“Socialism in One Country” allowed the USSR in 40 years to develop from a feudal backwater, stricken with regular famine to one of the planet’s two superpowers. By focusing on internal development, the USSR was subsequently able to look outwards and reliably support revolutionary struggle the world over, and its example was taken up by many other states to great success.
We celebrate the event that launched a thousand struggles – the Great October Socialist Revolution, and remember its lessons for communists today.
With the considerable amount of leisure time resulting from a universal eight-hour day (an anomaly for the era), a passion for mass activity, excellent facilities available at no cost, public transport and free access to services, in 6 of the 8 Summer Olympics they competed in, the Soviet Union was at the top of the medal count.
The Soviets are frequently represented in fiction as comically excessive villains. The gulag is held up as the pinnacle of this malevolence, but is this focus on demonising socialist states a way for developers to avoid more relevant social criticism at home?
In order to undercut any potential resistance to the European Empire, it is engaging in the historical comparisons of the Socialist countries to Nazism.