Comments by "Stephen Jenkins" (@stephenjenkins7971) on "" video.

Only the most western parts of the USSR was destroyed. Most of the land west of the Ural Mountains remained untouched. Besides, last I checked, though I could be wrong, the living standards didn't dwindle that much prior to WW2 anyway.
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@Gachibass Commentator I never said anything that went against this. It was a serious damage to the USSR economy, but most of everything east of Moscow and west of the Urals were untouched.
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@hyperion3145 That's like saying Venezuela was really great for its time under Maduro because for a time the economy seemed to be pretty good. But in reality, for both cases, both countries were spending more than what they could handle and inevitably collapsed when the people realized that things weren't getting better and trust in the government collapsed. Like, the US can do that too. It can spend all its money on the people, military, and everything else for a time and seem to have a utopia for it; but inevitably the debit comes due and it all crashed down. The point of a "good" state is to not only do well, but to do well for an extended period of time. 70 years is not that long. It's a little more than a generation's turnover.
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@chepushila1 "Saved" Uh, sure. After allying with Germany to split Eastern Europe between them. The Soviets fucked them and then "saved" them by forcibly vassalizing them and crushing all dissent. "Save" is not the right word here. More like switched prison guards.
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@szymonskoczylas5225 Yep, and guess what? That can be stopped with an election! Imagine that! A government that shifts policy after an election! Gee gad! Who'd a thunk that a democratic practice can end bad oppressive policies while autocracies typically don't give a hoot!? Listen, no one is saying that a democratic government can't be oppressive. They're saying that democratic governments are much less likely to be and have an option to change and keep leaders accountable. It isn't perfect, but it's the best we've got atm.
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@Mike-tg7dj US unrest was much worst in the Vietnam era than it was today. US unrest looks pretty pathetic all things considered when we talk about "unrest", actually. I live in NY, pawn shops don't give a crap about guns. Gold is usually decent, but people care more about rare historical objects.
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@Gachibass Commentator Fair enough, actually. Let me amend that; a STABLE democracy with a culture that encourages a safe transfer of power.
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@gamer40000 All forms of governments can lead to oppression, but oppression is far less likely in a democracy. Democracy doesn't automatically equal freedom. But to be frank, even African Americans knew more freedom in the US than Soviet citizens had in the USSR -so even in your argument, there are tiers of oppression. US oppression is in inequality after the end of slavery.
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@matthewtuckman4447 Lenin lost the democratic election and then shut down the election and made those that voted against him publicly disappear. To claim any of these people were voted in "democratically" is a sick joke bordering on black humor.
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@ImperialDemocracy This isn't a double standard because such talks of comparing body counts are intentionally screwed up by Marxists thinkers. They act like capitalists are 100% in control of the government and that capitalism leads to specific government actions; when there are general human actions bereft of ideology that just as often leads to action. For example, when speaking of imperialism committed by capitalist nations, what's the difference between what was done by the USSR or the UK? In reality; very little. So to compare, you have to look at actions that were inspired by ideology. Think the Holocaust which only occurred BECAUSE of Nazi ideology. Or the Holodormor, which only occurred BECAUSE of Marxist thought. In reality, very few actions started by "capitalist governments" were outright inspired by capitalism itself; because capitalism is more a description of the economic structure, and the government has little inspiration from that outside of using differing justifications for the same thing. (Think Soviet justification of invading Afghanistan to spread Communism, to the British justification of splitting Africa for resources for their factories) There's also the fact that the USSR doesn't publish its internal issues as well like the more liberal capitalist nations do. You won't hear about how many homeless there are in the USSR, and even if you do; you won't hear how many there are in reality due to lack of press freedom. This goes for every single issue within the country that we can't see or recognize. Frankly, this is a boon to Marxist theories because they get to shit on issues within free capitalist nations and then dismiss any criticism of their favored states because...they hid all that information and its intrinsically untrustworthy anyway.
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@slayermill8621 The only real genocide committed by the USSR can be the one committed against the Germans after winning after WW2 (more like ethnic cleansing but it was recorded to be pretty brutal) and the one committed against Ukrainians. Now, the USSR committed mass murders, for sure, but genocide? No.
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@chepushila1 Per capita, very very few people move to China or Cuba, no. And China is no more socialist than the US is -it's more capitalist than the US but kept the typical banana republic-style dictatorships that Socialist countries tend to have. North Korea is waaaay more Socialist than China, and frankly can still be called "Socialist".
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@ImperialDemocracy I was pretty sure the World Bank took that information from Soviet sources, bruh. That's all they had to work with, and that source is obviously extremely faulty. If you're unironically using that as proof, then there's no use in you acting like you're a reasonable party. Any state which doesn't have a free press also doesn't have reliable government numbers by default since it can't be verified.
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@dandreer3150 I thought that was an ethnic cleansing since they weren't literally killed, but were kicked out. Though a lot died in the action, I don't think it can be classified as genocide. I'm sure Ukraine recognized it as such, but still; in the strict definition I don't think it counts. It's definitely cultural genocide at the least.
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@Mike-tg7dj Questionable. There's plenty of guns outside of Chicago that can easily bring it in; and some of the safest nations on Earth have harder restrictions on gun laws. That wasn't the topic though. So I won't get into it.
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@matthewtuckman4447 What, Lenin killing democracy? I guess it is kinda ironic, and thus funny, yeah.
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@kenoliver8913 Over 70 years to fail is an abysmal record for an ideology. Mind you, Fascism lasted less longer, but that's a given.
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@chepushila1 Russian Empire lasted much longer though. Not defending it at all, but both have made a lot of advancements in their day -and the latter half of the USSR was not exactly pleasant. Then again, the Russian Empire was much worse in that regard.
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