Like, this place, Ulyanovsk, birthplace of Lenin, only Ruissian UNESCO city of literature…it’s got to be fucking sick, right?
Russia has a reputation of being full of reactionaries these days but are there still places where socialist culture remains?
Pardon me for asking such a dumb question, Russia is a massive country, so the answer is probably yes. It’s just that those of us behind the burger curtain don’t really get to learn much about massive fucking nations such as Russia, China, or India. In school we are taught that every culture east of Leipzig or South Africa is a homogenous blob. ‘Once you’ve seen Moscow, you’ve already seen Cambodia’, was the MO in high school
Support for socialism (and a nostalgia for the USSR) is still fairly high across the board among Russians. If Russia were to suddenly adopt socialism tomorrow, most people would accept it. They may not like it, they may even be critical of communism, but most would still accept it over the current system. The same cannot be said for any of the Western capitalist countries.
The biggest hurdle is how are you going to convince the people that a second USSR won’t turn into another disaster.
Remember that most people today who have lived through the USSR period also lived through its most corrupt and inept period during the late USSR. The older generations who grew up in the 50s-early 70s had great memories of it, but many people growing up in the 80s have a very different view of what the USSR meant to them.
Besides, and perhaps even more importantly, those who lived through the nightmare of the 1990s do not want to return to that period any longer. They would rather have stability, even if it meant a more deteriorated material condition but still rather comfortable and safe, than to risk plunging the country into another mass poverty and crime-ridden era. Putin played a very important role in stopping that madness, which is a fact that many have come to accept despite criticisms of him.
Read up what happened to Russia in the 1990s and you will very quickly understand that the living memories of the period still haunt every Russian to this day.
Oh i don’t contest that. It’s why i think China has a big role to play in their shift in thinking. The USSR had its flaws, and the people of Russia fear falling victim to them again. What needs to happen is a mental decoupling between the flaws of the USSR, and Socialism as a whole. China can be an example of how it is possible to prosper under socialism, and inspire people to think that maybe Russia can too. That perhaps the USSR had the right idea, but it just needed refining. I think the big tipping point will be when most of the world starts to see China as superior to the United States in its living standards. Which is close to happening. Russia may be one of the first currently capitalist countries to shift to socialism under a Chinese inspired model because of its own socialist history.
I also think that the current Ukraine war and war with the west in general will play a role. The USSR fought the Nazis and won. They made it all the way to Berlin. If modern Russia can not make but a fraction of that same progress people may start to wonder why. Why is it that the USSR was able to stand on equal footing with the USA for so long despite the USA having the backing of most european powers, and a geographical, and industrial advantage? If people start asking those questions, and then they see China doing the same thing also under a socialist government the answer should become obvious to them. Perhaps people will get curious and start to read Lenins words again. See the vision for a Russia he had, and then decide they too would like to see that Russia.