this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
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The USSR was a federation of socialist states. "Stalinism" isn't really a thing, at best you could use it to mean specific policies like Socialism in One Country. Public ownership was the principal aspect of the USSR's economy, and the working classes controlled the state. Rather than committing genocide against Ukrainians, the soviets actually propped up Ukrainian national identity, and added land to Ukraine in their effort to solidify this, as the USSR was a multi-ethnic federation.
The USSR brought dramatic democratization to society. First-hand accounts from Statesian journalist Anna Louise Strong in her book This Soviet World describe soviet elections and factory councils in action. Statesian Pat Sloan even wrote Soviet Democracy to describe in detail the system the soviets had built for curious Statesians to read about, and today we have Professor Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance to reference.
When it comes to social progressivism, the soviet union was among the best out of their peers, so instead we must look at who was actually repressed outside of the norm. In the USSR, it was the capitalist class, the kulaks, the fascists who were repressed. This is out of necessity for any socialist state. When it comes to working class freedoms, however, the soviet union represented a dramatic expansion. Soviet progressivism was documented quite well in Albert Syzmanski's Human Rights in the Soviet Union.
As with many things, its a mixed bag. Socialism was certainly better for many than the feudalism, but to say it was a free society is a stretch.
Stalinism was a real thing. Its what you get from centralization of power in the political upper class. Same effect as under Mao.
Its not those people that brought about that system, its that system that brings about those people. The same thing happens in capitalism, where capital concentrates power and appoints their puppets in government.
Anything that concentrates power is a problem and ends up with things like the Ukrainian genocide and Gaza.
If you mean the "Holodomor" all I can say is holocaust denial through double genocide theory is still holocaust denial.
If you mean the current war then I don't even have words for how out of touch with reality you must be.
I mean how the USSR inherited the imperialist practices of exploiting and oppressing the provinces to strengthen the centre.
Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Siberia, Belarus. All suffered greatly so the Rus could have power.
Its the same story as in the USA. Native Americans and imported slaves suffered so the elite can make their money.
Okay, I have a time machine and am willing to send you back to one of two places. Either you can be a peasant in 1930s Siberia, or you can be a Cherokee in 1870s America. Since both are the same, I assume you'll just be flipping a coin.
This is a bunch of idiotic nonsense for one but more importantly does not address what I said at all.
The USSR abolished the imperial system of Tsarist Russia. The soviets then established protections for ethnic minorities, even giving more land to Ukraine in order to solidify their identity. The national question was taken incredibly seriously. It isn't at all the same as the USA, which is a genocidal settler-colony that wiped out indigenous peoples and brought countless slaves over, and to make that comparison and equate them is to minimize the actual, real crimes of the US Empire.
There is no such thing as the "political upper class." Bureaucrats do not form their own class, but are instead a subsection of a broader class, in the case of the USSR, the working classes. Socialism in the USSR and PRC brought a tremendous democratization of society, and solidified power in the hands of the working classes as a whole, who are not distinct from the members of the working classes in the government. Stalinism is not a thing, beyond Stalin's specific economic policies. The ideology of the USSR and PRC is Marxism-Leninism.
Further, there is no genocide against Ukrainians, unless you mean the ethnic repressions against native Russians in the Donbass region by Kiev. War is not genocide. The genocide of Palestinians is absolutely genocide as "Israel" is an apartheid regime, but the Russo-Ukrainian war is not a genocide.
I'm a communist, I think my support for Marxism made that obvious.
You are not supporting Marxism only, you are throwing some authoritarian Stalinist/Putin propaganda in there.
You can support one and not the other you know.
I'm supporting the world's first federation of socialist states, and accurately describing the Russo-Ukrainian War, both from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. Stalinism does not exist beyond specific socioeconomic policies of Stalin, the ideology of the USSR was Marxism-Leninism. If you want to learn more about Marxism-Leninism, I wrote a basic study guide.
You haven't really backed up any of your own claims or attacked any of mine. You just called my points "propaganda," as though the accusation alone is a point. Please bring a real point, or reconsider your strategy.