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)

The trouble with preferring one system over another is that somewhere along the line the actual people get forgotten.

What? Did nobody in the Soviet Union ever spy on their fellow citizens? Is that exclusively a German thing? Funny how that stopped in West Germany after the war but not in the communist East.
Communism might be a all well and good if you try it with bees or ants, with Homo sapiens you picked the wrong species for it.

Those westward bound people at the fall of the wall, if they ended up in Darndale, they moved out pretty darn quick.

There was and is precious little by way of either bread and butter or any other necessities for life in many cities in the west. There are lots of ghettos, full people unable to break free of their circumstances.

You don't need a wall to keep people locked away. Just heartless governments, corruption, and media that looks the other way or demonises people.

You have to admit, Igneococcus, the Germans do that really, really well and enthusiastically, and it doesn't seem to matter to them what regime is running the show.

But Americans can do it pretty well too -- have you ever heard of Joe McCarthy?

I give up math going to work, little clog in global capitalism that I am.

What are you saying about people if you believe they can only act morally if conditions are perfect?

West Germany wasn't all that perfect, so surveillance went on, with all that entailed, especially in the context of the Cold War. The concept of 'order' as part of the philosophy and remit of policing re-emerged once reunification happened, along with the notion of zero tolerance for crime. This change has coincided with the emergence of significant immigrant communities in Germany and pressures arising from global terrorist threats.

This thread is hilarious. No one has pointed out the obvious, ie, that Marx would probably have agreed with the OP. Communism is one thing. The odious genocidal lunacy that took place in the USSR over decades is quite another. Sure the USSR is generally considered Communist. More importantly however it was - like Nazi Germany - totalitarian.

The British Empire (in which I note the Irish played their part) did various nasty things across a period of three centuries. The worst of them actually haven't been mentioned here. By contrast, those ruling the USSR managed in the space of a few decades to deliberately destroy ethnic groups by engineering famines (e.g, the Ukraine) or by mass deportation (e.g. the Crimean Tartars), or by deliberate, systematic and thorough destruction of culture (e.g. all across Central Asia). Not to mention mass imprisonment without trial, summary execution in the camps, and systematic suppression of any way of life that did not conform with the narrowly-defined communist ideal. Oh, and the Soviet Union also spawned an equally poisonous regime in China. If we are to talk famines, I see your Irish Famine and raise you the Great Leap Forward.

Comparing all this to the Miners' Strike looks a bit parochial, to be honest.

Oh, and the Soviet government did a deal with Hitler, before fighting him out by wasting the lives of Soviet soldiers like my kids waste loom bands.

I can well understand someone having a hammer and sickle symbol. Communism can represent all sorts of good ideals. But a USSR flag? Please no.

Are we still on the evils of the East German system encouraging people to spy on each other?

Britain did the same thing in Ireland but is refusing to release the records. These are records from 100 years ago, note, not from the recent NI Troubles. And the surveillance structure of the Royal Irish Constabulary was impressive indeed - every meeting in every locality noted, membership figures, contents of speeches, movements of 'suspects', all gathered in in every district in Ireland and funnelled through to the British administration in Dublin Castle.

Tim Pat Coogan's books are unhistorical shite, Caramel, sorry. Especially that famine one. Try Cormac Ó Gráda instead.

It probably is just a hammer and sickle rather than the ussr flag

Op?

The Glorious Revolution was hardly an invasion- they were basically invited. And I find the claim that Hitker was the ultimate socialist to be completely specious- what definition of socialism could remotely encompass Hitler?

Yellow Well, again thanks for the invitation Elk - but really, when one meets a western 'cult' dogmatist such as yourself one knows how difficult it can be for them to see anything else. But I need to go to sleep now. Up in the morning to plan the next socialist revolution. night.

And when one meets a bullying fool who comes out with lines to other posters to suggest they "wouldn't understand" arguments, you will see where mine and many others sympathy for your "cause" falters. Do you seriously think online insults work for promoting your ideological views? Or maybe you think the fact that you dismiss the deaths of millions as being unimportant that will sway them? Or more likely, you are your ilk can only operate with a coercive regime behind you, handing out jobs on the basis of who is in the party, rather than more competitive, and more moral, talent and hard work.

I grew up in The Netherlands. I had people in my class whose parents escaped from East Germany and other failing Eastern European states. I have Russian friends who also escaped as soon as they could. I'm also a qualified lawyer, but clearly qualifications and practical experience are something for you to dismiss.

Math As a lasting effect of the Famine, which itself was a result of rigid adherence to to the demands of the dogma of free market Liberalism, Ireland is the only country in Europe that has today a far smaller population than it had 150 years ago.

While not technically true, countries with decreasing populations is on its own rather interesting, although without sticking to your 150 year time period.

Pretty much all of the former Eastern bloc countries have experienced population decline, mainly due to outward migration and falling birth rates. So to be cynical, you could argue that the Soviets made such a mess of those countries under communism, that people couldn't wait to escape to the capitalist west once they had the chance. The Soviets also destroyed much ethnic and non-Russian culture, and many of those non-ethnically Russian regimes are now depopulated, as their people tend to move to the cities.

Some examples: Albania had 3.2 million people in just 1989. It now has just under 2.9. Armenia has had a near 20% reduction in 25 years. Bulgaria and Latvia are the only countries in the world to have a smaller population today than 1950. Bulgaria has lost nearly 25%, down from 9 million in 2001 to 7.3 million and falling. Latvia has lost 34.3% since it was freed from Soviet control, Estonia 19.2% and Lithuania 23%.

Ireland's population reached a peak of 8 million in the 1800s but fell to 2.8 million in 1961. However, it has now reached 4.58 million since then, under those damned Western capitalist policies.

Being cynical, you can argue that Germany can very well afford to be open to the current migration crisis as it does not have an increasing population in the same way as that vile capitalist state, the United Kingdom.

So in terms of that very simple and very human measurement of people voting with their feet, of getting out of a country when they can get out and so on, it does seem that the western capitalist countries are definitely the most popular, and that current and former Communist countries are just not very popular places for the majority to live in (unless exit is prevented by the State and access to information about other countries severely restricted and reinforced by propaganda).

And as for the communists/socialists believing in hard work, I posted this during my lunchbreak, am back off to work now in order to pay those taxes which are actually highly redistributive in nature. I'm not sure just how much more I'd be prepared to pay in tax, as it would become pointless working hard. But I guess the point of communism is ultimately to satisfy the yearnings for control by the sadists and thugs of society, who cannot succeed in a normal competitive society.

Agreed ladyshiraz, friend went teaching in Lithuania and the teen daughter of the family gave my friend lots of crap as to her the safety net had been taken away and there was more losers than winners.

Left and right wing though is very poor though unless you look at social and economic dimension as well. I like the political Compass (www.politicalcompass.org/) does a good job.

YANBU. Just like the far left who support Corbyn (who is friends with homophobes, racists and those in favour of gender apartheid) but ironically call Farage a racist bigot.

Thanks caramel
Ive ordered the Stalin book you recommended.

The two times I've been to Russia (I think in around 2002 - 3) my twenty year old self was amazed to see Communist demonstrations each time - red flags and pictures of Lenin and Stalin and everything...

Primary grievance was the total lack of safety net these days as opposed to under Communism - and I can't say I'd blame them, life is a lot harder for your average person in many ways now than it was then. That's not to say Communism was great (it wasn't) but that rampant drive-over-your-grandma-for-a-rouple arch Capitalism is particularly brilliant either...

No one there seemed to have a problem with the killings perpetrated in the system's name - either didn't believe it or thought it was exaggerated or "necessary".

We had a russian colleague and she told us about how history seems to have been revised several times as to whats taught in school.

I think what posters like math are missing was the life behind the Iron Curtain was life lived under a dictatorship. Not a free life under a socialist democracy, but a dictatorship.

To compare the (real) ills of the Western world with living under a dictatorship is far-fetched and offensive. The fact that you can post your anti-establishment opinion without fear of direct repercussion illustrates this point. Under the soviet rule you could not challenge the status quo, read what you wanted, listened to music you liked, write poetry that could be interpreted as subversive. You could not have your own opinions or decide how you wanted to live your life.

I personally used to struggle a lot when I first came to the UK with people openly admiring communism or displaying the Soviet flag because to me that is a symbol of oppression under which my granddad was imprisoned as an “enemy of the people”, my grandmother kicked out of the hospital when she was in a critical condition because of my granddad’s political disobedience, my dad interrogated regularly from the age of 12 (!). My grandfather’s crime was that he had refused to write false medical reports covering up the torture of the secret police. My family was not an exception.

Totalitarianism at either spectrum of political thought is horrendous because of the lack of freedom. That’s why I believe people need to start differentiating between ideology and regime. The fact that there is a communist ideology based on principles which appeal to many should not detract us from accepting that all over the world totalitarian communist regimes committed atrocious crimes against humanity.

And on a final note – there are many of us around who suffered extensively at the hands of communism. Please don’t tell us, from your privileged Western position, that we don’t know what we went through. For us communism was horrible, a real setback to the development of our countries, a brutal abhorrent regime that destroyed entire generations, cultures, belief systems. So argue the case for a more left wing democratic society if you want to but please manifest some sensitivity when telling us we should openly embrace the symbolism of that regime.

Problem often though that people interchange communism and socialism.