• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      It should be noted that the claims of Stalin impregnating Pereprygina at 14 come from Simon Sebag Montefiore, who himself is not a historian, was not given access to the soviet archives (which is the starting point for modern soviet historiography), and who himself is in Epstein’s black book.

      It does seem plausible that Stalin may have fathered a child in Siberia with Lidia Pereprygina while in exile based on modern evidence, but no such evidence presently exists backing up when this may have happened. The fact that primary sources are practically nonexistent and that the only one pushing this narrative of Stalin being a pedophile wrap back around to Montefiore’s claims (themselves based largely on hearsay for the more absurd claims), points to it likely being propaganda and Red Scare fearmongering.

    • Pman@lemmy.orgBanned from community
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      15
      ·
      1 day ago

      Yeah, the Soviet union is not a place I would have liked to live in during its time in power, and from stories I’ve gotten from family that fled during Stalin’s time it is a safe assumption to have as those who remained did not have a great time during the Holodomor.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 day ago

        The USSR had steady and consistent economic growth, and provided free, high quality education and healthcare, full employment, cheap or free housing, and fantastic infrastructure and city planning. This rapid development resulted in dramatic democratization of society, reduced disparity, doubling of life expectancy, tripling of functional literacy rates to 99.9%, and much more. Living in the 1930s famine would not have been good, but it was the last major famine outside of wartime because the soviets ended famine in their countries.

        Literacy rates, societal guarantees in the 1936 constitution, reports on the healthcare system over time, and more are good sources for these claims.

        The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.

        When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski’s Human Rights in the Soviet Union.

        The truth, when judged based on historical evidence and contextualization, is that socialism was the best thing to happen to Russia in the last few centuries, and its absence has been devastating.

        Capitalism brought with it skyrocketing poverty rates, drug abuse, prostitution, homelessness, crime rates, and lowered life expectancy. An estimated 7 million people died due to the dissolution of socialism in the USSR. A return to socialism is the only path forward for the post-soviet countries.

        • Pman@lemmy.orgBanned from community
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          10
          ·
          23 hours ago

          Well there is a lot to unpack there but let’s start with that last sentence the path forward for any country should be its own to choose and overwhelmingly all countries that had communism and then left it behind haven’t wanted to get anywhere near that type of governance again, and many of them are far better off today than they were under Soviet oppression as the Soviet union was an extractive empire where their satellite countries in the eastern block had a larger population density and were by and large more educated than the average Russian, and this stayed true through the entire existence of the Soviet Union. The fact that the wealth gap on paper between the richest and poorest being as close is kind of the point as to have wealth and influence in any communist regime would not be personal wealth but the individual 's status within the regime and the perks of the job, kind of like how the President and all governors of the US, the french president, the prime minister of the UK, and most other governments give their executive leader free housing in their respective Capitals, but for communists like let’s say Ceausescu had lavish mansions built for them while their countrymen starved. For education you can see in China today or north Korea, or any other Soviet country or non democratic country without a vast amount of easily accessible mineral wealth they will educate their country and publicize it for propaganda reasons on the one hand but on the other they limit the sorts of education the average civilian has access to, in china they have a vast number of engineers and use that to great effect for their manufacturing base, while also polluting their country in a way no democratized country would permit on their soil, but china doesn’t have a lot of political science majors or those who don’t follow their groupthink, in short their people can read and have marketable skills that don’t endanger the power of the CCP, the same could be said about the Soviet union, and even there you had problems such as the belief that all life was equal and so despite oranges peing unable to grow in the Soviet union outside or climate controlled greenhouses they tried to force genetic communism to have oranges grow there and politics encroached on science leading to not much happening and a great loss of productivity. Central planning is not the best form of planning and is only good if you want to economically depress those under central planning control at best, see the current slate of dictates from the Trump whitehouse that have devastated the US economy outside of tech these last 2 years, it was a central planning style dictate without accounting for a myriad of factors or building up american production to pick up the slack instead the tariffs forced the poor to pay more while having fewer benefits and getting squeezed more and more, there are dozens of these decisions that led to major issues within the Soviet union and when it collapsed the countries under the yoke of the supreme soviet were able to better decide what they wanted their government to do, it was unstable for a bit but places like Poland and Estonia are thriving members of the EU who have no wish to follow your purity test and will continue doing their own thing so long as they are able to.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            16 hours ago

            This is an absolute firehose of lies.

            1. The majority of people that lived in the soviet union want it back. The establishment of socialism was done by choice, and its dissolution was devastating.

            2. The soviet union was not an “extractive empire.” As the soviet union was not dominated by finance capital, it had no reason for doing so in the first place.

            3. Housing was guaranteed in the soviet union, and outside of wartime the famine in the 1930s was the last major famine.

            4. China and the DPRK are democratic, see Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. The vast majority of the people in China believe China is democratic, and China is now one of the top countries in electrification and combatting desertification. You’re relying on information from decades ago, and mind you they produced for the rest of the world. Pollution per capita based on consumption has always been far higher in western countries.

            1. China does have tons of political science majors. In fact, you can get a degree in Marxism in China. The fact that the majority of people support the system points towards the effectiveness of said system.

            2. The sciences absolutely flourished in the soviet union and other socialist countries. That does not mean they did not make mistakes from time to time, but the fact of the matter is that they went from semi-feudalism to space in half a century. Many incredible inventions, including the mobile phone, were first invented in the USSR.

            3. Central planning worked incredibly well in the soviet union, and continues to work well in the PRC today (and other socialist countries). Trump making decisions is not central planning.

            I recommend you start actually looking into how socialism functions, because you’ve been consistently wrong this entire thread.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                6 hours ago

                Regarding 1: Operation Gladio, combined with the west flooding these areas with cash during shock therapy to buy up all of the industry and thoroughly eliminating any left-wing opposition to the new imperialist plunder is why.

                Regarding 2: I do understand economics, and I do know what I’m talking about here. I suggest you read Is the Red Flag Flying? Political Economy of the Soviet Union. The soviets had a socialist mode of production and distribution that resulted in tremendous economic development everywhere, and did not operate on economic extraction from member-states. In fact, the opposite of what you describe often happened, with the central soviet union helping develop underdeveloped areas.

                Regarding 3: People weren’t guaranteed housing by putting them in prisons. Regarding the legal system of the USSR, I suggest you read Russian Justice. Housing was guaranteed by mass-producing housing units and strong central city planning.

                Regarding 4: Nobody made the point that the name of a country determines if it is actually democratic. I’m certain that you aren’t taking scholarly sources seriously now, considering I recommended Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Democracy in socialist countries involves a combination of electoral politics and consensus-building, called consultative democracy. It’s been different in every socialist country. I suggest you start taking your claims more seriously, right now you’re ignoring scholarly works because they disagree with you.

                Regarding 5: That’s not how propaganda works. The people of China support their system because it’s genuinely democratic (see Roland Boer’s textbook), and because the CPC consistently delivers excellent results. Policy comes from the people, is refined by the CPC, then released to the public for feedback, then put into action. Overall, this system has resulted in over 90% of the population approving the government, which is shown to be consistent and accurate.

                Regarding 6: Copyright does not matter, and you still haven’t addressed that socialist countries have pioneered sciences and technology. For example, China is at the forefront of nuclear technology and production.

                Regarding 7: This is utter nonsense, again the USSR invented the world’s first mobile phone and cell network for it. They invented many things even without the profit motive, because the desire to improve your existing conditions continues even into socialism. In capitalism, engineers are overwhelmingly paid wages to create new things and do not recieve royalties, only the owners do, yet creation happens in both systems. Moreover, without the profit motive, products are designed to fulfill needs, not just profits, which means problems like enshittification do not happen. As for famine, central planning ended famine in countries where this was common, resulting in doubling of life expectancies:

                If you aren’t going to even engage with scholarly sources proving you directly wrong, why are you responding?

          • KimBongUn420@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            20 hours ago

            Your liberal idealism mistakes imperialist coercion for “choice” and bourgeois metrics for human progress. The USSR lifted semi-feudal societies to industrial superpower status, defeated fascism, and guaranteed work, housing, and education as right ,not commodities. Contradictions like bureaucracy or Lysenkoism were real, but Marxist-Leninists criticize these as deviations under imperialist siege, not proof of socialism’s failure. The “thriving” of post-Soviet states is measured in GDP for oligarchs and EU core capital, not working-class wellbeing: deindustrialization, demographic collapse, and dependent peripheral status followed the “shock therapy” you praise. Ceaușescu’s lavishness was denounced by Marxists as a betrayal of socialist principle, not its essence. Central planning, imperfect under blockade and scarcity, achieved historic gains without colonial plunder. Your argument conflates the degeneration of a besieged workers’ state with the emancipatory project itself. The lesson isn’t retreat to capital, but to advance the struggle with clearer theory and firmer proletarian democracy.

      • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        1 day ago

        You should of had to live there in pre-Soviet times. Or post Soviet times for that matter

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            12
            ·
            1 day ago

            Kibbutz in Israel are elements of settler-colonialism. Cooperatives are not communist either, but communalist. Communism is a system of collectivized production and distribution, and cannot work in small scales as what we know as communism. The idea that administration and management is incompatible with local inputs is a sheer mockery of socialist economics and is straight from Ludwig Von Mises, quack economist disproven by steady and stable economic growth in socialist countries.

            Secondly, the USSR was not “Russified.” It was a federation of multi-national ethnicities, which were protected by the soviets. Tsarist Russification was stopped by the soviets. Advocating for a common writing system and language was done alongside vast literacy programs and protecting ethnicities and languages. National liberation was taken incredibly seriously by the soviets.

            You’re also hinting that you think the genocide of Palestine is overblown and that Israel has a right to exist, which is full-blown Zionism.

            • Pman@lemmy.orgBanned from community
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              11
              ·
              1 day ago

              Kibbutzs existed before Israel for one but if you can say it is an element of settler colonialism on one hand and say that the USSR and Warsaw pact countries weren’t russified on the other with a straight face while knowing about Russian backed separatist movements in Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova at a minimum, not to mention the large Russian population in Baltic nations, what happened to Crimea during the Soviet Union, and why Kazakhstan has a large Russian speaking population you have a very weird set of double standards. As for the Soviets wanting National Liberation within the Warsaw pact you might want to look at the history of what happened in Hungary in the 1950’s, in Ukraine and Poland before world war 2 and during where they were forced to join the USSR by military occupation, what almost happened to Finland, why Romania and Yugoslavia set up defenses against land invasions from the Soviets and the list goes on, not to mention the border disputes with China, or what are called the color revolutions during the last years of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a colonial empire but not like that of the US or the UK but more like that of the mongols, Romans, or Chinese, cultures who expanded their borders not just for resources, but to implement their culture and defensive borders. Yes the US has a somewhat homogenous culture, but much of that can be attributed to Hollywood and mass distribution of media (and the genocide of indigenous peoples in the 1800’s), Communists had those too but also controlled all media, enforcing propaganda and language norms, such as forcing the Magyar and ukranian languages into lower positions within their own countries in comparison to Russia for everything from education to government processes, similar to what france did in the last 300+ years with its internal languages and cultures, and China has been enforcing the dominance of the Han culture for close to 2000 years and has been getting rid of local languages for decades now to promote Mandarin.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                11
                ·
                1 day ago

                Yes, I can say with a straight face that genocidal Zionist settler-colonialism is entirely different from soviet literacy programs, because the goal of Zionism is the eradication of Palestinians and the goal of the soviet literacy programs is the ability to read and communicate.

                The Hungarian revolt in 1956 was infested with anti-semitic pograms. MI6 funded, supplied, and trained the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries. These counter-revolutionaries were allied with fascists who were lynching Jewish people and Communists. The Truth About Hungary by Herbert Aptheker heavily relies on citing western sources like the New York Times. Aptheker backs up his claims heavily.

                "The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. “There is no longer any room for doubt,” said the Yugoslav reporter, “it is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,” continued this writer, “coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways.”

                “But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing.”

                “Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements’ …” (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)

                “The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary.”

                "A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:

                During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: “Down with Jew Gero!” “Down with Jew Rakosi!” or just simply “down with the Jews!”

                Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.” Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."

                Further, the CIA also backed Hungarian resistance forces:

                Prague in 1968 was a similar fascist uprising in both cases there were some elements of progressive protest, but these were greatly overshadowed by the fascist movements. Dubcek wanted to sell out to the IMF, and restore capitalism. The idea that any of this was about “democracy” or “freedom” is silly, it was always about Cold War tactics to destabilize socialism.

                TL;DR imagine if the January 6th rioters were armed and trained by foreign governments, started lynching officials and Jewish people, and the US sent in the army to put down the insurrection. The MAGA chuds would claim that it was about “freedom” and “democracy,” but we all know that they just wanted Trump in office.

                To the contrary of your claims, Ukrainian identity was propped up and defended by the communists, along with other ethnicities. The USSR did not run based on resource extraction or cultural erasure, but by promoting both national liberation and proletarian internationalism. Same with the PRC, minority languages and ethnicities are protected, given special protections such as exemptions from the One Child Policy and affirmative action style policies, and have greater proportional representation than Han Chinese in the NPC.

                You’re seriously wrong about your claims, to the point of trivializing actual genocide and cultural erasure, including that done by the genocidal US Empire and the Zionist entity.

        • RiverRock@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          17 hours ago

          It’s cute when you guys think you’re wise and informed, instead of little nihilists with a deeply propagandized view of the world

            • orc girly@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              11 hours ago

              The point is that if you were as informed as you think you are you’d be able to use reliable sources and good argumentation to advance your position

              • mrbutterscotch@feddit.orgBanned from community
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                11 hours ago

                What position? I’m not discussing anything with you lol

                And if you were informed here you wouldn’t be down voting someone talking about their families experience with one of the more brutal regimes in modern history. But it’s cute!