How Did the Soviet Union Actually Work?

Pretty sure Solzhenitsyn would strongly disagree with that last statement.

seems very similar to the structure of the PRC’s government today, and that’s probably no coincidence

More like "Things I cannot explain are "contradictions"."

The thing ive never understood about anticommunists is why they would think someone going after power would side with the masses


If lenin was just a bloodthirsty brute he wouldve simply become an enforcer of the tsar's rule wouldnt he?

It didn't 😂

I am trying to learn story on the internet, I have a friend who is teaching me about russia, and he is right about people trying to "villanize" Russia... Was the soviet Union really a Creation of Russia? This video from the start has an obvious biased take, I belive it is better to stay impartial, it feels like the video is cencoring important aspects of the whole subject and not even adressing them.

"Soviet" means council. That pretty much explains everything you need to know about the system. The soviet union was basically a bunch of councils that managed the workers in a geographic location, almost like a labor union but on steroids. Its called syndicalism.

Capitalism is so repulsive that being repulsive is praised, not condemned.

The best course of action would be for the provisional government to cooperate with the soviets, and grant independence to Ukraine, Baltics, Poland etc. When they started losing the great war.

If nothing changed after Stalin how come there were no more famines and virtually no gulags?

How Did the Soviet Union Actually Work? Did it? (I sometimes think that about the USA)

It didn’t…

it didn't

So many mistakes in this video, most of them come from the usual anti-Soviet mythology. Just to name a few:

-The Communist Party didn't debounce Stalin, Khruschev denounced Stalin mixing truth, half-truth and starightforward lies to drag more support towards him. In fact the Party tried to depose him a year later.

-The rest of the republics were not puppets of the RSFSR. The Communists there had already quite strong organizations by themselves, that's why following Lenin's national autodetermination ideas instead of being absorbed inside the RSFSR the USSR was created. Of course they kept being junior members as Russia was demographically and economically bigger than all of them combined by still retained a lot of power. The ammount of people from the other republics in high positions and important institutions never declined.

-After Stalin's death the country didn't go back to Lenin's view, it was the exact opposite. The corruption of the Party became bigger each year after Khruschev took control. Ideology and skill were bo longer needed to ascend, loyalty was enough. The Party started to fill with people that were everything but Communists. They promoted a gradual liberalizarion of the economy, rejected the OGAS and eventually well, we all know what they ended up doing. Today they are the "elites" of the post Soviet stayes. I doubt that's what Lenin wanted.

Was about to watch the video because the title was catchy but after hearing your cringe accent, i immediately hit "do not recommend channel" Fk your voice !!

Strange government system of USSR became one of the reasons why 1993 constitutional crisis became a reality

Wikipedia levels of understanding.

communism doesn't have an state

As a socialist, i love seeing an actual informed and good faith breakdown of a subject so controversial and recent. Democratic centralism has indeed far outlived its purpose.

Fun fact: The Karelo-Finnish SSR (Karelia) was briefly it's own constituent republic from 1940 until it was annexed by Russia in 1956.

Классное видео, привет из России.

Can you make a video on how Socialist Yugoslavia actually work?

It did until it didn't. Also sounds like it could prove a decent blueprint for the future conservative "christian" state many wish to found in the USA.

That's a trick question! It didn't.

United states of america

Could u pls do a video on how the British Empire worked or The Troubles in Northern Ireland?

Very ignorant video with many errors. First of all, Lenin tried first war communism that didn’t work. The second try of Lenin was NEP, which fast improved situation, but was king of capitalism without guarantee of security. Stalin system was completely different, instead of economic incentive he mobilized people by terror and by good conditions for managers. Khrushchev communism was different than Lenin’s. The system tried to provide incentive instead of terror, but was impacted by aging management, failed investments in Siberia, women refusing to have children and afterwards by falling oil prices, Afghan war and Chernobyl.

We need to keep in mind that Marx never wrote how the revolution was supposed to organise itself. lenin had to work from scratch in an underdeveloped country ravaged by civil war.
Not much in the book was helping.

Furthermore, democracy at work in the Ussr worked. If your lanager was an ass, you had the possibility to report him to the local party member to fire him.
Also, if a candidate of the party did not manage to obtain 50% of the votes of his county, he was discharged. As such the population could show its dissatisfaction by not going to vote.
Still more democratic that here in France, where you have deputies elected with less than 10% of the electors of a district (the 90% others didn't bothered to go to vote).

Trick question, it didn't.

How does the Russian Federation actually work next

Good video

Would you say power is abused more in the Russian Federation or the Soviet Union ?

I dont think you properly represented the soviet idea of democratic centralism you make it sound like a sham nonsense propaganda tool. Under lenin there certainly were purges and political repression but certainly not even close to what stalin did. For those of you don't know democratic centralism was one of the ideas to preserve democracy in the workers state afterall Marx Engels and even Lenin to some degree all fully supported a democratic form of government. Democratic centralism is the idea that all policy's shall be freely and openly debated in the party but once the vote was had that was the official party position and everyone had to back it. It was a compromise idea to preserve democracy in the party only later was this idea made into a sham with things like the politburo

The problem of any ideologically charged government is that it cannot remain a democracy or it will risk being outvoted and the ruling ideology fails.
In the case of moderates it's okay because they are relatively popular and always try again next election and unless the system is treathened heavily moderates won't bend it to their will too much.
But when the ideology is framed around a sense of urgency, solving injustices immedietly, and facing the crisis of your time such as the communists, or fascists they have 2 options left both of wich leads to the death of legalism and democracy.

The fascists argue that one must install a military dictatorship so that the army can leverage the entire state quickly to defend the state frome external enemies at a moments notice, or to push forward the geoplitical interests of the nation and people effectively and fast. Thus democracy is sacraficed and demonised even as an inefficent weak system leading to infigthing and factionalism, the government justifies itself with end results: higher living standard, efficency, and succesfull military campaigns. Legality is breached in order to obtain these goals.
Notably the fascists rarely uproot traditions customs and pre existing soceital structures, unless they are deemed to be an active treath, often leaning on said traditions by "preserving them" from foreign influence.

The Communists instead dress up as democrats while they say they HAVE TO take away certain freedoms (right to vote privately) in order to make shure the system is not infaltrated and that the communist government isn't overthrown. Now to be fair if they wouldn't cheat and bend the rules it WOULD BE overthrown immedietly yet it still leads to them tightening the rope. A communist would argue that so long as everything is done for the greater good of the people, the workers, the revolution it's still a democracy even if it's a top down dictatorship. A communist democracy is where you can only vote for communists, "for your own good" every other candidate is disqualified.
Combined with the inherent ideas of soceity needing drastic changes communists uproot everything and than wonder why they are "forced" to rig the system to keep their power.

Using corporate analogy, central committee = shareholders, politburo = board of directors, general secretary = board chair. government = corporate office

Spoiler alert: It didn't...

They were the france to America's britain
So close to being #1 but there's always someone better

Bruh I though this was history matters from the thumbnail bruh.

They should have done something different

If you don’t agree with the ways the government functioned, that is completely understandable. Saying “it didn’t work,” is just childish…

Five Year Plans, trading oil for food crops and shoddy goods from disgruntled COMECON inmates, industrial espionage, and loans from the evil West.

That's the neat part: it didn't

I've heard that, as a way to drum up voter turnout (because elections are boring with only one party to choose from), it was common for election places to provide free vodka.

That's the neat thing, it didn't.

Moldavia💀

"How did the USSR work?"

"It didn't"

[End video]