The Soviet prison system varied quite a bit, some with open visitation and no outer walls. They varied quite dramatically in conditions, but many were fairly progressive for the time. I recommend reading Russian Justice.
You’re spot on. Those who uphold the USSR as an overall force for good don’t think it was a magical utopia, but look at the hard metrics and see that, unlike Western powers, ultimately played a liberatory role globally and a progressive role domestically. Looking at geopolitical conflicts, they were almost always on the “correct” side, the one siding against colonialism, Nazism, and more.
Siding against colonialism: I guess its not colonialism when you’re colonialising your neighbouring countries and using your military to keep them in line / end liberation movements by force?
Siding against national socialism: At first they collaborated to take Poland together, and they made a deal to not attack each other. Only after Hitler broke that deal and attacked, forcing them to fight them, the USSR turned against Nazi-Germany.
The USSR never colonized anyone. Further, it supported movements in Cuba, Angola, Algeria, China, Vietnam, Korea, Palestine, and more.
As for Poland, rather than let the genocidal Nazis take all of Poland, the Soviets stopped them from taking all of it. We see the difference in treatment when the Nazis exterminated Polish people and the Soviets did not.
1939 - August - USSR - Molotov-Ribbentrop Non Aggression pact - the only ones libs care about
Stalin with regards to this said:
“Indeed, it would be ridiculous and stupid to close our eyes to the capitalist encirclement and think that our external enemies, the fascists, for example, will not, if the opportunity arises, make an attempt at an attack upon the USSR. Only blind braggarts or masked enemies who desire to lull the vigilance of our people can think like that.”
“The Soviets signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany after the British and French rejected Soviet offers to establish a military alliance against Germany”
Stalin ‘planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact’
As if they were ever going to.
The Cold War & Its Origins, Vol. I, Denna F. Flemming, 1961, Chapter V:
Final Procrastination. This explicit warning did not increase the tempo in London. It was not until July 31 that Chamberlain finally announced the naming of a military mission to Moscow, to arrange the concrete terms of the proposed alliance. Molotov had named his top military men to negotiate, but instead of Lord Gort and General Gamelin the British-French delegation was headed by an obscure British Admiral, Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, and by a French General of comparable obscurity. Nor did this mission fly to Moscow as fast as planes could take it, to concert measures with desperate speed against the pitiable crucifixion of Poland which was boiling up on the horizon. While the sands were running out for Poland by the minute, the Allied mission took a slow Baltic boat, on August 5, and did not reach Moscow until August 11. Then it transpired, once again, that these men had no power to conclude an agreement.
According to American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania Kristen Ghodsee, efforts to institutionalize the “double genocide thesis”, or the moral equivalence between the Nazi Holocaust (race murder) and the victims of communism (class murder), in particular the push at the beginning of the 2007–2008 financial crisis for commemoration of the latter in Europe, can be seen as the response by economic and political elites to fears of a leftist resurgence in the face of devastated economies and extreme social inequalities in both the Eastern and Western worlds as the result of the excesses of neoliberal capitalism. She says that any discussion of the achievements by Communist states, including literacy, education, women’s rights, and social security is usually silenced, and any discourse on the subject of communism is focused almost exclusively on Joseph Stalin’s crimes and the “double genocide thesis”, an intellectual paradigm summed up as such: “1) any move towards redistribution and away from a completely free market is seen as communist; 2) anything communist inevitably leads to class murder; and 3) class murder is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust.” By linking all leftist and socialist ideals to the excesses of Stalinism, Ghodsee posits that the elites hope to discredit and marginalize all political ideologies that could “threaten the primacy of private property and free markets”.
I should have clarified that I’m not against socialism, just the hierarchy of states. We should instead pursue more egalitarian socialist expressions like social ecology or kinds of anarchy.
socialism >> communism is a evolving process, but every time it starts growing and developing, capital asserts itself to dominate and destroy it
the only Actually Existing Socialisms today have nuclear deterrents to avoid this fate, they also have to develop counter-intelligence defenses because just nuclear weapons are not enough to protect from all the myriad threats that capital engages in towards anti-socialist >> anti-communist goals
if you can not understand this material reality of history, and use it to analyze the struggle for liberation in this world, you are lost
The portrayal of the Communists and Nazis as “twin evils” exaggerates the sins of the Communists in quantity and quality, while minimizing the sins of the Nazis in quantity and quality, in order to show them as relatively equal problems. In other words, its Nazi apologia, and historical revisionism. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
The Nazis executed the Communists, Socialists, gay people, trans people, disabled people, Jewish people, Slavic people, and many, many more. It wasn’t simple opposition, it was a racially supremacist ideology.
The Communists executed Tsarists, fascists, and terrorists to the state. They did not create a systematic industrialized murder machine like the Nazis did in order to keep up with how many people they needed to kill.
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Soviet propaganda is a good thing, and it’s on the mark here. Socialism is necessary and Capitalism is clearly on the downhill.
Was the USSR good?
Yes.
yeah gulags were really great and the world needs more of them
The Soviet prison system varied quite a bit, some with open visitation and no outer walls. They varied quite dramatically in conditions, but many were fairly progressive for the time. I recommend reading Russian Justice.
yeah gulags were great, really progressive.
Read the book.
ofc not
I think so, relatively.
Weren’t they better than the Tsarist rule?
Like, public healthcare, education and other policies leading to high literacy rates, longer lifespans, low infant and mother mortality etc.
And if we compare them to the other major powers at the time, aren’t they better than those since they made progress without colonies?
You’re spot on. Those who uphold the USSR as an overall force for good don’t think it was a magical utopia, but look at the hard metrics and see that, unlike Western powers, ultimately played a liberatory role globally and a progressive role domestically. Looking at geopolitical conflicts, they were almost always on the “correct” side, the one siding against colonialism, Nazism, and more.
Siding against colonialism: I guess its not colonialism when you’re colonialising your neighbouring countries and using your military to keep them in line / end liberation movements by force?
Siding against national socialism: At first they collaborated to take Poland together, and they made a deal to not attack each other. Only after Hitler broke that deal and attacked, forcing them to fight them, the USSR turned against Nazi-Germany.
… and more?
The USSR never colonized anyone. Further, it supported movements in Cuba, Angola, Algeria, China, Vietnam, Korea, Palestine, and more.
As for Poland, rather than let the genocidal Nazis take all of Poland, the Soviets stopped them from taking all of it. We see the difference in treatment when the Nazis exterminated Polish people and the Soviets did not.
The USSR never sided with the Nazis. They hated each other. The liberal democracies of Europe made similar agreements with Hitler before the USSR, and shot down Stalin’s suggestions of an anti-fascist alliance. Furthermore, US industrialists were directly inspired by Fascist Germany and Italy to carry out the failed Business Plot against FDR. The USA also paid reparations to German industrialists for their destroyed property after the war was over (Yes, even German industrialists who used Holocaust slave labor, like Krupp).
1933 - UK, France, Italy - The four powers pact
1934 - Poland - Hitler-Pilsudski Pact
1935 - UK - Anglo-German Naval agreement
1936 - Japan - Anti-Comintern pact
1938 - September - UK - German-British Non Aggression Pact (Munich Agreement )
1938 - December - France - German-French Non Aggression Pact
1939 - March - Romania - German Romanian Economical Treaty
1939 - March - Lithuania - Non aggression ultimatum
1939 - May - Italy - Pact of Steel (Friendship and Alliance)
1939 - May - Denmark - Non aggression pact
1939 - June - Estonia - non aggression pact
1939 - July - Latvia - non aggression pact
1939 - August - USSR - Molotov-Ribbentrop Non Aggression pact - the only ones libs care about
Stalin with regards to this said:
“Indeed, it would be ridiculous and stupid to close our eyes to the capitalist encirclement and think that our external enemies, the fascists, for example, will not, if the opportunity arises, make an attempt at an attack upon the USSR. Only blind braggarts or masked enemies who desire to lull the vigilance of our people can think like that.”
Even the US state department confirmed Stalin’s rationale for a pact with Hitler
“The Soviets signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany after the British and French rejected Soviet offers to establish a military alliance against Germany”
CIA declassifies its dealings with ex nazis
Stalin ‘planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact’
How the Allied multinationals supplied Nazi Germany throughout World War II
As if they were ever going to.
The Cold War & Its Origins, Vol. I, Denna F. Flemming, 1961, Chapter V:
Of course they wouldn’t, they wanted the Soviets and Nazis to take each other out.
It’s either socialism or barbarism. That’s why we are back here again.
And unfortunately, USSR falls smack damn on the barbarism side of that divide
Indisputably the opposite, the Soviet Union was the first big Socialist state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_genocide_theory#Memory_politics_and_the_Holocaust_in_Eastern_Europe
I should have clarified that I’m not against socialism, just the hierarchy of states. We should instead pursue more egalitarian socialist expressions like social ecology or kinds of anarchy.
this is you rn
socialism >> communism is a evolving process, but every time it starts growing and developing, capital asserts itself to dominate and destroy it
the only Actually Existing Socialisms today have nuclear deterrents to avoid this fate, they also have to develop counter-intelligence defenses because just nuclear weapons are not enough to protect from all the myriad threats that capital engages in towards anti-socialist >> anti-communist goals
if you can not understand this material reality of history, and use it to analyze the struggle for liberation in this world, you are lost
you’re just mad they stopped the holocaust
…how could that possibly be your takeaway from what I said? I literally never even compared them to the Nazis, just said they weren’t socialist enough
reading between the lines
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The portrayal of the Communists and Nazis as “twin evils” exaggerates the sins of the Communists in quantity and quality, while minimizing the sins of the Nazis in quantity and quality, in order to show them as relatively equal problems. In other words, its Nazi apologia, and historical revisionism. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
The Nazis executed the Communists, Socialists, gay people, trans people, disabled people, Jewish people, Slavic people, and many, many more. It wasn’t simple opposition, it was a racially supremacist ideology.
The Communists executed Tsarists, fascists, and terrorists to the state. They did not create a systematic industrialized murder machine like the Nazis did in order to keep up with how many people they needed to kill.