Sanyanov
I could answer by mentioning lack of democratic process and about self-proliferating structures of power that held him, as well as atrocities of GULAG (and the point wasn’t the sentence duration, but conditions in the camps), but that misses my core point.
The point is - endless praising of Stalin as some sort of superhero is basically a prerequisite for personality cult - something that Lenin has openly warned us from (and ironically got an even bigger cult himself).
Stalin is a leader, and in many ways, an excellent one. But turning him into a flawless genius of socialism and barking at any attempt to mention any flaws in his policies doesn’t promote a healthy discussion and turns otherwise reasonable left movement into a self-contained cult.
I suggest we all agree Stalin was no superhero and no villain, he just did what he did. He allowed for the insane levels of industrialization and has shown himself as a strong leader during the WWII, but he also held authoritarian grip on power, held political and other prisoners in inhumane conditions, and was the one to make LGBT illegal in the USSR.
Stop glorifying or demonizing him, that’s all I’m saying. The rest is true.
I have Lenin as my PFP in the work chat, no problems there :D Employer is chill
My point was (and is), while brutality is inevitable and we won’t take over the world by the power of word alone, we should keep it to revolutionary means, and not to building an oppressive totalitarian state that completely warps the actual meaning of “worker’s dictatorship”.
Exterminating political enemies is necessary to lead a revolution, but it is unsustainable in the long run. Many prominent people pointed out that we should develop class consciousness and understanding of exactly why socialist/communist state is superior and vital for everyone. Just oppressing dissident thoughts will make them burst elsewhere, and at some point cracks will begin to show.
With class consciousness and actual people’s understanding of the matter we can talk about worker’s democracy and worker’s councils (aka Soviets, ironically ruined by the Soviet state itself), and a positive development of the situation without endless struggle and fight.
Again: yes, revolutionary process will require of us that we kill and oppress Nazis, bourgeoisie, and other elements hostile to the means of revolution - that’s necessary and we should do it. But it should be kept to the revolution and actual threats to the state, not any instance of dissident thought. You can’t continuously rule a people-first state with an iron fist, or you’ll turn in into an oppressive bloody dictatorship that benefits no one.
As for China…the story’s a little different. It actively plays with fire on a level at which the true socialist state would already consider it a danger. If anything, I believe China makes the leash on business too loose, but it’s a tradeoff they make to be globally competitive with a big capitalist world. Should we talk about an actual socialism, what happens in China is well beyond a point at which a state should react by cracking down. In a true socialist state, no private business should be able to grow to the level that requires big intervention in the first place (and some would argue it shouldn’t exist at all).
“We’ll kill all our enemies and their voice will never be heard again” is a dead end policy, because all those ideas will emerge again, and we better know how to counter them on an ideological level.
I’m not saying the transition to the communist society will be peaceful and nice - it won’t be - but we should differentiate between the armed resistance and brutal oppression. You won’t shut them up. But you can make your voice heard loud.
There’s no point trying to explain political concepts to those who don’t wanna hear. You’re wasting time and resources that could be better spent elsewhere. Let her have it.
Fairly good!
For all its downsides, federation allows for the creation of very cozy communities. I love the feature that you can switch between browsing federated and local subs.
There could be more content of course, but it’s not a matter of Lemmy and I, too, feel like I want to invest more in local community than on Reddit.
Keep it up!