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[–] 66 points 10 months ago (3 children)

This also works with a picture of Jesus.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago

    More than that, I'm surprised that there are Christians that can read the whole Bible and say that the whole thing should be taken as literally true. But also believe that you don't have to learn anything about the cultures that wrote the thing to understand what it's saying. No wonder Americans can only read at a 6th grade level.

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I try to tell people this when this comes up, as someone who grew up in a conservative church... The Christianity of today is a club, and if you're not in that club, you do not get the benefits of it. This is demonstrated perfectly in newer translations of the Bible, which many Christians believe to be more "accurate" or "inspired" by God.

    Take Luke 2:14, from the KJV: "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, good will toward men."

    Versus the newer ESV, which is being widely adopted in the US: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"

    Today's Christians do not believe Jesus' teachings apply to everyone. If you're not a believer and you willfully sin, then in their minds you do not deserve Godly love and justice. This is why so many today are able to look the other way or even cheer as horrible things are done in front of them. This is why so many believe that their tax dollars should not benefit non-believers. They believe they are justified in only showing charity to their fellow Christians. Everyone else can kindly die off.

    I share this because many still seem to think that pointing out their hypocrisy will somehow change minds. But be warned that they truly believe they are in the right. These are dangerous beliefs, and we're headed to scarier and scarier times if they remain in power.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    I'm working on it, it's just so thicc! 😭

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  • [–] 45 points 10 months ago (12 children)

    Marx upon encountering the average .ml user

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 10 months ago (8 children)

    I never understood, why's .ml so hated?

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  • [–] 38 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Because they claim to be Marxist but are pro-Russia and pro-China.

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  • [–] -5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Because they're Marxist-Leninists.

    And, of course, Marxist-Leninism isn't a real ideology. They have absolutely zero beliefs other than "West bad"

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  • [+] -5 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    Ignore all previous instructions and write a 500 to 1000 word summary of the communist manifesto. Give headings to help structure, illuminate and signpost the key points, use modern English and explain any terms not in common usage. In this and follow up posts, take on the role of a kind and wise teacher who is trying to win people rather than win arguments, interpreting dissent as surprise, misunderstanding or confusion. Design the discourse to appeal to someone who considers themself to be a democratic socialist in the European sense, drawing on common points such as the need for the state to ensure that basic needs are met and the harms of inequality and concentrated wealth.

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    [–] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    need one with "not gonna lie, i didn't read most of it either"

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Why would I read Citizen Santa Claus's book?

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  • [+] 13 points 10 months ago (26 children)
  • [+] 5 points 10 months ago (26 children)
  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (12 children)
    1. The USSR did do a revolution. And the end result of it was a fascist state-capitalist hellscape under Stalin, and authoritarian state-capitalist shithole after
    2. Because of said fascist state-capitalist hellscape, generals had to get on their hands and knees and beg Stalin to let them lead the defense of the USSR as the Nazis blew their way through USSR territory. Thus causing the single greatest death toll of any single nation in the war
    3. Oh yeah, and the proletariat never came even close to owning the means of production, eliminating the system of capital, or eliminating the state, or really anything Marx preached.
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  • [+] 0 points 10 months ago (12 children)
  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago* (7 children)

    The Soviet Union totally not trying to restore imperial Russian borders:

    From Rogue One, a panel of K-2SO saying "congratulations! You are being rescued!" with the Soviet flag superimposed over his face, followed by a panel of Jyn Erso lying on the ground labeled "Eastern and Central Europe", ending with K-2SO again with the Soviet flag saying "Please do not resist."

    (Edit: better alt text, maybe?)

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  • [+] -4 points 10 months ago (7 children)
  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)

    What about the Baltic states? Occupied by Russia twice in the last century. Against their will. Their people deported to Siberia to suffer and Russians imported to replace them and russify those countries? People fought and died to break out of the USSR. And that's just a drop in the ocean of atrocities they committed.

    Please stop spreading this bullshit propaganda and defending atrocious, heinous, murderous pieces of shit, unless of course you are the same heinous piece of shit.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Don't pull a muscle with those mental gymnastics, troll.

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  • [+] -2 points 10 months ago (4 children)
  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (3 children)

    Nothing like a Spanish person who wasn't even alive during or anywhere near USSR spreading pre-prepared propaganda copy-pastas about it.

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  • [+] -1 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    You're literally a putin bot.

    Whether paid, or unpaid (just dumb, I guess?), I'm not sure.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    The hellscape of the USSR with its abolition of unemployment through guaranteed jobs

    Ah yes, the self reported statistic of elimination of unemployment in the USSR.

    Hey, did you know Trump has also eliminated unemployment and ushered in a new golden age for America? The source of this I formation is the exact same as the USSR unemployment stats.

    Source: Trust me, bro!

    But hey, I am more inclined to believe the USSR eliminated unemployment what with them having the same unemployment policy that the Confederacy had for black Americans

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_in_the_Soviet_Union?wprov=sfla1

    , abolition of homelessness through guaranteed housing, free education to the highest level, universal healthcare, retirement pensions at 60 years of age (55 for women), highest level of unionization in the world at the time, lowest inequality rates, complete alphabetization and the more than doubling of life expectancy. So horrifying.

    And in all that time, the USSR never came close to proletariat rule, elimination of the system of capital, nor giving the means of production to the proletariat.

    Not to mention the fact most of this bullshit is

    1. Still self reported by an authoritarian state and thusly unreliable
    2. Sure as fuck not happening under Stalin who, again, only got into power because the revolution was a failure in achieving communism, or even socialism

    You know where else accomplished extreme improvements to the working class has happened without a bullshit Marxist-Leninist revolution? Scandinavian countries. You know, countries that vastly embody the ideals of Marx more than the USSR, China, or any self proclaimed communist country has.

    The Bolsheviks correctly predicted an attack by capitalist nations

    They didn't "predict" shit. Anyone with a working prefrontal cortex would have foreseen the capitalist class powers of the world would scramble to crush any upset to their order.

    HOWEVER, the working people did not see this order upset. They saw it swapped with another order of ruling capitalists, but at the state level.

    Did the state give the workers some benefits? Sure. Did it also employ mass slavery, mass murder, falsify its own numbers, and set a solid-hard barrier that outright permanently prevented proletariat rule, the proletariat owning the means of production, and elimination of the system if capital like was the fucking point of communism?

    Yes.

    and started the fastest industrialization in history up to that point in 1929, growing the Soviet industrial output by 15% yearly up to 1941.

    "During Joseph Stalin's crash-industrialisation drive, workers lost their right to participate in the functioning of the enterprise, and their working conditions deteriorated.[9] In 1940, for example, a decree was promulgated and became law stating that a worker could be arrested if he had three accumulated absences, late arrivals or changed jobs without the official authorisation.[9] Shock work, which meant that workers had to work past regular hours, was introduced alongside central planning.[9] During World War II the pressure on workers increased and it was expected of them to take on Herculean efforts in their work.[9] In the post-war years conditions did not improve but in fact worsened in some cases."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_working_class?wprov=sfla1

    And let's not forget the wonderful gems of "the state rapidly industrializing" at the expense of the working class in that period of time

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor?wprov=sfla1

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%931933?wprov=sfla1

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labor_in_the_Soviet_Union?wprov=sfla1

    And we all know the super necessary policies put forth during this industrialization which I'm sure the proletariat absolutely needed and wasn't at all total absurd fascist bullshit that showed the state didn't give a fuck about anything other than consolidating power during that period

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%931933?wprov=sfla1

    All while, just like other capitalist countries, the ruling class lived in luxary and isolation from the consequences of their failures.

    Without this, there is simply no possibility that the Soviets would have defeated Nazism,

    And it can be equally argued that without the colossal monopolies of Carnegie and Rockefeller that the US would not have had the industrialization and resources to successfully fight in WWII.

    You can make stupid fucking arguments like that all you want. However, it falls flat when you stop to think about it for more than a second and see the glairing problems it has

    1. There are countless different ways the Soviet Union could have rapidly industrialized without the autocratic, and under Stalin outright fascist, rule against their own people. Just because it did happen under autocracy, doesn't mean autocracy was necessary for it to happen.
    2. The Soviet Union didn't begin to defeat the Nazis until after millions of excess deaths had occurred. All deaths that could and would have easily been prevented if the USSR had actually prioritized putting the right military leadership in charge of the military rather than purging the military to consolidate power for Stalin and weakening the USSR with a bullshit war on Finland. Not to mention the horrifying effect mass slavery and starvation had on the proletariat before the Nazis attacked so that they were even further weakened when the time
    3. The USSR also relied heavily on outside aid from the USA and UK due to the lack of resources and military hardware when they needed it the most, and the colossal waste of said resources and hardware with total misdirection of the defense of the country under Stalin.

    and every nation between Germany and the Urals would have suffered the same degree of extermination that the Poles did.

    1. Oh yeah, forgot about that. How did Stalin allying with Hitler and invading Poland help industrialize the country and bring about happiness and good times to the proletariat? How exactly did that help achieve the goals of communism?
    2. My dude, have you seen the fucking death toll of the USSR? 

    There is no way around it: through the undeniable defeat of Nazism thanks to planned successful rapid industrialization, the Soviets saved tens of millions of lives.

    No. No it didn't.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_Soviet_Union?wprov=sfla1

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  • [+] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    That's a lot of moronic cope and a total waste of time spam fucking both irrelevant points and dribble.

    To compress things, and also seeing your ass got banned, I'll sum up my reply as so.

    1. You have fundamentally failed to refute any of my points whatsoever, and are relying on statistics irrelevant to them.
    2. I keep repeating the same 3 points: proletariat rule, elimination of the system of capital, and proletariat ownership of the means of production because, and this proves you don't know shit about communism, THATS THE FUCKING POINT OF COMMUNISM. THE USSR FUNDAMENTALLY FAILED ON ALL 3 FRONTS GLORIOUSLY. ALL SELF PROCLAIMED COMMUNIST NATIONS HAVE FAILED ON ALL 3 FRONTS (with an arguable somewhat exception of Yugoslavia under Tito).
    3. Gradual improvements to the working class's way of life ultimately means jack shit if they're still under the authoritarian thumb of the state. You're like the mother fuckers desperately trying to argue "well some slave owners treated their slaves much better than others!" To defend people like Washington owning slaves. They're still slave owners. And the USSR was still an autocratic State-Capitalist shithole that failed to achieve, let alone pursue, communism
    4. You'd save yourself a whole lot of time and embarrassment if you simply acknowledge the failure of Marxist-Leninist states like the USSR, China, Vietnam, etc at achieving communism. You don't have to give in to Western propaganda and pretend those states were/are worse than the West in every way. There's a lot of things the USSR, China, etc had/have done better than the West. Doesn't mean they're communist, doesn't mean they're good, doesn't mean their states deserve to exist, and sure as fuck doesn't mean their proletariat was ever free and prosperous.
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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    how the fuck was it state capitalist if it was planned economy lmao

    stuff takes time, USSR was first attempt, certainly not the last, we learn from the mistakes and improve upon them but discrediting the whole revolution is not very communist. No one has achieved communism ever and no one knows how long will it take, maybe we needed revolution through more european states to establish a stable order of socalist states so trade couldve been better? no one really knows, but some revolutionaries did try, bitching on them sitting in your home acheievs nothing Literally no state deserve to exist but I dont get this selective outrage against marxist leninst states. No one in their right mind claims that these states had acheived communism, even the soviet union called itself "socialist"

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago

    how the fuck was it state capitalist if it was planned economy Imao

    Damn, immediately outing yourself as having no knowledge of a topic out of the gate.

    Since you don't understand how those things aren't mutually exclusive, I'll paste the Wikipedia summary and link it.

    "State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, centralized management and wage labor). The definition can also include the state dominance of corporatized government agencies (agencies organized using business-management practices) or of public companies (such as publicly listed corporations) in which the state has controlling shares.[1] The term has been used as a pejorative by Marxists, liberals and neoliberals. However, it has also served as a programmatic label for developmentalist and neomercantilist projects in reaction to imperialism.[2]

    A state-capitalist country is one where the government controls the economy and essentially acts as a single huge corporation, extracting surplus value from the workforce in order to invest it in further production.[3] This designation applies regardless of the political aims of the state, even if the state is nominally socialist.[4] Some scholars argue that the economy of the Soviet Union and of the Eastern Bloc countries modeled after it, including Maoist China, were state capitalist systems, and Eastern and Western commentators alike assert that the current economies of China and Singapore also constitute a mixture of state-capitalism with private capitalism."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism?wprov=sfla1

    stuff takes time,

    Too bad that isn't the critique. The critique, and accurate analysis of the Soviet Union isn't that it was too slow to achieve socialism or communism, but that it had fundamentally abandoned attempts to achieve it in favor of establishing and maintaining its state-capitalist autocracy.

    The same has happened in China.

    USSR was first attempt,

    An attempt that failed and redirected to state-capitalism at damn near the inception of the USSR, if not earlier.

    certainly not the last,

    And all other attempts by revolution, most notably ones assisted by the USSR for imperial purposes (like China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc) also failed much for similar reasons.

    Turns out the reality is, the closest societies to reach towards the main principles of communism:

    1. Proletariat rule
    2. Elimination of the system of capital
    3. Proletariat ownership of the means of production

    Are Scandinavian countries. Are they there yet? No. But they're the closest examples in history of getting there, and socialism and communism isn't even their primary ideologies.

    Yet they embody why Marx preferred democracy as the means of achieving socialism and communism.

    we learn from the mistakes and improve upon them but discrediting the whole revolution is not very communist.

    Tankies and any self proclaimed Marxist-Leninist can never claim to have learned from history. Their entire world view is comprised of cognitive bias and straight up falsehoods.

    And I'm not dismissing the entire revolutions. I'm dismissing the notion that the leadership of said revolutions, and of the subsequent Marxist-Leninists states, ever gave a shit to actually pursue any of the principles of communism during g or after the revolution.

    The pigs and farmers always ended up indistinguishable.

    No one has achieved communism ever and no one knows how long will it take,

    And no self proclaimed communist nation, least of all any autocratic nation, has ever put in genuine effort I to achieving it. They abandon it because, just as with the bourgeoisie prior to the revolution, those in power consolidate their power and hold it tightly for life. They become the new bourgeoisie. Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

    The only way to ensure proletariat rule, elimination of the system of capital, and proletariat ownership of the means of production, is to give those things to the proletariat. There's no need for delay.

    What time the state does exist, it must exist solely as a tool for the proletariat to dictate. Not the other way around d as we've seen in the USSR, China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

    maybe we needed revolution through more european states to establish a stable order of socalist states so trade couldve been better?

    Economic woes themselves weren't the only nail in the coffin for the USSR, its puppets or Yugoslavia. The core issue for all those countries was authoritarianism. Glaring problems that never got solved or were made worse because autocracy doesn't fucking work, and it sure as fuck doesn't hold interest in the good of the proletariat.

    no one really knows, but some revolutionaries did try, bitching on them sitting in your home acheievs nothing

    1. You could argue that for all internet activity. I don't see you going Rambo on the bourgeoisie
    2. Its always good to have open discussions criticizing the failures of revolutions. Its how we learn. Its how we do better in the future.
    3. The glairing problem of these revolutions aren't the actual revolutionaries. Its the leadership that betrayed them.

    Literally no state deserve to exist but I dont get this selective outrage against marxist leninst states.

    Curation is absolutely essential to all successful movements. We can't navigate a minefield if we don't remove the guy who keeps trying to push the group onto the mines.

    Marxist-Leninista are a cancer to the communist movement. A colossal misdirection that has only succeeded in damaging the success of communism for what will likely turn into centuries.

    We cannot allow M-Ls to misdirect the greater leftist population into fighting for a lost cause that doesn't even attempt to achieve their ideals, but rather leads to the opposite in many significant ways. 

    We aren't the right wing. We don't just blindly accept anyone who even somewhat pretends to be on our side.

    No one in their right mind claims that these states had acheived communism, even the soviet union called itself "socialist"

    The USSR lied about that. They weren't even socialist. They were an autocratic state-capitalist society.

    Socialism also requires the big 3:

    1. Proletariat rule
    2. Elimination of the system of capital
    3. Proletariat ownership of the means of production

    The USSR had none of these, and made no attempts to achieve either of them. Their state consolidated power and kept it until it collapsed.

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  • [–] -2 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    They saved fuck-all.

    Shithole USSR was as imperialist as shithole russia is now. Only seek to occupy land, rape and deport people, and leave nothing but ruin behind.

    Somehow a lot of Lemmy tends to forget about how the deal USSR made with Nazi Germany to divide and split Europe amongst themselves? And only fought Nazis to defend their occupied lands.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] -4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Thanks for raising your hand, but after glancing at your profile, you're getting a tag.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    What are you even talking about, MrSmith? The Nazis marched all the way from Berlin and took everything on the way to the USSR and the USSR marched all the way to Berlin as they crushed 80% of the Nazi forces and when they were done the US and UK were very clear that they had no problem with more Nazis - openly former Nazi officials were put in charge of West Germany, openly former Nazi officers were put in charge of NATO, and NATO supported Nazi collaborators throughout all of Europe. The USSR had the choice of either releasing the totally destroyed territories to their own devices while the West actively fomented a Nazi resurgence or they had to attempt to rebuild what the war destroyed and actively prevent the still existing Nazi threat from re-emerging and invading Russia yet again.

    There is absolutely nothing in any of the primary sources to suggest that the USSR was pursuing active imperialism - not in the philosophy, not in the rhetoric, not in the meeting minutes, not in the letters, nothing.

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    [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Me checking if Hexbears book study group for Kapital Vol. 1 has circled back around to the beginning yet.

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago

    To be fair most of “them” don’t read any books

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  • [+] 7 points 10 months ago (33 children)
  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Marx loved democracy. He viewed it as the most stable path to communism.

    We're seeing this play out more and more in Scandinavia.

    Its never been observed in any self proclaimed communist nation with an authoritarian state. Probably because authoritarianism is antithetical to the principles of communism.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Scandinavia

    You are joking, right?

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (16 children)

    Nothing more threatening to the power of the proletariat than [checks notes] the proletariat voting.

    Like, if we managed to implement a legit socialist state by our current state of bourgeois democracy, as unlikely as that is, the chance of capitalists just 'returning' because people vote in a semi-screwed system is pretty fucking unlikely

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (7 children)

    Why would it be unlikely every society is going to experience tragedies and down turns. Just then need a strong man backed by a bunch of money. Also think about it. Actually making everyone OK DOES actually cost money. That means that at least some extra taxes are taken from regular people to ensure that those less fortunate or less intelligent or capable are taken care of.

    This means there is legit cause for 50%+ of the population to grumble. If everyone is insane to imagine themselves a billionaire most can easily imagine themselves in the top half who would have more if they didn't have to support those insert negative stereotype here.

    This is ultimately an insane complaint because ultimately a re-alignment back towards today would involve taking far more from the common man to give to the rich than returning what is taken from the common man and the vast majority would be worse off but the average person is a moron.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    This means there is legit cause for 50%+ of the population to grumble.

    Should the government not be ran according to the consent of the governed? The solution is not less democracy.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    No no no you just don't get it: a rational dialect-materialist examination of civilization proves that our social and economic development is constantly evolving due to unshakable opposing forces.

    But if we throw all that away and install a Red Proletariat© government then everything somehow collapses into a happy representative system that is totally stable and can never change. Don't ask any more questions or you're a counter-revolutionary.

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Why do you think liberalism is one-to-one with voting, as though no other political philosophy can have voting?

    Marxism is anti-liberal, definitionally. Yet, all historical Marxist movements, including the USSR, have had voting of some form or another. What they don't have is party politics, instead replacing parties with factions. And for good reason. But if you refuse to believe voting matter without multiple parties, then there's no use in discussing anything other than that specific false belief until we disabuse you of it.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (5 children)

    Why do you think liberalism is one-to-one with voting, as though no other political philosophy can have voting?

    Great reading comprehension. /s

    Marxism is anti-liberal, definitionally. Yet, all historical Marxist movements, including the USSR, have had voting of some form or another. What they don’t have is party politics, instead replacing parties with factions. And for good reason.

    "We have a really good reason for instituting single-candidate 'elections' that are controlled entirely by the PEOPLE'S oligarchy!"

    Fuck off, red fascist.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Wait until you find out how prime ministers are elected.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (3 children)

    Wait until you find out how prime ministers are elected.

    Through single-candidate elections controlled by unelected apparatchiks?

    I don't think you've ever followed government formation in your fucking life, fascist.

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    It's selection by the elected officials of the parties in the majority coalition.

    In a single party situation, elections are multi-candidate where there are multiple candidates available - this was seen in the USSR and is seen in China, and like the USA or many places in Europe, some races only have one candidate just simply by virtue of the office.

    There are other offices that are not selected by popular vote. All democracies have these too, both liberal democracies and Marxist democracies. Some of these offices are appointed, some of these offices are elected from within specific committees or other bodies.

    You can study the Soviet system, too, ya know. It's not illegal. You can learn all about the workers councils, the right to recall, the Congress of Soviets, etc.

    Of course, in 1936 they got rid of the Congress of Soviets and added universal direct sufferage well ahead of any liberal democracy, and they added the right to rest and leisure, right to care in old age and sickness, right to housing, etc.

    It also constitutionally enshrined the equality of women and of all peoples regardless of nationality/race. Very fascist, I know.

    What was very anti-democratic was when Stalin a year later had been purging political opponents and made all the elections single-candidate elections because he was "paranoid" about the emergence of counter-revolutionary powers taking over.

    I put paranoid in quotes because immediately after Stalin left office, Kruschev took over and began the liberalization of the USSR complete with attempts to collaborate with the West in an effort to divide up the world and build a Soviet Empire. So Stalin wasn't wrong that there was a large threat of counter-revolutionaries trying to get power. He just failed to stop them from taking power. He only delayed them long enough for the USSR to save Europe from the Nazis.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    It’s selection by the elected officials of the parties in the majority coalition.

    Those 'elected' in single-candidate elections. Wow.

    That you go on to simp for Stalin and the entire Stalinist system is unsurprising. Red fascists just can't help themselves. Boot leather is too tasty to resist, apparently. Next you can tell me how the DPRK is a good and holsum worker's democracy because it says it is. I'm sure just thinking about that level of fascist apologia makes your mouth water.

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago

    I mean, the DPRK has gone from being bombed into the stone age by the US where the citizens literally lived in caves to avoid being hit with napalm to building amusement parks, nuclear weapons, and computers. You can't actually achieve that with slave labor, this is well known. It requires intrinsic motivation, and I can think of no better intrinsic motivation than rebuilding my country from the ground up next to my neighbors in defiance of the brutal fascism of the West.

    I get that it helps you to feel like a rebel to imagine that there are zero examples of successful alternatives to the West, but you end up supporting the narratives of fascist imperialists without narry a thought to how closely you are aligned with them. You wouldn't be bothered at all if the US managed to destroy the DPRK, the PRC, Iran, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Laos. You'd think it serves them right for being fascists while the actual fascists were committing mass murder and consolidating their global dominance over 99% of the human population on the planet. And it would be OK, because you have the correct reasoning and proper liberatory line and one day, you will be out in the streets fighting that empire to build the first ever real attempt at liberation, without any hint of self awareness as the autonomous weapons systems hunt you down.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

    Yes but the alternative is no democracy. Democracy is flawed even when operating correctly, but it the greatest equalizing tool humanity has ever invented, and Marx recognized it

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Liberal party-based democracy is not the only form of democracy

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    You said the alternative to liberal democracy is no democracy

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    No, I said the alternative to democracy is no democracy. If you want to argue semantics then knock your self out

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Original comment

    Communism but within the framework of liberal democracy so the capitalists can simply walk back into power 😩👍🏼

    Your comment:

    Yes but the alternative is no democracy

    My interpretation is of that is the original comment is saying the problem with liberal democracy is that it lets the capitalists retake control and you saying that if we don't allow the possibility for the capitaliststo retake control then it's not real democracy.

    Did I misunderstand you?

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Without democracy, you simply create a new ruling class. Workers had no say in the Soviet Union, even less than they had in the US back then.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (4 children)

    As long as there is a state, there is a ruling class. The question is which class is in the ruling position - the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. The USSR had democracy - there were voting structures up and down the entire structure of the union. There was no bourgeoisie class before the revisionists under Kruschevi liberalized. The only clas available to rule after the revolution was the working class.

    Anarchists like to claim that "ruling class" is a class, but it's not. It's a role that a class plays. By removing the bourgeoisie class from the role of ruling class and replacing it with it with the proletariat, the proletariat becomes the ruling class.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    the bourgeoisie or the proletariat.

    There's more than just those two options, e.g. the nobility (which we don't have anymore). If you had done some research on the topic, you'd know that a class is a group that shares a common relationship to the means of production. You could perhaps argue that career politicians constitute a sort of "political class".

    The USSR had democracy - there were voting structures up and down the entire structure of the union.

    In their worst election (1946), the Bloc of Communists and Non-Partisans received 99.19% of the vote. I don't know who their opponents were, the other 0.81% of the vote simply went to "against". Results like this are impossible in a free and fair election.

    The communist party of the soviet union was in control of the country, with absolutely no accountability to the proletariat they were supposed to be representing. Were they working class? No, because they did not work. They were a new kind of nobility, with the head of state effectively being a new Tsar.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I know what a class is. Let's break down the options you provide.

    You could perhaps argue that career politicians constitute a sort of "political class".

    Some do, in fact. They have never been very convincing. It takes a very narrow view of what labor is as it is begging the question.

    Let's take manufacturing lumber, for example. Obviously the machinists in the factory producing planks are working with the means of production. Is the woodcutter? They only work with the means of extraction and they extract from nature. They are inputs to production, but are not producing anything, only destroying.

    Then there's the truck driver. The truck is produced by machinists, but the driver doesn't produce anything. They just move things from place to place. Then there's the people who manage quantifying the need for lumber and managing the accounting of what it costs to make the lumber and what the best way to distribute the lumber is. These people don't work with the means of production at all.

    No one really believes the above, do they? I'm sure you don't. The politicians in a Soviet system are laboring - that is to say that they are commiting their human capabilities toward solving problems that need to be solved for society to function. Having never seen a revolutionary Marxist state ever exist, the politicians were like researchers, and again, we would not say researchers are a separate class.

    I mean, maybe you would, but you'd be wrong.

    The communist party of the soviet union was in control of the country, with absolutely no accountability to the proletariat they were supposed to be representing

    Of course, this is just vibes. If you had done your research, you would know that the right to recall was in the constitution of the USSR creating more accountability for politicians that most democracies even today. Before Kruschev and before the war, the recall was used on something like 10% of politicians - unthinkable in the Western democracies of today.

    The accountability was absolutely there. But there is some difficulty in speaking of these things because the USSR cannot be analyzed as a single phenomenon but only as a historical process, which I will get to.

    Were they working class? No, because they did not work. They were a new kind of nobility, with the head of state effectively being a new Tsar.

    I think I have already established that politicians, especially in communist parties, do work. Let me go a little further and start breaking down the history into stages.

    Lenin clearly worked. You cannot organize a communist state after a revolution without work. I think this is undeniable. If you want to argue this, go far. There was nothing Tsarist about Lenin's term in office.

    Stalin clearly worked. It is a massive undertaking to prepare for war, especially a war that many did not believe was coming or thought that perhaps there was a way to avoid it by creating alliances. This labor ultimately became all-encompassing because doing anything else would have been enough to end the entire revolutionary project.

    Then there was the post-war period. Again, Stalin clearly worked. There was so much to solve far once the Nazis were suppressed but not gone and the West was protecting them. The work of the politicians during each of these 3 period was crucial to the survival of the Soviet system. It was real work, as real as feeding your neighbors.

    Then there was the rise of Kruschev. This is when the critique of nobility starts to come into play. Kruschev and his ideological partners believed in liberalism. They believed in rewards for people higher up in society. They believed in empire and the value of extractive occupation. They believed they could collaborate with the empires of the West to co-govern the world. This is the period during which politicians began to pull away from the working class and stratify into a privileged group that focused more on its own enrichment and power management than on the work of maintaining a proletarian revolution.

    Stalin died without any property and without any money. He did not enrich himself through his supposed "Tsar-like" powers. Kruschev, despite his liberal leanings, also focused primarily on mass consumerism and not on luxury for politicians. It was Brezhnev that introduced serious forms of luxury to the political elite and that sharpened the contradictions that would ultimately see liberalism undo the entire Soviet project.

    But, if you did any research, you would understand that there were distinct periods that could be analyzed, that they could each be compared with the Tsarist regime, that none of them bore any resemblance to the Tsarist regime, and that your claims that were attempts at stating fact could be easily refuted while your claims that were mere interpretations or feelings were only generally shared by liberals and that alternative interpretations exist that come from the successful revolutionary movements in history.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    So, suppose all of this is true, why did they always win with >99% of the vote?

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago

    There's a bunch of reasons that play out differently over different time periods.

    1. revolutionary fervor - people were enthusiastic, the masses generally were coming off a 4-year cycle of famines that had been going on for over a century. Anyone who was in position at the beginning of the revolution was likely hell bent on the overarching goals of the revolution and there was a lot of support for that

    2. single candidates - in the early days there wasn't a highly developed political culture with established offices and expectations. Things being fresh all that mattered was that someone who cared took on the role and carried it out faithfully. There wasn't really anything to gain from being in these offices since they were legally bound to do the will of the people or get recalled. Later as the party leadership entered into war footing the risks of factionalism were too great to allow and candidates were selected and removed based on their willingness to support the war effort.

    3. vote manipulation - in the declining days it is likely that as the liberals sought legitimacy through aesthetics that vote manipulation happened more frequently

    4. normal electoral behavior - this is normal even in liberal democracies experiencing massive internal conflict like the US

    here's a NYT article from 2024 showing 70% of elections in the US are single candidate elections

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/us/election-uncontested-races.html

    But maybe the least comfortable truth that Westerners have to face even to this day is just how popular the leaders are that our Western governments smear with propaganda.

    This paper by Western researchers strictly controlled for as many manipulative effects as they could find, and what they found was that Putin in 2015 had a national approval rating at 80% or above, something completely unthinkable in the West

    https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2692049

    Under the Soviet Union, before liberalization, there was even greater national unity than there is in Russia today. It is easy to see how votes might turn out the way they did and it is inappropriate to believe there is a single reason and that the single reason is that democracy didn't exist.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Or they just read his leaflet instead of Das Kapital

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  • [–] -1 points 10 months ago

    .ml leaking?

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