- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
You must log in or register to comment.
you know, i tell you what. i’m fed up with all this gringo self-righteousness when you talk about “oh communism was bad, oh people where killed, oh people had no food, oh people had no liberty, oh people could not buy ataris, oh our countries are so democratic”. your countries were democratic during the cold war in the first place because you had people to sort things out for you here in the global south. for each person complaining about how the food rations in eastern europe were not tasty enough, there were 10 dying of hunger or malnourishment here in the global south. for every person complaining they had to wait 5 years in a queue to buy a trabant or an oka, there were 10 who got no school in a range of 50 km. for every person complaining that their 8 hour shifts in state owned factories were overwhelming, there were 10 who were indentured workers. for every person complaining about how the stasi, kgb or the stb had bugged their apartment, there were 10 suffering the most horrific tortures inside black sites of the military of u.s. allies here in the “third world”. for every person complaining about dull standard apartment blocks in mikrorayons, there were 10 who lived in mud shacks and slums, and those are just who were lucky enough to have a roof over their heads. finally, for everyone complaining about chinese sweatshops, which are indeed a problem, there are 10 americans who work and yet cannot afford proper housing.
you wanna complain about how communism was bad? go ahead. you wanna complain how your parents lived under communism and could not drink coke? do so if you wish. but there are still millions of people down here who would give an arm and a leg to have a polish ration, an apartment in a russian gray building, or a yugoslav job. and while the chinese maoist red guard was bad, surely it won’t be an inch closer to the harassement people endured on a daily basis by our police forces.
again: you wanna complain? be my guest. but for me that’s an encyclopedic example of white privilege.
If it’s not the CIA it will be a coup from some smart ass****e high ranked in the military/party.
Humans are to greedy to live in a socialist peaceful world.
Have you considered a world where power is based in social welfare instead of capital?
Would be nice, but it just never going to happen.
We’ve been there already.
So no, you haven’t.
Literally any socialistic country turned in a shitty dictatorship. Do you still need further investigations?
The biggest example is China. They opened to capitalism in order to let the greedy comrades survive in their power and what you have know? Chinese are free to earn tons of money, but not to say what they think.
It’s the biggest paradox of the world.
In the biggest socialist country capitalism is tollerated more then free speech.
That doesn’t make any sense, though, greed has a larger impact on Capitalist systems as its the main mover and driver.
Yes, exactly! For all the noxious effects of greed, it drives competition which drives evolution.
Even if a utopian communist/anarchist society were able to stabilize on its own, it would inevitably be overcome at some point in the future by a more competitive society that had martially evolved beyond the utopia’s understanding.
Whether its right or wrong has no bearing on the entropy of it.
To the contrary, competition eliminates its own existence, eventually all markets will coalesce into large trusts that can be publicly owned and planned.
Well, competition has been going pretty strong for the last four billion years; time will tell.
Not exactly, it’s increasingly disappearing in favor of monopoly.
The health of the current system is undenianly declining, absolutely. But competition is eternal and non-optional, so systems that seek to eliminate it are intrinsically doomed.
Competition can’t be eternal, otherwise monopoly wouldn’t exist.
I think the problem with Communism and Capitalism, is that both were implemented in the first place without specific goals or structure. Those things got added on later, such as the 5 year plans or how lobbying works.
IMO, we will need a v2.0 Constitution in the future, designed not only to address political issues, but also create fiscal rules. Things like universal benefits and healthcare, how much people should be payed, wealth limits, workers voting for their leadership, and so on. This, like the Magna Carta or the French Revolution, will require force in order to displace the ways of old.
It will suck, but conflict seems inevitable. Might as well make the most of it, and forge a new way forward.
This is just Utopianism, repackaged. Communism was planned, but you can’t just design a system in a lab and implement it through fiat, which is why you must regularly adapt to your materil conditions.
Money is imaginary. It was invented for the purpose of saving time through pure convenience. Why not go a step further, and sacrifice some profit for the sake of giving everybody some security and agency? What efficiency we lose, we get back in people being able to enjoy the fruits of civilization. Money only has value if people agree that it does, and we should apply that understanding towards redefining the purpose of money: luxuries.
The elite have hoarded the value of what workers have provided to society, and then consistently throws those same workers under the bus. Your “material conditions”, is just unfettered abuse.
Also, the system I laid out? It gives political agency to ordinary people, because they can protest and strike without losing their home or starving. This takes away the greatest tool of coercion that capitalism wields against workers. That is way more valuable than raw profit, because people can oppose bad actors in society. Like Schuemer, or Trump himself. Same goes for shitty workplaces - people can genuinely wait for a better job. This will force many bad companies out of business, because people want to be treated humanly.
I’m a Communist, so as a Marxist I reject Utopianism, as that has never worked. You cannot make a system through fiat.
Communism only works on a small scale. The second society gets bigger, you require a state with militaristic presence to keep the people in line. To this very day, the Marxist ideal of a “dictatorship of the proletariat” has ALWAYS resulted in centralized power structures that became brutal dictatorships.
No matter which country you pick, large ones like china or the soviet union or smaller ones like cambodia under pol pot or vietnam under the CPV, all of them have devolved into a dictatorship. Even “experiments” like yugoslavia under tito were, in the end, still dictatorships where political opposition was disallowed, a secret police was founded and tito still had absolute control. Now, you might say: “But the people lived well!”, yes, for about 10 years until the 1960s where the country suffered a massive economic crash, insane debt (because commies suck at economics) and inflation. Tito was able to hold it together with sheer force until he died, and after his death, yugoslavia completely unraveled into the mess it is today.
I know you like to cope with “oh no the evil CIA again >:(” but in the end, communism is a failed ideology that will never work on a large scale without completely suppressing individual freedom and brutally knocking down any sign of dissent.
Edit: By the way, I’m more than willing to argue about this - however, I just noticed that I’m on lemmy.ml so I’ll most likely get banned for not conforming to the tankie-ideals.
This is generally wrong, though. Communist countries have dramatically democratized society, it can only work at large scale because that’s the Marxist reason for Communism to begin with. Competition centralizes, so in the future it must be publicly owned and planned.
Pol Pot wasn’t even a Communist.
Communist countries have dramatically democratized society
No. That’s just a straightup lie. Name one.
it can only work at large scale because that’s the Marxist reason for Communism to begin with
And yet, it never did. Not one single time.
Competition centralizes, so in the future it must be publicly owned and planned.
Competition does the exact opposite of centralization. That’s why I can buy most goods from completely different vendors that differ in price and quality.
Are there mega corpos that harm people in general? Absolutely. Should we do something about it? Absolutely. Is communism the solution? Nope.
Pol Pot wasn’t even a Communist.
Pol Pot followed a radical form of Maoist communism, heaviely influenced by china. So no - that’s also a lie.
The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc are more democratic than theie previous systems.
Communism still works, just because the Soviet Union isn’t here doesn’t mean everything is a failure.
Competition forces centralization and monopolies over time due to increasinly complex production practices that raise the barrier to entry. It’s unavoidable.
Pol Pot denounced Marxism and focused on an odd agrarian system, and was backed by the CIA.
You made a lot of claims here. Do you have any sources to provide support?
Here’s a well-sourced post on China’s democracy, but really, read their constitution and government structure if you want more.
Cuba was under a fascist slaver before Socialism, and now has a democracy.
The PRC is Socialist, and has one of the largest and most rapidly growing economies in the world, I don’t think you need a source for this.
As for competition and centralization, where do you think the megacorps came from? We are more centralized now than ever before.
Pol Pot and the CIA, alternatively Blowback lists their sources and they went over it in Season 5.
Independently of who I side with, I am blocking this community because of the stifling of Realitaetsverlust’s comments.
edit: was baffled by the stifling and just researched and learned about Lemmy.ml
it all makes sense now. It is a Socialist Communist instance that censors those not aligned with them. Political leanings don’t bother me, but the censorship does so I will be avoiding anything Lemmy.ml in the future. They of course have a right to run their instance how they wish. peace out
Capitalism only works on a small scale. The second society gets bigger, you require a state with militaristic presence to keep corporations in line. To this very day, the Thatcher/Reagan ideal of “market liberalisation and privatisation” has ALWAYS resulted in the centralised accumulation of capital that became a massive societal divider.
No matter which country you pick, large ones like the USA or Russia, all of them have developed into a divided oligarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. […]
I know you like to cope with “Oh no, the evil minority of bad apples in the owner class again. >:(” but in the end capitalism is a failed ideology that will never work on a large scale without completely surpressing the market and brutally regulating any sign of market dominance of a few corporations.
Edit: typo.
It’s very frustrating to me to see people say things like “socialism/communism always ends in a dictatorship” while ignoring that capitalism tends towards oligarchies and monopolies. I’m glad to see someone else pointing out that “capitalism only works on a small scale.”
Capitalism only works on a small scale. The second society gets bigger, you require a state with militaristic presence to keep corporations in line.
Wrong. Half of europe relied so much on american protection that they had barely any military spending. Germany at the forefront, we only have ammunition for like 2 days of combat. So ye, that’s nonsense.
No matter which country you pick, large ones like the USA or Russia, all of them have developed into a divided oligarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. […]
The US has been democratic for a major part of their existence. There were up and downs, sure, but it was largely a democratic system. So have many other big capitalistic countries by the way.
Russia, while being capitalist, is an authoritarian system - I’m pretty sure that would’ve also happened if they were communist. But the oil money they got from the west probably tasted too good.
but in the end capitalism is a failed ideology that will never work on a large scale without completely surpressing the market and brutally regulating any sign of market dominance of a few corporations.
Uuuuh, did you use AI to write this? Because it makes no sense. Personally, I wouldn’t mind some regulations. Not sure what your point is here.
Removed by mod
Im sure the uyghurs and tibetans see it differently
LOL
The horrible feodal system with serfs/slaves the Tibetans has was sooo much better.
Some CIA poking didn’t work to bring that back.
And there was a small minority radicalised terrorists by Turkey and OC again the CIA to cause trouble, which they did.
blew up a plane with civilians, multiple other attacks on busses, trainstations, etc…
The majority never liked them and are glad it’s over.
But nice try.Im sure they love making iphones until they jump off a roof
What, did a suicide happen years ago in a country you don’t like? Quick, use that as a weak excuse to throw mud.
I’m sure suicide doesn’t happen in companies from the fascist US, where they have to pee in bottles.
Sometimes a known fascist boss demands to keep his Tesla factory open in full covid peak and his slaves get sick and die.
Plenty of them die homeless or from drugs anyway.
No paid sick days, universal healthcare, unemployment, etc. Really a pathetic 3rd world country.
Not to mention no other regime puts more of its citizens in jail.This is the embarrassing US banana republic.
Want to try again?Ita wild to me that you can see the USs mas incarceration and tell its bad, but when the chinese govt imprisions and entire population based on their religion you act like its a good thing
"imprisions and entire population based on their religion "
That is a called a lie, or wild, baseless accusation at best.
It can be proved the US is the most authoritarian regime because facts and data about their prison slaves.
You just say stuff out of your unhealthy fixation with communism, which you even need to mention in your bio.
If that’s all you’re going to do then go away, not worth it.If you ignore all the muslims that china killed, they havnt killed any!
Commies be like every govt lies except for our almighty ruler who is totally not an emperor, but definately disapears everyone who disagrees with him
The Schrödinger’s sarcasm edit 🙄
uyghurs
The US propaganda machine’s “Uyghur genocide” psyop has been debunked six ways to Sunday already. [1] [2]
.
tibetans
I’m pretty sure virtually all of the Tibetan people are happy to no longer be suffering under theocratic feudalism. Happy to no longer be illiterate serfs and slaves, suffering depredation under a god-king. I doubt many of them are sad that CIA asset Dalai “suck my tongue” Lama is in exile. [1] [2]
Not sure what you’re trying to say. Uyghurs are systematically eradicated and tibet is controlled by china since their invasion in the 1950s. Not exactly speaking in favor of communism.
So, if you’d like to expand on your point, I might be able to discuss this further.
eradicated LOL, their population is growing, despite the many some US backed terrorist killed.
And Tibet doesn’t have slaves anymore who literally had chains around their necks suffering under the religious buddhist monks terror.
Yawn, can you bring up Tiananmen square again to not be original? I’ll waiteradicated LOL, their population is growing
According to who? The chinese government? Lmao. Ye I would DEFINITELY trust the ones that are performing the killings on reporting accurate numbers.
And Tibet doesn’t have slaves anymore who literally had chains around their necks suffering under the religious buddhist monks terror.
Imperialism good when country does bad things?
Yawn, can you bring up Tiananmen square again to not be original? I’ll wait
I could, but if you want some originality, I can also bring up one of the other atrocities directly ordered by communist regimes, like the Prague Spring, Hungarian Revolution or the mass executions by the Khmer in Cambodia.
oh, the khmer rouge, that one that the u.s. supported along with britain, china (not so dirty back then, right) and who were toppled by the socialist regime of vietnam?
I already answered that to someone else so I’ll just copy and paste it:
The US never directly supported pol pot. Before 1975, they supported Lon Nol, who was fighting against the communist Khmer Rouge.
The part that IS true is that the US did support China and Thailand at the time, which in turn used that aid to support resistance groups in cambodia because vietnam invaded cambodia in 1979 - something the US had no problem with since vietnam was backed by the soviets. Also, it is true that the US and other western countries supported keeping the Khmer Rouge as Cambodia’s official UN representative, however, that was mostly done to undermine Vietnam’s rule over cambodia.
So, yes, by extension, the US supported pol pot, but it’s not the big “gotcha” you think it is - it was the cold war, an extremely complex geopolitical time.
Removed by mod
I don’t need to prove something that didn’t happen which isn’t possible, you show me proof of your fantasy eradication that isn’t from the sick nutbag Adrian Zenz. Must be easy if it’s such a genocide.
Imperialism good when country does bad things?
Hypocrisy good in the name of bringing democracy.
Communism isn’t bad, it just crumples as soon you put anything but saints in charge of it.
I’m not entirely sure anything works better in a long-term scenario though :)
It doesn’t matter what ideology. If the people running it are rotten, any system can be corrupted.
Deeply anti-materialist take.
Can you explain how you disagree? Is it about incentives to be corrupt (or against) depending on the system?
If you believe in great man theory™ and think that all political developments happen because one person can magically steer entire countries and the world, in geo-political terms, or idealists in thinking that if you have the correct ideas, you can magically steer the entire rest of the world to whatever you think, by having the correct thoughts. Then your theories of political developments are non-materialist, like this comment is objecting to. The system sets the conditions of who is going to be empowered or rewarded for their actions and positions.
People in this context appears to be plural, thus I don’t see how Montreal_Metro’s take is Great Man Theory.
The system sets the conditions of who is going to be empowered or rewarded for their actions and positions.
Ultimately, any system is operated by mere mortals who will arbitrarily reward and punish people based on their own bias, morals and desires. Systems only work so long as the people manning them follow the rules. Systems only last if the people running it punish rule breakers.
According to all of history, corruption, apathy, and pure human greed and ingenuity will gradually eat away any system, economic and political, until it collapses. Only for the failing system to be replaced by a “better” system, which begins the cycle again.
The fact that it is attributed to a very few actors and not a literal, singular actor does not negate great man theory.
The issue is that this is arbitrarily flattening of the actual material conditions. You can point out that nearly all political systems, on a long enough timeline lead to some form of collapse (Joseph Tainter is a good reference on this). But all of these things are dependent, not independent, of the systems and conditions they find themselves in. The timescales and forms can vary drastically depending on the material conditions actors find themselves in.
What came first? The chicken or the egg?
Did the system that created the conditions people find themselves in come first. Or did the people running the system create the conditions that they find themselves in?
It is not that there isn’t some flow both ways, but that the material conditions is much more dominant than people coming up with ideas and mechanations moving things in ways contradicting the conditions. The system setting the conditions is in fact dominant. The way corruption and self-dealing manifests is different between where you can just create a private corporation and lobby for a government contract to justify being given a 500 million dollars of tax payer money, versus trying to massage Gosplan to syphon off several million Rubles of excess spending, versus tricking a sovereign wealth fund to hand over several billion dollars for some supposed innovative building company to create innovations for Neom.
I am not that person, but I guess you wouldn’t like the ambassadors of fascism to be efficient and competent.
They didn’t seem to express an argument or value judgment in their comment regardless of their actual opinion.
Don’t feed the troll.
So then the solution is to decentralize so everyone is running it.
And have a way for it to be trustless as well
Communism by any other name would smell as sweet
And likewise, oligarchy calling itself communism smells just as rancid.
A co-operative ?
It’s simple: teach everyone to make everything they need for themselves, so they can’t be expoited
Something something darwin
Like how people were gifted ability to have more knowledge at their hands than previous generations and rapid communication, and then came to the conclusion that the earth is flat, vaccines are poision, and facism is holy?
Humans are dumb fucks. They will inevitably fuck up even the most perfect utopia they arrive in short of some mass hive mind brain washing Equilibrium style. i don’t hold that high an opinion of human society.
Leave the world to the animals. Humans are a failed experiment and a virus to the world.
This is some eco-fascist ass rethoric. You’re not taking into account how all the issues you listed are only possible to exist in a capitalist society, where misinformation and anti-intelectualism is accepted and allowed to grow instead of directly addressed.
Environmental issues did in fact exist before capitalism. Human arrival coincided with mass extinction in the Americas and in Australia. That’s certainly not to say these issues are unavoidable or that socialism isn’t the solution (because it 100% is) but we should see environmental issues as transcending others so I disagree that I would place this in an eco-fascist lens. Rejection of science certainly occurred in feudal societies as well
You’re right, I should have been more specific in saying that current anti-intelectualism is deeply linked to capitalism and not that it is something that happens only in capitalism, my bad.
Also, I wasn’t referring to that as the eco-fascist rethoric, but rather to the commenters last phrase about how humans are a “failed experiment and a virus to the world”.
Sure bro lemme teach my aunt to make her insulin, her own needles, her own glucose test strips and all that cheers
There is a group actively working to open source Insulin manufacturing to make it practical to self produce.
That’s good work for a lot of reasons, but there’s a world of difference between “open source and theoretically DIY” and it being anywhere near realistic for everyone to actually do it themselves.
It’s good that I have access to advanced technology without having to have learned how to build it from the ground up. That’s the whole point of civilization – doing more together than we could do apart.
Maybe we should all specialize, and pay each other with our own goods, or better yet, a sort of representation of goods we all agree is valuable, so you can get one persons goods with anothers.
Kinda seems unfair that somebody’s aunt should have to purchase insulin she needs to survive, like she shouldn’t have to work harder to have the same lifestyle as someone without a disability. Maybe we should just give her the insulin she needs to survive, and compensate the people who make it out of some sort of common pool of resources everyone is required to contribute to, in order to distribute the costs more fairly.
When I was younger, I tried to design an universal constructor.
Unfortunatelly, I was using Roblox studio to do this.
How’s that for insanity?
I also carved a log with a knife, hacking off pieces in an attempt to make a 3D printer
It’s not insane! 3D printing is making huge strides. You were just a little ahead of your time.
If we can run Doom on 16 billion crabs, then you can carve a 3D printer.
ah yes let me just manufacture my own toilet paper on my 50m2 apartment
Luckily the US is dismantling the CIA so that’s good news for communism!!!
And right after opressing and killing thousands of peole, while causing some famine on top!
Oppressing the former oppressors is necessary, and famine was ended, not caused, by Socialism.
Nice of you to completely make shit up. How were the Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians, or many others just trying to live in their own countries “the opressors?” Were they opressing the communists by saying that they shouldn’t burry protesting miners alive? You have exactly zero idea what you are talking about, and it shows.
The 1930s famine was the last major famine out of wartime in the Soviet Union, same with the Great Chinese Famine, in countries where famine was common and regular before. Life expectancy doubled under Socialism in both the USSR and PRC as a consequence in the first few decades.
Every single one of those sources shows evidence directly linking communist policies to the famines. They are also widely accepted as communist man-made famines by historians. But once again, its easier to make shit up instead of providing any source. I really didn’t expect lemmy to be already filled with russian trolls and tankies.
Yeah, capitalist Britain, France, and America were terrible in their use of famines and genocides. The problem with capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people’s land and food.
Almost as if every economic system is capable of causing famines and genocides.
As someone who lived through a communist regime, I never know wether I should laugh or cry at children of your kind.
Yeah, as someone with Lakota, Irish, Bengali, Kurdish, and Iraqi friends and opiate and meth addicted family, I am not sure whether to laugh or cry at children of your kind. I am sure the 1990s and the introduction of capitalism was a great and prosperous time.
You don’t seem to understand that most of the civilised world does not practice american capitalism, and that communism has been proven time and again to not be any alternative to it anyway. It’s always easier to be an ignoramus with a dream I guess.
American Capitalism? I invoked multiple genocides and political repressions that weren’t American. I am sure that 1840s Hungarians and Irish, 1930s Bengalis, and 1990s and 2000s Iraqis are glad to know that capitalism isn’t repressive or intentionally creating starvation because the people creating the repression and starvation said that they aren’t. Even though China gave up on most communist ambitions post-Dheng and Cuba has been strangled by American blockades, both have not been nearly as active in war mongering as “Western Nations”, nor as repressive, despite active propaganda about them. And Western repression is much more tied to their economic modes than other nations. You have to kill anti-war protesters (e.g. Kent State) because if not full colonialism, we need neo-colonialism, so pro-Vietnamese protests can’t be tolerated. And we need to support Israel, so “anti-Semitic” a.k.a. anti-Zionist protesters can’t be tolerated and have no rights, because of their ties to the military and arms industry. Such as Mahmoud Khalil, who needs to be disappeared and sent to an undisclosed location to try to push fascist anti-protest, anti-speech laws.
China did not abandon Communism, they pivoted from their Left-deviationism that was based in idealism, not materialism.
Even though China gave up on most communist ambitions post-Dheng
No they haven’t.
whoops, brazil. we had a budding workers movement that was absolutely crushed by the traitorous brazilian military, in the name of the US of course.
that hasnt stopped syndicalism to take root here and improve our lives a bit, but the communist organizations responsible were all crushed and we see our rights being taken away ever since because no one is left to defend them. we are scrambling rn to see if we can stop fascism.
I wonder if anyone ever said “Democracy would never work, just look at what happened to Athens”.
Socialism and communism are relatively new ideas. While I don’t believe communism is an effective form of government, it’s still kind of silly to write it off so quickly.
Yeah, I remember how my grandfather and everyone he knew fought tooth and nails just to stop America from dismantling communism in eastern Europe!
Oh, wait, he didn’t. Everyone celebrated when it fell.
Because no one who experienced it thought hmm is briliant, yeh nah, socialist policies are needed but not any form of totalitarian communism
Most people actually preferred Socialism over modern Capitalism in post-Soviet states. Socialism works better than Capitalism, and was more democratic.
Find me an old person anywhere that isn’t nostalgic for their youth.
And then 7 million people died, and most people feel they were better off under Socialism and wished it continued.
It’s easy to say if one has never lived under communism rule. Stalinism caused the Holodomor in Ukraine and starved to death 2-7 million people. Mass deportations of people in Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and many other countries in Eastern Europe. Federated platforms? Forget about it. Everything is controlled by the state. Do you want to say something that the government doesn’t like? You can, but then you are off in a concentration camp (gulag) or sent to Siberia. Almost every family has a history of one of its family members being sent or imprisoned because they said something bad about communists / had a farm and could feed themselves with the products from their farm or land. On the contrary I would recommend to read the Animal Farm by George Orwell. - “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.
The famine in the 30s was caused by natural causes and spiraled to greater heights because of collectivization, but this ended famines.
The Soviet system was similar to federated platforms. It was government controlled, in a somewhat federated manner. Read Soviet Democracy.
The GULAG administration was a prison system, not concentration camps. Read Russian Justice.
Orwell was a fan of Hitler, hated workers, and in Animal Farm specifically his biggest critique was that Russian Workers are stupid and destined to be taken advantage of. Read On Orwell and A Critical Read of Animal Farm.
Oh yes, my friend, I knew someone would repeat me this soviet narrative. I urge you to read about Mr. Jones or watch a film about these events. Regarding gulags, it’s the same as telling me about concentration camps built by the Nazis. They also claimed it was just for labor, you know. I see you are well prepared with communist materials, it’s the same as entering communist class in the Soviet Union and expecting they will share the truth.
Regarding gulags, it’s the same as telling me about concentration camps built by the Nazis.
From a researcher who actually examined Soviet archives after the fall of the USSR in the 90s (PDF link, see pg. 1041):
Even in the terrible year of 1937, 44.4 percent of the GULAG labor camp population on January 1 was freed during the course of the year.
These weren’t death camps, these were prisons. You can read elsewhere in the same article about how most of the people in them had been convicted of non-political crimes every country in the world prosecutes. Just like in many other countries, people would serve their sentence and be released.
The article also notes how the vast majority of mortality in the Soviet prison system was attributable to the hardships imposed by WWII (also from pg. 1041):
More than half of all GULAG deaths in the entire 1934-1953 period occurred in 1941-1943, mostly from malnutrition.
Comparing this to the Nazi system that was directly designed to exterminate people is no more than roundabout Nazi apologia.
No, now you’re doing holocaust minimization by supporting Double Genocide Theory. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
Read Blackshirts and Reds.
Yeah, good luck convincing one anticommunist to read any of Michael Parenti’s books. You’ll have an easier time pulling teeth.
To be fair, I have done it at least twice on Lemmy. Maybe I should go into dentistry instead, though, lol
I urge you to read about Mr. Jones
There have been millions of Mr. Joneses so you’ll need to be more specific. In the meantime,
- Domenico Losurdo, 2008, Stalin: The History and Critique of a Black Legend
- Grover Furr, 2014, Blood Lies: The Evidence that Every Accusation against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands Is False
.
Regarding gulags, it’s the same as telling me about concentration camps built by the Nazis.
I see you are well prepared with communist materials, it’s the same as entering communist class in the Soviet Union and expecting they will share the truth.
Those aren’t arguments, they’re vague, empty rhetoric.
This is a good example of one of things people hate about lemmy.
Communism fan boying, implicit denial of genocides committed by communist powers, out in the open on the front page.
You’re going to find Communists on a website made by Communists. Don’t know what you mean by “genocide denial,” but in another comment you were unironically recommending the Black Book of Communism’s chief writer as a legitimate source, you’re doing the “Communism killed 100 million” meme.
And you cited a website that denies the Uyghur Genocide and the Holodomor.
You’re doing genocide denial.
The Uyghur genocide? The genocide that the UN explicitly and clearly doesn’t call a genocide? That one?
Uyghurs aren’t being systematically murdered at scale. There are reeducation camps, but to call it “genocide” isn’t accurate. You should read the UN report.
As for the idea of an “intentional famine,” this is disputed at best. In reality, there was a famine in the 1930s that didn’t have any racial motivations. Nobody denies the famine’s existence.
So no, I’m not doing genocide denial, and I’m correct, you want to appear morally righteous regardless of the real facts.
The UN hasn’t explicitly called it genocide, but if you assume China’s motivation is to reduce their population, it seems hard to argue its actions wouldn’t qualify. Widespread arbitrary imprisonment and certainly forced sterilization would meet at least condition 4 of their requirement. The Genocide Convention’s definition is below, emphasis mine:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
You could argue they don’t actually intend to reduce the Uyghur population, but it’s hard to accept that a surge in the Xinjiang region’s sterilization rate and the birth rate being cut in half over the course of three years are just anti-terrorism measures.
Wow, I wonder what went on there…
09/11 Chile vibes
Any one party political system can either fail or be maintained through violent oppression. People need to have a say in who represents them and what their values are.
A more sustainable solution than soviet style communism is to have proportional representation and work on instilling socialist virtues such as kindness, social responsibility, and fairness in the population. over time, the people in government will start to reflect those values.
Death to America
as an american, hell yeah!
