• Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        What is worse, a brutal authoritarian empire which tries to occupy Eastern Europe and Central Asia or one that actually does it?

        • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Take a deep breath. As someone who’s been in your shoes, this may not click right away.

          Every single thing you’ve ever heard, learned, watched, or read about another country that was ever an enemy of the united states has been some version of an exaggeration or a lie. You live in the most intense propaganda machine that has ever been created. You live in the most intense surveillance state that’s ever been created. You live in the biggest, richest empire that has ever been created.

        • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago
          1. What made the USSR brutal?
          2. What made the USSR authoritarian?
          3. Are you willing to apply the same standards to all countries?
          • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            The Soviet Empire directly occupied every constituent “Republic” as colonies, as well as occupied the Warsaw Pact countries as satellite vassals, and used military force to put down any rebellion from their puppet nations in the Warpac. They denied the people any say in government, subverted unions into agents of the state instead of advocates for the workers, and systematically crushed any domestic political dissent using secret police.

            As to whether I’m okay with consistently applying that? Sure. The last time the US fought a military conflict in order to annex a nation into empire was 1902. The Soviets did it consistently throughout their empire’s existence.

            • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Much of what you’re claiming is undermined by the fact that the vast majority of Soviet people voted to keep the USSR. How could that have happened if people had no say in the government, and if the SSRs were just colonies? It’s also undermined by facts like the early USSR letting some former Russian vassals become independent (e.g., Finland), successive Soviet constitutions granting more and more power to SSRs and national groups, and the steady rise in living conditions under the USSR/the sharp decline in living conditions after its dissolution.

              And if you’re serious about applying those same standards to every country, you’d see the U.S. as one of the most evil countries in the world. Our treatment of black Americans and American Indians was literally a model for the Nazis, and eclipses the scale and severity of even the most fevered anti-communist propaganda. We’ve fought wars of aggression all over the Global South. We’ve strangled popular anti-colonial movements in their crib and kept them down by backing murderous dictators. We illegally monitor as much of our citizens’ communications as possible, have extrajudicially assassinated opposition leaders, have attempted to blackmail opposition leaders into killing themselves, violently repress even peaceful left-wing protests (while providing police escorts for Klan rallies and Proud Boys), hell, the Chicago PD was running a black site torture operation.

              But I’m guessing you don’t take that part seriously, otherwise you’d have questioned whether such an evil country – that’s militantly opposed every communist movement since before the USSR even existed – is a reliable source on the shortcomings of communist states.

              • Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago
                1. the proposed Union Treaty wasn’t a continuation of the USSR any more than the EU is analogous to the Roman Empire, even if we close our eyes and pretend that the vote didn’t have issues and wasn’t boycotted by six “republics”

                2. I knew you’d fly into whataboutism, that’s why I mentioned invading another country for territorial conquest, so you can just shove the dishonest reeeee’ing where the sun doesn’t shine

                3. I don’t need US government sources to know that murderous dictators are evil

                • 420blazeit69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Do you consider it necessary to preserve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, in which the rights and freedoms of a person of any nationality will be fully guaranteed?

                  That was the question; it’s quite clearly referring to preserving the USSR. Comparing that to the difference between the Romans and the EU is disingenuous and you know it.

                  And you noticed six SSRs boycotted it! But I thought the USSR “used military force to put down any rebellion from their puppet nations”? Which is it? Was dissent tolerated or not? Or, as in almost every country, were some types of dissent tolerated (local officials protesting national decisions) while other types were not (violent opposition to the state backed by hostile foreign governments)?

                  whataboutism

                  So you flat-out lied when you said you held all countries to the same standards. Holding all countries to the same standards involves discussing other countries to place actions in context (incidentally, this is a huge part of what passes for international law). It’s not just shutting off your brain and screeching “whataboutism!” when someone asks you to acknowledge some things are bad even when your team does them.

                  reeeee’ing

                  Take this disgusting garbage back to reddit-logo and shit in your hat

    • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      It is?

      Remind me during the cold war, which countries were on the side of pro independence anti colonial movements in Africa, and which countries were pro colonisation and pro apartheid? I’ll think you’ll find that more often than not, the USSR was on the side of anti colonial independence movements, and that the US and Western Europe were on the side of the pro colonial forces.

      Even if the USSR only supported anti colonial movements out of pure self interest and cynicism, it’s a hell of a lot better than supporting colonialism and neocolonialism like the USA and Western Europe did back then during the cold war.