𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠

No, life expectancy was used to show that life was better in Russia under the Soviet Union. Which is only true if you look at the direct chaos after the fall, but the comparison is much, much less rosy when you zoom out a little and realise that under modern Russia living standards actually increased, whereas they stagnated under the Soviet Union.

I argued that the Soviets were already behind most of the world, and that their stagnation was indicative of worsening living standards. Developing countries did not show such stagnation unless there was either severe civil strife or external factors (like the fall of the Soviets) impacting them.

And sorry for saying this, but I think it’s kind of a given that as the world’s number two superpower, it’s kinda expected that their life expectancy is higher than developing countries in Africa. I don’t see how that’s this supposed slam dunk you’re pretending it is. “Yeah life in the Soviet Union was better than in Chad”, no shit Sherlock. But life in Chad is actively improving, which the Soviets failed to do. It’s an enormous nation filled with natural resources, the Soviets not improving living standards in such conditions is almost an achievement.

I’ve been talking about the stagnation in the rise of life expectancy between 1960 and 1980. It only started rising again around 2000, after the fall of the Union. Try to keep up.

Developing countries obviously had a lower life expectancy, but one that was still on the rise, indicating improving living conditions. Same goes capitalist nations and many of the more developed nations had passed the SU by a fairly wide margin.

The SU, as one of the very few nations in the world, managed to completely stagnate, which indicates that living conditions weren’t improving, and likely worsening somewhat (as advancements in medicine normally leads to a longer average lifespan).

By the way, you yourself steered towards comparing the Soviet Union with developing nations in Africa, as any other comparison was somehow unfair to you. I compared them with western nations, nations in Asia and now random countries in Africa to play along with your demands. And now that you can’t shift further, you throw in a “Imagine thinking” reddit-like response.

How about you either address the flatlined life expectancy during these 20 years directly then, skip the comparisons. Why didn’t it improve? Or just come up with a country that is a fair comparison to you. Because if you’re not going to seriously engage and just throw out silly soundbites then there’s no point to this.

Very specific.

I’ve looked at some examples for you. Countries like Chad, Mali, Gambia and Gabon show a continuous rise in life expectancy, just like other developing countries do.

Then there’s countries hit by the fall of the Soviets, likely due to a dependence on Soviet trade or support, like Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Lesotho, though these nations do not show the same stagnation that the Soviets showed before 1980.

The only example I could find of a stagnated life expectancy in the same period as the Soviets pre-fall (so 1960-1980) was Rwanda. But that’s likely due to the Hutu revolution in 1959 and the years of Tutsi repression that followed.

I’m sure there may be a handful of other African nations with a similar pattern, but it’s certainly not true that the vast majority of them showed this pattern of stagnation that the Soviets had. Africa taken as a whole also doesn’t show it, it is however dented after 1980 due to the fall of the Soviets. In fact, Rwanda being the counterexample here is kinda a bad look for the Soviets, given the internal conflict that caused the stagnation.

Feel free to name some counterexamples then. Otherwise, don’t bother commenting if you have nothing of substance to contribute.

That’s not how you phrased your comment. Try being clearer in your phrasing.

Also try responding to the rest of the contents of my reply instead of deflecting by saying “reddit dumb” and thinking that’s winning an argument. I very clearly demonstrated that a wide variety of developing nations did not show the same stagnation in life expectancy that the SU did.

You said “non-western”. I named two. If you want to shift goalposts further that’s fine but don’t act like you’re being all smart or anything.

Even for other developing countries the overall trend is clear: continuous rise in life expectancy, leveling off as it gets closer to 80. The SU plateaud just below 70 and remained there until its fall (after which it rose again). The vast majority of developing nations do not show this pattern of levelling off early.

Take Iran, or the Philippines, or even Vietnam (bar the civil war). All of them didn’t level off like the Soviets did. Same thing in other socialist countries like Cuba and the PRC.

It indicates a fairly severe mismanagement that the Soviet Union is one of the very, very few countries that managed to keep their life expectancy at 67-68 for over 20 years, when other countries kept rising and a good number had already surpassed them. Only after the year 2000 did they manage a sustained growth in life expectancy, rising to 73 after dropping to 64 (likely levelling off a little now due to the war in Ukraine).

The argument was that under the Soviet Union life was better. That may have been true when compared directly to the very tumultuous fall that directly followed. But the reality is that growth of life expectancy had completely stagnated in Soviet Union (it was even declining very slightly). It only started rising again after Russia had mostly stabilised post-fall, and is now higher than it’s ever been.

Japan’s life expectancy was even higher than most of those in the west.

Sure, plenty of developing capitalist nations had barely caught up at that point (e.g. South Korea). But they did manage to keep a positive trend going, whereas the SU had levelled off and wasn’t improving anymore.

Not what I said.

Also, where the Soviet Union fairly quickly seemed to plateau off with their life expectancy, the PRC managed to much more continuously trend upwards. Not necessarily faster than the SU at first (which makes sense), but they did manage to keep the momentum whereas the SU did not.

Compared to other capitalist countries it was worse during Soviet times too. Average US life expectancy at the USSRs peak in 1986 was approx. 75 years old, whereas in the USSR the average is 5 years less… Quite substantial.

Nice avatar

They used more than 10000 rounds and ultimately dropped bombs on the neighborhood. That’s excessive force and therefore no longer a lawful homicide.

You’d have the same issue with this on Linux, no? It isn’t OS-specific.

EDIT: I meant in general. Software on Linux is also subject to the UKs temper tantrum laws, same as on Windows. The Nvidia driver is just an example, you can also just download the driver on Windows without needing their companion app.

I’m not really sure what the snark is for, I’m asking you a genuine question because you seem to be genuinely engaging and doing actual research.

You listed a number of sources but I didn’t quite get what exactly you were replying, so that’s why I asked for a clarification. It’s a genuine attempt at conversation :(

Nice dig! I found a Russian source which says the same: https://hrono.ru/sobyt/1900war/1939pol.php

So to clarify here, this is indeed used for navigation. At the time no GPS existed of course, so pilots had to rely on either radio signals or visual clues on the ground to tell them where they are. The radio signals, if the pilot could tell where they were coming from, would indeed help triangulate their location. Quite necessary, particularly in eastern Poland where German radio signals had a harder time reaching.

If the radio tower continually transmitted the requested callsign in between the other stuff, it would be easy to tell where the radio tower was. The Germans at this point expected the Soviets to help invade already as they had agreed upon. By mentioning “Minsk” a lot in the transmissions they effectively did the same thing, but a bit less overt. This allowed the Soviets to retain some element of surprise against the Poles.

On the 10th of September, the Nazis urged Molotov to begin the Soviet side of the invasion to uphold their end of the agreement, but Molotov held off due to the war with Japan. This gave them a convenient reason to wait until Polish resistance had been broken before going in. One week later, war was declared and the Soviets invaded.

I’m a bit confused as to what you’re trying to say here. You seem to be supporting my point that in 39, the communists were primarily anti-imperialist, which by 41 had pivoted back to being primarily anti-reich. They obviously didn’t like the reich in that time, that would be ridiculous. But they did in some ways echo some of the pro-German propaganda (eg blaming London for the war).

Your first source also confirms what I’m saying about the confusion caused by the war and the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. The assumption was that the imperialist west would ally with the Nazis and that the Soviets would be fighting the fascists. Yet in a span of 2-3 weeks, the reality was that the Nazis had allied with the Soviets and that the imperialists were fighting the fascists instead. Hence the mentioned confusion and the lack of heterogeneity in the response; various reasons were invented to support the Soviets in this new arrangement (quite interestingly a fair few of those I’ve seen mentioned here actually, e.g. the “protecting the Poles” line, but at the time it was also argued by some that the USSR had a right to take back those lands from Poland. Though none of them seemed to deny an invasion had taken place altogether like some here are suggesting).

the daily reality of the Forbidden Zone pushed then more rapidly to a more anti‐[Reich] position than their comrades elsewhere.

Yeah this was my point. It took a bit for various communist groups to pivot back to being primarily anti-reich. Those who suffered directly under the Nazis turned faster, e.g. those in northern France took the anti-reich position before the British communists did (they remained more anti-imperialist aimed at the UK, until the Soviets were invaded).

The comment you linked did not address the direct military collaboration, e.g. the Luftwaffe being coordinated from Minsk. So please, do spell it out. You can’t, because you never did address it.

I did address those.

Please cite this directly because I’m not reading it in your replies.

you’re trying to invent a narrative where the Soviets, for a very short period, were actually super pro-Nazi and totally fine with them

Here’s the thing: this is exactly what the communist parties outside Russia also struggled with. Stalin made a deal with Hitler. Molotov literally said “Fascism? Fascism is purely a matter of taste”.

For the first two weeks of the war, the communist parties felt conflicted but ultimately didn’t need to change their stance. They were anti-fascist after all, and the UK and France had now declared war on the Nazis so this received the CPs support. Maurice Thorez even joined the French army (for a couple weeks until he left to go to Moscow).

But then, Stalin invaded Poland, and they met the Nazis as allies in the middle. Stalin publicly came out in support of Hitler’s “peace programme”. This caused some serious conflicts in the CPs in the west. Suddenly the logic shifted:

• the UK and France had colonial empires, Germany did not
• the UK and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around
• the Germans had signed a pact of friendship with the USSR

So surely, it was better to focus on being anti-imperialist, focused against the UK and France instead of focusing on Germany.

You’ll find many socialist and communist newspapers started putting out pro-German propaganda (and some were banned for it). This only changed after 41, when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.

The Soviets were never “totally fine” with the Nazis. But for a time they were happy to see the Nazis turned towards the west, and they saw the opportunity to get some benefits for themselves too.

You did not address the fact that the Soviets directly collaborated with the Luftwaffe from Minsk. You did not address the fact that the Soviets had already geared up for an invasion on the Polish border.

Don’t claim you did when anyone can read you didn’t.

You misrepresent the facts surrounding Brest. The article you referred to does these things to: omit the facts that don’t match your narrative. You ignore historical context and have now resorted to putting up a strawman regarding which country did most to stop the Nazis, which was never the point I challenged you on (the historical fact that the Soviets did indeed agree to divide Poland with the Nazis and collaborated on the invasion).

There’s no point in continuing this conversation if you keep failing to address these key points that directly undermine your narrative.

Explain to me why the Soviets agreed on a sphere of influence that went straight down the middle of a sovereign country. Explain to me why the Soviets coordinated militarily with the Luftwaffe during the invasion, even before the Soviets entered the war. You keep incessantly dodging these questions because the facts do not fit your false narrative.

The UK and France weren’t ready for war either. As already mentioned (which you also keep ignoring) the BEF wasn’t deployable before Poland fell, and France believed they weren’t able to attack and defeat Germany yet. Despite that, they declared war.

The Soviets could have unilaterally guaranteed the Poles. Such a guarantee, on top of the Allied one, could have deterred Hitler for longer. The Soviet army could at least have given the Poles a fighting chance. The Germans would have been less effective without the military assistance from the Soviets. Instead, they did prepare the Red Army for war; one against Poland.

The Germans weren’t ready for a two-front war yet. With no eastern front left, they were able to break through France and capitulate them. With the knowledge that the Germans would be fighting in Russia, France may have successfully invaded the Nazis.