I didn’t say it was an intentional policy by the USSR or Stalin, but that, in the end, the famine was artificially caused by the reckless policies of the USSR. It’s not a coincidence that it happened just after the first five year plan was implemented in the whole USSR and the famine propagated throughout the whole union.
the western power had made a unified pact that no one would accept ANYTHING from the USSR as payment for industrial products except grain
Please provide sources, I couldn’t find any. Also, talking about the “western powers” before WW2 is just an historical inaccuracy. In the 1930s the soviet union did indeed export large quantities of grain to pay for heavy machinery, but afaik there was no coercion in this. Among other trade commodities exported by the USSR there were oil, timber, furs, minerals and other raw materials, which were traded primarily with Britain and Nazi Germany (culminating in 1940 with the German-Soviet commercial agreement)
North Korea /South Korea is an interesting one. But, I would like to know where you’re getting your information
What information? That the SK economy is doing a lot better than the NK one? By the way, while NK was cut off from western trade and western aid, it did have full access to the other communist and third world countries, including China and the USSR, which sent significant aids after the end of the war to help reconstruction, canceled or postponed their debts and gave lots of money and equipment. On the other hand SK was also heavily propped up by the US and at the same time was cut off from communist trade and aid. The USSR recognized SK only in 1990, before collapsing and China only did so later in the 90s, with trade happening some time before that in the 80s.
And in all of this I’m not saying that the US were always right in their actions or judgement, or that their form of rabid capitalism is the ideal economic policy, far from it. But from there to say that communism is great or even the answer to societal problems is really misguided. Communism as predicated by communist countries wasn’t really that great. Also it always regressed to some form of authoritarianism.
Which countries do you think did to do communism really well and should be an inspiration for other countries to follow?