Been seeing a lot of people coming in here handwringing about 'red fash' and 'muh authoritarianism.'
Figuring that this will be a common occurrence for a while, so wanted to make a collective thread here. The purpose of this is to just have one spot as so we don't fill up the comm with a ton of posts about it.
Post away, comrades!
The "I’m pretty pro-left/socialist " only have one joke.
"Hey fellow leftists! Don't we all like to obsess about the zero people run over by tanks in Tienanmen Square because we like to repeat CIA propaganda? And misspell the name to show how much we care? Also, have you hear this Nazi holocaust denial about a double genocide where the people that saved Europe from the Nazis are actually bad? Yeah, socialism is repeating things the CIA and Nazis make up about Actually Existing Socialism, and the more falsehoods you spread, the more pro-left you are."
you can't misspell a transliteration
I mean, there are two major systems of transliteration and that's following neither of them, nor the official Roman Alphabet name or the common accepted spelling in anglophone press. So there are many standards of plausible spelling and it matches none of them.
These are the same people who say they prefer socialism and not communism, and when asked why or what they mean they’ll turn their mouths into a portal leading directly to Langley Virginia
Amazing imagery. :order-of-lenin:
Lolol that's good
Thing is, there's plenty of valid criticism from Marxist-Leninists about the actions of the USSR and PRC in those specific instances. The CPC themselves will tell you they could have handled certain things better (and they've improved since then). The issue is the fact this user brings up those two events in particular and specifically label it "the Holodomor" which means you'll know what to expect.
(That said, it's important to separate baby leftists from libs acting in bad faith, and to be patient with the former. Lots of us have been there)
The issue is, and always has been, that it is possible to educate baby leftists when the majority are "tankies". When the majority of a forum are libs acting in bad faith, there is no sustainable way to sort through the nonsense.
Burnout is a real thing that needs to be accounted for.
I tried to write a comment in response to that. I tried to put on my "nice" hat. I dunno why I try, it's not like they're gonna listen. Tried to use the BBC as a source, because they're "trustworthy" (lmao) to hopefully create some kind of doubt in their heads. I just know that when I became a leftist I was still a little "But, like, I heard about what they did in Tiananmen, isn't that true?", and when sources were thrown at me, I started to question my own opinions, and actually changed them very quickly. Maybe I'm naive though.
Let's see how many downvotes I get :michael-laugh:
Edit: Oh, and sorry for not being able to source Holodomor counterpoints. I've yet to read up on like concrete sources that can disprove things to people who are innundated by propaganda. I'm afraid that bringing up that Stalin isn't a Wizard, and can't just cast a famine spell isn't enough. And like the whole, Ukraine weren't the only ones affected by the famine. And the famines do actually happen in regions in that time. I'd love if someone has some good lib sources that can disprove it. Because libs get extreme cognitive dissonance when you tell them that The BBC agrees with us.
Mark Tauger is a nice safe boring mainstream source for the famine stuff
Appreciate it comrade. Will do some reading this weekend.
Here’s Mark Tauger’s review of Applebaum’s book on the Holodomor:
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169438
Here’s Mark Tauger’s review of Applebaum’s book on the Holodomor:
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169438
:fidel-salute:
With the famine, you don't need to prove that it didn't happen, and you don't need to prove that the USSR didn't fuck up, but you can find the stats on who died where and see that Ukraine wasn't specifically targeted, nor was any other ethnicity, which means it wasn't a "genocide" which has a specific definition.
It was a tragedy and one of many failures of the USSR, but those things need to be weighed against the successes of the USSR, and the failures of comparable capitalist states, especially in similar historical contexts.
I get what you're saying. I think what I mean is that there is a difference between active genocide, and famine. It was a failure. The same way that the famine under Mao was a failure, but they weren't genocides.
To actively seek the death of a population, is different to making a costly mistake. So what I mean when I'm talking about this, is that I want a source to bring nuance to the topic. Liberals just think "Mao killed 50 billion people, Tiananmen was a massacre, and The Holodomor was an active genocide" it makes it so that they don't see the nuance in the conversation. Has the USSR made mistakes, and done things I heavily disagree with? Yes. Does this mean that I think the illegal dissolution of the union was acceptable? No.
I'll critique the USSR, China, AES countries all day with fellow socialists, but when talking to liberals, I need to explain to them that they have some misconceptions first, and then we can talk about that after.
Liberals lack nuanced perspectives about a lot of things. They believe in good and evil. "We are good guys, they are bad guys". I can't discuss the failures of the USSR with people who just believe that the USSR was some evil empire. They have to understand the good they did too, and the myths they believe have to be dispelled.
Sorry for making that so long, don't take that to reflect that I have a problem with what you said, just want to make sure my perspective doesn't get misunderstood.
Nope I'm 100% with you comrade, I don't really have anything to add to what you said :fidel-salute-big:
this isnt really targeted at you in particular but one thing ive noticed with how MLs type is that the word "illegal" gets thrown around a lot, like the illegal dissolution of the ussr here or the illegal invasion of iraq or the illegal bombing of vietnam and its not really a way of framing it that i personally find particularly convincing. i think im just not a fan of the premise here thats making a normative claim based off legality.
I understand what you mean, and maybe I should not refer to it as such, but to explain why I specifically refer to the dissolution of the USSR as illegal, is due to the fact that 77.85% of the population of the Soviet Union voted to not dissolve it (Which I'm sure is not news here, just wanted to source just in case, I'm new here and still traumatized by Reddit lol). So while illegal might be the wrong word, I'm just referring to it also being against the will of the people. But this might be a bad way to frame it, I totally see what you mean, and I'll definitely think about what you said here, it does make sense to me.
sure, i understand the context too, don't worry. i certainly agree with what you're saying, and im not trying to be hostile, its just a tiny thing that i dont think should be standard is all.
Didn't take it as hostile at all, don't worry! :fidel-salute-big: Just wanted to explain myself. I mean it when I say that I appreciate your perspective.
:sankara-salute: O7, seeing newcomers to this site is always nice
At the rate things have been going, I expect they just deleted your comment
Yeah seems like they have blocked Lemmygrad, so they probably can't see my comment. Just found out, very sad. But it's fine, now I have a nice general comment I can copy-paste with a few modifications when I get someone saying something like that. And I also hope that some comrades can use the sources. I love the BBC one, since it just straight up is them saying "We were wrong, there was no massacre in the square", like I don't understand how you can deny that one.
The only claim regarding the 1930s famine that you need to combat is the claim that it was a genocide. Historians J.Arch Getty, Mark Tauger, and even the conservative anti-communist Robert Conquest don't believe it to be a genocide.
Here's Mark Tauger's review of Applebaum's book on the Holodomor:
https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/169438
Here's stuff about the way the "holodomor genocide" narrative about the 1930s famine has its roots in holocaust-denial:
https://spme.org/spme-research/analysis/clemens-heni-the-prague-declaration-antisemitism-with-a-democratic-face/7822/
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory
All your links here are going on my reading list for the weekend! I know they're not that long, but I just want to make sure that I can take the time to take notes when I'm reading. Appreciate it!