I’m a leftist but I’m not much of a fan of the Soviet Union. I’m Finnish and middle-aged so I know a bunch of people who had to escape from there and I’ve heard first-hand stories about the shit that went on, and I’ve visited Soviet Estonia who got the short end of the stick with Russian imperialism compared to us. At least we stayed independent although had to grant a lot of power over eg. our foreign policy to the Russians – ie. Soviets, but it’s not like it wasn’t essentially a Russian project since they pretty quickly forgot about korenization and went for Russification instead – to keep them from invading (again…)
One of the biggest failures of alot of leftists spaces is failing to criticize the failures of the USSR. Yes they had alot of Ws but they also took their fair shares of Ls due to external and internal forces. That being said there arent many leftists that geninuinly want to recreate the USSR. We are merely trying to pierce through the veil of Capitalist propaganda to recontectuallize what they did right and incorporate it into the modern political discourse.
That was well said. Recontextualization is exactly the thing; it’s not that I think the Soviet Union was absolute evil with zero redeeming features. They got more right during the early years although I’m not necessarily a huge fan of that period either, and to a large extent it was Stalin who fucked them up pretty severely with the frankly sociopathic system that the Union turned into.
Russian political culture has been outright brutal for a long time. Eg. these KGB-like secret police organizations have been around for a while and have invariably had brutal methods of dealing with politically displeasing individuals or just who-the-hell-ever in many cases. This, coupled with the cultural ethos that Russia and Russians – and specifically meaning ethnic Russians – are superior to anyone outside their borders and a tendency for imperialism, means that Russian rule has nearly invariably been a shitty time, with Finland being one of the few exceptions as we mostly faced little repression or cultural erasure compared to other Russian “colonies” and this was done intentionally; most of the Russian Emperors during our time as a Grand Duchy in some ways thought of Finland as way to show the European powers that they can run things in a “western” way, and to work as a kind of window to the West. For the last 20 or so years they did try to Russify us, which we – being stubborn fucks – did not take well. We also kept our previous Parliament for the most part even though even starting from Alexander I the Emperors wanted to have autocratic rule, but – again in parts thanks to us being stubborn fucks – it took something like 4 emperors for it to happen. Their other historical or the currently existing colonies (nobody seems to think of Russia as a colonialist empire because their colonies are inside contiguous borders) weren’t quite so lucky, as Russification and “Russian supremacy” has been the standard.
This political culture played a large part in the problems with the Union. It was nominally multicultural (and korenization was briefly a thing until they went back to Russification as usual) but it wasn’t exactly unclear who were ultimately in charge.
And before some smartass barges in asking me why it’s OK if the US/UK/France/whoever does this stuff: I don’t like imperialism any more regardless of who’s doing it.
Jokes aside communism is just as bad because it does nothing to prevent power from congregating at the top. The only difference is the type of corruption.
Talk to anyone who grew up in the eastern block about bread lines. Communism is a failure in comparison to capitalism.
You posted a photo of fully stocked shelves and every word you said is a straight up trope. “Corruption” does so much work with politically illiterate westerners to paper over why ‘bad thing is bad’ without a lick of knowledge about either the bad system or the good one in your mind. And I always love hearing about how bad socialism is from people who suffered from the end of socialism.
Ultimately the only actual reason the west has for why socialism is bad is “We’ll kill you”
Point taken. I am not for communism as I’ve seen first hand what it looks like. All communism does is congregate the power in the government instead of private hands. It’s still corrupt just in a different way.
Doesn’t matter the form of government. Power will narrow and corrupt IMHO. It’s human nature.
A lot of it, as a “Westerner” is also the devil you know.
You can’t use personal experiences as evidence when you’re staying anonymous and won’t say what those experiences were. If you’re 60 years old you got a solid 10 years of socialism in the last phase of being overtaken by the west to make adult brained judgements about it.
Let’s start with how old you are. Are you 60 or older? And what country are you talking about?
The one that is the best at mitigating greed.
I’m a leftist but I’m not much of a fan of the Soviet Union. I’m Finnish and middle-aged so I know a bunch of people who had to escape from there and I’ve heard first-hand stories about the shit that went on, and I’ve visited Soviet Estonia who got the short end of the stick with Russian imperialism compared to us. At least we stayed independent although had to grant a lot of power over eg. our foreign policy to the Russians – ie. Soviets, but it’s not like it wasn’t essentially a Russian project since they pretty quickly forgot about korenization and went for Russification instead – to keep them from invading (again…)
One of the biggest failures of alot of leftists spaces is failing to criticize the failures of the USSR. Yes they had alot of Ws but they also took their fair shares of Ls due to external and internal forces. That being said there arent many leftists that geninuinly want to recreate the USSR. We are merely trying to pierce through the veil of Capitalist propaganda to recontectuallize what they did right and incorporate it into the modern political discourse.
That was well said. Recontextualization is exactly the thing; it’s not that I think the Soviet Union was absolute evil with zero redeeming features. They got more right during the early years although I’m not necessarily a huge fan of that period either, and to a large extent it was Stalin who fucked them up pretty severely with the frankly sociopathic system that the Union turned into.
Russian political culture has been outright brutal for a long time. Eg. these KGB-like secret police organizations have been around for a while and have invariably had brutal methods of dealing with politically displeasing individuals or just who-the-hell-ever in many cases. This, coupled with the cultural ethos that Russia and Russians – and specifically meaning ethnic Russians – are superior to anyone outside their borders and a tendency for imperialism, means that Russian rule has nearly invariably been a shitty time, with Finland being one of the few exceptions as we mostly faced little repression or cultural erasure compared to other Russian “colonies” and this was done intentionally; most of the Russian Emperors during our time as a Grand Duchy in some ways thought of Finland as way to show the European powers that they can run things in a “western” way, and to work as a kind of window to the West. For the last 20 or so years they did try to Russify us, which we – being stubborn fucks – did not take well. We also kept our previous Parliament for the most part even though even starting from Alexander I the Emperors wanted to have autocratic rule, but – again in parts thanks to us being stubborn fucks – it took something like 4 emperors for it to happen. Their other historical or the currently existing colonies (nobody seems to think of Russia as a colonialist empire because their colonies are inside contiguous borders) weren’t quite so lucky, as Russification and “Russian supremacy” has been the standard.
This political culture played a large part in the problems with the Union. It was nominally multicultural (and korenization was briefly a thing until they went back to Russification as usual) but it wasn’t exactly unclear who were ultimately in charge.
And before some smartass barges in asking me why it’s OK if the US/UK/France/whoever does this stuff: I don’t like imperialism any more regardless of who’s doing it.
Jokes aside communism is just as bad because it does nothing to prevent power from congregating at the top. The only difference is the type of corruption.
Talk to anyone who grew up in the eastern block about bread lines. Communism is a failure in comparison to capitalism.
This is the dumbest comment on this entire page.
You posted a photo of fully stocked shelves and every word you said is a straight up trope. “Corruption” does so much work with politically illiterate westerners to paper over why ‘bad thing is bad’ without a lick of knowledge about either the bad system or the good one in your mind. And I always love hearing about how bad socialism is from people who suffered from the end of socialism.
Ultimately the only actual reason the west has for why socialism is bad is “We’ll kill you”
Socialism != Communism you moron.
I’m actually all for socialism.
Communists are also socialists just as apples are also fruit. I was using socialism in the broad sense.
Point taken. I am not for communism as I’ve seen first hand what it looks like. All communism does is congregate the power in the government instead of private hands. It’s still corrupt just in a different way.
Doesn’t matter the form of government. Power will narrow and corrupt IMHO. It’s human nature.
A lot of it, as a “Westerner” is also the devil you know.
You can’t use personal experiences as evidence when you’re staying anonymous and won’t say what those experiences were. If you’re 60 years old you got a solid 10 years of socialism in the last phase of being overtaken by the west to make adult brained judgements about it.
Let’s start with how old you are. Are you 60 or older? And what country are you talking about?
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Capitalism is much filthier lol
Thanks for the meme idea though.
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