this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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They'll literally talk about feeding millions of people alligators or put on theatrically staged shows of tying people up to chairs with bags on their heads and executing them via gunshot to the back of the head among other monstrous acts but will cry crocodile tears enough to flood the Great Plains with an ocean and accuse you of being a monster in human skin if you don't want basic human rights for everyone.

It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment.

Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible

Quote by stalin-pipe

A maximum sentence in the worst Soviet prison in the Stalin era is a kindness to these people.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 hours ago

Every time I head libs complain about the Gulags in biographies of people who "suffered through them" they always have a line like "They were terrified because going to the gulag was practically a death sentence." Then after the gulag chapter is done, the biography continues with like "10 years later they moved to the US and unveiled the horrible truth about the gulags, getting multiple book and movie deals and becoming a millionaire. They now spend their time collecting world war 2 memorabilia and expanding their collection of unusual tattoos."

It's always "The gulag was an evil death sentence" and then "after the (actually pretty reasonable) amount of time they spend in the gulag, they were free to move overseas and leave the USSR to live their life how they want. THUS PROVING how evil the USSR really was!"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 17 hours ago

but will cry crocodile tears enough

i see what you did there

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 hours ago

emoji please

[–] [email protected] 0 points 15 hours ago

This is gonna live in my head rent free from now on

[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago

Can Kermit Gulag be the name of our band

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Kermie you are a revisionist and and a traitor to the USSR, off to the Gulag!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago

Gulag is light punishment for his crime; drinking capitalist instant coffee.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

wait why are you posting anne applebaum, she can't possibly have a good take and I'm not clicking on it

[–] [email protected] 0 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

She also used Kermit gulag.

Edit: sorry, not her, her site used Kermit gulag.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

It is obviously impossible for two things to be bad!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

We can obviously agree that prisons in the soviet union were bad during certain periods of Soviet history. It rose out of the tsarist system and became formalised during one of the most brutal civil wars in history, and its most famous and most explored period was during the most brutal invasion and land war the world has ever seen. But I venture to say that there is a pretty significant difference between electing not to feed the nazis first during a famine, and doing ethnic cleansing tourism.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

Good point, here's my reply, gonna spoiler it since it might offend hexbear:

spoilerpigpoop

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

Solzhenitsyn, one of the most influential figures in the western perception of the gulag system, had his cancer treated there and it saved his life. His book is mostly rumors and folktales written as though they were things he had witnessed, which is why editions in some languages call it what he did, a "literary experiment," and his wife further clarified in an interview for NYT decades later that these were folklore. Solzhenitsyn was also an antisemitic freak who somewhat bought into the "Judeo-Bolshevism" thing and was arrested for writing a letter about how the USSR needed to be overthrown while he was an officer in the Red Army on the Eastern Front, favoring an Eastern Orthodox theocratic monarchy.

Robert Conquest, probably the other most influential figure in this perception, claimed more people died in the gulag system than had ever even been entered into it (as we discovered when we gained access to the Soviet archives). This joins the list with other discredited theses from him, such as his thoroughly-debunked idea that the USSR's Great Famine of '32-'33 was a deliberate "terror famine" and a Holocaust-like event. He also preceded his work as a "historian" by working for 8 years in post-war British intelligence as specifically an anti-Soviet propagandist.

Just some fun facts.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Who fucking asked you, shitlib

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Oh no I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings in this public post you made!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Alaskaball linked you to an excerpt of an interesting book, and if you wish to read the entire thing I made an epub of it: https://comlib.encryptionin.space/epubs/this-soviet-world/

(I also made an epub of the mentioned Russian Justice)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Here's my trade offer;

You can A) Read through all the first-hand primary source info on the Soviet penal system in this post and come back with a nuanced response and even make an intrllectual critique of it if you see fit.

Or B) make a debatejak very-intelligent shitlib snarky one-liner and be banned from the instance.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (10 children)

I seriously doubt that someone who’s immediate response was to attack and dismiss my post, calling me a “shitlib”, which I’m sure means something to you, is interested in a “nuanced” discussion of any kind.

And if your so called primary source is an American journalist who was allowed to visit some prisons, then I would ask you if you really believe they would allow her to tour the majority of facilities?

I am suspect of propaganda in all its forms. And I’m in no way defending the fascist shithole that the US has become. I am simply pointing out that the US being shit is not a defense of Siberian labor camps, as your post implies.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 hours ago

Holy shit, an actual unironic pontemkin village claim in the wild. I am in awe of your great intellect mighty sir, have a reddit gold: fell-for-it-again

[–] [email protected] 0 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

I am suspect of propaganda in all its forms

damn it's so lucky for you that western media is objective and doesn't have any sort of agenda so you can accept it uncritically

[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago

And I’m in no way defending the fascist shithole that the US has become.

All you're saying is that you're not even getting paid to defend this fascist shithole, you're willing to do it for free.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago

I seriously doubt that someone who's immediate response was to attack and dismiss my post

Hey dis u?

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/19936948

[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

the fascist shithole that the US has become

has become

lol, lmao

[–] [email protected] 0 points 18 hours ago

I seriously doubt that someone who’s immediate response was to attack and dismiss my post... is interested in a “nuanced” discussion of any kind.

projection

And if your so called primary source is an American journalist who was allowed to visit some prisons, then I would ask you if you really believe they would allow her to tour the majority of facilities?

Yes because the rest of her, and Callcott's books both discuss their first-hand investigation of Soviet prisons across the union.

I am suspect of propaganda in all its forms. And I’m in no way defending the fascist shithole that the US has become. I am simply pointing out that the US being shit is not a defense of Siberian labor camps, as your post implies.

We live in a country that constantly spins outright lies about so-called enemies to justify the crimes against humanity it commits against everyone within and without its boarders.

I am not implying that I am defending the Soviet penal system. I am speaking the truth.

Alright you pass since you put in the effort

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

Actually educating yourself about the things you seemingly strongly believe in is a good thing to do, even if you don't think someone on hexbear.net is going to be cordial to you (and it's not exactly like you started out the conversation in a way that screams "good faith argument").

More importantly, if you just assume everything that contradicts what you already believe in is propaganda and not worth looking at you're really just making sure you'll never escape any propaganda or incorrect assumption you've fallen for in the past.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I seriously doubt that someone who’s immediate response was to attack and dismiss my post, calling me a “shitlib”, which I’m sure means something to you, is interested in a “nuanced” discussion of any kind.

Gives a non nuanced, downright moronic, oneliner and then is surprised by the response they get... Many such cases!

I would ask you if you really believe they would allow her to tour the majority of facilities?

It's over folks. Pack up, she wasn't given access to the hiper-gulag hidden in Tselinoyarsk and all the real victims were given wedgies and shoved into lockers so she couldn't interview them...

I am suspect of propaganda in all its forms.

doubt

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

who would the soviets be putting in prison?

do you think the united states propaganda machine that is responsible for your background vibes based opinion of the gulag system is more or less reliable than literally any other source?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

I am suspect of propaganda in all its forms

But not suspect of all the western propaganda about Soviet gulags, apparently.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

No see, people deserve to be treated much worse than even normally maltreated prisoners in the US because........ possibly maybe having a visa violation.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

"They came here to escape worsening material conditions in their home country (which was probably caused by the US)? STICK THEM IN THE GATOR PRISON" frothingfash