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jgmail · 3 months ago

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Franco Milanesi: “La revolución conservadora se basa en la revolución contra el capitalismo y la forma humana burguesa en nombre de las raíces comunitarias de la tradición nacional y el hombre”

Por Eren Yeşilyurt

Traducción de Juan Gabriel Caro Rivera

Tuvimos una agradable entrevista introductoria con Franco Milanesi sobre la filosofía política, la historia y especialmente las ideas de Ernst Niekisch. Tocamos muchos temas, entre ellos cómo Niekisch combinó los conceptos de revolución conservadora y nacional-bolchevismo y su relación con Ernst Jünger.

¿Podría presentarse brevemente?

Nací en Turín el 5 de julio de 1956 y me licencié en la Universidad de Turín con una tesis sobre la disidencia en el Pcd'I. Enseñé en Pinerolo y en 2010 me doctoré en la Universidad de Turín. En 2014 obtuve un segundo doctorado en la Universidad de Génova. Publico artículos en diversas revistas. En 2008 publiqué Dietro la lavagna (Detrás de la pizarra), basado en mi experiencia escolar, y en 2010 salió Militanti per Punto Rosso. En 2011 publiqué Ribelli e borghesi. Nazionalbolscevismo e rivoluzione conservatrice en Aracne y más tarde Nel Novecento con Mimesis, obra dedicada a la trayectoria política de Mario Tronti. En 2022 se publicó Il tempo inquieto. Per un uso politico della temporalità con Ombre corte. Escribí el prefacio de Il regno dei demoni. Una fatalità tedesca de Ernst Niekisch en 2018 para NovaEuropa. Participo como ponente en conferencias y encuentros públicos en varias ciudades italianas. Fui secretario de Rifondazione Comunista en el círculo de Pinerolo y también realicé trabajos administrativos en la misma ciudad.

Ernst Niekisch ocupa una posición única dentro de la Revolución Conservadora como nacional-bolchevique. ¿Cuáles son las ideas centrales de Niekisch? ¿Cómo consiguió compaginar su condición de revolucionario conservador con el nacional-bolchevismo?

La filosofía política de Niekisch está estrechamente ligada a su antropología política. De hecho, es la Gestalt burguesa el centro teórico de su obra. Esta Figur se ha impuesto en la modernidad y es la que «gobierna» la dinámica capitalista. La crítica del capital se convierte en una crítica del «tipo de hombre» que lo encarna y propaga. El burgués reúne dos características: individualismo propietario y universalismo. Frente al primero Niekisch afirma la instancia comunitaria y socialista. El sujeto individual sólo encuentra su «sentido» dentro de la comunidad social, una comunidad de iguales en la que el Estado es la institución concreta que realiza y promueve el socialismo. Sin embargo, esta sociedad necesita una identidad y el elemento nacional tiene esta función. Esta es la doble raíz de su obra: nacionalista (antiuniversalista) y bolchevique (anticapitalista). La revolución conservadora se apoya en ideas similares. Revolución contra el capital y el hombre burgués. Preservación y reactivación de la tradición nacional y de las raíces comunitarias de lo humano.

¿Puede explicar a qué se refiere con oponerse al hombre burgués?

La forma burguesa (Gestalt) es un modo de ser de lo humano que podemos considerar abstractamente. Precisamente, como forma. El burgués pone en el centro de su existencia la seguridad personal, el decoro, el dinero, la familia, el individuo. Todo ello se opone a las características igualmente universales que encarna el espíritu prusiano: sacrificio, espíritu militar, sentido de comunidad. Para Niekisch, el proletario surgido en el mundo soviético, homo sovieticus, encarna parte de estos caracteres, los cuales están presentes no sólo en los prusianos, sino también en los eslavos.

¿Cuál era la postura de Niekisch ante los nacionalsocialistas? ¿Cómo chocó con la ideología nazi y cómo influyó este choque en su vida política?

El choque con el nazismo fue durísimo. Niekisch ya había pasado dos años en prisión tras su experiencia en la República Soviética de Baviera. Aunque en un principio se interesó por la experiencia de los hermanos Strasser, ya en 1932 publicó una de sus obras más significativas, Hitler, un destino alemán (Hitler, ein deutsches Verhängnis), un texto histórico-teórico en el que atacaba al nacionalsocialismo como expresión del espíritu sureño, burgués y católico. La victoria del nazismo supondría la plena latinización del espíritu alemán y el triunfo de los «valores» mercantiles del capitalismo. Los nazis lanzaron una violenta campaña contra el libro. En enero de 1939 un tribunal especial condenó a Niekisch a cadena perpetua, confiscación de todos sus bienes y prohibiéndole ejercer sus derechos civiles. Es liberado, casi completamente ciego y paralítico, por el Ejército Rojo el 27 de abril de 1945.

¿Qué significa la «latinización del alemán»?

Latinización significa, precisamente, rendición a los valores «del Sur», en particular a los valores católicos, que, para Niekisch, son los mismos que los de las sociedades mercantiles dominadas por el testaferro burgués.

¿Qué tipo de estructura geopolítica preveía Ernst Niekisch al proponer una alianza entre la Unión Soviética y Alemania? ¿Qué papel desempeñaban los conceptos euroasiáticos en esta estructura?

Europa del Este es para Niekisch el dique a la deriva «americana» de Occidente. Oriente significa bolchevismo. Como siempre, también interpreta el fenómeno político desde un punto de vista antropológico. El bolchevismo introdujo en el escenario de la historia una figura dominante: la del militante comunista. Una minoría que fue capaz de decidir, imponer y aplicar una política en la que el Estado, la clase dominante y las masas están literalmente unificadas, es decir, unificadas totalmente. La revolución bolchevique hizo realidad el mismo carácter eslavo, esencialmente colectivista, antiindividualista y militar. Estos son los caracteres que en una fusión ideal Este-Oeste, es decir, en la bolchevización de Occidente y Alemania, podrán detener la deriva burguesa y materialista de Occidente. La lectura que Niekisch hace de la historia está siempre impregnada de elementos metafísicos y espirituales. De ahí también su crítica al marxismo, que, por el contrario, reduce la historia a un conflicto económico y material.

¿Cuáles son los elementos metafísicos y espirituales en la interpretación que Niekisch hace de la historia? ¿Cómo los utiliza?

Los agudos contrastes entre Norte/Sur; protestantismo prusiano/catolicismo latino; espíritus guerreros/pacifismo; Estado absoluto/sociedad de libre mercado; comunismo/liberalismo individualista, representan cristalizaciones metafísicas que poco tienen que ver con la complejidad de los pueblos en su existencia concreta. En la historiografía moderna, las «fases» fijadas en rígidos esquemas cronológicos son acogidas con gran cautela. Niekisch llega incluso a hablar del «eterno judío», el «eterno latino», el «eterno bárbaro» no como modelos puramente abstractos sino, hegelianamente, como universales concretos que se objetivan en el curso de la historia. Evidentemente, no todos los latinos tienen esas características. Pero el poder de la forma marca por completo la historia y sus fases.

Su amistad con Ernst Jünger resulta interesante. ¿Cómo se influyeron mutuamente ambos pensadores? ¿Qué intercambios de ideas surgieron de esta relación intelectual?

Son dos pensadores «fuertes» que desarrollan sus ideas a partir de líneas culturales y textos diferentes. Yo resumiría algunos puntos en común 1. La Primera Guerra Mundial como «periodo de prueba» para la formación de un «tipo» revolucionario, antiburgués y movilizado de ser humano que busca cambiar el estado de cosas actual. El concepto de «movilización total» (die totale Mobilmachung) influyó profundamente en Niekisch. Ernst Jünger, por su parte, reconoció el nacionalismo de clase de Niekisch como un poderoso estímulo y escribió numerosos artículos en «Wiederstand». El Arbeiter jüngeriano es el proletario nacional de Niekisch, el «eterno bárbaro» que dominará el mundo occidental a la luz de los valores prusianos, espirituales y populares. Ambos mantuvieron contacto ya en 1927. Después de esa fecha, la postura de Jünger hacia el nazismo fue más cauta, hasta el punto de que trabajó como oficial en el París ocupado por los nazis. Participante activo en el intento de asesinato de julio de 1944, Jünger no fue procesado debido al aprecio que Hitler tenía por sus escritos sobre la guerra. Ambos compartían una concepción metafísica de la historia, basada en la sucesión de épocas y en el concepto de forma o Figur antropológico-político. Niekisch, dijo sobre Jünger que fue «de los pocos que comprendieron inmediatamente el sentido que yo quería dar a la figura del Obrero. Me gustaría reconocerlo porque incluso mentes muy agudas como Spengler y Carl Schmitt no me habían entendido, es más, habían malinterpretado mis intenciones». Aunque tenían diferencias con respecto a la actitud hacia la URSS, hacia la que Jünger siempre manifestó una profunda hostilidad.

¿Tiene seguidores hoy el pensamiento de Ernst Niekisch? ¿Qué le heredó al mundo actual?

Hay muchas corrientes «rojopardas» en los distintos Estados europeos. Surgen de la convergencia de las reivindicaciones nacionales y del radicalismo social anticapitalista y antiburgués. Las ideas de Niekisch, aunque profundamente transformadas, están muy extendidas en el euroasianismo (pensemos en su Ostorientirung), como crítica del americanismo y de una Europa unificada por el flujo de los mercados.

#historia #revolución conservadora #nacional-bolchevismo #rojipardos #ernst niekisch #entrevista

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slobozan-shitposting · 3 days ago

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Bruh, I think it's an overreaction. As a Ukrainian who grew up in a russified region (not gonna share too much info, but my username speaks for itself, I'm from the north east), thus denied Ukrainian identity (or literally any that isn't homogenized russified homo (post) sovieticus) and switched to Ukrainian later in life, I understand your feelings. It feels unfair that our culture and language are still overshadowed by russian propaganda. Although there's grain of truth in it, not everyone is coming from this perspective.

Some people are just curious and there's nothing wrong with it. SWANA is my favorite region, I tried learning Azerbaijani, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew and a little bit of Arabic, I'm curious about Islam, islamic terrorism and middle eastern wars*. Does it mean I support dictatorship regimes, terrorist groups, radical islamism or chauvinism? It would be a weird conclusion. Yes, an Armenian, a Kurd, etc might feel like their culture and language are overshadowed, but does it mean that being curious about said languages is disrespectful to them?

*pls don't make me share my opinions on them!! ��

there's literally no justification for giving people shit about what languages they've chosen to learn btw. some of you might not have dealt with it the same as i have, but it's been an annoyingly consistant theme in my life.

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mortheim · 7 months ago

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The real Kitezh Grad - Mologa

The city in the photo below no longer exists. Not due to any war, pandemic, or famine - it was a man-made disaster. Maybe it didn't affect as many people as some other Soviet experiments and policies, but it is still a tragic story of how you can destroy part of your own history for mega projects.

Mologa was founded in 1149 (at least we have mentions of a settlement there during this period). During the 14th-15th centuries, it was part of the Principality of Molozhsk (the name was derived from a river rather than from a city). By the 20th century, it wasn't a big city - only around 10.000 people with 12 factories, a gymnasium 8 schools, libraries, a cinema, a post and telegraph office, a bank, a hospital, and a health center. But the region still had its value for future generations. As for the territory, that would be submerged in the future, it was densely populated (for Russia) - around 130.000 inhabitants, with some places of cultural value - 3 monasteries (one founded in the 15th century, another in the 17th, and the last one at the end of 19th), multiple manors and several churches (5 just in Mologa, 4 of which were built from stone). The region was also pretty fertile because it was situated at the bottom of an ancient lake (yep, an interesting fact considering what happened to it later). It wasn't rich, but every year Mologa allowed up to seven thousand ships from the Lower Volga provinces to pass through its wharves.

It all started in 1932 when it was decided to build the Srednevolzhskaya hydroelectric complex. At first, only a small part of the region would be flooded - but the more you have the more you want to have. However, the construction organisers, having calculated everything, decided that if the level was increased by 4 m, the capacity of the plant would increase from 220 to 340 MW. It required a doubling of the land area to be submerged. Everything was decided by profit. The population was notified about the resettlement. The townspeople were transported out of Mologa for 4 years until the flooding began, with little to no belongings. Partially, they were compensated, and they also were employed at their new places of living.

But there were a lot of animals - both domesticated and wild - and the region had forests. What happened to them? Well, some domesticated animals were taken by their owners, while others died due to starvation or during flooding. The same fate awaited wild animals - most of them died during flooding. Trees were cut and, most of them were left there, creating obstructions on Volga and on the newly created reservoir. Here are some photos of Mologa.

The culture of Mologa was similar to that of Yaroslavl Governorate, with some small differences - there were several unique holidays, and some differences in celebrations of major ones, it was also overall more rural and better maintained some older aspects of early Russian culture. But the main loss came from the displacement of people - they lost connection with their roots. And I mean not only their graves or houses but items that were inherited through generations - you couldn't take that much with you considering when and how the resettlement happened.

Why is this relevant? One of the key themes I want to explore in my story is the contrast between modern russian culture, which is more soviet than one might thing, and the older russian traditions. My goal is to show this difference. Throughout the story, characters embark on personal journeys to reconnect with their roots in various regions, seeking to understand their connections to the people who lived long before them. One character has ancestors from Lukovec, a settlement in the northern part of the flooded region.

Just a reminder - every culture that was under Soviet rule suffered one way or another. Creating Homo Sovieticus was the goal.

#ussr #ussr history #history #culture #vseslavichi #lost city #russian history #soviet union #soviet russia

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1234567ttttttttttt · 8 months ago

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youtube

Homo Sovieticus czyli utopia w praktyce | Jędrzej Piekara

#youtube

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mesetacadre · 8 months ago

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i mean. the entire reason i got into writing the essay i showed you is that i'm studying law after finishing my current career in literature so. yeah all marxists are the same.

this must be the totalitarian communist hivemind, homo sovieticus, I've heard so much about

#ask #jeannie-youre-a-tragedy

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summeroffice · 1 year ago

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Israeli radio Первое радио with Марианна Беленькая

youtube

21:50 We are starting to receive questions from our radio listeners. I, well, if you allow me, I'll also ask my question and I ask a personal one. If you answer [Podolyak looks as if he couldn't be less interested]. On the stream of Евгений Киселёв, former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Koch said that your brother lives in Moscow and works for the ФСБ. You later refuted the ФСБ [he smirks] and said that you don't communicate with your brother. But I'm just wondering, did the war divide you or is it something completely different?

No [shakes head]. That's completely different, these are stories of 40 years. They left already during the Soviet Union. Our family is divided. So, there is no philosophy of military subjugation here. But yes, in fact, for a long time I perceived this as ? because to prove something that does not exist or to refute something that does not exist, it looks very strange. Of course, I don't have, and I have never had relatives neither in the system of the State Security Committee, nor in the system of the Federal Security Service of Russia. It is so obvious that it seemed to me that there was no need to talk about white white or white black and so, and that's all. There is no background here and there is no subject ever for--

I asked only because there are a lot of families that turned out divided by these wars, including, as I understand it, the family of the new, Oleksandr Syrskyi [he nods] and a lot of people are worried about this. From your point of view, in general, can this split someday be overcome, including a split in families?

No. No [shakes head].

That is, Russia, Ukraine, two nations have separated forever.

Let's do it correctly here. Look, everyone in the family-- Yes, we were in the Soviet Union, of course, right, and for example I was born in the Soviet Union in 1972. Of course, it was a slightly different system but from the point of view when states started to become independent, a very important sense of identity started to form who you are. It was also present in the Soviet Union, but they attempted to erode it through this fictitious internationalism, that is, there was a feeling that you, remember Alexander Zinoviev had "Homo Sovieticus", right, this attempt to blur all this.

In fact, identity, it is very important, that is, who you are from the point of view of how you perceive yourself in this world, how you perceive social connections, horizontal or vertical, attitude to power, all this was also different in different republics of the USSR. It disguised, I emphasise once again, the general Soviet ideology. But as soon as the countries got the opportunity to express their identity, national, ethnically oriented or not, or state-oriented, it all began to sharply remove Ukraine from the Russian Federation.

And here there are two differences. In families, that unfortunately were intertwined in the Soviet Union, each family member will decide for himself where he is, what values are a priority for him, how he perceives these values, where he wants to live, how he feels about such concepts as freedom, self-determination, and in general, competition as such. This will be everyone's choice and of course, but it will not be related to other things to choose from, let's say a state.

34:15 If we have already started talking about war, about military actions, today, for example, the agency Bloomberg wrote that Russia regained the initiative at the front and put Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a disadvantage. In this context, don't you regret, I mean President Zelenskyy's team, that you had to change Valeriy Zaluzhnyi to Oleksandr Syrskyi?

[Some of what he said:] I don't see, let's say, a fundamental change on the front line. I don't know what Russia's initiative is. There is no progress. We did not change Mr Zaluzhnyi for Mr Syrskyi. It was the team that was changed. It was updated.

50:05 Compromises are always the road to weakness, no matter how hard it may sound. By making compromises, you give hope to your enemy that he will always have the opportunity to put pressure on your weak points, and accordingly, will always take advantage of this and will always scale up the search for these places and will always find them. And sooner or later the amount of pressure that he can provide on these weak points will be excessive and this can lead to the collapse of the defensive formations as a whole.

47:11 could be a random look aside but 49:52 it seems as if he's looking at someone.

#mykhailo podolyak #Youtube

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gosia35 · 1 year ago

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Komuniści usiłowali stworzyć "homo sovieticus" (człowieka sowieckiego) i przeważnie im się to nie udało, bo komunizm choć był brutalny, to był siermiężny i miał ograniczone możliwości.

Natychmiast po przejściu setek milionów ludzi mieszkających na wschód od byłej "żelaznej kurtyny" spod okupacji komunistycznej pod okupację globalistów - nastąpiło ogromne przyspieszenie procesu formowania homo sovieticus: człowieka ogłupionego, zatrutego i wykastrowanego chemią, wydartego z korzeniami z ziemi, religii, patriotyzmu i w ogóle jakichkolwiek tradycyjnych, naturalnych wspólnot.

Te kilka krajów na wschód od byłej "żelaznej kurtyny" ciągle jeszcze różnią się pozytywnie od przegniłego na wskroś Zachodu tylko i wyłącznie dlatego, że zatruta chemikaliami żywność i "pranie mózgów" oraz infiltracja wszystkich aspektów życia przez masonerię zaczęła się w nich o 40 lat później. Wcale zaś nie dlatego, że były w jakimkolwiek sensie immanentnie lepsze, szlachetniejsze, lub doznające jakiejś specjalnej, boskiej opieki.

Komunizm nie miał interesu w likwidowaniu okupowanych przez siebie narodów nie dlatego że był dobry, tylko po prostu dlatego, że był technicznie zacofany (wynik wprowadzenia systemu ekonomicznego jeszcze bardziej sprzecznego z naturą ludzką niż monopolistyczny, socjalistyczny globalizm na dzisiejszym Zachodzie).

Komunizm potrzebował milionów żołnierzy i robotników, by zrekompensować ilością niższą jakość swej armii i gospodarki. Dlatego nie popierał zboczeń, pornografii, rozwodu bez orzekania o winie, śmieciowej "edukacji", rozpadu rodzin i spadku dzietności.

Plany naszych obecnych władców, globalistów są inne. Dążą oni do bezwstrząsowej, stopniowej likwidacji naszej rasy (będącej dla nich jedynym realnym, potencjalnym konkurentem), a potem również 97% z całej reszty ludności świata.

Nie potrzebują 8 miliardów ochroniarzy, prostytutek i kelnerów. Do walki wystarczą im małe oddziały zawodowców, do produkcji przemysłowej - maszyny. "Zaśmiecanie świata" przez nadmierną liczbę zbędnych istot mniej lub bardziej ludzkich jest dla nich sprawą pilniejszą niż cokolwiek innego.

Zlikwidowanie 97% populacji światowej stanie się łatwe po zlikwidowaniu ludzi zdolnych do zorganizowania buntu, mających wystarczającą do tego celu inteligencję i cechy charakteru (rasę białą). Globaliści wcale nie chcą żadnych wojen religijnych (np. z Islamem), czy rasowych - chcą powszechnego skundlenia się i zmieszania (mongrelizacji) wszystkich ze wszystkimi. Chcą by wszyscy zapomnieli o odrębnościach swych religii, języków, kultur, ras…

Ludzie, którzy urodzili się i uformowali swój obraz świata przed 1989 rokiem mają trudności ze zrozumieniem sytuacji, która jest już kompletnie inna, niż za czasów ich młodości, choć zmiany te nastąpiły stopniowo, podstępnie, zostały rozciągnięte w czasie. Więc tacy "niedzisiejsi ludzie" ciągle używają pojęć - skorup, z których dawno już wytchła wszelka żywa treść.

Naród, który jeszcze nie tak dawno miał medianę wieku dwadzieścia kilka lat, a naród z medianą ponad 40 lat - nie mają ze sobą nic wspólnego, choć mówią tym samym językiem i mieszkają na tej samej ziemi.

Kościół Wyszyńskiego nie ma nic wspólnego z kościołem Bergoglio, choć nazwa ciągle ta sama i te same świątynie, w których dziś celebrans siedzi odwrócony tyłem do tabernakulum.

Naród, w którym jeszcze niedawno było kilkanaście milionów niezależnych od państwa chłopów, a naród "zurbanizowanych, nowoczesnych", zatrudnionych przez państwo, lub wielkie korporacje Julek i Januszów - to dwie odrębne galaktyki, nie mające ze sobą nic wspólnego.

Itd...

M. D.

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lepotaa · 1 year ago

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Funny you mention central heating and residential architecture, cause on 2023 Lithuania decided that both those things are bad if they come from USSR.

Exhibition “Trapped (with Central Heating)”

"In a captive society, people have to learn various strategies and tactics just to live and survive, carefully navigating through and around a land strewn with existential traps. This exhibition, Trapped (With Central Heating), tells the story of such a situation and the everyday efforts of “simple people” to endure, think, interact, and engage in the creation of various ways of life, despite the ubiquitous mould infesting existence and daily life.

This exhibition spans the period from 1965 to 1993. The mid-1960s saw the rise of Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the Soviet Union and the start of a relatively (!) peaceful period in the country’s domestic life and foreign affairs that would soon deteriorate into the so-called Brezhnevite stagnation. During this period, the average homo sovieticus – no longer required to express blind faith in the postulates of Marxism-Leninism – was expected to observe ritualistic commitment to ideological dogmas, while also being offered the chance to enjoy an extra-ideological life and concern him or herself with meagre domestic affairs.

In Lithuania, the Soviet era concluded de jure on 11 March 1990, but the occupation’s de facto end came at 11:45 pm on the evening of 31 August 1993, when the last Russian Federation troops stationed in Lithuania left the country. But when did this great experiment, conducted with the help of Soviet traps, actually end in politics, economics, culture, and in daily life and our way of thinking?

At first glance, it seems as if the Soviet era has become a foreign country which, for many researchers of that period, no longer appears as a familiar place, but as a fundamentally different, and thus surprising, perplexing, horrifying, and sometimes laughable reality, whose relics are most appropriately displayed in a museum.

But the events of recent years compel us to raise a serious question: Has homo sovieticus truly become a thing of the past? We invite you to search for the answer to this and many other questions by walking through the cells of a former detention centre, each of which tells the story of the machinery, ideology, and rituals of Soviet reality, its economics and labour, wages and shortages, scarcities and fashions, and the transformation of history into propaganda, lies, and wilful oblivion."

Book by Marija Drėmaitė, Viltė Janušauskaitė, Nojus Kiznis, Matas Šiupšinskas 'You get an apartment. Residential architecture in Lithuania in 1940-1990'

Description "The dream of getting an apartment became the dominant part of the material life of Soviet-occupied Lithuania, and getting an apartment is one of the most significant events in people's lives. Housing in the Soviet country was not purchased with earned funds, but distributed according to party-administrative instructions. This turned it into a tool of social control and distorted its architectural nature."

i think people from countries with no central heating system have no right to speak badly about "depressing" communist architecture lol

#lithuania #housing people for free is social control and not architecture #groundbreaking innovative ideas

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roxannepolice · 2 years ago

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I don't understand why communism is the only political ideology with a free pass of "well on the paper it's good", as if not taking into account human nature for your political ideology is a good thing. If every time you apply a political ideology to a country it goes like USSR or CCP, then maybe don't do it at all?? It's so strange to see people who are pro lgbt and all be in such an awe of these countries where they would most likely be dead...

As the great sage Sebastian the crab put it, The seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake. And it's not like I completely don't get it, I'm not a big fan of the kind of hypercapitalist economy we have, and as I mentioned in the tags under that post about communism, I think one of the worst long term outcomes of 4 decades of socialism in Poland is that we still haven't developed a functional welfare state, instead oscillating between clientelistic state redistribution and what has grown to be called trash contracts. I'm not sure if it was Piketty or someone else who pointed out that one of the very few downsides of the end of cold war is that the West lost the element which makes free market work - competition. So long as there was genuine threat of superpower backed communist revolt in your country you just had to go for the carrot every now and then while dealing with workers.

Another matter is that communist (or rather neo-marxist, it's not like you'll find the impact of alienation of work on construction of gender binary in Marx or Engels) theories have a tautological self-defence mechanism in that you can always blame one false consciousness or another for all of the system's shortcomings. A lot of tumblrinas are willing to admit USSR and CCP weren't/aren't exactly paradises but that's "just because of" some nationalist element. Needless to say, you end up with a lot of social engineering to form a true homo sovieticus, but since all of education is already social engineering, then to protest would be hypocrisy, wouldn't it? And when it comes to people being upset about communist symbols abd personnages being used positively, then you can always clutch your pearls with whataboutism on national flags waving despite historical attricities 🤷

On a less constructivist and more idealistic side, there's something to be said for how flattering the "human nature" is in leftist ideals. Where capitalism shows you competition of everyone with everyone, socialism gives you essentially peaceful human whose aggressive or selfish impulses come from outside. It's the lost paradise myth all over again. The evil serpent comes with desire for more instead of vegetating in your garden which gives you anything you might ever justly want (incidentally, Fromm with his application of psychoanalysis to society compared communism to "archetypal" matriarchy, as opposed to "patriarchal" capitalism; where toxic patriarchy makes you always strive for more than you'd ever consume while cutting you off emotionally, toxic matriarchy will give you everything you'd ever need while making you completely dependent emotionally; he concluded the most functional society as happiest individual will combine the best of both).

I think there's also a more potentially optimistic level to the online image of communism, which lies in the "global village" of network society. The big reason historical communist states' economy was so. bloody. inefficient, and extensive, amd get away from me if you think ecology was on anyone's mind in the east bloc is centralization. Centrally steered economy means someone up top decides that we will produce x cars y shoes z wardrobes relying on imperfect statistics and so you end up with falling apart cars, shoes in unwearable size (not to mention such bourgeois concepts like they're plain not to your taste) and wardrobes that you already have (luckily, someone might be willing to trade your wrong sized ugly shoes in exchange for two packs of cigarettes they don't smoke). And no, you didn't just have to present a talon and get it, you still had to pay for it (I have some relatives living in France since WWII and according to them 60s French rioters believed there was no money in the east bloc 🙃🙃🙃). I think many people hope that the fast flow of global information might alleviate this problem. Theoretically, you can now have a situation where people en masse provide exact information of what they need. This kind of relies on the observation that communism does sometimes work - in really small communities of willing participants. If you see network society as a global village, then perhaps there is some potential for improvement. That's not say "oh but communism could really work now!" But this is a genuine qualitative difference and I wish both private corporations and political parties were making more use of it. On the other hand, providing live information on what people want and need is exactly what free market is supposed to do - the buyer constantly shows what they're willing to get for what price. (And I would LOVE beholding this website of proudly socially inept people haggling shoes for alcohol face to face instead of paying with their non-physical money without the need to make eye contact).

I suppose the problem is always monopolization, which erases all healthy competition (in the sense that you have to either lower your prices or improve quality) and this is definitely more and more visible in the current capitalism. What western tumblrinas don't seem to understand is that state run communism is monopolistic by default - your only provider is the state and any sign of individual entrepreneurship is a proof you want to undermine the state and therefore are against THE (ONLY TRUE) PEOPLE so off with your head for collective benefit.

Oh, and when it comes to LGBTQ+ matters specifically in the east bloc. They were mostly criminalised and considered mental illnesses, although probably the most telling stories come from the brief moments when it was decriminalised. People were still being persecuted in workplaces and their identity or orientation used as a leverage against them by state forces. All of this was just happening not so much legally or illegally but in a secret third way 🙃🙃

#i hope i'm not rambling too much but i sometimes get confronted with people thinking stalin was history's good guy #and end up dissociating via how amazing the plurality of perception can be #also sorry for sociological jargon it's just one of those cases where a word really gets the meaning

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