• penguin_von_doom [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    If I am to defend the AES countries a little you have to see them in their historic context.

    Definitely. WIth that, people in these discussions do tend to overfocus on East Germany or the western part of the USSR, simply cause these were the big visible spaces. And in general Eastern Germany was materially better and more developed.

    You can also say that the nationalism, homophobia and transphobia in Russia today was only made worse by the regression to capitalism

    Eeeh.... yes and no. The nationalism definitely, because there were major developments in conspipracy theories and their spread after the fall of the socialist regimes. At the same time, there was definitely a strong nationalistic streak even before that, well embedded in the educational institutions. And homophobia and transphobia I think have not changed or have even slightly improved. But hatred towards foreigners would depend - i.e. in South East Europe hatred towards muslims (turks) was a major part of educational propaganda, since they were a major threat at the time. Similar with Greeks.

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      To my understanding the period from 1992 to now has seen an advance in LGBT rights and social acceptance of LGBT people across industrialised nations. There are notable exceptions, but in broad terms things are better now than back then. This means that Russia is falling behind by stagnating.

      Current Russian nationalism and homophobia is certainly a continuation of that of the Soviet Union. A future socialist state needs to be less culturally regressive. The revolution should not just be an economic one but also a social.

      • penguin_von_doom [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Depends on where really. Things were kinda improving after the fall of the regimes, but in recent years have taken a turn for the worse. I would argue in the last couple of years the situation may have reversed to a point where things are much worse than before, because these issues have become a lot more visibile and discussed, and there has been a much stronger reaction.