Dispelling myths about Communism and Communists "supporting human rights violation"
Dispelling myths about Communism and Communists "supporting human rights violation"
cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/731575
It seems there are a lot of propaganda arising on certain lemmy instances parroting propaganda that lemmygrad and Communists support human rights violations, and equating Communists to the alt right.
This is an extremely ridiculous assertion, given the historical context of the left being the main force fighting Nazism and fascism. But I write this post as there are probably many people misled by all the dishonest propaganda out there, who may be accepting of reason before seeking to silence us.
Please link this post in other instances if they are parroting propaganda about Communists to justify demonizing us. Reasonable people will understand and oppose these motions.
What is NOT Communism? in short, communism is NOT:
- "when the government does stuff"
- "capitalism but everyone gets paid the same"
- an incursion on personal freedom, or forcing people to do what they don't want (unless the thing they don't want is not exploiting others and not wishing mass murder on ethnic groups, etc).
Then what is communism? in simple terms, it is the belief that the working class (i.e. the people, the masses) must own the means of production (factories, work places, etc) and control the direction of production in society, so that we produce for our own needs rather than to fulfill profits.
Why? we spend most of our lifetime working, so why should we cater it towards profits of a minority class of capitalists rather than our own and out community's needs and wants? Why shouldn't we be masters of our own destinies?
You may not agree with this, but this is not an excuse to silence us or lump us with genocidal ideologies
This thread is not meant to convince you with communism, but to demystify it and break the cold war era propaganda that some of you continue to parrot.
you support USSR? What about their human rights violations? (applies to Cuba, China, etc)
We do, but we do not support human rights violations as we believe there are tons of propaganda surrounding this. Equating this with Nazism is EXTREMELY DISINGENUOUS. The prevailing propaganda against the USSR is even acknowledged by NATO countries themselves. Nazism is an ideology founded on genocide, and this is easy to verify from Hitler's writing himself.
Maybe in the end, we are wrong and despite the propaganda, there are human rights violations. But our support for the USSR comes from their achievements to better the human condition, and we hope to build on it. There are no human rights violation that inspires our ideology like it does for fascism or Nazism.
Disclaimer: I am just a random Communist. I have no authority over lemmygrad or connections to the admins, just to make sure I don't upset the admins saying this.
I didn't even read much of the classical chud takes, overwhelming most of anticommunist posts on lemmy are typical left anticommunists (especially ultras and anarchists) as in the Parenti essay.
There were also neoliberals in there, on all the same subs as the anarcho-bidenists and arguing parallel to them as long as the anarcho-bidenists didn't ever mention a positive alternative. Really makes you think.
The first right listed in the European Convention on Human Rights is property. There is no corresponding right to food and shelter.
What human rights ought to be is a contestable thing: under capitalism we've put property (literally) at the top of the list. Much of our society is organised around this principle. What if we gave people the right to democracy in organisations that affect their lives? Their workplaces, schools, local hospitals, universities, even shops? The right to habitable shelter, food, and free healthcare? The right to meet their needs through the formation of associations like cooperatives?
Human rights have a dual purpose, insofar as they both express and enforce a social ideal. They're both cause and effect of hegemony, and they'll carry hegemonic values within them.
Plus my guess is that most of the people complaining about this are happy to lob big words around on the internet but have never once actually campaigned for the rights of anyone whose rights have been violated.
The primary complaint about our existence is our support for China, the USSR, Cuba, and other evil authoritarian communist regimes. I think most liberals agree that the USSR under Stalin was the most evil country ever. Let's examine the USSR more closely then, assuming that it did all the human rights violations and atrocities it was accused of.
Googling for "Stalin's worst acts", led me to this website with his 7 worst atrocities:
https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-figures/joseph-stalin.htm
Now, assuming all this is true and unbiased, I would like to compare the list to the USA. I think it's hypocritical to accuse us of supporting human rights violations, EVEN IF THESE WERE ALL TRUE. How is it wrong to support the USSR if the USA were to provably commit even worse human rights violations? I don't see the liberals banning American "patriots" anytime soon.
- GULAGS. Stalin created the GULAG system for political prisoners, and worked 3.7 million people to death. The USA had a chattel slave population of 3.9 million in 1860. It currently has a prison population of 2 million, who are legally slaves.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7716878/
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html
- Collectivisation. Stalin siezed the land of wealthy landowners and sent them to the gulag. The USA quite famously did that exact thing to the native peoples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears
- The Great Famine. Stalin killed millions of people by amplifying the effects of a famine, and pushing the worst of it onto groups he disliked. The US had this to say about the Buffalo: "Kill Every Buffalo You Can! Every Buffalo Dead Is an Indian Gone". The USA brought the buffalo to the edge of extinction, just to try to starve the natives. Fun fact: This was one of the primary inspirations for Hitler's final solution.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buffalo-killers/482349/
https://thecirclenews.org/cover-story/u-s-treatment-of-indians-inspired-hitlers-hunger-policies/
- The Great Purge. Stalin rounded up thousands of communists and executed them to secure power. I'm honestly confused by this one, as I thought that liberals loved purging communists. But regardless, the USA famously purged communists as well during "The Red Scare". Mention should also be made to high profile communists such as Malcom X and Martin Luther King who were killed under suspicious circumstances.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare
- Order 277. Stalin gave orders to shoot any soldier who retreated. I would argue that rounding up millions of your people to go fight "communism" in a country that did nothing to you would qualify as just as bad. You decide.
https://www.vva310.org/vietnam-war-statistics
- Punishing Prisoners of War. Stalin sent captured soldiers to the gulag upon liberation. The USA condems this, but said nothing of reimprisoning concentration camp survivors. Odd.
https://time.com/5953047/lgbtq-holocaust-stories/
- Giving a Pass to War Crimes. Stalin ignored war crimes from his soldiers. I really hate this one. The USA quite famously snatched up every nazi rocket scientist and spy that they could. They lived out their lives in positions of power in the USA, and even wrote some of the drivel I'm talking about today. The US has also famously refused any oversight from the International Criminal Court, even going so far as threatening invasion if a US soldier was ever tried. The list of US war crimes is huge, and the punishments are brief. A book could be written about how hypocritical this one is, but I'll just leave it at this link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
So here's where we are. Of all of Stalin's atrocities, I think I've shown that the US has done something equivalent but worse in the majority of cases. But it's still acceptable to liberals to wave an American flag, but not a Soviet one? Why do you suppose this is? It gets even worse if you start questioning the veracity of these claims of course, but even if they were at face value, I would still support the Soviet state. They were the first Socialist state and should be respected for that alone. I don't agree with everything that they did, and I don't think anyone does. We don't hate the American people for loving their country. Why should we be hated for loving the USSR?
Great write up.
Thank you. I signed up here just to write that.
This is all very good info.
I don’t see the liberals banning American “patriots” anytime soon.
Wouldn't they ban right-wing USA is the best country ever people too?
I believe they take the safe route of "everyone is bad, nothing is worth supporting". So any positive opinion on any side of the issue is a problem, they have to maintain everything neutral to keep the "safe space".
I would not mind having right-wing people having communities in an instance I'm in. I'd either try to reason with them or ignore them. Or try to lurk and understand how they are so fucked up. The banning looks more like "we don't want to deal with uncomfortable stuff, no talk about bad stuff".
well usa is bad too
even if their crimes against humanity are true id still support them because theyre in my camp but they totally arent true
we dont hate the american people for loving their country (lol)
No, I don't think anyone here hates the American people. We want to help them. They're just as much victims of their government as the rest of the world.
Yes, I have strong misgivings about most of these claims. But why so quick to judge the Soviet Union based on one bad leader, while being so forgiving of people like Andrew Jackson? The USA still prints his picture on their currency!
Hey it's the mE kiL fascist evading ban
Maybe in the end, we are wrong and despite the propaganda, there are human rights violations. But our support for the USSR comes from their achievements to better the human condition, and we hope to build on it. There are no human rights violation that inspires our ideology like it does for fascism or Nazism.
This is important for liberals to understand. Any prominent Marxist's writing will reflect a strong desire for equality among workers and actual human rights (housing, food, dignified work, belonging to a community, etc.), whereas I'd challenge anyone to find this in the drivel written by fascists like Hitler. Anyone acting in good faith should be able to comprehend that we're not pro-AES because we believe the claims made by imperialists against them, but because we do not believe it and have seen evidence that, at least to us, fits with this viewpoint
You support USA? What aboout their human rights violations?
@jerrimu @maysaloon it's interesting how the US weaponize human rights violations to sanction other countries when they themselves committed all kind of atrocities.
and continue to commit
The liberal aversion doesn't only stem from ignorance of the definition, but also and imo most importantly from their liberal dogma on power structures that makes them view the "commendable but deceptive" virtues of communism as eternally doomed to devolve into corruption when put to practice. AKA "Absolute power corrupts absolutely".
In order for liberals and leftcoms to understand our perspective we shouldn't deny the legitimate ethical objections to the practices of socialist states but rather explain that these practices and power structures are a necessary evil resulting from the transient anti-communist global society we live in today and not intrinsic nor exclusive to states without liberal democracy.
I don't know how, but we need propaganda that efficiently communicates that the ideological competition between capitalism and communism is not of the same nature as the competition between, say, the labor party and the liberal party. There is no mutual respect nor tolerance from either party to allow the other flourish.
This is a WAR. No, not figuratively speaking. An ACTUAL war. In fact the war of the greatest caliber and of the same nature as the 1939 war on European and Asian soil, the 2001 war on Afghan soil and the current war on Ukrainian soil. This is war on socialist soil and the socialists are heavily overpowered and outnumbered.
Therefore, yes, socialist countries are less 'free' than western countries but it's not this lack of freedom that compells capitalist aggression but rather capitalist aggression that necessitates the EMERGENCY power structure that restricts freedom.
Fascism is capitalism in its emergency state such that fascism and Leninism/Stalinism are NOT two sides of the same coin, but opposite forces resorting to the same resources to achieve opposite goals. This is no different from the way both parties in the Ukraine war use weaponry and politically regulate their media and has nothing to do with 'authoritarian' flaws of their respective ideologies.
So if you want to compare communism with capitalism in good faith, the real question becomes "Is Leninism/Stalinism better than Fascism?", or worded differently "Do communists operate better in warzones than capitalists?". I think everyone but the most hardline conservatives will agree the answer is a resounding yes.
If someone can formulate this more efficiently than me, that would be great.
Great points.
Honestly, liberals just need to study their own revolutions more. Most or them just ignorantly buy into the mythic narrative of liberalism's origin story rather than the bloodbath, atrocities, and dogmas their movements were also birthed from.
To be fair, some of the liberal complaints are just dogshit demonizing of states as autocratic when they do have functioning democracies.
This is a really rad take, and gives me a lot to think about!
Ok that's fine for the social/economic aspects, but what about the political aspect? How are issues like the military handled? Who pays for national defense and how?
The USSR could still issue currency, pay for public goods, weapons, etc. None of those are unique to capitalism.
Security and self defense are also a concern of the working class, and that would also be managed by them.
Taxes? The USSR was still a country with a centralized proletariat state.
Weirdly naive question when you have actual, existing socialism around the world to look at and learn from. Just saying.
Most socialist states use taxes, but the DPRK doesn't because industry is run by the state anyway, so "taxes" are essentially accounted for before the salary is even set. We aren't arguing for some far off hypothetical communism but for socialist states that currently and used to exist in a capitalist global order
i dont know why this question is voted down so much.. it leads to real answers and that's a good thing
Most likely the ultra invasion from reddit and their antitankie hysteria making people anxious.
I am speculating here, but I'd imagine people here are so used to right-leaning comments making insincere questions, poisoned questions, or "just asking" type questions, that they thought the same was happening here. I thought the same at first, and really, can you blame? But, in this case, it could just easily be an honest question by someone trying to learn, and maybe there is something to be said about the response it got. We need to welcome people trying to learn, and who ask genuine questions. That's the only way to grow (both the community and the ideology).
Edit: Honestly, what the other commenter said.