• Antiproton
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    3 hours ago

    The Soviet Union was, if not a traditional dictatorship, absolutely a totalitarian autocracy. Stalin was a brutal dictator and his successors were chosen by the communist party. Elections in the USSR were for show.

    Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people. The USSR’s implementation of communism was so bad, it’s become cliche.

    • vfreire85@lemmy.ml
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      3 hours ago

      “Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people”, said the romanovs.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      3 hours ago

      Allow me to repeat myself:

      The Soviet Union wasn’t a dictatorship. Read Soviet Democracy. It lasted as long as it did because it had tremendous GDP growth while lowering wealth disparity, free and high quality education and healthcare, doubled health expectancies, full employment, and over tripled literacy rates to 99.9%.

      Read Blackshirts and Reds.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          3 minutes ago

          Yep. Democracy doesn’t mean “choose between parties,” it’s about the actual impact you can have on policy. More people in China feel that they have a voice in politics than people in the US, despite the US having 2 parties.

    • MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml
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      3 hours ago

      The USSR’s implementation of communism was so bad, it’s become cliche.

      So bad that after the fall of the Soviet Union, its former republics all had an immediate, sustained downturn in their quality of life, and a corresponding uptick in mortality.