We’ve had communism for the wealthy as long as I can remember
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You know, some people get really worked up about how some sodas are really good and others are horrible. Healthwise they're all really just sugar water with some flavor and color sprinkled on top.
The flavoring and coloring are the least nutritionally relevant parts of the beverages and yet are what everyone obsesses over when discussing which of them is best.
The flavor doesn't change the nature of all the sugar, despite how different they feel to the palate.
A very costly lesson many maya people and other enemies of the aztec empire learnt after the spanish came to the americas was that the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.
You don't see any state run bread lines do you?
That's because they'd rather you starve, but the mafia has soup lines waiting for you.
You don't see any state run bread lines do you?
You do, they're called food pantry lines, and they tend to be run by churches in my experience
There are still plenty of local government run food pantries too, since I have to spell this part out in crayon for some people.....
If the food pantries are run by churches, then they are not state run, meaning you do not see state run food pantries.
I'm not American, but my uneducated ass believes America is basically a theocracy. The president has to pretend that he does everything in the name of god, you have to swear your official vows on the bible, every hotel has a bible, every child in school has to pray to the god-emperor every morning, your money says "in god we trust", your churches are payed for by tax-evasion.
So then, what renains to be the difference between "state run" and "church run" benefits really?
Well let’s break your points down.
1: The president does not need to pretend everything is done in the name of god. One party does this to appeal to a religious base.
2: You do not need to swear into office on a bible, many have sworn in on nothing at all or other holy books.
3: Every hotel is provided a bible (and often a book of mormon) by that company. This is because the company many of these hotels are owned by is a mormon company. Many hotels do not have bibles in them now.
4: Children are not required to pray in the morning, unless you attend a religious school specifically. If you mean the pledge, that is also optional and not done in many schools.
5: In God We Trust is an odd case yes. It was added in the 1950’s to “combat socialism.”
6: Churches are not required to pay taxes because they are also charities that perform good acts for the poor. Other religions claim this benefit as well.
Trump is a religion here. His devout call themselves christian but its clearly distinct in both beliefs and rituals.
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Actually they all functionally do, just to varying extents. Good luck finding a President who has never mentioned God in any of their speeches.
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Technically correct, but those who choose Not A Bible are routinely targetted with bigoted smear campaigns, often death threats, many of them credible, actionable.
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I mean you just do admit that this happens, that's how normalized religion is, the state doesn't do anything and it just happens.
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Clearly you have no idea how widespread and common it is for parents to force their kids to do this, for teachers in more religious states to force the pledge. Actual rules on the book be damned, don't follow the unwritten ones and you are a pariah.
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You again concede this is the case.
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Churches can perform charitable acts, but there is no requirement for this, many of them don't, many of them either directly or indirectly donate money to political think tank/campaigns and call that 'charity', many of them explicitly endorse particular political candidates, despite that being illegal, because either no one reports the violation and/or nobody bothers to prosecute it.
See also: The entire megachurch/megapastor phenomenon in the US, which would be described as a massive cult in basically any other country.
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Because they are religious? You would be hard pressed to find politicians who do not appeal to a higher authority except in countries where religious freedoms are restricted.
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Targeted by smear campaigns from their political opponents who would have smear campaigns running anyways. Credible death threats is a different story and not the norm, politicians recieve death threats from wackos over everything they do.
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What would the state do? It’s a first amendment protected right. If you dislike this practice you can stay in hotels without bibles.
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Anecdotal evidence at best, maybe in the more religious areas of the country in the south this happens, but they are a minority.
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Good job realizing that.
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Yes megachurches do provide some charity to maintain their tax exempt status. There is no defined percentage of revenue you must spend to be a charity. This is a larger issue that affects secular charities as well.
You have really only argued one of your six points.
Good luck getting an atheist elected president in the US.
You seem to arguing the US is not literally an official theocracy.
I am arguing that religiosity in the US is significantly more pervasive, common and extreme than in any other developed country, and I don't even need to argue this, all kinds of stats have borne this out in detail, for decades.
Almost half of the US believes that we are all living in 'the end times', that the Rapture will either happen in their lifetimes, or even very, very soon.
Thats almost half the US that literally exists in an apocalyptic death cult.
They wouldn't call it that, but that is literally what it is. Most other Christians in most other parts of the world do not believe in this essentially uniquely American fan fiction version of Christianity... and most Americans don't even know that, that everyone else thinks we are weird.
Its a huge reason why we also statistically abberantly don't believe climate change is real or is caused by humans or should have something done about it.
Its also a huge reason that US Evangelicals, up untill extremely recently... basically uniformly support anything Israel does.
They largely hate Jews, but, they literally want to hasten the apocalpyse, to hit all the conditions that they 'interpreted' into their scenario for the preamble to the Rapture.
I agree with everything you're saying. But I just wanted to mention that politicians are not actually required to swear in on a Bible. That's just what most use because of everything else you said. But every once in a while a politician will choose something different to swear on. Two I can remember of the to of my head was swearing in on Dr seues green eggs and ham and another one that swore in on a Captain America comic. Of course the religious nut jobs always lose it when that happens though
So then, what renains to be the difference between “state run” and “church run” benefits really?
What kind of question is that? Churches are funded through donations rather than through taxes and they have no legal obligation to perform charity, so the difference is that they are not as reliable for people in need.
The state has no control over the food at the pantries beyond basic health standards. The state cannot force me to give out bread when I run a soup kitchen. It can encourage me to continue with charitable acts with tax credits and subsidies, but it cannot force me to.
TIL "tend to" means "always"
In my country, one evil of communism I always heard was "not being able to buy Adidas shoes and Levis jeans". But if capitalism makes it a de facto luxury product through devaluing your work, then it's tough luck.
Nah, we got fat reserves.
Source: we(i?) drink the gusher insides first then refill w mayo.
The largest demographic group receiving SNAP benefits is white people, at 37%, so (tries to do math like a racist) 63% assorted brown people!
But what really sells it to the 37% of white people in mostly red states with poor public education are things like this article about some super genius trolling where the first 3 groups alone add up to like 124%. I expect that the 17% of people who do not report ethnic demographics are largely white in the first place, and have been gaslit for so long that they won't report out of fear of being some sort of "race traitor" or some other stupid racist BS thing that idiots do.
Well, in the USSR it was Ukrainians. Every authoritarian system find its outgroups.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2282378855532810
Sorry for a facebook link, couldn't find another.
At this point, this joke is basically like kicking a dead horse.
The reason of the confusion is clear.
The US propaganda has always equated Communism and totalitarianism.
It is bonkers that people in the USA cannot distinguish between an economic system and a political system.
Those two are distinct things. True communism is very democratic. But reading the Communist manifesto is heretic in the US and you are left with what your leaders tell you.
The Russian Revolution was communist but the USSR was never communist.
Right wing totalitarian dictators also use starvation of their own people as means of control.
What you are experiencing in the US is totalitarianism and while it hasn't gotten to USSR levels, it is going on that direction.
Food for thought: study the political system in China, you'd be surprised how it's actually more democratic than the current USA. Yes, the CCP controls the nominations. Now, tell me if there is true plurality in the US, two right wing parties selecting their candidates without any real popular input.
Really you've been bamboozled to think there is real democracy in the US.
that allows half the people to sell out the other half.
Do you actually think that's worse than the elite deciding who is going to starve and who's going to be disappeared to maintain their power?
Why bother pretending to return the means of production to the worker only to rob them of their voice?
You're discussing with a tankie. For them the gulags and the holodomor will only get the response "what about xyz in the west".
You’re hopped up on that US propaganda, bud. The USSR was democratic from the ground up. Working people’s voices had more power there than almost anywhere else at any other point in history.
Call me naive if you want but I think we might want to aim for slightly more than another flavor of illusory democracy.
Although I have to say that the primary selection process in the US, while deeply flawed, is far more open for insurgent candidates than the Chinese system. See Mamdani for a recent example of how democratic elites don’t have total control of the outcomes.
The Russian Revolution was communist but the USSR was never communist.
Yes. But what does that mean? If I have a recipe for potion of immortality, but anyone that drinks the resulting potion dies instead, it's a bad recipe. It doesn't matter its promise of immortality sounds good.
Communism makes good promises. However, every time you have a communist revolution, it ends up being authoritarian instead. What does that say about the communist political system?
Every time a capitalist system is implemented the oligarchy grows and seizes power and some corrupt oligarchs usurp the power of the people. What does that say about capitalism? I think your generalized question is terribly bad faithed when every can point out the US system and straight capitalism is a failure also. Rather then generalized ideas and theory we look at all the systems and see what does work and how we can keep the power in the hands of people
I think the issue is corruption, power, and control. To have a capitalist society you must allow businesses do what they want or they will seize power. In a communist society power is centralized when it is focused on the state as a communistic in which power and control when questioned or control loosened gets cracked down.
Democratic Republicans are great but there is a few problems when they move so slow. One, what if the charter is never fixed when we add more rights. We just tack it on as precedent and never amend the charter.
Second,if the population is growing is it still representing people properly. I think having a representative for every 1 million people is to huge. And the fact we have disparities as large as 1 to million but then some have as low as 1 in 250k. Is unequal.
Third. I don't think as long as businesses hold power over an individuals life businesses should have political power. They hold to much currently. Also the fact through a business they can unlimitedly donate money but i as an individual can only spend $2,500(somewhere around there is the campaign cap)on a candidate is insane power wise.
Fourth a mixed economic/ business system would be wonderful a more planned economy by what citizens need would be nice. Also economy and business shouldn't be running the country. The individual people should.
Fifth States are stupid unless they can leave. The lines/borders are arbitrarily stupid and the fact the power federal is based on the lines fucks us up. If so chooses states should be able to break apart and make local states of the people so it is easier to have democratic control over your local area. Yes this means almost every state would become major cities and then the rural areas. Unless they want to partner with a city.
I don't see how what you write relates to what I write other than what-aboutism directing attention to (non-fatal) issues of capitalism instead of addressing the fatal issues of communism.
non-fatal
...
Do I have to remind you that capitalistic democracies other than USA exist? Plenty of them work decently well. Certainly still far from perfect, but well enough to prove these issues can be overcome, and are therefore non-fatal.
More like every time there's been democratically elected socialists or communists, western powers intervene with staged coups, assassinations, or embargos.
Even if that's true, so what? You are just pointing out one possible reason why communism doesn't work in reality. Still doesn't work.
If I say my immortal potion recipe would work in an alternate reality where humans didn't breathe oxygen, it does not make it any more useful. Equally, in our reality, coups, assassinations and embargoes exist. If a political system can't withstand them, it is not useful.
This is like saying the idea of solar panels is bad because capitalists work against them to destroy their reputation. Judging a system based on the assumption that theres someone else trying to destroy it is very simple minded.
A political and economic system is not some random piece of infrastructure, like a solar panel. It's more comparable to a padlock. It's entire point is to manage human nature. If all people were benevolent and willing to work for collective good on their own, we wouldn't need political systems at all. Neither would we need padlocks. A padlock that can't hinder an intruder is a bad padlock. A political or economic system that can't handle human nature (greed, lust for power) is a bad system.
A political and economic system is not some random piece of infrastructure, like a solar panel.
And its also not a magic potion.
A padlock that can't hinder an intruder is a bad padlock.
A political and economic system is not some random piece of infrastructure object, like a solar panel padlock.
Youre saying a political system can only work if there is not a single aspect that can be taken advantage of? Thats equivalent to every single person being controlled 100% in their actions. If thats your idea of ideal, sure. I guess some people currently being in leading positions would agree with you.
The US is currently in the middle of a fascist takeover, while being a Democracy (in the past at least). Are you saying Democracy is not a political system worth pursuing because it doesnt work?
Youre saying a political system can only work if there is not a single aspect that can be taken advantage of? Thats equivalent to every single person being controlled 100% in their actions.
I did not say anything even close to that. I am saying a political system can only work if it can't be easily overturned. It has nothing to do with how much it controls peoples lives or if it can be taken advantage of.
So just to be clear, there doesnt currently exist a political system that works, as they all have been overturned multiple times?
What is this bullshit argument? If a lightbulb stops working after 10 years, is it as useless as a lightbulb that breaks after 10 minutes?
can't be easily overturned
Did I write they have to be impossible to overturn? Why don't you read what I write more carefully instead of reacting to some made up version of my comment.
What is this bullshit argument?
Your argument.
What is this bullshit argument? If a lightbulb stops working after 10 years, is it as useless as a lightbulb that breaks after 10 minutes?
Did I write they have to be impossible to overturn?
Why are you implying that real communism would be easily overturned? Its never been implemented.
The Russian Revolution was communist but the USSR was never communist.
This whole thread is about communism always collapsing into authoritarianism so quickly it is not even ever "really implemented".
So if monarchs would have succeeded in suppressing democracy until today (not very far fetched by the way), that would be proof of Democracy being a bad system?
Think about what youre even saying.
Maybe you should work on your reading comprehension skills. I never wrote anything like that.
They're using the logic you introduced in your claim to turn your claim on its head.
If you can't recognize that, then who really has comprehension skill issues?
There is no logic in their claim. It's an absurd what if. Monarchies were unable to suppress democracies. It's like saying "what if communism causes the sun to explode". That would be bad, but it's not reality.
PS: I guess I can also address the logic part notwithstanding the ridiculous assumption. Suppress by an external country is not the same as supporting a coup, which is exacerbating an internal problem. No system can withstand an overwhelming external force, but we need it to at least withstand covert agitation of internal issues. Because that is something that does happen in reality, between US, Russia, Iran, China, you have no lack of agitators. You won't be able to exist in a bubble.
In many of these cases, the political system which couldn't withstand coups were democracies. Does this mean that democracy isn't useful? Are you saying that democracies should forbid socialists from being elected since if they get elected then america will intervene and the democracy will cease to be useful? Sounds like you don't care for democracy and self-determination of nations. Bonus points will be awarded for being able to make your point without a potion metaphor.
My entire point is that political systems like democracies are not isolated from economic systems. Democracies fail when combined with communism, because all power is concentrated in the political apparatus, leaving no leverage for the rest of the population. Then, seizing power and removing democracy is too easy.
The problem isn't political systems, it's superpowers intervening, e.g. america funding fascist coups of democratically elected socialists. It would be hard for any small nation, regardless of political system, to defend against a coup funded by a superpower. Please prove me wrong and tell me how e.g. the coup in Chile 1973 could have been prevented by decentralizing power.
The problem isn't political systems, it's superpowers intervening
There can be more than one problem.
Please prove me wrong and tell me how e.g. the coup in Chile 1973 could have been prevented by decentralizing power.
A coup still inherently relies on there being internal forces willing to execute said coup. I don't dare say being capitalist could have stopped this particular one, quite likely it couldn't. But it it is at least more resilient in general.
If it was impossible to resist superpower sponsored coups, I am sure the Baltics wouldn't be able to remain democratic right next to Russia.
There can be more than one problem.
That's not what you've been saying until now.
A coup still inherently relies on there being internal forces willing to execute said coup.
No shit, what are you trying to say? Are you saying there exists political systems which are immune to people wanting to stage a coup?
I don’t dare say being capitalist could have stopped this particular one, quite likely it couldn’t. But it it is at least more resilient in general.
How would it be more resilient?
If it was impossible to resist superpower sponsored coups, I am sure the Baltics wouldn’t be able to remain democratic right next to Russia.
What coup attempts are you talking about? Let's try to focus on coups that were at least attempted or has any substantial evidence of being in the works.
What coup attempts are you talking about? Let's try to focus on coups that were at least attempted or has any substantial evidence of being in the works.
I am not talking about coup attempts. I am exactly talking about lack of coup attempts in countries, where you would expect superpowers to start one if they could. But they can't. I failed coup attempt already signals instability of your system. Or do you believe a good political system should have regular coup attempts that have to be suppressed by force?
The capitalist apparatus requires emmense effort to maintain. Military, police, propaganda, bailouts,... Its not self sustaining and its not natural. For comparison, cooperative, democratically controlled workplaces, have greater survival rates than their conventional, privately owned firms. Not to mention workers or more likely paid a living wage, have greater job stability and satisfaction, and just as likely, if not more so to lead to innovation. Its literally proven a better economic system, but yet some still think it offers empty promises.
You're discussing with brainwashed tankies who can only answer "what about xyz in the west" to any kind of, even constructive, criticism.
Lots of anarchists are like that too, a shame because there is surely something to take from those kind of ideas.
If you say something is bad, you must have some frame of reference to know how bad it is. So if you say communism is bad, we will want to know, “relative to what?” And since capitalism and western hegemony are the dominant systems, naturally they will draw comparisons. And those comparisons will be unfavorable since capitalism is clearly broken and incentivizes great evil.
So OK, we’re still not really discussing the merits and flaws of communism as they stand on their own, but most of you aren’t ready to accept that almost everything you have learned about communism is a lie and you definitely aren’t ready to engage with the actual historical record.
So instead, the arguments revolve around what-aboutisms. Because most of you deny the evidence of your eyes and just listen to daddy. Long before we can delve into how the soviets actually existed in the world, you have dismissed us as “tankies” and stuck your fingers in your ears.
I must also stop believing my eyes and ears as I grew up in a country bordering the URSS.
I went there. It was a hell hole. Nothing to buy in the stores. I can tell you more.
It also was trying to invade or coerce its neighbours. All The Time. They (the russians) still do.
Capitalism has its flaws but that doesn't mean the soviet union was in any way good. Ffs open a history book, travel, go there and talk to people who lived during the brutal dictatorship of the soviet union and maybe You can open Your eyes.
64 per cent of Russians say life was better in the Soviet Union than now
Data is better than anecdotes.
That's not data lol, that's anecdotes and nostalgia.
And it has a name Ostalgie look it up. People are nostalgic of a place the URSS promised them, but it never came through.
You can easily find data that shows how shitty the soviet union was (or do you too believe the propaganda from that era?).
Ill be the patsy: You can't make rules to eliminate human greed / lust for power?
I'm very simplistic with this stuff and haven't studied it, but that seems to be the fundamental limitation with communism. Would work great with robots but we're more 'complex' with our subconscious bias, unexamined motives and insecurities driving our actions.
I read a Chinese visual novel where society actual DID manage to eradicate humanity's greed/lust for power.
The biggest issue with the depicted society is that people live out their lives in ways deemed safe by the state. No one who lives in the society sees any problem with this, since their needs are cared for, and they're allowed to freely pursue interests the state considers safe. The society determined that any culture that existed before their rise to power has to be destroyed or locked up - introduction of such items can have a majorly destabilizing effect, and bring greed/lust for power back.
I think it says more about how Lemmings and other westerners understand authoritarianism. Because capitalist countries are way more authoritarian than any communist country has ever been. Y’all have just been fed lie after lie until you start repeating them yourselves.
More like you have a simple and easy to follow recipe for cake. You and a friend are following it dutifully. Just before the last step of the recipe your friend gets a call from their partner. Your friend then pushes you out of the kitchen and locks you out. The cake is served frosted in your friends freshly cut hair clippings.
The USA is a massive country of 330m+. Literally tens of millions of us have no delusions about this.
The Russian Revolution was communist but the USSR was never communist
Hard disagree. Universal healthcare, free education to the highest level, lowest wealth and income inequality in the history of the region, guaranteed housing and abolition of homelessness and unemployment, life expectancy skyrocketing from a meager 28 years to 70 in the span of 40 years, abolition of private business, redistribution of land to peasants, and saving Europe from Fascism really seem like communist traits to me. There were defects and policy failures during some of the hardest times in history, don't get me wrong, but simply by achieving all of those wonderful goals without ever having colonies or engaging in imperialism, that's very communist to me.
What you are experiencing in the US is totalitarianism and while it hasn't gotten to USSR levels, it is going on that direction
The US has had, for decades, the highest prison population in the world, both in absolute and relative terms. In absolute terms, the US has nearly as many prisoners as the USSR did during WW2, the historic highest for obvious reasons (25 million Soviet citizens were killed by Nazism). You have literal fascist police disappearing people based on the colour of the skin, and the US has literally bombed black people for their ideology in US soil.
You're damn high in American exceptionalism and anticommunist propaganda.
without ever having colonies or engaging in imperialism
That's only because the USSR lobbied hard in the UN so that colonialism is defined as having overseas colonies. The "near abroad" is/was a colonial empire.
The USSR was definitely imperialistic, see Hungary 1956, where it crushed a revolution which was not against communism, the revolutionaries were in fact communists, they just wanted to be free of Soviet occupation.
Not debating the accomplishments of the USSR though, it was definitely and improvement on the Russian Empire.
The "near abroad" is/was a colonial empire
The USSR was definitely imperialistic, see Hungary
You're spitting in the graves of the tens of millions of murdered by colonialism by comparing it to intervention in Hungary. Colonialism isn't "maintaining an aligned bloc", colonialism is the plunder, enslavement and murder of millions in the name of wealth and resource extraction. Go tell the tens of millions of enslaved Africans, of murdered Congolese and Native Americans and Palestinians how what happened in Hungary was colonialism. Disturbing the definitions of western colonialism in order to dunk on communism is honestly a disgusting attitude that trivializes the suffering of the millions upon millions of wretched of the Earth.
Find me anywhere where the USSR did 1% of the horrifying shit that the Brits did in India.
Holodomor. Katyn. Gulags. Literal alliance with the Nazis.
You disgust me, up on your high horse, clutching your pearls and discounting millions dead because theyre politically inconvenient for the economic system you glaze. You accuse other people of spitting while you piss with your Shapiro-like disingenuity. Gross.
Holodomor
Yeah, a bad famine happened in the USSR between 1930 and 1933, no need for a scary special word to refer to it. Famines were commonplace in the region up to that point, and this one was the result of unforeseen difficulties in the first successful collectivization of land in human history. It was not intended or targeted, unlike the repeated famines in India under British rule. As I've explained in other comments, it was a tragedy that took place during the necessary rapid collectivization of agriculture that enabled the industrial revolution which saved Eastern Europe from extermination by Nazis.
Katyn
Katyn and similar incidents in Poland number in the tens of thousands of victims, most of them military and law enforcement. It's not like Poland didn't have expansionist ambitions that needed to be fought against.
Gulags
Gulag is just the name of the prison system of the USSR. The fact that many people died in the Gulags during WW2 is consequence of the food shortages that Nazis themselves caused in the USSR during their invasion:

Literal alliance with the Nazis
This is simply ahistorical and untrue. In 1936 already, the Soviet Union was the only country to send weapons, munitions, tanks and aviation to Republican Spain in the Spanish Civil War against fascism, fighting the Nazis in proxy war. Regarding Molotov-Ribbentrop, this deserves its own comment, so I'll post it below this one
Regarding Molotov-Ribbentrop and the invasion of "Poland": I'm gonna please ask you to actually read my comment and to be open to the historical evidence I bring (using Wikipedia as a source, hopefully not suspect of being tankie-biased), because I believe there is a great mistake in the way contemporary western nations interpret history of WW2 and the interwar period. Thank you for actually making the effort, I know it's a long comment, but please engage with the points I'm making:
The only country who offered to start a collective offensive against the Nazis and to uphold the defense agreement with Czechoslovakia as an alternative to the Munich Betrayal was the USSR. From that Wikipedia article: "The Soviet Union announced its willingness to come to Czechoslovakia's assistance, provided the Red Army would be able to cross Polish and Romanian territory; both countries refused." Poland could have literally been saved from Nazi invasion if France and itself had agreed to start a war together against Nazi Germany, but they didn't want to. By the logic of "invading Poland" being akin to Nazi collaboration, Poland was as imperialist as the Nazis.
As a Spaniard leftist it's so infuriating when the Soviet Union, the ONLY country in 1936 which actively fought fascism in Europe by sending weapons, tanks and aviation to my homeland in the other side of the continent in the Spanish civil war against fascism, is accused of appeasing the fascists. The Soviets weren't dumb, they knew the danger and threat of Nazism and worked for the entire decade of the 1930s under the Litvinov Doctrine of Collective Security to enter mutual defense agreements with England, France and Poland, which all refused because they were convinced that the Nazis would honor their own stated purpose of invading the communists in the East. The Soviets went as far as to offer ONE MILLION troops to France (Archive link against paywall) together with tanks, artillery and aviation in 1939 in exchange for a mutual defense agreement, which the French didn't agree to because of the stated reason. Just from THIS evidence, the Soviets were by far the most antifascist country in Europe throughout the 1930s, you literally won't find any other country doing any remotely similar efforts to fight Nazism. If you do, please provide evidence.
The invasion of "Poland" is also severely misconstrued. The Soviets didn't invade what we think of when we say Poland. They invaded overwhelmingly Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands that Poland had previously invaded in 1919. Poland in 1938, a year before the invasion:

"Polish" territories invaded by the USSR in 1939:

The Soviets invaded famously Polish cities such as Lviv (sixth most populous city in modern Ukraine), Pinsk (important city in western Belarus) and Vilnius (capital of freaking modern Lithuania). They only invaded a small chunk of what you'd consider Poland nowadays, and the rest of lands were actually liberated from Polish occupation and returned to the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian socialist republics. Hopefully you understand the importance of giving Ukrainians back their lands and sovereignty?
Additionally, the Soviets didn't invade Poland together with the Nazis, they invaded a bit more than two weeks after the Nazi invasion, at a time when the Polish government had already exiled itself and there was no Polish administration. The meaning of this, is that all lands not occupied by Soviet troops, would have been occupied by Nazis. There was no alternative. Polish troops did not resist Soviet occupation but they did resist Nazi invasion. The Soviet occupation effectively protected millions of Slavic peoples like Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians from the stated aim of Nazis of genociding the Slavic peoples all the way to the Urals.
All in all, my conclusion is: the Soviets were fully aware of the dangers of Nazism and fought against it earlier than anyone (Spanish civil war), spent the entire 30s pushing for an anti-Nazi mutual defence agreement which was refused by France, England and Poland, tried to honour the existing mutual defense agreement with Czechoslovakia which France rejected and Poland didn't allow (Romania neither but they were fascists so that's a given), and offered to send a million troops to France's border with Germany to destroy Nazism but weren't allowed to do so. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a tool of postponing the war in a period in which the USSR, a very young country with only 10 years of industrialization behind it since the first 5-year plan in 1929, was growing at a 10% GDP per year rate and needed every moment it could get. I can and do criticise decisions such as the invasion of Finland, but ultimately even the western leaders at the time seem to generally agree with my interpretation:
“In those days the Soviet Government had grave reason to fear that they would be left one-on-one to face the Nazi fury. Stalin took measures which no free democracy could regard otherwise than with distaste. Yet I never doubted myself that his cardinal aim had been to hold the German armies off from Russia for as long as might be” (Paraphrased from Churchill’s December 1944 remarks in the House of Commons.)
“It would be unwise to assume Stalin approves of Hitler’s aggression. Probably the Soviet Government has merely sought a delaying tactic, not wanting to be the next victim. They will have a rude awakening, but they think, at least for now, they can keep the wolf from the door” Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the United States, 1933–1945), from Harold L. Ickes’s diary entries, early September 1939. Ickes’s diaries are published as The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes.
"One must suppose that the Soviet Government, seeing no immediate prospect of real support from outside, decided to make its own arrangements for self‑defence, however unpalatable such an agreement might appear. We in this House cannot be astonished that a government acting solely on grounds of power politics should take that course” Neville Chamberlain House of Commons Statement, August 24, 1939 (one day after pact's signing)
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this
When the USSR came to Hungary, they literally exhausted the syphilis medicine supply of the country for two years with the amount of rape, and the country has had collective PTSD from it for generations.
I'm sure others can bring up other countries, I'm more familiar and am more in touch with the culture of specifically Hungary. It is widely researched and not debated actually that it was so bad, suicides and misogyny spiked in the aftermath, as the people who couldn't defend their loved ones from often repeated often gang rape either committed suicide, or just internalised that "rape is not so bad" to cope.
600 thousand people were also kidnapped (from a country of less than 10 million) and forced into labour camps for decades, with a third never coming home. This also specifically targeted the local German-Hungarian population (which had nothing to do with Germany, it was a diaspora dating back long into medieval times), so it can also qualify as genocide.
There were also examples of brutal torture, keeping people in cells small enough they couldn't even sit down, and so on. Had nothing to do with communism, some of the direst things were actually done against communists who wanted to be free from Soviet occupation. It was pure Russian imperialism.
And truth be told, we got off easy compared to some other countries.
And finally, colonialism being "western" in an inherently racist way to view the world. East Asian empires also had colonies, so did most empires around the world.
And what did Hungary do to the USSR? Hungary was a fascist Axis state that contributed to Holocaust and to the invasion of the USSR.
Regarding the rapes, it's unfortunate, but an army of starved and mostly uneducated peasants who suffered millions of deaths for the prior two years is bound to commit excesses.
600 thousand people were also kidnapped (from a country of less than 10 million) and forced into labour camps
Yes. Hungary was a Nazi nation. Sending the people responsible to prison is a good thing. Not technically labor camps, the GULAG system is just prison, and reeducating the people out of Nazism was a good thing. The USSR literally rid Hungary of Nazism.
There were also examples of brutal torture, keeping people in cells small enough they couldn't even sit down, and so on
Sure, excesses in repression during a struggle against Nazism happened. I wonder why youre you're more concerned with that than thankful that Hungary stopped being Nazi and such tortures and means ended forever after the 50s.
True communism is very democratic
Literately Marx himself called for a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Which would then somehow magically give way to a true democratic government, as if any dictator on earth had ever just resigned out of their own accord.
Who is the proletariat?
If you are familiar with the Paris Commune of 1871, you'd know what was meant by that term, according to Engels.
It is not a call to install 'a' dictator to usher in a new socialist world. It is the act of overthrowing the 'dictatorship of capital.' The character of the people should be radically democratic, and aim to put all social institutions in the collective hands of everyone who is affected by them. The only magic going on here is the mystification of what has been plainly laid out over the past two centuries, and attempted by numerous cultures across the globe, with varying degrees of success, in no small part due to people who knew what it means to take power away from self-interested tyrants.
Democracy was supposed to do that. What would prevent a communist state from being usurped by capitalist interests (since capitalists are the ones who pay their bills)?
The USSR never intentionally starved its citizens as the US is doing right now.
Downvote if you believe CIA/fascist propaganda.
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