Just like Communism, Republicanism/conservatism can never fail. It can only be failed by people, or because you didn’t do it hard enough. If reality like global warming comes into conflict with
the Lysenkoists, oops, I mean the conservatives, it’s because the scientists and experts and the educated are being too “woke”. It’s not that the cons are wrong about reality, no reality is wrong and institutions like NCAR must be smashed.And before anyone balks at the claim. Stalin literally expelled Nikolai Vavilov a genius, geneticist, and head of the academy from the academy of agricultural science. Replacing him with a quack lunatic Trofim Lysenko. Because Stalin felt his baseless theories aligned better with Soviet politics. Lysenko’s theories went on to exacerbate the massive mid century famines in Russia and China. Helping to kill tens of millions.
And all of that would have been bad enough. But for his crime of being correct and not bending the knee to Stalin. Vavilov was imprisoned and sent to Siberia to die in a gulag.
A, everything that Stalin did is not “Stalinist” any more than every single thing you have done is Eldritchian
B, Vavilov was found guilty of “sabotage of Soviet agriculture and spying for Britain”. You can argue all you want that it was because of his opinions, but that’s not what the historical record shows. Vavilov studied all over Europe, including Britain, so it’s not all that weird for such suspicions to be dealt with with prejudice during the worst war in history.
Wow! The mental gymnastics.
Trump and Republicans in the US find people guilty of bullshit all the time. Doesn’t mean it’s true. Just means trump and Stalin are paranoid thin skinned little bitches. Xi too. I’m not going to lionize Lai Chee-ying. But the bullshit sedition charges are on brand.
Don’t listen to that guy, just another Frisbirdian lunatic
I mean, Stalin locked swaths of people up, incited pogroms, expelled political dissidents – but does that make those actions “Stalinist” in any context? It reads to me as an appeal to red scare sensibilities. In fact these are moves are out of any authoritarian’s playbook. It’s fascist brain drain. I think that’s all they’re saying. Granted ML tends toward tankie, but this take seems fine
I don’t know where all this talk of Stalinist came from. That right there was my first posting of it in this thread. Stalin was an authoritarian dictator. Stalinist/leninist it’s all just another flavor of authoritarianism. Not unique to either one of them really. And ultimately a straw man. Just as the claims of sedition are a deflection.
It’s literally in the title of the post and your comment was defending the take by presenting an example of something Stalin did.
Like, how much more of a connection is needed?
Also, no. Stalinist and Leninist are not “flavors of authoritarianism”. Words have meaning derived from the historical process of meaning creation in a society that you live in. Stalinism has a meaning that is historically defined. Leninism has a meaning that is historically defined. It not just “whatever was done”.
If that’s the case then the all genocides are Bidenism because Biden presided over a genocide. Genocides would also be Harrisism. Drone strikes of American citizens would be Obamism. Saving Nazis would be Trumanism.
None of these words mean those things.
Not one side or the other, but this is also just as often found to be true in reverse. Kinda sucks, especially when your viewpoint is supported by a person’s achievements/views/whatever. This guy could have been potentially sabotaging Soviet agriculture (maybe even in support of his larger views of how things should be, hard to say) and spying for Britain (probably more of a stretch considering he was the better/more true to the real goal person for the job which was probably not in line with any of Britain’s priorities). But people do have weaknesses. Sometimes our idea of a person due to their beliefs conflict with their actions. It doesn’t make him any less the better candidate for his position. However, it is difficult to determine without bias whether this was a case of trumped up charges or possibly a man with good intentions that did commit some crimes. I’m inclined to agree that he was probably a convenient scapegoat because, Stalin. But for the sake of a fair argument I think these claims should at least be researched before everyone jumps on the down vote train.
You think Trump and the Republicans have an exclusive lock on trumped up charges? Do you know anything about how federal prosecution works? Wait till you read about what the courts have been doing to black people and indigenous people for generations!
Ugg every instance needs to defederate from you ml tankies. The apologistic bullshit you all spew is ridiculous.
He’s got a comment in another community removed for talking about Ukrainian propaganda. He’s just another lemmy.ml cultist.
Yep, no surprise. ML users are 99% cultist for state propaganda from russia/china.
Man, talk about apologia, y’all will excuse anything to justify fighting communism.
Lol says the user who is apologist for russian atrocities.
Hahahahahahahahahahahha
Stalinism is when you extend capitalism.
See, there was a time before when I thought I (and “leftists” as a group) had an enlightened understanding of all these terms.
Joining Lemmy showed me that most terminology associated with the left is tainted, no one can agree on definitions, and tankies especially will weaponize terms, somehow creating the worst take imaginable.
Its because most “leftists” are white liberals who learned about socialist theory through YouTube or Twitter. Lemmy is a very liberal site, but because it’s sitting next to social media platforms that literally suck up the ground water to promote fascism, liberals mistake it as something more. What socialists or anarchists there are on here also tend to be of the STEM variety that does not read theory and therefore is less equipped to deal with appropriated language.
As a kid, I used to thing the villains of Captain Planet were unrealistic. How foolish I was…
Stalinist? Come now, let’s not mix our metaphors. Let’s say it together, “Communism is the opposite of Fascism.”
Edit: my point is that there are far better people on the ideological Right to compare him to than Stalin. Stalin was a fuck, but Trump… Wait, Trump is a fuck, too. Forget it. Call him whatever! (I concede to the points below).
As practiced by Stalin, it was just another totalitarian government. Ownership might have been different, but when you make everything else worse, its still really destructive and kills a huge chunk of the population
Yeah there’s no reason to split hairs on nomenclature. When a leader has their opposition taken out and shot, and then imposes a totalitarian regime, their original political affiliation was just a means to an end anyway.
Comparing someone to Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Tojo, Mussolini, the Taliban, etc. isn’t primarily to compare them to the societal leanings of their time, it’s to compare them to how they acted after they gained total, uncontested power.
Let’s hope that in this case those comparisons remain hypothetical.
but when you make everything else worse
By what metrics? In which ways was Tsarist Russia better about serving citizens than Soviet leadership?
This is like saying “in which way is capitalism worse than feudalism.” In the way that it was easy to imagine a better alternative.
Im not sure I follow. Are you saying the conception of a Soviet Union was easy/destined/inevitable given how bad the Tsars were?
I’m not sure I understand your point about feudalism either. Marxists understand capitalism as an economic development built upon feudalism - of which there were many benefits in abandoning, as well as many new evils.
Someone claimed that Stalin made things worse. You replied that Stalinism couldn’t be worse than the Tsarist system.
This is like if someone claims capitalism makes things worse, coupled with the reply that capitalism couldn’t be worse than feudalism.
Obviously such ann argument is deeply flawed. When we say that Stalinism “made things worse,” we mean compared to an easy-to-imagine, common-sense alternative for that time and place. For instance, if someone had shot Stalin and then allowed a random person to run the Soviet Union for a while, things would have almost certainly gone better.
You replied that Stalinism couldn’t be worse than the Tsarist system.
Where did I claim this?
we mean compared to an easy-to-imagine, common-sense alternative for that time and place.
Why is this your comparison?? If the claim is that Stalin “showed up” and things got worse, it follows that your point of analysis would be comparing against whatever immediately preceded Stalin.
This is like if someone claims capitalism makes things worse
Actually, it’s not at all like this… a better comparison would be if someone said “capitalism showed up and made things worse”
A: Stalin wasn’t communist and B: not really. The political spectrum is just a model to aid with understanding. It’s not a fundamental quality the way up or down is. Political ideologies don’t have opposites in that way.
There are plenty of obvious similarities between fascism and Stalinism (and yes, some differences too).
