235
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] happybadger@hexbear.net 80 points 4 weeks ago

I've seen a lot of Bolshevik disrespect coming from other instances. Some apologies are in order.

[-] anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 52 points 4 weeks ago

Did the bolsheviks actually slaughter the rich?

I remember reading about the Killing of the Romanovs~based~ but even that appears to have been an aberration, as iirc communications were down and a quick decision had to be made in the absence of commands from leadership despite previous orders to just guard, in case the white army was coming to free them. Iirc even after all that a surprising number of former white army troops were integrated into the soviet army.

There was also Dekulakization but iirc the deaths there were usually resistors to the decision to distribute the food within Ukraine and food hoarding during a famine.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 60 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

It is not strategically beneficial to threaten your opponent with death for surrendering. Doing so will cause them to fight to the death.

It is far better for us to have them submit to getting under the thumb of the proletarian state than it is to kill them. They can be legislated out of existence in a way that doesn't threaten any of them personally provided they're given no power in the state. We don't even need to rush that, they can probably be phased out in a way that barely affects their lives.

[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 28 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I think at this point there's a tension between the strategic advantage of having billionaires willing to surrender (preserves forces, results in net gain of manpower) versus how fucking stoked the majority of people are to see them die (gains new loyalists, results in net gain of manpower) and to be honest I think that someone sitting down with a pen and paper could work out an optimal percentage that could then be applied on a case by case basis. No-names with vast fortunes? Whatever, reeducation. Your Bezos', Princes, Duponts and Langones? Written off by popular demand.

Edit: having thought about this more, I think you could even get the best of both worlds by rocking up to one of these fuhrerbunkers and announcing "We will be accepting the surrender of the employees but not the boss. In fact, any employees who feel like doing a little mutiny and bringing the boss out to us, or even just forgetting to lock the gate, will be handsomely rewarded."

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 22 points 4 weeks ago

Ahh yes, the Chinese method. "Kill the chicken to scare the monkey."

[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 24 points 4 weeks ago

Lmao any situation you can imagine, China has already been there, done that and coined a proverb

[-] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 12 points 4 weeks ago

Why can't we be a bunch of Asians? doggirl-tears

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] WellTheresYourCobbler@hexbear.net 17 points 4 weeks ago

Written off by popular demand

michael-laugh

[-] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 8 points 4 weeks ago

I actually like that. If they are so keen on algorithms, make an algorithm to determine what kind of expropriation they face.

[-] spectre@hexbear.net 27 points 4 weeks ago

First step is a steep inheritance/gift tax

  • "we're doing socialism now, your kids are taken care of cause everyone is taken care of"
  • "good job making a few bucks, you can use your surplus on some luxuries while you're alive. Your kids didn't earn that, so you don't get to just throw it at them when you die. They will have to work like everyone else (including you) if they want to be rich too"
[-] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 19 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Nah, no taxes. Taxation of the rich creates a dependency of the system on the continued existence of the rich for revenue.

It should be a discrete mass expropriation of wealth and private property. The goal is not to allow the bourgeois to remain in control of industry and capital and skim off their profits, the goal is to end their ownership entirely. Going down the taxation route opens you up to tax strikes from the rich as well crippling state revenue.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 16 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Yeah exactly. Lay out something completely reasonable, if there are fighters then they get dealt with because fighting is obviously not allowed. The position is reasonable.

They can die with luxury and phase out without causing a wider problem provided they are completely disempowered. That disempowerment will need to be monitored for security too but I suspect most of them will just want to keep their heads down.

The next generation will probably be a bigger problem than the current one because they're gonna be PISSED that they lost those things, but that's a bridge to cross in years down the line. They are your future gusanos.

[-] anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 8 points 4 weeks ago

I'm mostly with you on that. The thought of vengeance on the bourgeoisie fills me with an indescribable ecstasy, but I'm willing to forego that in favor of practicality and improved conditions for all.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 12 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

It was that way for me before and then multiple wars happened and it became so obvious how giving the opposing side ways to surrender is much more beneficial. This doesn't just apply to violent war, it applies to class war too, with the important caveat that they must be disempowered in the same way that you would disarm any enemy surrendering in a violent war.

[-] anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 weeks ago

For certain. Momentary indulgence must always, in a rational society, be superseded by the good of all. In the end it's self-care as well.

[-] XiaCobolt@hexbear.net 30 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

There was the killing of feudal landlords in China. But that was peasant led, basically once they realized there wasn't Qing, Japanese or Nationalist forces to stop them they acted.

The communists were just let's see how this plays out

meow-popcorn

[-] Inui@hexbear.net 19 points 4 weeks ago

Mao eventually sent the army to stop the red guards that were getting out of hand even. It wouldn't have been beneficial in that moment to slap the hand of the people who were just freed from exploitation. Only once they began to threaten the process of rebuilding.

[-] vovchik_ilich@hexbear.net 15 points 4 weeks ago

The Romanovs being murder was entirely justified, it was not done out of nowhere, it was in response to a civil war threatening to reinstate tsarism. Once people see that the "god-given rulers" can be slaughtered with a musket, they stop looking so "god-given".

A lot of Kulak deaths took place not through direct violence, but through the dangers of deportation, as hundreds of thousands of them were deported to "new" lands in the east. Then again, life expectancy at the time was 30 years of age, so I guess starvation and disease were absolutely not exclusive to kulaks.

[-] anotherspinelessdem@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 weeks ago

Justified? Certainly.

Practical? Only given the specific conditions in front of the the guards.

The best outcome? Not necessarily. The Puyi method is far more effective in the achievement of communism, in the long term.

Plenty of kulak deaths were through direct violence, but justified nonetheless. Plenty of them hoarded or even burned their own harvests to spite their new and, to them, unwelcome system. The system responded proportionally.

load more comments (6 replies)
[-] Bronstein_Tardigrade@lemmygrad.ml 44 points 4 weeks ago

Should have been a lot more hangings after the US Civil War.

[-] ElChapoDeChapo@hexbear.net 25 points 4 weeks ago

Reconstruction was such a missed opportunity, one of the few chances this cursed country has ever had at redemption and they just gave up

[-] TheBroodian@hexbear.net 17 points 4 weeks ago

Lincoln himself said that he would preserve slavery if he could. The civil war was never about cleansing the sins of empire. After it was over, they wanted to resolve the contractions to the absolute minimum possible

[-] sewer_rat_420@hexbear.net 42 points 4 weeks ago

We don't need to slaughter them, and we shouldn't. They don't fear death, they fear becoming a normal prole just like us

Of course, a portion of them will die to defend their ill gotten gains. Many of them will be found guilty of crimes deserving prison up to life sentences. I'm against death penalty but I'm not gonna shed tears when some of them inevitably face justice in a more direct fashion, from the masses (in Minecraft)

[-] Sickos@hexbear.net 19 points 4 weeks ago

Eating them alive is certainly an option, I guess

[-] FishLake@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 4 weeks ago

I’ve long held the position that we only need to eat one billionaire. Not in a metaphorical sense.

[-] The_Filthy_Commie@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 4 weeks ago

I'll bring the beer.

[-] sewer_rat_420@hexbear.net 13 points 4 weeks ago

I ain't gonna snitch on anyone for such an act, but their fat old flesh is probably not very tasty. If I happen to come across any of their remains, I have some other ideas

[-] Krem@hexbear.net 13 points 4 weeks ago

Give the least guilty among them the Puyi treatment, let them tie their own shoes, live in a little apartment and work a boring job for 30 years in a very controlled setting

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] OgdenTO@hexbear.net 42 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

It's weird that when I say eliminate the rich, I mean take their money away. When Libs hear eliminate the rich they think the only way to do that is murder

[-] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 43 points 4 weeks ago

The rich as a class will never tolerate the expropriation without escalating to violence. So at some point they force our hand since they will not become equal peacefully

[-] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 43 points 4 weeks ago
[-] IvarK@hexbear.net 18 points 4 weeks ago

Ok i need to ask: What does this emote mean? I see it and never get it :c

[-] InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net 27 points 4 weeks ago

One person says "Nobody is saying that X"

Old Gramps here chimes in "I was saying X"

[-] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 26 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

someone says "i'm not saying X/i wasn't saying X" and you respond "i was saying X I-was-saying"

[-] ElChapoDeChapo@hexbear.net 13 points 4 weeks ago

This and I also use it interchangeably with flattened-bernie as an emoji for feeling old

[-] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 6 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah I use it for feeling old because I don’t want to emote Bernie or Chomsky except at their expense

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 22 points 4 weeks ago

You are telling me right after I got us a new woodchipper?

[-] vovchik_ilich@hexbear.net 17 points 4 weeks ago

Thing is, they don't have a fundamental problem with the extermination of all members of a class. Everyone celebrates the French revolution

[-] jackmaoist@hexbear.net 14 points 4 weeks ago

Honestly just have them clean the streets outside their palaces.

[-] TheBroodian@hexbear.net 9 points 4 weeks ago

I mean... Speaking for myself only... But I wouldn't shed any tears over the elimination of some rich and not just their riches

[-] OrionsMask@hexbear.net 6 points 4 weeks ago

The issue is that the rich created this horrible world to secure more money and their status. They will never allow you to simply take it away. And even if you do, their children will come looking for it again and will do heinous shit to get it, again.

[-] invo_rt@hexbear.net 36 points 4 weeks ago

Nah, you have to use love...

[-] Philosoraptor@hexbear.net 14 points 4 weeks ago
[-] ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net 12 points 4 weeks ago
load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
235 points (100.0% liked)

Chapotraphouse

14307 readers
667 users here now

Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.

No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer

Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS