The Nazis industrialized mass murder, and deliberately killed millions in the Holocaust. The Soviet prison system was in no way comparable to the Nazi concentration camps designed to murder and kill, this is Holocaust trivialization. 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.
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illi@lemm.ee 3 weeks agoAfaik Stalin is resoposible for more deaths than Hitler. Hitler had concentration camps, Stalin had gulags. Neither was much better than the other.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
illi@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I didn’t quite intend to put gulags and concentration camps on the same level. But there are some similarities, like being used to disappear political or ideological oponents.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Concentration camps were mass execution factories for Jewish people, LGBTQ, Communists, Socialists, disabled people, Slavs, and more.
The prisons in the GULAG system were genuine prisons, and the political prisoners were largely Tsarists, Fascists, Nazi collaborators, war criminals, and more, and political prisoners were a minority of those imprisoned in the USSR.
That’s like saying a fish and a tree have some similarities. It’s true, but at the same time fundamentally tries to draw far more similarities than implied.
barsoap@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Nazi collaborators
…like Ukrainian Red Army veterans who fought the Nazis, but didn’t like Moscow calling the shots afterwards. I see you’ve drunken that age-old propaganda wholesale.
Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
Afaik
Afaik: written abbreviation for as far as I know: used when you believe that something is true, but you are not completely certain. Internet, email and texting conventions. a/s/l.
See the thing is, you don’t know shit
Alaskaball@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
a bunch of off-topic yakking related to your comment but detracts from the overall post.
1, how the West treats the word gulag - as seen by your application equivocating them to nazi death camps - is not reflective of reality of it being applied as a catch-all term for prisons. 2, the highest deaths that occured in the Soviet penal system occured during ww2 with source of deaths primarily stemming from nazi POWs 3, the commonly cited numbers of deaths that occured in the Soviet penal system comes from an openly flawed and biased methodology chosen exclusively to fabricate a false reality that equivocates nazi fascism with Soviet communism, which was further boosted by the CIA during the cold war to smear their ideological opposition’s image. The real numbers have been revealed with the opening of the Soviet archives after the fall of the Soviet Union, allowing actual historians to access primary sources to clear up the cold war era historical revisionism that obscured our understanding of the truth for the past 80 years. 4, this is not to say the system ran in that era is flawless. It in fact had blemishes and flaws that stemmed from the monstrously brutal tsarist regimn that the Soviets overthrew. That said even at its worst during the second world War its own brutality is dwarfed by the American penal system from back then to this very moment. Here’s an article that discusses “double genocide theory”, which dissects the fact that equivocating the worst excesses that occured under the Soviet Union as being anything remotely near the monstrous crimes against humanity perpetrated by the German Nazi regimn is to commit and engage in Holocaust denialism jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory Here’s an excerpt from a book that lightly delves into the numbers, but there’s plenty of other information floating around as well. hexbear.net/post/136521?scrollToComments=false
illi@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
the fact that equivocating the worst excesses that occured under the Soviet Union as being anything remotely near the monstrous crimes against humanity perpetrated by the German Nazi regimn is to commit and engage in Holocaust denialism
Now let’s be clear. I was talking death counts. And I do believe that the Nazis were worse. I saw Auschwitz and Birkenau camps and those are sights that I will never forget. I get chills just remembering it. So please do be cautions who you call holocaust denier.
But we are still comparing two evils here. One is greater, one is lesser. But “lesser” evil doesn’t necessarily mean the evil was small.
AntiOutsideAktion@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
Now let’s be clear. I was talking death counts. And I do believe that the Nazis were worse. I saw Auschwitz and Birkenau camps and those are sights that I will never forget. I get chills just remembering it. So please do be cautions who you call holocaust denier.
You’re repeating nazi propaganda deliberately created to be holocaust denial so honestly fuck how you feel about yourself. If someone has a robust and well supported reason to call you a holocaust denier why the fuck would you respond with a hollow ‘how dare you’
illi@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
You will note I never denied nazi crimes in any of my comments. I just don’t deny communist crimes either.
Alaskaball@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
optimistically prison reform and eventually abolishment would be the best course of action altogether. There’s really no shades of grey in stating that the penal system as we’ve known it through out history has been and currently is a barbaric institution of vindictive cruelty by man against their fellow man. That said, i’ll return to the comparison you’re making and emphasize again you’re making a false equivocation between the two. It would be more accurate to compare the former Soviet penal system to the American penal system than it would be to compare the former Soviet penal system to the former Nazi German genocide camps. There were no Soviet Auschwitz Concentration Camp, no Soviet Birkenau Concentration Camp, no Soviet Sisak Concentration Camp, no Soviet Salaspils Concentration Camp, no Soviet Vyritsa Children’s Concentration Camp, etcetera and so forth down the list of monstrous acts perpetrated by the nazi regimn. That is what I mean by saying you’re perpetuating the double genocide theory an thusly perpetuating holocaust denialism. When you make a throwaway sentence such as ‘Afaik Stalin is resoposible for more deaths than Hitler. Hitler had concentration camps, Stalin had gulags. Neither was much better than the other.’ you do the footwork of the neo-nazis on their behalf while you yourself may think and believe otherwise. I think you’re an intelligent and a kind person. I just want to ask you to think twice before making such throw-away comments in our increasingly reactionary rightist world that we’re unfortunately existing in.
illi@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
There seemsnto be a misunderstanding. What I tried to say wasn’t “Hitler is not bad, because Stalin was also bad”. What I tried to say is Hitler was bad and so was Stalin. Each in their own way. Amd neither of them should be glorified.
Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
But “lesser” evil doesn’t necessarily mean the evil was small.
You are right, the USA and the UK werethe lesser evil compared to the Nazis, but we should never forget their crimes against humanity, just as we should never forget the flaws of the Soviets, still, the USSr was the lesser evil in the cold war.
Glad we are clear on that, not sure why you brought up Nazi apologist talking points before like:
Neither [Nazi Germany or the USSR] was much better than the other.
It’s important that you visit memorials erected to in the memory of the Victims of Communism, sometimes there are hundreds of names there. I once checked a near one, and decided to google some of the names of the people the evil russkies took to the Gulags. It’s so weird how often they were Axis soldiers accused of heinous war crimes! But Axis soldiers could never! Must have been fabricated!
illi@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
It’s important that you visit memorials erected to in the memory of the Victims of Communism, sometimes there are hundreds of names there
We don’t have such monuments over here. But I know for a fact that communist regime in my country inprisoned or persecuted also members of the nazi resistance movement as well as soldiers fighting the nazis abroad. I have no issues with actual nazis getting punished for what they did.
4n41y4no5@crazypeople.online 3 weeks ago
Congo had giant work camps.
Pretty much every ideology have commited awful shit. Nazism is the only ideology where genocide is the end goal of the state.
illi@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Yes, I’m aware nazis and communists were not the only ones doing terrible stuff. That doesn’t make it right
4n41y4no5@crazypeople.online 3 weeks ago
Not the point. Nazis were the only ones putting people in ovens. Gulag’s endgoal never went to straight up kill them. Belgians endgoals wasn’t to kill Congolese, it was to make money. Hell even israelis hide their genocide behind security concerns or whatever.
Nazi Germany’s endgoal was to eradicate non Aryans and they dedicated entire industrial complex to racial hygiene. As such, it’s a step beyond all the gulags, starvation, carpet bombing, terror, March to nowhere you want. They shoved people in fucking oven.
illi@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I can’t disagree and I’m aware these are not on the same level. Not a perfect analogy for sure, but still a place people went to die to.
Nazis camps were also not all the same. Auschwitz was a labor camp for example - which yes, still had gas chambrers and ovens. But then there was the like of Birkenau not far from there and thats where people were actually sent to die. It is clear which of those is more evil, but you can’t say one of them wasn’t evil just because the other was more evil
AntiOutsideAktion@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
Gulag is the russian word for prison. It’s just really easy to make foreign words scary to racists.
The literal uniform wearing german nazis that convinced you of this counted unborn children due to declining birthrates.
Edie@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
According to wikipedia, no, it comes from the abbreviation of “Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps”, in Russian: Гла́вное Управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х ЛАГере́й (ГУЛАГ).
If you would consult the chart:
“system of places for deprivation of liberty”
You will find “Correctional Labor Camp” under the O.G.P.U (as wikipedia also says). Of course, libs can’t tell the difference between CLC under the O.G.P.U and Colonies under the PC of Justice and will call both gulag.
sudneo@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Gulag = Гла́вное Управле́ние исправи́тельно-трудовы́х ЛАГере́й (Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps)
Prison = тюрьма
Not a (Russian) native speaker, but still.
passenger@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Just wow at this whataboutism, defending Stalin of all people.
Gulag is the Russian word for prison, where people die or get sent to the grinder.
There was this opposing candidate to Putin, where did he end up? Gulag.
Until Russia gets humane treatment for prisoners, the word gulag deserves the negative connotations it has.
Ever heard of Holodomor?
AntiOutsideAktion@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
There are enough links in this thread already showing that this is literally nazi propaganda that I think it’s fair to assume you’re a deliberate nazi instead of an idiot getting strung along
passenger@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
So this user thinks Ukraine are Nazis and Putin did right by attacking them.
I am supposedly a nazi apologist by this logic (???).
When in fact, it is you who denies Holodomor and perverts the facts about Ukraine war. You who turns a blind eye to Putin and… Stalin(???).
Looks like troll factory to me so useless to argue.
sudneo@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Maybe you should practice a big dose of humility, considering that one comment up you were making stuff up about what words mean, and now you are misinterpreting a single quote about a single opinion about the holodomor that focuses purely on whether it was intentional or not.
Calling it “Nazi propaganda” is just complete nonsense.
To reiterate, “enough links in this thread” refers to one out of 16 views listed in a Wikipedia page, which for sure is not an exhaustive list of all scholars’ views. Nowhere is to be found that holodomor is “basically Nazi propaganda” and the fact you think anybody questioning your uninformed opinion is a Nazi apologist is just a mental shortcut you are taking to protect your views from any level of scrutiny.
Maybe deal with the fact that you simply are not equipped to discuss this topic.
Kieselguhr@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
Have you?
Have you heard what the French did to Algerians?
Now you’ll say this is whataboutism, but if you always bring up an imaginary genocide like the Holodomor when someone talks about the USSR or Russia, but you never mention this actual mass murder when someone talks about France then you are a giant hypocrite.
The West was worse by their own metrics of bodycount.
sudneo@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
The intentionality of Holodomor is debated, but calling an event that killed millions of people and scarred generations “imaginary genocide” or “Nazi propaganda” like the other commenter did is deranged.
The quote you posted is far from final. I won’t pretend to have the answer, but you presented one opinion as if it’s a mainstream and accepted view, when it’s not. Just Wikipedia shows multiple views, and I am sure that academic literature would present even more.
So let’s be realistic and admit that if academic consensus can’t be reached by historians by now, you don’t have the truth in your pocket as nobody else does, and we won’t figure it out in a Lemmy conversation.
passenger@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
The problem here is not that I don’t mention some unrelated atrocities by the western powers, it is you guys denying the ones by Russia and China among others. You just made my point.
4n41y4no5@crazypeople.online 3 weeks ago
Ever heard of Ireland?
illi@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
While I’m not Russian, accusing a Slav of being racist against Slavs sure is hillarious.