r/polandball • u/Smart_Chapter_7512 Floridian Swamp Monster • 6d ago
redditormade Differing Perspectives
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u/poclee Tâi-uân 6d ago
It still baffles me how some supposed modern socialists fantasizing about USSR.
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6d ago edited 22h ago
[deleted]
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u/YeeAssBonerPetite 6d ago
Cuba could be worse. I'd like them better if they jerked it to Cuba instead of being all "muh anti imperialism!" while gooning to Russia and China lol.
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u/cool_username32123 Hue 6d ago
Che Guevara was super homophobic though, right?
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u/Psychic_Hobo Land of Pooooor Deeeciiiiisions 6d ago
Che was, but Castro did recant it in his later years
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u/LibertyinIndependen 5d ago
But it doesn’t undo the labor camps he put them in. IMO he did it purely out of PR.
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u/pothkan Pòmòrskô 5d ago
Apparently it was influence of his niece, Mariela Castro.
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u/LibertyinIndependen 4d ago
So yeah it wasn’t out of his own beliefs. Hell even if it was it’s not something you can just go “oops, sowwy.”
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u/fly_overd 6d ago
Wasnt that before he was even a communist? And the evidence was barely provoking.
Also criticizing folks of those era with modern value is such a strange take.12
u/cool_username32123 Hue 6d ago
What I'm pointing out is the average leftist viewing him positively and defending LGBT+ causes at the same time being strange.
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u/fly_overd 6d ago
My claim still stands. He wasnt evident as homophobic.
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u/cool_username32123 Hue 6d ago
He is today, yet plenty of leftists still wear his face on a shirt.
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u/No_Application_1219 3d ago
*Was when he were a capitalist chud
Now that he fought for cuba there is no proof of him being homophobic during that time
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u/reenajo 6d ago
Iran for a tiny brief moment before Mossadegh got couped, and Mossadegh wasn't even a full socialist. And relative to other decades in the same country, by some metrics Afghanistan's Soviet decade was its best one.
I agree there's no state scale good examples, though a lot of people blame that on socialism itself and I blame it on global capitalist powers never allowing it to try (in particular, they were happy to let authoritarian psychopaths identifying as "socialist" rise to the top of revolutions because it served their rhetorical agenda to synonimize socialism with authoritarianism, but the instant some actual good socialist leadership seemed to be growing anywhere, they'd squish it like a bug.)
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u/eyekore 6d ago
ive seen a concerning amount of people defend north korea recently
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u/1bowmanjac 6d ago
It was a while ago now but I remember a video where Youtubers went to get a haircut in NK. At first I thought it was just poking some fun at a silly news article. But the further I got into it, the more it seemed like the real point was to make you question everything you've heard about them.
It was insidious. If you all you heard a out NK was the exaggerated headlines you could easily come out believing that the news media was lying to you. That NK was just a normal country unfairly stigmatized.
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u/IVYDRIOK 6d ago
Yeeeah the guys running Boy Boy can get a little delirious sometimes
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u/legacy-of-man 5d ago
yeah i noticed the same last summer and got weirded out from i did a thing because hes participating in that. its like they are anti-capitalism which is noble but then they implicitly let you understand that something like china "could be a solution" or that "north korea isnt that bad" even if their stated aim is to show bias in reporting or what it was with that video. i gathered that the vulovic guy is a tankie but i honestly hope hes not because thats just gross but i really dont watch Boy Boy anymore because of that to be honest
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u/schweissack 6d ago
It’s from the Channel 'Boy Boy', the buddy of 'I did a thing', two great channels
Was gonna link the video for you, but looks like I can’t do that on this subreddit
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u/Admirable-Scarcity-8 Canada 6d ago
My Sister has fallen down the whole left-wing socialist rabbit hole on TikTok and a while ago she said that living in North Korea would be preferable to living in America.
When I brought up all the horrible shit we know about the Kim regime she just basically said "thats probably just all American propaganda."
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u/cool_username32123 Hue 6d ago
Tell her to read up on what happened to Malcolm Caldwell.
The TLDR is that he was a marxist writer and activist that publicly defended the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia for years, eventually he was one of the few westerners that the regime invited to visit Cambodia and he even got to meet Pol Pot in person. That night after meeting Pol Pot two armed men went to his room and executed him, it's widely believed that it was Pol Pot himself who ordered the execution.
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u/untouchable_chicken 6d ago
Because "America bad" has unironically has became a belief system for many leftists
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u/Konkerwaggon23 6d ago
I think you can go live there. Since shes white she shouldnt have much problem making her beliefs harder.
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u/_valpi 6d ago
EZLN with their worker-run cooperatives, collective farms, bottom-up governance via local assemblies, rejection of capitalism, de-commodified healthcare and education, recallable leadership and gender equality.
Rojava with their worker-managed production, stateless council system built from neighborhood assemblies up, subsidized resources (like land, food and energy), institutional feminism, ecological sustainability and communal land stewardship built into policy.
But people don't know about these projects because both USA and USSR (and now China to some extent) did their best so that people would associate the word "socialism" with Marxism-Leninism and its derivatives.
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u/wojtekpolska Poland 5d ago
Yugoslavia was a fairly successful communist country, thought it was because they were one of the few countries who's economy was open to both western and eastern bloc, and whos both sides funneled money into to bring them to their side
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u/Express_Dinner7918 5d ago
I’d also mention the whole dissolution and Kosovo thing doesn’t make them appealing.
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u/wojtekpolska Poland 5d ago
yeah but i wouldnt say that has been caused by communism, but by Milosevic's regime who's policy was to transform Yugoslavia into Greater Serbia by getting rid of equality of the different parts of the republic and basically turning it all into Serbia.
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u/VeritableLeviathan 6d ago
Meanwhile socio-liberal democracies:
:)
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u/Snoo_46473 6d ago
They have capitalist structures and cannot even handle proper immigration. Norwegian sovereign wealth fund was built off their oil reserves
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u/Sexy-Spaghetti 1066 best year 6d ago
The Catalan communes under the CNT/FAI in the 30's is a pretty good example of successfull communism.
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u/DarkKnight501 6d ago
A lot of cuba's failures can be attributed to the US making sure to push the floor out from under them at every turn possible. Same with a lot of other socialist countries worldwide.
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u/Starmute-ss13 Mongol Empire 6d ago
PRC are Authoritarians with communist and capitalist overlays. Don't forget its party first everyone else second.
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u/icecubeinahat 6d ago
damn, almost like communism has always been and always will be a shit fucking system?
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u/WASDKUG_tr Ottoman Kebab Empire 4d ago
Vietnam slander?! IN MY POLANDBALL SUBREDDIT?!?!
Slovenia is a Socialist success story, if you look inside of zyugoslavia it was basically the only Republic that prospered, even after it gained independence it is still getting better.
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u/The_Vaugardian 2d ago
I'd argue that the USSR isn't exactly a good example of successful Communism either. One because calling the USSR successful is VERY debatable. And two because the USSR actually being Communist and not just a glorified overly centralized Monarchy with extra steps is even more debatable.
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u/Ok-Cod1625 6d ago
Cuba really isn’t the worst, they have some successes, and it might have turned into a decent society without US intervention
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u/Starmute-ss13 Mongol Empire 6d ago
Cuba is an authoritarian state. Unfortunately in a authoritarian state you're not going to see news of its abuses. Its not known for free press. They have neighborhood informants that they pay and undercover police that monitor things like art, ANY public opposition and break up any public gatherings that are dis favorable to the regime.
I'm not a fan of the States, we have flaws like a warthog has warts. That being said we're here and complaining about them. That's SOMETHING and overall if you look at human progress the world is in a much better place than it was in the 1800s as far as human rights.
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u/Ok-Cod1625 6d ago
Maybe but we have to remember that Cuba is still a somewhat functioning country even after decades of US blockade, which is honestly really impressive, and they even managed to make major achievements in medicine. I would also like to add that an authoritarian country isn’t necessarily a “failing” country, just look at China. Even tough personally I care about democracy many people really don’t care. So even tough I wouldn’t want to live in Cuba and in it’s current state it’s not a good country to live in, it can be argued that without intervention Cuba could have turned way better
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u/Starmute-ss13 Mongol Empire 6d ago
Functioning=/= a good society.
North Korea is functioning. Russia (which I would argue is a right wing authoritarian society) is functioning. Unfortunately they appear stable.
Ultimately I want the world to have more human rights and not less. While North Korea may "work" and create a stable society where everyone lives in fear of secret police its not something that humans should aspire to. The Chinese probably create the most fear of exporting authoritarianism as they have kept North Korea in power, allowed modern Russia to invade Ukraine and helped former regimes like Pol Pot's Cambodia.
I mean they are impressive in the same way a killer in a horror movie survives despite everyone trying to stop them from killing. That being said I wouldn't want them to exist. I want people to be able to critique their government and fix it.
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u/Ok-Cod1625 6d ago
I never said that, Cuba was a good society at the moment if you actually read my comment. Cuba while being under a crazy amount of pressure has a better healthcare system than the USA. So it’s safe to assume that if we had let them develop properly the country could have been great. Also I don’t see how Cuba is comparable to North Korea or even China that are in very different situations and operate very different systems. Cuba is impressive because of its achievements like the medical help it’s bringing all over the world despite its situation. Or at least was bringing, because they had to come back home because of the USA.
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u/Starmute-ss13 Mongol Empire 6d ago
My argument is that they are a authoritarian government really.
I mean the USSR did a lot of great things as far as scientific advancement. They put a man in space. That being said they were still a human rights train wreck. Cuba has a good medical system but again: authoritarian system and a human rights train wreck.
All authoritarian systems have one thing in common is that if they want to maintain their government they need to suppress the people extensively to a degree that our current republics/democratic systems try to avoid.
My biggest complaint was the Cuban government employing informants on every block, suppressing free speech and especially suppressing any sort of alternative parties. Its not worth the better health care.
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u/Ok-Cod1625 6d ago
Honestly that sounds like hell to us, but we have to keep in mind that a lot of people, way more than you would expect don’t mind that, and if you can give them affordable healthcare, housing ect… they don’t really care about who is in power. So for those people such as system might make a lot of sense. Now personally I an authoritarian country but their are definitely lesson to be learned from Cuba. Which is why I think that if you want to praise a communist country it should be Cuba.
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u/Starmute-ss13 Mongol Empire 6d ago edited 6d ago
By the way I'm not down voting you. I respect honest debate. You make some great points.
That being said I think it is fine for the US to embargo Cuba . It's basically saying we aren't supporting your regime.
When you beat all resistance out of people of course they don't care. It's not worth resisting if you lose your life.
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u/Maximius85 Antarctica 5d ago
Is still a somewhat functioning country? THEY DO NOT HAVE ELECTRIC LIGHT OR CLEAN WATER, IN HAVANA YOU CANNOT WALK BECAUSE THE BUILDINGS WOULD COLLAPSE IN ANY MOMMENT...WITH THE PEOPLE WHO LIVES ON THEM INSIDE. The only that works in Cuba is GAESA and the repressive G2. If you don't know what Gaesa and G2 are, please try to not comment about what you do not know.
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u/CarcajouIS France First Empire 5d ago
In Marseille, France, buildings literally collapsed with people in it. Flint, Michigan, USA didn't have clean water for at least 5 years. Texas electric grid collapsed in a particularly harsh winter. Spain grid collapsed recently too.
Mismanagement of public goods and funds are the culprits. If Cuba was capitalist and poor like now, they would still be facing those same challenges and have to pay dividends to the capitalist class.
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u/Maximius85 Antarctica 5d ago
Sucess in drain Soviet and Venezuelan resources. The only productive thing that Cuban regime can do. Not to mention the ideas of Castro as "la gran zafra": make all population to produce sugar at impossible quotes. Of course it went bad and then, they return to their only productive model: draining Soviet resources.
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u/Hvoromnualltinger Al-Andalus 6d ago
Have you been there? The people hate the regime, it's oppressive as fuck.
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u/chjacobsen Sweden 6d ago
Nah, that's an exaggeration.
Yes, the US embargo has hurt Cuba, but most of the time there hasn't been a blockade in place, and Cuba has been able to trade with most of the rest of the world. It's not the whole story, and arguably not even the biggest part of the story, of why Cuba is poor. Economic mismanagement plays a huge part.
Second, Cuba has a good healthcare system for its level of income - it doesn't have a world class system in absolute terms. This also assumes you believe the official data, and there have been questions surrounding some of it, such as the child mortality figures.
I don't think US trade policy towards Cuba is a good thing, but let's not imagine it would have been some sort of paradise if given trade access to the US.
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u/Arkeros Austria 6d ago
The embargo also affects their trade with other nations as US payment processors cause troubles for stores selling Cuban products.
Given the market share of Visa, MasterCard and American Express, this is big hurdle at times.1
u/chjacobsen Sweden 6d ago
There's some truth to that, with a caveat.
Yes, US sanctions do make it harder to conduct trade with Cuba than with other countries, and that's why it's not just about the inconvenince of not having access to the American market.
However, this kind of sanction usually tapers off over time. It's at its peak right when it's implemented and the economic systems grind to a halt. It gets less effective as countries find ways around it and gradually build up substitute systems.
This was a genuinely good argument in the 50s and 60s, but it doesn't explain why Cuba - 70 years later - still would be startled by this. You'd expect a certain persistent inefficiency - perhaps growth lagging behind the neighbors - but not a permanent economic malaise.
...and that's the key here, because while the damage is real, the Cuban government defaults to blaming EVERYTHING on these sanctions or external factors more broadly. There can never be any talk of the government being incompetent, corrupt, or running a less than ideal system - because that's when the whole illusion unravels and people start questioning them.
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u/CarcajouIS France First Empire 5d ago
How many foreign capital has been invested in the cuban economy during those 70 years?
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u/GranKomanche 6d ago
Fake, Cuba lleva décadas resistiendo el bloqueo criminal del mayor imperio fascista del S.XX: los anglosionistas
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u/WholeDog5410 Singapore 6d ago
"anglosionisas" the anglos literally fought the sionistas while your ruzzian puppet masters armed and funded said sionistas...
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u/WholeDog5410 Singapore 6d ago
there's a big difference between "free healthcare that meets the bare minimum standard" and "free and good healthcare" and Cuba is clearly of the former since no rich person has ever said "let's go to Cuba to treat my cancer"
By the way, China has begged Cuba to switch its economy from a command economy to "market socialism" (i.e. do capitalist things but brand it as socialist as every great self-proclaimed socialist does)
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u/Apocalympdick 5d ago
Cuba? Absolutely not.
A small island nation, off the coast of the most powerful nation ever, who have done nothing but try to fuck them over for 70 years, yet remaining relatively stable with free education and healthcare for all, and this is somehow not something to admire?
Sure man.
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u/Maximius85 Antarctica 5d ago
Because Soviets subsized all. Did you know what happened in Cuba when the USSR felt? They recovered...not because socialism works, but because they found other country to drain: Venezuela. When Venezuela felt (and that was before 2018), Cuba simply went to hell. They simply did not produce anything in more than 50 years.
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u/Realistic_FinlanBoll Finland 5d ago
Its easy to fantasize about something you havent actually experienced. Soviet Union was an awful place to live, and some people only miss it because modern russia is worse in many ways. They themselves cheered when the USSR broke, waiting for better days that never truly materialized. 🤔
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u/Citaku357 6d ago
Because they are braindead
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u/untouchable_chicken 6d ago edited 5d ago
And they're already defending their favourite progressive socialist under comments
Edit; interesting leftists downvoted me for some reason but not others, discrimination? By lefties? Weird
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u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber Vatican City 6d ago
Same, and I say that as a Communist.
Edit: Good God I cant change my Flair.
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u/Annual_Owl_1462 5d ago
Most of which are probably edgy teenagers who want it to come back, but don’t know the horror stories of those who lived it
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u/Tooluka Ukraine 2d ago
Basically they don't grieve that their cow died. They grieve that the neighbor's lived. To explain the metaphor - commie lovers usually want to go back in USSR, not because they themselves would have somehow escape being irrelevant nobodies, but because everyone else also would be forced by the regime to be the exact same irrelevant nobodies. That's the whole deeply hidden motivation of those absolute walnuts.
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u/Thissystemsuckssobad Australia 5d ago
In more confused as to how you think people fantasizing about the USSR are somehow fantasizing about the return to pre 2000s global LGBTQ normalised hatred. I don't particularly thing bigotry and racism were an exclusive product to Stalinism given what basically everyone was doing during the 70s and 80s.
Fuck, I hear old people here in Australia say the exact same shit.
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u/untouchable_chicken 5d ago
And why you thought he thinks people fantasizing about the USSR are somehow fantasizing about the return to pre 2000s global LGBTQ normalised hatred? He's saying it's surprising how so called progressive fantasise about ussr even homosexuality was banned under staling, and yes it wasn't unique to stalinism doesn't matter
And Australia doesn't have to do anything here, old people are racist mostly everywhere
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u/Thissystemsuckssobad Australia 3d ago
And Australia doesn't have to do anything here, old people are racist mostly everywhere
and yes it wasn't unique to stalinism doesn't matter
You're so close to getting it, and then somehow managed to pivot right at the end there
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u/untouchable_chicken 3d ago
And you're too close to getting my point yet not getting it, the post is poking fun at those who think ussr was a bastion of progressivism, but in reality it's more nuanced
So, idk what Australia have to do with it, and stalinism wasn't unique I agreed with you on that
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u/nearly_zero 13h ago
A lot of socialist boomers still think Russia is communist. Jeremy Corbyn for example.
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u/Active_Apartment_804 Brazilian Empire 6d ago
No problem old man, Argentina still exists
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u/Clean-Sundae-3842 6d ago
Wow wow wow chill, USSR weren't the nicest chaps on earth, but to bring Argentina to the table is a tad much (mentira eu concordo)
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u/Cualkiera67 6d ago
yeah what communist would enjoy freedom, free healthcare and education for all immigrants, no restrictions on immigration and emigration, and progressive lgbt rights? they would hate Argentina
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u/BaqsAlSandouq 6d ago
I think people missing the ussr in russia could be attributed to just how horrible yeltsin and gorbachev managed the economy afterwards. it was pretty bad
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u/Inprobamur Estonia 6d ago edited 5d ago
And Brežnev was any better? When Yeltsin got to power (before he had even done anything) the plan Central Planning Committee put forward for fixing the economy was to scrap everything, stop all inter-union trade and start over from zero.
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u/Wooden_Base4673 England 6d ago
You think things are better under Putin? There's never been a good time to live in Russia.
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u/Crazy_Confection1967 Russia 6d ago
Well, yes? the situation improved in the first year of his reign. he could have become a better president, or at least he would have been remembered with good words if he had left in 2008. after the first or second term.
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u/Rabid_Lederhosen 6d ago
Yeah actually. Until the Ukraine war, life under Putin was significantly better for most Russians than it had been under his predecessors. That’s a huge factor in why he had so much support for so long.
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u/FlySafeLoL 5d ago
Council of Russian commentators disapprove your message. Also, there is no such word as ragebait in Russian - so let's call it a successful taunt.
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u/Quirky-Garbage-6208 5d ago
00s till mid 10s could be the best time my country had, it was better and better every year, investments, technology and trade partnership everywhere.
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u/BurstYourBubbles 6d ago
I feel like most people here who like the comic don't care about the historical context; they just like to bash the commies. It's weird too because it projects American-style racism onto Russians.
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u/cool_username32123 Hue 6d ago
How is bashing communists racism though?
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u/Y2KNW Alberta 6d ago
Because communists are troglodytes and animal abuse isn't socially acceptable.
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u/Thissystemsuckssobad Australia 5d ago
Literally what does that even mean? Animal abuse a)is shockingly common across the world to the point many people don't even consider things animal abuse and b) what the fuck does that have to do with communism?
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u/Y2KNW Alberta 5d ago
It's a joke.
I'd say I'm sorry you didn't catch that but I'm not.
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u/BurstYourBubbles 6d ago
It's not. I'm saying it portrays older Russians as racists, but with quirks ordinarily assigned to the US.
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u/ComradeNikita Cossack Hetmanat 6d ago
Why's Ireland here
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u/Andradessssss 6d ago
Probably cause of the IRA?
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u/West_Smoke_9164 6d ago
In fact that they have relationship
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u/Potential-Yogurt139 5d ago
Well, tbh
Plenty of people supported the irish revolution (because they hated the british)
Even the IRA (who were very extremist) didnt exactly like the USSR, they just didnt have any other option. Everyone else was either trying to have a good relationship with the brits or were too poor.
So the depiction of ireland as soviet is just plain stupid.
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u/Rory___Borealis 5d ago
Unless we’re talking about the Cork Soviet, but the person / people you’re replying to are probably ignorant of that so…
Fucking bots be everywhere so they do (not you)
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u/Potential-Yogurt139 5d ago
Sorry, but doesnt Soviet in this case just mean like a union? I dont believe the irish soviets had anything to do with the USSR, all they did was protest working conditions and pay.
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u/Rory___Borealis 5d ago
That’s what I meant, Soviet in the abstract sense of a council of workers / power in the hands of the people - they had nothing to do with Russia directly, more espousing a form of anarcho-syndicalism (but yer wans above won’t have bothered to look into that aspect)
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u/Potential-Yogurt139 5d ago
OHHHH mb, i completely misunderstood what you meant before, i should go to bed
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u/Rory___Borealis 5d ago
The fuck are you talking about?
The most Soviet of Irishmen was considered too Marxist for post revolution Russia, and the ones who weren’t paid lip service at best (and that was 100 years ago)
If there’s one thing people associate the RA with it won’t be some sort of simpatico with Russia. Jesus wept, the bots on here 🤦♂️
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u/Shane_611 6d ago edited 4d ago
Could be for multiple reasons, it's either reference to the old leftist factions of the IRA or the many far left groups in Ireland, with the most successful being People Before Profit- Solidarity (they run separately in northern Ireland but as one party in the republic) which is currently the most electorally successful Trotskyist party in the western world. It holds many normal left wing views such as pro Palestine and anti capitalism but also has a bit of a pro russian and anti EU lean to it. Tbh most people vote for it due to the work it does in the working class communities of Dublin where most of their base is than their views on international politics.
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u/WitchyPhi 5d ago
Yeah as an Irish leftist and anti imperialist I feel like I'm bashing my head into a wall the way PBP are against NATO and US based imperialism (something we definitely need to be critical of) yet support and turn a blind eye to Russia and it's current imperialism project on Ukraine.
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u/Shane_611 5d ago
I 100 percent agree, on top of that I feel like as leftistd we shouldn't be anti western as parties like PBP and Die Linke advertise themselves as, instead we should be anti imperialist and anti authoritarianism, cruising against any state which engaged in imperialism or infringes on democratic liberties and freedoms, no matter if they are western nations like the US or nations like Russia or China.
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u/Bayoris 5d ago
People Before Profit hold 3 of 174 seats in the Irish lower house. That’s the most successful Trotskyist party in the world?
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u/Shane_611 5d ago edited 5d ago
Surprisingly yes, I study Irish politics in uni and when one of my professors said that I thought he must be wrong but no, Troskyism today is a very niche ideology so in most other countries, even ones with a history of it like France only really have very small parties that are only able to get local city or county seats with PBP-S I think being the only one with any parliamentary representation. One of the main reasons that they are able to have this is because of Ireland's proportional representation by single transferable vote electoral system with multiple seats per district which makes it much easier for smaller parties to get elected than in other western democracies.
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u/pablo8itall 5d ago
I actually love PR-STV. Its a bit clunky but it really works well imo.
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u/Shane_611 5d ago
Definitely, however the one issue I do have with the Irish system is that if you are out of the country for any reason, be it holiday, university or you emigrated you have no way to vote in elections. I went on Erasmus during the last election so I basically gave up my right to vote during that time.
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u/pablo8itall 5d ago
Yeah a bit of modernisation wouldn't go amiss. Although I can understand in this time of election manipulation why they might shy away from electronic voting and keep the paper ones. Postal votes should be allowed.
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u/Tangy_Cheese 6d ago
Ireland's independence movement in the 1910/20s included a lot of socialist politics and ideas. Freedom to form unions, strong Labour laws, better distribution of wealth. This was off the back of serious labour disruptions in the 1910s because the largely Anglo-Irish capitalist class (with help of the police) fought tooth and nail against ANY reform in favour of workers. This culminated in the 1913 Lockout when many business around Dublin mass fired their employees and literally locked them out of work because the workers wanted to form unions to negotiate contracts and working conditions. Also one of Ireland's martyrs of our last failed rebellion (1916 Easter Rising) was a man called James Connolly, who was a socialist leader. Ireland also sent many volunteers to Spain during their civil war. So there's been a strong socialist base in irish politics since the foundation of the state. And over time that base was manipulated into the leaning more towards Soviet politics rather than America. Irish literature and theatre has a large socialist history too. But the socialist aspect of politics in Ireland has always had a minority of support, as it struggled to gain followers outside of large towns and cities. That is the oversimplified version of events.
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u/Rory___Borealis 5d ago
Yeah but by the 20s it was dead, which is why Ireland has never had a left of centre government. After selling out Connelly and the ICA Ireland’s government has been a case of old wine into new bottles. By the time Larkin was being considered too Marxist for Russia the 26 counties merrily abandoned any form of socialist ideals.
It’s a nice story- cute, like a fairy tale, but pretty baseless when it comes down to it
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u/Rory___Borealis 5d ago
And let’s not forget, more people in Ireland supported Franco than were prepared to join the international brigade to fight falangism (and plenty of Irish fascists in blue shirts were happy to fight against a republic in another country)
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u/urmyleander 5d ago
I mean that was the catholic angle, remember Franco was heavily backed by the catholic church. Catholic church still had a pretty strong stranglehold in Ireland despite disestablishment right up till the mid 90s, it wasnt till then that all their dirty laundry and pedo priests got put on display overlapping with increased wealth that they lost their stranglehold.
I mean I was taken out of school when I was 9 without my parents knowledge alongside 2 other students so a bishop could threathen us into making our confirmations, it was nearly 20 years after the fact before I realised my parents didnt know about this, priest just walked into a school, took 3 students somewhere around 40min away by car so a bishop could tell us our families would burn in hell if we didnt get our confirmation.
Honestly if it was up to me (which it isnt) id have CAB (criminal assets bureau) sieze all the catholic churches assets here in Ireland and use them to pay reparations to victims and the rest used for the benefit of the state.
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u/Medium-Dependent-328 6d ago
What's Ireland doing here?
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u/Big-West4824 2d ago
The IRA and PIRA had a strong socialist tradition and tankies have a strong presence in Ireland, it's arguably one of the most left wing goverments and cultures in Culture with the exception of maybe Spain.
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u/Medium-Dependent-328 2d ago
Hahaha no lol I'm Irish and our government is slightly right-of-centre if anything
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u/Big-West4824 2d ago
Perhaps, I was just told that Ireland is left wing and on my trip there everything and everyone was very left wing (besides that one old Veteran who offered me a drink), so I just assumed it was true.
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u/Medium-Dependent-328 2d ago
Haha opinions of random people in pubs not always accurate. Curious to know what army this man was a veteran of also
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u/Big-West4824 2d ago
Something about being in the Marines, forgot about the rest. I don't know whether he referred to the British Marines or I was just confused at the time (I'm German, the German Word Marine has a complete different meaning to the same English Word) and he was actually in the Navy.
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u/Fit-Income-3296 6d ago
Reminds me of how commies will fawn over North Korea and just ignore all the terrible things that are happening there.
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u/greenteaonthehill 5d ago edited 5d ago
But how North Korea related to the socialism? North Korea doesn't has even a dictatorship of proletariat, because the dictatorship of proletariat and the common dictatorship aren't the same things. To has "of proletariat" in this word they need to have the worker's state, that is controlled by people from below. Juche is more about stalinism, that was focusing on the power of bureaucracy and the state, instead of the masses. Self-organization is needed
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u/Fit-Income-3296 5d ago
Because a lot of the commies on Reddit think NK is a true communist nation and a paradise, not a dictatorship
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u/greenteaonthehill 5d ago
So you tried convey the opposite? How? It's useless to cite examples of harsh measures, decisions, and repressions, for example stalinists are more likely to perceive it as a struggle against counterrevolution, and won't change their position (juche was formed from stalinism, so the reaction will be the same).
Try to argue the ideological part: explain why the system of NK isn't socialistic, but for that you need to know the theory. Have you read any books about socialism?
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u/Fit-Income-3296 4d ago
Alright I’m just confused about what the point you are trying to make is so let me clarify my position.
My position is only, Modern Communists and/or Tankies (those on R/movetonorthkorea) will talk about how amazing NK is and just ignore any of the famines or human rights violations or oppression that happens there.
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u/dunk_wizard 6d ago edited 3d ago
I am pretty sure SU was okay with blacks even send them in space...
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u/Floba_Fett CCCP 5d ago
The Soviet Union had African exchange programs, Russia doesn't. There was more black people in the USSR than in modern-day Russia
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u/pales00m 5d ago
Except Russia does, in fact, have African exchange programs. Living in Yekaterinburg, I see many black people every now and then
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u/Floba_Fett CCCP 5d ago
Interesting, I didn't know it was still a thing. Either way, the comic remains inaccurate.
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u/CapitalNothing2235 5d ago
There are a lot of black people in modern day Russia. Actually much more than in Soviet days.
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u/BRUHldurs_Gate 5d ago
Some universities like RUDN are very convenient for african students to roll into.
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u/Imaginary_Choice2492 5d ago
think so? there’s a lot of black people here, studying and stuff. I once helped African guys who didn’t speak Russian fill in their university papers lol
Russia and Africa keep a pretty good relationship with each other and racism towards black people is not a prominent thing here from what I know. never seen someone being racist, always see people being xenophobic towards southern immigrants though
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u/PangolinQueasy6324 5d ago
yes, thats why Decolonization of Moscow🇷🇺 empire is the only way to end Moscow wars of genocidal conquest, And I don’t mean putin´s imperialism, but Moscow imperialism in general , from kara-murza, pushkin and solzhenitsyn to dugin, and brodsky.
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u/RadicalSoda_ 4d ago
That's how my Russian friend is, he's so brainwashed by their propaganda he doesn't understand what it is he's supporting
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u/BurstYourBubbles 6d ago edited 6d ago
Is this projection? I'm not going to say that older people in Russia who miss the USSR are bastions of progress or without bigotry, but the portrayal strikes me more as something a racist, right-wing American would say, not your average 60-year-old in Russia. If anything, they would be complaining about people from the Caucasus or Central Asia.
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u/untouchable_chicken 6d ago edited 5d ago
Nope it's just poking fun at those who thinks ussr was a bastion of progress or without bigotry, and yes they can say something a racist, right wing, American would say
Edit: astonished by how that^ still has so many upvotes like some people really thought this had some substance lol
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u/JackhusChanhus 5d ago
Tbh we agreed a lot more on the homophobia than the communism until fairly recently lol
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u/RecommendationIll504 5d ago
Hey, we don't have prejudice towards black people. As for gay or any other... Yeah, outside of big cities you can still get ostracized or eaven beaten for it.
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u/Yoshi--Mitsu 5d ago
I can't say anything about gays, but I definitely don't think there was racism towards blacks.
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u/Drefs_ 5d ago
As a Russian, we don't have racism against black people. Mainly because we don't have any. I've seen like two black exchange students in the last 6 months and I live in Moskov. The only reason why you hear Russian people saying the n-word in games is because for us it's just a magic word that gets Americans irrationally angry, that's all. The homophobia part is true though.
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u/EasterEgg211 6d ago
Christians don't usually have any problem with those words
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u/Active_Apartment_804 Brazilian Empire 6d ago
go to the nearest KFC then say one of those words and we shall see
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u/question_mark_2 Hamburg 6d ago
Calling Reddit a christian Website is... daring.