As practiced by Stalin, it was just another totalitarian government. Ownership might have been different, but when you make everything else worse, its still really destructive and kills a huge chunk of the population
Yeah there’s no reason to split hairs on nomenclature. When a leader has their opposition taken out and shot, and then imposes a totalitarian regime, their original political affiliation was just a means to an end anyway.
Comparing someone to Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Tojo, Mussolini, the Taliban, etc. isn’t primarily to compare them to the societal leanings of their time, it’s to compare them to how they acted after they gained total, uncontested power.
Let’s hope that in this case those comparisons remain hypothetical.
Im not sure I follow. Are you saying the conception of a Soviet Union was easy/destined/inevitable given how bad the Tsars were?
I’m not sure I understand your point about feudalism either. Marxists understand capitalism as an economic development built upon feudalism - of which there were many benefits in abandoning, as well as many new evils.
Someone claimed that Stalin made things worse. You replied that Stalinism couldn’t be worse than the Tsarist system.
This is like if someone claims capitalism makes things worse, coupled with the reply that capitalism couldn’t be worse than feudalism.
Obviously such ann argument is deeply flawed. When we say that Stalinism “made things worse,” we mean compared to an easy-to-imagine, common-sense alternative for that time and place. For instance, if someone had shot Stalin and then allowed a random person to run the Soviet Union for a while, things would have almost certainly gone better.
You replied that Stalinism couldn’t be worse than the Tsarist system.
Where did I claim this?
we mean compared to an easy-to-imagine, common-sense alternative for that time and place.
Why is this your comparison?? If the claim is that Stalin “showed up” and things got worse, it follows that your point of analysis would be comparing against whatever immediately preceded Stalin.
This is like if someone claims capitalism makes things worse
Actually, it’s not at all like this… a better comparison would be if someone said “capitalism showed up and made things worse”
As practiced by Stalin, it was just another totalitarian government. Ownership might have been different, but when you make everything else worse, its still really destructive and kills a huge chunk of the population
Yeah there’s no reason to split hairs on nomenclature. When a leader has their opposition taken out and shot, and then imposes a totalitarian regime, their original political affiliation was just a means to an end anyway.
Comparing someone to Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Tojo, Mussolini, the Taliban, etc. isn’t primarily to compare them to the societal leanings of their time, it’s to compare them to how they acted after they gained total, uncontested power.
Let’s hope that in this case those comparisons remain hypothetical.
By what metrics? In which ways was Tsarist Russia better about serving citizens than Soviet leadership?
This is like saying “in which way is capitalism worse than feudalism.” In the way that it was easy to imagine a better alternative.
Im not sure I follow. Are you saying the conception of a Soviet Union was easy/destined/inevitable given how bad the Tsars were?
I’m not sure I understand your point about feudalism either. Marxists understand capitalism as an economic development built upon feudalism - of which there were many benefits in abandoning, as well as many new evils.
Someone claimed that Stalin made things worse. You replied that Stalinism couldn’t be worse than the Tsarist system.
This is like if someone claims capitalism makes things worse, coupled with the reply that capitalism couldn’t be worse than feudalism.
Obviously such ann argument is deeply flawed. When we say that Stalinism “made things worse,” we mean compared to an easy-to-imagine, common-sense alternative for that time and place. For instance, if someone had shot Stalin and then allowed a random person to run the Soviet Union for a while, things would have almost certainly gone better.
Where did I claim this?
Why is this your comparison?? If the claim is that Stalin “showed up” and things got worse, it follows that your point of analysis would be comparing against whatever immediately preceded Stalin.
Actually, it’s not at all like this… a better comparison would be if someone said “capitalism showed up and made things worse”