“This is the new model, where you work in these plants for the rest of your life, and your kids work here, and your grandkids work here,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick says.
The USSR didn’t have any limits to choosing an employment since shortly after WW2, what are you talking about? By the late 70s, around 10% of positions in the economy were vacant and there was full employment, and people weren’t forced to work anywhere. The average unemployment duration was 15 days.
And the US still has millions of slaves to this day, completely legally. We use slaves to fight forest fires. How fucked up is that? Hell, the modern US has managed to create the absurd phenomenon of the full-time employed homeless person. Oh, and and the peak of the USSR? The US trapped millions of people in a hellish nightmare of a legally induced racial caste system.
If you ignore the slavery, the homeless working multiple jobs, and the US’s historic racial caste system, you can make the US sound utopian.
Youre not wrong, but the above proposal will make it worse not better. Born to a factory worker, youll have to work in that same factory your entire life.
Come on man it took one google search to read about the centralized labour programs, liquidation of foreign ethnic groups, and militarization of labour. This isn’t even counting the estimated 10 million or so people in forced labour gulags.
“It took one google search to find unsourced claims against the greatest geopolitical enemy of my country”
centralized labour programs
What exactly are you talking about?
liquidation of foreign ethnic groups
Nothingburger made up by the west. The greatest possible claim against any ethnic group is the relocation of some minority in Crimea (I think Tatars) in the context of WW2 as a result of the paranoia against nazis, nothing compared to the Japanese concentration camps in the US dedicated to one specific ethnicity.
and militarization of labour
Again, what do you mean?
This isn’t even counting the estimated 10 million or so people in forced labour gulags
At the height of the GULAG system, there were fewer prisoners than currently in the USA. Forced labour was a bad thing, I agree, but it was nothing compared to that of modern western countries such as the USA.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/253301
Centralized labour programs were enforced work on the civilian population to rapidly industrialize and catch up to Western nations in the 1930s. Since the labour was compulsory from the government, it is a forced labour program.
https://www.academia.edu/11885029
Ethnic minorities within the Soviet Union were forced into sparcely populated areas in the interior for forced labour, mostly mining. At least 6 million people were affected by this.
On your last point, the US currently has 1.8 million incarcerated people. In 1931, there were 2 million in gulags, and more in other forms of incarceration. Please lick the boots of a different country.
Literally the three examples you brought are wartime extreme measures, either in a war that took the lives of 27 million soviet citizens (WW2) or in a war against absolutism and tsarism in which 17 western countries invaded the RSFSR for the sin of being communist. Funny how you can’t find examples after the situation normalised in the Soviet Union and it stopped being under immediate threat of genocide at the hands of Nazis?
the US currently has 1.8 million incarcerated people. In 1931, there were 2 million in gulags
Sorry, my numbers were off by 10%. Still, we’re comparing the eve of WW2 and the process of collectivisation of land, to a period of relative quiet and global power by the US. Not relevant?
You idiot, reread the sources, 1930-1938 is not wartime. Nor is 1931 the eve of WW2. Literally none of those are wartime measures. If you actually read the sources you would have also seen the programs went until the 1960s, after WW2.
1931 is full-on collectivisation period. Only by 1929 the Soviet economy recovered from the brutal civil war in which it was invaded by 17 countries.
In 1929 it was a feudal country starting the fastest process of industrialisation humanity had ever seen. In 1929 5% of the budget was military, by 1939 it was 40+%. The USSR was preparing for the inevitable invasion that it would suffer as a consequence of opposing capitalism and fascism, which came in 1941. 27 million people died in 1941-1945 as a consequence of the war. Hadn’t it been for the preparation for war, the entirety of Eastern Europe would have been genocided in a similar but worse fashion than Poland.
This preparation literally SAVED Europe from Nazism. There were problems in the process, such as during collectivisation, but if you deny that the Soviet preparation and economy SAVED Europe from fascism, you’re falling into Nazi apologia. You really, really can’t see why the USSR had to prepare thoroughly for the impending war that they successfully predicted? You really can’t see why 1930s weren’t a peaceful period, but actually a process of class war against landlords and former nobility, and a preparation to defeat fascism?
So if I wanted to change jobs or quit a job to go into higher education, do you know if that was possible, how hard was it to do? Because available positions does not equal job mobility, as you need permission from the factory manager and the state and those are harder to get when qualified workers are scarce.
I’m not talking about that. Read what I wrote. Could I leave my job at the factory to go to university? Didn’t I need permission from the factory manager and from the state to leave my job?
Could I leave my job at the factory to go to university?
Yes… as is evidenced by an entirely free education program.
If you’re making the claim that “factory workers of the USSR had no freedom to go to college”, then supply some evidence please. Stop beating around the bush.
Fine…I’m going to ask chatgpt, since nobody knows and I’m not a historian of the USSR:
"In the USSR, while higher education was indeed free, the process of leaving a job to pursue higher education was not entirely straightforward. Workers, including those in factories, were required to obtain permission from their factory manager and the state to leave their job and enroll in university.
This permission was not always guaranteed, and the scarcity of qualified workers could make it more difficult to obtain. The factory manager and the state had some control over the mobility of workers, which could limit an individual’s ability to leave their job and pursue higher education.
It’s not that factory workers had no freedom to go to college, but rather that there were certain bureaucratic hurdles they had to navigate to make that transition. The availability of free education did not necessarily translate to unrestricted job mobility or easy access to higher education for all workers."
I also asked about the 1956 reforms:
"After 1956, the Soviet Union introduced some reforms that aimed to increase social mobility and access to education. The Soviet government implemented policies to encourage workers to pursue higher education, and it became easier for individuals to leave their jobs and enroll in university.
However, it’s still important to note that the process of leaving a job to pursue higher education was not entirely without restrictions. While the reforms after 1956 did increase access to education, the state and factory managers still had some level of control over worker mobility.
It wasn’t until the late 1980s, with the introduction of perestroika and glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev, that the Soviet Union began to see more significant reforms that increased individual freedoms, including the ability to change jobs and pursue education with greater ease."
There. If anything there is factually wrong (gpt hallucinates a lot), let me know.
Sorry if I somehow offended your holy cow golden calf, but I actually wanted to know how you change jobs in a communist economy. Fuck me for asking, right? At some point, zealotry gets counterproductive, which is unfortunate, because socialism needs to get more popular, not less with approaches like that.
Idk what the AI used as source, but most western sources on the Soviet Union are intentionally biased against it.
In the Soviet Union, the union membership rates were astronomically high, higher than essentially anywhere else at the time. Unions provided training after work for workers who wanted a basic education. For workers who wanted higher education while working, the concept of “night degrees” was conceived, in which workers could attend special classes at night in university, with reduced number of lessons to be given a certain title. This is still a thing in post-soviet states like Russia.
I can confirm all of this. Sources: Albert Szymanski’s “Human Rights in the Soviet Union”, A. Zverev’s “Lo que percibe el trabajador soviético además de su salario”, and personal accounts from Russian and Ukrainian acquaintances.
The USSR had lifetime factory jobs, too.
The USSR didn’t have any limits to choosing an employment since shortly after WW2, what are you talking about? By the late 70s, around 10% of positions in the economy were vacant and there was full employment, and people weren’t forced to work anywhere. The average unemployment duration was 15 days.
Please, what’s your source on your claim?
deleted by creator
And the US still has millions of slaves to this day, completely legally. We use slaves to fight forest fires. How fucked up is that? Hell, the modern US has managed to create the absurd phenomenon of the full-time employed homeless person. Oh, and and the peak of the USSR? The US trapped millions of people in a hellish nightmare of a legally induced racial caste system.
If you ignore the slavery, the homeless working multiple jobs, and the US’s historic racial caste system, you can make the US sound utopian.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Youre not wrong, but the above proposal will make it worse not better. Born to a factory worker, youll have to work in that same factory your entire life.
deleted by creator
Come on man it took one google search to read about the centralized labour programs, liquidation of foreign ethnic groups, and militarization of labour. This isn’t even counting the estimated 10 million or so people in forced labour gulags.
“It took one google search to find unsourced claims against the greatest geopolitical enemy of my country”
What exactly are you talking about?
Nothingburger made up by the west. The greatest possible claim against any ethnic group is the relocation of some minority in Crimea (I think Tatars) in the context of WW2 as a result of the paranoia against nazis, nothing compared to the Japanese concentration camps in the US dedicated to one specific ethnicity.
Again, what do you mean?
At the height of the GULAG system, there were fewer prisoners than currently in the USA. Forced labour was a bad thing, I agree, but it was nothing compared to that of modern western countries such as the USA.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/253301 Centralized labour programs were enforced work on the civilian population to rapidly industrialize and catch up to Western nations in the 1930s. Since the labour was compulsory from the government, it is a forced labour program.
https://www.academia.edu/11885029 Ethnic minorities within the Soviet Union were forced into sparcely populated areas in the interior for forced labour, mostly mining. At least 6 million people were affected by this.
https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1921-2/militarization-of-labor/ Civilians were drafted into labour armies, forced work in remote locations, in order to rapidly industrialize. The labour armies would also oversee other forced labour programs.
On your last point, the US currently has 1.8 million incarcerated people. In 1931, there were 2 million in gulags, and more in other forms of incarceration. Please lick the boots of a different country.
Literally the three examples you brought are wartime extreme measures, either in a war that took the lives of 27 million soviet citizens (WW2) or in a war against absolutism and tsarism in which 17 western countries invaded the RSFSR for the sin of being communist. Funny how you can’t find examples after the situation normalised in the Soviet Union and it stopped being under immediate threat of genocide at the hands of Nazis?
Sorry, my numbers were off by 10%. Still, we’re comparing the eve of WW2 and the process of collectivisation of land, to a period of relative quiet and global power by the US. Not relevant?
You idiot, reread the sources, 1930-1938 is not wartime. Nor is 1931 the eve of WW2. Literally none of those are wartime measures. If you actually read the sources you would have also seen the programs went until the 1960s, after WW2.
1931 is full-on collectivisation period. Only by 1929 the Soviet economy recovered from the brutal civil war in which it was invaded by 17 countries.
In 1929 it was a feudal country starting the fastest process of industrialisation humanity had ever seen. In 1929 5% of the budget was military, by 1939 it was 40+%. The USSR was preparing for the inevitable invasion that it would suffer as a consequence of opposing capitalism and fascism, which came in 1941. 27 million people died in 1941-1945 as a consequence of the war. Hadn’t it been for the preparation for war, the entirety of Eastern Europe would have been genocided in a similar but worse fashion than Poland.
This preparation literally SAVED Europe from Nazism. There were problems in the process, such as during collectivisation, but if you deny that the Soviet preparation and economy SAVED Europe from fascism, you’re falling into Nazi apologia. You really, really can’t see why the USSR had to prepare thoroughly for the impending war that they successfully predicted? You really can’t see why 1930s weren’t a peaceful period, but actually a process of class war against landlords and former nobility, and a preparation to defeat fascism?
deleted by creator
Tankie spotted
Average interaction.
Bro, shut the fuck up if that’s all you’re going to add to the conversation Jesus fucking Christ dude
Sorry I brought facts to the conversation
So if I wanted to change jobs or quit a job to go into higher education, do you know if that was possible, how hard was it to do? Because available positions does not equal job mobility, as you need permission from the factory manager and the state and those are harder to get when qualified workers are scarce.
Higher education was free in the USSR as stipulated by its constitution.
I’m not talking about that. Read what I wrote. Could I leave my job at the factory to go to university? Didn’t I need permission from the factory manager and from the state to leave my job?
Yes… as is evidenced by an entirely free education program.
If you’re making the claim that “factory workers of the USSR had no freedom to go to college”, then supply some evidence please. Stop beating around the bush.
Fine…I’m going to ask chatgpt, since nobody knows and I’m not a historian of the USSR:
"In the USSR, while higher education was indeed free, the process of leaving a job to pursue higher education was not entirely straightforward. Workers, including those in factories, were required to obtain permission from their factory manager and the state to leave their job and enroll in university.
This permission was not always guaranteed, and the scarcity of qualified workers could make it more difficult to obtain. The factory manager and the state had some control over the mobility of workers, which could limit an individual’s ability to leave their job and pursue higher education.
It’s not that factory workers had no freedom to go to college, but rather that there were certain bureaucratic hurdles they had to navigate to make that transition. The availability of free education did not necessarily translate to unrestricted job mobility or easy access to higher education for all workers."
I also asked about the 1956 reforms:
"After 1956, the Soviet Union introduced some reforms that aimed to increase social mobility and access to education. The Soviet government implemented policies to encourage workers to pursue higher education, and it became easier for individuals to leave their jobs and enroll in university.
However, it’s still important to note that the process of leaving a job to pursue higher education was not entirely without restrictions. While the reforms after 1956 did increase access to education, the state and factory managers still had some level of control over worker mobility.
It wasn’t until the late 1980s, with the introduction of perestroika and glasnost under Mikhail Gorbachev, that the Soviet Union began to see more significant reforms that increased individual freedoms, including the ability to change jobs and pursue education with greater ease."
There. If anything there is factually wrong (gpt hallucinates a lot), let me know.
If you want to play with AI slop, maybe log off lemmy and start doing this on your own… Not a single source cited.
Sorry if I somehow offended your
holy cowgolden calf, but I actually wanted to know how you change jobs in a communist economy. Fuck me for asking, right? At some point, zealotry gets counterproductive, which is unfortunate, because socialism needs to get more popular, not less with approaches like that.deleted by creator
Are you sure you aren’t describing America’s education system?
Idk what the AI used as source, but most western sources on the Soviet Union are intentionally biased against it.
In the Soviet Union, the union membership rates were astronomically high, higher than essentially anywhere else at the time. Unions provided training after work for workers who wanted a basic education. For workers who wanted higher education while working, the concept of “night degrees” was conceived, in which workers could attend special classes at night in university, with reduced number of lessons to be given a certain title. This is still a thing in post-soviet states like Russia.
I can confirm all of this. Sources: Albert Szymanski’s “Human Rights in the Soviet Union”, A. Zverev’s “Lo que percibe el trabajador soviético además de su salario”, and personal accounts from Russian and Ukrainian acquaintances.