I feel like talking about Stalin is like walking on eggshells... You don't want to go, "Stalin's death toll is overexaggerated, in my opinion he didn't kill enough people!!!" because that will make the average person instantly stop hearing you
What's the best way to talk about Stalin in a sensitive way that doesn't trigger a fight or flight response?
You should really read up about his deeds from the people his regime was oppressing...
You mean read from anti-communists (imperialists, capitalists, fascists) about how the mean communist was stopping them from world domination some of the time?
Anyways, here's something you can read on Stalin: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Stalin:_History_and_Critique_of_a_Black_Legend
Wtf are you on about?? Go to the east europe and talk to literally anyone
No, what are you on about? You keep alluding to vague bullshit but have absolutely nothing to back it up.
So you are saying my grandparents were not deported?
Yes, that's for sure what I'm saying, as I've obviously met your grandparents and know them personally. Say hi to them for me BTW.
Sarcasm in the face of your absurd rhetoric aside, if they were deported by a socialist state, odds are in favor of it being for a good reason. I don't listen to anecdotal anti-communist drivel passed down to their children. They generally aren't hearing an accurately told story. For example, people who were landlord types and got forced out or had to "flee communism" or whatever, can be pretty deceptive about why it happened. This is a real thing that happens, I'm not being speculative here.
So no, you can cease and desist with thinking you get to speak for an ideology and practice involving millions of people because your grandparents said some shit to you. It's funny how that works. When somebody's grandparents are racist or whatever, it's like, "waow, awkward, guess they can be like that, they're just ignorant because of the times they grew up in". But when somebody's grandparents are anti-communist, suddenly everyone is supposed to take them at their word as representing everything that was done by communists during a certain time period. Absolute nonsense. Absurder still, we're supposed to take seriously the words of someone who isn't even the grandparent themself in their own words! A person alleging to have such grandparents, who is telephone game passing along a story and on the internet of all things. Goofball things.
~10 000 people in my tiny country alone is totally anecdotal and surely just some sort of fluke... Probably just American propaganda and all those still living are just having a mass hallucination.. Yeah old people stuff..
Anyways I am not against socialism.. I think equality is important and the western system sure is not the good that it says it is.
That aside USSR sure wasn't good either. Taking over independent countries who are doing their thing the way they want and then forcefully suppressing their culture and way of life is not good in my books. It is totally fine to defend socialism, but defending a de facto murderous dictator is not. And of course I can't ask about their crimes from my aged people.... They didn't live then you know.... My grandmother did, she was a farmer until guys with guns came in the night.. What nice fellas am I right? Definitely not a red flag... There is a common saying among the oldies here that would roughly translate to "nazis sucked, but russians were literal monsters".
Which seems a longer telephone line to you - me listening to people who lived through it or me listening to you who seemingly has never set a foot in the eastern block?
Sounds made up lol. Like something a Cold War NATO type would come up with:
Shit propaganda. GTFO of here.
Yeah!! Lets forcefully take over all the small countries, import all their natural resources to the mainland so we, the cultured, can live in paradise!!!
Hooray for slavery!
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Fun fact, if you claim to support socialism, but then join in with the empire's talking points in demonizing efforts to actually do it, you are indistinguishable from an imperialist. No amount of saying "I'm actually really on its side" changes that. Being an ally of an abstraction doesn't mean anything.
But these "talking points" really happened... USSR was NOT a good thing... Communism ≠ USSR... All that industry they built was built on the blood of the conquered. Maybe you should not do that?
Fun fact you can do communism without slavery. Why do you insist that an atrocious attempt in the past is the only way?
You can't make people equal and society classless when you shove tens of thousands into backcountry to do the work.
I can make stuff up too. My great grandfather actually warned me about you. He said that someday a deceiver called wooferTwo would come into my life. This was after his dog was stolen by the original wooferOne. He knew what was up. RIP grandpa.
Not answering my questions though... You can google the deportations, you can't google why in the fuck you would think that slavery is a sign of great communism
You could also read what I directly linked you earlier and evidently didn't read a word of it. But yeah, if I googled "anti-communism", I'm sure I could find plenty of sources alleging a lot of terrible things about it, like ones written by the western empire and by fascists and their intelligentsia. It's almost like in power struggle, if you don't defeat the exploiting classes, they will slander and fight you instead of just giving in to a better world. Did you know the USSR was invaded by western powers very early in its life? Far before it had time to do most of the atrocities that anti-communists claimed it did. Meanwhile, Nazi Germany was largely left alone by some of those same powers until late in WWII (or even had connections between). Why do you think that is, hmm?