sometimes i fear that the current iranian leadership is suffering from putin syndrome: so many red lines that they’ve turned into a red carpet.

didn’t the federal system lead to the various republics becoming increasingly economically independent from each other, competing for resources, and thus laying the seeds for future political conflict? to me, it seems like exactly the kind of system that produced people like milošević in the first place!

also, a federal system risks exacerbating, instead of relinquishing, needless national differences, creating opportunities for people to primarily identify with their petty national groupings, rather than the internationalist project as a whole, and risking giving breathing space to reactionary movements hiding behind the shield of this or that national cultural grievance.

from the mid-'80s onward, the soviet government was granting greater and greater degrees of cultural and, more importantly, economic independence to its various republics, imitating some aspects of the yugoslav system. this policy ultimately led to nothing but further decomposition of social unity, which went on contributing to the country’s collapse.

firstly, the ussr was a multicultural internationalist project, not just russia, as it is often mischaracterised by the west. while there was a certain amount of russian cultural domination in some respects, this was mostly due to that nationality having the largest population, as well as baggage from the russian empire, not government policy, which was, if anything, geared towards the opposite.

also, i can’t quite see what “serbian centrism” you are referring to in regard to the sfrj. living standards in slovenia and croatia were generally much higher than in the more southern republics, and the central government’s policy regarding kosovo and metohija was anything but pro-serbian. in fact, the serbian right wing constantly whines about how socialism allegedly “weakened their nation”.

tysm

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i’ve always found it somewhat strange how many people in the west consider all these soviet international friendship posters to have a homoerotic subtext. is friendship between people of the same gender so unthinkable there that one immediately assumes that doing things together must be romantic?

same with “socialism with a human face”. socialism is the most humanitarian system already!

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ty

They also broke the spine of one of the activists who were detained in Greece

always remember that a better world is possible, comrade! <3 you’re strong and will overcome your current difficulties.

always try to seek out and be part of a community (or, better yet, several!). it doesn’t necessarily have to be explicitly political, but they should be people you can trust and rely on. at their core, most people are kind and will likely be willing to help out if things get truly tough.