Bit of a cheap pivot, isn’t that? Not all nationalist movements are good, many are highly reactionary, even fascist in nature. On the whole, Soviet foreign policy was cleary in the interests of the working class, from helping Cuban workers liberate themselves from the fascist Batista regime, to helping Algeria throw off the colonizing French, to helping Palestinians resisting genocide, to assisting China with throwing off the Nationalists and Imperialist Japan.

Sure, but then why say anything? If you aren’t going to post an example, then it’s just your word, and for now, a strawman.

Knowing Marxists, we also will never shut up lol

That’s generally a disagreement over what “Imperialism” even means. “Anti-Imperialists” are talking about Lenin’s identification of modern Monopoly Capitalism as it brutally expropriates wealth from the Global South through outsourcing and debt traps with the IMF, like Coke and the Columbian death squads.

The USSR was perhaps the single most progressive movement in the entire 20th century. It was not free from flaw, of course not, but in total it was a massive leap forward for the Working Class not only within the Soviet Union, but its very existence forced western countries to adopt expanded social safety nets (along with the efforts of leftist organizers within these countries).

From a brutal, impoverished backwater country barely industrialized, to beating the United States into space, in 50 years. Mid 30s life expectancies due to constant starvation, homelessness, and outright murder from the Tsarist Regime, doubled to the 70s very quickly. Literacy rates from the 20s and 30s to 99.9%, more than Western Nations. All of this in a single generation.

Wealth disparity shrank, while productivity growth was one of the highest in the 20th century:

Supported liberation movements in Cuba, Palestine, Algeria, Korea, China, Palestine, and more. Ensured free, and high quality healthcare and education for all. Lower retirement ages than the US, 55 for women and 60 for men. Legalized, free abortion. Full employment, and no recessions outside of World War 2. Defeated the Nazis with 80% of the combat in the entire European theater. Supported armistice treaties that the US continuously denied.

The bad guys won the Cold War, and they did so by forcing the USSR to spend a huge amount of their resources on keeping up millitarily, as the United States had much more resources and could deal with it that way.

Show some.

There are Marxist-aligned caucuses in the DSA such as Red Star Caucus. Their overall strategy is to try to win over what is undeniably the biggest non-establishment political party towards Marxism-Leninism, a strategy similar to the Bolsheviks in the Russian Social Democratic Party. While the DSA overall has pretty lacklustre politics, there is a genuine case to be made for Marxists working within it to achieve Leftist aims.

You conflated them, though. It may not be originally your fault, though, that dishonor goes to figures like Joseph Goebbels.

Losurdo is an excellent choice.

Historically, the Marxists were the ones that stopped the Nazis. 80% of combat in WWII was fought on the Eastern Front. Meanwhile, the liberals in Germany had linked hands with the Nazis to exterminate the Marxists early on in the Nazi rise to power. Additionally, the Soviets were the only ones materially backing the Anarchists in Spain.

Ah yes, Nazis, famous for packing up their bags when losing elections.

Why do you think the Nazis came to power originally? They were effective killers of Communists in a Germany that was legitimately on the cusp of Communist revolution. Jewish peoples were of course among the highest in gross quantity of victims, and the main focus, but they also used that rhetoric to attack “judeo-bolshevism.” The poem goes “first they came for the Communists,” because the Communists were the most active anti-fascists and the largest threat to the Nazis.

Communism and fascism are entirely different, and conflating the two has roots in Double Genocide Theory, a form of Holocaust trivialization and Nazi Apologia. The Nazis industrialized murder and attempted to colonize the world, the Soviets uplifted the Proletariat and supported national liberation movements such as in Cuba, China, Algeria, and Palestine. I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds.

No, not even close. The theory of Nazism and Communism as “twin evils” originates with Double Genocide Theory, a form of Holocaust trivialization and Nazi apologia. The USSR was a dictatorship of the proletariat, those oppressed were the Bourgeoisie, Tsarists, and the Nazis. It isn’t a matter of simply saying “socialism,” it’s taking an honest look at history. In reality, there is no comparison to Nazism, which invented industrialized murder and sought to colonize Europe and the world just as Britian, France, Germany herself, and other Western countries had done to the Global South.

I suggest you read Blackshirts and Reds.

Woulda been funny to put some of that shine on his head, lol

All the rage against Kautsky caused his hair to fall out, we love a good poster

What did the report say? Lmao

The biggest damage Hitler and the Nazis did was stop a genuine Communist revolution within Germany. Had Germany genuinely gone Socialist, it’s very likely other highly developed Capitalist countries would have had revolutions as well, and not just the underdeveloped countries like Cuba, China, Russia, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, etc. Had Western Europe gone largely Communist, only the US would really stand as a bulwark of Capitalism, separated by the Ocean, at which point it would have been only a matter of time.

That’s not even to mention that the Holocaust would have been stopped before it happened, and the USSR wouldn’t have had half of its dwellings destroyed by the Nazi invasion. The Soviets would not have had to focus so much on rebuilding, and likely would not have had to spend so much of their overall GDP on Millitary R&D to keep the United States at bay during the Cold War, crippling their economic growth and eventually leading to dissolution.

Israel as a genocidal project would likely not exist either. Palestine would be free.

I can’t understate how different history would look today had the Communists succeded in Germany.

No, Anarcho-Capitalism is a deeply unserious ideology that doesn’t even understand Capitalism well enough to understand that it can’t exist at any significant length of time without a state enshrining Private Property Rights.

If by AES you’re talking about Western European countries, that’s not what I mean. Marxists do not consider those Socialist, as they are driven by Capitalism and fund their safety nets through expropriating wealth from the Global South, such as through outsourcing and debt trapping with IMF loans. Marxists call that process “Imperialism,” and the biggest Imperialist country is no doubt the United States currently.

Secondly, I need to know what you mean by “defending dictators.” There’s a difference between pointing out myths about AES countries and blindly upholding them simply due to the fact that they considered themselves to be Socialist. Reducing the logic of defending AES countries to purely nominal analysis is condescending. As an example, one can read Is the Red Flag Flying? Political Economy of the Soviet Union and come to the conclusion that the victories in AES stated were real working class victories achieved through Socialism, and the struggled faced by those building Socialism are often universal and must be learned from, and that requires accurately analyzing them.

As for Putin, I can certify that nobody on Hexbear or Lemmy.ml likes him, only the fact that Russia currently stands against the US Empire, which Marxists see as the current greatest evil. If the US Empire ever toppled and Russia no longer played an antagonistic role towards US Imperialism, you’d see immediately condemnation of the Russian Federation at a universal level, and not just due to their horribly decayed Capitalist system.

So, no, Marxists that uphold AES through a critical lens, rather than accepting mainstream western views, are not the epitome of “the ends justify the means.” Rather, they believe the version of ends and means that is commonly accepted as truth in the west isn’t particularly historically accurate. Ask any of them what they genuinely want, such as what democratic structures, how they wish to achieve Socialism, etc and you’ll likely agree with them.

Hitler proudly claimed to have “stolen Socialism from the Marxists,” meanwhile the Soviets and Nazis hated each other. The Soviets held to Marxism and worked to uplift the Proletariat, while the Nazis held to an incoherent ideology only explainable by what it served, wealthy Capitalists.

Again, calling things “fascism” that don’t meet the definition just obfuscates what you’re trying to talk about.