u/Pancer1900

I am a socialist from Poland and I admire the USSR, but some things must be said and most of this Reddit doesn't seem to get them.

1. The USSR was somewhat imperialist

The eastern block both economically and politically essentially functioned as a puppet block of the soviet union. This was more apparent during the Stalinist era when the governments were more or less commanded by Moscow. For example the Polish construction of 1952 was directly written by Stalin himself (he wrote personal changes to it last minute). The Easter block had some autonomy especially as the Chruschew and Brezhnev eras came but they still weren't fully sovereign states. The Hungarian revolution of 1956 was a hot issue and it was good it was put out as it was a CIA psy op, but the 1968 Prague Spring I believe was a genuine socialist movement which was not there to topple the regime but to reform the old Stalinist government of the state and I believe that the intervention of the Warsaw pact against a brotherly Socialist state (Dubcek didn't reject socialism and didn't try to break with the USSR, like Nagy in Hungary did) was a blatant show of how the eastern bloc was not a alliance of sovereign states but Soviet influence zone. Another example of soviet imperialism in the eastern block is the COMECOM, although it was a good economic block with the intention of joint economic growth, in reality (especially in the countries of the eastern block (Europe)) it was much more prefential to the USSR over the other states. For example Poland exported coal to the USSR on a de facto negative price me when thought exchange to the transfer ruble we essentially paid for polish coal to be exported the the USSR.

Having that said I am not discrediting the overall need of the Warsaw pact to combat the (also imperialist) NATO and the success of the COMECOM to develop many states. I am just stating that it had flaws and was biased towards the USSR.

2. USSRs "liberation" of the eastern European states was not a wonderful gift to those countries.

One thing is true, most of those countries had authoritarian anti-communist dictatorships, but this doesn't mean that literal cooperation with the Nazis was good.

I know Poland is a pretend issue on the SubReddit but some things need to be said. Poland did oppress to some extent it's eastern minorities and Poland did have a vile dictatorship that tried to cooperate with the Nazis. Polish hatred towards the soviets didn't stem form the wide anti communism, but form the anti-russian thought (russians systemically oppressed poles during their 123 year occupation of Poland after the partitions of Poland-Lithouania) and the peace of Riga of 1921 was a bad deal for both sides and it left lasting scars on both the new reborn Poland and the newly created USSR. Having that said, the Ribetroph-Molotov treaty was a pragmatic agreement between the USSR and Germany and I agree that USSR can be excused as a pragmatic pact done not to genuinely support the Nazis, but to salvage to geopolitical collapse of what was the pre ww2 state of eastern Europe. Having said that the USSR did INVADE Poland on September 17 and later they did many atrocities on the occupied Polish lands (of course they were better than the Nazis, although some poles compare them). The soviets did the 1940 Katyń massacre and murders around 20,000 poles, those are facts and you can't argue with them. Once the great patriotic war changed the tide, the Soviets once again found themselves in old Polish territory. During the WW2 Poland had one of the biggest underground resistance networks the National Army (AK) they planned an offensive to aid the soviet forces entering old polish territory (operation thunder "burza" in Polish) and it ended with NKVD officers shooting most of the soldiers dead. Another thing is the Warsaw uprising during which Soviets stood idle and waited for the poles to fall so that they can capture the destroyed city. After the Soviets captured Poland the remnants of the AK launched anti-soviet operations (which I condemn).

After the war Soviets set up a Stalinist puppet regime in a rigged elections and a referendum. Overall Soviets did a lot of good for Poland economically in the post war years and they indeed saved them form the Nazis and saved the whole Europe from the German oppression.

I am not writing this to say Soviets are the bad guys and we should hate them, I am writing this to all the people on this sub which have been posting shitshows titled "why Poland didn't say thank you to the Soviets for liberating them" I get they it's a clashing topic but the truth is more complicated. I don't want to say that the sanacia regime (pre ww2 Poland) or the AK were some goddam heroes for fighting against the Soviets, but the Soviets weren't heroes fighting them either. History is more complex than that.

3. The Soviet Union was not all that good internally either

It had many achievements and was unquestionable that they achieved the second biggest economic miracle in history (after china) in lifting millions out of poverty and transforming illiterate backwater into a global superpower, but it had many flaws that we must admit. I am saying it to show us future socialists/Communist what we can Learn form the failures of the USSR that can be improved in the future.

The great hunger in Ukraine happened. It wasn't the 10-15 million that the reactionaries claim but it wasn't the 2-4 million the Soviet claim either. It was a tragedy and a loss of many lives and some of you can't believe that the government was responsible for any of this. I am partially on your side, but there were many more factors than just greedy Kulaks to the great hunger. For example the sheer damage of the infrastructure of the region as a lasting impact of the civil war especially the black army actions, next impact was the use of pati-science (anti genetics of Lysenko), the ignorance of the local party officials and of course the kulaks themselves. I am just saying that the problem is more complex compared to what some people in this sub believe.

This is just an example of something much more complicated being blindly discredited as one side bad other USSR glorious, when in history it wasn't that simple.

Overall sorry dear comrades for the rant and I repeat I DONT SAY THE USSR IS BAD I JUST SAY THAT NOT EVERYTHING FORM IT IS BLINDLY GOOD. I admire the USSR and as I said we should not blindly fight anything against our belives but actually say it's not that simple, we should learn from the mistakes of the USSR not pretend they didn't happen.

As a sub Reddit for German socialist lovers I ask you this Humble question.

Do you honestly believe that some form of socialism can be reached? (In a developed country)

On one hand you can look at the modern "socialist" and "social democratic" parties and wonder HOW DARE THOSE BURGOISE REVISIONISTS CALL THEMSELVES THAT.

On the other hand you know that the USSR and the eastern Block were severely flawed (russian imperialism, police states and inefficient economy) and we don't want to return to it.

So either you become a class traitor and advocate for the modern kind of "leftism" and end up only as another slightly left wing government to collapse after one year with no notable achievements, or you are this uncompromising left party that is anti everything.

Like in the case of DDR and FDR, either you are a police "socialist" state, or a neo-nazi symphatizing, sold off to American billionaires and corrupt state.

So what's the answer?

Is all fight against the super rich and imperialism not possible or the best we can do is just to compromise with capital behind closed doors and hope to water down the worst of capitalism?