Reddit front page on r/dankmemes are raping Communists

The Soviet economy (relative to the West) peaked around the late 60's, with the average citizen better off than Southern Italians but worse off than Northern. The West considered the Soviet Union a developed country (unlike say Greece, Spain, Korea, etc) but one of the poorer ones. The Soviet economy stagnated, but only really started to crack when Gorbachev tried dismantling its economy without actually replacing it. In contrast, the 90's ex-Soviet Union was heck. Crime, corruption skyrocketed as oligarchs plundered their countries. Life expectancy plummeted, with male life expectancy going from 70 to 55! I am not trying to say that the collectivized economy of the Soviet Union was better. It did have its many faults when not carefully and intelligently planned. However, the way in which the Soviet Union collapsed and a market economy was put in place was disastrous for its people. It plunged a fairly well off country (if poor by Western standards) into the pits of heck, and a far smarter, slower transition would've saved millions of lives, then and now. Overall Soviet Shock therapy was a disaster.

Places like Poland did fine because they didn't just collapse their systems. The Poles were honestly given some of the most leeway of the Warsaw Pact. Religion still played a big, independent role, and they never really collectivized like other countries. They moved towards capitalism slowly, starting in the early 80's then finishing in the mid 90's. Because of this the effects were a lot less drastic than the Soviet's, who faced not only the transition from communism to capitalism in a couple years, but also the complete political breakdown, causing countries to have to rapidly adapt with new institutions.

Outside of the Baltics, Russia has had the best recovery (in comparison to the absolute heck they went through in the 90's, where they had to build most institutions from scratch, even in comparison to other ex-SSR's), largely due to fossil fuels, but it's still far off from where they were, or would've been without the 90's. Ukraine has probably suffered the worst. The way their economy grew relied on other regions to buy their grain and support their heavy industry. When the Soviet Union collapsed they suddenly had no place, with them moving away from Russia but their goods being too low quality for the West. The other ones are just middling levels of shit. As for the Baltics, they're small (easier to fund/integrate) and were always the rich ones of the Soviet Union. Their success is due to their ability to reintegrate themselves using their small size and forward thinking.

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it is also the case for Asia. Countries like Japan, Taiwan (Free China), and South Korea both outgrew their communist neighbors.

The communist countries like Vietnam and Red China only started growing after they took measures in liberalizing their economy.

Free Asia rules!

Destroy the country? So you believe Russia or anywhere in the USSR was thriving before the Bolsheviks. !commies we've got a real history understander here

If things are so simple as letting markets run free is good and having a communist party in charge never works we would expect India to have made much more progress in the past seventy years than China...

And in anticipation of the seemingly inevitable braindead response I'm just gonna leave this here

Fallaci: To conclude this line of questioning: I can't imagine that, at the next Congress of the Communist Party of China, we will see a repeat of the events of the twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when Khrushchev denounced Stalin. Or am I mistaken?

Deng: You are not mistaken. At the Congress we will objectively evaluate the merits and the mistakes that characterized the life of Chairman Mao; we will celebrate his merits and recognize that they are of primary importance; and we will admit his mistakes, recognizing that they are of secondary importance. By making public the mistakes that Chairman Mao committed in recent years, we will adopt a realistic attitude. But we will certainly continue to follow Mao Zedong Thought — or, rather, all that which constituted the just part of his life. And, no, it is not only his portrait that remains in Tiananmen Square but also the memory of the man who brought us to victory and who, in essence, founded a country. And this is no small feat. And I'll repeat: the Communist Party of China and the people of China will always look to him like a symbol — a very precious treasure. Write this down: we will never do to Mao Zedong what Khrushchev did to Stalin at the twentieth Congress of the CPSU.

Fallaci: Important occasions or not, do you really need to keep the portrait of Stalin?

Deng: We think that Stalin's contribution to the revolution is much more important than the mistakes he made. To use the Chinese way, the score for Stalin would be thirty percent to seventy percent: thirty for his errors and seventy for his merits. Furthermore, Chairman Mao agreed with me on the question of Stalin's score, and, after the twentieth Congress of the CPSU, members of the Communist Party of China expressed a very clear judgment of Stalin. We said that we would always continue to consider his writings as classic works of the international Communist movement. You know, Stalin made mistakes even where the Chinese revolution was concerned; for example, after World War II he didn't want us to sever ties with the Kuomintang or to begin the war of liberation. But even this does not cloud our judgment of him.

Fallaci: And Khrushchev?

Deng: Khrushchev? What good has Khrushchev ever done?

Fallaci: He denounced Stalin.

Deng: And you see that as a good thing?

Fallaci: Not good — great. For God's sake, Stalin killed more people than the Cultural Revolution ever did.

Deng: I'm not at all sure of that. Not at all. And, anyway, the two things cannot be compared.

Fallaci: In short, anyway, you prefer Stalin to Khrushchev.

Deng: I just told you that the Chinese people would never do to Chairman Mao what Khrushchev did to Stalin!

Fallaci: What if I told you that in the West they call you the Chinese Khrushchev?

Deng: [He laughs.] Listen, they can call me anything they like in the West, but I know Khrushchev well; I dealt with him personally for ten years, and I can assure you that comparing me to Khrushchev is insulting.

https://redsails.org/deng-and-fallaci/

It would have taken communism 5 seconds to destroy it though...

!anticommunists right on point. All 2nd world countries that recovered from communism were conquered by outside force and not internal revolution. And a revolution never succeeded in 1st world, like Marx expected.

@Szrotmistrz !britbongs

Pierogis for all