I agree, German kids could have resisted, there was the White Rose and shit, and let’s not forget the thousands of leftists thrown into the camps. It’s not like people didn’t know what they were doing was wrong, they just didn’t want to take the risk of opposing the regime like the peers did. And to forgive them, punishes those who did resist. That’s why Nazi collaborators deserve a swift execution along side the true believers.

Well Gorby purged the military leadership of the “hardliners” (actual communists) before he started his reforms. He really thought the left would be a bigger threat than the radical liberal opposition.

He also drastically slashed the military budget and conditions for the soldiers were already poor in the late 80s. The conscription system had been corrupted and many conscripts were abused and used as slave labor. Cutting the budget made these problems worse, and then the Warsaw Pact collapsed and the army lost all their foreign allies.

So by the time stuff starts really falling apart, the Red Army is left disillusioned and directionless. They try to intervene a few times but accomplish little more than shooting some protesters and making everyone angrier. Gorbachev meanwhile refuses to lead, and instead focuses his attention on blaming his subordinates and firing more “hardliners”. When the August Coup happens, again Gorby refuses to take leadership or even a stance on it at all, and what’s left of the army isn’t willing to risk a massacre on behalf of, let’s be honest, a desperate last ditch attempt to regain control of the situation.

Afterwards, many soldiers could make chaos very lucrative for themselves by becoming gangsters or running drugs/arms. The death of a nation is so tragic.

Well Gorby sort of had a plan, but it was a terribly naive one. He really thought the liberals would be cool with him being a social democrat, but nope, step aside loser. All or nothing.

For Yeltsin and his cronies, the lack of planning was part of the benefit, they didn’t want any of the former bureaucrats or factory directors to be part of the process at all. They just gave every citizen worthless “privatization vouchers” that would entitle you to shares in the new private enterprises but they immediately lost all value because of the economic disaster they caused. Oh and they were unlimitedly transferable, so 90% of people just sold them for cash so they could keep eating. Those who were already rich or had political connections to the new government bought them all up and volia- nearly instantaneous economic oligarchy. All the achievements of October, swept away :lenin-rage:

Regardless of what you think about China, you need to realize that you, as an American, do not get to dictate to over a billion people about how they should organize their society. Chinese people can handle their own affairs, if they desired the overthrow of the CPC, they could make that happen. They by and large do not desire this, in fact the CPC is broadly popular with tens of millions of Chinese citizens. Do not even try to dismiss that fact with some foolishness like “propaganda” or “brainwashing” ect.

You know nothing about Chinese life or how an average citizen feels about their government there, reading foreign press doesn’t offer any insight into that. The nation-state of China is one of the oldest and most influential human institutions in history, and they will not be ordered around by some imperialist anglos again. I suggest you find a way to reconcile that with your personal opinions about them, and recognize that 1.4 billion people do not and will never have to care about you or what you think about them. So either give up your leftist aesthetics and just accept you are an imperialist, or figure out how to treat Chinese people as an equal competitor if not a friend.

I have a premonition that a socialist America will end up having to fight a fundamentalist Mormon insurgency in the rocky mountains

what we consider the foundations of modern liberalism (multiculturalism acceptance of gender and sexual minorities), is seen in Eastern Europe (specifically Russia/former USSR) as a controversial “western import”. It’s like the culture war in America, there are two different general cultural factions: westernizers and slavophiles. The disastrous economic changes the “westernizer” liberals brought to some parts of eastern Europe really soured their reputation. The Soviet Union and nostalgia for it are firmly culturally linked to the slavophiles, which are also consistently socially conservative on other issues (they are strongly tied to the Orthodox Church). In other eastern European countries like Poland the Catholic Church is still very dominant politically.

So I guess the answer to your question is that a lot of eastern Europeans are homophobic and racist because they think these ideas are just more western attempts to destroy their culture. People who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union tend to be anti-western for obvious reasons, and unfortunately cultural conditioning pushes them towards these backwards views.

Literally listening to some Ochs rn. (Miranda) He is so much better than Dylan, who fucking hangs out with Obama now.

yeah Sinclair said afterwards “I was aiming at the audience’s heart but missed and hit their stomach”

But tbh reading it I am not sure how you could come away thinking food safety was the main point of the book unless you were willfully ignoring the rest of The Jungle where the poor immigrant family gets scammed and exploited. Or maybe nice middle class people read that and think it’s just the will of the free market for the poor to be brutalized but eww I don’t want gross sausage.

while I think joining an org is worthwhile and you should try, everyone should also know that not every org is worth your time and energy. Many are just lib shit door knocking for the Democrats, but even some “hard communist” ones will just make you sell stupid newspapers on the corner to teenagers. These orgs make you feel used, exploited for free labor even. Also especially with the communist orgs you run a good chance of befriending a undercover police officer who will fuck with you and the org, often undercovers get into the leadership position because it’s literally their job to be there unlike everyone else. So make sure you feel like you are actually participating in something you feel is meaningful. Maybe look for mutual aid like food not bombs

just take Leningrad immediately but also “zurge rush” (lmao) Stalingrad at the same time. Like yeah okay I’m sure the Nazis (famous for Blitzkrieg not close combat) can handle two of the most intense urban warfare battles at once hundreds of kilometers apart without getting their ass owned.

taking Stalingrad wouldn’t even cut off the oil either the Soviets had made preparations to ship Caucasian oil across the Caspian Sea to Astrakhan to keep the military fueled. It would have been awfully inefficient logistically but they would have been able to do it.

Sprite instead of actual lemonade is not excusable by “different language.” Do better, self-crit, read some lemonade making theory, apologize to those harmed by your caviler attitude towards soft drinks, and hold yourself accountable in the future.

goddamn it why did the fucking Europeans have to find the Incas when they were in the middle of a civil war such awful timing. I hate this person for reminding me of this tragedy because the Inca Empire was incredible before the Spanish burned it all down and looted an entire civilization.

I think they are arguing that Vietnam “colonized” Cambodia (and Laos too I suppose) because they had troops and fought a war there? It basically just nonsense, especially because all three of those countries used to be 1 french colony of Indochina, and the Vietnamese Communist Party used to be the Indochinese Communist Party and quite regularly operated in Laos and Cambodia.

o7 back home to the swamp before Christmas

nah the Clash were OG anti-imperialists. When Strummer found out that US pilots played that song whole bombing Iraqi civilians during the the 1st Gulf War, he said he broke down and cried. Named a whole album after the Sandinistas.

The Indochinese/Vietnamese Communist Party actually considered inter-party fucking to be incest. Party members called each other “brother” and “sister” not just as a sign of respect but also to forge sibling-like egalitarian bonds. Other types of relationships in Vietnam were very hierarchical, including husband-wife back then. Sleeping with your fellow party members was definitely as frowned upon as incest and could get you in serious trouble if you were in a leadership position.

In one story I read, an underground local city committee discovered their regional commander had pressured one of female guerillas into sleeping with him, so the other members of the city committee found their commander and slit his throat. Normally this would have had them killed themselves but when the city committee explained the situation the party agreed that the commander had indeed committed the crime of incest so his killers were forgiven.

Point of this: DSA needs to introduce the death penalty for sex pests in their ranks.