trot [he/him]

thoughtful response

I’ll help urmums401k@hexbear.net out here. We can summarize the first quote as follows:

information coming from the provinces

eyewitnesses I won’t name

As for the rest, the CIA/MI6 possibly contributing (note: it would have happened either way - the material reasons why people went on general strike/took up arms would still be there) to the start of the uprising does not serve as evidence for much other than confirm the obvious fact “the USSR and NATO were geopolitical enemies”. It’s akin to saying China abandoned socialism by 1969 because of this, or that Lenin was a “german agent”.

Yes, the uprising in reality did not have a single coherent ideology: some were libs, while others (most) were workers with actual grievances against the bureaucracy, who were forming workers’ councils (e.g. Greater Budapest Workers’ Council) and demanding direct workers’ control of industries. Though note: none of the prominent participating organisations made any calls to return to capitalism, and the said workers’ councils were the only ones that persisted for months after the military intervention, until the leaders were all arrested. Even if we suppose that the initial leaders of the movement were sponsored by the West, that soon stopped being the case because the leading organisations obviously changed.

Mao, being a true adherent of Socialism in One Country, knew: there can only be one.

They did quite well in WW1.

Speaking of that, was the Entente was completely justified in sending millions to die in the war? After all, previously you said:

I’m sorry, but when it involves one imperialist bloc invading a smaller country, then it does matter.

Not even one, but two smaller countries! Think of little Belgium and Serbia!

No, just as it would be unable to resist NATO in being turned into a far-right paramilitary-led banana republic if Russia were to suddenly withdraw without any decrease in NATO involvement.

But the beauty of the neat little trick above is that if the working classes of both sides correctly oppose their respective ruling classes’ interests, we can end up with a scenario where both sides lose - objectively the best outcome for the Ukrainian people, as well as everyone else.

The Russian anti-war activists are clearly holding up their end of the bargain. Why are you not holding up yours?

I literally said that

Russian anti-war activists have a correct position.

Are you aware that it’s possible to want neither NATO tanks nor Russian tanks in Ukraine?

You can even make sure you are consistent with both things in action 100% of the time - it’s a neat little trick called “opposing the position of your own government”.

Russian pacifists want Russia to stop invading Ukraine.

Western “pacifists” want to send NATO tanks to Ukraine.

They are not the same.

Russian anti-war activists have a correct position.

But an important consideration should be whether one’s actions actually contribute to Russia withdrawing sooner, or if they instead help justify further, equally self-interested NATO involvement in the war.

Unless you are Russian, it’s most likely the latter.

There are two imperialist blocs involved in the conflict, and it doesn’t matter which one of them technically started it.

I should have probably made it more clear that all the excerpts come from unrelated parts of the text. The one on abortion is from a section on health problems “resulting” from Soviet occupation, not from the section of the above excerpt. Nevertheless, considering the content of the rest of the report, it’s most likely implying that the act of abortion is itself a problem.

As I said, I think it serves no purpose to argue over what percentage was forced

Sure, but omitting nuance by default allows for painting a black-and-white picture of history, which helps fabricate a justification for nationalism. We hopefully all understand what that leads to and who benefits from it.

I will read it, although honestly I am not really confident about the reliability of the report so far, judging by the following (mutually unrelated) excerpts with the most interesting parts highlighted:

2. THE CHARACTER OF REPRESSIVE ACTS COMMITTED IN ESTONIA BY THE SOVIET OCCUPATION

Because of their extent and severity, the repressive measures of this period can be compared to the Jewish holocaust, which is found to have caused long-term physical and/or mental disorders to nearly all the survivors.

Abortion, which had been forbidden in the Republic of Estonia and also initially in the Soviet Union, was legalised in 1955 and grew to be a serious problem, achieving its peak in the 1970s (in 1970 there were 188.7 terminations of pregnancy per 100 live births). This problem, too, has been carried over to the independent Estonia.

But the closed character of the Soviet system hindered development. In a normal and free society, the progress would have been more rapid. … The industrious work and skills of Estonian doctors had to compensate for the technical backwardness.

Besides the damage to physical environment caused by the occupation authorities, the psychological pollution of environment should also be noted. This was caused by several measures deriving from the repressive policy:

…

• polarising and splitting the nation under the false slogan of class struggle, persecuting patriotically-minded people, especially intelligentsia, establishing a totalitarian system of persecution and denunciation;

• forcing materialism and atheism, restricting church life, prohibiting and destroying religious books, physical and moral repression of the clergy and the believers;

• abolishing of all real convictions and principles, creating of a nation- less, godless and impersonal „herd human”. As a melancholy humoristic exaggeration one might say that a new subspecies of Homo sapiens developed, a Homo sovieticus.

The frequency of self-destructive behaviour, suicides and alcohol poisonings decreased (H. Noor, 1993), religious life livened up and birth rates increased sporadically. The crises of the transitional period that followed, did not bring along such positive changes any more.

Violation and plunder of the nation’s genetic fund — by destruction, forced deportation and banishment of the healthier part of the nation, — should also be considered as a far-reaching effect of Soviet repressive policy that had lasted for decades.

All in all, it reads more like fascist-leaning propaganda than a scientific report.

Another census in 1959 showed that demographics had changed significantly - the population was ~75% of Estonian descent. I assure you that ~165 000 people did not magically change their descent in that period of time - this change was the direct result of deportations, executions, forced drafts into dictator-led armies, etc.

Assuming that the migration of every single person to and from Estonia was forced and done in deliberate pursuit of russification is a pretty major flaw in this argument. Economic migration in the rest of the USSR was common. Why do you rule that out completely for Estonia?