There’s a conversation unfer a feddit.org comment that I don’t think you can see due to defederation from the Zionists, but that’s about it so far.

May the US Empire be kicked out of West Asia forever.

The official story is that it’s accidental, that’s what I know, though the devs are MLs and lots of MLs like me use Lemmy.ml.

Rimu considers the viewpoint that the 1930s famine in the soviet union being a combination of mismanagement and adverse weather conditions, rather than a deliberate targeting of ethnic groups, to be “genocide denial” and thus worthy of total censorship. This is despite the fact that the mainstream contemporary opinion on the 1930s famine even among reputable liberal historians is that it was as I said.

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.

This, to Rimu, is considered to be genocide denial. This is despite Wikipedia’s own acknowledgement that “scholars continue to debate whether the human-made Soviet famine was a central act in a campaign of genocide,[169] or a tragic byproduct of rapid Soviet industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture.[170]:”

Other historians such as Michael Ellman consider the Holodomor a crime against humanity, but do not classify it as a genocide.[181] Economist Steven Rosefielde and historian Robert Conquest consider the death toll to be primarily due to state policy, and poor harvests.[182] Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Conquest was granted access to the Soviet state archives alongside other western academics.[183] In 2004, Wheatcroft published a private correspondence that he had with Conquest. In the exchange, Conquest wrote that he is now of the opinion that the Holodomor was not purposefully inflicted by Stalin but “what I argue is that with resulting famine imminent, he could have prevented it, but put ‘Soviet interest’ other than feeding the starving first – thus consciously abetting it”.[184] In an interview recorded in 2006 Conquest stated the Holodomor should be recognized as an attack on the Ukrainian people and discussed problems with the use of the term genocide.[185]

Robert Davies, Stephen Kotkin, Stephen Wheatcroft and J. Arch Getty reject the notion that Stalin intentionally wanted to kill Ukrainians, but conclude that Stalinist policies and widespread incompetence among government officials set the stage for famine in Ukraine and other Soviet republics.[186][187][108] Anne Applebaum believes that the famine was planned to undermine Ukrainian identity but discusses how shifts in understanding of the term genocide mean that it is more difficult to apply now that it was when the term was initially conceived. Another argument she puts forward is that the question of genocide is not as important as it once was because it was a proxy debate about Ukraine and Ukrainians’ right to exist, a right which no longer needs historic justification.[188]

Further, Rimu repeats the far-right McCain Institute talking points about supposed “organ harvesting” in China towards the far-right Falun Gong cult:

And this is despite the fact [that no supporting evidence for this conspiracy theory has been found](Here’s an example of investigating claims made by the Falun Gong about organ harvesting, with no evidence found, even from western investigation.)

Overall, Rimu in particular promotes an unquestioning, dogmatic view of history that goes well beyond what’s considered definitive even in the west. Rimu also therefore uses the admin position of PieFed.social to silence any reasonable, developed dissent, no matter how well-sourced.

Was that specific enough?

No worries! It varies instance by instance, and due to federation/defederation you likely haven’t seen many of us, as feddit.org censors communist instances from your view (other than this one, as it’s technically not communist despite having a lot of us, and since this is the dev test instance).

Here is dessalines’ github page for essays, and their profile pic is of Che Guevara. Dessalines is the lead dev, and other devs are communists as well. For more, here’s dessalines pinning the basic Marxist-Leninist study guide I made to the c/communism community here.

China and the DPRK being socialist states with functioning democratic structures is the standard take among communists, which is certainly fringe in the west but not everywhere. Especially Lemmy, which was and is developed by communists.

In China, they have direct elections for local representatives, which elect further “rungs,” laddering to the top. The top then has mass polling and opinion gathering. This combination of top-down and bottom-up democracy ensures effective results. For more on this, see Professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. This system is remarkably effective, resulting in over 90% approval rates.

From the same book, for the DPRK:

The DPRK’s electoral democracy relates primarily to the people’s assemblies, along with local state organs, assemblies, and committees. Every eligible citizen may stand for election, so much so that independent candidates are regularly elected to the people’s assemblies and may even be elected to be the speaker or chair. The history of the DPRK has many such examples. I think here of Ryu Mi Yong (1921–2016), who moved from south to north in 1986 so as to take up her role as chair of the Chondoist Chongu Party (The Party of the Young Friends of the Heavenly Way, formed in 1946). She was elected to the Supreme People’s Assembly and became a member of the Standing Committee (then called the Presidium). Other examples include Gang Ryang Uk, a Presbyterian minister who was a leader of the Korean Christian Federation (a Protestant organisation) and served as vice president of the DPRK from 1972 until his death in 1982, as well as Kim Chang Jun, who was an ordained Methodist minister and became vice-chair of the Supreme People’s Assembly (Ryu 2006, 673). Both Gang and Kim were buried at the Patriots’ Cemetery.

How do elections to all of the various bodies of governance work? Elections are universal and use secret ballots, and are—notably—direct. To my knowledge, the DPRK is the only socialist country that has implemented direct elections at all levels. Neither the Soviet Union (in its time) nor China have embraced a complete system of direct elections, preferring—and here I speak of China—to have direct elections at the lower levels of the people’s congresses, and indirect elections to the higher levels. As for candidates, it may initially seem as though the DPRK follows the Soviet Union’s approach in having a single candidate for each elected position. This is indeed the case for the final process of voting, but there is also a distinct difference: candidates are selected through a robust process in the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. As mentioned earlier, the struggle against Japanese imperialism and liberation of the whole peninsula drew together many organisations, and it is these that came to form the later Democratic Front. The Front was formed on 25 July, 1949 (Kim Il Sung 1949), and today includes the three political parties, and a range of mass organisations from the unions, youth, women, children, agricultural workers, journalism, literature and arts, and Koreans in Japan (Chongryon). Notably, it also includes representation from the Korean Christian Federation (Protestant), Korean Catholic Federation, and the Korean Buddhist Federation. All of these mass organisations make up the Democratic Front, and it is this organisation that proposes candidates. In many respects, this is where the multi-candidate dimension of elections comes to the fore. Here candidates are nominated for consideration from all of the mass organisations represented. Their suitability and merit for the potential nomination is debated and discussed at many mass meetings, and only then is the final candidate nominated for elections to the SPA. Now we can see why candidates from the Chondoist movement, as well as from the Christian churches, have been and can be elected to the SPA and indeed the local assemblies.

To sum up the electoral process, we may see it in terms of a dialectical both-and: multi-candidate elections take place in the Democratic Front, which engages in extensive consideration of suitable candidates; single candidate elections take place for the people’s assemblies. It goes without saying that in a non-antagonistic system of class and group interaction, the criterion for election is merit and political suitability

As for the bodies of governance, there is a similar continuity and discontinuity compared with other socialist countries. Unlike the Soviet Union, there is a unicameral Supreme People’s Assembly, which is the highest authority in terms of laws, regulations, the constitution, and all leadership roles. The SPA is also responsible for the national economic plan, the country’s budget, and foreign policy directions (Han 2016, 47–48). At the same time, the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland has an analogous function to a second organ of governance. This is a uniquely Korean approach to the question of a second organ of governance. While not an organ of governance as such, it plays a direct role in electoral democracy (see above), as well as the all-important manifestation of consultative democracy (see below). A further reason for this unique role of the Democratic Front may be adduced: while the Soviet Union and China see the second body or organ as representative of all minority nationalities and relevant groups, the absence of minority nationalities in a much smaller Korea means that such a form of representation is not needed.

I highly recommend the book, it helps shed light on some often misunderstood mechanisms in socialist democracy, including the directly addressed fact that the DPRK’s voting process includes single candidate approval voting. Without the context of the candidate selection process, this is spun as entirely anti-democratic.

China’s certainly a socialist country, but not a utopia. I really don’t think you know what you’re talking about, every word you say seems to be against a strawman.

The US millitary has always been genocidal imperialists.

Don’t have a basement, but either way it’s more and more obvious that the only path forward for humanity in general and the people living in the US Empire in particular is global socialism. To make that happen, the US Empire needs to fall, and ideally a socialist state needs to take its place. This is the number 1 historical task for the working classes in the imperial core.

That said, my spouse and I have considered the possibility of moving to the PRC eventually, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards right now.

Mainly becauae Lemmy.ml users are tired of Lemmy.ml complaints, I would guess.

The roots of imperialism are in the monopoly stage of capitalism. It isn’t because a few bad individuals exist, it’s a material process.

To be fair, Lemmy.ml is the dev instance, and Lemmy was made very specifically to not have the problems Reddit has.

Once again, Geneva’s normally decent political instincts end up running the wrong way, and is why Geneva should read anti-imperialist theory if Geneva wants to understand how the world works. Attacking Iran is a bipartisan project decades in the making. Trump does not need a distraction from the Epstein files, this was always intended to happen, and by shifting the blame to trying to distract from the Epstein files you miss how this is advancing very rational imperialist goals of eradicating any resistance to western plundering in the middle East.

I hate the argument of “just read theory!” As much as I believe one should read theory, just telling people to do so won’t make it happen. However, there are clear limits to political instincts without solid backing in political theory and this is a prime example of it.

This is phrasemongering class reductionism. The principle contradiction in the world right now is imperialism, which the US Empire is at the head of.

Longer answer: Lemmy was originally founded by a bunch of Marxist-Leninists and socialists of similar stripes (that’s what the .ml stands for)

Technically .ml stands for Mali, and was chosen because the domain is cheap. Ended up being a bit of a funny coincedence.

Haven’t seen anything like that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if western-backed orgs were targeted.

The people of Iran are rallying around Khamenei for being martyred, and Maduro was democratically elected and supported by the majority. You have a very western viewpoint.

One can only hope.