Regarding Poland, again, this was territory Poland had conquered previously that historically belonged to countries in the Soviet Union. This was a return of territory. By no means did it come without bloodshed, but nevertheless the soviets were not nearly the butchers the Nazis were.

As for the west conspiring to kill of the Soviet Union, and letting Germany do so, again, I gave naked testimony that this was the case. The Soviet Union wanted above all else to survive, the Nazis wanted new colonial territories, and the west wanted to not get colonized by the Nazis while also wanting the Soviets to stop being socialist.

Do you have a source on a British warning to Germany?

Wolkow W. K. (2003), Stalin wollte ein anderes Europa. Moskaus Außenpolitik 1940 bis 1968 und die Folgen, Edition Ost, Berlin, p. 110.

The British warnings to the USSR were sadly ignored; Stalin did not order the Red Army to get ready for an invasion, which was partially why the first few months of the war went so disastrously poorly for the Soviets.

I already explained this earlier. There was a massivedisinformation campaign, with feints from both Germany and the western powers. The first few weeks went as everyone expected, the Nazis advanced quickly over largely open land until running face to face with the full industrialized might of the Red Army. Goebbels’ diary is quite telling of the change in attitude. On the 22nd-23rd of June, the Nazis attacked confidently. On July 2nd, Goebbels wrote the following:

Overall, the fighting is hard and stubborn. We can in no way speak of a walk in the park. The red regime has mobilized the people.

July 24th:

We can have no doubt whatsoever about the fact that the Bolshevik regime, which has existed for nearly a quarter of a century, has left a deep mark on the peoples of the Soviet Union […]. It would be right, therefore, if we clearly informed the German people about the harshness of the struggle taking place in the East. The nation must be told that this operation is very difficult, but that we can and will survive it.

August 1st:

At the Führer’s headquarters […] they also openly admit that they were somewhat mistaken in their assessment of Soviet fighting power. The Bolsheviks are showing stronger resistance than we expected, and above all the material means at their disposal are greater than we had anticipated.

August 9th:

Privately, the Führer is very displeased for having allowed himself to be so deceived about the potential of the Bolsheviks by the reports [sent by German agents] coming from the Soviet Union. In particular, the underestimation of the enemy’s tanks and aircraft caused a great deal of trouble for our military operations. He suffers a lot because of this. We’re dealing with a serious crisis […]. The previous campaigns were a walk in the park by comparison […]. The Führer is not worried about the West […]. In our German thoroughness and objectivity we have always overestimated the enemy, except, in this case, the Bolsheviks.

September 16th:

We have totally underestimated the strength of the Bolsheviks.

This was not a walk in the park for the Nazis, because the Soviets planned for it. Modern historiography makes it quite clear that the Nazis and Soviets were never allies in any capacity, for any length of time, and were always conspiring against each other with no expectation of actual peace, just biding their time before what they desired to be a favorable start to war.

Sort of. Marx had the same concept of authority and dictatorship, in that they belong to classes, and therefore should belong to the working classes. The anarchist critique of authority presented by Anark doesn’t make it seem bad at all.

This is what we tend to mean by sinophobia. There’s a difference between knowledgeable and nuanced critique of the CPC and PRC in general, and repeating the most bog-standard confidently incorrect bullshit you can find. This utter chauvanism is spoken the same way European colonizers spoke about Africans back in the height of colonialism, and still today in some cases.

Or if not, look at 996

Illegal, limited largely to the 40 companies in Beijing and Shanghai. The average working hours in China is 46 per week.

the mere fact that anyone can barely mention Winnie the Pooh inside China or they’ll go to a “reeducation camp"

Also bullshit, Winnie the Pooh is legal and fairly popular.

the fact that they repress violently every single protest or criticism to the Party-State

Again, bullshit. Criticism is popular and constructive in China, and protests do happen infrequently. Most people support the government though so it doesn’t come to that.

or the fact that they have the biggest data fusion and surveillance network of the world

Incorrect, Five Eyes countries do. This is projection from the west.

just to control what can be said, thought, looked at, searched or done

Incorrect, brainwashing does not exist.

not to mention the Great China’s Firewall.

Which is done to help develop a Chinese sovereign internet free of foreign influence, such as from western tech giants.

or is it that for you, all that independently-checked and blindly peer-reviewed facts are just a “USA propaganda”.

None of what you said is peer-reviewed.

No, it was not. Once discovered that a famine was occuring, the soviets did what they could to prevent and alleviate it once it had started. The idea of an intentional famine is simply fringe among contemporary historians, same with claims of white genocide in South Africa. For example, serious bourgeois academic sources tend to say it was a failure of planning, rather than intentional and genocide. For instance, Mark Tauger wrote:

[data] indicate that the famine was real, the result of a failure of economic policy, of the ‘revolution from above,’ rather than of a ‘successful’ nationality policy against Ukrainians or other ethnic groups.

Tauger believes it was a failure of economic policy, not an intentional attack on ethnic Ukrainians. The 1930s famine was a combination of drought, flooding, and mismanagement. Further, the Kulaks, wealthy bourgeois farmers, magnified matters by killing their own crops in the midst of a famine rather than letting the Red Army collectivize them. The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:

From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.

Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.

The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.

Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN

Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.

There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].

Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.

Comrade Kosior!

You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation in villages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?

Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.

Sincerely, J. Stalin

Muggeridge and Jones reported on the famine. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. Why would the soviets try to starve their own people? It was because of the soviets and collectivization of agriculture that famine was ended, and that’s why outside of wartime the 1930s famine was the final famine in those regions, with life expectancies doubling.

Overall, trying to hold on to red scare historiography does absolutely nothing to help the cause of socialism. The soviet archives have provided a wealth of knowledge largely affirming the communist narrative, and debunking liberal and fascist narratives about existing socialism.

Further, the Ukrainian nation was supported by the soviets, to the point that they were often accused of being biased! There was no Russification, instead the soviets promoted a Soviet identity alongside national identities, to protect the identities of the nations while also unifying them.

Returning to the 1930s famine, as I showed above the Central Committee was kept in the dark by the Ukrainian communists as to the famine. They tried to save face by telling the Central Committee that everything was fine and under control, but this was not the case. Drought, flooding, and kulaks burning their crops and killing their livestock as protest against collectivization had destroyed output, and the soviets were still exporting grain in order to trade for industrial equipment with the west (which is what the west wanted in exchange for industrial equipment).

Upon learning the truth of how bad it was getting, the Central Committee was furious. The officials responsible in Ukraine were held accountable, hundreds of tractors and other farming equipment was directed to Ukraine, as well as ~17 million poods (~14ish kg/pood) of grain were redirected towards Ukraine. The Central Committee had been deciding policy based on the reports they were recieving, and these reports were falsified to protect the Ukrainian communist party leadership.

Had famine been the goal, no aid would have been given at all, or perhaps token aid. Sending hundreds of millions of kg of grain to Ukraine is no petty tribute, and punishing Ukrainian party leaders that lied and facilitated famine was the correct course of action for such treason. Counter-revolutionary is correct! They had put their own skin above the peasantry.

In all of this, there was absolutely no reason to have intentionally created a famine. The USSR needed grain for industrial equipment and to feed its people, it would not have sabotaged output deliberately. On top of this, there was existing accusations of the soviets overly supporting Ukrainian national identity, Lenin had given them the Donbass region and in an effort to overturn the Tsar’s oppression the soviets highly valued national identity and self-determination.

There is no real evidence of deliberate starvation or creation of famine. All that exists is evidence of tragedy, weather adversity, class conflict between kulaks and the peasantry, and mismanagement in part by the Ukrainian communists and in part caused by disinformation fed to the Central Committee, which changed how they treated Ukraine. Again, they needed grain for industrialization, which they saw as necessary for defense (and this was proven correct as the rapid industrialization in the 20s and 30s is what enabled soviet victory over the Nazis in the 40s).

Based on this, Anark makes it seem like authoritarianism is both good and necessary as long as it’s the working classes holding the authority. Same with whatever degree of domination is minimally required to prevent capitalists and fascists from overturning this. I don’t really think it’s “propaganda” so much as the words “authoritarianism” and “domination” are deliberately picked to sound scary.

Edit, responding to your edit: What’s with that response? Why brag about blocking me? That’s very silly behavior. I don’t think I’ve misunderstood anything, and it’s certainly not deliberate. The proletariat monopolizing control is a good thing.

The 1930s famine wasn’t a genocide, but yes, this was the last major famine outside of war time in a region where famine was common. Collectivizing agriculture and advancing in industrialization ended food insecurity.

It’s not “intellectually inaccurate,” it’s the Marxist understanding of class. The vanguard do not form a second class, they are of the proletariat (and peasantry, if applicable). Administration is not a class, but a type of labor that is necessary for production and distribution. The leaders of the Cuban, Korean, Russian, Chinese, etc. were proletarian intellectuals. Intellectuals are not a class of their own, they are a subcategory of every class, and the job of the political party is to create intellectuals and bring that class up to the level of the intellectuals in terms of thought.

Further, the masses are not stupid. Blaming individuals for systemic exploitation is extremely classist. The idea that there is no wisdom in the people, and that they instead are helpless to fall for whoever speaks to them most convincingly is absurd and ahistorical. Political parties do not command the people, the people command the parties, and the parties are there to guide the people. All legitimacy for the vanguard comes from its direct connection with the masses.

Communism led to the elimination of famine in areas where famine was historically common.

No problem!

Communism is good, and necessary.

Yes, but who enforces the consulting and the usage of the information gathered from consulting? Without accountability, that’s just fantasy and/or simping for authoritarianism. Let’s not forget, every authoritarian leader, party or Organisation has its supporters who will claim they’re not authoritarian.

The people hold them accountable, through the mechanisms I described previously. “Authoritarianism” is not a thing, all states are tools of the ruling class to oppress the rest, they are necessarily uplifting one class and oppressing the rest. Socialist states have the working classes as the ruling class.

Except when it doesn’t. There are plenty of examples where countries that have capitalism based economies moved significantly to the left. Look at Nordic countries, for instance.

Nordic countries offer sizable concessions to their working classes because the Soviets were right next to them, and already offered better safety nets. These are concessions, to prevent revolution, and are funded through imperialism and neocolonialism. The working classes do not actually hold state power. These countries are still highly centralized, dominated by finance capital, and rely on the export of capital to the global south along with huge megacorps plundering the global south to persist as they are. To get rid of imperialism and keep safery nets requires socialism.

What about all the public broadcasters? There are many countries where they’re quite strong. And as to parties getting things done, what about:

Minimum wages Welfare systems Massive improvements in workplace safety Universal healthcare Childcare

The state serves private interests in capitalism, this is why nationalizing within a capitalist economy is not socialism, and privatization within a socialist economy is not necessarily a restoration or capitalism. Public broadcasters are not representatives of the working classes, and you’re again giving examples of concessions given largely because of working class organization, not through the “democratic processes.”

I could go on and on, but that’s not the point. The point is that fascists are trying to weaken the electoral system because they know how effective it can be. Otherwise, they wouldn’t give a fuck. And part of the way they do that is by downplaying its efficacy in order to wear it down and eventually get rid of it.

Fascism is a result of the decay in capitalism and imperialism, and is where neocolonial methods are turned inwards. That’s what causes fascism to rise.

No problem!

If you want an intro to Marxism-Leninism, I wrote a basic study guide.

All states are “authoritarian” in that they are all tools by which the ruling class dominates the others. The working classes controlling a state still wield its authority to dominate capitalists, fascists, landlords, etc, but this use of authority liberates the majority. The authority question is therefore not a question of amount, but in whose hands, the working classes or capitalists.

You’re entirely confusing communism, it’s about equal ownership of the means of production and distribution, not equal parceling out of products from a static total. More people means, in many cases, more potential for industrial output, and so trying to shrink society would not be beneficial in any way. Administration would still exist, but production and distribution would be planned in a fashion to meet the needs of as many people as possible.

Which part?

Rather than hopelessness, we should have revolutionary optimism. Incrementalism is only making things incrementally worse.

Yep, more naked repression will happen, but on the flip side size is also a strength. It protects people.

Sure? That doesn’t mean it isn’t democratic, the will of the majority is represented. The CPC is extremely popular in China because they are an extremely competent organization.

China is a socialist country governed by a communist party. Public ownership is the principle aspect of its economy, and the working classes control the state. The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China’s success.

I highly recommend Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we’ve learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.

Yes, China is ruled by the proletariat and has a consultative democracy, with both direct and indirect elections.