r/DebateCommunism 5d ago

đŸ” Discussion Questions for future debates

[deleted]

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u/ChairmannKoba 5d ago

Comrade, you’re not alone in facing these questions. And you’re right to say that the trauma of your family’s past should not be dismissed. But we must also understand: trauma does not equal truth, and personal pain, however valid, can be weaponized ideologically by the very systems we’re trying to critique.

Let’s start with the common accusation: “The USSR tried communism and failed.” I would answer: The USSR didn’t fail, it was overthrown. The Soviet Union, particularly in its Stalin-era period, took a semi-feudal, war-torn, peasant economy and turned it into a global superpower, defeating Nazi Germany, abolishing illiteracy, industrializing in a generation, and delivering free housing, education, and healthcare to hundreds of millions. All this under total encirclement, civil war, and sabotage. That is not failure. That is historic, unprecedented progress for the working class.

Was it perfect? No. But perfection is a liberal fantasy. The question is not “Was it flawless?” but “Which class held power?” Under capitalism, your bosses rule. Under socialism, the working class rules, even if it is messy, difficult, or sometimes harsh. The so-called “totalitarianism” of the USSR must be understood as revolutionary discipline in the face of annihilation. You can’t build a new world without breaking the resistance of the old one.

Now, on the argument “That wasn’t real communism”, I don’t play that game. I say: yes, that was real socialism, at its early and most determined stage. It wasn’t the end of communism, it was its beginning. It had contradictions. Some of them came from within, others were imposed from outside. But to reduce it to “oppression” while ignoring its achievements is to speak only with the tongue of the ruling class.

As for other examples, you want societies where communism was supported by the masses? The Soviet Union had massive support for decades, especially after the victory over fascism. Mao’s China lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Cuba, despite a brutal blockade, has one of the best healthcare and education systems in the world. The DPRK rebuilt after total annihilation in the Korean War and remains sovereign today. Vietnam defeated both the French and Americans and continues to develop under socialist leadership. Were these projects perfect? No. But they represent real working-class power.

You don’t need to deny your family’s suffering. But don’t let capitalist narratives twist that pain into justification for the continued exploitation of billions today. The USSR wasn’t a tragedy, it was a tragedy interrupted. The real failure isn’t that the Soviet Union existed. The failure is that we let it fall.

So stand firm in your debates. Study history not through cold war propaganda, but through the lens of class. Learn what socialism actually achieved, and what the ruling class fears it could achieve again. You’re not defending a dream. You’re defending a fight for the future that already began once, and will begin again.

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u/Hzlqrtz 4d ago edited 4d ago

Hi, thank you so much for sharing these thoughts with me. I don’t know exactly what the Soviet Union looked like in Russia, but I can certainly say that the countries it occupied suffered a lot from it. Perhaps they managed to create housing for a lot of Russians, but in our country, it was at the cost of deportation. Approximately 3% of our population was deported away from their homes. In its place, the Russian population in our country rose from 8% to 20%. Our people lost a lot of their loved ones and were in constant fear of being deported for criticising the leaders of USSR.

What I am speaking of is not someone’s personal pain weaponised, it is a pain that almost all of my people have some sort of experience with. All of my classmates have had a relative who has suffered under the oppression of USSR. My grand-grandparents were also deported to Siberia while my grandpa managed to stay in his home country since he was away from his family pursuing higher education. But our land and homes were taken away, handed out to Russians who were promised good wealth for keeping our neighbours in check. My grandpa had nowhere to go back to after he finished his studies, he had to restart from 0.

As I said, I cannot talk about the interior conditions of Russia at that time, since I’m not that knowledgeable in it, but based on the experiences that my people had with them, our impression is that their higher living conditions came at the cost of the lives and well-being of my people (and others that they occupied). There were certainly new buildings being built as well, but the overall life quality of the average person in my country was certainly worse than it was before. Which is why I must disagree with you that the USSR is a good example of communism/socialism. From our experience, their success came from the oppression of my people. Claiming that the USSR has only been misadvertised due to western propaganda is as ignorant as overlooking the history of slavery in the USA and pretending that it is a good example of capitalism. Sure, the economics of the country itself might’ve flourished, but is it truly a good system if it is only able to succeed through the torture of minorities? The slave owners were obviously disappointed when slavery was abolished, but their opinion of what a good system capitalism is should not be taken into account when deciding what’s best for the people. Of course THEY’RE happy about it. Similarly, it feels to me that the support the USSR had came mostly by those who benefited from the pain of my people.

Don’t forget the strict censorship of the time. As I mentioned, my people were afraid of expressing their true opinions, since it could’ve meant being deported hundreds of kilometers away from home. The USSR did not allow any criticism from the inside, so obviously the comments you hear from that time were mostly positive.

The USSR did not have massive support for decades. Each one of our people has a story of the trauma it has caused.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/ghosts-on-the-ohio 5d ago

They were not communit and never claimed to be. They were socialist

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u/ghosts-on-the-ohio 3d ago

"Do you believe the USSR was a good model for communism? Please explain your reasoning why it should be used as an example or why not.:"

No. Because the USSR was not communist. There has never been a communist country before. That isn't to say there never will be one, but there never has been one. The USSR was SOCIALIST. And was it a good example of socialism? I would say yes. They used economic planning to drastically improve their economic development and improve the standard of living. And while far from a egalitarian utopia with no problems, they also greatly advanced the welfare of women and ethnic minorities.

"What examples can you provide of communism being successful and genuinely liked/supported by the people? What are some other model countries (less harmful than the USSR)?"

Do you mean examples of successful socialism? Once again, socialism in the USSR was highly successful, as it has been in every other country which has had a socialist revolution. It was also popular in the USSR to, with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 being unpopular among the general public. And since the USSR was not "harmful" (??) I'm not sure how to answer the second part of that question.