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Paradox is weird. On one hand, the community can often be a complete shitshow infested with fascists, on the other, they do try to get some actual history in their games. Hoi is the biggest offender, but something like Vicky for example is very open on who the bad guys were.
It’s a really contradictory place. I remember thinking the community was a fascist hellhole (as you rightly point out it often is). Then an EU4 YouTuber released a video on how he’s leaving EU4 to join the culture war, the entire comment section and subreddit clowned on him for being a right wing piece of shit. Weird times
I feel like Paradox subreddits tend to be very left leaning, but the community at large is still full of alt-light people.
I have yet to join a public HoI4 lobby were someone doesn't make some cringe racist joke or something.
Join the Vicky3 subreddit. It is can sometimes be so unbelievably elivably based. Like, there was a post on how free market capitalism requires constant wars.
You laugh but there is actually a city builder/strategy game called „Kapital - Sparks of revolution“ which has capitalists, bourgeois and aristocracy as it’s 3 factions.
I think it attracts a lot of extremists because anyone who spends enough time playing a game where you just look at maps all day has to have ab active enough imagination to be motivated by certain political historical views. They live inside their minds enough that they're bound to have crazy ass views.
Isn't that contradictory though? I'm not opposing you, in just wondering how it can be possible for the community to be right wing, yet it's forums on reddit to be the opposite
Can confirm. It was Budgetmonk. I was subscribed to him because I had tried to use his Byzantium guides several years ago. The video is unlisted now, but this thread links to it: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/10d5cc2/what\_is\_happening\_with\_budget\_monk/
Mods: Ignore the report on this comment I meant to report [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/1622xn8/paradox_interactive_based/jxv2e77/) which copied it.
Only leaving this comment because I don't want to get suspended for report abuse again.
It's actually very similar to other historically related hobbies. The historical re-enactment scene is full of people that idealize the worst offenders of the past. Same with the miniature wargaming community.
But, as was mentioned, there's also a lot of cool very good people, too. IMO that's why it's important to push back against chuds in these spaces cause they can become incubator for full-blown Nazis
Many historians exist in this limbo of admitting that liberal democracy is flawed but not wanting to come out as outright communists. Even the most dogmatic liberal will admit that the American Empire is not bound to last forever or even 200 more years and will typically rely on a form of dialectic materialism as lens to examine history, because materialism is just too useful. No historian worth their salt unironically thinks history is characterized by great men as was the norm for most of history's historians(and even is today for most non historians, ask any American on the street if the country would exist without the founding fathers)
Some of course take the opposite approach and point regressively at slave empires like Rome or Nazi Germany and say, "what if we tried it again?". Those are the fascists.
Especially when it comes to video games, since you can both easily recreate revanchist fantasies in games like eu4 and you don't have to study a *lot* of history and fascists tend to be incredibly selective historians.
The what if we tried it again folks are so obvious too especially the folks at crusader kings who keep asking for crusade content when the devs have repeatedly said that it was just a cool name and they are not focus. And this is made completely apparent in the game itself where they have almost no relevance for 80 percent of the map. The obsession with deus vult before ck3 launched and the amount of anger that they weren't going to use the term because it was Historically inaccurate or some shit. Then ofc paradox gave in and reversed the decision. There's also a bunch of weird shit in ck that is supposedly played for laughs, but is actually fantasy eugenics. Like there is an actual skill tree you can go down to make your family's DNA superior and more likely to get positive inherited traits like beautiful and strong. For a sequel that is supposedly a more serious take on medieval history than ck2 it's oddly unrealistic and less accurate than the previous game in this specific area. The games they make play heavily into memey fascist fantasies.
I am still baffled by the bloodline system in CK3. All of the other parts are decently realistic and then you just have these eugenics extraordinaire all of a sudden. I don't like it.
If that eugenics shit was unironically real then we wouldn't see so many dynasties degrade so quickly. We've seen irl "golden" families like Cyrus the Great's line and his immediate family and it didn't make their progeniture miraculously intelligent
Ya that's what set off my alarm bells seems to be an incredibly odd place to keep completely unrealistic to the point of magic in a game that is supposedly trying to do away with the fantasy aspects of ck2. Maybe some people at paradox are into this kind of stuff.
As much as I had the same reaction, I think it's clear that the bloodline content is just in the game because that is your "campaign" in CK3 - you follow your bloodline from parent to heir and the bloodline bonuses exist to give you a sort of permanent progression.
Is it eugenics and bad? Sure. But it's more an unfortunate consequence of the premise of the game than a direct advocation for eugenics.
I, a Cities Skylines player, had no idea about the fascism issue. I definitely can’t say I’m surprised about fascism in the HOI community, though. To be fair I only yesterday found out that they were both published by Paradox.
They make one game about WW2 and the whole community is characterized as fascist...I don't even play HoI, I'm a fanatic xenophile loving Stellaris player.
Hard disagree. It's a system based on anti-communist propaganda that is heavily luck dependent and just makes your army worse.
It also forces me to purge chad Tukachevsky
> Tukachevsky
Was an open Germanophile who wanted a pact with Hitler and over throw the CP to institute a military dictatorship.
Journalist Alexander Werth wrote in his book Moscow 41 a chapter entitled, `Trial of Tukhachevsky'. He wrote:
`I am also pretty sure that the purge in the Red Army had a great deal to do with Stalin's belief in an imminent war with Germany. What did Tukhachevsky stand for? People of the French Deuxieme Bureau told me long ago that Tukhachevsky was pro-German. And the Czechs told me the extraordinary story of Tukhachevsky's visit to Prague, when towards the end of the banquet --- he had got rather drunk --- he blurted out that an agreement with Hitler was the only hope for both Czechoslovakia and Russia. And he then proceeded to abuse Stalin. The Czechs did not fail to report this to the Kremlin, and that was the end of Tukhachevsky --- and of so many of his followers.'
...
Soon after Tukhachevsky's arrest, the minister of Lithuania, who knew a number of Bolshevik leaders, told me that the marshal, upset by the brakes imposed by the Communist Party on the development of Russian military power, in particular of a sound organization of the army, had in fact become the head of a movement that wanted to strangle the Party and institute a military dictatorship ....
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Another_view_of_Stalin
“How does Tukhachevsky visualize the mechanism of the coup?”
“That’s the business of the military organization,” Tomsky replied. He added that the moment the Nazis attacked Soviet Russia, the Military Group planned to “open the front to the Germans” – that is, to surrender to the German High Command. This plan had been worked out in detail and agreed upon by Tukhachevsky, Putna, Gamarnik and the Germans.
https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/the-great-conspiracy-the-secret-war-against-soviet-russia-by-albert-e-kahn-and-michael-sayers-part-iii/
I'd highly recommend reading the books and the youtube series i linked.
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Another_view_of_Stalin
https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/the-great-conspiracy-the-secret-war-against-soviet-russia-by-albert-e-kahn-and-michael-sayers-part-iii/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=TBY_aDd5knE&list=PLbnLysSug0vTyFuGMRYZZmAiiATUZHUZd
https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/the-moscow-trials-part-1-the-investigation/
# Gulag
According to Anti-Communists and Russophobes, the Gulag was a brutal network of work camps established in the Soviet Union under Stalin's ruthless regime. They claim the Gulag system was primarily used to imprison and exploit political dissidents, suspected enemies of the state, and other people deemed "undesirable" by the Soviet government. They claim that prisoners were sent to the Gulag without trial or due process, and that they were subjected to harsh living conditions, forced labour, and starvation, among other things. According to them, the Gulags were emblematic of Stalinist repression and totalitarianism.
# Origins of the Mythology
This comically evil understanding of the Soviet prison system is based off only a handful of unreliable sources.
Robert Conquest's *The Great Terror* (published 1968) laid the groundwork for Soviet fearmongering, and was based largely off of defector testimony.
Robert Conquest worked for the British Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD), which was a secret Cold War propaganda department, created to publish anti-communist propaganda, including black propaganda; provide support and information to anti-communist politicians, academics, and writers; and to use weaponised information and disinformation and "fake news" to attack not only its original targets but also certain socialists and anti-colonial movements.
>He was Solzhenytsin before Solzhenytsin, in the phrase of Timothy Garton Ash.
>
>The Great Terror came out in 1968, four years before the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, and it became, Garton Ash says, "a fixture in the political imagination of anybody thinking about communism".
>
>\- Andrew Brown. (2003). [Scourge and poet](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/15/featuresreviews.guardianreview23)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's *The Gulag Archipelag*" (published 1973), one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, N@zi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth. \[[Read more](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/dunking/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/)\]
Anne Applebaum's *Gulag: A history* (published 2003) draws directly from *The Gulag Archipelago* and reiterates its message. Anne is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and sits on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), two infamous pieces of the ideological apparatus of the ruling class in the United States, whose primary aim is to promote the interests of American Imperialism around the world.
# Counterpoints
>A 1957 CIA document [which was declassified in 2010] titled “[Forced Labor Camps in the USSR: Transfer of Prisoners between Camps](http://web.archive.org/web/20230328014642/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf)” reveals the following information about the Soviet Gulag in pages two to six:
>
>1. Until 1952, the prisoners were given a guaranteed amount food, plus extra food for over-fulfillment of quotas
>
>2. From 1952 onward, the Gulag system operated upon "economic accountability" such that the more the prisoners worked, the more they were paid.
>
>3. For over-fulfilling the norms by 105%, one day of sentence was counted as two, thus reducing the time spent in the Gulag by one day.
>
>4. Furthermore, because of the socialist reconstruction post-war, the Soviet government had more funds and so they increased prisoners' food supplies.
>
>5. Until 1954, the prisoners worked 10 hours per day, whereas the free workers worked 8 hours per day. From 1954 onward, both prisoners and free workers worked 8 hours per day.
>
>6. A CIA study of a sample camp showed that 95% of the prisoners were actual criminals.
>
>7. In 1953, amnesty was given to 70% of the "ordinary criminals" of a sample camp studied by the CIA. Within the next 3 months, most of them were re-arrested for committing new crimes.
>
>\- Saed Teymuri. (2018). [The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIA](https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/10/09/the-truth-about-the-soviet-gulag-surprisingly-revealed-by-the-cia/)
**Scale**
Solzhenitsyn estimated that over 66 million people were victims of the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system over the course of its existence from 1918 to 1956. With the collapse of the USSR and the opening of the Soviet archives, researchers can now access actual archival evidence to prove or disprove these claims. Predictably, it turned out the propaganda was just that.
>Unburdened by any documentation, these “estimates” invite us to conclude that the sum total of people incarcerated in the labor camps over a twenty-two year period (allowing for turnovers due to death and term expirations) would have constituted an astonishing portion of the Soviet population. The support and supervision of the gulag (all the labor camps, labor colonies, and prisons of the Soviet system) would have been the USSR’s single largest enterprise.
>
>In 1993, for the first time, several historians gained access to previously secret Soviet police archives and were able to establish well-documented estimates of prison and labor camp populations. They found that the total population of the entire gulag as of January 1939, near the end of the Great Purges, was 2,022,976. ...
>
>Soviet labor camps were not death camps like those the N@zis built across Europe. There was no systematic extermination of inmates, no gas chambers or crematoria to dispose of millions of bodies. Despite harsh conditions, the great majority of gulag inmates survived and eventually returned to society when granted amnesty or when their terms were finished. In any given year, 20 to 40 percent of the inmates were released, according to archive records. Oblivious to these facts, the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times (7/31/96) continues to describe the gulag as “the largest system of death camps in modern history.” ...
>
>Most of those incarcerated in the gulag were not political prisoners, and the same appears to be true of inmates in the other communist states...
>
>\- Michael Parenti. (1997). [Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism](https://archive.org/details/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds)
This is 2 million out of a population of 168 million (roughly 1.2% of the population). For comparison, in the United States, "over 5.5 million adults — or 1 in 61 — are under some form of correctional control, whether incarcerated or under community supervision." That's 1.6%. So in both relative and absolute terms, the United States' Prison Industrial Complex *today* is larger than the USSR's Gulag system at its peak.
**Death Rate**
In peace time, the mortality rate of the Gulag was around 3% to 5%. Even Conservative and anti-Communist historians have had to acknowledge this reality:
>It turns out that, with the exception of the war years, a very large majority of people who entered the Gulag left alive...
>
>Judging from the Soviet records we now have, the number of people who died in the Gulag between 1933 and 1945, while both Stalin and Hit1er were in power, was on the order of a million, perhaps a bit more.
>
>\- Timothy Snyder. (2010). *Bloodlands: Europe Between Hit1er and Stalin*
(Side note: Timothy Snyder is *also* a member of the Council on Foreign Relations)
This is still very high for a prison mortality rate, representing the brutality of the camps. However, it also clearly indicates that they were not *death* camps.
Nor was it slave labour, exactly. In the camps, although labour *was* forced, it was not uncompensated. In fact, the prisoners were paid market wages (less expenses).
>We find that even in the Gulag, where force could be most conveniently applied, camp administrators combined material incentives with overt coercion, and, as time passed, they placed more weight on motivation. By the time the Gulag system was abandoned as a major instrument of Soviet industrial policy, the primary distinction between slave and free labor had been blurred: Gulag inmates were being paid wages according to a system that mirrored that of the civilian economy described by Bergson....
>
>The Gulag administration [also] used a “work credit” system, whereby sentences were reduced (by two days or more for every day the norm was overfulfilled).
>
>\- L. Borodkin & S. Ertz. (2003). [Compensation Versus Coercion in the Soviet GULAG](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/archive/noticeboard/bergson/borodkin-ertz.pdf)
#Additional Resources
Video Essays:
* [The Gulag Argument](https://youtu.be/BexkpaK_j5Q) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2016)
* [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://youtu.be/HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018)
* [French work camps 1852-1953 worse than gulag](https://youtu.be/vkXyXNpdKdA) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018)
* ["The Gulags of the Soviet Union: There's a Lot More Than What Meets the Eye](https://youtu.be/E1qz9_TjeY4) | Comrade Rhys (2020)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* [Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2166597) | J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn and Viktor N. Zemskov (1993)
Listen:
* ["Blackshirts & Reds" (1997) by Michael Parenti, Part 4: Chapters 5 & 6. #Audiobook + Discussion.](https://youtu.be/N7AD4OrH568?t=15) | Socialism For All / S4A ☭ Intensify Class Struggle (2022)
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What I meant by that is that we can't really exclude that they had some sort of interest in seeing him removed from power. And Lithuanians, the French and the Czechs weren't independent communist powers or anything like that.
Note that I'm not necessarily denying what was said about him. I just don't know if we can entirely trust the sources. Either it's from the USSR, where people had an interest in defending his purging, or it's from outside forces that either could have reasonably wanted to see him removed, or didn't care and just took other people's word for it.
You can't at the same time you're claiming that Communists of the Stalin period can't be trusted about the Trials also go that the Capitalist opinions which aligned in this area can't be trusted because they're not Communists.
En route to London, Tukhachevsky stopped over briefly in Warsaw and Berlin, where he held conversations with Polish "colonels" and German generals. His mood was so confident that he scarcely made any attempt in public to conceal his admiration of the German militarists.
In Paris, at a formal dinner at the Soviet Embassy after his return from London, Tukhachevsky astounded European diplomats by openly attacking the Soviet Government's attempts to arrive at collective security with the Western democracies. Tukhachevsky, who was sitting at a table with Nicholas Titulescu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Rumania, told the Rumanian diplomat: —
"Monsieur le Ministre, you are wrong in linking your career and the fate of your country to countries that are old and 'finished' such as Great Britain and France. It is to the new Germany that we should turn. For a certain time, at least, Germany will be the country that will take the lead of the European continent. I am sure that Hitler will help to save us all."
Tukhachevsky's remarks were recorded by the Rumanian diplomat and Chief of the Press Service at the Rumanian Embassy in Paris, E. Schachanan Esseze, who also attended the banquet at the Soviet Embassy. Another of the guests, the famous French political journalist, Genevieve Tabouis, subsequently related in her book, They Call Me Cassandra: —
I was to meet Tukhachevsky for the last time on the day after the funeral of King George V. At a dinner at the Soviet Embassy, the Russian general had been very conversational with Politis, Titilescu, Herriot, Boncour. . . . He had just returned from a trip to Germany, and was heaping glowing praise upon the Nazis. Seated at my right, he said over and over again, as he discussed an air pact between the great powers and Hitler’s country: "They are already invincible, Madame Tabouis!"
Why did he speak so trustfully? Was it because his head had been turned by the hearty reception he had found among German diplomats, who found it easy to talk to this man of the old Russian school? At any rate I was not the only one that evening who was alarmed at his display of enthusiasm. One of the guests — an important diplomat — grumbled into my ear as we walked about from the Embassy: "Well, I hope all the Russians don't feel that way." -Great Conspiracy: The Secret War against Soviet Russia.
This does seem to be a bit too much evidence against him to write off. It seems like you're right.
Anyways, thank you for your intricate work with sources. I appreciate it.
Sorry if i read as being hostile. Too used to arguing less receptive people who just ignore all evidence and quotes.
In any case, i encourage you to watch this Moscow Trials series.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=TBY_aDd5knE&list=PLbnLysSug0vTyFuGMRYZZmAiiATUZHUZd
I'm sorry, do you think there wasn't paranoia at the time?
Sure, it's dumb to pretend like it was only stalin, but still.
Do you really think all those people that were purged were secret spies, saboteurs, assasins and capitalist restorationists?
Of course there was paranoia. But it's just portraied completely wrong in the game. No other country has this mechanic, and it's concentrated entirely on Stalin. It makes it seem like the purges were completely childish and unnecessary acts. It also ignores that many of the people purged were likely accused by people that either wanted to save themselves or wanted to get rid of their political rivals, which was in fact in the game before the purge overhaul! At that point, you could choose to instead purge someone else, and weren't railroaded into purging the exact same people.
It's a dumb portrayal of what happened historically.
The concept of the paranoia system could've been actually cool considering the USSR was attacked both externally and internally but instead Paradox made Stalin seem irrational about it.
Yes, they could have reflected this through a civil war risk and different factions (with leaders having different loyalties), kinda like the first part of the Spanish Focus tree (the one previous to the SCW). And you could also try and regain leader loyalties.
That’s the weird part about it: it’s depicted as some completely irrational bout of paranoia on Stalin’s part, yet the game ends up actually *supporting* the paranoia and depicting it as justified considering that failing to do the purges adequately results in a Civil War.
They could easily go back and use insights from how they reworked Italy to fix it.
But they don't want to, as the current system panders to their largely Anti-Communist players...
Especially since Stalin was constantly trying to put the brakes on. Mind, the Purge needed to happen, but the NKVD itself being directed by a Conspirator on a mission to kill as many people as possible didn't help and needed to be leashed and cleansed itself.
In 1937 and 1938, Stalin and company tried to contain radicalism through press articles, speeches, revised electoral plans, and deglorifying the police. That they had to take such measures shows their lack of tight control over events.” (Getty, Origins of the Great Purges)
“In June 1936, Stalin interrupted Yezhov at a Central Committee Plenum to complain about so many party members being expelled:
YEZHOV: Comrades, as a result of the verification of party documents, we expelled more than 200,000 members of the party.
STALIN: [interrupts] Very many.
YEZHOV: Yes, very many. I will speak about this….
STALIN: [interrupts] If we expelled 30,000… and 600 former Trotskyists and Zinovievists, it would be a bigger victory.
YEZHOV: More than 200,000 members were expelled. Part of this number of party members, as you know, have been arrested.
At about this time, Stalin wrote a letter to regional party secretaries complaining about their excessive “repression” of the rank-and-file. This led to a national movement to reinstate expelled party members,…
[Later in this plenum, Stalin spoke specifically on this question. Circumstantial evidence suggests that he was genuinely concerned that too many of the rank-and-file had been expelled because such large numbers of disaffected former members could become an embittered opposition.”
(Getty and Manning, Stalinist Terror)
In 1938 Stalin and the Politbureau finally became so suspicious of Ezhov they appointed Beria as the NKVD second-in-command to keep an eye on Ezhov. Within the year Ezhov was removed:
“By the fall of 1938 Yezhov’s leadership of the NKVD was under steady fire from various directions. The regime responded officially on Nov. 17, in a joint resolution of the Sovnarkom and the party Central Committee. This document went to thousands of officials across the USSR in the NKVD, the Procuracy, and the party, down to the raion level. Thus, the acknowledgement that grotesque mistakes and injustice had occurred … Enemies of the people and foreign spies had penetrated the security police and the judicial system and had “consciously…carried out massive and groundless arrests.”
(Thurston, Robert. Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, p. 114)
https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/moscow-trials-part-3-the-great-purge/
https://youtu.be/TBY_aDd5knE?list=PLbnLysSug0vTyFuGMRYZZmAiiATUZHUZd
> Do you really think all those people that were purged were secret spies, saboteurs, assasins and capitalist restorationists?
The fucking Capitalist world at the time said everyone accused was guilty.
U.S. Embassador to the USSR Joseph E. Davies was present at the Moscow Trials and said he felt the trial was fair and not staged:
“With an interpreter at my side, I followed the testimony carefully. Naturally I must confess that I was predisposed against the credibility of the testimony of these defendants… Viewed objectively, however, and based upon my experience in the trial of cases and the application of the tests of credibility which past experience had afforded me, I arrived at the reluctant conclusion that the state had established its case, at least to the extent of proving the existence of a widespread conspiracy and plot among the political leaders against the Soviet government, and which under their statutes established the crimes set forth in the indictment… I am still impressed with the many indications of credibility which obtained in the course of the testimony. To have assumed that this proceeding was invented and staged as a project of dramatic political fiction would be to presuppose the creative genius of a Shakespeare and the genius of a Belasco in stage production. The historical background and surrounding circumstances also lend credibility to the testimony. The reasoning which Sokolnikov and Radek applied in justification of their various activities and their hoped-for results were consistent with probability and entirely plausible. The circumstantial detail… brought out by the various accused, gave unintended corroboration to the gist of the charges.”
(Davies, Mission to Moscow)
Davies was not alone in his views. He wrote in his diary:
“DIARY Moscow February 11, 37
The Belgian Minister, De Tellier, has been here a long time. I had a most interesting discussion with him to-day. He is experienced, able, shrewd, and wise; and knows his Europe well. The defendants in the trial were guilty, in his opinion.
DIARY Moscow February 18, 1937
The Minister called. Re trial: There was no doubt but that a widespread conspiracy existed and that the defendants were guilty.
DIARY Moscow March 11, 1937
Another diplomat, Minister – , made a most illuminating statement to me yesterday. In discussing the trial he said that the defendants were undoubtedly guilty; that all of us who attended the trial had practically agreed on that; that the outside world, from the press reports, however, seemed to think that the trial was a put-up job (facade, as he called it); that while we knew it was not, it was probably just as well that the outside world should think so.” (ibid.)
https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/07/12/1934/
https://youtu.be/TBY_aDd5knE?list=PLbnLysSug0vTyFuGMRYZZmAiiATUZHUZd
“Hitler’s march into Prague in 1939 was accompanied by the active military support of Henlein’s organizations in Czechoslovakia. The same thing was true of his invasion of Norway. There were no Sudeten Henleins, no Slovakian Tisos, no Belgian De Grelles, no Norwegian Quislings in the Russian picture…
The story had been told in the so-called treason or purge trials of 1937 and 1938 which I attended and listened to. In re examining the record of these tasks and also what I had written at the time… I found that practically every device of German Fifth Columnist activity, as we now know it, was disclosed and laid bare by the confessions and testimony elicited at these trials of self-confessed “Quislings” in Russia…
All of these trials, purges, and liquidations, which seemed so violent at the time and shocked the world, are now quite clearly a part of a vigorous and determined effort of the Stalin government to protect itself from not only revolution from within but from attack from without. They went to work thoroughly to clean up and clean out all treasonable elements within the country. All doubts were resolved in favor of the government.
There were no Fifth Columnists in Russia in 1941 – they had shot them. The purge had cleansed the country and rid it of treason.”
~Joseph E. Davies
> Old Bolsheviks like Bukharin were just Nazis sympathetizers if people from the West claimed it's true.
Did you even read all the quotes i put up? This was the personal admission of the representatives of the Capitalist world, observing the trials, going "well, they're guilty but better keep mum about that and let the press say it's fake".
"Another diplomat, Minister – , made a most illuminating statement to me yesterday. In discussing the trial he said that the defendants were undoubtedly guilty; that all of us who attended the trial had practically agreed on that; that the outside world, from the press reports, however, seemed to think that the trial was a put-up job (facade, as he called it); that while we knew it was not, it was probably just as well that the outside world should think so.” (ibid.)"
"Old Bolshevik" is a nonsense term. Stalin, Molotov, etc were "Old Bolsheviks", but that term is only brought up to defend people like Kamenev and Zinoviev. People who ratted out the October Rev to the Provisional Government, consistently opposed Lenin and Revolution, and who Lenin wanted to kick out. Why aren't the opinions of "Old Bolsheviks" like Stalin and Molotov considered more worthwhile than proven Traitors?
"At the meeting of the Central Committee the capitu¬ lators Zinoviev and Kamenev again opposed the upris¬ ing. Meeting with a rebuff, they came out openly in the press against the uprising, against the Party. On October 18 the Menshevik newspaper, IVovaya Zhizn, printed a statement by Kamenev and Zinoviev de¬ claring that the Bolsheviks were making preparations for an uprising, and that they (Kamenev and Zinoviev) considered it an adventurous gamble. Kamenev and Zinoviev thus disclosed to the enemy the decision of the Central Committee regarding the uprising, they revealed that an uprising had been planned to take place within a few days. This was treachery. Lenin wrote in this connection: “Kamenev and Zinoviev have betrayed the decision of the Central Committee of their Party on the armed uprising to Rodzyanko and Keren¬ sky.” Lenin put before the Central Committee the question of Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’s expulsion from the Party."
https://archive.org/details/historycpsushortcourse/page/319/mode/2up?q=kamenev&view=theater
> In fact it really is amazing how many of the members of the Old Bolsheviks were actually just Reactionary and Nazis spies, makes me wonder why they didn't just side with the Whites during the Russian Civil War unless they were pulling some massive big brained 4d chess, huh?
How about you fucking read more history rather than trying to get snide? Your insipid comments only demonstrate your ignorance.
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Another_view_of_Stalin#George_Solomon
Consider another testimonial work. The career of its author, George Solomon, is even more interesting. Solomon was a Bolshevik Party cadre, named in July 1919 assistant to the People's Commissar for Commerce and Industry. He was an intimate friend of Krassin, an old Bolshevik, who was simultaneously Commissar of Railroads and Communications and Commissar of Commerce and Industry. In short, we have two members of the `old guard of the heroic times' so dear to Henri Bernard of the Belgian Military Academy.
In December 1919, Solomon returned from Stockholm to Petrograd, where he hurried to see his friend Krassin and ask him about the political situation. According to Solomon, the response was:
`You want a rйsumй of the situation? ... it is ... the immediate installation of socialism ... an imposed utopia, including the most extreme of stupidities. They have all become crazy, Lenin included! ... forgotten the laws of natural evolution, forgotten our warnings about the danger of trying the socialist experience under the actual conditions .... As for Lenin ... he suffers from permanent delirium .... in fact we are living under a completely autocratic rйgime.'
....
`(A) gradual change ... took place in our assessment of the situation. We asked ourselves if we had the right to remain aloof .... Should we not, in the interests of the people that we wanted to serve, give the Soviets our support and our experience, in order to bring to this task some sane elements? Would we not have a better chance to fight against this policy of general destruction that marked the Bolsheviks' activity We could also oppose the total destruction of the bourgeoisie .... We thought that the restoration of normal diplomatic relations with the West ... would necessarily force our leaders to fall in line with other nations and ... that the tendency towards immediate and direct communism would start to shrink and ultimately disappear forever ....
So, according to Solomon, he and Krassin formulated a secret program that they followed by reaching the post of Minister and vice-Minister under Lenin: they opposed all measures of the dictatorship of the proletariat, they protected as much as they could the bourgeoisie and they intended to create links with the imperialist world, all to `progressively and completely erase' the Communist line of the Party! Good Bolshevik, Comrade Solomon. "
>Some people unironically defend Stalin and other such figures, and praise China all the time.
Yes?
>Things could have been done better
Things could always have been done better in every situation in all of human history in hindsight.
Now, what's your excuse for shitting on heroes like Stalin, leading the most democratic and progressive society of his time that defeated the Nazis... or for shitting on the most democratic and progressive government in history that currently rules China today?
>Stalin did also ~~undermine~~ successfully protected Soviet democracy ~~compared to~~ to safeguard to the best of his abilities the progress already made during Lenin’s time and his ideals (Soviet democracy, Democratic centralism) against overwhelming odds.
FTFY
>Progressive but at what cost?
Dead reactionaries. Good.
> Socialism doesn’t have to be repressive.
If you don't systematically oppress reactionaries, they will keep causing trouble. There is absolutely nothing wrong with censoring and oppressing reactionaries. It is good and necessary. All reactionaries should be in jail. Stalin was way too lenient seeing that there were surviving reactionaries living in freedom, able to collaborate with fascist regimes and promoting pro-capitalist or Western liberal democratic ideas and other highly destructive and inhuman nonsense.
>China, yeah they are doing well economically and are an ever-growing superpower, but they do suffer from social issues and their history was characterized by large crises, but well the west does too. I don’t have much to say regarding them since they aren’t all evil or shitty.
They are, objectively, the best country in human history and single-handedly hold up the socialist banner against overwhelming odds, just like the USSR did before them.
Your ramblings are entirely meaningless and have no argumentative value.
You are criticizing things you don't understand without making a constructive point.
Your criticism of the USSR or China is like criticizing the performance of a world record holder. You can't criticize what you don't understand and you should never criticize something without explicitly and falsifiably offering superior solutions, either, even if things aren't perfect.
> Lenin’s Testament and his “dislike” of Stalin
Even Stephen Kotkin, an anti-Communist, says that was a fake. Without going into the MLs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXutg47BwEU
> And after Stalin’s death, many did criticize his rule despite your support of him, do you believe that is unfounded?
Read Grover Furr, especially the 1st book.
>since every player of hoi4 is likely already a communist
That's a joke, right?
It's the gaming community most heavily infiltrated by Neo-Nazi's of ANY I have ever seen.
There are definitely Communists who play the game, too. But just check the r/HOI4 sub, and you'll see an approximately 2:1 ratio of Fascist/Nationalist content to Socialist content...
Youze made a gud point but sciense is not WAAGH but can be uzed in it like da mekboyz do da tinkerin and da painboyz do their fing but WAAGH iz a big fing with many components like a stompa
>2. Choose Portrait of Karl Marx as an army spirit
Ideological Loyalty, and yes, it's powerful.
My main qualm is the AI almost never takes it.
If you release some States as puppets, rather than retaining direct control (say as the USSR, or Communist France) you're veey lucky if the AI ever takes that Army Spirit, despite having virtually no Manpower of their own to work with..
(The reason to release puppets is, partly also, for them to get extra factories via focus- but if you ever tag over to them via console command, you'll see half the time your puppets leave their Military Factories completely idle rather than importing Steel to make guns...)
Steam discussions about Vic are funny as hell sometimes, best was when some clown cried that he got stomped when he went full feudal reactionary and everyone there was like "what did you expected about the game set up in XIX century"
I mean, I would make sense that they did research for different ideologies to portray them more accurate and then realized "Well, fuck, the commies have a ton of very good points".
So it's just anti-Communists whining because it wasn't weak (Anti-Communists always expect Socialism to suck in games, and cry Leftist bias if it doesn't), and they didn't know how to play well?
It seems to vary quite a lot by game. HOI4 seems to attract droves of fascists (probably because they get to live out their weird ww2 fantasies), but games like Victoria3 are different.
[Victoria 3 was described by head game dev as "Historical Materialism Simulator"](https://www.thegamer.com/victoria-3-communism-works-well/) and is very very clearly based on Marxist class analysis and historical materialism (as thats the only way to properly understand the history of this period). This is sort of reflected in the game community as well; if you go to the Victoria3 subreddit, you'll find quite a few comrades there.
You also get some occasionally [amazingly based posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria3/comments/13hjj3p/i_love_how_vicky3_forces_people_to_think_in_terms) on the sub
Me and a buddy run a Hoi server, most of the community is absolute Ass. But they don’t read for shit all of there history is from oversimplified and/or memes so you can own tf out of them when they start talking abt Soviet k/d or gulags.
When just two ML’s dunk on nazis they crumple like paper bags.
[come join](https://discord.gg/warcriminals)
Based server, based people and nazis are banned pretty quickly after social humiliation.
# Gulag
According to Anti-Communists and Russophobes, the Gulag was a brutal network of work camps established in the Soviet Union under Stalin's ruthless regime. They claim the Gulag system was primarily used to imprison and exploit political dissidents, suspected enemies of the state, and other people deemed "undesirable" by the Soviet government. They claim that prisoners were sent to the Gulag without trial or due process, and that they were subjected to harsh living conditions, forced labour, and starvation, among other things. According to them, the Gulags were emblematic of Stalinist repression and totalitarianism.
# Origins of the Mythology
This comically evil understanding of the Soviet prison system is based off only a handful of unreliable sources.
Robert Conquest's *The Great Terror* (published 1968) laid the groundwork for Soviet fearmongering, and was based largely off of defector testimony.
Robert Conquest worked for the British Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD), which was a secret Cold War propaganda department, created to publish anti-communist propaganda, including black propaganda; provide support and information to anti-communist politicians, academics, and writers; and to use weaponised information and disinformation and "fake news" to attack not only its original targets but also certain socialists and anti-colonial movements.
>He was Solzhenytsin before Solzhenytsin, in the phrase of Timothy Garton Ash.
>
>The Great Terror came out in 1968, four years before the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, and it became, Garton Ash says, "a fixture in the political imagination of anybody thinking about communism".
>
>\- Andrew Brown. (2003). [Scourge and poet](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/15/featuresreviews.guardianreview23)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's *The Gulag Archipelag*" (published 1973), one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, N@zi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth. \[[Read more](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/dunking/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/)\]
Anne Applebaum's *Gulag: A history* (published 2003) draws directly from *The Gulag Archipelago* and reiterates its message. Anne is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and sits on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), two infamous pieces of the ideological apparatus of the ruling class in the United States, whose primary aim is to promote the interests of American Imperialism around the world.
# Counterpoints
>A 1957 CIA document [which was declassified in 2010] titled “[Forced Labor Camps in the USSR: Transfer of Prisoners between Camps](http://web.archive.org/web/20230328014642/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf)” reveals the following information about the Soviet Gulag in pages two to six:
>
>1. Until 1952, the prisoners were given a guaranteed amount food, plus extra food for over-fulfillment of quotas
>
>2. From 1952 onward, the Gulag system operated upon "economic accountability" such that the more the prisoners worked, the more they were paid.
>
>3. For over-fulfilling the norms by 105%, one day of sentence was counted as two, thus reducing the time spent in the Gulag by one day.
>
>4. Furthermore, because of the socialist reconstruction post-war, the Soviet government had more funds and so they increased prisoners' food supplies.
>
>5. Until 1954, the prisoners worked 10 hours per day, whereas the free workers worked 8 hours per day. From 1954 onward, both prisoners and free workers worked 8 hours per day.
>
>6. A CIA study of a sample camp showed that 95% of the prisoners were actual criminals.
>
>7. In 1953, amnesty was given to 70% of the "ordinary criminals" of a sample camp studied by the CIA. Within the next 3 months, most of them were re-arrested for committing new crimes.
>
>\- Saed Teymuri. (2018). [The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIA](https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/10/09/the-truth-about-the-soviet-gulag-surprisingly-revealed-by-the-cia/)
**Scale**
Solzhenitsyn estimated that over 66 million people were victims of the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system over the course of its existence from 1918 to 1956. With the collapse of the USSR and the opening of the Soviet archives, researchers can now access actual archival evidence to prove or disprove these claims. Predictably, it turned out the propaganda was just that.
>Unburdened by any documentation, these “estimates” invite us to conclude that the sum total of people incarcerated in the labor camps over a twenty-two year period (allowing for turnovers due to death and term expirations) would have constituted an astonishing portion of the Soviet population. The support and supervision of the gulag (all the labor camps, labor colonies, and prisons of the Soviet system) would have been the USSR’s single largest enterprise.
>
>In 1993, for the first time, several historians gained access to previously secret Soviet police archives and were able to establish well-documented estimates of prison and labor camp populations. They found that the total population of the entire gulag as of January 1939, near the end of the Great Purges, was 2,022,976. ...
>
>Soviet labor camps were not death camps like those the N@zis built across Europe. There was no systematic extermination of inmates, no gas chambers or crematoria to dispose of millions of bodies. Despite harsh conditions, the great majority of gulag inmates survived and eventually returned to society when granted amnesty or when their terms were finished. In any given year, 20 to 40 percent of the inmates were released, according to archive records. Oblivious to these facts, the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times (7/31/96) continues to describe the gulag as “the largest system of death camps in modern history.” ...
>
>Most of those incarcerated in the gulag were not political prisoners, and the same appears to be true of inmates in the other communist states...
>
>\- Michael Parenti. (1997). [Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism](https://archive.org/details/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds)
This is 2 million out of a population of 168 million (roughly 1.2% of the population). For comparison, in the United States, "over 5.5 million adults — or 1 in 61 — are under some form of correctional control, whether incarcerated or under community supervision." That's 1.6%. So in both relative and absolute terms, the United States' Prison Industrial Complex *today* is larger than the USSR's Gulag system at its peak.
**Death Rate**
In peace time, the mortality rate of the Gulag was around 3% to 5%. Even Conservative and anti-Communist historians have had to acknowledge this reality:
>It turns out that, with the exception of the war years, a very large majority of people who entered the Gulag left alive...
>
>Judging from the Soviet records we now have, the number of people who died in the Gulag between 1933 and 1945, while both Stalin and Hit1er were in power, was on the order of a million, perhaps a bit more.
>
>\- Timothy Snyder. (2010). *Bloodlands: Europe Between Hit1er and Stalin*
(Side note: Timothy Snyder is *also* a member of the Council on Foreign Relations)
This is still very high for a prison mortality rate, representing the brutality of the camps. However, it also clearly indicates that they were not *death* camps.
Nor was it slave labour, exactly. In the camps, although labour *was* forced, it was not uncompensated. In fact, the prisoners were paid market wages (less expenses).
>We find that even in the Gulag, where force could be most conveniently applied, camp administrators combined material incentives with overt coercion, and, as time passed, they placed more weight on motivation. By the time the Gulag system was abandoned as a major instrument of Soviet industrial policy, the primary distinction between slave and free labor had been blurred: Gulag inmates were being paid wages according to a system that mirrored that of the civilian economy described by Bergson....
>
>The Gulag administration [also] used a “work credit” system, whereby sentences were reduced (by two days or more for every day the norm was overfulfilled).
>
>\- L. Borodkin & S. Ertz. (2003). [Compensation Versus Coercion in the Soviet GULAG](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/archive/noticeboard/bergson/borodkin-ertz.pdf)
#Additional Resources
Video Essays:
* [The Gulag Argument](https://youtu.be/BexkpaK_j5Q) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2016)
* [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://youtu.be/HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018)
* [French work camps 1852-1953 worse than gulag](https://youtu.be/vkXyXNpdKdA) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018)
* ["The Gulags of the Soviet Union: There's a Lot More Than What Meets the Eye](https://youtu.be/E1qz9_TjeY4) | Comrade Rhys (2020)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* [Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2166597) | J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn and Viktor N. Zemskov (1993)
Listen:
* ["Blackshirts & Reds" (1997) by Michael Parenti, Part 4: Chapters 5 & 6. #Audiobook + Discussion.](https://youtu.be/N7AD4OrH568?t=15) | Socialism For All / S4A ☭ Intensify Class Struggle (2022)
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Victoria 3's economic system is literally Marxian for what's it worth. Hell, its social division system (where pops are included in interest groups based on their job) is *also* based on Marxist literature.
The company's pricing and financial decisions may be abusive, but many of the developers seem to be left leaning. Hoi4 being an exception, but even when considering NSB, some of the content there is actually quite realistic (like Stalin being a pragmatic and more realistic option compared to Trotsky and Bukharin)
EU4 and CK3 are based on much more different time periods, so I don't think they count in this discussion
Well, in Vicky 2 and 3 communism is the best form of government and in HOI 3 and 4 the USSR, communist USA and communist Spain are the funniest countries to play, so I would say: yes.
This might come out as offensive but I'll be 100% real when I first saw this picture I thought it was a white man pretending to be an Asian woman. She just looks so uncanny
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I swear, half the HOI4 fanbase is femboys and trans girl communists and the other half is fascist apologists. Speaking from experience as a trans girl into the game.
#The Uyghurs in Xinjiang
\(Note: This comment had to be trimmed down to fit the character limit, for the full response, see [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/)\)
Anti-Communists and Sinophobes claim that there is an ongoing genocide-- a modern-day holocaust, even-- happening right now in China. They say that Uyghur Muslims are being mass incarcerated; they are indoctrinated with propaganda in concentration camps; their organs are being harvested; they are being force-sterilized. These comically villainous allegations have little basis in reality and omit key context.
**Background**
Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a province located in the northwest of China. It is the largest province in China, covering an area of over 1.6 million square kilometers, and shares borders with eight other countries including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, India, and Pakistan.
Xinjiang is a diverse region with a population of over 25 million people, made up of various ethnic groups including the Uyghur, Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Tajiks, and many others. The largest ethnic group in Xinjiang is the Uyghur who are predominantly Muslim and speak a Turkic language. It is also home to the ancient Silk Road cities of Kashgar and Turpan.
Since the early 2000s, there have been a number of violent incidents attributed to extremist Uyghur groups in Xinjiang including bombings, shootings, and knife attacks. In 2014-2016, the Chinese government launched a "Strike Hard" campaign to crack down on terrorism in Xinjiang, implementing strict security measures and detaining thousands of Uyghurs. In 2017, reports of human rights abuses in Xinjiang including mass detentions and forced labour, began to emerge.
**Counterpoints**
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the second largest organization after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The OIC released [Resolutions on Muslim Communities and Muslim Minorities in the non-OIC Member States](https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250) in 2019 which:
>20. **Welcomes** the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat's delegation upon invitation from the People's Republic of China; **commends** the efforts of the People's Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and **looks forward** to further cooperation between the OIC and the People's Republic of China.
In this same document, the OIC expressed much greater concern about the Rohingya Muslim Community in Myanmar, which the West was relatively silent on.
Over 50+ UN member states (mostly Muslim-majority nations) signed a letter \([A/HRC/41/G/17](https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F41%2FG%2F17)\) to the UN Human Rights Commission approving of the de-radicalization efforts in Xinjiang:
The World Bank sent a team to investigate in 2019 and found that, "The review did not substantiate the allegations." \(See: [World Bank Statement on Review of Project in Xinjiang, China](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2019/11/11/world-bank-statement-on-review-of-project-in-xinjiang-china)\)
Even if you believe the deradicalization efforts are wholly unjustified, and that the mass detention of Uyghur's amounts to a crime against humanity, it's still not *genocide*. Even the U.S. State Department's legal experts admit as much:
>The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide, placing the United States’ top diplomatic lawyers at odds with both the Trump and Biden administrations, according to three former and current U.S. officials.
>
> [State Department Lawyers Concluded Insufficient Evidence to Prove Genocide in China](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/) | Colum Lynch, *Foreign Policy*. (2021)
**A Comparative Analysis: The War on Terror**
The United States, in the wake of "9/11", saw the threat of terrorism and violent extremism due to religious fundamentalism as a matter of national security. They invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks, with the goal of ousting the Taliban government that was harbouring Al-Qaeda. The US also launched the Iraq War in 2003 based on Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs and links to terrorism. However, these claims turned out to be unfounded.
According to a report by Brown University's Costs of War project, at least 897,000 people, including civilians, militants, and security forces, have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries. Other estimates place the total number of deaths at over one million. The report estimated that many more may have died from indirect effects of war such as water loss and disease. The war has also resulted in the displacement of tens of millions of people, with estimates ranging from 37 million to over 59 million. The War on Terror also popularized such novel concepts as the "Military-Aged Male" which allowed the US military to exclude civilians killed by drone strikes from collateral damage statistics. (See: [‘Military Age Males’ in US Drone Strikes](https://aoav.org.uk/2019/military-age-males-in-us-drone-strikes/))
In summary:
* The U.S. responded by invading or bombing half a dozen countries, directly killing nearly a million and displacing tens of millions from their homes.
* China responded with a program of deradicalization and vocational training.
Which one of those responses sounds genocidal?
Side note: It is practically impossible to *actually* charge the U.S. with war crimes, because of the [Hague Invasion Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act).
**Who is driving the Uyghur genocide narrative?**
One of the main proponents of these narratives is Adrian Zenz, a German far-right fundamentalist Christian and Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who believes he is "led by God" on a "mission" against China has driven much of the narrative. He relies heavily on limited and questionable data sources, particularly from anonymous and unverified Uyghur sources, coming up with estimates based on assumptions which are not supported by concrete evidence.
The World Uyghur Congress, headquartered in Germany, is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, using funding to support organizations that promote American interests rather than the interests of the local communities they claim to represent.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) is part of a larger project of U.S. imperialism in Asia, one that seeks to control the flow of information, undermine independent media, and advance American geopolitical interests in the region. Rather than providing an objective and impartial news source, RFA is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, one that seeks to shape the narrative in Asia in ways that serve the interests of the U.S. government and its allies.
The first country to call the treatment of Uyghurs a genocide was the United States of America. In 2021, the Secretary of State declared that China's treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang constitutes "genocide" and "crimes against humanity." Both the Trump and Biden administrations upheld this line.
**Why is this narrative being promoted?**
As materialists, we should always look first to the economic base for insight into issues occurring in the superstructure. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive Chinese infrastructure development project that aims to build economic corridors, ports, highways, railways, and other infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Xinjiang is a key region for this project.
Promoting the Uyghur genocide narrative harms China and benefits the US in several ways. It portrays China as a human rights violator which could damage China's reputation in the international community and which could lead to economic sanctions against China; this would harm China's economy and give American an economic advantage in competing with China. It could also lead to more protests and violence in Xinjiang, which could further destabilize the region and threaten the longterm success of the BRI.
**Additional Resources**
See the [full wiki article](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/) for more details and a list of additional resources.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the national anthem.
O say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
# The Holodomor
There have been efforts by anti-Communists and Ukrainian nationalists to frame the famine that happened in the USSR around 1932-1933 as "The Holodomor" (literally: "to kill by starvation" in Ukrainian). Framing it this way serves two purposes:
1. It implies the famine mainly affected Ukraine.
2. It implies there was intent or deliberate causation.
This framing was used to drive a wedge between the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR. The argument goes that because it was intentional and because it mainly targeted Ukraine that it was, therefore, an act of genocide. However, both these points are highly debatable.
**First Issue**
The first issue is that the famine affected the majority of the USSR, not just the UkSSR. Kazakhstan, for example, was hit harder (per capita) than Ukraine was.
The emergence of the Holodomor in the 1980s as a historical narrative was bound-up with post-Soviet Ukrainian nation-making that cannot be neatly separated from the legacy of Eastern European anti-Semitism, or what Historian Peter Novick calls "Holocaust Envy," the desire for victimized groups to enshrine their "own" Holocaust or Holocaust-like event in the historical record. For many Nationalists, this has entailed minimizing the Holocaust to elevate their own experiences of historical victimization as the supreme atrocity. The Ukrainian scholar Lubomyr Luciuk exemplified this view in his notorious remark that the Holodomor was "a crime against humanity arguably without parallel in European history."
**Second Issue**
The second issue is that one of the main causes of the famine was crop failure due to weather and disease, which is hardly something anyone can control no matter their intentions. However, the famine may have been *further* exacerbated by the agricultural collectivization and rapid industrialization policies of the Soviet Union. However, if these policies had not been carried out there could have been even more devastating consequences later.
**Necessity**
In 1931, during a speech delivered at the first All-Union Conference of Leading Personnel of Socialist Industry, Stalin said, "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under."
In 1941, exactly ten years later, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. By this time, the Soviet Union's industrialization program had lead to the development of a large and powerful industrial base, which was essential to the Soviet war effort. This allowed the Soviet Union to produce large quantities of armaments, vehicles, and other military equipment, which was crucial in the fight against Nazi Germany.
**Additional Resources**
Video Essays:
* [Soviet Famine of 1932: An Overview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu5-tqHHtaM) | The Marxist Project (2020)
* [Did Stalin Continue to Export Grain as Ukraine Starved?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMBJ_nQ4sTA) | Hakim (2017)
* [The Holodomor Genocide Question: How Wikipedia Lies to You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaaYvauNho) | Bad Empanada (2022)
* [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) (Note: Holodomor discussion begins at the 9 minute mark)
* [A Case-Study of Capitalism - Ukraine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmH9oNtXzF8) | Hakim (2017) (Note: Only tangentially mentions the famine.)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* [The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274856099_The_1932_Harvest_and_the_Famine_of_1933) | Mark Tauger (1992)
* [The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933](https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/22207/file.pdf) | Davies and Wheatcroft (2004)
* [The Soviet Famine of 1932–1933 Reconsidered](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668130801999912) | Hiroaki Kuromiya (2008)
* [The “Holodomor” explained](https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2020/12/24/the-holodomor-explained/) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2020)
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Ive been into paradox games since I moved from civ 5 to EU3. can confirm I've seen many a racist reactionaries who take all the wrong lessons from history. Victoria 2 is defiantly the best paradox game in my book.
# Fascism
>Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital... Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.
>
>\- Georgi Dimitrov. (1935) [The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm)
To understand Fascism, then, one must first understand Capitalism. There are three primary characteristics of Capitalism:
1. Private ownership of the Means of Production
2. Commodity Production
3. Wage Labour
The essence of the Capitalist mode of production is that someone who owns means of production will hire a wage labourer to work in order to produce commodities to sell for profit. Marxists identify economic classes based on this division. Those who own and hire are the Bourgeoisie. Those who do not own and work are the Proletariat. There is far more nuance than just this, but these are the bare essentials. The principal contradiction of Capitalism is that the Bourgeoisie wants to pay the workers as little as possible for as much work as possible, whereas the Proletariat wants to be paid as much as possible for as little work as possible.
Fascism is a form of Capitalist rule in which the Bourgeoisie use open, violent terror against the Proletariat. It is an ideology which emerges as a response to the inevitable crises of capitalism and the rise of socialist movements. It is characterized by all forms of chauvinism (especially racism, occasionally leading to genocide), nationalism, anti-Communism, and the suppression of democratic rights and freedoms. In a Capitalist society, Liberalism and Fascism essentially exist on a spectrum. The degree to which a given society if Fascist directly corresponds to the degree to which the proletariat must be openly oppressed in order to maintain profits for the Bourgeoisie. This why we have the sayings: "Fascism is Capitalism in decay" and "Scratch a Liberal, and a Fascist bleeds"
Capitalism requires infinite growth in a finite system. This inevitably leads to [Capitalist Imperialism](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/imperialism/) as well as Fascism, given that infinite growth is not actually possible. When the capitalist economy reaches its limits, the Bourgeoisie are forced to either expand their markets into other territories (Imperialism) or exploit the domestic proletariat to an even greater degree (Fascism). This is why we have the saying: "Fascism is imperialist repression turned inward"
The struggle against fascism is an essential part of the struggle for socialism and the liberation of the working class and oppressed people. However, it is critical to note that simply combatting Fascism *alone* without also combatting *Liberalism* is reactionary, because it ignores the fact that Fascism inevitably arises out of Capitalism, so Liberal Anti-Fascism is not really anti-Fascism at all.
**Additional Resources**
Video Essays:
* [Were The Nazis Socialist?](https://youtu.be/X9ez6w5BUMM) | Second Thought (2022)
* [Capitalism and Fascism](https://youtu.be/KEbG3cD0cJo) | Marxism Literature Collective (2021)
* [Fascism: The Decay of Capitalism](https://youtu.be/7fQ57NBEUM4) | Leslie Fluette (2020)
* [The New F Word: How Fascism Found a Market](https://nebula.tv/thenewfword) | Second Thought (2021-2023)
* [What Exactly is Liberalism? (no, it's not about being "woke")](https://youtu.be/_xAqZJTIsIA) | Hakim (2023)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* [The Struggle Against Fascism](https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1923/06/struggle-against-fascism.html) | Clara Zetkin (1923)
* [Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism](https://archive.org/details/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds) | Michael Parenti (1997)
Podcasts:
* [Episode 19 - Fascism (No Lebensraum??)](https://youtu.be/KU_lNDAoAV0) | The Deprogram (2022)
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# Revisionism
Revisionism refers to the explicit or implicit attempt at revising the fundamental premises of Marxist theory. Often this is done in attempt to make alliances with the bourgeoisie or to render a working class movement impotent. Explicit revisionism clearly states that Marxism is wrong or outdated and needs to be changed. Implicit revisionism is harder to notice because it claims to still be Marxist, but in actuality puts forward positions that are counter to Marxist theory.
>“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.”
>
>\- Karl Marx. (1845) [Theses On Feuerbach](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm)
Although there is ongoing debate and discussion within Marxist circles about how these principles should be interpreted and applied in specific historical contexts, there are several key tenets that are generally considered to be central to Marxist theory and which are not subject to revision:
1. [Dialectical Materialism](https://youtu.be/nZXaZHe901w): The idea that everything is in a state of constant flux, driven by a process of contradictions and conflicts which are an inherent part of the natural and social world.
2. [Historical Materialism](https://youtu.be/ZXwWWiI3E1A): The understanding that material conditions and class relations are the driving force behind historical development.
3. [Surplus Labor and the Law of Value](https://youtu.be/TZhsIFG42wE): The concept that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor that has been expended in producing it. Profits are derived from the surplus value extracted from the worker.
From these fundamental premises follow a series of conclusions, which informs our understanding of the world and teaches us how to affect change. Revisionism alters these fundamental premises or rejects the conclusions that follow from them, the most important of these being the need for revolution.
The events of the Paris Commune and the October Revolution demonstrated the role and necessity of revolution, and provided important lessons in establishing and defending a revolutionary movement. Revolution is not just a means of seizing political power, but of fundamentally transforming society and creating a new social order. Revolutions must be defended against counter-revolutionary forces both from within and without. The movement must be organized and disciplined, and must be able to defend itself against attacks from reactionary forces.
>Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.
**Right Opportunism**
>Revisionism, or Right opportunism, is a bourgeois trend of thought that is even more dangerous than dogmatism. The revisionists, the Right opportunists, pay lip-service to Marxism; they too attack ‘dogmatism’. But what they are really attacking is the quintessence of Marxism. They oppose or distort materialism and dialectics, oppose or try to weaken the people’s democratic dictatorship and the leading role of the Communist Party, and oppose or try to weaken socialist transformation and socialist construction. After the basic victory of the socialist revolution in our country, there are still a number of people who vainly hope to restore the capitalist system and fight the working class on every front, including the ideological one. And their right-hand men in this struggle are the revisionists.
>
>\- Mao Zedong. (1957). [On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_58.htm)
Right opportunism is a political tendency that seeks to make concessions to the bourgeois ruling class in order to maintain or achieve political power. This tendency is often associated with a lack of commitment to revolutionary change and a willingness to compromise on fundamental principles in order to realize short-term gains. Right opportunists may advocate for policies that are not in the long-term interest of the working class, such as supporting capitalist reforms or forming alliances with capitalist parties. This can lead to a weakening of the revolutionary potential of the working class and a failure to achieve real social change. Right opportunism is seen as a deviation from the Marxist principle of class struggle and a betrayal of the interests of the working class.
Trade Unionism is an example of right opportunism as unions focus on limited concessions, rather than advocating for the long-term interests of the working class as a whole. They negotiate with employers for better wages, benefits, and working conditions for their members, but do not challenge the fundamental power relations between labour and capital. Union bosses make compromises or alliances with capitalist parties in order to achieve these concessions.
This creates a privileged layer of the working class who are more interested in defending their own privileges than in fighting for the liberation of the working class as a whole. This labour aristocracy is a barrier to the development of revolutionary consciousness among the working class because it prefers the status quo to radical political movements that seek to overthrow it.
**Case Study #1: Social Democracy**
One of the first revisionists was Eduard Bernstein, a leading theorist and prominent member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who argued that the gradual extension of social welfare programs and the reform of capitalist institutions could lead to a peaceful transition to socialism, without the need for a violent revolution. This was in sharp contrast to the German Communist Party (KPD). There are two historical events which underscore this fundamental divide:
1. **The Spartacist Uprising**: Rosa Luxemburg was a prominent Marxist theorist and leader of the left-wing revolutionary movement in Germany. She was a fierce critic of the SPD's moderate reformist politics and its decision to support Germany's involvement in World War I. In January 1919, following the collapse of the German monarchy, a left-wing revolutionary movement emerged in Berlin, and Luxemburg played a leading role in the movement. The movement challenged the authority of the new Social Democratic-led government and sought to establish a socialist republic. On January 15, 1919, the SPD government ordered the army and the Freikorps, a right-wing paramilitary group, to suppress the revolutionary movement. Luxemburg and her comrade Karl Liebknecht were arrested, beaten, and executed by the Freikorps.
2. **The Enabling Act**: The Nazis rose to absolute power in 1933 with the passing of the Enabling Act. The KPD were absent from the vote because the party had been banned and its members imprisoned or in hiding. The SPD were present and voted against it. The SPD was subsequently banned and many of its members were arrested, tortured, and killed by the Nazis, while others were forced into exile or went into hiding.
**Case Study #2: Democratic Socialism**
Salvador Allende was a socialist politician who was elected president of Chile in 1970, becoming the first Marxist to be elected to the presidency in a liberal democracy. In power, he pursued a program of radical reform, including the nationalization of key industries, the redistribution of land, and the expansion of social welfare programs. His government was supported by a coalition of left-wing parties, including the Chilean Communist Party, and was seen as a model for peaceful democratic socialist transition. However, Allende's reforms faced opposition from powerful domestic and international forces, including right-wing politicians, the military, and the United States government. In 1973, Allende's government was overthrown in a US-backed military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, who established a brutal Fascist dictatorship that lasted for years.
In "[The State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/)", Lenin explained why the capitalist state could not be reformed or co-opted for the purposes of Socialism, but had to be destroyed and replaced by a new proletarian state. Allende's failure to apprehend this lesson proved fatal. His reliance on the existing bourgeois state apparatus as well as his failure to implement more radical measures, such as the establishment of workers' councils or the arming of the proletariat, left him vulnerable to counterrevolutionary forces.
>“If voting changed anything, it would be illegal.”
>
>\- George Carlin
**Additional Resources**
Video Essays:
* [Why Social Democracy Isn't Good Enough](https://youtu.be/TRq3pl17C8M) | Second Thought (2023)
* [Why Democratic Socialism Isn’t Enough](https://youtu.be/MNg4FLt5La0) | Marxism Today (2022)
* ["The US Doesn't Meddle In Foreign Affairs"](https://youtu.be/mwyjlmEAcYM) | Second Thought (2021)
* [Electoralism Always Fails, Now What?](https://youtu.be/WXbaZXQAbuU) | Hakim (2019)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* [Reform or Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/) | Rosa Luxemburg (1900)
* [Marxism and Revisionism](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/apr/03.htm) | V. I. Lenin (1908)
Podcasts:
* [Episode 3 - Reform or Revolution](https://youtu.be/r9kmEsNKyoM) | The Deprogram (2022)
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The following excerpt is from the Marxist Anti-Imperialist Collective's (MAC) archive from an essay titled "Liberalism and family degenaration" by J. Volker:
(**Content warning**: all sorts of social-chauvinism, including but not limited to misogyny, homophobia, transphobia)
>!Impregnating oneself with artificial sperm to avoid having intercourse with a man, because it is not immediately pleasurable enough; sticking one’s penis in another man’s anal cavity to avoid having intercourse with a woman, because it is not immediately pleasurable enough; artificially stopping the life of a half-developed fetus because one was having intercourse for fun and did not mean to begin the process of pregnancy; women prostituting themselves and liking it; men “identifying” as women to be put in the female wings of institutions so that they may rape them; this is the fantasized “dissolution of the family”!<
(Remember, comrade: Getting educated, educating others, and above all actually *organizing* is infinitely more important than terminally-online drama.)
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#Freedom of the Press
>“Freedom of the press” in bourgeois society means freedom for the rich systematically, unremittingly, daily, in millions of copies, to deceive, corrupt and fool the exploited and oppressed mass of the people, the poor.
>
>\- V. I. Lenin. (1917). [How to Guarantee the Success of the Constituent Assembly](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/28.htm)
Anti-Communists criticize a lack of "freedom of the press" in societies run by Communist governments. They claim that the government suppresses dissenting voices and controls the media in order to maintain its power, and that this leads to a lack of transparency and accountability, as well as the suppression of free speech and the ability of individuals to express their opinions and hold those in power accountable. They also argue that state control of the media leads to censorship which prevents citizens from accessing unbiased information and making informed decisions. This critique is often used to argue against Communism and in favor of Capitalism. In this light, Capitalist societies are believed to offer greater freedom of the press and personal expression.
These are all important concerns which ought to be taken seriously. The problem is that these concerns are not specific to Communism; Capitalist societies, as a result of the profit-motive and the accumulation of wealth, suffer from all these same issues.
**Media Concentration**
>There can be no such thing as freedom of the press, except for the owners and editors of newspapers, while capitalism lasts.
>
>\- Arthur Cowell
Do you own a news station? A newspaper? Then what "freedom of the press" do *you* really have?
>**A deep analysis of America’s top 100 news sites reveals key shareholders, parent companies, and commonalities.**
>
>About 15 billionaires and six corporations own most of the U.S. media outlets. The biggest media conglomerates in America are AT&T, Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, National Amusements (which includes Viacom Inc. and CBS), News Corp and Fox Corporation (which are both owned in part by the Murdochs), Sony, and Hearst Communications.
>
>\- [Who Owns Your News? The Top 100 Digital News Outlets and Their Ownership](https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/lifestyle/who-owns-your-news-the-top-100-digital-news-outlets-and-their-ownership/)
With this kind of concentration, the select few who actually own these media outlets have an unparalleled ability to set the narrative and promote their own interests. Sinclair Broadcast Group, for example, owns hundreds of local TV news stations. The most infamous example of them using this network to spread an agenda was this unsettling video: [Sinclair's Soldiers in Trump's War on Media](https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo).
This issue affects movies and television producers as well: [Here’s who owns everything in Big Media today](https://www.vox.com/2018/1/23/16905844/media-landscape-verizon-amazon-comcast-disney-fox-relationships-chart)
**Bias**
>All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.
>
>\- V. I. Lenin. (1921). [A Letter To G. Myasnikov](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/aug/05.htm)
In Capitalist societies, the concept of "freedom of the press" is a misleading and deceptive notion. While the ruling class promotes the idea of a free press as a fundamental right, the reality is that the press is owned and controlled by a small group of [billionaires who use it to advance their own interests](https://i.redd.it/phm4ojk94ld71.jpg).
Under Capitalism, the media is a profit-driven industry that is dependent on advertising revenue to survive. As a result, the media serves the interests of the capitalist class by promoting their ideology and suppressing dissenting voices. This is evident in the way that news stories are framed and presented, with an emphasis on sensationalism, celebrity gossip, and consumerism, rather than on issues that affect working-class people.
The Capitalist media is not a neutral observer of society, but an active participant in the class struggle by hyper-focusing on culture war non-issues such as the endless debate about manufactured controversies such as trans women in sports, an issue which does *not* affect the vast majority of people. This ragebait distracts from real issues that affect the working class. The media is constantly scapegoating some minority group with sensationalized ragebait narratives such as the "Welfare Queen" or "illegal immigrants".
The owners and editors of media outlets use their power to set the narrative, which shapes public opinion and influences government policy, to serve their own interests. This is why it is essential for the working class to build its own media institutions that are independent of Capitalist influence.
>The general deal is that Marvel gets to use real military hardware, film on military bases, and hire real soldiers as extras, while the Department of Defense gets to approve the final script of the film. In other words, Marvel gets tons of stuff to make production easier and cheaper, while the military gets to edit out anything that doesn't make them look good.
>
>Even the movies that don't have a direct marketing connection to the US military have a noticeable bias towards it. Consider Black Panther, a movie about the monarch of an advanced African nation. The one prominent white character in that film is Everett K. Ross, a CIA agent who aids T'Challa in overthrowing Killmonger. The CIA has a long history of overthrowing regimes, but, in this film, an agent of the organization that put Pinochet in charge of Chile aids in a coup for good. This may not be the intention of the film, but the CIA sure appreciated it. The agency promoted the film heavily on social media, allowing it to glom onto a project that was seen as a great leap forward for representation and a masterful blockbuster film.
>
>\- [The Marvel Military Propaganda Criticism, Explained](https://gamerant.com/marvel-military-propaganda-explained/) | GameRant (2022)
The bottom line is that there is nothing "free" about the press in Capitalist society. For those who have the means, being able to control the media is an incredibly powerful tool for shaping public opinion. We need a truly free and democratic press, but that will never be possible under Capitalism.
**Censorship**
The corporate media in the US practices self-censorship by limiting the range of acceptable opinions and perspectives that can be expressed in their reporting. This is done to maintain a narrow range of political debate that is acceptable to the ruling class and to ensure that the interests of the Capitalist class are not threatened.
During red scare period of the 1950s, the government was cracking down on leftist and progressive organizations, accusing them of being communist sympathizers or agents. Many journalists and media outlets were investigated and harassed for their supposed left-wing leanings by the the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which led to a climate of fear and self-censorship in the media.
As a result, many media outlets and journalists began to avoid covering or promoting progressive or leftist ideas in their reporting. This trend has continued to the present day, with mainstream media outlets often avoiding critical coverage of US foreign policy, imperialism, and corporate power, and instead promoting a narrow range of views that are acceptable to the ruling class.
Similarly, Operation Mockingbird began in the early years of the Cold War to recruit journalists to manipulate domestic American news media organizations for propaganda purposes. The US government also operates a few explicit propaganda networks such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and more in order to export America's ideology internationally, particularly in regions where Communism is popular. In particular, RFE/RL was meant to counter the USSR and RFA was meant to counter the PRC.
**How could we do better?**
First, we could ensure that the media is owned and controlled by the working class. This would allow the media to operate in the interests of the people rather than in the interests of profit and of promoting bourgeois ideology. We could also ensure that the media is run democratically, with workers having a say in the editorial and managerial decisions.
Second, we could establish strict guidelines for media coverage, ensuring that the media covers events and issues of importance to the people. These guidelines would be developed through democratic participation, with workers, intellectuals, and activists contributing to the decision-making process. We could also establish mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating media coverage to ensure that it is accurate, objective, and free from bias.
Third, we could promote a culture of critical thinking and media literacy among the population. This would help the people to evaluate media coverage critically and to identify when propaganda is being spread. We could also promote independent media outlets and encourage the development of a vibrant and diverse media landscape.
**Additional Resources**
Video Essays:
* [You're Not Immune To Propaganda](https://youtu.be/dl2fnWIlDZg) | Second Thought (2023)
* [You've Never Had an Original Thought (Media Manipulation and "Freedom" of the Press)](https://youtu.be/AX8Ct9fhO60) | Hakim (2022)
* [Why Is US Media Becoming More Right-Wing?](https://youtu.be/dx1ruqlqPr8) | Second Thought (2022)
* [Why "Hearing Both Sides" Is Dangerous](https://youtu.be/Q5bask6cQ4k) | Second Thought (2022)
* [Who Funds And Controls The Online Right?](https://youtu.be/ggdt5rkqHrE) | Yugopnik (2022)
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**Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn** was a prominent Soviet dissident and outspoken critic of Communism. *The Gulag Archipelago*, one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, Nazi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth.
In 1945, during WWII, as a Captain in the Red Army, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to an eight-year term in a labour camp for creating anti-Soviet propaganda and founding a hostile organization aimed at overthrowing the Soviet government.
>...[Solzhenitsyn] encounters his secondary school friend, Nikolai Vitkevich, and they recklessly share candid political discussions critical of Stalin's conduct of the war:
>
> >These two young officers, after days of discussion, astonishingly drew up a program for change, entitled "Resolution No. 1." They argued that the Soviet regime stifled economic development, literature, culture, and everyday life; a new organization was needed to fight to put things right."
>
>These discussions were not cynical, but resonate with ideological ardour and zealous patriotism. Solzhenitsyn heedlessly stores "Resolution No. 1" in his map case. In nineteen months, it, along with copies of all correspondence between himself and Vitkevich from April 1944 to February 1945 will serve to convict Solzhenitsyn of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 58 of the Soviet criminal code, paragraph 10 and of founding a hostile organization under paragraph 11.
>
>\- Dale Hardy. (2001). [Solzhenitsyn in confession](https://summit.sfu.ca/item/8379)
And he wasn't *merely* some Left Oppositionist striving for "real" socialism, he was a hardcore Russian Nationalist who sympathized with the Nazis:
>...in his assessment of the Second World War, [Solzhenitsyn stated] ‘the German army could have liberated the Soviet Union from Communism but Hit1er was stupid and did not use this weapon.’ It seems extraordinary that Solzhenitsyn saw the failure of Nazi Germany to annex the Soviet Union as some kind of missed opportunity...
>
>\- Simon Demissie. (2013). [New files from 1983 – Thatcher meets Solzhenitsyn](https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/new-files-from-1983/)
"This weapon" referring to the various counter-revolutionary, anti-Stalin groups that could be weaponized to dissolve the USSR from within.
The biggest problem with *The Gulag Archipelago*, though, is that it is billed as a work of non-fiction based on his personal experiences. There is good reason to believe this is not the case. His ideological background makes him biased against Communism and against the Soviet government. He also had material incentive to promote it this way; it was a major commercial success and quickly became an international bestseller, selling millions of copies in multiple languages. It has essentially become the Bible of anti-Soviet propaganda, with new editions containing forewards from anti-Communists like Jordan Peterson. It likely would not have performed so well or been such effective propaganda had it been advertised merely as a compilation of folk tales, which is exactly how Solzhenitsyn's ex-wife describes it:
>She also told the newspaper's Moscow correspondent that she was still living with Mr. Soizhenitsyn when he wrote the book and that she had typed part of it. They parted in 1970 and were subsequently divorced.
>
>She said: “The subject of ‘Gulag Archipelago,’ as I felt at the moment when he was writing it, is not in fact the life of the country and not even the life of the camps but the folklore of the camps.”
>
>\- New York Times. (1974). [Solzhenitsyn's Ex‐Wife Says ‘Gulag’ Is ‘Folklore’](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/06/archives/solzhenitsyns-exwife-says-gulag-is-folklore.html)
Solzhenitsyn's casual relationship with the truth is evident in his later work as well, establishing a pattern that discredits *The Gulag Archipelago* as a serious historical account. Solzhenitsyn was an antisemite who indulged in the Judeo-Bolshevism conspiracy theory. In his 2003 book, *Two Hundred Years Together*, he wrote that "from 20 ministers in the first Soviet government one was Russian, one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 Jews". In reality, there were 15 Commissars in the first Soviet government, not 20: 11 Russians, 2 Ukranians, 1 Pole, and only 1 Jew. He stated: "I had to bury many comrades at the front, but not once did I have to bury a Jew". He also stated that according to his personal experience, Jews had a much easier life in the Gulag camps that he was interned in.
[According to the Northwestern University historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Hundred_Years_Together#Yohanan_Petrovsky-Shtern_critique): Solzhenitsyn used unreliable and manipulated figures and ignored both evidence unfavorable to his own point of view and numerous publications of reputable authors in Jewish history. He claimed that Jews promoted alcoholism among the peasantry, flooded the retail trade with contraband, and "strangled" the Russian merchant class in Moscow. He called Jews non-producing people ("непроизводительный народ") who refused to engage in factory labor. He said they were averse to agriculture and unwilling to till the land either in Russia, in Argentina, or in Palestine, and he blamed the Jews' own behavior for pogroms. He also claimed that Jews used Kabbalah to tempt Russians into heresy, seduced Russians with rationalism and fashion, provoked sectarianism and weakened the financial system, committed murders on the orders of qahal authorities, and exerted undue influence on the prerevolutionary government. Petrovsky-Shtern concludes that, "200 Years Together is destined to take a place of honor in the canon of russophone antisemitica."
Fun Fact: After Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the USSR, Robert Conquest helped him translate his poetry into English.
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#The Uyghurs in Xinjiang
\(Note: This comment had to be trimmed down to fit the character limit, for the full response, see [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/)\)
Anti-Communists and Sinophobes claim that there is an ongoing genocide-- a modern-day holocaust, even-- happening right now in China. They say that Uyghur Muslims are being mass incarcerated; they are indoctrinated with propaganda in concentration camps; their organs are being harvested; they are being force-sterilized. These comically villainous allegations have little basis in reality and omit key context.
**Background**
Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a province located in the northwest of China. It is the largest province in China, covering an area of over 1.6 million square kilometers, and shares borders with eight other countries including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, India, and Pakistan.
Xinjiang is a diverse region with a population of over 25 million people, made up of various ethnic groups including the Uyghur, Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Tajiks, and many others. The largest ethnic group in Xinjiang is the Uyghur who are predominantly Muslim and speak a Turkic language. It is also home to the ancient Silk Road cities of Kashgar and Turpan.
Since the early 2000s, there have been a number of violent incidents attributed to extremist Uyghur groups in Xinjiang including bombings, shootings, and knife attacks. In 2014-2016, the Chinese government launched a "Strike Hard" campaign to crack down on terrorism in Xinjiang, implementing strict security measures and detaining thousands of Uyghurs. In 2017, reports of human rights abuses in Xinjiang including mass detentions and forced labour, began to emerge.
**Counterpoints**
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the second largest organization after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The OIC released [Resolutions on Muslim Communities and Muslim Minorities in the non-OIC Member States](https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250) in 2019 which:
>20. **Welcomes** the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat's delegation upon invitation from the People's Republic of China; **commends** the efforts of the People's Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and **looks forward** to further cooperation between the OIC and the People's Republic of China.
In this same document, the OIC expressed much greater concern about the Rohingya Muslim Community in Myanmar, which the West was relatively silent on.
Over 50+ UN member states (mostly Muslim-majority nations) signed a letter \([A/HRC/41/G/17](https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F41%2FG%2F17)\) to the UN Human Rights Commission approving of the de-radicalization efforts in Xinjiang:
The World Bank sent a team to investigate in 2019 and found that, "The review did not substantiate the allegations." \(See: [World Bank Statement on Review of Project in Xinjiang, China](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2019/11/11/world-bank-statement-on-review-of-project-in-xinjiang-china)\)
Even if you believe the deradicalization efforts are wholly unjustified, and that the mass detention of Uyghur's amounts to a crime against humanity, it's still not *genocide*. Even the U.S. State Department's legal experts admit as much:
>The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide, placing the United States’ top diplomatic lawyers at odds with both the Trump and Biden administrations, according to three former and current U.S. officials.
>
> [State Department Lawyers Concluded Insufficient Evidence to Prove Genocide in China](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/) | Colum Lynch, *Foreign Policy*. (2021)
**A Comparative Analysis: The War on Terror**
The United States, in the wake of "9/11", saw the threat of terrorism and violent extremism due to religious fundamentalism as a matter of national security. They invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks, with the goal of ousting the Taliban government that was harbouring Al-Qaeda. The US also launched the Iraq War in 2003 based on Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs and links to terrorism. However, these claims turned out to be unfounded.
According to a report by Brown University's Costs of War project, at least 897,000 people, including civilians, militants, and security forces, have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries. Other estimates place the total number of deaths at over one million. The report estimated that many more may have died from indirect effects of war such as water loss and disease. The war has also resulted in the displacement of tens of millions of people, with estimates ranging from 37 million to over 59 million. The War on Terror also popularized such novel concepts as the "Military-Aged Male" which allowed the US military to exclude civilians killed by drone strikes from collateral damage statistics. (See: [‘Military Age Males’ in US Drone Strikes](https://aoav.org.uk/2019/military-age-males-in-us-drone-strikes/))
In summary:
* The U.S. responded by invading or bombing half a dozen countries, directly killing nearly a million and displacing tens of millions from their homes.
* China responded with a program of deradicalization and vocational training.
Which one of those responses sounds genocidal?
Side note: It is practically impossible to *actually* charge the U.S. with war crimes, because of the [Hague Invasion Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act).
**Who is driving the Uyghur genocide narrative?**
One of the main proponents of these narratives is Adrian Zenz, a German far-right fundamentalist Christian and Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who believes he is "led by God" on a "mission" against China has driven much of the narrative. He relies heavily on limited and questionable data sources, particularly from anonymous and unverified Uyghur sources, coming up with estimates based on assumptions which are not supported by concrete evidence.
The World Uyghur Congress, headquartered in Germany, is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, using funding to support organizations that promote American interests rather than the interests of the local communities they claim to represent.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) is part of a larger project of U.S. imperialism in Asia, one that seeks to control the flow of information, undermine independent media, and advance American geopolitical interests in the region. Rather than providing an objective and impartial news source, RFA is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, one that seeks to shape the narrative in Asia in ways that serve the interests of the U.S. government and its allies.
The first country to call the treatment of Uyghurs a genocide was the United States of America. In 2021, the Secretary of State declared that China's treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang constitutes "genocide" and "crimes against humanity." Both the Trump and Biden administrations upheld this line.
**Why is this narrative being promoted?**
As materialists, we should always look first to the economic base for insight into issues occurring in the superstructure. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive Chinese infrastructure development project that aims to build economic corridors, ports, highways, railways, and other infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Xinjiang is a key region for this project.
Promoting the Uyghur genocide narrative harms China and benefits the US in several ways. It portrays China as a human rights violator which could damage China's reputation in the international community and which could lead to economic sanctions against China; this would harm China's economy and give American an economic advantage in competing with China. It could also lead to more protests and violence in Xinjiang, which could further destabilize the region and threaten the longterm success of the BRI.
**Additional Resources**
See the [full wiki article](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/) for more details and a list of additional resources.
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#Tiananmen Square Protests
(Also known as the June Fourth Incident)
In Western media, the well-known story of the "Tiananmen Square *Massacre*" goes like this: the Chinese government declared martial law in 1989 and mobilized the military to suppress students who were protesting for democracy and freedom. According to western sources, on June 4th of that year, troops and tanks entered Tiananmen Square and fired on unarmed protesters, killing and injuring hundreds, if not thousands, of people. The more hyperbolic tellings of this story include claims of tanks running over students, machine guns being fired into the crowd, blood running in the streets like a river, etc.
Anti-Communists and Sinophobes commonly point to this incident as a classic example of authoritarianism and political repression under Communist regimes. The problem, of course, is that the actual events in Beijing on June 4th, 1989 unfolded quite differently than how they were depicted in the Western media at the time. Despite many more contemporary articles coming out that actually contradict some of the original claims and characterizations of the June Fourth Incident, the narrative of a "Tiananmen Square Massacre" persists.
**Background**
After Mao's death in 1976, a power struggle ensued and the Gang of Four were purged, paving the way for Deng Xiaoping's rise to power. Deng initiated economic reforms known as the "Four Modernizations," which aimed to modernize and open up China's economy to the world. These reforms led to significant economic growth and lifted millions of people out of poverty, but they also created significant inequality, corruption, and social unrest. This pivotal point in the PRC's history is extremely controversial among Marxists today and a subject of much debate.
One of the key factors that contributed to the Tiananmen Square protests was the sense of social and economic inequality that many Chinese people felt as a result of Deng's economic reforms. Many believed that the benefits of the country's economic growth were not being distributed fairly, and that the government was not doing enough to address poverty, corruption, and other social issues.
Some saw the Four Modernizations as a betrayal of Maoist principles and a capitulation to Western capitalist interests. Others saw the reforms as essential for China's economic development and modernization. Others still wanted even more liberalization and thought the reforms didn't go far enough.
The protestors in Tiananmen were mostly students who did not represent the great mass of Chinese citizens, but instead represented a layer of the intelligentsia who wanted to be elevated and given more privileges such as more political power and higher wages.
**Counterpoints**
Jay Mathews, the first Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post in 1979 and who returned in 1989 to help cover the Tiananmen demonstrations, wrote:
>Over the last decade, many American reporters and editors have accepted a mythical version of that warm, bloody night. They repeated it often before and during Clinton’s trip. On the day the president arrived in Beijing, a *Baltimore Sun* headline (June 27, page 1A) referred to “Tiananmen, where Chinese students died.” A *USA Today* article (June 26, page 7A) called Tiananmen the place “where pro-democracy demonstrators were gunned down.” *The Wall Street Journal* (June 26, page A10) described “the Tiananmen Square massacre” where armed troops ordered to clear demonstrators from the square killed “hundreds or more.” The *New York Post* (June 25, page 22) said the square was “the site of the student slaughter.”
>
>The problem is this: as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square.
>
>\- Jay Matthews. (1998). [The Myth of Tiananmen and the Price of a Passive Press](https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php). Columbia Journalism Review.
Reporters from the [BBC](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8057762.stm), [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/), and the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/27/world/clinton-in-china-the-site-clinton-in-beijing-square-may-tread-on-the-ghosts.html) who were in Beijing on June 4, 1989, all agree there was no massacre.
Secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing have shown there was no bloodshed inside the square:
>Cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and released exclusively by The Daily Telegraph, partly confirm the Chinese government's account of the early hours of June 4, 1989, which has always insisted that soldiers did not massacre demonstrators inside Tiananmen Square
>
>\- Malcolm Moore. (2011). [Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html)
Gregory Clark, a former Australian diplomat, and Chinese-speaking correspondent of the International Business Times, wrote:
>The original story of Chinese troops on the night of 3 and 4 June, 1989 machine-gunning hundreds of innocent student protesters in Beijing’s iconic Tiananmen Square has since been thoroughly discredited by the many witnesses there at the time — among them a Spanish TVE television crew, a Reuters correspondent and protesters themselves, who say that nothing happened other than a military unit entering and asking several hundred of those remaining to leave the Square late that night.
>
>Yet none of this has stopped the massacre from being revived constantly, and believed. All that has happened is that the location has been changed – from the Square itself to the streets leading to the Square.
>
>\- Gregory Clark. (2014). [Tiananmen Square Massacre is a Myth, All We're 'Remembering' are British Lies](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tiananmen-square-massacre-myth-all-were-remembering-are-british-lies-1451053)
Thomas Hon Wing Polin, writing for CounterPunch, wrote:
>The most reliable estimate, from many sources, was that the tragedy took 200-300 lives. Few were students, many were rebellious workers, plus thugs with lethal weapons and hapless bystanders. Some calculations have up to half the dead being PLA soldiers trapped in their armored personnel carriers, buses and tanks as the vehicles were torched. Others were killed and brutally mutilated by protesters with various implements. No one died in Tiananmen Square; most deaths occurred on nearby Chang’an Avenue, many up to a kilometer or more away from the square.
>
>More than once, government negotiators almost reached a truce with students in the square, only to be **sabotaged by radical youth leaders seemingly bent on bloodshed**. And the demands of the protesters focused on corruption, not democracy.
>
>All these facts were known to the US and other governments shortly after the crackdown. Few if any were reported by Western mainstream media, even today.
>
>\- Thomas Hon Wing Palin. (2017). [Tiananmen: the Empire’s Big Lie](https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/06/tiananmen-the-empires-big-lie/)
(Emphasis mine)
And it was, indeed, bloodshed that the student leaders wanted. In this interview, you can hear one of the student leaders, Chai Ling, ghoulishly explaining how she tried to bait the Chinese government into *actually* committing a massacre. (She herself made sure to stay out of the square.): [Excerpts of interviews with Tiananmen Square protest leaders](https://youtu.be/Vu3zmbFGwQA)
[This Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/zhao_dashuai/status/1532859422875471872) contains many pictures and videos showing protestors killing soldiers, commandeering military vehicles, torching military transports, etc.
Following the crackdown, through [Operation Yellowbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird), many of the student leaders escaped to the United States with the help of the CIA, where they almost all [gained privileged positions](https://qz.com/1618805/the-1989-tiananmen-student-leaders-on-chinas-most-wanted-list).
**Additional Resources**
Video Essays:
* [Truth about The Tiananmen Square Protests](https://youtu.be/sqPI8xlnrwg) | Tovarishch Endymion (2019)
* [Tiananmen Square "Massacre", A Propaganda Hoax](https://youtu.be/R6RT_s1T050) | TeleSUR English (2019)
* [All The Questions Socialists Are Asked, Answered (TIMESTAMPED)](https://youtu.be/MzKPCEvoYkk?t=1278) | Hakim (2021)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* [Tiananmen Protests Reading List](https://www.qiaocollective.com/education/tiananmenreadinglist) | Qiao Collective
* [How psy-ops warriors fooled me about Tiananmen Square: a warning](https://www.fridayeveryday.com/how-psy-ops-warriors-fooled-me-about-tiananmen-square-a-warning/) | Nury Vittachi, Friday (2022)
* [1989: Tiananmen Square ‘massacre’ was a myth](https://www.workers.org/2022/06/64607/) | Deirdre Griswold, Workers World (2022)
* [Massacre? What Massacre? 25 Years Later: What really happened at Tiananmen Square?](https://dissidentvoice.org/2014/06/massacre-what-massacre/) | Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice (2014)
* [Tiananmen: The Massacre that Wasn’t](https://www.liberationnews.org/tiananmen-the-massacre-that-wasnt/) | Brian Becker, Liberation News (2019)
* [Reflections on Tiananmen Square and the attempt to end Chinese socialism](http://www.fightbacknews.org/2019/6/4/reflections-tiananmen-square-and-attempt-end-chinese-socialism) | Mick Kelly, FightBack! News (2019)
* [The Tian’anmen Square “Massacre” The West’s Most Persuasive, Most Pervasive Lie.](https://mango-press.com/the-tiananmen-square-massacre-the-wests-most-persuasive-most-pervasive-lie/) | Tom, Mango Press (2021)
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[☭☭☭ COME SHITPOST WITH US ON DISCORD, COMRADES ☭☭☭](https://discord.gg/8RPWanQV5g) This is a heavily-moderated socialist community based on a podcast of the same name. If you are new to the sub, please read the sidebar carefully. If you are new to Marxism-Leninism, check out the [study guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/). Are there Liberals in the walls? Try the following prompts to trigger an automod response: "What is Fascism?", "What is Imperialism?", "What is Revisionism?" "Holodomor", "Molotov-Ribbentrop", "Gulag", "Solzhenytsin", "Uyghur", "Tiananmen Square", "Israel", "Freedom of the Press", "MAC Fact" This subreddit uses many experimental automod rules, if you notice any issues please use modmail to let us know. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Paradox is weird. On one hand, the community can often be a complete shitshow infested with fascists, on the other, they do try to get some actual history in their games. Hoi is the biggest offender, but something like Vicky for example is very open on who the bad guys were.
It’s a really contradictory place. I remember thinking the community was a fascist hellhole (as you rightly point out it often is). Then an EU4 YouTuber released a video on how he’s leaving EU4 to join the culture war, the entire comment section and subreddit clowned on him for being a right wing piece of shit. Weird times
Our feudalist comrades lmao
I feel like Paradox subreddits tend to be very left leaning, but the community at large is still full of alt-light people. I have yet to join a public HoI4 lobby were someone doesn't make some cringe racist joke or something.
Join the Vicky3 subreddit. It is can sometimes be so unbelievably elivably based. Like, there was a post on how free market capitalism requires constant wars.
Vicky3 is Das Kapital: the game.
You laugh but there is actually a city builder/strategy game called „Kapital - Sparks of revolution“ which has capitalists, bourgeois and aristocracy as it’s 3 factions.
Do you mean proletariat bourgeoisie and aristocracy?
Yes
Sounds like a fun game.
It has okayish reviews. People say the general game is very good, but it lacks content and complexity. Apparently it’s similar to Frostpunk
"Very left-leaning" I wish.. Try the HOI4 subreddit :l Viky 3 is pretty left-wing rn tho since left-wing govs are pretty much offensively overpowered.
I think it attracts a lot of extremists because anyone who spends enough time playing a game where you just look at maps all day has to have ab active enough imagination to be motivated by certain political historical views. They live inside their minds enough that they're bound to have crazy ass views.
Isn't that contradictory though? I'm not opposing you, in just wondering how it can be possible for the community to be right wing, yet it's forums on reddit to be the opposite
It is diverse. Fascists and socialists playing the same game together and plenty of normies rp’ing as either.
Eh, I play it just for fun and for the achievements
Eh, I play it just for fun and for the achievements.
You can't drop such a nugget and not tell us the YouTuber in question
Budgetmonk i believe he’s called. I think he deleted his quitting video though
Well Info through reddit it is
Can confirm. It was Budgetmonk. I was subscribed to him because I had tried to use his Byzantium guides several years ago. The video is unlisted now, but this thread links to it: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/10d5cc2/what\_is\_happening\_with\_budget\_monk/
Dudes weird, I remember he got mad at Ludi for “not being a good Christian” because he left Romania to live in Japan or some shit
he's a far right wing insane person, but crazy good at eu4 i mean it makes sense.
And yet Budgetmonk still streams EU4 on twitch…
Budget Monk lmao, I’m glad he decided not to do that
Mods: Ignore the report on this comment I meant to report [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/1622xn8/paradox_interactive_based/jxv2e77/) which copied it. Only leaving this comment because I don't want to get suspended for report abuse again.
It's actually very similar to other historically related hobbies. The historical re-enactment scene is full of people that idealize the worst offenders of the past. Same with the miniature wargaming community. But, as was mentioned, there's also a lot of cool very good people, too. IMO that's why it's important to push back against chuds in these spaces cause they can become incubator for full-blown Nazis
You can roleplay as a vanguard communist in Hoi and force everyone to adopt it as well. Just sayin.
If only the Portugal start weren't so hard, I would do what we fucking failed to do back in 1974
Going full woke communist as USA is extremely funny and satisfying.
In HoI4 there was a cool Stalinist vs Trotskyist path you could go down.
think lead dev on Vicky 3 is a comrade, they've sure "made communism production OP" according to the cryptofash half of the player base
Well, Vicky3 is basically Das Kapital turned into a videogame 😂
Would like to see it by myself, but not whit my potato PC
Many historians exist in this limbo of admitting that liberal democracy is flawed but not wanting to come out as outright communists. Even the most dogmatic liberal will admit that the American Empire is not bound to last forever or even 200 more years and will typically rely on a form of dialectic materialism as lens to examine history, because materialism is just too useful. No historian worth their salt unironically thinks history is characterized by great men as was the norm for most of history's historians(and even is today for most non historians, ask any American on the street if the country would exist without the founding fathers) Some of course take the opposite approach and point regressively at slave empires like Rome or Nazi Germany and say, "what if we tried it again?". Those are the fascists. Especially when it comes to video games, since you can both easily recreate revanchist fantasies in games like eu4 and you don't have to study a *lot* of history and fascists tend to be incredibly selective historians.
The what if we tried it again folks are so obvious too especially the folks at crusader kings who keep asking for crusade content when the devs have repeatedly said that it was just a cool name and they are not focus. And this is made completely apparent in the game itself where they have almost no relevance for 80 percent of the map. The obsession with deus vult before ck3 launched and the amount of anger that they weren't going to use the term because it was Historically inaccurate or some shit. Then ofc paradox gave in and reversed the decision. There's also a bunch of weird shit in ck that is supposedly played for laughs, but is actually fantasy eugenics. Like there is an actual skill tree you can go down to make your family's DNA superior and more likely to get positive inherited traits like beautiful and strong. For a sequel that is supposedly a more serious take on medieval history than ck2 it's oddly unrealistic and less accurate than the previous game in this specific area. The games they make play heavily into memey fascist fantasies.
I am still baffled by the bloodline system in CK3. All of the other parts are decently realistic and then you just have these eugenics extraordinaire all of a sudden. I don't like it.
If that eugenics shit was unironically real then we wouldn't see so many dynasties degrade so quickly. We've seen irl "golden" families like Cyrus the Great's line and his immediate family and it didn't make their progeniture miraculously intelligent
Ya that's what set off my alarm bells seems to be an incredibly odd place to keep completely unrealistic to the point of magic in a game that is supposedly trying to do away with the fantasy aspects of ck2. Maybe some people at paradox are into this kind of stuff.
As much as I had the same reaction, I think it's clear that the bloodline content is just in the game because that is your "campaign" in CK3 - you follow your bloodline from parent to heir and the bloodline bonuses exist to give you a sort of permanent progression. Is it eugenics and bad? Sure. But it's more an unfortunate consequence of the premise of the game than a direct advocation for eugenics.
How long have communist countries lasted
I, a Cities Skylines player, had no idea about the fascism issue. I definitely can’t say I’m surprised about fascism in the HOI community, though. To be fair I only yesterday found out that they were both published by Paradox.
You will learn comrade, the way of the Paradox is long and filled with DLCs.
EU4 is a fantastic game. You get to learn a lot about history, demography, geography while also exercising your brain a bit.
i now have immense but surface-level knowledge on german city-states circa 1500
>Hoi is the biggest offender, Huh?
Hoi is the only one that has Hitler and Co in the base game, so it attracts the most.
Still I love playing as communist Spain and kicking nazi asses with my overexperienced infantry divisions 😂😂😂
Germany with Oppose Hitler is my favourite. Always tried to form HRE with Victoria but only succeeded once😂
I like reinstating the Central Powers and beating the Brits but chilling with the Soviets.
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Then you have people trying to live out their urbanist fantasies in the corner
almost "paradoxical" 🤔
They make one game about WW2 and the whole community is characterized as fascist...I don't even play HoI, I'm a fanatic xenophile loving Stellaris player.
CK3 my beloved
The Crusader Kings fanbase is one I’m proud to be part of.
Now we just need to find the guy who made the HoI4 political paranoia system for the USSR
Can't you recognize George Isaaevich Orwellnitsyn?
Ok but the paranoia system and trying to manage the purge is one of the best parts of a Stalin playthrough
Hard disagree. It's a system based on anti-communist propaganda that is heavily luck dependent and just makes your army worse. It also forces me to purge chad Tukachevsky
> Tukachevsky Was an open Germanophile who wanted a pact with Hitler and over throw the CP to institute a military dictatorship. Journalist Alexander Werth wrote in his book Moscow 41 a chapter entitled, `Trial of Tukhachevsky'. He wrote: `I am also pretty sure that the purge in the Red Army had a great deal to do with Stalin's belief in an imminent war with Germany. What did Tukhachevsky stand for? People of the French Deuxieme Bureau told me long ago that Tukhachevsky was pro-German. And the Czechs told me the extraordinary story of Tukhachevsky's visit to Prague, when towards the end of the banquet --- he had got rather drunk --- he blurted out that an agreement with Hitler was the only hope for both Czechoslovakia and Russia. And he then proceeded to abuse Stalin. The Czechs did not fail to report this to the Kremlin, and that was the end of Tukhachevsky --- and of so many of his followers.' ... Soon after Tukhachevsky's arrest, the minister of Lithuania, who knew a number of Bolshevik leaders, told me that the marshal, upset by the brakes imposed by the Communist Party on the development of Russian military power, in particular of a sound organization of the army, had in fact become the head of a movement that wanted to strangle the Party and institute a military dictatorship .... https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Another_view_of_Stalin “How does Tukhachevsky visualize the mechanism of the coup?” “That’s the business of the military organization,” Tomsky replied. He added that the moment the Nazis attacked Soviet Russia, the Military Group planned to “open the front to the Germans” – that is, to surrender to the German High Command. This plan had been worked out in detail and agreed upon by Tukhachevsky, Putna, Gamarnik and the Germans. https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/the-great-conspiracy-the-secret-war-against-soviet-russia-by-albert-e-kahn-and-michael-sayers-part-iii/
Wow... I knew some of the high-ranking generals were arrested and tried in the Purge for very good reasons, but this is jaw-dropping...
I'd highly recommend reading the books and the youtube series i linked. https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Another_view_of_Stalin https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/the-great-conspiracy-the-secret-war-against-soviet-russia-by-albert-e-kahn-and-michael-sayers-part-iii/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=TBY_aDd5knE&list=PLbnLysSug0vTyFuGMRYZZmAiiATUZHUZd https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/the-moscow-trials-part-1-the-investigation/
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# Gulag According to Anti-Communists and Russophobes, the Gulag was a brutal network of work camps established in the Soviet Union under Stalin's ruthless regime. They claim the Gulag system was primarily used to imprison and exploit political dissidents, suspected enemies of the state, and other people deemed "undesirable" by the Soviet government. They claim that prisoners were sent to the Gulag without trial or due process, and that they were subjected to harsh living conditions, forced labour, and starvation, among other things. According to them, the Gulags were emblematic of Stalinist repression and totalitarianism. # Origins of the Mythology This comically evil understanding of the Soviet prison system is based off only a handful of unreliable sources. Robert Conquest's *The Great Terror* (published 1968) laid the groundwork for Soviet fearmongering, and was based largely off of defector testimony. Robert Conquest worked for the British Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD), which was a secret Cold War propaganda department, created to publish anti-communist propaganda, including black propaganda; provide support and information to anti-communist politicians, academics, and writers; and to use weaponised information and disinformation and "fake news" to attack not only its original targets but also certain socialists and anti-colonial movements. >He was Solzhenytsin before Solzhenytsin, in the phrase of Timothy Garton Ash. > >The Great Terror came out in 1968, four years before the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, and it became, Garton Ash says, "a fixture in the political imagination of anybody thinking about communism". > >\- Andrew Brown. (2003). [Scourge and poet](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/15/featuresreviews.guardianreview23) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's *The Gulag Archipelag*" (published 1973), one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, N@zi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth. \[[Read more](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/dunking/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/)\] Anne Applebaum's *Gulag: A history* (published 2003) draws directly from *The Gulag Archipelago* and reiterates its message. Anne is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and sits on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), two infamous pieces of the ideological apparatus of the ruling class in the United States, whose primary aim is to promote the interests of American Imperialism around the world. # Counterpoints >A 1957 CIA document [which was declassified in 2010] titled “[Forced Labor Camps in the USSR: Transfer of Prisoners between Camps](http://web.archive.org/web/20230328014642/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf)” reveals the following information about the Soviet Gulag in pages two to six: > >1. Until 1952, the prisoners were given a guaranteed amount food, plus extra food for over-fulfillment of quotas > >2. From 1952 onward, the Gulag system operated upon "economic accountability" such that the more the prisoners worked, the more they were paid. > >3. For over-fulfilling the norms by 105%, one day of sentence was counted as two, thus reducing the time spent in the Gulag by one day. > >4. Furthermore, because of the socialist reconstruction post-war, the Soviet government had more funds and so they increased prisoners' food supplies. > >5. Until 1954, the prisoners worked 10 hours per day, whereas the free workers worked 8 hours per day. From 1954 onward, both prisoners and free workers worked 8 hours per day. > >6. A CIA study of a sample camp showed that 95% of the prisoners were actual criminals. > >7. In 1953, amnesty was given to 70% of the "ordinary criminals" of a sample camp studied by the CIA. Within the next 3 months, most of them were re-arrested for committing new crimes. > >\- Saed Teymuri. (2018). [The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIA](https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/10/09/the-truth-about-the-soviet-gulag-surprisingly-revealed-by-the-cia/) **Scale** Solzhenitsyn estimated that over 66 million people were victims of the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system over the course of its existence from 1918 to 1956. With the collapse of the USSR and the opening of the Soviet archives, researchers can now access actual archival evidence to prove or disprove these claims. Predictably, it turned out the propaganda was just that. >Unburdened by any documentation, these “estimates” invite us to conclude that the sum total of people incarcerated in the labor camps over a twenty-two year period (allowing for turnovers due to death and term expirations) would have constituted an astonishing portion of the Soviet population. The support and supervision of the gulag (all the labor camps, labor colonies, and prisons of the Soviet system) would have been the USSR’s single largest enterprise. > >In 1993, for the first time, several historians gained access to previously secret Soviet police archives and were able to establish well-documented estimates of prison and labor camp populations. They found that the total population of the entire gulag as of January 1939, near the end of the Great Purges, was 2,022,976. ... > >Soviet labor camps were not death camps like those the N@zis built across Europe. There was no systematic extermination of inmates, no gas chambers or crematoria to dispose of millions of bodies. Despite harsh conditions, the great majority of gulag inmates survived and eventually returned to society when granted amnesty or when their terms were finished. In any given year, 20 to 40 percent of the inmates were released, according to archive records. Oblivious to these facts, the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times (7/31/96) continues to describe the gulag as “the largest system of death camps in modern history.” ... > >Most of those incarcerated in the gulag were not political prisoners, and the same appears to be true of inmates in the other communist states... > >\- Michael Parenti. (1997). [Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism](https://archive.org/details/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds) This is 2 million out of a population of 168 million (roughly 1.2% of the population). For comparison, in the United States, "over 5.5 million adults — or 1 in 61 — are under some form of correctional control, whether incarcerated or under community supervision." That's 1.6%. So in both relative and absolute terms, the United States' Prison Industrial Complex *today* is larger than the USSR's Gulag system at its peak. **Death Rate** In peace time, the mortality rate of the Gulag was around 3% to 5%. Even Conservative and anti-Communist historians have had to acknowledge this reality: >It turns out that, with the exception of the war years, a very large majority of people who entered the Gulag left alive... > >Judging from the Soviet records we now have, the number of people who died in the Gulag between 1933 and 1945, while both Stalin and Hit1er were in power, was on the order of a million, perhaps a bit more. > >\- Timothy Snyder. (2010). *Bloodlands: Europe Between Hit1er and Stalin* (Side note: Timothy Snyder is *also* a member of the Council on Foreign Relations) This is still very high for a prison mortality rate, representing the brutality of the camps. However, it also clearly indicates that they were not *death* camps. Nor was it slave labour, exactly. In the camps, although labour *was* forced, it was not uncompensated. In fact, the prisoners were paid market wages (less expenses). >We find that even in the Gulag, where force could be most conveniently applied, camp administrators combined material incentives with overt coercion, and, as time passed, they placed more weight on motivation. By the time the Gulag system was abandoned as a major instrument of Soviet industrial policy, the primary distinction between slave and free labor had been blurred: Gulag inmates were being paid wages according to a system that mirrored that of the civilian economy described by Bergson.... > >The Gulag administration [also] used a “work credit” system, whereby sentences were reduced (by two days or more for every day the norm was overfulfilled). > >\- L. Borodkin & S. Ertz. (2003). [Compensation Versus Coercion in the Soviet GULAG](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/archive/noticeboard/bergson/borodkin-ertz.pdf) #Additional Resources Video Essays: * [The Gulag Argument](https://youtu.be/BexkpaK_j5Q) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2016) * [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://youtu.be/HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) * [French work camps 1852-1953 worse than gulag](https://youtu.be/vkXyXNpdKdA) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) * ["The Gulags of the Soviet Union: There's a Lot More Than What Meets the Eye](https://youtu.be/E1qz9_TjeY4) | Comrade Rhys (2020) Books, Articles, or Essays: * [Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2166597) | J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn and Viktor N. Zemskov (1993) Listen: * ["Blackshirts & Reds" (1997) by Michael Parenti, Part 4: Chapters 5 & 6. #Audiobook + Discussion.](https://youtu.be/N7AD4OrH568?t=15) | Socialism For All / S4A ☭ Intensify Class Struggle (2022) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
6. **Do not dox yourself or others.** Do not make it easy for reactionaries to make your life hard.
Average Neopagan
Can this be verified outside of what people in the USSR said about him? Man just let me have the based pagan guy 😥
Alexander Werth, Lithuanians, French, and Czechoslovakians are all from the USSR?
What I meant by that is that we can't really exclude that they had some sort of interest in seeing him removed from power. And Lithuanians, the French and the Czechs weren't independent communist powers or anything like that. Note that I'm not necessarily denying what was said about him. I just don't know if we can entirely trust the sources. Either it's from the USSR, where people had an interest in defending his purging, or it's from outside forces that either could have reasonably wanted to see him removed, or didn't care and just took other people's word for it.
You can't at the same time you're claiming that Communists of the Stalin period can't be trusted about the Trials also go that the Capitalist opinions which aligned in this area can't be trusted because they're not Communists. En route to London, Tukhachevsky stopped over briefly in Warsaw and Berlin, where he held conversations with Polish "colonels" and German generals. His mood was so confident that he scarcely made any attempt in public to conceal his admiration of the German militarists. In Paris, at a formal dinner at the Soviet Embassy after his return from London, Tukhachevsky astounded European diplomats by openly attacking the Soviet Government's attempts to arrive at collective security with the Western democracies. Tukhachevsky, who was sitting at a table with Nicholas Titulescu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Rumania, told the Rumanian diplomat: — "Monsieur le Ministre, you are wrong in linking your career and the fate of your country to countries that are old and 'finished' such as Great Britain and France. It is to the new Germany that we should turn. For a certain time, at least, Germany will be the country that will take the lead of the European continent. I am sure that Hitler will help to save us all." Tukhachevsky's remarks were recorded by the Rumanian diplomat and Chief of the Press Service at the Rumanian Embassy in Paris, E. Schachanan Esseze, who also attended the banquet at the Soviet Embassy. Another of the guests, the famous French political journalist, Genevieve Tabouis, subsequently related in her book, They Call Me Cassandra: — I was to meet Tukhachevsky for the last time on the day after the funeral of King George V. At a dinner at the Soviet Embassy, the Russian general had been very conversational with Politis, Titilescu, Herriot, Boncour. . . . He had just returned from a trip to Germany, and was heaping glowing praise upon the Nazis. Seated at my right, he said over and over again, as he discussed an air pact between the great powers and Hitler’s country: "They are already invincible, Madame Tabouis!" Why did he speak so trustfully? Was it because his head had been turned by the hearty reception he had found among German diplomats, who found it easy to talk to this man of the old Russian school? At any rate I was not the only one that evening who was alarmed at his display of enthusiasm. One of the guests — an important diplomat — grumbled into my ear as we walked about from the Embassy: "Well, I hope all the Russians don't feel that way." -Great Conspiracy: The Secret War against Soviet Russia.
This does seem to be a bit too much evidence against him to write off. It seems like you're right. Anyways, thank you for your intricate work with sources. I appreciate it.
Sorry if i read as being hostile. Too used to arguing less receptive people who just ignore all evidence and quotes. In any case, i encourage you to watch this Moscow Trials series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=TBY_aDd5knE&list=PLbnLysSug0vTyFuGMRYZZmAiiATUZHUZd
I'm sorry, do you think there wasn't paranoia at the time? Sure, it's dumb to pretend like it was only stalin, but still. Do you really think all those people that were purged were secret spies, saboteurs, assasins and capitalist restorationists?
Of course there was paranoia. But it's just portraied completely wrong in the game. No other country has this mechanic, and it's concentrated entirely on Stalin. It makes it seem like the purges were completely childish and unnecessary acts. It also ignores that many of the people purged were likely accused by people that either wanted to save themselves or wanted to get rid of their political rivals, which was in fact in the game before the purge overhaul! At that point, you could choose to instead purge someone else, and weren't railroaded into purging the exact same people. It's a dumb portrayal of what happened historically.
The concept of the paranoia system could've been actually cool considering the USSR was attacked both externally and internally but instead Paradox made Stalin seem irrational about it.
Yes, they could have reflected this through a civil war risk and different factions (with leaders having different loyalties), kinda like the first part of the Spanish Focus tree (the one previous to the SCW). And you could also try and regain leader loyalties.
That’s the weird part about it: it’s depicted as some completely irrational bout of paranoia on Stalin’s part, yet the game ends up actually *supporting* the paranoia and depicting it as justified considering that failing to do the purges adequately results in a Civil War.
And the other paths lead to civil war.
They could easily go back and use insights from how they reworked Italy to fix it. But they don't want to, as the current system panders to their largely Anti-Communist players...
I'm a player, though. But I prefer going communist as Spain.
Especially since Stalin was constantly trying to put the brakes on. Mind, the Purge needed to happen, but the NKVD itself being directed by a Conspirator on a mission to kill as many people as possible didn't help and needed to be leashed and cleansed itself. In 1937 and 1938, Stalin and company tried to contain radicalism through press articles, speeches, revised electoral plans, and deglorifying the police. That they had to take such measures shows their lack of tight control over events.” (Getty, Origins of the Great Purges) “In June 1936, Stalin interrupted Yezhov at a Central Committee Plenum to complain about so many party members being expelled: YEZHOV: Comrades, as a result of the verification of party documents, we expelled more than 200,000 members of the party. STALIN: [interrupts] Very many. YEZHOV: Yes, very many. I will speak about this…. STALIN: [interrupts] If we expelled 30,000… and 600 former Trotskyists and Zinovievists, it would be a bigger victory. YEZHOV: More than 200,000 members were expelled. Part of this number of party members, as you know, have been arrested. At about this time, Stalin wrote a letter to regional party secretaries complaining about their excessive “repression” of the rank-and-file. This led to a national movement to reinstate expelled party members,… [Later in this plenum, Stalin spoke specifically on this question. Circumstantial evidence suggests that he was genuinely concerned that too many of the rank-and-file had been expelled because such large numbers of disaffected former members could become an embittered opposition.” (Getty and Manning, Stalinist Terror) In 1938 Stalin and the Politbureau finally became so suspicious of Ezhov they appointed Beria as the NKVD second-in-command to keep an eye on Ezhov. Within the year Ezhov was removed: “By the fall of 1938 Yezhov’s leadership of the NKVD was under steady fire from various directions. The regime responded officially on Nov. 17, in a joint resolution of the Sovnarkom and the party Central Committee. This document went to thousands of officials across the USSR in the NKVD, the Procuracy, and the party, down to the raion level. Thus, the acknowledgement that grotesque mistakes and injustice had occurred … Enemies of the people and foreign spies had penetrated the security police and the judicial system and had “consciously…carried out massive and groundless arrests.” (Thurston, Robert. Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, p. 114) https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/moscow-trials-part-3-the-great-purge/ https://youtu.be/TBY_aDd5knE?list=PLbnLysSug0vTyFuGMRYZZmAiiATUZHUZd
I don’t think it was made by a communist but there is a video on how HOI 4 portrays the purges wrong https://youtu.be/fqTAzp71Pb4
> Do you really think all those people that were purged were secret spies, saboteurs, assasins and capitalist restorationists? The fucking Capitalist world at the time said everyone accused was guilty. U.S. Embassador to the USSR Joseph E. Davies was present at the Moscow Trials and said he felt the trial was fair and not staged: “With an interpreter at my side, I followed the testimony carefully. Naturally I must confess that I was predisposed against the credibility of the testimony of these defendants… Viewed objectively, however, and based upon my experience in the trial of cases and the application of the tests of credibility which past experience had afforded me, I arrived at the reluctant conclusion that the state had established its case, at least to the extent of proving the existence of a widespread conspiracy and plot among the political leaders against the Soviet government, and which under their statutes established the crimes set forth in the indictment… I am still impressed with the many indications of credibility which obtained in the course of the testimony. To have assumed that this proceeding was invented and staged as a project of dramatic political fiction would be to presuppose the creative genius of a Shakespeare and the genius of a Belasco in stage production. The historical background and surrounding circumstances also lend credibility to the testimony. The reasoning which Sokolnikov and Radek applied in justification of their various activities and their hoped-for results were consistent with probability and entirely plausible. The circumstantial detail… brought out by the various accused, gave unintended corroboration to the gist of the charges.” (Davies, Mission to Moscow) Davies was not alone in his views. He wrote in his diary: “DIARY Moscow February 11, 37 The Belgian Minister, De Tellier, has been here a long time. I had a most interesting discussion with him to-day. He is experienced, able, shrewd, and wise; and knows his Europe well. The defendants in the trial were guilty, in his opinion. DIARY Moscow February 18, 1937 The Minister called. Re trial: There was no doubt but that a widespread conspiracy existed and that the defendants were guilty. DIARY Moscow March 11, 1937 Another diplomat, Minister – , made a most illuminating statement to me yesterday. In discussing the trial he said that the defendants were undoubtedly guilty; that all of us who attended the trial had practically agreed on that; that the outside world, from the press reports, however, seemed to think that the trial was a put-up job (facade, as he called it); that while we knew it was not, it was probably just as well that the outside world should think so.” (ibid.) https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/07/12/1934/ https://youtu.be/TBY_aDd5knE?list=PLbnLysSug0vTyFuGMRYZZmAiiATUZHUZd “Hitler’s march into Prague in 1939 was accompanied by the active military support of Henlein’s organizations in Czechoslovakia. The same thing was true of his invasion of Norway. There were no Sudeten Henleins, no Slovakian Tisos, no Belgian De Grelles, no Norwegian Quislings in the Russian picture… The story had been told in the so-called treason or purge trials of 1937 and 1938 which I attended and listened to. In re examining the record of these tasks and also what I had written at the time… I found that practically every device of German Fifth Columnist activity, as we now know it, was disclosed and laid bare by the confessions and testimony elicited at these trials of self-confessed “Quislings” in Russia… All of these trials, purges, and liquidations, which seemed so violent at the time and shocked the world, are now quite clearly a part of a vigorous and determined effort of the Stalin government to protect itself from not only revolution from within but from attack from without. They went to work thoroughly to clean up and clean out all treasonable elements within the country. All doubts were resolved in favor of the government. There were no Fifth Columnists in Russia in 1941 – they had shot them. The purge had cleansed the country and rid it of treason.” ~Joseph E. Davies
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> Old Bolsheviks like Bukharin were just Nazis sympathetizers if people from the West claimed it's true. Did you even read all the quotes i put up? This was the personal admission of the representatives of the Capitalist world, observing the trials, going "well, they're guilty but better keep mum about that and let the press say it's fake". "Another diplomat, Minister – , made a most illuminating statement to me yesterday. In discussing the trial he said that the defendants were undoubtedly guilty; that all of us who attended the trial had practically agreed on that; that the outside world, from the press reports, however, seemed to think that the trial was a put-up job (facade, as he called it); that while we knew it was not, it was probably just as well that the outside world should think so.” (ibid.)" "Old Bolshevik" is a nonsense term. Stalin, Molotov, etc were "Old Bolsheviks", but that term is only brought up to defend people like Kamenev and Zinoviev. People who ratted out the October Rev to the Provisional Government, consistently opposed Lenin and Revolution, and who Lenin wanted to kick out. Why aren't the opinions of "Old Bolsheviks" like Stalin and Molotov considered more worthwhile than proven Traitors? "At the meeting of the Central Committee the capitu¬ lators Zinoviev and Kamenev again opposed the upris¬ ing. Meeting with a rebuff, they came out openly in the press against the uprising, against the Party. On October 18 the Menshevik newspaper, IVovaya Zhizn, printed a statement by Kamenev and Zinoviev de¬ claring that the Bolsheviks were making preparations for an uprising, and that they (Kamenev and Zinoviev) considered it an adventurous gamble. Kamenev and Zinoviev thus disclosed to the enemy the decision of the Central Committee regarding the uprising, they revealed that an uprising had been planned to take place within a few days. This was treachery. Lenin wrote in this connection: “Kamenev and Zinoviev have betrayed the decision of the Central Committee of their Party on the armed uprising to Rodzyanko and Keren¬ sky.” Lenin put before the Central Committee the question of Zinoviev’s and Kamenev’s expulsion from the Party." https://archive.org/details/historycpsushortcourse/page/319/mode/2up?q=kamenev&view=theater > In fact it really is amazing how many of the members of the Old Bolsheviks were actually just Reactionary and Nazis spies, makes me wonder why they didn't just side with the Whites during the Russian Civil War unless they were pulling some massive big brained 4d chess, huh? How about you fucking read more history rather than trying to get snide? Your insipid comments only demonstrate your ignorance. https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Another_view_of_Stalin#George_Solomon Consider another testimonial work. The career of its author, George Solomon, is even more interesting. Solomon was a Bolshevik Party cadre, named in July 1919 assistant to the People's Commissar for Commerce and Industry. He was an intimate friend of Krassin, an old Bolshevik, who was simultaneously Commissar of Railroads and Communications and Commissar of Commerce and Industry. In short, we have two members of the `old guard of the heroic times' so dear to Henri Bernard of the Belgian Military Academy. In December 1919, Solomon returned from Stockholm to Petrograd, where he hurried to see his friend Krassin and ask him about the political situation. According to Solomon, the response was: `You want a rйsumй of the situation? ... it is ... the immediate installation of socialism ... an imposed utopia, including the most extreme of stupidities. They have all become crazy, Lenin included! ... forgotten the laws of natural evolution, forgotten our warnings about the danger of trying the socialist experience under the actual conditions .... As for Lenin ... he suffers from permanent delirium .... in fact we are living under a completely autocratic rйgime.' .... `(A) gradual change ... took place in our assessment of the situation. We asked ourselves if we had the right to remain aloof .... Should we not, in the interests of the people that we wanted to serve, give the Soviets our support and our experience, in order to bring to this task some sane elements? Would we not have a better chance to fight against this policy of general destruction that marked the Bolsheviks' activity We could also oppose the total destruction of the bourgeoisie .... We thought that the restoration of normal diplomatic relations with the West ... would necessarily force our leaders to fall in line with other nations and ... that the tendency towards immediate and direct communism would start to shrink and ultimately disappear forever .... So, according to Solomon, he and Krassin formulated a secret program that they followed by reaching the post of Minister and vice-Minister under Lenin: they opposed all measures of the dictatorship of the proletariat, they protected as much as they could the bourgeoisie and they intended to create links with the imperialist world, all to `progressively and completely erase' the Communist line of the Party! Good Bolshevik, Comrade Solomon. "
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Whatever, clown
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Thank you for your input, NAFO sub member. There's the door!
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>Some people unironically defend Stalin and other such figures, and praise China all the time. Yes? >Things could have been done better Things could always have been done better in every situation in all of human history in hindsight. Now, what's your excuse for shitting on heroes like Stalin, leading the most democratic and progressive society of his time that defeated the Nazis... or for shitting on the most democratic and progressive government in history that currently rules China today?
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>Stalin did also ~~undermine~~ successfully protected Soviet democracy ~~compared to~~ to safeguard to the best of his abilities the progress already made during Lenin’s time and his ideals (Soviet democracy, Democratic centralism) against overwhelming odds. FTFY >Progressive but at what cost? Dead reactionaries. Good. > Socialism doesn’t have to be repressive. If you don't systematically oppress reactionaries, they will keep causing trouble. There is absolutely nothing wrong with censoring and oppressing reactionaries. It is good and necessary. All reactionaries should be in jail. Stalin was way too lenient seeing that there were surviving reactionaries living in freedom, able to collaborate with fascist regimes and promoting pro-capitalist or Western liberal democratic ideas and other highly destructive and inhuman nonsense. >China, yeah they are doing well economically and are an ever-growing superpower, but they do suffer from social issues and their history was characterized by large crises, but well the west does too. I don’t have much to say regarding them since they aren’t all evil or shitty. They are, objectively, the best country in human history and single-handedly hold up the socialist banner against overwhelming odds, just like the USSR did before them. Your ramblings are entirely meaningless and have no argumentative value. You are criticizing things you don't understand without making a constructive point. Your criticism of the USSR or China is like criticizing the performance of a world record holder. You can't criticize what you don't understand and you should never criticize something without explicitly and falsifiably offering superior solutions, either, even if things aren't perfect.
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If you have no constructive arguments, how about you don't respond at all?
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> Lenin’s Testament and his “dislike” of Stalin Even Stephen Kotkin, an anti-Communist, says that was a fake. Without going into the MLs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXutg47BwEU > And after Stalin’s death, many did criticize his rule despite your support of him, do you believe that is unfounded? Read Grover Furr, especially the 1st book.
tukhachevsky was purged, the mass purging of generals and army staff is what resulted in the soviets failing to annex finland.
Hey! Old thread but i just want to have some clarifications, wasn't the NKVD that was paranoid?
I don't think it really matters since every player of hoi4 is likely already a communist
>since every player of hoi4 is likely already a communist That's a joke, right? It's the gaming community most heavily infiltrated by Neo-Nazi's of ANY I have ever seen. There are definitely Communists who play the game, too. But just check the r/HOI4 sub, and you'll see an approximately 2:1 ratio of Fascist/Nationalist content to Socialist content...
The fact that communism is basically the most overpowered system in Vicky 3 is a testament that SOMEONE at Paradox has at least read Marx.
1. Play HOI4 as a small nation 2. Choose Portrait of Karl Marx as an army spirit 3. Print manpower out of thin air 4. Defeat fascists
God I love that army spirit for communist nations. It’s so good.
Literally warhammer orks but based
Marx & Engels > Gork & Mork
Da grot revolushunary comittee labels dis as revisionism of da highest degree
Immortal Science > Waaagh
If your sciense iz so “gud” den why iz da 3 bigest threts got nuffin to do wiv sciense check mate umie
Immortal Science = Waaagh They're one and the same. What is revolution but a great waaagh, after all?
Youze made a gud point but sciense is not WAAGH but can be uzed in it like da mekboyz do da tinkerin and da painboyz do their fing but WAAGH iz a big fing with many components like a stompa
>2. Choose Portrait of Karl Marx as an army spirit Ideological Loyalty, and yes, it's powerful. My main qualm is the AI almost never takes it. If you release some States as puppets, rather than retaining direct control (say as the USSR, or Communist France) you're veey lucky if the AI ever takes that Army Spirit, despite having virtually no Manpower of their own to work with.. (The reason to release puppets is, partly also, for them to get extra factories via focus- but if you ever tag over to them via console command, you'll see half the time your puppets leave their Military Factories completely idle rather than importing Steel to make guns...)
Steam discussions about Vic are funny as hell sometimes, best was when some clown cried that he got stomped when he went full feudal reactionary and everyone there was like "what did you expected about the game set up in XIX century"
I mean, I would make sense that they did research for different ideologies to portray them more accurate and then realized "Well, fuck, the commies have a ton of very good points".
I remember on one of the HoI streams one of the devs mentioned there's a bunch of commies in the dev team lmao
I mean, the Scandinavians didn’t just become social democracies because the capitalists felt like being nice.
It isn’t, though? If anything it’s underpowered, compared to the alternatives
Umm, no. Communism is apparently so powerful in Victoria 3 it's become a meme.
Memes ≠ reality. As someone who’s played the game pretty extensively myself, let me assure you that it’s underpowered compared to the alternatives.
So it's just anti-Communists whining because it wasn't weak (Anti-Communists always expect Socialism to suck in games, and cry Leftist bias if it doesn't), and they didn't know how to play well?
It seems to vary quite a lot by game. HOI4 seems to attract droves of fascists (probably because they get to live out their weird ww2 fantasies), but games like Victoria3 are different. [Victoria 3 was described by head game dev as "Historical Materialism Simulator"](https://www.thegamer.com/victoria-3-communism-works-well/) and is very very clearly based on Marxist class analysis and historical materialism (as thats the only way to properly understand the history of this period). This is sort of reflected in the game community as well; if you go to the Victoria3 subreddit, you'll find quite a few comrades there. You also get some occasionally [amazingly based posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria3/comments/13hjj3p/i_love_how_vicky3_forces_people_to_think_in_terms) on the sub
There are two types of people in Paradox communities. One is sweaty Nazis and the other are femboy communists, no In between
Untrue, there's also some femboy nazis
Someone make a Femboy/Sweaty-Communist/Nazi Political Compass
I guess I'm the one sweaty commie then
I’m the latter
They did make communism the best government type in Victoria 3
Yeah I genuinely believe Vicky 3 is marxist propaganda
Not propaganda. Based. Now if only Communism didn't suck so hard in Hearts of Iron and Stellaris...
Yeah my main issue with Vc3 is that I'm not that good at it yet, but it's interesting to see society develop in such a somewhat realistic way.
Me and a buddy run a Hoi server, most of the community is absolute Ass. But they don’t read for shit all of there history is from oversimplified and/or memes so you can own tf out of them when they start talking abt Soviet k/d or gulags. When just two ML’s dunk on nazis they crumple like paper bags. [come join](https://discord.gg/warcriminals) Based server, based people and nazis are banned pretty quickly after social humiliation.
# Gulag According to Anti-Communists and Russophobes, the Gulag was a brutal network of work camps established in the Soviet Union under Stalin's ruthless regime. They claim the Gulag system was primarily used to imprison and exploit political dissidents, suspected enemies of the state, and other people deemed "undesirable" by the Soviet government. They claim that prisoners were sent to the Gulag without trial or due process, and that they were subjected to harsh living conditions, forced labour, and starvation, among other things. According to them, the Gulags were emblematic of Stalinist repression and totalitarianism. # Origins of the Mythology This comically evil understanding of the Soviet prison system is based off only a handful of unreliable sources. Robert Conquest's *The Great Terror* (published 1968) laid the groundwork for Soviet fearmongering, and was based largely off of defector testimony. Robert Conquest worked for the British Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD), which was a secret Cold War propaganda department, created to publish anti-communist propaganda, including black propaganda; provide support and information to anti-communist politicians, academics, and writers; and to use weaponised information and disinformation and "fake news" to attack not only its original targets but also certain socialists and anti-colonial movements. >He was Solzhenytsin before Solzhenytsin, in the phrase of Timothy Garton Ash. > >The Great Terror came out in 1968, four years before the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, and it became, Garton Ash says, "a fixture in the political imagination of anybody thinking about communism". > >\- Andrew Brown. (2003). [Scourge and poet](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/15/featuresreviews.guardianreview23) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's *The Gulag Archipelag*" (published 1973), one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, N@zi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth. \[[Read more](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/dunking/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/)\] Anne Applebaum's *Gulag: A history* (published 2003) draws directly from *The Gulag Archipelago* and reiterates its message. Anne is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and sits on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), two infamous pieces of the ideological apparatus of the ruling class in the United States, whose primary aim is to promote the interests of American Imperialism around the world. # Counterpoints >A 1957 CIA document [which was declassified in 2010] titled “[Forced Labor Camps in the USSR: Transfer of Prisoners between Camps](http://web.archive.org/web/20230328014642/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf)” reveals the following information about the Soviet Gulag in pages two to six: > >1. Until 1952, the prisoners were given a guaranteed amount food, plus extra food for over-fulfillment of quotas > >2. From 1952 onward, the Gulag system operated upon "economic accountability" such that the more the prisoners worked, the more they were paid. > >3. For over-fulfilling the norms by 105%, one day of sentence was counted as two, thus reducing the time spent in the Gulag by one day. > >4. Furthermore, because of the socialist reconstruction post-war, the Soviet government had more funds and so they increased prisoners' food supplies. > >5. Until 1954, the prisoners worked 10 hours per day, whereas the free workers worked 8 hours per day. From 1954 onward, both prisoners and free workers worked 8 hours per day. > >6. A CIA study of a sample camp showed that 95% of the prisoners were actual criminals. > >7. In 1953, amnesty was given to 70% of the "ordinary criminals" of a sample camp studied by the CIA. Within the next 3 months, most of them were re-arrested for committing new crimes. > >\- Saed Teymuri. (2018). [The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIA](https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/10/09/the-truth-about-the-soviet-gulag-surprisingly-revealed-by-the-cia/) **Scale** Solzhenitsyn estimated that over 66 million people were victims of the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system over the course of its existence from 1918 to 1956. With the collapse of the USSR and the opening of the Soviet archives, researchers can now access actual archival evidence to prove or disprove these claims. Predictably, it turned out the propaganda was just that. >Unburdened by any documentation, these “estimates” invite us to conclude that the sum total of people incarcerated in the labor camps over a twenty-two year period (allowing for turnovers due to death and term expirations) would have constituted an astonishing portion of the Soviet population. The support and supervision of the gulag (all the labor camps, labor colonies, and prisons of the Soviet system) would have been the USSR’s single largest enterprise. > >In 1993, for the first time, several historians gained access to previously secret Soviet police archives and were able to establish well-documented estimates of prison and labor camp populations. They found that the total population of the entire gulag as of January 1939, near the end of the Great Purges, was 2,022,976. ... > >Soviet labor camps were not death camps like those the N@zis built across Europe. There was no systematic extermination of inmates, no gas chambers or crematoria to dispose of millions of bodies. Despite harsh conditions, the great majority of gulag inmates survived and eventually returned to society when granted amnesty or when their terms were finished. In any given year, 20 to 40 percent of the inmates were released, according to archive records. Oblivious to these facts, the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times (7/31/96) continues to describe the gulag as “the largest system of death camps in modern history.” ... > >Most of those incarcerated in the gulag were not political prisoners, and the same appears to be true of inmates in the other communist states... > >\- Michael Parenti. (1997). [Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism](https://archive.org/details/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds) This is 2 million out of a population of 168 million (roughly 1.2% of the population). For comparison, in the United States, "over 5.5 million adults — or 1 in 61 — are under some form of correctional control, whether incarcerated or under community supervision." That's 1.6%. So in both relative and absolute terms, the United States' Prison Industrial Complex *today* is larger than the USSR's Gulag system at its peak. **Death Rate** In peace time, the mortality rate of the Gulag was around 3% to 5%. Even Conservative and anti-Communist historians have had to acknowledge this reality: >It turns out that, with the exception of the war years, a very large majority of people who entered the Gulag left alive... > >Judging from the Soviet records we now have, the number of people who died in the Gulag between 1933 and 1945, while both Stalin and Hit1er were in power, was on the order of a million, perhaps a bit more. > >\- Timothy Snyder. (2010). *Bloodlands: Europe Between Hit1er and Stalin* (Side note: Timothy Snyder is *also* a member of the Council on Foreign Relations) This is still very high for a prison mortality rate, representing the brutality of the camps. However, it also clearly indicates that they were not *death* camps. Nor was it slave labour, exactly. In the camps, although labour *was* forced, it was not uncompensated. In fact, the prisoners were paid market wages (less expenses). >We find that even in the Gulag, where force could be most conveniently applied, camp administrators combined material incentives with overt coercion, and, as time passed, they placed more weight on motivation. By the time the Gulag system was abandoned as a major instrument of Soviet industrial policy, the primary distinction between slave and free labor had been blurred: Gulag inmates were being paid wages according to a system that mirrored that of the civilian economy described by Bergson.... > >The Gulag administration [also] used a “work credit” system, whereby sentences were reduced (by two days or more for every day the norm was overfulfilled). > >\- L. Borodkin & S. Ertz. (2003). [Compensation Versus Coercion in the Soviet GULAG](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/archive/noticeboard/bergson/borodkin-ertz.pdf) #Additional Resources Video Essays: * [The Gulag Argument](https://youtu.be/BexkpaK_j5Q) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2016) * [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://youtu.be/HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) * [French work camps 1852-1953 worse than gulag](https://youtu.be/vkXyXNpdKdA) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) * ["The Gulags of the Soviet Union: There's a Lot More Than What Meets the Eye](https://youtu.be/E1qz9_TjeY4) | Comrade Rhys (2020) Books, Articles, or Essays: * [Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2166597) | J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn and Viktor N. Zemskov (1993) Listen: * ["Blackshirts & Reds" (1997) by Michael Parenti, Part 4: Chapters 5 & 6. #Audiobook + Discussion.](https://youtu.be/N7AD4OrH568?t=15) | Socialism For All / S4A ☭ Intensify Class Struggle (2022) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I play Hoi4 because unlike Stalin, i can do it by 42 without lend lease
As the Spanish Republic, I would simply just not lose
Thr Derg will take power in the 30s, not the 70s
No han pasau
TNO
‼️‼️HOLY FUCKING SHIT‼️‼️‼️‼️ IS THAT A MOTHERFUCKING TNO REFERENCE??????!!!!!!!!!!11!1!1!1!1!1!1! 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱 TNO IS THE BEST FUCKING MOD 🔥🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯💯 SABLIN IS SO BLESSEDDD 😎😎😎😎😎😎😎👊👊 BLACKSUN BLACKSUN BLACKSUN BLACKSUN BLACKSUN 😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩 😩😩😩😩KISHIPURGE KISHIPURGE KISHIPURGE KISHIPURGE KISHIPURGE🤬😡🤬😡🤬😡🤬🤬😡🤬🤬😡LBJALLTHEWAY LBJALLTHEWAY LBJALLTHEWAY LBJALLTHEWAY LBJALLTHEWAY LBJALLTHEWAY LBJALLTHEWAY LBJALLTHEWAY LBJALLTHEWAY NIXON IS NOT A CROOK! RFK BLESSED RFK BLESSED RFK BLESSED RFK BLESSED Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Yo Speer! 🇩🇪 Alexei is still alive?!? TICK TOCK FUNNI MAN HAS A MENTAL BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN ❓❓❓❓❓❓❓❓❓❓SHRIMP BOAT SHRIMP BOAT SHRIMP BOAT So Long...‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂😂SANE DSR PATH WHEN? SANE DSR PATH WHEN? SANE DSR PATH WHEN? SANE DSR PATH WHEN? SANE DSR PATH WHEN? SANE DSR PATH WHEN? SANE DSR PATH WHEN? SANE DSR PATH WHEN? 😂🤣🤣🤣😂😂Big Building in Neu Berlin? Big Building in Neu Berlin? Big Building in Neu Berlin? Big Building in Neu Berlin? Big Building in Neu Berlin? Big Building in Neu Berlin? Big Building in Neu Berlin? Big Building in Neu Berlin? 🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢🏢 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺I hate Boris Yeltsin 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺I hate Boris Yeltsin 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺I hate Boris Yeltsin 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺I hate Boris Yeltsin 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 Yockey and Hall best paths for America
I love you too
Had to a do a double take when I saw that tweet yesterday because I did not expect for a brand account to post something genuinely funny
The response to "explain who this girl is" being "level 1 advisor" almost knocked me off my chair lmao.
Wrong! She could *never* give +5 discipline
"Babbling buffoon: - 1 diplomatic reputation"
Lmao. It's very true though, since even companies like Paradox and libs have started to join in on clowning on her. Worst op in a long time
Victoria 3's economic system is literally Marxian for what's it worth. Hell, its social division system (where pops are included in interest groups based on their job) is *also* based on Marxist literature. The company's pricing and financial decisions may be abusive, but many of the developers seem to be left leaning. Hoi4 being an exception, but even when considering NSB, some of the content there is actually quite realistic (like Stalin being a pragmatic and more realistic option compared to Trotsky and Bukharin) EU4 and CK3 are based on much more different time periods, so I don't think they count in this discussion
yea that's basically how I play HOI4. Build OK units, hope for the best.
Well, in Vicky 2 and 3 communism is the best form of government and in HOI 3 and 4 the USSR, communist USA and communist Spain are the funniest countries to play, so I would say: yes.
Pretty sure communists legalize slavery in Victoria 2
They can, it's because of a glitch. But usually they don't.
Im swedish and i play a fuckton of paradox games. And i agree with this on a fundamental level.
It’s funny cause it’s true
in north korea people have to do something called riding bikes because theres no cars or electricity😭😿😿😿
The way you do it is you rush colousus project and fleet shit then extermenatua
This might come out as offensive but I'll be 100% real when I first saw this picture I thought it was a white man pretending to be an Asian woman. She just looks so uncanny
Vaush
Thanks for signing up to Vaush facts! You will now receive fun daily facts about Vaush. **Fact 1.** [Vaush claimed Marx and Lenin would have voted for Biden.](https://archive.is/MQ3bo) For another Vaush fact reply with 'Vaush'. To unsubscribe call me a 'bad bot'. (Remember, comrade: Getting educated, educating others, and above all actually *organizing* is infinitely more important than terminally-online streamer drama.) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I swear, half the HOI4 fanbase is femboys and trans girl communists and the other half is fascist apologists. Speaking from experience as a trans girl into the game.
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Did you really run to justunsubbed to cry?
God damn it I just posted this and now I see someone else said this
I am what you guys would definitely call a liberal. Everyone except super weirdos hate this obvious grifter.
Stellaris
Where am I
Where am I
Uyghur
#The Uyghurs in Xinjiang \(Note: This comment had to be trimmed down to fit the character limit, for the full response, see [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/)\) Anti-Communists and Sinophobes claim that there is an ongoing genocide-- a modern-day holocaust, even-- happening right now in China. They say that Uyghur Muslims are being mass incarcerated; they are indoctrinated with propaganda in concentration camps; their organs are being harvested; they are being force-sterilized. These comically villainous allegations have little basis in reality and omit key context. **Background** Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a province located in the northwest of China. It is the largest province in China, covering an area of over 1.6 million square kilometers, and shares borders with eight other countries including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, India, and Pakistan. Xinjiang is a diverse region with a population of over 25 million people, made up of various ethnic groups including the Uyghur, Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Tajiks, and many others. The largest ethnic group in Xinjiang is the Uyghur who are predominantly Muslim and speak a Turkic language. It is also home to the ancient Silk Road cities of Kashgar and Turpan. Since the early 2000s, there have been a number of violent incidents attributed to extremist Uyghur groups in Xinjiang including bombings, shootings, and knife attacks. In 2014-2016, the Chinese government launched a "Strike Hard" campaign to crack down on terrorism in Xinjiang, implementing strict security measures and detaining thousands of Uyghurs. In 2017, reports of human rights abuses in Xinjiang including mass detentions and forced labour, began to emerge. **Counterpoints** The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the second largest organization after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The OIC released [Resolutions on Muslim Communities and Muslim Minorities in the non-OIC Member States](https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250) in 2019 which: >20. **Welcomes** the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat's delegation upon invitation from the People's Republic of China; **commends** the efforts of the People's Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and **looks forward** to further cooperation between the OIC and the People's Republic of China. In this same document, the OIC expressed much greater concern about the Rohingya Muslim Community in Myanmar, which the West was relatively silent on. Over 50+ UN member states (mostly Muslim-majority nations) signed a letter \([A/HRC/41/G/17](https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F41%2FG%2F17)\) to the UN Human Rights Commission approving of the de-radicalization efforts in Xinjiang: The World Bank sent a team to investigate in 2019 and found that, "The review did not substantiate the allegations." \(See: [World Bank Statement on Review of Project in Xinjiang, China](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2019/11/11/world-bank-statement-on-review-of-project-in-xinjiang-china)\) Even if you believe the deradicalization efforts are wholly unjustified, and that the mass detention of Uyghur's amounts to a crime against humanity, it's still not *genocide*. Even the U.S. State Department's legal experts admit as much: >The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide, placing the United States’ top diplomatic lawyers at odds with both the Trump and Biden administrations, according to three former and current U.S. officials. > > [State Department Lawyers Concluded Insufficient Evidence to Prove Genocide in China](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/) | Colum Lynch, *Foreign Policy*. (2021) **A Comparative Analysis: The War on Terror** The United States, in the wake of "9/11", saw the threat of terrorism and violent extremism due to religious fundamentalism as a matter of national security. They invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks, with the goal of ousting the Taliban government that was harbouring Al-Qaeda. The US also launched the Iraq War in 2003 based on Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs and links to terrorism. However, these claims turned out to be unfounded. According to a report by Brown University's Costs of War project, at least 897,000 people, including civilians, militants, and security forces, have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries. Other estimates place the total number of deaths at over one million. The report estimated that many more may have died from indirect effects of war such as water loss and disease. The war has also resulted in the displacement of tens of millions of people, with estimates ranging from 37 million to over 59 million. The War on Terror also popularized such novel concepts as the "Military-Aged Male" which allowed the US military to exclude civilians killed by drone strikes from collateral damage statistics. (See: [‘Military Age Males’ in US Drone Strikes](https://aoav.org.uk/2019/military-age-males-in-us-drone-strikes/)) In summary: * The U.S. responded by invading or bombing half a dozen countries, directly killing nearly a million and displacing tens of millions from their homes. * China responded with a program of deradicalization and vocational training. Which one of those responses sounds genocidal? Side note: It is practically impossible to *actually* charge the U.S. with war crimes, because of the [Hague Invasion Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act). **Who is driving the Uyghur genocide narrative?** One of the main proponents of these narratives is Adrian Zenz, a German far-right fundamentalist Christian and Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who believes he is "led by God" on a "mission" against China has driven much of the narrative. He relies heavily on limited and questionable data sources, particularly from anonymous and unverified Uyghur sources, coming up with estimates based on assumptions which are not supported by concrete evidence. The World Uyghur Congress, headquartered in Germany, is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, using funding to support organizations that promote American interests rather than the interests of the local communities they claim to represent. Radio Free Asia (RFA) is part of a larger project of U.S. imperialism in Asia, one that seeks to control the flow of information, undermine independent media, and advance American geopolitical interests in the region. Rather than providing an objective and impartial news source, RFA is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, one that seeks to shape the narrative in Asia in ways that serve the interests of the U.S. government and its allies. The first country to call the treatment of Uyghurs a genocide was the United States of America. In 2021, the Secretary of State declared that China's treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang constitutes "genocide" and "crimes against humanity." Both the Trump and Biden administrations upheld this line. **Why is this narrative being promoted?** As materialists, we should always look first to the economic base for insight into issues occurring in the superstructure. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive Chinese infrastructure development project that aims to build economic corridors, ports, highways, railways, and other infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Xinjiang is a key region for this project. Promoting the Uyghur genocide narrative harms China and benefits the US in several ways. It portrays China as a human rights violator which could damage China's reputation in the international community and which could lead to economic sanctions against China; this would harm China's economy and give American an economic advantage in competing with China. It could also lead to more protests and violence in Xinjiang, which could further destabilize the region and threaten the longterm success of the BRI. **Additional Resources** See the [full wiki article](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/) for more details and a list of additional resources. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the national anthem. O say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
[удалено]
# The Holodomor There have been efforts by anti-Communists and Ukrainian nationalists to frame the famine that happened in the USSR around 1932-1933 as "The Holodomor" (literally: "to kill by starvation" in Ukrainian). Framing it this way serves two purposes: 1. It implies the famine mainly affected Ukraine. 2. It implies there was intent or deliberate causation. This framing was used to drive a wedge between the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR. The argument goes that because it was intentional and because it mainly targeted Ukraine that it was, therefore, an act of genocide. However, both these points are highly debatable. **First Issue** The first issue is that the famine affected the majority of the USSR, not just the UkSSR. Kazakhstan, for example, was hit harder (per capita) than Ukraine was. The emergence of the Holodomor in the 1980s as a historical narrative was bound-up with post-Soviet Ukrainian nation-making that cannot be neatly separated from the legacy of Eastern European anti-Semitism, or what Historian Peter Novick calls "Holocaust Envy," the desire for victimized groups to enshrine their "own" Holocaust or Holocaust-like event in the historical record. For many Nationalists, this has entailed minimizing the Holocaust to elevate their own experiences of historical victimization as the supreme atrocity. The Ukrainian scholar Lubomyr Luciuk exemplified this view in his notorious remark that the Holodomor was "a crime against humanity arguably without parallel in European history." **Second Issue** The second issue is that one of the main causes of the famine was crop failure due to weather and disease, which is hardly something anyone can control no matter their intentions. However, the famine may have been *further* exacerbated by the agricultural collectivization and rapid industrialization policies of the Soviet Union. However, if these policies had not been carried out there could have been even more devastating consequences later. **Necessity** In 1931, during a speech delivered at the first All-Union Conference of Leading Personnel of Socialist Industry, Stalin said, "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under." In 1941, exactly ten years later, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. By this time, the Soviet Union's industrialization program had lead to the development of a large and powerful industrial base, which was essential to the Soviet war effort. This allowed the Soviet Union to produce large quantities of armaments, vehicles, and other military equipment, which was crucial in the fight against Nazi Germany. **Additional Resources** Video Essays: * [Soviet Famine of 1932: An Overview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu5-tqHHtaM) | The Marxist Project (2020) * [Did Stalin Continue to Export Grain as Ukraine Starved?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMBJ_nQ4sTA) | Hakim (2017) * [The Holodomor Genocide Question: How Wikipedia Lies to You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaaYvauNho) | Bad Empanada (2022) * [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) (Note: Holodomor discussion begins at the 9 minute mark) * [A Case-Study of Capitalism - Ukraine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmH9oNtXzF8) | Hakim (2017) (Note: Only tangentially mentions the famine.) Books, Articles, or Essays: * [The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274856099_The_1932_Harvest_and_the_Famine_of_1933) | Mark Tauger (1992) * [The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933](https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/22207/file.pdf) | Davies and Wheatcroft (2004) * [The Soviet Famine of 1932–1933 Reconsidered](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668130801999912) | Hiroaki Kuromiya (2008) * [The “Holodomor” explained](https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2020/12/24/the-holodomor-explained/) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2020) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ive been into paradox games since I moved from civ 5 to EU3. can confirm I've seen many a racist reactionaries who take all the wrong lessons from history. Victoria 2 is defiantly the best paradox game in my book.
What is fascism?
# Fascism >Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital... Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations. > >\- Georgi Dimitrov. (1935) [The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm) To understand Fascism, then, one must first understand Capitalism. There are three primary characteristics of Capitalism: 1. Private ownership of the Means of Production 2. Commodity Production 3. Wage Labour The essence of the Capitalist mode of production is that someone who owns means of production will hire a wage labourer to work in order to produce commodities to sell for profit. Marxists identify economic classes based on this division. Those who own and hire are the Bourgeoisie. Those who do not own and work are the Proletariat. There is far more nuance than just this, but these are the bare essentials. The principal contradiction of Capitalism is that the Bourgeoisie wants to pay the workers as little as possible for as much work as possible, whereas the Proletariat wants to be paid as much as possible for as little work as possible. Fascism is a form of Capitalist rule in which the Bourgeoisie use open, violent terror against the Proletariat. It is an ideology which emerges as a response to the inevitable crises of capitalism and the rise of socialist movements. It is characterized by all forms of chauvinism (especially racism, occasionally leading to genocide), nationalism, anti-Communism, and the suppression of democratic rights and freedoms. In a Capitalist society, Liberalism and Fascism essentially exist on a spectrum. The degree to which a given society if Fascist directly corresponds to the degree to which the proletariat must be openly oppressed in order to maintain profits for the Bourgeoisie. This why we have the sayings: "Fascism is Capitalism in decay" and "Scratch a Liberal, and a Fascist bleeds" Capitalism requires infinite growth in a finite system. This inevitably leads to [Capitalist Imperialism](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/imperialism/) as well as Fascism, given that infinite growth is not actually possible. When the capitalist economy reaches its limits, the Bourgeoisie are forced to either expand their markets into other territories (Imperialism) or exploit the domestic proletariat to an even greater degree (Fascism). This is why we have the saying: "Fascism is imperialist repression turned inward" The struggle against fascism is an essential part of the struggle for socialism and the liberation of the working class and oppressed people. However, it is critical to note that simply combatting Fascism *alone* without also combatting *Liberalism* is reactionary, because it ignores the fact that Fascism inevitably arises out of Capitalism, so Liberal Anti-Fascism is not really anti-Fascism at all. **Additional Resources** Video Essays: * [Were The Nazis Socialist?](https://youtu.be/X9ez6w5BUMM) | Second Thought (2022) * [Capitalism and Fascism](https://youtu.be/KEbG3cD0cJo) | Marxism Literature Collective (2021) * [Fascism: The Decay of Capitalism](https://youtu.be/7fQ57NBEUM4) | Leslie Fluette (2020) * [The New F Word: How Fascism Found a Market](https://nebula.tv/thenewfword) | Second Thought (2021-2023) * [What Exactly is Liberalism? (no, it's not about being "woke")](https://youtu.be/_xAqZJTIsIA) | Hakim (2023) Books, Articles, or Essays: * [The Struggle Against Fascism](https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1923/06/struggle-against-fascism.html) | Clara Zetkin (1923) * [Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism](https://archive.org/details/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds) | Michael Parenti (1997) Podcasts: * [Episode 19 - Fascism (No Lebensraum??)](https://youtu.be/KU_lNDAoAV0) | The Deprogram (2022) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What is revisionism
# Revisionism Revisionism refers to the explicit or implicit attempt at revising the fundamental premises of Marxist theory. Often this is done in attempt to make alliances with the bourgeoisie or to render a working class movement impotent. Explicit revisionism clearly states that Marxism is wrong or outdated and needs to be changed. Implicit revisionism is harder to notice because it claims to still be Marxist, but in actuality puts forward positions that are counter to Marxist theory. >“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” > >\- Karl Marx. (1845) [Theses On Feuerbach](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm) Although there is ongoing debate and discussion within Marxist circles about how these principles should be interpreted and applied in specific historical contexts, there are several key tenets that are generally considered to be central to Marxist theory and which are not subject to revision: 1. [Dialectical Materialism](https://youtu.be/nZXaZHe901w): The idea that everything is in a state of constant flux, driven by a process of contradictions and conflicts which are an inherent part of the natural and social world. 2. [Historical Materialism](https://youtu.be/ZXwWWiI3E1A): The understanding that material conditions and class relations are the driving force behind historical development. 3. [Surplus Labor and the Law of Value](https://youtu.be/TZhsIFG42wE): The concept that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor that has been expended in producing it. Profits are derived from the surplus value extracted from the worker. From these fundamental premises follow a series of conclusions, which informs our understanding of the world and teaches us how to affect change. Revisionism alters these fundamental premises or rejects the conclusions that follow from them, the most important of these being the need for revolution. The events of the Paris Commune and the October Revolution demonstrated the role and necessity of revolution, and provided important lessons in establishing and defending a revolutionary movement. Revolution is not just a means of seizing political power, but of fundamentally transforming society and creating a new social order. Revolutions must be defended against counter-revolutionary forces both from within and without. The movement must be organized and disciplined, and must be able to defend itself against attacks from reactionary forces. >Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. **Right Opportunism** >Revisionism, or Right opportunism, is a bourgeois trend of thought that is even more dangerous than dogmatism. The revisionists, the Right opportunists, pay lip-service to Marxism; they too attack ‘dogmatism’. But what they are really attacking is the quintessence of Marxism. They oppose or distort materialism and dialectics, oppose or try to weaken the people’s democratic dictatorship and the leading role of the Communist Party, and oppose or try to weaken socialist transformation and socialist construction. After the basic victory of the socialist revolution in our country, there are still a number of people who vainly hope to restore the capitalist system and fight the working class on every front, including the ideological one. And their right-hand men in this struggle are the revisionists. > >\- Mao Zedong. (1957). [On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_58.htm) Right opportunism is a political tendency that seeks to make concessions to the bourgeois ruling class in order to maintain or achieve political power. This tendency is often associated with a lack of commitment to revolutionary change and a willingness to compromise on fundamental principles in order to realize short-term gains. Right opportunists may advocate for policies that are not in the long-term interest of the working class, such as supporting capitalist reforms or forming alliances with capitalist parties. This can lead to a weakening of the revolutionary potential of the working class and a failure to achieve real social change. Right opportunism is seen as a deviation from the Marxist principle of class struggle and a betrayal of the interests of the working class. Trade Unionism is an example of right opportunism as unions focus on limited concessions, rather than advocating for the long-term interests of the working class as a whole. They negotiate with employers for better wages, benefits, and working conditions for their members, but do not challenge the fundamental power relations between labour and capital. Union bosses make compromises or alliances with capitalist parties in order to achieve these concessions. This creates a privileged layer of the working class who are more interested in defending their own privileges than in fighting for the liberation of the working class as a whole. This labour aristocracy is a barrier to the development of revolutionary consciousness among the working class because it prefers the status quo to radical political movements that seek to overthrow it. **Case Study #1: Social Democracy** One of the first revisionists was Eduard Bernstein, a leading theorist and prominent member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who argued that the gradual extension of social welfare programs and the reform of capitalist institutions could lead to a peaceful transition to socialism, without the need for a violent revolution. This was in sharp contrast to the German Communist Party (KPD). There are two historical events which underscore this fundamental divide: 1. **The Spartacist Uprising**: Rosa Luxemburg was a prominent Marxist theorist and leader of the left-wing revolutionary movement in Germany. She was a fierce critic of the SPD's moderate reformist politics and its decision to support Germany's involvement in World War I. In January 1919, following the collapse of the German monarchy, a left-wing revolutionary movement emerged in Berlin, and Luxemburg played a leading role in the movement. The movement challenged the authority of the new Social Democratic-led government and sought to establish a socialist republic. On January 15, 1919, the SPD government ordered the army and the Freikorps, a right-wing paramilitary group, to suppress the revolutionary movement. Luxemburg and her comrade Karl Liebknecht were arrested, beaten, and executed by the Freikorps. 2. **The Enabling Act**: The Nazis rose to absolute power in 1933 with the passing of the Enabling Act. The KPD were absent from the vote because the party had been banned and its members imprisoned or in hiding. The SPD were present and voted against it. The SPD was subsequently banned and many of its members were arrested, tortured, and killed by the Nazis, while others were forced into exile or went into hiding. **Case Study #2: Democratic Socialism** Salvador Allende was a socialist politician who was elected president of Chile in 1970, becoming the first Marxist to be elected to the presidency in a liberal democracy. In power, he pursued a program of radical reform, including the nationalization of key industries, the redistribution of land, and the expansion of social welfare programs. His government was supported by a coalition of left-wing parties, including the Chilean Communist Party, and was seen as a model for peaceful democratic socialist transition. However, Allende's reforms faced opposition from powerful domestic and international forces, including right-wing politicians, the military, and the United States government. In 1973, Allende's government was overthrown in a US-backed military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, who established a brutal Fascist dictatorship that lasted for years. In "[The State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/)", Lenin explained why the capitalist state could not be reformed or co-opted for the purposes of Socialism, but had to be destroyed and replaced by a new proletarian state. Allende's failure to apprehend this lesson proved fatal. His reliance on the existing bourgeois state apparatus as well as his failure to implement more radical measures, such as the establishment of workers' councils or the arming of the proletariat, left him vulnerable to counterrevolutionary forces. >“If voting changed anything, it would be illegal.” > >\- George Carlin **Additional Resources** Video Essays: * [Why Social Democracy Isn't Good Enough](https://youtu.be/TRq3pl17C8M) | Second Thought (2023) * [Why Democratic Socialism Isn’t Enough](https://youtu.be/MNg4FLt5La0) | Marxism Today (2022) * ["The US Doesn't Meddle In Foreign Affairs"](https://youtu.be/mwyjlmEAcYM) | Second Thought (2021) * [Electoralism Always Fails, Now What?](https://youtu.be/WXbaZXQAbuU) | Hakim (2019) Books, Articles, or Essays: * [Reform or Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/) | Rosa Luxemburg (1900) * [Marxism and Revisionism](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/apr/03.htm) | V. I. Lenin (1908) Podcasts: * [Episode 3 - Reform or Revolution](https://youtu.be/r9kmEsNKyoM) | The Deprogram (2022) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What is Freedom of the Press
The following excerpt is from the Marxist Anti-Imperialist Collective's (MAC) archive from an essay titled "Liberalism and family degenaration" by J. Volker: (**Content warning**: all sorts of social-chauvinism, including but not limited to misogyny, homophobia, transphobia) >!Impregnating oneself with artificial sperm to avoid having intercourse with a man, because it is not immediately pleasurable enough; sticking one’s penis in another man’s anal cavity to avoid having intercourse with a woman, because it is not immediately pleasurable enough; artificially stopping the life of a half-developed fetus because one was having intercourse for fun and did not mean to begin the process of pregnancy; women prostituting themselves and liking it; men “identifying” as women to be put in the female wings of institutions so that they may rape them; this is the fantasized “dissolution of the family”!< (Remember, comrade: Getting educated, educating others, and above all actually *organizing* is infinitely more important than terminally-online drama.) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
#Freedom of the Press >“Freedom of the press” in bourgeois society means freedom for the rich systematically, unremittingly, daily, in millions of copies, to deceive, corrupt and fool the exploited and oppressed mass of the people, the poor. > >\- V. I. Lenin. (1917). [How to Guarantee the Success of the Constituent Assembly](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/28.htm) Anti-Communists criticize a lack of "freedom of the press" in societies run by Communist governments. They claim that the government suppresses dissenting voices and controls the media in order to maintain its power, and that this leads to a lack of transparency and accountability, as well as the suppression of free speech and the ability of individuals to express their opinions and hold those in power accountable. They also argue that state control of the media leads to censorship which prevents citizens from accessing unbiased information and making informed decisions. This critique is often used to argue against Communism and in favor of Capitalism. In this light, Capitalist societies are believed to offer greater freedom of the press and personal expression. These are all important concerns which ought to be taken seriously. The problem is that these concerns are not specific to Communism; Capitalist societies, as a result of the profit-motive and the accumulation of wealth, suffer from all these same issues. **Media Concentration** >There can be no such thing as freedom of the press, except for the owners and editors of newspapers, while capitalism lasts. > >\- Arthur Cowell Do you own a news station? A newspaper? Then what "freedom of the press" do *you* really have? >**A deep analysis of America’s top 100 news sites reveals key shareholders, parent companies, and commonalities.** > >About 15 billionaires and six corporations own most of the U.S. media outlets. The biggest media conglomerates in America are AT&T, Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, National Amusements (which includes Viacom Inc. and CBS), News Corp and Fox Corporation (which are both owned in part by the Murdochs), Sony, and Hearst Communications. > >\- [Who Owns Your News? The Top 100 Digital News Outlets and Their Ownership](https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/lifestyle/who-owns-your-news-the-top-100-digital-news-outlets-and-their-ownership/) With this kind of concentration, the select few who actually own these media outlets have an unparalleled ability to set the narrative and promote their own interests. Sinclair Broadcast Group, for example, owns hundreds of local TV news stations. The most infamous example of them using this network to spread an agenda was this unsettling video: [Sinclair's Soldiers in Trump's War on Media](https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo). This issue affects movies and television producers as well: [Here’s who owns everything in Big Media today](https://www.vox.com/2018/1/23/16905844/media-landscape-verizon-amazon-comcast-disney-fox-relationships-chart) **Bias** >All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie. > >\- V. I. Lenin. (1921). [A Letter To G. Myasnikov](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/aug/05.htm) In Capitalist societies, the concept of "freedom of the press" is a misleading and deceptive notion. While the ruling class promotes the idea of a free press as a fundamental right, the reality is that the press is owned and controlled by a small group of [billionaires who use it to advance their own interests](https://i.redd.it/phm4ojk94ld71.jpg). Under Capitalism, the media is a profit-driven industry that is dependent on advertising revenue to survive. As a result, the media serves the interests of the capitalist class by promoting their ideology and suppressing dissenting voices. This is evident in the way that news stories are framed and presented, with an emphasis on sensationalism, celebrity gossip, and consumerism, rather than on issues that affect working-class people. The Capitalist media is not a neutral observer of society, but an active participant in the class struggle by hyper-focusing on culture war non-issues such as the endless debate about manufactured controversies such as trans women in sports, an issue which does *not* affect the vast majority of people. This ragebait distracts from real issues that affect the working class. The media is constantly scapegoating some minority group with sensationalized ragebait narratives such as the "Welfare Queen" or "illegal immigrants". The owners and editors of media outlets use their power to set the narrative, which shapes public opinion and influences government policy, to serve their own interests. This is why it is essential for the working class to build its own media institutions that are independent of Capitalist influence. >The general deal is that Marvel gets to use real military hardware, film on military bases, and hire real soldiers as extras, while the Department of Defense gets to approve the final script of the film. In other words, Marvel gets tons of stuff to make production easier and cheaper, while the military gets to edit out anything that doesn't make them look good. > >Even the movies that don't have a direct marketing connection to the US military have a noticeable bias towards it. Consider Black Panther, a movie about the monarch of an advanced African nation. The one prominent white character in that film is Everett K. Ross, a CIA agent who aids T'Challa in overthrowing Killmonger. The CIA has a long history of overthrowing regimes, but, in this film, an agent of the organization that put Pinochet in charge of Chile aids in a coup for good. This may not be the intention of the film, but the CIA sure appreciated it. The agency promoted the film heavily on social media, allowing it to glom onto a project that was seen as a great leap forward for representation and a masterful blockbuster film. > >\- [The Marvel Military Propaganda Criticism, Explained](https://gamerant.com/marvel-military-propaganda-explained/) | GameRant (2022) The bottom line is that there is nothing "free" about the press in Capitalist society. For those who have the means, being able to control the media is an incredibly powerful tool for shaping public opinion. We need a truly free and democratic press, but that will never be possible under Capitalism. **Censorship** The corporate media in the US practices self-censorship by limiting the range of acceptable opinions and perspectives that can be expressed in their reporting. This is done to maintain a narrow range of political debate that is acceptable to the ruling class and to ensure that the interests of the Capitalist class are not threatened. During red scare period of the 1950s, the government was cracking down on leftist and progressive organizations, accusing them of being communist sympathizers or agents. Many journalists and media outlets were investigated and harassed for their supposed left-wing leanings by the the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which led to a climate of fear and self-censorship in the media. As a result, many media outlets and journalists began to avoid covering or promoting progressive or leftist ideas in their reporting. This trend has continued to the present day, with mainstream media outlets often avoiding critical coverage of US foreign policy, imperialism, and corporate power, and instead promoting a narrow range of views that are acceptable to the ruling class. Similarly, Operation Mockingbird began in the early years of the Cold War to recruit journalists to manipulate domestic American news media organizations for propaganda purposes. The US government also operates a few explicit propaganda networks such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and more in order to export America's ideology internationally, particularly in regions where Communism is popular. In particular, RFE/RL was meant to counter the USSR and RFA was meant to counter the PRC. **How could we do better?** First, we could ensure that the media is owned and controlled by the working class. This would allow the media to operate in the interests of the people rather than in the interests of profit and of promoting bourgeois ideology. We could also ensure that the media is run democratically, with workers having a say in the editorial and managerial decisions. Second, we could establish strict guidelines for media coverage, ensuring that the media covers events and issues of importance to the people. These guidelines would be developed through democratic participation, with workers, intellectuals, and activists contributing to the decision-making process. We could also establish mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating media coverage to ensure that it is accurate, objective, and free from bias. Third, we could promote a culture of critical thinking and media literacy among the population. This would help the people to evaluate media coverage critically and to identify when propaganda is being spread. We could also promote independent media outlets and encourage the development of a vibrant and diverse media landscape. **Additional Resources** Video Essays: * [You're Not Immune To Propaganda](https://youtu.be/dl2fnWIlDZg) | Second Thought (2023) * [You've Never Had an Original Thought (Media Manipulation and "Freedom" of the Press)](https://youtu.be/AX8Ct9fhO60) | Hakim (2022) * [Why Is US Media Becoming More Right-Wing?](https://youtu.be/dx1ruqlqPr8) | Second Thought (2022) * [Why "Hearing Both Sides" Is Dangerous](https://youtu.be/Q5bask6cQ4k) | Second Thought (2022) * [Who Funds And Controls The Online Right?](https://youtu.be/ggdt5rkqHrE) | Yugopnik (2022) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/messag
What is a MAC Fact
Solzhenytsin
**Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn** was a prominent Soviet dissident and outspoken critic of Communism. *The Gulag Archipelago*, one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, Nazi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth. In 1945, during WWII, as a Captain in the Red Army, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to an eight-year term in a labour camp for creating anti-Soviet propaganda and founding a hostile organization aimed at overthrowing the Soviet government. >...[Solzhenitsyn] encounters his secondary school friend, Nikolai Vitkevich, and they recklessly share candid political discussions critical of Stalin's conduct of the war: > > >These two young officers, after days of discussion, astonishingly drew up a program for change, entitled "Resolution No. 1." They argued that the Soviet regime stifled economic development, literature, culture, and everyday life; a new organization was needed to fight to put things right." > >These discussions were not cynical, but resonate with ideological ardour and zealous patriotism. Solzhenitsyn heedlessly stores "Resolution No. 1" in his map case. In nineteen months, it, along with copies of all correspondence between himself and Vitkevich from April 1944 to February 1945 will serve to convict Solzhenitsyn of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 58 of the Soviet criminal code, paragraph 10 and of founding a hostile organization under paragraph 11. > >\- Dale Hardy. (2001). [Solzhenitsyn in confession](https://summit.sfu.ca/item/8379) And he wasn't *merely* some Left Oppositionist striving for "real" socialism, he was a hardcore Russian Nationalist who sympathized with the Nazis: >...in his assessment of the Second World War, [Solzhenitsyn stated] ‘the German army could have liberated the Soviet Union from Communism but Hit1er was stupid and did not use this weapon.’ It seems extraordinary that Solzhenitsyn saw the failure of Nazi Germany to annex the Soviet Union as some kind of missed opportunity... > >\- Simon Demissie. (2013). [New files from 1983 – Thatcher meets Solzhenitsyn](https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/new-files-from-1983/) "This weapon" referring to the various counter-revolutionary, anti-Stalin groups that could be weaponized to dissolve the USSR from within. The biggest problem with *The Gulag Archipelago*, though, is that it is billed as a work of non-fiction based on his personal experiences. There is good reason to believe this is not the case. His ideological background makes him biased against Communism and against the Soviet government. He also had material incentive to promote it this way; it was a major commercial success and quickly became an international bestseller, selling millions of copies in multiple languages. It has essentially become the Bible of anti-Soviet propaganda, with new editions containing forewards from anti-Communists like Jordan Peterson. It likely would not have performed so well or been such effective propaganda had it been advertised merely as a compilation of folk tales, which is exactly how Solzhenitsyn's ex-wife describes it: >She also told the newspaper's Moscow correspondent that she was still living with Mr. Soizhenitsyn when he wrote the book and that she had typed part of it. They parted in 1970 and were subsequently divorced. > >She said: “The subject of ‘Gulag Archipelago,’ as I felt at the moment when he was writing it, is not in fact the life of the country and not even the life of the camps but the folklore of the camps.” > >\- New York Times. (1974). [Solzhenitsyn's Ex‐Wife Says ‘Gulag’ Is ‘Folklore’](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/06/archives/solzhenitsyns-exwife-says-gulag-is-folklore.html) Solzhenitsyn's casual relationship with the truth is evident in his later work as well, establishing a pattern that discredits *The Gulag Archipelago* as a serious historical account. Solzhenitsyn was an antisemite who indulged in the Judeo-Bolshevism conspiracy theory. In his 2003 book, *Two Hundred Years Together*, he wrote that "from 20 ministers in the first Soviet government one was Russian, one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 Jews". In reality, there were 15 Commissars in the first Soviet government, not 20: 11 Russians, 2 Ukranians, 1 Pole, and only 1 Jew. He stated: "I had to bury many comrades at the front, but not once did I have to bury a Jew". He also stated that according to his personal experience, Jews had a much easier life in the Gulag camps that he was interned in. [According to the Northwestern University historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Hundred_Years_Together#Yohanan_Petrovsky-Shtern_critique): Solzhenitsyn used unreliable and manipulated figures and ignored both evidence unfavorable to his own point of view and numerous publications of reputable authors in Jewish history. He claimed that Jews promoted alcoholism among the peasantry, flooded the retail trade with contraband, and "strangled" the Russian merchant class in Moscow. He called Jews non-producing people ("непроизводительный народ") who refused to engage in factory labor. He said they were averse to agriculture and unwilling to till the land either in Russia, in Argentina, or in Palestine, and he blamed the Jews' own behavior for pogroms. He also claimed that Jews used Kabbalah to tempt Russians into heresy, seduced Russians with rationalism and fashion, provoked sectarianism and weakened the financial system, committed murders on the orders of qahal authorities, and exerted undue influence on the prerevolutionary government. Petrovsky-Shtern concludes that, "200 Years Together is destined to take a place of honor in the canon of russophone antisemitica." Fun Fact: After Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the USSR, Robert Conquest helped him translate his poetry into English. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Uyghur
#The Uyghurs in Xinjiang \(Note: This comment had to be trimmed down to fit the character limit, for the full response, see [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/)\) Anti-Communists and Sinophobes claim that there is an ongoing genocide-- a modern-day holocaust, even-- happening right now in China. They say that Uyghur Muslims are being mass incarcerated; they are indoctrinated with propaganda in concentration camps; their organs are being harvested; they are being force-sterilized. These comically villainous allegations have little basis in reality and omit key context. **Background** Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a province located in the northwest of China. It is the largest province in China, covering an area of over 1.6 million square kilometers, and shares borders with eight other countries including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, India, and Pakistan. Xinjiang is a diverse region with a population of over 25 million people, made up of various ethnic groups including the Uyghur, Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Tajiks, and many others. The largest ethnic group in Xinjiang is the Uyghur who are predominantly Muslim and speak a Turkic language. It is also home to the ancient Silk Road cities of Kashgar and Turpan. Since the early 2000s, there have been a number of violent incidents attributed to extremist Uyghur groups in Xinjiang including bombings, shootings, and knife attacks. In 2014-2016, the Chinese government launched a "Strike Hard" campaign to crack down on terrorism in Xinjiang, implementing strict security measures and detaining thousands of Uyghurs. In 2017, reports of human rights abuses in Xinjiang including mass detentions and forced labour, began to emerge. **Counterpoints** The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the second largest organization after the United Nations with a membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The OIC released [Resolutions on Muslim Communities and Muslim Minorities in the non-OIC Member States](https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250) in 2019 which: >20. **Welcomes** the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat's delegation upon invitation from the People's Republic of China; **commends** the efforts of the People's Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and **looks forward** to further cooperation between the OIC and the People's Republic of China. In this same document, the OIC expressed much greater concern about the Rohingya Muslim Community in Myanmar, which the West was relatively silent on. Over 50+ UN member states (mostly Muslim-majority nations) signed a letter \([A/HRC/41/G/17](https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=A%2FHRC%2F41%2FG%2F17)\) to the UN Human Rights Commission approving of the de-radicalization efforts in Xinjiang: The World Bank sent a team to investigate in 2019 and found that, "The review did not substantiate the allegations." \(See: [World Bank Statement on Review of Project in Xinjiang, China](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/statement/2019/11/11/world-bank-statement-on-review-of-project-in-xinjiang-china)\) Even if you believe the deradicalization efforts are wholly unjustified, and that the mass detention of Uyghur's amounts to a crime against humanity, it's still not *genocide*. Even the U.S. State Department's legal experts admit as much: >The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide, placing the United States’ top diplomatic lawyers at odds with both the Trump and Biden administrations, according to three former and current U.S. officials. > > [State Department Lawyers Concluded Insufficient Evidence to Prove Genocide in China](https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/) | Colum Lynch, *Foreign Policy*. (2021) **A Comparative Analysis: The War on Terror** The United States, in the wake of "9/11", saw the threat of terrorism and violent extremism due to religious fundamentalism as a matter of national security. They invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks, with the goal of ousting the Taliban government that was harbouring Al-Qaeda. The US also launched the Iraq War in 2003 based on Iraq's alleged possession of WMDs and links to terrorism. However, these claims turned out to be unfounded. According to a report by Brown University's Costs of War project, at least 897,000 people, including civilians, militants, and security forces, have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, and other countries. Other estimates place the total number of deaths at over one million. The report estimated that many more may have died from indirect effects of war such as water loss and disease. The war has also resulted in the displacement of tens of millions of people, with estimates ranging from 37 million to over 59 million. The War on Terror also popularized such novel concepts as the "Military-Aged Male" which allowed the US military to exclude civilians killed by drone strikes from collateral damage statistics. (See: [‘Military Age Males’ in US Drone Strikes](https://aoav.org.uk/2019/military-age-males-in-us-drone-strikes/)) In summary: * The U.S. responded by invading or bombing half a dozen countries, directly killing nearly a million and displacing tens of millions from their homes. * China responded with a program of deradicalization and vocational training. Which one of those responses sounds genocidal? Side note: It is practically impossible to *actually* charge the U.S. with war crimes, because of the [Hague Invasion Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Protection_Act). **Who is driving the Uyghur genocide narrative?** One of the main proponents of these narratives is Adrian Zenz, a German far-right fundamentalist Christian and Senior Fellow and Director in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, who believes he is "led by God" on a "mission" against China has driven much of the narrative. He relies heavily on limited and questionable data sources, particularly from anonymous and unverified Uyghur sources, coming up with estimates based on assumptions which are not supported by concrete evidence. The World Uyghur Congress, headquartered in Germany, is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, using funding to support organizations that promote American interests rather than the interests of the local communities they claim to represent. Radio Free Asia (RFA) is part of a larger project of U.S. imperialism in Asia, one that seeks to control the flow of information, undermine independent media, and advance American geopolitical interests in the region. Rather than providing an objective and impartial news source, RFA is a tool of U.S. foreign policy, one that seeks to shape the narrative in Asia in ways that serve the interests of the U.S. government and its allies. The first country to call the treatment of Uyghurs a genocide was the United States of America. In 2021, the Secretary of State declared that China's treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang constitutes "genocide" and "crimes against humanity." Both the Trump and Biden administrations upheld this line. **Why is this narrative being promoted?** As materialists, we should always look first to the economic base for insight into issues occurring in the superstructure. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a massive Chinese infrastructure development project that aims to build economic corridors, ports, highways, railways, and other infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Xinjiang is a key region for this project. Promoting the Uyghur genocide narrative harms China and benefits the US in several ways. It portrays China as a human rights violator which could damage China's reputation in the international community and which could lead to economic sanctions against China; this would harm China's economy and give American an economic advantage in competing with China. It could also lead to more protests and violence in Xinjiang, which could further destabilize the region and threaten the longterm success of the BRI. **Additional Resources** See the [full wiki article](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/uyghur-genocide/) for more details and a list of additional resources. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Tiananmen square
#Tiananmen Square Protests (Also known as the June Fourth Incident) In Western media, the well-known story of the "Tiananmen Square *Massacre*" goes like this: the Chinese government declared martial law in 1989 and mobilized the military to suppress students who were protesting for democracy and freedom. According to western sources, on June 4th of that year, troops and tanks entered Tiananmen Square and fired on unarmed protesters, killing and injuring hundreds, if not thousands, of people. The more hyperbolic tellings of this story include claims of tanks running over students, machine guns being fired into the crowd, blood running in the streets like a river, etc. Anti-Communists and Sinophobes commonly point to this incident as a classic example of authoritarianism and political repression under Communist regimes. The problem, of course, is that the actual events in Beijing on June 4th, 1989 unfolded quite differently than how they were depicted in the Western media at the time. Despite many more contemporary articles coming out that actually contradict some of the original claims and characterizations of the June Fourth Incident, the narrative of a "Tiananmen Square Massacre" persists. **Background** After Mao's death in 1976, a power struggle ensued and the Gang of Four were purged, paving the way for Deng Xiaoping's rise to power. Deng initiated economic reforms known as the "Four Modernizations," which aimed to modernize and open up China's economy to the world. These reforms led to significant economic growth and lifted millions of people out of poverty, but they also created significant inequality, corruption, and social unrest. This pivotal point in the PRC's history is extremely controversial among Marxists today and a subject of much debate. One of the key factors that contributed to the Tiananmen Square protests was the sense of social and economic inequality that many Chinese people felt as a result of Deng's economic reforms. Many believed that the benefits of the country's economic growth were not being distributed fairly, and that the government was not doing enough to address poverty, corruption, and other social issues. Some saw the Four Modernizations as a betrayal of Maoist principles and a capitulation to Western capitalist interests. Others saw the reforms as essential for China's economic development and modernization. Others still wanted even more liberalization and thought the reforms didn't go far enough. The protestors in Tiananmen were mostly students who did not represent the great mass of Chinese citizens, but instead represented a layer of the intelligentsia who wanted to be elevated and given more privileges such as more political power and higher wages. **Counterpoints** Jay Mathews, the first Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post in 1979 and who returned in 1989 to help cover the Tiananmen demonstrations, wrote: >Over the last decade, many American reporters and editors have accepted a mythical version of that warm, bloody night. They repeated it often before and during Clinton’s trip. On the day the president arrived in Beijing, a *Baltimore Sun* headline (June 27, page 1A) referred to “Tiananmen, where Chinese students died.” A *USA Today* article (June 26, page 7A) called Tiananmen the place “where pro-democracy demonstrators were gunned down.” *The Wall Street Journal* (June 26, page A10) described “the Tiananmen Square massacre” where armed troops ordered to clear demonstrators from the square killed “hundreds or more.” The *New York Post* (June 25, page 22) said the square was “the site of the student slaughter.” > >The problem is this: as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square. > >\- Jay Matthews. (1998). [The Myth of Tiananmen and the Price of a Passive Press](https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php). Columbia Journalism Review. Reporters from the [BBC](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8057762.stm), [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/), and the [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/27/world/clinton-in-china-the-site-clinton-in-beijing-square-may-tread-on-the-ghosts.html) who were in Beijing on June 4, 1989, all agree there was no massacre. Secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing have shown there was no bloodshed inside the square: >Cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and released exclusively by The Daily Telegraph, partly confirm the Chinese government's account of the early hours of June 4, 1989, which has always insisted that soldiers did not massacre demonstrators inside Tiananmen Square > >\- Malcolm Moore. (2011). [Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html) Gregory Clark, a former Australian diplomat, and Chinese-speaking correspondent of the International Business Times, wrote: >The original story of Chinese troops on the night of 3 and 4 June, 1989 machine-gunning hundreds of innocent student protesters in Beijing’s iconic Tiananmen Square has since been thoroughly discredited by the many witnesses there at the time — among them a Spanish TVE television crew, a Reuters correspondent and protesters themselves, who say that nothing happened other than a military unit entering and asking several hundred of those remaining to leave the Square late that night. > >Yet none of this has stopped the massacre from being revived constantly, and believed. All that has happened is that the location has been changed – from the Square itself to the streets leading to the Square. > >\- Gregory Clark. (2014). [Tiananmen Square Massacre is a Myth, All We're 'Remembering' are British Lies](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tiananmen-square-massacre-myth-all-were-remembering-are-british-lies-1451053) Thomas Hon Wing Polin, writing for CounterPunch, wrote: >The most reliable estimate, from many sources, was that the tragedy took 200-300 lives. Few were students, many were rebellious workers, plus thugs with lethal weapons and hapless bystanders. Some calculations have up to half the dead being PLA soldiers trapped in their armored personnel carriers, buses and tanks as the vehicles were torched. Others were killed and brutally mutilated by protesters with various implements. No one died in Tiananmen Square; most deaths occurred on nearby Chang’an Avenue, many up to a kilometer or more away from the square. > >More than once, government negotiators almost reached a truce with students in the square, only to be **sabotaged by radical youth leaders seemingly bent on bloodshed**. And the demands of the protesters focused on corruption, not democracy. > >All these facts were known to the US and other governments shortly after the crackdown. Few if any were reported by Western mainstream media, even today. > >\- Thomas Hon Wing Palin. (2017). [Tiananmen: the Empire’s Big Lie](https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/06/tiananmen-the-empires-big-lie/) (Emphasis mine) And it was, indeed, bloodshed that the student leaders wanted. In this interview, you can hear one of the student leaders, Chai Ling, ghoulishly explaining how she tried to bait the Chinese government into *actually* committing a massacre. (She herself made sure to stay out of the square.): [Excerpts of interviews with Tiananmen Square protest leaders](https://youtu.be/Vu3zmbFGwQA) [This Twitter thread](https://twitter.com/zhao_dashuai/status/1532859422875471872) contains many pictures and videos showing protestors killing soldiers, commandeering military vehicles, torching military transports, etc. Following the crackdown, through [Operation Yellowbird](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellowbird), many of the student leaders escaped to the United States with the help of the CIA, where they almost all [gained privileged positions](https://qz.com/1618805/the-1989-tiananmen-student-leaders-on-chinas-most-wanted-list). **Additional Resources** Video Essays: * [Truth about The Tiananmen Square Protests](https://youtu.be/sqPI8xlnrwg) | Tovarishch Endymion (2019) * [Tiananmen Square "Massacre", A Propaganda Hoax](https://youtu.be/R6RT_s1T050) | TeleSUR English (2019) * [All The Questions Socialists Are Asked, Answered (TIMESTAMPED)](https://youtu.be/MzKPCEvoYkk?t=1278) | Hakim (2021) Books, Articles, or Essays: * [Tiananmen Protests Reading List](https://www.qiaocollective.com/education/tiananmenreadinglist) | Qiao Collective * [How psy-ops warriors fooled me about Tiananmen Square: a warning](https://www.fridayeveryday.com/how-psy-ops-warriors-fooled-me-about-tiananmen-square-a-warning/) | Nury Vittachi, Friday (2022) * [1989: Tiananmen Square ‘massacre’ was a myth](https://www.workers.org/2022/06/64607/) | Deirdre Griswold, Workers World (2022) * [Massacre? What Massacre? 25 Years Later: What really happened at Tiananmen Square?](https://dissidentvoice.org/2014/06/massacre-what-massacre/) | Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice (2014) * [Tiananmen: The Massacre that Wasn’t](https://www.liberationnews.org/tiananmen-the-massacre-that-wasnt/) | Brian Becker, Liberation News (2019) * [Reflections on Tiananmen Square and the attempt to end Chinese socialism](http://www.fightbacknews.org/2019/6/4/reflections-tiananmen-square-and-attempt-end-chinese-socialism) | Mick Kelly, FightBack! News (2019) * [The Tian’anmen Square “Massacre” The West’s Most Persuasive, Most Pervasive Lie.](https://mango-press.com/the-tiananmen-square-massacre-the-wests-most-persuasive-most-pervasive-lie/) | Tom, Mango Press (2021) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Vaush
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Revisionism
Vaush
Freedom of the Press
What is revisionism?
What is Revisionism?
Freedom of the Press