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do you know what socialism means? also what he/she claims isn't in fact true. one of the two chains did allow normal people to shop there >One chain belonged t

do you know what socialism means? also what he/she claims isn't in fact true. one of the two chains did allow normal people to shop there >One chain belonged to the Vneshposyltorg (Foreign Mail Order Trade) and was intended for Soviet citizens who received some income in foreign currency. Some of them were forced to sell their currency for ruble-denominated Vneshposyltorg checks, while others never laid their hands on foreign currency, receiving their pay from Western sources in Vneshposyltorg checks via Soviet intermediaries (which, again, allowed the foreign currency to stay in Soviet government hands). The checks were to be used to purchase goods in the Vneshposyltorg Beriozkas. but like i said feel free to keep perpetuating these bad faith interpretations

derrick_jensen 6y ago
State owned production and distribution. The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods.
- throwlaplace 6y ago
  >The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods. wonderful! so then you must understand why these stores were orthogonal to communism right?
  - derrick_jensen 6y ago
    Google's definition of socialism "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." Private enterprise isn't the community. I'll admit that the state isn't the only way these things can organize, but it is probably the most common (excluding groups like the Mennonites)
m0zg 6y ago
I grew up in the Soviet Union though. As they say in Russia, "не учи отца ебаться". My parents have never been inside a Beriozka, nor any of my relatives. Shopping there presented an economic impossibility: you either had to have foreign currency (outright illegal for Soviet citizens, with severe punishment for possession, so that meant you'd be a foreigner) or convertible rubles ("invalutny ruble", not illegal, but impossible for a regular Ivan to acquire due to the aforementioned illegality of foreign currency). 99.999% of soviet citizens _did not_ receive income in "foreign currency", and by definition "invalutny ruble" could only be bought with foreign currency. Or just handed out to a party apparatchik through other mechanisms. Those folks weren't suffering at all, best everyone else could tell. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8E%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%BB%D1%8C https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB...
- throwlaplace 6y ago
  i grew up in the soviet union too. даже если мы согласны с тем что коммунизм не был идеальным это не значит что берёзки доказывают это. so my point still stands.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    > коммунизм не был идеальным (communism wasn't ideal) Understatement of the century, quite literally.
    - throwlaplace 6y ago
      bruh. is the RF better or worse now? how are those term limits working out for you? was the west better or worse during the years 1932-33 during the famine (the same years that the US hit peak unemployment)? were the pogroms and the gulag better or worse than jim crow and segregation and racism? was state owned means of production better or worse than the gilded age? like you're sitting here glibly dismissing something that's more nuanced than either yours or my hottake. what are you trying to accomplish? edit: also how come you translated mine but not yours? and also why didn't you translate all the way? >даже если мы согласны с тем что коммунизм не был идеальным это не значит что берёзки доказывают это translation: even if we agree that communism wasn't ideal that doesn't mean beriozkas prove it.

derrick_jensen 6y ago

State owned production and distribution. The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods.

throwlaplace 6y ago
>The things these markets sold were (most likely) not state produced or distributed, since they were Western goods. wonderful! so then you must understand why these stores were orthogonal to communism right?
- derrick_jensen 6y ago
  Google's definition of socialism "a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." Private enterprise isn't the community. I'll admit that the state isn't the only way these things can organize, but it is probably the most common (excluding groups like the Mennonites)

m0zg 6y ago

I grew up in the Soviet Union though. As they say in Russia, "не учи отца ебаться". My parents have never been inside a Beriozka, nor any of my relatives. Shopping there presented an economic impossibility: you either had to have foreign currency (outright illegal for Soviet citizens, with severe punishment for possession, so that meant you'd be a foreigner) or convertible rubles ("invalutny ruble", not illegal, but impossible for a regular Ivan to acquire due to the aforementioned illegality of foreign currency). 99.999% of soviet citizens _did not_ receive income in "foreign currency", and by definition "invalutny ruble" could only be bought with foreign currency. Or just handed out to a party apparatchik through other mechanisms. Those folks weren't suffering at all, best everyone else could tell. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8E%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%BB%D1%8C https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB...

throwlaplace 6y ago
i grew up in the soviet union too. даже если мы согласны с тем что коммунизм не был идеальным это не значит что берёзки доказывают это. so my point still stands.
- m0zg 6y ago
  > коммунизм не был идеальным (communism wasn't ideal) Understatement of the century, quite literally.
  - throwlaplace 6y ago
    bruh. is the RF better or worse now? how are those term limits working out for you? was the west better or worse during the years 1932-33 during the famine (the same years that the US hit peak unemployment)? were the pogroms and the gulag better or worse than jim crow and segregation and racism? was state owned means of production better or worse than the gilded age? like you're sitting here glibly dismissing something that's more nuanced than either yours or my hottake. what are you trying to accomplish? edit: also how come you translated mine but not yours? and also why didn't you translate all the way? >даже если мы согласны с тем что коммунизм не был идеальным это не значит что берёзки доказывают это translation: even if we agree that communism wasn't ideal that doesn't mean beriozkas prove it.