Michael Parenti, roughly, in defense of the Soviet Union

[© Tweed the Younger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YSGjwV3TKY

[© Tweed the Younger]

Communism, I say it without flinching, in Eastern Europe, China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Cuba, brought land reform, and human services, a dramatic bettering of the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people, on a scale never before, or never since witnessed in human history...

[Sibboleth]

Why even bother?

[Beet]

The problem is that a lot of more moderate regimes also did land reform (without the slaughter), and brought human services and a dramatic bettering of living conditions.

[© Tweed the Younger]

The problem is that a lot of more moderate regimes also did land reform (without the slaughter), and brought human services and a dramatic bettering of living conditions.

where was anything approaching the Stalinist programme of industrialization done without the aid of child labor; and/or, with a sharply rising rate of literacy?

[shua]

Aw hell, I gotta get to DPRK and get me some of that LAND REFORM!

[Beet]

The problem is that a lot of more moderate regimes also did land reform (without the slaughter), and brought human services and a dramatic bettering of living conditions.

where was anything approaching the Stalinist programme of industrialization done without the aid of child labor; and/or, with a sharply rising rate of literacy?

No mention of the 5 million kulaks killed?

[© Tweed the Younger]

we can debate over the exact numbers that you cite -- and Parenti does -- but the number was likely greater during the protracted capitalist process of industrialization.  for a partial documentation, see Capital, Vol. I - The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation and succeeding chapters

[dead0man]

but the number was likely greater during the protracted capitalist process of industrialization.

Communism:we may not kill as many, but we'll kill you faster!

[Redalgo]

The video is a bit long so I might not get around to watching it for awhile. Before I do however, I think it is worth noting there is no such thing as a failed experiment in science - only results from which we can learn. Although tragic events clearly transpired in the Soviet Union and it would be most wise for us not to replicate those outcomes in the future, it remains obvious to me that not every public policy and every leader at every tier of government in the Soviet Union was HP'esque. That is not to suggest I'm a closeted Stalinist or Soviet apologist - merely that most major powers achieve both laudable and horrific things over the courses of their histories. There are things to admire, and to condemn. My perception of the USSR is of a grand vision gone awry on many levels.

Bickering over "capitalism" killing X number of folks and "communism" Y is, in my opinion, simplistic. A well conceived ideology itself usually does not kill people. That much is achieved by the ideology being poorly implemented and/or grievously perverted or betrayed by flawed government officials.

[ZuWo]

Communism, I say it without flinching, in Eastern Europe, China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Cuba, brought land reform, and human services, a dramatic bettering of the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people, on a scale never before, or never since witnessed in human history...

We should really teach those misguided North Koreans who are trying to flee from their country, are suffering from hunger or from torture in concentration camps to acknowledge "the dramatic bettering of the living conditions" communism has brought to the country!

[© Tweed the Younger]

Communism, I say it without flinching, in Eastern Europe, China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Cuba, brought land reform, and human services, a dramatic bettering of the living conditions of hundreds of millions of people, on a scale never before, or never since witnessed in human history...

We should really teach those misguided North Koreans who are trying to flee from their country, are suffering from hunger or from torture in concentration camps to acknowledge "the dramatic bettering of the living conditions" communism has brought to the country!

Parenti would likely identify the 1972 shift to Juche from Marxism-Leninism as state ideology as the effective end of Communism in North Korea.

[Vasall des Midas]

And he would be wrong. And not thinking particularly Marxian - or particularly realistically at all. Depending how the hell we define the word "Communism", North Korea either still is "Communist", or it never was; it's just yet another example of Asian post-WWI anticolonial liberation movements forced into alliance with the Soviet Union by a noncomprehending West. (And then a brutal dictatorship erected by an - only literally - FF with Texas-sized chips on his shoulders who defeated an essentially genocidal American bombing campaign. With Soviet help, of course. And finally, a tinpot monarchy.)
Note that I'm *fine* with us using the former definition (ie one that accepts that such people are "Communist" if they call themselves that and/or have an uber-statist economy), it's just not all that meaningful. But I would like to insist you need to be aware of the nomenclatural issues involved.

[crypto-fascist superhero]

The North Korean regime bears no relation whatsoever to "anticolonial liberation movements" except in its own propaganda.

[Vasall des Midas]

Now? Of course not, duh.

Today such movements tend to describe themselves as Islamist, anyways.

[crypto-fascist superhero]

Now? Of course not, duh.

Today such movements tend to describe themselves as Islamist, anyways.

No, never.  Kim il-Sung was a random Korean living in Siberia the Soviets installed as a (presumably) loyal puppet.  Some time later, the NK regime started propagandizing that he was a "resistance" fighter against the Japanese.

[Vasall des Midas]

Now? Of course not, duh.

Today such movements tend to describe themselves as Islamist, anyways.

No, never.  Kim il-Sung was a random Korean living in Siberia the Soviets installed as a (presumably) loyal puppet.  Some time later, the NK regime started propagandizing that he was a "resistance" fighter against the Japanese.

No... they started exaggerating his minorish 30s role... leading to the insane southern propagandist claim that he wasn't, in fact, the same man as the 30s guerillero.
 
The more relevant part is that the Soviets installed that seeming puppet because of what they knew of the Korean "Communists" (and because, unlike further away in Malaya or Vietnam, their security interests were at stake and also, unlike there, they could...) and Kim didn't exactly behave as a Soviet puppet, right from the start. (But he did execute his nationalist competitition. He was... not a nice fellow.) Not when compared with, say, Ulbricht.

[Ghyl Tarvoke]

That Hitler and Franco did not exactly get on is not really news... even during the Spanish Civil War.