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)

Thanks Clawdy! That's what she was called by Dublin wags during the Civil War.

And her great friend Charlotte Despard was called Mrs Desperate.

Maud Gonne Mad and Mrs Desperate

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

Think cross posted! Am not big rah rah on Empire either - or nationalism in general - and think we are all too quick in the UK to justify crimes perpetrated in its name.

It might have brought some economic and infrastructure benefits to those countries (railways in India etc), but was still heavily weighted economically towards this country and enforced at the barrel of a gun - and all oft quoted "upsides" implemented for Britain's benefit rather than that of the "natives".

Is she work time to discuss politics? If not yabu.

It is strange, because the USSR of course didn't only confine its activities to killing its own citizens and making their lives a misery, along with establishing a secret police force, encouraging neighbours and relatives to "inform" on each other, a climate of hate and fear and so on.

It also controlled the politics and therefore the lives of other Eastern bloc countries. Its hardly that long ago that your average Pole or Hungarian was simply not allowed into the "West", or had to be "sponsored". You couldn't just hop on a weekend trip to Prague. I remember crossing the Czechkosolovakian border, as it was then, just after it opened, and going into a small supermarket in a small town. The shelves were mostly empty, with lots of tins of tuna for some reason, but not much else. And lots of matches. It was run down and depressing and pollution levels were dreadful. Imagine spending the majority of your life in such a country.

Yet of course people still advocate communism and socialism and the control-type ethos and bending off the truth, pretending everything is wonderful that always seems to go along with it. As well as the assumed moral high ground and dismissal and abuse of political opposition.

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...

Its confusing isn't it - you can in some lights also call Hitler the truest socialist.

Yes of course being far left and far right - they meet in the middle - both repugnant and neither a badge of honour.

Elke very true

Trouble is though Elke, much, if not all of what you say fits Western Capitalism eg bending of the truth, dominating neighbours (and not neighbours when you can) slaughtering people to preserve your system.
Yep, I'm a socialist tho' recognise the USSR was not a model to follow. BUT of course if it wasn't for the USSR in the second world war, and their loss of 26 million people we'd be living under a legacy of Heir Hitler.

Yellow Trouble is though Elke, much, if not all of what you say fits Western Capitalism eg bending of the truth, dominating neighbours (and not neighbours when you can) slaughtering people to preserve your system

I think you maybe would benefit from doing a little reading and research about accounts of life for the ordinary person under communism/socialism in Eastern Europe until relatively recently.

Ever heard of the Stasi? What did the Stasi do? Clue: they targeted very ordinary people, living very ordinary lives and made them disappear. Do you think it was made up/exaggerated? When do you think the Stasi ceased to operate? Do you really think the killings ended with the 2nd World War??

Beggars belief.

"The USSR was not a model to follow". You can say that again!

Thank you for your kind suggestion Elk, but I am already aware of these things.

It may though benefit you to examine the various ways that political systems keep a very firm control on power, both within and outside of their own borders, at pa. They are remarkably similar approaches, historically.

The USSR also did a job on repressing its and the rest of Eastern Europe's citizens cultural outlets too. How many poets did they murder/send to the gulags? What about journalists/novellists? They had people screening works of fiction for dangerous satire/allusions that communism wasn't the Great Thing everyone was supposed to agree that it was.

Then there was that wonderful newspaper Pravda, not even sarcastically named after the Russian word for "truth". Reporting ever increasing yields on its Five Year and Ten Year Plans.

They also made a good job of destroying agricultural systems which had actually worked in much of the marginal land of the Steppes, by replacing individual farms with collectives, where people had little incentive to work hard. Individual languages of traditional ethnic communities such as the Nenets were discouraged. Strongly. People with no links to areas were resettled thousands of kilometres from their homes.

In the cities, families living in one bedroom flats with shared toilets and no showers/baths were fairly standard. Unless of course you were a Party member.

Where in the Western world does any of that happen YellowJersey?

Of course the latest trend amongst socialists seems to be to try and wipe history by trotting out the standard lines of "Russia was a backward country which would have struggled anyway"/ "the West is at least as bad".

Some attitudes never die. I can always see certain modern day socialists as happily filling the roles in the Stasi or KGB or "informing" neighbours quite happily if they were in similar circumstances.

Have you read 1984? Written by a socialist. It's quite possible to be a socialist (as I am) and despair at the horror of Stalinism.

What about the Union Jack? Britain has slaughtered thousands of people over the years.

Umm..again Elk - just about all of those techniques are, and were, practiced by western democracies.....McCarthy era/race killings/the entire history of Irish and Scottish subjucation (where speaking Gaelic and wearing of a kilt was outlawed)/confining people to v poor living conditions currently in the name of austerity/destroying a country's manufacturing base, not because it was 'uneconomic' (though chronic lack of investment for decades so the shareholders got a short-term profit) but because it provided a powerful worker-led political base.

I suspect you really need to raise your head up and look at how systems actually work.

Colley - touched on that already :)

For me I guess, Yellow, is that none of the above were defining or exclusive aspects of a particular government or reign, during which many other strides towards progress were made (and which we benefit from today)...

1984 is my favourite book of all time - along with Animal Farm and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Maud that article certainly isn't definitive and makes some very dicey claims, for example not counting starvation which was deliberately caused in order to kill people as part of the genocide. Snyder is dismissive of it as a 'famine' but obfuscates a bit muddying the fact that it was not a naturally occurring phenomenon but an intentionally engineered one.

Snyder also draws a distinction between killing people because of their racial origins and because of their political beliefs. There is a tendency to somehow view killing people for their political beliefs is more acceptable. Which in my personal opinion is a viewpoint which those on the left have much sympathy for which allows them to rationalise and minimise genocides in the USSR.

Lets not forget either that the USSR was bot exactly friendly towards Jews either...

I agree not all Polish are lovers of Mother Russia (my family included) and life under communism was horrendous. Luckily my family had others who were in the UK so we could visit with USD to help make life easier.

Socialism and communism doesn't start and end with Russia and socialists such as Robert Owen improved education, working and living conditions for us all.

Now for a little educational fun

What about the Union Jack? Britain has slaughtered thousands of people over the years.

I hate to interrupt your unsubstantiated assertions party, but who are these 1000s and which years are you thinking of? Do you mean in wars - hardly comparable with Nazi/Stalin's record of trying to exterminate entire faiths/sectors of society?

Sure, I'm suspecting it comes down to a couple of things:
1.Scale - the population of Russia and the 'iron curtain countries' are massive compared with the western countries - so wrongs are naturally reported in a way which are seen as massively unusual. Which they aren't.

1. History - apart from the 26 million people lost in the 2nd world war, the lands of Russia have been 'invaded' repeatedly from both west and east. So it's a bit more reasonable to expect a centralisation going on as a security issue. The UK has been 'invaded' physically once as records can show, in 1066, and even that had a bit of credibility to it.

But we still have MI6, and MI5 and other 'security' oulets doing some iffy stuff, both with our own population and others. Harold Wilson anyone? Resigned as PM in 1975 despite being elected the year before, and leading a Labour govt, under shadowy pressure from our 'security' services - an elected leader in a western democracy??

Not to mention the nefarious activities of British security forces in Northern Ireland, especially in the 70s and 80s. A very dirty war indeed was carried out within the UK itself for three decades.

Well quite math - there are so many examples even on these shores of how political systems commonly operate I didn't wish to confuse Elk with them all.

No, Kanye, Snyder (probably the most eminent and sober-minded historian of the comparative history of WW2 btw, and not given to 'dicey claims') includes faminogenic policies in his final tally of the two death tolls, in the paragraph beginning 'All in all'.

Snyder also draws a distinction between killing people because of their racial origins and because of their political beliefs. There is a tendency to somehow view killing people for their political beliefs is more acceptable.

Not more acceptable. But there is a distinction to be drawn. Compliance with the regime is impossible for those targeted because of their racial origins. Not the case for those targeted because of political beliefs. That's why some theorists don't consider the Nazi genocide as a form of state terrorism, but do consider the Soviet regime as such.

"Snyder also draws a distinction between killing people because of their racial origins and because of their political beliefs. There is a tendency to somehow view killing people for their political beliefs is more acceptable. Which in my personal opinion is a viewpoint which those on the left have much sympathy for which allows them to rationalise and minimise genocides in the USSR."
Those dying because of their political beliefs must have greatly relieved that at least those on the left thought their deaths to be more acceptable.