this post was submitted on 17 May 2026
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One mistake made in the late USSR was that the public did not take the propaganda seriously.
There were economic problems, yet reports spoke of incredible achievements in socialist construction; in reality, everything was stagnating. The leaders could barely articulate their words... Brezhnev’s final speeches were completely unintelligible; people laughed at him back then just as they laughed at Biden when he rambled. The party leadership had become ossified; the country definitely needed a breath of fresh air at that time. That was precisely what Andropov envisioned when he tasked Ryzhkov and Gorbachev—who were the "young guard" of the party back then, full of fresh thoughts and ideas—with developing the project.
Unfortunately, however, Andropov didn't live long enough to see it through, and Gorbachev later ruined everything.
By the way, I’ve finally fully grasped the reason why Europe was, until recently, a Garden of Eden.
The EU project—conceived long before the USSR collapsed—was aimed at preventing the emergence of socialism in individual European states. To achieve this, capitalists were forced to spend vast sums out of their own pockets to ensure social well-being for all their citizens. After all, there were very strong socialist movements in France, Italy, and elsewhere at the time. If the people had been living in hardship, they would have elected socialists. Consequently, capitalists were compelled to share with the public—as should happen in a genuine democratic capitalist state.
After the USSR collapsed, there was no longer a need to maintain a high standard of living for the European populace. And so, almost without realizing it, Europe began to slide into the abyss! Capitalists now have a free hand; they can do whatever they please.
And now we come to the main point. It turns out that the collapse of the USSR turned Europe into a garbage dump.
This is a caricature from a Soviet newspaper from 1955. Absolutely nothing has changed.
Yes, it was done intentionally to give the child more time for beneficial activities. It was the right approach for the upbringing of young people.
I remember once being in the countryside with my parents, but I had a soccer match on Sunday morning, so I headed back to town in the evening to be ready for the game the next day. My parents stayed behind in the village. When I arrived in town, I realized I had left my apartment keys back in the village—but I had taken the last bus of the day. It was a 15-kilometer trip, and I was only 13 years old. I lived on the edge of town, so I walked out to the main road—it was 10 p.m.—and managed to catch a ride. Strangers drove me all the way back to the village; even though it wasn't on their way, they dropped me right at my house and wouldn't take a single penny. I had a few rubles in my pocket and tried to offer them the money, but they flatly refused.
It never even crossed my mind that someone might try to harm me. And my parents didn't scold me for coming back to the village in the middle of the night instead of staying over at a friend's place in town—to them, that sort of thing was perfectly normal.
Even now—before the war—I don’t recall any instances of anyone being abducted; children roam the streets freely. But that’s before the war; I don’t know what will happen afterwards—the world has changed.
We talked about this before, lack of a good selection process that allowed people of low competence to get into positions of power and created a bureaucracy which was largely concerned with preserving itself rather than solving problems was the ultimate cause of the decline. Simply telling people everything is great while you're unable to produce substantive change they can see tangibly deligitimizes the system. And that's precisely what we see happening in the west today, and why there's now public disillusionment with liberal democracy.
And you're absolutely right that Europe has been propped up to prevent genuine socialism from taking hold. The US didn't pour billions upon billions into rebuilding western Europe after WW2 out of sheer altruism. They used it as a way to deligitimize communism in the east. Look how great Europeans are living, look how much faster things develop under capitalism. That was the whole narrative. This is a great read on the subject incidentally, confirms everything you said http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/046.html
Yup, that cartoon is ever green, and just as true as the day it was made.
Exactly, there were just not thoughts people had back in USSR. It's destruction was the biggest crime of the 20th century.
For some reason, I am convinced that Stalin would have sorted the situation out in a couple of years—it would have become 1937 all over again. Of course, for a long time afterward, people would have talked about how cruel Stalin was...
In essence, the situation in 1987 was the same as in 1937, when the Trotskyists crawled out into the open. And Trotskyists are essentially the same as kulaks and petty property owners.
By the way, I’d like to challenge your point about whether, according to Marx, a transition from feudalism to socialism is possible while bypassing the "agonies of capitalism."
Yes, in his letter to Vera Zasulich dated March 8, 1881, Karl Marx did indeed allow for the possibility that Russia could transition to socialism by relying on its pre-capitalist institutions, thereby bypassing the capitalist stage.
Marx analyzed the socio-economic situation and concluded that the Russian rural commune (specifically the land-holding commune) could serve as a foothold for social renewal.
https://revarchiv.narod.ru/marxeng/tom19/marx_zasulitch.html
Therefore, Stalin acted precisely in accordance with Stalin's own theory—the NEP in Russia could have been dispensed with! Both Marx and Stalin turned out to be right.
I wonder what Marx would have said about the possibility of building socialism in China. Although I’d probably agree with you: China lacked the necessary foundation to skip over the NEP stage.
China was incredibly backward after the Opium Wars.
Trump has finally stirred into action, wanting to make America the way it was 40 years ago, but it is already too late. While Europe and the US were fleecing their own people and dismantling their industries, China was building. We see the result: there is no turning back.
Back then, they were just pictures to me; I didn't take them seriously. But when events started unfolding in Ukraine... can you imagine? I immediately remembered those cartoons—and the scales fell from my eyes.
It’s all down to modern capitalist culture—a lifestyle where everyone is chasing profits and all sorts of sordid amusements. Drugs have also had a massive impact; they’ve poisoned all of Europe and the US. Wherever there are drugs, there is perversion. That’s exactly where that flood of "jolly guys" came from—the ones whose rights I’m suddenly supposed to care about. It’s all the drugs, I assure you!
You know yourself that the whole high-society crowd is hooked on cocaine. It’s very fashionable among them.
I think Stalin was largely correct in what he did, the problem was that he left a system which failed to ensure strong leadership going forward. A stable social system can't depend on a single strong willed individual being in charge and making the right calls. Continuity of competent governance, especially in time of plenty is the hardest problem to solve in my opinion.
And completely agree, China quietly outplayed the west. A lot of it was inherent in western hubris too. They really thought that theirs was the only way to develop, and they figured that China would have to become like them eventually and they'd fold it in. But it didn't work out that way. Turns out people with 3000 years of continuous civilization under their belt know a thing or two of their won. Also, don't know if you saw, but American media has now realized DPRK is doing rather well. https://archive.ph/b9zrS
The west really is starting to look like the final days of the Roman empire now. I expect we'll start seeing provinces getting cut loose next and imploding economically. The UK looks like it might be the first to pop.
oh and just ran across this https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202605/19/WS6a0c0718a310d6866eb4976d.html
Yes, this is something Mao did better than Stalin.
I think the reason is that Stalin was much more powerful than his comrades; everything rested on that, on Stalin's authority. As soon as Stalin was gone, intra-party squabbling began. Everyone was trying to take over. No one was found who could replace Stalin and continue his work. Stalin's legacy was simply squandered!
Yes, I recently discussed this with a Marxist friend of ours here.
For me, if the Wall Street Journal writes something like this, there's something fishy about it.))))
Just recently they wrote that Kim is machine-gunning his opponents..... )))
We definitely need to show this to our Chinese comrade... )))
Yes, I see, the trade turnover between the US and China alone is $700 billion.
The US is dearer to China's heart than Russia... )))
Ten times more.
In fact: It turns out that China is much more dependent on the US than on Russia.
If you recall the economic crisis of 2008, China experienced it more painfully than the US.
This is what distinguishes China from the USSR, because the USSR wasn't nearly as dependent on the West as China. No one could threaten the USSR with sanctions and the like, because it was all pointless! There was no such dependence on microchips from Taiwan. You have to admit, if China doesn't have microchips from Taiwan, they won't be able to produce competitive products. As far as I know, China doesn't have such technology yet, because Taiwan has American technology.
Yeah, I think that's exactly what happened as well. He was too big of a figure and that created an environment where there were no other strong leaders within the party. So, once he was gone, it created a huge power vacuum and squabbling.
China is actually quite independent from the US, and we have recent conclusive proof of that when Trump tried doing a trade war. Turns out, exports to the US are a tiny part of Chinese economy now. And I don't know why you think China needs microchips from Taiwan when they have chip production entirely on the mainland. I think you need to spend a bit of time to actually research this subject because you're very much misinformed here. https://www.huawei.com/en/news/2026/5/ieee-iscas-tau-scaling
by the way https://xcancel.com/upholdreality/status/2067629274765394368
Comrade, this symposium was held in May, and the topic discussed was "A New Path for the Development of the Semiconductor Industry in Practice."
The key phrase was "New Path."
This is from open sources:
"Taiwan produces significantly better and more technologically advanced chips than mainland China. The island is home to TSMC, which controls over 90% of the global market for the most advanced and commercially successful chips. China is rapidly closing the gap and dominating other segments, but Taiwan still retains technological leadership. What is the difference between chip production in Taiwan and China? Technological level: Taiwan mass-produces the most advanced processors using process technologies of 3 nanometers (nm) and below for Apple, Nvidia, and AMD. China (represented by SMIC) has struggled to master 7-nm and 5-nm processes, which are more expensive to produce and have a much higher defect rate. Access to equipment: Taiwan has free access to unique ultra-hard ultraviolet (EUV) lithography scanners from the Dutch company ASML. Sales of such machines to China are completely blocked due to US sanctions, which is hindering its development. Development. Advanced chip production: Taiwan holds an absolute monopoly on processors for artificial intelligence, data centers, and flagship smartphones."
China does not yet have the technology to overtake Taiwan.
https://mskgazeta.ru/obshchestvo/kak-vozmozhnoe-protivostoyanie-knr-i-tajvanya-povliyaet-na-razvitie-ii-16020.html
Yes, but Margarita Simonyan is Solovyov, only in a skirt. As they say in the West, she's a mouthpiece for the Kremlin...))) They won't say anything bad about China on official Russian channels close to the Kremlin, I can tell you for sure – it's taboo! They say the same things about China there that they say here.
They're all raving about China these days.
Read it here
https://alfabank.ru/alfa-investor/posts/t/e04dd1d4-f454-f111-91c6-0050569e1fd0/
China absolutely does have the technology to overtake Taiwan, and if you look at the history of how fast Chinese technology develops, it should be obvious that it's not going to take long. Look at what happened with solar panels, EVs, batteries, phones, etc. In every case, once China ramped up research and production, they leapfrogged the rest of the world within years. China sees chip production as a national security issue, they will be pouring state level resources into it.
Meanwhile here's what Stanford has to say about AI https://hai.stanford.edu/news/inside-the-ai-index-12-takeaways-from-the-2026-report
Not only has China basically closed the gap already, but they're doing it at a tiny fraction of the cost.
I have no doubt that China is developing very quickly.
But at the moment, China is unlikely to survive the severing of economic relations with the US and its satellites.
By the way, it's time to talk about India. India will now supply gasoline to Russia. It will supply diesel to Ukraine, and gasoline to Russia.
In Crimea, there is no gasoline at all at civilian gas stations, and in some regions of Russia, there is a gasoline shortage. Gasoline prices have increased by half. Speculators have doubled theirs.
The Russian stock market has noticeably fallen. The situation is not critical right now, but a lot depends on how quickly Russia finds a way to counter.
Now everyone is expecting a Russian retaliatory strike. There has been no response yet since the attack on Moscow. Lately, the strikes against us have been very weak every night. The siren rarely sounds. It's very strange.
Remember I told you about the "Skelya" unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces? Yesterday, Ukrainian media reported cases of flagrant inhumane treatment of soldiers there by the leadership. Torture, sexual violence, murder, suicide. These people haven't even reached the front yet. Criminals released from prison are committing this lawlessness.
A friend of mine ended up there, and he told me the same thing. This is how they force the "busified" soldiers to fight. Because people reduced to the state of animals are willing to do anything to escape their suffering, even die during an assault. We were talking recently about how the "busified" soldiers hold the front and even counterattack. That's it!!! These are no longer people, but animals reduced to the state of animals. These people are impossible to break because they have no other choice. They believe their chances of surviving an assault are better.
And Syrsky is personally orchestrating this entire hellish spectacle.
And this entire "banquet" is being paid for by the collective West.
We, ordinary Ukrainians, are held captive by the devil!
When I think about it, I feel sick!
I'm certain that if the regime in Ukraine doesn't change, a civil war will break out very soon after the war.
And this won't even be a war between the west and the east of Ukraine, but a war between those who return from the war and those who bullied and abused them in training, and then threw them into brutal assaults.
And these won't be frightened citizens hiding in their homes; these will be battle-hardened thugs with weapons.
And if the regime changes, all this scum will immediately flee to the west with the stolen money. But then the country will be cleansed of this scum naturally.
I'm going to repeat this again, we have concrete and irrefutable proof that China is no longer dependent on the west. China was completely unaffected by Trump's 140% tariffs which basically amounted to cutting off trade, and just now we saw that China is similarly unaffected by global oil disruption. The reality is that the world has changed, and developing economies are growing rapidly while the west is in an accelerating decline. The west isn't the centre of global economic gravity anymore.
Outside Crimea, the shortages seem to be more a result of panic buying than anything else given that export volumes haven't been affected. There is going to be a lot of pressure on Putin to do some major retaliation now though, and this time he might have to.
Even though they can force people to fight by dehumanizing them, this is not an effective tactic. Notice how Russian advance is accelerating now, and big towns towns like Konstantinovka that used to be fought over really hard are now falling mostly intact. There are no more fights to take very building like what we saw in Artemovsk.
It is absolutely sick what western backed fascists are doing to the people of Ukraine and how people in the west keep cheering for it.
And I think there likely will be a mutiny in the army sooner or later as well. We talked about this a long time go, but the dynamic is that they have to use actual trained and motivated soldiers to do important operations, and each time that happens the ones that are lost can't be replaced. Russians know this and that's why towns like Pokrovsk are always used as nazi roach motels. Ukraine has no choice but to defend them to the last because it looks bad to western sponsors when they lose them. So, they can't just throw mobics there. And that depletes the core of motivated fascists holding the army together. Eventually there will be an inflection point where there just aren't enough of them and the mobics will start taking revenge for all the abuse they suffered.
Also, when they flee to the west that's when things are going to get really bad for Europe. They've already been smuggling a lot of weapons into Europe and establishing links with fascists there. Once you have a whole bunch of hardened, trained, and well armed fash running around, Europe might start looking a lot like Syria at that point.
With the exception of the $600 billion trade volume—where, yes, China sells more to the U.S. than it buys—and high-tech developments that China has not yet created itself but which are possessed by the U.S. (or Taiwan, which utilizes U.S. technology)...
Yes, due to panic, among other things.
Comrade, you can't fuel a car with crude oil...)))
Once again:
https://korrespondent.net/world/russia/4888980-rossyia-prosyt-benzyn-u-druzhestvennykh-stran
You got a bit carried away regarding the "major cities," Comrade. )))) I only heard of that particular city at the start of the war... )))) When you're driving along the highway, you're hardly going to remember the names of every village you pass. In the USSR, that kind of place was classified as an "urban-type settlement." To a resident of Kharkiv, it’s just a backwater village. I know Sloviansk well—I used to visit often; there was a really good "cook" there... you know, Breaking Bad style... )))) People would travel all the way from Kharkiv just to get his "product." It’s a real hick town, too—they speak Surzhyk there.
The major cities—or rather, not "major," just cities—that Russia has captured are Berdyansk, Mariupol, and Kherson.
As for Sloviansk, they’ve turned it into a fortress city. I doubt the Russians will be able to capture it quickly. It’s the next city on the list after Mariupol.
Look, this is Ukrainian TV. Things got to the point where they had to announce this to the whole country.
This woman, the Ukrainian ombudsperson who visited "Skelya," shares her "impressions."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mrkC8kV0Bc&t=275s
And take a look at the comments below—it’s all those "pot-heads" finally seeing the light; all the comments are in Ukrainian!!! Morons—what were they thinking before?
The NABU, of course, "got involved" in the "investigation."
https://ukranews.com/en/amp/news/1159661-lubinets-launches-urgent-investigation-into-skelia-regiment-following-allegations-of-torture
For now, this is only in theory.
Yes, I completely agree with you; it will be a mafia, armed to the teeth, terrorizing all of Europe. The consequences of the war will continue to haunt Europe for a long time to come.
Trade with the US was already less than 3% in 2024, it's even less now:
I'm expecting Sloviansk/Kramatorsk will get taken this summer, and why there's such a major panic now.
And nobody cared before because people were getting grabbed from eastern Ukraine, now the kidnappings are starting to happen in western Ukraine more and more. I think it's also an indication of how desperate the situation is. See how Europeans are now trying to send people back too. There are real manpower problems nobody wants to talk about.
By the way, another good summary https://youtu.be/9EpDoB-xgOE
))) No, Comrade, that’s unlikely.
Ukraine has massed forces in the Zaporizhzhia sector and intends to launch a counterattack. The Russians are currently trying to disrupt this counteroffensive.
Ukraine definitely still has potential.
I monitor the mood among Russian pro-military bloggers. There was some confusion when Ukraine began actively striking deep into Russian territory, though the panic seems to have subsided somewhat now.
Belousov recently met with these bloggers in person; the key issue on the agenda was countering UAVs.
We can see that a feedback loop exists within the Russian Federation.
Lately, strikes deep inside Russia have become less effective, and it is evident that countermeasures are being implemented; Russia is successfully countering these new threats.
As for Ukraine, there is no panic there so far—except, perhaps, among those being sent on "meat-grinder" assaults. But no one asks for their opinion.
Yes, I agree with you, but this isn't aimed at the immediate present—it's looking toward the future. Once this becomes widespread, then we can talk about a catastrophic shortage of mobilization resources within Ukraine. For now, these are just plans.
As for the current situation: recently, the EU banned granting refugee status to newly arrived Ukrainians of conscription age. Right now, the goal is to round up everyone inside Ukraine; they’ll go after the refugees later. I think there are enough people here to last another year...
Unfortunately, my outlook on this isn't quite as rosy as yours, Comrade...)))
Yes, his description is roughly accurate.
This breakthrough occurred because Ukraine is mounting counterattacks in other sectors of the front; it is not currently in a state of purely static defense.
And Sloviansk is a symbolic city for both Russia and Ukraine. The "Russian Spring" of 2014 began there. The battle for it will be fierce. If you like, you can call Sloviansk "Stalingrad"—and you wouldn't be wrong! It strikes me as the key battle of this war.
I guess we'll see, I think the only potential left is in the media at this point. And that's precisely why the west is in a panic again.
I've found Russian military bloggers are drama queens of the highest order. They're really not a useful gauge for what's actually happening.
Also, think about this logically, if the AFU had serious fighting capacity left then they would be defending Sloviansk/Kramatorsk right now instead of doing raids in Zaporozhye. This is by far the most important part of the front. They know they can't hold it, so they're doing 'offensives' to demonstrate that there's fighting capacity left. These have no staying power.
Has is probably slightly ambitious. China's first EUV machine was completed last year and won't even produce chips until 2028. However once that milestone is passed the trajectory of what logically follows is obvious.
Right, and on top of it Huawei is coming up with new ways to arrange transistors with stuff like Tau folding architecture, which combined wtih EUV might actually allow Chinese chip makers to push far ahead of traditional chip designs.
The future of Chinese chip manufacturing is definitely bright it's simply not here quite yet until the new machine succeeds in passing the final and most important hurdle of taping out a chip of acceptable quality.
It seems like Tau architecture might close the performance gap even without EUV though. Similarly Huawei managed to get clever with optical connections in their Ascend clusters to actually outperform NVIDIA for AI training. https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3315068/how-huaweis-ascend-ai-chips-outperform-nvidia-processors-running-deepseeks-r1-model
So, the gap really isn't that big in practice. Also worth noting that software side plays just as much role here as well. Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, and even Linux all have a lot of legacy decisions baked into them for backwards compatibility needed to support existing software. Huawei building a fresh stack on top of HarmonyOS allows them to make a much leaner stack that's not saddled with all the prior baggage. And that can make overall user experience a lot better even on slower hardware. Modern software is incredibly bloated, and addressing the bloat is a low hanging fruit that can be plucked right now without the need for EUV machines. The benefits will stack with faster chips as well just the same way Tau will stack with EUV.
In a way, decoupling from Western tech stack could actually provide a lot of benefits because it opens up the way for doing things differently without having to worry about the way existing legacy stack works.
I am well aware of all of this however as you maybe subconsciously added yourself:
I agree the gap currently is the smallest it has ever been, there is however still a gap. I strongly believe from everything I know from my time in the industry that once Chinese EUV achieves a tape out the gap will not simply be closed but thanks to the build-up in novel workarounds that were required in the interim that can then be applied on top of the smaller dimension transistors we will be propelled to a substantial lead. However for now even if it is coming to an inevitable end we still trail the most advanced nodes.
Sure, I'm not arguing there isn't a gap currently. I just don't see the gap as being consequential in any way that matters already.