• FellowHuman@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Can I have a serious question? Are you guys real? Or am I just not on the joke?

    I do not like US, but being someone from country controled by USSR. There were ton of people arested just for publicaly saying “Goverment bad”.

    Please don’t discredit me, compared to US, I would be considered socialist and by US right wing maybe communist, but claiming that USSR or current Russia are your friends seems insane.

    • trashxeos
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      1 year ago

      Yes, Lemmygrad is explicitly communist.

      Countries weren’t controlled by the USSR, they were a member state of the USSR and had input on democratic central planning and decisions. Please feel free to provide documentation if you feel that my worldview is incorrect.

      Modern Russia and the USSR are two entirely different issues.

      • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I’ll push back on this maybe they were controlled by the ussr. However like, is thst not better than the alternatives. The local bourgeoisie were so good? Or the nazis? Or thr Americans? Sovereignty is a myth and mostly harmful to the citizens of places that have it. Like, what freedom does it bring people that their government can decide how to opress them?

            • redtea
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              1 year ago

              Well, why didn’t they leave? You now know that they could have left. So why did they choose to stay until the whole bloc collapsed? Are you open to the possibility that the people and the leaders of the time wanted to be part of the USSR? And the people and the leaders who got what they wanted when they left:

              1. Now have the power to be the dominant voice, and
              2. Continue to say what they used to say now that they had power?

              You said that you would be considered a socialist in the US, soYou probably know that capitalist states are run by a minority of wealthy people. It’s the same in post-Soviet capitalist states, right? (Like Russia, which we agree is a capitalist hellhole like every other capitalist state.)

              If you’re still with me, could it be that a minority of liberals who complained about ‘conditions’ in the USSR are the same minority of liberals who today praise capitalism and criticise/slander the USSR?

              Edit: realised I was talking to a different person.

                • DamarcusArt
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                  1 year ago

                  Which do you think is more likely though?

                  That a union of nations that has been dead for 30 years is still tricking people with evil commie propaganda to make them think it was a fairly normal place, and not a pointlessly cruel hell on earth,

                  Or that the capitalist class, in the capitalist west, the US especially, the heart of global capitalism, would want its citizens to think that socialism never works and that the people should just resign themselves to a life under capitalism, the system in which they are in charge and benefit the most from? And so lie to their citizens in order to achieve this goal?

                • redtea
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                  1 year ago

                  I just realised I was talking to two people and edited my comment.

                  My other points still stand. You’ve proved my point: there isn’t a ‘right’ answer, there’s only, like always, a class-based answer. If you believe the ruling class you reach one conclusion. If not, you reach a different conclusion.

                  It’s up to you which side you find more authoritative. For me, I’m skeptical of every word that leaves the mouths or pens of people who keep the working class oppressed and living in shit conditions.

            • COMHASH
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              1 year ago

              Why don’t you give up Hawaii and Puerto rico which you illegally annexed ? What about Mexcian lands that you stole ? Baltic states were given up by Lenin to Germany in Brest treaty , they were vassals of Germany and became fascistic in later years , why would Soviet Russia give up Baltic states when they got it back from Germany in 1939?

    • KiG V2
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      1 year ago

      I’m sorry but you need to consider that you simply have been lied to about your own history.

      Fairly criticizing the government in the USSR–just like in China, just like in North Korea, and so on–is not illegal.

      What these countries do crack down on is when fascists, capitalist opportunists, and foreign intelligence agents work actively to try and destroy, divide, and sabotage them.

      The vast majority of people the USSR killed or imprisoned (a number far smaller than what we are told), were actively trying to destroy the USSR, and all the lives of millions of common people who were benefitting from this new system. Why when capitalists kill whoever they see fit, they can call them “traitors”, “treasonous”, or “terrorists”, but when socialists do something far more restrained and humane they are seen as devils?

      Well, because, capitalist propaganda has strangled the world discourse, especially the last 30 years. The United States and its allies have spent the last century not only trying to destroy every socialist state but to muddy the waters, lie, and character assassinate its enemies. Everything from gulags, the Holodomor, WW2 war doctrine, the Great Purge, and everything before and after has been radically distorted by capitalist and fascist liars.

      I believe you that in your heart you are a socialist. So please listen to me when I say: do not trust the lies about your socialist brothers and sisters that were invented by capitalist and fascist snakes who want to destroy everything you would build.

    • redtea
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      1 year ago

      claiming that USSR or current Russia are your friends seems insane

      The USSR is gone. It’s not around to be anyone’s friend. This means that communists who talk highly of the USSR are analysing the USSR and concluding that it was the greatest experiment in raising living standards in history. (Maybe that’s now China, but it’s going to be a difficult and possibility incoherent comparison.)

      Compare the standard of living before and after the Soviets gained power. Success is the only word for it, even if they’re are valid criticisms. (Do not do that silly thing where you compare life for the average person at any time in the Soviet Union with the life of the most decadent and rich person in the US. That’s not logical.)

      I doubt there are many communists who see Russia as a friend. What you see instead are communists acknowledging that Russia is fighting US imperialism. Considering how much death, tragedy, and destruction the US brings and has brought to the world, any work against the US is a net positive for humanity.

      (To preclude misunderstanding, no I am not saying that people dying in the Ukraine war is a good thing. Except die hard Nazis. They can get fucked. It’s up to the reader to decide where they think the Nazis are.)

      I want to emphasise and follow up something that KiG V2 said:

      What these countries do crack down on is when fascists, capitalist opportunists, and foreign intelligence agents work actively to try and destroy, divide, and sabotage them.

      Liberals tend to read things like this and say that it is a ‘conspiracy’. But think about it like this: if we know one thing for a fact, it is that “capitalist opportunists, and foreign intelligence agents work[ed] actively to … destroy, divide, and sabotage” the USSR until they won. The capitalists won. They got what they wanted. They got what the communists were saying that the reactionaries wanted all along—the end of the USSR.

      Now we have 30 years of evidence of how capitalists would run the regions of the USSR differently. If you can compare what life in the USSR looked like before and after the Soviets gained power, you can also compare what life was like before and after the Soviets lost power.

      So what happened after the Berlin wall fell? Can you honestly look at the statistics, the records, the economy, the stories, and say that life got better?

      If you can, I’d ask you to look again at all segments of society, not just the lucky few in the middle and upper classes. If you think life got worse after the USSR (it did—living standards plummeted), ask: what changed? You, too, will answer that for all it’s flaws, the change was from socialism to capitalism and that socialism was by far a superior system for the mass of people.

      (PS using ‘insane’ as a way of criticising something is ableism.)

    • pancake
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      1 year ago

      If you like your government, you don’t want anyone to organize against it. And if many people think like you, a truly democratic government would act according to your desires and jail the agitators.

      Or, put otherwise, if you use the democratic mechanisms in place, it’s all good. If you protest or demonstrate because you feel you aren’t heard by the government, that’ll usually have an effect. But if, deep inside, you want to overthrow the government, everyone will hate you and you’ll be jailed or worse.

      • areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz
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        1 year ago

        But if, deep inside, you want to overthrow the government, everyone will hate you and you’ll be jailed or worse.

        Don’t you guys also want to overthrow a government?

        Or, put otherwise, if you use the democratic mechanisms in place, it’s all good. If you protest or demonstrate because you feel you aren’t heard by the government, that’ll usually have an effect.

        Tell that to the people in china.

        • pancake
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          1 year ago

          Don’t you guys also want to overthrow a government?

          According to communist theory, our current liberal governments are not democratic, because capital exerts control over them by various means. Thus, overthrowing them is necessary. Of course, if we had a democratic government, we wouldn’t wish to overthrow it.

          Tell that to the people in china.

          If I’m not mistaken, there were extremely small-scale protests about COVID-19 measures and the government immediately listened and removed them.

        • Muad'DibberMA
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          1 year ago

          Chinese people overwhelming support their government.

          Source: Harvard (We know how you western chauvinists don’t trust anything from a non-euroamerikkkan source)

          In contrast to low US political approval ratings, 96% of Chinese are satisfied with the national government (Edelmans 2016). World Values Surveys says that 83% think the country is run for their benefit rather than for the benefit of special groups. A Harvard research center study of long-term public opinion survey finds that > 95% of Chinese citizens approved their government. How is this possible in a one-party state? (TED talk by Eric X Li)

          • areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz
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            1 year ago

            On what basis do you call me a western chauvinist?

            America is in an active state of collapse. My own country England is also slowly declining or has at least lost its relevance. These and other countries like France have done large damage to the world through imperialism. These are all things I acknowledge.

            This is the problem I have with Marxists online. You can’t actually discuss with someone you don’t agree with without putting them into a box and making wild assumptions towards this end.

            I would say that it’s all well and good for the people to approve of the government but this is meaningless when they lie and cover up information while committing crimes like attempted genocide and forced reeducation of minority groups.

            • Muad'DibberMA
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              1 year ago

              when they lie and cover up information while committing crimes like attempted genocide and forced reeducation of minority groups.

              Again, only the anglo countries think this is happening. The rest of the world, namely Muslim countries (especially those who would be receiving refugees were there a genocide) , and the Uyghur people themselves, disagree with you :

              “they lie”, enough with the orientalism rudyard kipling. Anglos are the most racist people on the planet, and you need to shut your damn mouths before you spout orientalism.

              • areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz
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                1 year ago

                the Uyghur people themselves, disagree with you

                You’re gonna need some evidence for claims like this. I would have expected better from someone named after Paul Atredies.

              • areyouevenreal@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz
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                1 year ago

                orientalism

                Since when does calling out genocide have anything to do with orientalism? Like if you just want a successful (given the circumstances) nation under Marxism-Leninism you could just look to Cuba.

    • sinovictorchan
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      1 year ago

      Do you have any proof or detail for your claim? Your claim sound like the many disproven slanders against the Communists that is accepted as fact in the school textbooks and “educational” documentaries in Western European diaspora countries. I know that Venezuela under the former Socialist president, Hugo Chavez, tolerate slanders and baseless conspiracy theories against the Socialist government and that “Putin’s police guards” allow people to freely sing Ukrainian anthem in Moscow without restrainment. The NATO did stage the 1989 False Flag massacre and write a false narrative that contradicts the original photo evidence by their Western European diaspora journalists (https://web.archive.org/web/19970329011405/http://www.cnd.org:8022/June4th/massacre.html) in China alongside the plothole of why the Chinese citizens somehow did not know about the repression before the 1989 false flag terrorism.

    • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      1 year ago

      They are just scared idiots who are worried about the future of the world and instead of admitting that their is gray to the world they have taken an easy answer of saying the “other option” (because black and white is all people can think in) was perfect and that they could be 100% happy and never complain about anything ever cause surely communism would be perfect.

      They are happy to ignore the rough edges because they aren’t actually living it. Not to say it couldn’t be a better system but that it would be one that needs work and effort to be best to its citizens.

      Both capitalism and communism arrested its citizens for dissenting against the system they were in but this seems fucking ignorant of reality from people who put in half a thought on this at best.

      • redtea
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        1 year ago

        If there is ‘gray to the world’ does that mean you accept that there must be a positive as well as a negative side to the USSR?

      • cayde6ml
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        1 year ago

        Your final sentence is pure projection.