What is your opinion of the Soviet Union?

[Joe McCarthy]

[Joe McCarthy]

Here is what the black American actor-singer, and Communist, Paul Robeson, thought of the Soviet Union, from an interview in 1935:

http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv4n2/ussrpr.htm

The reception was long and brilliant and lasted until about 2 a.m. But somehow in the course of it, Robeson found time to answer a few questions from the Daily Worker correspondent.

I began with the obvious: "Have you noticed a race question in the Soviet Union?"

An undercurrent of laughter rumbled under Robeson's big mellow voice as he answered: "Only that it seems to work to my advantage!"

And then he explained. He has been studying the Soviet Union for two years, studying the Russian language also for that length of time, has been a regular reader of the Pravda and Isvestia for months, and knows something about the solution of the race question here. He knows that the Soviet theory is that all races are equal-really equal, socially equal, too, as well as economically and politically. He expressed delight but no surprise when I informed him of the election to the Moscow Soviet of the American Negro, Robinson, working in the First State Ball Bearing Plant here.

"I was not prepared for the happiness I see on every face in Moscow," said Robeson. "I was aware that there was no starvation here, but I was not prepared for the bounding life; the feeling of safety and abundance and freedom that I find here, wherever I turn. I was not prepared for the endless friendliness, which surrounded me from the moment I crossed the border. I had a technically irregular passport, but all this was brushed aside by the eager helpfulness of the border authorities. And this joy and happiness and friendliness, this utter absence of any embarrassment over a 'race question' is all the more keenly felt by me because of the day I spent in Berlin on the way here, and that was a day of horror-in an atmosphere of hatred, fear and suspicion."

More from Robeson; this time from 'To You Beloved Comrade' - an ode to Stalin upon his death.

http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc9804/robeson.htm

Extract:

I was later to travel - to see with my own eyes what could happen to so-called backward peoples. In the West (in England, in Belgium, France, Portugal, Holland) - the Africans, the Indians (East and West), many of the Asian peoples were considered so backward that centuries, perhaps, would have to pass before these so-called "colonials" could become a part of modern society.

But in the Soviet Union, Yakuts, Nenetses, Kirgiz, Tadzhiks - had respect and were helped to advance with unbelievable rapidity in this socialist land. No empty promises, such as colored folk continuously hear in the United States, but deeds. For example, the transforming of the desert in Uzbekistan into blooming acres of cotton. And an old friend of mine, Mr. Golden, trained under Carver at Tuskegee, played a prominent role in cotton production. In 1949, I saw his daughter, now grown and in the university - a proud Soviet citizen.


Today in Korea - in Southeast Asia - in Latin America and the West Indies, in the Middle East - in Africa, one sees tens of millions of long oppressed colonial peoples surging toward freedom. What courage - what sacrifice - what determination never to rest until victory!

And arrayed against them, the combined powers of the so-called Free West, headed by the greedy, profit-hungry, war-minded industrialists and financial barons of our America. The illusion of an "American Century" blinds them for the immediate present to the clear fact that civilization has passed them by - that we now live in a people's century - that the star shines brightly in the East of Europe and of the world. Colonial peoples today look to the Soviet Socialist Republics.They see how under the great Stalin millions like themselves have found a new life.

[Grumpy Cat]

Meh.

Collapsed 20 years ago.

[Joe McCarthy]

Meh.

Collapsed 20 years ago.

You seem to be implying that the Soviet era has no bearing on the current order or that it had no lasting effects.

[Oreka Bailoak]

The Soviet Union is the perfect example of exactly what you don't want a country to become economically because of massive famines like Holodomor where the government took food away from unfavored peoples which resulted in the deaths of millions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Not to mention the massive corruption of government like creating gulags to imprison innocent people or executing unfavored people into the thousands.

The whole Government was absolute terror. I don't understand how anybody can be apathetic. I'd be interested to know the opinions of North Korea from this board which shouldn't be any different than our views of the Soviet Union. Both were/are so similar.

[The Ripper]

You seem to be implying that the Soviet era has no bearing on the current order or that it had no lasting effects.

They did defeat the Germans for you.

[Joe McCarthy]

They did defeat the Germans for you.

Both Stalin and Zhukov admitted that without Lend-Lease they would have lost.

[The Ripper]

Both Stalin and Zhukov admitted that without Lend-Lease they would have lost.

Somebody still had to do the fighting, remember. Those jeeps and cans of beans weren't killing nazis by themselves.

[Joe McCarthy]

The whole Government was absolute terror. I don't understand how anybody can be apathetic. I'd be interested to know the opinions of North Korea from this board which shouldn't be any different than our views of the Soviet Union. Both were/are so similar.

It's fairly easy to understand the apathy when one understands that the European far right (and American to some extent) shares much of the ideological fixations of the Soviet era left - anti-Americanism, and anti-capitalism. In some cases the USSR, or at least East Germany, will be remembered fondly, primarily because they weren't the United States.

[Joe McCarthy]

Somebody still had to do the fighting, remember. Those jeeps and cans of beans weren't killing nazis by themselves.

That much is true, and the Soviet people fought bravely, even if they were really mauled visciously.