Hammer and Tickle - Trailer

[johannwillhelm]

Anyone know the name of the Russian song in the background?

[iownage4youi]

Marx laughed sometimes with jokes. And I'm a communist and I laugh with everything, even when people say I'm a communist pig.

[Scientisticsoviet]

@iownage4youi I bet you make delicious bacon! XD

[z0mb1nat3r]

if we cannot laugh at ourselves first, we might as well not make jokes. humor is great!

[alexalin]

Peace !!!!!!!

[IBERJEN]

It's funny because it's soooooo true!!!!

[meambobbo]

i think you mean crony capitalism, or state capitalism, or corporatism, which is just another form of a command economy, like state socialism, communism, syndicalism, and fascism.

free market capitalism was slowly removed from society at the turn of the last century. this is to everyone's lament except politicians and their favored special interests.

[ferociousmadman]

Well if capitalism is dying why is every country except for the most isolated and outdated using it as a form of economics and existence? Even China is a very capitalistic nation, and they claim to be communist!

[Scientisticsoviet]

@ferociousmadman Because you know, 20% of output being in SOEs is hyper capitalist.

[mistertakahashi]

very clever and enjoyable...thanks for sharing

[chechtube]

Ingenious! I have really enjoyed it and laughed my head off!

I was born in this perverse insane system (Prague, Czech) but have lived in freedom for 24 years now - the commies hated humour and you could get two-years-jail for such jokes...

[ropropper]

Hmmm.... capitalist propaganda... Pathetic!

[lipovan87]

They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. If this was propaganda, how come the Stasi, Securitate, and KGB took humor so seriously? Jokes can permit derision, derision weakens to psychological bonds tying people to the State. This was very true and the power of people to deride the system increased over time when the secret police were no longer willing to punish people for joking.

You have an odd idea of "Pathetic".

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 If think they took it seriously you haven't quite looked at their priorities in actual spending: No1 Was military and counter-intelligence.

The fact of the matter is that, at least where the KGB was concerned, internal affairs where quite secondary, to the detriment of internal stability (compared with say the NKVD before it). And they never quite were as concerned or effective with keeping control of foreign allies as the CIA (eg. Latin America).

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

The fact that joke-telling was one aspect that the KGB had to track reveals a far more serious attitude towards it. Joke-telling was considered a strategic concern (and thus warranting counter-intelligence surveillance and suppression).

Debating the power of the USSR to control the situation in Eastern Europe Vs. US in Latin America is ridiculous. Could any Soviet Bloc country act with as much freedom as Peru or Greece? Of course not.

Not comparable.

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 But the issue is that in fact the USA held on to it's subordinated countries for longer then the USSR means I would that it's intelligence operation, if it was not more efficient persay, had a better prioritization of goals (ie. Maintain economic dependence and as well as political dominion). I mean the fact of the matter is that Eastern Europe was net drain on the Soviet economy, compared to Latin America for the US.

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

Your use of the word "subordinated" makes a number of erroneous assumptions. The USSR's goals were to maintain Communist governments in various countries despite the economic inefficiency and massive popular opposition. The military and economic drain was immense because the goals were large and the means were necessarily inefficient because Communism did not permit more efficient ways of doing things (sub-contracting construction work)

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 Two things; 1. The point of it costing a very large amount of resources for little gain in Eastern Europe therein lies my point. It would have been far more effective to concentrate on Asia, where the socialist movement was far more spontaneous.

2. "Communism did not permit more efficient" That is a very sweeping blanket and large statement. As such, if you take the ratio of 1970 to 1928GNP for the USSR, it is the second highest in the world (cont.)

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

The value of controlling Eastern Europe was very significant for the USSR. It was highly strategic territory that formed a buffer between it and the West, provided more skilled facilities and workers than much of the USSR (Polish shipyards being an example), and was far more industrialized (and thus inclined, by Communist theory, to transition to Communism).

The USSR saw Asia as a waste of time when direct political control was their modus operandi.

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 For long term strategy though, the vast manpower, agricultural fields and to some degree mineral wealth of Asia would have a much wiser investment. Still, I suppose the shock of WWII compelled the control of Eastern Europe.

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 (cont.), the first being Japan. And so to say that the economic system of the USSR was completely inefficient is demonstrably false. The proper, and indeed harder task, is to explain why the sudden economic slowdown in the mid 70s. As such, the most serious academic research on the subject I have read is: "Farm to Factory: A reinterpretation of the Soviet industrial revolution" vy Robert C. Allen (cont.2)

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

The Soviet Union made significant leaps in building quantity. They imported US technology in the 1930s (FDR liberalized trade restrictions), copied it, and and modified it slightly as the Soviet scientists began to reverse-engineer the technology.

Trying to build higher technology equipment runs into one of the most serious problems in Communist societies, the limited number of skilled workers. There was a massive push to train experts but that (cont.)

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

Caused a massive misalignment of manpower. Good factory workers became poor technicians and then terrible scientists. Eventually, projects ran out of skilled workers and had to choose what was important and what wasn't. The priority was military production but the problem was inherent in the who system and labor flows weren't as free as a Free Market.

Motivation was a key factor. The establishment of a collective mentality where the workplace (cont.)

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 Note that free market suffers from coordination and factor mobility issues as well, if not moreso (especially in developing countries). That being said, at no point are the OECD countries operating in a purist sort of free market. Not at all.

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

Provides many key benefits tied people to their workplaces (instead of letting them to move) and may have encouraged them to work harder. Despite those efforts, the requirement that organizations accept lazy and unskilled people added the problems of what to do with them. That one would be provided for even if one just did the minimum removed the desperation that fuels normal workers. Soviet factories were famous for slow and inefficient production.(Cont.)

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 (cont.2) He suggest the following: 1. The upgrading of old firms rather then the building of new ones in manufacturing which have higher technological and scale economies. 2. Expanding old mines and oil fields when importing would have cost far less. 3. End of surplus labor transfer from the countryside. 4. Diversion of resources into the military (most importantly in research and development).

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

In short, the USSR couldn't upgrade their facilities to far without running into the skills problem. Soviet economic ideas urged self-production instead of trade (which was handled at the national level which reduced the COMECON to defacto demanding tribute). The restrictions on labor flows are one of the problems that misaligned workers. The military spending was a problem but minor compared to the structural problems imposed by Communist management.

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 Now an few issues with what you say. The problem is actually that they did upgrade old facilities, and as even Gosplan gathered on several occasions, this was much costly then "greenfield" investment. To the point where Japanese steel mills where actually larger then Soviet and American ones (despite the image of American and Soviet gigantism respectively), yet this precisely why they were more efficent (scale economies).

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 Indeed Allen does go over the fact that military spending was a smaller problem. He notes however that in the realm of research, it was comparatively much more important, notably because the sort image of no experimentation and tinkering was actually a myth.

[Scientisticsoviet]

@lipovan87 I will link yo the book on the subject in a private message. It's really impressive; Combines a wealth of empirical data and synthetic research. "Farm to Factory: A reinterpretation of the Soviet industrial revolution." by Robert C. Allen

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

Reply via personal message.

That way comments don't have to be broken up.

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

The US goals in LA were far less radical.

1 Prevent a significant military or political threat from the region in the form of Communist governments or groups able to attack US citizens or interests.

2 Prevent foreign powers from using the area as a base against the US.

3 Urge (using non-military pressure) LA societies towards economic and political freedom. This goal was a relatively low priority as Communism was a larger threat.

[lipovan87]

@Scientisticsoviet

US goals were limited and flexible. The US was willing to accept non-Democratic or pro-US governments if they limited the spread of Communism. The USSR was unwilling to accept non-Totalitarian Socialism and needed to use a continuous troop presence to encourage local populations.

The US could also apply economic sanctions and contract various tasks while the need for political reliability and inefficiency of the USSR made their efforts more expensive.