Lol just stop being poor and everything will be fine. Trust me.
Just make sure you choose rich parents when getting conceived smh
The irony being that the boomers who say the “builds character” shit had a vastly easier life compared to their parents and grandparents, who fought literal world wars. They think all societal change before them was good (including stuff like colonialism which they see as “civilizing” the savage natives) but any progress after them is the devil because it means they might have to change their behaviour or worldviews, hell, or even the idea that people they think are less than them getting less disadvantaged and oppressed than before which I guess make them jealous or something?
this one makes me mad. the sheer entitlement.
i think their entitlement largely comes from the fact that they were one of the few generation who actually had very prosperous lifes (things getting better after the war but still no shitty wages we see today) so obviously (to them) they must have done something right. And that’s why they try to share their great way of life (and doing things the right way) with everyone else, so everyone else can live a prosperous life too.
Problem is, their life wasn’t good because of what they did. It was good because they met exceptional circumstances in the world’s development where there was a lot of growth and innovation that actually improved people’s lifes. they just happened to live through it; it’s not their personal achievement.
If “Life being worse builds character” then most billionaires don’t have it built.
I think you might be onto something fr.
Life being worse ensures you never get any power.
that’s the unspoken goal.
and everything is harder to accomplish
Until you suddenly have all of it and things are very chaotic and messy
i wish power just came by suddenly into my hands. like, just out of nowhere.
Character*
*Profit for the wealthy.
“Character” was always just “beaten down to the point where they don’t talk back to their ‘betters.’”
Liberals talking about how much worse life could be as soon as Mamdani won the NYC mayoral election (suddenly its how much things are supposedly going to get):
Its absurd to me that you think Mamdani is closer to the right of this image than the left.
Really feels like people here have no idea what the soviet union was like and just see politics as a way to show how alt they are rather than wanting practical solutions to real problems.
When people just make edgy memes instead of talking about sane steps towards a better world such as socialized post secondary education, nationalized resources, UBI, full coverage single payer etc.
Its always some nonsense about decapitating people, because thats easy, doesn’t require any real work (as they’ll never do any of those “you first” actions) and allows them to feel suprior for literally working against the goals they claim to support.
No, the people that want genuine socialism instead of safety net band-aids want socialism because it has a proven track record of dramatically uplifting the working classes in ways capitalism cannot. We socialists do know what the soviet union was like, we read books, study history, and more in order to try to best emulate what worked well while learning from what didn’t, and adapting it to our conditions. The safety nets you describe cannot stop the imperialist decay of the dying US Empire.
This is a lot of buzzwords with very little to no content.
With so many significant problems with their system, why use it as a base at all as opposed to simply advocating for the change you want to see?
No, the people that want genuine socialism instead of safety net band-aids
The previous commenter brought up Mamdani, and they were wrong for thinking Mamdani is a socialist, but they weren’t wrong for observing that reality does not bring you to your socialist utopia dreams within a lifetime, and thus the “bandaids” you decry are necessary to even begin to convince people to be less afraid of the ideas of socialism.
You are clearly letting perfect be the enemy of good, or improved here, because hard line idealist stances do worse than accomplishing nothing; they make the politics you state you support harder to sell people on, and harm change towards that direction.
Mamdani is actually a great example of what the stepping stones actually look like. A real person, making real, socialist changes within a much larger system at a level that people accept and will hopefully grow to appreciate rather than sitting making grungy alt comments on the internet in an effort to put down other people they agree with far more than any other groups.
No, my comment wasn’t filled with buzzwords. The soviets had a remarkably effective system, as does the PRC, as do other socialist states. It isn’t a matter of trying to rescue demonstrable failures from their contradictions, but trying to replicate their astounding successes and go even further.
Historically, your method of trying to work within a system designed not to change in order to help ease people into socialism never works. Not only can Mamdani not implement socialism, but only expand safety nets within the constraints of his mayoral position, at the same time he’s already strongly opposed by the state. Instead, what’s important is working class organization directly, and following up on what has worked historically.
as does the PRC, as do other socialist states.
The capitalist country with slightly more social sytems?
At this point this is a joke.
Historically, your method of trying to work within a system designed not to change in order to help ease people into socialism never works.
Historically there is no historically and you continue to make vague statements that don’t actually call for any positive actions and instead call for apathy.
The PRC is a socialist country. The commanding heights of industry are overwhelmingly publicly owned and controlled, the state is under the control of the working classes, and public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. Socialism isn’t the absence of markets or private property, but a transitional mode of production between capitalism, where private ownership is the principle aspect and the state under the control of capitalists, and communism, a stateless, classless, moneyless society where production and distribution are fully collectivized and run according to a common plan to fulfill the needs of all.
History exists, and the failures of those to successfully reform capitalism into socialism from within are important lessons.
There are many private businesses in China, probably most are.
Many other countries you would not call socialist also have the government owning critical industries/companies (like outside of NA, most governments own their state resource extraction businesses). The typical things we discount as not being socialist but that actually are such as mail etc also count.
You are basically arbitrarily choosing when to call something socialist vs not socialist by choosing to call china, a booming capitalist state with tons of humanitarian harms, just as any other booming (or used to be booming) capitalist state that of course also has socialist elements.
The rational person would instead focus on what else should be socialized because gradual progress is the only rational route. Irrational people spout off expecting bold revolutions where other people die horrifically so their idealist perspectives can be satiated, which more than likely would end up falling further towards the other direction.
History exists
Something you mention repeatedly as a way to add false credibility to your ridiculous stances, but also something which you can only draw vague, poorly correlated to examples with.
I’m starting to feel like Im arguing with an LLM with talking points designed to aggravate and talk me into a circle.
just because you don’t want to understand what the words mean, doesn’t mean it’s meaningless.
you will find that demsocs like mamdani are relatively common throughout the world outside the US. how it usually goes for us is he will eventually either hit a wall or be forced to by the system.
the kind of change you hint at wanting comes from the bottom up, not from top down from an oligarchical ballot box.
understand what you are doing, and then organize with your fellow workers.
This type of purposefully too vague to be worth while conversation is just irksome.
The idea that your votes don’t matter, despite billionaires bending over backwards to encourage exactly that type of opinion, so that people stop using all of the levers they have (especially given how easy this one is to pull) is ridiculously counterproductive.
Organizing with your fellow workers sounds like a great idea, except that you can’t do so effectively if the ballot box you want to ignore the importance of works to effectively remove your protections and help the ownership class press you.
Even if you think its little oppression vs big oppression, that difference absolutely matters, especially given the cost the benefit analysis which makes voting crazily valuable for literally just showing up and casting a vote every few months.
you will find that demsocs like mamdani are relatively common throughout the world outside the US. how it usually goes for us is he will eventually either hit a wall or be forced to by the system.
This right here also lacks significant nuance. Its once again based on some vague idea that if a solution isnt everything, its nothing. You ever wonder what would happen if there were enough Mamdanis out there?
my brother in christ, we are not discouraging you from voting. we are trying to show you it doesn’t work.
we have experience with people like mamdani outside the us that you just refuse to accept.
please just look up the things you don’t know instead of pretending we are not saying it. i literally cannot be clearer than i am being.
Honestly the best thing Mamdani will do is fail at making fundamental change and encurage people to reject electoralism
my brother in christ, we are not discouraging you from voting. we are trying to show you it doesn’t work.
At this level of self contradiction, I can only conclude you are either trolling or arguing just to argue. Saying that something does not work is discouraging someone from doing said thing.
Its also part of everything I previously discussed, pointing out that you think everything has to be a whole solution in and of itself, and that idea is naive, because nothing ever will be.
we have experience with people like mamdani outside the us that you just refuse to accept.
This is utterly irrelevant as you’ve failed to acknoledge me already addressing this point with pointing out just because roadblocks eventually exist doesnt mean you just stop and roll over/dismiss this as not being a part of the solution.
All of this comes from the naive notion that there is just 1 big button that needs pressing before everything magically falls into place.
Its many little buttons, slow changes over time, and people like you, not fighting that tooth and nail, somehow with righteous indignation against anyone pragmatic enough to understand why that is wrong.
i literally cannot be clearer than i am being.
That is because you have little of substance to actually say but wish that you did, so all you can do is use vague rhetoric to dismiss points you can’t argue against.
Mamdani is far better than his opposition, but his policies aren’t gonna bring socialism. I agree it’s better to support him than not because I don’t want people to suffer under worse politicians, but we should use this opportunity to organize and demand more, not less. Whether Mamdani achieves his goals or not, people won’t be able to maintain any gains without an organized working class. The best time to organize was years ago, the second best time is now.
Mamdani is far better than his opposition, but his policies aren’t gonna bring socialism.
See, this is exactly the type of thing that is wrong with the general attitudes of people on this website.
Moaning, calling the majority of people fascists for having pragmatic plans, joking about revolution plans youll never attempt, much less succeed at all are severe forms of idealism.
You will literally never magically go to sleep one day in capitalist land, and then wake up in socialist land. That just is not how it works.
All the people who think they remember reading some historical account where that happened clearly missed a lot of information, because no societal change like that happens that quickly. Even for changes that appear quick, what is often missed are the huge amounts of smaller events that built up to those events, and the stepping stones.
Everyone on this site seems to utterly refuse to acknowledge this and seems to want to lambaste any idea that deals with the reality that socialist rome cannot be built in a day.
Anything that isn’t a full measure to them, might as well literally be the same thing as trump, and that’s just absurdly counter productive and naive.
Mamdani is bringing socialism, but slightly, and with digestible measures which should change public opinion. It’s not all or nothing. Small change is good change too.
Others should do so as well. In so doing people warm up to an idea rather than the fringiest, cringiest people thinking that shrieking at the general public will magically lead them to change their opinions and accept massive differences immediately.
I agree it’s better to support him than not because I don’t want people to suffer under worse politicians,
In case it was purposeful, I want to add that it should be “not only because”, because, and this is another problem I have with many of attitudes here, right now matters! People who are alive and living right now matter! Their lives and shared experiences matter!
It’s absolutely not ok to throw away their lives for some idealistic hail mary you (general you) think will save the world, particularly when doing so wouldn’t even work.
but we should use this opportunity to organize and demand more, not less.
I am cautious about using the word demand, because it implies that you have leverage in a way I think many lemmy users think they have leverage, but they absolutely do not.
I think too many lemmy users think that protest voting does anything other than setting them back, not realizing that 2 party systems love the rocking back and forth where one party can just outright benefit the rich, and the other can campaign on cutting some of those changes back. Any allowance for this hurts the cause.
Instead, the only areas they have leverage are in electing people like Mamdani through primaries, local and state politics. They can apply leverage by changing what the average member of the party closest to their views looks like to start a progressive shift.
Whether Mamdani achieves his goals or not, people won’t be able to maintain any gains without an organized working class.
I think they will, because there is something to be said for changing the uncaring persons passive opinion on what has been marketed as the devil for too long. The average person notices that NYC does better with Mamdani, and the next time some big media source rages on about how socialism will ruin us all, they think “meh, thats probably not true”.
Yeah things were “better” under the Soviet Union.
They certainly were, both better then before and after
They were. The large majority of people who lived in the soviet union regret its fall. The introruction of capitalism and the destruction of the socialist system caused metrics like life expectancy, home ownership, quality of life, and more to plummet while poverty, starvation, prostitution, and drug abuse skyrocketed.
do you perhaps know the specifics of the “socialism” fall in now-post-ussr region? Because it was more of introduction of total anarchy and rule of the strongest than it was the introduction of capitalism.
Of course USSR was better than the crysis which consequences we’re suffering to these days.
sorry, it’s not really related to the discussion you had with the lad, i’m just in a rambling mood ig :D
The chaos of the introduction of capitalism, labeled “shock doctrine,” was intrinsically linked to capitalism and private plunder. There’s no real way to compare what happened to a theoretical possibility where socialism was dissolved, and not capitalism but another system took its place.
bro, the 90s of the post-ussr region was literally ruled by gangs and otherwise criminal mob. It had nothing to do with any doctrine, as the politicians didn’t matter much.
And yes, i wholeheartedly agree, we can’t compare any two countries from two different times, even if they occupied the same territory, as we’d inherrently ignore lots of historical context that way.
was literally ruled by gangs and otherwise criminal mob. It had nothing to do with any doctrine
Yes it does happen when capitalism is introduced, it’s a feature of expanding capitalism, either colonial or imperialist.
i fail to see the connection. Literally the same kind of chaos occured when the revolution happened in 1917. Not to mention, that for capitalism to be “introduced” it should be foreign in the first place. USSR, especially late one was quite capitalistic itself, albeit with it’s own uniquie flavor.
Literally the same kind of chaos occured whet the revolution happened in 1917
Seriously you don’t see any difference in popular revolution overthrowing centuries long tyranny and literal foreign agents overthrowing a state contrary to people wishes and establishing comprador tyranny?
USSR, especially late one was quite capitelistic itself
I am starting to suspect you see history not as dialectical process but as set snapshots.
i fail te see the connection
Considering the above, it does not surprise me anymore.
I’m aware of how chaotic it was, but it was also capitalist with foreign plundering from western countries.
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People love getting high on nostalgia when things aren’t looking up well in the present moment. Even many of those who were under fascism are nostalgic of it. That’s the point of nostalgia: only remembering the good parts of the past while pretending the bad never happened.
“sure, the people living there say that it was better under communism, but obviously they’re too stupid and foreign to know what they think. Only I, the enlightened westerner, can truly judge if things are better, which I will do based on vague vibes that I can’t identify the source of”
“People hated living under communism just ask them”
Actually you’ll find most people preferred living under communism
“They’re just blinded by nostalgia”
So you can’t just ask people about what it was like under communism?
“No you can, if you did you’d find they all hated it”
“I like to say I love communism without under duress.”
“I love communism not because I am a card-carrying party member.”
“The fact that more people fled from communist countries than coming in means those people are crazy.”
Least incoherent anti communist
That’s literally the opposite of what happened here, you dumbass
BrainInAWesternerBox larping as BrainInAnEasternerBox.
Most intellectual anti communist
That doesn’t explain the rise of communist party membership, nor can you wash away the fact that quality of life metrics were higher in the soviet union for the most part than they are today in post-soviet countries.
The metrics probably doesn’t include those who were in gulags and died of famines.
The rise in communist party membership you speak of maybe increased by 100%, when two new members joined an already two member communist party.
Wake me up when communist slogans are getting viral on Tiktok and Instagram, and if communists are getting elected in huge numbers on national level across the world.
The metrics probably doesn’t include those who were in gulags and died of famines
Yes they do, you confidently incorrect, arrogant moron.
They do. For starters, famine was ended after the 1930s (outside of World War II), and prison death rates weren’t astronomically high nor were prison populations particularly high either.
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As for increase in communist party membership, over four years, more than 63,000 people have become CPRF members, with most of the new recruits being young people under 30 and “people of prime working age.”.
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The expansion and astronomical growth of grassroot movements like the Inmortal Regiment. This movement grew so large that plenty of countries around the world organized a similar march. It started small until it grew in a international movement.
There are other examples, but it’s clearly on the rise.
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Have you tried reading the primary sources for that article? It implies that the people who think their country is worse off since the fall of the USSR want a return to the USSR. However, the questions that the article doesn’t discuss has a majority of people saying that they value the institutions of democracy very highly, which doesn’t suggest that that’s the case.
You’re an idiot
The USSR was democratic, so it isn’t in contradiction. I’d prefer more surveys to be taken that directly ask questions on preference for socialism vs capitalism, ie a return to the soviet system directly rather than simply asking if they are better or worse off. What we do know is that in countries like Russia and Belarus, there is a strong resurgance in soviet pride and communist party registration.
Again, I can only suggest reading the primary data, rather than relying on openly biased reporting. One of the key democratic principles which is so highly valued is “honest multiparty elections”.
I do read the primary data, and it’s also true that in many formerly socialist countries there’s surging sympathies for socialism and surging communist party membership.
I mean, you clearly didn’t read the primary data in this case, because if you had you wouldn’t have believed it to support the idea that the people surveyed wanted to return to the soviet era.
I did, and I believe it’s a strong indicator of wishing to return to socialism, especially when combined with other metrics like huge increases in communist party membership and soviet pride.
Not the biggest fan of the USSR - but compared to the capitalism that followed, yeah, they were
no wonder, considering how exactly that capitalism looked like, and how “well” people where with handling their finances.
Collapse of the USSR in terms of how destructive it was is comparable to the one of Roman Empire. It was litaral anarchy in the 90s.
Lots of people lost all their money they hoarded in a single moment, simply because just keeping the money hidden in a safe place was considered prime financial safety. And then lots of people lost their money again as they had no idea how to handle their finances properly, and people like Mavrodi emerged with their financial pyramid schemes, promising huge profits for all the investors.
tbf, USSR did great, especially considering that basically whole world pressured and opposed it in many ways. It still managed not only to persist, but also to help other countries. But comparing its economics to even all the combined economics of all the countries that were a part of it at the time is not fair, as USSR had in total more than 70 years to develop, and was occupying vast expances of land that had big cities, lots of fertile soil and just as much of any other resource. If you want to make a more fair comparison, you should compare it to EU.
Compared to other capitalist countries it was worse during Soviet times too. Average US life expectancy at the USSRs peak in 1986 was approx. 75 years old, whereas in the USSR the average is 5 years less… Quite substantial.
“A previously feudal society didn’t fully catch up to the biggest capitalist superpower! That means communism doesn’t work!”
Not what I said.
Also, where the Soviet Union fairly quickly seemed to plateau off with their life expectancy, the PRC managed to much more continuously trend upwards. Not necessarily faster than the SU at first (which makes sense), but they did manage to keep the momentum whereas the SU did not.
I mean, you did compare the US with the USSR, which is misguided because of what I highlighted. I agree the USSR made many mistakes we must learn from.
Compared to other capitalist countries it was worse during Soviet times too.
Your daily reminder that western liberals don’t think non western countries are real.
Japan’s life expectancy was even higher than most of those in the west.
Sure, plenty of developing capitalist nations had barely caught up at that point (e.g. South Korea). But they did manage to keep a positive trend going, whereas the SU had levelled off and wasn’t improving anymore.
That the only developing countries you can think of are Japan and SK very much demonstrates my point.
You said “non-western”. I named two. If you want to shift goalposts further that’s fine but don’t act like you’re being all smart or anything.
Even for other developing countries the overall trend is clear: continuous rise in life expectancy, leveling off as it gets closer to 80. The SU plateaud just below 70 and remained there until its fall (after which it rose again). The vast majority of developing nations do not show this pattern of levelling off early.
Take Iran, or the Philippines, or even Vietnam (bar the civil war). All of them didn’t level off like the Soviets did. Same thing in other socialist countries like Cuba and the PRC.
It indicates a fairly severe mismanagement that the Soviet Union is one of the very, very few countries that managed to keep their life expectancy at 67-68 for over 20 years, when other countries kept rising and a good number had already surpassed them. Only after the year 2000 did they manage a sustained growth in life expectancy, rising to 73 after dropping to 64 (likely levelling off a little now due to the war in Ukraine).
The argument was that under the Soviet Union life was better. That may have been true when compared directly to the very tumultuous fall that directly followed. But the reality is that growth of life expectancy had completely stagnated in Soviet Union (it was even declining very slightly). It only started rising again after Russia had mostly stabilised post-fall, and is now higher than it’s ever been.
Imagine trying to paint “correctly pointing out that Japan and SK are not remotely representative of the developing world in general” as “moving the goal post”. My god, it is so obvious you people just parrot these phrases after seeing them on Reddit and thinking that they’re magic incantations that make you “win” an argument.
The irony of this meme is what really makes it hilarious
Lately I feel like the uncle who drops in occasionally and is like “wow this is a terrible thing you all have going here, and none of you are making it better, mazel tov” and leaves, my pockets stuffed with weed money.
Honestly if people want communism and socialism to be taken seriously you gotta drop all the soviet imagery.
“If you want people to take communism seriously you have to concede everything to the people who hate communism!”
That’s literally been the strategy taken by leftist in the US since the 1940’s and it’s only gotten worse and worse, to the point that people like Obama, Harris, and even Biden get labelled as “socialist.” It literally does not matter how much you try to avoid being associated with the USSR or other socialist states, you will be accused of being like them if you try to do anything even remotely good. So, since that’s going to happen anyway, we might as well stop punching left and stop letting misinformation about such states run wild out of fear of being associated with them.
OK, face of Karl Marx then. The German guy who never even set foot in the USSR.
Oh wait you think that’s bad too.
What about Mao-no.
What about Che Guev-no.
Ho Chi-no.
Venez-no.
What about the Paris commune? No? Still bad in your mind?
Marxist Austria? Nah I’m sure the army that put an end to that is preferable according to you. They called themselves socialist with none of the Soviet imagery after all!
Even if we completely rebranded socialism you’d make it your mission to add the Soviet imagery back in and remind everyone of it. Like y’all do for decidedly capitalist bandaids like student loan forgiveness or food stamps that don’t even have anything to do with socialism.
Americans threw Eugene Debbs in jail for protesting WW1. Americans unleashed the national guard on college campuses at Columbia and Kent State and on anti-homeless activists in Chicago and police reformer in Baltimore and Ferguson and now LA and New Orleans, in an endless war on anyone that even smelled slightly of whatever we’re defining as Marxist of late. These are people who spend God only knows how much money and manpower to put a surveillance dragnet around The Quackers, while screaming from the pulpit about how there’s no such thing as religious freedom anymore.
Even if we completely rebranded socialism you’d make it your mission to add the Soviet imagery back in and remind everyone of it.
They brand Donald Trump as a Soviet Socialist. It’s utterly divorced from reality.
drop all the soviet imagery
if people want communism
Tell you what, we’ll stop venerating Actual Existing Socialists when you guys quit dry humping plantation owners and genocidal war mongers.
Get Jefferson of the $20 and I promise never to quote Stalin again.
calling Stalin a socialist is like calling North Korea a bastion of freedom, associating with people like him is why its so easy for the shitty rich people to claim we are evil
calling Stalin a socialist is like calling North Korea a bastion of freedom
It’s also like…
Calling january 6 funny
Calling russians humans
Calling tankman a video
Calling nordstream 2 sabotaged by usa
Calling moldovan elections rigged by the eu
They’re all provably true, yet liberals will always lie about them.
abandoning someone because our class enemies lie about them is one of many reasons why the western left is so fucking useless
Stalin was a committed Marxist-Leninist, and oversaw the world’s first socialist state for the overwhelming majority of its most tumultuous period. He was no saint, but at the same time was no monster either. He is remembered by liberal historians as far worse than comtemporaries like Churchill who in actuality were far worse than Stalin.
As Nia Frome says, we can either distance ourselves from Stalin, and by extension the USSR and actually existing socialism, or we can fight back against bourgeois narratives about Stalin and the USSR, acknowledging their faults while being able to uphold their tremendous successes as examples of the possibilities of socialism in power. Historical nihilism, and throwing Stalin and by extension much of the early soviet union under the bus, was ultimately what allowed for liberalization within the USSR and partially contributed to the death of socialism in eastern Europe.
Demystifying Stalin
I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.
- J. V. Stalin
- Nia Frome’s “Tankies”
[8 min]
- W. E. B Dubois’ On Stalin
[6 min]
- Domenico Losurdo’s Primitive Thinking and Stalin as Scapegoat
[30 min]
- Domenico Losurdo’s Stalin and Stalinism in History
[16 min]
[42 min]
[38 min]
[9 min]
- Domenico Losurdo’s Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend
[5 hr 51 min]
- Ludo Martens’ Another View of Stalin
[5 hr 25 min]
- Anna Louise Strong’s This Soviet World
Stalin's Major Theoretical Contributions to Marxism
I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was very bad to read him. That was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a Seri of things that are very good.
- Che Guevara
As for the DPRK, it isn’t a utopia, but it’s also a democratically controlled country. It has 3 major parties in power, the WPK has the broad majority of control while a social democratic party and a religious party also hold minor aspects of control. They have worker councils that allow for democratic decision making, and people for the most part have their needs taken care of by the socialist system they have. The DPRK is poor, but despite that achieve far greater metrics than peer countries at similar levels of wealth and development thanks to their socialist system.
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Sounds like you need to learn more about Churchill, because he was responsible for starving millions of people in Bengal. He had this to say:
I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.
Lovely.
The 1930s famine, on the other hand, wasn’t forced, though. It was a combination of adverse weather conditions leading to lower crop yields, wealthy farmers called kulaks killing their livestock and burning their crops to “resist collectivization,” and some degree of mismanagement. It’s important to recognize that pre-1930s, Eastern Europe had regular famines as well, and that following collectivization the 1930s famine was the last famine outside of World War II (when the Nazis took Ukraine, the USSR’s breadbasket). To pin that on Stalin alone is a serious mistake.
As for the DPRK, they have approval-based voting, and 3 political parties. There are also factory councils for direct worker management. On top of this, they have been strong allies to Palestine, Cuba, South Africa, and had close ties to the Black Panther Party.
My opinions are absolutely sane. My views are shared by orgs like PSL, FRSO, the Black Panther Party, and every major communist party in power throughout the world. Contrary to your pessimism, socialism is succeeding throughout the world, and we are progressing despite your protestations. I don’t “idealize failure” or “worship dictators,” I’m a practicing communist that organizes in real life and studies theory, even making my own intro Marxist-Leninist reading list. The “true” communism is the work of communists in real life building it, not the magic utopia free from sin that exists in your head.
I suggest you actually join an org and start reading theory.
wealthy farmers you say? doesn’t sound like communism to me. And I knew you would try to say “oh it wasn’t stalins fault” so I held off on him murdering thousands of his political opposition.
You worship a dictator and try to cover up the past, pretending like he did not do horrible things. Please point to where socialism is succeeding because I’m pretty sure it is in places that don’t worship a mass-murderer. I suggest you start reading history.
The kulaks were a form of bourgeois-farmers that existed in Tsarist Russia. The 1930s was when the soviet union began collectivizing agriculture and creating cooperative farms. You’re correct in saying that kulaks don’t sound very communist, and you’re right, that’s why they fought against the communists who were trying to socialize farming, therefore making the famine far worse.
As for the Great Purge, the exact number of deaths is unknown, but the purge itself was necessary. The soviet union was infiltrated by huge numbers of fascists and former white army members, corrupt officials, and in many cases criminals. They weren’t simply “political opponents,” the socialist system was in an extremely dangerous position. The majority of those found guilty were simply expelled from the party, with some being sentenced to prison, and some of those being sentenced to death.
I don’t “worship a dictator,” nor do I cover up the past. I investigate the past, especially now that the soviet archives are (relatively) open. Stalin did do terrible things, like criminalizing homosexuality, and excess deaths absolutely occured because of his actions. At the same time, he wasn’t a dictator, nor was the soviet system capable of such a position. I already linked a bunch of resources, but if you want a genuine critical look at Stalin, you should read Losurdo’s Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend. Losurdo only uses western sources for this, and it does an excellent job showcasing Stalin’s genuine merits and failures.
Socialism is doing wonderfully right now. The PRC is the world’s most advanced socialist state right now, soon to be the world’s most developed country. Vietnam and Laos are also rising rapidly. The DPRK is doing surprisingly well now after decades of recovering from the Arduous March. Cuba is struggling with energy production, but solidarity from Vietnam and the PRC in the form of large solar panel construction has helped alleviate that. Nicaragua is doing okay, and Venezuela is in a tough position due to the US Empire’s aggression, but even then good news still comes out.
I do read history, that’s a part of my theory reading. I do my best to understand what did and did not work in historical socialism, and read history to better understand the context of the present day. Given that you didn’t even know about Churchill’s genocide of Bengal (or worse, didn’t care), nor about the DPRK’s ties to parties like the Black Panthers, nor the role of the kulaks, etc, I think you should take your own advice here as well. Theory, history, and joining an org should all be priorities for you.
As much as churchill fucking sucks I’m pretty sure he wasn’t responsible for the starvation of 6 million people.
He starved all of india, that’s, like 1000 million people.
Thank you for sharing these resources, bless you
No problem comrade! 🫡
calling Stalin a socialist is like calling North Korea a bastion of freedom
Which end of Korea hosted the anti-Japanese resistance movement, again? Which end of Korea is still filthy with Japanese collaborators and their heirs and benefactors to this day? What was the Bodo League Massacre and how did it instigate the war? Which country held parliamentary elections starting in 1948, free from the influence of an outside occupying government? What is Juche and how did it inform redevelopment following the war? Which country spends more on its military by a factor of 8x, primarily through grants and loans from its allies?
I’m sure you could talk shit about North Korea for hours, days even, based on what your tabloid press has punched into your ears. I gotta wonder if you’ve even once heard how North Korean expats arrive in the South or are treated by their “liberators”.
After Mr. Jang, the North Korean “defectors” are given time to speak. The most notable thing about both of them is that they both wish to return to the North. With the South so often being portrayed as a land of milk and honey when compared to the North the fact that the “defectors” wish to return, expeditiously, does again speak to the narratives about the North not being wholly accurate.
Mrs. Kim doesn’t discuss much about the North outside of missing her family, most notably her daughter. Her tragedy, being kidnapped, forced to remain in the south, attempting suicide multiple times, and forced to carry on is one of the most heart-rending testimonials from a “defector”.
Mr. Choi is a bit of the opposite, he too is a tragic case, as he’s still extremely loyal to the North. He’s an open and avowed communist and Korean nationalist. He speaks with pride of his country but does acknowledge economic hardship is what drove him to China, which in turn led to him being in the South. His passion for his homeland shines through and stands in stark contrast to the common narrative from other defectors.
ah yes “one side sucks so clearly that means the other side is absolutely perfect” you are fucking disgusting, people like who are why we never get any progress. You idealize tyranny and oppression because you have been lied to and told it is communism while true communists cannot get anywhere because of filth like you celebrating nations that murder anyone who has an opinion.
Talks about progress - Denies churchill’s genocide.
I don’t want your “progress”, kkkolonizer
one side sucks so clearly that means the other side is absolutely perfect
It’s funny to hear liberals defend the genocidal members of the Democratic Party by insisting “we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.
But when you’re a guerrilla resistance fighting of the Japanese at their most bloodthirsty, or a country that’s painstakingly recovering after suffering more bombings in a year than all of Europe suffered in four, the bar gets raised through the roof.
You idealize tyranny and oppression
You are living under a totalitarian regime right now, you big dummy. You don’t seem to mind.
lmao you think I’m defending the genocidal losers who only still have any power because half the country is worse than them, this country is a shitshow, but worshiping dictators will not fix it. If you want actual change you need to push for progress instead of idealizing a shit past, grow up.
you think I’m defending the genocidal losers
If the shoe fits
You’re idealizing a shit past with your fucking churchill whitewashing
These people are unhinged I’m just not gonna engage anymore for my mental health.
It’s amazing watching Reddit shit libs come to Lemmy and have existential crisis about encountering beliefs they disagree with.
It’s amazing watching tankie jerkers automatically assume they know exactly who people are within 2 seconds of talking to them.
Well you people make it pretty easy
I’ll let the various communist parties currently in power in countries like the PRC, Vietnam, etc. to distance themselves from the hammer and sickle, as you don’t personally take them seriously.
Yeah, it’s just me. lol.
I’m not aware of people not taking parties like the CPC, CPV, etc seriously.
New deal with Chinese characteristics!
China’s socialist market economy, unlike FDR’s New Deal, is commanded by public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy under a proletarian-led and controlled state, unlike FDR’s bourgeois controlled imperialist state. Socialism isn’t simply having safety nets, it’s a mode of production.
Totally, totally. Those are the nets I think of when i think of their production. Very proletarian led, that’s why they need all the cops and censorship.
The worker’s state needs worker’s cops and worker’s censorship. Crime and cia outlets don’t magically disappear in a worker’s state.
Those are the nets I think of when i think of their production.
It’s weird how liberals will insist “one county, two systems” is a fiction, then point to a glaring example of Hong Kong labor policy and blame Beijing.
Nevermind the fact that you’re describing Foxcon, a Taiwanese company focused on manufacturing for American and Japanese electronics distributed into Western markets.
That’s the evil Chinese Communism you’re complaining about. No word on when Americans plan to sanction Foxcon for these abhorrent labor practices.
Over 90% of the Chinese citizenry support their system, and the vast majority believe it to be democratic, more confidence than westerners have in their system. Having police and censoring the speech of capitalists is important for upholding the socialist project, especially in its early stages as it is in China.
President Xi, Liberate My People
#SOSTEXAS
Honestly, anyone could help Texas. I just met a homeless guy who refused to leave his tent and wore an honest to fuvk tinfoil hat.
His administration could do a lot for Texas. I’ll accuse the dengists of a lot, but, uh… Anything would be a step up from Texas. Give the fuckers a Hapsburg and they’ll do better than they are right now.
I say give xi a chance.
Give the fuckers a Hapsburg and they’ll do better
I suspect if you dug around in the lineage of Texas state leadership you’d find a few Hapsburgs. At the very least, you’ll find plenty of 1940s German refugees.
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Okay, cool. I’ll continue to organize with groups that uphold existing socialism, rather than throw it under the bus for an easy rhetorical strategy that has always backfired by legitimizing anti-communist narratives.
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The symbolism used by communist parties around the world, both in power and not, is a symbol of working class internationalism that trancends borders. Any genuine socialist is going to be slandered and drug under the dirt anyways, abandoning the socialist movement around the world just to try to kick that can down the road just a tiny bit means throwing away allies. It’s why the TERF movement is worse for cis feminists, and why trans-inclusionary feminism gains more traction.
White people were put off by the civil rights movement. We don’t have the choice to abandon things based on popularity. Plus the symbols are cool.
done and done. doesn’t work.
oh but try to change the system from the inside, with you knowledge and stuff.
done too, doesn’t work either.
Hey, nobody serious said that one.
None of these have been done.
You’ve done nothing, and pretend it doesnt work.
Communists have successfully created socialist states through revolution. Throwing socialist states under the bus backfires.
This response doesnt even seem congruent with mine. Im not even sure what you;re responding to here.
I’m responding directly to your suggestion that we should abandon solidarity with socialist states, and that revolution has never worked.
He’s responding to your nonsense.
they have, insistently. and you literally don’t know me.
look into the history of leftist movements, and don’t be an asshole.
they have, insistently.
Where?
A few people trying to try something doesnt mean they succeeded at trying said things.
I mean, here we are on lemmy where people insist on nonsensical revolutions and have hated the idea of working to change parties; the only pragmatic solution, for ever.
look into the history of leftist movements, and don’t be an asshole.
Calling me an asshole implicitly, after asking me to make your argument for you is actual asshole behaviour.
what do you mean where bro. it’s everywhere. south america had a pink wave, and it’s going through another of sorts atm. it’s your continent, how do you not know that. the US is very much biased to the far right, but it’s common in the rest of the world for demsocs to pop up.
entryism has a long history of not going well, either.
look things up instead of being contrarian and coming here just to get angry with people.
I don’t think further conversation on this chain will be productive. Spouting irrelevant rhetoric with strenuous relations while completely neglecting any of the points I’ve made can only go so far.
Also, to call me a contrarian, while being unable to acknowledge that you have a severe marketing issue I think is a great microcosm of the attitudes here.
You feel that being angry and isolated enough will somehow spread change, forgetting that you’re probably in the sub 1% in terms of groups of people, and haven’t made a dent into the other 99%
i literally answered your question very directly and specifically. i cited a rich historical example you could look into and see for yourself.
you too have to want to have a conversation. i agree this chain will not be productive anymore, have a nice day.
Truly.
They are not representative of what any sane person wants.
They absolutely are, they made the world’s first socialist state and that came with dramatic improvements for the working classes. Don’t use ableism.
I love how this thread is like microcosm of westolefto. We got decaying carcass of kautskyism sprinkled by raw cointelpro, dbzeroer anticommunist, solarpunk asspull nonsense and of course .worlder who starts with ableism plus another one who gets angry when provided with evidence.
The gang’s all here!
I don’t even know what to respond to a comment like this except to point out that you are absolutely hurting every cause you say you believe in with rhetoric like this.
No, I’m not, and I know because I do real life organizing work too.
Damn right! All that immagery and symbolism is a real dealbreaker for me too!
I swear I saw the original version of this meme with the anarchy symbol instead of the hammer and sickle, though I can’t find it anymore. MLs don’t do anarchist erasure challenge: impossible.
anarchist erasure
You know you can just repost this with the anarchist symbol pasted over the hammer and sickle in response right? Like you think the OP presumably did to your symbol. If you care, there’s nothing stopping you from erasing us tankies right back, we can handle it. You could even snarkily title it “Perspectives about life (fixed)” or something. Go crazy, this is literally the meme community.
Also, ironic that an anarchist is protesting someone covering up their symbol to express a different thought. No kings or masters or hierarchy but an abstract symbol on a shitpost is sacred and can’t be touched?
authority is bad
Its cool if I just be a dick then. You’re a hypocrite for asking me not to or pointing it out.
Authoritarianism is when you’re a dick. Stepping in to use authority to deal with someone who’s being a dick? Somehow not authoritarian.
You’re a hypocrite
How do liberals use this word so much and never bother to learn what it means?
You’re a hypocrite for asking me not to or pointing it out.
No? I’m definitely what people like you call an “authoritarian seeseepee tankie” who supposedly loves suppressing speech for sport. My comment was perfectly inline (get it? cause I toe the party line?) with the totalitarian dictatorship aspirations I definitely totally have.
The “original” is just Calvin and Hobbes, the only edits are adding symbols for each line of dialogue. I don’t think anarchists can claim to “own” the format of such a meme, it’s not like the original Calvin and Hobbes strip was explicitly an anarchist message or communist message.
Sounds like you’re just making up reasons to dunk on communists.
You don’t have to believe me, I just found it amusing. I remember seeing it and I can also see the hammer and sickle in this one is sharper than the rest of the image, meaning it was pasted over something. Don’t know if OP edited it or found it already edited, but I know the original is out there somewhere.
Have you considered that this could be the “original” and you saw an “edited” one? Or perhaps both were done completely independently.
Claiming Anarchist erasure because you saw a different version of an edited comic is quite a leap.
