I think you should use your experiences in Azerbaijan as a push to confront some of your biases, and re-examine your understanding of Socialism in the Soviet Union. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't "totalitarian" by any stretch either. The benefits of the Socialist economic structure are pined for precisely because they worked, and did so for the common people. There are improvements that can and have been made in other Socialist countries, but these improvements would not have been possible without the brave Soviet people pioneering Socialism as it exists in the real world.

[–] punksnotdead@slrpnk.net 7 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Not totalitarian you say?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purges_of_the_Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

My experience in Azerbaijan also included tales of when they were children passing curds to starving prisoners through chain fences in Kazakh gulags. The Soviet Union did more harm than good to the leftist movement and is used as the scary example every single time someone begins to think twice about the capitalist system they live under. Socialism is forever tainted by the USSR and severely struggles to remove that image. Fuck the USSR.

[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You would've had the image of leftists destroyed no matter what, the faults of USSR is ever present and has even been maximised to the point of hilarity where it is compared with the Nazis, even if false or inaccurate or misrepresented

You could see the victories of socialism and communism within USSR and read and learn about it, but also critique the system that Stalin created alongside it which allowed repression, where it lead to millions dying in Ukraine and millions to suffer in prison, but these have been exaggerated as part of western doctrine to deface communism as much as possible, so never take it at face value

It's extremely unfortunate that communism was cursed as not only the biggest enemy of the developed world as it was just only developing, but also had the misfortune to be lead by a leader who had little regard for democracy or democratic values in politics and which lead to later on revisionism, inefficiencies and the collapse.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago

but also had the misfortune to be lead by a leader who had little regard for democracy or democratic values in politics and which lead to later on revisionism, inefficiencies and the collapse.

Yeah, fuck Khrushchev

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