I think that any defense of communism is weird but there are really egregious attempts to defend this horrible, inhuman system of beliefs. I encountered one of them in this discussion. To spare you the pain of reading so much utter ridiculousness, here is a pertinent quote:
Yes they were ultimately failures because they aren’t around anymore (Russia free-marketized totally, China is state capitalist, etc.), but that still does not mean these weren’t the greatest moments of human freedom the world has seen: first places where women had equal rights, access to birth control, for example, first place [Soviet Union] where same sex relationships were legal [then removed when it degenerated, but still we’re talking about decades and decades ahead of everything else], not to mention so many other social/economic egalitarian programs that made the capitalist world look utterly backwards.
Women had access to birth control in the Soviet Union? As one of those women, I’m very surprised to hear this piece of news. After abortion stopped being punished by death in the USSR, there was absolutely no access to any means of birth control. Except abortion. I know women who had over 30 (THIRTY!) abortions because there was no other means of contraception available. Instead of birth control, we had forced gynecological exams. We also had no access to any hygienic means that would allow us to preserve some dignity during menstruation.
Oh, it was amazing to be a woman in the USSR. Especially if you were a victim of rape and were subjected to so much shaming and persecution for this horrible failing on your part that you’d try to kill yourself or, at best, choose to keep quite about the crime.
Same sex relationships were legal? Tell that to all those people who were put in jail for practicing gay sex. Homosexuality was only decriminalized in 1993.
Social/economic egalitarian programs? Like what, for example? Paying a pittance that was barely enough to survive to everybody except the party apparatchiks? I can’t come up with any other “egalitarian” social program in the USSR.
Do people even understand how offensive they are being when they spread such egregious lies about other countries? Countries that they never even visited, let alone lived in? A horrifying reality that so many people were trapped in should not be used by some bored pseudo-intellectual who is too lazy to read at least a couple of articles about the Soviet Union.
Clarissa's Blog 
Is this communism or bolchevism?
In a statist mode, communism is a sin. But in an anarchic mode, I find many positives in that, even if I am not an anarcho-communist specifically.
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Bolchevism is not an ideology. It just denotes membership in a particular wing of the Communist Party of my country, that’s all.
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Cuba is better (or “less bad”) with communism than in its pre-revolution capitalist dictatorship mode.
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Dude, tell that to my relatives, I hope you have good life insurance if you say that to my grandparents, we are Cuban. In fact, don’t go to Little Havana at all, you are really going to need bodyguards. I’m not threatening, I’m just stating the truth.
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Cuba is less bad with communism than in the Batista era…
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Ugh, this is disgusting and obscene *mad* I can relate because I’m Cuban and my parents’ families fled Cuba a few years after Castro took over, I still have relatives down there 😦 My maternal grandmother has been down to Cuba several times to visit her relatives and she’s shown us pictures, it’s so poor and crappy it makes some of the worst parts of the US look like heaven. It’s obscene when I hear “liberal” types say that Cuba is a sort of paradise, Castro makes it look like a Potemkin village and the tourists only see what the government wants them to see. That’s why I can’t call myself a liberal, too many think Communism was awesome because there’s no rich people and it was “feminist” and “progressive”, my family would beg to differ. I really need a good Crown and Coke right, ugh 😀
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I never said this Cuba is a paradise, but Cuba is “less bad” with communism than in its pre-revolution dictatorial capitalist mode.
Remember Batista…
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With Batista, it was the brothel of the hemisphere. Now it’s a brothel of the hemisphere once again.
It went right back to the place from which the revolution tried to liberate it. In my class, I teach the Cuban Revolution as a very hopeful moment that didn’t live up to its initial promise because two huge empires tore Cuba apart for their own purposes. And that’s the tragedy of Cuba. 😦
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I wasn’t referring to you with the paradise comment, I was referring to the sort who only see what Castro wants them to see and not how Cubans actually live. I’m sorry, but I can’t see anything good in Communism, nothing. Since I’m not a Christian, I won’t feel any remorse when that bastard Castro dies, hell, I’m going to celebrate. I don’t believe in feeling remorse when evil people die, it’s going to be so funny to see dumbasses actually feel bad when someone like Manson dies, that dude is evil as hell.
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“I wasn’t referring to you with the paradise comment, I was referring to the sort who only see what Castro wants them to see and not how Cubans actually live. ”
-All of the excursions for tourists in Cuba are a complete joke. I know Havana pretty well, so it was very obvious to me when I went on a bus excursion that the route had been chosen very carefully from preventing people from seeing the reality of Havana. Also, police officers in Cuba work very hard to prevent any form of contact between the locals and tourists. And that’s the capital. Go into any rural school or hospital and if your heart doesn’t stop with horror. I just don’t know.
I thought I came from a poor country. But then I went to Cuba and realized I had no idea of what poverty, desperation and hopelessness are actually like. Mind you, I’ve been to other Latin American countries, and they are not even close to what Cuba is.
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I’ve been to Cuba, too, and it was a deeply traumatic experience. Things are just horrible, on so many levels. 😦 I feel a lot of guilt because people from my culture exported this ideology to Cuba, used the Cuban people and then dumped them when they stopped being useful.
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I understand, ma’am. I just hate it when people go to Cuba and don’t realize how bad it is. You don’t have to feel guilty, if anything, blame the Communists who started this whole mess.
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that Cuba…
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Cuba is less bad than Pinochet’s capitalist Chili. (Chili is better than Cuba, now)
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I haven’t been to Pinochet’s Chile and my knowledge of it is, sadly, very limited, so I wouldn’t be able to say.
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What a corporate nazi he was!
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Batista: a brothel for men
Cuba now: a brothel for men AND women (but Dominican Republic is a bigger brothel now), especially for women Quebeckers. They call Air Canada “Air Pussy”.
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That is a gross comment, dude. And these Quebecker chicks should be ashamed of themselves, they’re no better than the dudes who go to Southeast Asia to rape children.
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Men prostitutes call Air Canada “Air Pussy”
“And these Quebecker chicks should be ashamed of themselves, they’re no better than the dudes who go to Southeast Asia to rape children.”
You’re a raving idiot. I talked about adults!
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“Cuba now: a brothel for men AND women (but Dominican Republic is a bigger brothel now), especially for women Quebeckers. They call Air Canada “Air Pussy”.”
-Oh, I know. I kept being stopped with offers of sex for money in Cuba. When I refused, I’d get asked, “So why are you here then? Women from your part of the world come here to buy sex.”
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“In my class, I teach the Cuban Revolution as a very hopeful moment that didn’t live up to its initial promise because two huge empires tore Cuba apart for their own purposes. And that’s the tragedy of Cuba. ”
I agree, but it was worse in the Batista capitalist era.
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That, at least, I do know about Pinochet. I admire the brave Spanish judge who was the only person courageous enough to pass a judgment on Pinochet. The rest of the world kept wimping out. It was especially disgusting when people started saying, “Oh, he’s so old and sick, why punish him anymore?”
Seriously??? The guy murdered countless people and we should now feel sorry for him because he’s sick?
Sorry for the rant, but I just hate it when people start defending criminals and genocidal maniacs like Pinochet.
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I personally know people from Canada who go to Cuba and the Dominican Republic specifically to buy sex with minors. 😦 😦
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That’s what I was referring to, I hate sex tourism, period. I don’t care who does it, it’s disgusting and exploitative. And that goes on in Cuba, being a woman purchasing sex doesn’t make it any better than a guy doing it 😦
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Adult prostitution is not a crime and it’s less exploitative for children than buying at Wal-Mart.
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Sorry, I should say “Adult prostitution is not a crime and it’s less exploitative for children AND ADULTS than buying at Wal-Mart.
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“Adult prostitution is not a crime and it’s less exploitative for children AND ADULTS than buying at Wal-Mart.”
Oof.
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Okay, but I talked about adult prostitution. Nobody questioned here the fact that child prostitution is a sin , even Patrick! 😉
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“Since I’m not a Christian, I won’t feel any remorse when that bastard Castro dies, hell, I’m going to celebrate.”
Me too. I hope that his cancer will become terminal. But I celebrate more the Pinochet’s death and when Robert Mugabe will be dead, I’ll go in a greater party!
Pinochet and Mugabe are capitalist dictators…
Oh, and what about Gadhafi, another capitalist and former pro-occidental? (even if I hate the way that Occidental terrorists killed him)
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Haïti, Dominican Republic and Venezuela aren’t communists
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oops Columbia, sorry. And even the communist Venezuela was (in the pre-Chavez era )and is worse than Cuba.
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I haven’t been to Colombia or Venezuela, so I can’t say. However, people can leave these countries freely. It isn’t the same with Cuba.
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“I haven’t been to Colombia or Venezuela, so I can’t say.”
You mean… I must go to a country to have an opinion about how good/bad it is there? Then I am a complete idiot.
“In my class, I teach the Cuban Revolution as a very hopeful moment that didn’t live up to its initial promise because two huge empires tore Cuba apart for their own purposes. And that’s the tragedy of Cuba.”
Quite right. I wonder, however, what is your take on the US embargo on Cuba.
And yes, even though I was not there to live it, Batista’s Cuba was worse than Castro’s.
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“You mean… I must go to a country to have an opinion about how good/bad it is there? ”
Yes.
And if you want to have an opinion on how good/bad was any particular point in history, you must travel back in time.
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“You mean… I must go to a country to have an opinion about how good/bad it is there? ”
– Et toi aussi, mon ami? Mais non, c’est pas vrai! Surely, you of all people can see a difference between ““I haven’t been to Colombia or Venezuela, so I can’t say.” and “Ol. hasn’t been there, so he can’t say”? You are a Latin Americanist. It’s your job to have opinions about these countries. You have the knowledge about them that I simply don’t. However, I have passionate opinions about Catalunya, even though I’ve never been there.
“I wonder, however, what is your take on the US embargo on Cuba.”
– When we get to the embargo, I usually present arguments in favor and against and let the students vote. In the 4 semesters I’ve been teaching the course, maybe 2 or 3 students supported the embargo. The rest were opposed. I find that very informative.
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I’m sorry that you and your countrymen (and women) had to suffer so. In the early 80s, I read a book called, “Tortured For Christ” by Dr. Richard Wurmbrand. I also had the distinct pleasure to have met Dr. Wurmbrand. He suffered so greatly under Soviet Communism for his faith in Jesus Christ, and for refusing to give up pastoring his flock. They did things to him that are unmentionable. The sufferings of the Soviet people under Stalin and subsequent Communist leaders is immeasurable, I think.
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Thank you for understanding this! I feel that our suffering is very often dismissed because recognizing it doesn’t suit many people’s political agendas and ideological goals.
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Oh, I’m liking this idea a lot. The first sentence, not the second. Any kind of radicalism is good for me.
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Oh, can relate to this, too. Very much so.
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I thought this info was appropriate to publish here:
On November 16, “Today, Congress holds hearings on the first American Internet censorship system. This bill can pass. If it does the Internet and free speech will never be the same. Join all of us to stop this bill.”
http://americancensorship.org/
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Communism is necessary and if mankind is to survive, will have to be implemented pretty soon. The problem is, communism cuts into corporate profits, so it has been sabotaged by capialists whenever it rears its head. Stalin wouldnt have even come into power had Britain and the USA not armed the Tsars. He was always a reactionary.
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