Reading Blackshirts & Reds and am at about 40% through the book. The amount of critique he is giving to how poorly the economic situation in the USSR was, how Stalin’s way of running things and how people were negligible about their jobs because there was no reason to be competitive or to do a good job is honestly a bit stark. Is this anti-communism or is this just good faith criticism?

  • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
    1·
    25 days ago

    Even a theoretical perfect society without flaws can be destroyed by much more powerful outside forces.

    That makes sense for smaller countries, but the USSR was a peer to the US. That’s kind of the “claim to fame” of the USSR, the fact that it was able to develop quickly enough to become a superpower.

    And minor flaws, which under different circumstances would not be anywhere near enough to collapse a society, can be exploited and amplified by a powerful external enemy devoted to undermining and eventually destroying your society.

    And as long as powerful external enemies continue to exist, it’s crucial to understand what flaws they are able to exploit in order to undermine a society. Which is precisely why it’s so important to identify those flaws through frank, honest criticism.

    It strikes me as idealist to defend the USSR with the argument that everything would’ve been fine under different circumstances. I thought the whole point was to adapt policy to the conditions that actually exist - such as a powerful rival superpower existing.

    I’d like to point out that what I said was, “One of the first things you have to explain defending the USSR is, “Well if it was so great, why isn’t it around anymore?”” The fact that the USSR had flaws is not automatically discrediting. As you said, “all societies have flaws.” That isn’t “victim blaming.” Some explanation must exist for the fall of the USSR, and if it is not provided by a sympathetic author, then it will be invented by a likely unsympathetic reader.