To think being Far left wing (communist) and praising the ussr is as bad as being far right and supporting the Bnp

[Dadistired1]

This is a question I asked myself, I have a colleague who is very far left in her political views and has the USSR flag as her iphone and laptop screen saver.

Aibu to think that it is just as bad as having a confederate flag or nazi flag as a screensaver. Aibu to think its shocking no one at work has said anything.

Im left wing, but praising a regime that killed millions and oppressed many is way pass the line.

(ps this colleague is not from any former soviet country)

have you actually spoken to her about this?

praising a regime that killed millions and oppressed many is way pass the line

You could say the same thing about the Union Flag...

Communism is shit and yes yanbu to feel how you do.

Its nothing like having a nazi swastika for starters

Yanbu I expect if someone had a bnp flag people would say something

It's interesting - I did politics at Uni and I remember one lecturer saying that if he announced he was a Fascist there would be uproar but if he announced he was a Communist nobody would bat an eyelid BUT supposedly Communist leaders had murdered more of their own people than Fascist governments ever had.
Obviously he wasnt suggesting that either was a good idea but that perceptions were interesting. In Russia you can visit Lenins tomb and there are monuments etc to Lenin but can you imagine a tribute to Hitler situated in Munich???

Why is it nothing like a Swastika? Stalin killed many, many more people than the Nazis.

It's the Horse shoe theory and YNBU

Whilst you're objectively right to say that Stalin's USSR killed millions I think there's a key difference between the hammer and sickle and the swastika/Confederate flag. If you display a swastika you can be seen as implicitly supporting the Nazis' treatment of the Jews (and gay/disabled etc people). If you display the Confederate flag there's a strong hint of support for slavery and or racial segregation. Both of these carry threats to groups around in society today. By contrast, the millions of victims of Stalin were mostly "people whom Stalin found inconvenient". Some specific ethnic and national groups were ethnically cleansed or over represented in the purges but hardly anyone in the UK would interpret a Soviet flag as inciting racial hatred in the 21st century - whereas the other two flags could definitely carry that implication.

I suppose you could tentatively make the argument that the swastika stands exclusively for Nazism (yes, know it's a religious symbol too - but not in most people's minds), while the hammer and sickle are representative of a higher "ideal", that just wasn't lived up to within the USSR.

USSR vs Nazism = both as bad as each other.

But socialism as an ideal, some might argue, has never really been "tried and tested", as it was always supposed to be as a worldwide revolution of industrialised societies (according to Marx anyway) and the Russian revolution was an "aborted", premature attempt leading to "socialism in one country".

For the record I'm not a socialist - I don't think socialism is a viable social construct, as human nature will always corrupt it.

But that might be the thinking behind the screen saver? That, or (possibly more likely) your colleague doesn't actually know or understand anything at all about 20th century history!

Why is it nothing like a Swastika? Stalin killed many, many more people than the Nazis.

That's not actually the case, although it's commonly assumed so. This article sets out the figures based on recent research.

Hoppinggreen not many people ever compare Lenin to Hitler. Stalin,yes, but not Lenin. And why is everyone assuming OP's colleague approves of the Stalin era? Has she said so?

I don't think how many people a regime kills is the mark of how "evil" it is - one will always "outdo" the other in numerical terms.

The very willingness to kill so many and so ruthlessly is the evil in and of itself.

Well, quite. Hence my earlier point about the Union Jack

What are the main ideals of communism? Compare and contrast with naziism and you perhaps will notice a few small differences?

Definition of NAZISM. : the body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the Nazis in Germany from 1933 to 1945 including the totalitarian principle of government, predominance of especially Germanic groups assumed to be racially superior, and supremacy of the führer.

Definition of COMMUNISM
a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

I can understand that such a symbol may not cause such hatred on racial ground, but what about economic hatred.

Brilliant post, Anyone.

My mum is a communist, and to her that flag wouldn't really represent the USSR, but would represent the struggles she has been through to make our country a better place, marching for equal rights, to end wars, to try and stop big corporations destroying our country for profit.

She does acknowledge that the USSR was not an ideal state, but believes that many of it's ideals are worth supporting, even if they could not be achieved.

Note also that the swastika is a banned symbol in several european countries, cos of, you know, that racial supremacy and genocide of the jews and gypsies thing

i have a hammer and sickle badge over my desk. I am a 'public servant'.

I visited the Soviet Union in the early 1980's.

Do you wish to 'report' me at all OP?

Lenin got the ball rolling on the killing front after the revolution (in the spirit of revolutionary "cleansing" rather than Stalin's personal paranoia) - some academics argue that Stalin was only carrying through with the legacy he was left with...

I can't remember now which way I thought on the subject....

My degree in German and Russian language and history was a very long time ago now!!

But again, a communist might argue that neither man was truly representative of "true"socialism as outlined by Marx, as they attempted to kick off worldwide socialism from an agrarian peasant based society, rather than a highly industrialised one...

'economic hatred?'

Have you been at the evo-stick?

MaudGonneMad I love your name.

YABVU to think this is any of your business.

Do you know this woman or her family background?
Could it be, for example, that her family was liberated from a concentration (or more likely death camp if in the east) by the Red Army? Or perhaps her family suffered under a Nazi puppet regime, in Croatia, Romania, or Hungary, or maybe they were victims of the anti-Polish ethnic cleansing in western Ukraine that was carried out by 'Ukrainian nationalists'? Or maybe her family were at some time living in the parts of the USSR that were held by the Nazis and some of them were among the 22 million who were starved, frozen, or flat out murdered? There were plenty of victims of the Nazisand the European right wing besides those who perished in the Holocaust. It doesn't take a PhD in history to figure out that many, many people in eastern Europe and in Israel feel enormous gratitude for their liberation.

My own family in Ireland suffered during the pre war popularity of the Irish Blueshirts. Maybe she is of Irish descent and someone she is related to got beaten by a bunch of right wing thugs at an election, or had their business ruined during that time?

It doesn't take a PhD in history to figure out that many, many people in eastern Europe and in Israel feel enormous gratitude for their liberation.

A lot in Eastern Europe also thought fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck too... ;)

has the USSR flag as her iphone and laptop screen saver.

The idea of a USSR flag as an iphone background cracks me up , oh the irony.