this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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I've read On Authority. There's good reason for my identifying as a socialist rather than a ML. I don't necessarily have a fundamental disagreement with the use of authoritarianism, however the way in which it has ever been implemented has been abominable and the defense of that by most MLs I've interacted with leads me to detest them when they're aware of what they're doing or assume they're an idiot who's fallen to the USSR billboard propaganda aesthetic if they're not.
... let's get some historical conditions straight: USSR was a wartime communism born and deformed by Western invasion (from USA and allies, no less) and persisted under a state of seige, so it didn't have the luxury of a more democratic communism envisioned by Lenin. Even today, aligned with Trotskyist permanent revolution everywhere but their own govts, the same usual suspects are angling by invasion or insurgency to break up and loot Russia (along with China) who isn't caught off-guard this time. Existential then, existential now.
I would also love to know what you think of the standard bogies of Cuba and Venezuela, or heck, even ML Vietnam or Kerala.
While the west was unquestionably antagonistic. Which you know is sort of a thing that can happen when you unilaterally overthrow a number of countries governments than forcibly annex them.
How in any way does Western antagonism justify those nations treatment of their own people? And how on earth can an anti-democratic uniparty ever be Democratic? Are you trying to convince anyone that there were no gulags etc? Or that it was ever good for dissenters? I mean we could ask all the people that were disappeared or assassinated. Not just in Russia. But in North Korea and China too. Do we need to mention tiananmen square or the Uyghurs? But they're dead and gone. Cuba I think is a much more nuanced and better example. But still heavily flawed and problematic. You cannot blame it all on Western antagonism. It isn't some panacea that alleviates you of all fault. Authoritarian communism is antithesis to Marx's own theory. And will never work in reality. Authoritarianism is always destined to fail. No matter how long it drags on.
You realise the USA has its own slave labour gulag unmatched by Russia and China today, right? Though Soviet gulag was ruthless, born to meet rapid wartime industrialisation and unrelenting landowners (kulaks), it was more lax and informal than Auschwitz death camps that you wish to portray.
Meanwhile, Jim Crow and sundown towns in the USA oversaw its own apartheid underclass, many of whom looked to Soviet Russia for equity, Paul Robeson being the most notable.
Edit: replaced Tsarist-era 'The Black Russian' episode with more intended Soviet-era link, quite belatedly.
Whataboutism again. Yes the USA still has slave labor. No it isn't unmatched by Russia and China. That's an absurd thing to say. And even then. The US having that doesn't justify Russia or China for their repression either.