this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2024
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Family Member: Russia needs to invade Ukraine because they need a shield against NATO.
Me: But NATO wasn't going to attack them. It's a defensive organization.
That's what THEY want you to believe. (Was not able to clarify who "they" were during conversation, but got the impression it wasn't nato)
Even if you believe Russia to be 100% in the wrong, the idea that NATO is a defensive organization is laughable. Not only has it historically been led by Nazis, the member-states are the most imperialist countries on the planet. It serves to protect an inherently violent status quo of brutal looting and exploitation of the Global South, and that's without getting into aggressive operations from NATO.
It’s also hypocritical. NATO is willing to allow Ukraine to join, but not Russia:
Its behind a paywall can you copy paste?
A Geostrategy for Eurasia
Yep. After the USSR was murdered and the State sliced up and sold for spare parts to the Imperialist bourgeoisie in the west, there was a nationalist bourgeoisie that regained control of the Russian Federation's resources and industry, and the West never forgave them for that. That's why Russia is a far-right dystopia in many ways, but unlike far-right dystopias allies to the US Empire, the Russian Federation is depicted in a negative light exclusively in western Media, unlike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Argentina, etc.
What do you believe happened? It's pretty clear that right up until it's dissolution, the majority of the public had no idea it was going to collapse, nor did they want to replace Socialism with Capitalism. The majority of ex-soviets still claim it was better under Socialism than it is under Capitalism.
What the actual hell
Which part?
Not really true. Up to the end, the Soviets were well-fed, there were genuine issues but it was fine. The Economy was slowing down, and the Soviets were still largely planning by hand, which failed to scale well with increasing production, but necessities were more than covered. The system was working, if slowing.
A few SRs had rising nationalist movements towards the end, but up until the very end the vast majority voted to retain membership in the USSR. It wasn't until afterwards that it began to be murdered from the top, from the botched coup, to the change in leadership roles that allowed for conflicts within what was supposed to be a centralized system.
Wealth disparity was far lower in the USSR than in post-soviet countries.
On top of this, the majority wished to retain Socialism and want to go back. I don't "fling it around lightly," this is a well-documented phenomenon, Capitalism is worse than Socialism for post-soviet countries. The USSR also wasn't an Empire, nor was it warmongering, it materially supported anticolonial and anti-imperialist movements the world over.
Edit:If you think I am lying ask someone from a place that got occupied by the USSR most of you just go like: I saw this meme in the shit posting community time to make this my whole thing defending empires that don't exist anymore
the utter irony is what killed the USSR is reforms that would have brought it into line with how you THINK it operated. In reality it was an imperialist genocidal monolith that ran roughshod over many of its "member" states that were in fact for the most part occupied territories. Lets be very clear about that right now.
I have no idea what timeline you are dealing with, but I would also like to remind you that a forcibly oppressed population is not consent. And as soon as the repression began the lift, the riots for independence started and countries broke away. The fact that even after the dissolution of the USSR the majority of former member states wanted absolutely nothing to do with a "free" Russia should be a very large hint for you.
I was not talking about wealth disparity. I was talking about quality of life. This is very well documented.
The founding member states of the soviet union were Belarus, the Russian SFSR (roughly what we consider to be Russia today), the Transcaucasian Federation (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), and the Ukraine. You know that "union" part of USSR? Yeah, it actually refers to a union of states. And they were the ones who pulled the plug.
No, it wasn't. It was not imperialist, and supported countless anticolonial and anti-imperialist movements. It was not genocidal either.
This is ahistorical, again, the majority voted to retain the USSR and the majority of people say their lives were better under Socialism than Capitalism. This tracks with higher life expectancy, lower poverty rates, and other metrics in the USSR than in present post-Soviet Capitalist states. There wasn't a "moment of lifting repression," in fact repression increased under Capitalism with Shock Doctrine.
Quality of life skyrocketed over time, they went from one of the poorest states in Europe to one of the most developed in less than a century. It is very well documented that the Soviets went from immense poverty to doubled life expectancy, 99%+ literacy rates, free healthcare and education, food security, democratization of the economy, mass scientific achievement, high rates of home ownership, and more throughout its lifetime.
Oh, even more absurd, you're pretending countries have souls.
Read Blackshirts and Reds. It's 10 times as hard to debunk anticommunist red scare-era nonsense than it is to firehose falsehoods and half-truths.
Do you know what decossackization was.
Do you know what the Kazakh famine was.
Do you know what the Holomodor was.
Do you know what the Finnish, Estonian and Polish Operations were.
Do you know what the Khaibakh massacre was.
Do you know what the Deportation of the Crimean Tatars was.
Do you know what the Sumgait pogrom was
As a few examples, all straight from Wikipedia, none of what you listed is accepted as genocide, decreasingly so after the openings of the Soviet Archives. It is extremely easy to randomly look up a western list of soviet repressions, and far harder to actually dig into what happened and if it truly constituted genocide. It's especially telling that you ignore the rest of your nonsense that I debunked in favor of perpetuating your firehose tactics, seemingly not caring if even western historians agree with you.
Several scholars have categorised this as a form of genocide,[6][7][8][9][10] whilst other historians have highly disputed this classification due to the contentious figures which range from "a few thousand to incredible claims of hundreds of thousands".[11][12][13]
Some historians describe the famine as legally recognizable as a genocide perpetrated by the Soviet state, under the definition outlined by the United Nations; however, some argue otherwise.
While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made,[10][11] it remains in dispute whether the Holodomor was directed at Ukrainians and whether it constitutes a genocide, the point of contention being the absence of attested documents explicitly ordering the starvation of any area in the Soviet Union.
Nothing in the Wikipedia article covers genocide.
And so on. Again, read Blackshirts and Reds. You might learn something. No, the USSR was by no means perfect, but it wasn't the monstrosity you depict it as either.
yeah I'm not taking homework assignments from someone who thinks I'm trying to ascribe souls to states lol.
You did, though. The USSR was dissolved by people very different from the original founders, in very different times and very different circumstances. Pretending member-states were in any way "founders" of Socialism is silly, it was people that did that, and different people that dissolved it.
I never said Russia didn't invade Ukraine, my point is specifically that calling NATO a "defensive alliance" despite it's sole purpose being maintenance of Western Imperialism is laughable. People who understand ACAB but defend NATO as "purely defensive" have an inability to understand imperialism.
My comment has been deleted for no reason. Enjoy.
Probably your ableist username.