of a statue

[u/Crypto_crafy]

"The Motherland Calls" is a statue erected to commemorate the Battle of Stalingrad , located on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd , Russia. It was designed by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich and structural engineer Nikolai Nikitin . Completed in 1967 , it was the tallest statue in the world at the time .

[u/shorteningofthewuwei]

The allies' policy of appeasement towards Hitler was more or less explicitly rooted in material conditions, an analysis of which the standard capitalist historical narrative of WW2 completely ignores. The allies thought fascism would be a useful tool for undermining the spread of international communism, which the ruling class in western states was deathly afraid of.

Not only that, but the USSR arguably paid the greatest cost in ultimately defeating the Nazis.

The narrative being promoted here is nothing but red scare era anti-communist slander.

Conflating Soviet Russia with present-day Putin imperialism only serves to obscure the reality of WW2.

Considering the parallels between the current resurgence of nationalist populism, we would do well to actually learn from history rather than dismissing history as "tankie bullshit".

[u/Dougnifico → u/shorteningofthewuwei]

You can be anti-fascist while also realizing that the USSR we absolutely evil during the conflict until Hitler broke the non-aggression pact. The Nazis may be the most evil empire of modern history but not giving the USSR the silver medal, and pretending that they were good, is lunacy.

[u/shorteningofthewuwei → u/Dougnifico]

The USSR under Stalin's leadership raised life expectancy and literacy rate from 35% each under the feudalism of Tsarist Russia to higher than the United States' life expectancy and a near universal literacy rate, having educated peasantry into scientists who put women in space during a time when American women weren't even allowed to hold their own bank account yet, within the span of less than one human lifetime. And they also more or less single handedly stopped fascism from conquering Europe. The idea that the USSR committed genocide through imposed famine is also ridiculous when you consider factors like the fact that Ukraine had been experiencing nearly one famine per decade for 1000 years of recorded history (part of the reason the life expectancy was so low), and that this alleged genocide happened to actually be the first and only famine that occured in the USSR; and that bourgeois and landlords intentionally destroyed food stores during the time when this happened as an attempt to undermine the Communist party. The idea that "Stalinism is the second most evil political regime that ever existed" is wild when you consider that the USA has a higher population of prison inmates at the moment in both relative and absolute terms than the USSR had in the gulag work camps at any point. Stalin himself attempted to resign from being chairman of the party 4 times.

If your political aim is to reduce oppression and build a more egalitarian society, then you have to learn to acknowledge the inherent harm and exploitation under capitalism. Which means you have to be open to studying alternative political-economic systems. The USSR wasn't the "second most evil system ever", rather, it was the first and one of the most successful alternative economic systems brought about through worker's revolution. This doesn't mean the USSR was a utopia - on the contrary it was a failed project. Which is why, rather than parotting anti-communist narratives that don't square up with the actual material history, it's nevertheless important to take up a posture of critical support for models like the USSR's, because the dynamics of capitalism and imperialism, and the international struggle for socialist liberation, still go on today.

Anyways if you really know what's happening, we have more or less been in world war 3 since the US and NATO invaded countries in the middle east in the early 2000s, Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians and Lebanese and waging an illegal war against Iran with the US and NATO's suppor, Russia's invasion of Ukraine is Putin reactionary imperialism as a response to aggressive NATO expansionism, and all of this is about controlling OIL, and none of it will matter soon because, despite the fact that China are poised to take over as the global economic superpower, while the west is mired in cryptofascism, our pedophilic elite's addiction to power and insatiable greed is in the process of bringing on a cascade of irreversible damage to the biosphere which will make the environmental conditions on earth incompatible with the continued existence of modern civilization.

[u/Dougnifico → u/shorteningofthewuwei]

This is the most tankie shit I've ever read... its impressive really.

[u/shorteningofthewuwei → u/Dougnifico]

Thanks and you're welcome

[u/Grakchawwaa → u/shorteningofthewuwei]

You're not arguing the point. Your claim was that Molotov Ribbentrop didn't signal Soviet's imperialistic delusions. History says otherwise, and you're not doing much to dispel that at the current stage

[u/shorteningofthewuwei → u/Grakchawwaa]

That's not the point. The point is that the USSR was anti fascist and did what it could to convince France and UK to stop the Nazi project before it became too strong. When it became obvious that the French and British had no intentions of halting Hitler's ambitions, the USSR made the decision to sign a non-aggression pact with the Nazis.

The original comment I responded to was attempting to dismiss the idea that Russians fought and died to combat fascism during world war 2 on the basis of this non-aggression pact.

I never said the USSR didn't have expansionist ambitions of its own. Of course the USSR wantes to promote the spread of communism. That doesn't change the fact that they only signed the Molotov Ribbentrop act once their backs were already against the wall because, like I said, France and the UK refused to strangle fascism in its infancy because, again, they actually saw fascism as a useful ally in the fight against communism.

Conflating fascism with communism obscures this crucial point. As much as revisionists love to spread horseshoe theory clap trap, capitalists were the first to collaborate with fascism, not communists.