Why do I feel like so many people here support the USSR and the CCP?
Because most people here actually study the subject instead of relying on false narratives of the Western media.
Again, don’t get me wrong I don’t think the west is immune from any of this (and in fact I think there is a lack of criticism of the west), but anyone who claims the west is evil while simultaneously glorifying countries that implement concentration camps comes off as fascistic and ignorant.
You say that the West is not immune from any of the stuff you’ve mentioned, but your narrative relies on the falsehoods created by Western media. By doing this, you are uncritically glorifying the Western narrative and ignoring how these countries understand the issues you’ve mentioned. For instance, this is a list of countries which approve or disapprove of China’s Xinjiang policies:
Notice how the countries which disapprove is basically countries traditionally associated with Western hegemony. It’s the basically the Always the Same Map meme incarnated. The countries which approve of China’s Xinjiang policies includes countries with a Muslim majority. Do a research on why China adopted the re-education programs in the first place.
Xinjiang was filled with terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists, and they were hurting the Uyghur population in the process. China’s policies of re-education actually reduced the terrorist attacks and protected the Uyghur people. The Western narrative calls them “concentration camps”, but they are places with schools, art and dancing classes, where the Uyghur culture is actually promoted. They also learn about the country’s laws and ethical conduct. The people who are admitted to these centres are associated with extremism, and therefore they are restricted of movement, but once they go through the process of education, they are free and even receive incentive from the government to create their own shops and businesses.
This is a quote from the document created by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation:
Having considered the Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation of Muslim Communities and Minorities (Document No. OIC/CFM-46/2018/MM/SG.REP): (…)
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.
This is only an example of how your narrative is filled with Western narratives, falsehoods and outright propaganda. You call yourself an anarchist, but you parrot very obediently your government’s narrative on China and the USSR. To go against the Western narrative is to research and inquiry objectively what these countries are doing, instead of relying on what you see on Western media (which includes Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc.).
People here on Lemmy and Lemmygrad reject these views because most people here actually STUDY and RESEARCH on those topics. What about you? What sources do you use for your claims? Let’s check:
- Wikipedia
From 2001 to 2010, 80% of edits on Wikipedia were made by 1% of editors/writers. It’s far from the “decentralized peer-produce” ideal that it markets itself as. Various analysis on the source of these edits have found that their IPs are linked to several US state organizations, such as the CIA, New York Police Department, along with government and corporate interests. There is even a company which offers Wikipedia edits, and they are hired by several corporate industries, including Facebook and billionaire groups which hire PR firms to whitewash certain articles. They have arbitrarily removed a community-elected member of Wikimedia and at the same time raised to the position of CEO and executive director (2019–2021) of Wikimedia Foundation a person called Katherine Maher, which had links to the US State Department and several corporate interests, such as HSBC bank, and has shady background in the Middle East. More info on her here. You can see why a country would ban the Wikimedia Foundation.
- ASIA MEDIA
According to its own website:
ASIA MEDIA (and later ASIA PACIFIC ARTS) arose in 1998 from the nonprofit Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) at the University of California, Los Angeles. It was created by founder Tom Plate, then a fulltime Adjunct Professor in Communication Studies and in Policy Studies, and by his UCLA students.
Interesting how Asia media is located in Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
- The Independent
According to the Independent itself, it is associated with liberalism:
In fact, The Independent always shared some of Mr Blair’s political blend of social and economic liberalism, but, true to our approach, we could never unconditionally endorse him or his party.
There will be an obvious bias towards countries which do not follow liberal (bourgeois) democracy, and therefore, you should never expect it to have an objective portrayal of China.
In conclusion
but anyone who claims the west is evil while simultaneously glorifying countries that implement concentration camps comes off as fascistic and ignorant.
By glorifying the narratives of Western imperialist countries, your “anarchism” comes off as fascistic and ignorant. The fact that you repudiate China’s sovereignty over Taiwan is an example of this. The only reason Taiwan suddenly became an issue after 2010’s is because the US has interests over the island and manipulate the people through their propaganda machine to make them believe they are fighting for a just cause, over “democracy” and “human rights”. The United States of America has killed millions of people under the banner of “democracy” and “human rights”. Don’t be fooled by that.
OK so I have lived in the former USSR for a while. The USSR is not really understood by people who haven’t lived in it. The truth is in between; yes it’s not like how people in the USA had been led to believe. Not entirely. We were told most of the bad things and hardly any of the good things. However, most of what was bad about the USSR is true, but people just have a hard time understanding that it was a real place and some things about it were nice, especially if you are into that sort of thing.
That being said, the idealization and white washing of the USSR online is just absurd. All of this revisionism and fantasy by kids online thinking the USSR was wonderful and amazing, is far from reality.
It’s the same story the PRC. Lemmy is just full of whitewashing, propaganda, irrational idealizations, and so on. This post is really a case in point. “Oh Uyghurs are just going to art school and dancing. They love it!” Like I don’t even know how you can write this and not realize that you don’t live in reality. I don’t think you’re lying in purpose, but I can tell you are gullible and naive.
Chinese and Soviet propagandists have an answer for everything. If you take their word for it they’ll have you believe it is all rainbows and unicorns. The problem is, it just isn’t how they say it is. Too much spin, too many lies, and lots of people desperately wishing it was all true.
Everyone who supports PRC and USSR that I’ve ever talked to acknowledges that they’re imperfect like any human society. The argument is that despite the faults, these are still better alternatives to capitalism.
I’ve also lived in USSR, I completely agree with you that there were plenty of negatives. However, USSR did manage to meet the needs of its population, it was far more equal than any western society, and it continued moving in a positive direction with every decade.
Things have gotten much worse for the vast majority of people after its collapse, and the standard of living still hasn’t recovered today. Of course, former republics that are in Eastern Europe got a huge amount of support from the west in order to create a bulwark against Russia. These places ended up doing ok for themselves. However, when you look at what happened in places like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and many others then it’s a very different picture.
What people are desperately wishing is that people stop dismissing the achievements of USSR and recognize the potential of its ideals. Surely, we can learn from its mistakes without throwing the baby out with the bath water.
In general I agree with what you wrote. What I’m trying to say is this, that the good and bad elements are/were there, and it’s not easy to make generalizations about it without going into detail about exactly what is going on. We may all have our biases, and I’m not merely complaining about bias, but the prevalence of extreme cases of bias, where we turn it into something that’s just black and white either for or against.
I agree with that, it’s important to be able to honestly criticize things you believe in. Without criticism it’s not possible to recognize and address failures going forward.
The problem is that it’s very hard to have a nuanced discussion about these things when mainstream view is poisoned. As soon as you mention anything negative about China or USSR then that’s all people will focus on. I think a lot of people went through that and learned to simply focus on the positive, and you can end up in a place where you stop being able to recognize the negatives yourself.
It’s also important to remember that each system is a product of the conditions it arose in, history, culture, and so on. Each socialist project is unique in its own way. While there are many lessons to be learned from past and existing projects, it’s also important to keep in mind that new ones will also be unique.
Focusing on what worked in USSR and what didn’t is only valuable as far as it applies to current conditions. If people agree that the goals USSR tried to achieve are worthy, then the focus should be on how to build on what worked and do better going forward.
Right, your second paragraph is very important in my opinion. One may feel, that since the bad news is already out there and widely recognized, then what is the point of adding to it? Focusing on the positive makes sense because it’s possible that there just isn’t enough of it out there. I think unfortunately it’s hard for people to maintain a sufficiently broad perspective and say, OK, how do I put all this information together? Since the polarization occurred, if you have just negative sources of information and positive sources of information, and then they compete to see who can be more negative and who can be more positive, then kind of lose the plot.
Constructive criticism is good, in any case. I think when we interact on Lemmy we should be mindful that Lemmy is already not a mainstream platform or audience, so let’s suppose if 80% of the user base already has sympathies for communism or the People’s Republic of China and can possibly be swayed, but they encounter too much of a push from overly zealous users, it might turn them off. In other words, there can be a sort of backlash that could occur if you are preaching to the choir and simultaneously making them feel, that they are in the wrong. People easily get stubborn and dig in.
Right, finding a balance is tricky under such conditions and I think it’s something everybody needs to keep in mind and work on. Presenting ideas as being worthy of consideration and desirable to do without coming across as zealous and overselling them is definitely an art.
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I support existing systems such as seen in USSR and China because despite their problems, they’re still a vast improvement over capitalist systems. The notion that all governments are bad and evil is just false equivalence. The fact that these other systems got destroyed is the problem with these systems. Any system that can’t effectively defend itself will be destroyed because there will always be other competing systems. Anarchist projects consistently fail to protect themselves effectively, and this is a fundamental problem that anarchists continue to avoid addressing.
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I support a system that provides a real workable path away from capitalism. I grew up in USSR, and I’ve lived in the west. I’ve seen first hand which system works better. Until anarchists can actually put up a working alternative, I’m going to stick with what I know to work in practice.
And as I’ve explained in the previous reply, this will not change. This isn’t something anarchists can control. If anarchists can’t hold their own then they get trampled by others. Anarchists need to reconcile the fact that not everybody wants the system they want, there will always be competing ideologies and if people who follow these ideologies are able to organize more effectively then they will be the ones in charge.
The reality of the world is that it’s anything but pacifist or respectful.
China hasn’t been at war for the past 50 years last I checked, and has consistently been investing money in improving the lives of its people. Chinese communists lifted over a billion people out of poverty.
USSR, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos, and China are all examples of incredible success. These systems have lifted countless people out of abject poverty, provided them with food, housing, healthcare, education, and work. These are tangible real world achievements that communists have under their belt. Until anarchists show how their ideas can be put into practice, I’m not going to pay any serious attention to them.
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Are you marmulak’s alt, @lisko@sopuli.xyz ?
That’s funny. Sounds like you’re saying people have Reddit brain, LOL. Go figure right?
Sounds like a pretty accurate take: it’s not as bad as it’s made to be and there’s also shitty parts. Hey sounds like the USA lmao.
That’s funny. Sounds like you’re saying people have Reddit brain, LOL. Go figure right?
Sounds like a pretty accurate take: it’s not as bad as it’s made to be and there’s also shitty parts. Hey sounds like the USA lmao.
That’s funny. Sounds like you’re saying people have Reddit brain, LOL. Go figure right?
Sounds like a pretty accurate take: it’s not as bad as it’s made to be and there’s also shitty parts. Hey sounds like the USA lmao.
That’s funny. Sounds like you’re saying people have Reddit brain, LOL. Go figure right?
Sounds like a pretty accurate take: it’s not as bad as it’s made to be and there’s also shitty parts. Hey sounds like the USA lmao.
That’s funny. Sounds like you’re saying people have Reddit brain, LOL. Go figure right?
Sounds like a pretty accurate take: it’s not as bad as it’s made to be and there’s also shitty parts. Hey sounds like the USA lmao.
That’s funny. Sounds like you’re saying people have Reddit brain, LOL. Go figure right?
Sounds like a pretty accurate take: it’s not as bad as it’s made to be and there’s also shitty parts. Hey sounds like the USA lmao.