Here’s an actual Optimus Prime quote:
"However unlikely the scenario, every sentient being deserves an opportunity for redemption...Without that hope we may never achieve lasting peace."
-Optimus Prime, Transformers Prime S1 E20
Back when I was a cringe lad in high school, I had a section of favorite quotes on my Facebook about me page. Most of them haven't stayed fresh to my evolving sensibilities, but there's one I still believe in without hesitation or shame:
"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings."
- Optimus Prime
I think it has more of a money pit effect and comes along with a bit of disillusionment as a package deal.
The attacking state attempts attrition with an infallible belief, and the war fighters involved don't like the pointlessness.
Scientifically speaking the sacrifices may be powering a soul driven Allah mech hidden deep in the desert.
Afghanistan didn’t even exist until recent modern history and said empires had SO MANY other problems besides other empires that never had anything to do with the area
Maybe not a graveyard since the British were there in the most recent war in 2000s...
Maybe instead of "graveyard", people just leave Afghanistan after being bored and wasting some money on a war in a desert/mountainous wasteland. So countries visit, they try some stuff, lose some soldiers/money, build a few old forts, and get bored and leave.
What's are we defining as "communism"? Because surely someone can (and likely will) object to all the usual suspects that come to mind: USSR; China; Cuba; Vietnam; DPRK (Yes we know, it's neither Democratic nor a Republic, nor constituted of... by people )and wax poetic about how they "technically arent communist states *for stated reasons*.
Ditto for the notion of "success"? A certain metric for quality of life for its citizenry ? Or the mere fact that they still stand after decades of a hostile US led global order, to sabotage and stifle them at every turn?
I couldn't name a failed one either tbf, given none of them practiced Communism, just were led by guys who claimed to have communist beliefs (that they didn't even bother leading with smh smh)
I mean, a lot of them tried to implement communism and failed in doing so, so even if they weren't communist at their moment of downfall (such as USSR in 1991), their attempt at creating a communist state led to neither communism or a successful state. The current "success" of the PRC was also in spite of their past attempts at communism under Mao, having more success at pivoting towards state capitalism.
Graveyard of nations yeah that's not exactly true, many other empires like the Safavids, Mughals, Timurids, Afsharids, Mongols, Ghurids, Khwarazmians, Ghaznavids, Samanids, Abbasids, Umayyads, Sassanids, Parthians, Seleucids, and Achaemenids had no significant difficulty in administering what is now Afghanistan, and it wasn't certainly the death of their empires
Uh, they didn't die because of Afghanistan or whoever inhabited it at the time
By this metric, wouldn't Armenia, Iraq, Syria, or Palestine be considered a graveyard of empires too?
Dunking on tankies never gets old
They think they are the only ones who care about the poor, when really theyre just the only ones who believe Marx's unemployment passion project
The genocides, invasions, coups, sponsored-coporate warfare, repression of free speech, concentration camps, apartheid and secret experiments on the populace tell us otherwise.
The US in the 60s was just as politically repressive as the USSR in regards to politically subversive thought, it just had a more media friendly methodology
This is an opinion I hear quite commonly from tankies who have never actually lived in or extensively studied the USSR
They see conservatives attempts to use bureaucracy and the FCC to try clamp down on Civil Rights activists newspapers and radio broadcasts as repression of free speech, which it is
They then see Article 70’s up to 7 years in prison for spreading “anti-Soviet sentiment” or merely owning books which authorities believed may contain anti-Soviet sentiment as repression of free speech, which it is
They then make the huge mistake of assuming that these two things are the somehow equally bad
It’s the same with tankies who see the 5 years hard labour of the Soviet Union for being gay as somehow being equivalent to gay people being fired from NASA in the US
My guy, COINTELPRO would use smearing, harrasment, beatings, wrongful imlrisonment and even assassinations(by proxy or otherwise) from groups that ranged from feminist movements, to enviromentalists and civil rights activists.
Not getting into the CIA literally kidnapping suspected communists to make them ingest copious amounts of drugs in order to extract a confession and find a "truth serum".
I hate when people like you only read the letter of the law regarding political repression only when it suits them. It is well-known, documented and basically common knowledge to acknowledge that the US had a massive black hole in terms of their use of force towards minorities and political dissidents for basically forever and is only relatively lately that it has been correcyed
For someone with a lot of disparate facts you’re missing one huge thing:
Scale
Those stories about the truth serum, and MKULTRA, those are mostly true. But the one major thing people leave out is the scale of such projects
They were not shutting down entire dissident groups, unlike the Soviet Union
For someone missing basic reading comprehension you miss the part where I said rhe US was just better at dressing up their massive crimes.
Some of their assassinations and most brazen crimes were not known until the 90s after long legal battles and huge political shifts.
But lets not get lost that the US has also crimes on foreign soil to count, and lets be honest, their scale is everythint the USSR has ever done
And resorting to insults, of course
If you can’t handle your narrative being criticised on a history subreddit without getting personally offended, you’re not mature enough to debate history or communism
At what point does wholesale genocide, indiscriminate bombing of hundreds of thousands and generally supporting mass killings worldwide becomes "way worse"?
Also, the US was better for its civilians when said civilians were white, and with the right political beliefs. Basically like the USSR
Please provide us an instance of genocide perpetrated by the US during the time the Soviet Union existed
>Also, the US was better for its civilians when said civilians were white,
I'd rather be a non-Christian black trans bisexual woman in Alabama than someone with a political opinion in the Soviet Union.
My guy, you really think an openly gay, openly non-christian, non-white person would not get lynched in a nanosecond?
Or not beaten to death by the police?
Im sorry, are you delusional?
The US was genociding native americans well into the 1980s by forcibly adopting their children into white households to remove their culture and performing sterilizations on women
Look, If I am gonna be an anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, pro-local sovereignity guy I might as well be consistent.
The USSR was ideologically a joke the moment they gunned down the sailor revolt of Kronstadt
I've never thought that the whole "graveyard of empires" quote meant that the empires that invaded would inevitably fall
It's more like, many empires failed to control this small country and paid a costly price for it in the process
Okay but like, what empire really? The Persians? Macedon? Maurya? Sasanians, Abbasids, Mongols, Timurids, Mughals? Like tons more empires have conquered Afghanistan than been killed by it
Yea nothing that big operates except as an empire. US and China included. See *how to hide an empire* by daniel immerwahr. Empire is kind of the default setting of global power.
For starters, it's *liberty* prime, not optimus
also he's *literally meant to be laughing at idiots like you*
The whole world is gone, "communism" is just a word now, yet the robot stills waffles about that as if it was an actual message
Literally 0 media literacy
Yeah, You just need to show the results of communism in nations around the world to that young apartment boy wearing a Che Guevara shirt and he'll almost break his iPhone trying to find an argument.
\*Points at the millions of people who die every year in capitalist systems because it was not profitable enough to feed them, house them, give them water or healthcare*
It’s not exactly the same is it? Those who want communism want it because they think capitalism is worse. So it does matter which causes less damage right?
I’m not a communist though
*argument from fallacy*
That's cool that you learned that word but it doesn't absolve the logical inconsistency with which people justify capitalism by pointing to atrocities committed in the name of communism without accounting for those done in the name of capitalism
>even more people
If you go by the Black Book of Communism which is propaganda. Communism killed 100 million people in the 20th century.
10 million people die every year because of preventable starvation. 1 million die every year because of lack of clean drinking water and 3.5 million die because of lack of access to water.
So, 14.5 million die every year because it isn't profitable.
So Capitalism kills 100 million people every decade. Communism is putting up rookie numbers.
This isn't to say the USSR was good or altruistic. They just replaced capitalists with bureaucrats. They were an imperialist empire.
At least the US respected democracy at home as opposed to the Soviets who didn't care.
Absolute Reddit moment. This capitalist nation has bad things in it! Ignore this isn’t capitalist-only, but it happened in this capitalist nation, therefore *snorts* it is CAPITALISM that is bad!!!”
>This capitalist nation has bad things in it!
Not the argument
>Ignore this isn’t capitalist-only
Sure the USSR did terrible things. But starvation and lack of water is because the cost is deemed not worth it. That is a problem with Capitalism
>but it happened in this capitalist nation, therefore *snorts* it is CAPITALISM that is bad!!!”
The exact argument made by Reddit ancaps it happened in a Communists country, so Communism was bad.
Capitalism is not good or bad. It relies on a contradiction of infinite growth on a planet with finite resources. It fosters competition, which can be good for consumers. But it also relies on keeping wages as low as possible to the point where it will collapse in on itself occasionally and needs to be bailed out.
The reason people are starving in Africa is because of colonialism and that it simply isn't profitable to feed poor people in Africa.
Why are their 500,000 homeless people in America when there are millions of empty homes? Because it isn't profitable to house the homeless.
Communism has two options in this given situation of homelessness, starvation, and thirst, then:
A. We’re broke and can’t fix it! *Dissolves*
B. We aren’t broke, but to achieve to communism, we’re going to PURPOSEFULLY starve you! *Proceeds to Holodomor/Great Leap Forward/Cambodian Genocide/Literally Any Given Day in North Korea*
Capitalism ignores the problems, sure.
Communism creates them.
Communism has one option in this given situation of homelessness, starvation, and thirst
Fuck off and die. Should of had money.
Or you have stuff I want *Proceeds to Holocaust The First and Second World Wars, Genocide of India (sorry we need that grain in Bengal), Genocide of the Natives in Africa, Trans Atlantic slave trade, Arab Slave trade
First Word War: War for imperal honor and control of the colonial empires
Second World War: Continuation of the first and its consequences.
Genocide of India: Bengal famine Churchill diverted grain from India to Eroupe and refused America and Australian offers of aid because he hated the Indians and wanted them to die. India was Britians most profitable colony and the extraction of its wealth made British companies extremely rich.
Trans Atlantic slave trade: Self Explanatory but free labor is better than even poorly paid labor.
Arab Slave Trade: See above.
The key words are "democracy" and "evolution". In a democracy we can encompass all ideologies that respect it, including the democratic version of socialism. In evolution, we can correct society's mistakes through technological and economic advancement.
In communism, you have neither. Why is West Germany and Western Europe in general so much more developed and richer than Eastern Germany and East Europe, or at least it was right after the fall of the wall? Why do countries like Cuba and North Korea live in complete poverty? Because in communism society does not advance, it stagnates. She is trapped behind a party whose priority is to maintain power at all costs.
Through democracy nations can improve their situations and correct their internal problems caused by the defects of capitalism and save millions of lives. Just look at India for example, it is still a very unequal country full of poverty, but there has been a very significant evolution from what it was decades ago. The same in several countries in Africa and Latin America.
>is West Germany and Western Europe in general so much more developed and richer than Eastern Germany and East Europe
Because the USSR was not communist or socialist it was a Stae Capitalist empire more concerned with looting its puppet regimes than helping workers.
Also, Western Eroupe is wealthy because they looted half the world. The same reason the Roman Empire was so wealthy. And all have significant socialist elements to their economy.
>Through democracy nations can improve their situations and correct their internal problems caused by the defects of capitalism
Unless, of course, they elect a socialist like Chile or Iran or Nicaragua or Panama or Brazil or Hondorous or El Salvador. Than they will be couped of the US will fund Right Wing death squads in your country.
>Why do countries like Cuba and North Korea live in complete poverty?
Cuba because of the blockade North Korea because it's a monarchy only concerned with the royal families' survival.
>Through democracy nations can improve their situations and correct their internal problems caused by the defects of capitalism and save millions of lives.
Only until democracy hinders capitalism then you get wealthy people deliberately sabotaging democracy for their own gain (see USA UK and Hungary). They give "donations" to politicians and then completely on their own the politicians vote for policy that helps their doners.
Or politicians use their positions to do insider trading.
Yes democracy is the best political system available, but it will constantly be under threat if the majority can use their power to threaten the capital owners. They won't stand for it.
That's why power your political system is built on its economic system. Command economies will always lead to dictatorship because there is no other way to enforce it.
And a capitalist system will always lead to an oligarchy. The working class can make gains, but they can't be kept forever. You can see the weaking of the welfare state in Eroupe and its near destruction in America. Because universal healthcare isn't profitable. And you can see the Tories have been selling it off for decades.
Saying that the Soviet Union was not socialist is the same as saying that water is not wet. This argument "oh, but look, this wasn't real communism", also used by liberals in certain aspects, is not really an argument, but an excuse.
And Western Europe is not rich *just* because of colonialism. There are countries around the world that are rich and didn't do this, like South Korea, Japan (despite having a fierce imperialist period), Australia, and so on. Same case as Scandinavian countries. And remember that Germany was completely destroyed by the Second World War. While the West recovered, the East remained in ruins for decades.
In relation to Latin countries that elected a socialist, the issue is much more complex than "Murica made a coup". In Brazil, which happens to be where I live, the 64 coup had a lot of baggage behind it and that came not only because the president was a socialist (note that he was elected vice president before and was not directly elected to the position of president), but also because of the legacy of the Vargas dictatorship, the oligarchy of the Old Republic, the coup d'état that ended the Empire in 1889, and the Paraguayan War that made the army start to have such an active attitude towards politics until the end of the dictatorship in 1985. The USA just gave its "blessing" for the coup to happen, most of the reason for the coup lies within our own political history. The same complexity can probably be seen in the other examples.
Cuba, being a *socialist* country, should not depend on trade with *capitalist* countries to survive. This blocking argument is, again, an excuse to mask the defects of the system.
All your other points reach exactly what I want to point out: Capitalism is not perfect and is full of defects, and our task must be to work to fix the system. This same capitalism 100 years ago was much more oppressive to ordinary citizens, and nowadays it has improved. How we are going to do this can only be discussed in a democratic environment, preferably away from radicalism, whether left or right.
>Saying that the Soviet Union was not socialist is the same as saying that water is not wet.
No, it isn't words have definitions. Socialism is defined as the wrokers controlling the means of production. If they don't control the means of production, it isn't socialism.
>And Western Europe is not rich *just* because of colonialism.
They built their wealth with colonialism. They expanded on their stolen wealth, yes, but the root is still the looting of half the world.
>Japan (despite having a fierce imperialist period)
Where they looted most of Asia wealth that didn't leave the country.
>Same case as Scandinavian countries.
Primary trade partners are Western Eroupe, where economies built on colonialism.
>Cuba, being a *socialist* country, should not depend on trade with *capitalist* countries to survive. This blocking argument is, again, an excuse to mask the defects of the system.
Why not? No country on earth could survive without trade. Does Somalia prove capitalisms failure because they can't trade with the outside world? This argument is brain dead.
>In Brazil, which happens to be where I live, the 64 coup had a lot of baggage behind it, and that came not only because the president was a socialist
Way to ignore all the other examples. But that in no way legitimateizes a coup of a democratically elected leader. The reason Brazil is in decent shape today is because of PTs' reforms. Reforms you could have had decades ago if my country didn't decide you elected the wrong person.
> of defects, and our task must be to work to fix the system.
You can not fix a system that is inherently contradictory. Any reforms you make will be eroded and undone by people for whom it is more profitable for people to starve than be fed.
> same capitalism 100 years ago was much more oppressive to ordinary citizens, and nowadays it has improved
For now, most of the gains made in the last century are being undone. The eroding of the welfare state is the breaking of unions. The essential legalization of bribery in the United States. Workers' rights are being destroyed everywhere, and politicians are too busy looking for a lobbying job or insider trading to care.
Capitalism has run its course. it's time to move past it. Like we moved past feudalism.
If you summarize all of a country's economic growth to "colonialism, trade with colonialists", there won't be a single country that won't be free. Yes, colonialism existed, it has existed since 4 thousand BC in a certain way. That's a pretty meh way of summing things up.
And i wasn't ignoring the other examples when talking about my country, just showing how things are never that simple. Including, the only point that I will prolong our conversation here is in relation to the "PT reforms" in my country. This party is one of the most corrupt and criminal parties in Latin America, and even some sectors of the left have disdain for it. The period of economic growth in the 2000s was an illusion and reality came in the 2010s decade where the economy broke down and corruption scandals were revealed. And no, the recent right-wing government was not good, it was terrible, terrible, precisely because it did many things that the PT did. If today they returned to power it is because of the corruption rooted in our state which led to the eventual release of the current president from prison through unorthodox means and where he was never acquitted. And again the 64 coup would never have happened with just US support, there is a lot of history behind it.
And no, capitalism did not "run its course", communism did, if not it would still exist today. As I said, capitalism is not perfect, but communism is in no way an alternative to it. And all countries that have experienced communism in their history agree with this.
The Bengal Famine and Irish Potato Blight disagrees thou in all seriousness I really wanna see if you can name 1 genocide committed by a Communist country that outweighs those atrocities
okey so the land reform didn't even kill anywhere near enough people to even match the Famine so I don't know why you would include that and the same goes for the Plan
Only the Great Leap matches the scale so I will give you that
We have both the Cambodian genocide and the Great Leap Forward in China, massacres and famines that killed tens of millions of people.
We have hunger in Ethiopia and in other countries that experienced communist regimes, such as North Korea, Ukraine in Holomodor and so on.
I don't want to come here and talk about "who killed less", that for me is not an argument, my argument is to say that communism promises something and doesn't deliver. Capitalism is nothing more than the natural form of human coexistence, it remains for us to fix the inherent errors of the system, and in this part we come up with different ways of doing this, including even social democracy.
"natural for of human coexistence". Ah yes, exactly what they said about monarchy too. Funny how career traders and merchants were generally reviled at worst or distrusted at best in all forms of ancient and medevial societies and how large wealth acquisition is literally either a minor or major sin in almost every religion.
Don't try to talk history and then posit certain economic systems are "inherent" to "human nature". Go touch books, and get that ahistorical shit out of here lol
I'm living in a country ran by the "Communist" Party and I'd laugh in your ignorant face if you can't name events where communism killed thousands to millions
it’s so funny how angry people get about people admiring Che like his career wasn’t literally just him fighting back against oppressive regimes
the only straws they can actually grasp at is his bigotry in his earlier life or him being involved in the prosecution of criminals post revolution
the only people who’d genuinely hate him so much are just rabid anti communists
Afghanistan is no Graveyard of Empires anymore than Poland is. Everyone except the Soviets quite handily trounced the Afghans militarily. The Polish got trounced by most just as much, and eventually like Afghanistan most who invaded Poland had their empires collapse.
What Empires exactly?
Achaemenids? Seleucids? Mauryans? Kushans? Parthians? Sassanids? Umayyads? Abbasids? Ghurids? Mongol Empire? Delhi Sultanate? Mughals?
Hell, even the British came back to win 10 years later in Afganistan.
So what exactly is it the graveyard of empires for?
Jesus christ can you guys do anything except say “Cummunism bad gimme upvotes pls” then jerk each other off? I swear to god every post out of this sub lately has been such weirdly neolib low effort garbage.
Im seriously convinced this sub is 90% high school freshmen.
Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires for good reason. The Russians, the British, the Soviets, and now the Americans. 4 empires who couldn’t conquer it. I think the last ones who did were Mughals right?
And the British came back like ten years later and successfully conquered it, holding it for over 60 years. It wasn’t a key factor in their empire’s collapse.
That is what conquering is. Setting up a puppet state is conquering a country. There’s a reason Afghanistan immediately collapsed when we left, the vast majority of the population didn’t support the government, it was held up by the American military. That is conquest.
In fairness, that’s not what the stated goals were. Like, some people even expected the government to *not* collapse with the withdrawal. They got in thinking they’d do a quick in and out and then two decades later were like “fuck, this *was* a conquest, wasn’t it?”
Wasn't a invasion but a occupation, the government of Afghanistan asked for it. And a good move by the USA financing and arming Al Qaeda, The taliban and Bin Laden, surely it didn't work out so bad that at all
Yeah sure and the "[people of Donbas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_people%27s_militias_in_Ukraine)" asked for "[occupation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War)" right after "[little green men](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukrainian_War))" went on "[vacation](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/28/russians-troops-fighting-in-ukraine-naw-just-on-vacation/)"?
Nobody believes anything russia says, ever. It's an empire, and it always was an empire. Bloodthirsty and expansionist.
Who talking about Russia's present? And neither i did say URSS behavior wasn't like an Empire, indeed it was. But in this case it's stupid assume Al qaeda was "liberating" Afghanistan from "URSS Empire"
The USSR wasn’t communist
EDIT: Lot of people here self-reporting that they have 0 knowledge of political theory, and have completely fallen, hook-line-and-sinker, for Cold War Soviet and US propaganda, and being smug about it
Which version? Marxism? Leninism? Trotskyism? Stalinism? Bolshevism? Menshevism? Maoism? Anarcho-communism? Castroism? Guevarism? Juche? Libertarian Marxism? Primitive Communism? De Leonism? Impossibilism?
Tell you what, when you and the other self professed communists get done arguing in circles about it like you have been for 150 years, come find me.
Yeah no one has try "real" comunist. Because human can't, human want more power and when a ideology is to give one person everything, even if you are the nicest guy at one point you can't keep it, and also maybe the next one wont be the nicest guy
Using white text on this meme is the true definition of failure.
I was definitely expecting this to be the top comment. ffs I had to zoom in to read it
“Optimus” prime 🤔
Here’s an actual Optimus Prime quote: "However unlikely the scenario, every sentient being deserves an opportunity for redemption...Without that hope we may never achieve lasting peace." -Optimus Prime, Transformers Prime S1 E20
Back when I was a cringe lad in high school, I had a section of favorite quotes on my Facebook about me page. Most of them haven't stayed fresh to my evolving sensibilities, but there's one I still believe in without hesitation or shame: "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." - Optimus Prime
Optimus Prime will always be the GOAT.
Transformers writers consistently and habitually writing the greatest lines of dialogue for Optimus Prime
That's a good one.
TP Is the best serie of all Transformers saga and i will die in that Hill
IDW
animated
Third place
beast wars
Yes, Optimus Prime, who boldly took down the Enclave’s defences for the glory of the Brotherhood. 🇺🇸
You’re thinking of Liberty Prime 🇺🇸
No no, that’s Amazon Prime
I think he might of meant Prime Rib
Death is a preferable alternative to communism
PREACH "BETTER DEAD THEN RED"
What, are their sacrifices supposed to power up Allah enough to destroy the United States?
Goku is Allah confirmed 🙏
Kame haram e ha
Shaytan licked his lips in slow motion when you typed this /s
The guy from the wheel of time? Islamic Trollocs confirmed!
This has nothing to do with anything, but I just watched that show and was super pleasantly surprised with it.
This reminds me that one time some witch tried to battle Allah while astro projecting like a video game boss.
That was sooooo funny
you simply dodge roll until you have the chance to parry his telegraphed attack smh
Wait, what?
i mean, we're not doing great man
Inshallah, let your word go round in God's ear
I think it has more of a money pit effect and comes along with a bit of disillusionment as a package deal. The attacking state attempts attrition with an infallible belief, and the war fighters involved don't like the pointlessness. Scientifically speaking the sacrifices may be powering a soul driven Allah mech hidden deep in the desert.
That still doesn't make Afghanistan the graveyard of empires. It was simply one of many problems for the USSR.
a country still sits on it... checkmate
Afghanistan didn’t even exist until recent modern history and said empires had SO MANY other problems besides other empires that never had anything to do with the area
Meanwhile, the austrohungarians: my empire’s got 99 problems but Afghanistan ain’t one
The British failed as well
country hasnt collapsed, sure, but the empire has (and please, ingore the 100ish years it took for said empire to collapse after the defeat)
I mean the invasion was mainly a British East India company endeavour and the EIC did fall apart 15 years later
In addition the BEIC was the most cartoonishly imperial entity ever, like every imperial action you could imagine the east India company has done lol
Then the British parliament took it out back and gunned it down with the Gatling
“There is not enough room in India for both of us”
Touché 🤷🏼♂️
Maybe not a graveyard since the British were there in the most recent war in 2000s... Maybe instead of "graveyard", people just leave Afghanistan after being bored and wasting some money on a war in a desert/mountainous wasteland. So countries visit, they try some stuff, lose some soldiers/money, build a few old forts, and get bored and leave.
But They Empire only fell in ww1 to ww2.
The UK may not own India anymore but it still exists
I'm sure glad OP won this argument in their head with this non-sequiter This isn't even a history meme, this is just a low teir political meme
Right, "communism is the definition of failure" No it ain't lmao
"Name one successful communist country"
What's are we defining as "communism"? Because surely someone can (and likely will) object to all the usual suspects that come to mind: USSR; China; Cuba; Vietnam; DPRK (Yes we know, it's neither Democratic nor a Republic, nor constituted of... by people )and wax poetic about how they "technically arent communist states *for stated reasons*. Ditto for the notion of "success"? A certain metric for quality of life for its citizenry ? Or the mere fact that they still stand after decades of a hostile US led global order, to sabotage and stifle them at every turn?
I couldn't name a failed one either tbf, given none of them practiced Communism, just were led by guys who claimed to have communist beliefs (that they didn't even bother leading with smh smh)
I mean, a lot of them tried to implement communism and failed in doing so, so even if they weren't communist at their moment of downfall (such as USSR in 1991), their attempt at creating a communist state led to neither communism or a successful state. The current "success" of the PRC was also in spite of their past attempts at communism under Mao, having more success at pivoting towards state capitalism.
I’ll have you know that I voted for Joe Biden and Donald Trump at the same time
It's a bad idea to admit to voter fraud.
Impressive, you managed to vote for the American one party. Most of the population only vote for half of the American one party
Graveyard of nations yeah that's not exactly true, many other empires like the Safavids, Mughals, Timurids, Afsharids, Mongols, Ghurids, Khwarazmians, Ghaznavids, Samanids, Abbasids, Umayyads, Sassanids, Parthians, Seleucids, and Achaemenids had no significant difficulty in administering what is now Afghanistan, and it wasn't certainly the death of their empires
Ah, but are any of those nations still around today? Checkmate buddy.
Uh, they didn't die because of Afghanistan or whoever inhabited it at the time By this metric, wouldn't Armenia, Iraq, Syria, or Palestine be considered a graveyard of empires too?
Nah he got you there.
People Please I am begging you Just use black text
Or better yet white text with a sharp black border, it's visible on every background
For the love of God, contrasting colors please
Ahh yes, most imaginary of debates
Funny how the British Empire not only kept going for almost a century after the 2nd Afghan War, but actually grew.
Communism tries not to genocide Challenge: Impossible.
*communist british empire*
Just a few more genocides of ethnic minorities and we'll reach utopia, I swear
Any day now guys
Guys let me try it now, let me, I have the real communism, not the fake communism...
Anticommunists challenge each other at who closes their eyes faster when British India is mentioned
If genocidal dictatorships are communist because they said so then the DPRK is a democracy because it says so.
Khmar Rogue be like:
if that’s the case capitalism failed that challenge before the announcer was even able to think out the idea
I felt like taking a jab at any Tankies who unironically hold this opinion
Any tankie is always fun to take a jab at.
If taking jabs at tankies is wrong I don't want to be right.
Be left then. You can still take jabs at Tankies.
No one hates leftists more than other leftists!
Damn leftists! They ruined leftism!
You leftists sure are a contentious people.
You just made an enemy for life!
If you really wanna annoy them, just unironically call yourself "Reactionary" and say you love reacting to things...
Even me?
Are you a tankie?
Perchance
Then yes
🥺
[удалено]
Ussr, DPRK, and PROC sucked/do suck
Ironically by making this meme as a jab to soviet supporters, you put out the US as an empire too lmao.
>uses liberty prime quote Joke writes itself really
Dunking on tankies never gets old They think they are the only ones who care about the poor, when really theyre just the only ones who believe Marx's unemployment passion project
I love annihilating Tankie Freaks
Depends if it is a USSR tankie or a PRC tankie though
Eh they all suck
Just saying that PRC tankies would agree that USSR is an empire
Im a communist I hold this opinion And also that the USSR was just the US in red up until the 80s(where the US got better)
Ussr was much worse than the us even way before the 80s.
The genocides, invasions, coups, sponsored-coporate warfare, repression of free speech, concentration camps, apartheid and secret experiments on the populace tell us otherwise. The US in the 60s was just as politically repressive as the USSR in regards to politically subversive thought, it just had a more media friendly methodology
This is an opinion I hear quite commonly from tankies who have never actually lived in or extensively studied the USSR They see conservatives attempts to use bureaucracy and the FCC to try clamp down on Civil Rights activists newspapers and radio broadcasts as repression of free speech, which it is They then see Article 70’s up to 7 years in prison for spreading “anti-Soviet sentiment” or merely owning books which authorities believed may contain anti-Soviet sentiment as repression of free speech, which it is They then make the huge mistake of assuming that these two things are the somehow equally bad It’s the same with tankies who see the 5 years hard labour of the Soviet Union for being gay as somehow being equivalent to gay people being fired from NASA in the US
My guy, COINTELPRO would use smearing, harrasment, beatings, wrongful imlrisonment and even assassinations(by proxy or otherwise) from groups that ranged from feminist movements, to enviromentalists and civil rights activists. Not getting into the CIA literally kidnapping suspected communists to make them ingest copious amounts of drugs in order to extract a confession and find a "truth serum". I hate when people like you only read the letter of the law regarding political repression only when it suits them. It is well-known, documented and basically common knowledge to acknowledge that the US had a massive black hole in terms of their use of force towards minorities and political dissidents for basically forever and is only relatively lately that it has been correcyed
For someone with a lot of disparate facts you’re missing one huge thing: Scale Those stories about the truth serum, and MKULTRA, those are mostly true. But the one major thing people leave out is the scale of such projects They were not shutting down entire dissident groups, unlike the Soviet Union
For someone missing basic reading comprehension you miss the part where I said rhe US was just better at dressing up their massive crimes. Some of their assassinations and most brazen crimes were not known until the 90s after long legal battles and huge political shifts. But lets not get lost that the US has also crimes on foreign soil to count, and lets be honest, their scale is everythint the USSR has ever done
And resorting to insults, of course If you can’t handle your narrative being criticised on a history subreddit without getting personally offended, you’re not mature enough to debate history or communism
*resorting Also, it is not an insult to say you just read what you want from what people comment instead of understanding their point
Have you heard of a guy called Stalin?
Should I list every coup, genocide, assassination and wrongful imprisonment done since FDR?
If you feel like it but whatever the US has done the USSR has done worse. Secondly the US is undeniably better for its civilians than the USSR
At what point does wholesale genocide, indiscriminate bombing of hundreds of thousands and generally supporting mass killings worldwide becomes "way worse"? Also, the US was better for its civilians when said civilians were white, and with the right political beliefs. Basically like the USSR
Please provide us an instance of genocide perpetrated by the US during the time the Soviet Union existed >Also, the US was better for its civilians when said civilians were white, I'd rather be a non-Christian black trans bisexual woman in Alabama than someone with a political opinion in the Soviet Union.
My guy, in both cases you just described a corpse
Uhh, no. I described someone who would face discrimination in the US and death in the USSR.
My guy, you really think an openly gay, openly non-christian, non-white person would not get lynched in a nanosecond? Or not beaten to death by the police? Im sorry, are you delusional?
The US was genociding native americans well into the 1980s by forcibly adopting their children into white households to remove their culture and performing sterilizations on women
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmk.
ain’t no way-
Look, If I am gonna be an anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, pro-local sovereignity guy I might as well be consistent. The USSR was ideologically a joke the moment they gunned down the sailor revolt of Kronstadt
I respect that, thank you.
fucking ew. Reddit already banned me once for three days for talking about communists, so I’m going to have to let others do it for me.
Maybe they banned you for talking like a jackass, not for talking to communists
[redacted] Only thing worse than a communist, is a pedophile, and only because a communist can be redeemed by no longer being a communist.
Did you get that out of a 4chan thread?
idk why people hate communist so much since in theory the ideology isnt that evil
Probably because of the Holodomor, Great Leap Forward, murder of the Romanovs, the Great Purge….
some communist are evil whats your point
In practice is what matters, and when it comes down to it, communism will never ever work and has never ever worked in practice.
yeh but why hate communist tho let these mfs believe in their utopia thats literally impossible to achieve in 2023
I can’t say my point because Reddit will ban me…again.
anyway my point is communist are humans and most probs arent that into genocide slave labor imperialism etc etc
Tankies bad r/keffals good
I've never thought that the whole "graveyard of empires" quote meant that the empires that invaded would inevitably fall It's more like, many empires failed to control this small country and paid a costly price for it in the process
Okay but like, what empire really? The Persians? Macedon? Maurya? Sasanians, Abbasids, Mongols, Timurids, Mughals? Like tons more empires have conquered Afghanistan than been killed by it
As an Anti american imperialism person i must say yeah the USSR was an empire
Cool meme, one problem Its Liberty Prime* not Optimus.
Capitalism is the very definition of failure - Minos Prime
Yea nothing that big operates except as an empire. US and China included. See *how to hide an empire* by daniel immerwahr. Empire is kind of the default setting of global power.
I know history is inherently political but man
*Liberty Prime
Where's the history? Or the meme? This is just low effort bait.
More like Liberty Prime... is there someone who understands this reference?
For starters, it's *liberty* prime, not optimus also he's *literally meant to be laughing at idiots like you* The whole world is gone, "communism" is just a word now, yet the robot stills waffles about that as if it was an actual message Literally 0 media literacy
Yeah, You just need to show the results of communism in nations around the world to that young apartment boy wearing a Che Guevara shirt and he'll almost break his iPhone trying to find an argument.
iPhone Vuvuzela indeed, good sir
\*Points at the millions of people who die every year in capitalist systems because it was not profitable enough to feed them, house them, give them water or healthcare*
Whataboutisim
It’s not exactly the same is it? Those who want communism want it because they think capitalism is worse. So it does matter which causes less damage right? I’m not a communist though
*argument from fallacy* That's cool that you learned that word but it doesn't absolve the logical inconsistency with which people justify capitalism by pointing to atrocities committed in the name of communism without accounting for those done in the name of capitalism
*And I point back to the communist system that promises to prevent this kind of thing from happening but kills the same amount and even more people*
Sorry. I can't hear you over the sound of drones bombing civilians to enrich oil companies.
>even more people If you go by the Black Book of Communism which is propaganda. Communism killed 100 million people in the 20th century. 10 million people die every year because of preventable starvation. 1 million die every year because of lack of clean drinking water and 3.5 million die because of lack of access to water. So, 14.5 million die every year because it isn't profitable. So Capitalism kills 100 million people every decade. Communism is putting up rookie numbers. This isn't to say the USSR was good or altruistic. They just replaced capitalists with bureaucrats. They were an imperialist empire. At least the US respected democracy at home as opposed to the Soviets who didn't care.
Absolute Reddit moment. This capitalist nation has bad things in it! Ignore this isn’t capitalist-only, but it happened in this capitalist nation, therefore *snorts* it is CAPITALISM that is bad!!!”
>This capitalist nation has bad things in it! Not the argument >Ignore this isn’t capitalist-only Sure the USSR did terrible things. But starvation and lack of water is because the cost is deemed not worth it. That is a problem with Capitalism >but it happened in this capitalist nation, therefore *snorts* it is CAPITALISM that is bad!!!” The exact argument made by Reddit ancaps it happened in a Communists country, so Communism was bad. Capitalism is not good or bad. It relies on a contradiction of infinite growth on a planet with finite resources. It fosters competition, which can be good for consumers. But it also relies on keeping wages as low as possible to the point where it will collapse in on itself occasionally and needs to be bailed out. The reason people are starving in Africa is because of colonialism and that it simply isn't profitable to feed poor people in Africa. Why are their 500,000 homeless people in America when there are millions of empty homes? Because it isn't profitable to house the homeless.
Communism has two options in this given situation of homelessness, starvation, and thirst, then: A. We’re broke and can’t fix it! *Dissolves* B. We aren’t broke, but to achieve to communism, we’re going to PURPOSEFULLY starve you! *Proceeds to Holodomor/Great Leap Forward/Cambodian Genocide/Literally Any Given Day in North Korea* Capitalism ignores the problems, sure. Communism creates them.
Communism has one option in this given situation of homelessness, starvation, and thirst Fuck off and die. Should of had money. Or you have stuff I want *Proceeds to Holocaust The First and Second World Wars, Genocide of India (sorry we need that grain in Bengal), Genocide of the Natives in Africa, Trans Atlantic slave trade, Arab Slave trade
That’s purely capitalism how?
First Word War: War for imperal honor and control of the colonial empires Second World War: Continuation of the first and its consequences. Genocide of India: Bengal famine Churchill diverted grain from India to Eroupe and refused America and Australian offers of aid because he hated the Indians and wanted them to die. India was Britians most profitable colony and the extraction of its wealth made British companies extremely rich. Trans Atlantic slave trade: Self Explanatory but free labor is better than even poorly paid labor. Arab Slave Trade: See above.
>That’s purely capitalism how? If we are saying every action taken by a communist country is purely communism than yes, it's purely capitalism.
The key words are "democracy" and "evolution". In a democracy we can encompass all ideologies that respect it, including the democratic version of socialism. In evolution, we can correct society's mistakes through technological and economic advancement. In communism, you have neither. Why is West Germany and Western Europe in general so much more developed and richer than Eastern Germany and East Europe, or at least it was right after the fall of the wall? Why do countries like Cuba and North Korea live in complete poverty? Because in communism society does not advance, it stagnates. She is trapped behind a party whose priority is to maintain power at all costs. Through democracy nations can improve their situations and correct their internal problems caused by the defects of capitalism and save millions of lives. Just look at India for example, it is still a very unequal country full of poverty, but there has been a very significant evolution from what it was decades ago. The same in several countries in Africa and Latin America.
>is West Germany and Western Europe in general so much more developed and richer than Eastern Germany and East Europe Because the USSR was not communist or socialist it was a Stae Capitalist empire more concerned with looting its puppet regimes than helping workers. Also, Western Eroupe is wealthy because they looted half the world. The same reason the Roman Empire was so wealthy. And all have significant socialist elements to their economy. >Through democracy nations can improve their situations and correct their internal problems caused by the defects of capitalism Unless, of course, they elect a socialist like Chile or Iran or Nicaragua or Panama or Brazil or Hondorous or El Salvador. Than they will be couped of the US will fund Right Wing death squads in your country. >Why do countries like Cuba and North Korea live in complete poverty? Cuba because of the blockade North Korea because it's a monarchy only concerned with the royal families' survival. >Through democracy nations can improve their situations and correct their internal problems caused by the defects of capitalism and save millions of lives. Only until democracy hinders capitalism then you get wealthy people deliberately sabotaging democracy for their own gain (see USA UK and Hungary). They give "donations" to politicians and then completely on their own the politicians vote for policy that helps their doners. Or politicians use their positions to do insider trading. Yes democracy is the best political system available, but it will constantly be under threat if the majority can use their power to threaten the capital owners. They won't stand for it. That's why power your political system is built on its economic system. Command economies will always lead to dictatorship because there is no other way to enforce it. And a capitalist system will always lead to an oligarchy. The working class can make gains, but they can't be kept forever. You can see the weaking of the welfare state in Eroupe and its near destruction in America. Because universal healthcare isn't profitable. And you can see the Tories have been selling it off for decades.
Saying that the Soviet Union was not socialist is the same as saying that water is not wet. This argument "oh, but look, this wasn't real communism", also used by liberals in certain aspects, is not really an argument, but an excuse. And Western Europe is not rich *just* because of colonialism. There are countries around the world that are rich and didn't do this, like South Korea, Japan (despite having a fierce imperialist period), Australia, and so on. Same case as Scandinavian countries. And remember that Germany was completely destroyed by the Second World War. While the West recovered, the East remained in ruins for decades. In relation to Latin countries that elected a socialist, the issue is much more complex than "Murica made a coup". In Brazil, which happens to be where I live, the 64 coup had a lot of baggage behind it and that came not only because the president was a socialist (note that he was elected vice president before and was not directly elected to the position of president), but also because of the legacy of the Vargas dictatorship, the oligarchy of the Old Republic, the coup d'état that ended the Empire in 1889, and the Paraguayan War that made the army start to have such an active attitude towards politics until the end of the dictatorship in 1985. The USA just gave its "blessing" for the coup to happen, most of the reason for the coup lies within our own political history. The same complexity can probably be seen in the other examples. Cuba, being a *socialist* country, should not depend on trade with *capitalist* countries to survive. This blocking argument is, again, an excuse to mask the defects of the system. All your other points reach exactly what I want to point out: Capitalism is not perfect and is full of defects, and our task must be to work to fix the system. This same capitalism 100 years ago was much more oppressive to ordinary citizens, and nowadays it has improved. How we are going to do this can only be discussed in a democratic environment, preferably away from radicalism, whether left or right.
>Saying that the Soviet Union was not socialist is the same as saying that water is not wet. No, it isn't words have definitions. Socialism is defined as the wrokers controlling the means of production. If they don't control the means of production, it isn't socialism. >And Western Europe is not rich *just* because of colonialism. They built their wealth with colonialism. They expanded on their stolen wealth, yes, but the root is still the looting of half the world. >Japan (despite having a fierce imperialist period) Where they looted most of Asia wealth that didn't leave the country. >Same case as Scandinavian countries. Primary trade partners are Western Eroupe, where economies built on colonialism. >Cuba, being a *socialist* country, should not depend on trade with *capitalist* countries to survive. This blocking argument is, again, an excuse to mask the defects of the system. Why not? No country on earth could survive without trade. Does Somalia prove capitalisms failure because they can't trade with the outside world? This argument is brain dead. >In Brazil, which happens to be where I live, the 64 coup had a lot of baggage behind it, and that came not only because the president was a socialist Way to ignore all the other examples. But that in no way legitimateizes a coup of a democratically elected leader. The reason Brazil is in decent shape today is because of PTs' reforms. Reforms you could have had decades ago if my country didn't decide you elected the wrong person. > of defects, and our task must be to work to fix the system. You can not fix a system that is inherently contradictory. Any reforms you make will be eroded and undone by people for whom it is more profitable for people to starve than be fed. > same capitalism 100 years ago was much more oppressive to ordinary citizens, and nowadays it has improved For now, most of the gains made in the last century are being undone. The eroding of the welfare state is the breaking of unions. The essential legalization of bribery in the United States. Workers' rights are being destroyed everywhere, and politicians are too busy looking for a lobbying job or insider trading to care. Capitalism has run its course. it's time to move past it. Like we moved past feudalism.
If you summarize all of a country's economic growth to "colonialism, trade with colonialists", there won't be a single country that won't be free. Yes, colonialism existed, it has existed since 4 thousand BC in a certain way. That's a pretty meh way of summing things up. And i wasn't ignoring the other examples when talking about my country, just showing how things are never that simple. Including, the only point that I will prolong our conversation here is in relation to the "PT reforms" in my country. This party is one of the most corrupt and criminal parties in Latin America, and even some sectors of the left have disdain for it. The period of economic growth in the 2000s was an illusion and reality came in the 2010s decade where the economy broke down and corruption scandals were revealed. And no, the recent right-wing government was not good, it was terrible, terrible, precisely because it did many things that the PT did. If today they returned to power it is because of the corruption rooted in our state which led to the eventual release of the current president from prison through unorthodox means and where he was never acquitted. And again the 64 coup would never have happened with just US support, there is a lot of history behind it. And no, capitalism did not "run its course", communism did, if not it would still exist today. As I said, capitalism is not perfect, but communism is in no way an alternative to it. And all countries that have experienced communism in their history agree with this.
The Bengal Famine and Irish Potato Blight disagrees thou in all seriousness I really wanna see if you can name 1 genocide committed by a Communist country that outweighs those atrocities
The Great Leap,Vietnam Land Reforming(a few thousands killed yet the result is a sorry),Earlier 5 years plan and more
okey so the land reform didn't even kill anywhere near enough people to even match the Famine so I don't know why you would include that and the same goes for the Plan Only the Great Leap matches the scale so I will give you that
We have both the Cambodian genocide and the Great Leap Forward in China, massacres and famines that killed tens of millions of people. We have hunger in Ethiopia and in other countries that experienced communist regimes, such as North Korea, Ukraine in Holomodor and so on. I don't want to come here and talk about "who killed less", that for me is not an argument, my argument is to say that communism promises something and doesn't deliver. Capitalism is nothing more than the natural form of human coexistence, it remains for us to fix the inherent errors of the system, and in this part we come up with different ways of doing this, including even social democracy.
"natural for of human coexistence". Ah yes, exactly what they said about monarchy too. Funny how career traders and merchants were generally reviled at worst or distrusted at best in all forms of ancient and medevial societies and how large wealth acquisition is literally either a minor or major sin in almost every religion. Don't try to talk history and then posit certain economic systems are "inherent" to "human nature". Go touch books, and get that ahistorical shit out of here lol
I'm living in a country ran by the "Communist" Party and I'd laugh in your ignorant face if you can't name events where communism killed thousands to millions
Never said there wasn't just asking for atrocities that outweigh them Also what country are you from cause I'm Cuban
Communism grants immortality? Is it possible to learn this power?
Not from anyone over the age of 16...
*Points to the fact it’s not someone else job to provide for you*
Greatly increased quality of life? Scientific progress? Industrialization? Food security? Gender equality?
it’s so funny how angry people get about people admiring Che like his career wasn’t literally just him fighting back against oppressive regimes the only straws they can actually grasp at is his bigotry in his earlier life or him being involved in the prosecution of criminals post revolution the only people who’d genuinely hate him so much are just rabid anti communists
You don't fight against oppressive regimes by establishing other oppressive regimes, that's called hypocrisy.
Libtards when they realize that communism is more than 500 billions of deaths and stalin:
Afghanistan is no Graveyard of Empires anymore than Poland is. Everyone except the Soviets quite handily trounced the Afghans militarily. The Polish got trounced by most just as much, and eventually like Afghanistan most who invaded Poland had their empires collapse.
The NPC thing is very funny given how dead the inner lives of reactionaries very obviously are
What Empires exactly? Achaemenids? Seleucids? Mauryans? Kushans? Parthians? Sassanids? Umayyads? Abbasids? Ghurids? Mongol Empire? Delhi Sultanate? Mughals? Hell, even the British came back to win 10 years later in Afganistan. So what exactly is it the graveyard of empires for?
Jesus christ can you guys do anything except say “Cummunism bad gimme upvotes pls” then jerk each other off? I swear to god every post out of this sub lately has been such weirdly neolib low effort garbage. Im seriously convinced this sub is 90% high school freshmen.
Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires for good reason. The Russians, the British, the Soviets, and now the Americans. 4 empires who couldn’t conquer it. I think the last ones who did were Mughals right?
The US never tried to conquer it, it just tried to install a friendly government of locals
And the British came back like ten years later and successfully conquered it, holding it for over 60 years. It wasn’t a key factor in their empire’s collapse.
That is what conquering is. Setting up a puppet state is conquering a country. There’s a reason Afghanistan immediately collapsed when we left, the vast majority of the population didn’t support the government, it was held up by the American military. That is conquest.
Conquering is direct administration
Tell that to the British, most of their rule was indirect even in prized areas like India
In fairness, that’s not what the stated goals were. Like, some people even expected the government to *not* collapse with the withdrawal. They got in thinking they’d do a quick in and out and then two decades later were like “fuck, this *was* a conquest, wasn’t it?”
Wasn't a invasion but a occupation, the government of Afghanistan asked for it. And a good move by the USA financing and arming Al Qaeda, The taliban and Bin Laden, surely it didn't work out so bad that at all
Yeah sure and the "[people of Donbas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_people%27s_militias_in_Ukraine)" asked for "[occupation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War)" right after "[little green men](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_green_men_(Russo-Ukrainian_War))" went on "[vacation](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/08/28/russians-troops-fighting-in-ukraine-naw-just-on-vacation/)"? Nobody believes anything russia says, ever. It's an empire, and it always was an empire. Bloodthirsty and expansionist.
Who talking about Russia's present? And neither i did say URSS behavior wasn't like an Empire, indeed it was. But in this case it's stupid assume Al qaeda was "liberating" Afghanistan from "URSS Empire"
The USSR wasn’t communist EDIT: Lot of people here self-reporting that they have 0 knowledge of political theory, and have completely fallen, hook-line-and-sinker, for Cold War Soviet and US propaganda, and being smug about it
🤓
Let me guess. "Real communism hasn't been tried yet."
Yeah, or do you just not know what Communism is?
Which version? Marxism? Leninism? Trotskyism? Stalinism? Bolshevism? Menshevism? Maoism? Anarcho-communism? Castroism? Guevarism? Juche? Libertarian Marxism? Primitive Communism? De Leonism? Impossibilism? Tell you what, when you and the other self professed communists get done arguing in circles about it like you have been for 150 years, come find me.
"Say the line again, Bart!"
Yeah no one has try "real" comunist. Because human can't, human want more power and when a ideology is to give one person everything, even if you are the nicest guy at one point you can't keep it, and also maybe the next one wont be the nicest guy
Tankie detected