4 ms·

> By the time the USSR collapsed, many Soviet citizens had positive/neutral views of Western culture if not politics. It was a total soft power defeat. If by p

> By the time the USSR collapsed, many Soviet citizens had positive/neutral views of Western culture if not politics. It was a total soft power defeat. If by propaganda you mean "having a demonstrably better quality of life", then yeah, the West had a better propaganda machine which successfully persuaded many in the Soviet Union that maybe our system wasn't so bad after all. But if we take a more narrow definition of propaganda that doesn't include actually having a better lifestyle, the Soviet Union propaganda machine had a lot more work on their hands in order to persuade a substantial portion of the West that their system worked. Under that definition of propaganda I think it's no contest which propaganda machine was more effective—to this day we have people in the West who will insist to an Eastern European's face that life in the Soviet Union wasn't so bad.

pphysch 3y ago
[flagged]
- lolinder 3y ago
  Yes, it does go much deeper than that. People only let their country dissolve when it completely and utterly fails them. I'm not saying it happened because we had a slightly better GDP, I'm saying it happened because their system legitimately sucked. To try to attribute it to western propaganda does a disservice to the people who actively worked to end communism in Eastern Europe because they were tired of the abuse.
- dralley 3y ago
  > Better lifestyle for whom? Racial minorities? For-profit prison slaves? Disenfranchised migrant laborers? "Commies"? Hollywood stars? If you are under the impression that communism didn't have "prison slaves" or gross mistreatment of ethnic minorities, then it seems pretty clear that their propaganda system was at least somewhat effective.
  - khzw8yyy 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - lolinder 3y ago
      As OP says, in an attempt to be edgy you're just showing how effective Soviet propaganda was. Joseph Stalin alone signed off on multiple genocides [0]. Tatars, Cossacks, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, there were plenty of ethnic groups that the Soviets identified as the enemy and purged or deported en masse. The US is far from perfect, but the whataboutism isn't very effective when Stalin alone has a body count numbered in the millions. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_Sov...
      - ebanez 3y ago
        [flagged]
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        candiodari 3y ago
        No, it takes the example a leftist poster gave, and pointed out that while the US was racist, the Soviet state was genocidal. The question being asked was "which was worse" and for this particular example, the Soviets were A LOT worse. Whataboutism is asking "what about" and take something unrelated. This is taking the exact example given by a commie and pointing out that leftist propaganda and reality were VERY different. And here you are ... defending the propaganda, demonstrating exactly what is going wrong here. There are actually some aspects of Soviet life where Western states were on the whole worse than Soviets (e.g. pure science education, or labor participation and independence for women) by current moral standards. But not many, and frankly, mostly not for good reasons. Of course we all know that this was true in nearly all cases. Obviously some Russians (e.g. state employees) had it better than some American groups. Although even there it turned out they often preferred American lifestyles.
- favorited 3y ago
  > Better lifestyle for whom? In 1989, Boris Yeltsin literally could not believe the variety and abundance of food at an average American grocery store. https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...
  - khzw8yyy 3y ago
    Turns out there is more to a good life than having a ton of food.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      Yeah, but not starving to death by the millions in man-made famines is a pretty good start. Maslow's hierarchy and all that.
      - ebanez 3y ago
        [flagged]
        candiodari 3y ago
        Ozempic is but one of the available insulin's. Now I get that Ozempic is the best and most comfortable, but when push comes to shove, truth is, even an insulin from 50 years ago will do. Some of those cost A LOT less and will definitely work. And yes, it sucks that the most comfortable one is more expensive. But ...
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        glp1guide 3y ago
        Ah small correction here: Ozempic isn't insulin -- it's a GLP1 Receptor Agonist[0]. While the companies that make these kinds of drugs do make Insulin (for example IIRC that's now Novo Nordisk got it's start), that's not what the drugs actually are. [0]: https://glp1.guide/content/what-are-glp1-agonists https://glp1.guide/content/what-are-glp1-agonists

pphysch 3y ago

[flagged]

lolinder 3y ago
Yes, it does go much deeper than that. People only let their country dissolve when it completely and utterly fails them. I'm not saying it happened because we had a slightly better GDP, I'm saying it happened because their system legitimately sucked. To try to attribute it to western propaganda does a disservice to the people who actively worked to end communism in Eastern Europe because they were tired of the abuse.
dralley 3y ago
> Better lifestyle for whom? Racial minorities? For-profit prison slaves? Disenfranchised migrant laborers? "Commies"? Hollywood stars? If you are under the impression that communism didn't have "prison slaves" or gross mistreatment of ethnic minorities, then it seems pretty clear that their propaganda system was at least somewhat effective.
- khzw8yyy 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - lolinder 3y ago
    As OP says, in an attempt to be edgy you're just showing how effective Soviet propaganda was. Joseph Stalin alone signed off on multiple genocides [0]. Tatars, Cossacks, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, there were plenty of ethnic groups that the Soviets identified as the enemy and purged or deported en masse. The US is far from perfect, but the whataboutism isn't very effective when Stalin alone has a body count numbered in the millions. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_the_Sov...
    - ebanez 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - candiodari 3y ago
        No, it takes the example a leftist poster gave, and pointed out that while the US was racist, the Soviet state was genocidal. The question being asked was "which was worse" and for this particular example, the Soviets were A LOT worse. Whataboutism is asking "what about" and take something unrelated. This is taking the exact example given by a commie and pointing out that leftist propaganda and reality were VERY different. And here you are ... defending the propaganda, demonstrating exactly what is going wrong here. There are actually some aspects of Soviet life where Western states were on the whole worse than Soviets (e.g. pure science education, or labor participation and independence for women) by current moral standards. But not many, and frankly, mostly not for good reasons. Of course we all know that this was true in nearly all cases. Obviously some Russians (e.g. state employees) had it better than some American groups. Although even there it turned out they often preferred American lifestyles.
favorited 3y ago
> Better lifestyle for whom? In 1989, Boris Yeltsin literally could not believe the variety and abundance of food at an average American grocery store. https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...
- khzw8yyy 3y ago
  Turns out there is more to a good life than having a ton of food.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Yeah, but not starving to death by the millions in man-made famines is a pretty good start. Maslow's hierarchy and all that.
    - ebanez 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - candiodari 3y ago
        Ozempic is but one of the available insulin's. Now I get that Ozempic is the best and most comfortable, but when push comes to shove, truth is, even an insulin from 50 years ago will do. Some of those cost A LOT less and will definitely work. And yes, it sucks that the most comfortable one is more expensive. But ...
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        glp1guide 3y ago
        Ah small correction here: Ozempic isn't insulin -- it's a GLP1 Receptor Agonist[0]. While the companies that make these kinds of drugs do make Insulin (for example IIRC that's now Novo Nordisk got it's start), that's not what the drugs actually are. [0]: https://glp1.guide/content/what-are-glp1-agonists https://glp1.guide/content/what-are-glp1-agonists