Quick Question

It's relatively easy to counter this frequently heard argument from anti-communists. For this, we must define what a successful nation is, its qualities, and what it looks like to the people living in it. 

For starters, I, as most Marxists tend to do, define the success of a state to be essentially how well the government provides for its citizens and ensures their prosperity. If we use this metric, we can analyze the effects of Socialist governments on their populace with indications such as homelessness rates, unemployment rates, literacy, life expectancy, infant & maternal mortality, rates, crime rates, and cost of living as well as living standards. 

Let's look at the USSR. The first thing we should address is an argument that many Communists and Socialists are no stranger to--and that is: "No food."

This argument is alluding to the famines which took place in the USSR. We can accurately explain these famines via proper analysis. The first famine we can explain because of it's origins in the Tsar's regime, starting under that regime, and continuing into the October Revolution, the Russian Civil War, and some time after Bolshevik power was secured. This famine was merely carried into the Bolshevik regime due to a long civil war, resistance to the new regime, and a total of 14 capitalist countries invading Russia on the side of the White Army. You can see how a famine would have not ceased to continue under these conditions. The second famine, commonly known as the "Holodomor," is typically seen by capitalists and reactionaries as a "deliberate genocide" targeted at the Ukrainian people. If we trace the roots of this narrative, we have found that the origins of it lie in none other than Nazi Germany. A Nazi collaborator created the myth and it was subsequently utilized by Goebbels and the "Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment" to spread wartime anti-Soviet sentiments. This narrative was then revived after the Second World War, by the Allied Powers and the new west; the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and most notably the United States. Ukrainian Nationalist sources claim 6-7 million deaths, while scholars who traveled and studied the famine, estimated under 3 million. We can attribute the famine to two primary causes: environmental collapse, and resistance to collectivization. Disease wiped out nearly 20% of annual crop yield, affecting areas outside Ukraine such as Kazakhstan and Russia's Northern Caucasus. And on top of this fact, wealthy peasants (kulaks,) killed tens of millions of livestock, used as food of course, and millions of horses which were vital to plowing at this time in Russian history. The truth is, the claim of the Ukrainian Famine being deliberate is anti-Communist propaganda and meant to falsify Soviet history and vilify Communism even more.

Now, a look at welfare statistics. During the Tsars' Regime, around 20% of the Russian population was literate. After the Bolsheviks took power and launched education reforms and literacy campaigns, this rose to roughly 90% by 1939, and up to 100% by the 1950's, quadrupling that of the previous regime. Homelessness and unemployment under Soviet leadership was virtually zero percent. Infant and Maternal mortality rates followed in the same manner, lowering to near zero. Food, Water, and Housing were heavily subsidized and available to all people, and starvation as well as poverty was virtually eliminated after the last famine. Education was free, Healthcare was free, as well as free provision for the ill and the elderly. Life expectancy under the Tsars' regime was below 30 years old, and during Stalin's regime, it reached over 80. (Note: According the the U.N and the W.H.O, Cuba, an economically bludgeoned and isolated country by the west, still shows better homelessness, unemployment, infant & maternal mortality rates, cost of living, life expectancy, and literacy than the US.)

We must also take note of the mind-boggling technological advancements made in the Soviet Union and China in such little time. In roughly 40 years, Russia went from a backwards, feudal society, into one with some of the most up-to-date technology, and sending the first man and woman into space. This was happening while the US was still segregating schools, mind you. In China, we see a Socialist economy that brings about new, revolutionary technology, that rivals that of the US, and even surpasses it in some aspects. This was done in about 75 years. The economic and social progression of Socialist countries has historically and currently shows to increase faster than in a capitalist country.

These huge accomplishments get belittled, covered up, and discredited by the West, as their main focus has proven to be the destruction of any remotely successful Socialist country. We saw this with the USSR and Eastern Bloc, waging economic warfare to destabilize those countries as much as possible, and proxy wars to exert more capitalist influence across all corners of the globe. We see it in Cuba, as I mentioned. We see this with Vietnam, a failed proxy war waged by the US to beat the Vietnamese people into submission. In North Korea, where the UN passed a resolution to deny all humanitarian aid to the country, largely sponsored by the United States and other Western nations. Libya, where the US, France, and UK sponsored a civil war to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, and many more places. (Not to mention the millions of civilian death caused by the United States in almost every place they have intervened.) 

And now let us compare all of these statistics to that of the United States, largely considered the most successful capitalist country in history. There are roughly 1 million homeless people in the US, nearly 7 million unemployed, roughly 60% of Americans can't afford a home, God forbid someone wants quality healthcare or education (expect to be in debt your whole life.) You want to make a comfortable living? Expect a 40 hour work week. Expect insurance scams, expect your job to be replaced my machinery and AI, etc. And like every other capitalist system, it commodifies food, water, shelter, and healthcare, hoarding, destroying, and denying those things to people to maintain profit margins. Is this success compared to Socialism, where the primary reasons for collapse was western antagonisms and destruction?