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I’d be glad if NATO didn’t exist.
It would mean countries wouldn’t feel threatened by their neighbors, and no invasions would happen.
But until that is the case, NATO is necessary.
Every species has weapons embedded into its body, some organisms are specialized members of the species, such as queens and babies, but all species spend a portion of their precious energy budget building weapons.
Given how ruthlessly evolution prunes out anything that doesn’t give an advantage, I think this gives significant information about the nature of existence.
Hostility appears to be as universal as entropy, and just as manageable.
Life feeds on life
Fun fact. Being the most complex object in the known universe. The human brain is the lowest entropy place we know…
Are you my hundred year old Jewish great uncle? How’d you get on here?
I would much prefer every country in the planet being in NATO.
Any country attacks any other country? Literally the whole world goes to defend it. So no invasions are possible.
It wouldn’t work though. Wouldn’t take much time for alliances to form that agree to not follow NATO’S rules.
Nato already does not enforce their mission against the US and US backed vassel states
Nato already does not enforce their mission against the US and US backed vassel states
When did the US invade a member of NATO, again?
Sorry, their presumed mission of ensuring peace in Europe through collective defense.
It’s built and structured around Russia being the main antagonist but it’s mostly been the US who’s activities have been destabilizing the security of Europe.
But you’re right, the explicit mission is to protect their members and noone else, so I guess everything is working as intended
It’s built and structured around Russia being the main antagonist but it’s mostly been the US who’s activities have been destabilizing the security of Europe.
lol
Tell me more about how America’s aggression turned the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake.
Fascists like you just can’t help yourselves when it comes to Russia, can you?
I have no problem acknowledging Russia’s aggression and imperialist activities, but NATO fanboys pretend as if NATO members are the ‘good guys’ and cannot themselves be seen as the instigators of European conflict.
NATO ends up categorizing conflict in Europe into two sides and ignores all conflict originating on the member side. An alliance that includes all members would at least in-theory be more equitable, but we already know that even a global supergovernment can selectively enforce their mission and ignore offenses by particular members.
but NATO fanboys pretend as if NATO members are the ‘good guys’ and cannot themselves be seen as the instigators of European conflict.
Hey, want to tell me what the European conflict going on right now is and who instigated it?
Maybe you could also do the last major European conflict too, just for fun?
“NATO is sabotaging European security” is such a braindead talking point that requires not just ignorance, but active denial of reality. It’s unsurprising that fascist shitheads find it so very appealing to parrot.
Nah, I want war. I want the rest of the world to go to war with the US. They’ve got a Nazi problem. We beat the Nazis in 1945 and we might need to beat them again in 2045.
My brother in freedom, we first need to make sure the US and all of our big shiny weapons are on the side against the Nazis. I think we have a good shot at it, but it’s not a guarantee.
Lmfao who’s the warmonger now?
My brother in freedom, we first need to make sure the US and all of our big shiny weapons are on the side against the Nazis. I think we have a good shot at it, but it’s not a guarantee.
I’d like your comment more if it said: “I’d be glad if NATO didn’t have to exist”
And I’d like your comment more if it said “Ricky is the bestest person on all of the world” but we can’t all have what we want.
Removed by mod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre#False_leads
NATO isn’t there to defend you, it’s there to serve the interests of a bunch of rulers and elites
That might be hard to grasp but sometimes the interests or rulers and elites do align to some degree with the average person in their country. Most rich and powerful people have a lot of investments that are worth significantly less when unpredictable things such as invasions happen that disrupt trade.
Humanity is literally on the verge of extinction due to global warming and you still believe rulers gives a single shit to anything that isn’t money or power? War is a business.
Extinction would kind of interfere with the whole power and money thing.
Go explain that to the biggest 10 companies in the world. I doubt you have enough money to sit at their table. Stop giving a fuck about everything around you and focus on money and wealth alone and perhaps you will get a chance to talk with their executives.
I was just pointing out a flaw in your reasoning. There are no simple answers to complex questions.
I think it’s simple to see how greedy people try to take as much as they can without thinking of the consequences. Money and power are a drug
Believe it or not, both things can be true
Stuff can be two things!
true dat
Did you even read any of the link posted?
“Only your side can be evil and not mine!”
I can’t hear you with that imperialist cock brushing against your tonsils.
I mean the rulers and elites live in the same countries as many of us do and they sure as shit don’t want war where they live. It might not be here to defend us, but it’s here to defend the countries we live in.
War is a business and a tool to get more power. Rulers and elites cares about money and wealth they don’t give a fuck about the planet or peasants. Just look around yourself
That’s true. But then, if you’re a ruler, the best war is one that your own country isn’t fighting, but you can profit off of. Which is why they’re still incentivized to keep peace in their own countries, but not so much half a planet away.
That’s true. But then, if you’re a ruler, the best war is one that your own country isn’t fighting
If you are a ruler you probably don’t give a fuck about anything that isn’t money and power.
What good is money and power when you have to live in a bunker?
Idk ask them. Billionares or authoritarian rulers are basically addicts who don’t make rational choices. Their “bunker” is probably a palace with servants
even one of the mods is a commie
Time to block an instance :p
Time for other instances to defederate. Blocking an instance on the user-level unfortunately isn’t the same as instance-level defederation.
Yea, lemmy is a bit of a mess. And from some interactions I’ve had with mods and devs, it would seem they like their platform a bit derailed
As much as I don’t want that to be true, you’re not wrong. I’ve been banned in .world for reporting an obvious troll. I’ve had comments removed for asking what the weather is like over there. I was told I was calling them a russian troll and that’s against the rules. BUT, then I get called a troll in the same instance by someone from .ml and no removal of the comment, no ban. Free to say as they please. Lemmy has a serious mod problem.
Part of it is a campaign of victimization by .ml types. They take every opportunity to throw tantrums and insist the mods are biased against them, so the mods then have to treat them with kid gloves to appear ‘impartial’.
It’s the same trick Republicans and other fascists in the US use.
It’s crap though. They spread misinformation and lies and nobody does anything about it. IF you call them out on their bullshit, they ban you and remove your comment. I blocked the three biggest offenders but then they have people going to .world and talking the same shit. It’s disappointing. It doesn’t look like the mods are impartial, it looks like they are on the side of .ml. (the obvious trolls)
I know it’s not all mods, some are great, but there are some bad actors out there that are making the good parts of lemmy look bad.
To be fair, still better than the alternatives
Because there is a nonzero chance that Russia is funding Lemmy development and lemmy.ml as a propagandist training ground.
Yes, I know that sounds insane, but the official donation tally is like $2300/m for lemmy.ml and Lemmy development, which means they either have some other funding or Dessalines is just choosing to be the poorest software engineer on the planet because he is just that cool.
which means they either have some other funding or Dessalines is just choosing to be the poorest software engineer on the planet because he is just that cool.
Could just be a day job, or has he claimed to be working on Lemmy full time?
It doesn’t sound insane at all. I don’t know if its a training ground, but I’d bet my arm there’s Kremlin funding being pumped straight into Lemmy.ml
If so, Vlady Puty, well known for his love of communism, is pretty stingy about it:
He doesn’t care about Lemmy development, he’s paying people to run LLMs.
That would not surprise me if true. I’m also noticing an oddly large amount of people I’ve blocked commenting in this thread.
I can’t read their comments without going to a different app, but I usually only block people spamming bullshit or when they throw a lot of slurs at me.
They identified this thread as something that might slow their propaganda efforts, so here they are
Might just be coincidence, I dunno
True, but enough coincidences can form very convincing patterns.
Why? I’d prefer to make the decision on an individual basis, genuinely.
Blocking an instance in the user settings just hides communities from that instance in the community search. Defederating hides all communities, posts, comments and user from that instance. It’s not implemented the same way, probably on purpose, because the Lemmy devs (who btw are the admins of Lemmy.ml and Lemmygrad.ml) know that half the Fediverse would just block them.
Then host your own instance or join a different one. You’re free to do that. Defederating from instances that consistently produce trolls, authoritarian apologists, and mods who pick and choose who is bound by their rules based on their ideology is well within the rights of the instance owner.
Yeah, but that’s like saying make your own anything. Realistically most people don’t want the hassle.
And yet people still do it.
If you need an axe-handle replacing, I’m your man.
Blocked ml months ago, couldn’t have made a better choice. Their user’s comments still show up though. Only ml communities get blocked.
I have the “boost for lemmy” app, it has wildcard filters. I used to to get rid of feddit, after about 20 of their users spammed me with slurs for not speaking german on an australian instance
I give individual users the benefit of a doubt but I also long ago blocked it and several other tankie instances.
Hard agree. The Fediverse would be much healthier if more instances defederated Hexbear, lemmygrad, and lemmy.ml. They constantly spread propaganda for violent dictators.
I find Lemmy.ml users tolerable, mostly. At least, not significantly worse than other instances. It’s the admins and mods that concern me. It’s why I avoid .ml communities like the plague.
So what is nato then?
Real answer or NCD answer?
I’ve literally never heard of the word “real”, NCD it is.
It’s a list of words for each letter in the English alphabet so they they can be spelled unambiguously over the radio.
Everyone keep asking what is NATO.
But nobody is asking how is NATO.
Why is nato?
Whomst is NATO?
On your phone, you have an app called Safari/Chrome/Firefox. Try opening it and then typing the 4 letters “nato” into the text box at the top. Once you’ve finished, hit enter.
There you will find the answer.
My mind is blown. Slay.
That was a rethorical question, but thank you!
I figured it was and wanted to play along with the joke. Seems like others didn’t take kindly to my attempt.
Have a great day 😎
Folks don’t take kindly to people takin’ kindly around here…
lol seriously. What the fuck.
This place…. It is something.
Gave you some upvotes to hopefully brighten your mood. It can be rough, have a great day.
Lol. Thank you. Votes don’t really matter and I enjoyed writing that comment, so who care!
Have a nice day yourself!
i was recently banned from like 5 different ML communities, no clue why, hi ML admin or mod if you could tell me why that would be cool.
It was probably something stupid i did, i never read rules. (in my defense, they’re always the same and i’m never going to follow them lmao) But regardless, silent bans are weird.
Boo fucking hoo, you were wrong and come crying here about “tankies”? You are the exact same, just on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Get some self awareness. NATO is a bunch of warmongers who managed to get Putin to do the greatest PR coup for them just as they were losing significance - and now they could be important because at this moment Russian regime is the greater evil. But instead they do fuck all in helping Ukraine to a decisive victor, proving again that those shitstains just want to prolongue the conflict to line the pockets of their buddies in the military industrial complex. Disgusting fucks, all of them!
they tricked Putin into genocide 😤😭
How weak is your position if the only “argument” you have is pretending to quote something that you invented yourself?
I have no interest in debating you. Enjoy your blood money.
Yeah You indeed are a disgusting fuck
and you’re a little cutiepie who needs a hug. smooch
Figures, consent doesn’t seem like something that both you and the Russians understand.
And you felt like responding to me instead of the previous poster whose insecurities led him to lash out like that? Right on, nothing wrong with your brain, keep living your life just like that…
It’s funny how NATO members continue to throw more and more money into the alliance like they’re about to be attacked tomorrow. Russia can’t even conquer a third of Ukraine, so they’re hardly going to be much of a threat to everyone else.
If NATO is indeed a defensive alliance and the deterrent works, then there’s no need to put so much money into it at the expense of domestic needs for each member state.
It’s a fantastic revenue stream for arms manufacturers who can keep getting fat contracts to make more equipment. The day the war ends it will be a disaster for them.
Make sure you don’t pull a muscle performing all those mental gymnastics.
That is indeed the way it appears that the west is viewing this conflict. A great way to make extort a lot of money from taxpayers for “not enough to live but too much to die” support for Ukraine, and it’s perverse that the powers that be don’t even blink at sacrificing the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainians for that.
And come to think of it - a shorter conflict would also mean less Russian lives lost.
Capitalism is murderous. :(
Comment more, comment harder.
The world rejoices when troglodytes like yourself get outted and labelled.
Can you guess which tags I have over your username?
Can you guess which tags I have over your username?
“triggers my insecurities”?
NATO is a bunch of warmongers who managed to get Putin to do the greatest PR coup for them
Lmao. I refuse to believe that any sane, adult person can hold this opinion. Nobody’s THAT fucking stupid, right?
Nobody’s THAT fucking stupid, right?
Narrator: “They were, in fact, THAT fucking stupid.”
I love that NATO is even Putin’s puppetmaster.
Goddamn it thank you for reminding me why I stay off of Lemmy. 😡
You are a brainwashed propagandist with that comment. Good for them. Can you explain to me why the US and NATO did not intervene with the genocide in Georgia? Make that TWO genocides. Who did? How much territory did they take? You know that counts in your inaccurate figure just as an example.
Americans are too stupid for the Internet.
What happened in Libya according to them?
One air campaign in Libya (permitted by UNSCR 1973) > fourteen Russian invasions
Checkmate, Westoids
Poor Gaddafi was attacked by the corrupt NATO, to the disgust of the rest of the world (except that it was resolution by the UN security council).
All the happy cake days to you! What will you do with your time without them? ;) EDIT: i.e., without lemmy.ml
Thanks for the reminder, happy cake day
except that it was resolution by the UN security council
You mean the Security Council over which Russia has veto power? That UN Security Council?
Russia’s decision to abstain in that vote happened under the notoriously “liberal” Medvedev and was a point of heated disagreement between him and Putin. It was arguably the breaking point for Putin deciding he needed to hold onto power indefinitely or else (in his view) a liberal president would let NATO do whatever they want, with Russia presumably being next on the chopping block
Is that why Medvedev is constantly on X threatening to nuke NATO like every 5 minutes?
Except there is strong evidence that Western powers (predominantly France, the UK and US) created the fiction of Gaddafi being a global supervillain and then used NATO forces to enact regime change in Libya, under the pretext of “preventing civilian casualties”. The real goal, of course, was to secure Libyan oil reserves and open the country up to western markets.
NATO is often used an extension of Western foreign policy. To pretend it is solely a benevolent peace keeper is just as simplistic and naïve as saying that everything the West / NATO does is pure evil.
During Arab Spring, the West was (naively) hoping that Libyans would rise against Gaddafi and create a democraty. When he saw what was happening, he threatened to a) flood Europe with migrants and b) expose Sarkozy’s illegal campaign funds.
a) made him a political adversary, b) made them launch a military campaign to topple him
there is strong
evidencepropaganda.Gaddafi was a supervillian. Almost literally:
.It also wasn’t NATO who directly killed him. His own citizens did, and they weren’t kind about how they did it.
NATO also wants stable oil reserves. Both these things can be true.
He certainly played up to the role, presumably for egotistical reasons, but most of it was sabre rattling bravado. He wasn’t seen as a genuine threat by Western intelligence agencies.
Also, NATO didn’t have to kill Gaddafi directly in order to be instrumental to his deposition. You only have to look at the history of US intervention in Latin America for many examples of how regime change can be carried out via proxies and rebel groups.
He certainly played up to the role, presumably for egotistical reasons, but most of it was sabre rattling bravado.
My dude, this ignores like 40 years of him being the most unhinged leader in North Africa. He’s always been a wild card on the global political stage, swinging wildly from befriending revolutionary leftist, and then immediately dumping them for right winged dictators.
The man literally tried to sell surface-to-air missiles to a street gang in Chicago… No one had to make him seem crazy, he was crazy.
Now that doesn’t mean I think the US should have intervened, but I don’t think anyone had to really do any work to make him seem like an insane supervillain.
That also overlooks all the times western powers were friendly with Gaddafi. They didn’t mind him following his ascent to power, nor in the post 9-11 period when the U.S. and European countries restored diplomatic ties with Libya, and Western oil companies re-entered the Libyan oil sector.
In 2007, the UK’s Tony Blair visited Libya to strike up energy deals, and France’s Sarkozy met with Gaddafi for military and economic agreements.
Was Gaddafi a supervillain then too, or did he only become one when his interests were no longer aligned with the Western powers?
That also overlooks all the times western powers were friendly with Gaddafi. They didn’t mind him following his ascent to power, nor in the post 9-11 period when the U.S. and European countries restored diplomatic ties with Libya, and Western oil companies re-entered the Libyan oil sector.
That was my point about him swapping out friends sporadically. Gaddafi had massive swings in political alignment throughout his time as leader of Libya. The reason nato/un could actually make a move on his government without greater political ramifications is because he’s burned every bridge across the political spectrum.
Was Gaddafi a supervillain then too, or did he only become one when his interests were no longer aligned with the Western powers?
Literally yes… Is it that surprising the west would work with a crazy despot that has a bunch of oil?
US involvement in South America has been brutal- we are responsible for terrorism, murdering innocent people to spread fear, creating civil wars…Societies were torn apart in ways they may never recover from. How can you consider this an option and publicly advocate for it? That’s fucked up
Cause it’s whataboutism, not cause it’s wrong.
Yey USA tankies!
calling something whataboutism is such a cop-out. what has the user said that distracts from the greater debate?
Gaddafi was so popular among Libyans that in the end they dragged him to the street and raped him with a sword. Allegedly.
You think that couldn’t happen with Biden?
No. He might get assassinated by an individual or a small group of conspirators. He won’t get paraded through the streets while being raped with a sword until he dies. But nice try.
It’s weird that some random German thinks they know what American hillbillies are capable of or actively talk about doing when their memory doesn’t even go back more than three years and they have literally zero knowledge of history or the nature of angry mobs.
Oh, no, wait, that’s not weird, I always forget some people are just average.
Interesting, thanks
You people seriously hate history and facts, don’t you.
And what is dropping this wikipedia link supposed to prove?
Does it contradict the scholarly article I cited which supports everything I said?
P.S. who is “you people”?
The article was supposed to educate you on what type of person and leader Kadaffi was but something tells me education is not your strongest suit.
“You people” are teenage armchair communists with zero life experience and disdain for history books.
Look, NATO is bad, that’s why it’s absolutely necessary for anti-imperialism purposes that Russia invades its neighbors before they can get into NATO!
Which works about as good as rhe war on terror
“Bro just one more invasion bro I swear this time it’ll really solve
terrorismWestern Imperialism™ for good!”Problem is, Russia is technically in the west.
Something something, Eurasian realignment BRICS Imperial Core Global South Anti-Colonial Axis of Resistance.
I think I’m ready to start my career as a professional tankie!
This is logic amped up to 11 right here, folks.
I am still amazed at the 12 dimensional chess thought process of invading a country that didn’t join NATO to discourage joining NATO. All that socialized vodka in the maternity ward must be getting out of hand.
Those… aren’t even mutually exclusive opinions? NATO can exist for more than one reason.
Well if NATO exists for more than one reason and serve multiple purposes, then claiming NATO exists only for defensive purposes is wrong. Since it also exists for other purposes. Then it is also wrong that it is necessary harmless to Russia. I believe that is a logical conclusion?
But as soon as you express such an opinion you get branded a putinist and downvoted. That is why the lemmy.ml community protects itself from
nato expansionlemmy.world users.This question is so hot because it goes towards Russia’s justification for invasion, and for the claims of Ukraine and US to be completely innocent in the causes for the war. IF nato not only serves as a defensive organization but also serves as a tool for regime change then Russia does at least have a shitty justification for a preventive war - to prevent more arms building in Ukraine. And the war clearly has shown that Ukraine with enough weapon supplies by the west is a serious threat to Russia.
You do NOT have to be a tankie to be angry about the “brinkmanship” of the US, Ukraine and nato - and Russia. You can be angry at all parties. But the overwhelming propaganda or dogma on reddit and lemmy.world is that only Russia is to blame. This makes any diplomatic solutions impossible.
That is WHY the propaganda is so strong and why this opinion that nato eastward expansion represents not just defensive purposes is not allowed. Because otherwise you might end this war diplomatically.
Now the overwhelming majority of users will not give one inch on this position. You see how they make fun of this very serious and painful topic. I feel empathy for all the ukrainian and russian lives lost and get angry at the jokers preventing any honest discussion about the causes and possible solutions to this war. It is as painful as the israel/palestine conflict. So .ml and hexbear DO need to protect themselves from these kind of “nato is only defensive” crap because frankly, it is painful.
In this “post-truth” sense there is little difference between liberals or “lefties” and MAGAts. They deny historical facts or logical arguments. Except that the magats are weirdly also pro russia because of trump. That does not mean ml users are “pro” Russia or tankies. That is just a slur. There is plenty to hate about Putin. Especially his interference in social media and elections is abominable. But the neoliberals are no better!
There is only one good opinion at any time, citizen. The correct opinion (my opinion) can change any time, but any different opinion is doubleplusungood.
Yup. I was raised in communist Poland and I’m really tired of this. Some people are just allergic to history books and open speech. Looking at you teenage armchair communists. Grow up.
No no no, they said “what about–,” so the argument is over.
I don’t even understand the screenshot. it seems like a ban but reads like someons opinion about their opinion about someone else.
The turquoise text is the comment that op made which prompted a .ml admin to ban them.
The bottom text is the mods reasoning.
Yeah I get that. I think its because the banned comment is sorta sarcastic so its generalizing the opinion of the thing which then with the ban just gets sorta wierd to read. It feels like the not not not of pinochio from shrek.
Ah yes, that paragon of leftist virtue…
…*checks notes*…
Muammar Gaddafi?
And they wonder why they don’t get taken seriously.
The point is not that Gaddafi was a leftist, but that NATO is an evil imperialistic offensive organisation that overthrows governments
Of course Libya was never a NATO mission, was done by two countries (I include the UK as part of the USA at this point) that certainly could have coordinated even if NATO did not exist. France has always been the most NATO sceptical country in the union as well.
Oh and let’s not forget that blaming NATO allows them to forget the real reason France got involved there. But why would they want to distract people away from Sarkozy and his neoimperialism? Let me check what’s he got to say about Ukraine… Yup, checks out
Yeah my money is on the 60.000.000€ (IIRC) Sarko illegally got for his electoral campaign from Gadaffi (donations and such are very regulated in France and that was clearly very illegal), and then Gadaffi started to get vocal about it… … and then suddenly he got caught bu French forces and oupsie daisy boom.
Nothing to do with NATO.
lol before I realized what ml meant I made a comment that I thought that communism had never happened yet on earth but that it could one day. You wouldn’t believe the rage and attack from dozens of people who were inconsolable.
They also got mad when I said that there are only a few actual leftists in government in the US. Turns out that everyone is one, dontchano
…what does the ml stand for?
Area code for Mali… and I assume shorthand for Marxist Leninist.
I see, thanks
Marxism Leninism
They are the original Lemmy devs which is why I joined there. Horrible mistake, reactionary idiots who project their insecurity on others while thinking that they are the only ones who figured out the secret sauce. Pretty much exactly sovereign citizen level quackery.
look up the word “tankies” to get an idea
To be fair, how do westerners not treat capitalism and democracy with exactly the same weight? I think both sides would have good reason to argue that neither side has figured out the secret sauce as you say.
Not a huge stretch to think both the US and Russia treat their citizens poorly, and neither is a model for the rest of the world.
Because while both are shit, under capitalism I can at least say it’s shit without fear of incarceration or reeducation.
Unless you’re a whistleblower
What has capitalism got to do with freedom of speech?
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I think the pedantry is warranted. A lot of people like to conflate capitalism and democracy.
What does Stalin have to do with freedom of speech, because tankies support authocrats and dictators worldwide, but especially are fans of Stalin.
What you talking about bossman?
Russia is also capitalist, and I think you meant to say “democracy” instead of “capitalism” there since authoritarian capitalism is definitely a thing (see Russia and China).
Ah, I see
inconsolable
i like the idea of using inconsolable to refer to grown ass adults. Pure comedic value.
Cheers!
Your first sentence is not wrong; as I understand Marx’s writing. Essentially it is not possible to go from agrarianism straight to communism without first building an industrial society. That’s how Russia / USSR, China etc don’t “technically” count.
That’s how Russia / USSR, China etc don’t “technically” count.
The Lenin government did experiment with a direct transition to full communism, but found - as Marx predicted - that they didn’t enjoy the industrial surplus needed for a post scarcity society. So he rolled back to the New Economic Plan, which Stalin inherited. Stalin went full tilt on industrialization, which upset a lot of agricultural workers and ended with him putting down a revolt in his native Georgia and tendering his resignation as a result.
The party wouldn’t accept the resignation, so Stalin had to come back and win WW2 as a result. Russia avoided the fate of many of the Eastern Bloc states thanks to that rapid industrialization.
After the war standards of living surged, in large part thanks to the Communist model. The kind of communal lifestyle possible under pre-WW conditions wasn’t attractive anymore, so Russians kept industrializing over the next 40 years. And when they couldn’t match the US + Japan speed of development, they fell over in the attempt.
But to say they weren’t “doing Communism”… The quality of life in the Eastern Block improved remarkably quick and access to resources was broad based and egalitarian. The economy was centralized and planned. The proletariat dictated the political agenda.
Certainly, at the time, American economists could tell the difference between the US and Soviet systems, even if they doggedly insisted central banks making private loans was freedom while central committees allocating jobs and resources was tyranny.
It’s only after the USSR collapsed that we got an earful about “Not Real Communism”.
Thanks. I have no reason to doubt any of that. Just to clarify that by “technically” I meant that, as far as I could see, they were not necessarily dialectically-created(?) as per Karl (&Fred’s) original theories. It was more a view about the processes they used rather the outcomes they achieved.
they were not necessarily dialectically-created(?) as per Karl (&Fred’s) original theories
That’s where you can argue that Lenin and Marx ultimately diverged. Trotsky was more of a Marxist hardliner, who insisted Russia simply wasn’t ready for a Soviet state. Stalin felt differently and went so far as to have a bunch of his detractors exiled/killed to prove his point.
The Maoist Revolution in China took a substantially more Trotskyist approach, slow rolling reforms at a speed the majority of the public was willing to accept. Deng proved to be more long termist than Krushchev in his planning.
And I guess history has proven which method was wiser.
I’m referring more to the fact that Marx envisioned the populace rising up. What really rose in places like Russia and China was a group of self appointed elites who were really just reactionaries.
Tankies get mad because they believe that their utopia already exists and everyone else is an idiot for not ascribing to the same.
What really rose in places like Russia and China was a group of self appointed elites who were really just reactionaries.
Are you suggesting the Red Guard didn’t exist and the Long March didn’t happen?
self appointed
What does that mean?
I’ll start over:
Me: self appointed elites did this
You: oh so you’re saying that none of it happened?
It’s a non sequitur, it has nothing to do with the conversation.
Me: self appointed elites did this
Again, you really need to go back and read the history of the Chinese Revolution of you believe this. I might - at a bare minimum - crack open a copy of Fanshen or Life and Death in Shanghai. The idea that the Chinese Civil War and Cultural Revolution were waged by “elites” in any conceivable sense is flatly wrong. It is ahistorical to the point of being the opposite of truth. Like insisting George Washington was a First Nations native person or asserting the French Revolution was orchestrated by the Hapsburgs.
At its ugliest, Chinese revolutionaries were arresting, beating, and executing anyone who might vaguely be defined as “elite”. You were having people fight over whether parents should be executed for being landlords over their children. The opening scene of the Netflix “3 Body Problem” wasn’t all that far from the truth - college professors were, in fact, getting hauled out in front of student committees for adhering to the texts of English and German physicists. The very idea of “elitism” was what was on trial during the hottest years of the revolution.
It’s a non sequitur
You don’t know your history. You’re saying things that are flatly, broadly, and totally incoherent.
That, again, is another reason why they are not really communist. “Workers of the world unite”
Exactly. My point at that time was to say that it can happen but had not yet.
From my (very limited) understanding of Marx and Engels I suggest your point is correct. I don’t understand how a full-fat, red flag waving comrade could come to any other conclusion… but then I have no dog in this fight and no emotional need to be correct.
I think that’s why you and I aren’t tankies, militant vegans, hard evangelicals, etc. It’s not important enough to worry about.
sadly there are many stalinists and moaists. the Russian revolution ended when stallin took power.
Marx thought that the revolution would need leaders, and so the self-appointed elites aren’t totally out of keeping. It’s just that they were then supposed to step down and let the people govern themselves.
They think their utopia already exists
Yet they refuse to go live there
Good observation!
Your first sentence is not wrong; as I understand Marx’s writing. Essentially it is not possible to go from agrarianism straight to communism without first building an industrial society. That’s how Russia / USSR, China etc don’t “technically” count.
Don’t worry, Lenin et co said you could do it if you believed extra super hard and gave all the power to a small clique of intellectuals. Lenin, like Jesus and the Gospels, takes precedence over prior teachings.
That’s a good analogy. The mental gymnastics needed to be Marxist-Leninist is akin to believing both the old and new testaments are - essentially - about the same guy. I’m particularly thinking about New Economic Policy existing in a communist state. Wild.
[Overthrows the SRs for daring to say capitalism must come first to industrialize Russia]
[Implements capitalism to industrialize Russia]
It’s like how the Saudi activists who called for women to be allowed to drive remained in prison after it was legalised; it’s not about the policy itself, it’s about defying the ruler.
For a minute I thought SRs was a speech-to-text mistake for “Tsars” and was super confused - but then it all made sense. Been a long time since I’ve talked about this stuff.
It’s not a STT mistake of the word Tsar? What is it?
Socialist Revolutionary Party. Two capital letters and one lower case is how it’s written. Go figure. They were in the mix of Russian politics in that era.
“Read theory and you would know what I’m talking about.”
That is a common thought terminating response to any critique of communism. That being said, I learned to flip the table. Tankies talk about theory, so mention empirical and practical results. They tend to either shut down or ban you.
