Socialism did work in the USSR, yes. They doubled life expectancies, ended famine, passed prison reforms, dramatically expanded democracy, nearly eliminated homelessness, transformed a semi-feudal backwater into a modernized industrial country, passed free universal healthcare and education, and plenty more. There were problems and struggles, and obviously it no longer exists, but socialism absolutely worked for the soviets for neaerly a full century.
The dissolution of socialism in Eastern Europe was multi-faceted and complex, and had more to do with conditions particular to the soviets as compared to universal to socialism. Today, the CPRF is rising in popularity and is the most significant opposition to United Russia, and the majority of Russians wish to return to socialism.
It was socialism and yes it worked tremendously considering the fact that they sacrificed 20M+ lives in WW2 and were subject of western imperialism forcing them to spend most resources on the cold war
Across the world, people are living longer. In 1900, the global average life expectancy was 32 years. By 2023, this had more than doubled to 73 years.
Countries around the world made big improvements, and life expectancy more than doubled in every region. This wasn’t just due to falling child mortality; people started living longer at all ages.
The rate of growth after 1917 and 1945 is absolutely not on par with the rest of the world, or you would have linked an example to prove it. And if it was on par with the rest of the world, that would still show that communism was indeed not bad.
While no country is the same, you might look at finland (independent) and the baltics (joined USSR in 1940) for a somewhat comparable shared modernization trend and the resulting improvements in life expectancy, the 1970s dip, etc.
Thanks for providing a graph that makes it difficult comparing socialist states with captialist ones. Your graph also doesn’t capture how fast life expectancy increased, it purposefully expands the timeframe to make it less significant. After the dissolution of the Soviet union Russia suffered the largest known drop in life expectancy in peace time
If you twiddle them, you’ll see exactly what the previous commenter is talking about. For example, try comparing socialist countries like Russia and Cuba to other countries of a similar level of development, like any random country in the Third World, or Africa, Asia, or South America that didn’t use imperialism in the 1800’s, to boost its development.
You’ll see a 15-25 year difference in life expectancy during that time. And that’s without causing the awful conditions in the rest of the world that Europe and the US did by boosting their development through slavery, war, imperialism, and colonialism.
Russia started out in a terrible position (with no small thanks to the late abolishment of serfdom). But it isn’t particularly surprising that it improved when or as much as it did with the arrival of new technology, urbanisation trends, better sanitation and health care (especially pre-natal care), and of course its location. The world was changing fast, and russia was well primed to change with it.
But Soviet Union, the related Sovket bloc, China, India(our version was more influenced by Fabian/Nehruvian socialism, not really Marxist) n all were influenced by communism/socialism and account for a large portion of the global population.
In your graph, the World curve follows the Asia curve. So the global trend could likely be because of the communist influence itself.
Without adding that context, your addition of context doesn’t really add context, right?
So, uh, did communism work for them?
I grew up in USSR, it worked fine. The real horrors started after the wonders of markets and capitalism were introduced.
Yeah, right up until the US successfully ruined it as usual
Socialism did work in the USSR, yes. They doubled life expectancies, ended famine, passed prison reforms, dramatically expanded democracy, nearly eliminated homelessness, transformed a semi-feudal backwater into a modernized industrial country, passed free universal healthcare and education, and plenty more. There were problems and struggles, and obviously it no longer exists, but socialism absolutely worked for the soviets for neaerly a full century.
The dissolution of socialism in Eastern Europe was multi-faceted and complex, and had more to do with conditions particular to the soviets as compared to universal to socialism. Today, the CPRF is rising in popularity and is the most significant opposition to United Russia, and the majority of Russians wish to return to socialism.
It was socialism and yes it worked tremendously considering the fact that they sacrificed 20M+ lives in WW2 and were subject of western imperialism forcing them to spend most resources on the cold war
Seems relatively on par with the rest of the world…
https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250731-112524/grapher/life-expectancy.html
The rate of growth after 1917 and 1945 is absolutely not on par with the rest of the world, or you would have linked an example to prove it. And if it was on par with the rest of the world, that would still show that communism was indeed not bad.
While no country is the same, you might look at finland (independent) and the baltics (joined USSR in 1940) for a somewhat comparable shared modernization trend and the resulting improvements in life expectancy, the 1970s dip, etc.
where do people go to learn this skill of filling empty air with words and not addressing the thing they’re ostensibly replying to in any way?
The users here are fully capable of doing minimal research and applying critical thinking without being spoon-fed.
What a magnanimous excuse for not actually providing any evidence for your claims
Thanks for providing a graph that makes it difficult comparing socialist states with captialist ones. Your graph also doesn’t capture how fast life expectancy increased, it purposefully expands the timeframe to make it less significant. After the dissolution of the Soviet union Russia suffered the largest known drop in life expectancy in peace time
It has knobs, twiddle them or use the raw data.
Yes - societal collapses tend to do that.
If you twiddle them, you’ll see exactly what the previous commenter is talking about. For example, try comparing socialist countries like Russia and Cuba to other countries of a similar level of development, like any random country in the Third World, or Africa, Asia, or South America that didn’t use imperialism in the 1800’s, to boost its development.
You’ll see a 15-25 year difference in life expectancy during that time. And that’s without causing the awful conditions in the rest of the world that Europe and the US did by boosting their development through slavery, war, imperialism, and colonialism.
Russia started out in a terrible position (with no small thanks to the late abolishment of serfdom). But it isn’t particularly surprising that it improved when or as much as it did with the arrival of new technology, urbanisation trends, better sanitation and health care (especially pre-natal care), and of course its location. The world was changing fast, and russia was well primed to change with it.
Which knobs do you twiddle to out the Soviet bloc, China n all?
And if you are talking about it without doing the twiddling when younshared it, aren’t you now just making s pasable reply?
If you want country specific data, you might have to explore the data sources itself.
I was just trying to add context, because the huge jump in life expectancy was a global phenomenon, which casual readers may not know.
But Soviet Union, the related Sovket bloc, China, India(our version was more influenced by Fabian/Nehruvian socialism, not really Marxist) n all were influenced by communism/socialism and account for a large portion of the global population.
In your graph, the World curve follows the Asia curve. So the global trend could likely be because of the communist influence itself.
Without adding that context, your addition of context doesn’t really add context, right?
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Based