The USSR was doing so well, they had to build an Iron Curtain around it to keep its citizens from fleeing.
Really? I've seen the Wall. I've gone through Checkpoint Charlie in 1969 and visited East Berlin. I saw the barbed wire, the machine guns, the tank traps, all obviously pointed east to keep people from escaping.
I have friends who grew up under Soviet domination.
I have a number of books on live in the USSR.
Your version of the USSR won't fly.
P.S. You mentioned lots of doctors in the USSR. That may or may not be true. In a thread on Chernobyl on Reddit a while back, people who lived there at the time of the disaster mentioned that while root canals were free, there was no anesthetic. Yah, no thanks. You can live in a communist paradise if you like, but include me out. Enjoy the wall keeping you in.
However, the original point here was that the Soviet revolution improved conditions for the people far more rapidly than US has. As all the sources I've linked above clearly show, the quality of life saw drastic improvements happen at a rate never seen in capitalist countries like the US.
All they did was start using technology and techniques already developed by the capitalist countries. Of course it's going to be quick. Buying a modern tractor is a great leap over a horse drawn plow. Even so, the USSR was never able to feed itself. In the 1980s, Kansas was known as the "Breadbasket of the Soviet Union". The Soviets also overlooked the illegal capitalist black market, because the planned economy simply couldn't meet its citizens' needs.
> I can guarantee you that nobody I've ever met was thinking about escaping anywhere
The Soviet Bloc didn't spend a significant percentage of their GDP on the Iron Curtain for no reason. There wouldn't have been anyone left in East Berlin if the wall wasn't built.
> Vast majority of people lived happy lives
The state of peoples' happiness tends to be a constant regardless of their economic status. In any case, why do you think the Soviets jammed western TV signals? Why do you think that soviet citizens would stop tourists on the street and try to buy their blue jeans? Why do you think the Soviets wouldn't allow travel abroad for anyone who didn't have family that was held hostage until the person returned?
> without many of the worries people in the west have today
People in the US don't worry about being sent to the gulag slave labor camps. When you're completely dependent on the state for your job, apartment, etc., that can all be taken away by bureaucratic whim. Off to the gulag for saying the wrong thing, or offending your local party commissar.
All they did was make a century worth of capitalist progress in a couple of decades. As the many studies I linked above clearly show, the rate of development in USSR eclipses anything ever seen under capitalism.
>The Soviet Bloc didn't spend a significant percentage of their GDP on the Iron Curtain for no reason. There wouldn't have been anyone left in East Berlin if the wall wasn't built.
That's frankly nonsensical. The Soviet bloc was under an attack from the most powerful empire in the history of the world during its whole existence. That's what the Iron Curtain was built against.
>The state of peoples' happiness tends to be a constant regardless of their economic status.
You should go tell that to 30 million Americans who are food insecure today.
>In any case, why do you think the Soviets jammed western TV signals?
Soviet Russia could access BBC, Voice of America, German TV. Today Americans are not permitted to hear what Russians are saying. The US today has imposed constraints on access to info beyond Soviets.
https://twitter.com/SizweLo/status/1550548521882947586
>People in the US don't worry about being sent to the gulag slave labor camps.
US today has highest rate of incarceration in the world and holds 20% of world's prison population despite accounting for only 4% of overall population. This is higher rate of incarceration than USSR had even under Stalin! Modern US gulag system is far more horrific than anything USSR has ever done.
Furthermore, US uses prisons as literal slave labour which is a large part of US economy. There are also volumes of books written on how US systemically imprisons minorities.
Inflation is in double digits already https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/business/economy/eurozone...
energy prices are going through the roof https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/10/26/energy-bills-are-so...
steel mills are shutting down https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-25/european-...
factories are shutting down https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2022/10/12/europe-s...
manufacturing activity is all time low, and now there are talks of deindustrialization https://english.almayadeen.net/news/economics/eu-to-backtrac...
nearly 70% of Europe's ammonia production has been halted since August due to high gas prices, meaning no fertilizer for spring https://www.freshplaza.com/africa/article/9475830/nearly-70-...
There are strikes and growing protests across many European countries as people are losing their jobs and are no longer able to afford to pay their bills. But yeah, aside from that Europe's totally alive and everything is fine.
You clearly have no clue regarding the subject you're attempting to debate here.
You also seem to have selected an unrepresentative set of scare headlines.
Gas prices are in fact plunging in Europe, and the winter is turning out to be unexpectedly mild.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/energy/europe-natural-gas-pri...
This supposed economic ‘suicide’ seems more like something that exists only in the mind of Vladimir Putin.
You also may not be aware that in the 1940’s Europe experienced war on their own territory. I am surprised you haven’t considered that they have their own reasons for wanting to disassociate themselves from Putin’s state.
They are either a vassal of the US, or they are not. Clearly, since they only do what the US wants when it suits them, there is no serious argument to be made that they are a vassal.
And you seem to overlook the fact that US has been continuously interfering in European politics to force Europe to stop using Russian energy against its interests. Now, US has finally accomplished that.
>You also seem to have selected an unrepresentative set of scare headlines.
The articles I linked are very much representative, and talk about large scale systemic problems Europe is experiencing due to lack of available energy.
>Gas prices are in fact plunging in Europe, and the winter is turning out to be unexpectedly mild.
Now there's an example of an unrepresentative headline. The context there was that gas prices dropped because there aren't enough LNG terminals in Europe to unload the gas. It's not for lack of demand. Thanks for once again confirming you don't understand the subject you're opining on.
>You also may not be aware that in the 1940’s Europe experienced war on their own territory. I am surprised you haven’t considered that they have their own reasons for wanting to disassociate themselves from Putin’s state.
That's a nonsensical statement. Creating tensions with Russia does not help Europe in any way. The way to avoid conflict is by creating economic ties and a mutually beneficial relationship. The only country that does not benefit from that is the US.
>They are either a vassal of the US, or they are not. Clearly, since they only do what the US wants when it suits them, there is no serious argument to be made that they are a vassal.
That's not how the real world works child.