tibetan people” – Tibet was a religious theocracy (like Saudi Arabia) and didn’t bother “asking” its people’s “opinion”– Tibet had slavery until the Socialist Revolution. Tibet only abolished slavery and started to modernise thanks to the Socialist movement.

[quote] Neither the CIA nor the Dalai Lama are relevant.

The CIA admitting they air-dropped weapons into Tibet “doesn’t matter”? Your cretinism is becoming more and more apparent. How about e.g. MI6 starts dropping weapons on the border of your country – let’s see if you think that becomes more “relevant” then, when it’s your own ass on the line.

[quote] Just like the State Dep't doesn't care that its ally, Capitalist theocracy Saudi Arabia, is b0mbing neighbouring Yemen. - - Just as you don't care about the theocratic mullahs of Iran and their hegemony/proxy wars in Yemen (against the Sauds), Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

Lol, you literally listed all the countries that Wall St Capitalists Cunts couped, invaded and destabilised. Iran got “theocratic mullahs” thanks exactly to the Capitalist assholes from the U.S. State Dep’t – they’re the ones who backed the coup in Iran. U.S. Capitalists then invaded Iraq and Pentagon goons are still occupying the whole country (even though Iraq’s Parliament asked U.S. goons to leave). And then U.S. War Corporations backed Jihadists against the secular gov’t of Syria.

They did give us Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky at least. But compared to other Euro nations, they have always been backwards in other ways. Lots of culture, but little else.

Rachmaninoff’s piano concerto #2…

Not the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, not the Katyn Massacres (which the Soviets blamed on the Nazis), not the Gulag, not the Cold War. Russia did emancipate the serfs and have made an outstanding contribution to the arts: Diaghilev, Shostakovich, Pasternak. And they did help defeat the Nazis they had enabled for years, but only after the Nazis attacked them: the initial plan was to divide up eastern Europe between the Soviets and the Nazis (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact). On balance, Russia is a burden to us all.