• blackris@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 day ago

          Sure. People like to romanticize the past and the Wiedervereinigung was a shitty process that fucked many people over. But it is nice, not to live in a Planwirtschaft, to travel to other german cities without being shot at or running through mine fields and not to have a quarter of your neighbourhood spy on you to be brought to one of the Stasi torture prisons for not being socialist enough.

          • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            Wow, that sounds horrible, I bet there were a lot of prosecutions of the people who carried those things out once the government reunified!

            Oh, and the physical evidence and documentation of those torture dungeons after the wall fell, there must be so much evidence of all the horrors committed!

            And all the violence the evil communist government must have done to keep itself in power and prevent reunification must have been really evident, I bet we can find newspaper clippings and even video on the widespread violence that happened in an effort to hold on to power.

            Wait, I’m getting reports that none of those things actually happened, fuck. It would have lined up so nicely with the narrative taught to me by American education and popular media, that’s a real bummer.

      • The Menemen@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Old people in Russia will not remember the Stalin era, but the Khrushchev era (the post-gulag era, famous for de-stalinization) and the Brezhnev era. Old people also tend to romatisize their youth. And romatisizing the Soviet Union is mixed with ethno-nationalism in current days Russia.

        I consider myself a socialist, but stalinism is dog-shit.

        • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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          23 hours ago

          The world owes Stalin and the people of the USSR a debt that can never be repaid for being the only country to try to stop Nazi Germany before the war and the country which bore the brunt of the casualties and hardship.

          Any “socialist” who shit talks them is suspicious as fuck in my book, chauvinist at the very best and probably a snitch.

          Khrushchev was an opportunist piece of shit and the world would have been better if he had been kicked out of the party.

      • mEEGal@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I won’t deny the scientific studies.

        I am speaking from personal and family experience

      • MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 days ago
        1. Vaguely hates communism because that’s been the western cultural norm for the last century
        2. Decides to talk to some people who have actually lived under communism; every single one confirms that your view of communism is wildly inaccurate and states their preference for communism
        3. Goes back to hating communism anyway because both sides or something
      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        I think you should use your experiences in Azerbaijan as a push to confront some of your biases, and re-examine your understanding of Socialism in the Soviet Union. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t “totalitarian” by any stretch either. The benefits of the Socialist economic structure are pined for precisely because they worked, and did so for the common people. There are improvements that can and have been made in other Socialist countries, but these improvements would not have been possible without the brave Soviet people pioneering Socialism as it exists in the real world.

        • punksnotdead@slrpnk.net
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          1 day ago

          Not totalitarian you say?

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purges_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

          My experience in Azerbaijan also included tales of when they were children passing curds to starving prisoners through chain fences in Kazakh gulags. The Soviet Union did more harm than good to the leftist movement and is used as the scary example every single time someone begins to think twice about the capitalist system they live under. Socialism is forever tainted by the USSR and severely struggles to remove that image. Fuck the USSR.

          • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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            1 day ago

            The Soviet Union did more harm than good to the leftist movement and is used as the scary example every single time someone begins to think twice about the capitalist system they live under. Socialism is forever tainted by the USSR and severely struggles to remove that image. Fuck the USSR.

            The soviet union literally stopped nazi germany from doing a gargantuan genocide on eastern europe, it’s quite literally the biggest leftist victory hitherto and even now these eastern european countries still live off the crumbling infrastructure built during the soviet union period.

            Only idiots parrot this narrative that the USSR was unimaginably bad, please educate yourself and purge this comical perception of the USSR, it’s only there to make you think there is no alternative.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            I am aware of the Soviet Union expelling fascists and Tsarists from the party, and punishing those found corrupt, criminals, or had been members of the White Army. I am aware of the GULAG administration that formed the early Soviet prison system, read Russian Justice for more on how that functioned. I am aware of the famine in the 1930s. I have read these articles, as pretty much every Western Communist has had to, these are not “gotchas.”

            The real truth of the matter is that the western anti-Communist “Left” that denounces the USSR and every real attempt at building Socialism plays into the hands of the US Empire. The Soviet Union was a massive victory for the working class, the first real Socialist state in history, and with it came dramatic improvements in key life metrics and working class dignity.

            1. Life expectancy doubled.

            2. The economy was democratized, following the method of Soviet Democracy

            1. Wealth inequality shrank, while economic growth boomed:

            1. Large expansions in social safety nets were made, such as free and high quality education and healthcare.

            2. Housing rates skyrocketed, and literacy rates over tripled to 99.9%.

            3. Food security was achieved in a country that was always food insecure.

            4. The Red Army defeated the Nazis, with 80% of the combat of World War II on the Eastern Front.

            5. The Soviet Union supported countless liberation movements, such as in Cuba, Algeria, and more.

            And many, many more achievements. People who denounce the USSR maintain unstated approval for the other Great Power, the United States, which without the USSR would have been entirely unopposed. The US, which committed Imperialist slaughter and even genocide in Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Angola, Palestine, and many, many more countries, was opposed primarily by the Soviets.

            The Soviet Union was by no means perfect, nobody asserts that, but to claim that the Soviet Union did “more harm than good to the Leftist movement” is ludicrous. This is the sentiment of Western Chauvanists that don’t want to support Socialism unless they are the ones who acheive it. Jones Maonel was spot on in Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, but not Real Revolution.

            You should read Dr. Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds, or at the very least the sections on “Left” Anti-Communism.

          • jaxxed@lemmy.ml
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            15 hours ago

            Things were different in the periphral nations, than in the center. Those who read your comments with heritage from the peripheral will understand you, and the others will not.

          • OmegaLemmy@discuss.online
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            1 day ago

            You would’ve had the image of leftists destroyed no matter what, the faults of USSR is ever present and has even been maximised to the point of hilarity where it is compared with the Nazis, even if false or inaccurate or misrepresented

            You could see the victories of socialism and communism within USSR and read and learn about it, but also critique the system that Stalin created alongside it which allowed repression, where it lead to millions dying in Ukraine and millions to suffer in prison, but these have been exaggerated as part of western doctrine to deface communism as much as possible, so never take it at face value

            It’s extremely unfortunate that communism was cursed as not only the biggest enemy of the developed world as it was just only developing, but also had the misfortune to be lead by a leader who had little regard for democracy or democratic values in politics and which lead to later on revisionism, inefficiencies and the collapse.

            • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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              1 day ago

              but also had the misfortune to be lead by a leader who had little regard for democracy or democratic values in politics and which lead to later on revisionism, inefficiencies and the collapse.

              Yeah, fuck Khrushchev

      • TassieTosser@aussie.zone
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        2 days ago

        There’s a saying in the ex socialist republics. “Those who don’t miss the USSR have no heart, but those who want it back have no brains.” Think that about sums it up.

        • MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml
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          2 days ago

          I think you just made that up.

          Besides, living standards and life expectancy in the former USSR are just now recovering back to levels they were at when the USSR broke up. It makes complete sense why people would look at the last 30 years and conclude things were better before.

    • missandry351@lemmings.world
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      2 days ago

      I used to live in Chemnitz, and that’s exactly what o have done, the answers were not as I expected, most people said that, one or two things were better, the quality of life generali has gotten worse.

    • tiwdll@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      100% this. Im from Russia and I have heard many horrible stories from older relatives about previous generations and life under the USSR. Life is definitely shitty now, but it’s still better than those years

      • easily3667@lemmus.org
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        2 days ago

        Lol you’re not even allowed to have your own personal experiences here, that’s apparently in conflict with the glorious Data.

        • tiwdll@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          I’m not surprised lol. For some reason, foreign fans of communism like to ignore how real people actually lived back then. +It’s funny that I also quite often came across old people who praised the USSR, but their words always sounded like “yes, we had a terrible shortage in our country, we didn’t have normal clothes, food, or medicine, and my parents were afraid to even talk about politics, BUT ice cream cost three kopecks and was tastier than now!". All the love for the USSR from them is just nostalgia for the times when they were carefree kids

          • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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            23 hours ago

            All the love for the USSR from them is just nostalgia for the times when they were carefree kids

            Yeah bro only enlightened westerners are smart enough to recognize why they preferred a certain economic and political system, dumb easterners just want ice cream. They definitely didn’t have a better political education than you. Hell, they probably didn’t even read Animal Farm!

            Fucking chauvinists I stg.

            • tiwdll@lemmy.ml
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              14 hours ago

              What? Please learn to read first, this is not at all what I said. I just described my experience as a Russian who talked to a bunch of old post-USSR people about what life was like in those years. And like I said, they described horrible things that I wouldn’t want to experience, but some of them looked at them with love because they were younger and healthier then

              “political education” do you mean endless propaganda, life in a country completely cut off from the rest of the world and censorship of literally everything? Yes, in that case I think I have a better political education. At least I studied at a time when Russia was freer than then and now

          • easily3667@lemmus.org
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            1 day ago

            Yeah the nostalgia angle sounds tough. And then you have the x-sov states that are backsliding (hungary, a bit of Czechia), I assume, based on some level of love for the authoritarian nostalgia.

            Edit: apparently we can’t even accept that hungary has turned into an authoritarian state. Amazing.

            • StalinIsMaiWaifu@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 day ago

              No one here like Orban, you’re being down voted because that is some of the shittiest political analysis I have seen. You’re chalking up reactionary populism to Communist nostalgia- there is no ideological connection between the two.

      • missandry351@lemmings.world
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        2 days ago

        I don’t think communism and ussr were saints free of all sin but on the other side of the coin I also think there is a lot of things about communism that were made up to make it look worse than it was, I mean capitalism did some propaganda. I used to live in a city that was formerly East Germany and I did ask around what people remember what it was like and what they thought was better, and most of them said they preferred the old system, one or two things are better now but the general quality of life now is worse. Me, being Portuguese, and therefor bombarded with capitalist propaganda since birth was completely 🤯

    • miss phant@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      2 days ago

      I’m not sure how this would be considered good, it’s still oppression. The result just happens to be desirable but that doesn’t justify the way it was achieved.