• 14 Posts
  • 495 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 13th, 2023
  • Soviet Pigeon@lemmygrad.mltoComradeship // Freechat@lemmygrad.ml•How to talk about AES states?
    15·
    11 days ago

    You need to differentiate then and emphasise the different conclusions you make compared to the person you are discussing with.

    In the late Soviet Union there were indeed standing lanes for products. This is true and I don’t think this was good. I think a anticommunist would say the same, but my conclusion is not that the Soviet Union was bad or socialism itself leads to such things. Through further discussion I would explain it more and more.

    Often enough their propaganda includes some truth, but is bastardised. When Hungary 1956 happened it was indeed a tragedy. It was not a pure product of CIA, the communist party there made clear mistakes which made people unhappy. But the situation was then also used by CIA (probably also other foreign agencies), which is meanwhile proven how they provided weapons, and this lead all to a lot of causalities. In my opinion this short explanation puts this historic event in a more correct light, then “people were unhappy and then soviet tanks invades and committed a massacre”.

    The same goes for all those other topics. The famine in Soviet Ukrainian and western part of Soviet Russia. It was awful, absolutely. We know that the were many causalities for that and the communist party made mistakes¹

    Kronstadt also, anarchists are mentioning it often. Kronstadt was a tragedy, nothing good about that. But it was really necessary for taking it, otherwise the revolution would be in danger.

    First you need of course enough knowledge about a certain topic and second then patiently explaining. If you try Lenin and read more from him, you will discover how much he explains and he repeats his self a lot. He was a great pedagogue.

    From all what I wrote now, I provided more information, then a liberal would do about that topics and I am not talking like it was all a cool.

    I don’t know if this helps you somehow. What me helped in the past was reading Lenin. I guess every 3th comment I make here on Lemmygrad is something about how much reading him helps in theory and praxis. In the collected works there are also his speeches he gave to students. As long as you engage more and more in explaining, you will get better with that. And don’t forget, admit mistakes that were made or are made, but emphasise that your critique comes from the left and doesn’t align with the anticommunist propaganda.

    ¹I shouldn’t write more about the famine in Ukraine. So far as I know, I can get into trouble with the German law, if I say in a public space, that my conclusion is not a anticommunist one (I know, I formulated it strange). They would probably find a way to get me doxxed.

  • Soviet Pigeon@lemmygrad.mltoAsk Lemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml•How come the majority of the leftists that I have met online are younger than 25? Why are there no more older leftists on the internet?
    10·
    15 days ago

    Internet is only for people under 25. They are all doing skibidi fortinet cisco dances from TitsTok.

    We older people are only doing adult things, like looking outside on Sundays, so you can see if your neighbours are doing something interesting. The other time we are mostly shocked, that they weather has changed. Can you explain, why it was 0°C three days ago at night and now it is near 20°C at 12 o’clock! This is not normal, isn’t? And the weather is also at fault if something hurts. Also the neighboard looked 10% less friendly yesterday, we will talk with our partner for 5 hours about that.

    At evening we engage in solving crosswords, while listening to muzak.

    A Planck second after you turn 25, you will be the same es the rest of us. Enjoy your youth, it will be over soon. Less internet over 25

  • Soviet Pigeon@lemmygrad.mltoComradeship // Freechat@lemmygrad.ml•My encounter with the most fragile white person I've ever met
    12·
    1 month ago

    I ordered in perfect English at McDonalds, where is my praise?

    You can have that in Germany. You may be born here or lived only the first 4 years in some other other country and German is basically your first language: You will hear things like “You speak German very well!”. If your skin is a bit darker and you are talking in perfect German:“You speak German very well!”. I actually answer such comments with “Thank you, you too!”.

    I have a book, which shows my ancestry back to the beginning of the 19th century rooted in Germany (Immigrated then to Ukraine and then tsarist Russia, later back) and they had their german villages and communities, even refusing to interact much with other ethnic people like russians (Somewhere in the 70s they slowly started to make children with other ethnicities) and preserving their weird old way to speak German till today. Result:“You speak German very well”.

    Idk what actually you have to do, that people will accept you here somehow. This is absolutely stupid. Even visually I have darker golden blond hair and grey eyes and I am pale as fuck: “You speak German very well.” I read Marx in German and speak Russian way worse then english:“You speak German very well!”. “You probably like vodka, don’t you?”, “Do you like Putin?”. My grand-grandchildren will probably hear the same compliments about how they speak German very well. Or I am all wrong and Germans simply love to compliment everyone about how one speaks German.

    Laughing about USA about racism there, while claiming Europe is so great with that, is absolutely stupid. I remember how other classmates often made fun about someone, who had Father or Mother from Poland, because they are all allegedly stealing. Having this in mind, being from east Asia is way worse regarding racism or if you skin is darker then a normal Turkish person is. The mother of a friend of mine is from Japan, it is not funny what he had and has to hear from others. Also, his German is also very well!

    Coming back now: I would never compliment you for ordering something in perfect English, because you didn’t do it in flawless German. If you do it, I will record a Video where I say: " You speak German very well! "

  • Soviet Pigeon@lemmygrad.mltoComradeship // Freechat@lemmygrad.ml•should people be blamed for being indoctrinated ? [CW: mention of Zionism , military , war crimes]
    3·
    2 months ago

    Let’s take your Australian as example. Let’s make him a white male factory worker. Could he, despite being a proleterian, subjugate women or non-whites?

    Of course. But it doesn’t mean that women and non-whites are suddenly a class. Chauvinism does not equal, that the opressed ones are automatically a class. This is the crucial point of your misunderstanding, what a social class is. When Lenin wrote about the great russian chauvinism, it was never about a “great russian class”, because there was and is not such a thing. What you are trying to imply is, that I think, that the white male factory worker can not express oppression towards women or non-white, because he is immune to it, because he is part of the working class. And this is clearly not the case.

    I can only quote again:

    Classes are large groups of people who differ from one another according to their place in a historically determined system of social production, according to their relationship (largely fixed and formulated in laws) to the means of production, according to their role in the social organization of labour and consequently according to the way in which they acquire and the size of the share of social wealth they possess. Classes are groups of people, one of which can appropriate the labor of another due to the difference in their place in a particular system of the social economy.

    [LW Volume 29 (German, idk where to find “Die große Initiative” online in english), Page 410]

    This is something very concrete. When Lenin writes that “Classes are groups of people, one of which can appropriate the labor of another due to the difference in their place in a particular system of the social economy”, then he does not mean, that the opressed and exploited south is now a class. It is pretty narrowed to the question regarding the relationship towards the means of production. The exploitation of the global south you see now is not rooted in the existence of a “non-white” class, but in capitalism - especially imperialism at its highest stage. A social class is determined by the material relations to the means of production.

    If he were to do so, does he do so as individual or as part of a class with systemic features that allows him to enact his power?

    Which class? I asked you already about which other classes you are talking, but you are simply stating, that they are part of a ominous class. Is it the “man class” or a “non-white class”? The oppression of women roots historically in the existence of privat property, divison of labour and and and, but neither women and men are a own class. The same as nations. Oppressed groups are not automatically a class. Classes are linked to production and change as it develops:

    Now as for myself, I do not claim to have discovered either the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me, bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois economists their economic anatomy. My own contribution was 1. to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production; 2. that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3. that this dictatorship itself constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.

    source

    What is the relationship of the proleteriat in the imperial cores with those from the peripheries?

    Imperialism has the tendency to segregate privileged categories among the workers as well and to separate them from the great mass of the proletariat. The real situation of working class in the imperial core and the peripherie is not the same. The existence of opportunism in the working class in an imperialist country does not mean, that entirely new social classes exist, which are as many as nations exist. You have the indian, austrian, australian, vietnamese and ukrainian working class in the historical period we actually live now, but not a whole nations as one class.

    And I’m side-stepping your condescension in attempt to answer in good faith but my patience is thin.

    (It’s fine not to know and explore. It is not fine to confidently double down on ignorance, which is the impression you are giving off)

    Nah, stop with that rhetoric. Your patience is really not part of my concerne. Your understanding, what a class is simply contradicts the marxist understanding what a social class is. In the opposite you are trying to draw something quite interesting: If men and women are not a class, then there is somehow not oppression towards women or what are you trying to say? You are calling almost everything a class, as long there is somewhere a form of oppression. Looking at the oppression of homosexuality, do we have a homosexual and heterosexual class? Because only then the white australian factore worker can be homophobic. How does the class war between men and women look like and how is the situation of the non-binary class, if gender is a class how to stated.

    Would you be happy for me to use your responses and turn it into a post? I’m sure you are not the only one who thinks like this.

    I would probably be neither happy or unhappy if you do it. But it would be fine if you find time to answer this comment.

  • Soviet Pigeon@lemmygrad.mltoComradeship // Freechat@lemmygrad.ml•should people be blamed for being indoctrinated ? [CW: mention of Zionism , military , war crimes]
    4·
    2 months ago

    As a westerner, you are part of a class that subjugates the global south.

    Nations of peoples and genders are definitely classes.

    Classes are the result of the social division of labor under the constraint of economic scarcity. Members of different classes differ economically from one another in terms of their position in the system of social production. Or to let Lenin speak:

    The fundamental criterion by which classes are distinguished is the place they occupy in social production, and, consequently, the relation in which they stand to the means of production. Appropriation of one part or another of the social means of production and its application to private enterprise, to undertakings organised for the sale of the product, is the fundamental distinction of one class in present-day society (the bourgeoisie) from the proletariat, which is deprived of the means of production and sells its labour-power.

    source

    Gender and nation are not a class. This is in total contradiction to Marxism. You can talk about an Australian working class, but you can’t talk about Australians as a class per se. That makes no sense. Same with gender.

    If one is not to consider nations as classes then what part of marxism would national liberation theory come from?

    It is about oppressed peoples in an colonised country fighting against imperialism, even if this means that the working class allies itself with the own bourgeoisie. But this does not create a class of its own. In the end the own bourgeoisie has to be fought as well.

    What of Engel’s Orgin of the Family with regards to gender (which has since been developed further)? Think about the consequences here if you do not think about them as classes.

    This book does not state genders as classes. It shows clearly what the origin of family is and how it is strongly connected to private property.

    This is not wild stuff. This is basic marxism. Otherwise you will end up with the likes of the ACP and Trots

    Definitely not, really. It is pretty clear, what a class is. You can’t call everything a class. That seems to be antagonising with something.