A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee

1. Yeah the USA offered Marshall Plan money to all the countries affected by war in Europe. Stalin said no. He forbade any Eastern Bloc countries from receiving Western Aid. Also the reparations were paid to the Soviets with the removal of eastern industries and tools which were sent west to Russia. Maybe that should be clarified.

2. This is what Wikipedia has ih their Victor Grossman entry:

   In 1954, Grossman was recruited as an informant by the East German Ministry of State Security (MfS, or "Stasi"), codename TAUCHER ("Diver")

   I see him as a valued witness to the times, but I think he could/should have been more forthright about his Sasi relationship, if there was one.

3. Experience explained,need more of this comparisons,maybe some politicians could learn!

4. That man’s insight is priceless. I heard him speaking to Richard Wolff and I thought he deserves more recognition for what he has to say. Thank you RRN for making that possible.

5. Soviet communism wasn't communism. It was a usurpation of the peoples movement.

6. wilpert fails to ask a crucial follow-up question on not being afraid of getting fired from your job: what impact did that have on worker performance and productive output?

7. 4:14 if anybody is wondering I think he was going to say proliferation.

8. Amazing and rare perspective.

9. Thanks for this

10. from what I hear East Germany was better, socialism was better. Less racism, war, unemployed, homeless, wealth gap. Who cares if you could buy a few less things- you can buy anything here in the U.S but most of it is stuff we don't need; also most of us cannot afford to frivolously spend on things that aren't necessities. Our american economy is massively corrupt and broke; global neoliberal capitalism has failed, massively

11. I'm too young to really remember what life was like behind the "Iron Curtain", but I do remeber my parents' growing disappointment in the newfangled capitalist system as it unfolded. This was not what they thought they voted for in 1989. They were promised "capitalism with a human face", they were promised catching up to Western European standards of living, they were promised a more open democracy where workers could still organize into parliamentary parties. We got none of that. We got neoliberal reforms carried out by parties that were socialist in name only, and the same breakdown of the liberal democracy that Western Europe is now seeing, except it happened at a more rapid pace. If you're wondering why people around here are going for proto-fascist strongmen like Orbán and Kaczyński, now you know why.

12. The big mistake by my account in communist Europe was not to allow for small private businesses and thus to choke off any "free market".

    The supply would have been much better, the toll of mismanagement smaller and these smaller enterprises would have funded investments in new technologies and machines.
    The true reason Eastern Europe lost the competition bc they lost to productivity!

13. Thanks Victor…the elites are back…..they never went anywhere

14. This is fantastic. Thanks for bringing our attention to this man and his story/lessons.

15. Oh man, I wish I could reach into my tv and hug this man, a man who has lived up to his convictions, tried his best, risked it all, I've never been a member of any party, thank fuck, probably an anarchist syndicalist, however as this is presently unattainable I shall continue to look to people like this man to aspire for sensible change

16. This history lesson is very important in understanding how to move forward.

17. After the so called "fall" of communism, the plight of the worker around the world has worsened. Fearful capitalists were willing to give workers a better break as a means of placating them. They knew that if they treated the soldiers who came back from World War II the same way they treated the soldiers who came back from WW I there would be a revolution.

18. Very inspiring. Balanced. Would like to hear more of Victors analysis.

19. Victor is great!! Please interview him more RNN

20. Great interview!

21. I came to believe the “Marshal Plan” was the biggest propaganda victory for America via capital to West Germany while simultaneously sacrificing #ADOS earned benefits from our Greatest Generation’s victory. American Capitalism made deals with NAZIS at the expense of its own community. #Bush #Ford #IBM #NASA #FBA #Tangibles2020 #ReparationsNOW

22. Be it socialism, capitalism or a dictatorship, a fake morality has always allowed the more intelligent upper-half of society to hoard all of the land, wealth, political power and healthcare. And as the fake morality goes, if only the 50% working poor were not so lazy as to refuse an education and but go to the polls, liberty and equality would be theirs.

    Truth is, the slow of thought laboring-class is the 50% working poor and by intelligent design they were created with the perfect intelligence to perform in a slow and careful way the most dangerous task on earth with all of it's pinch points and shear points, the hard manual labor need to generate all of society's wealth.

    For to prove the harm in it, planet earth was created to be an intelligence dictatorship, a living hell and the absolute reverse of heaven in every moral aspect.

23. Sozialismus ist ein saurer, Kapitalismus ein fauliger Apfel.

24. Gwyn Williams. Thank you Mr Grossman. So refreshing to hear someone give an honest account of life under a state socialist system, anathema to that minority which wants to grab everything at the expense of others, but doesn´t sound too bad to the rest of us.

25. Please have a part 2

26. Very important interview

27. Amazing interview. I want more…

28. We have lost so much of the true history of our world, by classifying our experienced elders as marginal and dependent on society, when in fact their wisdom should be educating our children so we don’t repeat their mistakes.

29. In East Germany you couldn't always buy and eat what you wanted: Well, living in the US it is a long time since this household could buy and eat what it wanted. Yes, it is available but our pocketbook chooses what we will eat week to week. The big difference, in East Germany they didn't have to worry about losing their job and going hungry whereas we do.

30. This guy is a true hero

31. Thank you for giving this outstanding human being and Patriot the platform to tell his story. We need to re-educate our children and give them the true history of how this country was built. On the back other immigrants who came up from under oppression. We had the wrong people writing our history books. It's time to tell history as it really was and correct these grave injustices

32. I started reading Marxism a few years ago. Ive heard so much fear mongering about socialism and communism throughout my life but for some magical reason i had never heard of the most important figure of socialism and most important critic of the capitalist system. I've only heard "Marxism" being used as a ridiculous smear against Obama. But now i know what it is and fully understand why it was hidden from me. The fact it was hidden from me only served to hasten my conversion to becoming a socialist

33. Communism is great….Neo Liberals and Zionists are not
    Germany was taken over by EU Zionists since 1989

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