Khrushchev, Beria, Yezhov, etc. It really feels like they didn’t do much quality control, if at all. I know Stalin was, contrary to popular belief, quite trusting. Especially in regards to Bukharin and the likes. But it’s not like he had the power to really kill anyone he wanted, again contrary to popular belief, even if he wanted to (at least any politburo members), so his personal views of his colleagues don’t matter.

  • Large Bullfrog@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    32·
    10 days ago

    Well one reason a lot of the most ideologically dedicated communists were the first to die fighting the Nazis and the USSR was forced to lower their standards of who was let in order to win the war. China today by contrast has a massive population it can easily afford to cherry pick from. Another is the very chaotic manner in which the USSR emerged, trying to remove every impure individual and faction would of meant a longer civil war which couldn’t be afforded with Western powers on the doorstep, things needed to start getting rebuilt asap and to do that you eventually need to make peace and confederate with some less desirables, which there were plenty of given that the USSR had just emerged out of the reactionary remains of the Russian Empire.

  • Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml
    24·
    10 days ago

    USSR never had a proper cultural revolution like China did. They never really had the time to do anything like that. Plus, a large part of the quality control issue of the USSR came from having a leadership that was too old (a problem set off due to WW2).

    Many intelligent people produced by the USSR were also quite disillusioned by socialism towards the end. This was due to the strain on the economy caused by high military spending and sanctions.

    • MarxMadness@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      24·
      9 days ago

      This was due to the strain on the economy caused by high military spending and sanctions.

      I would add the “grass is always greener” effect and the strength of Western propaganda. Easy to become disillusioned when your point of comparison is the story the West tells about itself, not the real thing. I’m reminded of all those posts on RedNote today where Chinese citizens are shocked when they hear “yes it’s actually that bad” from Americans.

      • trashxeos@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        10·
        9 days ago

        Banning tiktok long enough for a large portion to join and enjoy Xiaohongshu was the biggest mistake the US government made. I know that there’s a LOT of people who are still asleep at the wheel but I definitely saw a TON of centrist or progressive Dems, and a handful of independents, suddenly realize that they were right that the government has been lying to them on many things and China wasn’t on their bingo card.