cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/731575
It seems there are a lot of propaganda arising on certain lemmy instances parroting propaganda that lemmygrad and Communists support human rights violations, and equating Communists to the alt right.
This is an extremely ridiculous assertion, given the historical context of the left being the main force fighting Nazism and fascism. But I write this post as there are probably many people misled by all the dishonest propaganda out there, who may be accepting of reason before seeking to silence us.
Please link this post in other instances if they are parroting propaganda about Communists to justify demonizing us. Reasonable people will understand and oppose these motions.
What is NOT Communism? in short, communism is NOT:
- “when the government does stuff”
- “capitalism but everyone gets paid the same”
- an incursion on personal freedom, or forcing people to do what they don’t want (unless the thing they don’t want is not exploiting others and not wishing mass murder on ethnic groups, etc).
Then what is communism? in simple terms, it is the belief that the working class (i.e. the people, the masses) must own the means of production (factories, work places, etc) and control the direction of production in society, so that we produce for our own needs rather than to fulfill profits.
Why? we spend most of our lifetime working, so why should we cater it towards profits of a minority class of capitalists rather than our own and out community’s needs and wants? Why shouldn’t we be masters of our own destinies?
You may not agree with this, but this is not an excuse to silence us or lump us with genocidal ideologies
This thread is not meant to convince you with communism, but to demystify it and break the cold war era propaganda that some of you continue to parrot.
you support USSR? What about their human rights violations? (applies to Cuba, China, etc)
We do, but we do not support human rights violations as we believe there are tons of propaganda surrounding this. Equating this with Nazism is EXTREMELY DISINGENUOUS. The prevailing propaganda against the USSR is even acknowledged by NATO countries themselves. Nazism is an ideology founded on genocide, and this is easy to verify from Hitler’s writing himself.
Maybe in the end, we are wrong and despite the propaganda, there are human rights violations. But our support for the USSR comes from their achievements to better the human condition, and we hope to build on it. There are no human rights violation that inspires our ideology like it does for fascism or Nazism.
Disclaimer: I am just a random Communist. I have no authority over lemmygrad or connections to the admins, just to make sure I don’t upset the admins saying this.
The primary complaint about our existence is our support for China, the USSR, Cuba, and other evil authoritarian communist regimes. I think most liberals agree that the USSR under Stalin was the most evil country ever. Let’s examine the USSR more closely then, assuming that it did all the human rights violations and atrocities it was accused of.
Googling for “Stalin’s worst acts”, led me to this website with his 7 worst atrocities:
https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/joseph-stalin.htm
Now, assuming all this is true and unbiased, I would like to compare the list to the USA. I think it’s hypocritical to accuse us of supporting human rights violations, EVEN IF THESE WERE ALL TRUE. How is it wrong to support the USSR if the USA were to provably commit even worse human rights violations? I don’t see the liberals banning American “patriots” anytime soon.
- GULAGS. Stalin created the GULAG system for political prisoners, and worked 3.7 million people to death. The USA had a chattel slave population of 3.9 million in 1860. It currently has a prison population of 2 million, who are legally slaves.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716878/
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html
- Collectivisation. Stalin siezed the land of wealthy landowners and sent them to the gulag. The USA quite famously did that exact thing to the native peoples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears
- The Great Famine. Stalin killed millions of people by amplifying the effects of a famine, and pushing the worst of it onto groups he disliked. The US had this to say about the Buffalo: “Kill Every Buffalo You Can! Every Buffalo Dead Is an Indian Gone”. The USA brought the buffalo to the edge of extinction, just to try to starve the natives. Fun fact: This was one of the primary inspirations for Hitler’s final solution.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buffalo-killers/482349/
https://thecirclenews.org/cover-story/u-s-treatment-of-indians-inspired-hitlers-hunger-policies/
- The Great Purge. Stalin rounded up thousands of communists and executed them to secure power. I’m honestly confused by this one, as I thought that liberals loved purging communists. But regardless, the USA famously purged communists as well during “The Red Scare”. Mention should also be made to high profile communists such as Malcom X and Martin Luther King who were killed under suspicious circumstances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare
- Order 277. Stalin gave orders to shoot any soldier who retreated. I would argue that rounding up millions of your people to go fight “communism” in a country that did nothing to you would qualify as just as bad. You decide.
https://www.vva310.org/vietnam-war-statistics
- Punishing Prisoners of War. Stalin sent captured soldiers to the gulag upon liberation. The USA condems this, but said nothing of reimprisoning concentration camp survivors. Odd.
https://time.com/5953047/lgbtq-holocaust-stories/
- Giving a Pass to War Crimes. Stalin ignored war crimes from his soldiers. I really hate this one. The USA quite famously snatched up every nazi rocket scientist and spy that they could. They lived out their lives in positions of power in the USA, and even wrote some of the drivel I’m talking about today. The US has also famously refused any oversight from the International Criminal Court, even going so far as threatening invasion if a US soldier was ever tried. The list of US war crimes is huge, and the punishments are brief. A book could be written about how hypocritical this one is, but I’ll just leave it at this link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
So here’s where we are. Of all of Stalin’s atrocities, I think I’ve shown that the US has done something equivalent but worse in the majority of cases. But it’s still acceptable to liberals to wave an American flag, but not a Soviet one? Why do you suppose this is? It gets even worse if you start questioning the veracity of these claims of course, but even if they were at face value, I would still support the Soviet state. They were the first Socialist state and should be respected for that alone. I don’t agree with everything that they did, and I don’t think anyone does. We don’t hate the American people for loving their country. Why should we be hated for loving the USSR?
Great write up.
Thank you. I signed up here just to write that.
Maybe in the end, we are wrong and despite the propaganda, there are human rights violations. But our support for the USSR comes from their achievements to better the human condition, and we hope to build on it. There are no human rights violation that inspires our ideology like it does for fascism or Nazism.
This is important for liberals to understand. Any prominent Marxist’s writing will reflect a strong desire for equality among workers and actual human rights (housing, food, dignified work, belonging to a community, etc.), whereas I’d challenge anyone to find this in the drivel written by fascists like Hitler. Anyone acting in good faith should be able to comprehend that we’re not pro-AES because we believe the claims made by imperialists against them, but because we do not believe it and have seen evidence that, at least to us, fits with this viewpoint
I didn’t even read much of the classical chud takes, overwhelming most of anticommunist posts on lemmy are typical left anticommunists (especially ultras and anarchists) as in the Parenti essay.
There were also neoliberals in there, on all the same subs as the anarcho-bidenists and arguing parallel to them as long as the anarcho-bidenists didn’t ever mention a positive alternative. Really makes you think.
Weird how all that nicely circles with “socialdemocracy is a moderate wing of fascism” and “why there is so many nazis in my antiauthoritarian space” and daily reaching 200% of Kronshtadt “ideological purity”.
The first right listed in the European Convention on Human Rights is property. There is no corresponding right to food and shelter.
What human rights ought to be is a contestable thing: under capitalism we’ve put property (literally) at the top of the list. Much of our society is organised around this principle. What if we gave people the right to democracy in organisations that affect their lives? Their workplaces, schools, local hospitals, universities, even shops? The right to habitable shelter, food, and free healthcare? The right to meet their needs through the formation of associations like cooperatives?
Human rights have a dual purpose, insofar as they both express and enforce a social ideal. They’re both cause and effect of hegemony, and they’ll carry hegemonic values within them.
Plus my guess is that most of the people complaining about this are happy to lob big words around on the internet but have never once actually campaigned for the rights of anyone whose rights have been violated.
Ok that’s fine for the social/economic aspects, but what about the political aspect? How are issues like the military handled? Who pays for national defense and how?
The USSR could still issue currency, pay for public goods, weapons, etc. None of those are unique to capitalism.
