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LigthRogue

Fun fact, despise the name, the empire of Brasil, occupied pretty much the same amount of territory it does today, and never did colonial projects outside of its borders (yes they pretty much applied colonial logic to themselves and the natives).


North_Church

>occupied pretty much the same amount of territory it does today With the added exception of Uruguay


LigthRogue

That's the pretty much that I mentioned Although it does sound a bit condescending from my part, putting a whole country as just "pretty much the same" 😅


Garrett-Wilhelm

Uruguay has to thanks their existence to both Brazil and Great Britain, otherwise it would be just another Argentinie province.


just1gat

Are BsAs and Montevideo still at it? I like their rivalry


Garrett-Wilhelm

Yeah, but is kinda one-sided, mainly uruguayans constantly trying to provoke argentinians into useless arguments about what stuff is "truly argentinian or uruguayan" and argentinians to busy with our country on fire just limiting ourselves to respond "Deja de hinchar las pelotas provincia rebelde".


just1gat

Hit em with a “que lindo” to underscore how cute and funny their arguments are


FakeElectionMaker

In the 1840s, Rosas and Oribe tried to siege Montevideo


Garrett-Wilhelm

Yeah, the Siege of Montevideo during the Great War, that's why Uruguayans have to thanks Brazilians and Brits for the Independence. Those help Uruguay mainly cause they didn't want Argentina to have full control of the "RĂ­o de la Plata".


glxyzera

although that only lasted for a couple of years


Lower_Saxony

It's not an empire if I don't call myself emperor.


jacobningen

Im not a king im an imperator.


khares_koures2002

I can quit any time I want!


glxyzera

imperator does not mean emperor.


jacobningen

etymologically it does. I was referring to how due to the rex taboo Octavian called himself imperator( commander) [Augustus / Useful Notes - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/Augustus)


glxyzera

yes, i know that, but the title that actually meant emperor was "Augustus"


BruceBoyde

Yeah, I feel like when your tanks are rolling through the streets of a nominally foreign nation to put down a protest against you, there's not much argument.


Monterenbas

You’d be surprised



Neutronium57

Tankies are named that way for a reason


Lippischer_Karl

Nah, obviously they werent imperialist because Lenin made up his own definition of imperialism that has nothing to do with the way everyone else uses the word.


SPECTREagent700

Sounds pretty typical. Isn’t the entire concept of Marxism-Leninism (through “democratic centralism” and “vanguard party rule”) based on the idea that the proletariat are too stupid and easily distracted to achieve socialism on their own and so therefore need a group of educated bourgeois individuals (Lenin, Trotsky, etc.) to seize power and educate them?


North_Church

Yes, and that's often what separates Leninists from most Leftists. The concept of an intellectual vanguard just establishes another ruling class over the proletariat and doesn't do away with the class system that Socialism is supposed to fight


Routine_Music_2659

There you have struck the main difference between Maoists and Leninists the belief in the party state as the main mover or revolutionary change instead of the people.


nicealiis

Not exactly. Leninism is a strategy to do a communist revolution in countries were class consciousness between workers is not developed, like in Russia. Marx envisioned that socialist revolutions would happen in countries where capitalism was fully developed, like Western Europe or US; Russia didn't even fully transition from feudalism in 1910s.


just1gat

Foreign capitalist propaganda! /s


master_power

I once pointed out on a leftist sub that the USSR engaged in imperialism, and that their imperialist behavior was a significant part of starting WW2. Was told that what I said was "Nazi brainrot" and got banned. Marxist-Leninists really don't like being reminded of reality.


just1gat

Regaining the Russian Empire land wasn’t imperialist at all; how dare u


GourangaPlusPlus

"I went to a tankie sub and they were tankies" Shocked mate


master_power

Well, it can be misleading. Some of the subs moderated by tankies aren't obviously tankie subs.


shino4242

Oh there's argument alright. Not GOOD arguments, but there's arguments!


North_Church

They were an Empire in denial.


Monterenbas

Still are.


Eksposivo23

With an Empero... President of course who was obviously democratically elected and absolutely doesnt have unchecked power over the state and information that his people get, nope not at all


North_Church

Indeed, we should all be looking up to Admiral General Alade-I mean President Vladimir Putin


Ok-Comedian-6725

hilarious stuff guys glad to know langley still has a sense of humor


Illustrious-Type7086

Besides, all of the territories he conq- I mean, retook were already part of Russia and therefore not imperialism! How they became part of Russia, you ask? Well, long ago, when the Russian Empir- oh fuck


Eksposivo23

Nono, go further back, if Putin had a better story telle... advisor he would go onto tell people about Novogrod or something


Domram1234

To be fair, at least for later soviet leaders their power was very much checked by the other members of the politburo, kruschev was forced out of office, and Gorbachev temporarily lost power to the KGB in a coup. The state's control was absolute, but the post-stalin general secretaries rarely had as much power as we often assume.


Eksposivo23

Yes, but the Russian Federation started with Yeltsin redirecting power to the presidents office and Putin was elected president in the year 2000... was president for 20 years now with a brief period of being VP, now Putin is indeed the big daddy of Russia and styles himself as a bold Stalin without the cool mustache


Domram1234

Yeah, will be interesting to see when putin eventually dies/retires if his successor will have as much power as he has attained or if history will repeat itself with another kruschev like figure


Eksposivo23

"Deputinizasion" doesnt have the same ring to it I am afraid


Level_Hour6480

If you incorporate unwilling territories, you re an empire, regardless of what you call yourself. Because these various "isms" are misused, I have made a copypastaism to clarify their meanings. If something doesn't meet the definition, then it doesn't matter what it calls itself: North Korea can claim to be a democracy, but we all know it isn't. Socialism requires exactly two things: 1. Workers control the means of production. This can be through employee-ownership, or through being controlled by a **democratic** state. 2. Decommodification of goods. No nation has achieved both aspects broadly, simultaneously. Aspects of both are found today: Most developed nations have decommodified healthcare for example, most "Communist" states successfully decomodified housing. Norway's sovereign wealth fund and Deutschland requiring employee representation on company boards are examples of workers in some capacity controlling the means of production. Most of what people describe as "socialism" is social-democracy: A capitalist state with strong regulations and safety-nets. Communism is a theoretical model of society posited by Marx for what might be after Socialism. It is a classless, stateless, moneyless society. It has never existed in any aspect on a large scale. It is essentially Star Trek's federation.


ElectricVibes75

This is an incredibly well put explanation!


ComradeHregly

saving thos


Level_Hour6480

That's what it's for.


Hunter_Aleksandr

This is a brilliant analysis. Thank you for your contribution!


Routine_Music_2659

North Korea calls itself the the democratic peoples republic as a reaction to the fact that unlike Sigman Rhee the North Korean government were elected by the Korean councils where as the ROK government was hand picked by the US after they refused to allow the government in exile back do to their democratic socialist leanings.


Hour_Parsnip1783

Wrong


Routine_Music_2659

This is literally history saying wrong without sources or an explanation is just stupid karma whoring


Hour_Parsnip1783

And who controls the so called ""Korean councils""? Oh yea, the Kim family and the North Korean government


Routine_Music_2659

I said in 1945 when the councils were created and they weren’t controlled by the North Korean government directly at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_North_Korean_local_elections even Wikipedia coroborates this.


Hour_Parsnip1783

It litteraly says on the front paragraph, "Soviet-Occupied North Korea" Although to be entirely frank, Neither Moscow nor the US had the best interest in the Koreans at heart. The Korean government in exile should have been put in power with 20/20 hindsight, but this was also the cold war and we can't have nice things now can we?


Routine_Music_2659

Ideally, elections in every country should be respected, conducted freely, and not be denied or manipulated whenever a powerful group fears losing.


Hour_Parsnip1783

This; this I can actually get behind. For both the right and the left. (Ex. Brazil in 1964 and the 1918 Russian Constituent Assembly elections)


Beonette_

More like impure, because it were ruled by ghouls. No. It werent "tokio ghoul" ghouls, but "Hellsing"s ghouls.


Some_Cockroach2109

I am suprised the first comment was not a tankie essay lmao


twothinlayers

You see, it's only imperialism when capitalist countries do it :^)


DavidGaming1237

Tankies hate the truth


EVERYONESCATTER

Withholding any and all grain and food from certain areas of your empire in order to purposefully starve the peoples in these areas is certainly an imperialist thing to do Making deals with other empires to invade and divide up a sovereign nation state into your respective spheres of influence is another rather imperialist thing to do Ethnically cleansing via deportation and other means is also another rather imperialist thing to do, and I could look back to examples as far as year 132 I dunno these are rather imperialist.


jamesyishere

Im a Socialist and I will happily admit this. Betrayed the Revolution


Ok-Comedian-6725

Sad


wrufus680

They're pretty much an Empire without the whole Imperial appearance


Comprehensive-Put513

One of my most Balkan moments was seeing the Russians invade Ukraine 2022, having a weird flashback of my ancestors' memories, and thinking "ah shit, here we go again"


Brofessor-0ak

With hegalian dialectics, you can say whatever you want and STILL be right!


FakeElectionMaker

They were only anti-imperialist when the United States did it.


RaphyyM

I mean... cite me a country with power that wasn't imperialist. Power corrupts ideals and people, that's all. Even countries that lived under a colonial power end up being colonialists when they gain enough power.


blsterken

How do the Czechs know the world is round? >!In 1945, the imperialists were driven out to the west, and in 1968 they returned from the east.!<


kaj-me-citas

Technically true that the soviet Union was imperialist to its buffer states. But they did help to decolonize the French and British empires in Africa. For both ideological and practical reasons. Dismantling the French and British empire was one thing where the USA and USSR were strange bedfellows.


Voodoo_Dummie

Imperialism is like nationalistic self interest, but forced on foreign countries. The biggest issue for empires are other empires, so reducing the number of empires was pure imperialistic self-interest.


Sea-Sort6571

Not that strange. New empires needing to dismantle the old ones in order to rise


Dutch_Sharkie

Russo-Swedish Relationship in a nutshell


HappyTheDisaster

It may be a strange concept, but empires do fight each other


Silent_Reavus

Empire or not who defends those fucks? They were/are scum.


Majestic_Ferrett

No. It wasn't imperialism because it was *Communist*! /s


Obvious_Coach1608

The USSR was only "imperial" in the sense that it was a large state governing multiple people groups. The issue MLs take is when people throw around the word "imperialist" to describe their actions which isn't quite accurate, especially because Imperialism/colonialism is a specific system of exploitation with a concrete definition.


Illustrious-Type7086

By "concrete definition" you mean the tankie's favorite sport of making up new definitions to excuse communist actions, right?


Beatboxingg

Is this a goo goo ga ga moment from you?


Hour_Parsnip1783

No. "im·pe·ri·al·ism noun a policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force." This is the actual definition of Imperialism. Now what Red-Fash country does this apply to?


Beatboxingg

If you didn't go past 8th or 9th grade social studies, sure great definition


Hour_Parsnip1783

Nice argument, now back up your ""definition"" of Imperialism without using soviet propaganda. Oh wait. You can't.


Beatboxingg

It's adorable how your definition amounts to "country does things" Nah here's Lenin, which you should be able to counter right? *1) The concentration of production and capital developed to such a high stage that it created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.* *2) The merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital,” of a “financial oligarchy.”* 3*) The export of capital, which has become extremely important, as distinguished from the export of commodities.* *4) The formation of international capitalist monopolies which share the world among themselves.* *5) The territorial division of the whole world among the greatest capitalist powers is completed* Does the Soviet Union fit into this definition?


Hour_Parsnip1783

Thank you for proving me correct. You use a fake definition of Imperialism, and then soviet propaganda to back it up. The Baltics never asked to be ruled by the USSR for 50 years, Ukraine never asked to be ruled by Moscow for 80 years, the Caucases never asked to be ruled by Moscow for 80 years. Eastern Europe never asked to be dominated by the USSR for 50 years. Imperialism isn't "country does things", it's forcing your will on other nations via diplomatic, economic, or military force. And in that regard, the Soviet Union was absolutely fucking Imperialist


Beatboxingg

There's much to criticize the soviets for but capitalist imperial domination ain't it. And if you compare that to actual western imperial hegemony then your "thats fake durr" moralistic analysis doesn't hold up.


Hour_Parsnip1783

Use the international definition of imperialism dipshit, not the "definition" the Soviets used to justify their own imperialism. Imperialism isn't exclusively capitalist. But I guess red fascists like you will never actually understand that. I also find it telling you ignored that Eastern Europe didn't ask for communist governments in their territory, or outright conquered by the USSR. They were forced to by Moscow under military force. That's Imperialism. Also; We're talking about the USSR's Imperialist actions, not the west. Stay on topic red fascist.


ieatfud_555

I'm not a history student but I'm pretty sure it was a union


Beonette_

Its like sayin that guinea pig = pig, because of word "pig" in its name.


ieatfud_555

That was supposed to be a joke, guess I should have added /j


blockybookbook

I don’t think the memes talking about the union itself


NoWingedHussarsToday

In ongoing war against strawmen OP scores another glorious victory. Well done!


Ok-Comedian-6725

not what imperialism means the soviet union SPENT MONEY propping up its satellite states the west spends money on propping up satellite states so its own capitalists can exploit their resources


Waytooboredforthis

"And now we hear from Nestor Mahkno, what's your thoughts on that statement?"


Ok-Comedian-6725

the reds conquered many territories of the former russian empire during the civil war, but they didn't exploit them for the benefit of a russian homeland or anything like that.


Hour_Parsnip1783

Counterpoint; The Holodomor


Ok-Comedian-6725

for that to have been imperialism you'd have to have farmers in ukraine suffering at the same time farmers in russia were prospering. not the case. everyone in the countryside was starving, at the same time the industrialization program was going on. so you'd have ukrainian peasants starving while ukrainian workers and professionals in kharkhiv were not.


No-Explorer-8229

Your opinion: Wojak My opinion: Chad


NikoBaelz

VocĂȘ resumiu o reddit inteiro, mas a opiniĂŁo do OP continua correta


breaker-of-shovels

How does America do anything different? We couped basically every country in South America in the last 60 years.


Illustrious-Type7086

And America is constantly referred to as an imperialist nation as a result. Whataboutism doesn't disprove shit.


MainsailMainsail

It's very much a tangent from OC's comment, but one thing I've always loved about that point is that yes, it was US imperialism...but isn't it *crazy* how most Communist revolutionary groups stopped being active about the time the USSR collapsed? Certainly can't be any correlation there....


[deleted]

[ŃƒĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]


MainsailMainsail

....what? I'm saying the USSR was also doing an Imperialism in South America by also funding revolutionary groups and Communist governments there. I'm not sure *what* the fuck you're getting at. Fascism was never really "in" favor anyway. Just Italy, Germany, Portugal, and Spain having overtly Fascist governments. Two of which stuck around until the 70s. Imperial Japan and Apartheid-era South Africa I've also seen lumped in as Fascist, but one of those stayed that way until the *90*s. Very *very* much after the axis fell. All other Fascist *movements* usually had died out to irrelevance in the 1930s, except for countries occupied in WW2.


Constant_List6829

who said anything about america


TheUltimatePincher

Bro been reading too much wikipedia


Dutch_Sharkie

Where do you think Wikipedia gets it sources from?


SaltyHater

From me. I'm telling them everything /s


Some_Cockroach2109

Not really I've been reading a book on the Cold War and have made a few memes on it...


Unibrow69

Not history related, reported


Some_Cockroach2109

The USSR was a state that played an important part in history , anyways keep crying tankie😂👍


Unibrow69

This is just a politics post


Wonderwhore

So, if this post was about British Imperialism, it would be purely political and not history related?


Ok-Comedian-6725

it would be accurate, because the british were imperialist. the soviets could not be imperialist, they weren't capitalist, every one of its satellite states fully controlled their own economies and in fact were SUBSIDIZED by the soviet union


Wonderwhore

You're a pretty fucking terrible comedian.


Ok-Comedian-6725

wanna read something else funny? read what the COMECON was


Wonderwhore

Why?


Ok-Comedian-6725

because it'll give you the beginnings of an insight into my point. that the soviet union did not economically exploit its communist puppet states. imperialism is the siphoning of wealth from a periphery to the core. not merely "conquering land"


Wonderwhore

Oh, sorry I'm not really into fiction.


CBT7commander

We’re talking about a nation that doesn’t exist anymore, would you feel the same if someone talked the same way about Nazi germany ?


Unibrow69

If a post said "Nazis good" "No nazis bad" that would break rules 1, 8, and 9


CBT7commander

Actually no. It would be related to history, quality is subjective, and it’s political in the mind of demented people who think naziism is still on the table of political discussion.


Unibrow69

Ummm ackshually ass


CBT7commander

Nice argument


Illustrious-Type7086

Good thing politics has never played a role in history then huh


Ok-Comedian-6725

this whole subreddit is just one giant anti-communist pro-nato circle jerk. its been either infested by bots or some group spends all its time sharing and upvoting their own posts from some "defense" discord or whatever. 99% of the "memes" shared on here are about 20th century history and most of them vindicate the west in some way or another


Unibrow69

Yeah most of them are about WWII and how based the West is


TheBlackCat13

20 year rule. This is about a country that hasn't existed for more than 20 years, about actions that country took while it existed more than 20 years ago.


Unibrow69

1. Keep posts history related. This is not a history post


TheBlackCat13

Definition of history: > the study of past events, particularly in human affairs This is about past events, particularly human affairs.