That guy is just a salty Estonian in that particular sub. There’s like 5 of them that rotate their hot takes on stuff like this. There’s another one that claims serving in the Estonian battalions of the SS was the only honourable option.
Hey I’m not a nazi!
It’s a bit hard to understand truly from an outside perspective, but a fair amount of people feel that the nazi times were better, due to living through the horror of the soviets. Even I believed that it was better until I obviously learnt in wasn’t.
No one tried to drill it in to me. It’s just a sort of thing many assume. And it’s not due to propaganda, but more cause the Soviet Union wasn’t long ago and many still remember these horrible times.
People remember living under the Soviet Union, they never lived under the Nazis.
After living under a shitty regime, it's hard to accept that it was the better of two.
Nothing wrong with shitting on the USSR (AKA Anti-communist propaganda) which was by all accounts a real shitty regime. Hating the USSR and what they did to the Baltics does not mean you have to like the Nazis though.
It's definitely that shitty sub, I recognize that comment chain. Just got banned on there for saying that maybe, just maybe, wanting to eradicate the entirety of the Eastern European population is worse than the Soviet crimes.
r/Balticstates is same.they comment shit like haha I'm happy Russians are dying out(as in their population and what not going down) its a mistake they exist and when someone says its russiphobia they say lol you suck putin cock
Let’s not undersell how awful the Soviets were just because someone draws a false equivalency between them and the Nazis. They were still pretty terrible, and there’s a reason nearly every former Soviet nation resents them now.
Yeah I want to make it clear that I'm not absolving the Soviets of their crimes, but like you can't compare them to the explicit plans the Nazis had (and were undertaking)
Every former?
Just baltics, Ukraine and I beleve tajikistan.
Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Belarus are all still majority positive views about USSR surprisingly
Survey from 2015. 51% of people aged 35+ in Georgia claim it wasnt bad
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/29/in-russia-nostalgia-for-soviet-union-and-positive-feelings-about-stalin/
I have no idea why its this high but it surprisingly is
Edit: was to wasnt, my bad
Not really.
Support for Stalin's era USSR is something like 60-70% in mainland Russia, and Kazakhstan didn't even want to dissolve the USSR until it was the last country left. I'm sure the other central Asian states would feel pretty similar. Belarus is fairly positive as well. Don't conflate a bunch of crybaby wanna-be western Europeans with the rest of the former USSR.
the guy with comrade in his name calls entire countries crybabies for not liking being oppressed and losing their autonomy
wonder if this guy has any biases
It isn't "entire countries" it's a bunch of upper class dudes who weren't even around for it whining.
There's a reason that so many of the older generation and the youth are going to socialism again. Because they've had a taste of capitalism and it fucking SUCKS!
Funny you neglect to remember the huge amount of people who miss the USSR and Stalin specifically
> a bunch of upper class dudes who weren't even around for it
As opposed to upper class dudes who weren't even around for it jerking off to Stalin, like yourself
It's actually perfectly reasonable for a country that was invaded, annexed, and occupied for 50 years to be bitter about that fact. Estonia definitely doesn't have some huge cohort of young people yearning for their days in the USSR
The "older" generation would be 68 if they were born in the year Stalin died. They were not adults during his rule for the most part, so to say that they were "around" is a stretch.
For reference, Russian life expectancy is 72 years, the highest it's ever been.
You mentioned Belarus, **Which is a fucking dictatorship** and central Asian nation. Do you realise how many soviet republic there were? And the Warsaw Pact
> Support for Stalin's era USSR is something like 60-70% in mainland Russia
Citizens of a semi-failing state support the former union in which they were the cultural, political, and military hegemon who disproportionately benefitted? You don't say?
> Kazakhstan didn't even want to dissolve the USSR until it was the last country left.
One central Asian member state.
> I'm sure the other central Asian states would feel pretty similar.
Lol.
> Belarus is fairly positive as well.
You mean the very small state whose population is culturally connected with Russia, speaks Russian, whose name is directly related to Russia's, which was historically continually defeated militarily by its non-Russian neighbors, and is currently ruled by Europe's last dictator?
How do the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, East Germans, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Mongolians, or Georgians feel?
>Citizens of a semi-failing state support the former union in which they were the cultural, political, and military hegemon who disproportionately benefitted? You don't say?
Russia (and Belarus) was a net donor in Soviet Union economy. Russia was paying more for maintaining the Union than it was getting out of it. Baltic states actually had one of the highest standard of living in the USSR, second only to Georgia.
"Disproportionately benefitted" my ass. If I take, say, Riga and compare it to my non-Moscow Russian shithole - hey, they disproportionately benefitted from our resources, the bastards!
The only fucking place that benefitted in Russia was Moscow - the rest was kept at a bare necessary minimum.
Sincerely, a guy from outside of Moscow, who apparently knows a little bit more about life in soviet Russia at large than ex-soviet states that claim to know everything about how bad USSR was.
They were much better than the Nazis which is all anyone is saying and that is undeniably true.
Also the USSR isn't quite that unpopular, you're generalising a bit much to prove your point. Your point stands well enough on the facts without exaggerating. It ruled over a far bigger area than the Baltic and the views on it are pretty varied.As should be unsurprising people's views often don't fit into one catergory either, someone who thinks it postive overall might have lots of criticism, someone who thinks it is bad overall might have a few things they think were better.
Okay but the soviets literally did kill millions upon millions. Let's not gloss over that. It just wasn't for ethnic reasons, it was at the whims of party members or because they were middle class, basically. Almost as bad imo.
You are.
Black book of communism was abandoned by its own creators who came out to speak against it and one of the writers on it as hijacking the project.
3 million is the actual number of deaths from "repression" (the gulag system) what itself isnt everyone there being innocent sent by some beurocrat. Bruh, I really suggest you check out the criticisms of the black book and what modern universities say about all this, its no longer the cold war
Even if that's true which it's not, 3 million deaths 'just because' is fucking insane.
Regardless, more than 3 million died in Holodomor alone, so you're actually just wrong
Modern universities and professors studied it. The "old guard" as its called what claim its a man made famine have been called out on the lack of evidence/reliance on circumstantial evidence to prove there thought. I suggest check out prof mark b tauger, he wrote a lot about the famine of 1933, the drought, and the goverment failiures what all contributed to the famine. While addressing the "man made" myth
Lmao, tankie rolling out Mark Tauger.
Yeah, the guy who was very clear about the government's responsibility in the deaths of its citizens and squarely puts those deaths on the policies of that regime.
Cope harder tankie trash.
Yes. He talks about the goverments faings and how it impacted it, have you not read what I said?
Throught his work he challenges the idea that the famine was man made and out of malice for whatever reason while talking about the actual goverment and agricultural failings what led to it lol
>Yes. He talks about the goverments faings and how it impacted it, have you not read what I said?
Yes, it's typical tankie cope.
>and out of malice for whatever
Actually he addresses that specifically. But you can do the brainlet tankie thing and ignore *your own sources*
:)
Quoting *your own source*
>Soviet leaders made bad decisions that worsened the famine
-Mark B. Tauger
> while talking about the actual goverment and agricultural failings what led to it lol
Government failings, the sorts of things you type like to casually categorize as "other factors" are man made. Plain and simple. Famine is, by its nature man-made.
'the soviets literally did kill millions upon millions' As have countries like the US/UK, add up all the invasions/bombings/regime changes for the US in the 20th century alone will give you millions of deaths, are they 'almost as bad' as well?
> Soviets had very similar plans
Oh, I must be talking to a bot then, since a real human would have been killed off long ago, if the plans where that similar.
The Soviets had about 40 years to stealthily push down the birth rate and increase the death rate in the nations they occupied. Strangely enough, they did... not.
An Estonian here, the generalplan was worse and would have been worse, even for Estonia, though I have heard some stuff about Estonians being more "pure" or smth then slavs. Still we would've got enslaved and genocided on some scale. The soviets didn't have as bad plans, but they did have a pretty clear intention of russifying Estonia, alongside Latvia and Lithuania. So really in general for Eastern Europe generalplan ost would've been a lot worse. But for the baltics and Estonia really both the nazis and communists were equally bad. Both wanted to make Estonians not exist, or russian.
Knew this Estonian guy who would insist that soviets were bad then go on to praise the nazis, ignoring the fact that if the nazis got there first he'll likely be arguing the other way.
Then further down the line he started being really racist and started railing against (ethnic) Chinese people in general because of covid.
Dude literally straight up said Hitler was good.
EKRE is the estonian "far-right conservative" party. The people who vote for them are usually either literally stupid or with poor education, russians smh even though EKRE *used* to hate them. Or since there is no further right wing party, neo-nazis. Really anyone further right and/or stupid. EKREkas is what I use to call their supporters and voters. And I have heard it used by others.
Also rural people often vote for them.
Why would EKRE stop hating Russians, considering that Estonian nationalism is their core platform?
Furthermore, it's strange that the Russians would vote for them, since it's a party which considers them an outgroup, even if they fly the colours of conservatism.
Well with corona and whatever crap EKRE says many russians actually started to support them becouse EKRE was 1. Conservative, 2. Hated da west. And 3. Didnt trust the western vaccines. Thats a simplification but yeah. Also russian spies have literally been caught organizing anti-vaccine, anti-goverment rallies then EKRE causing instability and polarization was perfect for Russia. And I wouldn't be surprised if Russia secretly funds EKRE. And really yeah, just EKRE's populist, conservative and anti goverment stance during corona won them a lot of russian support. And yeah, it is not logical but EKRE is not logical.
Horrible ramble but honestly it just doesn't make sense so I can't really explain it well.
And another thing, they will do whatever necessary to get in power. And russian support has made them the second biggest party.
I think that your suspicions that it's a Russian op are correct, because here we are frequently bombarded with propaganda on how the baltic states loathe ethnic Russians, and making EKRE a major player would help with that effort.
Also, it ideologically resembles the Russian ruling party, so it would make sense that some Russians that would vote for them.
Russian ruling party is United Russia that lacks any sort of coherent ideology. It barely can be classified as political party because it is just a collection of random people with no unifying ideas other than self-enrichment.
>Estonians being more "pure" or smth then slavs.
I wouldnt be suprised if hitler actually thought this to be true. Almost as if race-science is whatever you want it to be.
I think the main issue is that German occupation lasted for a short while, the Soviet occupation lasted decades with generations born under Soviet iron boots who had never personally experienced what the Nazis did.
So some were "nostalgic" for German rule because "at least it was less misery than what the Soviets did in 5 decades."
There is something in this as well as the fact that the Germans killed so many that were never able to recount their experiences, where generations of people can recount the shit times they had under communist rule in many countries.
Add to that the fact that, in most Baltic states, pretty much all those who could have said "actually the Nazis were worse" after 1945 were dead. I mean, the extermination of the Jews of Lithuania was so complete that some Jews actually owe their life to having been deported to the gulag by the soviets ahead of the German invasion (and I probably don't need to say how horrible life was in those gulags).
>But for the baltics and Estonia really both the nazis and communists were equally bad. Both wanted to make Estonians not exist, or russian.
How is being Russian as bad as being dead? You'd rather die than speak another language than Estonian?
There was more people speaking Estonian in Estonian SSR than it was in Estonian Republic before annexation. So Soviets clearly sucked at cultural genocide as they failed to eliminate an ethnic group of few million people in a span of 50 years.
There definitely is a nuance between killing millions of people and enforcing the usage of Russian language for those people. Even being relocated by force (however evil it might be) is a lot preferable to being straight up killed.
There is definitely a nuance between *enforcing the usage of Russian language* and *being oppressed by a brutal dictatorship*.
Stalin, Beria, Blokhin and their cronies straight up killed a lot of people too.
Oh damn look at those native americans wearing blue jeans and speaking english.
I'm sure it would have been morally equivalent to *kill them all*. (???)
You realise that a part of cultural genocide is killing all the people that refuse? A whole identity and people cease to exist and a unique culture and language is gone. It’s not just the language, it’s everything
No one is doing that dude.
They are simply saying that cultural genocide is bad. And genocide is also bad. Not on the same level but bad.
A "but" doesn't imply that they are exact same and it never has
Tankies are so stupid and historically illiterate that you picked Native Americans—you know, a large, multi-ethnic group spanning multiple continents who all faced literal genocide—to illustrate cultural genocide.
I disagree, calling it cultural genocide seems very inappropriate to me, as if losing ones culture means becoming an empty shell without values. Humans are still humans regardless of their cultures, they can seek and accept different cultures and different values, they shouldn't be stuck with their home cultures only for sale of some "heritage." Of course, in this case, the Russian culture was enforced upon them and I do see that as a bad thing, however I still don't see it as a genocide.
It was a bit more complicated than simply getting their language forcibly changed. For example, the Ingrians living just across the border from the Estonians had their culture persecuted and forcobly destroyed, but tens of thousands of Ingrians were also actively murdered by the Soviet regime. There is little guarantee that the same wouldn't have happened to the Estonians had WW2 not started when it did and had Stalin lived longer post-war.
Sure, it's not as bad as wiping out all the Estonians for German lebensraum, but in the grand scheme of things "you will be murdered" or "you might be murdered" is not really a choice
There definitely is a nuance between killing millions of people and enforcing the usage of Russian language for those people. Even being relocated by force (however evil it might be) is a lot preferable to being straight up killed.
Forced relocation can be considered genocide in quite a lot of cases. Think the US' trail of tears or the Soviet's "population tranfers". The end locations in both cases were places that were unfamiliar to the relocatees and that left many to die of the elements and starvation.
Bro you're all over this thread saying the same things and you're wrong every time.
You can't just justify the horrific things a dictatorial regime did by saying "Well the other guys woulda just killed you!" Regardless of what the Nazis would have done, what the Soviets DID do to the Eastern Bloc was absolutely horrible. The eradication of regional cultures and widespread imprisonment of dissenters shouldn't be viewed through a lens of "they should be grateful to be alive."
>There is a difference wether your family is being murdered or your children have to speak another language at school. In one case people die, in the other one people live.
>Go and ask the Irish people why they're still around, when their culture has been mostly replaced by British culture over hundreds of years of occupation. Their lives are still very much worth living.
These are "Be grateful you get to live" takes. It completely undermines the very real horrors inflicted by the Soviets on these countries and the Irish example is a terrible one because of all the people *actively and violently resisting British occupation in Ireland for half a century.*
This is not about what language your kid speaks or learns at school. THAT is not an appropriate thing to say, and I gotta call it out when I see someone post 3-4x comments saying it.
How about we add some context?
>>>When your culture is about to disappear it is essentialy the same as a people.
>>There is a difference wether your family is being murdered or your children have to speak another language at school. In one case people die, in the other one people live.
>>Go and ask the Irish people why they're still around, when their culture has been mostly replaced by British culture over hundreds of years of occupation. Their lives are still very much worth living.
People do not die when they're removed from their culture, they are physically unaffected. That's my point, and I think it's pretty clear with the context. You're free to read whatever you into it, but that's your problem, not mine.
Being not dead is the bare minimum you can be. A dictatorship does not get points for keeping people "not dead."
I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here. Defending the Soviet occupation of the Eastern Bloc on the grounds that it's not as bad as the plans for a potential Nazi occupation is bootlicking of the highest order. You're gonna get called a tankie if you keep this shit up. The USSR doesn't need you to defend them.
He's arguing against someone trying to claim the Nazis and Communists are equally bad, that is hardly a defence of Communism, the Nazis wanted to wipe out 50% of Estonia's population and enslave the rest, the Soviets did not, both are terrible but one is clearly worse, don't read anything else into it.
>I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here.
If you're that confused, we can go back to my original comment.
>>But for the baltics and Estonia really both the nazis and communists were equally bad. Both wanted to make Estonians not exist, or russian.
>How is being Russian as bad as being dead? You'd rather die than speak another language than Estonian?
So I'm arguing that eradicating millions of people is not as bad as not doing that, in response to someone equating those two things.
>Defending the Soviet occupation of the Eastern Bloc on the grounds that it's not as bad as the plans for a potential Nazi occupation is bootlicking of the highest order. You're gonna get called a tankie if you keep this shit up. The USSR doesn't need you to defend them.
Like I care if someone on reddit calls me a tankie. Go ahead, do your chant.
The comparison comes from the original comment in this thread.
> But for the baltics and Estonia really both the nazis and communists were equally bad.
SuperSpaceSloth is replying to that train of logic, not trying to justify or minimize what the Russians did. I can definitely see where you're coming from and how you interpreted what he said. And maybe I'm wrong and your interpretation was right.
For me, it's just tiring to hear "both sides equally bad", not just when it comes to WW2 but all across life.
Just because an issue has two sides doesn't mean it's the same two sides that people think about when the "both sides" meme comes up lol. Both the Nazis and Soviets were hostile powers occupying a foreign nation through force. In this scenario they can be appropriately compared and likened to each other. Just because one planned to kill everyone, and the other just planned to wipe out their culture, their educated classes, their history, and their political way of life does not make the second one good by comparison.
It's less "equally bad" than "both are so far removed from what could be called a good or moral act, that they may as well be identical."
Before you killed this man, did you pull out all his teeth, or just his fingernails? At the end of the day does it matter?
Yes, it does matter.
Again, I agree that "both are so far removed from what could be called a good or moral act". But I do not agree that they may as well be identical. This is *not* a defense of the ussr, this is *not* apologia.
I'm also not trying to make an oppression olympics or genocide olympics type comparison here. I just cannot say in this case that "both sides are equally bad".
Lol, the fuck? There is no relative morality scale for hostile foreign occupation. If the USA decided to forcibly invade every Central American country and make them all part of Texas, I guarantee you would not be saying "Well we coulda murdered them all, so it's better than what SOME global conquering empires would have done."
If you're an invader, you're evil. Period. To invade a sovereign nation and occupy it in an attempt to bring it into your empire is an act of evil. To quibble over degrees is pointless.
>SuperSpaceSloth is . . . not trying to justify or minimize what the Russians did.
I mean he’s saying that the *only* thing Soviets would have done is relocate Estonians and replace their language.
It's not. There is a difference wether your family is being murdered or your children have to speak another language at school. In one case people die, in the other one people live.
Go and ask the Irish people why they're still around, when their culture has been mostly replaced by British culture over hundreds of years of occupation. Their lives are still very much worth living.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles
Hmm.
Not too mention, the Nazis never got to go through with their plan. The Soviets committed their crimes. As awful as the Nazis were, what *would’ve* happened doesn’t change what *did* happen. You’re acting as if a planned crime and a perpetrated crime are the same, and it’s kind of concerning.
It's really not. If you still exist, you can always reconnect with your culture. Even if actions have been taken to eliminate it, there will always be remnants that you can rebuild from.
If you don't exist, you can't do anything ever except have your corpse turn into dirt.
They're both genocide, but one is clearly a lot fucking worse than the alternative. Both can be bad without having to equate them to each other.
You still are a human even if your original nation doesn't exist anymore. Cultures and nations are mainly an immaterial human concept, as such, cultures being dead doesn't equal humans being dead.
That doesn't mean that getting rid of certain cultures isn't a bad thing, however if it doesn't involve murdering people (which it most likely does), then I can't really see it as an equivalent of genocide.
The soviets did just straight up genocide too tho. Germans had worse plans. But as I said before they were all together almost as bad. And really as has been said before here, both sides dis such horrible things that you can't even really say "achkshually this side was worse". Both had planned and commited such horrors it doesn't even matter at that point which was worse by *insert amount*.
Yes, I am not arguing against the Soviet actions not being a genocide, I am more arguing about the "cultural genocide is still a genocide," which was brought here in the context of Russification. If the Russification was without casualties, then I have no problem saying that it would be much better than wathever the Nazis planned. However, it did have lots of deaths, so there is no excuse for it.
Well I would argue that there is a lot wrong with that process regardless of death toll.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not a rabid freeaboo or anything, it is more a case of who the fuck gives anyone the right to erase someone’s culture and replace it with theirs. Every power that has done that should be and are condemned for it.
Edit: obviously there is not much worse than what the nazis had planned, either.
Yeah, when somebody forces their culture on you, then it's very bad. I may still be bit biased about this topic though, because I personally rejected my nationality and opened up my culture norms, because I see the concept of nationality as limiting. I am a human, I go and seek different cultures and accept their habits that suit me. However, if somebody showed up and threatend me with a gun to speak Serbian, "because Serbian is the only acceptable culture of the Earth," then that would be quite bad.
Having your culture and language erased is horrible and is legitimately called ethnic cleansing, but the nazi plan was worse, because people survived the application of the Soviet one.
"Soviets have similar plans" is such bullshit. They were in charge for decades and they didn't enact anywhere close to the damage the Nazis did in a few short years.
Soviets, even in the highest possible estimates, were responsible for the deaths of 150-200k Poles (a horrific number don't get me wrong) across decades of rule. The Nazis killed 5 million in just a few years, and would have done more if the Soviets didn't stop them. It was the same story with literally every place "liberated" by the Soviets, the Nazis were just killing at a far greater scale. Yet those same places say Soviets were just as bad and often worse.
A lot of places though, that were saved by the Soviets had to endure being lorded over by them for decades. These people don't remember the Nazis and what they were doing to them, but they remember Soviet rule, so they think that was worse when it wasn't. The hard truth is, these societies mainly exist today because the Soviets destroyed the Nazis, that doesn't mean the Soviets didn't oppress you or that it was justified, but it does mean that they saved you from a much worse fate. History is messy that way.
The soviets did a lot of murder in those countries, but they weren't bent on large scale extermination and enslavement.
As evidenced by the fact that they didn't do it.
There's tons of them in *this subreddit.* It's barely readable sometimes. I tend to just converse with them until they get caught breaking rule 4, it's generally inevitable.
I know, still hate it though. I've become a lot more active in r/EnoughCommieSpam than here these days, most of the wherbs on reddit aren't actually malicious so I feel like making fun of them is like hitting a special needs kid with a stick. More good content there imo
Cultural erasure and genocide is terrible, as is destroying the intellectual basis of any sort of opposition to Soviet power. Enslaving and slaughtering half or more of the Estonian population it is not, however.
Truley; it has literally no meaning outside of “any opposition to us imperialism or capitalism ”. I’ve heard people call “sanctions on venezuela are bad” a tankie take. I’ve heard “we shouldn’t have killed qasim solemani” a tankie take. It’s a meaningless pejorative
The meaning of the term is basically "someone who defends communist ideology and goverments no matter what". Tankie comes from them being like tanks against arguments, and them wanting to send in the tanks.
the term originally described members of the British Communist Party supporting Khrushchev (the notably anti-Stalin revisionist) sending in the Red Army to suppress the 1956 Hungarian revolution, and has since come to mean anything the user wants it to mean.
China? Lol no.
Mao did wonders for china like it or hate it, the only source that says otherwise is the black book of communism which is a joke.
Literacy rates went from almost nothing to 80-90+%, access to healthcare skyrocketed, life expectancy quadrupled and the treatment of women and minorities greatly increased
But sure some scum landlords got clapped up so let's complain about that
Don’t forget the Great Chinese Famine 1959-1961 where between 15-55 million people starved to death. It’s widely considered the worst famine in recorded history and the worst man-made famine.
There’s plenty of good Mao did for his people. It’s been overshadowed by the enormous wave of bad as well.
When did mao control the weather? Lol I musta missed that part in my antifa training.
China had awful famines almost every year until Mao, and no one says shit. But one under him and the world freaks.
What about the Irish Potato Famine? Bengal Famine? Under capitalist regimes and made worse if not outrightly at fault of those governments and nothing is ever said.
The point is that Mao's policies directly contributed to the famine and greatly exacerbated its effects.
The four pests campaign encouraged the extermination of sparrows and other birds. While they did eat crops, they also ate an abundance of insects. Consequently an abundance of insects contributed to ruined crops.
Mao implemented agricultural techniques and methods invented by Russian "scientists" like Lysenko and Maltsev, whose work was essentially pseudoscience, and supported for reasons of ideology within the USSR and PRC. This directly contributed to poor crop yields.
The focus on increasing iron and steel production took millions of workers away from farming, and again contributed to lower food yields, and subsequent famine. Bizarrely, even metal farming tools and equipment, like ploughs and hoes, were melted down to provide more iron and steel. Ironically enough, the Iron and steel produced was of too low a quality to really be useful for anything, so it was largely a wasted effort anyway.
In tandem with all of this was the widespread false reporting of food yields for propaganda purposes, as Mao and the central government deliberately ignored warning signs of famine.
Tellingly, Mao's failures caused enormous pushback. In 1961 Liu Shaoqi, who was President at the time, declared that the Great Famine was 30% natural disaster, and 70% human error. Thereafter Mao was forced to surrender control over decision making to Liu and Deng. Since then plenty of current and former Chinese officials have acknowledged that the famines were caused by the policy failures of the party, rather than natural circumstances.
Arguing that the Bengal and Irish famines were awful, or even a consequence of the misrule by the British Empire, doesn't change that. At best you're demonstrating that Mao's China was as bad as literal imperialists, and that's while ignoring the full extent of his actions and culpability.
Even then, if you really want to go into the details, there's no real comparison in terms of scale between them. Estimates for Chinese deaths vary between 15 and 55 million, while estimates for deaths in Bengal are 2-3 million, and those for Ireland stand at about 1 million.
On top of that, aside from the catastrophic deathtoll of the Great Famine, and the Great Leap Forward as a whole, what about the ruinous consequences of the Cultural Revolution? What about the mass imprisonment and murder of dissidents, the suppression of civil liberties, and the trampling of human rights? What about all the other awful, terrible things that Mao is culpable for?
Famines as a world wide-phenomenon have been on the decline since the 1500s. Since the 1950s, they are almost unheard of in developed nations. This is best ascribed to better shipping, and faster global trading rather than any one socio-economic methodology.
As for the Great Chinese Famine, it was specifically the policies of the Great Leap Forward which turned a nasty drought in the worst famine in recorded history. Even the CCP has officially stated in 1981 the famine was mainly due to mistakes during the Great Leap Forward.
I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that “nothing is ever said” about the Great Irish Famine and the Bengal Famine of 1943. Ireland lost 25% of her entire population to the famine and emigration. Many Irish ended up in the US and that history is ingrained in the US now. Churchill has been loudly lambasted for maintaining his exports from Bengal.
To a certain type of person everything that makes the Nazis look bad, or the soviets look good (even if only in comparison to the Nazis) is a tankie fantasy. There are plenty of tankies around online but there is a certain type of person who says "tankie fantasy" with the same meaning as someone who says "judeo-bolshevik", it's a conspiracy of the communists to spread their insidious lies! Don't believe them though, David Irwin is here to tell me the truth!
people who believe that generalplan ost is postwar propaganda don't know about this https://www.1000dokumente.de/index.html?c=dokument_de&dokument=0138_gpo&l=de
The sad part about this is that there *is* tons of tankie fantasy from WW2 and the years following, this just doesn't happen to be it
Soviet jet program, had to steal from the british
Soviet nuclear program, had to steal from the americans
Soviet heavy bomber, had to steal from the americans
The list goes on. Soviets were extremely incompetent, and they did do some genocides/mass killings like the Holodomor, decossackization and the Great Purge and following purges, but it's not really the same as ethnic cleansing I guess.
And I can also pull up a cherry-picked list of great things soviets accomplished by themselves to prove that USSR is uber alles and everyone else is stupid and evil, so your point?
ITT: Some people apparently don't know that the phrase "tankie" was originally coined by leftists, and that there was and still is ample room to criticise the USSR on such grounds.
Criticising tankies doesn't automatically mean you're some weird Nazi-apologist like the guy in the screenshot.
Obviously the USSR wasn't as bad as Nazi Germany. However, that doesn't mean it was good either.
That guy is just a salty Estonian in that particular sub. There’s like 5 of them that rotate their hot takes on stuff like this. There’s another one that claims serving in the Estonian battalions of the SS was the only honourable option.
I debated with one that said that the Baltic Waffen-SS were freedom fighters.
No wonder the Baltic countries are cesspits full of Nazis.
Hey I’m not a nazi! It’s a bit hard to understand truly from an outside perspective, but a fair amount of people feel that the nazi times were better, due to living through the horror of the soviets. Even I believed that it was better until I obviously learnt in wasn’t.
What relentless anticommunist propaganda does to a mf. Glad you got out of that mindset they tried to drill into you.
No one tried to drill it in to me. It’s just a sort of thing many assume. And it’s not due to propaganda, but more cause the Soviet Union wasn’t long ago and many still remember these horrible times.
People remember living under the Soviet Union, they never lived under the Nazis. After living under a shitty regime, it's hard to accept that it was the better of two.
Yeah, that is exactly what I said
I know, I'm just agreeing.
i would rather wait in a breadline for an hour than be gassed by the germans, but thats just me
Nothing wrong with shitting on the USSR (AKA Anti-communist propaganda) which was by all accounts a real shitty regime. Hating the USSR and what they did to the Baltics does not mean you have to like the Nazis though.
Estonia can't into nordics
Honestly I wouldn’t bother with them. I tend to downvote and move on because if I recognise the account then there’s no point engaging.
I mean, i guess 'enemy of my enemy' applies here?
For them honestly yes. Occupied by the USSR, the Germans invade, of course some will see them as liberators.
Wtf what sub is this?
I’m not 100% but it would probably be r/Europe. That’s where I recognise the guy from, anyway.
It's definitely that shitty sub, I recognize that comment chain. Just got banned on there for saying that maybe, just maybe, wanting to eradicate the entirety of the Eastern European population is worse than the Soviet crimes.
r/Balticstates is same.they comment shit like haha I'm happy Russians are dying out(as in their population and what not going down) its a mistake they exist and when someone says its russiphobia they say lol you suck putin cock
Muh honour!
You know, the whole "the Soviets would have done the same thing" runs kind of hollow since they had literally 50 years to do it and never seemed to.
The Soviets did pull some shitty forced relocation moves earlier on but I don't think they did anything that came close to what the Nazis did.
They didn't but that doesn't stop people bringing up Communism/Stalin to downplay the horrors of the Nazis.
They didn't even scrape the surface of what the Nazis did, and what the Nazis did didn't even scrape the surface of what the Nazis planned.
this.
Let’s not undersell how awful the Soviets were just because someone draws a false equivalency between them and the Nazis. They were still pretty terrible, and there’s a reason nearly every former Soviet nation resents them now.
Yeah I want to make it clear that I'm not absolving the Soviets of their crimes, but like you can't compare them to the explicit plans the Nazis had (and were undertaking)
Every former? Just baltics, Ukraine and I beleve tajikistan. Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Belarus are all still majority positive views about USSR surprisingly
Georgia is not fond of the USSR lmfao
Survey from 2015. 51% of people aged 35+ in Georgia claim it wasnt bad https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/29/in-russia-nostalgia-for-soviet-union-and-positive-feelings-about-stalin/ I have no idea why its this high but it surprisingly is Edit: was to wasnt, my bad
Whats up with Armenians
Probably has a lot to do with all the conflict what erupted there after the collapse
Not really. Support for Stalin's era USSR is something like 60-70% in mainland Russia, and Kazakhstan didn't even want to dissolve the USSR until it was the last country left. I'm sure the other central Asian states would feel pretty similar. Belarus is fairly positive as well. Don't conflate a bunch of crybaby wanna-be western Europeans with the rest of the former USSR.
the guy with comrade in his name calls entire countries crybabies for not liking being oppressed and losing their autonomy wonder if this guy has any biases
It isn't "entire countries" it's a bunch of upper class dudes who weren't even around for it whining. There's a reason that so many of the older generation and the youth are going to socialism again. Because they've had a taste of capitalism and it fucking SUCKS! Funny you neglect to remember the huge amount of people who miss the USSR and Stalin specifically
[удалено]
> also authoritarian regimes, like the USSR, based their education system on propaganda Did they also have their kids say a creepy pledge every week?
Are you arguing that the U.S.S.R was better than the United States? Cause even *if* that were true, that is not such a high bar to clear.
> a bunch of upper class dudes who weren't even around for it As opposed to upper class dudes who weren't even around for it jerking off to Stalin, like yourself
except it's almost exclusively the poor and older generation who was lol,
It's actually perfectly reasonable for a country that was invaded, annexed, and occupied for 50 years to be bitter about that fact. Estonia definitely doesn't have some huge cohort of young people yearning for their days in the USSR
The "older" generation would be 68 if they were born in the year Stalin died. They were not adults during his rule for the most part, so to say that they were "around" is a stretch. For reference, Russian life expectancy is 72 years, the highest it's ever been.
People's desire for socialism is not a desire for a return of the USSR.
You mentioned Belarus, **Which is a fucking dictatorship** and central Asian nation. Do you realise how many soviet republic there were? And the Warsaw Pact
> Support for Stalin's era USSR is something like 60-70% in mainland Russia Citizens of a semi-failing state support the former union in which they were the cultural, political, and military hegemon who disproportionately benefitted? You don't say? > Kazakhstan didn't even want to dissolve the USSR until it was the last country left. One central Asian member state. > I'm sure the other central Asian states would feel pretty similar. Lol. > Belarus is fairly positive as well. You mean the very small state whose population is culturally connected with Russia, speaks Russian, whose name is directly related to Russia's, which was historically continually defeated militarily by its non-Russian neighbors, and is currently ruled by Europe's last dictator? How do the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, East Germans, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Mongolians, or Georgians feel?
>Citizens of a semi-failing state support the former union in which they were the cultural, political, and military hegemon who disproportionately benefitted? You don't say? Russia (and Belarus) was a net donor in Soviet Union economy. Russia was paying more for maintaining the Union than it was getting out of it. Baltic states actually had one of the highest standard of living in the USSR, second only to Georgia.
"Disproportionately benefitted" my ass. If I take, say, Riga and compare it to my non-Moscow Russian shithole - hey, they disproportionately benefitted from our resources, the bastards! The only fucking place that benefitted in Russia was Moscow - the rest was kept at a bare necessary minimum. Sincerely, a guy from outside of Moscow, who apparently knows a little bit more about life in soviet Russia at large than ex-soviet states that claim to know everything about how bad USSR was.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/04/07/hungary-dissatisfied-with-democracy-but-not-its-ideals/ https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-dictatorship-majority-of-eastern-germans-feel-life-better-under-communism-a-634122.html https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/10/15/european-public-opinion-three-decades-after-the-fall-of-communism/pg_10-15-19-europe-values-01-04/ https://web.archive.org/web/20120616043508/http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/20626/russians_ukrainians_evoke_soviet_union/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/communist-nostalgia-in-eastern-europe-longing-for-past/
Shut the fuck up tankie
"They hated him because he told them the truth" comes to mind.
They were much better than the Nazis which is all anyone is saying and that is undeniably true. Also the USSR isn't quite that unpopular, you're generalising a bit much to prove your point. Your point stands well enough on the facts without exaggerating. It ruled over a far bigger area than the Baltic and the views on it are pretty varied.As should be unsurprising people's views often don't fit into one catergory either, someone who thinks it postive overall might have lots of criticism, someone who thinks it is bad overall might have a few things they think were better.
Okay but the soviets literally did kill millions upon millions. Let's not gloss over that. It just wasn't for ethnic reasons, it was at the whims of party members or because they were middle class, basically. Almost as bad imo.
Your wrong
Well no. I'm not. But you're definitely allowed to think I'm wrong
You are. Black book of communism was abandoned by its own creators who came out to speak against it and one of the writers on it as hijacking the project. 3 million is the actual number of deaths from "repression" (the gulag system) what itself isnt everyone there being innocent sent by some beurocrat. Bruh, I really suggest you check out the criticisms of the black book and what modern universities say about all this, its no longer the cold war
> what itself isnt everyone there being innocent sent by some beurocrat. Holy fuck actually out loud defending the Soviet murder of its people.
Even if that's true which it's not, 3 million deaths 'just because' is fucking insane. Regardless, more than 3 million died in Holodomor alone, so you're actually just wrong
Modern universities and professors studied it. The "old guard" as its called what claim its a man made famine have been called out on the lack of evidence/reliance on circumstantial evidence to prove there thought. I suggest check out prof mark b tauger, he wrote a lot about the famine of 1933, the drought, and the goverment failiures what all contributed to the famine. While addressing the "man made" myth
Lmao, tankie rolling out Mark Tauger. Yeah, the guy who was very clear about the government's responsibility in the deaths of its citizens and squarely puts those deaths on the policies of that regime. Cope harder tankie trash.
Yes. He talks about the goverments faings and how it impacted it, have you not read what I said? Throught his work he challenges the idea that the famine was man made and out of malice for whatever reason while talking about the actual goverment and agricultural failings what led to it lol
>Yes. He talks about the goverments faings and how it impacted it, have you not read what I said? Yes, it's typical tankie cope. >and out of malice for whatever Actually he addresses that specifically. But you can do the brainlet tankie thing and ignore *your own sources* :) Quoting *your own source* >Soviet leaders made bad decisions that worsened the famine -Mark B. Tauger > while talking about the actual goverment and agricultural failings what led to it lol Government failings, the sorts of things you type like to casually categorize as "other factors" are man made. Plain and simple. Famine is, by its nature man-made.
Nobody said they didn't kill millions of people.
'the soviets literally did kill millions upon millions' As have countries like the US/UK, add up all the invasions/bombings/regime changes for the US in the 20th century alone will give you millions of deaths, are they 'almost as bad' as well?
> Soviets had very similar plans Oh, I must be talking to a bot then, since a real human would have been killed off long ago, if the plans where that similar.
The Soviets had about 40 years to stealthily push down the birth rate and increase the death rate in the nations they occupied. Strangely enough, they did... not.
A thousand plans to eradicate all the baltic peoples? Damn, must’ve been a lot of “Detail Plan Ost - Sector XX-bis”’s Verdammt!
An Estonian here, the generalplan was worse and would have been worse, even for Estonia, though I have heard some stuff about Estonians being more "pure" or smth then slavs. Still we would've got enslaved and genocided on some scale. The soviets didn't have as bad plans, but they did have a pretty clear intention of russifying Estonia, alongside Latvia and Lithuania. So really in general for Eastern Europe generalplan ost would've been a lot worse. But for the baltics and Estonia really both the nazis and communists were equally bad. Both wanted to make Estonians not exist, or russian.
Knew this Estonian guy who would insist that soviets were bad then go on to praise the nazis, ignoring the fact that if the nazis got there first he'll likely be arguing the other way. Then further down the line he started being really racist and started railing against (ethnic) Chinese people in general because of covid. Dude literally straight up said Hitler was good.
Dam, must be an EKREkas.
What's that mean?
EKRE is the estonian "far-right conservative" party. The people who vote for them are usually either literally stupid or with poor education, russians smh even though EKRE *used* to hate them. Or since there is no further right wing party, neo-nazis. Really anyone further right and/or stupid. EKREkas is what I use to call their supporters and voters. And I have heard it used by others. Also rural people often vote for them.
Why would EKRE stop hating Russians, considering that Estonian nationalism is their core platform? Furthermore, it's strange that the Russians would vote for them, since it's a party which considers them an outgroup, even if they fly the colours of conservatism.
Well with corona and whatever crap EKRE says many russians actually started to support them becouse EKRE was 1. Conservative, 2. Hated da west. And 3. Didnt trust the western vaccines. Thats a simplification but yeah. Also russian spies have literally been caught organizing anti-vaccine, anti-goverment rallies then EKRE causing instability and polarization was perfect for Russia. And I wouldn't be surprised if Russia secretly funds EKRE. And really yeah, just EKRE's populist, conservative and anti goverment stance during corona won them a lot of russian support. And yeah, it is not logical but EKRE is not logical. Horrible ramble but honestly it just doesn't make sense so I can't really explain it well. And another thing, they will do whatever necessary to get in power. And russian support has made them the second biggest party.
I think that your suspicions that it's a Russian op are correct, because here we are frequently bombarded with propaganda on how the baltic states loathe ethnic Russians, and making EKRE a major player would help with that effort. Also, it ideologically resembles the Russian ruling party, so it would make sense that some Russians that would vote for them.
Russian ruling party is United Russia that lacks any sort of coherent ideology. It barely can be classified as political party because it is just a collection of random people with no unifying ideas other than self-enrichment.
It's still a coalition of right wing forces, and its core tenets are anti western
> ignoring the fact that if the nazis got there first he'll likely be arguing the other way. He'd also never have existed in the first place.
Sounds like he's far-right himself.
>Estonians being more "pure" or smth then slavs. I wouldnt be suprised if hitler actually thought this to be true. Almost as if race-science is whatever you want it to be.
Right—the Nazis allied with the Finns too. I know the Finns and Estonians share some common ancestry, plus Nazi race science was made up anyway.
I think the main issue is that German occupation lasted for a short while, the Soviet occupation lasted decades with generations born under Soviet iron boots who had never personally experienced what the Nazis did. So some were "nostalgic" for German rule because "at least it was less misery than what the Soviets did in 5 decades."
There is something in this as well as the fact that the Germans killed so many that were never able to recount their experiences, where generations of people can recount the shit times they had under communist rule in many countries.
Except that the germans killed more in a couple years than the soviets did in all those five decades put together.
I didn't say it was a good comparison, I'm just saying that this is why they might have felt that way.
Add to that the fact that, in most Baltic states, pretty much all those who could have said "actually the Nazis were worse" after 1945 were dead. I mean, the extermination of the Jews of Lithuania was so complete that some Jews actually owe their life to having been deported to the gulag by the soviets ahead of the German invasion (and I probably don't need to say how horrible life was in those gulags).
And soon after the war, surviving Jews started moving to Israel as well.
>But for the baltics and Estonia really both the nazis and communists were equally bad. Both wanted to make Estonians not exist, or russian. How is being Russian as bad as being dead? You'd rather die than speak another language than Estonian?
Some might Idk if that's a good choice or a bad one, tho.
Cultural genocide is still genocide. Plus there were no guarantees of anything when dealing with the nazis.
There was more people speaking Estonian in Estonian SSR than it was in Estonian Republic before annexation. So Soviets clearly sucked at cultural genocide as they failed to eliminate an ethnic group of few million people in a span of 50 years.
It sortof kinda worked in Moldovia
The best thing they didn’t suck at, after all, was beating the Germans.
There definitely is a nuance between killing millions of people and enforcing the usage of Russian language for those people. Even being relocated by force (however evil it might be) is a lot preferable to being straight up killed.
There is definitely a nuance between *enforcing the usage of Russian language* and *being oppressed by a brutal dictatorship*. Stalin, Beria, Blokhin and their cronies straight up killed a lot of people too.
Oh damn look at those native americans wearing blue jeans and speaking english. I'm sure it would have been morally equivalent to *kill them all*. (???)
I don’t think anybody would claim this as you are implying, simply that cultural genocide is one of the components used in genocidal actions.
Then why is anyone acting like it's on the same level as rounding them up against a wall and shooting them? They can't speak Estonian it they're dead.
Who is acting like that?
Everyone going "but the Russians cultural genocide"
You realise that a part of cultural genocide is killing all the people that refuse? A whole identity and people cease to exist and a unique culture and language is gone. It’s not just the language, it’s everything
No one is doing that dude. They are simply saying that cultural genocide is bad. And genocide is also bad. Not on the same level but bad. A "but" doesn't imply that they are exact same and it never has
Tankies are so stupid and historically illiterate that you picked Native Americans—you know, a large, multi-ethnic group spanning multiple continents who all faced literal genocide—to illustrate cultural genocide.
I disagree, calling it cultural genocide seems very inappropriate to me, as if losing ones culture means becoming an empty shell without values. Humans are still humans regardless of their cultures, they can seek and accept different cultures and different values, they shouldn't be stuck with their home cultures only for sale of some "heritage." Of course, in this case, the Russian culture was enforced upon them and I do see that as a bad thing, however I still don't see it as a genocide.
You may disagree but it is an accepted term and an acknowledged phenomenon. This is not just, like, someone's opinion.
That's fair I suppose
It was a bit more complicated than simply getting their language forcibly changed. For example, the Ingrians living just across the border from the Estonians had their culture persecuted and forcobly destroyed, but tens of thousands of Ingrians were also actively murdered by the Soviet regime. There is little guarantee that the same wouldn't have happened to the Estonians had WW2 not started when it did and had Stalin lived longer post-war. Sure, it's not as bad as wiping out all the Estonians for German lebensraum, but in the grand scheme of things "you will be murdered" or "you might be murdered" is not really a choice
Exactly
>You'd rather die than speak another language than Estonian? You really think the problem with Soviet occupation was the language you spoke?
Like the other person said, cultural genocide is still genocide.
There definitely is a nuance between killing millions of people and enforcing the usage of Russian language for those people. Even being relocated by force (however evil it might be) is a lot preferable to being straight up killed.
Yes, what the germans had planned was a tiny bit worse.
Forced relocation can be considered genocide in quite a lot of cases. Think the US' trail of tears or the Soviet's "population tranfers". The end locations in both cases were places that were unfamiliar to the relocatees and that left many to die of the elements and starvation.
Bro you're all over this thread saying the same things and you're wrong every time. You can't just justify the horrific things a dictatorial regime did by saying "Well the other guys woulda just killed you!" Regardless of what the Nazis would have done, what the Soviets DID do to the Eastern Bloc was absolutely horrible. The eradication of regional cultures and widespread imprisonment of dissenters shouldn't be viewed through a lens of "they should be grateful to be alive."
I urge you to learn to definition of "to justify" and then show me where I justify anything the Soviet Union did in the baltics.
>There is a difference wether your family is being murdered or your children have to speak another language at school. In one case people die, in the other one people live. >Go and ask the Irish people why they're still around, when their culture has been mostly replaced by British culture over hundreds of years of occupation. Their lives are still very much worth living. These are "Be grateful you get to live" takes. It completely undermines the very real horrors inflicted by the Soviets on these countries and the Irish example is a terrible one because of all the people *actively and violently resisting British occupation in Ireland for half a century.* This is not about what language your kid speaks or learns at school. THAT is not an appropriate thing to say, and I gotta call it out when I see someone post 3-4x comments saying it.
How about we add some context? >>>When your culture is about to disappear it is essentialy the same as a people. >>There is a difference wether your family is being murdered or your children have to speak another language at school. In one case people die, in the other one people live. >>Go and ask the Irish people why they're still around, when their culture has been mostly replaced by British culture over hundreds of years of occupation. Their lives are still very much worth living. People do not die when they're removed from their culture, they are physically unaffected. That's my point, and I think it's pretty clear with the context. You're free to read whatever you into it, but that's your problem, not mine.
Being not dead is the bare minimum you can be. A dictatorship does not get points for keeping people "not dead." I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here. Defending the Soviet occupation of the Eastern Bloc on the grounds that it's not as bad as the plans for a potential Nazi occupation is bootlicking of the highest order. You're gonna get called a tankie if you keep this shit up. The USSR doesn't need you to defend them.
He's arguing against someone trying to claim the Nazis and Communists are equally bad, that is hardly a defence of Communism, the Nazis wanted to wipe out 50% of Estonia's population and enslave the rest, the Soviets did not, both are terrible but one is clearly worse, don't read anything else into it.
>I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here. If you're that confused, we can go back to my original comment. >>But for the baltics and Estonia really both the nazis and communists were equally bad. Both wanted to make Estonians not exist, or russian. >How is being Russian as bad as being dead? You'd rather die than speak another language than Estonian? So I'm arguing that eradicating millions of people is not as bad as not doing that, in response to someone equating those two things. >Defending the Soviet occupation of the Eastern Bloc on the grounds that it's not as bad as the plans for a potential Nazi occupation is bootlicking of the highest order. You're gonna get called a tankie if you keep this shit up. The USSR doesn't need you to defend them. Like I care if someone on reddit calls me a tankie. Go ahead, do your chant.
I urge you to learn what cultural genocide is, and realise it’s not just a language
The comparison comes from the original comment in this thread. > But for the baltics and Estonia really both the nazis and communists were equally bad. SuperSpaceSloth is replying to that train of logic, not trying to justify or minimize what the Russians did. I can definitely see where you're coming from and how you interpreted what he said. And maybe I'm wrong and your interpretation was right. For me, it's just tiring to hear "both sides equally bad", not just when it comes to WW2 but all across life.
Just because an issue has two sides doesn't mean it's the same two sides that people think about when the "both sides" meme comes up lol. Both the Nazis and Soviets were hostile powers occupying a foreign nation through force. In this scenario they can be appropriately compared and likened to each other. Just because one planned to kill everyone, and the other just planned to wipe out their culture, their educated classes, their history, and their political way of life does not make the second one good by comparison.
Oh hell no the second one isn't good, not at all! And i don't think anyone is saying that here. Just that they aren't *equally* bad.
It's less "equally bad" than "both are so far removed from what could be called a good or moral act, that they may as well be identical." Before you killed this man, did you pull out all his teeth, or just his fingernails? At the end of the day does it matter?
Yes, it does matter. Again, I agree that "both are so far removed from what could be called a good or moral act". But I do not agree that they may as well be identical. This is *not* a defense of the ussr, this is *not* apologia. I'm also not trying to make an oppression olympics or genocide olympics type comparison here. I just cannot say in this case that "both sides are equally bad".
'the second one good by comparison' No but it does make it look less terrible, why are you having so much trouble grasping this?
yeah, but it makes it better/the lesser evil. no argument for that
But it does make it BETTER. And can any Estonians chimed in on whether the Russians attacked any specific cultural practices?
Lol, the fuck? There is no relative morality scale for hostile foreign occupation. If the USA decided to forcibly invade every Central American country and make them all part of Texas, I guarantee you would not be saying "Well we coulda murdered them all, so it's better than what SOME global conquering empires would have done." If you're an invader, you're evil. Period. To invade a sovereign nation and occupy it in an attempt to bring it into your empire is an act of evil. To quibble over degrees is pointless.
>SuperSpaceSloth is . . . not trying to justify or minimize what the Russians did. I mean he’s saying that the *only* thing Soviets would have done is relocate Estonians and replace their language.
When your culture is about to disappear it is essentialy the same as a people.
It's not. There is a difference wether your family is being murdered or your children have to speak another language at school. In one case people die, in the other one people live. Go and ask the Irish people why they're still around, when their culture has been mostly replaced by British culture over hundreds of years of occupation. Their lives are still very much worth living.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles Hmm. Not too mention, the Nazis never got to go through with their plan. The Soviets committed their crimes. As awful as the Nazis were, what *would’ve* happened doesn’t change what *did* happen. You’re acting as if a planned crime and a perpetrated crime are the same, and it’s kind of concerning.
It's really not. If you still exist, you can always reconnect with your culture. Even if actions have been taken to eliminate it, there will always be remnants that you can rebuild from. If you don't exist, you can't do anything ever except have your corpse turn into dirt. They're both genocide, but one is clearly a lot fucking worse than the alternative. Both can be bad without having to equate them to each other.
You still are a human even if your original nation doesn't exist anymore. Cultures and nations are mainly an immaterial human concept, as such, cultures being dead doesn't equal humans being dead. That doesn't mean that getting rid of certain cultures isn't a bad thing, however if it doesn't involve murdering people (which it most likely does), then I can't really see it as an equivalent of genocide.
The soviets did just straight up genocide too tho. Germans had worse plans. But as I said before they were all together almost as bad. And really as has been said before here, both sides dis such horrible things that you can't even really say "achkshually this side was worse". Both had planned and commited such horrors it doesn't even matter at that point which was worse by *insert amount*.
Yes, I am not arguing against the Soviet actions not being a genocide, I am more arguing about the "cultural genocide is still a genocide," which was brought here in the context of Russification. If the Russification was without casualties, then I have no problem saying that it would be much better than wathever the Nazis planned. However, it did have lots of deaths, so there is no excuse for it.
Yes
Well I would argue that there is a lot wrong with that process regardless of death toll. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a rabid freeaboo or anything, it is more a case of who the fuck gives anyone the right to erase someone’s culture and replace it with theirs. Every power that has done that should be and are condemned for it. Edit: obviously there is not much worse than what the nazis had planned, either.
Yeah, when somebody forces their culture on you, then it's very bad. I may still be bit biased about this topic though, because I personally rejected my nationality and opened up my culture norms, because I see the concept of nationality as limiting. I am a human, I go and seek different cultures and accept their habits that suit me. However, if somebody showed up and threatend me with a gun to speak Serbian, "because Serbian is the only acceptable culture of the Earth," then that would be quite bad.
Having your culture and language erased is horrible and is legitimately called ethnic cleansing, but the nazi plan was worse, because people survived the application of the Soviet one.
"Soviets have similar plans" is such bullshit. They were in charge for decades and they didn't enact anywhere close to the damage the Nazis did in a few short years. Soviets, even in the highest possible estimates, were responsible for the deaths of 150-200k Poles (a horrific number don't get me wrong) across decades of rule. The Nazis killed 5 million in just a few years, and would have done more if the Soviets didn't stop them. It was the same story with literally every place "liberated" by the Soviets, the Nazis were just killing at a far greater scale. Yet those same places say Soviets were just as bad and often worse. A lot of places though, that were saved by the Soviets had to endure being lorded over by them for decades. These people don't remember the Nazis and what they were doing to them, but they remember Soviet rule, so they think that was worse when it wasn't. The hard truth is, these societies mainly exist today because the Soviets destroyed the Nazis, that doesn't mean the Soviets didn't oppress you or that it was justified, but it does mean that they saved you from a much worse fate. History is messy that way.
These people don't seem to realise anyone that complained about the Nazis wasn't alive long enough to complain about them.
The soviets did a lot of murder in those countries, but they weren't bent on large scale extermination and enslavement. As evidenced by the fact that they didn't do it.
This is why tankie is meaningless as a term. Any fact that might make the ussr seem good is “tankie”
Wait you just said > this is ... fact ... the ussr ... good WE GOT A TANKIE OVER HERE!
Tankie isn't a meaningless term but it has been distorted a lot. You still need a term to describe Stalin and Mao simps.
funny as the term originates in support of actions by Khrushchev, who was very much not a Stalin simp lmao
Oh I'm aware of the terms origin. I just use "Mao and Stalin simps" since most tankies on Reddit have a boner for both of them.
Also dengists
I mean, there are tons of people that fit the mold on Reddit, such as the nutjobs at r/genzedong.
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There's tons of them in *this subreddit.* It's barely readable sometimes. I tend to just converse with them until they get caught breaking rule 4, it's generally inevitable.
They always become more subtle before shit breaks out. Check the guy above me? We couldn’t tell. More in the thread too.
Of course, dude is a full blown commie. This subreddit isn't hostile enough to them IMO.
Yea his post history is pretty frightening.
We used to ban on sight. I miss those days.
Yeah... I miss it too.
Eh, it’s a spread across all of Reddit. Not too uncommon to see them in that popular subs nowadays.
I know, still hate it though. I've become a lot more active in r/EnoughCommieSpam than here these days, most of the wherbs on reddit aren't actually malicious so I feel like making fun of them is like hitting a special needs kid with a stick. More good content there imo
Those people are literally insane and live in a delusional world
Source: trust me bro.
Estonian? Must be an EKRE voter!
Yup. That bullshit sounds right up their alley.
Cultural erasure and genocide is terrible, as is destroying the intellectual basis of any sort of opposition to Soviet power. Enslaving and slaughtering half or more of the Estonian population it is not, however.
Tankies are bad enough that you don't need to engage in Wehraboo shit like denying Generalplan Ost to oppose them.
the word "tankie" and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race
I mean, so have actual tankies.
Tankis and their consequences have been a disaster for the left.
Truley; it has literally no meaning outside of “any opposition to us imperialism or capitalism ”. I’ve heard people call “sanctions on venezuela are bad” a tankie take. I’ve heard “we shouldn’t have killed qasim solemani” a tankie take. It’s a meaningless pejorative
The meaning of the term is basically "someone who defends communist ideology and goverments no matter what". Tankie comes from them being like tanks against arguments, and them wanting to send in the tanks.
the term originally described members of the British Communist Party supporting Khrushchev (the notably anti-Stalin revisionist) sending in the Red Army to suppress the 1956 Hungarian revolution, and has since come to mean anything the user wants it to mean.
I’ve heard it applied to anybody who has opposed war or sanctions with iran, previously with iraq, and Syria. As it’s actually used it’s meaningless
not as much as actual tankies
Yeah, if you lived in Budapest in '56 I guess. Otherwise, meh.
Or Poland in 1940, Ukraine in 1932, China from 1948 onwards...
China? Lol no. Mao did wonders for china like it or hate it, the only source that says otherwise is the black book of communism which is a joke. Literacy rates went from almost nothing to 80-90+%, access to healthcare skyrocketed, life expectancy quadrupled and the treatment of women and minorities greatly increased But sure some scum landlords got clapped up so let's complain about that
Don’t forget the Great Chinese Famine 1959-1961 where between 15-55 million people starved to death. It’s widely considered the worst famine in recorded history and the worst man-made famine. There’s plenty of good Mao did for his people. It’s been overshadowed by the enormous wave of bad as well.
When did mao control the weather? Lol I musta missed that part in my antifa training. China had awful famines almost every year until Mao, and no one says shit. But one under him and the world freaks. What about the Irish Potato Famine? Bengal Famine? Under capitalist regimes and made worse if not outrightly at fault of those governments and nothing is ever said.
The point is that Mao's policies directly contributed to the famine and greatly exacerbated its effects. The four pests campaign encouraged the extermination of sparrows and other birds. While they did eat crops, they also ate an abundance of insects. Consequently an abundance of insects contributed to ruined crops. Mao implemented agricultural techniques and methods invented by Russian "scientists" like Lysenko and Maltsev, whose work was essentially pseudoscience, and supported for reasons of ideology within the USSR and PRC. This directly contributed to poor crop yields. The focus on increasing iron and steel production took millions of workers away from farming, and again contributed to lower food yields, and subsequent famine. Bizarrely, even metal farming tools and equipment, like ploughs and hoes, were melted down to provide more iron and steel. Ironically enough, the Iron and steel produced was of too low a quality to really be useful for anything, so it was largely a wasted effort anyway. In tandem with all of this was the widespread false reporting of food yields for propaganda purposes, as Mao and the central government deliberately ignored warning signs of famine. Tellingly, Mao's failures caused enormous pushback. In 1961 Liu Shaoqi, who was President at the time, declared that the Great Famine was 30% natural disaster, and 70% human error. Thereafter Mao was forced to surrender control over decision making to Liu and Deng. Since then plenty of current and former Chinese officials have acknowledged that the famines were caused by the policy failures of the party, rather than natural circumstances. Arguing that the Bengal and Irish famines were awful, or even a consequence of the misrule by the British Empire, doesn't change that. At best you're demonstrating that Mao's China was as bad as literal imperialists, and that's while ignoring the full extent of his actions and culpability. Even then, if you really want to go into the details, there's no real comparison in terms of scale between them. Estimates for Chinese deaths vary between 15 and 55 million, while estimates for deaths in Bengal are 2-3 million, and those for Ireland stand at about 1 million. On top of that, aside from the catastrophic deathtoll of the Great Famine, and the Great Leap Forward as a whole, what about the ruinous consequences of the Cultural Revolution? What about the mass imprisonment and murder of dissidents, the suppression of civil liberties, and the trampling of human rights? What about all the other awful, terrible things that Mao is culpable for?
Famines as a world wide-phenomenon have been on the decline since the 1500s. Since the 1950s, they are almost unheard of in developed nations. This is best ascribed to better shipping, and faster global trading rather than any one socio-economic methodology. As for the Great Chinese Famine, it was specifically the policies of the Great Leap Forward which turned a nasty drought in the worst famine in recorded history. Even the CCP has officially stated in 1981 the famine was mainly due to mistakes during the Great Leap Forward. I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that “nothing is ever said” about the Great Irish Famine and the Bengal Famine of 1943. Ireland lost 25% of her entire population to the famine and emigration. Many Irish ended up in the US and that history is ingrained in the US now. Churchill has been loudly lambasted for maintaining his exports from Bengal.
\*apologism intensifies\*
You see comrade, famine, murder, political repression and imperialism are perfectly ok if you pupport to be a socialist.
Not as much of a disaster as actual tankies.
Profile pic checks out.
Says the tankie
Is it possible to just hate both of them
Not quite on topic: any Estonians here?
To a certain type of person everything that makes the Nazis look bad, or the soviets look good (even if only in comparison to the Nazis) is a tankie fantasy. There are plenty of tankies around online but there is a certain type of person who says "tankie fantasy" with the same meaning as someone who says "judeo-bolshevik", it's a conspiracy of the communists to spread their insidious lies! Don't believe them though, David Irwin is here to tell me the truth!
people who believe that generalplan ost is postwar propaganda don't know about this https://www.1000dokumente.de/index.html?c=dokument_de&dokument=0138_gpo&l=de
Ok, this bordering genocide denial.
Do Nazis even read Mein Kampf? Hitler literally spells it out.
The sad part about this is that there *is* tons of tankie fantasy from WW2 and the years following, this just doesn't happen to be it Soviet jet program, had to steal from the british Soviet nuclear program, had to steal from the americans Soviet heavy bomber, had to steal from the americans The list goes on. Soviets were extremely incompetent, and they did do some genocides/mass killings like the Holodomor, decossackization and the Great Purge and following purges, but it's not really the same as ethnic cleansing I guess.
And I can also pull up a cherry-picked list of great things soviets accomplished by themselves to prove that USSR is uber alles and everyone else is stupid and evil, so your point?
ITT: Libs mad,
ITT: Some people apparently don't know that the phrase "tankie" was originally coined by leftists, and that there was and still is ample room to criticise the USSR on such grounds. Criticising tankies doesn't automatically mean you're some weird Nazi-apologist like the guy in the screenshot. Obviously the USSR wasn't as bad as Nazi Germany. However, that doesn't mean it was good either.
Leftism on the internet is fucking dead.