alexei_1917 [any] @ alexei_1917 @hexbear.net

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1 mo. ago

Of course China's a panda! There's an old Sino-Soviet joke in there about the Soviet Bear, that resolves to a panda bear and a grizzly bear having a nice snuggle and looking just plain adorable.

They're trying to counteract previous mistakes of drawing China as a panda bear, which... the Soviet Bear thing worked because you can draw a grizzly bear that looks scary (although I find most Soviet Bear junk to look hug shaped anyway), the panda allowed for good Sino-Soviet jokes, but they eventually figured out that it's very difficult to draw a panda bear that doesn't look hug shaped and adorable, so they started drawing China as a dragon instead... which only serves to make China look badass. Though I do miss the cuddly panda bears.

That would be amazing and I'd love it.

Except that it'd never exist, because it could only be real workplace nightmares and real union organising under capitalism, but it would never be filmed or aired in a capitalist country. The USSR absolutely would have been willing to make something like that back in the day, but the necessary class contradictions, and unionising as the only means of recourse, simply weren't present.

Marx explains why it happens. Lenin tells you what to do about it.

This is one of the most succinct explanations of how Lenin builds on Marx, that I've read in a while. Nicely put, comrade.

I love that some of the modern McCarthyists are so bad, that when they call someone a communist who actually is a socialist of some description, no one takes them seriously.

but try to propose naming something after Stalin.

Not that we would, of course. He'd turn in his grave at modern communists doing that. He hated cult of personality nonsense directed at himself just as much as Lenin did. He didn't want the people to erect statues of him and name stuff after him.

But yeah, the double standard is ridiculous.

I wish a "Stalinist" party would take power in the US. Maybe then the sins of that guilty land could finally begin to be purged. Maybe then the US would actually do some good for the world. Maybe they could actually spread Freedom and Democracy by supporting other communist revolutions. Instead of just saying they're Spreading Democracy as an excuse to bomb civilians in countries 90% of their population can't point to on a map.

I mean, I catch myself falling for Soviet nostalgia crap that ends up in the West a lot, despite having been born long after the dissolution, but like, the Western left as a whole has a Soviet obsession and Eastern Bloc nostalgia problem. Lot of Western communists who didn't live through the Cold War but miss it anyway, along with those who did live through it and miss when just being a communist was in and of itself revolutionary and dangerous and Doing Something. People who love Soviet aesthetics and still want Red Dawn to actually happen, instead of having to lead a local revolution and take local culture and material conditions into account.

So, this might not work that well in the actual former Warsaw Pact... but it sure as hell works in countries that were on the other side of the Cold War.

That is... Very strange. But also not that surprising. Lot of Russian "past power and glory" nostalgia relies on the Orthodox church and tsarism just as much as it relies on Stalin era USSR or post Great Patriotic War Soviet nationalism.

Thanks for the rec!

Ooh, looks good, can't wait to sink my teeth into some of this, thanks comrade!

Ooh, neat. I might have an old device lying around that'd be possible to set something like that up on, using that specifically for theory is the most leftist thing ever. Will have to look into that.

The delightful Soviet aesthetics of the Cold War are gone, and every modern commie thing looks exactly the same as capitalist design styles, with hammers and sickles badly bolted on and maybe a coat of red paint... and the powerful united front that was the Warsaw Pact is gone, leaving scattered small AES states that are far from achieving anything close to communism and not really able to rebuild such an organisation. Yeah, being a socialist nowadays sucks. Everything looks and feels terrible, as the legacy of the Soviet Union slowly crumbles and dies.

This, for sure. At least the commie posters aren't blatantly sexist, and often advocate for the equality of the systematically oppressed.

Stalinism doesn't exist.

I want some. Bet that feels amazing.

This is what I mean when I say I like 1950s aesthetics. Well, that and the Cold War. Not that I miss Western views of communists being even worse than present day, but, I do miss "The Commies" having some power and cultural impact.

Western liberals say communist propaganda plastered everywhere in socialist states is dystopian, but I'd massively prefer it over the advertising plastered everywhere in Western capitalist countries. Or better yet, don't cover every square inch of available space with a poster or banner or billboard.

You get what you pay for, and the only people willing to babysit that many toddlers for free are commies!

Red nap mats, and blankets with a Soviet flag design on them! Consistent lessons on sharing the toys! Naptime story each day is read out of Lenin's collected works! Everyone has to do their share cleaning up the toys at end of day! Lots of plush grizzly bears and panda bears, no other plushies in the toy bins! Most of the toys are "roleplay grownup jobs" type playthings, complete with a dress up box full of stereotypical job uniforms! There's a portrait of Stalin hung in every room! The front hallway corkboard decorated with the children's drawings is full of commie symbols and crude crayon depictions of Soviet leaders!

But hey, at least desperate working parents don't have to pay for it! Sure, you have to deal with a baby Red after work, but if you can't afford a daycare that'll teach capitalist propaganda or religious values instead, it might seem worth it!

(Maybe we'd end up with less liberals if the majority of children ended up in places like that because they have two working parents who can't afford pricier childcare.)

I wish this worked. I unfortunately live with several libs who definitely need an exorcism.

But at what cost?