• Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      The CIA didn’t believe him to be. Stalin had power as the head of state of the USSR, but he did not have all-encompassing, unaccountable power, nor did he reach over every nook and cranny of the USSR.

      Consider reading Blackshirts and Reds.

    • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      The CIA’s own internal documents (you know, the ones they use to keep themselves well informed, so as to better tailor their external disinfo), repeatedly state that he wasn’t.

      Pretty much everything you’ve been told about the USSR and Stalin is false, and comes to you through a thick fog of anti-communist indoctrination cemented during the cold war. It takes a level of courage to question the lies you’ve had hammered into you all your life, that most people don’t have.

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Yeah, the gulags were actually happy holiday camps and the millions who died there was just a coincidence it was there while dying at natural causes.

        The KGB was actually a fun motorcycle club who never harmed anyone.

        Stalin was a fun, loving, caring man, not a dictator at all. He didn’t even want war with nazi Germany, he actually wanted to join the axis. Stalin did nothing wrong.

        /s

        Come on now, I know there is a lot of anti propaganda out there making everything much worse, but facts are facts. Be careful with believing anything you hear, the other side perfected propaganda too you know. Sure, you can listen to Russian state press, or you could look towards places where there’s press freedom. Make an educated guess which one is more trustworthy.

        The USSR was a failed state, Russia is a failed state, the US is a failed state, China is beginning to realize there is no turning back from heading towards a failed state (if not already one).

        Travel to former Soviet states. Talk to the people there. See the amazing sharade of the mighty Soviet Union crumble, and find out it’s true colors.

        • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Very rich to talk about gulags and KGB when America has the largest prison population in the world, legal slavery and the CIA, NSA and ICE.

          Everything your bitching about exists here in the good old USA. You just ain’t any of the targets. But let’s ask Fred Hampton what it’s like to be one hmm?

          • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Just because the US is a failed state doesn’t make the USSR less worse then it was. You can always claim “but there is something worse”, that’s not an excuse for the horrors they committed. The KGB was really bad, the FSB still is. American agencies are too. US agencies are corrupt and commit crimes against humanity but that’s not a reason to close your eyes for the KGB/FSB. The US had concentration camps too during the second world war. No one talks about that. But you cannot say the germans weren’t bad just because the US was bad too.

            Just so you know, the world is bigger then just Russia and the US. I live in neither. I did see many places of the world though, including old Soviet states. I’ve seen gulags, I’ve seen Auschwitz among other concentration camps. I’ve seen ghost towns, I’ve spoken to locals about life during the USSR. But sure, the US is worse so whatever they told me is just western propaganda right? Come on.

            • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              “I spoke to locals”. And so have sociologists. Most Soviet states have around a 60% regret for the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has its evils. A state is bount to rack them up. But the Soviet Union was better for its people before it and it’s people wishes it never went away.

              This doesn’t absolve it of it’s crimes. But why does it’s crimes need to be brought up every time in the same breath? Imagine every time you talked about America that someone just shit canned you for every crime of its state. It’s infuriating, and allows for no actual conversation.

              But sure, keep pretending like you don’t weight them differently.

              • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Well, it’s not like they are seperste things now, are they. The communist regime was able to hold power by keeping people poor, state propaganda, corruption, deportation, spying on everyone, prevent anyone from escaping their borders, etc. All aspects of a dictatorship. All intertwined into what the USSR was. It’s not like it’s communism was completely disconnected from the regime. So that’s why I bring it up. The same happens in the DPRK, China, Cuba. Show me a working communist state where there’s no dictatorial regime. Communism only works when everyone agrees to it, so it only works on small scales like communities where people choose to live.

                The theory works, but didn’t calculate in the human factor.

                I believe a socialist state is the only sollution to a proper working society but not in the form of communism. It only survived on a large scale under strict dictatorial regimes.

    • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      You’re never going to believe it, but the answer was more complicated than the cold war propaganda told you. Shocker.

      • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        What I know is from people who lived during the USSR in it’s former states. But sure, what they told me is just western propaganda. They lied about their families being deported to gulags, never to have returned. Their idea of their leaders is all just western propaganda right? I mean, there was no western media, but maybe they were secret CIA sleeper agents or something? All hundreds of locals I’ve talked to, including historians, former politicians and former red army.

        Stalin also never had anyone deported to gulags for saying anything he didn’t like right? Do you even know what a dictator is? Or what propaganda is? Claiming any negative information about the USSR is propaganda is propaganda itself. What are your sources? Qanon or Russian state media or something?

        • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Nobody said anything about claiming the Soviet Union was a peachy clean state. You are throwing your own presumptions in and arguing with yourself. All we are saying is that the state isn’t like how you thought it was. But you’d rather double down then consider a slight change to your perception.

          Enjoy battling yourself. I am done talking to a man who talks past me.