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You call yourself a socialist but you have a very, VERY tenuous understanding of the way to fight fascism and the way to achieve meaningful socialist progress. This tells me that you haven't actually done much at all in reading of socialist history, socialist attempts, and the struggle against fascism.
The reality is that if more people voted consistently [...] politics would actually shift left towards popular policy
No, it wouldn't, because that's never been the case. The leftist policy approved in the 20th century in liberal democracies isn't a consequence of people voting consistently, it's a consequence of intense struggle of the workers through unionisation movements, and the compromise of the governments in the west in fear of a widespread socialist revolution in Western Europe (which also explains why such policy was much more tenuous in the US) following Eastern Europe during the decades of maximum growth in the Eastern Block.
Fascism has never been fought by liberal democracy and votes. Fascism has been defeated by communist movements and armed struggle. Fascism is an advanced stage of capitalism in which the bourgeoisie, in fear of losing their privileges, prop oppressive far right nationalists into the governments either democratically or through coups, as in the case of Nazi Germany, Fascist Spain and Italy, or Pinochet's dictatorship. Nazism in Europe was defeated through the tremendous struggle of the Soviet people who lost 25 million lives in the war against Nazism.
We won't vote our way out of fascism. We won't vote our way into leftist policy. The US tried with Bernie and it didn't work. Greece tried with Syriza and it didn't work. Spain tried with Podemos and it didn't work. The only weapon against fascism and in favour of socialism is mutual aid and organization.
You asked what kind of socialism I like. I really liked the elected leader of Sweden Olof Palme who enhanced socialism by strengthening unions with the long term goal of turning them into workers cooperatives. He was unfortunately assassinated before he could see that through. But this form of non authoritarian socialism is how I would like to see the rise of socialism.
I also agree that unions and class struggle work too. But part of that is being politically involved and voting. I'm not diminishing the work of unions, my whole point is emphasizing the power of voting. Not voting is literally throwing away the limited amount of political capital you have.
Organize. Unionize. Share theory. But also vote.
P.s. I'm not down voting you. I known that's silly to comment but I don't try to punish people having good faith arguments with me.
"The kind of socialism I like is the one that dies as soon as its leader is murdered" doesn't sound like a particularly strong kind of socialism to me.
The kind of socialism that's just state owned capitalism isn't even socialism at all if you ask me.
The kind of socialism you call state owned capitalism is the one that saved Europe from Nazism, the one that set the standards for free healthcare, working hours, worker rights, free education and pensions, the one that fought the staunchest against imperialism, and the one that allowed for its countries to stop being western colonies.
Things can do good and still be bad. America helped fight the Nazis (and also paved the way at certain points in a few things you list including free education for children) and they're still bad. Thing can be better than other systems and still be bad. Capitalism was better than feudalism. I still don't want it. Also its laughable to say it fought hardest against imperialism. I dare you to tell that to many of the countries it used to control, both directly and indirectly, through military power. I dare you to tell that to a Ukrainian friend. Russia/USSR was/is still an imperial power that's caused a lot of harm.
Also, even doing all that, it was still authoritarian state own capitalism at best in the end. That's what you're defending as the bastion of lefty success?
Enjoy your bad logic and your boot. We don't see eye to eye.
Also its laughable to say it fought hardest against imperialism
It's laughable if you haven't read a book in your life about actual Soviet policy, economic relations, and the meaning of the word "imperialism".
I dare you to tell that to a Ukrainian friend
Your friend has the luxury of considering themselves Ukrainian thanks to the fucking Soviet Union. Ukraine had up until the formation of the Russian Socialist Federation of Soviet Republics in 1917 been a people without representation split between Poland and the Russian Empire. The first Bolshevik constitution gave all the nations and peoples of the Russian Empire full and unilateral right to secession and independence. Poland became independent this way and immediately invaded the newly established Ukrainian People's Republic (first time in history that Ukraine had a representation and an administration of itself, courtesy of the Bolsheviks). Lenin himself fought other socialists like Rosa Luxembourg in order to enable an independent Ukraine, as opposed to the homogenous "socialist national identity" that they proposed, this is a historical fact.
The Bolsheviks, during the Russian civil war, fought Poland and gave back Ukraine's territories to its people, and Ukraine was established as an independent republic within the USSR. In the following decades, and for the first time in its history, the citizens of Ukraine would gain access to education and the possibility of choosing an education in Ukrainian language, a majority of the published literature and newspapers were published in Ukrainian, and just 40-odd years after Ukraine's first ever autoctonous administration and representation, a Ukrainian would become the president of the Soviet Union.
I dare you to tell that to many of the countries it used to control, both directly and indirectly
The fact that over the past 30 years, a russophobic and anticommunist nationalist sentiment has been fostered in Ukraine, as has been in most of Eastern Europe since the advent of capitalism as a political tool against Russia, doesn't invalidate any of that, and the fact that Ukrainians generally feel that way doesn't automatically make it right, in the same sense that American exceptionalism is a general sentiment in the US and it's wrong. As an example, most Polish people view the crisis of the 80s (which gave rise to Solidarity) as a consequence of Soviet meddling in their economy. The reality of the consensus of serious economists who study this issue is that Poland went, against the advice of the Soviet Union (proving again that its "iron grip" in the eastern block wasn't such), went into debt with western banks and financial institutions and paid the consequences.
Russia/USSR was/is
The fact that you even compare the two shows how little idea you have of what you're talking about. Modern capitalist Russia is a liberal democracy on a downwards spiral towards fascism, the Soviet Union was a worker's state and didn't exert imperialism. The trade terms of the USSR were generally beneficial to the countries that traded with it (see Cuba's crisis in the 90s after trade with the USSR stopped), USSR was a net exporter of raw materials and fossil fuels which it did at international prices even within the COMECON. If you have studied unequal exchange, this means that the Soviet Union was subsidising other states because of the imbalance in international prices of raw materials vs manufactured, high added-value goods. The USSR assisted immensely in anti-imperialist struggle: wars of Korea and Vietnam, Chinese revolution, Cuban revolution...
What you're doing here is proving that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, and you consider yourself a leftist but you've done no study of the material history of socialism and you parrot the talking points of the US State Department.
My friend Ukrainian friends should be grateful the the USSR? Barf. Clever you never mention to holodomor. But i bet that is very conveniently not genocide for you. Maybe you should tell African countries to be grateful for their imperialism next since it brought them boarders and some modernization while you're at it.
Look, you accuse me of not reading. But you seem high on only reading the propaganda you've gobbled up. You're so biased it's invalidated most of what you'd consider an argument. Though its hard to consider it much if an argument when in this very thread you've contradict yourself and offer up fallacies left and right.
I'm not comparing Russia to the USSR. I'm saying that authoritarian capitalism never ended there.
Enjoy your personal cult flavor of imperialism while doing mental gymnastics to call it something else. When a government forceful controls others, its imperialism. Just because you think they were good imperialists doesn't mean they weren't imperialists.
"Holodomor" is a newly coined term to categorize a famine as a genocide. A famine took place in the early 30s in the USSR as a consequence of failures during THE FIRST ATTEMPT IN HISTORY of collectivizing agriculture, which led to millions of deaths both inside and outside Ukraine. You guys never mention the deaths in Central Asia and in Russia proper, because it's not convenient to your narrative.
The reality is that while there was a famine in the USSR, and it disproportionately affected Ukraine, there is simply no evidence to talk of intent. The dekulakization process was a difficult period of Soviet history, but the famine took place between 1930 and 1933 and largely disappeared afterwards, with no other such event in Ukrainian history happening ever after during Soviet rule. There is no motive against Ukrainians (a worker's state killing workers isn't a smart thing), there is no evidence of motive, and there is no evidence of intentionality, calling the USSR famine of 1930 "Holodomor" is (a western manufacture)[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Holodomor&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3] of atrocity propaganda against communism, and to boost russophobia. The famine was a disaster and a failure of soviet policy, but calling it "genocide", or saying that it was targeted against Ukrainians, is simply insulting.
The Soviet Union, like it or not, saved Ukraine from the Russian Empire, and later from the Nazi invasion. The number of people who died in famines pales with the millions of lives that were saved from Nazi occupation and the ensuing extermination of the Slavic "untermenschen", had there been not a Soviet Union there would simply be no Ukraine to speak of right now.
Look, you accuse me of not reading
That's because you haven't, your entire analysis is vibes-based, and the only references that you could possibly point towards in these topics are reddit/.world comments that you've read and assimilated because they're compatible with your US State Department propaganda anticommunist views.
When a government forceful controls others, its imperialism
When an actually-existing socialist state ensures a degree of homogeneity in policy and objectives in its area of influence, it's not called imperialism, it's called geopolitics, which are a sad truth of class war. But sure, keep praising leaders who achieved absolutely nothing because they were killed as soon as they were about to enact the slightest socialist policy. Go on, suck off Allende's cock (who resulted in Pinochet), the Spanish Second Republic (which resulted in Franco), and your dear Swedish loser whose movement and ideas were so grassroots that they died with him. Because to you anticommunist leftists, the only valid leftist movements are those that die prematurely and don't have to face real-world conditions. You compare theory with reality, and when the dire reality of class war doesn't adequate to your moralism, you reject it.
Non intentional genocides and sad truths are lame excuses for an authoritarian regime that took away the autonomy of other nations and caused disproportional death of those they were trying to control.
Sweden made rapid advances in social welfare and programs under Olof. Sorry he didn't subjugate enough people for you to feel like it was good socialism. Enjoy the boot but be careful because it doesn't just stomp on the people you think deserve it.
Non intentional genocides
Imagine not knowing what genocide means.
caused disproportional death
The USSR saved tens of millions of lives. The life expectancy in imperial Russia was around 30, by the 50s it as 60, and they stopped Nazism which would have genocided as many Slavs as they possibly could.
Olof. Sorry he didn't subjugate enough
Oh wow, a western leftist who doesn't understand unequal exchange, imperialism, and the yoke that Europe imposes on the global south, colour me surprised. Well, maybe I'm being too generous, and you just don't care about the lives of the Asians and the browns that die in the plantations and factories of the products your perfect social democracy consumes!