where do you stand on the socialist spectrum? i’ll start: my socialist views are a fusion of market socialism, welfarism, georgism and left-libertarianism - i took the leftvalues quiz (as shown in the photo attached in this post), and i got “centrist marxism”. you DON’T have to take the quiz though.
EDIT: i just added the link
Without coming to blows arguing historical fact I just can’t swing ML. I’ve read Marx (or better yet, continuing to read Marx) and the man spits straight fire, so does Lenin, hell even stalin at times. But! I’m too disgusted by the atrocities wrought in their names, intended or not it’s just too many dead for me. I’m much more interested in how ML can evolve and change into something that’s much more adaptable to outside pressure without falling victim to the corruption of centralised power. Keen to know your thoughts.
What specifically are you referring to as “the atrocities wrought in their names?” Who are these “too many dead?” Capitalists love framing Nazis killed by the Red Army and the like as “victims of communism,” or deaths from famines that were primarily driven by forces outside communist control like adverse weather conditions. I’m not saying no excess has ever happened under communists, but I am saying that westerners distort it to a cartoonish degree in order to maintain cultural hegemony.
Hard agree capitalists and westerners hold more fear over communism than Nazism/fascism and that the truth of their history is often distorted however after reading Ivan’s War I’ve become a lot more critical of how communism was executed in Russia. Additionally, there were a few extremely rotten individuals that were allowed to rise to prominence within the communist party that I think undermined its efforts. People like Beria and Lysenko terrify me and reveal how the wrong people in the wrong place can cause mass death in an authoritarian system.
It’s important to recognize that works like Ivan’s War are common in the west, and often exaggerate or even fabricate narratives about the soviets. I’m not sure what the author said in that book, or with what evidence, but it sounds like the author repeats “human wave” myths. Good resources on the Red Army include books like The Soviets Expected It by Anna Louise Strong, who actually lived in and reported on the soviet union. There’s a lot of bias going on that you would do well to work through.
Catherine merridale uses accounts from red army veterans and personal accounts of those who worked in the work houses as the foundation of her book. I find it insightful despite present biases. And of course, identifying biases is inherent to good research which is why I’m aware that communist literature has its very own to be wary of. Thank you for the book recommendation! Keen to get through it
Just FYI, Beria’s black legend is nearly entirely fabricated between Khrushchev (who couped, murdered and smeared Beria to legitimise his powergrab) and anticommunist hacks like Simon Sebag Montefiore who is a pedofile himself yet he specialise in accusing socialist leaders of the same. I mean sure Beria wasn’t nice guy, no head of security apparatus ever will be a nice guy, but the numbers like arrest falling by 90% and executions by 99% after he took over NKVD or his actions post-war and during the Khrushchev coup are by itself enough to refute the most obvious accusations of tyranny, paranoia and cruelty.