We talked about this before, lack of a good selection process that allowed people of low competence to get into positions of power and created a bureaucracy which was largely concerned with preserving itself rather than solving problems was the ultimate cause of the decline.
For some reason, I am convinced that Stalin would have sorted the situation out in a couple of years—it would have become 1937 all over again. Of course, for a long time afterward, people would have talked about how cruel Stalin was...
In essence, the situation in 1987 was the same as in 1937, when the Trotskyists crawled out into the open. And Trotskyists are essentially the same as kulaks and petty property owners.
By the way, I’d like to challenge your point about whether, according to Marx, a transition from feudalism to socialism is possible while bypassing the "agonies of capitalism."
Yes, in his letter to Vera Zasulich dated March 8, 1881, Karl Marx did indeed allow for the possibility that Russia could transition to socialism by relying on its pre-capitalist institutions, thereby bypassing the capitalist stage.
Marx analyzed the socio-economic situation and concluded that the Russian rural commune (specifically the land-holding commune) could serve as a foothold for social renewal.
https://revarchiv.narod.ru/marxeng/tom19/marx_zasulitch.html
Therefore, Stalin acted precisely in accordance with Stalin's own theory—the NEP in Russia could have been dispensed with! Both Marx and Stalin turned out to be right.
I wonder what Marx would have said about the possibility of building socialism in China. Although I’d probably agree with you: China lacked the necessary foundation to skip over the NEP stage.
China was incredibly backward after the Opium Wars.
Look how great Europeans are living, look how much faster things develop under capitalism.
Trump has finally stirred into action, wanting to make America the way it was 40 years ago, but it is already too late. While Europe and the US were fleecing their own people and dismantling their industries, China was building. We see the result: there is no turning back.
Yup, that cartoon is ever green, and just as true as the day it was made.
Back then, they were just pictures to me; I didn't take them seriously. But when events started unfolding in Ukraine... can you imagine? I immediately remembered those cartoons—and the scales fell from my eyes.
Exactly, there were just not thoughts people had back in USSR. It’s destruction was the biggest crime of the 20th century.
It’s all down to modern capitalist culture—a lifestyle where everyone is chasing profits and all sorts of sordid amusements. Drugs have also had a massive impact; they’ve poisoned all of Europe and the US. Wherever there are drugs, there is perversion. That’s exactly where that flood of "jolly guys" came from—the ones whose rights I’m suddenly supposed to care about. It’s all the drugs, I assure you!
You know yourself that the whole high-society crowd is hooked on cocaine. It’s very fashionable among them.