Removing the author/artwork name at the bottom right is trashy.
including the author would also be wrong, as the original author did have some completely different text… would not know how to handle without a multi-line disclaimer. still i agree with your critique some how.
If no license is indicated in an artwork/software the implied license (it is not required the indicate a license) is “All rights reserved”. This post counts as a derivative work, the author have the right to allow/disallow it.
Outside of legal wording, when making a derivative work it’s nice to at least give attribution to the original artist or citing the source of the original work.
“Oh no by moving left we mean we’re going to very strongly condemn ice but then also condemn anyone principled enough to take a real stance” - Average shitlib
A reminder that you can join orgs like PSL, the two-party system is designed to prevent change and we can break it.
No reason to descend to “extremism” maybe quieter and less publicized genocide?
We were okay with genocide in other countries, and in our own when we do it but this is too far!
Shumer is just as bad for working with them. He’s an enabler. No quarter.
It seems like he’s always caving whenever measures come up which should not be passed, even at threat of shutting down the government, for days, weeks or months.
I’ll applaud him that he’s able to get from his house to work unassisted, without having a spine.
Genocide is bad! But only when china does it.
@sharkfucker420 can tankie bird draw a line with genocide?
Yes, communists don’t support genocide.
@Cowbee then why so many deny the holodomor and justify the crazy shit Stalin did? And what’s with the genocide of Falun gong and Uyghur in China?
The 1930s famine in the USSR was not intentionally inflicted nor directed, and therefore was not a genocide. What happened was a combination of adverse weather conditions with kulaks, bourgeois farmers, burning their crops and killing their livestock to resist collectivization. Collectivization increased agricultural output and ended famine in regions where it was historically common.
As for the Falun Gong, they are a cult, not an ethnicity, and the PRC isn’t killing them en masse, just repressing it as an anti-communist and western-funded cult. Same as the idea of Uyghur genocide, atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there’s “white genocide” in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of “genocide.” Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective’s Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
I also recommend reading the UN report and China’s response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.
Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn’t going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.
You have the patience of a saint, comrade. Thank you for always bringing evidence and asserting it politely.
Thank you so much, comrade! I try to foster an environment where this kind of discussion is the norm for communists, so we can advance the general level of education and help each other learn more! 🫡
I really enjoy your comments. You’re even handed, considerate, and informative so I think you’ll take this push back well.
The word cult is a slippery term that is generally a perjorative morphing to the intentions of both writer and reader. A more neutral term would be the preferred academic term of “new religious movement” while highlight specific harmful behaviors that might make it either immoral, illegal, or culturally distasteful.
I hope that you see the value in being more specific with the term.
I hear your critique, but I do mean it in a negative way, due to beliefs such as the Falun Gong claiming “race-mixing severs connection to the gods,” or believing modern science was created by aliens to take over human bodies. They have been persecuted not for being a new religious movement, but for their dangerous, far-right views and subversion. Does that justify using the word “cult?”
For me, it’s more than just the dangers of their ideas. Its mechanisms of control. Can members come and go freely? Do the members have a livelihood separate from the religious community? Do they have access to other perspective or is their information limited and curated? Do they use their doctrines to create obedience to the leadership? Is their financial obligation to the movement more onerous than other religious groups? Can a member leave tomorrow without being stalked or harassed?
As far as I’ve seen, Falun Gong practitioners generally live normal, secular lives and aren’t financially ‘captured’ by the organization. They might have strange or even ‘subversive’ views, but if the mechanism of total control isn’t there, ‘NRM’ remains the more precise academic fit.
This is not a defense of their views. If our net is just fringe ideas, the net would be cast too wide and catch otherwise socially accepted groups.
I see your point, I’ll try to be more clear next time, but in doing so will need to point out their far-right extremism as well.
@Cowbee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
Holodomor was a genocide. Ukraine had grain quotas and Stalin exported them instead of feeding the Ukrainians. And collectivization of farmers was not an act against bourgeois but against farmers that are not member of the party. My village too they just give the land of nonparty members to party members creating new bourgeois.Genocide against Falun gong and muslims is still genocide. Organs are harvested and they do slave labor torture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution/_of/_Falun/_GongIncorrect on all counts.
The famine was not preventable, and there’s absolutely no evidence that the soviets wanted to replace ethnic minorities, the opposite is true. The soviets tried to preserve Ukrainian culture while establishing a common “soviet identity,” in line with being a multinational federation. The kulak system was a bourgeois system of farming, where wealthy farmers employed poor laboring workers to toil the land, and collectivization improved yields while equalizing distribution.
The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:
From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.
Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.
The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.
Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN
Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].
Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
Comrade Kosior!
You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation invillages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?
Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.
Sincerely, J. Stalin
The origins of such a story of forced starvation came from the Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter in 1933. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. All evidence post-opening of the soviet archives points to it not being intentional.
As for Falun Gong, they are persecuted as a subversive cult and terrorist agency. They are not an ethnicity. There is no organ harvesting or torture, these are baseless western allegations, just like “white genocide” in South Africa. Directing you back to my previous comment:
As for the Falun Gong, they are a cult, not an ethnicity, and the PRC isn’t killing them en masse, just repressing it as an anti-communist and western-funded cult. Same as the idea of Uyghur genocide, atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there’s “white genocide” in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of “genocide.” Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective’s Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
I also recommend reading the UN report and China’s response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.
Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn’t going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.
Repeating western atrocity propaganda entirely uncritically stems from a deep sense of chauvanism and orientalism. Despite lacking any and all credible evidence backing your claims, you repeat them dogmatically. The only credible explanation for such dogmatism on your part is a deliberate choice to ignore truth, so as to lay cover for racist views underneath, whether you realize it or not.
@Cowbee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population/_transfer/_in/_the/_Soviet/_Union
He seems to love local cultures so much he transfered ethnic minorities to Siberia and replaced them with Russians to bring Russian culture.And how would you explain sudden increase of organ transplants in China after 1999 before china had even an organ transplant system. There are many evidence reports about it like 2007 and 2016 the slaughter and bloody harvest and there was 2020 UN tribunal to which China did not even bother attending to present it’s evidence
Population transfer is the only actual mistake of the communists that you’ve brought up. Marxist-Leninists today agree that this was one of the biggest legitimate crimes of the USSR, though it was not done for “Russification.” Instead, population transfer happened during a time of constant turmoil and subversion, out of a sense of paranoia. Culture was still protected, and Russian culture did not replace local ethnic cultures, there was a simultaneous push for a “soviet” internationalist culture with preservation of local ethnicities and culture, even with population transfer. Still a crime, but the only actual crime you’ve brought up thus far.
As for the Falun Gong, again, they are a cult akin to Scientology, not an ethnicity, and the PRC isn’t killing them en masse, just repressing it as an anti-communist and western-funded cult. Same as the idea of Uyghur genocide, atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there’s “white genocide” in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
-
The claims all come from the self-appointed “China Tribunal,” run by a British barrister that has historically prosecuted socialist countries
-
The sources for the claims are the Falun Gong itself, akin to saying Scientologists reporting on far-right conspiracy theories are trustworthy
-
The Falun Gong claims “race-mixing severs connection to the gods”
-
The Falun Gong believes modern science was created by aliens to take over human bodies
You’re uncritically believing the equivalent of 5g cell towers causing brainwashing, or Bill Gates trying to microchip everyone with vaccines. You do this not because you’re incapable of seeing truth, but because you deliberately believe convenient lies.
because that’s laughable and debunked western garbage propaganda you’re spouting.
But thanks for your input CIA
Removed by mod
genocide of Falun gong
Liberals don’t even bother to learn their own talking points anymore.
Removed by mod
No? Communism is a movement towards abolishing class society, via collectivizing production and distribution. Fascism is a violent reaction to capitalist decay, employed to retain bourgeois property ownership and break up labor organizing. They are diametric opposites, which is why they have historically bitterly hated each other.
but why then has the bird the symbol of a fascist regime, and not, say, the silhouette of Karl?
The bird has the hammer and sickle, the symbol of the joint partnership of the industrial proletariat and the agrarian peasantry, the symbol of Marxism-Leninism. The hammer and sickle was created in the RSFSR, the first socialist state in history. Using any one person as symbol for the working class movement, and not symbols of the working classes themselves, is akin to liberal Great Man Theory.
Trying to zero in on where your head is at.
Are you saying that any symbol that features intersecting lines is a fascist symbol or something?
You should read Blackshirts and Reds, it deals with the many differences between the two.
Good bot /j
🤖
Not all communism is authoritarian
Unless you mean anarchist conceptions of communism, ie communalist structures, all Marxist formations recognize the necessity of the working classes using state power, ie authority, to protect the gains of socialism and gradually collectivize production and distribution. In that sense, all communism can be seen as authoritarian, at least until all production and distribution is collectivized globally and thus the state finally fully withers away.
Further, worker owned governments with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy are never fascist, fascism is uniquely tied to capitalism in decay.
Just my 2 cents on the matter.
Not necessarily. There are indigenous societies from all across the world who were communist for millenia, and many who still strive for it while capitalism is forced upon them. They often are more anarchist in structure.
But even assuming that state power of some degree is required, there is a lot of room for debate about how much. Original commenter seemed concerned about authoritarianism, I assume that their understanding of communism is Stalin’s USSR. There are certainly ways to be auth/com without going that far, and that commenter may find those appealing.
The reason I bring up communalism, the more anarchist-adjacent forms of organization, is because they aren’t really the same as what people talking about Marxist communism are. Tribal formations and communes are localized, based on self-sufficient and small-scale production and distribution.
Communism, in the Marxist sense, can be seen more as the stitching together of all humanity into one unified system, with mass production and distribution scientifically organized and planned to meet everyone’s needs. This isn’t really a moral judgement about either, but the understanding that when someone says “communism is authoritarian,” they are referring to the Marxist conception, which is qualitatively different from the anarchist.
But even assuming that state power of some degree is required, there is a lot of room for debate about how much. Original commenter seemed concerned about authoritarianism, I assume that their understanding of communism is Stalin’s USSR. There are certainly ways to be auth/com without going that far, and that commenter may find those appealing.
This is a much more interesting argument, in my opinion, because it requires answering what it means to wield authority.
In Marxist analysis, the state is within the class struggle, and exists precisely to represent a definite class. Thus, authority lies within the hands of a definite class in any given state, that class being the one with political and economic control.
What determines the extent to which authority is wielded?
It can seem pretty obvious that it’s the decision of the government to act in this or that matter when dealing with different problems faced by society. However, this is looking at the effect, not the cause. The cause of wielding authority is the class struggle, which has necessary material struggles. In other words, the extent to which authority is employed is not simply a choice by the state, but a reaction to the conditions one finds themselves in.
Take Germany, for example. The rise of the Nazi party was an explicit reaction to ongoing labor organizing, capitalist decay, and a crisis in economy due to the inter-war debts. However, Germany of today has had less of a need to exert authority, so it hasn’t. This is changing, though, as pro-Palestinian protestors are beaten, and the far-right is rising due to intense economic crisis and the downfall of imperialism as a means to inflate the economy.
The same applies to the USSR. The system of the soviet union was fundamentally democratic. 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.
What happened wasn’t a crisis in structure, but a reaction to existing heightened class struggle and siege from imperialists. Fascists and tsarists, kulaks and capitalists, all manner of those opposed to socialism remained in the USSR long after its inception. Revolution does not immediately abolish them, no matter how democratic or egalitarian your new society is, because the older ruling classes lose in socialism. Class struggle continues under socialism.
That’s why my question is simple: what could the USSR have done to be “less authoritarian?” That isn’t to say that the soviet union never made mistakes or errors, or was structurally perfect, but instead to ask about the nature of authority itself, and why it’s applied more or less in different conditions. Is it as simple as a choice made by the state? Or is it deeper than that, a result of dialectical contradictions working themselves out?
But even assuming that state power of some degree is required, there is a lot of room for debate about how much.
Not when you treat “authoritarianism” as a hard binary there isn’t.
But the good kinds that actually work and help people are
