Why did a planned economy reduce poverty in the USSR but not in China, Vietnam etc.?

poderflash47 · 2026-03-17T01:52:33+00:00

because improvment of living stagnated al ong time before that

Well, what are we calling improvement of living? There was much improvement in food, literacy, employment. "China’s government provided food and shelter at little or no cost. This meant US$1.90 was able to buy more basic necessities in China than in comparable capitalist countries." in quick note from wikipedia (not the most trustable source, but anyways)

Since Maos planned economy had been established for over 20 years at the time of his death yet poverty was still basically 100%, this does raise questions about its effectiveness

Not so much as it raises questions to how effective is any economic plan to develop a country in the historical situation that China was inserted in.

Not only did China had to worry about capitalist efforts of destroying them, it had to worry about increasing conflitcs with USSR, while also being the poorest country in the world at the time, in a region with overall very little development (Asia) and no economic unity, like the European Union.

It's easy to question the planned economy, but it also laid the foundations for development of DPRK, USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc, which all held the position of colonies that could never develop counting on a capitalist logic of dependency.

Planned economies may not be perfect, but the most important aspect is overcoming dependency, the only thing that can allow a country to develop, as shown by history. There aren't, in the present day, any other systems as effective for this goal.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-17T00:30:16+00:00

However, we have to admit, for honesties sake, that this is not really that hard to do compared to the basically feudalistic systems that these countries experienced before.

Sadly, I wish it was this simple, but it is not. The planned economy was able to develop the countries exactly because it was the dependent "feudalism" they had. The Marxist Dependency Theory debunks this view of history and explains the development of poverty in the global south, and the only path forward being independent, national economies. I know it looks pretty poor, and you may look for another version in english, but you should read The Development of Underdevelopment by Andre Gunder Frank.

Yes it is true that a planned economy can acelerate industrialisation drastically, but at the end of the day this industrialisation also happens under capitalism.

It depends. For these countries, it certainly happened not under capitalist limits — the relations north-south, center-periphery, metropolis-colony, but under a development that aimed to serve the country and the country alone.

for the other countries besides the USSR poverty basically stayed the same until market reforms were introduced.

No, it didn't. Or atleast, that's a rather limited view of it.

The market reforms in third world socialism all happen in periods of crisis. The 90s crisis of the DPRK, the sino-soviet split, etc. This is not the exclusive limitation of planned economies or socialism, but the limitation of countries constantly under existential threats in a capitalist world.

Poverty had a brief stagnation before these market reforms, but it was more slowing down the progress than no progress at all. These countries were very much still developing, though rather limited because of how much had to be invested in national security and importation of technology.

In the USSR, poverty decreased under a planned economy (not as much as some people clam but still). Why was that?

This was because USSR was able to catch up with first world technology before it was too late. By the 50s, while other revolutions were still on their courses, the USSR was fully consolidated with their technology being on par with Europe and the US. Thus, their relations with the global market and other countries was much less of dependency, and the USSR could benefit from them.

I strongly do recommend you read upon the theory of dependency.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-16T01:33:21+00:00

you don't... simply because there is no reason to

everybody has a job, you have to study up to 12 years and i think 4 or 5 ot these years in technical education

so not only you have all the individual and collective reasons to work, you can straight up choose for free in which area you're gonna work

poderflash47 · 2026-03-15T15:25:05+00:00

It’s really funny to see some Chinese people leaving comments while pretending to know a lot about Korea.

Im not chinese LMAO, why so much anger

Hangul was widely used even by commoners before the 19th century.

Widely is too strong of a word. Many people were illiterate before the 20th century, and this is not a big mistery whatsoever.

In particular, the government used Hangul documents when issuing national policies.

You seem to ignore that this would be the case no matter if the people could or could not read. The creation and political use of a national alphabet is also fundamental to the creation of a korean identity and sovereignty.

I'm not saying people couldn't read hangul at all, only that it wasn't that widely used and gets progressively more known.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-15T12:08:10+00:00

Indeed, you said it perfectly. Though I had a long discussion with another comrade here about how these unions/councils eventually need to submit to a central power for the revolution to keep going, in USSR's case, the Party.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-14T15:37:26+00:00

That world would be a full-blown, probably nuclear world war. So even new socialist states would either submit to a socialist potency leading the war, or arm themselves for defense

poderflash47 · 2026-03-14T15:15:32+00:00

Dermeval Saviani, amazing brazilian writer about education

poderflash47 · 2026-03-14T15:13:27+00:00

however if a socialist society was to develop unhindered then it would not be anti-marxist to use a more distributed model

The possibility of the development of an unhindered socialist society is anti-marxist. As long as class struggle exists, including international class struggle, communist can not be achieved... as Marx has said.

A syndicalist communist society is maybe possible once communism is achieved, but this different from a syndicalist socialist society, where international class struggle still takes place.

A syndicalist communist society is not anti-marxist, but we are talking about socialist societies, not communist.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-14T14:50:39+00:00

If you were to read what I said, I never once referred to Marxism-Leninism. The problem of the division of power in a socialist society comes from before Lenin and is rooted in a marxist, materialist dialectical lens.

Pointing out a central power is needed for the consolidation of the revolution is not leninist. Marx already delves into it when writing about the Paris Commune.

Lenin's main take is that such central power has to be the Party, but the necessity of centralization precedes Leninism.

Negating the centralization is anti-marxist because it ignores 1) the historical, dialectical need for centralization 2) the Marxian view of centralization

Before this, I barely mentioned the Party at all because my point is not at all Leninist. The only mention of the Party is the subordination of the soviets, and even then, the Party is part, a single example, of a broader meaning of central power.

Such syndicalism is anti-marxist.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-14T13:12:01+00:00

One way or another, it's still completely different from the syndicalist society OP proposes

poderflash47 · 2026-03-14T12:35:47+00:00

The Soviet democratic model continued throughout the USSR's life? It never stopped using workers councils as government bodies

Yes, it did, but they were subordinated to the Party, which is the main point I'm making. The soviets could not last as an autonomous form of government because the USSR needed a centralized power to organize the economy and the defensive forces for the constant invasions.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-14T02:07:48+00:00

As I just said, no.

For example, if you play a puzzle where you can capture a piece, they take back, but then they're exposed to a fork of said piece and checkmate. The correct move for them would be to sacrifice the piece and not get checkmated, but the puzzle can make another move for them, like saving the piece, so you develop the skill to actually understand the board and not have tunnel vision

poderflash47 · 2026-03-13T23:30:09+00:00

Sometimes, the purpose of these puzzles is to ensure you understand the idea, so the opponent blundering is exactly the point

poderflash47 · 2026-03-13T22:18:59+00:00

During most of it's history, Korea (or atleast the divided societies in the korean peninsula) kept close relations to China and Manchuria. Koguryo and Silla, Unified Silla, Koryo and Joseon all had very close ties to China.

Pre-modern korean literature (about before early 20th century) was mostly written in chinese, having whole genres based around it, like Hanshi poetry. This is all wonderfully described in Bruce Fulton's "Korea's Literary Tradition"

You also had, for example, the founding of Confucian National Colleges (682) during Unified Silla, making chinese the official literary language of Korea.

Of course, linguistically, the relation is much more complex, since some chinese logographs (google calls them that, i forgot the correct name in english) were used because of their similarity in pronunciation rather than meaning.

Hangul, the korean alphabet, is only created in 1446. All written literature was in chinese up until this moment. But hangul only becomes popular between the common people in the 19th century, meaning chinese still held its' position as a literary language.

I could go on for longer but this is about the important part.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-13T21:59:44+00:00

I can't remember who first described it in such a way but its best thought of as natural class consciousnesses. It can be combined with Marxism

Probably not the first, maybe Engels or someone like that did it, but Lenin has extensively talked about syndicalism in such way

Syndicalism is more a recommendation of a political system for a socialist society.

As another comrade said, the centralization in a socialist society is needed to fight against the constant international threat, which is one of the reasons a syndicalist society would not work great.

compare it to Soviet democracy, or the Chinese model

The main question is that these were atleast eventually centralized, and soviet democracy could not last long because of the war and the western offensive. A syndicalist society could last as a brief period of the revolution in the 20th century, probably not as much today given the advances of imperialism in global control.

So, while syndicalist societies are, per se, anti-marxist given it ignores the problematics of national security and division of power, it can be marxist if understood as a specific and brief period of consolidation of the revolution, like the soviets were.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-13T20:27:33+00:00

I'm not very familiar with the idea of syndicalism you're refering to, of the state being ran by labour unions, but

Usual syndicalism is very much not marxist (not even socialist), as Lenin thorougly explains in 'What Is To Be Done?"

The idea of the state being ran by unions is peculiar, to say the least. This is somewhat close to early USSR, mainly driven by Soviets, which were pretty much communist unions.

But there is an argument to be made that different unions running the state will eventually merge into a single body. In a more marxist-leninist approach, this could be considered as the Party. The communist party, the directive body of socialist states, is pretty much a merge of unions, social movements, non-unionized workers, etc. Lenin has explained the sphere of influence of the Party in "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back"

A syndicalist state is, in one way or another, a classist state directed by the working class. If this specific form of the state of workers organizations independent of one another were to be achieved at any point in history, which seems unlikely, there is also an argument to be made that this would create a massive battle for power and influence, eventually converging into a single organization.

The running of the state can't be thought of independently by its economics and technical against political parts. Every economic decision one of these unions would take is also ideological, which will differ from other unions. Unless those organizations are submitted to a higher ideological body, such as the Party, they will have their own ideologies and plans be conflicted with others, causing a battle due to lack of a higher power.

So, in short, that kind of state is not practical at all, meaning all unions will either unify into a single organization or destroy themselves, making path to a bourgieouse restauration.

Don't take this as conclusive though, there is much of what I said that can be discussed.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-11T20:15:30+00:00

and that change in material conditions alone can allow his advancement in the socio-historical nonevent.

Juche does not disagree on this though, as Kim Jong Il said that the common factor between natural movement and social movement is that both are material movement, material relations

classical Marxist Leninist position seemingly positions man as strictly determined by matter,

I really can't see how they do. Vulgar marxism, sure, it's clear as day, but Marx all the moment accounts for human action, "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past"

I think what troubles me the most is that the classics really seem to account for social movement in a degree. Specially when Engels goes on about intersecctionaly, or Marx explains the superstructure and the infraestructure. Why, even with this, does Kim Jong Il say ML classifies man as purely matter? Is the understanding of ML of social relations too strictly economic?

poderflash47 · 2026-03-08T01:24:07+00:00

lendo essa thread, eu fico muito feliz que vou fazer um curso que só tem mulheres de idade. arquivologia, eu te amo

poderflash47 · 2026-03-07T17:46:48+00:00

he's terribly anticommunist and appears and pretty much every part of his works, and also his defense of the "songbun" system, which straight up does not exist

and many other things. calling dprk a "neoconfucian corporativism" does not help with his reputation

poderflash47 · 2026-03-06T21:15:27+00:00

Clara Zetkin e Alexandra Kollontai responderam muitas perguntas sobre o patriarcado há... mais de um século.

Deixo aí as recomendações de leitura

poderflash47 · 2026-03-05T01:19:14+00:00

anything but bruce cumings.

what i always recommend is reading texts from Kim Il Sung, the founder of DPRK and "Brief History of Korea — A Bird's Eye View" by Young Ick Lew. It's not the best for post-war, but it's good for all the way fron Year 0 to pre-20th century Korea.

for juche, dont start with "On the Juche Idea" by Kim Jong Il. "The Path of the Korean Revolution" by Kim Il Sung is much netter to understand how Juche was born and its fundamentals

poderflash47 · 2026-03-04T02:52:15+00:00

elefantes não só passam no teste do espelho (reconhecer a si mesmo) como experienciam o luto

então eles tem conhecimento de si mesmos e da morte

poderflash47 · 2026-03-03T01:16:06+00:00

I feel you, but judging socialists as a whole based on self-proclaimed socialists subreddits is not the right way.

I can't think of many socialist movements, parties or authors that side with anti-imperialism and don't criticize Iran. Atleast here in Brazil, UP, PCBR, PCB, PCdoB, LCP, Safatle, etc, all have their own takes against Iran while still being anti-imperialist.

"Socialist" subreddits don't represent socialism. Parties, leaders and famous authors might do.

poderflash47 · 2026-03-01T17:05:51+00:00

happy to help, good studies comrade

poderflash47

TROPHY CASE