What makes talking about the Soviet Union so difficult is that anti-communism is so deeply ingrained almost everywhere in U.S. politics that you always start off fighting an uphill battle, and at any point the person you're talking to can just shut their brain off and default back to "commies bad."
This is why media criticism is so important -- you have to demonstrate to people that they've been subjected to propaganda to neutralize that propaganda, and you have to neutralize anti-communist propaganda to have a productive conversation about any sort of real-life leftist project.
Left anti-communism is counterproductive, but at the same time we have to avoid labeling good-faith criticisms of leftist projects as left anti-communism. If you oppose the death penalty in modern America, you can oppose it in modern China without being anti-communist.
The distancing and aggressiveness towards them and the grabs standings of denouncement that characterize most of the American left regarding socialist projects rejects anything like that from the get go
I don't think leftists who are overly-critical of leftist states necessarily reject that those states were genuine attempts to build something good. I think you can find honest leftists who:
- Buy into propaganda like "Castro was a murderous dictator" uncritically because they've never put in the effort to research the reality of the situation, because the reality of the situation has functionally zero impact on their lives. So they write off those states because they're not relevant to, say, trying to pass Medicare for All.
- Have dug into the non-propagandized reality of leftist states and still think some of the actions of those states were bad (see the death penalty example). So they write off those states because (a) they have some genuine issues with them anyway and (b) they genuinely have a much more utopian vision of a leftist future.
- Have dug into the non-propagandized reality of leftist states and are making a tactical choice to write them off on the theory that re-litigating the reality of the USSR will do more harm than good to existing leftist projects.
To me, all three of these come off as ceding way too much ground to reactionaries right off the bat, but I can at least see where these leftists are coming from. And depending on what their position is that approach might be justifiable.
we have to avoid labeling good-faith criticisms of leftist projects as left anti-communism
Nah.
Cause then you'd know the channels "good faith criticisms" have to go through, democratic centralism and all and those "good faith criticisms" get reprinted literally into liberal talking points that criticize ML states from 'the left'.
DAE le China bad for death penalty????
The problem? Every ML state ever has had and has the death penalty, you are now criticizing every existing ML state and put on a pedestal the bourgeois democracies that "abolished" the death penalty but materially also extra-judicially apply it by denying medical treatment, housing, straight up execution-by-police or put away people for life for stealing/drug crimes, nevermind what they do in their little expeditions in the 3rd world.
Enough people have been quarantined for long enough to understand or at least grasp the concept of permanently incarcerating someone for a nonviolent and petty crimes in conditions far worse than "house arrest".
All while giving a foil for "NGOs" which are only non-governamental in name only to repurpose the same exact thing to criticize and undermine those states you allegedly also support.
example:
Amnesty International claims hat Mainland China executes more people than all other countries combined,
Because a Monarchy that participates in wars in the 3rd world and is part of the Imperial Core that exploits it, totally, totally cares about 'human rights'.
The stance I take with my friends, which is genuine, is to largely distance myself from capital C Communism and focus more on the most immediate policies with anticapitalist heft. You can advocate for worker power and removing healthcare from the sphere of capitalism, and people will immediately equate these acts with Stalinism. I think the tact to take isn't to defend the Holodomor or something. Just advocate for these issues in their own right, and question why these things must be linked.
It's a more libby approach than going all the way and defending broader socialist ideas, but you're not going to be pulling out Das Kapital in some casual conversation. Better to stick to the core issues, and leave the next steps for later.
This is purely for when talking to friends, however. It's important to draw from much more radical leftist projects once you've formed a leftist movement and are planning actions.
Another reason not to shy away from that history is because you will be seen as dishonest if you're not up front about it from the very start. Every American has been taught that communists are the most conniving, wretched creatures who lurk in the shadows and poison the minds of the innocent and weak with sweet lies and false promises. Your first job when you set out to dispel that picture is to be completely forthright about your motivations as well as candid about how much work and struggle is involved. You don't ever want someone to find out you are advocating for communism from someone who is not you, they'll automatically assume you were trying to deceive them.
So how do you respond to things of this nature? I'm find myself struggling to formulate why this is bullshit.
Read history and read theory. If you just open a book and read literally anything you'll already be better equipped for these discussions that anyone you'll be up against. If you just need a quick and dirty response, "Any time you find yourself mad at an entire country, it's because of a State Department campaign." That line has never let me down because it's always true.
If you just open a book and read literally anything
Harry Potter and the State and Revolution
I mean their Potterverse theory sucks too, they think Hermione was wrong about the house elves and none of them realize Hagrid was a Death Eater.
Just watch the yellow Parenti video people
But I also found this one:
https://youtu.be/xP8CzlFhc14
yellow Parenti video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXyBSX_mnnc
Is this the one? It's definitely yellow.