As for the Warsaw pact countries, not sure what you mean by “not being allowed to pursue independent policies.” They had local governments and their own jurisdictions.
Warsaw Pact countries had local governments yes, but these governments were heavily subordinated to Moscow’s interests. Policies were vetoed by the USSR, and attempts at independence were met with military intervention.
I also know you refused to read more than a couple sentences of “Tankies” out of some objection to the monstrosity of Churchill,
Fwiw, i did end up reading Tankies, and i came out more unconvinced than when i went in. I’m not denying that Churchill was racist and that his colonialist and imperialist actions were harmful, but it feels like you’re trying to downplay the horridness of what the Soviets did when you bring up this stuff. This just runs into whataboutism and bad faith arguments.
Yes, the accomplishments of AES are indeed worth defending, but dismissing all criticisms as CIA propaganda (particularly when it comes to the CCP and Xi Jinping) or Trotskyist exaggerations oversimplifies history. Yes, the USSR’s role in aiding decolonization is admirable, but they still suppressed worker uprisings in its own sphere of influence. You can’t just ask me to ignore this.
Socialist systems require cohesion and centralism, efforts at decentralization result in difficulties with maintaining effective economic planning. Unlike Capitalism, where competition is the goal, in Socialism cooperation is the focus. You’ll have to actually dig into what was veto’d and why.
As for Soviets vs the Western Powers, I do not wish to downplay genuine failings by the Soviets. I wish simply to contextualize what has been exaggerated or twisted by the western powers, much of whose stories you repeat back originate with Goebbels. There’s a clear difference between “whataboutism” and trying to explain that your repeated condemnations of the Soviet Union are not based on fact, but distortions. These distortions lead you into logical pretzels, like calling the Hungarian fascist-led riots a “worker revolution” despite being opposed by a majority of the workers.
What I am asking you to do is make a genuine effort to dig into the facts of the situations you believe yourself familiar with. Sticking with Hungary, how much research have you done? Have you only looked at anticommunist sources, or also pro-communist sources? Does the revelation that the riots were led by Nazis change your opinion of the actual character of the events, or not?
There’s plenty I can and do criticize about the Soviets, and other AES states. Stalin, while being a committed Socialist, absolutely made errors and blunders, same with Mao. I’d say Castro and Ho Chi Minh ended up being some of the most consistently “correct,” same with Deng Xiaoping (not including Lenin because he didn’t live long enough, sadly, to make major mistakes, but if I was including him he’d be at the top). However, I understand that there has been a century of misinformation of the highest degree piled onto AES states, and this misinformation campaign exists to this day against modern Socialist states like China and Cuba.
Want some advice? Check out Dessalines’s Socialism FAQ, click a country you want to learn about, and try to legitimately engage with the points that interest you. Try to poke holes in the sources, or see if other sources contradict. There is a massive effort by Western countries and media to deliberately propagandize against any form of Socialist countries, so any preconcieved notions you have are likely misleading at best or outright fabrications at worst.
To leave you with an amazing quote from Dr. Michael Parenti regarding this anticommunist framework, taken from Blackshirts and Reds:
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
Funny enough, Communists frequently just say “Parenti Quote” as shorthand for this, as it is that powerful and accurate.
how much research have you done? Have you only looked at anticommunist sources, or also pro-communist sources? Does the revelation that the riots were led by Nazis change your opinion of the actual character of the events, or not?
As with most of my knowledge about history, it comes from Wikipedia pages and YouTube videos. Concerning whether the revelation that the riots were fascist-led has changed my opinion on the character of the events. I would say maybe a little bit. It doesn’t change the fact that there were clear grievances with the system and there were many dissidents in the revolution, and maybe Nazi support was a way out for them? I don’t know. However that’s for me to do more research on.
On your point about misinformation, i can agree that there is some level of bias when it comes to Western reporting on AES states, but it’s not so easy to recognize where the misinformation is coming from: especially when it is well known China has a habit of suppressing negative news about them. Evidenced by the Tiananmen square protests being a taboo topic there, so it’s also not clear to me where I’m supposed to be getting accurate information from if leftist sources are taking China’s every word for things like the Ughyur pogroms, Tiananmen square protest, etc etc.
Regarding Wikipedia and Youtube videos, I want to make this clear. English media is overwhelmingly Western. The biases presented in English media will inevitably rest on whatever those with the most power in the Western world want to present. Analyzing the Western world alone, that means the interests of the United States and Western Europe are dominant, and the class in power in these countries is undeniably the wealthy Capitalists, like Musk, Bezos, etc. Historically this was even worse, as media was mostly physical and an “internet” didn’t exist. Much of the data on the USSR, for example, comes from this period of little fact checking and unchecked corporate dominance. These narratives get passed along uncritically today, even if they directly contradict the Soviet Archives opened in the 90s.
Today, Wikipedia and YouTube aren’t scholarly sources. You have to check the sources of these sources. Many Wikipedia articles reference Robert Conquest, a crank historian disavowwed by his colleagues. That’s why it’s important to seek non-western sources to compare against, and to read scholarly sources. Without doing as such, I recommend you not believe anything about geopolitical adversaries of the US without hard evidence, and adopt the notion of “no investigation, no right to speak.” Otherwise, you uncritically accept a US State Department approved narrative uncritically, such as being unaware of the Nazi involvement in the Hungarian riots, a fact deliberately hidden to push a narrative.
As for China, another example presents itself. The CPC frequently mentions the Tian’anmen Massacre under the name “June 4th incident.” This is because the hundreds of deaths of protestors and lynchings of PLA officers happened outside the square. What gets censored is stuff like BBC reporting 10,000 people died on Tian’anmen Square, when there’s no proof that there were any deaths on the Square itself (despite tons of evidence of deaths outside the square) and there’s no proof that the total deaths were anywhere near 10,000. The source? A British Ambassador later confirmed to have abandoned the square before, and in contrast to a US ambassador who stayed saying no massacre happened on the square. Meanwhile, the CPC often references the events as the “June 4th incident,” which is why little comes up when searching “Tian’anmen Square Massacre” in China. That is like searching “New York Attack” to find 9/11 information, sure you can probably find something but it will take a while.
Really, that whole exercise was to show that ultimately, you need to look at many sources. The Western media and English speaking internet will, without fail, largely allow the narrative to be dominated by that which upholds US legitimacy, even if it means changing the Quantity (many hundred deaths to 10,000) to Quality (deaths on Tian’anmen Square vs the overwhelmingly well documented deaths outside the square as the PLA advanced to the Square). Don’t accept anything at face-value, try to find the bias of the author and see if they have weak points you can poke. Everyone has bias, that’s why I don’t hide mine. I encourage an unapologetic pursuit of truth, and encourage not sharing information you aren’t sure of.
These narratives get passed along uncritically today, even if they directly contradict the Soviet Archives opened in the 90s.
That’s why we often don’t just take the words of the CIA for instance, but we back it up with accounts from people that lived under these governments. There’s a lot of interviews out there of people sharing their experiences. Sure their memory of events might not be completely accurate, but you can’t just dismiss it as entirely false either.
Also your Tiananmen Square example strikes me as being a bit nitpicky. Yes, it’s important to question dominant narratives, but the focus on whether deaths happened on the square itself seems overly semantic. Even if most deaths occurred outside the square, it still feels like you’re/they’re trying to downplay the broader violence against unarmed protesters and the suppression of their dissent. Similarly, wouldn’t state-controlled narratives in China have an interest in minimizing the scale and nature of the violence to preserve legitimacy?
Further, you’re right that Wikipedia and YouTube shouldn’t be treated as definitive sources, but isn’t that why they include citations to trace information back to its origins? Let’s accept that Robert Conquest’s work is controversial; dismissing all scholarship on the USSR from Western historians because of bias that may or may not be there seems like overcorrection.
Also the point you made about how all media echoes the biases of the bourgeois is kinda reductive. I agree that dominant Western narratives often align with elite interests, but doesn’t the diversity of perspectives in democratic societies complicate that? Investigative journalism, academia, and even dissenting voices within the West often challenge these narratives. Wouldn’t it be more constructive to identify when elite biases appear rather than assume all narratives are controlled?
Warsaw Pact countries had local governments yes, but these governments were heavily subordinated to Moscow’s interests. Policies were vetoed by the USSR, and attempts at independence were met with military intervention.
Fwiw, i did end up reading Tankies, and i came out more unconvinced than when i went in. I’m not denying that Churchill was racist and that his colonialist and imperialist actions were harmful, but it feels like you’re trying to downplay the horridness of what the Soviets did when you bring up this stuff. This just runs into whataboutism and bad faith arguments.
Yes, the accomplishments of AES are indeed worth defending, but dismissing all criticisms as CIA propaganda (particularly when it comes to the CCP and Xi Jinping) or Trotskyist exaggerations oversimplifies history. Yes, the USSR’s role in aiding decolonization is admirable, but they still suppressed worker uprisings in its own sphere of influence. You can’t just ask me to ignore this.
Socialist systems require cohesion and centralism, efforts at decentralization result in difficulties with maintaining effective economic planning. Unlike Capitalism, where competition is the goal, in Socialism cooperation is the focus. You’ll have to actually dig into what was veto’d and why.
As for Soviets vs the Western Powers, I do not wish to downplay genuine failings by the Soviets. I wish simply to contextualize what has been exaggerated or twisted by the western powers, much of whose stories you repeat back originate with Goebbels. There’s a clear difference between “whataboutism” and trying to explain that your repeated condemnations of the Soviet Union are not based on fact, but distortions. These distortions lead you into logical pretzels, like calling the Hungarian fascist-led riots a “worker revolution” despite being opposed by a majority of the workers.
What I am asking you to do is make a genuine effort to dig into the facts of the situations you believe yourself familiar with. Sticking with Hungary, how much research have you done? Have you only looked at anticommunist sources, or also pro-communist sources? Does the revelation that the riots were led by Nazis change your opinion of the actual character of the events, or not?
There’s plenty I can and do criticize about the Soviets, and other AES states. Stalin, while being a committed Socialist, absolutely made errors and blunders, same with Mao. I’d say Castro and Ho Chi Minh ended up being some of the most consistently “correct,” same with Deng Xiaoping (not including Lenin because he didn’t live long enough, sadly, to make major mistakes, but if I was including him he’d be at the top). However, I understand that there has been a century of misinformation of the highest degree piled onto AES states, and this misinformation campaign exists to this day against modern Socialist states like China and Cuba.
Want some advice? Check out Dessalines’s Socialism FAQ, click a country you want to learn about, and try to legitimately engage with the points that interest you. Try to poke holes in the sources, or see if other sources contradict. There is a massive effort by Western countries and media to deliberately propagandize against any form of Socialist countries, so any preconcieved notions you have are likely misleading at best or outright fabrications at worst.
To leave you with an amazing quote from Dr. Michael Parenti regarding this anticommunist framework, taken from Blackshirts and Reds:
Funny enough, Communists frequently just say “Parenti Quote” as shorthand for this, as it is that powerful and accurate.
As with most of my knowledge about history, it comes from Wikipedia pages and YouTube videos. Concerning whether the revelation that the riots were fascist-led has changed my opinion on the character of the events. I would say maybe a little bit. It doesn’t change the fact that there were clear grievances with the system and there were many dissidents in the revolution, and maybe Nazi support was a way out for them? I don’t know. However that’s for me to do more research on.
On your point about misinformation, i can agree that there is some level of bias when it comes to Western reporting on AES states, but it’s not so easy to recognize where the misinformation is coming from: especially when it is well known China has a habit of suppressing negative news about them. Evidenced by the Tiananmen square protests being a taboo topic there, so it’s also not clear to me where I’m supposed to be getting accurate information from if leftist sources are taking China’s every word for things like the Ughyur pogroms, Tiananmen square protest, etc etc.
Regarding Wikipedia and Youtube videos, I want to make this clear. English media is overwhelmingly Western. The biases presented in English media will inevitably rest on whatever those with the most power in the Western world want to present. Analyzing the Western world alone, that means the interests of the United States and Western Europe are dominant, and the class in power in these countries is undeniably the wealthy Capitalists, like Musk, Bezos, etc. Historically this was even worse, as media was mostly physical and an “internet” didn’t exist. Much of the data on the USSR, for example, comes from this period of little fact checking and unchecked corporate dominance. These narratives get passed along uncritically today, even if they directly contradict the Soviet Archives opened in the 90s.
Today, Wikipedia and YouTube aren’t scholarly sources. You have to check the sources of these sources. Many Wikipedia articles reference Robert Conquest, a crank historian disavowwed by his colleagues. That’s why it’s important to seek non-western sources to compare against, and to read scholarly sources. Without doing as such, I recommend you not believe anything about geopolitical adversaries of the US without hard evidence, and adopt the notion of “no investigation, no right to speak.” Otherwise, you uncritically accept a US State Department approved narrative uncritically, such as being unaware of the Nazi involvement in the Hungarian riots, a fact deliberately hidden to push a narrative.
As for China, another example presents itself. The CPC frequently mentions the Tian’anmen Massacre under the name “June 4th incident.” This is because the hundreds of deaths of protestors and lynchings of PLA officers happened outside the square. What gets censored is stuff like BBC reporting 10,000 people died on Tian’anmen Square, when there’s no proof that there were any deaths on the Square itself (despite tons of evidence of deaths outside the square) and there’s no proof that the total deaths were anywhere near 10,000. The source? A British Ambassador later confirmed to have abandoned the square before, and in contrast to a US ambassador who stayed saying no massacre happened on the square. Meanwhile, the CPC often references the events as the “June 4th incident,” which is why little comes up when searching “Tian’anmen Square Massacre” in China. That is like searching “New York Attack” to find 9/11 information, sure you can probably find something but it will take a while.
Really, that whole exercise was to show that ultimately, you need to look at many sources. The Western media and English speaking internet will, without fail, largely allow the narrative to be dominated by that which upholds US legitimacy, even if it means changing the Quantity (many hundred deaths to 10,000) to Quality (deaths on Tian’anmen Square vs the overwhelmingly well documented deaths outside the square as the PLA advanced to the Square). Don’t accept anything at face-value, try to find the bias of the author and see if they have weak points you can poke. Everyone has bias, that’s why I don’t hide mine. I encourage an unapologetic pursuit of truth, and encourage not sharing information you aren’t sure of.
That’s why we often don’t just take the words of the CIA for instance, but we back it up with accounts from people that lived under these governments. There’s a lot of interviews out there of people sharing their experiences. Sure their memory of events might not be completely accurate, but you can’t just dismiss it as entirely false either.
Also your Tiananmen Square example strikes me as being a bit nitpicky. Yes, it’s important to question dominant narratives, but the focus on whether deaths happened on the square itself seems overly semantic. Even if most deaths occurred outside the square, it still feels like you’re/they’re trying to downplay the broader violence against unarmed protesters and the suppression of their dissent. Similarly, wouldn’t state-controlled narratives in China have an interest in minimizing the scale and nature of the violence to preserve legitimacy?
Further, you’re right that Wikipedia and YouTube shouldn’t be treated as definitive sources, but isn’t that why they include citations to trace information back to its origins? Let’s accept that Robert Conquest’s work is controversial; dismissing all scholarship on the USSR from Western historians because of bias that may or may not be there seems like overcorrection.
Also the point you made about how all media echoes the biases of the bourgeois is kinda reductive. I agree that dominant Western narratives often align with elite interests, but doesn’t the diversity of perspectives in democratic societies complicate that? Investigative journalism, academia, and even dissenting voices within the West often challenge these narratives. Wouldn’t it be more constructive to identify when elite biases appear rather than assume all narratives are controlled?