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From Denis V.

It’s interesting how whenever you say something positive (or even mere neutral) about the Soviet Union somewhere on social media, there will always be a few people, either liberal or right-wing, who would instantly jump to “educate” you about the “horrors of Socialism”, the breadlines, “Stalin’s purges”, the GULAGs, or what-have-you.

It’s noteworthy that they neither lived in the Soviet Union nor have any relatives who did.

In most cases, their knowledge of the Soviet history is limited to Cold War think tank propaganda with absurdly hyperinflated death figures and anecdotes compiled/made up by the likes of Solzhenitsyn (whose writings, out of all works written on various subjects by various Soviet novelists, were handpicked and promoted by the CIA with a very specific goal). They think in simplistic cliches.

When somebody is talking about the Battle of Stalingrad or, say, the 1970s Soviet middle-school education under Brezhnev, and you jump in with your “profound” expertise on how Stalin personally murdered sixty five quadrillion innocent kulaks before starving 90 million Ukrainian Cossacks to death in Siberian GULAGs in the 1930s, that just looks painfully narrow-minded (needless to say obnoxiously irrelevant).

You have no knowledge of context, no understanding of the historical realities of those times, no knowledge of what was really happening at any given stage of the Russian/Soviet history. Neither do you have any desire to learn anything that might undermine your (deeply ideological) worldview.

And it’s always one-dimensional, black-and-white mindset that you demonstrate.

Imagine if you were telling me how amazing and convenient the Uber app is, and I would start yelling at you something like: “What!? You like Uber? Do you even know that it was created by the American capitalists in San Francisco!? Have you heard anything about the genocide of the American Natives? Do you know that the wealth of the United States was founded on slavery! Millions of black slaves were murdered, tortured, raped, and beaten to death while working on plantations so you could enjoy your Uber ride, you f-ing racist! All this capitalist American wealth is built on the deaths of tens of millions! American industrialists like Ford were openly supporting Hitler! Prescott Bush had investments in the nazi concentration camps! I can’t even tell who was worse — the Third Reich or the United States! They were just different faces of the same capitalist evil! Do you have any idea how many deaths the US Imperialism is responsible for!!??!? Tens of millions have been bombed, shot, gassed, raped, tortured, NUKED by Evil American Imperialists in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Guatemala, Peru, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc!!!!111 American regime still kills its own people at home! Policemen just drive around the cities, systematically shooting black people! And when things go out of hand they never hesitate to send in heavily armed national guard to suppress any serious protest with military! The US regime has also created the most sophisticated totalitarian surveillance system in the world with the “Patriotic Act”, so it could spy on innocent civilians and suppress dissenting voices!11 And you still believe that American capitalism is good!? You still like your little comfy Uber rides, you fascist pig! *throws vodka in your face*”

^ that’s what most of your anti-Soviet rhetoric sounds like (and my hypothetical anti-US rant would still be infinitely more grounded in reality in comparison).

Learn how to just sit back and relax once in while. Don’t always assume that people require your precious “expertise” on the subjects they are talking about

End of rant.

Happy 4th of July! Have a great Friday night, everyone!