Tell me comrades how did you come to see the light. For me it was a combination of Michael Parenti, Robert Thurston, and the DPRK general here. Then I just went down the rabbit hole of debunks regarding both marxists-leninists and Arab socialists (who I still think are basically just Middle Eastern socdems a and would prefer them replaced with communists but who I think are preferable to Western control and still did good for the people depending on which one we're talking about) and never looked back
They lied about Stalin
Juan King
Other urls found in this thread:
youtube.com
youtu.be
twitter.com
Levi Campbell
Learning about Debt the First 5000 Years, Chile, then Michael Parenti, then Kapital
Zachary Clark
This was a really good video for dispelling a lot of the spooks around this. youtube.com
Tyler Hill
I was anti-idpol Jezza with U.S characteristics before realizing DemSucc is impossible
Kayden Bailey
Of course there's a lot of lies and propaganda. That doesn't necessarily mean that every negative statement ever uttered about, let's say, Stalin was a lie. Have you heard Michael Parenti talk about his views on Stalin? He doesn't seem to be a fan. Assad and Gadaffi aren't/weren't even really socialists, so I don't see why it's important that we defend their moral character in this way. You can (and should) oppose regime change without going full Assad/Gadaffi dindu nuffin mode.
Tyler Wilson
I saw a cool infographic saying stalin dindu nothing wrong and then i realized he did do some bad shit but still based
Robert Hughes
This is assumed in every one of these threads unless someone goes full Grover Furr mode. That's why I stipulated I thought Gadaffi and Assad along with other folks associated with Arab nationalism weren't really socialists in the OP. That's why I said they lied and not that they "did nothing wrong"
And yeah Parenti definitely prefers Lenin to Stalin and isn't afraid to say where stalin went wrong but there's a good amount of ☭TANKIE☭s who do the same thing. I'd even say that those who literally think Stalin is completely untouchable are a minority of M-L's. It seems like there's a lot of Maoists who think Mao literally did nothing wrong though which confuses me
Camden Jones
Depends on your audience…in front of liberals you better be full Not One Crime mode.
Austin Bennett
Fully realizing how stupid this makes me look: funny memes and basic logic.
While I was a socialist before coming to Zig Forums the endless Stalin and DPRK memes made me associate these issues with fun and jokes instead of crazy conspiracy theories.
Once I was a bit more relaxed, I started to look into the record of Stalin and the early JSSR, and found any comparison with capitalist countries in similar stage of development made the USSR look like a humanist daycare. From there, it was game over.
Owen Gonzalez
I HAVE YET TO FIND ONE CRIME!
youtu.be
Daniel Davis
This post is worthy of quads
Owen Cruz
(me)
Oh, and after finding out the truth about the USSR, everything else sort of fell into place.
Nathaniel Sanders
Is this something you guys actually do? that sounds retarded, like pretending to be the stereotype of what your opposition thinks you are every time you engage them, like pretending to be full on trans-supporter when arguing with a right-winger. What do you think saying "Stalin did nothing wrong" does when talking to a liberal? it will make you look like their stereotype of a psycho communist, that it will do.
William Brown
I hope this is real
Lincoln Lopez
?
Justin Reyes
Fair enough. Just want to emphasize that I think the best strategy is being reasonable and honest when discussing this stuff with normies. Debunk lies and propaganda and contextualize the bad stuff, but don't try to deny that any bad stuff ever happened (like Furr basically does), or worse, insist that all the people who died deserved it. It makes us look like unhinged and cruel lunatics. I honestly think a lot of people appreciate a nuanced, informed take more than if you just invert whatever the mainstream narrative is.
Yeah Mao did a bunch of awfully retarded shit tbh. Especially in regards to foreign policy. Still based though. My favorite is when Maoists assess the status of modern China as a workers' state or not by how much they suck up to Mao in speeches and stuff.
To answer the question in the OP, I think listening to old Michael Parenti speeches was probably the most influential. I had watched a bunch of FinnBol vids before that, and although I learned some useful information from him, I could never take him that seriously due to his obvious "bias". I thought "alright this is kinda interesting but this guy is a weirdo from Finland with a funny accent and Stalin as his profile picture though…".
I think it's way less likely you'll convince anyone that way. People will just write you off as an insane person and ignore whatever you say.
Juan Bailey
He linked a CIA workers twitter and a private security thing
Anthony King
Why?
Grayson Torres
idk, probably as a joke
Owen Watson
Don't bring up Stalin first. If anyone else does you counter it with a) Conquest was hired by the MI5 to produce propaganda b) He misrepresented all of his sources or relied on fascist propaganda c) The numbers don't add up with demographic data d) The numbers don't add up with demographic data.
Get back to shitting on capitalism and giving hard data on the achievments of socialism a soon as possible.
Aaron Gonzalez
I meant d) the numbers don't add up with shit from the soviet archives.
Landon James
Nice try, cetnik. And what lies are those?
William Long
Poor argumentation. Where was still wage labour - the labourers laboured for the state owned companies, instead of individual capitalists. There was little to none workplace democracy. Workers didn't run factories or vote on directors etc. All of which was addressed by Yugoslav commies, but they re-enforced the marked instead of abolishing it.
The main motor of the economy were still investments and the law of value. The workers of a company or in the economy in general didn't decide how to spend the surplus value etc.
No, you don't need administrators administrating, what a filthy porky argument from the so-called "bolshevik".
Ethan Mitchell
Bump
Jaxson Reed
Funny thing is, Seselj got his chetnik "duke" title revoked by the last actual chetnik duke because he was allied with "socialist" Milosevic.
Easton James
We can't really have a productive conversation if one person literally thinks Stalin eats babies for breakfast and intentionally starved every person on the planet. Why try to convince people who doesn't seem to approach their beliefs via reason but through 10+ years of indocrination.
We can have a conversation about the faults that Stalin did when we engage into the source material like what Most MLs already did.