R. Guyovich posted:

i posted something about how the officer purges actually didn't decimate the ranks the way it's claimed, since big percentages of those purged were reinstated. but i think that was in the old thread

Falstaff posted:

https://twitter.com/garfxist/status/1481482976550526976

Not So Fast posted:

https://twitter.com/IgorInSteeltown/status/1483091562758393869?t=TulfiSCaC7WXmaGhz2t6eQ&s=19

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

i've read a little bit about it so i'm not very confident in my judgement of the era, but when "socialism had been achieved" under stalin, there was a conservative shift in some respects because conservatism was no longer seen as upholding capitalist relations, but now upholding socialist relations. things that tended to individualize people became frowned upon. this is how people in the party could see no contradiction between socialism and rebanning homosexuality and abortion even though many did at the time. this also seemed like a worldwide trend at the time including in the U.S. which tightened up "moral" codes in various sectors like the entertainment industry, a ferocious campaign against homosexuality in the 1930s, etc.

these were also pretty homophobic societies generally. i have a personal theory that arguments about homosexuality being like a fascist or capitalist disease came from a misrecognition, or essentializing homosexuality to be about egoistic sleaze and decadence, because everything bad about capitalist culture you can find in gay culture, but i think it's easy for straight people to "see" it among gay people which then "defines" the culture in the eyes of the straights. it's not "the fault" of gay people, the sleazy stuff is just immediately recognizable to the straights because it takes a different form than the heterosexual version of the same which they've been immersed in their entire lives.

fascism was also incredibly sleazy. look up the "nacht der amazonen" which was a SS general and munich mafia boss' attempt to market the city as an alternative vacation destination to paris for international businessmen and celebrities. it's gross and creepy as hell and is full epstein with teenage girls wearing skimpy BDSM-like outfits parading around. nude women painted in gold. the SS guy was a pimp and a bouncer in bars when he joined the nazi party in the 1920s. it's just a slave culture and slave society. it's like donald trump and his people. and they put gay people in concentration camps, held "responsible" for spreading a culture of "living it up" in weimar, while the nazis were doing all this stuff. so another element here was homophobia being weaponized by both fascists and communists in an ideological war. i think communists in germany also had a pejorative term for ernst rohm when he was outed but i can't remember what it was.

like, people could've just been not as smart or sophisticated as people are today. you'll occasionally run into people who post on weird forums who will cite stalin as a rationalization for homophobia among communists. but it's not like people from the 1930s have the final judgement on that period of history. we do. not stalin or the KPD. and the people who come after us will have their own judgement from where they're standing.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Maximo Roboto posted:

Scouring of the Shire was literally a counterrevolution against a redistributionist regime that enacted rationing wasn't it

Raskolnikov38 posted:

i love lotr but holy gently caress i do not care about marxist analysis of the shire

lollontee posted:

the shire is more of a capitalist utopia, with happy masters owning happy estates, with servants who never get abused

croup coughfield posted:

socialism with russian (depressed) characteristics has never worked and never will

vyelkin posted:

here are some horrifying stories of murder and rape attributed to the far right, but did you know the woke left tried to hold a university event for people other than white men? I literally cannot see the difference between these two things

Toupee Groupie posted:

Incoming random rant:
Ugh, you want to Make America Great Again? Convince America that China is as great of a threat as Russia was previously! "Can't have the plebs see what communism might get them" (Laugh off a feudal society going to atomic super power in 32 years). Start a dick waving contest with the space race so taxes und so much science and technology to beat the USSR that HACCP food standards were developed because NASA PAID Pillsbury to figure out how to make food safe just so astronauts don't get upset tum tums (now the world standard for food safety). No one cared so much about high taxes. Local, health and industry was funded by taxes! Once the USA understood that they could temporarily outspend the USSR militarily to hasten their downfall, (sorry, doing a bit of arguing economically) exactly that happened in the late 70s through the 1980s. SO FEW PEOPLE SAW THE TRUTH IN THE 1990S WITH THE CUTS THE WELFARE SYSTEM BEING DONE ALONG SIDE THE CUTS FOR MILITARY SPENDING! NO NEED TO HELP ANYMORE!

Rant off.
Sorry, had to say it to someone other than the wife and cat.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Calico Heart posted:

If people would like a light and comedic touch of jovial leftism this fine Christmas, may I present: "Scrooge wasn't THAT bad!" It's a video I made chronicling the bizarre December tradition of op-ed writers defending Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol. If I may say so myself, I think it turned out pretty well! It even has a few surprise appearences from some very special guests!

Any watchtime/subs/likes/comments are much appreciated and feed the algorithm beast.

AnimeIsTrash posted:

What is even up with the Nepali maoists? Are their policies actually socialist? The only time I hear about them is over USAID money protests in nepal.

Aeolius posted:

i mean,

https://twitter.com/Rakeshhkumaar/status/1624786684113195011

india's demonetization efforts of the last decade have been to some degree aimed at limiting supply channels to, e.g., Naxalites in Bastar

mila kunis posted:

it would be cool to be a part of an organized mass party apparatus that had the resources and labour hours to assign people to this kind of stuff. "we've been hearing complaints about the water situation in the southeastern part of province X. newly graduated cadre Goofus, you've been assigned to the team to look into this so you can get some actual experience of things outside of reading theory."

i remember talking to some older communist organizers and their systemic knowledge and in depth basic command of political economy of their region (bengal, which their party used to govern) down to individual localities and villages blew me away (didn't stop them from being turfed out of power though). "no investigation" is something i think is unfair to lodge against just cspam, at the end of the day most of us especially on the left are completely shut out of the resources and power required to be able to investigate stuff in depth and all those old structures have been completely dismantled and are actively sabotaged outside of like the communist parties of china, cuba, etc. we're all struggling at trying to get a picture of the truth of what's going on outside of the things we directly experience, getting past that takes time and financial backing

AnimeIsTrash posted:

if you have a classless, stateless society do you really think there will be a hole in people's hearts that will need to be filled by religion? marx's whole argument was that religion fills this hole which is created by capitalism, without capitalism that hole wouldn't exist.

then what religion are you talking about? the caste system is inherently part of Hinduism, how are you resolving that in a classless society? theravada buddhists are some of the virulently anti communist people in the world.

AnimeIsTrash posted:

ill talk to modi bhai

croup coughfield posted:

what im getting at is any anti-capitalist movement needs money. not donations from trust fund kids in brooklyn to run a vanity magazine but real, self-generating revenue. theres multiple ways to go about this (crime being a historically popular revenue stream) but one that seems obvious to me is worker co-ops with strong ties to a socialist party.

obviously we need education and to spread class consciousness but that takes money! it all takes money!!