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this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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99% of all the bad shit that has happened in the last five centuries around the world has been because of capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, feudalism, slavery. Left anti-communists are still like “yeah but we still need to focus on that remaining 1%, meaning the lack of instantaneous perfection of the USSR, even though it ceased to exist over thirty years ago. Also let’s talk endlessly about China.”
Regarding these tweets here, I’m remembering what Norman Finkelstein’s parents said. They weren’t communists, but Stalin freed them from the Nazi concentration camps. They said that any Jew who criticized Stalin was a traitor. (I’m also writing this as a Jew.)
As no real Communist countries existed before the big 1917 Revolution, this is arguably over-reductive. Not exactly unfair to observe the first generation of Soviet Countries as bound to all the same social problems and governing mistakes of the prior century, particularly in the early years.
But what you end up with in analysis here is just a Parenti-ism, declaring the Soviets uniquely bad for having the same (draconian) state security service as everyone else.
Basically, the Soviets are guilty of not rising above the sins of the past fast enough. Meanwhile, Red Scares and White Terrors are never a factor in how or why a Russian Soviet might be weeding out counter-revolutionaries left, right, and center.
We could talk about China, but I doubt Sinophobes would like where the conversation went