KoReader is great!

Indeed, Kiev killed 13,000 civilians in the decade between the coup and the war.

Classes are social relations to production and distribution. If you’re talking about a factory owner, that’s bourgeoisie, or capitalist.

I’m not religious nor am I Russian, you were entirely unclear about what you were asking. Who @s a random person for a random article and doesn’t give any context?

Here’s the CPRF’s statement, read it for yourself. They support the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (not socialist), the breakaway regions that voted to secede after the 2014 Euromaidan coup, and are aligned with the nationalists in Russia on protecting them.

Ah, fair, makes sense.

In their code of conduct, they state that you shouldn’t really post “Propaganda from the USSR, CCP, or DPRK.” They’re an anarchist instance first and foremost, but are generally hostile to Marxists, from what I can gather. I don’t use Mastodon though so I haven’t interacted with them.

Pretty sure that’s why the @'d me, hoping for a dogpile.

I’m not being obtuse, this is my opinion on it: this is entirely expected and in line with what’s going on in Russia currently. Nothing about this is surprising.

Are you asking me to make a moral judgement? I think it’s a bit draconian, sure.

Are you asking me to expand more upon the dynamics in the Russian Federation right now, leading to why this is entitely unsurprising? The Russian Federation right now is split between 2 major and 1 minor groups:

1. The Nationalist Liberals. United Russia, the nationalist party, is the current dominant party in the Russian Federation and controls the largest number of seats in the State Duma. This is Putin’s political party. They have broad support due to opposing western imperialism, which devastated Russia in the aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR, but their support is shrinking in favor of group number 2 due to the failures of capitalism in Russia.

2. The Communists. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) is the second largest group in Russia, and controls the second most seats in the State Duma. In the last several years, communist party membership has skyrocketed, and a wave of soviet nostalgia has overtaken the populace. The nationalists are trying to steer that soviet nostalgia towarss Russian nationalism, but by and large this has resulted in more people moving to supporting a return of socialism. The CPRF critically supports the nationalists over group 3, which hardly anyone supports.

3. The pro-western Liberals. These are very unpopular, because the west looted and destroyed much of the gains made by the previous socialist system. Reconciliation with the west is an extremely unpopular view, but this group gets magnified in western viewpoints over the communists because they wish to present a narrative that Putin is unpopular.

The harsh truth is that Putin’s popularity in Russia is real because the nationalists stopped the outflow of wealth from the country, but this same group of nationalists largely keeps it for themselves, so the communists are rising to distrubute that wealth to the working classes and restore socialism. The pro-western liberals, which is who the subject of OP seems to belong to, are extremely unpopular, hence why the Russian state is cracking down on them to not much outcry from the Russian public.

Is that developed enough for you?

That is what I think about it, though. This isn’t surprising or out of the norm with what we know. I’m not sure what special addition or commentary they want me to add.

I’m not sure what exactly you’re asking for, the nationalists governing Russia are cracking down on anti-war protestors. The article says there are around 2 dozen instances of this over the last few years.

Pixelfed is the fedi equivalent, maybe make an account there and mastodon.

It’s less that and more that as capitalism turns to imperialism, it outsources all it can while trying to maintain a tech monopoly, creating “high value add” industry. The problem is that this “value add” industry doesn’t actually add any more value than other kinds of industry, its just kept as a tech monopoly, but China’s been able to break into that tech monopoly and fight those monopolist prices.

You can’t separate imperialism from its economic basis. The ability for a country to take on the mantle of empire post-US is extremely mitigated. Imperialism isn’t a magical force but a material process.

The US Empire has a small chance of Balkanizing, which the map drawers would love. The global south would develop far more rapidly, though this process has already started thanks to countries like the PRC. Europe will be forced into working with Russia and/or China. Countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and the DPRK that are heavily sanctioned will do a lot better with the US Empire out of the way, and Korea may even reunify down the road. Countries with strong socialist sentiment in the populace will better be able to become socialist and rapidly develop.

You haven’t read the sources I linked either. We have a western academic, state funded, and based on your arguments here there’s what you believe evidence that causes you to describe the USSR not as socialism, but a kleptocracy. This is why I’m heavily skeptical, because I have read on the structure of the USSR, I know how it functioned, and it was unquestionably socialist. I’m not saying no corruption ever existed, I’m saying that corruption was nowhere near relevant enough to be the base mode of production, because that’s an absurd statement to begin with.

The advent of socialism in Russia democratized the economy, doubled life expectancy, dramatically reduced poverty, provided free, high quality healthcare and education, had assured jobs and free or low cost housing, over tripled literacy rates, and turned a feudal backwater into a spacefaring nation in just a few short decades. Wealth disparity, which you seem to place an over-emphasis on, was dramatically lowered as compared to the Tsarist era and the capitalist era. The economy was based on collectivized production and distribution, and fulfilling the needs of everyone.

When you have all of that undeniably true, then statements like “Russia wasn’t socialist, it was a kleptocracy” become silly. Of course there was some degree of corruption, every country has some level of corruption. The USSR wasn’t a perfect utopia, as the first socialist state there were missteps and struggles. However, it was absolutely socialist, and because of that it delivered incredible results for the working classes.

Not just any public university employee:

Financial support for this research was provided by a number of foundations and organizations, including the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH), the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER), the Archives and Library of the Hoover Institution for War and Peace at Stanford University, the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Open Society Archive (Budapest). His first book was Inventing a Soviet Countryside: State Power and the Transformation of Rural Russia, 1917-1929 (2004).

There’s a concerted effort within western academia to keep demonizing socialism, and funding is one of the ways the state keeps that going. I provided more than plenty sources given an alternative view. None of this is about me trying to “out-socialist” you, nor virtue signal nor purity test. It’s about trying to come to a consistent understanding grounded in reality, from a proletarian point of view, rather than accepting liberal framing of socialism.

Yes, you indeed linked a US Federally funded liberal historian that is paid to present a certain view of the USSR. If you want sources on the socialist economy of the USSR, and how it was run, here are some great ones:

1. Is the Red Flag Flying? The Political Economy of the Soviet Union Today

2. Soviet Democracy

3. Russian Justice

4. This Soviet World

5. Blackshirts and Reds

All much better sources.

I don’t own Marxism, correct. I also study it a great deal, organize in real life with a communist party. I do acknowledge real faults with the USSR and PRC, but I don’t acknowledge fake ones. You should read the essay I linked called China Has Billionaires, it explains China’s position as an early socialist economy and its process of gradually collectivizing production and distribution. The class that controls the state and holds the principle aspects of the economy in China is the proletariat, as it was in the USSR, as it is in Cuba.

You defining Cuba as more correctly socialist because its rich people are poorer is what I mean by you being anti-Marxist, this poverty fetishism isn’t Marxist in the slightest.

I’m not being absurd, you are. You’re defining the mode of production of a majority collectivized and planned economy that was oriented towards satisfying the needs of everyone as a “kleptocracy.” This is ridiculous and requires an extreme level of evidence explaining why such a focus was both put on satisfying everyone’s needs, and on this “kleptocracy” you claim. You’re confusing the capitalists that rose from the ashes of the USSR with the USSR’s mode of production. I’m aware that China has billionaires, and again, you seem to be under the impression that Marxism is about equalitarianism and not about gradually collectivizing production and distribution to satisfy the needs of everyone.

Good reading for you would be China has Billionaires. Marxists don’t deny the struggles of the USSR and PRC, we do learn from them, what we don’t do is dismiss their successes or take liberal perspectives on them like you’re doing here.

I’m aware that you consider yourself a socialist, but your analysis is far from that of a socialist.

Socialism is not the absence of wealth. Every state has mixed forms of ownership, but the principle aspect is what’s dominant. The USSR did not have “oligarchs who stole from the people,” they had a socialist economy oriented towards satisfying the needs of everyone. Free education and housing, healthcare, dramatic improvements in infrastructure, huge increases in living standards, all came from the socialist system. Same for the PRC, though their safety nets aren’t as strong. This idea that socialism is about equalitarianism is exactly why you’re being anti-Marxist, Marx railed against equalitarians.

Cuba has a very similar structure and economy to the USSR and PRC, with their own characteristics. The main difference is that they are much smaller and much more cut off.