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I always will wonder if, suppose we hadn't bothered with a "cold war" and the mutual antipathy & fear, the Soviet system would be ticking along well. So, I alw

I always will wonder if, suppose we hadn't bothered with a "cold war" and the mutual antipathy & fear, the Soviet system would be ticking along well. So, I always find the bits of Soviet thought fascinating. In large part, I think it is because it is both modern and alien. A different road was taken and a different perspective was built in so many things. Even when I work with people who grew up in that world, they have a variant viewpoint versus people from other worlds. I would love to see a volume translating the key developments of Soviet computer science & programming languages. There's drabs of translated information, but not a coherent narrative & a solid compare & contrast.

euos 9y ago
Communists considered Soviet Union just a bridgehead for the World Revolution. It primary goal was to serve as a resource base for spreading the fire all over the world. I just checked and it looks like English version of “the Internationale” is mild, the Russian lyrics explicitly state “this world of oppression we’ll reduce to rubble and will use that rubble to build our new world” - and I can guarantee you, USSR was really looking forward to destroy the capitalist world. The industrial design showcased in this article is nice. But the reality was that most “nice things” were replicas, authorized or otherwise, of the things developed in the first world. I remember in 1980s looking throw the mail catalogues people brought from abroad and being amazed on how many nice things there were in the world. Obviously, I was mostly interested in the toys section back then - but those toys were decades ahead of what we had in USSR.
- _nalply 9y ago
  Who knows perhaps they will succeed after all? But not a tiniest bit in the way the communists envisioned! Inequality will be stopped from growing indefinitively because somewhere must be a limit. What if the one percent owning ninety nine percent of global wealth is not enough for them? When will the rest of the world stop being sheeple and how will they change this? I hope in a peaceful way. Communism is dead. It's a stillborn ideology. I experienced Communism during a trip to the German Democratic Republic 1986. I found it dodgy and full of internal inconsistency. However the problems Communism tried to solve are real and as of today even more pressing than ever.
  - Viller239 9y ago
    >However the problems Communism tried to solve are real and as of today even more pressing than ever. How are they more pressing than ever? Are communities in more dire situation than let's say after or during first world war?
    - mantas 9y ago
      Thanks to computing, companies are getting more and more centralized into fewer hands. Automatisation introduces new challenges as well.
  - v_lisivka 9y ago
    Yeah, today it's hard to kill every person with signs of intellect as in Cambodia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Crimes_against_humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Crimes_against_hum...
    - MsMowz 9y ago
      The US-backed Khmer Rouge was propped up to defeat the communist movement in Cambodia. They certainly weren't communists by any post-1848 definition.
      - v_lisivka 9y ago
        Why they was in war against US forces then?
        MsMowz 9y ago
        Which war? The US backed them in the civil war.
        v_lisivka 9y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Foreign_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Foreign_involvemen...
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  When the Soviet Union was formed Russia was a pre-industrial feudal monarchy. It recapitulated roughly two hundred years of Western industrial development in less than fifty, mostly under the leadership of a murderous quasi-feudal dictator who purged all the brightest and most interesting people. And it still survived WWII to become a competitive space-faring superpower. I don’t particularly like Russia, but I think it’s wise not to underestimate what the country is capable of. Also applies to China, even more so.
  - mantas 9y ago
    Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy. USSR failed badly once it was time to go forward. Especially on electronics and computers. We shouldn't underestimate what focused dictatorships are capable of. They're bloody effective.
    - realusername 9y ago
      > Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy That's easy to say now but no other country achieved that at that time. Especially not in a such a short time, it was an impressive feat.
      - mantas 9y ago
        Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK. And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based. But they had quite a few smart people. The only lacking thing was push from the government to industrialize. Let alone they were far from catching up with the West by the time WW2 started or at any other point in their history. It’s impressive in the same way that holocaust is impressive.
        realusername 9y ago
        > And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based That's quite an understatement, the Russian empire did not do any industrial revolution at all, it was a mostly undeveloped agricultural wasteland. > Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK. But none of them succeeded to the extent of the Soviet Union at that time. One of the main argument of the communists at that time was actually to point out the failures of capitalism in Asia as why capitalism would never work. At that time the industrialisation receipe did not work for a lot of countries and plenty of people believed the industrialisation of the West could not be reproduced, and especially not with capitalism. Everything is obvious in hindsight, it's how history work, you would create your own country now, it would not take that much time to industrialise it with modern techniques. The Soviets managed to take one of the least developed agricultural country of Europe (comparatively worse that current African countries) and transform it into a global superpower while other countries failed to even industrialise, this isn't a small feat at all.
- dghf 9y ago
  > Communists considered Soviet Union just a bridgehead for the World Revolution. Communists in general may have, but did the Soviets? I thought Stalin's stance was socialism in one country, leading (at least in part) to the breach with Trotsky. And he deliberately crushed the incipient workers' revolution in republican Spain during the civil war.
- pnathan 9y ago
  Yes, marxism-leninism definitely sought to build a new world on the rubble of capitalism, with the Soviet Union the starting point prior to the socialist paradise. Please, I'm not that naive. However, modifications to core ideologies are possible, and reform is possible. E.g., the USA started by defining its voting citizens as "property owning white male". Today we have altered that. So I rather wonder what would have happened if the ideology had been dialectically altered to form a new synthesis of post-Marxism-Leninism with a non-aggressive goal. But that's a long-past alternate time, and what was, was.
mantas 9y ago
And if Soviets hadn't occupied a bunch of countries and oppressed their citizens. If there was no fear internally and massive surveillance. I'm super happy USSR went down and we have our own tiny state where we can choose whatever system we want.
- AsyncAwait 9y ago
  > we have our own tiny state where we can choose whatever system we want Agreed, surveillance, oppression are all terrible, but I highly doubt you can really choose any system you may want now, (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man).
  - mantas 9y ago
    There's always play under the table. But democratic election where I can oversee voting, join one of many (or start a new one) political party or even go for office myself is infinitely more free than in Soviet system. Completely overhaul is probably not possible, because there would be a lot of people opposing it and simple majority is not enough to implement it. But significant adjustments are happening all the time. Point in case - France and Macron's reforms.
    - AsyncAwait 9y ago
      > Completely overhaul is probably not possible Not complete, just a minor improvement that benefits your country is enough to put a quick stop to it, see Iran in the 50s for a good example of this.

euos 9y ago

Communists considered Soviet Union just a bridgehead for the World Revolution. It primary goal was to serve as a resource base for spreading the fire all over the world. I just checked and it looks like English version of “the Internationale” is mild, the Russian lyrics explicitly state “this world of oppression we’ll reduce to rubble and will use that rubble to build our new world” - and I can guarantee you, USSR was really looking forward to destroy the capitalist world. The industrial design showcased in this article is nice. But the reality was that most “nice things” were replicas, authorized or otherwise, of the things developed in the first world. I remember in 1980s looking throw the mail catalogues people brought from abroad and being amazed on how many nice things there were in the world. Obviously, I was mostly interested in the toys section back then - but those toys were decades ahead of what we had in USSR.

_nalply 9y ago
Who knows perhaps they will succeed after all? But not a tiniest bit in the way the communists envisioned! Inequality will be stopped from growing indefinitively because somewhere must be a limit. What if the one percent owning ninety nine percent of global wealth is not enough for them? When will the rest of the world stop being sheeple and how will they change this? I hope in a peaceful way. Communism is dead. It's a stillborn ideology. I experienced Communism during a trip to the German Democratic Republic 1986. I found it dodgy and full of internal inconsistency. However the problems Communism tried to solve are real and as of today even more pressing than ever.
- Viller239 9y ago
  >However the problems Communism tried to solve are real and as of today even more pressing than ever. How are they more pressing than ever? Are communities in more dire situation than let's say after or during first world war?
  - mantas 9y ago
    Thanks to computing, companies are getting more and more centralized into fewer hands. Automatisation introduces new challenges as well.
- v_lisivka 9y ago
  Yeah, today it's hard to kill every person with signs of intellect as in Cambodia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Crimes_against_humanity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Crimes_against_hum...
  - MsMowz 9y ago
    The US-backed Khmer Rouge was propped up to defeat the communist movement in Cambodia. They certainly weren't communists by any post-1848 definition.
    - v_lisivka 9y ago
      Why they was in war against US forces then?
      - MsMowz 9y ago
        Which war? The US backed them in the civil war.
        v_lisivka 9y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Foreign_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Foreign_involvemen...
TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
When the Soviet Union was formed Russia was a pre-industrial feudal monarchy. It recapitulated roughly two hundred years of Western industrial development in less than fifty, mostly under the leadership of a murderous quasi-feudal dictator who purged all the brightest and most interesting people. And it still survived WWII to become a competitive space-faring superpower. I don’t particularly like Russia, but I think it’s wise not to underestimate what the country is capable of. Also applies to China, even more so.
- mantas 9y ago
  Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy. USSR failed badly once it was time to go forward. Especially on electronics and computers. We shouldn't underestimate what focused dictatorships are capable of. They're bloody effective.
  - realusername 9y ago
    > Catching up is kinda easy when you can just copy That's easy to say now but no other country achieved that at that time. Especially not in a such a short time, it was an impressive feat.
    - mantas 9y ago
      Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK. And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based. But they had quite a few smart people. The only lacking thing was push from the government to industrialize. Let alone they were far from catching up with the West by the time WW2 started or at any other point in their history. It’s impressive in the same way that holocaust is impressive.
      - realusername 9y ago
        > And Russian empire was not that much backwards. Their economy was agriculture-based That's quite an understatement, the Russian empire did not do any industrial revolution at all, it was a mostly undeveloped agricultural wasteland. > Plenty of countries had to catch up with the UK. But none of them succeeded to the extent of the Soviet Union at that time. One of the main argument of the communists at that time was actually to point out the failures of capitalism in Asia as why capitalism would never work. At that time the industrialisation receipe did not work for a lot of countries and plenty of people believed the industrialisation of the West could not be reproduced, and especially not with capitalism. Everything is obvious in hindsight, it's how history work, you would create your own country now, it would not take that much time to industrialise it with modern techniques. The Soviets managed to take one of the least developed agricultural country of Europe (comparatively worse that current African countries) and transform it into a global superpower while other countries failed to even industrialise, this isn't a small feat at all.
dghf 9y ago
> Communists considered Soviet Union just a bridgehead for the World Revolution. Communists in general may have, but did the Soviets? I thought Stalin's stance was socialism in one country, leading (at least in part) to the breach with Trotsky. And he deliberately crushed the incipient workers' revolution in republican Spain during the civil war.
pnathan 9y ago
Yes, marxism-leninism definitely sought to build a new world on the rubble of capitalism, with the Soviet Union the starting point prior to the socialist paradise. Please, I'm not that naive. However, modifications to core ideologies are possible, and reform is possible. E.g., the USA started by defining its voting citizens as "property owning white male". Today we have altered that. So I rather wonder what would have happened if the ideology had been dialectically altered to form a new synthesis of post-Marxism-Leninism with a non-aggressive goal. But that's a long-past alternate time, and what was, was.

mantas 9y ago

And if Soviets hadn't occupied a bunch of countries and oppressed their citizens. If there was no fear internally and massive surveillance. I'm super happy USSR went down and we have our own tiny state where we can choose whatever system we want.

AsyncAwait 9y ago
> we have our own tiny state where we can choose whatever system we want Agreed, surveillance, oppression are all terrible, but I highly doubt you can really choose any system you may want now, (see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man).
- mantas 9y ago
  There's always play under the table. But democratic election where I can oversee voting, join one of many (or start a new one) political party or even go for office myself is infinitely more free than in Soviet system. Completely overhaul is probably not possible, because there would be a lot of people opposing it and simple majority is not enough to implement it. But significant adjustments are happening all the time. Point in case - France and Macron's reforms.
  - AsyncAwait 9y ago
    > Completely overhaul is probably not possible Not complete, just a minor improvement that benefits your country is enough to put a quick stop to it, see Iran in the 50s for a good example of this.