Grab Atlas VPN for just $1.83/mo + 3 months extra before the BIG DEAL deal expires: get.atlasvpn.com/Hakim Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/ComradeHakim Twitter: @YaBoiHakim Apologies for the voice, I was sick when recording. Source: Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Keeran and Kenny
Hey Hakim, please make a video about China's policies and how it effects it's citizens plus some details around the Uygers muslims that are imprisoned.
Marx predicted the fall of the USSR as the first step in th nation's path to socialism, Bolsheviks only replaced one fascist monarch with another fascist monarch, now they are in their capitalist stage, hopefully socialism can someday come
How come your videos never explain why the USSR fell? You debunked the 6 common narratives of why it fell but don't offer any concrete explanation as to why the soviet union disappeared. Debunking the common reasons will not change history. The Soviet Union is gone. It collapsed and is no more. Real explanations are needed as it remains a mystery. Maybe the USSR fell because of the triumph of counter revolutionary forces. There will always be people who oppose socialism and seek to overthrow it by a million cuts. Every item sold on the black market was a slap to the face of Lenin / Stalin / Marx. In early soviet history counter revolutionaries were brutally repressed, thrown in prison, starved, or simply executed. The USSR failed because it tried to be nice. They stopped throwing black market traitors in prison and executing them. Instead they let the market traitors multiply like cockroaches. Maintaining socialism requires the most brutal oppression imaginable to keep people in line. Maybe this boils down to the human nature argument. Socialists want to create a benevolent society but the very act of implementing that benevolence is what undermines socialism and destroys it. People when left to their own devices will create markets. They will trade items with each other. Left unopposed it will lead to the rise of petty bourgeoisie and increasing temptation will enter the hearts of the people. The reasons for the soviet union disappearing come into focus when viewed in this angle. As soon as the soviets stopped chanting "Death to the Kulaks" it all fell apart. Basically you can't have socialism and benevolence at the same time. The philosophies are incompatible. Socialism can only be maintained through cold and cruel logic implemented with the heavy handedness of a tyrant. The reforms of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev were all rooted in a desire to create benevolent society. Glasnost and Perestroika undermined the soviet union immensely and paved the way for its ultimate dissolution. When you say the Soviet union "committed suicide" you are very correct. They did because they choose the path of benevolence. Socialism can only be maintained via tyranny. If you abandon tyranny then socialism will fall. The best outcome a socialist can hope for is something along the lines of North Korea where the leaders put aside their egos and rule within reason and logic.
@@adamthethird4753 I don’t think Amazon needs more money, but I agree on a list being needed. Gotta grab it up from Internet Archive before that all goes to shit
Greeting from brazil! yesterday i had an essay about the use of midia as a weapon of war and used your video "You've never had an original thought" and got the best grade on the class and especially my teacher loved my presentation just wanted to say thank you hakim! you provide such usefull information where you wouldnt find online via normal sources
Hakim is definetly sick. The fall was because USSR was too idealistic and soft. The people who wanted to rip it apart were prepared to spill blood wqithout question, specially different nationalists. But those who stood for USSR would try use legal means until the very end. Yazov should have acted sooner and use guns and not batons, those that joined the SS should have met their end labouring in the harshest of places.
@@ivanmonahhov2314 Yep, the same applies to climate action as well. Screw diplomacy and peace, we've been doing that for decades and no-one will listen. It is beyond time for violence to become justified in saving the world's population from a burning planet and/or from a technocratic dystopia ruled by less than 1% of the population.
@@Planet.Xplor3r the problem is that most environmentalists are completely scientifically illiterate and demand non-solutions. See Germany's energy policy, see the global discourse on GMOs and organic food...
@@ivanmonahhov2314 i fully disagree with your notion that this was the chief cause of the USSR’s dissolution, but fully agree on the rest. The fact that existing socialist states are often decried as lawless despotates by liberals is nothing but orwellian irony, seeing as how it was precisely the socialist reliance on legal and administrative means to fight clandestine counterrevolution was the chief weakness that eventually made us lose this struggle. And it’s also no wonder that modern socialist and non-marxist anti imperialist states only survive because they have learned from this and spare no expense at rooting betrayal out with ruthlessness and efficiency that’d make the KGB blush.
History has proven to have crappy apocalypse plots where no one listen to intellects who warned and thus a fall occured. Thats how powerful empires have fell and u.s is next same with france and u.k
No there where not. The Soviet Union was a fear-based society once you took away the fear the whole thing just collapsed. When people started fleeing Eastern Europe because the border guards were not shooting anymore that was the end. Soviet Union was a nightmare and leftist refuse to accept that.
Hakim, you don’t imagine how difficult and even painful to start watch this video. USSR is my motherland, not Russia. This tragedy hurts me every day. They stole our past, present and future.
Are you referring to the fall of the USSR or the USSR itself? I'll absolutely agree with you on the former, whole family fled from the HPR to escape starvation and the bandit gangs.
@@jakekaywell5972 I am talking about the fall of USSR, USSR itself was a fcking paradise compared to what came next. And yes, there were some really fcked up things in early time of establishing USSR, the same way it happened after its fall.
@@sacrificed9116Of course more died since it colonialism went for much longer than communism. If you gave communism the same lifetime as colonialism, then communism would have killed fat more than colonialism.
@@Th69571 Most of the death caused by communism are uncorroborated, and outright stupid. People also count the death caused by US intervention in socialists countries as deaths caused by communism which is insane. The truth almost all post-modern wars can be traced to have capitalistic intentions, thus they can be attributed to capitalisms. An economic system that favors the post-scarcity of minority class, rather than the exploitative practices of a minority class is always will cause less deaths in totality.
I know you need to have ads and I'm not making a "oH yOuR a CoMmUnIsT yEt yOu MoNeTiZe" comment but it's still funny to me because of how your voice changes to friendly and almost playful when you plug products and services and then immediately changes back to your real voice which is much more stern and serious.
Thank you very much, Hakim! By the way, the opinion of one of the modern Russian Marxists is as follows: "In a broad sense, the Soviet Union did not survive the consequences of World War II. In four years, 27 million people died. Therefore, specific tasks have come to the fore so that the country gets out, firstly, from the economic hole, and, secondly, from the demographic hole. In such a situation, it was difficult to talk about building communism. People who could have been engaged in building communism in the USSR, including the most educated Marxists, died (the largest number of volunteers was among the communists). There was not only a demographic and economic hole, but also a monstrous theoretical failure, because Marxist-Leninist theoreticians at a particular moment in time became not as needed as specialists with a technical education. The slow degradation of communism back into capitalism began. In 1965, the concept of “profitability” was introduced, that is, the capitalist commodity economy returned. Under communism, there can be no commodities. Profitability signifies the emergence of a commodity economy; the law of value comes into operation. Consequently, labor with surplus value appeared." (Klim Zhukov) Unfortunately, leftists from different countries do not cooperate enough with each other. It would be important for me to promote not specific Russian Marxist historians (Klim Zhukov, Yegor Yakovlev) or economists (Oleg Komolov), but the very idea of cooperation. Perhaps the opinion of such scholars and scientists will be interesting not so much in Europe or America, but in Asia and Africa.
I wouldn't call Zhukov or Yakovlev marxists except on the surface level. Komolov is also not a marxist economist. Also, while Kosygin's reforms were step back to capitalism, they didn't turn socialist production into a commodity one. That is a huge misunderstanding of what commodity production is.
The problem was the Cold War. USSR should not have fell for the USA (world Capitalists) trap. After WW2 they were still allies, but there were warmongers in both countries. USSR should have not antagonized the USA. They should have been happy to play second fiddle to "world police" and let USA spend itself dry, in manpower, economics and politics. USSR should have focused on making its economy and people thrive. With an image of excellence, other countries would want to leave Capitalism for Communism on their own, instead of wars and supporting revolutions.
Honestly unfair of people to attribute to Gorbachev what were ultimately unavoidable circumstances. Consecutive poor seasons for rainfall leading to sustained shortages in most of the nut harvests over his duration as Secretary - it can hardly be surprising the census whether to ultimately dissolve the Union came back so poorly in Deez, Sücma and even most urban areas of Ligma
My family grew up in Sücma, Kazakhstan. We got hit with the worst of it. Ligma, Russia and Deez, Georgia got off fairly good compared to us. But at least none of us were Americans in Holden during the presidency of Mydikhurtz.
I have been looking everywhere for a physical copy of "Worker's participation in the soviet union" but i cant find it anywhere. im sure theres a pdf version for free but i like me some physical copies. Anyways great video as always. love how you go point by point and adding nuance to a very complex question. people who try to blame the collapse of the soviet union on one thing are, in my experience not people who look at history through materialist lenses.
Turning pdfs into voice audio is my way to go. I've done enough grinding to find phisical copy of all those books that no company wants to re-publish anymore. It sucks as I really intended to turn them into study material. Thinking of acquiring an ebook that isn't Kindle-dependant, just for pdfs. That comes to show how the NATO version of history has become the absolute white civilization hégemon: there's not even that much demand. The wide majority of the left in capitalist countries is way more interested into reformism, no matter how futile it results once and again.
You could read Bolsheviks and Worker Control, which is very well researched and has receipts. Only downside is that you will immediately realize that Lenin and the Soviet union did not produce a single iota of communism.
Was expecting the counterrevolution section to begin with Khrushchev not Gorby lol. The USSR was already on a long counterrevolutionary road by the time Gorby came around.
Yes it did start with Krushchev. One factor that was discussed when my party had a class on this was leaders like him were able to come to power because so many of the young comrades that really understood the ML line were also the first to sign up and fight on the frontlines and were subsequently killed. The loss of so many of the young, dedicated cadre exposed the party to destructive opportunism that was allowed to creep in ever more slowly which eventually led to the traitor Gorbachev.
@@bakielh229 well said, comrade. But as much as I despise the Opportunists that killed the USSR, I have a hard time totally condemning them. The first Worker's State, surrounded by enemies seeking to destroy them, it's kind of a miracle that the USSR lasted as long as it did. Both triumphs and defeats were inevitable, but I will always defend the first Worker's State. We can debate their mistakes, but their contributions are undeniable.
@@bakielh229 Stalin did a pretty good job of killing the best and brightest society had to offer by sending them to the gulag, execution via NKVD, or starvation via collectivism. Stalin did more to kill Soviet citizens than Hitler did
Free market is a ticking bomb that will eventually lead to a collapse of any system wether its feudalism, socialism etc. Under feudalism people were able to branch away from the system and managed to form a free market which inevitably led to smaller markets being crushed by wealthier ones which inevitably leads to monopolies and funnels power and money to few hands who were able to compete with the power of the state and socialism is not an exception.
maybe you are not a libertarian, if that's the case no a free market can not "crush" a planned economy as the ussr has proven, if it were not sabotaged and illegally dissolved as it wasn't for decades it would still exist. capitalist greed hinders progress and growth as a country no matter what capitalist elites and its bootlickers have told you, that is why the ussr became a superpower from a feudal backwater and is responsible for more than 50% of all technological marvels you have in your home :) peace and love comrade
The Soviet Union fell the same year my parents got married. Even a Union that strong couldn’t hold a candle to the union of my parents. They were forced to take the L. I love you mom and dad. 32 years strong
It's stupid how people use the Soviets as an example why socialism "doesn't work", when the reason it fell was, quite literally, revisionism and the abandonment of socialism's core tenents.
I don't understand what you thought would happen by giving a bunch of populist, inexperienced peasants the power, who purge the entire intelligentsia, who knew how to govern a massive country, that only results in authoritarianism
@@heartsofiron4ever "Authoriatarianism" is a meaningless buzzword liberals use to describe any government action whatsoever. You'll need to concretely define what "authoritarianism" means relative to your comment for it to hold any weight.
@@jakekaywell5972 the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom. lack of concern for the wishes or opinions of others.
I must be thoroughly wrong when I think that "Socialism" is a secular religion- and that it is both Western and (despite being officially atheist) Judeo-Christian as all fuck. The sacred religion/God can never be wrong-only the miserable attempts by wretched sinners to implement it. To the extent that Marxist Socialism was ever "scientific", it was an early 19th century materialist (and Hegelian!) type of science. It was not falsifiable, and thereby did not lend itself well to improvements via experimentation.
The more books Hakim recomends in a video, the better it is. This is what I love about communist creators, they all recomend books and other means to further our education. Greetings from Portugal
also ussr did not have the huge headstart the West got from 1)colonization of africa,south asia,some part of east asia,some part of south east asia,smaller multiple islands. 2)settler colonization of north america,south america,australia,new Zealand,south africa,different multiple smaller islands 3)and current day imperialism of the 3rd world nations. 4)also in avg has a harsher climate than north america,western europe 5) chattel slavery of millions(i am not saying ussr should have done the same like europe,usa, i am just pointing out the disparity in headstart the west got) 6) geographical isolation from europe or any bigger group of nations, like usa have,ussr didnot.
Modern Russia might be c@pitalist but at least it is anti imp3rialist. Their boldness a year ago has massively accelerated the collapse of the Empire, thus ironically being perhaps the single most pro-s0cialist move in human history.
Not quite. They were neither idealists nor idiots. Although they would obviously be disappointed with how future generations in the USSR disposed of their efforts and the sacrifices they made -- Lenin directly wrote and spoke about the period of "revolutions and counter-revolutions, which has just begun". And they both knew the History well, in which capitalism, as not only an economic, but also a social power, originated at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries (pre-capitalist city-states of medieval northern Italy).
The best book on the breakdown of the USSR is Perestroika: The Complete Collapse of Revisionism. by Harpal Brar in which he traces the fall to the victory of revisionism when Khrushchev took power.
Regardless of its contribution to its collapse, the USSR was severely lacking in democratic & decentralized management. To say this is a cop-out because it doesn't take into account actual socialist experiments is itself a cop-out. It doesn't critically examine the nature of the State itself and how it is antithetical to socialist goals. The history of the Soviet Union DOES matter because it shows what happens when you delay communist organization in favor of developmentalism.
How will you achieve workers democracy without having the required material conditions ? To achieve that you need to educate the masses first then gradually give the administration and planning to them .. 1- the russians were mostly peasants who couldn't read or write . 2- workers can't have direct democracy in everything in politics and economy because simple they work for 8 hours a day consuming mental and physical efforts and they are humans who have other activities they want to do after their work .. so there is a need for workers who have full time jobs in the fields of planning and scientific fields related to every production sector .. for example let's talk about the production of meat and milk , we need experts and scientists who have all the information about the required amounts of food and the required medical treatments for every species .. the workers can't reach that as this needs them to study huge amounts of scientific information about that sector so we need experts who will be responsible with the other experts in planning the economy in collaboration with the vanguard party members who are specialized in politics , economy and military fields . Marx has explained that in socialism there is still a difference between mental and physical labour which can't be abolished unless we develop the productive forces to an extent that minimizes the working day thus the workers will have more free time to learn the essential basics of administration and planning the economy and the entire society by themselves without the need of bureaucracy . For example if we work for 4 hours every day , we will have 4 hours to learn every day , this can't happen unless we develop the productive forces to increase production in less time thus we head to communism gradually . When you speak about the argument of centralization , put in your mind what marxism says about the transition to socialism and the required material conditions for full workers democracy . It is not the fault of the soviet union at all , their material conditions required that . Second : russia suffered from economic backwardness , countless military threats .. so in order to eliminate economic dependency you need to have industry to take advantage of your resources and labour power .. Vladimir lenin adopted marxism goals to the material conditions of russia after the civil wars that turned russia into hell economically . Vladimir lenin confined the policy of the NEP , which opened the soviet union to the bourgiosie to transfer the technologies , experiences which were concentrated in their hands due to old colonialism . The dictatorship of the bourgiosie guaranteed the control of the external trade in exchange for the technologies and experiences , guiding the investment to the desired priorities such as heavy industry and military industries . After the end of the NEP the bourgiosie mentality arose in the soviet union so it was necessary to achieve socialism through industrialisation under the leadership of joseph stalin ... Industrialization depended on exchanging raw materials and grains for the machines and many other needs . After 3 five years plans the soviet union turned into industrial socialist super power . Massive miraculous achievements guaranteed for the soviet union populations ( hakim and other communists on UA-cam made episodes about them in detail and you can know more by entering socialism 101 website ) . In World War Two the soviet union suffered from huge losses in people and economy .. the well educated workers and masses required for building workers democracy died in the war .. so there was a must to leave workers councils system .. it wasn't stalin who did that because he wanted the beurocracy it was the material conditions of the soviet union that forced it to do that . These conditions did not hinder the soviet union from re-establishing the required educated masses , before the death of stalin there was a public voting on the new constitution which would give the workers more abilities to apply workers democracy and decreasing the bureaucrats .. you know what happened ? They planned to assassinate stalin so the bureaucracy will not leave its positions and their chances of being a new exploiter class as you will know when Nikita Khrushchev came to leadership . If you want to know exactly what happened during these harsh conditions i recommend you watch the Finnish Bolshevik series talking about the rise of soviet revisionism on the hands of Khrushchev .
@@georgesoap1733 True, material development was sorely needed as well as education, but I believe his argument is that this should not have come at the sacrifice of decentralized democracy and grassroots based power structure. Even if the founders of the USSR had the best and purest intentions, establishing centralized power structures inevitably leads to reduced democratic decision making.
@@Ravenhouse23While we can say this in hindsight it’s also important to acknowledge WHY that decision was made. The USSR was unfortunately under constant threat of military invasion between 1917 and 1945 at a MINIMUM. By the time they actually had somewhat of a breather the west went on a full anti communist offensive internationally and opportunism and revisionism had been given an entryway into the party mainly due to the immense loss of life in WW2. Unfortunately Lenin, Stalin, etc. didn’t have the benefit of hindsight to know they wouldn’t ACTUALLY be invaded in the 1920’s and most of the 1930’s and not outright until 1941.
@@bensagal-morris8072 it still stands that a more decentralized and democratic Soviet Union would have been able to whitstand the preassure. The way things developed, oportunism was able to take root and weaken the USSR gradually from the inside, therefore making it more volnurable from the outside and into the slipery slope we go. The strong pillars of Marxsism and Leninims were gradually deformed, abandoned and outright betrayed and by the end not even the leadershit knew where it originated, or payed it any heed. Decisions were made to try to sustain the unsustainable which not only lead to oportunism but outright extinguished potential revolutions around the world...
Thank you, Hakim. The work you do is very important. The effort, reaearch, and labor you put into your videos is not lost on us, and I just want to extend my most genuine thanks to you and the people who help put these videos together. From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate you.
@@balghar493 I mean, we shouldn't expect an exhaustive examination of perhaps the biggest question in political science from the second half of the 20th century in a mere 20 minutes. Was there something in particular you thought was missing here? Note also the copious reading list for this whale of a topic. Even reading a one thousand page tome regarding the Fall will leave the inquisitive mind seeking further answers. Don't forget that to this day if you ask 10 Classicists what caused Rome to "fall", you'll get at least 20 different answers
@@balghar493 he did say he'd give some explanations people use and we should draw our opinion. I'll link an article for you to check out it talks about Gorbachev's ambitious plans and how he ultimately failed and this contributed to the demise of the Union
China seems to be operating just fine without our suggestions. They have illustrated they think, plan, and execute plans decades ahead, with diligence and discipline.
(2/x) They have succeeded in building a strong economy independent of the West, which was a goal when the pivot to Dengism took place. They have a mutually beneficial relationship with a growing roster of countries under the Belt & Road Initiative that makes itself and each country involved far less vulnerable to USian economic warfare.
(3/x) They have, true to character, patiently and passively allowed the Murkkkan Empire to sow the seeds of its own destruction. The Empire is now in rapid decline (accelerated by the Ukro war) and finds itself in a position where it doesn't have siphons of imperialism to fuel its hegemony, and is steadily losing a grip diplomatically on some of its most loyal vassals (Saudi Arabia, much of Europe, etc.)
(4/x) Despite being in a century-long world war they started at a disadvantage, they have steadily improved the living conditions of their colossal citizenry. Capitalist excesses are constantly cracked down upon and socialized to the benefit of the working class. As all metrics to measure QoL improve, they also have made incredible strides in green energy, general technology, and diplomatic cooperation.
The fact that the Americans were caught by surprise at the collapse indicates that the collapse wasn't "inevitable". Personally I think it's the USD caused the collapse. Unlike the US which could print money whenever they wanted the Soviets were constrained by inflationary pressures. They had to project power the same as the US, but had to do it in USD.
I think any honest understanding of the fall of the soviet union will have to understand that there wasn't any one factor that if different the soviet union would still be here. It was a mix of many factors both internal and external factors that contributed to the fall.
@@calvinware7957 That's a terribly narrow-minded opinion. But I would say that sadly it was a factor... not because of an inherent "property" of russian people, but rather their very poor circumstances right before, and the failure to identify these issues early on, because the leaders weren't... they were bullies and murderers. Ah, also the secret police killing and torturing people, the gulags... lack of a lot of liberties, the vicious cycle of being afraid to voice your opinion or signal that there's an issue for fear of being beaten and/or imprisoned and/or killed. I left a rather lenghty comment talking a bit more in depth about what I think was unjustly left out of the video.
I took about two years of Soviet history courses throughout college in relation to my Russian late language studies, and I thought I basically knew the subject and turn. I was actually wrong. I only knew about half of the proposed causes, and basically every video I see on this channel makes me look like some sort of amateur history for babies, commentator in comparison.
That sounds almost like a generic or a no-answer, but it's not. The evolution and the stability of any real-world system, physical, socio-economic or otherwise depends on many variables. Hence pointing at just one or even several variables and saying this is why the system finds itself in a particular state is nonsensical. Furthermore, the fact that The question still remains open should be a hint that yeah... it's complicated and we don't really know
Please put a list of your book recommendations in the description. It is much easier to copy and paste from there than it is to pause the video to look it up, then go back to the video to make sure I have it right, possibly with trying to rewind the video.
The Olympics used to only allow amateur athletes, which means in developed nations with national athletics that suck in the majority of people interested in sports who are then automatically denied entry into the Olympics you by definition are only seeing second rate talent, and you need to be pretty bad at Basketball to not see any national competition in the US. When that rule was done away with the socialist (undeveloped nations) advantage suddenly vanished. It's also fun to note, the socialist advantage mysteriously didn't effect China. It's almost like China had well developed national sports programs that sucked up the majority of their top talent. This is particularly acute because China, which was the most populous nation in the world for this entire era, should have the majority of top sports talent going just off of statistics, just the the USA as the 4th and eventually 3rd most populous is also going to be inherently over represented. Today China is overtaking the US for that exact reason, but the only socialist nation with major sports leagues in the era is the only one under performing? Crazy. The Soviet Union is the only socialist nation who's advantage didn't vanish completely when professionals were allowed in, which is the only nation in the world with a literal birth to gold program available for thousands of children, including in may programs literal eugenics. Their advantage weakened significantly, and they would never beat the US overall again, but they continue to be disproportionately successful to this day. See girls figure skating for an example of how far they're still willing to go in the sports they still dominate. Seriously, look up the specific sports the Russian's still outperform in, and look at the massive industrial scale infant to gold program that supports that success, then look at their middling success in the sports they no longer have those programs for. I'm not sure they're a good example of sports for sports sake, or human health.
Just look at the Soviet Union emblem.. A hammer crossed with a sickle .. it is basically are industries and farming.. A labour force.. hmmmm.. The failure of the Soviet Union is it dependent upon human labour force to achieve it's goals and ambitions.. hmmmm.. time had changed.. and so does our human species technological advancement and evolution.. hmmmm.. With artificial intelligence and repetitive machines and robotic technologies.. human labour have been liberated.. hmmmm.. And transition from capitalism economic system to a communism reality is now possible.. hmmmm.. Let make our communism reality great again said Yoda.. hmmmm..
О, земляк. Всё же насколько прогрессивное и хорошее для мирового интернационала явление - Интернет. Рад, что люди труда и коммунисты со всего мира могут здесь общаться и поддерживать друг друга.
Am I the only one feeling a tad slow for Hakim's rapid fire presentation? Excellent as it is I'd be fine with longer run time for the video allowing for a few inbreaths as well 😅
I understood what he said, but I definitely agree he should slow down his speech a bit more so there’s a better chance for his content to resonate with the working class
This was much too fast...I watch videos to get someone's take on a subject. By quickly referring to other's books and moving on, there was no time to digest nor was any coherent frame presented. I would appreciate a longer and more fully explored discussion. The USSR did a lot of horrible things, but of course the British probably did even worse, and we know the horrors of the USA, and that is without even talking about their slaughter of the native americans in the most inhuman way.
There are many lectures already on this topic presented by academics on UA-cam. You can also read the books he recommended, which will provide you with far more information than simply watching a video, regardless of its length, or a single lecture for that matter.
no such theory can ever be complete if the story of the USSR isn't drawn in parallel with what happened in the US, during that same period (1980-1990, a period of rapid deindustralization), along with a thorough accounting and comparison of WWII's lasting concequences to each, and an accompanying analysis of the way imperialism and unequal exchange were utilized by the latter, but could not ever be utilized by the former (to the same degree at least).
also ussr did not have the huge headstart the West got from 1)colonization of africa,south asia,some part of east asia,some part of south east asia,smaller multiple islands. 2)settler colonization of north america,south america,australia,new Zealand,south africa,different multiple smaller islands 3)and current day imperialism of the 3rd world nations. 4)also in avg has a harsher climate than north america,western europe 5) chattel slavery of millions(i am not saying ussr should have done the same like europe,usa, i am just pointing out the disparity in headstart the west got) 6) geographical isolation from europe or any bigger group of nations, like usa have,ussr didnot.
@@shushunk00 1&2: I'm not so sure. At the same time as the colonization of the Americas, Russia was colonizing Siberia which is vast with natural gas and resources and with a far less hostile and sparse native population. 3: The USSR and modern Russia did partially succeed in using their influence in the third world in Africa and Asia after decolonization. After the fall of the USSR into the new millennium, Russia certainly had the ability to succeed influentially in many countries just as China has done and continues to do. 6: Russia before the revolution wasn't isolated. After the revolution, for the most part it was, being limited to Mexico and other socialist nations. During the Cold War, it had built itself more allies such as the Warsaw Pact, China, Vietnam, Albania, Several African countries, many Muslim nations, Cuba, Nicaragua, and partially India and later Bangladesh before the Sino-Soviet Split. After the collapse, many of those Warsaw Pact states distanced themselves, but the rest of the world market opened themselves to Russia albeit warringly. I won't argue on points I didn't mention as I either agree with those or I need to read up more on those subjects. I feel like the USSR or modern Russia could have very well succeeded much more if not equally to modern China who seemed to be in a much worse starting position than Russia from the Industrial period into later years of the Cold War.
@@thenamesdampen6888 Nonsense. Russia did not colonize Siberia. Only western Europe and north America are guilty of colonialism China did not have the same pressure applied to it that it was applied to the USSR. The imperialists are trying to do to China what they did to the USSR, but by this point it is too late for them, as imperialism is on the decline.
On "Reimagining Soviet Georgia" podcast they interviewed historian Vladimir Zubok. He just published the book "Collapse - The fall of the Soviet Union". Haven't read it yet, but I warmly recommend the episode with his interview in it.
As a leftist living in an ex-ussr country, I am very grateful to you for your channel. I feel very ostracized from the leftist, decolonial community here, because of the demonization of communism and ussr that exists in these communities. The decolonization community is, unfortunately, going in some petite nationalist bourgeoisie way and it's very disappointing.
Autocracy and an underdeveloped economy as a result of the autocratic bureaucracy. Thus came an over reliance on fossil fuels as everyone capable wanted the comfort of government work or work in the fossil fuel industry. Not to mention external forces sabotaging socialism and communism every chance they had. When the price of fossil fuels dropped their singular economy and the overarching bureaucracy built to protect the government and industry obviously fell as well. Theres no real singular issue and more like death from a thousand cuts i think a more interesting question is "what could have led to a USSR success?" I think the answer to that is even more democracy (ussr had more democracy than most realize but kt still wasnt enough.) Then use that democracy to expand transparency and root out corruption.
Oh and of course using the government to force a diversification and independent economy. They had access to the raw materials and had no reason not to begin manufacturing and importing the same things the US were. An expansion of education would have helped as well. Again, a thousand cuts that would have required great foresight to overcome that leaders of the USSR simply couldn't afford to have.
This is genius! With a reworked video you appease the algorithm, thrill your viewer crowd and get us to review a topic for human attention is fleeting. All the while costing yourself less than a normal video maybe. This is potentially a good change for Breadtube
Am I the only one who disagrees with how this discussion - the end of the Soviet Union - is framed in the first place? In my opinion, it wasn't a complex socio-economic collapse. The Union was disbanded by leaders of certain republics. A purely political motion, an executive order. That's all. At that point the Soviet Union was already a capitalist country, and it was undergoing an economic crisis, which is rather normal. Crises happen everywhere, countries don't "collapse" because of them, like the US did not break into 50 independent countries in 2008. Likewise, Germany did not break up in 1989, on the contrary, they united. When the Sino-Soviet split happened, neither China, nor the Soviet Union became capitalist. That's why I consider transition from socialism to capitalism in the Soviet Union and its formal dissolution as two parallel but distinct processes. And they should be discussed separately. On the one hand, why Gorbachev's administration (and previous ones) decided to implement capitalist reforms. On the other hand, how Yeltsin and his accomplices gained enough power to do what they did. I do not deny there is a certain connection between these two aspects, but it is somehow never mentioned, and the two processes are simply discussed simultaneously, as if one always means the other - which, I believe, is not the case at all. Moreover, it seems to be a rather unique occurrence.
I agree with you! it was the decision of a group of people who seized power. And people could not prevent this, because radical nationalists, funded by the CIA, were rampant in every republic.
The Soviet Union was a vast and overstretched empire. It's honestly incredible that the people in the regime just waved their hands in the air and just gave it up. Normally, dissolutions of empires results in countless bloody conflicts and chaos as the imperialists hold onto anything they can and everyone else fights to their teeth for their freedom. But the hardliners in the Soviet Union failed and everyone just peaceful agreed to just dissolve the empire and move on.
@@8is Can't get any more liberal than you. Regime, empire, hardliners... No, it wasn't peaceful at all, the Ukrainian conflict was simply the first one they showed you.
In my opinion, the more important question is not what caused the fall of Soviet Union, but rather what caused the fall of socialism in the Soviet Union. The USSR died in 1991, but socialism and the communist project in the USSR died a long time before that (and it is debatable when). Even though it had been in decay for a while, what caused the actual collapse of the USSR is not super complicated. Gorbachev’s reckless reforms and the failed hardliner coup in response created an opening for Yeltsin’s counterrevolution. On the other hand, what led to the degeneration of socialism in the USSR and the communist project more broadly is a much more complicated and more important question without clear answers that communists should be investigating. Also as for information, I think Socialism for betrayed doesn’t say anything “false” except for its incorrect characterization of Bukharin’s ideas. Additionally, while the book emphasizes the role of the black markets/Second economy in cultivating a petit bourgeois mentality, it doss not address the economic realities that led to the proliferation of black markets. The authors’ seem to imply that the solution should have been to simply prohibit them with greater force as they had been in the Stalin era, but what this misses is that 1) black markets also existed in the Stalin era although less prevalent and 2) another major reason why black market activity was less prevalent in the Stalin era was because of the war and collectivization periods, in which people needed to live a much more austere life out of necessity. After WW2 was over, and as economic growth had risen, soviet citizens wanted to live a more relaxed life and wanted more consumer luxuries after sacrificing so much during the war. The spread of TVs and loosening of travel restrictions (although tightly regulated ) also exposed people to more information about what existed out there, and people developed new desires as their hierarchy of needs changed. Furthermore many of people’s needs (mainly consumer products, not vital necessities) were not met by the planning system and the system experienced chronic delays and shortages. It simply was not possible to calculate plans that encompassed so much information accurately without the help of computers. A project to accelerate the computerization of planning, which would have greatly helped the USSR, was proposed by Soviet scientists (OGAS), but was rejected by the ambivalent party bureaucracy under Brezhnev, who were afraid of the transparency that the adoption of such technology could bring as they wanted to tightly controlled what information got to the public. In this sense the lack of democracy critique is partly true even if notions of “decentralization” are not. Thus the proliferation can’t merely be blamed on Khrushchev or Brezhnev (whose own daughter was deeply involved in the black market LOL). It was overdetermined by various factors. The government under Brezhnev ended up allowing the black markets to exist/turning a blind eye because they met demands that the plans could not meet. Outlawing them would have been a futile task and would have only made citizens more angry and likely to rebel. This was an implicit position quite widely held by the party, even hardliners like Andropov had plans for market reforms despite being against “democratic” reforms. My position on markets is that they cant be abolished until they are replaced by a superior form of central planning that is capable of meeting peoples needs more effectively. The technology for that was not adopted by the USSR, or any socialist country except Allende’s short lived experiment. Like the state, markers can’t he abolished, but can only “wither away” as they become less necessary. Just my two cents. Important video as usual!
Lots of great stuff in here as always :) Carlos Martinez’s book on this topic is worth a read for a great strength which is comparing why Perestroika failed so miserably and why Reform and Opening-Up and Doi Moi achieved such success in China and Vietnam respectively.
@@nonono4160 If ‘capitalism’ lifts almost a billion people out of poverty in the span of a couple decades (a phenomenon that curiously hasn’t taken place in the rest of the capitalist world), maybe you should re-examine your opposition to said social system
Sry but the Baltics revolted against IMPERIALISM, not Gorbachev's policies. Russia became weaker, and that was the chance to become free of the cultural oppression. In Estonia we had a saying that we are willing to eat potato peels, just to be free. The sentiment was that even if we fall into poverty, we need to be free first and foremost. I am a socialist, but protecting the imperialism and authoritarianism of the Soviet Union will not help the cause.
The Baltic sisters deserved to be annexed by the Soviets for siding with the Nazis, especially Lithuania for murdering >90% of their Jewish population! Napoleon once called Vilnius the "Jerusalem of the North" Also 2,700 Latvians and 2,200 Estonians collaborated on killing their jews and aiding with the Nazi war machine.
@@UmQasaann damn, didn't know that the Baltics sided with the Nazis in 1940. Are we also gonna casually ignore the fact that the Soviet Union also aided the Nazi war machine, by providing them with raw materials, through trade.
@@ceptspelmenis958 Are we going to ignore that French and British investor invested in Germans arms factories which later became the Nazi war machine. Also, Chamberlain forced Czechoslovakia to hand over Sudetenland to Hitler.
@@ceptspelmenis958 The UK and France in reality (Chamberlain and Daladier) was the main reason behind the rise of Hitler. They supplied Hitler with huge amount of loans and capital indirectly assisted the Nazi party as possible. Sudetenland was a gift to the Germans by Chamberlain when Hitler himself hadn't thoughtcross his mind. Daladier raised the issue and forced the president of Czechoslovakia (Bennett) to handover Sudetenland to Germany. After that British and French investors invested German armed factories which later those factories became the supply line for the Nazi war machine. The capitalist class were always looking for ways to harm the USSR and they thought Hitler as their ally in the process.
System nie wydolny gospodarczo i polityczno-społecznie. Stworzony na mzonkach (ciekawych, postępowych ale błędnych założeniach). Podparty zbrodniami przeciwko ludzkości i kurestwem moralnym. Pozdrawiam z Polski
poland was only good when it was communist, and some great polish people include felix dzerzhinsky, vyacheslav menzhinsky, boleslaw bierut, wladyslaw gomulka, and andrei vyshinsky
Greetings from Lugansk, the city that used to be Voroshilovgrad during the Soviet epoch! Hakim, your videos are one of the best in all of the left political YT (talking about the real left, not modern pseudo-leftists), thank you for your magnificent works!
@@chrisgaming9567, yep, like 100 kilometres from the frontline. We here could every day see AA tracks on the day sky and often we hear explosions somewhere near the city. Though, in compare with Donetsk or Lysitchansk we here live pretty peaceful lives. Ofc, imperialistic war is rising, so our 'peaceful' lives are not for a long.
USSR collapsed…because it was an empire ruled by force and threat of violence. When that’s removed it breaks up. Look at the British empire. Or the French, after WW2 they no longer had the power to keep enforce their will on former colonies. Russia lost the power to enforce its colonial rule on the Soviet republics. I don’t understand why it seems like every socialist always wants to ignore the imperial nature of the USSR in their critiques. Like it’s not part of the global north engaging in imperialism and colonialism because they called them selves communists and quoted Marx. Same with China. Tibet and Inner Mongolia are colonies under imperial rule, they are just not far flung like the European powers colonies. It’s the same way the British started their imperialism and colonialism with Scottish and Irish, before going abroad. The problem with every socialist communist county so far..is that they still all end up being imperial power that engage in colonialism. Also equating membership in communist youth or trade unions to democratic systems and bottom up power given the rest of the structures of political power in the USSR or China is a pretty bad take on representation, power and democracy. Civic society with no legally protected freedoms is not a real civil society.
The USSR wasn't "imperialist" by any stretch of the definition. It was a 15-member federated bloc, with each member state having equal representation. Soviets would have made everyone a puppet if they could because that's the whole point, to spread socialism. It's foolish to act like bourgeois states have a right to be "independent" when they really have no right to exist. It's russification and its petty-nationalist reaction which made soviet allies turn on them, not "imperialism".
@@jakekaywell5972 His point is, the USSR sought to spread its influence by force, espionage, and many other means. When revolutions crept up in countries like Hungary, the USSR squashed them, it retained influence over many countries via force, control of the media, economy, and so much more. People grew tired of that, of the lies they had been told, and it contributed to the fall of the USSR. Also, what is this about certain states not having a right to exist? Who are you to say anything about it?
@@jakekaywell5972 russification is like the definition imperialism. it's actually hilarious that people like you think the system was participatory in any sense of the word. the entirety of central asia, the baltics, the caucuses, etc, all were violently conquered by the russian empire and all the USSR did was extend that empire. if lenin or any of the bolsheviks had any fucking heart or integrity they would've immediately dismantled that empire and given these minority republics self rule. but they didn't because they sought to continue the russian empire's imperialism just under a new banner of state socialism. you can't inherit a pre-existing multi-continent-wide empire, slap the label of socialist on it and then declare it no longer imperialist. they kept in place many of the same institutions, such as penal labor camps (gulags). to the extent that national delimitation gave any of the minority republics any autonomy, it was a fucking joke. each republic had their own constitution that was worth its value in dirt. none of these constitutions were enforced in any meaningful sense, none of them had any real, meaningful autonomy except some brief changes in policy under khrushchev and gorbachev, and in the latter, that attempt at autonomy caused the entire system to crumble, which is unsurprising considering the entire union was held together forcefully as an empire, not a participatory federation. every single minority was stripped of its culture, linguistic history, religious beliefs, history, way of life, and customs, in many cases through russification. preferential treatment was given to ethnic russians. local populations were displaced by european settlers. any historian who isn't a fucking joke would call that imperialism. the ussr completely uprooted the nomadic lifestyles of people in the kazakh steppe in order to extract crop resources and force them to be sedentary farmers. the USSR was an imperial entity on par with that of the french, british, and the americans. what a joke lol
@SimmerSommer are you saying dumb things because you think it's funny to agitate strangers on the internet or did you genuinely just insinuate that soviet republics had comparable autonomy to that of U.S. states. please tell me if you're joking or not because i would like to know if i'm talking to a lobotomy patient who has not even read basic soviet history
@SimmerSommer are you arguing that russification doesn't exist? i hate to break it to you but there isn't even a single communist soviet historian who would take that position, much less a respected one, lol. what a fucking joke
Saying that Gorbachev reforms caused unrests is absurd. People were always disconsent with the Goverment, but KGB and police terrorized everyone who dared to say whar they think. Gorbachev gave them a voice.
@@thefrench8847 gorbachev wanted to reform the soviet union but in doing so he aided in it's destruction, fair to say that even without gorbachev the soviet union would have collapsed because the soviet government was so corrupt and ineffective
I find that when trying to convince regular people to come on board with socialism, the argument that "Soviet Communism was all wrong but we will do it differently" is the most persuasive. It can take months or years to deprogram some ones brain to see former socialist states in a more balanced light, and frequently when you try to tell people that the Soviet Union was actually a more nuanced place then they previously believed, they immediately write you off as a genocide denier and shut off to anything you have to say.
The problem with this approach is that this same kind of propaganda will be made about all future socialist projects, for as long as a capitalist propaganda apparatus exists.
As a socialist I would love to defend the Soviet Union. But when I see events like the great purge, Lenin’s shut down of artels and non Bolshevik worker organisations… its tough to defend
@@chrisgaming9567 Right. I'm just talking about using this as an initial way to get people on board. Then Introducing them to the nuances after they are more receptive to socialism.
Soviet Union had indirect help from west during WW2 from additional front vs. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan along with some minor logistical aid. Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan partly from western aid to rebels along with lack of popular support from civilian population.
@@weirdo1060 Yes, Great Britain supported the Soviet Union to defeat the Nazis, neutral countries as well, and many neighboring and neutral countries.. The German army did not have oil to supply Panzer tanks, so they attacked the Soviet Union because it did not give them oil. It was a much needed German attack on the Soviet Union. For example, Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait because all countries attacked him with economic sanctions, and he wanted to save resources for his army. If he had not attacked them, the Iraqi army would have collapsed from within This applies to the Germans.
Hi there, I just got into socialist content for about a month and I am trying to get more information through UA-cam content like this and reading up what I can find on the internet. However I have on question that I have failed to find an answer for although not directly related to this video. My question is what was the Soviet perspective on the Berlin Wall. In the west (in mine case the Netherlands) we often hear about the so called economic failure of east Berlin and that is why people from east Berlin left for West Berlin. We hear here that the Soviets wanted to prevent that and that is why the Berlin Wall was build. I wonder what the Soviet perspective was and if someone can help me explore this topic further.
the point of erecting the wall was that in the GDR they gave people a good education for free, and these ready-made specialists fled to FRG because they could earn more money there. that is, the FRG could not invest money in people, they came from the GDR.
To be honest I too would be interested in the topic of the Berlin Wall being examined. Even if someone could point me to a non-CIA published text covering the Wall from a spcialist perspective, I'd be happy to look into it
Regarding the Berlin Wall for a socialist perspective do a UA-cam search for "Berlin Wall socialist". You should find find some very interesting stuff there.
Why does Brezhnev not get a single mention in this analysis?? You heap poor decision making on Kruschev, who presided over 11 years after the severity of the Stalin regime, and then say nothing about Brezhnev you ruled for 18 years after and seemingly did nothing to fix these underlying issues?
I’m nearly done reading “Socialism Betrayed” on this video’s suggestion, and man… it is de-pressing. How much better - objectively better - would the world be if Gorbachev either had never become GenSec of the CPSU, or had not abandoned the founding principles of the country. I used to think of him as most liberals did - a good-natured man who wanted what was best, recognized the flaws inherent in socialism and communism, and tried to adapt before things got away from him. Now I know: he was a traitor to socialism, and a complete idiot when it came to policy.
I know man... In all honesty, maybe they should have gotten advice or tried in at least the most basic way to mend the sino-soviet split, China - while it _did_ marketize, also fucking stayed alive - with outside forces pointing all guns at the two of them, they could have at least worked together, and now we are seeing Xi Jinping start to renationalize the economy again, turn towards a renal of Socialism and China is destined to overtake the US economy in the next couple decades - God if only the КПСС could have been just as fucking competent, now all we have is a wannabe Tsarist raging imperialist wars to deepen the pockets of him and his oligarchs with all the post-Soviet republics being used as pawns in this new bloody game of capitalist chess...
When western liberal intellectuals talk about Democracy of eastern countries, it always seems like fishes arguing about why birds don't live in water like us?
In my opinion it was Brezhnev's leadership. over military spending and rampant unimpeded corruption lead to a horrible economy which was the problem Gorbachev’s reforms tried to fix Which did not work and only lead to Boris Yeltsin taking control and ending the ussr
A lack of democracy and an overly-centralized government was a problem, but I dont see how one could argue that it led to the collapse of the Soviet union. I think you're doing a disservice by conflating democracy with a mixed economy, the two are exclusive and need to be discussed separately, the problems of mixed economies do not reflect on democracy and democracy doesn't carry the failing of the concept of mixed economies.
@@durshurrikun150 I didn't say the USSR wasn't democratic, lol. I said a lack democracy, as in there could have been more democracy. A more lateral democratic system would have been better.
the fall of the soviet union was on of the most depressing and disheartening things to ever happen to socialism. It's hard to imagine what will be of socialism now without a strong community of socialist nations striving for it. And worsened anti-communist propaganda has made it harder to spread. I have a feeling we crossed the fork in the road towards barbarism around the late 1980s. i would love nothing more than for someone to disprove me
Have hope friend. Ch!na has brought soc!alism further than ever before, and has built a massive coalition of anti imp3rialist countries. After the Murkkkan Empire collapses the rest of the world will finally be free to be s0cialist. Much of Latin America is already washing pink again, and the Empire (thanks to Chin4) has been unable to do a damn thing about it. The future is bright! Except for us poor souls trapped in the belly of the beast as the beast dies and rots.
@@stygian4011 Yep, they also boiled babies in chicken stock, outlawed anime and forced people who identified as a gender to drink mayonnaise until they exploded. Source: "How the Soviets Killed 420 Billion People Every Five Minutes" by critically acclaimed Yale graduate and, ahem, former CIA director Cracker S. Thumbloaf.
4:12 Yakovlev's influence on the soviet media was intentionally destructive "After the XX Congress, in an ultra-narrow circle of our closest friends and associates, we often discussed the problems of democratization of the country and society. We chose a simple - like a sledgehammer - method of propagating the "ideas" of late Lenin. A group of true, not imaginary reformers developed (of course, orally) the following plan: to strike with the authority of Lenin at Stalin, at Stalinism. And then, if successful, - to strike with Plekhanov and Social Democracy - at Lenin, and then - with liberalism and "moral socialism" - at revolutionarism in general... The Soviet totalitarian regime could be destroyed only through glasnost and totalitarian party discipline, while hiding behind the interests of improving socialism. [...] Looking back, I can proudly say that a clever, but very simple tactic - the mechanisms of totalitarianism against the system of totalitarianism - has worked." - Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev, in the introduction to the Russian edition of "The Black Book of Communism" "The Soviet totalitarian regime could be destroyed only through glasnost and totalitarian party discipline, while hiding behind the interests of improving socialism"
The Soviet Union fell for a number of reasons. However the reason nobody talks about is the reality that our connections to Capitalism or Socialism take up higher precedent then our oppressions under Capitalism. This is why we saw Revisionism in the Soviet Union.
One of the reason was, that most of the member states doesnt wanted to stay the Soviet Union mainly Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, who where oppressed and russified under the Soviet Union under the umbrella of internationalism, but it was the good old russian imperialism in disguise.
@Dankó Patrik The Baltic countries enjoyed, just like the rest of the USSR, massive improvements to their quality of life indicators under the Union. These countries have a long undercurrent of N4zi collaboration that started in WW2 and only continued to fester over time. Particularly white supremacists were not pleased that the Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, etc. received immense affirmative action campaigns to uplift them quicker to the standard of their white European Soviet counterparts. So, yes, if you want to ask the Banderites and all their peers, they will tell you all about this mystical "Soviet imperialism." However, if you asked a normal, non-N4zi person, or even just look at the raw numbers of pre-socialist, socialist, and post-socialist Baltics, you will see there never was "Soviet imperialism" and that the Communist Party worked very hard to heal the wounds of Tsarist imperialism that preceded them (such as by those aforementioned affirmative action campaigns).
@@dankopatrik5579 Lithuanians, though. Livonians were near extinct at that point in time (their language, that is. And already fully so by this point).
For how much I despise Putin, he was right when he said that the collapse of the USSR was the worst geopolitical event of the entire 20th century. Its also true that the modern Russian Federation may never surpass or even recover its former status as the largest member state of the USSR. My family personally witnessed this disenfranchising of tens of millions overnight. We were forced to choose between starvation and banditry because we had been laid off from the Second Moscow Watch Factory due to budget cuts and were unable to find work elsewhere. Not willing to do either, we left our native HPR and our adopted Russian RFSR. Truly a tragedy.
The collapse of the USSR was one of the best things that happened to the ethnic/religious minorities living inside the USSR. The USSR barely had any elements of the left. There was so much corruption and human's rights violations, especially during stalin's rule. Ethnic/religious/sexual minorities were brutally oppressed. Not to mention how some ethnicities were literally being russified, meanwhile, other ethnicities had systemic p0grom being organized against them. My country used to be part of the USSR and I'm very happy that, now, we're free. We can freely speak our native language and practice our beliefs/traditions(although I'm atheist myself).
@@jakekaywell5972 it really wasn’t since ww2 killed 60+ million people and displaced as many millions more from their homes. It literally affected the entire world. The fall of the USSR only affected Eastern Europe and many of those countries were happy that the USSR fell. You’re not gonna hear a single Pole, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Ukrainian, or Georgian complain that the USSR collapsed. None of them are nostalgic. Only Russians miss it because the system benefited them and them ONLY. They could enjoy the benefits while not having their resources extracted unlike the people I mentioned before.
There is one very important aspect missing !!! The western countries extracted most of their wealth out of enslaved regions in the 3rd world. These were the former colonies and the exploitation had always a history of cwnturies. Of course a communist country cannot do the same and try at the same time to convince such countries about the coummunist internationale. The SU never had colonies like Great Britain, Spain, France, Portugal to exploit. So if you mentioned that the SU (and today China) had to invest some money into their allies you have to count as negative in comparison to the golden West what the SU did NOT extract. And that would be more worth than 20 times of their investions. You see that incountries like Cuba or Angola which came to suffer as soon as the SU collapsed. Many countries had no other solution offered than get loans from the IMF - that breaked the neck of every socialist minded government. A good example for this is Syria. Please look it up. Syria and his elected chief Assad was helped to pull the neck out of the sling just in the last moment by their old ally - now Russia.
It started with a brutal war followed by mass deportations and continued with forced russification. Now days people more often refer to it as Russian times rather than Communism.
Yeltsin said the West was better. He went into supermarkets in the US and was amazed at the products available. People smuggled VHS players and tapes into the USSR, and the people grew angry at what they didn't have. It just didn't work as well as a system.
@@emindjerlek8699 The Baltics never wanted to be in the USSR, they had their own governments in exile. They broke away as soon it wasn't too risky to try. Communism was never something most people there believed in
@@oliverford5367 Most soviet citizens wanted to keep the USSR and socialism. Also, what you american roach neglected to tell is that the government in exile were nazi governments supported by the fascist west.
@@oliverford5367 Yeltsin isn't to be trusted as a reliable source due to his vested interest in seeing the USSR gone. As for the Baltics, that case is contested. There was local support for communist rule but also heavy opposition from the old governments in exile. Civil war, just as in most of the Eastern Bloc.
The theory described at 7:50 seems to be the most correct. The supposed disunity among the Soviet capitalists in power is much like the disunity in any capitalist class; just as the US's rulers frequently flip between Republicans and Democrats, the revisionists in the USSR flipped from being nominally "hardline Leninist" to being blatantly liberal.
Good video, but would be an excellent video if you would slow down you rate of speech by about 20 percent, with more expression in your voice and use natural pauses to give people time to absorb what you just said. It sounds like you're talking against a stopwatch trying to beat the clock. This, by the way, has become a common problem on youtube videos. Some youtubers even seem to intentionally delete natural pauses as if they're afraid the viewer will lose interest if there's a brief silence. I'm a native English speaker and struggled at times to understand you. If you're trying to convince people who don't agree with your point of view, that doesn't help.
Power to the Finnish People. May you weather the storm of Right Wing "leadership", and indeed, may they be made to endure the storm of the People's will
@@RSjs25 My opinion is that, fuck the Finnish bourgeois government and fuck NATO's imperialism and warmongering. This is the biggest mistake Finland has made in the 21st century.
Just to remind that communism ivaded your country and tried to overthrow your democraticaly elected government. Thanks to people like Mannerheim or Häyhä you now live in democratic and prosperous Finland :)
Usually when I see a title like this I am very skeptical and usually end up hating the video and the creator because it's mostly all nonsense. But even though I found you like this week, I can already tell that you are much better than almost all the other ones I have seen. Thank you.
@@chrisgaming9567 He was basically arguing in this video that the reason the URSS fell was because the government didn't crack down on the secondary market hard enough, a secondary market that he admits existed because the primary market wasn't able to satisfy the demand.
@@abderrahimderouiche8372 The second economy only emerged as prominently as it did because of weak leadership that increasingly made concessions to liberal and market mechanisms after Stalin.
@@abderrahimderouiche8372 I think it's a safe assessment to suggest that the "secondary markets" were symptoms of the real problem of bourgeois revisionism, they weren't the root source of the decay themselves
@@GarconTheGuy Or maybe the leadership tolerated it because it was able to satisfy demand that the primary economy was not, which the author of the video admits.
Hi there. First let me make myself clear that I don't mean to be hostile or disrespectfull in any way. I would have never taught I would spend this much time with a channel that that promotes socialist/communist ideology yet here I am. I have seen quite a few of your videos recently and one point had always buged me. I taught I would find my answer in this video but sadly I was dissapointed. Maybe you have covered my question in another video that I have not seen, in which case somebody please point me to it. Its clear to me that you are intelligent, knowledgeable about the topic and able present your points in a very civilised way. Thats a big reason why I have continued watching your videos even though I disagree with you on ideological level. I myself am no expert in the field of politics or sociology so please excuse if my point isnt as polished. I definitely wont argue against potencial socio-economical benefits of socialism or social and ethical problems of capitalism. Those all seem quite clear to me even before watching your videos. I live in current Czechia and am a part of the "children of the revolution" generation, so I guess you can imagine the background of my taughts. My point is tied to the chapter of "Popular opposition". In my mind that is the main reason for the fall of socialism(at least in Czechoslovakia). The fact there were no open and mass protests earlier, doesn't mean there wasn't popullar oposition. It was just precived by the people as too risky to show it and with a little chance for a succes. The thing that bugs me is that I have not heared you address the level of repression by former socialist regimes. The fact that the regime had persecuted innocent people for the actions (or sometimes even just taughts and ideas) of their familly member or killed people who just wanted to leave the country, just to mention the most worring few to me. My point is that a regime that has to use this much of active repression against its own peope to stay in power, is destined to fall due to popular opposition eventually. Also in my mind that rules the regime out as a viable option morally, however great are its other benefits. I would honestly like to know your taughts on this even if that means we don't stand on the same side of the argument. Whether you decide to address it or not, have nice day.
Ahoj, taky Čech, narozený 15 let po revoluci. Naprosto souhlasím, tento kanál je pouze propagandaa objektivita se nepřipouští. Stejně jako za normalizace.
So you say that a majority of people didn't want the Soviet Union to break up or privatisation... but a lack of democracy wasn't the problem? How can both of those things be true? If there was full democracy, from the bottom up, then the people would have gotten what they wanted because they'd have had the power to. No?
I don’t get what you’re trying to say here. The Soviet Union was dissolved against the democratic will of the people. Democracy is the USSR was expressed differently than in the bourgeois facade of “democracy”, such as through trade unions.
@@tetra. The Soviet Union was dissolved against the democratic will of the people, then the Soviet Union wasn't democratic enough, is my point. In a full democracy the people should have the power to get what they want (unless it violates constitutional rights). I'm not saying Western democracies are good enough either. They're flawed too. Basically I'm a libertarian socialist or anarchist. I want full democracy and power from the bottom up, not top down.
@@coolbanana165 There isn’t any problem with wanting democracy. But your concept of democracy is flawed. You’re basing your idea of democracy on the western democratic facade. The Soviet Union under Stalin was more democratic than America. Democracy can and should not be measured by how many elections take place, but rather how much control the workers can exert over the state. In this way, a democracy is impossible in capitalism. Once we’ve established than a capitalist democracy is impossible, we can return to the drawing board. What is democracy? I defined it earlier: the worker’s control over the state. Therefore, we can conclude that the only way to establish democracy is to enable the workers to control the government. This could be through unions, the party, independent organizations, or (reluctantly) elections. It’s important to recognize the the USSR was more democratic than all capitalist states, because otherwise you will inevitably characterize their political structure as flawed. Also, Stalin was not a dictator, but rather collaborated with party members. It is true that he was authoritarian and purged those who posed a threat, but much of that purging was justified.
@@tetra. I'm not sure what you're talking about. In my previous comment I didn't say Western democracy was better, I said both seem to be flawed, precisely because I don't think workers had enough democratic empowerment in either.
@@coolbanana165 To answer your original comment, the government and thereby the democracy was dissolved with yeltsin’s coup. Then, the workers had no power to exercise their frustrations and were sedated and brainwashed with capitalist “shock therapy.” The USSR had been degrading day by day at that point, and there was a massive economic crisis going on related to the planned economy (not necessarily caused by it, though).
It's always difficult to watch for me, how greedy traitors and nationalists disrupted my homeland, I was born in 1991 just before so called collapse, but I will never consider Russia my motherland, USSR was.
Gorby didn't have it easy, he came into a stagnating economy, war in Afghanistan, Chernobyl disaster. After all of that I'd be down for some Pizza Hut as well.
Obviously those nations that felt oppressed under Russian domination liked the fall of the USSR, but all Russians I've spoken to (even young ones) believe Brezhnev's USSR was a sort of paradise. Brezhnev was demonized by Andropov and Gorbachev, but the experience of Gorbachev and Yeltsin chaos have turned him into a kind of Jesus for the average Russian...
![[UA] NAVI проти G2 Esports | Blast Premier Fall Final](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QWlIm4FGESQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Grab Atlas VPN for just $1.83/mo + 3 months extra before the BIG DEAL deal expires: get.atlasvpn.com/Hakim
Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/ComradeHakim
Twitter: @YaBoiHakim
Apologies for the voice, I was sick when recording.
Source: Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Keeran and Kenny
Hey Hakim, please make a video about China's policies and how it effects it's citizens plus some details around the Uygers muslims that are imprisoned.
Ese mi ñero el iraquí.
Marx predicted the fall of the USSR as the first step in th nation's path to socialism, Bolsheviks only replaced one fascist monarch with another fascist monarch, now they are in their capitalist stage, hopefully socialism can someday come
Do a video about Ba’athism
How come your videos never explain why the USSR fell? You debunked the 6 common narratives of why it fell but don't offer any concrete explanation as to why the soviet union disappeared. Debunking the common reasons will not change history. The Soviet Union is gone. It collapsed and is no more. Real explanations are needed as it remains a mystery.
Maybe the USSR fell because of the triumph of counter revolutionary forces. There will always be people who oppose socialism and seek to overthrow it by a million cuts. Every item sold on the black market was a slap to the face of Lenin / Stalin / Marx. In early soviet history counter revolutionaries were brutally repressed, thrown in prison, starved, or simply executed. The USSR failed because it tried to be nice. They stopped throwing black market traitors in prison and executing them. Instead they let the market traitors multiply like cockroaches. Maintaining socialism requires the most brutal oppression imaginable to keep people in line.
Maybe this boils down to the human nature argument. Socialists want to create a benevolent society but the very act of implementing that benevolence is what undermines socialism and destroys it. People when left to their own devices will create markets. They will trade items with each other. Left unopposed it will lead to the rise of petty bourgeoisie and increasing temptation will enter the hearts of the people. The reasons for the soviet union disappearing come into focus when viewed in this angle. As soon as the soviets stopped chanting "Death to the Kulaks" it all fell apart.
Basically you can't have socialism and benevolence at the same time. The philosophies are incompatible. Socialism can only be maintained through cold and cruel logic implemented with the heavy handedness of a tyrant. The reforms of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev were all rooted in a desire to create benevolent society. Glasnost and Perestroika undermined the soviet union immensely and paved the way for its ultimate dissolution. When you say the Soviet union "committed suicide" you are very correct. They did because they choose the path of benevolence. Socialism can only be maintained via tyranny. If you abandon tyranny then socialism will fall. The best outcome a socialist can hope for is something along the lines of North Korea where the leaders put aside their egos and rule within reason and logic.
I love when Hakim recommends a million books in one video.
I wish he could make like an Amazon shopping list or something like that. Would make it super easy to aquire all of them.
@@adamthethird4753 I don’t think Amazon needs more money, but I agree on a list being needed. Gotta grab it up from Internet Archive before that all goes to shit
@@adamthethird4753 Just acquire them without giving Jeff Bezos money.
Because you know you ain't gonna read them?
Iphone Venezuela 100 million books recommended
Greeting from brazil! yesterday i had an essay about the use of midia as a weapon of war and used your video "You've never had an original thought" and got the best grade on the class and especially my teacher loved my presentation just wanted to say thank you hakim! you provide such usefull information where you wouldnt find online via normal sources
If you ever publish that essay/presentation I'm sure loads of people would love to read it! I know I would.
I would also recommend the channel Tom Nicholas:
"Think Tanks: How Fake Experts Shape the News"
"The Myth of the Free Press: Media Bias Explained"
Bom dia, camarada!
coé menó, só nos comunatube
Congrats!
It’s ok Comrades! Hakim isn’t actually sick. He’s just keeping quiet in the basement to not alert JT that he’s online.
😂, or JT is recording a first thought video, hakim is reducing his decibel to help comrade JT.
Hakim is definetly sick. The fall was because USSR was too idealistic and soft. The people who wanted to rip it apart were prepared to spill blood wqithout question, specially different nationalists. But those who stood for USSR would try use legal means until the very end. Yazov should have acted sooner and use guns and not batons, those that joined the SS should have met their end labouring in the harshest of places.
@@ivanmonahhov2314 Yep, the same applies to climate action as well. Screw diplomacy and peace, we've been doing that for decades and no-one will listen. It is beyond time for violence to become justified in saving the world's population from a burning planet and/or from a technocratic dystopia ruled by less than 1% of the population.
@@Planet.Xplor3r the problem is that most environmentalists are completely scientifically illiterate and demand non-solutions. See Germany's energy policy, see the global discourse on GMOs and organic food...
@@ivanmonahhov2314 i fully disagree with your notion that this was the chief cause of the USSR’s dissolution, but fully agree on the rest. The fact that existing socialist states are often decried as lawless despotates by liberals is nothing but orwellian irony, seeing as how it was precisely the socialist reliance on legal and administrative means to fight clandestine counterrevolution was the chief weakness that eventually made us lose this struggle. And it’s also no wonder that modern socialist and non-marxist anti imperialist states only survive because they have learned from this and spare no expense at rooting betrayal out with ruthlessness and efficiency that’d make the KGB blush.
I don't understand why so many people failed to predict the fall of the USSR, there were more than enough red flags
Did you just make a pun?
Felt that one right in the Reichstag, pretty sure it's gonna leave some Marx
History has proven to have crappy apocalypse plots where no one listen to intellects who warned and thus a fall occured.
Thats how powerful empires have fell and u.s is next same with france and u.k
W comment W+ replies
No there where not. The Soviet Union was a fear-based society once you took away the fear the whole thing just collapsed. When people started fleeing Eastern Europe because the border guards were not shooting anymore that was the end. Soviet Union was a nightmare and leftist refuse to accept that.
Hakim, you don’t imagine how difficult and even painful to start watch this video.
USSR is my motherland, not Russia. This tragedy hurts me every day. They stole our past, present and future.
i feel for you
Clicked faster than Yeltsin marching his tank to the Soviet Assembly
AS a russian who lived through fall of USSR, most people in the west have no idea, how horrible it was. MILLIONS DIED!
Are you referring to the fall of the USSR or the USSR itself? I'll absolutely agree with you on the former, whole family fled from the HPR to escape starvation and the bandit gangs.
Millions more died from capitalism and colonialism
@@jakekaywell5972 I am talking about the fall of USSR, USSR itself was a fcking paradise compared to what came next.
And yes, there were some really fcked up things in early time of establishing USSR, the same way it happened after its fall.
@@sacrificed9116Of course more died since it colonialism went for much longer than communism. If you gave communism the same lifetime as colonialism, then communism would have killed fat more than colonialism.
@@Th69571 Most of the death caused by communism are uncorroborated, and outright stupid. People also count the death caused by US intervention in socialists countries as deaths caused by communism which is insane. The truth almost all post-modern wars can be traced to have capitalistic intentions, thus they can be attributed to capitalisms. An economic system that favors the post-scarcity of minority class, rather than the exploitative practices of a minority class is always will cause less deaths in totality.
Clicked faster than Gorbachev ruining the Soviet economy
I hope that Gorby can still enjoy his Pizza Hut in hell
lmao
Literally me
@@firmanchristiansianturi4794 imagine going to hell and just hearing “welcome to Pizza Hut”
@@cursedcat6467 Pizza hell
Greetings from Germany, Comrades!
Greetings from outside Germany comrade.
Greetings from Sweden, Comrades!
Hallo genossen!
Greetings from America, comrade!
Australia.
I know you need to have ads and I'm not making a "oH yOuR a CoMmUnIsT yEt yOu MoNeTiZe" comment but it's still funny to me because of how your voice changes to friendly and almost playful when you plug products and services and then immediately changes back to your real voice which is much more stern and serious.
Thank you very much, Hakim! By the way, the opinion of one of the modern Russian Marxists is as follows:
"In a broad sense, the Soviet Union did not survive the consequences of World War II. In four years, 27 million people died. Therefore, specific tasks have come to the fore so that the country gets out, firstly, from the economic hole, and, secondly, from the demographic hole. In such a situation, it was difficult to talk about building communism.
People who could have been engaged in building communism in the USSR, including the most educated Marxists, died (the largest number of volunteers was among the communists).
There was not only a demographic and economic hole, but also a monstrous theoretical failure, because Marxist-Leninist theoreticians at a particular moment in time became not as needed as specialists with a technical education.
The slow degradation of communism back into capitalism began. In 1965, the concept of “profitability” was introduced, that is, the capitalist commodity economy returned. Under communism, there can be no commodities. Profitability signifies the emergence of a commodity economy; the law of value comes into operation. Consequently, labor with surplus value appeared." (Klim Zhukov)
Unfortunately, leftists from different countries do not cooperate enough with each other. It would be important for me to promote not specific Russian Marxist historians (Klim Zhukov, Yegor Yakovlev) or economists (Oleg Komolov), but the very idea of cooperation. Perhaps the opinion of such scholars and scientists will be interesting not so much in Europe or America, but in Asia and Africa.
I wouldn't call Zhukov or Yakovlev marxists except on the surface level. Komolov is also not a marxist economist.
Also, while Kosygin's reforms were step back to capitalism, they didn't turn socialist production into a commodity one. That is a huge misunderstanding of what commodity production is.
I think, that Zhukov is not a Marxist, but a great historian. And he definitely knows what he is saying.
The problem was the Cold War. USSR should not have fell for the USA (world Capitalists) trap. After WW2 they were still allies, but there were warmongers in both countries. USSR should have not antagonized the USA. They should have been happy to play second fiddle to "world police" and let USA spend itself dry, in manpower, economics and politics.
USSR should have focused on making its economy and people thrive. With an image of excellence, other countries would want to leave Capitalism for Communism on their own, instead of wars and supporting revolutions.
@@Albtraum_TDDC that is an incredibly naive view.
@@nonono4160 is it though? Or is it a long term strategy that was missed because of warmongering and power trips?
Honestly unfair of people to attribute to Gorbachev what were ultimately unavoidable circumstances. Consecutive poor seasons for rainfall leading to sustained shortages in most of the nut harvests over his duration as Secretary - it can hardly be surprising the census whether to ultimately dissolve the Union came back so poorly in Deez, Sücma and even most urban areas of Ligma
My family grew up in Sücma, Kazakhstan. We got hit with the worst of it. Ligma, Russia and Deez, Georgia got off fairly good compared to us.
But at least none of us were Americans in Holden during the presidency of Mydikhurtz.
I heard that the end of Soviet support for Sugonda had a terrible effect on the economy of the Sugondese
The city of Sitonma had a terrible time after the collapse of the Soviet Union
The final nail was when General Rubbin declared martial law on province of Muhdik after the sack of Bustahnut City.
Meanwhile Gorbachev literally said: "The purpose of my life was the destruction of communism".
He was pure anticommunist up to his death in 2022.
12:58 Oh man! You know this video is gonna get serious when Hakim busts out the Gorbachev Pizza Hut commercial!
I have been looking everywhere for a physical copy of "Worker's participation in the soviet union" but i cant find it anywhere. im sure theres a pdf version for free but i like me some physical copies. Anyways great video as always. love how you go point by point and adding nuance to a very complex question. people who try to blame the collapse of the soviet union on one thing are, in my experience not people who look at history through materialist lenses.
Turning pdfs into voice audio is my way to go. I've done enough grinding to find phisical copy of all those books that no company wants to re-publish anymore. It sucks as I really intended to turn them into study material. Thinking of acquiring an ebook that isn't Kindle-dependant, just for pdfs.
That comes to show how the NATO version of history has become the absolute white civilization hégemon: there's not even that much demand. The wide majority of the left in capitalist countries is way more interested into reformism, no matter how futile it results once and again.
the best i can offer is a printer :v
You could read Bolsheviks and Worker Control, which is very well researched and has receipts. Only downside is that you will immediately realize that Lenin and the Soviet union did not produce a single iota of communism.
Was expecting the counterrevolution section to begin with Khrushchev not Gorby lol. The USSR was already on a long counterrevolutionary road by the time Gorby came around.
Yeah Kruschev is the main cause of the decline and then dissolution
Yes it did start with Krushchev. One factor that was discussed when my party had a class on this was leaders like him were able to come to power because so many of the young comrades that really understood the ML line were also the first to sign up and fight on the frontlines and were subsequently killed. The loss of so many of the young, dedicated cadre exposed the party to destructive opportunism that was allowed to creep in ever more slowly which eventually led to the traitor Gorbachev.
The USSR died with Stalin and WWII killing the best and brightest of what their society had to offer, the next decades were simply a slow death
@@bakielh229 well said, comrade. But as much as I despise the Opportunists that killed the USSR, I have a hard time totally condemning them. The first Worker's State, surrounded by enemies seeking to destroy them, it's kind of a miracle that the USSR lasted as long as it did. Both triumphs and defeats were inevitable, but I will always defend the first Worker's State. We can debate their mistakes, but their contributions are undeniable.
@@bakielh229 Stalin did a pretty good job of killing the best and brightest society had to offer by sending them to the gulag, execution via NKVD, or starvation via collectivism. Stalin did more to kill Soviet citizens than Hitler did
Free market is a ticking bomb that will eventually lead to a collapse of any system wether its feudalism, socialism etc. Under feudalism people were able to branch away from the system and managed to form a free market which inevitably led to smaller markets being crushed by wealthier ones which inevitably leads to monopolies and funnels power and money to few hands who were able to compete with the power of the state and socialism is not an exception.
least delusional libertarian
maybe you are not a libertarian, if that's the case no a free market can not "crush" a planned economy as the ussr has proven, if it were not sabotaged and illegally dissolved as it wasn't for decades it would still exist. capitalist greed hinders progress and growth as a country no matter what capitalist elites and its bootlickers have told you, that is why the ussr became a superpower from a feudal backwater and is responsible for more than 50% of all technological marvels you have in your home :) peace and love comrade
@@marxistopiateaddict who are you talking to?
-one of the few superpowers without a free market
-collapses
Mfw
The Soviet Union fell the same year my parents got married. Even a Union that strong couldn’t hold a candle to the union of my parents. They were forced to take the L. I love you mom and dad. 32 years strong
Wholesome comment wholesome parents
that's so fuckin sweet dog i love that for you guys
It's stupid how people use the Soviets as an example why socialism "doesn't work", when the reason it fell was, quite literally, revisionism and the abandonment of socialism's core tenents.
I don't understand what you thought would happen by giving a bunch of populist, inexperienced peasants the power, who purge the entire intelligentsia, who knew how to govern a massive country, that only results in authoritarianism
@@heartsofiron4ever "Authoriatarianism" is a meaningless buzzword liberals use to describe any government action whatsoever. You'll need to concretely define what "authoritarianism" means relative to your comment for it to hold any weight.
@@jakekaywell5972 the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom. lack of concern for the wishes or opinions of others.
I must be thoroughly wrong when I think that "Socialism" is a secular religion- and that it is both Western and (despite being officially atheist) Judeo-Christian as all fuck. The sacred religion/God can never be wrong-only the miserable attempts by wretched sinners to implement it. To the extent that Marxist Socialism was ever "scientific", it was an early 19th century materialist (and Hegelian!) type of science. It was not falsifiable, and thereby did not lend itself well to improvements via experimentation.
@@heartsofiron4ever That's the "collective West" today, in a nutshell.
The more books Hakim recomends in a video, the better it is. This is what I love about communist creators, they all recomend books and other means to further our education. Greetings from Portugal
Communist creators??? Wdym by that
@@yassine3978 well, content creators that susbcribe to communism
@yassine Content creators who support Communist views
@@yassine3978 hakim is a communist content creater
@@yassine3978 Hakim is a communist.
also ussr did not have the huge headstart the West got from
1)colonization of africa,south asia,some part of east asia,some part of south east asia,smaller multiple islands.
2)settler colonization of north america,south america,australia,new Zealand,south africa,different multiple smaller islands
3)and current day imperialism of the 3rd world nations.
4)also in avg has a harsher climate than north america,western europe
5) chattel slavery of millions(i am not saying ussr should have done the same like europe,usa, i am just pointing out the disparity in headstart the west got)
6) geographical isolation from europe or any bigger group of nations, like usa have,ussr didnot.
Can we have a Fidel Quote at the end of every video from now on?
Imagine Lenin and Stalin both watching modern Russia right now, they'd be rolling in their graves.
Marx would call it quits
Modern Russia might be c@pitalist but at least it is anti imp3rialist. Their boldness a year ago has massively accelerated the collapse of the Empire, thus ironically being perhaps the single most pro-s0cialist move in human history.
Not quite. They were neither idealists nor idiots. Although they would obviously be disappointed with how future generations in the USSR disposed of their efforts and the sacrifices they made -- Lenin directly wrote and spoke about the period of "revolutions and counter-revolutions, which has just begun". And they both knew the History well, in which capitalism, as not only an economic, but also a social power, originated at the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries (pre-capitalist city-states of medieval northern Italy).
Love your work and support you from India. You opened my eyes to a lot.
Lal salam/ Red salute comrade from India 🇮🇳
@@rimondas6729 Lal Salam. #chortmc
You don't have eyes at all of you think Marxism is enlightening.
The best book on the breakdown of the USSR is Perestroika: The Complete Collapse of Revisionism. by Harpal Brar in which he traces the fall to the victory of revisionism when Khrushchev took power.
Ooooh, I'll have to get that
Regardless of its contribution to its collapse, the USSR was severely lacking in democratic & decentralized management. To say this is a cop-out because it doesn't take into account actual socialist experiments is itself a cop-out. It doesn't critically examine the nature of the State itself and how it is antithetical to socialist goals. The history of the Soviet Union DOES matter because it shows what happens when you delay communist organization in favor of developmentalism.
How will you achieve workers democracy without having the required material conditions ?
To achieve that you need to educate the masses first then gradually give the administration and planning to them ..
1- the russians were mostly peasants who couldn't read or write .
2- workers can't have direct democracy in everything in politics and economy because simple they work for 8 hours a day consuming mental and physical efforts and they are humans who have other activities they want to do after their work .. so there is a need for workers who have full time jobs in the fields of planning and scientific fields related to every production sector .. for example let's talk about the production of meat and milk , we need experts and scientists who have all the information about the required amounts of food and the required medical treatments for every species .. the workers can't reach that as this needs them to study huge amounts of scientific information about that sector so we need experts who will be responsible with the other experts in planning the economy in collaboration with the vanguard party members who are specialized in politics , economy and military fields .
Marx has explained that in socialism there is still a difference between mental and physical labour which can't be abolished unless we develop the productive forces to an extent that minimizes the working day thus the workers will have more free time to learn the essential basics of administration and planning the economy and the entire society by themselves without the need of bureaucracy .
For example if we work for 4 hours every day , we will have 4 hours to learn every day , this can't happen unless we develop the productive forces to increase production in less time thus we head to communism gradually .
When you speak about the argument of centralization , put in your mind what marxism says about the transition to socialism and the required material conditions for full workers democracy .
It is not the fault of the soviet union at all , their material conditions required that .
Second : russia suffered from economic backwardness , countless military threats .. so in order to eliminate economic dependency you need to have industry to take advantage of your resources and labour power .. Vladimir lenin adopted marxism goals to the material conditions of russia after the civil wars that turned russia into hell economically .
Vladimir lenin confined the policy of the NEP , which opened the soviet union to the bourgiosie to transfer the technologies , experiences which were concentrated in their hands due to old colonialism .
The dictatorship of the bourgiosie guaranteed the control of the external trade in exchange for the technologies and experiences , guiding the investment to the desired priorities such as heavy industry and military industries .
After the end of the NEP the bourgiosie mentality arose in the soviet union so it was necessary to achieve socialism through industrialisation under the leadership of joseph stalin ... Industrialization depended on exchanging raw materials and grains for the machines and many other needs .
After 3 five years plans the soviet union turned into industrial socialist super power .
Massive miraculous achievements guaranteed for the soviet union populations ( hakim and other communists on UA-cam made episodes about them in detail and you can know more by entering socialism 101 website ) .
In World War Two the soviet union suffered from huge losses in people and economy .. the well educated workers and masses required for building workers democracy died in the war .. so there was a must to leave workers councils system .. it wasn't stalin who did that because he wanted the beurocracy it was the material conditions of the soviet union that forced it to do that .
These conditions did not hinder the soviet union from re-establishing the required educated masses , before the death of stalin there was a public voting on the new constitution which would give the workers more abilities to apply workers democracy and decreasing the bureaucrats .. you know what happened ?
They planned to assassinate stalin so the bureaucracy will not leave its positions and their chances of being a new exploiter class as you will know when Nikita Khrushchev came to leadership .
If you want to know exactly what happened during these harsh conditions i recommend you watch the Finnish Bolshevik series talking about the rise of soviet revisionism on the hands of Khrushchev .
@@georgesoap1733 Fantastic read, comrade.
@@georgesoap1733 True, material development was sorely needed as well as education, but I believe his argument is that this should not have come at the sacrifice of decentralized democracy and grassroots based power structure. Even if the founders of the USSR had the best and purest intentions, establishing centralized power structures inevitably leads to reduced democratic decision making.
@@Ravenhouse23While we can say this in hindsight it’s also important to acknowledge WHY that decision was made. The USSR was unfortunately under constant threat of military invasion between 1917 and 1945 at a MINIMUM. By the time they actually had somewhat of a breather the west went on a full anti communist offensive internationally and opportunism and revisionism had been given an entryway into the party mainly due to the immense loss of life in WW2. Unfortunately Lenin, Stalin, etc. didn’t have the benefit of hindsight to know they wouldn’t ACTUALLY be invaded in the 1920’s and most of the 1930’s and not outright until 1941.
@@bensagal-morris8072 it still stands that a more decentralized and democratic Soviet Union would have been able to whitstand the preassure. The way things developed, oportunism was able to take root and weaken the USSR gradually from the inside, therefore making it more volnurable from the outside and into the slipery slope we go. The strong pillars of Marxsism and Leninims were gradually deformed, abandoned and outright betrayed and by the end not even the leadershit knew where it originated, or payed it any heed. Decisions were made to try to sustain the unsustainable which not only lead to oportunism but outright extinguished potential revolutions around the world...
Thank you, Hakim. The work you do is very important. The effort, reaearch, and labor you put into your videos is not lost on us, and I just want to extend my most genuine thanks to you and the people who help put these videos together. From the bottom of my heart, I appreciate you.
Lol there was closed to no research in the essay. Hakim still failed to explain the fall of the union.
@@balghar493 seethe
@@balghar493 I mean, we shouldn't expect an exhaustive examination of perhaps the biggest question in political science from the second half of the 20th century in a mere 20 minutes. Was there something in particular you thought was missing here? Note also the copious reading list for this whale of a topic. Even reading a one thousand page tome regarding the Fall will leave the inquisitive mind seeking further answers. Don't forget that to this day if you ask 10 Classicists what caused Rome to "fall", you'll get at least 20 different answers
@@balghar493 he did say he'd give some explanations people use and we should draw our opinion. I'll link an article for you to check out it talks about Gorbachev's ambitious plans and how he ultimately failed and this contributed to the demise of the Union
You should make a video about what future socialist states (specifically Vietnam, China and Laos) should do.
China seems to be operating just fine without our suggestions. They have illustrated they think, plan, and execute plans decades ahead, with diligence and discipline.
(Splitting into multiple comments in case one gets Zuqued)
(2/x) They have succeeded in building a strong economy independent of the West, which was a goal when the pivot to Dengism took place. They have a mutually beneficial relationship with a growing roster of countries under the Belt & Road Initiative that makes itself and each country involved far less vulnerable to USian economic warfare.
(3/x) They have, true to character, patiently and passively allowed the Murkkkan Empire to sow the seeds of its own destruction. The Empire is now in rapid decline (accelerated by the Ukro war) and finds itself in a position where it doesn't have siphons of imperialism to fuel its hegemony, and is steadily losing a grip diplomatically on some of its most loyal vassals (Saudi Arabia, much of Europe, etc.)
(4/x) Despite being in a century-long world war they started at a disadvantage, they have steadily improved the living conditions of their colossal citizenry. Capitalist excesses are constantly cracked down upon and socialized to the benefit of the working class. As all metrics to measure QoL improve, they also have made incredible strides in green energy, general technology, and diplomatic cooperation.
Funny coincidence. I literally started reading this book 2 days ago, highly recommend it.
The fact that the Americans were caught by surprise at the collapse indicates that the collapse wasn't "inevitable".
Personally I think it's the USD caused the collapse. Unlike the US which could print money whenever they wanted the Soviets were constrained by inflationary pressures. They had to project power the same as the US, but had to do it in USD.
I think any honest understanding of the fall of the soviet union will have to understand that there wasn't any one factor that if different the soviet union would still be here. It was a mix of many factors both internal and external factors that contributed to the fall.
My short hand for this idea is that the problem with the Soviet union wasn't communism but the fact it was Russian.
@@calvinware7957 That's a terribly narrow-minded opinion. But I would say that sadly it was a factor... not because of an inherent "property" of russian people, but rather their very poor circumstances right before, and the failure to identify these issues early on, because the leaders weren't... they were bullies and murderers.
Ah, also the secret police killing and torturing people, the gulags... lack of a lot of liberties, the vicious cycle of being afraid to voice your opinion or signal that there's an issue for fear of being beaten and/or imprisoned and/or killed.
I left a rather lenghty comment talking a bit more in depth about what I think was unjustly left out of the video.
I took about two years of Soviet history courses throughout college in relation to my Russian late language studies, and I thought I basically knew the subject and turn. I was actually wrong. I only knew about half of the proposed causes, and basically every video I see on this channel makes me look like some sort of amateur history for babies, commentator in comparison.
That sounds almost like a generic or a no-answer, but it's not. The evolution and the stability of any real-world system, physical, socio-economic or otherwise depends on many variables. Hence pointing at just one or even several variables and saying this is why the system finds itself in a particular state is nonsensical.
Furthermore, the fact that The question still remains open should be a hint that yeah... it's complicated and we don't really know
Please put a list of your book recommendations in the description. It is much easier to copy and paste from there than it is to pause the video to look it up, then go back to the video to make sure I have it right, possibly with trying to rewind the video.
Greetings from the CIA drone operation center monitoring your location, comrade!
Can you do a video on why socialist countries were so good at the Olympics and why, good public access to many sports is good for human health?
The Olympics used to only allow amateur athletes, which means in developed nations with national athletics that suck in the majority of people interested in sports who are then automatically denied entry into the Olympics you by definition are only seeing second rate talent, and you need to be pretty bad at Basketball to not see any national competition in the US. When that rule was done away with the socialist (undeveloped nations) advantage suddenly vanished.
It's also fun to note, the socialist advantage mysteriously didn't effect China. It's almost like China had well developed national sports programs that sucked up the majority of their top talent. This is particularly acute because China, which was the most populous nation in the world for this entire era, should have the majority of top sports talent going just off of statistics, just the the USA as the 4th and eventually 3rd most populous is also going to be inherently over represented. Today China is overtaking the US for that exact reason, but the only socialist nation with major sports leagues in the era is the only one under performing? Crazy.
The Soviet Union is the only socialist nation who's advantage didn't vanish completely when professionals were allowed in, which is the only nation in the world with a literal birth to gold program available for thousands of children, including in may programs literal eugenics. Their advantage weakened significantly, and they would never beat the US overall again, but they continue to be disproportionately successful to this day. See girls figure skating for an example of how far they're still willing to go in the sports they still dominate.
Seriously, look up the specific sports the Russian's still outperform in, and look at the massive industrial scale infant to gold program that supports that success, then look at their middling success in the sports they no longer have those programs for. I'm not sure they're a good example of sports for sports sake, or human health.
@@ASDeckard interesting, thanks for the insight
I think you are right about birth to gold not being the best for human health
So the Soviet Union fell because they didn't use Atlas VPN...
Great analysis, short and on topic, just as always comrade, keep up the good work!
Just look at the Soviet Union emblem..
A hammer crossed with a sickle .. it is basically are industries and farming..
A labour force.. hmmmm..
The failure of the Soviet Union is it dependent upon human labour force to achieve it's goals and ambitions.. hmmmm.. time had changed.. and so does our human species technological advancement and evolution.. hmmmm..
With artificial intelligence and repetitive machines and robotic technologies.. human labour have been liberated.. hmmmm..
And transition from capitalism economic system to a communism reality is now possible.. hmmmm..
Let make our communism reality great again said Yoda.. hmmmm..
О, земляк. Всё же насколько прогрессивное и хорошее для мирового интернационала явление - Интернет. Рад, что люди труда и коммунисты со всего мира могут здесь общаться и поддерживать друг друга.
Am I the only one feeling a tad slow for Hakim's rapid fire presentation? Excellent as it is I'd be fine with longer run time for the video allowing for a few inbreaths as well 😅
I understood what he said, but I definitely agree he should slow down his speech a bit more so there’s a better chance for his content to resonate with the working class
@@Cycrum Yeah.
@@Cycrum 💯
This was much too fast...I watch videos to get someone's take on a subject. By quickly referring to other's books and moving on, there was no time to digest nor was any coherent frame presented. I would appreciate a longer and more fully explored discussion. The USSR did a lot of horrible things, but of course the British probably did even worse, and we know the horrors of the USA, and that is without even talking about their slaughter of the native americans in the most inhuman way.
There are many lectures already on this topic presented by academics on UA-cam. You can also read the books he recommended, which will provide you with far more information than simply watching a video, regardless of its length, or a single lecture for that matter.
no such theory can ever be complete if the story of the USSR isn't drawn in parallel with what happened in the US, during that same period (1980-1990, a period of rapid deindustralization), along with a thorough accounting and comparison of WWII's lasting concequences to each, and an accompanying analysis of the way imperialism and unequal exchange were utilized by the latter, but could not ever be utilized by the former (to the same degree at least).
What are some good books on these topics?
also ussr did not have the huge headstart the West got from
1)colonization of africa,south asia,some part of east asia,some part of south east asia,smaller multiple islands.
2)settler colonization of north america,south america,australia,new Zealand,south africa,different multiple smaller islands
3)and current day imperialism of the 3rd world nations.
4)also in avg has a harsher climate than north america,western europe
5) chattel slavery of millions(i am not saying ussr should have done the same like europe,usa, i am just pointing out the disparity in headstart the west got)
6) geographical isolation from europe or any bigger group of nations, like usa have,ussr didnot.
@@shushunk00 Lesson learned: be the coloniser, not the colonised
@@shushunk00 1&2: I'm not so sure. At the same time as the colonization of the Americas, Russia was colonizing Siberia which is vast with natural gas and resources and with a far less hostile and sparse native population.
3: The USSR and modern Russia did partially succeed in using their influence in the third world in Africa and Asia after decolonization. After the fall of the USSR into the new millennium, Russia certainly had the ability to succeed influentially in many countries just as China has done and continues to do.
6: Russia before the revolution wasn't isolated. After the revolution, for the most part it was, being limited to Mexico and other socialist nations. During the Cold War, it had built itself more allies such as the Warsaw Pact, China, Vietnam, Albania, Several African countries, many Muslim nations, Cuba, Nicaragua, and partially India and later Bangladesh before the Sino-Soviet Split. After the collapse, many of those Warsaw Pact states distanced themselves, but the rest of the world market opened themselves to Russia albeit warringly.
I won't argue on points I didn't mention as I either agree with those or I need to read up more on those subjects. I feel like the USSR or modern Russia could have very well succeeded much more if not equally to modern China who seemed to be in a much worse starting position than Russia from the Industrial period into later years of the Cold War.
@@thenamesdampen6888 Nonsense.
Russia did not colonize Siberia.
Only western Europe and north America are guilty of colonialism
China did not have the same pressure applied to it that it was applied to the USSR.
The imperialists are trying to do to China what they did to the USSR, but by this point it is too late for them, as imperialism is on the decline.
On "Reimagining Soviet Georgia" podcast they interviewed historian Vladimir Zubok. He just published the book "Collapse - The fall of the Soviet Union". Haven't read it yet, but I warmly recommend the episode with his interview in it.
Didn't he write Zhivago's Children?
As a leftist living in an ex-ussr country, I am very grateful to you for your channel. I feel very ostracized from the leftist, decolonial community here, because of the demonization of communism and ussr that exists in these communities. The decolonization community is, unfortunately, going in some petite nationalist bourgeoisie way and it's very disappointing.
Autocracy and an underdeveloped economy as a result of the autocratic bureaucracy. Thus came an over reliance on fossil fuels as everyone capable wanted the comfort of government work or work in the fossil fuel industry. Not to mention external forces sabotaging socialism and communism every chance they had.
When the price of fossil fuels dropped their singular economy and the overarching bureaucracy built to protect the government and industry obviously fell as well.
Theres no real singular issue and more like death from a thousand cuts i think a more interesting question is "what could have led to a USSR success?"
I think the answer to that is even more democracy (ussr had more democracy than most realize but kt still wasnt enough.) Then use that democracy to expand transparency and root out corruption.
Oh and of course using the government to force a diversification and independent economy. They had access to the raw materials and had no reason not to begin manufacturing and importing the same things the US were.
An expansion of education would have helped as well.
Again, a thousand cuts that would have required great foresight to overcome that leaders of the USSR simply couldn't afford to have.
They were betrayed by Gorbachev and his cronies
This is genius!
With a reworked video you appease the algorithm, thrill your viewer crowd and get us to review a topic for human attention is fleeting.
All the while costing yourself less than a normal video maybe. This is potentially a good change for Breadtube
The answer is counter revolution from within the party.
Which started with the Kruschchev Coup
Pizza Hut
Am I the only one who disagrees with how this discussion - the end of the Soviet Union - is framed in the first place? In my opinion, it wasn't a complex socio-economic collapse. The Union was disbanded by leaders of certain republics. A purely political motion, an executive order. That's all. At that point the Soviet Union was already a capitalist country, and it was undergoing an economic crisis, which is rather normal. Crises happen everywhere, countries don't "collapse" because of them, like the US did not break into 50 independent countries in 2008. Likewise, Germany did not break up in 1989, on the contrary, they united. When the Sino-Soviet split happened, neither China, nor the Soviet Union became capitalist.
That's why I consider transition from socialism to capitalism in the Soviet Union and its formal dissolution as two parallel but distinct processes. And they should be discussed separately. On the one hand, why Gorbachev's administration (and previous ones) decided to implement capitalist reforms. On the other hand, how Yeltsin and his accomplices gained enough power to do what they did. I do not deny there is a certain connection between these two aspects, but it is somehow never mentioned, and the two processes are simply discussed simultaneously, as if one always means the other - which, I believe, is not the case at all. Moreover, it seems to be a rather unique occurrence.
I agree with you! it was the decision of a group of people who seized power. And people could not prevent this, because radical nationalists, funded by the CIA, were rampant in every republic.
Was the USSR ever socialist then, or was it doomed to fail from the start like the Bordigists claim?
The Soviet Union was a vast and overstretched empire. It's honestly incredible that the people in the regime just waved their hands in the air and just gave it up. Normally, dissolutions of empires results in countless bloody conflicts and chaos as the imperialists hold onto anything they can and everyone else fights to their teeth for their freedom. But the hardliners in the Soviet Union failed and everyone just peaceful agreed to just dissolve the empire and move on.
@@8is Can't get any more liberal than you. Regime, empire, hardliners... No, it wasn't peaceful at all, the Ukrainian conflict was simply the first one they showed you.
@@alfatejpblind6498 It depends purely on how you define socialism.
In my opinion, the more important question is not what caused the fall of Soviet Union, but rather what caused the fall of socialism in the Soviet Union.
The USSR died in 1991, but socialism and the communist project in the USSR died a long time before that (and it is debatable when).
Even though it had been in decay for a while, what caused the actual collapse of the USSR is not super complicated. Gorbachev’s reckless reforms and the failed hardliner coup in response created an opening for Yeltsin’s counterrevolution.
On the other hand, what led to the degeneration of socialism in the USSR and the communist project more broadly is a much more complicated and more important question without clear answers that communists should be investigating.
Also as for information, I think Socialism for betrayed doesn’t say anything “false” except for its incorrect characterization of Bukharin’s ideas. Additionally, while the book emphasizes the role of the black markets/Second economy in cultivating a petit bourgeois mentality, it doss not address the economic realities that led to the proliferation of black markets. The authors’ seem to imply that the solution should have been to simply prohibit them with greater force as they had been in the Stalin era, but what this misses is that 1) black markets also existed in the Stalin era although less prevalent and 2) another major reason why black market activity was less prevalent in the Stalin era was because of the war and collectivization periods, in which people needed to live a much more austere life out of necessity. After WW2 was over, and as economic growth had risen, soviet citizens wanted to live a more relaxed life and wanted more consumer luxuries after sacrificing so much during the war. The spread of TVs and loosening of travel restrictions (although tightly regulated ) also exposed people to more information about what existed out there, and people developed new desires as their hierarchy of needs changed. Furthermore many of people’s needs (mainly consumer products, not vital necessities) were not met by the planning system and the system experienced chronic delays and shortages. It simply was not possible to calculate plans that encompassed so much information accurately without the help of computers. A project to accelerate the computerization of planning, which would have greatly helped the USSR, was proposed by Soviet scientists (OGAS), but was rejected by the ambivalent party bureaucracy under Brezhnev, who were afraid of the transparency that the adoption of such technology could bring as they wanted to tightly controlled what information got to the public. In this sense the lack of democracy critique is partly true even if notions of “decentralization” are not. Thus the proliferation can’t merely be blamed on Khrushchev or Brezhnev (whose own daughter was deeply involved in the black market LOL). It was overdetermined by various factors. The government under Brezhnev ended up allowing the black markets to exist/turning a blind eye because they met demands that the plans could not meet. Outlawing them would have been a futile task and would have only made citizens more angry and likely to rebel. This was an implicit position quite widely held by the party, even hardliners like Andropov had plans for market reforms despite being against “democratic” reforms. My position on markets is that they cant be abolished until they are replaced by a superior form of central planning that is capable of meeting peoples needs more effectively. The technology for that was not adopted by the USSR, or any socialist country except Allende’s short lived experiment. Like the state, markers can’t he abolished, but can only “wither away” as they become less necessary.
Just my two cents.
Important video as usual!
You know the video is a steaming pile when it's:
a) made by an ML
b) comflates Bukharin with Khurshchev and Gorbachev
I never thought of it like that.
I got a fucking pizza hut add on this video
LMAOOOOO no fucking way ahahahahaha
Thank you for taking the time from your day and work to make these incredible detailed videos. The info and history here is invaluable.
Lots of great stuff in here as always :)
Carlos Martinez’s book on this topic is worth a read for a great strength which is comparing why Perestroika failed so miserably and why Reform and Opening-Up and Doi Moi achieved such success in China and Vietnam respectively.
what is the name of the book?
@@santim.o.b6825 "The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse". It's available in libgen, but you've to search by "Carlo Martínez"
@@santim.o.b6825 The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse 👍
Success as in "turned into capitalist countries"? Lol
@@nonono4160 If ‘capitalism’ lifts almost a billion people out of poverty in the span of a couple decades (a phenomenon that curiously hasn’t taken place in the rest of the capitalist world), maybe you should re-examine your opposition to said social system
Sry but the Baltics revolted against IMPERIALISM, not Gorbachev's policies. Russia became weaker, and that was the chance to become free of the cultural oppression. In Estonia we had a saying that we are willing to eat potato peels, just to be free. The sentiment was that even if we fall into poverty, we need to be free first and foremost. I am a socialist, but protecting the imperialism and authoritarianism of the Soviet Union will not help the cause.
The Baltic sisters deserved to be annexed by the Soviets for siding with the Nazis, especially Lithuania for murdering >90% of their Jewish population!
Napoleon once called Vilnius the "Jerusalem of the North" Also 2,700 Latvians and 2,200 Estonians collaborated on killing their jews and aiding with the Nazi war machine.
@@UmQasaann damn, didn't know that the Baltics sided with the Nazis in 1940. Are we also gonna casually ignore the fact that the Soviet Union also aided the Nazi war machine, by providing them with raw materials, through trade.
@@ceptspelmenis958 Are we going to ignore that French and British investor invested in Germans arms factories which later became the Nazi war machine. Also, Chamberlain forced Czechoslovakia to hand over Sudetenland to Hitler.
@@UmQasaann why are you bringing up the western allies?
@@ceptspelmenis958 The UK and France in reality (Chamberlain and Daladier) was the main reason behind the rise of Hitler. They supplied Hitler with huge amount of loans and capital indirectly assisted the Nazi party as possible.
Sudetenland was a gift to the Germans by Chamberlain when Hitler himself hadn't thoughtcross his mind. Daladier raised the issue and forced the president of Czechoslovakia (Bennett) to handover Sudetenland to Germany.
After that British and French investors invested German armed factories which later those factories became the supply line for the Nazi war machine. The capitalist class were always looking for ways to harm the USSR and they thought Hitler as their ally in the process.
System nie wydolny gospodarczo i polityczno-społecznie. Stworzony na mzonkach (ciekawych, postępowych ale błędnych założeniach). Podparty zbrodniami przeciwko ludzkości i kurestwem moralnym.
Pozdrawiam z Polski
poland was only good when it was communist, and some great polish people include felix dzerzhinsky, vyacheslav menzhinsky, boleslaw bierut, wladyslaw gomulka, and andrei vyshinsky
@@NBrioDaZueraRules pffff Hahahaj you are just a poor troll
for others, I will mention that these bastards 👆 are ordinary mass murderers who have millions of innocent people on their 'conscience'
@@NBrioDaZueraRules I looked at your channel 😃 😀 as I advise you to consult your school counselor. Surely someone in your school can help you 😉
The Soviet Union must be revived!
yes but how?
@@chillpenguin3481 The capitalists are tough but not invincible. Lenin showed how to answer that question.
@@TylerCWilliams Yes, but how can the republics all come together again?
@@chillpenguin3481 Similar revolutionary scenarios will likely have to play out in those republics as well.
You know theres a war in Ukraine right now right?
Greetings from Lugansk, the city that used to be Voroshilovgrad during the Soviet epoch! Hakim, your videos are one of the best in all of the left political YT (talking about the real left, not modern pseudo-leftists), thank you for your magnificent works!
Isn't Lugansk in the middle of (or really close to) the front lines of the war right now?
Greetings from a non-Ukrainian reader/viewer of rfu red.)
@@chrisgaming9567, yep, like 100 kilometres from the frontline. We here could every day see AA tracks on the day sky and often we hear explosions somewhere near the city. Though, in compare with Donetsk or Lysitchansk we here live pretty peaceful lives. Ofc, imperialistic war is rising, so our 'peaceful' lives are not for a long.
@@andrey-uf1tg, greetings, my friend! I am a reader of RFU myself and I consider myself as a Ukrainian, though I'm native Lugansk inhabitant :D
@@danonimusgombelinius7254 so i am assuming you don't support the LPR regime or the annexation to Russia?
Great content. Is it possible that you will do a video about Soviet satelite states at some point?
USSR collapsed…because it was an empire ruled by force and threat of violence. When that’s removed it breaks up. Look at the British empire. Or the French, after WW2 they no longer had the power to keep enforce their will on former colonies. Russia lost the power to enforce its colonial rule on the Soviet republics. I don’t understand why it seems like every socialist always wants to ignore the imperial nature of the USSR in their critiques. Like it’s not part of the global north engaging in imperialism and colonialism because they called them selves communists and quoted Marx. Same with China. Tibet and Inner Mongolia are colonies under imperial rule, they are just not far flung like the European powers colonies. It’s the same way the British started their imperialism and colonialism with Scottish and Irish, before going abroad. The problem with every socialist communist county so far..is that they still all end up being imperial power that engage in colonialism. Also equating membership in communist youth or trade unions to democratic systems and bottom up power given the rest of the structures of political power in the USSR or China is a pretty bad take on representation, power and democracy. Civic society with no legally protected freedoms is not a real civil society.
The USSR wasn't "imperialist" by any stretch of the definition. It was a 15-member federated bloc, with each member state having equal representation. Soviets would have made everyone a puppet if they could because that's the whole point, to spread socialism. It's foolish to act like bourgeois states have a right to be "independent" when they really have no right to exist. It's russification and its petty-nationalist reaction which made soviet allies turn on them, not "imperialism".
@@jakekaywell5972 His point is, the USSR sought to spread its influence by force, espionage, and many other means. When revolutions crept up in countries like Hungary, the USSR squashed them, it retained influence over many countries via force, control of the media, economy, and so much more. People grew tired of that, of the lies they had been told, and it contributed to the fall of the USSR.
Also, what is this about certain states not having a right to exist? Who are you to say anything about it?
@@jakekaywell5972 russification is like the definition imperialism. it's actually hilarious that people like you think the system was participatory in any sense of the word. the entirety of central asia, the baltics, the caucuses, etc, all were violently conquered by the russian empire and all the USSR did was extend that empire. if lenin or any of the bolsheviks had any fucking heart or integrity they would've immediately dismantled that empire and given these minority republics self rule. but they didn't because they sought to continue the russian empire's imperialism just under a new banner of state socialism. you can't inherit a pre-existing multi-continent-wide empire, slap the label of socialist on it and then declare it no longer imperialist. they kept in place many of the same institutions, such as penal labor camps (gulags). to the extent that national delimitation gave any of the minority republics any autonomy, it was a fucking joke. each republic had their own constitution that was worth its value in dirt. none of these constitutions were enforced in any meaningful sense, none of them had any real, meaningful autonomy except some brief changes in policy under khrushchev and gorbachev, and in the latter, that attempt at autonomy caused the entire system to crumble, which is unsurprising considering the entire union was held together forcefully as an empire, not a participatory federation. every single minority was stripped of its culture, linguistic history, religious beliefs, history, way of life, and customs, in many cases through russification. preferential treatment was given to ethnic russians. local populations were displaced by european settlers. any historian who isn't a fucking joke would call that imperialism. the ussr completely uprooted the nomadic lifestyles of people in the kazakh steppe in order to extract crop resources and force them to be sedentary farmers. the USSR was an imperial entity on par with that of the french, british, and the americans. what a joke lol
@SimmerSommer are you saying dumb things because you think it's funny to agitate strangers on the internet or did you genuinely just insinuate that soviet republics had comparable autonomy to that of U.S. states. please tell me if you're joking or not because i would like to know if i'm talking to a lobotomy patient who has not even read basic soviet history
@SimmerSommer are you arguing that russification doesn't exist? i hate to break it to you but there isn't even a single communist soviet historian who would take that position, much less a respected one, lol. what a fucking joke
Saying that Gorbachev reforms caused unrests is absurd. People were always disconsent with the Goverment, but KGB and police terrorized everyone who dared to say whar they think. Gorbachev gave them a voice.
Gorbachev was responsible for the collapse and as he intended to destroy the Soviet Union.
@@thefrench8847 gorbachev wanted to reform the soviet union but in doing so he aided in it's destruction, fair to say that even without gorbachev the soviet union would have collapsed because the soviet government was so corrupt and ineffective
could you provide context and examples for when the KGB "terrorized everyone who dared to say what they think"? thanks.
I find that when trying to convince regular people to come on board with socialism, the argument that "Soviet Communism was all wrong but we will do it differently" is the most persuasive. It can take months or years to deprogram some ones brain to see former socialist states in a more balanced light, and frequently when you try to tell people that the Soviet Union was actually a more nuanced place then they previously believed, they immediately write you off as a genocide denier and shut off to anything you have to say.
the funny thing is that there was no genocide in the USSR. while capitalist countries did terrible things in the colonies...
The problem with this approach is that this same kind of propaganda will be made about all future socialist projects, for as long as a capitalist propaganda apparatus exists.
As a socialist I would love to defend the Soviet Union. But when I see events like the great purge, Lenin’s shut down of artels and non Bolshevik worker organisations… its tough to defend
@@chrisgaming9567 Right. I'm just talking about using this as an initial way to get people on board. Then Introducing them to the nuances after they are more receptive to socialism.
@@krapiva_krasnaya the Ukrainians in the 30s would very much disagree
Imagine that you won the biggest battles in the world and could not defeat some villagers in the mountains of Afghanistan
Soviet Union had indirect help from west during WW2 from additional front vs. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan along with some minor logistical aid. Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan partly from western aid to rebels along with lack of popular support from civilian population.
Common issue for large countries.
Who are you dunking on? Soviet Union? United States? Alexander the Great?
@@weirdo1060 Yes, Great Britain supported the Soviet Union to defeat the Nazis, neutral countries as well, and many neighboring and neutral countries.. The German army did not have oil to supply Panzer tanks, so they attacked the Soviet Union because it did not give them oil. It was a much needed German attack on the Soviet Union. For example, Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait because all countries attacked him with economic sanctions, and he wanted to save resources for his army. If he had not attacked them, the Iraqi army would have collapsed from within This applies to the Germans.
Hi there, I just got into socialist content for about a month and I am trying to get more information through UA-cam content like this and reading up what I can find on the internet. However I have on question that I have failed to find an answer for although not directly related to this video. My question is what was the Soviet perspective on the Berlin Wall. In the west (in mine case the Netherlands) we often hear about the so called economic failure of east Berlin and that is why people from east Berlin left for West Berlin. We hear here that the Soviets wanted to prevent that and that is why the Berlin Wall was build. I wonder what the Soviet perspective was and if someone can help me explore this topic further.
the point of erecting the wall was that in the GDR they gave people a good education for free, and these ready-made specialists fled to FRG because they could earn more money there. that is, the FRG could not invest money in people, they came from the GDR.
To be honest I too would be interested in the topic of the Berlin Wall being examined. Even if someone could point me to a non-CIA published text covering the Wall from a spcialist perspective, I'd be happy to look into it
Regarding the Berlin Wall for a socialist perspective do a UA-cam search for "Berlin Wall socialist". You should find find some very interesting stuff there.
I don't understand why Berlin wall is so hard to understand to anyone with at least a couple of brain cells. Just look where Berlin is located ffs.
Why does Brezhnev not get a single mention in this analysis?? You heap poor decision making on Kruschev, who presided over 11 years after the severity of the Stalin regime, and then say nothing about Brezhnev you ruled for 18 years after and seemingly did nothing to fix these underlying issues?
The main reason why socialism ended in the USSR is that the proletariat relaxed and forgot what class struggle is. But the capitalists don't.
^ This
rest in piss gorbo
Because it slipped on a banana peel
I’m nearly done reading “Socialism Betrayed” on this video’s suggestion, and man… it is de-pressing. How much better - objectively better - would the world be if Gorbachev either had never become GenSec of the CPSU, or had not abandoned the founding principles of the country. I used to think of him as most liberals did - a good-natured man who wanted what was best, recognized the flaws inherent in socialism and communism, and tried to adapt before things got away from him. Now I know: he was a traitor to socialism, and a complete idiot when it came to policy.
I know man... In all honesty, maybe they should have gotten advice or tried in at least the most basic way to mend the sino-soviet split, China - while it _did_ marketize, also fucking stayed alive - with outside forces pointing all guns at the two of them, they could have at least worked together, and now we are seeing Xi Jinping start to renationalize the economy again, turn towards a renal of Socialism and China is destined to overtake the US economy in the next couple decades - God if only the КПСС could have been just as fucking competent, now all we have is a wannabe Tsarist raging imperialist wars to deepen the pockets of him and his oligarchs with all the post-Soviet republics being used as pawns in this new bloody game of capitalist chess...
When western liberal intellectuals talk about Democracy of eastern countries, it always seems like fishes arguing about why birds don't live in water like us?
In my opinion it was Brezhnev's leadership. over military spending and rampant unimpeded corruption lead to a horrible economy which was the problem Gorbachev’s reforms tried to fix
Which did not work and only lead to Boris Yeltsin taking control and ending the ussr
A lack of democracy and an overly-centralized government was a problem, but I dont see how one could argue that it led to the collapse of the Soviet union. I think you're doing a disservice by conflating democracy with a mixed economy, the two are exclusive and need to be discussed separately, the problems of mixed economies do not reflect on democracy and democracy doesn't carry the failing of the concept of mixed economies.
The USSR was democratic, liberal.
@@durshurrikun150 I didn't say the USSR wasn't democratic, lol. I said a lack democracy, as in there could have been more democracy. A more lateral democratic system would have been better.
@@rustyshackleford735 You were implying that the liberal imperialist shitholes of the west were more democratic, which is not the case and never was.
@@durshurrikun150 USSR = prison. No democracy. Only poverty, criminality and lack of culture.
the fall of the soviet union was on of the most depressing and disheartening things to ever happen to socialism. It's hard to imagine what will be of socialism now without a strong community of socialist nations striving for it. And worsened anti-communist propaganda has made it harder to spread. I have a feeling we crossed the fork in the road towards barbarism around the late 1980s.
i would love nothing more than for someone to disprove me
Yeah it was so great that it was the only place where they had to build walls and keep people from leaving by threatening to shoot them.
@@stygian4011 yeah, also Stalin had been eating babies and killed 10000000000000 innocent people. Trust me bro
Have hope friend. Ch!na has brought soc!alism further than ever before, and has built a massive coalition of anti imp3rialist countries. After the Murkkkan Empire collapses the rest of the world will finally be free to be s0cialist. Much of Latin America is already washing pink again, and the Empire (thanks to Chin4) has been unable to do a damn thing about it.
The future is bright! Except for us poor souls trapped in the belly of the beast as the beast dies and rots.
@@stygian4011 If you're interested, another channel I follow made a short video debunking that myth
@@stygian4011 Yep, they also boiled babies in chicken stock, outlawed anime and forced people who identified as a gender to drink mayonnaise until they exploded.
Source: "How the Soviets Killed 420 Billion People Every Five Minutes" by critically acclaimed Yale graduate and, ahem, former CIA director Cracker S. Thumbloaf.
Due to reliance on Communism.
Greece died due to reliance on capitalism
@@xDCAxNexus Greece "died" to due cooking its books.
4:12 Yakovlev's influence on the soviet media was intentionally destructive
"After the XX Congress, in an ultra-narrow circle of our closest friends and associates, we often discussed the problems of democratization of the country and society. We chose a simple - like a sledgehammer - method of propagating the "ideas" of late Lenin. A group of true, not imaginary reformers developed (of course, orally) the following plan: to strike with the authority of Lenin at Stalin, at Stalinism. And then, if successful, - to strike with Plekhanov and Social Democracy - at Lenin, and then - with liberalism and "moral socialism" - at revolutionarism in general... The Soviet totalitarian regime could be destroyed only through glasnost and totalitarian party discipline, while hiding behind the interests of improving socialism. [...] Looking back, I can proudly say that a clever, but very simple tactic - the mechanisms of totalitarianism against the system of totalitarianism - has worked."
- Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev, in the introduction to the Russian edition of "The Black Book of Communism"
"The Soviet totalitarian regime could be destroyed only through glasnost and totalitarian party discipline, while hiding behind the interests of improving socialism"
Hakim, you're going to bankrupt me with all these book recommendations.
Something something libgen something something free PDFs something something absolutely don't pirate books nooo it's baaaddddd
@@YaBoiHakim too based
The greatest tragedy of the fall of the USSR is that we can no longer make action movies with sexy KGB ladies as the villain.
The Soviet Union fell for a number of reasons. However the reason nobody talks about is the reality that our connections to Capitalism or Socialism take up higher precedent then our oppressions under Capitalism. This is why we saw Revisionism in the Soviet Union.
One of the reason was, that most of the member states doesnt wanted to stay the Soviet Union mainly Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, who where oppressed and russified under the Soviet Union under the umbrella of internationalism, but it was the good old russian imperialism in disguise.
@@dankopatrik5579 I think thats true but I question if its as black and white as presented here.
@Dankó Patrik The Baltic countries enjoyed, just like the rest of the USSR, massive improvements to their quality of life indicators under the Union.
These countries have a long undercurrent of N4zi collaboration that started in WW2 and only continued to fester over time. Particularly white supremacists were not pleased that the Central Asian countries like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, etc. received immense affirmative action campaigns to uplift them quicker to the standard of their white European Soviet counterparts.
So, yes, if you want to ask the Banderites and all their peers, they will tell you all about this mystical "Soviet imperialism." However, if you asked a normal, non-N4zi person, or even just look at the raw numbers of pre-socialist, socialist, and post-socialist Baltics, you will see there never was "Soviet imperialism" and that the Communist Party worked very hard to heal the wounds of Tsarist imperialism that preceded them (such as by those aforementioned affirmative action campaigns).
Ya'all lmk if you can't see my reply to Danko ☺️
@@dankopatrik5579 Lithuanians, though. Livonians were near extinct at that point in time (their language, that is. And already fully so by this point).
Hakim REMASTERED🎉
Now with *Gyro Controls*
For how much I despise Putin, he was right when he said that the collapse of the USSR was the worst geopolitical event of the entire 20th century. Its also true that the modern Russian Federation may never surpass or even recover its former status as the largest member state of the USSR. My family personally witnessed this disenfranchising of tens of millions overnight. We were forced to choose between starvation and banditry because we had been laid off from the Second Moscow Watch Factory due to budget cuts and were unable to find work elsewhere. Not willing to do either, we left our native HPR and our adopted Russian RFSR. Truly a tragedy.
Mfrs really forgetting that ww2 happened in the 20th century
@@gloverfox9135 The collapse of the USSR was still worse.
@@gloverfox9135 Yes, but the Allies won
The collapse of the USSR was one of the best things that happened to the ethnic/religious minorities living inside the USSR. The USSR barely had any elements of the left. There was so much corruption and human's rights violations, especially during stalin's rule. Ethnic/religious/sexual minorities were brutally oppressed. Not to mention how some ethnicities were literally being russified, meanwhile, other ethnicities had systemic p0grom being organized against them. My country used to be part of the USSR and I'm very happy that, now, we're free. We can freely speak our native language and practice our beliefs/traditions(although I'm atheist myself).
@@jakekaywell5972 it really wasn’t since ww2 killed 60+ million people and displaced as many millions more from their homes. It literally affected the entire world. The fall of the USSR only affected Eastern Europe and many of those countries were happy that the USSR fell. You’re not gonna hear a single Pole, Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Slovak, Bulgarian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Ukrainian, or Georgian complain that the USSR collapsed. None of them are nostalgic. Only Russians miss it because the system benefited them and them ONLY. They could enjoy the benefits while not having their resources extracted unlike the people I mentioned before.
There is one very important aspect missing !!!
The western countries extracted most of their wealth out of enslaved regions in the 3rd world. These were the former colonies and the exploitation had always a history of cwnturies.
Of course a communist country cannot do the same and try at the same time to convince such countries about the coummunist internationale. The SU never had colonies like Great Britain, Spain, France, Portugal to exploit.
So if you mentioned that the SU (and today China) had to invest some money into their allies you have to count as negative in comparison to the golden West what the SU did NOT extract.
And that would be more worth than 20 times of their investions.
You see that incountries like Cuba or Angola which came to suffer as soon as the SU collapsed.
Many countries had no other solution offered than get loans from the IMF - that breaked the neck of every socialist minded government.
A good example for this is Syria. Please look it up. Syria and his elected chief Assad was helped to pull the neck out of the sling just in the last moment by their old ally - now Russia.
People who are from Ex-USSR countries, was USSR hated in your family or community?
According to numerous independent opinion polls, no
In Baltic states, yes. Relatives sent to Siberia, independence taken at gunpoint, russification etc. Polls and votes also pro-independence.
Family from HPR and Russian RFSR. Both places were pretty good according to them.
It started with a brutal war followed by mass deportations and continued with forced russification.
Now days people more often refer to it as Russian times rather than Communism.
No
Yeltsin said the West was better. He went into supermarkets in the US and was amazed at the products available. People smuggled VHS players and tapes into the USSR, and the people grew angry at what they didn't have.
It just didn't work as well as a system.
Bro ignored all the arguments in the video😭😭😭
@@emindjerlek8699 The Baltics never wanted to be in the USSR, they had their own governments in exile. They broke away as soon it wasn't too risky to try. Communism was never something most people there believed in
@@oliverford5367 Most soviet citizens wanted to keep the USSR and socialism.
Also, what you american roach neglected to tell is that the government in exile were nazi governments supported by the fascist west.
@@oliverford5367 Yeltsin isn't to be trusted as a reliable source due to his vested interest in seeing the USSR gone. As for the Baltics, that case is contested. There was local support for communist rule but also heavy opposition from the old governments in exile. Civil war, just as in most of the Eastern Bloc.
@@oliverford5367 That claim is debunked in the video
The theory described at 7:50 seems to be the most correct. The supposed disunity among the Soviet capitalists in power is much like the disunity in any capitalist class; just as the US's rulers frequently flip between Republicans and Democrats, the revisionists in the USSR flipped from being nominally "hardline Leninist" to being blatantly liberal.
Good video, but would be an excellent video if you would slow down you rate of speech by about 20 percent, with more expression in your voice and use natural pauses to give people time to absorb what you just said. It sounds like you're talking against a stopwatch trying to beat the clock. This, by the way, has become a common problem on youtube videos. Some youtubers even seem to intentionally delete natural pauses as if they're afraid the viewer will lose interest if there's a brief silence. I'm a native English speaker and struggled at times to understand you. If you're trying to convince people who don't agree with your point of view, that doesn't help.
Redoing older videos? Fantastic! I'm gonna share this so much that the yt explodes.
I absolutely love your work and support you from Finland
Whats your thoughts on your nation joining nato?
@@RSjs25 All good comrades hate NATO
Power to the Finnish People. May you weather the storm of Right Wing "leadership", and indeed, may they be made to endure the storm of the People's will
@@RSjs25 My opinion is that, fuck the Finnish bourgeois government and fuck NATO's imperialism and warmongering. This is the biggest mistake Finland has made in the 21st century.
Just to remind that communism ivaded your country and tried to overthrow your democraticaly elected government. Thanks to people like Mannerheim or Häyhä you now live in democratic and prosperous Finland :)
Usually when I see a title like this I am very skeptical and usually end up hating the video and the creator because it's mostly all nonsense. But even though I found you like this week, I can already tell that you are much better than almost all the other ones I have seen. Thank you.
Hakim is a beautifully intelligent human beeing
Daddy Hakim with amazing video again.
if we want bouild a comunist society we must take the good thins form ussr and dont make the same mistakes ussr did .we musst be better
The Soviet War in Afghanistan is an often overlooked factor (one of many) in the collapse of the USSR.
So basically you're arguing that the URSS fell because it wasn't authoritarian enough.
Hakim already made a video debunking the concept of "authoritarianism" in socialism
@@chrisgaming9567 He was basically arguing in this video that the reason the URSS fell was because the government didn't crack down on the secondary market hard enough, a secondary market that he admits existed because the primary market wasn't able to satisfy the demand.
@@abderrahimderouiche8372 The second economy only emerged as prominently as it did because of weak leadership that increasingly made concessions to liberal and market mechanisms after Stalin.
@@abderrahimderouiche8372 I think it's a safe assessment to suggest that the "secondary markets" were symptoms of the real problem of bourgeois revisionism, they weren't the root source of the decay themselves
@@GarconTheGuy Or maybe the leadership tolerated it because it was able to satisfy demand that the primary economy was not, which the author of the video admits.
I'm writing my extended project qualification on this topic, this video has been immeasurably useful! Thank you!
Thank you for the education and effort, comrade 🙏
Hi there. First let me make myself clear that I don't mean to be hostile or disrespectfull in any way. I would have never taught I would spend this much time with a channel that that promotes socialist/communist ideology yet here I am. I have seen quite a few of your videos recently and one point had always buged me. I taught I would find my answer in this video but sadly I was dissapointed. Maybe you have covered my question in another video that I have not seen, in which case somebody please point me to it. Its clear to me that you are intelligent, knowledgeable about the topic and able present your points in a very civilised way. Thats a big reason why I have continued watching your videos even though I disagree with you on ideological level. I myself am no expert in the field of politics or sociology so please excuse if my point isnt as polished. I definitely wont argue against potencial socio-economical benefits of socialism or social and ethical problems of capitalism. Those all seem quite clear to me even before watching your videos. I live in current Czechia and am a part of the "children of the revolution" generation, so I guess you can imagine the background of my taughts. My point is tied to the chapter of "Popular opposition". In my mind that is the main reason for the fall of socialism(at least in Czechoslovakia). The fact there were no open and mass protests earlier, doesn't mean there wasn't popullar oposition. It was just precived by the people as too risky to show it and with a little chance for a succes. The thing that bugs me is that I have not heared you address the level of repression by former socialist regimes. The fact that the regime had persecuted innocent people for the actions (or sometimes even just taughts and ideas) of their familly member or killed people who just wanted to leave the country, just to mention the most worring few to me. My point is that a regime that has to use this much of active repression against its own peope to stay in power, is destined to fall due to popular opposition eventually. Also in my mind that rules the regime out as a viable option morally, however great are its other benefits. I would honestly like to know your taughts on this even if that means we don't stand on the same side of the argument. Whether you decide to address it or not, have nice day.
I'm from the Baltics and have pretty similar opinion to yours.
I don't think Hakim has ever talked about Molotov-Ribbentrop pact either.
If you are from Czechia I would recommend the book “the triumph of evil” which is about the Cold War. It could be eye-opening for you.
Ahoj, taky Čech, narozený 15 let po revoluci. Naprosto souhlasím, tento kanál je pouze propagandaa objektivita se nepřipouští. Stejně jako za normalizace.
@@tetra. If its title was honnest it would be either Triumph of good or Triumph of lesser evil.
@@jachymsebes looks like someone didn’t read the book. The USA killed more people than Nazi germany.
Great video, but could you perhaps talk a little bit slower?
So you say that a majority of people didn't want the Soviet Union to break up or privatisation... but a lack of democracy wasn't the problem? How can both of those things be true?
If there was full democracy, from the bottom up, then the people would have gotten what they wanted because they'd have had the power to. No?
I don’t get what you’re trying to say here. The Soviet Union was dissolved against the democratic will of the people. Democracy is the USSR was expressed differently than in the bourgeois facade of “democracy”, such as through trade unions.
@@tetra. The Soviet Union was dissolved against the democratic will of the people, then the Soviet Union wasn't democratic enough, is my point. In a full democracy the people should have the power to get what they want (unless it violates constitutional rights).
I'm not saying Western democracies are good enough either. They're flawed too.
Basically I'm a libertarian socialist or anarchist. I want full democracy and power from the bottom up, not top down.
@@coolbanana165 There isn’t any problem with wanting democracy. But your concept of democracy is flawed. You’re basing your idea of democracy on the western democratic facade. The Soviet Union under Stalin was more democratic than America. Democracy can and should not be measured by how many elections take place, but rather how much control the workers can exert over the state. In this way, a democracy is impossible in capitalism.
Once we’ve established than a capitalist democracy is impossible, we can return to the drawing board. What is democracy? I defined it earlier: the worker’s control over the state. Therefore, we can conclude that the only way to establish democracy is to enable the workers to control the government. This could be through unions, the party, independent organizations, or (reluctantly) elections. It’s important to recognize the the USSR was more democratic than all capitalist states, because otherwise you will inevitably characterize their political structure as flawed.
Also, Stalin was not a dictator, but rather collaborated with party members. It is true that he was authoritarian and purged those who posed a threat, but much of that purging was justified.
@@tetra. I'm not sure what you're talking about. In my previous comment I didn't say Western democracy was better, I said both seem to be flawed, precisely because I don't think workers had enough democratic empowerment in either.
@@coolbanana165 To answer your original comment, the government and thereby the democracy was dissolved with yeltsin’s coup. Then, the workers had no power to exercise their frustrations and were sedated and brainwashed with capitalist “shock therapy.” The USSR had been degrading day by day at that point, and there was a massive economic crisis going on related to the planned economy (not necessarily caused by it, though).
It's always difficult to watch for me, how greedy traitors and nationalists disrupted my homeland, I was born in 1991 just before so called collapse, but I will never consider Russia my motherland, USSR was.
Gorby didn't have it easy, he came into a stagnating economy, war in Afghanistan, Chernobyl disaster. After all of that I'd be down for some Pizza Hut as well.
I think it was a banana peel
Greetings from Pakistan, Socialists😍
should've learn not to trust the politicians.
Hello comrade from India
The fact russia is no longer communist is reason why many are moving out of Russia and why soldiers don't have the moral to fight
Obviously those nations that felt oppressed under Russian domination liked the fall of the USSR, but all Russians I've spoken to (even young ones) believe Brezhnev's USSR was a sort of paradise. Brezhnev was demonized by Andropov and Gorbachev, but the experience of Gorbachev and Yeltsin chaos have turned him into a kind of Jesus for the average Russian...
"Obviously" lmao
@@chrisgaming9567 imperialist shut up