• Riverside@reddthat.com
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    2 days ago

    France got liberated thanks to the Soviets too, we’re talking all of Europe here.

    In the rest of places, as I said, replacing it by a system with full free healthcare, worker’s rights, respect of minorities and their languages and cultures, free education to the highest level, anti-imperialism and industrial development and self-reliance. The dismantling of the Eastern Block is the biggest demographic catastrophe in Europe since WW2.

    • j_overgrens@feddit.nl
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      1 day ago

      Worthwile to note that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were longstanding allies before Operation Barbarossa and a critical amount of steel and oil that supplied the Nazi war machine after the allied embargo was supplied by the Soviet union.

      Which says nothing of the monumental sacrifice given by Soviet civilians, but let’s separate that from Stalin’s policy, perhaps?

    • Tja@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      Anti imperialism? How did they become the largest country on earth?

      Respect of minorities? Tell that to the tens of thousands of people executed in forests. Or starved to death. Because of their identity.

      Industrial development? Yes, current Russia having an economy the size of Italy is a testament to that.

      Plenty of countries have free education and Healthcare.

      • Riverside@reddthat.com
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        1 day ago

        Anti imperialism? How did they become the largest country on earth?

        Imperialism is not when big country, believe it or not. Imperialism is about having peripheral colonies from which you extract raw materials and where the citizens have fewer rights, and a core which benefits from the labor of the rest of the periphery. The USSR engaged in the opposite by providing raw materials and energy inputs to the Eastern-Block countries at subsidized prices precisely with the intention of helping them industrialize and develop. As an example, the GDP per capita of Estonia was 20% higher than that of the Russian republic during the USSR.

        Respect of minorities?

        Yes. Ukraine got its borders and political representation for the first time in history during Soviet rule. You may be surprised to find that Rosa Luxembourg argued against this, there are some fun letters between her and Lenin where the latter argued in favour of supporting the national identity of Ukrainians. This was carried out as soon as the revolution took place, in the Korenizatsiya policy of boosting ethnic minorities once oppressed by the Russian empire. You may be surprised to learn that Stalin was the commissar for nationalities when the Russian Revolution happened. The communists elected a Georgian leader in 1925, unthinkable just 10 years prior.

        All republics in the USSR had the right to determine their own languages, and people had a right to an education in these languages up to university level (not always included). The majority of books and newspapers printed in areas with national languages different to Russian were in said languages (Ukrainian, Kazakh, Armenian, Georgian, Estonian…). You can get informed about this in Albert Szymanski’s “human rights in the Soviet Union”. There were big mistakes during a few years due to hysteria against Nazism and Japanese invasion (see deportations of Crimean Tatars and Koreans), but other than that the USSR has a mostly impeccable record in this regard. Compare that to France murdering 1 million Algerians in the 1960s in the Algerian war of independence, or with Occitan language becoming almost extint in the 20th century.

        Industrial development? Yes, current Russia

        The USSR was at the time the second largest economy in the world, idk why you compare it with modern capitalist Russia, of course capitalism destroyed the progress achieved by socialists.

        • Tja@programming.dev
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          21 hours ago

          Yes, muscovites just made friends, that’s not imperialism. Sakha just wanted to give it’s oil and minerals to Moscow. Yakutia just wanted desperately to learn Russian. It’s not imperialism if there are no boats involved!

          Estonia? Now their GDP per capita is not 20% higher, it’s 200% higher than Russia. Yes, triple as high. Obviously Russia was robbing them blind, and holding them back. Same as most other republics and Warsaw pact nations. GDP explosions after ditching the red parasite.

          Ukraine had borders just fine when Soviets invaded them. If not for the war they lost against Poland in 1920 they would have kept invading and repressing nations. Belorussian language is almost extinct nowadays after all the russification. Same for Ukrainian in Eastern Ukraine.

          French killed 1 million Algerians? Rookie numbers, they should have learned from the holodomor.

          • Riverside@reddthat.com
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            21 hours ago

            Sakha just wanted to give it’s oil and minerals to Moscow. Yakutia just wanted desperately to learn Russian

            You could ask those questions to the populations themselves. Where did they have better rights: under tsarism, under Bolshevism or under capitalism. If you care, you could listen to Sardana Nikolaeva being interviewed in the Actually Existing Socialism about the topic and commenting on the massive benefits and respect to native populations under socialism compared to now, let alone tsarism.

            Obviously Russia was robbing them blind, and holding them back.

            Robbing them blind of what? Holding them back how? By not allowing them to participate in the western capitalist plunder of the rest of the world? Now Estonia gets to have a service society that will collapse with the rest of the EU since it dismantled whatever industry it built during the soviet period!

            Same as most other republics and Warsaw pact nations. GDP explosions after ditching the red parasite

            Absolute fucking bullshit, the three countries to have benefitted after the dissolution of the Eastern Block have been Estonia, Poland and Czech Republic. Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirgyzstan, Moldova… Essentially every nation has had lower growth rates in capitalism than in socialism, and certainly a fucking horrifying demographic crisis caused by unemployment, drugs, violence, lack of healthcare, suicide… The dissolution of the eastern block has literally been the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century in Europe after WW2.

            Ukraine had borders just fine when Soviets invaded them

            Ukraine didn’t fucking had borders before 1917, are you fucking kidding me? Great job focusing on Belarus, a country of 10mn inhabitants, because it’s the only possible example you can grasp yourself to lmao, the rest of countries literally show the opposite trend.

            As for “holodomor”, great job comparing literal genocide at the hands of French to an unwanted famine consequence of rapid collectivization (which was necessary to industrialize fast, as proven 10 years later by Nazism, of which Ukraine was saved thanks to Socialism).

            Honestly, you’re such a bad fucking faith actor.