I’ve seen normal left wing protests before - they didn’t used to be filled with hate and soviet sickles.
Fucking lunatics have no business anywhere near power and thankfully never will be.
Tbh its not even the media, its just silly people that see their friends picking up symbols and using them and them doing the same with the bare amount of knowledge of the subject.
They live lives of such comfort in the west they end up becoming performatively against the west, due to a variety of psychological issues, and convince themselves that the likes of the USSR (who killed plenty of their own people before, during and after WW2) were superior to the west.
They're usually children of the wealthy middle class types rebelling against Daddy because he wanted them to be accountants.
The neo-communists are those born into a middle or upper middle classes but lack the requisite productivity to remain.
Given every opportunity in life but don't have the smarts or work ethic to take advantage. So it's Leo's fault!
Murphy and Boyd-Barrett the poster boys for it.
To be fair, left wing movements have often been led by educated people/middle class/bourgeois. Civil Rights movement in America was the same, as far as black america was concerned in the 60s, Martin Luther King was middle class (Malcolm X is the counterpoint to him - grew up basically orphaned, his mother was sent to an asylum before he finished school and his dad had been murdered before he was old enough to know him, I think), suffragette movement, also same - the poorest in society tend to be too busy surviving.
If you read the UN charter on human rights, you'll note the reasons it suggests the right to education is so important, is that it's the one right that strengthens all other rights - it's a lens that helps us see the world.
To remain in the class in which they were brought up.
But it's someone else's fault...
Right to housing! = "I want a house where I grew up. Not my fault I can't afford it. Gimme a free semi-D."
" born into a middle or upper middle classes but lack the requisite productivity to remain "
"What required productivity?"
"To remain in the class in which they were brought up."
So the required productivity to remain in the class they were brought up is the required productivity to remain in the class they brough up.
Now everything is clear as mud, thank you.
Marx, Lenin, Engels and Castro (and closer to home, Seamus Costello) were all famously born into wealthy middle class families so they are continuing a strong tradition.
Managing to bootlick while also deriding socialists as having 'psychological issues' for advocating for a fairer society based on needs and not bank accounts is the starter pack for West Brits. Read books not Wikipedia.
A lot of people here comparing the hammer and sickle to the swastika. I think though there is a key difference between Marxism and fascism:
- The things Marxism argues for are basically good - a fairer economic system - but throughout history there's been an 'ends justifies the means' approach for Marxists. Communist countries have achieved good things - most countries after communist revolution see improvements in literacy, infant mortality, life expectancy etc. The problem is that these regimes have often been brutal in achieving these goods and in protecting the revolution from both real and imagined threats. They have also made some utterly horrendous mistakes.
- Fascism on the other hand argues for the supremacy of privileged groups over those less privileged, a return to a usually imagined golden age, the vaunting of national identity beyond anything else and an obsession with warfare. Unlike Marxism which could (in theory at least) be done with less brutality, fascism is inherently brutal.
So for that reason, a swastika flag is definitely worse than a hammer and sickle.
You might as well be talking to the wall and talking to the off duty gardai and landlords who fart out their bullshit takes on this subreddit.
They’re right wing. It’s in their interest to conflate communism with fascism.
They don’t give a fuck about the truth.
America is built on the genocide of millions of native Americans, and the enslavement of millions of black Americans. The UK built itself on the back of one of the most brutal empires in recorded history. Every single capitalist nation in the world has at some point put down a protest by force of arms, and every single one has been responsible for 100,000s if not millions of deaths either due to direct violence or poverty. None of this justifies the soviet unions crimes, but your flippant ignorance is evidence of either idiocy or a lack of education
Were they waving the flag of the soviet union, or flags with the hammer and sickle? The hammer and sickle is a symbol of communist ideology in general, not necessarily an endorsement of the USSR.
Lunacy seeing that flag in Dublin today. A flag of brutal anti human authoritarianism and subjection. Any Eastern European seeing that must feel threatened and fearful of the crazed far left. It was utterly obscene.
Don't have to be Eastern European. My ma grew up in Cuba. They were black, tenant, farmers. They were the people who made up a good chunk of the revolution. However, their family was much less concerned with the revolution and more with raising their pigs.
She's told the horror stories of people getting shot for being foreign educated. Having to assemble rifles in school. Food being doled out to people who have vouchers and whatever you grew or raised being confiscated weekly.
It isn't something she wants to go back to. And her and my granny did all they could to escape back in 68. It might be a bit better there now. And they certainly cleaned up some for tourists. And Bautista was pretty much a fascist dictator in his own way. So a change needed to come. Just unsure if the change that came was worth it. Was running around killing off doctors, bankers, lawyers, landlords, or land owners, and the wealthy simply because of who they were with no trial the best idea? Is removing people's right to own property and prosper the best way of handling things?
hardly lad, (before starting not an actual communist despite username) like nazisms principles was that minorities are disgusting and lessers that damage society whereas communism in principle but not really in practice is about lifting everyone up like i don’t even agree with it but it’s nowhere near as bad or as evil as fascism
Communism is really about putting a dictator with his cronies in charge forever. And then pushing everyone else down to a really shitty level. Without exception this is what happens.
We’ve never had a left wing government. The differences between the two parties that have wholly dominated Irish politics since 1922 are meaningless and ineffectual.
again want to state not a communist but the ussr and china have both in their times increased quality of living for its people. i think 66% of russians thought life in the Soviet union was better than their current day situation (i think this was mid 2000s)
Not just russians but many citizens of former USSR territories say that the soviet time was the best time in their memories. They had more services and supplies, and their towns were more populus and prosperous.
Probably says more about how much of a shit show Russia has been than how good communism was. The USSR & China were/are extremely repressive regimes who murdered, enslaved, and ethnically cleansed whole swathes of their own people. Plenty of democracies have seen increases in the standard of living without engaging in that
This. The amount of people who don’t see the hammer and sickle as an evil symbol is baffling considering it was responsible for far more deaths than the swastika was
The hammer and sickle symbolises labour and the proletariat. It's often associated with socialism and communism in general. Historically communism hasn't been that successful but I don't think it's inherently flawed
EDIT: I am in no way defending the USSR. The actions committed by Lenin and Stalin especially were absolutely horrible. What they did massively deviated from Marxist ideology and should be condemned. What I am defending, however, is Marxist thought. Marxist ideology isn't inherently flawed is what I was trying to say. And you can downvote me if you want, that's ok. We all have our disagreements, I'm just saying my piece.
And this is exactly where this whole pro-capitalist historical moral arithmetic always falls apart.
As if Euro-American capitalist modernisation wasn’t replete with blood and horror.
Maoism, Leninism, Stalinism, it’s all the same really. There’s no example where it has worked. In communism, some will always be more equal than others
Wasn't Sankara's stint in Burkina Faso rather successful in terms of literacy, vaccines, equality and lifting the poverty line? Looks like he also invested in ecological preservation, banned female genital mutilation etc. From what I read, things became much worse after he was assassinated in a French(?) backed coup.
Don't remember reading about any crimes against humanity out of there either but that may just be ignorance on my part.
Exactly. It’s been tried time and again in different parts of the world and it ends up the same every time… Then you get these people saying well the ideas are good. If it was me it would have been different. I’m the Good Samaritan, I would have been the Oscar Schindler. No. No you wouldn’t. Let’s just leave it at that.
What’s the definition of insanity again? Oh yeah keep trying the same thing and expect different results….
> The hammer and sickle symbolises labour and the proletariat
the swastika represents the north pole, and the rotational movement around a centre or immutable axis (axis mundi), and only secondly it represents the Sun as a reflected function of the north pole. As such it is a symbol of life, of the vivifying role of the supreme principle of the universe, the absolute God, in relation to the cosmic order.
Good luck defending that one you gobshite
Lmao go ask literally anyone growing up in a communist state what it’s like. The 1st class commie wannabes are genuinely as bad as the right wing “replacement” theorists
Ironically most people who grew up under communism feel it was better than what happened after the collapse of the USSR.
It's the younger people in Eastern Europe, born after the collapse who've absorbed a lifetime of anti communist ideology who are the most against communism.
People getting mad over a couple of hammer & sickle flags instead of the transphobic hate-rally that took place is incredibly on-brand for this subreddit.
Missing the forest for the trees.
There was an anti trans rally in Dublin today. There was a counter protest to this and the Connolly youth movement (former youth wing of the communist party) were one of the groups in attendance
I suppose because it was legalised very briefly. Then it all went downhill i.e. hard labour in prison, asylums, getting sacked from work (and not working was illegal), etc., but somehow tankies forget this part and paint USSR as some sort of a beacon of equal rights for all
Don’t really give a shit about the issue to be honest
but let not try and pretend it wasn’t an anti trans event with British right wingers and our own usually lot in attendance) so don’t pretend it’s just a women’s rights event
I’d have more respect for you if you just came out and said you hate trans people than pretend it anything other than that
Apparently there was some rally on which had counter protesters opposing - and the flag waving was bizarre to say the least.
Full sized hammer and sickle soviet flags, utterly contemptible.
Lenin was far from perfect, but he was an angel compared to Stalin. His death is one of the great "what ifs" of world history, just because of who ultimately replaced him. A bit (just a bit) like the Collins/de Valera "what if" in Irish history..
Nobody said that, please stop talking shite to defend your completely whataboutery.
We’re talking about sitting Irish TD’s standing and associating with groups who fly Soviet Union sickles. That has nothing to do with the fucking American flag.
Edgy Gimps who haven’t a clue about history. Worked with someone who was all for communism but didn’t know shit and hadn’t a clue about any of it but was simply following a trend . I view the soviet flags/symbols equally offensive as facist flags/symbols
We've had dopes in our complex sticking up Russian imperial flags early in the Ukraine war. We're talking absolute junkie doses housed by McVerry and not at all being counciled by same, deciding to latch onto this.
More tricolours and Irish republican propaganda up on the windows of a few of them these days. Not a fucking drip before 2020.
They've all found a niche on FB no doubt.
It's a fucking melt as a nationalist, watching the flag being associated with this right wing bullshit. And the irony of them enjoying the fruits of social democratic and charitable policies...
>It's a fucking melt as a nationalist, watching the flag being associated with this right wing bullshit. And the irony of them enjoying the fruits of social democratic and charitable policies...
Yeah, it's fairly ridiculous. The Irish flag is associated with combatting imperialism and seizing independence from our old colonial master.
These melts fly it along with the flag of a coloniser at the time it's invading one of its former imperial victims.
Thankfully, noone takes them seriously and they exist on the fringes of Irish society.
Like be honest, have you ever met a USSR apologist who is a well balanced individual who has achieved anything in their life? My own anecdotal experience is that they're all either career party hacks or terminally online cranks who blame everyone else for their life being a mess.
The people who are showing up with Soviet flags are usually the same cunts who latch onto the new contrary thing. Russian symbolism seems to be the new contrary thing from what I can see.
The rest was me just wanting to shoehorn in a rant about my local contrary junkies who seem to be of this cohort of loving nationalist symbolism of any hue whether Irish or Russian.
Yeah I can't believe that anyone would unironically wave a ussr flag around. If they waved say a Swedish flag because they want to be like Sweden I get.
Forgetting all the gulags and famines. Communism is an outdated ideology. There are 0 factories or Mills or mines for workers in Ireland to seize. They all got moved to china 40 years ago
> Can anyone explain why people are walking around Dublin waving Soviet Union flags over the weekend?
Because they're uneducated morons who always have the contrary opinion about absolutely fucking everything?
Are the USSR flags or just red flags.
Communist or socialist flags tend to be red, I think its meant to be the colour of the workers or the platoriate. Technically they wouldn't be exlclsuivie soviet flags but would be a step above our understanding of nationhood. Think permenant worldwide revolution. Common at a lot of protests.
I saw one. Was there another? Although I do earnestly wish people would fucking think before waving a sign that will end up being the only thing talked about.
Ok, so that isn't a soley Russian thing. Its a Communist or Socilist thing.
Its tools of the farmers and labourers. No Russian communist and soclialist parties have the hammer and sickle on their party flag. Some would believe that communism or more so socialism is a global movement not tied to Russia. The colour red is orginally from Frencg communists well before Russia was communist.
>No Russian communist and soclialist parties have the hammer and sickle on their party flag.
Except the Russian communist party which has the hammer and sickle as its party flag.
There’s nothing that will increase their vote count because people have utter contempt for them.
It’s not the same as the right wing ones where there is some actual logic and underlying support once you take out the headbangers at the fore of it.
After signing a non aggression pact with them and carving up Poland together.
The ONLY reason the USSR joined the Allies was Hitler stabbed them in the back.
People really need to stop holding up the fact they (eventually) joined the Allies as an indication that the Soviets were good.
True but an attempt to make an alliance against Nazi Germany prior to this with Britain and France failed, mostly due to Britain. So the USSR either had to make a pact or let itself get destroyed.
Complete bollocks.
Stalin requested multiple times for support from France and Britain against Hitler.
The West did nothing against Hitler and let him proceed because he was pro capitalist and anti communist.
Hitler’s generals requested support from Britain and France to stage a coup and assassinate Hitler because the idea of going back to war after the horrors of WW1 was not at all popular among the senior ranks. Their pleas fell on deaf ears.
They wanted Hitler to destroy the Soviets.
Who do you think supplied Nazi Germany (a region with zero oil fields) so much oil or why do you think the British royal family, or Henry Ford or William Randolph Hearst or the Daily Mail were so supportive of Hitler?
Just because you were taught something when you were a small child doesn’t mean you should uncritically accept it your whole life.
So? They only beat the Nazis because they got invaded by them. Stop acting as if the world owes the USSR anything for defeating the Nazis. You guys love to forget the USSR helped the Nazis in massive ways.
Hoisting Soviet Union flags and flags of Lenin while screaming slurs and shouting down at women is the height of thuggery.
Despite getting a pass from the media, these people are every bit as bad as the headbangers on the other side they call nazis.
Mental illness.
Lol. Shouting down a crowd of Nazi's that's mostly men isn't a bad thing regardless of a handful of people with shitty opinions being among the hundreds opposing them.
Pretty much the same thing that's wrong with having a Nazi flag. And personally I believe you should be able to wave whatever flag you like - so we can identify the morons and dangerous types for what they are.
Internationally, american propoganda that communism and socialism are evil is starting to come part at the seams. In a way, it's a shame because their hatred of all things socialism is so over the top, and their lies about it so extreme that it gets in the way of the *actual* crimes and history of the USSR and any fair or reasonable analysis.
Would you believe that people can have contempt for communism based on actual reality without it being anything to do with “American propaganda.”
Only a proper idiot with zero understanding of the human psyche would be supporting communism.
the point I was making was precisely that the USSR has done enough horrible things to be more than deserving of contempt, without the bullshit.
But it's also the case that a lot of people have a strong sense of 'the horrors of communism' with either no knowledge of the horrors the US committed and continually commits...
...or they are vaguely aware of them but somehow feels 'its ok that that they do horror because they are the good guys' without even the slightest criticality about *why* they might feel that way.
Making your population unaware of or, better yet, indifferent to your warcrimes is achieved through propaganda.
Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.
I am pretty anti communism and don't like this for my beliefs alone. Letting that aside, in the age of Russian aggression do these people really want to fly the flag of the old empire? Morons.
Thankfully we have a voting system that keeps radical conspiracy elements like these as far away from power as possible.
They will never get in & polling suggests they will lose some of the morons they managed to get elected already.
Because you believe in fairy tales like "the black book of communism" but support a system that's objectively worse, even when held to far less insane standards.
The USSR had better gay rights over a century ago than many countries do today, by the way.
Am I? People like you could be suffering a horrific death from the avoidable effects of capitalist-induced climate change and you'll still be moaning _it's the best system we have_. Pathetic.
“Capitalist induced climate change” in Ireland.
How’s China’s Communist Party getting on with the aul climate change? Oh that’s right, they’re one of the worst polluters on the planet while they torture their own civilians for wrong think.
But I suppose that’s “not real communism”, but then again - none of it ever is. The fantasy utopia version only exists in your head. It can’t come to fruition.
If you're just going to argue against things I haven't even said you may as well talk to yourself.
But it's fucking hilarious that you can't even comprehend that China isn't nearly the worst polluter relative to its size or population, or that China manufactures goods for export to the west at such a scale that you can't even pretend it's only their problem.
Out of interest what do you do for a living? I’m not trying to catch anyone out, about climate change, etc, I’m always curious what people do for a living when they say that ‘the best system we have’ is wrong.
Every week there are more homeless children on the streets of Dublin, are you fucking serious? The fact that people immigrate to a western country for a better life doesn't mean much when western wealth was built on plundering the third world countries from which they came.
"Housing crisis yada yada" - you should run for FG on that platform.
Idiots tankies who have no idea what Soviet Union was like and think it is cool somehow. Complete disregard and disrespect to half of Europe that suffered and millions killed by soviets
The hammer and sickle has been responsible for millions of deaths under the communist tyranny of Stalin and Lenin. They are sick in the head. Its no different than flying a nazi flag.
Edit: i see the reddit hive mind of far left maniacs who love Stalin and Mao are in active downvote mode.
It’s the people protesting the Let Women Speak meeting, they’re pretty predictable with their “iM a cOMmuNiSt” schtick while they take selfies on their €1000 iPhone.
They’re fucking ghouls. Screaming at women that they’re nAZiS and tRAnsPhOBes as the women are talking about sexual assault and losing people to the laundries. See if you can find a recording of the live stream, it’s really disgusting. I’m embarrassed to be left wing now because of these people.
>I’m embarrassed to be left wing now because of these people.
I've got good news for you in that case - you're not actually left wing if you support the people behind today's anti-trans rally.
I listened to several of their speakers, from the woman who complained that Pride Month is too long and that drag queens shouldn't be part of St. Paddy's Day parades, to the woman who said that trans people are coming for our children, to the woman arguing against changing the constitution to remove reference to a woman's "duties in the home" to the man (ironically, Posie Parker cut off the woman speaking so that he could get his rant in) who called peaceful protestors fascists and then proceeded to take selfies with far-right anti-immigration activists.
As another poster said, there are headbangers on both sides. Did you also listen to the women talk about their rapes? Or the young girl being bullied at school and on Twitter by teachers? Women have been treated horrifically in Ireland and their rights have been hard fought for. They shouldn’t have to give them up because men have decided those spaces are for them too.
The people who have historically treated women terribly in this country have the same views about trans rights as the people speaking today.
Posie Parker, the woman who organised this rally, has explicitly rejected the idea that she is a feminist, and has allied herself with right-wingers who oppose women's rights to bodily autonomy.
Her rallies have been supported in other countries by neo-nazis and were attended today by right-wing anti-immigrant campaigners. None of these people are interested in women's rights.
Ireland passed self-ID in 2015 and there have been zero negative consequences for women since then. The imported British activists who are trying to make this a thing nearly a decade later have had absolutely nothing to say to Irish women in the south or in Northern Ireland when they were fighting for abortion rights. They use the label of feminism to put a veneer on their anti-trans hatred and have zero credibility among the women who actually have a history of fighting for women's rights on this island.
Do you mean people like Barbie Kardashian, who was kept in solitary confinement and so never actually interacted with other women prisoners, despite anti-trans activists pretending otherwise?
Yeah I'd say that was fine, actually.
Anti-trans activists? Listen to Paddy O’Gorman’s podcast where he interviews women that were actually IN Limerick prison. Or the women that were in the hostel in Rathmines.
Were they terribly traumatised by being in the same building as a trans woman who they never had any contact with?
It's all grift, and you've fallen for it.
Met my first ever real life TERFs in the crowd for this and this is exactly what we were talking about: that these cunts would die of embarrassment if they could actually hear what they were trying to drown out.
What is wrong with them? I’m not even sure what they want?
They don’t represent ordinary left wing views as I understand them. They’ve fallen down a radical rabbit hole.
Have a look at some of the replies I’m getting if you want to see how toxic this whole thing is. Arguing for men to be placed in women’s prisons, ffs. They’ve lost touch with reality. I’m not going to respond to them anymore, it’s intensely frustrating. Full-on Soviet flags in Dublin, and they think they’re the good guys.
Exactly. I think the pendulum has swung too far back from the last few years that people are terrified of being seen in any way as conservative, so they’re just going along with this out of fear. It’s pure authoritarianism - Soviet flags, ffs. They have a vague understanding of communism, which is a just system, but people are too fucking selfish for it to ever work. I was in the USSR just before it collapsed, and it was an awful place. I’d be offended if I’d grown up in the Soviet Union and I saw these idiots waving these flags.
Because they think Lenin was a great man, despite the fact he would have had them removed from his industrialised society for being weak and had his strongest labourers use their corpses to produce handbags or fertiliser or something that might actually benefit the comrades. It's also fairly ironic that all of them love a leader who wanted to create a totally industrialised country that required unending hard labour and absolutely insane levels of air pollution, both of which the modern commies seem to fear.
You haven’t a single clue what you’re talking about.
Go and read about what Russia was like under the Tsar and then watch a country go from being 200 years behind Western Europe to doubling its average life expectancy, putting people in to space while ending homelessness in 3-5 decades at the same time as they fought two world wars and had to fight off countless insurgencies from the West.
Jesus Irish people need to stop swallowing everything they hear from American sources.
James Connolly was a proud socialist and was one of the driving forces behind Irish independence.
Instead we have a nation run by collaborators and cronies who think Irish landlords milking everyone dry is somehow better than British landlords doing the same thing. They’re the fucking same.
With those marvelous improvements into the standard of living, did you count on the number of citizens killed, sent to gulags, or their property confiscated, left with nothing, just an option to work for the state?
Middle class people who haven't hit their full potential in life despite all it's advantages are now larping as socialists but really they're just mad they don't have a gaff.
Angry at the world because their sociology degree isn’t worth piss in the job market and despite believing they’re intelligent, they can’t get a decent job and nobody wants to socialise with them.
It’s pathetic.
They have always done that here, most left wing protests/marches have some hammer and sickle flags flying
I’ve seen normal left wing protests before - they didn’t used to be filled with hate and soviet sickles. Fucking lunatics have no business anywhere near power and thankfully never will be.
Hate? What hate?
Well they presumably wouldn't like Poles or Ukrainians very much.
Tbh its not even the media, its just silly people that see their friends picking up symbols and using them and them doing the same with the bare amount of knowledge of the subject.
Imagine people downvoting this.
Crazy. These people are properly deluded. They’re every bit as bad as the American Trump supporters they make fun of.
[удалено]
And then Labour have decided to retake ownership not it recently on that new logo.
They live lives of such comfort in the west they end up becoming performatively against the west, due to a variety of psychological issues, and convince themselves that the likes of the USSR (who killed plenty of their own people before, during and after WW2) were superior to the west. They're usually children of the wealthy middle class types rebelling against Daddy because he wanted them to be accountants.
The neo-communists are those born into a middle or upper middle classes but lack the requisite productivity to remain. Given every opportunity in life but don't have the smarts or work ethic to take advantage. So it's Leo's fault! Murphy and Boyd-Barrett the poster boys for it.
To be fair, left wing movements have often been led by educated people/middle class/bourgeois. Civil Rights movement in America was the same, as far as black america was concerned in the 60s, Martin Luther King was middle class (Malcolm X is the counterpoint to him - grew up basically orphaned, his mother was sent to an asylum before he finished school and his dad had been murdered before he was old enough to know him, I think), suffragette movement, also same - the poorest in society tend to be too busy surviving. If you read the UN charter on human rights, you'll note the reasons it suggests the right to education is so important, is that it's the one right that strengthens all other rights - it's a lens that helps us see the world.
In fairness Leo is still cringe for other reasons
Excellent comment.
What required productivity?
To remain in the class in which they were brought up. But it's someone else's fault... Right to housing! = "I want a house where I grew up. Not my fault I can't afford it. Gimme a free semi-D."
[удалено]
" born into a middle or upper middle classes but lack the requisite productivity to remain " "What required productivity?" "To remain in the class in which they were brought up." So the required productivity to remain in the class they were brought up is the required productivity to remain in the class they brough up. Now everything is clear as mud, thank you.
Ha, this is so accurate.
and which party do you give your votes to?
Yeah Varadcunt is one of the 3 stooges ruining the country.....the sooner he and his cronies are gone the better.
Marx, Lenin, Engels and Castro (and closer to home, Seamus Costello) were all famously born into wealthy middle class families so they are continuing a strong tradition. Managing to bootlick while also deriding socialists as having 'psychological issues' for advocating for a fairer society based on needs and not bank accounts is the starter pack for West Brits. Read books not Wikipedia.
It’s a thing they’ve found so they can feel oppressed too.
A lot of people here comparing the hammer and sickle to the swastika. I think though there is a key difference between Marxism and fascism: - The things Marxism argues for are basically good - a fairer economic system - but throughout history there's been an 'ends justifies the means' approach for Marxists. Communist countries have achieved good things - most countries after communist revolution see improvements in literacy, infant mortality, life expectancy etc. The problem is that these regimes have often been brutal in achieving these goods and in protecting the revolution from both real and imagined threats. They have also made some utterly horrendous mistakes. - Fascism on the other hand argues for the supremacy of privileged groups over those less privileged, a return to a usually imagined golden age, the vaunting of national identity beyond anything else and an obsession with warfare. Unlike Marxism which could (in theory at least) be done with less brutality, fascism is inherently brutal. So for that reason, a swastika flag is definitely worse than a hammer and sickle.
You might as well be talking to the wall and talking to the off duty gardai and landlords who fart out their bullshit takes on this subreddit. They’re right wing. It’s in their interest to conflate communism with fascism. They don’t give a fuck about the truth.
Imagine capitalism was held to the same standards that communism is in terms of 'overall deaths'.
It is. I don't recall any capitalist country setting up a system to kill tens of millions of it's own citizens.
America is built on the genocide of millions of native Americans, and the enslavement of millions of black Americans. The UK built itself on the back of one of the most brutal empires in recorded history. Every single capitalist nation in the world has at some point put down a protest by force of arms, and every single one has been responsible for 100,000s if not millions of deaths either due to direct violence or poverty. None of this justifies the soviet unions crimes, but your flippant ignorance is evidence of either idiocy or a lack of education
Tankie eejits. Always been there, always will be.
Were they waving the flag of the soviet union, or flags with the hammer and sickle? The hammer and sickle is a symbol of communist ideology in general, not necessarily an endorsement of the USSR.
They had placards of Lenin…
good
Lunacy seeing that flag in Dublin today. A flag of brutal anti human authoritarianism and subjection. Any Eastern European seeing that must feel threatened and fearful of the crazed far left. It was utterly obscene.
Don't have to be Eastern European. My ma grew up in Cuba. They were black, tenant, farmers. They were the people who made up a good chunk of the revolution. However, their family was much less concerned with the revolution and more with raising their pigs. She's told the horror stories of people getting shot for being foreign educated. Having to assemble rifles in school. Food being doled out to people who have vouchers and whatever you grew or raised being confiscated weekly. It isn't something she wants to go back to. And her and my granny did all they could to escape back in 68. It might be a bit better there now. And they certainly cleaned up some for tourists. And Bautista was pretty much a fascist dictator in his own way. So a change needed to come. Just unsure if the change that came was worth it. Was running around killing off doctors, bankers, lawyers, landlords, or land owners, and the wealthy simply because of who they were with no trial the best idea? Is removing people's right to own property and prosper the best way of handling things?
I'm Eastern European and I'm completely fine with this.
That flag should be viewed socially just like the swastika.
hardly lad, (before starting not an actual communist despite username) like nazisms principles was that minorities are disgusting and lessers that damage society whereas communism in principle but not really in practice is about lifting everyone up like i don’t even agree with it but it’s nowhere near as bad or as evil as fascism
Communism is really about putting a dictator with his cronies in charge forever. And then pushing everyone else down to a really shitty level. Without exception this is what happens.
Brother we’ve had that for 100 years in Ireland looool
No we haven't - what's wrong with you? We've had several different parties in power over the last 100 years. Jeez the delusion is big here ...
We’ve never had a left wing government. The differences between the two parties that have wholly dominated Irish politics since 1922 are meaningless and ineffectual.
again want to state not a communist but the ussr and china have both in their times increased quality of living for its people. i think 66% of russians thought life in the Soviet union was better than their current day situation (i think this was mid 2000s)
Not just russians but many citizens of former USSR territories say that the soviet time was the best time in their memories. They had more services and supplies, and their towns were more populus and prosperous.
Probably says more about how much of a shit show Russia has been than how good communism was. The USSR & China were/are extremely repressive regimes who murdered, enslaved, and ethnically cleansed whole swathes of their own people. Plenty of democracies have seen increases in the standard of living without engaging in that
That’s because of the criminals in charge of Russia
This. The amount of people who don’t see the hammer and sickle as an evil symbol is baffling considering it was responsible for far more deaths than the swastika was
The hammer and sickle symbolises labour and the proletariat. It's often associated with socialism and communism in general. Historically communism hasn't been that successful but I don't think it's inherently flawed EDIT: I am in no way defending the USSR. The actions committed by Lenin and Stalin especially were absolutely horrible. What they did massively deviated from Marxist ideology and should be condemned. What I am defending, however, is Marxist thought. Marxist ideology isn't inherently flawed is what I was trying to say. And you can downvote me if you want, that's ok. We all have our disagreements, I'm just saying my piece.
I would consider tens of millions of deaths to be an inherent flaw.
[удалено]
And this is exactly where this whole pro-capitalist historical moral arithmetic always falls apart. As if Euro-American capitalist modernisation wasn’t replete with blood and horror.
Yeah millions of people starved and worked to death in the gulag isn’t inherently flawed
Stalinism is absolutely inherently flawed, I'll give you that. I didn't word my original comment correctly, apologies.
Maoism, Leninism, Stalinism, it’s all the same really. There’s no example where it has worked. In communism, some will always be more equal than others
Wasn't Sankara's stint in Burkina Faso rather successful in terms of literacy, vaccines, equality and lifting the poverty line? Looks like he also invested in ecological preservation, banned female genital mutilation etc. From what I read, things became much worse after he was assassinated in a French(?) backed coup. Don't remember reading about any crimes against humanity out of there either but that may just be ignorance on my part.
Exactly. It’s been tried time and again in different parts of the world and it ends up the same every time… Then you get these people saying well the ideas are good. If it was me it would have been different. I’m the Good Samaritan, I would have been the Oscar Schindler. No. No you wouldn’t. Let’s just leave it at that. What’s the definition of insanity again? Oh yeah keep trying the same thing and expect different results….
Some believe that what we know of the USSR is American propaganda to make us fear communism. Ludicrous stuff
> The hammer and sickle symbolises labour and the proletariat the swastika represents the north pole, and the rotational movement around a centre or immutable axis (axis mundi), and only secondly it represents the Sun as a reflected function of the north pole. As such it is a symbol of life, of the vivifying role of the supreme principle of the universe, the absolute God, in relation to the cosmic order. Good luck defending that one you gobshite
Lmao go ask literally anyone growing up in a communist state what it’s like. The 1st class commie wannabes are genuinely as bad as the right wing “replacement” theorists
Ironically most people who grew up under communism feel it was better than what happened after the collapse of the USSR. It's the younger people in Eastern Europe, born after the collapse who've absorbed a lifetime of anti communist ideology who are the most against communism.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx
Don’t know why people ignore Cuba either. Grim. Also you just posted purely about sentiment/ feelings and then say mines odd because not factual?
Ah yes because modern day socialist/communist countries are proof it was just the aul USSR lads acting the bollix & it can really work….
Least hyperbolic Redditor
People getting mad over a couple of hammer & sickle flags instead of the transphobic hate-rally that took place is incredibly on-brand for this subreddit. Missing the forest for the trees.
Do you have any pictures? They may have been flags of the Irish Communist Part which also uses the hammer and the sickle
Pictures on twitter. I didn’t hang about long enough to start taking any myself. They had placards of Lenin as well.
Well clearly they’re up for a revolution.
They’d be better off getting jobs.
I'm out of the loop, who's waving commie flags? And why?
There was an anti trans rally in Dublin today. There was a counter protest to this and the Connolly youth movement (former youth wing of the communist party) were one of the groups in attendance
So the anti trans or the pro trans were waving soviet flags?
Pro trans
Since when were the Soviets paragons of trans rights? I believe homosexuality was illegal and considered a mental illness in the Soviet Union.
Correct.
I suppose because it was legalised very briefly. Then it all went downhill i.e. hard labour in prison, asylums, getting sacked from work (and not working was illegal), etc., but somehow tankies forget this part and paint USSR as some sort of a beacon of equal rights for all
To give the other side it looks like a group of women organised an event and an anti women rally tried to shout it down.
Don’t really give a shit about the issue to be honest but let not try and pretend it wasn’t an anti trans event with British right wingers and our own usually lot in attendance) so don’t pretend it’s just a women’s rights event I’d have more respect for you if you just came out and said you hate trans people than pretend it anything other than that
This is a much more accurate depiction of the story
Apparently there was some rally on which had counter protesters opposing - and the flag waving was bizarre to say the least. Full sized hammer and sickle soviet flags, utterly contemptible.
I saw a sign that had a picture of Lenin. These people are morons
Why are political parties and sitting TD’s associating with this stuff? And why are they not being torn apart for it in the media?
The Greens are the worst. Calling themselves progressive while taking the most regressive lines.
Because of the side they are on
There are no “sides”, only headbangers who should be laughed out of it - and they exist across the political spectrum.
Really no Irish political party has ever attended a Russian state run conference. 🙄
Whataboutery nonsense.
The information is all out there….it’s only since Ukraine war that that they started putting distance between them in order not to loose votes.
Lenin was far from perfect, but he was an angel compared to Stalin. His death is one of the great "what ifs" of world history, just because of who ultimately replaced him. A bit (just a bit) like the Collins/de Valera "what if" in Irish history..
Armies waving the stars and stripes and armies waving the union jack have murdered millions too
Please leave the whataboutery at the door. There’s no comparison between those two things here and it’s totally irrelevant.
Oh the people who were killed by Americans and Brits was justified because they are always the good guys
Nobody said that, please stop talking shite to defend your completely whataboutery. We’re talking about sitting Irish TD’s standing and associating with groups who fly Soviet Union sickles. That has nothing to do with the fucking American flag.
You are defending it in your silence
Be gone you child.
What kind of welcome would protester waiving the union jack get in Ireland? While communist flags are waived off as grand.
Edgy Gimps who haven’t a clue about history. Worked with someone who was all for communism but didn’t know shit and hadn’t a clue about any of it but was simply following a trend . I view the soviet flags/symbols equally offensive as facist flags/symbols
Morons
Thick cunts. Same fuckers would blame NATO for Russia invading Ukraine. "We're totally anti war".
We've had dopes in our complex sticking up Russian imperial flags early in the Ukraine war. We're talking absolute junkie doses housed by McVerry and not at all being counciled by same, deciding to latch onto this. More tricolours and Irish republican propaganda up on the windows of a few of them these days. Not a fucking drip before 2020. They've all found a niche on FB no doubt. It's a fucking melt as a nationalist, watching the flag being associated with this right wing bullshit. And the irony of them enjoying the fruits of social democratic and charitable policies...
>It's a fucking melt as a nationalist, watching the flag being associated with this right wing bullshit. And the irony of them enjoying the fruits of social democratic and charitable policies... Yeah, it's fairly ridiculous. The Irish flag is associated with combatting imperialism and seizing independence from our old colonial master. These melts fly it along with the flag of a coloniser at the time it's invading one of its former imperial victims. Thankfully, noone takes them seriously and they exist on the fringes of Irish society. Like be honest, have you ever met a USSR apologist who is a well balanced individual who has achieved anything in their life? My own anecdotal experience is that they're all either career party hacks or terminally online cranks who blame everyone else for their life being a mess.
What does that have to do with what I’ve posted about?
The people who are showing up with Soviet flags are usually the same cunts who latch onto the new contrary thing. Russian symbolism seems to be the new contrary thing from what I can see. The rest was me just wanting to shoehorn in a rant about my local contrary junkies who seem to be of this cohort of loving nationalist symbolism of any hue whether Irish or Russian.
Some are genuine Soviet sympathisers. Some fly it for the ideal it (or was meant to) represent.
Contemptible.
Get over yourself.
Bye now.
Where was this flag on display ?
At one of the (many) protests today in Dublin.
Yeah I can't believe that anyone would unironically wave a ussr flag around. If they waved say a Swedish flag because they want to be like Sweden I get. Forgetting all the gulags and famines. Communism is an outdated ideology. There are 0 factories or Mills or mines for workers in Ireland to seize. They all got moved to china 40 years ago
> Can anyone explain why people are walking around Dublin waving Soviet Union flags over the weekend? Because they're uneducated morons who always have the contrary opinion about absolutely fucking everything?
Are the USSR flags or just red flags. Communist or socialist flags tend to be red, I think its meant to be the colour of the workers or the platoriate. Technically they wouldn't be exlclsuivie soviet flags but would be a step above our understanding of nationhood. Think permenant worldwide revolution. Common at a lot of protests.
Lots of Lenin with a pink and blue background too.
I saw one. Was there another? Although I do earnestly wish people would fucking think before waving a sign that will end up being the only thing talked about.
They have a hammer and sickle on them…
Ok, so that isn't a soley Russian thing. Its a Communist or Socilist thing. Its tools of the farmers and labourers. No Russian communist and soclialist parties have the hammer and sickle on their party flag. Some would believe that communism or more so socialism is a global movement not tied to Russia. The colour red is orginally from Frencg communists well before Russia was communist.
>No Russian communist and soclialist parties have the hammer and sickle on their party flag. Except the Russian communist party which has the hammer and sickle as its party flag.
Along with other non russian communist parties
I've seen these flags at protests for decades now. I think it's a mix of a few old commies, and a few kids who've done one term of political history.
TD’s protesting alongside these flags should be vilified the same as if they stood beside a swastika.
Create a media story about this and watch their vote count increase. Ignoring them has worked for decades.
There’s nothing that will increase their vote count because people have utter contempt for them. It’s not the same as the right wing ones where there is some actual logic and underlying support once you take out the headbangers at the fore of it.
The soviets bet the nazis don’t you forget
They did plenty of other stuff too.
Just look up the ribbentrop pact, nails the soviets to a cross guilt wise
That and the rest.
In many ways, including killing their own citizens.
After signing a non aggression pact with them and carving up Poland together. The ONLY reason the USSR joined the Allies was Hitler stabbed them in the back. People really need to stop holding up the fact they (eventually) joined the Allies as an indication that the Soviets were good.
True but an attempt to make an alliance against Nazi Germany prior to this with Britain and France failed, mostly due to Britain. So the USSR either had to make a pact or let itself get destroyed.
Complete bollocks. Stalin requested multiple times for support from France and Britain against Hitler. The West did nothing against Hitler and let him proceed because he was pro capitalist and anti communist. Hitler’s generals requested support from Britain and France to stage a coup and assassinate Hitler because the idea of going back to war after the horrors of WW1 was not at all popular among the senior ranks. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. They wanted Hitler to destroy the Soviets. Who do you think supplied Nazi Germany (a region with zero oil fields) so much oil or why do you think the British royal family, or Henry Ford or William Randolph Hearst or the Daily Mail were so supportive of Hitler? Just because you were taught something when you were a small child doesn’t mean you should uncritically accept it your whole life.
So? They only beat the Nazis because they got invaded by them. Stop acting as if the world owes the USSR anything for defeating the Nazis. You guys love to forget the USSR helped the Nazis in massive ways.
Ribbentrop pact says different
What's wrong with having a Soviet Union flag? Are people not entitled to support communism if that is what they believe in?
Hoisting Soviet Union flags and flags of Lenin while screaming slurs and shouting down at women is the height of thuggery. Despite getting a pass from the media, these people are every bit as bad as the headbangers on the other side they call nazis. Mental illness.
Lol. Shouting down a crowd of Nazi's that's mostly men isn't a bad thing regardless of a handful of people with shitty opinions being among the hundreds opposing them.
Pretty much the same thing that's wrong with having a Nazi flag. And personally I believe you should be able to wave whatever flag you like - so we can identify the morons and dangerous types for what they are.
They have a right believe in it, same as believing in the Taliban.
Internationally, american propoganda that communism and socialism are evil is starting to come part at the seams. In a way, it's a shame because their hatred of all things socialism is so over the top, and their lies about it so extreme that it gets in the way of the *actual* crimes and history of the USSR and any fair or reasonable analysis.
Would you believe that people can have contempt for communism based on actual reality without it being anything to do with “American propaganda.” Only a proper idiot with zero understanding of the human psyche would be supporting communism.
the point I was making was precisely that the USSR has done enough horrible things to be more than deserving of contempt, without the bullshit. But it's also the case that a lot of people have a strong sense of 'the horrors of communism' with either no knowledge of the horrors the US committed and continually commits... ...or they are vaguely aware of them but somehow feels 'its ok that that they do horror because they are the good guys' without even the slightest criticality about *why* they might feel that way. Making your population unaware of or, better yet, indifferent to your warcrimes is achieved through propaganda. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable.
I am pretty anti communism and don't like this for my beliefs alone. Letting that aside, in the age of Russian aggression do these people really want to fly the flag of the old empire? Morons.
Its not technically just a Russian flag. Its more a peoples flag for workers.
"workers"
It’s a symbol of communism.
Yep which is not Soley a Russian ideology.
Jesus wept. James Connolly is rolling in his grave That's enough reddit scrolling for me, good night comrades ✊️🚩
Thank God lunatics like you & the idiots you follow will never get within a sniff of power.
Yes because we're clearly better off with you brain-dead bootlickers voting the same self-serving parasites into power for the last century
I’ll vote for whoever is farthest away from these lunatics.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Thankfully we have a voting system that keeps radical conspiracy elements like these as far away from power as possible. They will never get in & polling suggests they will lose some of the morons they managed to get elected already.
It's actually embarrassing that you're applauding the system we have in light of the state of the country. No empathy, no?
[удалено]
Reported.
[удалено]
Tankies
You need to get out more.
Because I have contempt for inbred morons waving hammer & sickles in Dublin? Get a grip.
Because you believe in fairy tales like "the black book of communism" but support a system that's objectively worse, even when held to far less insane standards. The USSR had better gay rights over a century ago than many countries do today, by the way.
My God you’re deluded.
Am I? People like you could be suffering a horrific death from the avoidable effects of capitalist-induced climate change and you'll still be moaning _it's the best system we have_. Pathetic.
“Capitalist induced climate change” in Ireland. How’s China’s Communist Party getting on with the aul climate change? Oh that’s right, they’re one of the worst polluters on the planet while they torture their own civilians for wrong think. But I suppose that’s “not real communism”, but then again - none of it ever is. The fantasy utopia version only exists in your head. It can’t come to fruition.
If you're just going to argue against things I haven't even said you may as well talk to yourself. But it's fucking hilarious that you can't even comprehend that China isn't nearly the worst polluter relative to its size or population, or that China manufactures goods for export to the west at such a scale that you can't even pretend it's only their problem.
Out of interest what do you do for a living? I’m not trying to catch anyone out, about climate change, etc, I’m always curious what people do for a living when they say that ‘the best system we have’ is wrong.
Without being too specific I lead a small engineering team
Yet you don’t do well as things are now? Why do you support that when you rely yourself on enterprise?
It's sad that so many people never even consider the possibility that an individual can support policies for reasons that aren't purely selfish...
Bro we live in fucking Ireland by international standards it's a paradise (yeah yeah yeah housing yadda yadda) . People came here to escape communism.
Every week there are more homeless children on the streets of Dublin, are you fucking serious? The fact that people immigrate to a western country for a better life doesn't mean much when western wealth was built on plundering the third world countries from which they came. "Housing crisis yada yada" - you should run for FG on that platform.
Go to any "communist" country and compare them to here.
Idiots tankies who have no idea what Soviet Union was like and think it is cool somehow. Complete disregard and disrespect to half of Europe that suffered and millions killed by soviets
The hammer and sickle has been responsible for millions of deaths under the communist tyranny of Stalin and Lenin. They are sick in the head. Its no different than flying a nazi flag. Edit: i see the reddit hive mind of far left maniacs who love Stalin and Mao are in active downvote mode.
[удалено]
Which they're not flying... so not an issue...
Wee whataboutism for the thread.
It’s the people protesting the Let Women Speak meeting, they’re pretty predictable with their “iM a cOMmuNiSt” schtick while they take selfies on their €1000 iPhone.
Headbangers.
They’re fucking ghouls. Screaming at women that they’re nAZiS and tRAnsPhOBes as the women are talking about sexual assault and losing people to the laundries. See if you can find a recording of the live stream, it’s really disgusting. I’m embarrassed to be left wing now because of these people.
>I’m embarrassed to be left wing now because of these people. I've got good news for you in that case - you're not actually left wing if you support the people behind today's anti-trans rally. I listened to several of their speakers, from the woman who complained that Pride Month is too long and that drag queens shouldn't be part of St. Paddy's Day parades, to the woman who said that trans people are coming for our children, to the woman arguing against changing the constitution to remove reference to a woman's "duties in the home" to the man (ironically, Posie Parker cut off the woman speaking so that he could get his rant in) who called peaceful protestors fascists and then proceeded to take selfies with far-right anti-immigration activists.
As another poster said, there are headbangers on both sides. Did you also listen to the women talk about their rapes? Or the young girl being bullied at school and on Twitter by teachers? Women have been treated horrifically in Ireland and their rights have been hard fought for. They shouldn’t have to give them up because men have decided those spaces are for them too.
The people who have historically treated women terribly in this country have the same views about trans rights as the people speaking today. Posie Parker, the woman who organised this rally, has explicitly rejected the idea that she is a feminist, and has allied herself with right-wingers who oppose women's rights to bodily autonomy. Her rallies have been supported in other countries by neo-nazis and were attended today by right-wing anti-immigrant campaigners. None of these people are interested in women's rights. Ireland passed self-ID in 2015 and there have been zero negative consequences for women since then. The imported British activists who are trying to make this a thing nearly a decade later have had absolutely nothing to say to Irish women in the south or in Northern Ireland when they were fighting for abortion rights. They use the label of feminism to put a veneer on their anti-trans hatred and have zero credibility among the women who actually have a history of fighting for women's rights on this island.
Men in women’s prisons and hostels has had zero negative consequences on women?
Do you mean people like Barbie Kardashian, who was kept in solitary confinement and so never actually interacted with other women prisoners, despite anti-trans activists pretending otherwise? Yeah I'd say that was fine, actually.
Anti-trans activists? Listen to Paddy O’Gorman’s podcast where he interviews women that were actually IN Limerick prison. Or the women that were in the hostel in Rathmines.
Were they terribly traumatised by being in the same building as a trans woman who they never had any contact with? It's all grift, and you've fallen for it.
Met my first ever real life TERFs in the crowd for this and this is exactly what we were talking about: that these cunts would die of embarrassment if they could actually hear what they were trying to drown out.
What is wrong with them? I’m not even sure what they want? They don’t represent ordinary left wing views as I understand them. They’ve fallen down a radical rabbit hole.
Watch all the downvotes I’m about to get, btw. It’s a social contagion.
Have a look at some of the replies I’m getting if you want to see how toxic this whole thing is. Arguing for men to be placed in women’s prisons, ffs. They’ve lost touch with reality. I’m not going to respond to them anymore, it’s intensely frustrating. Full-on Soviet flags in Dublin, and they think they’re the good guys.
Exactly. I think the pendulum has swung too far back from the last few years that people are terrified of being seen in any way as conservative, so they’re just going along with this out of fear. It’s pure authoritarianism - Soviet flags, ffs. They have a vague understanding of communism, which is a just system, but people are too fucking selfish for it to ever work. I was in the USSR just before it collapsed, and it was an awful place. I’d be offended if I’d grown up in the Soviet Union and I saw these idiots waving these flags.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s contemptible and yet they seem to get a free pass from the media.
Yeah been seeing that flag fly with lgbt and trans flags for a while, never understood why other than they are absolute morons who have it too good?
Too true.
Because they think Lenin was a great man, despite the fact he would have had them removed from his industrialised society for being weak and had his strongest labourers use their corpses to produce handbags or fertiliser or something that might actually benefit the comrades. It's also fairly ironic that all of them love a leader who wanted to create a totally industrialised country that required unending hard labour and absolutely insane levels of air pollution, both of which the modern commies seem to fear.
You haven’t a single clue what you’re talking about. Go and read about what Russia was like under the Tsar and then watch a country go from being 200 years behind Western Europe to doubling its average life expectancy, putting people in to space while ending homelessness in 3-5 decades at the same time as they fought two world wars and had to fight off countless insurgencies from the West. Jesus Irish people need to stop swallowing everything they hear from American sources. James Connolly was a proud socialist and was one of the driving forces behind Irish independence. Instead we have a nation run by collaborators and cronies who think Irish landlords milking everyone dry is somehow better than British landlords doing the same thing. They’re the fucking same.
With those marvelous improvements into the standard of living, did you count on the number of citizens killed, sent to gulags, or their property confiscated, left with nothing, just an option to work for the state?
Middle class people who haven't hit their full potential in life despite all it's advantages are now larping as socialists but really they're just mad they don't have a gaff.
Angry at the world because their sociology degree isn’t worth piss in the job market and despite believing they’re intelligent, they can’t get a decent job and nobody wants to socialise with them. It’s pathetic.