this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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There's so many arguments explaining why they were the one responsible for this wall
And everyone in 1989 talked about the lack of bananas in the eastern part without realising that the western sanctions were responsible for this absence. People aren't naturally ignorant
at the same rate 
despite socialism never working(, both sides were helped, but one of them was under sanctions and without any neocolonial help, a higher military burden, etc.)
And they grew
Not forgetting that eastern germans(, who saw their shared properties stolen by western capitalists b.t.w.,) are still unapologetically voting left ever since
I've learned in highscool that Stalin was disfigured by some kind of disease but modified the photographs, that was a western lie still taught more than half a century after his death, i've also been taught that if someone stopped clapping first they were at a high risk of being deported, which was why rounds of applause could last a long time, i was naive enough not to have doubts. I didn't know that we were the most propagandised population in the world back then, something that most readers would disagree with(, if you cite north korea it'll even more point out (y)our ignorance&propagandization).
If you (dis)agree, then just ask yourself what's contained in the medias of our proclaimed enemies(, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and any leftist south american, Zimbabwe, ~Burundi, ~'Central African Republic', ~Congo, ~Somalia, Sudan, and so many more african countries, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Palestine, and even Lebanon because of the Hezbollah, Afghanistan, Russia, China, North Korea, Belarus, Serbia, and too many others that i've ignored, if i'm taking the last 100 years then we've oppressed every single country at one point or another, including Ukraine when it elected pro-russian leaders. Read them and you'll understand that we're at the very least as propagandised as they are(, if not more, like i suppose, because they know our dominant point of view, cited in their articles, while we totally ignore theirs).
As a german: The tought of having to exclude Berlin from these statistics because it is such a trainwreck really butters my eggroll
That’s a study that is nearly ten years old, and is also severely misunderstood.
Firstly, yes, Berlin hasn’t got too much to add to Germany’s GDP, but that’s not really Berlin’s fault. In 2001 Berlin went broke because of the investment East-Berlin needed, but subsequently was denied help by the federal government. Yeah, no shit, if you don’t invest in your capital which has no industry to speak of, it’s not going to end well.
Second, this statistic showed that without Berlin, Germany would be 0.2% richer, while France would be 15% poorer without Paris. What does that mean? Simply that all the economic power is concentrated at one point in France. In Germany, the economic power is more evenly spread across the country. The largest state, NRW, has a GDP of 43k€/y per capita, which today is just barely more than Berlin with 42k€/y.
Berlin’s GDP is stronger than the other East German states, the bottom regions are MVP and SA, so the graph above would be better with Berlin included.
But yeah, Berlin is a trainwreck…
Is Berlin really like hell?
No, hell is the area around Berlin. It is a trainwreck tho. Literally the only capital city in europe that costs more money than it brings in.
Just nuke it out of existence already
B.t.w., here's the article, but we should still be wary of the statistics, one of them is in current prices while the other is in p.p.p.
, despite having a more democratic workplace, better working conditions, sanctions, ..., and military is such a waste of money while we could unite, and use this money for so much more.
Furthermore, i'm not sure that the g.d.p. is the best way to estimate the economic power of a state, there may be biases if, e.g., a capitalist economy leads to an artificial augmentation through the different capitalistic rents, i.d.k.
Even by these standards, the u.s.s.r. did better than the ex-colonies (source) and most of the world
I've seen that germans are quite active here, as well as on reddit, frenchs only arrive third as non-english speakers, it's a bit weird not to hear more about Spain&Portugal or Italy, 🤷♂️
I'd say that i'm french but i.d.k. if i'm entirely identifying with my country anymore, what's certain is that i'm identifying with the classic(pre-XIXth) authors of western Europe, may i ask why you were happy that Berlin had to be excluded :) ?
"Neo-colonial help" well, I guess you're right. The USSR just did good ol' blatant colonialism instead
Just saw this today (source if you have an hour to lose) :
Yeah, and the Soviet Union literally invaded countries to set up puppet regimes
They had their share, but it's at the very least 10 times less, certainly even more, than the west. Do you have some examples in mind ?
However yes, they supported what they called the "liberation movement" from the "exploitative bourgeoisie", and failed almost every time once the west reacted. They didn't thought about it as defending their own interests, but acting in solidarity with other workers.
If you're talking about Afghanistan then they had the support of the government, just like France in Mali a few years ago(, who kept putting forward this argument in the malian case, but almost certainly ignored it with afghans)(, in any case afghans hate the west as well now, it's one of my favourite countries, pledging to become islamic/virtuous, critised for being too different and allegedly immoral).
The examples are almost endless, but it's worth noting that it was revealed two days ago that the west supported Imran Khan's arrest, thousands of kilometers from our borders. Do you know how the u.s.a.(, and western Europe really,) was called in my highscool ? The policemen of the world. What seemed like a harsh criticism was in fact a dull euphemism.
Not gonna talk about Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They literally invaded those countries when they wanted to be free
Hum, they liberated them from nazi Germany ? Are you talking about the Warsaw Pact ?
Still angry at Yugoslavia for not supporting more actively the greek communists, you know which side the "free world" was on in the greek case(, and you can bet that the soviets wouldn't have let Franco stay in power if their victory wasn't stolen).
If you're saying that they installed puppet governments, why can't i say that the u.s.a. installed puppet governments in western Europe after they prevented the u.s.s.r. from liberating the rest of Europe from rentier capitalism ?
Hold up, are you saying that because the USSR has a hand in defeating the Nazis they're free to get first dibs over their territory? Because it sure as fuck sounds like that's what you're saying and that sure as fuck sounds like colonialism.
Also I dunno about you but the USSR seemed pretty damn intent on trying to invade Finland, and there weren't any Nazis in Finland when the first war started.
They were a part of the Warsaw pact, not the u.s.s.r., if they called dibs over the territory they would have the same leader.
For the accusations of puppet states see the answer you replied to, i could say the same about n.a.to., the c.i.s., the e.u., ... How to be united in diversity is an interesting topic of conversation
As for Finland, not only was it not invaded by the communists, but they were the ones signing its independence from the russian empire.
Was the u.s.s.r. a country or a union ? Even modern Russia is a federation, we don't accuse the e.u. of having invaded other european countries, that's partly why this topic of "diverse yet united" is so interesting.
So um, last time I checked the EU didn't force any of its members with invasions and occupations and ultimatums to join and they sure as fuck didn't force the UK to stay, which the same can absolutely not be said about the USSR. Also there is a big difference between an economic area and a military treaty and a political union. Brussels is not micromanaging the entire EU, while Moscow was doing just that in the USSR. It was one big country with the smaller countries acting as states, not as independent entities under the same big umbrella.
Also Finland was Absolutely invaded by the Soviets. Twice even. And it was partly justified by Stalin's dissatisfaction about the fact that the Soviets had failed to stop Finland's independence because that relationship was absolutely not hunky dory like you seek to think it was. Like where did you think molotovs come from? And speaking of Molotov, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact kinda made it clear what the Soviets thought was their territory and it included the Baltics as well as Finland. And if you consider the occupation and deportation and assimilation of the Baltic states into the USSR as a "consentual" thing, by that logic then Poland was a willing member of the Nazi empire because hey, it's from the same pact outlining the two regimes sphere of influence with similar outcomes.
And that's during WW2. Threat of an invasion from the USSR is literally why NATO was founded, and why the USSR forced Finland to remain neutral.
Once again diprount_tomato was talking about countries outside of the u.s.s.r., those inside were there before, sometimes for centuries. But even inside the u.s.s.r., they weren't forced to stay once it dislocated, despite being much more integrated than the u.k. ever was, not sure we could tell the same about the u.s.a. if one of your states decided to leave
For Finland, you're absolutely right for the first link you provided about the Winter war, thank you very much for the correction, i already knew about the Molotov cocktails named after their enemy so i should have remembered, seems like they were still salty about this loss of territory, i.d.k., yet i also provided arguments in favor of an initial "hunky dory" relation, it's possible that it degraded over time for reasons other than merely territorial, perhaps like in Ukraine, i wouldn't be surprised if Finland was used as an anti-communist spearhead and that security reasons weren't that much of an excuse. Some further reading would need to be done.
As for the baltic states, they were in the russian empire as well, before the u.s.s.r., you can't blame them for refusing to destroy everything once they took power, we wouldn't have done so in their position.
And once again Poland wasn't part of the u.s.s.r., cf. my remarks on the puppet states if that's the road you want to take. I could agree that states of the Warsaw pact were influenced by their leaders just like countries in the n.a.t.o. are influenced by their american leader. What you called soviet invasion and american liberation would have been called exactly the opposite by the french communists.
Because the US didn't invade countries that weren't 100% subservient to them
WHAT ?
Here's a longer list if you're interested : https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md
Oh man, it is the number one "policeman" by far. Here's an example :
Here's a source from the congress itself, even if it doesn't include covert/unofficial operations it's still quite lengthy : https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/details?prodcode=R42738
I.d.k., what more proofs do you want ?
And were you still talking about Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary in your last comment ? Because they weren't in the u.s.s.r. but in a military/.. alliance, like n.a.t.o., the e.u., or the c.i.s. Is it because their republics were different than ours ? It'd be another talk then.
You know the list is bs when it starts with China
Why would it be b.s. to start with China ? You do know that they would have recovered Taiwan more than 70 years ago if it wasn't for the american naval forces ?
But whatever, i can't force you to open your eyes, do what you consider to be just, and thanks for reading my comments.
Because they were supporting Chiang Kai-Shek against the Communists, not doing a coup you sicklebrain
This list doesn't only mention coups, but this source mentions 50.000 american soldiers on chinese soil, while that one talks about 100.000.
(And the korean war was the main excuse to prevent them from recovering Taiwan, not the civil war)
Can't "recover" something if you never owned it 🇹🇼🇹🇼🇹🇼
And you may be interested to know what kind of government Taiwanese had until 1987(, as well as Hong-Kong before 1984), or not, i'm just saying. Bye :)
"Others bad so we good"
Uhm, have you checked the polls or results of what esstern germans actually vote for now? Hint: It is not Die Linke
yes i had, a few years ago.
Here's the double-check :
In 1990 (source)
2 years ago (source) :
I'm from South-West Germany.
Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is a populist, far-right party despite the name sounding liberal. Ex-GDR is popular for having a lot of nazi sympathizers. Braunschweig and Sachsen-Anhalt in particular are known nazi bastions.
Yeah i know(, that it's a "far"-right political party(, not nazi, or else it's hidden)), people dissatisfied with the current situation are voting either "extreme"-right or "extreme"-left, because what they understand the most is that they want to experiment a new situation, hoping that it will be better than the current one, the famous "protest vote". That's why poor people are voting far-right against their own interests, as if it'd solve their socio-economic problems(, i'm obviously biased in this assessment).
As a german, you already know that communism was very popular in Germany during the 20s(, Marx&Engels came from there after all), and that nazis were fighting them in the street, there were deaths every week between them. Capitalist's medias saw the growing popular disdain for the center and took an easy choice.
...are you trying to say that the wall falling and the dissolution of the USSR was a bad thing because of a few economic boons (in a graph that is rather suspiciously missing Berlin)?
Well gee whiz lemme go tell that to my German friends who's parents lived under the constant threat of the Stasi I'm sure they'll be overjoyed to know that the regime that ruined their family's lives was great and should be brought back just because they did marginally less colonialism than the first world. Oh and maybe I should also tell this to the Syrian refugees I know that actually Soviet colonisation was good because hey, at least it ain't Britian because they're capitalist
Also I dunno, maybe that highly sensationalised image as Stalin came about because he was a dictator who oversaw a genocide and cut people out of history and had a vicious cult of personality around him?
I included these graphs because people are saying that communism doesn't work, which is why we have to sanction them to death, for their own good(, and also because all of our enemies are dictators, what a coincidence, that's a manipulation easy to disprove, old allies are suddenly depicted as authoritarians as soon as they change allegiances, while true authoritarians aren't talked about, N.Chomsky and many others already proved this over and over).
Freedom has always been our sole argument, without which we have nothing left to defend our side. And it's not even a good one since poverty is slavery, "freely" working to fatten our annuitants lord capitalists. The entrepreneurial freedom isn't that bad though, we all have to learn from each other and i would prefer for all ideologies to cohabit together instead of only one of them imposing his unique view. Think it was Hegel who said that theses need antitheses in order to evolve into better syntheses.
I haven't lived under the Stasi's threat so for all i know i may be wrong and you may be right about the accusations of authoritarianism. It's easy to prove that their paranoia wasn't delusional though, they faced more powerful countries(, remember McCarthyism when the u.s.a. still thought that they were in a dangerous position, kinda isolated/outnumbered ? As stupid as it may seem, i quickly read the short comic "superman : red son", and was pleasantly surprised to see that the author depicted an authoritarian u.s.a. once it began to lose the cold war, with economic difficulties, state separatism, ..., that's an honest take which should probably be kept in mind when discussing the soviet's alleged authoritarianism, the only thing we remember about their society)
And our representatives were elected by a population who believed our propaganda when it celebrated the west achievements while omitting the soviets ones, when it vilified the soviet's actions and omitted our numerous misdeeds, ...
My point about authoritarianism is that it isn't inherent to communist ideals(, on the contrary, "democratic socialism in deeds and not in words" has a meaning), and since «whomever wants to drown his dog accuses him of rage», i'm almost certain that they were exagerated, Solzhenitsyn wasn't celebrated around the West for humanitarian reasons.
When you see how many impossible odds the u.s.s.r. had to face before the second world war you can understand their authoritarianism, understandable in war conditions, and the Moscow trials were during the Spanish civil war, Trostkyists were indeed traitors collaborating against communists, including in Asia, while the black book of communism with its 100M death claims has been abundantly debunked, gulags were a sad thing of course but opposing communism "because freedom" is idiotic, i'm sorry.
As for Syria, we both share an insignificant portion of the pain felt by the syrians, but i blame the west for opposing Bachar al-Assad(, elected by his population), while you blame him for not submitting. Fortunately Russia helped, we wouldn't consider V.Putin a dictator if he was aligned with our actions around the globe, i could give you as many surveys as you want proving that he didn't ever needed to cheat in the elections, contrary to our usual propaganda about our enemies, etc.
I was always told the Stalin quote: "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic"
Except there is no evidence he ever said this.
Nothing sours your opinion on an ideology like realizing its biggest proponents have been lying to you your whole life and they almost got away with it without you noticing.
Stalin did say this though: "I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy."
Sure but like, the thing people attribute the quote to be about most certainly did fucking happen. After all, nothing quite sours your opinion on an ideology like mass genocide
There was never a genocide. That was also made up
... I'm sorry? The Purges were made up? The systemic starvation of Ukraine was made up? The mass deportations in a deliberate attempt to break up and assimilate various non-slavic groups and cultures was made up? There's so many things here that you're claiming are 'made up' that I think I'd hit the word limit listing them all.
Next you'll be telling me Troksy just accidentally fell on that icepick
How does a purge of corrupt officials constitute a genocide? Let alone mass genocide which was your claim.
There was no systemic starvation of Ukrainians. There was famine that killed a comparable number of Russians and Kazakhs. However, Soviet industrialization and dam building ended a cycle of harsh famines that predated communism, providing a stable food supply for Ukrainians and all nationalities in the Soviet Union.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/UKR/ukraine/population
From the beginning of this graph to the end of communism, the Ukrainian population grew 13 million. That's unusual if Stalin wanted to genocide Ukrainians, seems like he's not very good at it. Seems like the more effective genocidal policy based on the graph starts immediately after the end of communism. Curious.
And no, Stalin killing Trotsky was not made up I don't think. But I have no issue with that; I only wish he had gotten to all of the Trotskyists.
Oh so there were a million corrupt officials all deserving death were there? Perhaps genocide is technically the wrong word due to the lack of a specific focus, but that sure is an awful lot of death which I dunno, I somewhat doubt was done with good intentions, given it was fuelled by a paranoid maniac and also targeted minority groups. You trying to tell me that The Polish Operation was necessary?
...I think most historians agree that the Holodomor was either a systemic man-made famine with the purpose of genocide, or the single worst agricultural fuck up in the history of the world, with the blame falling squarely on the Soviet government due to their forced collectivisation programme. Also it's real convenient that your graph only starts in 1950, three years before Stalin's death and twenty years after the Holodomor. And I mean a population growth of 13 million from 1950 to 1991? If we go by some estimates, that means it took 40 years to recover from the 10 million population deficit caused by the Holodomor. Also, you know genocide isn't just about straight murder right? It's about stamping out an entire culture, something that very much did happen to Ukraine, and the USSR's success at Russification is literally one of the things Putin is using to excuse his invasion.
Also I see you not answering the question about the deportation and forced assimilation of various groups in occupied areas under the Soviet regime. Yes population transfer with the purpose of fragmenting and destroying a cultural group is genocide. I mean I sure you wouldn't argue against it being anything else if the subject was America or Australia doing the same thing to their respective native peoples.
Yezhov was responsible for that. He abused his power, and was rightly executed.
Collectivization of farming happened in every modern economy in the world. There's a reason why only 4 countries in the US produce all of the chicken and eggs. It is simply more efficient than having thousands individual farmers. When the USSR began, they still plowed fields with tractors. Before and after the Russian revolution, malnutrition was the norm. To end this, agriculture has to be modernized like it had been in other countries. This had to be built from scratch. There were virtually no factories building tractors, harvesters, etc. Dams offset the effects of drought by creating reservoirs of water in good times to allow saving for bad times. The USSR had some of the world's greatest hydroelectric projects, but these could not be built immediately. So clearly, prioritization of industry was vital for population growth to be sustained with a stable food supply.
In a capitalist system the market determines food prices. If people can't afford to buy food at the market price, the food is destroyed, and production is scaled back. Sometimes food is destroyed in massive quantities on purpose to manipulate the market. There are very recent examples of this in the US where fresh milk is simply dumped down the drain by the gallon. Before collectivization, some farmers in the USSR were destroying grain. After collectivization, this type of rebellion and manipulation is not possible.
When farmland is parcelized, it makes it hard for the individual landowners to afford the necessary equipment to increase output. When farmland is consolidated, a dozen farmers can pool together funds to buy a tractor. In capitalist countries, this happened gradually over time when more efficient larger farms bought out smaller ones, cutting out small farmers completely. In the USSR, this process was accelerated and they did not have to wait decades to modernize, it could happen in years. And at the end of the day, the small farmers still had a stake. These soviet policies did not cause the famine. They would have prevented it if they could have been implemented sooner.
Why not say 100 million Ukrainians since we are just making up numbers? 10 million is like double the estimate for ALL the USSR, not just Ukraine. And that's the figure coming from scholars who say the Holodomor was even a thing. Like, according to them, it was 2-3 million Ukrainians. How does that create a deficit of 10 million?
I went for the first result when searching "Ukraine population graph." Most results on Google start at 1950. What, is Worldometers communist now? I'm sorry professor, I know this isn't A+ work, but frankly, I give a shit about other things besides debate silly people online class.
This is a classic dishonest motte and bailey tactic. When most people think genocide, they think of it as mass murder and forced sterilization targeting a specific ethnic group with the goal of elimination of that group. The same claim was made with the Uyghur genocide to get the idea in people's heads that China was mass murdering and sterilizing Uyghurs, an obvious lie if you research it. Then when people respond with scrutiny they backpedal and call it actually a "cultural genocide," whatever that means. But every claim that I've seen of a cultural genocide in Xinjiang I have later found was a lie. It's easy to debunk when we live in the 21st century, you can go to China and film people and buildings. Back then, not so much. Psyops in the news make their way into the textbooks.
Nationalism was limited by the USSR when it contradicted Proletarian Internationalism. For this reason the Russian tricolor was banned, and the official Russian flag was only a variation of the Soviet one. Is that cultural genocide against the Russians? If Ukrainian culture is flying a Wolfsangel flag, venerating Stepan Bandera, etc., then I guess they were suppressed. I'm not crying over it though. I think its clear Communists did Ukraine better than the current nationalists do.
It's the exact opposite! Listen again to Putin's speech on the eve of the SMO. He blames Lenin and communism for giving too much away to Ukraine. Lenin recognized Ukraine as a nation, which is a stretch. Then he gave Ukraine Russian land in the Southeast. Stalin gave Ukraine part of Poland, and Kruschev gave Ukraine Crimea. If anything, the communists did Ukrainization of Russia, and this is what Putin reacts against in his speech. You have it twisted.
They could have consolidated everything under the RSFSR during the revolution. This would have violated the Marxist principle of self determination of nations. Read Stalin's "On the National Question." The USSR's legislative system was even reformed from a unicameral to a bicameral system, introducing the Soviet of nationalities, giving smaller nationalities in the USSR disproportionately higher representation. This is comparable to the US, where despite California having nearly 80 times the population of Wyoming, they both have two senators, equal representation. Instead of over-representing rural people, in the USSR, smaller nationalities were over-represented.
...Yezhov was executed due to internal politics, his deputy's influence on Stalin, purging his own men, and just Stalin being paranoid. On the other hand, Stalin was afraid of a fifth column attack from within, as that happened over in Spain during the communist regime there. He was the one who ordered the operations, we have reports where he comments on how good things are going on the murdering Poles front, he was not unaware or mislead about this, he instigated it. Claiming Yezhov was executed and removed from history over ethical concerns is a pretty laughable one.
Also, what Motte and Baily? No when I think genocide I also think about systemic cultural erasure not just the murder and sterilisation part. Because my own country's done that. Most of Europe has, in one way or another. It's impossible to talk about any country's history without bumping into the concept in one way or another. That definition has been around for a pretty damn long time. And it so happens that the USSR did rather a lot of it. The Holodomor is admittedly a complicated issue to unravel (not helped by your apparent dismissal of it? Like, you do know Glasnost happened right? The USSR did give you permission to acknowledge that there at least was a famine in Ukraine), but if you want I can give you some lovely examples from my next door neighbours over in the Baltics. Not to mention what the USSR tried to do to Finland.
Not because of anything China's done. Literally the only context that mentiong them would make sense in is with their own great famine (which slight errata on my part, the 49-51 great famine is the worst man made famine in human history, not the Holodomor) so where the fuck did you pull Uyghurs from? Kinda think that's a bit of a Freudian slip there mate.
Also I fucking know what collectivisation is mate, a textbook definition won't change the fact that even with the most neutral idealistic stance the USSR royally fucked over their attempt with Ukraine. That's not what's the debate's about. That's about the size and if it was sheer incompetence or something more politically motivated.
Anyways oh my god you're an unironic Stalin apologist aren't you?
Maybe that's what YOU think, but that's not what MOST people think, which is what I said. The Oxford dictionary defines genocide: "The deliberate and systematic killing or persecution of people from a particular group identified as having a shared ethnicity, nationality, etc…" Says nothing about culture, and is pretty unambiguous that genocide requires "deliberate and systematic killing" which is not what you saw in Ukraine. That's how most people would define a genocide.
It's another example where your motte and bailey tactic is used. First, you make the bold claim. Accuse of genocide, mass killings, sterilization, etc. Then when everyone debunks you on it, you fall back to your motte, your safe claim. "Oh no, I didn't mean genocide like they were systematically killing people, I meant it like a CULTURAL genocide. Nobody said anyone was getting mass murdered." What a joke. And like I said already, I bring Uyghurs up because its an example where it could be debunked in real time, because it's in the present. Because the so-called "holodomor" is in the past it is more murky, but the same tactics are used.
Oh, you are trying to psychoanalyze me now. Hmmm. 🤣🤣🤣
Did you not even read what I wrote? Where do I deny there was a famine? I mention it all the time. Did you accidentally reply to the wrong person or something?