this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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Many people on lemmy.ml deeply respect and admire authoritarian governments and organizations.

Iran, China, North Korea, Soviet Union...

The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.

Iran hangs homosexuals. Iran shot 30,000 people in less than than 2 weeks. The Soviet Union had to build a fucking Iron wall to prevent people from escaping. The Soviets lied about the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. China censors the internet. China wants to eliminate Islam. North Korea is a totalitarian hellscape. Watching anime is a crime.

Why is lemmy.ml so fascinated with authoritarians?

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[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

direct orders from stalin to kill millions of their own people (holodomor included).

You're literally making that up, though. Executions in the USSR aren't numbered in the millions during the great terror, and holodomor was an unintentional famine, nobody was "killed", it's the result of unintentional side effects of the first successful mass collectivization in human history. The Soviet leaders knew the process would be chaotic if they embarked in rapid collectivization as they did, but it was a necessary choice enforced by the threat of external invasion and the need for rapid industrialization. It was a hard measure but it worked, and thanks to the rapid collectivization and industrialization, the soviets could create the industry that would 15 years later enable them to defeat Nazism, saving many more tens of millions than were lost in Holodomor.

See? We can do nuanced analysis of the policy. However, if you make ahistorical claims, such as "Stalin ordering the holodomor" (which is untenable under modern historiography), you'll get called out for it.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

For clarity, clashes between the kulaks and Red Army absolutely happened during collectivization in the 1930s, and many kulaks were killed as they took up arms to defend their bourgeois lifestyle. I'm not shedding tears for them just like I won't shed tears for Nazis, landlords, etc, but these clashes did happen.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I did specify the great terror, for the most part the destiny of Kulaks in the early 1930s was sentenced by peasant trials, not by the Red Army. If I'm not wrong, most Kulaks who died during collectivization weren't executed, they died during deportation.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ah, gotcha. Definitely agree that the majority of the kulaks were dealt with by the peasantry that were under their thumb, just wanted to point out that frustrations between kulaks and the Red Army did happen.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thankfully the red army was there to carry out the will of the masses

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago