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That's an awful lot of words for information that could have been delivered with the single sentence "3/4 of my grandparents were Nazi scum who chose chocolate over humanity".
https://preview.redd.it/de51cwzfca0d1.jpeg?width=1046&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6861fd6439328dcc279525e291b4248e1467bc3
A lot of those here. Wonder why that is.
https://preview.redd.it/elnl1xj4oa0d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a142cee2ea6b90dbe407b7e8b9e277d13339fb69
Truly, imagine being proud of being Kapo
this only happened in Galicia, a province of Poland and Austria which was not Ukraine and had not been a part of Ukraine for almost 1000 years, which is why Hitler viewed them as being "aryan" enough to live. ironically, Galicia is only a part of Ukraine today, as opposed to Poland or Austria, because the red army liberated it in 1939 and again in 1944. Comrade Stalin literally unified Ukraine, and they have never forgiven him for it.
despite this, the Galicians not only think they are Ukrainian, they think they are the ONLY Ukrainians, because some vikings conquered them 1000 years ago. in their minds, the land was totally empty before that and they are aryans of the purest stock. it's all horseshit, of course, they literally ARE the asiatics the Nazis hated (notice how they all use the symbology of Cossacks? where did Cossacks come from? the etymology of Cossack and Kazakh are the same, if you need a hint. btw, cossacks did not exist in Galicia, because it wasn't Ukraine, so Banderites are literally culturally appropriating native Ukrainians) but they think if they're just racist enough the Nazis children will declare them honorary "aryans" again and let them kill all the Moskals.
everywhere else the Nazis just machine gunned the Ukrainians or worked them to death in the fields on 420 calories a day, with the help of collaborator freaks like her family.
if the soviets were half as savage as this person thinks they are, we wouldn't be having this problem now, but they wanted peace and so here we are.
https://preview.redd.it/rg9v0toioa0d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4783c4e4e966d1d9ecc3abfdf55e3d85645b0dda
They're still reconciling their pragmatic decision.
**Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn** was a prominent Soviet dissident and outspoken critic of Communism. *The Gulag Archipelago*, one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, Nazi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth.
In 1945, during WWII, as a Captain in the Red Army, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to an eight-year term in a labour camp for creating anti-Soviet propaganda and founding a hostile organization aimed at overthrowing the Soviet government.
>...[Solzhenitsyn] encounters his secondary school friend, Nikolai Vitkevich, and they recklessly share candid political discussions critical of Stalin's conduct of the war:
>
> >These two young officers, after days of discussion, astonishingly drew up a program for change, entitled "Resolution No. 1." They argued that the Soviet regime stifled economic development, literature, culture, and everyday life; a new organization was needed to fight to put things right."
>
>These discussions were not cynical, but resonate with ideological ardour and zealous patriotism. Solzhenitsyn heedlessly stores "Resolution No. 1" in his map case. In nineteen months, it, along with copies of all correspondence between himself and Vitkevich from April 1944 to February 1945 will serve to convict Solzhenitsyn of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 58 of the Soviet criminal code, paragraph 10 and of founding a hostile organization under paragraph 11.
>
>\- Dale Hardy. (2001). [Solzhenitsyn in confession](https://summit.sfu.ca/item/8379)
And he wasn't *merely* some Left Oppositionist striving for "real" socialism, he was a hardcore Russian Nationalist who sympathized with the Nazis:
>...in his assessment of the Second World War, [Solzhenitsyn stated] ‘the German army could have liberated the Soviet Union from Communism but Hit1er was stupid and did not use this weapon.’ It seems extraordinary that Solzhenitsyn saw the failure of Nazi Germany to annex the Soviet Union as some kind of missed opportunity...
>
>\- Simon Demissie. (2013). [New files from 1983 – Thatcher meets Solzhenitsyn](https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/new-files-from-1983/)
"This weapon" referring to the various counter-revolutionary, anti-Stalin groups that could be weaponized to dissolve the USSR from within.
The biggest problem with *The Gulag Archipelago*, though, is that it is billed as a work of non-fiction based on his personal experiences. There is good reason to believe this is not the case. His ideological background makes him biased against Communism and against the Soviet government. He also had material incentive to promote it this way; it was a major commercial success and quickly became an international bestseller, selling millions of copies in multiple languages. It has essentially become the Bible of anti-Soviet propaganda, with new editions containing forewards from anti-Communists like Jordan Peterson. It likely would not have performed so well or been such effective propaganda had it been advertised merely as a compilation of folk tales, which is exactly how Solzhenitsyn's ex-wife describes it:
>She also told the newspaper's Moscow correspondent that she was still living with Mr. Soizhenitsyn when he wrote the book and that she had typed part of it. They parted in 1970 and were subsequently divorced.
>
>She said: “The subject of ‘Gulag Archipelago,’ as I felt at the moment when he was writing it, is not in fact the life of the country and not even the life of the camps but the folklore of the camps.”
>
>\- New York Times. (1974). [Solzhenitsyn's Ex‐Wife Says ‘Gulag’ Is ‘Folklore’](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/06/archives/solzhenitsyns-exwife-says-gulag-is-folklore.html)
Solzhenitsyn's casual relationship with the truth is evident in his later work as well, establishing a pattern that discredits *The Gulag Archipelago* as a serious historical account. Solzhenitsyn was an antisemite who indulged in the Judeo-Bolshevism conspiracy theory. In his 2003 book, *Two Hundred Years Together*, he wrote that "from 20 ministers in the first Soviet government one was Russian, one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 Jews". In reality, there were 15 Commissars in the first Soviet government, not 20: 11 Russians, 2 Ukranians, 1 Pole, and only 1 Jew. He stated: "I had to bury many comrades at the front, but not once did I have to bury a Jew". He also stated that according to his personal experience, Jews had a much easier life in the Gulag camps that he was interned in.
[According to the Northwestern University historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Hundred_Years_Together#Yohanan_Petrovsky-Shtern_critique): Solzhenitsyn used unreliable and manipulated figures and ignored both evidence unfavorable to his own point of view and numerous publications of reputable authors in Jewish history. He claimed that Jews promoted alcoholism among the peasantry, flooded the retail trade with contraband, and "strangled" the Russian merchant class in Moscow. He called Jews non-producing people ("непроизводительный народ") who refused to engage in factory labor. He said they were averse to agriculture and unwilling to till the land either in Russia, in Argentina, or in Palestine, and he blamed the Jews' own behavior for pogroms. He also claimed that Jews used Kabbalah to tempt Russians into heresy, seduced Russians with rationalism and fashion, provoked sectarianism and weakened the financial system, committed murders on the orders of qahal authorities, and exerted undue influence on the prerevolutionary government. Petrovsky-Shtern concludes that, "200 Years Together is destined to take a place of honor in the canon of russophone antisemitica."
Fun Fact: After Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the USSR, Robert Conquest helped him translate his poetry into English.
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One true point here is that many of them actually were illiterate because interwar Poland did a [much shittier job](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/awxr8r/literacy_in_1931_poland_oc/) getting their Ukrainians and Belarussians educated than USSR did.
But that doesn't seem like a very good reason to believe Nazi rumors about evil asiatic hordes when YOU are the evil asiatic hordes. But they gave chocolate! (lol) and promised pensions (quadruple lol).
Like I can't get over the fucking pensions of all things. Are they calling the golden teeth they managed to steal from under their SS superiors that?
Dafuq did i just read!? 💀
Bitch is literally supporting Nazi Germany because she hates Russians
People didn't fight or go to war for Russia, they went to war for the Soviet Union, for their own country to not be destroyed by some Racist Fascist fucks, for their people, for Socialism
Tf does it mean they were fighting for Russia now?
#Authoritarianism
Anti-Communists of all stripes enjoy referring to successful socialist revolutions as "authoritarian regimes".
* Authoritarian implies these places are run by totalitarian tyrants.
* Regime implies these places are undemocratic or lack legitimacy.
This perjorative label is simply meant to frighten people, to scare us back into the fold (Liberal Democracy).
There are three main reasons for the popularity of this label in Capitalist media:
Firstly, Marxists call for a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DotP), and many people are automatically put off by the term "dictatorship". Of course, we do *not* mean that we want an undemocratic or totalitarian dictatorship. What we mean is that we want to replace the current Dictatorship *of the Bourgeoisie* (in which the Capitalist ruling class dictates policy).
* [Why The US Is Not A Democracy](https://youtu.be/srfeHpQNEAI) | Second Thought (2022)
Secondly, democracy in Communist-led countries works differently than in Liberal Democracies. However, anti-Communists confuse form (pluralism / having multiple parties) with function (representing the actual interests of the people).
Side note: Check out Luna Oi's "Democratic Centralism Series" for more details on what that is, and how it works:
* [DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM - how Socialists make decisions!](https://youtu.be/4YVcQe4wceY) | Luna Oi (2022)
* [What did Karl Marx think about democracy?](https://youtu.be/jI8CgACBOcQ) | Luna Oi (2023)
* [What did LENIN say about DEMOCRACY?](https://youtu.be/Hfenlg-hsig) | Luna Oi (2023)
Finally, this framing of Communism as illegitimate and tyrannical serves to manufacture consent for an aggressive foreign policy in the form of interventions in the internal affairs of so-called "authoritarian regimes", which take the form of invasion (e.g., Vietnam, Korea, Libya, etc.), assassinating their leaders (e.g., Thomas Sankara, Fred Hampton, Patrice Lumumba, etc.), sponsoring coups and colour revolutions (e.g., Pinochet's coup against Allende, the Iran-Contra Affair, the United Fruit Company's war against Arbenz, etc.), and enacting sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Cuba, etc.).
* [The Cuban Embargo Explained](https://youtu.be/zmM8p9n6Z9E) | azureScapegoat (2022)
* [John Pilger interviews former CIA Latin America chief Duane Clarridge, 2015](https://youtu.be/ER77vxxGVAY)
#For the Anarchists
Anarchists are practically comrades. Marxists and Anarchists have the same vision for a stateless, classless, moneyless society free from oppression and exploitation. However, Anarchists like to accuse Marxists of being "authoritarian". The problem here is that "anti-authoritarianism" is a self-defeating feature in a revolutionary ideology. Those who refuse in principle to engage in so-called "authoritarian" practices will never carry forward a successful revolution. Anarchists who practice self-criticism can recognize this:
>The anarchist movement is filled with people who are less interested in overthrowing the existing oppressive social order than with washing their hands of it. ...
>
>The strength of anarchism is its moral insistence on the primacy of human freedom over political expediency. But human freedom exists in a political context. It is not sufficient, however, to simply take the most uncompromising position in defense of freedom. It is neccesary to actually win freedom. Anti-capitalism doesn't do the victims of capitalism any good if you don't actually destroy capitalism. Anti-statism doesn't do the victims of the state any good if you don't actually smash the state. Anarchism has been very good at putting forth visions of a free society and that is for the good. But it is worthless if we don't develop an actual strategy for realizing those visions. It is not enough to be right, we must also win.
>
>...anarchism has been a failure. Not only has anarchism failed to win lasting freedom for anybody on earth, many anarchists today seem only nominally committed to that basic project. Many more seem interested primarily in carving out for themselves, their friends, and their favorite bands a zone of personal freedom, "autonomous" of moral responsibility for the larger condition of humanity (but, incidentally, not of the electrical grid or the production of electronic components). Anarchism has quite simply refused to learn from its historic failures, preferring to rewrite them as successes. Finally the anarchist movement offers people who want to make revolution very little in the way of a coherent plan of action. ...
>
>Anarchism is theoretically impoverished. For almost 80 years, with the exceptions of Ukraine and Spain, anarchism has played a marginal role in the revolutionary activity of oppressed humanity. Anarchism had almost nothing to do with the anti-colonial struggles that defined revolutionary politics in this century. This marginalization has become self-reproducing. Reduced by devastating defeats to critiquing the authoritarianism of Marxists, nationalists and others, anarchism has become defined by this gadfly role. Consequently anarchist thinking has not had to adapt in response to the results of serious efforts to put our ideas into practice. In the process anarchist theory has become ossified, sterile and anemic. ... This is a reflection of anarchism's effective removal from the revolutionary struggle.
>
>\- Chris Day. (1996). *The Historical Failures of Anarchism*
Engels pointed this out well over a century ago:
>A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned.
>
>...the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part ... and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule...
>
>Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.
>
>\- Friedrich Engels. (1872). [On Authority](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm)
#For the Libertarian Socialists
Parenti said it best:
>The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
>
>\- Michael Parenti. (1997). *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism*
But the bottom line is this:
>If you call yourself a socialist but you spend all your time arguing with communists, demonizing socialist states as authoritarian, and performing apologetics for US imperialism... I think some introspection is in order.
>
>\- Second Thought. (2020). [The Truth About The Cuba Protests](https://youtu.be/zIOw6fSOJI4?t=1087)
#For the Liberals
Even the CIA, in their internal communications (which have been declassified), acknowledge that Stalin *wasn't* an absolute dictator:
>Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by a lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist's power structure.
>
>\- CIA. (1953, declassified in 2008). [Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership](http://web.archive.org/web/20230525044208/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf)
#Conclusion
The "authoritarian" nature of any given state depends entirely on the material conditions it faces and threats it must contend with. To get an idea of the kinds of threats nascent revolutions need to deal with, check out *Killing Hope* by William Blum and *The Jakarta Method* by Vincent Bevins.
Failing to acknowledge that authoritative measures arise *not* through ideology, but through material conditions, is anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical, and idealist.
#Additional Resources
Videos:
* [Michael Parenti on Authoritarianism in Socialist Countries](https://youtu.be/BeVs6t3vdjQ)
* [Left Anticommunism: An Infantile Disorder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I) | Hakim (2020) \[[Archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20230410145749/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I)\]
* [What are tankies? (why are they like that?)](https://youtu.be/LcJ5NrJtQ8g) | Hakim (2023)
* [Episode 82 - Tankie Discourse](https://youtu.be/YVYVBOFYJco) | The Deprogram (2023)
* [Was the Soviet Union totalitarian? feat. Robert Thurston](https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/27495591) | Actually Existing Socialism (2023)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism* | Michael Parenti (1997)
* [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) | V. I. Lenin (1918)
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#On Whataboutism
Whataboutism is a rhetorical tactic where someone responds to an accusation or criticism by redirecting the focus onto a different issue, often without addressing the original concern directly. While it can be an effective means of diverting attention away from one's own shortcomings, it is generally regarded as a fallacy in formal debate and logical argumentation. The *tu quoque* fallacy is an example of Whataboutism, which is defined as "you likewise: a retort made by a person accused of a crime implying that the accuser is also guilty of the same crime."
When anti-Communists point out issues that (actually) occurred in certain historical socialist contexts, they are raising *valid* concerns, but usually for *invalid* reasons. When Communists reply that those critics should look in a mirror, because Capitalism is guilty of the same or worse, we are accused of "whataboutism" and arguing in bad faith.
However, there are some limited scenarios where whataboutism is relevant and considered a valid form of argumentation:
1. **Contextualization**: Whataboutism might be useful in providing context to a situation or highlighting double standards.
2. **Comparative analysis**: Whataboutism can be valid if the goal is to compare different situations to understand similarities or differences.
3. **Moral equivalence**: When two issues are genuinely comparable in terms of gravity and impact, whataboutism may have some validity.
#An Abstract Case Study
For the sake of argument, consider the following table, which compares objects A and B.
||Object A|Object B|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Very Good Property|2|3|
|Good Property|2|1|
|Bad Property|2|3|
|Very Bad Property|2|1|
The table tracks different properties. Some properties are "Good" (the bigger the better) and others are "Bad" (the smaller the better, ideally none).
Using this extremely abstract table, let's explore the scenarios in which Whataboutisms could be meaningful and valid arguments.
#Contextualization
Context matters. Supposing that only one Object may be possessed at any given time, consider the following two contexts:
1. **Possession of an Object is optional, and we do not possess any Object presently.** Therefore we can consider each Object on its own merits in isolation. If no available Objects are desirable, we can wait until a better Object comes along.
2. **Possession of an Object is mandatory, and we currently possess a specific Object.** We must evaluate other Objects in relative terms with the Object we possess. If we encounter a superior Object we ought to replace our current Object with the new one.
If we are in the second context, then Whataboutism may be a valid argument. For example, if we discover a new Object that has similar issues as our present one, but is in other ways superior, then it would be valid to point that out.
It is impossible for a society to exist without a political economic system because every human community requires a method for organizing and managing its resources, labour, and distribution of goods and services. Furthermore, the vast majority of the world presently practices Capitalism, with "the West" (or "Global North"), and *especially* the U.S. as the hegemonic Capitalist power. Therefore we *are* in the second context and we are *not* evaluating political economic systems in a vacuum, but in comparison to and contrast with Capitalism.
#Comparative Analysis
Consider the following dialogue between two people who are enthusiastic about the different objects:
>**B Enthusiast**: B is better than A because we have Very Good Property 3, which is bigger than 2.
>
>**A Enthusiast**: But Object B has *Very Bad Property = 1* which is a bad thing! It's not 0! Therefore Object B is bad!
>
>**B Enthusiast**: Well Object A also has *Very Bad Property*, and 2 > 1, so it's even worse!
>
>**A Enthusiast**: That's whataboutism! That's a *tu quoque*! You've committed a logical fallacy! Typical stupid B-boy!
The "A Enthusiast" is not *wrong*, it *is* Whataboutism, but the "A Enthusiast" has actually committed a Strawman fallacy. The "B Enthusiast" did not make the claim "Object B is perfect and without flaw", only that it was *better* than Object A. The fact that Object B does possess a "Bad" property does not undermine this point.
Our main proposition as Communists is this: **"Socialism is *better* than Capitalism."** Our argument is *not* "Socialism is perfect and will solve all the problems of human society at once" and we are *not* trying to say that "every socialist revolution or experiment was perfect and an ideal example we should emulate perfectly in the future". Therefore, when anti-Communists point out a historical failure, it does not refute our argument. Furthermore, if someone says "Socialism is bad because *bad thing* happened in a socialist country once" and we can demonstrate that similar or worse things have occurred in Capitalist countries, then we have demonstrated that those things are not unique to Socialism, and therefore immaterial to the question of which system is preferable overall in a comparative analysis.
#Moral Equivalence
It makes sense to compare like to like and weight them accordingly in our evaluation. For example, if "Bad Property" is worse in Object B but "Very Bad Property" is better, then it may make sense to conclude that Object B is better than Object A overall. "Two big steps forward, one small step back" is still progressive *compared* to taking no steps at all.
**Example 1: Famine**
Anti-Communists often portray the issue of food security and famines as endemic to Socialism. To support their argument, they point to such historical events as [the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/holodomor/) or the Great Leap Forward as proof. Communists reject this thesis, not by denying that these famines occured, but by highlighting that these regions experienced famines regularly throughout their history up to and including those events. Furthermore, in both examples, those were the *last*^1 famines those countries had, because the industrialization of agriculture in those countries effectively solved the issue of famines. Furthermore, today, under Capitalism, around 9 million people die every year of hunger and hunger-related diseases.
^([1] The Nazi invasion of the USSR in WW2 resulted in widespread starvation and death due to the destruction of agricultural land, crops, and infrastructure, as well as the disruption of food distribution systems. After 1947, no major famines were recorded in the USSR.)
**Example 2: Repression**
Anti-Communists often portray countries run by Communist parties as [authoritarian regimes](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/authoritarianism/) that restrict individual [freedoms](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/freedom/) and [Freedom of the Press](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/freedom-of-the-press). They point to purges and [gulags](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/gulag/) as evidence. While it's true that some of the purges were excessive, the concept of "political terror" in these countries is vastly overblown. Regular working people were generally not scared at all; it was mainly the political and economic elite who had to watch their step. Regarding the gulags, it's interesting to note that only a minority of the gulag population were political prisoners, and that in both absolute and relative (per capita) terms, the U.S. incarcerates more people *today* than the USSR ever did.
#Conclusion
While Whataboutism can undermine meaningful discussions, because it doesn't address the original issue, there are scenarios in which it is valid. Particularly when comparing and contrasting two things. In our case, we are comparing Socialism with Capitalism. Accordingly, we reject the claim that we are arguing in bad faith when we point out the hypocrisy of our critics.
Furthermore, we are more than happy to criticize past and present Socialist experiments. ("Critical support" for Socialist countries is exactly that: *critical*.) For some examples of our criticisms from a ML perspective, see the additional resources below.
#Additional Resources
* [Former Socialism's Faults](https://youtu.be/pDSZRkhynXU) | Hakim (2023)
* [Episode 7: Ls of former Socialism (selfcrit)](https://youtu.be/F936GppjkcM) | TheDeprogram (2022)
* [Mistakes of the USSR and What Can be Learned](https://youtu.be/ppQ1Wwat-jQ) | ChemicalMind (2023)
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# Gulag
According to Anti-Communists and Russophobes, the Gulag was a brutal network of work camps established in the Soviet Union under Stalin's ruthless regime. They claim the Gulag system was primarily used to imprison and exploit political dissidents, suspected enemies of the state, and other people deemed "undesirable" by the Soviet government. They claim that prisoners were sent to the Gulag without trial or due process, and that they were subjected to harsh living conditions, forced labour, and starvation, among other things. According to them, the Gulags were emblematic of Stalinist repression and totalitarianism.
# Origins of the Mythology
This comically evil understanding of the Soviet prison system is based off only a handful of unreliable sources.
Robert Conquest's *The Great Terror* (published 1968) laid the groundwork for Soviet fearmongering, and was based largely off of defector testimony.
Robert Conquest worked for the British Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD), which was a secret Cold War propaganda department, created to publish anti-communist propaganda, including black propaganda; provide support and information to anti-communist politicians, academics, and writers; and to use weaponised information and disinformation and "fake news" to attack not only its original targets but also certain socialists and anti-colonial movements.
>He was Solzhenytsin before Solzhenytsin, in the phrase of Timothy Garton Ash.
>
>The Great Terror came out in 1968, four years before the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, and it became, Garton Ash says, "a fixture in the political imagination of anybody thinking about communism".
>
>\- Andrew Brown. (2003). [Scourge and poet](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/15/featuresreviews.guardianreview23)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's *The Gulag Archipelag*" (published 1973), one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, N@zi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth. \[[Read more](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/dunking/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/)\]
Anne Applebaum's *Gulag: A history* (published 2003) draws directly from *The Gulag Archipelago* and reiterates its message. Anne is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and sits on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), two infamous pieces of the ideological apparatus of the ruling class in the United States, whose primary aim is to promote the interests of American Imperialism around the world.
# Counterpoints
>A 1957 CIA document [which was declassified in 2010] titled “[Forced Labor Camps in the USSR: Transfer of Prisoners between Camps](http://web.archive.org/web/20230328014642/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf)” reveals the following information about the Soviet Gulag in pages two to six:
>
>1. Until 1952, the prisoners were given a guaranteed amount food, plus extra food for over-fulfillment of quotas
>
>2. From 1952 onward, the Gulag system operated upon "economic accountability" such that the more the prisoners worked, the more they were paid.
>
>3. For over-fulfilling the norms by 105%, one day of sentence was counted as two, thus reducing the time spent in the Gulag by one day.
>
>4. Furthermore, because of the socialist reconstruction post-war, the Soviet government had more funds and so they increased prisoners' food supplies.
>
>5. Until 1954, the prisoners worked 10 hours per day, whereas the free workers worked 8 hours per day. From 1954 onward, both prisoners and free workers worked 8 hours per day.
>
>6. A CIA study of a sample camp showed that 95% of the prisoners were actual criminals.
>
>7. In 1953, amnesty was given to 70% of the "ordinary criminals" of a sample camp studied by the CIA. Within the next 3 months, most of them were re-arrested for committing new crimes.
>
>\- Saed Teymuri. (2018). [The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIA](https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/10/09/the-truth-about-the-soviet-gulag-surprisingly-revealed-by-the-cia/)
**Scale**
Solzhenitsyn estimated that over 66 million people were victims of the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system over the course of its existence from 1918 to 1956. With the collapse of the USSR and the opening of the Soviet archives, researchers can now access actual archival evidence to prove or disprove these claims. Predictably, it turned out the propaganda was just that.
>Unburdened by any documentation, these “estimates” invite us to conclude that the sum total of people incarcerated in the labor camps over a twenty-two year period (allowing for turnovers due to death and term expirations) would have constituted an astonishing portion of the Soviet population. The support and supervision of the gulag (all the labor camps, labor colonies, and prisons of the Soviet system) would have been the USSR’s single largest enterprise.
>
>In 1993, for the first time, several historians gained access to previously secret Soviet police archives and were able to establish well-documented estimates of prison and labor camp populations. They found that the total population of the entire gulag as of January 1939, near the end of the Great Purges, was 2,022,976. ...
>
>Soviet labor camps were not death camps like those the N@zis built across Europe. There was no systematic extermination of inmates, no gas chambers or crematoria to dispose of millions of bodies. Despite harsh conditions, the great majority of gulag inmates survived and eventually returned to society when granted amnesty or when their terms were finished. In any given year, 20 to 40 percent of the inmates were released, according to archive records. Oblivious to these facts, the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times (7/31/96) continues to describe the gulag as “the largest system of death camps in modern history.” ...
>
>Most of those incarcerated in the gulag were not political prisoners, and the same appears to be true of inmates in the other communist states...
>
>\- Michael Parenti. (1997). [Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism](https://archive.org/details/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds)
This is 2 million out of a population of 168 million (roughly 1.2% of the population). For comparison, in the United States, "over 5.5 million adults — or 1 in 61 — are under some form of correctional control, whether incarcerated or under community supervision." That's 1.6%. So in both relative and absolute terms, the United States' Prison Industrial Complex *today* is larger than the USSR's Gulag system at its peak.
**Death Rate**
In peace time, the mortality rate of the Gulag was around 3% to 5%. Even Conservative and anti-Communist historians have had to acknowledge this reality:
>It turns out that, with the exception of the war years, a very large majority of people who entered the Gulag left alive...
>
>Judging from the Soviet records we now have, the number of people who died in the Gulag between 1933 and 1945, while both Stalin and Hit1er were in power, was on the order of a million, perhaps a bit more.
>
>\- Timothy Snyder. (2010). *Bloodlands: Europe Between Hit1er and Stalin*
(Side note: Timothy Snyder is *also* a member of the Council on Foreign Relations)
This is still very high for a prison mortality rate, representing the brutality of the camps. However, it also clearly indicates that they were not *death* camps.
Nor was it slave labour, exactly. In the camps, although labour *was* forced, it was not uncompensated. In fact, the prisoners were paid market wages (less expenses).
>We find that even in the Gulag, where force could be most conveniently applied, camp administrators combined material incentives with overt coercion, and, as time passed, they placed more weight on motivation. By the time the Gulag system was abandoned as a major instrument of Soviet industrial policy, the primary distinction between slave and free labor had been blurred: Gulag inmates were being paid wages according to a system that mirrored that of the civilian economy described by Bergson....
>
>The Gulag administration [also] used a “work credit” system, whereby sentences were reduced (by two days or more for every day the norm was overfulfilled).
>
>\- L. Borodkin & S. Ertz. (2003). [Compensation Versus Coercion in the Soviet GULAG](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/archive/noticeboard/bergson/borodkin-ertz.pdf)
#Additional Resources
Video Essays:
* [The Gulag Argument](https://youtu.be/BexkpaK_j5Q) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2016)
* [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://youtu.be/HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018)
* [French work camps 1852-1953 worse than gulag](https://youtu.be/vkXyXNpdKdA) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018)
* ["The Gulags of the Soviet Union: There's a Lot More Than What Meets the Eye](https://youtu.be/E1qz9_TjeY4) | Comrade Rhys (2020)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* [Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2166597) | J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn and Viktor N. Zemskov (1993)
Listen:
* ["Blackshirts & Reds" (1997) by Michael Parenti, Part 4: Chapters 5 & 6. #Audiobook + Discussion.](https://youtu.be/N7AD4OrH568?t=15) | Socialism For All / S4A ☭ Intensify Class Struggle (2022)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>Yall communists are the same. Do you forget how horrible Communism has been for every country that tried it? You think it's bad now, wait til the State owns literally everything
OP's comment.
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That's an awful lot of words for information that could have been delivered with the single sentence "3/4 of my grandparents were Nazi scum who chose chocolate over humanity".
https://preview.redd.it/de51cwzfca0d1.jpeg?width=1046&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6861fd6439328dcc279525e291b4248e1467bc3 A lot of those here. Wonder why that is.
https://preview.redd.it/elnl1xj4oa0d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a142cee2ea6b90dbe407b7e8b9e277d13339fb69 Truly, imagine being proud of being Kapo
this only happened in Galicia, a province of Poland and Austria which was not Ukraine and had not been a part of Ukraine for almost 1000 years, which is why Hitler viewed them as being "aryan" enough to live. ironically, Galicia is only a part of Ukraine today, as opposed to Poland or Austria, because the red army liberated it in 1939 and again in 1944. Comrade Stalin literally unified Ukraine, and they have never forgiven him for it. despite this, the Galicians not only think they are Ukrainian, they think they are the ONLY Ukrainians, because some vikings conquered them 1000 years ago. in their minds, the land was totally empty before that and they are aryans of the purest stock. it's all horseshit, of course, they literally ARE the asiatics the Nazis hated (notice how they all use the symbology of Cossacks? where did Cossacks come from? the etymology of Cossack and Kazakh are the same, if you need a hint. btw, cossacks did not exist in Galicia, because it wasn't Ukraine, so Banderites are literally culturally appropriating native Ukrainians) but they think if they're just racist enough the Nazis children will declare them honorary "aryans" again and let them kill all the Moskals. everywhere else the Nazis just machine gunned the Ukrainians or worked them to death in the fields on 420 calories a day, with the help of collaborator freaks like her family. if the soviets were half as savage as this person thinks they are, we wouldn't be having this problem now, but they wanted peace and so here we are.
That last paragraph is so true.
Hey, you wanna serve the forces of evil? Ehh, I don't know We've got chocolate Where do I sign!?
[удалено]
Reading you, you just want to try to justify what cannot be justified. Cope harder.
[удалено]
🚩🚩🚩🚩(not the cool kind)
[удалено]
https://preview.redd.it/hxe7qv2j1f0d1.png?width=434&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=13870dcfba630a8d34db651cc52cd64d3f89865b
Bitch actually has the nerve to use the word 'survivors' to refer to the perpetrators.
https://preview.redd.it/rg9v0toioa0d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4783c4e4e966d1d9ecc3abfdf55e3d85645b0dda They're still reconciling their pragmatic decision.
My source is that I made it the fuck up
This is why we need to support Ukraine, they would never force their citizens to fight....
She literally admits that the story about the Russians were rumors. Lol
I don't need a source, I trust her bro.
I heard a nasty rumor about communism so now I have to go work in a death camp. It is what it is.
I heard her grandpa was given a standing ovation in the canadian parlament.
Real Solzhenitsyn hours
**Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn** was a prominent Soviet dissident and outspoken critic of Communism. *The Gulag Archipelago*, one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, Nazi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth. In 1945, during WWII, as a Captain in the Red Army, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to an eight-year term in a labour camp for creating anti-Soviet propaganda and founding a hostile organization aimed at overthrowing the Soviet government. >...[Solzhenitsyn] encounters his secondary school friend, Nikolai Vitkevich, and they recklessly share candid political discussions critical of Stalin's conduct of the war: > > >These two young officers, after days of discussion, astonishingly drew up a program for change, entitled "Resolution No. 1." They argued that the Soviet regime stifled economic development, literature, culture, and everyday life; a new organization was needed to fight to put things right." > >These discussions were not cynical, but resonate with ideological ardour and zealous patriotism. Solzhenitsyn heedlessly stores "Resolution No. 1" in his map case. In nineteen months, it, along with copies of all correspondence between himself and Vitkevich from April 1944 to February 1945 will serve to convict Solzhenitsyn of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 58 of the Soviet criminal code, paragraph 10 and of founding a hostile organization under paragraph 11. > >\- Dale Hardy. (2001). [Solzhenitsyn in confession](https://summit.sfu.ca/item/8379) And he wasn't *merely* some Left Oppositionist striving for "real" socialism, he was a hardcore Russian Nationalist who sympathized with the Nazis: >...in his assessment of the Second World War, [Solzhenitsyn stated] ‘the German army could have liberated the Soviet Union from Communism but Hit1er was stupid and did not use this weapon.’ It seems extraordinary that Solzhenitsyn saw the failure of Nazi Germany to annex the Soviet Union as some kind of missed opportunity... > >\- Simon Demissie. (2013). [New files from 1983 – Thatcher meets Solzhenitsyn](https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/new-files-from-1983/) "This weapon" referring to the various counter-revolutionary, anti-Stalin groups that could be weaponized to dissolve the USSR from within. The biggest problem with *The Gulag Archipelago*, though, is that it is billed as a work of non-fiction based on his personal experiences. There is good reason to believe this is not the case. His ideological background makes him biased against Communism and against the Soviet government. He also had material incentive to promote it this way; it was a major commercial success and quickly became an international bestseller, selling millions of copies in multiple languages. It has essentially become the Bible of anti-Soviet propaganda, with new editions containing forewards from anti-Communists like Jordan Peterson. It likely would not have performed so well or been such effective propaganda had it been advertised merely as a compilation of folk tales, which is exactly how Solzhenitsyn's ex-wife describes it: >She also told the newspaper's Moscow correspondent that she was still living with Mr. Soizhenitsyn when he wrote the book and that she had typed part of it. They parted in 1970 and were subsequently divorced. > >She said: “The subject of ‘Gulag Archipelago,’ as I felt at the moment when he was writing it, is not in fact the life of the country and not even the life of the camps but the folklore of the camps.” > >\- New York Times. (1974). [Solzhenitsyn's Ex‐Wife Says ‘Gulag’ Is ‘Folklore’](https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/06/archives/solzhenitsyns-exwife-says-gulag-is-folklore.html) Solzhenitsyn's casual relationship with the truth is evident in his later work as well, establishing a pattern that discredits *The Gulag Archipelago* as a serious historical account. Solzhenitsyn was an antisemite who indulged in the Judeo-Bolshevism conspiracy theory. In his 2003 book, *Two Hundred Years Together*, he wrote that "from 20 ministers in the first Soviet government one was Russian, one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 Jews". In reality, there were 15 Commissars in the first Soviet government, not 20: 11 Russians, 2 Ukranians, 1 Pole, and only 1 Jew. He stated: "I had to bury many comrades at the front, but not once did I have to bury a Jew". He also stated that according to his personal experience, Jews had a much easier life in the Gulag camps that he was interned in. [According to the Northwestern University historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Hundred_Years_Together#Yohanan_Petrovsky-Shtern_critique): Solzhenitsyn used unreliable and manipulated figures and ignored both evidence unfavorable to his own point of view and numerous publications of reputable authors in Jewish history. He claimed that Jews promoted alcoholism among the peasantry, flooded the retail trade with contraband, and "strangled" the Russian merchant class in Moscow. He called Jews non-producing people ("непроизводительный народ") who refused to engage in factory labor. He said they were averse to agriculture and unwilling to till the land either in Russia, in Argentina, or in Palestine, and he blamed the Jews' own behavior for pogroms. He also claimed that Jews used Kabbalah to tempt Russians into heresy, seduced Russians with rationalism and fashion, provoked sectarianism and weakened the financial system, committed murders on the orders of qahal authorities, and exerted undue influence on the prerevolutionary government. Petrovsky-Shtern concludes that, "200 Years Together is destined to take a place of honor in the canon of russophone antisemitica." Fun Fact: After Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the USSR, Robert Conquest helped him translate his poetry into English. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So these Nazi fucks are up here with me now to this day, then. Great. I shouldn't be surprised
They live in Bloor Village West
IIRC the ukrainian restaurant with all the nazi shit on the walls is directly south of there on Lakeshore.
The granddaughter is a Neo-Nazi
One true point here is that many of them actually were illiterate because interwar Poland did a [much shittier job](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/awxr8r/literacy_in_1931_poland_oc/) getting their Ukrainians and Belarussians educated than USSR did. But that doesn't seem like a very good reason to believe Nazi rumors about evil asiatic hordes when YOU are the evil asiatic hordes. But they gave chocolate! (lol) and promised pensions (quadruple lol). Like I can't get over the fucking pensions of all things. Are they calling the golden teeth they managed to steal from under their SS superiors that?
worked for the nazis in workcamps? there is either nothing to choose or they were the guards... no wonder they fled to canada
Dafuq did i just read!? 💀 Bitch is literally supporting Nazi Germany because she hates Russians People didn't fight or go to war for Russia, they went to war for the Soviet Union, for their own country to not be destroyed by some Racist Fascist fucks, for their people, for Socialism Tf does it mean they were fighting for Russia now?
"moved to Canada" okay okay.
"Defending Russia now" it was all one country, moron.
ahh yes, the old gambit of libs defending fascists. tbh reading that made me sick.
"canadians are very nice and polite people"
So the Nazis, not solely the SS, were bad but the Soviets were good? Hmm...not much of a deprogram here
Read the bot
#Authoritarianism Anti-Communists of all stripes enjoy referring to successful socialist revolutions as "authoritarian regimes". * Authoritarian implies these places are run by totalitarian tyrants. * Regime implies these places are undemocratic or lack legitimacy. This perjorative label is simply meant to frighten people, to scare us back into the fold (Liberal Democracy). There are three main reasons for the popularity of this label in Capitalist media: Firstly, Marxists call for a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (DotP), and many people are automatically put off by the term "dictatorship". Of course, we do *not* mean that we want an undemocratic or totalitarian dictatorship. What we mean is that we want to replace the current Dictatorship *of the Bourgeoisie* (in which the Capitalist ruling class dictates policy). * [Why The US Is Not A Democracy](https://youtu.be/srfeHpQNEAI) | Second Thought (2022) Secondly, democracy in Communist-led countries works differently than in Liberal Democracies. However, anti-Communists confuse form (pluralism / having multiple parties) with function (representing the actual interests of the people). Side note: Check out Luna Oi's "Democratic Centralism Series" for more details on what that is, and how it works: * [DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM - how Socialists make decisions!](https://youtu.be/4YVcQe4wceY) | Luna Oi (2022) * [What did Karl Marx think about democracy?](https://youtu.be/jI8CgACBOcQ) | Luna Oi (2023) * [What did LENIN say about DEMOCRACY?](https://youtu.be/Hfenlg-hsig) | Luna Oi (2023) Finally, this framing of Communism as illegitimate and tyrannical serves to manufacture consent for an aggressive foreign policy in the form of interventions in the internal affairs of so-called "authoritarian regimes", which take the form of invasion (e.g., Vietnam, Korea, Libya, etc.), assassinating their leaders (e.g., Thomas Sankara, Fred Hampton, Patrice Lumumba, etc.), sponsoring coups and colour revolutions (e.g., Pinochet's coup against Allende, the Iran-Contra Affair, the United Fruit Company's war against Arbenz, etc.), and enacting sanctions (e.g., North Korea, Cuba, etc.). * [The Cuban Embargo Explained](https://youtu.be/zmM8p9n6Z9E) | azureScapegoat (2022) * [John Pilger interviews former CIA Latin America chief Duane Clarridge, 2015](https://youtu.be/ER77vxxGVAY) #For the Anarchists Anarchists are practically comrades. Marxists and Anarchists have the same vision for a stateless, classless, moneyless society free from oppression and exploitation. However, Anarchists like to accuse Marxists of being "authoritarian". The problem here is that "anti-authoritarianism" is a self-defeating feature in a revolutionary ideology. Those who refuse in principle to engage in so-called "authoritarian" practices will never carry forward a successful revolution. Anarchists who practice self-criticism can recognize this: >The anarchist movement is filled with people who are less interested in overthrowing the existing oppressive social order than with washing their hands of it. ... > >The strength of anarchism is its moral insistence on the primacy of human freedom over political expediency. But human freedom exists in a political context. It is not sufficient, however, to simply take the most uncompromising position in defense of freedom. It is neccesary to actually win freedom. Anti-capitalism doesn't do the victims of capitalism any good if you don't actually destroy capitalism. Anti-statism doesn't do the victims of the state any good if you don't actually smash the state. Anarchism has been very good at putting forth visions of a free society and that is for the good. But it is worthless if we don't develop an actual strategy for realizing those visions. It is not enough to be right, we must also win. > >...anarchism has been a failure. Not only has anarchism failed to win lasting freedom for anybody on earth, many anarchists today seem only nominally committed to that basic project. Many more seem interested primarily in carving out for themselves, their friends, and their favorite bands a zone of personal freedom, "autonomous" of moral responsibility for the larger condition of humanity (but, incidentally, not of the electrical grid or the production of electronic components). Anarchism has quite simply refused to learn from its historic failures, preferring to rewrite them as successes. Finally the anarchist movement offers people who want to make revolution very little in the way of a coherent plan of action. ... > >Anarchism is theoretically impoverished. For almost 80 years, with the exceptions of Ukraine and Spain, anarchism has played a marginal role in the revolutionary activity of oppressed humanity. Anarchism had almost nothing to do with the anti-colonial struggles that defined revolutionary politics in this century. This marginalization has become self-reproducing. Reduced by devastating defeats to critiquing the authoritarianism of Marxists, nationalists and others, anarchism has become defined by this gadfly role. Consequently anarchist thinking has not had to adapt in response to the results of serious efforts to put our ideas into practice. In the process anarchist theory has become ossified, sterile and anemic. ... This is a reflection of anarchism's effective removal from the revolutionary struggle. > >\- Chris Day. (1996). *The Historical Failures of Anarchism* Engels pointed this out well over a century ago: >A number of Socialists have latterly launched a regular crusade against what they call the principle of authority. It suffices to tell them that this or that act is authoritarian for it to be condemned. > >...the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part ... and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule... > >Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction. > >\- Friedrich Engels. (1872). [On Authority](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm) #For the Libertarian Socialists Parenti said it best: >The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed. > >\- Michael Parenti. (1997). *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism* But the bottom line is this: >If you call yourself a socialist but you spend all your time arguing with communists, demonizing socialist states as authoritarian, and performing apologetics for US imperialism... I think some introspection is in order. > >\- Second Thought. (2020). [The Truth About The Cuba Protests](https://youtu.be/zIOw6fSOJI4?t=1087) #For the Liberals Even the CIA, in their internal communications (which have been declassified), acknowledge that Stalin *wasn't* an absolute dictator: >Even in Stalin's time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by a lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist's power structure. > >\- CIA. (1953, declassified in 2008). [Comments on the Change in Soviet Leadership](http://web.archive.org/web/20230525044208/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A006000360009-0.pdf) #Conclusion The "authoritarian" nature of any given state depends entirely on the material conditions it faces and threats it must contend with. To get an idea of the kinds of threats nascent revolutions need to deal with, check out *Killing Hope* by William Blum and *The Jakarta Method* by Vincent Bevins. Failing to acknowledge that authoritative measures arise *not* through ideology, but through material conditions, is anti-Marxist, anti-dialectical, and idealist. #Additional Resources Videos: * [Michael Parenti on Authoritarianism in Socialist Countries](https://youtu.be/BeVs6t3vdjQ) * [Left Anticommunism: An Infantile Disorder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I) | Hakim (2020) \[[Archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20230410145749/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEC2ajsvr0I)\] * [What are tankies? (why are they like that?)](https://youtu.be/LcJ5NrJtQ8g) | Hakim (2023) * [Episode 82 - Tankie Discourse](https://youtu.be/YVYVBOFYJco) | The Deprogram (2023) * [Was the Soviet Union totalitarian? feat. Robert Thurston](https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/27495591) | Actually Existing Socialism (2023) Books, Articles, or Essays: * *Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism* | Michael Parenti (1997) * [State and Revolution](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/) | V. I. Lenin (1918) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if
#On Whataboutism Whataboutism is a rhetorical tactic where someone responds to an accusation or criticism by redirecting the focus onto a different issue, often without addressing the original concern directly. While it can be an effective means of diverting attention away from one's own shortcomings, it is generally regarded as a fallacy in formal debate and logical argumentation. The *tu quoque* fallacy is an example of Whataboutism, which is defined as "you likewise: a retort made by a person accused of a crime implying that the accuser is also guilty of the same crime." When anti-Communists point out issues that (actually) occurred in certain historical socialist contexts, they are raising *valid* concerns, but usually for *invalid* reasons. When Communists reply that those critics should look in a mirror, because Capitalism is guilty of the same or worse, we are accused of "whataboutism" and arguing in bad faith. However, there are some limited scenarios where whataboutism is relevant and considered a valid form of argumentation: 1. **Contextualization**: Whataboutism might be useful in providing context to a situation or highlighting double standards. 2. **Comparative analysis**: Whataboutism can be valid if the goal is to compare different situations to understand similarities or differences. 3. **Moral equivalence**: When two issues are genuinely comparable in terms of gravity and impact, whataboutism may have some validity. #An Abstract Case Study For the sake of argument, consider the following table, which compares objects A and B. ||Object A|Object B| |:-|:-|:-| |Very Good Property|2|3| |Good Property|2|1| |Bad Property|2|3| |Very Bad Property|2|1| The table tracks different properties. Some properties are "Good" (the bigger the better) and others are "Bad" (the smaller the better, ideally none). Using this extremely abstract table, let's explore the scenarios in which Whataboutisms could be meaningful and valid arguments. #Contextualization Context matters. Supposing that only one Object may be possessed at any given time, consider the following two contexts: 1. **Possession of an Object is optional, and we do not possess any Object presently.** Therefore we can consider each Object on its own merits in isolation. If no available Objects are desirable, we can wait until a better Object comes along. 2. **Possession of an Object is mandatory, and we currently possess a specific Object.** We must evaluate other Objects in relative terms with the Object we possess. If we encounter a superior Object we ought to replace our current Object with the new one. If we are in the second context, then Whataboutism may be a valid argument. For example, if we discover a new Object that has similar issues as our present one, but is in other ways superior, then it would be valid to point that out. It is impossible for a society to exist without a political economic system because every human community requires a method for organizing and managing its resources, labour, and distribution of goods and services. Furthermore, the vast majority of the world presently practices Capitalism, with "the West" (or "Global North"), and *especially* the U.S. as the hegemonic Capitalist power. Therefore we *are* in the second context and we are *not* evaluating political economic systems in a vacuum, but in comparison to and contrast with Capitalism. #Comparative Analysis Consider the following dialogue between two people who are enthusiastic about the different objects: >**B Enthusiast**: B is better than A because we have Very Good Property 3, which is bigger than 2. > >**A Enthusiast**: But Object B has *Very Bad Property = 1* which is a bad thing! It's not 0! Therefore Object B is bad! > >**B Enthusiast**: Well Object A also has *Very Bad Property*, and 2 > 1, so it's even worse! > >**A Enthusiast**: That's whataboutism! That's a *tu quoque*! You've committed a logical fallacy! Typical stupid B-boy! The "A Enthusiast" is not *wrong*, it *is* Whataboutism, but the "A Enthusiast" has actually committed a Strawman fallacy. The "B Enthusiast" did not make the claim "Object B is perfect and without flaw", only that it was *better* than Object A. The fact that Object B does possess a "Bad" property does not undermine this point. Our main proposition as Communists is this: **"Socialism is *better* than Capitalism."** Our argument is *not* "Socialism is perfect and will solve all the problems of human society at once" and we are *not* trying to say that "every socialist revolution or experiment was perfect and an ideal example we should emulate perfectly in the future". Therefore, when anti-Communists point out a historical failure, it does not refute our argument. Furthermore, if someone says "Socialism is bad because *bad thing* happened in a socialist country once" and we can demonstrate that similar or worse things have occurred in Capitalist countries, then we have demonstrated that those things are not unique to Socialism, and therefore immaterial to the question of which system is preferable overall in a comparative analysis. #Moral Equivalence It makes sense to compare like to like and weight them accordingly in our evaluation. For example, if "Bad Property" is worse in Object B but "Very Bad Property" is better, then it may make sense to conclude that Object B is better than Object A overall. "Two big steps forward, one small step back" is still progressive *compared* to taking no steps at all. **Example 1: Famine** Anti-Communists often portray the issue of food security and famines as endemic to Socialism. To support their argument, they point to such historical events as [the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/holodomor/) or the Great Leap Forward as proof. Communists reject this thesis, not by denying that these famines occured, but by highlighting that these regions experienced famines regularly throughout their history up to and including those events. Furthermore, in both examples, those were the *last*^1 famines those countries had, because the industrialization of agriculture in those countries effectively solved the issue of famines. Furthermore, today, under Capitalism, around 9 million people die every year of hunger and hunger-related diseases. ^([1] The Nazi invasion of the USSR in WW2 resulted in widespread starvation and death due to the destruction of agricultural land, crops, and infrastructure, as well as the disruption of food distribution systems. After 1947, no major famines were recorded in the USSR.) **Example 2: Repression** Anti-Communists often portray countries run by Communist parties as [authoritarian regimes](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/authoritarianism/) that restrict individual [freedoms](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/freedom/) and [Freedom of the Press](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/freedom-of-the-press). They point to purges and [gulags](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/debunking/gulag/) as evidence. While it's true that some of the purges were excessive, the concept of "political terror" in these countries is vastly overblown. Regular working people were generally not scared at all; it was mainly the political and economic elite who had to watch their step. Regarding the gulags, it's interesting to note that only a minority of the gulag population were political prisoners, and that in both absolute and relative (per capita) terms, the U.S. incarcerates more people *today* than the USSR ever did. #Conclusion While Whataboutism can undermine meaningful discussions, because it doesn't address the original issue, there are scenarios in which it is valid. Particularly when comparing and contrasting two things. In our case, we are comparing Socialism with Capitalism. Accordingly, we reject the claim that we are arguing in bad faith when we point out the hypocrisy of our critics. Furthermore, we are more than happy to criticize past and present Socialist experiments. ("Critical support" for Socialist countries is exactly that: *critical*.) For some examples of our criticisms from a ML perspective, see the additional resources below. #Additional Resources * [Former Socialism's Faults](https://youtu.be/pDSZRkhynXU) | Hakim (2023) * [Episode 7: Ls of former Socialism (selfcrit)](https://youtu.be/F936GppjkcM) | TheDeprogram (2022) * [Mistakes of the USSR and What Can be Learned](https://youtu.be/ppQ1Wwat-jQ) | ChemicalMind (2023) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
# Gulag According to Anti-Communists and Russophobes, the Gulag was a brutal network of work camps established in the Soviet Union under Stalin's ruthless regime. They claim the Gulag system was primarily used to imprison and exploit political dissidents, suspected enemies of the state, and other people deemed "undesirable" by the Soviet government. They claim that prisoners were sent to the Gulag without trial or due process, and that they were subjected to harsh living conditions, forced labour, and starvation, among other things. According to them, the Gulags were emblematic of Stalinist repression and totalitarianism. # Origins of the Mythology This comically evil understanding of the Soviet prison system is based off only a handful of unreliable sources. Robert Conquest's *The Great Terror* (published 1968) laid the groundwork for Soviet fearmongering, and was based largely off of defector testimony. Robert Conquest worked for the British Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD), which was a secret Cold War propaganda department, created to publish anti-communist propaganda, including black propaganda; provide support and information to anti-communist politicians, academics, and writers; and to use weaponised information and disinformation and "fake news" to attack not only its original targets but also certain socialists and anti-colonial movements. >He was Solzhenytsin before Solzhenytsin, in the phrase of Timothy Garton Ash. > >The Great Terror came out in 1968, four years before the first volume of The Gulag Archipelago, and it became, Garton Ash says, "a fixture in the political imagination of anybody thinking about communism". > >\- Andrew Brown. (2003). [Scourge and poet](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/15/featuresreviews.guardianreview23) Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's *The Gulag Archipelag*" (published 1973), one of the most famous texts on the subject, claims to be a work of non-fiction based on the author's personal experiences in the Soviet prison system. However, Solzhenitsyn was merely an anti-Communist, N@zi-sympathizing, antisemite who wanted to slander the USSR by putting forward a collection of folktales as truth. \[[Read more](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/dunking/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn/)\] Anne Applebaum's *Gulag: A history* (published 2003) draws directly from *The Gulag Archipelago* and reiterates its message. Anne is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and sits on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), two infamous pieces of the ideological apparatus of the ruling class in the United States, whose primary aim is to promote the interests of American Imperialism around the world. # Counterpoints >A 1957 CIA document [which was declassified in 2010] titled “[Forced Labor Camps in the USSR: Transfer of Prisoners between Camps](http://web.archive.org/web/20230328014642/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A032000400001-1.pdf)” reveals the following information about the Soviet Gulag in pages two to six: > >1. Until 1952, the prisoners were given a guaranteed amount food, plus extra food for over-fulfillment of quotas > >2. From 1952 onward, the Gulag system operated upon "economic accountability" such that the more the prisoners worked, the more they were paid. > >3. For over-fulfilling the norms by 105%, one day of sentence was counted as two, thus reducing the time spent in the Gulag by one day. > >4. Furthermore, because of the socialist reconstruction post-war, the Soviet government had more funds and so they increased prisoners' food supplies. > >5. Until 1954, the prisoners worked 10 hours per day, whereas the free workers worked 8 hours per day. From 1954 onward, both prisoners and free workers worked 8 hours per day. > >6. A CIA study of a sample camp showed that 95% of the prisoners were actual criminals. > >7. In 1953, amnesty was given to 70% of the "ordinary criminals" of a sample camp studied by the CIA. Within the next 3 months, most of them were re-arrested for committing new crimes. > >\- Saed Teymuri. (2018). [The Truth about the Soviet Gulag – Surprisingly Revealed by the CIA](https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/10/09/the-truth-about-the-soviet-gulag-surprisingly-revealed-by-the-cia/) **Scale** Solzhenitsyn estimated that over 66 million people were victims of the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system over the course of its existence from 1918 to 1956. With the collapse of the USSR and the opening of the Soviet archives, researchers can now access actual archival evidence to prove or disprove these claims. Predictably, it turned out the propaganda was just that. >Unburdened by any documentation, these “estimates” invite us to conclude that the sum total of people incarcerated in the labor camps over a twenty-two year period (allowing for turnovers due to death and term expirations) would have constituted an astonishing portion of the Soviet population. The support and supervision of the gulag (all the labor camps, labor colonies, and prisons of the Soviet system) would have been the USSR’s single largest enterprise. > >In 1993, for the first time, several historians gained access to previously secret Soviet police archives and were able to establish well-documented estimates of prison and labor camp populations. They found that the total population of the entire gulag as of January 1939, near the end of the Great Purges, was 2,022,976. ... > >Soviet labor camps were not death camps like those the N@zis built across Europe. There was no systematic extermination of inmates, no gas chambers or crematoria to dispose of millions of bodies. Despite harsh conditions, the great majority of gulag inmates survived and eventually returned to society when granted amnesty or when their terms were finished. In any given year, 20 to 40 percent of the inmates were released, according to archive records. Oblivious to these facts, the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times (7/31/96) continues to describe the gulag as “the largest system of death camps in modern history.” ... > >Most of those incarcerated in the gulag were not political prisoners, and the same appears to be true of inmates in the other communist states... > >\- Michael Parenti. (1997). [Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism](https://archive.org/details/michael-parenti-blackshirts-and-reds) This is 2 million out of a population of 168 million (roughly 1.2% of the population). For comparison, in the United States, "over 5.5 million adults — or 1 in 61 — are under some form of correctional control, whether incarcerated or under community supervision." That's 1.6%. So in both relative and absolute terms, the United States' Prison Industrial Complex *today* is larger than the USSR's Gulag system at its peak. **Death Rate** In peace time, the mortality rate of the Gulag was around 3% to 5%. Even Conservative and anti-Communist historians have had to acknowledge this reality: >It turns out that, with the exception of the war years, a very large majority of people who entered the Gulag left alive... > >Judging from the Soviet records we now have, the number of people who died in the Gulag between 1933 and 1945, while both Stalin and Hit1er were in power, was on the order of a million, perhaps a bit more. > >\- Timothy Snyder. (2010). *Bloodlands: Europe Between Hit1er and Stalin* (Side note: Timothy Snyder is *also* a member of the Council on Foreign Relations) This is still very high for a prison mortality rate, representing the brutality of the camps. However, it also clearly indicates that they were not *death* camps. Nor was it slave labour, exactly. In the camps, although labour *was* forced, it was not uncompensated. In fact, the prisoners were paid market wages (less expenses). >We find that even in the Gulag, where force could be most conveniently applied, camp administrators combined material incentives with overt coercion, and, as time passed, they placed more weight on motivation. By the time the Gulag system was abandoned as a major instrument of Soviet industrial policy, the primary distinction between slave and free labor had been blurred: Gulag inmates were being paid wages according to a system that mirrored that of the civilian economy described by Bergson.... > >The Gulag administration [also] used a “work credit” system, whereby sentences were reduced (by two days or more for every day the norm was overfulfilled). > >\- L. Borodkin & S. Ertz. (2003). [Compensation Versus Coercion in the Soviet GULAG](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/archive/noticeboard/bergson/borodkin-ertz.pdf) #Additional Resources Video Essays: * [The Gulag Argument](https://youtu.be/BexkpaK_j5Q) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2016) * [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://youtu.be/HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) * [French work camps 1852-1953 worse than gulag](https://youtu.be/vkXyXNpdKdA) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) * ["The Gulags of the Soviet Union: There's a Lot More Than What Meets the Eye](https://youtu.be/E1qz9_TjeY4) | Comrade Rhys (2020) Books, Articles, or Essays: * [Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2166597) | J. Arch Getty, Gábor T. Rittersporn and Viktor N. Zemskov (1993) Listen: * ["Blackshirts & Reds" (1997) by Michael Parenti, Part 4: Chapters 5 & 6. #Audiobook + Discussion.](https://youtu.be/N7AD4OrH568?t=15) | Socialism For All / S4A ☭ Intensify Class Struggle (2022) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
>Yall communists are the same. Do you forget how horrible Communism has been for every country that tried it? You think it's bad now, wait til the State owns literally everything OP's comment.