I’m doing a presentation on the soviet union for school soon and i would like to know all your opinions on this.
I’ve got: an over-bloated bureaucracy (which was prone to corruption), rural poverty (which is very unfair as basically all countries have rural poverty- difference is that some countries actually help these people), and a lacking light industry that led to economic dissatisfaction from the populace.
I might share the PowerPoint here for your feedback although its very small as its for a vocational exam that is only a few minutes
I would criticize state atheism. I understand why it existed, but I think the chinese approach is much more effective. Religion should be controlled so as to avoid extremism, cults, chauvinism, etc. but I don’t think that outright banning it did the USSR any favours.
That only existed for a brief period during Lenin’s rule tho, then Stalin relaxed it and brought back the church - this time, as you said, controlled by the party. Anyways, the reason why Lenin cracked down on the church so hard is not because of any sort of atheist fanaticism, but because the church was so incredibly reactionary(promoting cult of personality around Tsar,“divine right of kings” shit - just totally brainwashing peasants to be obedient) and literally a part of Tsarist state. The new church formed by Stalin had to follow the party line, and from then on the USSR wasn’t really all that repressive when it comes to religion.
State Atheism was cool, at least to me. It is an old ruling structure, from an age long dead.