Thread: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

  1. #3921
    Lord Oda Nobunaga's Avatar 大信皇帝
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    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    The irony is that the working class is mostly White, so Socialists will never get anywhere on their current platform. They need to cater to White voters, it's the only way.

    Speaking of, did anyone catch the Democrat debates? It was absolutely hilarious. They started spontaneously speaking in Spanish. Then the one New York guy said "my wife's Black son".
    This is why people laugh at the Democrats.

    Important to add that Biden, Beta and Bernie have completely dropped the ball. It looks like they're going to go with Kamala Harris as their pick. California has actually made it so that people can't see her arrest records while she was working for the state. Obviously because they want to win the Black vote and not do a repeat of Hillary.
    Last edited by Lord Oda Nobunaga; August 03, 2019 at 12:20 PM.

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

  2. #3922

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    The biggest irony is that there's plenty of research that shows that social spending, something that whitoid liberals want to do, gets enough electoral support only when there's high social cohesion and that requires... a relatively high degree of ethnic homogeneity because people are tribal.
    https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/al...-alesina11.pdf
    https://www.nber.org/papers/w20504

    So, the more they promote diversity, the furthest they are getting from socialism. The only thing they'll get is social implosion.

  3. #3923
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    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    I'm just surprised they learned no lessons from the implosion of the Soviet Union.

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

  4. #3924

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    They simply rewrite history in their favour. I had some idiotic Romanian chick telling me that ''the Soviet Union failed because of homophobia, racism and anti-Semitism''. This is why they never learn. There isn't an inch of intellectual integrity. Their moral goals trump truth and reason in every case; and that's exactly why we should be relentless in denouncing them. I have zero intention of living under this imbecilles and letting them ruin my country.

  5. #3925

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    I'm impressed by the intellectual rigor of basing your views off of anecdotal evidence.

  6. #3926

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    I post studies done by your side and you guys ignore them. I post an example of pathetic imbecilles of your side and you guys complain about anectodal evidence. Rofl.

  7. #3927
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    To be fair what Basil describes is the mindset of the Anarcho-Communists and Progressives. Just go back to the previous page where Movie Bob claims that LGBTQ+ minorities are the real working class. I've heard this multiple times from AnComs which are probably most Leftists at this point. Their ideological narrative is that gays are the real working class. According to them working on computers is a working class job. Because as we all know computer nerds are going to start the LGBTQ Revolution and instate "REAL" Communism. Less than 10% of the population will start the Revolution, for absolutely REAL Anarchist Communism (which has never been tried), as Marx and Engels intended. No wait, Marx didn't like the gays. We'll just ignore all the details and LARP as revolutionaries, never held an AK or survived a cold Russian winter but that isn't necessary.

    So these idiots can't even Socialism properly. They have no idea what they are doing and if they think that throwing all their chips on minorities will let them win then they obviously don't understand the definition of the word "minority". Actual Maoists, Stalinists, Leninists etc would disagree with them. Which makes this all the more delicious.

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

  8. #3928
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    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    I'm just surprised they learned no lessons from the implosion of the Soviet Union.
    That's because there was nothing to learn other than state atheism leads to millions of dead bodies.

    The Soviet Union was a Russian political party holding the rest of the countries hostage in a structure they wanted no part of. Not a single member state joined voluntarily. It's break-up was never a question of if.
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  9. #3929
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    Quote Originally Posted by Settra View Post
    That's because there was nothing to learn other than state atheism leads to millions of dead bodies.

    The Soviet Union was a Russian political party holding the rest of the countries hostage in a structure they wanted no part of. Not a single member state joined voluntarily. It's break-up was never a question of if.
    What you mean there is nothing to learn? You just said it right there. The reason USSR imploded in 1990 was because these countries didn't want to be part of what they perceived as a foreign superpower. For example the Central Asian States that were angry at Khrushchev when he removed their corrupt leaders. The resurgence of Nationalism and by extent, at least in Russia, of Neo-Reactionary, Orthodox and Tsarist groups.

    Apparently for the modern AnComs/Leftist Progressives there was no take away. Because they are doing the exact same thing and creating a reaction against them. That and they want to flood all the First World with Third World migrants, ignoring the social effects that it would have by introducing all of these ethnic enclaves. Apparently Merkel noticed because the apparatchiks there were saying how they needed to slow down migration in case of a Right Wing reaction. Well who caused the Right Wing reaction??? Why are they surprised that this is happening?

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

  10. #3930

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    The Soviet Union broke up because almost every party had an interest in its dissolution. The dissenting voices were too weak to oppose it.

  11. #3931
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    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status...94303848337409

    WTF? This is why the Left can't get anywhere.

    Commie girl: "we need to support the working class"

    obvious fat nerd: "Can we please stop using gendered language?"

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

  12. #3932

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    "Thank you Comrade."

    Not gonna lie, I spilled a bit of my energy drink laughing.

  13. #3933
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    The irony is that I actually want people to help the "working class". But these guys are just dumb. Unbelievably dumb.

    "Famous general without peer in any age, most superior in valor and inspired by the Way of Heaven; since the provinces are now subject to your will it is certain that you will increasingly mount in victory." - Ōgimachi-tennō

  14. #3934

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Oda Nobunaga View Post
    https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status...94303848337409

    WTF? This is why the Left can't get anywhere.

    Commie girl: "we need to support the working class"

    obvious fat nerd: "Can we please stop using gendered language?"
    The face of the Asian commie girl when saying ''y-yes''. A society where everyone is terrified of offending anyone is surely going to work well.

  15. #3935

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by ep1c_fail View Post
    Widespread emigration from the former Soviet Bloc states is a consequence of the economic failures of communism; it has virtually nothing to do with Orban. The Citizen's Rights Directive grants Hungarians unfettered access to the far richer economies of Germany, England and France and they, along with a great many other eastern Europeans, are taking advantage of it.
    The numbers are from 2006, so I think that the Communists are as responsible for the current wave of emigration as Admiral Horthy. The current misery of Hungary lies more with the way in which the People's Republic collapsed and public wealth was usurped by a small number of oligarchs than any mismanagement under János Kádár and co. It's interesting to note that the vast majority of Hungarians actually preferred the Communist regime, in comparison with Orban's kleptocratic paradise. I doubt the situation has ameliorated considerably, given Orban's kleptocratic and authoritarian rule or the labour reforms he passed.

  16. #3936
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    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    Post of the Fortnight 14 vote thread is up.
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    The trick is to never be honest. That's what this social phenomenon is engineering: publicly conform, or else.

  17. #3937

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    Quote Originally Posted by Abdülmecid I View Post
    The numbers are from 2006, so I think that the Communists are as responsible for the current wave of emigration as Admiral Horthy. The current misery of Hungary lies more with the way in which the People's Republic collapsed and public wealth was usurped by a small number of oligarchs than any mismanagement under János Kádár and co. It's interesting to note that the vast majority of Hungarians actually preferred the Communist regime, in comparison with Orban's kleptocratic paradise. I doubt the situation has ameliorated considerably, given Orban's kleptocratic and authoritarian rule or the labour reforms he passed.
    Hungary's GDP per capita compared to Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom combined with the ease of movement within the European Union is the reason that so many Hungarians are emigrating. You can blame "Orban's kleptocratic paradise" as much as you want, but the economic disparity which exists between northern and eastern Europe is rooted in factors which predate 1989, let alone Orban.



  18. #3938

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Abdülmecid I View Post
    The numbers are from 2006, so I think that the Communists are as responsible for the current wave of emigration as Admiral Horthy. The current misery of Hungary lies more with the way in which the People's Republic collapsed and public wealth was usurped by a small number of oligarchs than any mismanagement under János Kádár and co. It's interesting to note that the vast majority of Hungarians actually preferred the Communist regime, in comparison with Orban's kleptocratic paradise. I doubt the situation has ameliorated considerably, given Orban's kleptocratic and authoritarian rule or the labour reforms he passed.
    Are you seriously claiming that the fact that wages are significantly lower in Eastern Europe than Western Europe has nothing to do with communism and everything to do with the current v4 government? Because every single data points otherwise. Notably where were wages at the end of the Soviet Union.

    Why is 2006 relevant? Maybe because that's just two years after many EE countries joined the EU... Indeed once you open the borders from poor countries (due to communism) to rich countries, people move. Just like people are leaving Venezuela, just like they left East Germany for the West. Just like they left Soviet Russia for the left. Pretty consistent no?
    But I love this bs that people are leaving the V4 for higher wages in the west... because of Orban. You spat on intellectual integrity then peed on it and than on it.
    Last edited by Basil II the B.S; August 05, 2019 at 10:19 AM.

  19. #3939

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    The original reasons for the relative poverty of Eastern Europe are much older than communism and could even be dated in the late medieval era. For more recent factors, I would focus on the Marshal Plan and the devastation caused by the Barbarossa Operation. It would be interesting to compare the difference in salaries between, let's say, France and Hungary today with those of the 1970s or 1930s, but I doubt the relevant data exists. Any other comparison is, from a scientific and methodological perspective, completely useless for judging the efficiency of Hungarian government's financial policies, from admiral Horthy to the incumbent prime-minister. However, it's safe to assume that Orban's administration, due to its responsibility for the rising corruption, the undermined labour rights and the establishment of a crony-capitalist business environment, has also affected the emigration of Hungarians to the more prosperous and democratic countries of the West.
    Financial Times article
    Across the road from Viktor Orban’s modest farmhouse in his childhood village of Felcsut stands a temple to the Hungarian prime minister’s passion: football. With a slate roof and wooden supports evoking illustrations from Hungarian folklore, the Pancho Arena — from the nickname of Ferenc Puskas, widely regarded as the country’s greatest footballer — seats 3,800. The population of Felcsut, about 45km west of Budapest, is little more than 1,600. At the end of the road runs a narrow-gauge railway along which, three times a day, a little red tourist train chugs 6km to an even smaller village, Alcsutdoboz, where Mr Orban lived until he was 10. The train, closed in the 1970s but reopened last year with €2m EU funding, is largely empty most days. The railway and stadium have been pilloried by the prime minister’s critics as vanity projects. But they have something else in common. Both were built, in part, by Felcsut’s mayor, and a childhood friend of Mr Orban, Lorinc Meszaros. Until a few years ago, Mr Meszaros was a gas fitter.

    Thanks to winning state contracts, he jumped to number five in this year’s list of the wealthiest Hungarians compiled by website Napi.hu. In a year, his fortune soared from Ft23bn (€73m) to Ft120bn. Asked by reporters how he had grown his business faster than Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook, Mr Meszaros quipped, “Maybe I’m smarter.” Mr Meszaros is just one of several businessmen with close links to Mr Orban and his ruling Fidesz party whose wealth has surged since it came to power in 2010. Foreign scrutiny has largely focused on how Hungary’s government has dismantled democratic checks and balances, created what Mr Orban calls an “illiberal democracy” and embraced a hardline nationalist, anti-immigrant ideology. Yet as Fidesz has entrenched its control, a circle of wealthy businesspeople has arisen around the party and the prime minister — in essence, a group of loyalist “oligarchs”. The stadium in Felcsut village hosts a match between Real Madrid and Hungary's Puskas Academy teams during inauguration celebrations in April 2014.

    Anti-corruption campaigners, bankers and opposition politicians say Hungary has shifted to a form of “crony capitalism”, increasingly resembling models found farther east in ex-Soviet republics, where business success is intertwined with political power. Hungary’s government-favoured tycoons may be worth only hundreds of millions, not the billions of dollars of, say, Russia’s oligarch class. But critics say its economic structure is becoming a miniature version of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The difference is that Hungary has built this system within the EU — in part, using EU funds. Much of the new Fidesz-linked business elite has achieved its success primarily through state contracts, about 60 per cent of which are funded by the EU. “Since 2010, going along with the distortion of the whole institutional system, basically Fidesz and oligarchs close to Fidesz have captured the state,” says Jozsef Peter Martin, executive director of Transparency International, the anti-corruption group, in Budapest. “The most worrying thing about Hungary’s development today is cronyism.” Until a few years ago, most Hungarians were aware of only one Fidesz oligarch, the publicity-shy Lajos Simicska. Mr Simicska went through school, army service and university with Mr Orban, then helped him build Fidesz from a 1980s pro-democracy youth movement into the party that now rules Hungary. The small tourist train in Felcsut which was built with €1.9m in EU money

    From the early 1990s, Mr Simicska used party money to create business ventures to fund Fidesz. He assembled a loyal media empire and, thanks largely to state contracts, a sprawling construction business. But after the two men fell out in 2015 — in part over attempts by Mr Orban to clip the wings of his ally — Mr Simicska was squeezed out of some media assets and stopped winning contracts. Opportunities opened for new, loyal businessmen. “Orban apparently doesn’t want another Simicska, someone as powerful as him,” says Andras Petho, editor of investigative website Direkt36. “So what we are seeing now is several little Simicskas.” Not so little. While the upper echelons of Hungary’s rich list remain dominated by business people who emerged in the 1990s, there have been several striking rises apart from Mr Meszaros. At 14th in Napi’s list this year with estimated wealth of €192m was Andy Vajna, a Hungarian-American who made some of his fortune as a Hollywood producer of films including Rambo and Total Recall. Mr Orban stayed with him as a young Fidesz MP on a US trip in the 1990s. Mr Vajna was appointed Hungary’s film commissioner by Mr Orban in 2011 and, having returned to Hungary, has replaced Mr Simicska as a leading pro-Fidesz media baron.

    At 23rd was Istvan Garancsi, another friend of Mr Orban and owner of his second-favourite football club, Videoton, with an €80m fortune — three times his worth when the prime minister came to power in 2010. Despite Mr Simicska’s fall from grace, he is Hungary’s 11th-richest man, worth €256m. A wealth list in last month’s Forbes Hungary magazine, with marginally different estimates, put all four men among Hungary’s top 21 richest. Fidesz’s large parliamentary majority and dominance of national and many regional institutions gives it several ways of helping favoured business people. Everything from lucrative state advertising to business licences can be channelled to friendly entrepreneurs. A study by two Hungarian academics this year found that state-owned companies account for 26 per cent of print advertising, 15 per cent of online advertising, and 7 per cent of TV ad revenues. Corruption perceptions, selected rankings In 2013, Mr Vajna was awarded five out of seven casino licences issued by the government. Mr Vajna also benefited from support from state-controlled development banks. The media tycoon received loans totalling €26m in 2015 and 2016 in part from Hungary’s Eximbank — which is supposed to finance exporters — to help acquire and develop TV2, Hungary’s second-largest TV channel. The government said it had changed a law in 2013 to allow the state bank to finance domestic companies to improve international competitiveness. But pro-Fidesz tycoons have prospered above all from public contracts, often part-financed by EU funds — of which Hungary is, in proportion to its gross domestic product, the EU’s largest recipient. The Corruption Research Center Budapest, a non-governmental organisation, analysed all public procurement contracts from 2010-16.

    It found four Fidesz-linked businessmen — Mr Simicska, Mr Meszaros, Mr Garancsi and Istvan Tiborcz, who is the prime minister’s son-in-law — together won 5 per cent of contracts by value, totalling €1.88bn. In 2013, the four won 12 per cent of all contracts; Mr Simicska’s companies alone won 11 per cent. Contracts won by the four men averaged 13 times the size of other contracts. The four also tended to face fewer competing bids than in other tenders — suggesting rivals might steer clear because they assumed the Fidesz-linked businessmen would win. Based on analysis of contracts since 2007, Transparency International, meanwhile, estimated in November 2015 that Hungarian public contracts were overpriced, on average, by 25 per cent compared with market prices. “Orban is a clever guy,” says Istvan Janos Toth, CRCB director. “He’s using European funds to build this cronyist regime.” Orban’s friends LORINC MESZAROS © Szilard Voros/estost.net Mayor of Orban’s home village of Felcsut, and an ex-school friend, the former gas fitter has interests ranging from construction, banking and media to agriculture, tourism and real estate. His construction company won a building quality prize for the football stadium it built in the town. ANDY VAJNA © Getty Images An ex-Hollywood producer of several blockbuster movies who got to know Orban, Vajna was made Hungary’s film commissioner in 2011 and set up a national film fund to finance local movies. He has expanded into casinos and Hungarian media, and owns TV2, the number two commercial TV station. Zoltan Kovacs, Hungary’s government spokesman, says the government had a “rule, within the confines of EU law, to help Hungarian companies be successful”. But he said all contracts were awarded on merit and it was “simply not true there is an unfair number of assignments that have been given to” businesspeople close to Fidesz. The four businessmen in the CRCB study and Mr Vajna did not respond to questions sent by the Financial Times.

    Mr Meszaros, in a 2014 interview, did thank “God, luck and Viktor Orban” for his achievements. “But,” he added, “I’ve never privatised anything, I’ve never embezzled and I’ve acquired everything with my own work and my own wits.” In an interview last month, Mr Meszaros rebuffed a question over whether he is a stroman, a Hungarian word similar to straw man and meaning proxy, for Mr Orban. “I think what I do speaks for itself, the way our company works doesn’t need an explanation and I think I contribute a lot,” he said. “How could I be [Mr Orban’s] proxy? It’s ridiculous.” Asked about the same issue in a parliamentary question last year by Gabor Vona, leader of the far-right Jobbik party, Mr Orban replied: “I never had a straw man, nor do I have one now, nor will I ever have one in the future.” Gyozo Orban, the father of Viktor Orban © Szilard Voros/estost.net Yet, despite their humble background in Felcsut, where his father was a labourer and agricultural engineer, the Orban family has had some business success. A scandal erupted during Mr Orban’s first prime ministerial term in 1999 when it emerged that a Fidesz- and Simicska-linked company had helped his father, Gyozo, and associates gain control of a privatised mine. In recent years, companies belonging to Mr Orban Senior and the prime minister’s two brothers have been reported to be supplying building materials to state construction projects.

    Asked about the report on Direkt36, Mr Orban hinted that since his father was not a contractor but an indirect supplier, there was no conflict of interest. Recommended Orban: Europe’s New Strongman, by Paul Lendvai EU set for unprecedented rebuke to Poland over ‘authoritarianism’ Orban calls for Hungarian spy agencies to probe ‘Soros empire’ of NGOs Mr Tiborcz, who married Mr Orban’s daughter Rahel in 2013, is also an up-and-coming businessman. A company he then controlled won partly EU-funded contracts totalling €65m in 2014 and 2015 to install LED street lights in Fidesz-run towns across Hungary. Olaf, the EU’s anti-corruption office, confirmed to the FT that it was investigating these contracts. Forbes Hungary in 2015 estimated the family’s wealth, excluding Mr Tiborcz, at €22m. Surprisingly, perhaps, the rise of Fidesz-linked businessmen is happening essentially in plain sight — indeed, with official approval. Andras Lanczi, rector of Budapest’s Corvinus University, and considered an unofficial ideologist for Fidesz, told the FT that “certainly, these are Hungarian oligarchs”. “But it is openly pursued as a policy, it is what [the government] wants,” he added. “Although [Mr Orban] has never said that, he perhaps encourages or allows that certain Hungarian entrepreneurs get really rich, to form the top of the Hungarian middle class.” Orban’s allies 1 ISTVAN GARANCSI © Szilard Voros/estost.net Owner of Videoton, one of Orban’s favourite football clubs, and often seen with him at games, Garansci has interests in construction, football, banking and natural gas trading. He controls a company that won a big construction contract for the 2017 World Swimming Championships in Budapest. ISTVAN TIBORCZ © Szilard Voros/estost.net Married to Orban’s daughter Rahel since 2013, Tiborcz’s Elios lighting company won partially EU-funded contracts worth €65m to install LED street lights in many Hungarian towns. He later sold his Elios stake and invested in land and real estate. Fidesz leaders have spoken of the need to create a national bourgeoisie, or what Mr Lanczi calls a “patriotic cohort of entrepreneurs”. What the ruling party is doing to advance its vision is, he says, no more corrupt than communist-era nationalisation or the post-communist privatisations of the 1990s.

    A senior Hungarian banker who asks not to be named counters that the patriotic entrepreneurs are not creating innovative businesses. “The new capitalist ruling class . . . make their money from the government, and competition for these [contracts] is far from fair, open or transparent.” Mr Martin of Transparency International says that while cronyism and graft were big problems during the eight-year socialist government before 2010, many Hungarians fail to appreciate how much more centralised corruption has become. “Corruption before 2010 was rather a dysfunction of the system,” he says. “Today, it’s a part of the system.” Political backlash: Opposition tries to make case against cronyism On billboards across Hungary in September posters appeared showing premier Viktor Orban with three businesspeople above a slogan in the typeface from the Godfather movie, reading: “Gangsters”. The group behind the campaign is Jobbik, the far-right party and main opposition to the ruling Fidesz party. The billboards were part of a move to reposition itself as a more centrist party — with a focus on fighting corruption. Adding spice — and a little cheek — to the campaign is the claim that Jobbik is allegedly being funded by Lajos Simicska, the tycoon and former Fidesz financial mastermind, who fell out with Mr Orban in 2015. Mr Simicska and Jobbik have denied financial links between them. The Jobbik connection has led Hungary’s government to argue that allegations it has unfairly favoured a particular group of businesspeople are fake news put out by its enemies. Fidesz was also enraged by a Jobbik poster campaign in April that showed Mr Orban with the same businesspeople, with the slogan: “Youwork. They steal.”

    The posters appeared on billboard sites belonging to two Simicska companies — prompting Fidesz to introduce tighter rules on political billboard campaigns. Hungary’s state audit office, run by a former Fidesz lawmaker, said this month that Jobbik’s billboards had violated campaign finance rules. It handed down preliminary penalties exceeding Ft660m (€2.1m) — enough to wipe out the party’s finances, Jobbik leaders say. Balint Magyar, author of Mafia State, which alleges Hungary has been “captured” by the Fidesz political and business elite, says a poll last year found three-quarters of respondents thought it at least conceivable that the premier was making money via frontmen. “The public feels this,” he says. “That it’s not a question of regular corruption, that it’s centrally led.”

    Scapegoating the People's Republic for the ills of the present is fine and dandy, but the reality is more nuanced than that, as Hungarians themselves attest.
    Last edited by Abdülmecid I; August 05, 2019 at 11:00 AM.

  20. #3940

    Default Re: Discussion and Debate Community Thread

    The former Austro-Hungarian bloc, especially those part of the v4 had living standards comparable to that of Western Europe, so no. Russia, yes and you are right it was stuck in a feudal economy.

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