one example of this is the study book for my current course. we were given this assignment from the book. i've translated it, of course

"take a stance on the following statement: stalin's USSR was a totalitarian state." here are the example answers given by the book:

"stances in favor of the statement:

  • the country had a single-party system and a communist party dictatorship
  • Stalin had consolidated power by the end of the 1920s
  • Stalin's cult of personality
  • the great purge of the 1930s: stalin's political enemies were liquidated or taken to prison camps
  • independent peasants, a.k.a. kulaks, were forcibly migrated
  • sources of information were controlled and art was subjugated to emphasize the power of the country's ideology"

next up is the best part and the reason I'm making this post. some more of the book's example answers:

"stances against the statement:

  • can anything even be said against the statement?
  • the communists thought the country's workers had the power, but that was just propaganda talk."

i love how even when they attempt to criticize red scare rhetoric, they just give up before they even try.

    • Enver_Hoxha [she/her]
      8·
      4 years ago

      Fuck off how are you any different than fucing liberals? Just because you used the state power to boost support for your party and yourself doesnt mean you have any right to act with impunity isnt socialism supposed to be about democracy and not centered around small cabals?

      • SheetsOfLenin [he/him]
        1·
        4 years ago

        small cabals

        Lmao. Just wait til you hear your namesake was also a Marxist-Leninist. There are multiple great write-ups, videos, and podcasts that critically examine Stalin's legacy. It is perfectly fine to dislike the direction the party and state went, but it should be done precisely and not with rhetoric entirely indistinguishable from red scare bullshit.

        He's a complicated figure on his own without the myth-making by the West and the later Soviets themselves.

        • Enver_Hoxha [she/her]
          8·
          4 years ago

          Ussr was doomed from the start or how do you think it fell? was it just (((western imperialism))) or greedy revisionists? clearly if the ruling partys version of socialism was the right way they wouldnt have lost the people but that didnt happen. It was from the START an authoritarian state trying to implement their agenda over millions of poeple and for a huge amount of land it was never democratic nor did the poepoel have a ny meaningful say in in it