this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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And it's this kind of one-dimensional analysis of events that keeps me from taking you guys seriously. Like ok, i guess the main goal of all those university students and workers was to put into place a pro-Nazi government rather than advocacy for political reforms and economic autonomy. Yeah bud.
And yet Warsaw Pact countries were not allowed to pursue independent policies, even when those policies might have strengthened socialism locally. Hmm, what was that about internationalist solidarity again?
Again with this ad hominem. You are well aware of my willingness to acquiesce to defeat when i have been bested in a debate and of my willingness to research upon what i know not of. Your points aren't convincing enough and only serve to spread your propaganda in the hopes that you net some unaware working class individuals who don't know any better.
Genuine question, have you ever changed your stance on something on this platform?
It's not at all "one-dimensional." Counter-revolution frequently works by trying to organize an appearingly "leftist" revolution, but starting with US funding and fascist leadership. Genuinely, do you think the Nazi leading the anti-soviet counterrevolution had the best intentions at heart? Or that releasing Nazis from prison to help was a good thing for worker's rights? The same fascists that bound, tortured, and killed the Soviet supporters, prompting the Soviet Union to send in tanks? The same fascists that the peasantry entirely opposed? This was not a popular movement, it was an attempted fascist coup.
Yes, there were absolutely legitimate greivances with the Soviet system. To deny such would be absurd. However, this was not a legitimate revolution by any stretch.
As for the Warsaw pact countries, not sure what you mean by "not being allowed to pursue independent policies." They had local governments and their own jurisdictions.
As for your own reluctance to read anything that might change your mind, I know you read Elementary Principles of Philosophy. That's more than most can say. However, I also know you refused to read more than a couple sentences of "Tankies" out of some objection to the monstrocity of Churchill, who had this to say of the Chinese:
And this to say of the millions of Bengalis his policies starved to death:
Or this to say of Palestinians in his support of Zionism:
So yes, I do believe you fear sympathy for Socialists if you reflexively defend genocidal monsters like Churchill and avert your eyes from anything that brings that to light. Hopefully those quotations were enough to get my point across, but we can certainly keep going. Churchill was a demon in flesh.
As for my views? Many times. I used to consider myself more of an Anarchist, even denouncing the USSR to an extent I recognize now as counterfactual. You can go back to my earliest comments on this account if you want and see the evolution. What changed was that I bought an eReader and started reading again, including theory and history books, and went fact checking where I could. The fact that you haven't been able to change my mind doesn't weaken my willingness to change my mind about subjects.
I have also begun adhering to the notion "no investigation, no right to speak." I simply do not share any semi-formed opinions I may have if I have not investigated them enough to be truly confident in doing so.
I'll leave you with a quote from "Tankies:"
Warsaw Pact countries had local governments yes, but these governments were heavily subordinated to Moscow's interests. Policies were vetoed by the USSR, and attempts at independence were met with military intervention.
Fwiw, i did end up reading Tankies, and i came out more unconvinced than when i went in. I'm not denying that Churchill was racist and that his colonialist and imperialist actions were harmful, but it feels like you're trying to downplay the horridness of what the Soviets did when you bring up this stuff. This just runs into whataboutism and bad faith arguments.
Yes, the accomplishments of AES are indeed worth defending, but dismissing all criticisms as CIA propaganda (particularly when it comes to the CCP and Xi Jinping) or Trotskyist exaggerations oversimplifies history. Yes, the USSR’s role in aiding decolonization is admirable, but they still suppressed worker uprisings in its own sphere of influence. You can't just ask me to ignore this.
Socialist systems require cohesion and centralism, efforts at decentralization result in difficulties with maintaining effective economic planning. Unlike Capitalism, where competition is the goal, in Socialism cooperation is the focus. You'll have to actually dig into what was veto'd and why.
As for Soviets vs the Western Powers, I do not wish to downplay genuine failings by the Soviets. I wish simply to contextualize what has been exaggerated or twisted by the western powers, much of whose stories you repeat back originate with Goebbels. There's a clear difference between "whataboutism" and trying to explain that your repeated condemnations of the Soviet Union are not based on fact, but distortions. These distortions lead you into logical pretzels, like calling the Hungarian fascist-led riots a "worker revolution" despite being opposed by a majority of the workers.
What I am asking you to do is make a genuine effort to dig into the facts of the situations you believe yourself familiar with. Sticking with Hungary, how much research have you done? Have you only looked at anticommunist sources, or also pro-communist sources? Does the revelation that the riots were led by Nazis change your opinion of the actual character of the events, or not?
There's plenty I can and do criticize about the Soviets, and other AES states. Stalin, while being a committed Socialist, absolutely made errors and blunders, same with Mao. I'd say Castro and Ho Chi Minh ended up being some of the most consistently "correct," same with Deng Xiaoping (not including Lenin because he didn't live long enough, sadly, to make major mistakes, but if I was including him he'd be at the top). However, I understand that there has been a century of misinformation of the highest degree piled onto AES states, and this misinformation campaign exists to this day against modern Socialist states like China and Cuba.
Want some advice? Check out Dessalines's Socialism FAQ, click a country you want to learn about, and try to legitimately engage with the points that interest you. Try to poke holes in the sources, or see if other sources contradict. There is a massive effort by Western countries and media to deliberately propagandize against any form of Socialist countries, so any preconcieved notions you have are likely misleading at best or outright fabrications at worst.
To leave you with an amazing quote from Dr. Michael Parenti regarding this anticommunist framework, taken from Blackshirts and Reds:
Funny enough, Communists frequently just say "Parenti Quote" as shorthand for this, as it is that powerful and accurate.
As with most of my knowledge about history, it comes from Wikipedia pages and YouTube videos. Concerning whether the revelation that the riots were fascist-led has changed my opinion on the character of the events. I would say maybe a little bit. It doesn't change the fact that there were clear grievances with the system and there were many dissidents in the revolution, and maybe Nazi support was a way out for them? I don't know. However that's for me to do more research on.
On your point about misinformation, i can agree that there is some level of bias when it comes to Western reporting on AES states, but it's not so easy to recognize where the misinformation is coming from: especially when it is well known China has a habit of suppressing negative news about them. Evidenced by the Tiananmen square protests being a taboo topic there, so it's also not clear to me where I'm supposed to be getting accurate information from if leftist sources are taking China's every word for things like the Ughyur pogroms, Tiananmen square protest, etc etc.