The Soviet system used psychiatry as a weapon by diagnosing political opponents as mentally ill in order to confine them as patients instead of trying them in court. Anyone who challenged the state such as dissidents, writers, would-be emigrants, religious believers, or human rights activists could be branded with fabricated disorders like sluggish schizophrenia. This turned normal political disagreement into supposed medical pathology and allowed the state to present dissent as insanity.
Once labeled in this way, people were placed in psychiatric hospitals where they could be held for long periods without legal protections. Harsh treatments were often used to break their resolve. The collaboration between state security organs and compliant psychiatrists created a system where political imprisonment was disguised as medical care, letting the Soviet regime suppress opposition while pretending it was addressing illness rather than silencing critics.
Don’t forget that just like every corrupt businessman and genuinely treasonous military officer becomes a smol bean “dissident” if they criticize the state and get imprisoned for the aforementioned crimes.
We can criticize Soviet handling of mental illness, but within those involuntary internment, how many of the so-called dissidents were also seriously mentally ill and their detention had nothing to do with their politics? Additionally, how many were just lashing out at whatever was there because they didn’t (and we can blame the Soviets for this as any state) have tools for dealing either their condition more constructively?
Yeah I don’t know about that. My general point is that when an argument lacks numbers it’s an indication that the argument is flimsy and weak if you put numbers to it, so they get left out. It’s easy to see that is the case here with the argument against socialism but wouldn’t be the case with the argument about capitalists doing it.