Matvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938
Lev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed
Adrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.
Nikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.
General Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.
General Mikhail Tukhachevsky Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.
Grigory Zinoviev: Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.
Even the secret police themselves were not safe:
Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone in Russia and jailed thousands of innocents. Yagoda was arrested and executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda
Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the death of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges, executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov
Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 600 000 people were killed and over 100 000 people were deported to Gulags in Siberia.
Today, Russian schools no longer teach what Joseph Stalin did. Many young russians actually believe that Stalin was a great patriot.
This is part of an effort by Vladimir Putin to rehabilitate him:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/21/stalin-is-making-a-comeback-in-russia-heres-why-a89155
And this, folks, is why I prefer to live in a democracy.
Perhaps some dictators are competent. But if they go crazy, you are truly fucked.
is the democracy in the room with you now?
Looks around.
Is that what you gotta tell yourself?
I honestly have no issue there. My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.
My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.
But that’s the point, they don’t. Atrocities can happen, but not as bad as such.
Just give one example of a democracy where an atrocity remotely close to that happened.Compared to genocide by Stalin, ICE is peanuts.
But no it’s not justified, that still doesn’t make it an equal atrocity to what Stalin did.
Also USA is not a democracy, it is a deeply dysfunctional democracy. And In USA it can go 2 ways now, they either go full dictator, or if they go the other, these things will be softened.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin
official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[8][9][10][11][12] around 1.5 to 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag,[13][14][15] some 390,000[16] deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s,[17] with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.
So kindly piss off with your false equivalences.
Dude the US is fully funding a genocide right now. Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has provided Israel with billions in military aid, including at least $21.7 billion in approved funding, along with tens of billions more in future arms sale commitments.
Your entire premise is so inherently flawed.
Also rofl at you sounding like a tankie:
Also USA is not a democracy, it is a deeply dysfunctional democracy.
“It wasn’t real communism bro.”
fine. compare stalin to something else that was closer to his time than he is to us:
American slave trade. do it. tell me stalin was worse than slavery?
the gfy.
they don’t?
lol. have you seen how child labor works? or banana republics? or coups? or prison labor? or slavery?
come on now. stop being a thick moron.
Why do you first support my point, and then call me a moron?
was your point that capitalism is doing what stalin did?
I honestly have no issue there. My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.
I can’t recall any democratic countries, fragile or not, that can hold a candle to the atrocities committed by Joseph Stalin.
Can you point out the equivalent that we should look at in this case of whataboutism? Since we’re talking about millions being killed by Joseph Stalin, what are the comparables?
Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the archival revelations, some historians estimated that the numbers killed by Stalin’s regime were 20 million or higher.[5][6][7] After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives was declassified and researchers were allowed to study it. This contained official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953),[8][9][10][11][12] around 1.5 to 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag,[13][14][15] some 390,000[16] deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s,[17] with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories.[18] According to historian Stephen Wheatcroft, approximately 1 million of these deaths were “purposive” while the rest happened through neglect and irresponsibility.[2] The deaths of at least 5.5 to 6.5 million[19] persons in the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 are sometimes included with the victims of the Stalin era.[2][20] - wikipedia
So being generous we’ll go high and say 10 million
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 9 million people die annually from hunger and malnutrition, mostly in regions where capitalist-driven global inequality has made basic necessities unaffordable or inaccessible.
So less in a year due to capitalism (ignoring wars and whatnot) than the total of Stalin. But also dealing with huge differences in populations involved. Both seem pretty shitty if you ask me.
An estimated 30 local NKVD agents, guards and drivers were pressed into service to escort prisoners to the basement, confirm identification, then remove the bodies and hose down the blood after each execution. Although some of the executions were carried out by Senior Lieutenant of State Security Andrei Rubanov, Blokhin was the primary executioner and, true to his reputation, liked to work continuously and rapidly without interruption.[14] In keeping with NKVD policy and the overall “wet” nature of the operation, the executions were conducted at night, starting at dark and continuing until just prior to dawn. The bodies were continuously loaded onto covered flat-bed trucks through a back door in the execution chamber and trucked, twice a night, to the nearby village of Mednoye. Blokhin had arranged for a bulldozer and two NKVD drivers to dispose of bodies at an unfenced site. Each night, 24–25 trenches were dug, measuring 8 to 10 metres (26 to 33 ft) in length, to hold that night’s corpses, and each trench was covered over before dawn.[17]
Blokhin and his team worked without pause for 10 hours each night, with Blokhin himself executing an average of one prisoner every three minutes.[2] At the end of the night, he provided vodka to all his men.[18] On 27 April 1940, Blokhin secretly received the Order of the Red Banner and a modest monthly pay premium as a reward from Stalin for his “skill and organization in the effective carrying out of special tasks”.[19][20] His tally of 7,000 shot in 28 days remains the most organised and protracted mass murder by a single individual on record, and caused him being named the Guinness World Record holder for “Most Prolific Executioner” in 2010.[2][3]
Ya, totally equivalent.
Sit the fuck down.
What the fuck are you on about? I guess it’s easy for a smooth brain moron to hype up gross mass murder as somehow way worse than prolonged systematic suffering and death. You’re a fucking lost cause.
How many global soviel block deaths of malnourishments did you tally up for old boy Stalin? Do we calculate relative or absolute numbers? Do the deaths of malnutrishion of nominally socialists states today also count as being capitalisms fault?
So being generous we’ll go high and say 10 million
Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the archival revelations, some historians estimated that the numbers killed by Stalin’s regime were 20 million or higher.
or maybe you can “be generous” and go with the figure you quoted.
My issue is the claim that such atrocities don’t happen in democratic institutions.
well, if ML users could read, you would know that OP made no such claims.
because they’re Tankies
Keep making assumptions.
fuck off, tankie swine
At this point, ml username is a choice. To be a tankie.
I enjoy supporting the developers of the platform and their federation policies. That’s really all it comes down to.
correct assumptions.
i’d like to point out that communism is an economic system whereas democracy is a social one, they are not incompatible concepts….
just because Stalin wasn’t a very communist regime but was brutally authoritarian and is widely criticized as “what communism is like”.
I would personally prefer a Mutualist system.
Communism under a dictatorship is a paradox. The people own and control nothing. The leader and their chosen circle own and control everything. That is neither communism nor socialism and it is not possible for either to exist in any authoritarian context.
Well, the problem is that to get to the utopia called Communism were everybody is equal, a Society has to first go through the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat after the Workers Seize The Means Of Production and, curiously (or maybe not so curiously if one understands at least a bit of Human Nature, especially that of the kind of people who seek power) none of the nations which went into the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat (i.e. all the ones which call or called themselves “Communist”) ever actually reached Communism and they all got stuck in Dictatorial regimes (and I believe in not a single one of those is the Proletariat actually in charge: for example in China Labour Unions are illegal),
So whilst it is indeed not possible for Communism to exist in an authoritarian context, according to Marxism-Leninism to get to Communism one must first go through an authoritarian context and eventually from there reach Communism, hence why all those nations that tried to reach Communism never got past the authoritarian stage that precedes Communist.
Ahh… please tell me more about this human nature which is incompatible with communism while microplastics flows in your veins.
I think they were specifically referring to Marxism-Leninism. It is “human nature” to act in your own self interest, so any system with hierarchies of decision-making power will eventually become corrupt. We just have to take a non-hierarchical path towards communism.
human nature does not exist. explained it here:
https://blorp.blahaj.zone/inbox/c/youshouldknow@lemmy.world/posts/https%3A%2F%2Flemmy.world%2Fpost%2F38937776/comments/17913885
Re-read my post.
I was not making any human nature claims about Communism, I was making them about what happens when a dictatorial system is created, no matter how good the original intentions stated as the reason to create it.
The viability or not of actual Communism (as in, a classless system were everybody is equal) is a whole different subject. My point is entirely around the good old “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” effect and how that tends to turns supposedly transitional dictatorial stages into something else unless.
Your opinion does not matter, I am not saying this because you are invalid. I am saying this because this is not the thing i wanna talk with you.
“human nature” these two words mean nothing and even more than being meaningless these two words are harmful. What human nature? Are there any scientific proofs that something is “human nature”. It has no logic behind yet it is accepted by you and excepted to accept by the reader.
There is no such thing as human nature. Human nature is when you have two hands. Human nature is not when “if someone gains power the power corrupts the powerholder.” there is a chance that it may not occour. It is not certain. the situation of that “human nature” is not very specified. thats why it has no meaning behind it.
The second i wanna point is that the “human nature” is always used against communism. Communism is not well with human nature. okay, sure. What about capitalism. you are either capitalist or communist. You want either private property exist or not. capitalism harms people so it is not very well with human nature either. Power also corrupts in capitalism. Elon Musk is the dictionary defination of power corrupts.
If power corrupts then under capitalism it also is power corrupts if human nature is not well with communism same goes with capitalism.
It is not just you that say this human nature. It is nothing personal. I really do hate that fallacy.
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I like the “moneyless” part of the definition, aka if you have a currency you’re not communist. Which, to be fair, they didn’t call themselves as a country.
But he wasn’t criticizing communism, or advocating for capitalism. He was criticizing a dictator and saying he prefers democracy.
Unless you think communism can’t exist outside of a brutal dictatorship.
I think communism can’t exist in a brutal dictatorship
China would like to disagree.
China is not communist. Communism entails a classless society. China has social classes. And by definition any dictatorship has a ruler class.
The CCP would like to disagree.
However, Marx (and most other communist philosophers) would agree, however.
Per Marxism-Leninism the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat is a necessary step on the way to Communism, not the actual Communism.
So whilst Communism cannot exist in a dictatorship, to get there one must go through a dictatorship and invariably nations that do so get stuck at the dictatorship stage and never reach Communism whilst calling themselves “Communist” as part of the propaganda that tries and maintain public support and misportray criticism of the regime as being “criticism of Communism” and “criticism of the Proletariat” (kinda like the Zionists, an even more evil regime, misportray criticism of their regime as criticism of those they claim to represent - the Jewish People) to keep the dictatorial structures going supposedly until Communism is reached, but as it’s never reached, in practice for as long as possible.
In all this propaganda swamp around it, most people not knowing about those theories from anywhere but some political propaganda or other, think Communism is what China has or the Soviet Union had even though that very ideology says those countries are not and never were at the Communism stage and at best are on the path to Communism.
~~No. ~~A communist society is stateless and classless. If there is a dictatorship, even a dictatorship of the proletariat, it is by definition not communist, and no educated Marxist would argue otherwise. However, we do have another term for the transition state between capitalism and communism where it is possible to have dictatorships - Socialism. (And Leninists would argue that a dictatorship of the proletariat is indeed the preferable state of affairs for any socialist state trying to survive in a global capitalist hegemony).
Edit: I initially misread the comment I was replying to.
That’s literally what I was saying/implying, so I’m not sure “no” is a particularly valid response. I think you misread.
The comment chain went like this:
- Communism can’t be a dictatorship.
- China disagrees with 1.
- Marx agreed with 1, i.e. Marx agreed communism can’t exist in a dictatorship.
Unless you think communism can’t exist outside of a brutal dictatorship.
literally the opposite of that
Then why bring communism into a critique of a dictator concerning his methods of control?
because it’s Stalin, former leader of the USSR…
commonly used as an example of why communism is so bad.
you’re really confused about that?And yet, here this person is, not incorrectly using Stalin to say communism is bad. He is criticizing Stalin on his merits, or lack thereof, and not using one person to disparage communism.
You are one tying Stalin’s crimes to communism.
Stalin tied himself to communism as much as possible, all critics of communism tie Stalin to communism as much as possible.
think reeeeeLly hard about how that might be a relevant point to be had.
also lemmy is chock full of tankies tying stalin to communism but pretending like he was super good and all of the bad things he did were western propagandano i’m not, i also don’t care about arguing with someone this dense
It is the actually opposite of that. Socioeconomic factors are the main force of politics. Politics are not limited with the vote box. rather i,t affects all of the people who are the part of society. Within communism there would be no need for democracy. Indirect democracy also creates a ruling class. I would prefer individuals collective decision more than a bureaucrat’s decision that i voted.
How would you determine what the individuals collectively decide?
Talking with each other at the peoples local council not going to a ballot box to elect some stupid bastad to make decisions for them. I DO NOT CONSENT someone to have my all will. An example can enlight this. I vote for the opposite party as an lgbt+ individual but they are not mentioning my daily life problems instead they are making populism with the religion i do not believe.
You may say it is also a democracy by its defination and you are not wrong but the classical democracy is tyrant of the mass. I want the mass to be knitted for the minority. Just because we are the less should not mean that our opinions matter less. But under the classical democracy it is. Under the classical democracy homophobes are the majority and lgbt+ people are the minority.You’re describing Direct Democracy vs Representative Democracy. Direct Democracy is what we also saw in places like Athens or ancient Greece, where all of the individuals came together and voted collectively on making decisions.
Representative Democracy is what we have in the US today with elected officials.
Direct Democracy is a lot more difficult to implement unless countries become smaller imo, although in the digital age it could be made more possible. Plus there’s the matter of maintaining a militia, although maybe we just expand the current version of the UN’s military budget in that case.
I feel that under Direct Democracy you would still have the issue of bigots outnumbering you in certain areas but not so in others.
The issue with the US’ representative system is that we artificially capped the amount of seats for the House of Representatives and even the Senate so that land has more power than people. If the House was uncapped Federally, and the even the Senate, then people living in Blue/densely populated states would have more fair representation.
I know it is more like comparing direct democracy and representative democracy but i also do have some anarchist, individualist opinions/beliefs. So i am not very certain about calling anarchy as direct democracy. tho i believe democracy under anarchy which is without hierarchy can be used as tool to decide and argue about something.
I am not from usa i am from turkey. English is my second language.
It sounds like you would reject a system where one unelected, unaccountable person or class of people ruling through force could decide on a whim to take away the rights of LGBT+ people, or any other minority, and instead prefer a system where all people have an equal voice and a method for that voice to be heard and counted.
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i feel the same as the person you’re replying to. i think our issue is that the opinion of non-queer person holds as much weight as that of a queer person’s. we don’t want equality, we want equity and being treated as the experts on our own lives and needs. a cis person shouldn’t get to dictate my medical care just because 51% of the population voted to deprive me of it. this is why I don’t trust in democracy
Communism inherently couples both the economy and the government.
In theory, capitalism can be decoupled since it mostly depends on laissez-faire governance. Communism inherently requires a planned economy and centralized control of such.
There is theoretically nothing stopping said leaders of a communist regime from being elected through a democratic process. But much like democracies tend to favor capitalism and (lower case) libertarian ideals, communism tends to lend itself to dictatorships because… you have a centralized control of all aspects of society.
communism is an economic system whereas democracy is a social one
Communism is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, the pseudoscientifically postulated utopia of a stateless, classless, moneyless, post-scarcity society. Communist ideology is like the Christianity of politics & economics that keeps promising the 2nd coming of Christ: they insist it’ll happen someday inevitably. No possible way Marx was wrong.
Colloquially, communism refers to a communist state (also known as a Marxist–Leninist state): a political system/government consisting of a socialist state following Marxist–Leninist political philosophy with a dictatorial ruling class that promises to achieve a communist society.
Democracy is a political system/government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Colloquially, democracy refers to liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy: democracy following ideas of liberal political philosophy.
So, colloquially, communism refers to a political & economic system whereas democracy refers to a political system.
As a political system, the communist state is totalitarian, the most extreme authoritarianism:
Totalitarianism is a label used by various political scientists to characterize the most tyrannical strain of authoritarian systems; in which the ruling elite, often subservient to a dictator, exert near-total control of the social, political, economic, cultural and religious aspects of society in the territories under its governance.
Whereas an authoritarian regime is primarily concerned with political power rather than changing the world & human nature (they will grant society a certain degree of liberty as long as that power is uncontested), totalitarianism aims for more. A totalitarian government is more concerned with changing the world & human nature to fulfill an ideology: it seeks to completely control the thoughts & actions of its citizens through such tactics as
- Political repression: according to their ideology, rights aren’t inherent or fundamental, the state is the source of human rights. Rights (eg, freedom of speech, assembly, & movement) are suppressed. Dissent is punished. Unauthorized political activities aren’t tolerated.
- State terrorism: secret police, purges, mass executions & surveillance, persecution of dissidents, labor camps.
- Control of information: full control over mass communication media & the education system to promote the ideology.
- Economic control.
All of this is entirely compatible with Marxist-Leninism.
Liberalism, however, is fundamentally incompatible with authoritarianism. It holds that governments exist for the people & authority is legitimate only when it protects inalienable/fundamental/inherent rights & liberties of individuals. The people have an inherent right to obtain a government with legitimate authority, and when their government lacks or loses legitimacy, the people have a right & duty replace or change that government until it obtains legitimacy.
State terrorism is a contradiction in terms. Legally, terrorism is violence carried out by a group that is not recognized as a state internationally. States cannot do terrorism, the term exists to protect their monopoly on legal violence. George Washington was a terrorist until the British empire recognized and began doing business with the constitutional United States. We see a similar change occurring with Taliban members and the present government of Afghanistan.
More importantly, though. You claim liberal democracy is fundamentally incompatible with authoritarianism, yet if we dig into the present and recent past of the United States, we find policies that match the list you have provided.
The Lavender Scare and Hoover’s FBI, the Red Scare and COINTELPRO, the police response to Kent State anti-war protests in 1970, the police response Columbia’s anti-genocide protests last year, the ongoing existence of privately run labor camps and prison farms.
this isn’t wikipedia, put your bot away
don’t cite resources contesting my thesis
whatever 🙄
lol, okay clanker
The “political” aspect of communism stems directly from the desire to radically alter the economic system. It is not tied, however, to the particular political order.
Coming from the same very Wikipedia article you cite on communism:
Communists often seek a voluntary state of self-governance but disagree on the means to this end. This reflects a distinction between a libertarian socialist approach of communization, revolutionary spontaneity, and workers’ self-management, and an authoritarian socialist, vanguardist, or party-driven approach to establish a socialist state, which is expected to wither away.
So, communism, just as capitalism and socialism, can be combined with all sorts of governance types. It can be authoritarian (and so can be capitalism - look at fascism to see an example), and it can be democratic (early Soviets) or even libertarian (anarcho-communism). You can build a totalitarian communist hellhole, and a totalitarian capitalist one; same in reverse.
Now, an argument can actually be made that capitalism is inherently undemocratic. As your ability to exercise rights is heavily tied to your wealth (think of regular worker suing a billionaire, or all the lobbying, or corruption scandals involving the wealthiest and the way they slip out of them like nothing ever happened), people can be and commonly are silenced. Moreover, if you have money, nothing stops you from financing the media to translate your message. This way, important political messages are drowned in favor of what the rich want to translate, and certain (rather corrupt) voices are heavily amplified over others.
By extension, liberalism, even in the most ideal of its forms, is deeply flawed when it comes to a true democracy.
Finally, most communists (including Marx, since you mention him) realize that the communist society is at least very far off from the current state of affairs. This is why socialism exists as a transitory state, an economic system that grants a lot of benefits of communism (worker’s rights, a social state, socially owned industry) while keeping the monetary incentives in the economy. The absolute majority of communists support this transition and welcome a socialist state.
Liberalism, however, is fundamentally incompatible with authoritarianism.
an argument easily disproven by pointing to the US for the last few decades.
Communism is very much a social system. Implying economics don’t have a huge impact on society would be the opposite of Marxism.
Yep.
Communism and socialism in itself isn’t that problematic an economic system. Unless of course you belong to the few select brands of freeloaders who’ve successfully managed to sell to the general population that without you, everything would collapse (looking at you, landlords and billionaires and stock market speculators).
The problem is that the economic part can’t work without an evenly matched societal system - and for people to bypass their immediate greed reaction of the usual “why should the result of my work go to others who didn’t do that work” BS, as seeing far ahead to realise that pooling resources in such manner will benefit everyone, and when the community thrives, so does the individual. For that, one needs proper education, which is usually the antithesis of a capitalist system (a capitalist system will inherently only allow one to learn a limited set of facts, and will systematically ridicule those who dare step outside those limits).
And herein lies the second problem. Socialism and communism could be great for the average people, but the average people have been misled and lied to and been brainwashed for so long, they need to be forcibly broken out of that bubble. And the only way to force that is through a revolution, and authoritarian enforcement of the socioeconomic system.
Now the problem with that is… it’s incredibly easy for a malicious actor to then infiltrate the authoritarian system, and push its leaders to do counterproductive things. Add on top of that the constant CIA meddling, and you get your run of the mill authoritarian “communist” (in name only) paranoid leader who rules with an iron fist. The intention might’ve been good, but the execution was starkly against the very people the revolution was supposed to help. Repeat it a few times and now the whole world is afraid of the economic system, not authoritarianism.
Then continue by throwing in some brainwashed tankies who literally suck up to the authoritarian regimes, spreading BS about how those are “true communism”, just so average people don’t even consider learning about it because the term becomes synonymous with authoritarians and their bootlickers.
but the average people have been misled and lied to and been brainwashed for so long, they need to be forcibly broken out of that bubble. And the only way to force that is through a revolution, and authoritarian enforcement of the socioeconomic system.
That word “only” seems too pessimistic and unjustified, and your point relies too heavily on it.
The problem is that the economic part can’t work without an evenly matched societal system
well that’s absurd, and exactly why the tankies are shilling so hard
To me, Communism is a lot like Libertarianism and Anarchism. It SOUNDS fun on paper but once you start thinking through the implementation, it gets REAL bad. The go to for Libertarianism is “how do orphanages work”.
Communism? If you are in a managed economy where everyone contributes to society to the best of their ability… how do you decide who gets to do what? Who is a janitor and who is a scientist or philosopher? Aptitude tests only go so far because, sure, the people who score the best get to be scientists. What about the people who… don’t? Who is a janitor who spends time in the “muck” and who is in food service and who is in construction and so forth?
And the existence of Entertainment makes that even messier. How do you decide who gets to be a singer? Okay, maybe that one is easy if we ignore the existence of autotune. What about a model?
And… if you are the kind of person who believes that sex work is work… how do you pick who gets to be a sex worker?
While I am a firm believer that most (all?) attempts at Communism very rapidly became coopted into authoritarianism, if not outright fascism, it is very much worth looking at WHY that tends to happen.
And maybe get why so many of the true scotsmen who like the idea of communism tend to be REAL quick to describe ourselves as Socialists or even Democratic Socialists
seeing far ahead to realize that pooling resources in such manner will benefit everyone,
Pooling resources is how car insurance works.
And the value it provides is enough to prop up the entire car insurance industry with incredibly inflated salaries at the top, and pay for a good portion of the damage caused by car accidents plus a fuckload of attorneys paid trying to avoid the rest of the damage.
It’s part of how car insurance works. It also works by underwriters and adjusters being paid to do everything they can to keep from paying out claims.
There’s a pretty good Behind the Bastards episode on Stahlin. Basically he was an ultra-paranoid drunk that forced his cabinet members to get drunk with him on a regular basis, which pretty much ruined any potential for effective government in the USSR.
Russia has a strong-man fetish which even the Bolsheviks couldn’t overcome. For all the post-revolution ideology and communist rhetoric, they still just want a Tsar.
For all the post-revolution ideology and communist rhetoric, they still just want a Tsar.
So true: this is scientifically measurable on the Slavic barbarian skull /s
This sarcasm would work better if it wasn’t a direct riff on Hexbear jokes about Anglo Saxons. Which are probably ironic, but in the sense that everyone is about to die from poisoning.
You cannot possibly go over governing bodies, their policies and approval ratings. It is as impossible to do.
Just like measuring freedoms in other countries.
This is literally a CIA redscare OP, it wasn’t random they were Nazi’s he was targetting
sub on lemmy.world
OH I am on the CIA liberal instance 😂
Just to clarify, since Yezhov (listed above in the post you’re replying to) was the main architect of the Yezhovshchina, and was himself later a victim of the same Great Purge, did he do some hard self-reflecting and turn himself in?
Сука Блять
Where did you read about this being CIA propaganda from?
If it’s not from Russia or china’s talking points it’s CIA propaganda according to .ml
They don’t know how to handle dissenting information to their narrative. Dessalines does a good job keeping the .mls in an echo chamber by banning anybody who disagrees with him or dissents in any way.
Yesterday I offhand suggested not using so much soviet imagery in order to make communism and socialism more attractive to people, they really didn’t like that. I mean I understand the symbols have a rich history but so did the swastika. Eh.
I mean, at the very least that is on brand for stalin
https://en.prolewiki.org/ or like literally any legit communist works
Yeah, but that’s just kgb propaganda
Aww, is Tommy feeling defensive?
Are you a bot, cause it’s unhinged if you spend your time doing this shit all over social media for free, like take a step back, take an edible and look at yourself objectively, so you like what you see
Ok, buddy
Famous Nazi Leon Trotsky
Nailed it.
dot ml 'bout to crest the horizon like the riders of rohan.
I can’t decide if it’s their job or their religion.
I wonder why the .ml stans seem so interested in defending current Russian interests, it’s very perplexing, it’s like they’re watching Russian media or something
You ever followed a source link they post? Like why even shill on Lemmy; at that point just make a tic tok and get paid to post propaganda lol
Because lemmy was created by one of them.
Stalin was explicitly taking inspiration from the Terror of the French revolution.
And why not? It worked out so well for Robespierre!
Unironically did work out for Stalin though lmao
