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this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
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Afaik Stalin is resoposible for more deaths than Hitler. Hitler had concentration camps, Stalin had gulags. Neither was much better than the other.
The Nazis industrialized mass murder, and deliberately killed millions in the Holocaust. The Soviet prison system was in no way comparable to the Nazi concentration camps designed to murder and kill, this is Holocaust trivialization. Communism and fascism are entirely different, and conflating the two has roots in Double Genocide Theory, a form of Holocaust trivialization and Nazi Apologia. The Nazis industrialized murder and attempted to colonize the world, the Soviets uplifted the Proletariat and supported national liberation movements such as in Cuba, China, Algeria, and Palestine. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds.
I didn't quite intend to put gulags and concentration camps on the same level. But there are some similarities, like being used to disappear political or ideological oponents.
Concentration camps were mass execution factories for Jewish people, LGBTQ, Communists, Socialists, disabled people, Slavs, and more.
The prisons in the GULAG system were genuine prisons, and the political prisoners were largely Tsarists, Fascists, Nazi collaborators, war criminals, and more, and political prisoners were a minority of those imprisoned in the USSR.
That's like saying a fish and a tree have some similarities. It's true, but at the same time fundamentally tries to draw far more similarities than actually existed.
Further:
This directly states that imprisoning fascists and executing millions of innocents are morally similar actions. This is Holocaust trivialization.
...like Ukrainian Red Army veterans who fought the Nazis, but didn't like Moscow calling the shots afterwards. I see you've drunken that age-old propaganda wholesale.
You could be more specific than that, but when I say Nazi collaborators, I do mean them.
"On the other hand, in the Soviet occupation zone and later East Germany, denazification was considered as a critical element of the transformation into a socialist society, and the country was stricter in opposing Nazism than its counterpart."
The Soviets took anti-fascism seriously.
Gee that worked well in Germany didn't it have a look at the polling results for the AfD.
Trouble being that in the east, antifascism was considered state matter, therefore, ordinary people did not get involved. In the west, it was a civil society issue. The SED de-politicised the population, "join the party and read the script or don't get involved", and now the east is severely lacking in civil society capacity to oppose fascism. Capacity to engage in politics in the first place, the east is run by West German politicians because East Germans just don't bother to become politicians, they rather elect West Germans instead. And then they're complaining that they're not getting heard.
Nothing about what the Soviets did in the GDR was "taking fascism seriously", unless with "take seriously" you mean "fertilise the ground".
That's a poor assessment, and looks down upon the people of East Germany as "stupid" and "compliant." The West was never truly de-Nazified, but the East was absolutely de-"commiefied" after the fall of the Berlin Wall. East Germany was purged of its Nazis, and then purged of its Communists. In purging the Communists, the resurging fascists go unopposed.
That's also why the whole of Germany is infested with fascist Zionists, and why the state is cracking down on those who oppose the genocide of Palestinians.
Did you just call me a fascist Zionist. As far as opposing the genocide is concerned I haven't been cracked down on -- maybe because I understand the cultural context. The government itself, btw, has always considered Israel's annexations and settlements outside of the 1967 borders to be illegal.
They're neither. What's lacking is a cultural habit of self-rule. Complaining "why don't the people on top do things properly", that's not compliant, that's not stupid, but it's also quite ineffective when you could run for office and do it better yourself.
The west's denazification didn't happen after the war, true -- it happened '68, when kids started to ask their parents inconvenient questions. That never happened in the east. It could never happen in the east because the party insisted on its monopoly on politics.
Also it's plenty well-documented of how the SED just didn't bother to crack down on Nazi structures. Roughly 25% of SED members had a Nazi past, Plenty of boneheads starting in the 80s, later on they infiltrated the FDJ, in 1992 about 24% of GDR youth agreed with the statement "there were positive things about nationalist-socialist rule". Have a wikipedia article to kick off your further research into the topic. Why is there only a German version? Because apparently noone outside of Germany actually gives a fuck about these things.
I didn't call you a fascist Zionist, I said the whole of Germany is infested with fascist Zionists. I didn't even know you were German. Though, "understanding the cultural context" is often a dogwhistle, so you may wish to drop that language.
It's convenient to blame the people for not being "culturally developed enough" to oppose fascism, and it blunts the active role of Nazis in the West, and erases the de-communization of the East following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Fascism wasn't "erased" from West Germany because children askdd hard questions, Nazis were key figures and great effort was made to make it appear as though West Germany was truly distanced from fascism. Lo and behold, Germany unwaveringly supports Israel and the ethnic cleansing campaign.
Fascism can only be truly beaten by advancing to Socialism.
Really. Dogwhistle.
This is about things like inflationary use of the term Nazi, just as an example not even Die Linke calls the AfD Nazis -- the agreed-upon term is fascist. That's because culturally we're careful about not diluting that term.
So when someone goes over to say feddit.org and posts about how "German police is all Nazis", that won't fly. Not because the absolutely left-heavy and German demographics of feddit.org fail to recognise issues with the German police, but because you just trivialised Nazi rule.
That kind of cultural context.
Your words. You seem to be right-out seeking terms that pass judgement. I suggest finding language that seeks analysis, instead.
The psychopolitics of fascism are anxiety: Shutting off higher mammalian and human instincts by induction of fear states. Socialism is an answer to that, yes, but the KGB surely doesn't help with the anxiety. All that paranoia, all that distrust, and policies which do not alleviate it but only deepen it. Psychologically, capitalism, fascism, and tankiism are different sides of the same socio-psychological maladaptation to human nature. Don't swim against the stream, instead, get out of the stream and onto solid ground.
People claiming simply to have an "understanding of the cultural context" when speaking of the Palestinian Genocide often do so to avoid criticism for not condemning Israel. What this does is run cover for the IDF. We aren't on Feddit, we aren't in Germany, we are in an open space where such a phrase has been used by Zionists plenty, hence why I gave you a warning.
Secondly, your point is that East Germans simply have been culturaly underdeveloped and are incapable of ruling themselves, as an explanation for why demographics shifted so far to the right. Again, this is avoidance, I quite clearly pointed to the rooting out of Communists in the East and the regular fostering of Anti-Communists in the West leading to current conditions.
As for fascism, it's best described as Capitalism in decay. It's the same system of Capitalism, only when conditions are dire and the bourgeoisie needs to rely on violence to protect its own interests. All this talk of "shutting off higher mammalian and human insticts" is more Idealism than anything else, it fronts the idea of "fear states" as a genuine mechanism when the fear comes with the fascism.
Further, Communism isn't to be grouped in with fascism and Capitalism, it's diametrically opposed. The nostalgia for Socialism is very high in the overwhelming majority of post-Socialist states, and the approval of government in current Socialist states is high. There's no evidence that they were and are run by "fear."
Do those people also call out Israel's annexations and settlements as illegal?
Again: Your words.
And I pointed you to actual literature. Read it if you don't want to make a fool of yourself.
"Psychology is idealism" that's a new one. The fear is used, imposed, as a control mechanism. Not just the obvious "do what I say or I hit you" but implicit "wouldn't it be a shame if..." narratives making alternatives unthinkable. A teacher scolding, shaming a student for not answering quickly enough breeds a life-time of preferring ready-made answers over careful consideration -- any ready-made answer: The preference is for answering quickly, not for agreeing or disagreeing with the authority figure. The affective layer of the mind is fine either way, all it wants is to not be shamed for saying "I'll need a moment to consider".
I'm being quite orthodox here, actually, what I'm talking about is nothing but the socio-psychological aspect of alienation.
Granted. As far as "communism" means the real existing ML experiments it's still the same fucking river, though.
You know where else approval of the government was high? Nazi Germany. Poll numbers are a thought-terminating cliche, you can do better.
Some do, they just claim Hamas is equally evil for resisting genocide, the good 'ol "two wrongs don't make a right" adage.
As for East Germany, would you mind stating how your thesis about the government taking an active role in rooting out Nazis somehow made the East more open to fascism isn't a statement on East Germans being incapable of ruling themselved, and just going along with whoever? You linked literature, sure, but avoided addressing that the West never de-Nazified yet East Germany was thoroughly purged of Communists? Rather than blaming the rise of fascism in modern eastern Germany on the previous antifascist government and the dull acceptance of the eastern Germans due to alienation from politics, why not take an active look at the dynamics at play as the West took over the East?
As for Psychology, no, it isn't idealism, but your analysis was. In the absence of materialist analysis, you shifted to an assertion that existing in different modes of production shuts off the higher instincts of man. It is true that material conditions shape the ideas of man, but you pivoted that to the idea that existing in a Socialist state dulls the mind, which doesn't have materialist backing.
Socialism is not "the same fucking river" as Nazism, not to any capacity. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds, it's a good introductory book and a quick read.
As for Nazi Germany's approval ratings, that's not really true, as clearly Holocaust victims weren't polled. Support for Socialism both within post-Socialist states and currently Socialist states is best explained by the real material achievements they made for the Working Class, as one western study said of China:
"Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread in China, these findings highlight that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. Satisfaction and support must be consistently reinforced. As a result, the data point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation."
This is backed by trends:
I'll leave you with a Parenti quote I think is fitting, from the same book I recommended:
If you read what I wrote, then you would know that I actually stated: a) the government didn't do that and b) it prevented civil society from doing so.
(titles of your links)
So in the east.
...lawyers. Gregor Gysi is a lawyer, btw.
All in all you really don't seem to be particularly knowledgeable about German history. You also don't seem to be willing to investigate what I gave you, instead falling into a partisan "But SED good therefore they are right" (unironically) and "everything is the fault of the west". Very predictable, very sad.
The quantity and quality with respect to how de-Nazification was handled in the West vs the East was entirely different, and you are erasing that because the East still had some Nazis, while the West was infested with them. This is affirmed by the links I sent, to which you merely read the titles. The lawyer piece, for example, talks about the entire process of de-Nazification with an emphasis on how the Nazi lawyers were treated.
I could do the same low-effort character assassination you levied against me, but if you're not even going to read the abstracts or intros of the articles I link, this conversation was never going to go anywhere in the first place.
Gulag is the russian word for prison. It's just really easy to make foreign words scary to racists.
The literal uniform wearing german nazis that convinced you of this counted unborn children due to declining birthrates.
According to wikipedia, no, it comes from the abbreviation of "Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps", in Russian: Гла́вное Управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х ЛАГере́й (ГУЛАГ).
If you would consult the chart, you will find "Correctional Labor Camp" under the O.G.P.U (as wikipedia also says). Of course, libs can't tell the difference between CLC under the O.G.P.U and Colonies under the PC of Justice and will call both gulag.
Gulag = Гла́вное Управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х ЛАГере́й (Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps)
Prison = тюрьма
Not a (Russian) native speaker, but still.
While I'm not Russian, bu accusing a Slav of being racist against Slavs sure is hillarious.
Afaik: written abbreviation for as far as I know: used when you believe that something is true, but you are not completely certain. Internet, email and texting conventions.
See the thing is, you don't know shit
a bunch of off-topic yakking related to your comment but detracts from the overall post.
1, how the West treats the word gulag - as seen by your application equivocating them to nazi death camps - is not reflective of reality of it being applied as a catch-all term for prisons.2, the highest deaths that occured in the Soviet penal system occured during ww2 with source of deaths primarily stemming from nazi POWs
3, the commonly cited numbers of deaths that occured in the Soviet penal system comes from an openly flawed and biased methodology chosen exclusively to fabricate a false reality that equivocates nazi fascism with Soviet communism, which was further boosted by the CIA during the cold war to smear their ideological opposition's image. The real numbers have been revealed with the opening of the Soviet archives after the fall of the Soviet Union, allowing actual historians to access primary sources to clear up the cold war era historical revisionism that obscured our understanding of the truth for the past 80 years.
4, this is not to say the system ran in that era is flawless. It in fact had blemishes and flaws that stemmed from the monstrously brutal tsarist regimn that the Soviets overthrew. That said even at its worst during the second world War its own brutality is dwarfed by the American penal system from back then to this very moment.
Here's an article that discusses "double genocide theory", which dissects the fact that equivocating the worst excesses that occured under the Soviet Union as being anything remotely near the monstrous crimes against humanity perpetrated by the German Nazi regimn is to commit and engage in Holocaust denialism
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory
Here's an excerpt from a book that lightly delves into the numbers, but there's plenty of other information floating around as well.
https://hexbear.net/post/136521?scrollToComments=false
Now let's be clear. I was talking death counts. And I do believe that the Nazis were worse. I saw Auschwitz and Birkenau camps and those are sights that I will never forget. I get chills just remembering it. So please do be cautions who you call holocaust denier.
But we are still comparing two evils here. One is greater, one is lesser. But "lesser" evil doesn't necessarily mean the evil was small.
optimistically prison reform and eventually abolishment would be the best course of action altogether. There's really no shades of grey in stating that the penal system as we've known it through out history has been and currently is a barbaric institution of vindictive cruelty by man against their fellow man. That said, i'll return to the comparison you're making and emphasize again you're making a false equivocation between the two. It would be more accurate to compare the former Soviet penal system to the American penal system than it would be to compare the former Soviet penal system to the former Nazi German genocide camps. There were no Soviet Auschwitz Concentration Camp, no Soviet Birkenau Concentration Camp, no Soviet Sisak Concentration Camp, no Soviet Salaspils Concentration Camp, no Soviet Vyritsa Children's Concentration Camp, etcetera and so forth down the list of monstrous acts perpetrated by the nazi regimn. That is what I mean by saying you're perpetuating the double genocide theory an thusly perpetuating holocaust denialism. When you make a throwaway sentence such as 'Afaik Stalin is resoposible for more deaths than Hitler. Hitler had concentration camps, Stalin had gulags. Neither was much better than the other.' you do the footwork of the neo-nazis on their behalf while you yourself may think and believe otherwise. I think you're an intelligent and a kind person. I just want to ask you to think twice before making such throw-away comments in our increasingly reactionary rightist world that we're unfortunately existing in.
There seemsn to be a misunderstanding. What I tried to say wasn't "Hitler is not bad, because Stalin was also bad". What I tried to say is Hitler was bad and so was Stalin. Each in their own way. And neither of them should be glorified.
You're still engaging in false equivocation that ultimately lessens the crimes of the fascists. Let's try putting it in a different manner: Hitler was bad and so was FDR. Each in their own way. And neither of them should be glorified.
A completely ridiculous statement yet both countries engaged in targeted ethnic campaigns that unjustly interred sections of their populations in concentration camps. Sure FDR helped defeat nazi Germany and free people from nazi concentration camps akin to Auschwitz and Birkenau, but glorifying him undermines his own crimes against humanity.
Hitler and FDR both had concentration camps. Hitler and Churchill both stole food and caused mass famines among the ethnic peoples they occupied. Hitler and Mościcki both benefited from the Munich betrayal and partitioned Czechoslovakia amongst the vultures of Central europe. So on and so forth a list of completely ridiculous statements that falsely equivocate the actions of fascists with that of capitalist countries thus ultimately lessening the magnitude of the crimes they perpetuated.
This is exactly what it comes off as whenever someone engages in false equivocation of the crimes of the fascists.
Quoting Thomas Mann,
You're repeating nazi propaganda deliberately created to be holocaust denial so honestly fuck how you feel about yourself. If someone has a robust and well supported reason to call you a holocaust denier why the fuck would you respond with a hollow 'how dare you'
Do self crit
You will note I never denied nazi crimes in any of my comments. I just don't deny communist crimes either.
Fucking moron. YoU WiLl nOtE I didn't accuse you of denying nazi crimes. I accused you of repeating nazi propaganda and committing blood libel.
You're not denying nazi crimes. You're minimizing and justifying them by lying about their enemies. The next step of the logic you're parroting is that their cause was correct.
You are right, the USA and the UK were the lesser evil compared to the Nazis, but we should never forget their crimes against humanity, just as we should never forget the flaws of the Soviets, still, the USSR was the lesser evil in the Cold War.
Glad we are clear on that, not sure why you brought up Nazi apologist talking points before like:
It's important that you visit memorials erected to in the memory of the Victims of Communism, sometimes there are hundreds of names there. I once checked a near one, and decided to google some of the names of the people the evil russkies took to the Gulags. It's so weird how often they were Axis soldiers accused of heinous war crimes! But Axis soldiers could never! Must have been fabricated!
edit:
These real people are on actual Victims of Communism (VoC) websites, and after just 5 minutes of searching, I found the crimes they were tried and found guilty of.
Case 1
In 1942, he was appointed district leader in the Budapest District XII organization of the Arrow Cross Party, and from October 15, 1944, he served in the armed party service. Between November 28, 1944, and January 14, 1945, he participated in the apprehension, robbery, assault, and unlawful execution of several hundred people considered Jewish in District XII of Budapest and on the Buda bank of the Danube.
Case 2
From June 1942 to January 1943, he served as the deputy commander of the 101/5 forced labor company. On the Eastern Front, he treated forced laborers cruelly and ordered his subordinates to do the same. Through his intervention, the so-called "leper section" was created, to which only sick forced laborers were assigned. He was dissatisfied with their work performance, so he denied them food and medical care. As a result of his actions, only 22 out of the company's 260 personnel survived.
Case 3
Following the Arrow Cross takeover, he became a party serviceman and then deputy to Géza Horváth, the IX district party leader. However, Illés exercised the actual power in the district. He decided the fate of the people brought into the district Arrow Cross house. He interrogated the persecuted under severe abuse and then, under the pretext of transporting them to the ghetto, gave the order for their execution. On December 19, 1944, he conducted a raid on St. Stephen's Hospital with several party servicemen, from where they abducted 40 people and handed them over to the party servicemen of District II, who executed them on the banks of the Danube. All valuables were taken from the people brought into the Arrow Cross house, of which Illés kept a record. On one occasion, he had a cartload of stolen goods transported from the house at 39 Lónyai Street.
We don't have such monuments over here. But I know for a fact that communist regime in my country inprisoned or persecuted also members of the nazi resistance movement as well as soldiers fighting the nazis abroad. I have no issues with actual nazis getting punished for what they did.
The point was this: the Victims of Communism numbers people throw around in debates are highly inflated since it contains unborn children and Nazi war criminals as well.
Yes, I'm aware nazis and communists were not the only ones doing terrible stuff. That doesn't make it right
Clearly. And I'm aware these are not on the same level. Not a perfect analogy for sure, but still a place people went to die to.
Nazis camps were also not all the same. Auschwitz was a labor camp for example - which yes, still had gas chambrers and ovens. But then there was the like of Birkenau not far from there and thats where people were actually sent to die. It is clear which of those is more evil, but you can't say one of them wasn't evil just because the other was more evil.
Are you saying those that you brought up were fine, because nazi ones are worse?