You really need to read political history and science before making such sweeping and ill informed generalisations.

Probably a more informed reading of history and social science would be in order here, unless of course you have no interest in the subject, in which case you are ill-qualified to comment. Please provide a source to support your conjecture, otherwise it’s an opinion piece and no more valid than a condemning religious statement.

@Geoffrey51 Simple see history. My statement is true for ALL former and present socialist countries.

@LenHazell53 See history of all socialist countries.

Once again you make a statement you are stupendously ill qualified to make. Why don't you ask the American Native Americans, the African Americans brought via the capitalist invention and perpetuation of slavery and other examples of atrocity too numerous to mention maintained to further the profits of unsustainable industrial capitalism as our ecosystem and earth slowly die.

@Healthydoc70 There are some people so low intellectually that they don't realize how amazingly dogmatic and illogical they are. With all respect, you are one of them. Why even mention here the American Indians and black slaves? Ecosystem? We tried to discuss socialism.

Thank you, ma’am. We agree on that one. To me it partly was a weird experience, as if I had said something profane on Main Square in Teheran.

@zesty Ma’am, there is an interesting book to read, I conclude, for much of the partners of this discussion: 'The Road to Unfreedom' by Timothy Snyder. With all respect I can wholeheartedly advice it.

@zesty
Oh you mean socialist countries like

Brazil
Denmark
Finland
France
West Germany/ Reunited Germany
Spain
Greenland
Iceland
Ireland/northern Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Peru
Portugal
Sweden

and of course the UK

All furiously murderous tyrannical regimes.
Educate yourself

@LenHazell53 Check out the definition of. Socialism. Are the means of production owned by the government? This is the key! BTW, don't you dare to give me advices!

@zesty What specific history are you referring to?

@zesty, @Healthydoc70 Wow, Doc. That will be us told. I guess us low intellectual types had better continue to study Thomas Paine’s Rites Of Man and similar tabloid writings. Did you know only a handful of people turned up for his funeral. He had been ostracised due to his ridicule of Christianity. What a fool eh?

@Healthydoc70, @zesty Then course there is that total ignoramus Seebohm Rowntree, Joseph’s boy. He argued that poverty was because of low wages which was in total conflict with the traditionally conservative held view that the poor were responsible for their own plight. Everyone knows of his philanthropy and the changes he inspired in social welfare. (Don’t they!) To follow that train check out Poverty ; a study of town life, Rowntree, B.S., 2000, New York : Policy Press.

So there we go Zesty. Give me two titles that support your argument and we will each do a critical analysis and publish our work here for our friends and colleagues to rate. What d’yer reckon?

@Geoffrey51 No, I have enough referred publications. Lol, more than I need. Titles? Any book of Alexander Soljenichin. I read his books in Russian, the German and English translations are usually not that good.
See the number of defectors from socialist countries and compare it to the opposite direction! These are bare facts.

@zesty Do you have another author as well please Zesty? Although Solzhenitsyn is a good, authoritative reference a second voice is always required to support an argument

@Geoffrey51 Many, but why do we need them here. Socialism is an inhuman, barbaric system. One doesn't need references to figure it out.

@zesty that is why making claims such as ‘this is the way it is’ requires support. Just to say so is it sufficient. I am assuming that as you have read Solzhenitsyn in Russian you are familiar with academic practice. May be I am wrong in which case I apologise for misunderstanding your experience.

@Geoffrey51 I'm familiar with academic practice. Unfortunately. Lol However I'm a full professor of computer science, not social science or humanities, so I can effort to state a not so politically correct point of view.

@zesty that’s a shame. If you understand scientific method you recognise that without data and evidence any argument is inconsequential.

@LenHazelli53, thank you sir! I am not a Latinist, but I tried to change a surgical advice (ubi pus, ibi evacua), into the political content. It was more intended for some of my colleagues to notice that and at the same time kind of understand the content, but your remarks I accept gratefully (and gracefully)!

Clearly an attempt to be erudite failing badly. No need to pay any attention to this one. My experience is if they can’t make sense in their own language pidgin something else makes for a pretty weak cover.

I did not say that, ma’am. I do agree - with modification - with Sir Winston Churchill though (“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” —House of Commons, 22 October 1945).

I was gonna say that.

I beg your pardon...? Ma’am, for you to know, in one of the prefaces of the written down results of the findings by an international committee, which studied the atrocities of the GUlag (a soviet system of concentration camps), a British historian remarked that if you would add all the victims of the large battles of WWI to those of WWII and then you could also add up the four million murdered in Hitler’s death camps, you would still not have the amount murdered by the Gulag. Mao’s victim quotes go up to eighty (80!) million. Ma’am, excuse me in case I understand you wrong, but when I am not mistaken, you must have missed ‘something’.

@jerry99 Same goes for you, sir.

@Sputnik Your original post only offers a statement....there was no explanation of why you postulated such a view. However, in your answer you then mention the findings of some international committee on a study of deaths in the Soviet Gulags. I believe you are confusing two very separate political doctrines....that of Communism with that of Socialism. We, in the United Kingdom have had a number of Socialist governments, as have many other countries in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia etc., over many decades, and not one of them has murdered their citizens. On the contrary, they usually tend to introduce progressive welfare and healthcare programmes, such as the Labour Party did here in the UK , when they founded our NHS in 1946. I think you must review your terminology, because you are mistaken in your beliefs regarding Socialism, it is the diametric opposite of the Stalinist and other totalitarian types of regime which you have mentioned.

Facts: hundreds of millions killed in the former soviet union, cuba, china and north korea!

@Marionville Well said Marion

@Marionville Hear, hear! I hate it when folks don’t even know the definition of what they are railing on against.
Hitler called his party ‘national socialist’, but his ruling philosophy was a brutal right wing dictatorship, not true socialism, and not true communism.

@Sputnik you seem to be poorly informed, and quite confused, about Communism vs. Socialism. Try Google, maybe?

@zesty That is not Socialism....it’s Communism, but you already know that and are choosing to conflate the two deliberately.

@Marionville Ma’am, do you voluntarily twitter along the ‘Internationale’?

@Marionville, @AnneWimsey Ma’am, do you happen to know what the letters CCCP stood for...? My advice, never ever use the s-word again.

@zesty None of which were socialist governments, but were totalitarian communist regimes

@Sputnik I never” twitter along the Internationale”... whatever you mean by that, I can only guess. I believe you and I will never see eye to eye on the definition of socialism, so I suggest we bring this dialogue to a close.

Sputnik. An outdated satellite from the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics. A good choice of name for an arch capitalist

@Beowulf Sir, first of all let me tell you that the name was not taken from outdated Soviet produce (pardon the tautology). I took it from a very nicely written German novel (Tatütata für Peter Sputnik). And for you to know, - because of just poor administrative motives in Breznjev times - I am probably the only official recognized ‘Sputnik’ in the West (member of soviet youth; which I am not, was not and will not ever be). Secondly as an anti-socialist I would not name myself in the first place as a capitalist. But sure I favor free trade and especially the Rule of Law is very dear to me.
May I advice to educate yourself on those subjects, sir.

@Sputnik okay. Explain my name.

You have already stated it so well, I need only to endorse your words.

@Marionville aww thank you blush

Sir I fully agree with you. I just want socialists to realize that if you sing the Horst Wessel song, you are applauding for Auschwitz and singing the Internationale (the national anthem of the SU), you are okay with the uncountable amount of victims by the Gulag, the Cultural revolution, you name it. As for the different religious predilections, you are right, idemdito.

@Sputnik
So were will you hear a socialist singing the Horst Wessel song, which is an anthem of NATIONAL Socialism an extreme RIGHT wing ideology in direct opposition to the traditionally left wing socialist political philosophies.
National socialism was fanatically anti socialist and took the name to try and "Claim back" socialism a word they alone believed had been corrupted.
Under Hitler ALL forms of socialism other than NS were declared communist and outlawed.

The soviet union likewise misused the word Socialism in order to enamour the working classes, they were not even Marxist, they neither enforced nor introduced any of the principles of socialism. Nor did they apply those of communism they were actually a Totalitarian state that called themselves a socialist republic (which they were neither).

Therefore claiming and using national socialism or soviet socialism (A contradiction in terms since it means socialism by ruling council) as a form or example of actual socialism is at best ignorant and at worst intellectually dishonest.

Thank you! Excellent and thorough explanation.

@LenHazell53 Once again...I concur!

@Sputnik I think you will find few on this forum who sing the Horst Wessel song or subscribe to either Stalinist or Nazi philosophies. A large number of us do espouse Socialist ideals though, and are proud to do so.

@LenHazell53 Sir, I disagree with you there. Neither socio-economic, nor financial-economic there is much difference between both socialist wings, I get the impression. There is an interesting book from Martin de Vlieghere (Wij verkiezen een Führer), in which he shows that there is not so much difference between left and right financial-economically. Besides talking about Mr. Hitler, he actually followed the example of ‘Five years’ planning by his pal in Moscow (we should never forget the date of 23. August 1939 here).

@THHA, sir, please do remember - as a matter of fact -, that the RevoIution always ends eating her own children (and then folks cry big tears). Furthermore I do not quite understand, what you want to state with you second remark, sir. Do you have special knowledge on soviet war terror/strategies (wodka kiss on both cheeks?)?

@Sputnik
I believe you may mean “The revolution like Saturn devours its own children”
If so you are out of context, the saying is attributed to Georges Jacques Danton ( 1759 – 1794) an actual revolutionary, who was referring not to the revolution or revolutionaries but during his trial by the those perpetrating the reign of terror who corrupted the aims of the Democratic republican revolution in favour of a nationalist bourjois agenda.
It was satirical and had nothing to do with socialism.

@LenHazell53 Sir, I wasn’t trying to be a wise guy. Of what I have seen here, it is like cursing in church to put out a statement like mine (even with the question mark) on this site. I wonder, if it would help, when I delete both of my statements. What would you think?