Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[Estreeter]

You may try and try and try but will never convince me

Originally Posted by xyzde69

Communism/Socialism improved our lifes.
Honestly we have to thank our Proudhonist, the Marxist, the Socialist and the Communist ancesters, without them, there would be no social security.
Don't you see that too many greedy Capitalists leaders and shareholders want to make you a working poor?

I'll tell ya what
Get your car, your computer, your LCD TV, your smart phone, your energy efficient appliances.... throw em' all away, take your money out of the bank and just keep it under a pillow

Just about every product there is has gotten better, new development in technologies as a result of greedy companies with wanting profits and better yet providing competition among each other with better products.

Go on, throw away all your possessions that are a direct result of Capitalism

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

You may try and try and try but will never convince me



I'll tell ya what
Get your car, your computer, your LCD TV, your smart phone, your energy efficient appliances.... throw em' all away, take your money out of the bank and just keep it under a pillow

Just about every product there is has gotten better, now development in technologies as a result of greedy companies with wanting profits and better yet providing competition among each other with better products.

Go on, throw away all your possessions that are a direct result of Capitalism

I don't try. I only tell you the truth.

Believe me... I don't get any car, any LCD TV, I only have an offered smartphone with a prepaid card (I pay about 10$ of phone bill per year), a lot of second hand books...
On the last 15 years, I worked about 70 days per year.
I didn't know what to do with my money. (I earned very well my life during 5 years), so I deceided to be free as much as possible.
My friends call me "the monk".
Ok... a real monk would not chat with an Australian guy on his 500$ computer...
Nobody is perfect.

But I'm not socially assisted. I insist. I'm not a parasite like the shareholders.
Like wrote MaxJoker on this topic... consumerism is bad... very bad.

[deepsepia]

Slightly related topic:

Did socialist countries -- USSR, China, etc -- have porn?

. . . because I need me my "opiate of the lasses".

[Dr Pepper]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Slightly related topic:

Did socialist countries -- USSR, China, etc -- have porn?

. . . because I need me my "opiate of the lasses".

I'd say-providing you were high enough up the food chain.....then certainly...

[bowlinggreen]

Well, the Soviet government apparently had a large collection of stuff they labelled "pornography", which some of the Party bosses enjoyed browsing:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ret-collection

I suspect porn was rather thin on the ground for the masses. If you got caught selling such things, you probably got a trip to the gulag.

I also suppose some was smuggled in from the west, here and there. Ask Palo5 if he ever saw any illicit copies of Playboy when he was a younger man. I bet such things were available for viewing on military bases, if you knew who to ask.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

Well, the Soviet government apparently had a large collection of stuff they labelled "pornography", which some of the Party bosses enjoyed browsing:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ret-collection

I suspect porn was rather thin on the ground for the masses. If you got caught selling such things, you probably got a trip to the gulag.

I also suppose some was smuggled in from the west, here and there. Ask Palo5 if he ever saw any illicit copies of Playboy when he was a younger man. I bet such things were available for viewing on military bases, if you knew who to ask.

The Guardian article is fascinating reading, thanks.

But as near as I can make out, everything that’s in that collection is either foreign or pre-revolution.

Can it possibly be that for 70years there was no domestic production of new material? What did your average Ivan get off to? He certainly wasn’t getting into aristocrats stashes in Kremlin secret libraries . . .

[Nobody1]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

What did your average Ivan get off to? He certainly wasn’t getting into aristocrats stashes in Kremlin secret libraries . . .

I know, it just sounds incredible for lonely singles in the information age. But I heard some had proper sex. With actual females!

Imagine that!

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Nobody1

I know, it just sounds incredible for lonely singles in the information age. But I heard some had proper sex. With actual females!

Imagine that!

Seriously though-- there has got to have been bootleg material, no?

The Comrades were ingenious about duplicating records -- made them on used xray film, the so called "ribs" or "рёбра"

Wasn't there some skeezy Ruthenian with dirty pictures of hot Natashas printed after hours in a Komsomol darkroom? I'd like to think so . . . the only porn I've seen set in Soviet era is some scary brutal BDSM material from Czech or Hungarian producers, Lupus and Rigid East, but obviously that's contemporary stuff, its just set forty years ago.

[Roubignol]

Hi, I just listened to a French economist who told that the First constitution of the USSR was a fair constitution for the population

Here is the first chapter:


1936 CONSTITUTION OF THE USSR
Adopted December 1936



CHAPTER I
Hammer & Sickle
THE ORGANIZATION OF SOVIET SOCIETY

ARTICLE 1. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a socialist state of workers and peasants.

ARTICLE 2. The Soviets of Working People's Deputies, which grew and attained strength as a result of the overthrow of the landlords and capitalists and the achievement of the dictatorship of the proletariat, constitute the political foundation of the U.S.S.R.

ARTICLE 3. In the U.S.S.R. all power belongs to the working people of town and country as represented by the Soviets of Working People's Deputies.

ARTICLE 4. The socialist system of economy and the socialist ownership of the means and instruments of production firmly established as a result of the abolition of the capitalist system of economy, the abrogation of private ownership of the means and instruments of production and the abolition of the exploitation of man by man, constitute' the economic foundation of the U.S.S.R.

ARTICLE 5. Socialist property in the U.S.S.R. exists either in the form of state property (the possession of the whole people), or in the form of cooperative and collective-farm property (property of a collective farm or property of a cooperative association).

ARTICLE 6. The land, its natural deposits, waters, forests, mills, factories, mines, rail, water and air transport, banks, post, telegraph and telephones, large state-organized agricultural enterprises (state farms, machine and tractor stations and the like) as well as municipal enterprises and the bulk of the dwelling houses in the cities and industrial localities, are state property, that is, belong to the whole people.

ARTICLE 7. Public enterprises in collective farms and cooperative organizations, with their livestock and implements, the products of the collective farms and cooperative organizations, as well as their common buildings, constitute the common socialist property of the collective farms and cooperative organizations. In addition to its basic income from the public collective-farm enterprise, every household in a collective farm has for its personal use a small plot of land attached to the dwelling and, as its personal property, a subsidiary establishment on the plot, a dwelling house, livestock, poultry and minor agricultural implements in accordance with the statutes of the agricultural artel.

ARTICLE 8. The land occupied by collective farms is secured to them for their use free of charge and for an unlimited time, that is, in perpetuity.

ARTICLE 9. Alongside the socialist system of economy, which is the predominant form of economy in the U.S.S.R., the law permits the small private economy of individual peasants and handicraftsman based on their personal labor and precluding the exploitation of the labor of others.

ARTICLE 10. The right of citizens to personal ownership of their incomes from work and of their savings, of their dwelling houses and subsidiary household economy, their household furniture and utensils and articles of personal use and convenience, as well as the right of inheritance of personal property of citizens, is protected by law.

ARTICLE 11. The economic life of the U.S.S.R. is determined and directed by the state national economic plan with the aim of increasing the public wealth, of steadily improving the material conditions of the working people and raising their cultural level, of consolidating the independence of the U.S.S.R. and strengthening its defensive capacity.

ARTICLE 12. In the U.S.S.R. work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: "He who does not work, neither shall he eat."
The principle applied in the U.S.S.R. is that of socialism: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."


According to you. What is wrong with this Constitution?
To give you my point of view... it seems to be more than fair.

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by xyzde69

According to you. What is wrong with this Constitution?
To give you my point of view... it seems to be more than fair.

The Soviet Constitution is a major reason why I am so alarmed by what is happening in the United States. What good did that Constitution do the Soviet people under Stalin?

You noted the lack of care provided by the U.S. government to its citizens. It is true. The United States is the world's only industrial power and only democratic government that makes no statement guaranteeing food security, housing, health care, disability insurance, or pensions for elderly workers. We do have Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, but the courts have rendered them meaningless in the past and recent rulings have resumed that erosion. The country at one time was so large and government so small as to guarantee a laissez faire arrangement. But since World War II the government has grown enormously, and since 9/11/2001 technology and legislation have combined to increasingly place the citizens under surveillance and erode our traditional freedoms.

We have the worst of all possible situations in the United States. What little safety net was put in place by the FDR Administration and in subsequent years is being taken away at the same time increasing measures are being implemented to restrict and control us. We are very soon to be required to have internal passports for identification and domestic travel. The "Land of the free and the home of the brave" is nothing but a line in a song anymore.