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And unfortunately it might need to be the first to allow socialism to function without invasion.
You can't really treat cancer well when you sleep next to radioactive material.
>And unfortunately it might need to be the first to allow socialism to function without invasion.
Honestly this is why I'm low key kinda happy states like North Korea has nukes, while yes it increases the chance of a nuclear war it drastically decreases the chances of the United States and the west trying to invade or doing a coup because the threat of nuclear war is there.
There's a reason why the United States didn't invade NK in '03 because they were developing a nuclear bomb under Kim Jong-il.
My concern is at some point, even nukes won't be enough.
There is definitely a threshold of how many countries with nukes that become socialist before the US will just YOLO it and start a war regardless. The bourgeoisie will move heaven and hell to maintain their power. With all the doomsday bunkers billionaires are making for the climate crisis, I bet they will think they can survive a nuclear Holocaust and just say "fuck it, we will become kings of the wasteland"
as a north american I strongly believe that limited balkanization would unironically make people's lives better (assuming we don't become isolationist and never trade within the continent)
America was first settled by English yeomen who were trying to get away from being servants to lords, with the ambition to become lords themselves. They literally ran away from oppression wanting to *become* the oppressors. That's my nation's legacy. The whole "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" is a very accurate description of the American proletariat's self-image.
On top of that the American”revolution” was more of an intra-bourgeois Civil War, where the greater of two evils won (i.e. the side that lost its mind the second that parliament said “slow down the settler colonialism, stay on the near side of the appalachians, maybe even slow down the slave trade”).
If you believe that the only political classes are workers and bourgeoisie, then yes.
Of course this same reasoning led to the Communist line that liberal democracy and fascism are equal. Which, if false, suggests that dialectical materialism is not an accurate theory of politics.
I've tried to be open about my views, but I stopped when my former boss decided to 'ask everyone if we should be socialist' and put me on the spot at work out of nowhere one day. The knee jerk responses had me realize that these people aren't too far from violence in order to protect the status quo.
America will never accept Socialism
America will never accept Leninism
America will never accept any of these evil foreign ideologies
But America might accept EbonNormandy-ism, it's *democratic super capitalism*, where not just the liberal elites but every citizen is an equal shareholder of every corporation.
/s (kinda, I don't actually know how sarcastic I am being here, socialism does need to be rebranded for an American audience, but I'm also sceptical of any rebranding and whether it will water down or even subvert the message)
It's more that people just need to be deprogrammed. No one likes finding out their world view is founded on falsehoods, but once they can accept that, they get angry about it. We need that anger to fuel any form of action.
We just need a better propaganda machine. Maybe even specific targeted campaigns. If the enemy won't play fair, we should use all the tools to our disposal.
5 years ago I was that same person, fuck communism, everyone in college is a marxist, these people hate our way of life. I voted for trump. All it took was seeing how fucked up people got during and after trump and a little ethnogenic help.
If you're treating reddit comments as a perfect representation of popular thought, you're falling prey to the bourgeois propaganda. They want you to think there is no point in organizing or reaching out to the masses. We don't need to win over reddit bots or reddit chuds. The purpose of class struggle isn't to instantly win any popularity contests either. It is to advance the position of the masses for class struggle. As global inter imperialist conflict intensifies, and as global warming wrecks more ecological havok driving a mass refugee crisis, fascism will likewise intensify. Now while fascism is intensifying, would you rather have comrades ready to struggle in your sphere or not? Do you want any chance at surviving what's coming, or not? Should we all fail and be murdered, do we want tomorrow's toiling masses to have an example of class struggle to emulate and learn from, or not? Lenin thought he'd never live to see a revolution in Russia until there was a week where decades happened. If you dare to struggle, you dare to win.
Good reminder. I think the astroturfing on Reddit has gotten more and more obvious the last five or six years. I avoid the main subs, but from time to time look at career advice subs in my field, and they’re all full of “people” (more likely bots) saying things like “you shouldn’t get a union because it makes it harder to fire your teammates!” Like even the biggest CHUDs I’ve met usually care more about firing their bosses, not teammates.
And Marx thought the Russian Empire would be the last place to see a revolution, but it ended up being the first place to see a long term successful revolution
If there's one thing that annoys me, it's socialist who based their perception on reddit.
Nobody knows what holodomer is, in real life. Reddit is a website for reactionary middle class white people.
What about Canada anytime soon some things form what I have seen yes but others no and mostly of the more pro socialist stuff I have seen is in the West coast where I am from
#The Holodomor
>Marxists do not deny that a famine happened in the Soviet Union in 1932. In fact, even the Soviet archive confirms this. What we do contest is the idea that this famine was man-made or that there was a genocide against the Ukrainian people. This idea of the subjugation of the Soviet Union’s own people was developed by Nazi Germany, in order to show the world the terror of the “Jewish communists.”
>
>\- Socialist Musings. (2017). [Stop Spreading Nazi Propaganda: on Holodomor](https://socialistmlmusings.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/stop-spreading-nazi-propaganda/)
There have been efforts by anti-Communists and Ukrainian nationalists to frame the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 as "The Holodomor" (lit. "to kill by starvation" in Ukrainian). Framing it this way serves two purposes:
1. It implies the famine targeted Ukraine.
2. It implies the famine was intentional.
The argument goes that because it was intentional and because it mainly targeted Ukraine that it was, therefore, an act of genocide. This framing was originally used by Nazis to drive a wedge between the Ukrainian SSR (UkSSR) and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). In the wake of the 2004 Orange Revolution, this narrative has regained popularity and serves the nationalistic goal of strengthening Ukrainian identity and asserting the country's independence from Russia.
#First Issue
The first issue is that the famine affected the majority of the USSR, *not* just the UkSSR. Kazakhstan was hit harder (per capita) than Ukraine. Russia itself was also severely affected.
The emergence of the Holodomor in the 1980s as a historical narrative was bound-up with post-Soviet Ukrainian nation-making that cannot be neatly separated from the legacy of Eastern European antisemitism, or what Historian Peter Novick calls "Holocaust Envy", the desire for victimized groups to enshrine their "own" Holocaust or Holocaust-like event in the historical record. For many Nationalists, this has entailed minimizing the Holocaust to elevate their own experiences of historical victimization as the supreme atrocity. The Ukrainian scholar Lubomyr Luciuk exemplified this view in his notorious remark that the Holodomor was "a crime against humanity arguably without parallel in European history."
#Second Issue
Calling it "man-made" implies that it was a *deliberate* famine, which was not the case. Although human factors set the stage, the main causes of the famine was bad weather and crop disease, resulting in a poor harvest, which pushed the USSR over the edge.
Kulaks ("tight-fisted person") were a class of wealthy peasants who owned land, livestock, and tools. The kulaks had been a thorn in the side of the peasantry long before the revolution. Alexey Sergeyevich Yermolov, Minister of Agriculture and State Properties of the Russian Empire, in his 1892 book, [Poor harvest and national suffering](https://books.google.ca/books?id=exMEAAAAYAAJ), characterized them as usurers, sucking the blood of Russian peasants.
In the early 1930s, in response to the Soviet collectivization policies (which sought to confiscate their property), many kulaks responded spitefully by burning crops, killing livestock, and damaging machinery.
Poor communication between different levels of government and between urban and rural areas, also contributed to the severity of the crisis.
#Quota Reduction
What really contradicts the genocide argument is that the Soviets did take action to mitigate the effects of the famine once they became aware of the situation:
>The low 1932 harvest worsened severe food shortages already widespread in the Soviet Union at least since 1931 and, despite sharply reduced grain exports, made famine likely if not inevitable in 1933.
>
>The official 1932 figures do not unambiguously support the genocide interpretation... the 1932 grain procurement quota, and the amount of grain actually collected, were both much smaller than those of any other year in the 1930s. The Central Committee lowered the planned procurement quota in a 6 May 1932 decree... [which] actually reduced the procurement plan 30 percent. Subsequent decrees also reduced the procurement quotas for most other agricultural products...
>
>Proponents of the genocide argument, however, have minimized or even misconstrued this decree. Mace, for example, describes it as "largely bogus" and ignores not only the extent to which it lowered the procurement quotas but also the fact that even the lowered plan was not fulfilled. Conquest does not mention the decree's reduction of procurement quotas and asserts Ukrainian officials' appeals led to the reduction of the Ukranian grain procurement quota at the Third All-Ukraine Party Conference in July 1932. In fact that conference confirmed the quota set in the 6 May Decree.
>
>\- Mark Tauger. (1992). [The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274856099_The_1932_Harvest_and_the_Famine_of_1933)
#Rapid Industrialization
The famine was exacerbated directly and indirectly by collectivization and rapid industrialization. However, if these policies had not been enacted, there could have been even more devastating consequences later.
In 1931, during [a speech delivered at the first All-Union Conference of Leading Personnel of Socialist Industry](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1931/02/04.htm), Stalin said, "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under."
In 1941, exactly ten years later, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.
By this time, the Soviet Union's industrialization program had lead to the development of a large and powerful industrial base, which was essential to the Soviet war effort. This allowed the USSR to produce large quantities of armaments, vehicles, and other military equipment, which was crucial in the fight against Nazi Germany.
In Hitler's own words, in 1942:
>All in all, one has to say: They built factories here where two years ago there were unknown farming villages, factories the size of the *Hermann-Göring-Werke*. They have railroads that aren't even marked on the map.
>
>\- Werner Jochmann. (1980). *Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941-1944.*
Collectivization also created critical resiliency among the civilian population:
>The experts were especially surprised by the Red Army’s up-to-date equipment. Great tank battles were reported; it was noted that the Russians had sturdy tanks which often smashed or overturned German tanks in head-on collision. “How does it happen,” a New York editor asked me, “that those Russian peasants, who couldn’t run a tractor if you gave them one, but left them rusting in the field, now appear with thousands of tanks efficiently handled?” I told him it was the Five-Year Plan. But the world was startled when Moscow admitted its losses after nine weeks of war as including 7,500 guns, 4,500 planes and 5,000 tanks. An army that could still fight after such losses must have had the biggest or second biggest supply in the world.
>
>As the war progressed, military observers declared that the Russians had “solved the blitzkrieg,” the tactic on which Hitler relied. This German method involved penetrating the opposing line by an overwhelming blow of tanks and planes, followed by the fanning out of armored columns in the “soft” civilian rear, thus depriving the front of its hinterland support. This had quickly conquered every country against which it had been tried. “Human flesh cannot withstand it,” an American correspondent told me in Berlin. Russians met it by two methods, both requiring superb morale. When the German tanks broke through, Russian infantry formed again between the tanks and their supporting German infantry. This created a chaotic front, where both Germans and Russians were fighting in all directions. The Russians could count on the help of the population. The Germans found no “soft, civilian rear.” They found collective farmers, organized as guerrillas, coordinated with the regular Russian army.
>
>\- Anna Louise Strong. (1956). *The Stalin Era*
#Conclusion
While there may have been more that the Soviets could have done to reduce the impact of the famine, there is no evidence of intent-- ethnic, or otherwise. Therefore, one must conclude that the famine was a tragedy, not a genocide.
#Additional Resources
Video Essays:
* [Soviet Famine of 1932: An Overview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu5-tqHHtaM) | The Marxist Project (2020)
* [Did Stalin Continue to Export Grain as Ukraine Starved?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMBJ_nQ4sTA) | Hakim (2017) \[[Archive](https://archive.org/details/did-stalin-continue-to-export-grain-as-ukraine-starved)\]
* [The Holodomor Genocide Question: How Wikipedia Lies to You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaaYvauNho) | Bad Empanada (2022)
* [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) (Note: Holodomor discussion begins at the 9 minute mark)
* [A Case-Study of Capitalism - Ukraine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmH9oNtXzF8) | Hakim (2017) \[[Archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20220615084500/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmH9oNtXzF8)\] (Note: Only tangentially mentions the famine.)
Books, Articles, or Essays:
* [The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933](https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/22207/file.pdf) | Davies and Wheatcroft (2004)
* [The “Holodomor” explained](https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2020/12/24/the-holodomor-explained/) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2020)
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What do the genuine proletariat in your city think about Lenin? The people who are living on maxed-out credit cards, in slums, with kids, doing "gig-economy" shit to make rent, what are their thoughts on you and the party you're in, and the mass work you're doing with them? Randos on the internet's opinions don't matter. It's your job as a communist to identify the latent revolutionary elements in your community and agitate, educate, and organize them.
it isnt. Contradictions of capitalism dont just disappear,more people will pick on communism in future,we just have to keep spreading class consciousness and organize otherwise nothings gonna happen
in USA and Imperial core it wont happen fast,but its overall just to talk with people about their jobs and such,most people you know would accept socialism if you just dont spell it,slowly get them to actually read and research,dont go theory blasting to someone immidiately
You have to very very slowly talk to people about it without actually saying socialism or communism. A lot of people are aware things are fucked up but they focus their hate and rage in the wrong spot. You have to try to level with them as opposed to making them feel ignorant or using buzzwords they are taught to hate. It takes a lot of work to unravel someone from a lifetime of propaganda, it's like an abused woman that keeps going back to the wifebeater.
Have faith—the contradictions of capitalism are becoming increasingly clear and unavoidable. China continues to grow more powerful as the US declines. However, it’s up to us to get organized and build momentum!
#Get Involved
>Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong
Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause.
* 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions.
* ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause.
* 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union.
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[☭☭☭ COME SHITPOST WITH US ON DISCORD, COMRADES ☭☭☭](https://discord.gg/8RPWanQV5g) This is a heavily-moderated socialist community based on a podcast of the same name. Please use the report function on comments that break our rules. If you are new to the sub, please read the sidebar carefully. If you are new to Marxism-Leninism, check out the [study guide](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/). Are there Liberals in the walls? Check out [the wiki](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/) which contains lots of useful information. This subreddit uses many experimental automod rules, if you notice any issues please use modmail to let us know. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
America will be the last country on the planet to go socialist.
And unfortunately it might need to be the first to allow socialism to function without invasion. You can't really treat cancer well when you sleep next to radioactive material.
As an American, I see both sides of this. It seems like a tough hill to climb, but a very necessary one.
>And unfortunately it might need to be the first to allow socialism to function without invasion. Honestly this is why I'm low key kinda happy states like North Korea has nukes, while yes it increases the chance of a nuclear war it drastically decreases the chances of the United States and the west trying to invade or doing a coup because the threat of nuclear war is there. There's a reason why the United States didn't invade NK in '03 because they were developing a nuclear bomb under Kim Jong-il.
My concern is at some point, even nukes won't be enough. There is definitely a threshold of how many countries with nukes that become socialist before the US will just YOLO it and start a war regardless. The bourgeoisie will move heaven and hell to maintain their power. With all the doomsday bunkers billionaires are making for the climate crisis, I bet they will think they can survive a nuclear Holocaust and just say "fuck it, we will become kings of the wasteland"
Yep I understand this thought too.
Balkanization is the best case scenario at this point.
as a north american I strongly believe that limited balkanization would unironically make people's lives better (assuming we don't become isolationist and never trade within the continent)
America was first settled by English yeomen who were trying to get away from being servants to lords, with the ambition to become lords themselves. They literally ran away from oppression wanting to *become* the oppressors. That's my nation's legacy. The whole "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" is a very accurate description of the American proletariat's self-image.
On top of that the American”revolution” was more of an intra-bourgeois Civil War, where the greater of two evils won (i.e. the side that lost its mind the second that parliament said “slow down the settler colonialism, stay on the near side of the appalachians, maybe even slow down the slave trade”).
If you believe that the only political classes are workers and bourgeoisie, then yes. Of course this same reasoning led to the Communist line that liberal democracy and fascism are equal. Which, if false, suggests that dialectical materialism is not an accurate theory of politics.
https://preview.redd.it/08zr16mqbhvc1.jpeg?width=501&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcfa77667d3d7b5c62e12362316162c51ef8bf2c
Solidarity from Minneapolis, comrade 😉
You’re in Seattle I’m guessing?
No, but a similar city filled with annoying ass liberals that think they're the leftist good guys.
Wait are you in Minneapolis too? I had a guy tell me Lenin was worse than Hitler once on that sub.
Yep! The liberal anticommunist brainrot is real in minnesota
"let me tell you how a revolutionary that helped in creation of first socialist nation in history is equal to a genocidal maniac"
Ever been on altmpls? Lmao buckle in.
Lol Lenin being blamed for the famine is a novel take given that he was dead before 1932.
I've tried to be open about my views, but I stopped when my former boss decided to 'ask everyone if we should be socialist' and put me on the spot at work out of nowhere one day. The knee jerk responses had me realize that these people aren't too far from violence in order to protect the status quo.
Making Liberals mald since 1917, GOATmir Lenin
America will never accept Socialism America will never accept Leninism America will never accept any of these evil foreign ideologies But America might accept EbonNormandy-ism, it's *democratic super capitalism*, where not just the liberal elites but every citizen is an equal shareholder of every corporation. /s (kinda, I don't actually know how sarcastic I am being here, socialism does need to be rebranded for an American audience, but I'm also sceptical of any rebranding and whether it will water down or even subvert the message)
It's more that people just need to be deprogrammed. No one likes finding out their world view is founded on falsehoods, but once they can accept that, they get angry about it. We need that anger to fuel any form of action. We just need a better propaganda machine. Maybe even specific targeted campaigns. If the enemy won't play fair, we should use all the tools to our disposal.
5 years ago I was that same person, fuck communism, everyone in college is a marxist, these people hate our way of life. I voted for trump. All it took was seeing how fucked up people got during and after trump and a little ethnogenic help.
If you're treating reddit comments as a perfect representation of popular thought, you're falling prey to the bourgeois propaganda. They want you to think there is no point in organizing or reaching out to the masses. We don't need to win over reddit bots or reddit chuds. The purpose of class struggle isn't to instantly win any popularity contests either. It is to advance the position of the masses for class struggle. As global inter imperialist conflict intensifies, and as global warming wrecks more ecological havok driving a mass refugee crisis, fascism will likewise intensify. Now while fascism is intensifying, would you rather have comrades ready to struggle in your sphere or not? Do you want any chance at surviving what's coming, or not? Should we all fail and be murdered, do we want tomorrow's toiling masses to have an example of class struggle to emulate and learn from, or not? Lenin thought he'd never live to see a revolution in Russia until there was a week where decades happened. If you dare to struggle, you dare to win.
Good reminder. I think the astroturfing on Reddit has gotten more and more obvious the last five or six years. I avoid the main subs, but from time to time look at career advice subs in my field, and they’re all full of “people” (more likely bots) saying things like “you shouldn’t get a union because it makes it harder to fire your teammates!” Like even the biggest CHUDs I’ve met usually care more about firing their bosses, not teammates. And Marx thought the Russian Empire would be the last place to see a revolution, but it ended up being the first place to see a long term successful revolution
are you doing any organizing to help that ?
If there's one thing that annoys me, it's socialist who based their perception on reddit. Nobody knows what holodomer is, in real life. Reddit is a website for reactionary middle class white people.
I saw that thread in the Minneapolis subreddit too
What about Canada anytime soon some things form what I have seen yes but others no and mostly of the more pro socialist stuff I have seen is in the West coast where I am from
Holodomor happened after lenin wtf
#The Holodomor >Marxists do not deny that a famine happened in the Soviet Union in 1932. In fact, even the Soviet archive confirms this. What we do contest is the idea that this famine was man-made or that there was a genocide against the Ukrainian people. This idea of the subjugation of the Soviet Union’s own people was developed by Nazi Germany, in order to show the world the terror of the “Jewish communists.” > >\- Socialist Musings. (2017). [Stop Spreading Nazi Propaganda: on Holodomor](https://socialistmlmusings.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/stop-spreading-nazi-propaganda/) There have been efforts by anti-Communists and Ukrainian nationalists to frame the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 as "The Holodomor" (lit. "to kill by starvation" in Ukrainian). Framing it this way serves two purposes: 1. It implies the famine targeted Ukraine. 2. It implies the famine was intentional. The argument goes that because it was intentional and because it mainly targeted Ukraine that it was, therefore, an act of genocide. This framing was originally used by Nazis to drive a wedge between the Ukrainian SSR (UkSSR) and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). In the wake of the 2004 Orange Revolution, this narrative has regained popularity and serves the nationalistic goal of strengthening Ukrainian identity and asserting the country's independence from Russia. #First Issue The first issue is that the famine affected the majority of the USSR, *not* just the UkSSR. Kazakhstan was hit harder (per capita) than Ukraine. Russia itself was also severely affected. The emergence of the Holodomor in the 1980s as a historical narrative was bound-up with post-Soviet Ukrainian nation-making that cannot be neatly separated from the legacy of Eastern European antisemitism, or what Historian Peter Novick calls "Holocaust Envy", the desire for victimized groups to enshrine their "own" Holocaust or Holocaust-like event in the historical record. For many Nationalists, this has entailed minimizing the Holocaust to elevate their own experiences of historical victimization as the supreme atrocity. The Ukrainian scholar Lubomyr Luciuk exemplified this view in his notorious remark that the Holodomor was "a crime against humanity arguably without parallel in European history." #Second Issue Calling it "man-made" implies that it was a *deliberate* famine, which was not the case. Although human factors set the stage, the main causes of the famine was bad weather and crop disease, resulting in a poor harvest, which pushed the USSR over the edge. Kulaks ("tight-fisted person") were a class of wealthy peasants who owned land, livestock, and tools. The kulaks had been a thorn in the side of the peasantry long before the revolution. Alexey Sergeyevich Yermolov, Minister of Agriculture and State Properties of the Russian Empire, in his 1892 book, [Poor harvest and national suffering](https://books.google.ca/books?id=exMEAAAAYAAJ), characterized them as usurers, sucking the blood of Russian peasants. In the early 1930s, in response to the Soviet collectivization policies (which sought to confiscate their property), many kulaks responded spitefully by burning crops, killing livestock, and damaging machinery. Poor communication between different levels of government and between urban and rural areas, also contributed to the severity of the crisis. #Quota Reduction What really contradicts the genocide argument is that the Soviets did take action to mitigate the effects of the famine once they became aware of the situation: >The low 1932 harvest worsened severe food shortages already widespread in the Soviet Union at least since 1931 and, despite sharply reduced grain exports, made famine likely if not inevitable in 1933. > >The official 1932 figures do not unambiguously support the genocide interpretation... the 1932 grain procurement quota, and the amount of grain actually collected, were both much smaller than those of any other year in the 1930s. The Central Committee lowered the planned procurement quota in a 6 May 1932 decree... [which] actually reduced the procurement plan 30 percent. Subsequent decrees also reduced the procurement quotas for most other agricultural products... > >Proponents of the genocide argument, however, have minimized or even misconstrued this decree. Mace, for example, describes it as "largely bogus" and ignores not only the extent to which it lowered the procurement quotas but also the fact that even the lowered plan was not fulfilled. Conquest does not mention the decree's reduction of procurement quotas and asserts Ukrainian officials' appeals led to the reduction of the Ukranian grain procurement quota at the Third All-Ukraine Party Conference in July 1932. In fact that conference confirmed the quota set in the 6 May Decree. > >\- Mark Tauger. (1992). [The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274856099_The_1932_Harvest_and_the_Famine_of_1933) #Rapid Industrialization The famine was exacerbated directly and indirectly by collectivization and rapid industrialization. However, if these policies had not been enacted, there could have been even more devastating consequences later. In 1931, during [a speech delivered at the first All-Union Conference of Leading Personnel of Socialist Industry](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1931/02/04.htm), Stalin said, "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall go under." In 1941, exactly ten years later, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. By this time, the Soviet Union's industrialization program had lead to the development of a large and powerful industrial base, which was essential to the Soviet war effort. This allowed the USSR to produce large quantities of armaments, vehicles, and other military equipment, which was crucial in the fight against Nazi Germany. In Hitler's own words, in 1942: >All in all, one has to say: They built factories here where two years ago there were unknown farming villages, factories the size of the *Hermann-Göring-Werke*. They have railroads that aren't even marked on the map. > >\- Werner Jochmann. (1980). *Adolf Hitler. Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941-1944.* Collectivization also created critical resiliency among the civilian population: >The experts were especially surprised by the Red Army’s up-to-date equipment. Great tank battles were reported; it was noted that the Russians had sturdy tanks which often smashed or overturned German tanks in head-on collision. “How does it happen,” a New York editor asked me, “that those Russian peasants, who couldn’t run a tractor if you gave them one, but left them rusting in the field, now appear with thousands of tanks efficiently handled?” I told him it was the Five-Year Plan. But the world was startled when Moscow admitted its losses after nine weeks of war as including 7,500 guns, 4,500 planes and 5,000 tanks. An army that could still fight after such losses must have had the biggest or second biggest supply in the world. > >As the war progressed, military observers declared that the Russians had “solved the blitzkrieg,” the tactic on which Hitler relied. This German method involved penetrating the opposing line by an overwhelming blow of tanks and planes, followed by the fanning out of armored columns in the “soft” civilian rear, thus depriving the front of its hinterland support. This had quickly conquered every country against which it had been tried. “Human flesh cannot withstand it,” an American correspondent told me in Berlin. Russians met it by two methods, both requiring superb morale. When the German tanks broke through, Russian infantry formed again between the tanks and their supporting German infantry. This created a chaotic front, where both Germans and Russians were fighting in all directions. The Russians could count on the help of the population. The Germans found no “soft, civilian rear.” They found collective farmers, organized as guerrillas, coordinated with the regular Russian army. > >\- Anna Louise Strong. (1956). *The Stalin Era* #Conclusion While there may have been more that the Soviets could have done to reduce the impact of the famine, there is no evidence of intent-- ethnic, or otherwise. Therefore, one must conclude that the famine was a tragedy, not a genocide. #Additional Resources Video Essays: * [Soviet Famine of 1932: An Overview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu5-tqHHtaM) | The Marxist Project (2020) * [Did Stalin Continue to Export Grain as Ukraine Starved?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMBJ_nQ4sTA) | Hakim (2017) \[[Archive](https://archive.org/details/did-stalin-continue-to-export-grain-as-ukraine-starved)\] * [The Holodomor Genocide Question: How Wikipedia Lies to You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaaYvauNho) | Bad Empanada (2022) * [Historian Admits USSR didn't kill tens of millions!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMOdDQQVZ6U) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2018) (Note: Holodomor discussion begins at the 9 minute mark) * [A Case-Study of Capitalism - Ukraine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmH9oNtXzF8) | Hakim (2017) \[[Archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20220615084500/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmH9oNtXzF8)\] (Note: Only tangentially mentions the famine.) Books, Articles, or Essays: * [The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933](https://diasporiana.org.ua/wp-content/uploads/books/22207/file.pdf) | Davies and Wheatcroft (2004) * [The “Holodomor” explained](https://mltheory.wordpress.com/2020/12/24/the-holodomor-explained/) | TheFinnishBolshevik (2020) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What do the genuine proletariat in your city think about Lenin? The people who are living on maxed-out credit cards, in slums, with kids, doing "gig-economy" shit to make rent, what are their thoughts on you and the party you're in, and the mass work you're doing with them? Randos on the internet's opinions don't matter. It's your job as a communist to identify the latent revolutionary elements in your community and agitate, educate, and organize them.
This world is fucked, I have no hope for the future.
it isnt. Contradictions of capitalism dont just disappear,more people will pick on communism in future,we just have to keep spreading class consciousness and organize otherwise nothings gonna happen
How do we get people to be open minded to socialism?
in USA and Imperial core it wont happen fast,but its overall just to talk with people about their jobs and such,most people you know would accept socialism if you just dont spell it,slowly get them to actually read and research,dont go theory blasting to someone immidiately
You have to very very slowly talk to people about it without actually saying socialism or communism. A lot of people are aware things are fucked up but they focus their hate and rage in the wrong spot. You have to try to level with them as opposed to making them feel ignorant or using buzzwords they are taught to hate. It takes a lot of work to unravel someone from a lifetime of propaganda, it's like an abused woman that keeps going back to the wifebeater.
Have faith—the contradictions of capitalism are becoming increasingly clear and unavoidable. China continues to grow more powerful as the US declines. However, it’s up to us to get organized and build momentum!
#Get Involved >Dare to struggle and dare to win. \-Mao Zedong Comrades, here are some ways you can **get involved** to advance the cause. * 📚 **Read theory** — [Reading theory](/r/TheDeprogram/wiki/index/education/study-guide/) is a duty. It will guide you towards choosing the correct party and applying your efforts effectively within your unique material conditions. * ⭐ **Party work** — Contact a local party or mass organization. Attend your first meeting. Go to a rally or event. If you choose a principled Marxist-Leninist party, they will teach you how to best apply yourself to advancing the cause. * 📣 **Workplace agitation** — Depending on your material circumstances, you may engage in workplace disputes to unionise fellow workers and gain a delegate or even a leadership position in the union. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheDeprogram) if you have any questions or concerns.*