This is an excellent write-up, comrade!

The only little thing i would take issue with is that i think you’re being overly critical of what you call the “Stalin model”. Different circumstances call for different approaches, and i would argue that at that time, the USSR simply had to undertake rapid collectivization and industrialization in order to catch up. They could not afford to maintain the NEP any further as the development would have been too slow.

China’s model works great for building up productive forces provided you are in a period of peace and foreign countries are willing to come and invest capital. But the USSR was far more isolated globally in the 1920s and 30s than China was in the 80s and 90s. And war was on the horizon. If the USSR had adopted in the 1930s a model like that which Deng Xiaoping implemented, they would have lost the war against the Nazis. I think you recognize this as well:

You can justify it as something temporary that the Soviets needed to do to prepare for war against Germany

And in the years immediately after the war they needed to rebuild a lot of what had been destroyed, they were in no position with much of the country still heavily affected by the war to go directly into such an ambitious transition as “Reform and Opening Up”. And then the Cold War started which meant that once again the USSR was under an existential threat and could not afford to shift to a more consumer economy, at least not until they developed the atom bomb.

But by the time that the situation had stabilized and they could have safely undertaken a Deng-style shift, Stalin was already dead, the principled Marxist-Leninists were sidelined, Khrushchevite revisionism had taken hold, and there was no political will anymore to take risks by radically reforming a system that had until then worked very well for the purpose of turning an underdeveloped, backward, agrarian society into an industrial superpower.

Because Gorbachev fell for the liberal lie that if you just marketize and privatize everything, things will magically somehow work out…and Deng did not. In short, Gorbachev was an idealist moron and Deng was a dialectical materialist.

Also Gorbachev’s wrecking ball style economic reforms were accompanied by an equally sudden and disruptive political liberalization that was undertaken without any sort of plan or consideration of the consequences, again due to a naive belief in the liberal narrative that total free speech and free western-style elections would usher in a democratic utopia overnight.

Of course many in Gorbachev’s camp knew exactly what this would lead to and were planning on it, as their intention all along was to destroy socialism and establish themselves as the new ruling oligarchs. But we should also not discount the pure naivety, gullibility and stupidity of some of the people involved, including possibly Gorbachev himself, who had genuinely bought all of the West’s propaganda hook, line and sinker.

In the past a lawn was a status symbol. It showed that you have enough disposable wealth to maintain something that is purely decorative and serves no practical purpose. (And by the way, keeping a lawn is actually quite resource intensive, it takes a lot of water compared to other vegetation.)

Whereas traditionally, growing fruits, vegetables and useful herbs was seen as something that poor people did out of necessity. This is an attitude that originates with the British aristocracy and was then passed on to the culture of the American upper and upper-middle classes.

Nowadays this has somewhat reversed, and as more middle class people have adopted lawns, the wealthy needed to have new status symbols to differentiate themselves from the masses, and so they have started owning orchards, vineyards and like.

Here is why i say that the OSCE was pro-Ukrainian:

They were supposed to be a neutral observer but they leaked military info to the Ukrainian army.

And yet Russia insisted that they still be allowed to operate in the Donbass republics throughout that conflict. That is how much the Russians were prepared to turn a blind eye to the West’s treachery in order to preserve the Minsk agreements.

I think the general principle that China applies in cases like this is to make sure that the average person who may be affected is bailed out and insulated from any major negative consequences while the people at the top who made a lot of money creating this situation shoulder the costs. Basically the diametric opposite of how this sort of thing goes down in the West.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the same people who place their own profits above the future of the planet and knowingly continue to exacerbate climate change do not care enough about the future of their own children to educate them in the proper running of empire. These are not normal people we are dealing with, the people who make it into these high positions are mostly sociopathic and psychopathic personalities.

That is true, but you need to remember that a lot of people who have a college degree don’t actually have labor aristocracy level wages.

I see. It seems weird to me that you can’t get a bachelor’s degree at a community college. I mean presumably you do still learn something there don’t you?

I guess the question is what are you hoping to get out of it. Is it really all about the degree and the job opportunities that it provides? And realistically, how likely is it that having that degree will increase your salary by an amount sufficient to justify taking out those student loans? Can you recoup that money in a reasonable amount of time, say ten to fifteen years maximum? If not then it seems like a scam. Being in debt for decades sounds like an absolute nightmare.

Personally i think there is value even in just the learning and the experience itself. Even if you don’t get a degree it can be good for your own personal growth. Education has value for you and for society in and of itself beyond just the financial benefit. But maybe find a way to do this that doesn’t end up bankrupting or indebting you for decades.

I think it’s important to get a higher education if you can. I know the more prestigious universites are absurdly unaffordable in the US but what about community colleges? What are the prices like there? The main draw for the high tier universities from what i can see seems to be networking. If you don’t plan on making connections with the elite then i think you might just as well go to a cheaper college.

Another option, and this is the one i would recommend, would be going to study abroad. Don’t pick countries like the UK, Canada or Australia where university is also very expensive, pick a country where college is either free (like some European countries) or very cheap. I know this is not going to be an option for everyone because there are also costs of living that need to be taken into consideration if you move to another country, but overall i think you will probably still come out cheaper. If you are prepared to put in the effort up front to do some research on the kinds of applications/paperwork you need to fill out, and to familiarize yourself with another language, then i think it’s a very viable option.

And besides, studying in another country gives you invaluable life experience and lets you see how other people live and immerse yourself in other cultures. This may even more more important than just the education aspect. It really opens your mind and broadens your horizons. This is especially important for leftists and socialists. Even just doing a single year abroad can be extremely enlightening.

In one word? Neoliberalism.

No problem. Take the time to read through the links i provided and let me know if there is anything missing or anything that you need clarification on. I didn’t cover most of the SMO itself because i think what has happened since 2022 is rather well known.

I would say the least well known in the West is what was happening in the Donbass from 2014 onward. That has been totally suppressed in our media. The NATO expansion issue has been discussed a lot even in more mainstream sources, but to really understand the situation that led up to 2022 you need to see first hand the videos and hear the testimonies of the people who lived through it, which is why i think that the Donbass documentary (link in the first comment) is so important for people to see.

If you want to do some research on any of these topics yourself, keep in mind that Google is heavily censored and will almost exclusively display results that all parrot the same western mainstream media narrative on Ukraine, often word for word the same across dozens of publications. Use other search engines such as Yandex.

And Wikipedia is of course also a cesspool of propaganda on this topic, and like Reddit highly controlled by western intelligence agencies to align with the pro-Maidan, anti-Russian narrative, so be very cautious when using it as a source of information. It will very often lie by omission and will present the pro-Western side’s narrative as factual and objective while any other views are implied to be biased, controversial, untrustworthy, conspiracy theories, etc.

Addendum:

A week into the conflict with Russian troops nearly surrounding Kiev, Zelensky says he is prepared to accept Ukrainian neutrality, and Russia and Ukraine begin negotiations.

March 2022 Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul reach preliminary agreement on peace terms. These terms would include Ukraine retaining all its territories except for Crimea, no NATO in Ukraine, rights for ethnic Russians, and a reduced Ukrainian military. Russia agrees to pull forces back from Kiev as a first step toward peace.

News of imminent peace spreads, NATO warmongers panic and the US sends British PM Boris Johnson to Kiev to sabotage the negotiations, promising Zelensky a blank cheque for weapons and money to continue the war.

April 2022 Kiev pulls out of all negotiations and murders their own negotiator in broad daylight, promising a similar fate for anyone attempting to deal with Russia; opts for mass mobilization and total war instead.

September 2022 Russia holds referendums for accession of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to Russia.

October 2022 Ukraine passes a law forbidding any negotiations with Russia.

And that’s basically how we got here: One moderately successful and one catastrophically failed Ukrainian counter-offensive later, Ukraine and its military are in shambles and losing ground every day, forced to resort to stupid political stunts like assassinations, terrorist attacks and a disastrous incursion into Kursk to keep morale up, Europe having bet everything on Ukraine is still delusionally clinging to the idea of defeating Russia, the new US administration desperately trying to find a way to cut its losses and unload the whole failed project on the Europeans, and Russia in a stronger military and economic position than it has ever been since the end of the Soviet Union.

Starting in 1999 NATO repeatedly violates promise to Russia to not expand eastward.

2001 US unilaterally pulls out of Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and starts placing nuclear capable missiles closer and closer to Russia (such as Aegis systems in Romania ).

2008 US declares intention to integrate Ukraine and Georgia into NATO after Putin warned in 2007 that Russia considers the incessant NATO expansion a threat to peace and stability in Europe.

2014 US and EU orchestrate Maidan coup in Kiev using US funded NGOs, violent Neonazi groups, and snipers shooting into the crowd to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine.

The reason for this overthrow is the attempt by the Yanukovich government to chart a neutral course between NATO and Russia, and its refusal to sign a very bad deal with the EU that would have required Ukraine to destroy its economic ties to Russia on which Ukraine’s economy still very much depended.

(This was actually the second time that the US orchestrated a regime change in Ukraine, having previously done so once already in 2004, but that one did not stick; they ran the same script in Georgia 2003 installing an anti-Russia proxy regime that started the 2008 war )

The newly installed ultra-nationalist regime which includes notorious Banderite Nazi parties “Right Sector” and “Svoboda”, its leaders handpicked by the US state department, immediately begins passing laws to marginalize and exclude the Russian language, suppress Russian media and pro-Russian political parties, ban Russian books and rewrite history according to Banderite Nazi narratives.

2014 Anti-Maidan protests erupt across predominantly ethnic Russian Eastern Ukraine. The Nazi massacre of anti-Maidan protesters in Odessa and other similar massacres across Eastern Ukraine lead to armed uprisings, mass defections from the Ukrainian army in the Donbass and formation of volunteer militias to defend the people of Eastern Ukraine from Kiev’s Neonazi thugs.

Crimeans, fearing similar treatment by the new Kiev regime - a regime which now glorifies and elevates as national heroes groups and figures who committed unspeakable atrocities during and after WWII in Ukraine - overwhelmingly vote in a referendum to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia (of which they had been a part until Khrushchev transfered Crimea to Ukraine in 1954 for administrative reasons).

(Crimea had previously held various votes for autonomy/independence between 1991-1994, but these eventually ended when the Kiev government, with Yeltsin’s Russia’s tacit approval, decided to arrest and dissolve the popularly elected Crimean government that was about to hold a referendum to re-join Russia in 1994.)

2014-2022 Kiev wages a brutal war against the Donbass for eight years.

2014/15 Minsk Agreements signed to negotiate ceasefire between Kiev and rebel forces under the condition of granting autonomy and rights to the Donbass, with Russia and the Europeans as guarantors and supported unanimously by a UN resolution. These are later revealed as a sham used to trick Russia while preparing for war.

Ukraine, with the help of NATO, proceeds to build up the second biggest army in Europe after Russia. Kiev never implements the Minsk Agreements and openly brags about never intending to do so.

2019 US unilaterally pulls out of Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty

2021 Ukraine threatens to pursue acquiring nuclear weapons if not allowed into NATO. Similar belligerent rhetoric from Zelensky at 2022 Munich security summit.

Dec 2021 the US refuses to even engage with the Russian draft treaty proposal for a new security architecture in Europe that would guarantee peace in Ukraine.

Ukraine begins in 2021 to mass troops for an invasion of the Donbass. Early 2022 Kiev regime forces launch massive preparatory artillery shelling ( confirmed by pro-Western OSCE ) for invasion of Donbass in violation of Minsk agreement ceasefire.

One week later, Russia recognizes the Donetsk and Lugansk republics (following the UN recognized principle of self-determination that the US and EU themselves previously applied to justify the legality of taking Kosovo away from Serbia), accepts their request for collective self-defense according to article 51 of the UN charter and launches a Special Military Operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.