The Soviet Union.. Holy Shit

[barbos]

I read somewhere that Stalin thought of Marx as Abraham and Lenin was like Moses. He thought his part was to be the Joshua in the Soviet story and we all know Joshua went around giving the ax to everyone that didn't do things the way his religion said it should be.

I know the phrase "be fair" may seem rather strange when applied to Stalin, but didn't the researchers prove that the people supposedly killed by him were a whole, whole, whole, lot lower than the claims of 50 million or 20 million. I want to think the purges of 1936-1938 turned out to be more like 600,000.

I thought the large numbers reflected prisoners sent into the Gulag. Not so many executed, by many imprisoned. IIRC, Solzhenitsyn put it at 66M. That's not just during the purge, tho.

66mil is clearly ridiculously inflated number too. wiki says 14 mil went through the system. that is easy to believe.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Leninism was tacked in for purely political reasons. Stalin needed some credibility and appearance of continuity from Lenin, so Lenin became Jesus like figure and Stalin was his closest follower. In reality Lenin did not like Stalin at all.
Boy, I hated all that boring crap in school.

I read somewhere that Stalin thought of Marx as Abraham and Lenin was like Moses. He thought his part was to be the Joshua in the Soviet story and we all know Joshua went around giving the ax to everyone that didn't do things the way his religion said it should be.

I know the phrase "be fair" may seem rather strange when applied to Stalin, but didn't the researchers prove that the people supposedly killed by him were a whole, whole, whole, lot lower than the claims of 50 million or 20 million. I want to think the purges of 1936-1938 turned out to be more like 600,000.

The higher numbers are deaths from starvation by mismanaging the economy. The lower numbers are people directly executed. Both numbers can be calculated in a variety of ways.

 

[Sarpedon]

Neither a weather forecast, nor an economic forecast needs to be 100% accurate to be useful. I find that the weather forecasts I get are useful. It doesn't matter if the rain comes in the morning, like it said, or if it turns out to happen in the afternoon; I need my raincoat either way. When I am planting my garden, I don't need to know whether it will sunny or cloudy, just so long as it doesn't rain or be too windy that day. People found weather forecasts to be useful enough to publish many years ago, before they were even a tiny bit as accurate as they are now.

While managing an economy is certainly more complicated, I certainly don't think anyone is going to be planning it down to the last kg of rice or pair of pants. There will be surpluses, stockpiles and waste, of course. But more powerful predictive tools can help us reduce waste, even out the bumps in the market and generally reducing shocks. The market is powerful, but it can benefit from measures to reign in its excesses. Predictive tools can help that.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Neither a weather forecast, nor an economic forecast needs to be 100% accurate to be useful. I find that the weather forecasts I get are useful. It doesn't matter if the rain comes in the morning, like it said, or if it turns out to happen in the afternoon; I need my raincoat either way. When I am planting my garden, I don't need to know whether it will sunny or cloudy, just so long as it doesn't rain or be too windy that day. People found weather forecasts to be useful enough to publish many years ago, before they were even a tiny bit as accurate as they are now.

While managing an economy is certainly more complicated, I certainly don't think anyone is going to be planning it down to the last kg of rice or pair of pants. There will be surpluses, stockpiles and waste, of course. But more powerful predictive tools can help us reduce waste, even out the bumps in the market and generally reducing shocks. The market is powerful, but it can benefit from measures to reign in its excesses. Predictive tools can help that.

When it comes to the stock exchange, the top experts predict coming trends 5% better than random. That's still well done, and why we pay them the big bucks.

Nah... we're flying pretty blind here. Until people stop inventing new things I'd say we have no clue about the future.

 

[bilby]

Neither a weather forecast, nor an economic forecast needs to be 100% accurate to be useful. I find that the weather forecasts I get are useful. It doesn't matter if the rain comes in the morning, like it said, or if it turns out to happen in the afternoon; I need my raincoat either way. When I am planting my garden, I don't need to know whether it will sunny or cloudy, just so long as it doesn't rain or be too windy that day. People found weather forecasts to be useful enough to publish many years ago, before they were even a tiny bit as accurate as they are now.

While managing an economy is certainly more complicated, I certainly don't think anyone is going to be planning it down to the last kg of rice or pair of pants. There will be surpluses, stockpiles and waste, of course. But more powerful predictive tools can help us reduce waste, even out the bumps in the market and generally reducing shocks. The market is powerful, but it can benefit from measures to reign in its excesses. Predictive tools can help that.

You are missing the point. Weather and economic forecasts are very useful - but they are ALWAYS short term. Tomorrow's weather forecast is often wrong. Next week's is frequently wrong. Next month's is no better than taking the average for the same day over the last dozen years; beyond that, a carefully calculated forecast using a highly detailed model is pointless, because a crude guess is at least as good, if not better. You will never see a five year weather forecast based on a computer model.

A five year plan is a very different thing from having a good idea what is likely to happen over the next month.

 

[bilby]

It is sobering to realize that feudalism was only abolished in parts of Russia as late as 1868. And then many became tenant farmers not much better off than serfs. Russia suffered numerous revolts and resurrections because of this. The promise of socialism was a good deal in many eyes. Russia up to the late 1800's was a bizarre place compared to say, England France or America.

I read an account somewhere by a Russian soldier who was part of the force that invaded Prussia in 1914. He was surprised at how neat and tidy the German farms were, and was particularly impressed that the peasants' shacks were sturdily built from concrete, with corrugated tin roofs, and were far better than the one he had grown up in.

It wasn't until after his capture that he found out from the German troops guarding the prisoners that these shacks were in fact pigsties, and that the lowliest Germans had real honest to goodness houses to live in.

 

[barbos]

It is sobering to realize that feudalism was only abolished in parts of Russia as late as 1868. And then many became tenant farmers not much better off than serfs. Russia suffered numerous revolts and resurrections because of this. The promise of socialism was a good deal in many eyes. Russia up to the late 1800's was a bizarre place compared to say, England France or America.

Not feudalism, serfdom. And it was abolished in 1861 which is 4 years before slavery was abolished in US.

 

[barbos]

It is sobering to realize that feudalism was only abolished in parts of Russia as late as 1868. And then many became tenant farmers not much better off than serfs. Russia suffered numerous revolts and resurrections because of this. The promise of socialism was a good deal in many eyes. Russia up to the late 1800's was a bizarre place compared to say, England France or America.

I read an account somewhere by a Russian soldier who was part of the force that invaded Prussia in 1914. He was surprised at how neat and tidy the German farms were, and was particularly impressed that the peasants' shacks were sturdily built from concrete, with corrugated tin roofs, and were far better than the one he had grown up in.

It wasn't until after his capture that he found out from the German troops guarding the prisoners that these shacks were in fact pigsties, and that the lowliest Germans had real honest to goodness houses to live in.

Not a whole lot changed since then. But I have seen photos of natives living in parts of Alaska, not very tidy at all.

 

[rousseau]

Question for those more knowledgeable on the subject: did the non-Russian countries within the soviet union all have similar histories to Russia itself, albeit with slightly more autonomy and diversion from Russia's history?

Basically all a part of a big bloc that experimented with communism, and fell behind Western powers economically?

 

[Sarpedon]

Perhaps the planned economy of the future will be less ambitious than the ones of the past. Instead of a five year plan, perhaps you have a more continuous, low key intervention, focused on goals rather than production targets. It really was the unrealistic production targets that led to the most egregious failures of the planned economies of the past: targets that were made for goals other than the health of the economy. I agree that there is no way to make an accurate enough forecast to make a 5 year plan feasible. But I don't envision that sort of planning. What we might have are a series of micro interventions that nudge things in a certain direction. That's part of the power of an AI controlled economy; not only can it process input more efficiently, it can conceivably make adjustments of a size and thouroughness that would have previously been impossible. Small price adjustments, pulling some goods from the market, stockpiling surpluses instead of dumping them on the market, short term buying and selling to stabilize prices...all of these things are conceivable for the near future. Any one of these things would be impossible in the board meetings and paperwork days. What would have taken a committee a week to decide could be done in seconds. It would take a while to create the goals and parameters of the machine, but once the general goals have been set, it could act and learn independently. I really don't think we are too far away from that sort of possibility.

What would you say about AI issued warrants?

 

[Sarpedon]

Rousseau: Participation in the Soviet experiment was mandatory. The autonomy supposedly enjoyed by the different SSRs was largely nominal, though certain of them enjoyed more defacto autonomy than others. There were lots of pre-existing differences that the State tried hard to erase. Stalin came down especially hard on his native Georgia, for example. Russian peasants enjoyed a communal life before communism, and even that was uprooted by forced collective farms. A more kindly ruler would have encouraged the pre-existing socialistic tendencies and incorporated them into the reforms. In Ukraine, most peasants were small landowners, and, after a brief period of tolerance to win them over, were brutally repressed. The Baltic countries were treated more mildly, as they had less of a tendency to violently resist. The Islamic SSRs also got off (relatively) easily, as their remoteness and lack of farming traditions made them a blanker slate, but many of the nomads were forcibly settled, and land that used to be owned by no one was converted to state farms.

A very quick and messy summary. Feel free to add to it.

 

[barbos]

Question for those more knowledgeable on the subject: did the non-Russian countries within the soviet union all have similar histories to Russia itself, albeit with slightly more autonomy and diversion from Russia's history?

Basically all a part of a big bloc that experimented with communism, and fell behind Western powers economically?

I don't understand the question.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Perhaps the planned economy of the future will be less ambitious than the ones of the past. Instead of a five year plan, perhaps you have a more continuous, low key intervention, focused on goals rather than production targets. It really was the unrealistic production targets that led to the most egregious failures of the planned economies of the past: targets that were made for goals other than the health of the economy. I agree that there is no way to make an accurate enough forecast to make a 5 year plan feasible. But I don't envision that sort of planning. What we might have are a series of micro interventions that nudge things in a certain direction. That's part of the power of an AI controlled economy; not only can it process input more efficiently, it can conceivably make adjustments of a size and thouroughness that would have previously been impossible. Small price adjustments, pulling some goods from the market, stockpiling surpluses instead of dumping them on the market, short term buying and selling to stabilize prices...all of these things are conceivable for the near future. Any one of these things would be impossible in the board meetings and paperwork days. What would have taken a committee a week to decide could be done in seconds. It would take a while to create the goals and parameters of the machine, but once the general goals have been set, it could act and learn independently. I really don't think we are too far away from that sort of possibility.

What would you say about AI issued warrants?

Nudging the economy around is how we use taxes and subsidies. But it doesn't take much nudging to break the system.

 

[LordKiran]

It is sobering to realize that feudalism was only abolished in parts of Russia as late as 1868. And then many became tenant farmers not much better off than serfs. Russia suffered numerous revolts and resurrections because of this. The promise of socialism was a good deal in many eyes. Russia up to the late 1800's was a bizarre place compared to say, England France or America.

Not feudalism, serfdom.And it was abolished in 1861 which is 4 years before slavery was abolished in US.

Struggling to see the distinction.

- - - Updated - - -

I read an account somewhere by a Russian soldier who was part of the force that invaded Prussia in 1914. He was surprised at how neat and tidy the German farms were, and was particularly impressed that the peasants' shacks were sturdily built from concrete, with corrugated tin roofs, and were far better than the one he had grown up in.

It wasn't until after his capture that he found out from the German troops guarding the prisoners that these shacks were in fact pigsties, and that the lowliest Germans had real honest to goodness houses to live in.

Not a whole lot changed since then. But I have seen photos of natives living in parts of Alaska, not very tidy at all.

I mean if we're going to play tit for tat, I'd argue that the number of impoverished native peoples is far exceeded by the number of impoverished Federation citizens.

 

[bilby]

Not feudalism, serfdom.And it was abolished in 1861 which is 4 years before slavery was abolished in US.

Struggling to see the distinction.

Feudalism happens amongst the minor nobles.

Serfdom happens to the lowly farm hands.

The latter was abolished in Russia in 1861. The former wasn't abolished in Russia until 1917.

 

[LordKiran]

Struggling to see the distinction.

Feudalism happens amongst the minor nobles.

Serfdom happens to the lowly farm hands.

The latter was abolished in Russia in 1861. The former wasn't abolished in Russia until 1917.

But really what is the practical difference? I would think that it is hard to argue that there's much of a jump when going from serf to tenant farmer, the same way there is when going from owned property, to tenant farmer.


I'm not being rhetorical here, serious question.

 

[bilby]

Feudalism happens amongst the minor nobles.

Serfdom happens to the lowly farm hands.

The latter was abolished in Russia in 1861. The former wasn't abolished in Russia until 1917.

But really what is the practical difference? I would think that it is hard to argue that there's much of a jump when going from serf to tenant farmer, the same way there is when going from owned property, to tenant farmer.


I'm not being rhetorical here, serious question.

The difference is point of view. Feudalism is the system under which nobles control areas as permitted by the higher ranks of the nobility, and as they are able to impose their claims by force.

Serfdom is the (related) system under which the people who work the land in those areas are officially prohibited from going somewhere else, to work for a different noble.

When the peasants are free to move to another noble's land to work under better conditions, then that's the end of serfdom.

When the nobles are no longer autocratic owners of the land and its inhabitants, that's the end of feudalism.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Feudalism happens amongst the minor nobles.

Serfdom happens to the lowly farm hands.

The latter was abolished in Russia in 1861. The former wasn't abolished in Russia until 1917.

But really what is the practical difference? I would think that it is hard to argue that there's much of a jump when going from serf to tenant farmer, the same way there is when going from owned property, to tenant farmer.


I'm not being rhetorical here, serious question.

There's a huge difference. A serf isn't allowed to move from the farm. Tennant farmers, in theory, can.

Serfdom emerged in a time which was violent and dangerous. The serf promises to stay on the land and the noble promises protection. Which back in the day was a win-win.

But in the industrial age with a functioning rule of law there's no benefit to the serf. At that point it's just a form of slavery. Add to that the fact that farms were a hell of a lot more productive. Less farm hands were needed and more babies were produced.

What changed all this wasn't love from kings. But demands from industrialists. Serfdom kept them from having access to workers.

Russias nobles actively prevented modernised agriculture because they saw the mess it created in the west. It was their days record industry vs Napster.

 

[bilby]

The medieval system divided society into three parts.

The nobility did the fighting - protecting the other two classes from attack.

The clergy did the praying - protecting the other two classes from sin.

And the peasants did the farming - protecting the other two classes from starvation.

The industrial revolution fucked this up. A new system was needed. But it took longer for the Russians to adapt than it took in Western Europe.

The feudal system is basically that tripartite society. Serfdom was just a small part of the system, that made sense in the old paradigm, but doesn't fit with the new.

 

[barbos]

Struggling to see the distinction.

Feudalism happens amongst the minor nobles.

Serfdom happens to the lowly farm hands.

The latter was abolished in Russia in 1861. The former wasn't abolished in Russia until 1917.

Well, in that case Great Britain (and Australia) still have not abolished it yet, constitutional feudalism that is