They would support stalin/lenin/mao?

As are all states. The important distinction between them isn't the degree by which authority is used, which is largely decided by the conditions a state is in rather than the form of the state itself, but instead is which class controls the state. The USSR was run by the working classes, the US by capitalists.

Not all vertical organization is equivalent. Participating in any worker organization can help explain the importance of administration, and this becomes more and more critical at scale. The question isn't "top-down" or "bottom-up," but how to make the two united.

The overwhelming majority of Marxists worldwide do. Opposition to those 3 is largely a western thing.

Learn something new every day

Based on the prior comment, whatever it was. I guess disagreeing isn't really an option lol. ML is a hell of a place. But hey, I got some new information out of this.

The ritualistic demonization of revolutionaries is largely a western tradition.

Thats a funny take given American history (revolutionary war and the near deity status those revolutionaries have here) and contemporary attitudes. Can't say much more or I'm betting it'll be removed.

Revolutionaries like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-Sung, Huey P. Newton, and more are systemically demonized. The founding fathers of the US were revolutionary as far as they liberated the settler bourgeoisie from colonial tethers. Not sure what you are alluding to getting removed, Lemmy.ml is less strict than people pretend it is.

Our prisons have on campus, secret graveyards, too, so we really don't know how many.

There's a bunch of removed comments in this thread specifically.... I have no idea what they said. Would Pol Pot be in that list? If not, why?

You can check what removed comments said by clicking the 3 dots and going to comment moderation history. Removed comments were ableist, sexist, or extremely rude. You can see many comments critical of socialism still up, despite this being a socialist community.

As for Pol Pot, Pol Pot was more of an agrarian nationalist than a socialist, and the overwhelming majority of Marxists today don't support him. There was some Sino-Soviet split shenanigans going on back in the day with some supporting him for a time, but now we have added clarity from knowing just what actually happened there.

I can't see them when looking at "view source" but maybe it's because I'm on a phone. I'm still suprised by the assertion that mao and stalin were good leaders that did more good than harm. Everything I've read says otherwise about those two in particular. I guess both sides must be pretty good at propaganda with the truth being somewhere in the middle.

The answer doesn't matter much:

• Yes - democratic socialism
• No - anarchism

EDIT: misread, see reply

Some were permanently removed, which is usually reserved for bigotry. No way to know for those. "View source" isn't how you view removed comments, though, you have to look at comment moderation history.

As for Stalin and Mao, both were leaders of rapidly developing socialist countries that saw mass expansions in literacy, a doubling of life expectancy under both, and much more. Stalin is still widely loved in Russia, as is Mao in China. It's difficult to know what you are referring to when you say "more bad than good," no Marxist thinks they were perfect of course but the idea that they played a damaging role is simply not representative of reality.

I hear ya. I appreciate the conversation bud.

Books I've read about this subject are

The Gulag Archipelago, Bloodlands, Mao's Great Famin, The Great Terror, Wild Swans and Cambodia Year Zero.

Probably a couple others I'm not thinking if at the moment. All are very anti everything you're saying. Don't worry I've read plenty of anti imperialist/western books too. I am absolutely open to some recommendations that show more of you side of thinking/history though. I can buy it if available online or I do have a really good local library.

This has to be the shittiest conspiracy theory I have heard of. Amazing, thanks for bringing this to my attention.

No wonder you guys are so ignorant. Anytime someone comes in talking sense, all you can see is mod removed X’s comment.

The Gulag Archipelago

Even Solzhenitsyn's wife has come out to say that this is more a work of fantasy and folklore than meaningful historical record.

Bloodlands

Haven't read this but I don't have high hopes seeing as it appears to be a "double genocide" theory advocacy work.

Mao’s Great Famin

This book is garbage. It is an extended tabloid piece not a meaningful piece of academic work.

https://web.archive.org/web/20141009093707/http://chinastudygroup.net/2011/03/o-grada-review-of-dikotter/

The Great Terror

I'd recommend looking into Robert Conquest and his bias (putting it lightly).

The Gulag Archipelago is a work of fiction from a Nazi sympathizer, so that makes sense.

Even Wikipedia can't hide that Timothy Snyder is a hack:

Omer Bartov wrote that “the book presents no new evidence and makes no new arguments”,[28] and in a highly critical review Richard Evans wrote that, because of its lack of causal argument, “Snyder’s book is of no use”, and that Snyder “hasn’t really mastered the voluminous literature on Hitler’s Germany”, which “leads him into error in a number of places” regarding the politics of Nazi Germany

Mao did not cause the famine, China was a slave-feudal society where famine was a recurring feature due to underdeveloped agriculture and poor technology to cope with weather disasters. Famine was abolished under socialism during Mao's time, just not overnight.

As for Robert Conquest, he's a hack who includes Nazis killed as "victims of communism," as well as non-births as deaths.

Wild Swans is a personal biography and anecdote, not an actual work of historical analysis.

Cambodia wasn't socialist and the overwhelming majority of socialists condemn Pol Pot, so I don't care to offer anything here.

All in all, you essentially have some of the worst of liberal academia combined with essentially historical fiction. That's not a good basis for any historical analysis.

For the Soviet Union, I recommend the following works:

• This Soviet World (1936)

• Human Rights in the Soviet Union (1984)

• Blackshirts and Reds (1997)

• Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend (Published in English in 2023)

And for China, the following:

• China's Millions (1965)

• The East is Still Red (2023)

• People's Republic of China

Thank you! In a few months hopefully I'll have a nicely balanced perspective.

Do you think ableism and general bigotry is "talking sense?"

USSR was on its way to falling apart in the eighties. For example, underground punk like Grazhdanskaya oborona was already around at the time (though still persecuted unlike the 90s).

It really is your own decision to get offended at people trying to educate you by citing sources.

Lmao in what way am I being offended ??? Someone else said something, I'll never know what, and it got removed. That let me know I need to be on my best behavior not to break any of the "TBD" rules.

What is meant by power hierarchy?

Anyway, asking about a scenario:

If a pandemic happens and you have to mandate masks or would like to ask people to maintain social distancing, how would you do it? If you mandate and enforce it, you'll form/expose the hierarchy, right?
Even if it is a majority vs minority decision, if you enforce it, it'll show a hierarchy by means of medical expertise or ability of enforcement, right? Or is it seen as natural or justified hierarchies?

Even if you elect a rep and even if you have options for recall, for your rep to take decisions, you would be giving them power, right?
Or is it whole organisation voting on each topic?

do you think the problem power hierarchies solve can only be solved by power hierarchies?

What are the other alternatives that are used, which do not have hierarchies to better solve the problems?

resign ourselves to benevolent kings again"

Not benevolent kings but recallable representatives would be the goal, right?

In case of socialist experiments, when they are under imperialist threat and fear of sabotage, they may not be able to fully do that, but not benevolent kings.

Were they ?

> Talking sense
> Look inside
> It's long debunked red-scare propaganda and a chauvinist crashout

Authoritarian is a meaningless word. Its just a scary-sounding descriptor that's used to frame a designated enemy state as especially heinous. All states are authoritarian.

So you couldn't actually name a government.

You’re able to look inside deleted comments?

Hannah Arendt, the woman who said Jews were to blame for the holocaust because they didnt rise up?

That's not an ad hominem dumbass. Neither is this.

Being an anti-communist must be awesome. You can just make shit up and then, when you get pushed, quote some thinktank named something like "BillionaireFreedomFund" funded by George McBloodghoul.

Yes

You can always just look at the comment in the modlog. They do not get removed for "simply disagreeing."

Look in the modlog

American "revolutionairy": Slaveowning rapist bourgeois wannabe aristocrats

Maybe that has something to do with it.

Pol Pot was installed and backed by the US. What do you think?

How? I'm on a phone.

It's like you don't read these things at all?

Her definition and study of totalitarianism are still intellectually relevant, but hey, if she had a blue car instead of a red car, then of course I see your point.

Do you all go to the same school of completely missing the point and having the most ludicrous rhetorical responses?

Click the three dots. You can also use this to access moderation history for all users.

Edit

It was screenshots

Most, yes. Click the 3 dots and go to "comment moderation history." Bigotry, doxxing, and CP are usually grounds for permanent removal.

I recommend reading Towards a Critique of the Category of Totalitarianism by Domenico Losurdo.

Okay, so it was that Hannah. Seems like you don't see the point.

I've read her drivel. I just dont blindly swallow propaganda merely because I am told the person serving it is very clever. Looking at any definition or practical application of the concept of "authoritarianism" (don't get me started on your weird sidetrack of totalitarianism) makes it clear its actual purpose is to serve as a propaganda shorthand for "badguyplace."

Every definition is either so broad as to describe every state or so narrow as to be pointless, where you might as well just say China (or the USSR back in the day)

The ridiculous concept of looking at how a state wields power, while ignoring who is in control of the state, what support they have and to what purpose they wield said power, is asinine to say the least. Not to mention, once again, that every state wields power in an authoritarian fashion.
It was developed by Hannah Arendt so she could say "actually the Nazis and the society are totally the same and not at all like us freedom-lovers, never mind all the authority we wield to suppress our own and foreign populaces."

Huh, weird. I guess youre gonna have to go to the modlog page then

Unless they've been purged, which is reserved for bigotry, yes. Click the three dots. You can also use this to access moderation history for all users.

Use the browser version, rather than an app.