unfortunately our automatic revisionism detector scrubbed liam from most of this episodeAdam Something on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AdamSomethingTIC...
the USSR definitely was not fascist, but it did evolve into in oligarchy, especially into the 70s and 80s leading to its collapse.
When the only way to have power/accumulate material wealth is through climbing the party’s social ladder and staying on the good side of the people in power it seems to me like a natural development that power consolidates in the few that have control/sway over the party and say who gets what
The late Soviet Union wasn't doing too good, but that quote was in reference to the Hungarian Uprising (1956, Khruschev), and the Prague Spring (1968, early Brezhnev years), which would be before that period. If we go the route of shitting on :corn-man-khrush: for revisionism and saying his reforms were responsible for this eventual (d)evolution, then we'd have to say Stalin was cool, which the hosts would also disagree with, which means only Lenin was cool, which brings us to the classic "socialists are only cool when they die early on and don't get to do too much" take
Sure, Stalin did some fucked up stuff. But the issue is treating this as the individual moral failings of a specific leader, and not taking into account the conditions of the time. If Lenin didn't have medical problems and had lived, if Trotsky had taken over instead of Stalin, how differently would they have done things really? I remember some stuff about Trotsky admitting he'd have done a lot of the same stuff Stalin did (although I can't give you a citation, so it might have been bullshit).
Reading up on that, the deportation seems to have happened during WW2, due to concerns about potential insurgency and collaboration with the Germans. That doesn't excuse it, and it seems like this resistance never materialised (not that it would necessarily excuse it if it had), but the Soviets were fighting against a foe that openly sought their extermination, paranoia about internal rebellions is to be expected.
Going back to the pod, they do a bit of shitting on socialist realism, and praising how cool early Soviet art was and how homosexuality was decriminalized, until Stalin came along and ruined everything. That's a classic example of this kind of blame - it's big bad socially-conservative Stalin who personally fucked things up, there weren't any other forces at play in the Soviet Union at all.
I was a trot for a while and I definitely remember him making that point about Stalin. In Trotskys argument anyone who would have become leader would have become "a Stalin" because of material reasons. Though the amount of Trots who still think this rather than silly "If my dude was leader it would be all good" type shit is arguable.
Well said. I just say fuck the population transfers full-stop; and then ask "now what?" it usually stops people in their tracks who need people to crumble or deny when faced with bad shit. Deny them that binary when it comes to crimes and atrocities.
But yeah the shit about acting like the USSR had achieved social progression or something and then Stalin reversed it is so cheap and anti-materialist. Stalin pandered to the church for support during WW2 and with so many movers and shakers dead from the purges. The conservative institutions were deemed acceptable allies for the time. Doesn't justify it, doesn't mean all his or soviet societies more conservative tendencies are because of that at all, but it is part of the process that led to a roll back on a lot of socially progressive stuff
the USSR definitely was not fascist, but it did evolve into in oligarchy, especially into the 70s and 80s leading to its collapse.
When the only way to have power/accumulate material wealth is through climbing the party’s social ladder and staying on the good side of the people in power it seems to me like a natural development that power consolidates in the few that have control/sway over the party and say who gets what
The late Soviet Union wasn't doing too good, but that quote was in reference to the Hungarian Uprising (1956, Khruschev), and the Prague Spring (1968, early Brezhnev years), which would be before that period. If we go the route of shitting on :corn-man-khrush: for revisionism and saying his reforms were responsible for this eventual (d)evolution, then we'd have to say Stalin was cool, which the hosts would also disagree with, which means only Lenin was cool, which brings us to the classic "socialists are only cool when they die early on and don't get to do too much" take
idk you can hold the position that neither are great, and one is more badder than the other.
for example enacting/overseeing a genocide is not very pog
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Chechens_and_Ingush
Sure, Stalin did some fucked up stuff. But the issue is treating this as the individual moral failings of a specific leader, and not taking into account the conditions of the time. If Lenin didn't have medical problems and had lived, if Trotsky had taken over instead of Stalin, how differently would they have done things really? I remember some stuff about Trotsky admitting he'd have done a lot of the same stuff Stalin did (although I can't give you a citation, so it might have been bullshit).
Reading up on that, the deportation seems to have happened during WW2, due to concerns about potential insurgency and collaboration with the Germans. That doesn't excuse it, and it seems like this resistance never materialised (not that it would necessarily excuse it if it had), but the Soviets were fighting against a foe that openly sought their extermination, paranoia about internal rebellions is to be expected.
Going back to the pod, they do a bit of shitting on socialist realism, and praising how cool early Soviet art was and how homosexuality was decriminalized, until Stalin came along and ruined everything. That's a classic example of this kind of blame - it's big bad socially-conservative Stalin who personally fucked things up, there weren't any other forces at play in the Soviet Union at all.
I was a trot for a while and I definitely remember him making that point about Stalin. In Trotskys argument anyone who would have become leader would have become "a Stalin" because of material reasons. Though the amount of Trots who still think this rather than silly "If my dude was leader it would be all good" type shit is arguable.
Well said. I just say fuck the population transfers full-stop; and then ask "now what?" it usually stops people in their tracks who need people to crumble or deny when faced with bad shit. Deny them that binary when it comes to crimes and atrocities.
But yeah the shit about acting like the USSR had achieved social progression or something and then Stalin reversed it is so cheap and anti-materialist. Stalin pandered to the church for support during WW2 and with so many movers and shakers dead from the purges. The conservative institutions were deemed acceptable allies for the time. Doesn't justify it, doesn't mean all his or soviet societies more conservative tendencies are because of that at all, but it is part of the process that led to a roll back on a lot of socially progressive stuff