• novibe@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I mean, not having money is a communism thing, not socialism.

    But most businesses in the USSR were co-ops or state-owned.

    I’m not in the “the dictatorship of the proletariat is identical to collective ownership” camp, but I mean, that is in the end a difference of ideology regarding what socialism really is.

    And…. What dictator? I mean, all that “there’s no freedom in the USSR, if Stalin thinks you’re ugly you go to the gulag” is 100% propaganda, right? I mean the CIA admitted in their secret reports that not even Stalin was really a dictator, but that disclosing that wouldn’t be politically favourable to the US.

    And like… I don’t think the USSR killed anymore people than the US or Europe lmao

    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      State owned is EXACTLY NOT “worker owned”.

      What dictator? As if people couldn’t or weren’t put to death at Stalin’s word over simole paranoia??

      • novibe@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I would agree, but many socialists wouldn’t.

        And man… please don’t come with this Stalin bullshit. If you really think he was “le big evil gulag no food man”, please for the love of god read a bit more, from non Empire-propaganda sources.

        I say this strongly as a non-communist (in the USSR sense).

        I don’t have any “labels” like that but I more strongly align with anarchism. I also believed Stalin, Mao, Lenin etc were big evil men. But bro, 90% of it really, truly, is propaganda.

        • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Lol, you say that but… Guess you started the gulag system? You guessed it, Lenin! Who brought it to it’s apex? Staline! Does it continue to this day? Yes!

          Here’s another great example of Stalins legacy:

          The Road of Bones

          “The Dalstroy construction directorate built the Kolyma Highway during the Soviet Union’s Stalinist era. Inmates of the Sevvostlag labour camp started the first stretch in 1932, and construction continued with the use of gulag labour until 1953.”

          “The road is treated as a memorial by some, as the bones of the estimated 250,000–1,000,000 imprisoned laborers[3] who died while constructing it were allegedly laid beneath or around the road, although documented sources have yet to confirm this through further evidence”

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R504_Kolyma_Highway

          This article has pictures:

          “Prisoners spent 20 years building the road, from 1932 to 1952, and after that the camp was closed. According to official data, there were roughly 700 thousand prisoners working in this Gulag branch during these years, peaking in 1940, when 190 thousand men worked there in mining and construction works. It’s estimated that more than 125 thousand people perished during the camp’s existence.”

          https://www.rbth.com/history/333033-road-bones-kolyma-gulag

          • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Side note: we have a family friend who had half of his family sent to the Soviet gulags in the 1950s. Most of them died there. He’s Polish.

          • novibe@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Hum… and? Outside of the propaganda, yea gulags and? I don’t see the point.

            Are you saying prisons are bad? I agree, I’m fully a prison abolitionist. But I don’t see how saying “look prisons!” is any argument against the USSR in particular.

            Prisons have existed for a long time everywhere. And many times and in many places were much worse than the gulags.

            Just keep in mind that again, 90% of what you read on gulags is literal Cold War and Nazi propaganda…

            • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              You’re full of bullshit. Cite your sources that Gulags were like a typical prison, because they are obviously not.

              Exporting 18 million people to the middle of fucking nowhere where it reaches -53C to work camps outside resulting in millions of deaths is definitely not normal.

    • Nobsi@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      “there’s no freedom in the USSR, if Stalin thinks you’re ugly you go to the gulag” is 100% propaganda, right?

      Sure buddy. That was just a psyop that the MAN wants us to believe so we don’t revolt and bring back communism.

      • novibe@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Oh no, I’m brainwashed! Lmao

        Sure buddy. Go back to believing everything your school textbooks and journalists on TV have been saying since the Cold War.

          • novibe@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            And I do do that. But any discussion or discourse on this is muddled with Nazi propaganda talking points, and it’s impossible to truly praise and truly critique the USSR without people calling you a “tankie”…