this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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Politics
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Not really. If someone says "I am a woodworker" but you never see anything they make from wood, they have no woodworking tools, they don't know about woodworking techniques, they don't attend a woodworking club or job or class they're just... not a woodworker.
People who claim to be leftists without doing the required actions aren't leftists. Liking the aesthetics isn't enough.
So was the USSR not a leftist government?
I feel like we’re going into the semantics of who is a “true” leftist.
Sorry I missed this.
I feel like this is potentially a bait post but if I steel man you for the sake of civility and learning:
I am not the most knowledgeable about the USSR, my grandparents came from occupied poland and thus had certain opinions, that's a large part of my exposure and likely biases me. That said, the revolutionary movement and corresponding government seems to have gone through many phases, and have expressed various degrees of leftism at various times. Was assassinating lots of people, forcibly occupying people, collaborating with nazi germany, and engaging in genocide very leftist? I would say definitionally no. Even for the time there was considerable pushback from other leftist personalities and organisations.
On the other hand for many, many people there was massive increases in freedom, prosperity, and rights compared to tzarist russia. Including my grandmother, who was allowed to hold a technical office job! wow! (until she moved to Australia and was forced to work in a factory and be treated like an idiot. Not wow).
This seems like one of those situations where trying to fit something into a simplistic box will inevitably break down. I feel comfortable saying the USSR accomplished both wonderful and terrible things, that overall it was probably better than tsarist russia but it fell short of the ideals that founded it.
If I met someone who say volunteered to feed the homeless, agitated for unionism at work, volunteered to educate disadvantaged people, but also thought I should be executed as a social deviant (I'm mega queer) I would probably call them leftist even while I thought they were massively misguided and extremely dangerous. I'll note I've never actually met anyone like that though.
It was not.
Let us know when the ussr is doing anything modern. You just keep moving the goalposts.