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Adding a paragraph after famines.

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Dessalines 2018-01-22 20:50:17 -07:00
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crash_course_socialism.md
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@ -167,7 +167,9 @@ Many Marxists call the regimes typically called socialist, as more correctly def
Many burgeoning socialist attempts seized state power, in order to defend themselves against inevitable [capitalist military intervention](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md), of which very few have survived US interventionism. [This talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYVes44hcJg&feature=youtu.be) by Micheal Parenti is a good reflection and criticism on the soviet experiment.
The famines and economic hardship typically associated with communism in Russia and China, were a result of the painful process of [industrialization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialisation), and the transition from agriculture to industry. It would be the case whether capitalists, communists, or enlightened rulers were in power. During England's rapid industrialization, life expectancy in some cities was less than 30 years. This is the case with every country in the process of industrialization. [Lysenkoism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism), and [a period of droughts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine) made the problem worse.
The famines and economic hardship typically associated with communism in Russia and China, were a result of the painful process of [industrialization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialisation), and the transition from agriculture to industry. It would be the case whether capitalists, communists, or enlightened rulers were in power. During England's rapid industrialization, life expectancy in some cities was less than 30 years. This is the case with every country in the process of industrialization. [Lysenkoism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism), and [a period of droughts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine) made the problem worse.
Yet despite this painful transition, within a few short years, the **Soviet Union doubled its life expectancy**, became a world super-power, and the second fastest growing economy of the 1900s. Other achievements include: near-zero unemployment, continuous economic growth for 70+ years (*excluding WW2*), near-zero homelessness, higher caloric intake than the US, 99% literacy, free education, free health-care (most doctors per capita in the world), free childcare, low poverty, and low levels of sex and racial inequality. These achievements were possible due in large part to efficient use of resources resulting from the lack of a parasitic capitalist class expropriating the majority of the nation's wealth. Similar outcomes in other socialist countries prove that **socialism did indeed work**, which was why it intentionally and systematically attacked by western capitalist nations.
Exaggerated death counts blamed on *communism* and usually attributed to Stalin or Mao are often due to western historians attributing **all deaths** to the economic system. This would be the equivalent of attributing deaths from the [Dust Bowl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl) to FDR. Yet [UNICEF](http://www.unicef.org/sowc06/pdfs/sowc06_chap1.pdf), [RESULTS](https://web.archive.org/web/20080527011602/http://www.results.org/website/article.asp?id=241), and [Bread for the World](http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/facts.html) estimate that **15 million** people die **each year** from preventable poverty, of whom 11 million are **children under the age of five**. ([source](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/08/crimes-against-humanity-01-poverty-murder-over-400-million-people-since-1995-more-than-all-wars-in-recorded-history.html))