Ask Lemmygrad

So here is my dilemma. We import all food and goods, too small for agriculture. Our main economy is built on financial services and tourism mostly. Our social safety net and most of our let's say, liberal left leaning policies are being eroded as time goes by, which is not ideal, but is still better than nothing I guess.

However, since we trade our service based economy for essentially everything else, how does socialism help a nation so dependent on the world around it being capitalist to survive?

Opinion on the book "The Shortest History of the Soviet Union" by Sheila Fitzpatrick ? It has lots of good reviews online, but I am not confident in the opinions of those giving the reviews.

title. Both the USA and its lapdog Israel are easily the most evil, cancerous countries to exist today, and almost everyone knows why.

Personally, I'd have to nominate Japan. Extremely xenophobic country, high suicide rates, exploitative work culture, etc.. Furthermore, as a Chinese, the fact that they still have shrines for their war criminals and whitewash their past is beyond deplorable, not to mention that right-wing anime fascists that simp for that country exacerbate my disdain furthermore.

Is he actually the fraud that he's been made to be? With all the red scare-esque balderdash that's being thrown around, i really can't make anything out.

I'm wondering what the theoretical differences are between soldiers implicated in imperialist conflicts (for natural resources, whatever) versus soldiers implicated in peacekeeping and/or solely national defense, such as Austria, Switzerland or Ireland.

This isn't a "not all soldiers" post by the way, but is it considered there's a distinction?

Given conditions under which soldiers are recruited in the United States and presumably others are predatory, how are individuals from say, the Austrian Bundesheer (conscript service) distinct from that of other nations and the conditions under which they're recruited and so on.

Thanks and apologies for any lack of clarity.

I'm confused

So far, I've heard that accumulation, technological advancement, and thus concentration of capital from the previous capitalist economy would leave its print on the later modern socialist economies

But other than that, I've realized I've never looked much into what distinguishes AES's economic management, mainly of state-owned enterprises, from capitalist economy's management, in concrete policy

I can understand co-operatives, but such orgs don't necessarily make up socialism, as you guys would say

I haven't read it and I want to though I don't feel like ordering yet another book as I have done so a few times in the past weeks.

I found a pdf which seems to be the book but I also found that other versions are longer/have more pages.

Anyone that can provide me with a link?

I'm watching the DNC, and it's made me even more aware of the power of liberal bourgeois democracies to let out a little revolutionary energy whenever it gets close to the edge, through concessional policies, like New Deal policies or whatever Kamala might do if she wins, or even the act of voting and campaigning itself. Do they have to go through a fascism phase first, or has there been a liberal bourgeois democracy that has successfully had a socialist revolution? Will it take new theory to figure it out?

I want to help in any way I can, but I don't have any skills aside from video games

I know it has something to do with imports and exports

I had posted this question today here:

https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/4917359

Also on NATOpedia, there’s some criticism regarding misappropriation of the medicine wheel symbol by the non-Indigenous people. I wonder if anyone here is more well read on the topic to explain about the misappropriation and what a potential Indigenous flag of Turtle Island would like and how it would be better representative of the Native Americans, if it is even possible without distorting their traditions by combining them.

Perhaps when revolution comes and ~~we give~~ the Indigenous people and Blacks have self-determination, maybe they would prefer to be represented as several separate nations/states.

(Edited poor phrasing regarding self-determination)

I am wondering if anyone here, especially if they are Indigenous in America, has more information regarding how the Medicine Wheel has been misappropriated by non-Indigenous and if there is a correct version to use or if using a symbol to represent all Indigenous people of North America is an act of erasure and oversimplification of multiple Indigenous cultures. Do the native peoples want to strive for Pan-Indianism? And if so, what does Pan-Indianism mean to the native peoples and what do they want (and/or not want) from being unified?

I hope I made my questions clear. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.

I read the entire book Joe wrote but I'm not sure I'm fully understanding it

Hey sorry if this is wrong forum, but I live in the USA and want to leave because it's too violent, what country should I move to?

I'm sure this was discussed before but I still want to ask.

If you remember a while back there was a tweet from blinken about ussr and babyn yar. If you don't remember, he asserts that "Ussr buried the atrocity and says ukraine is suffering now".

Anyway afterwards there was a deluge of discussion all around about how disgusting the tweet was but also some people were loud about how he is actually right. And also refer to some wikipedia citation.

So I will list the points I saw at the time:

• Soviets downplayed holocaust and never mentioned jews being singled out in babyn yar.
• That broadly only mentioning as soviet citizens dying in atrocities done by fascists and refusal to acknowledge roma people.
• That originally the extraordinary commision mainly downplayed babyn yar.

This brings me to the actual stuff I want to talk. Mainly there is a narrative at least that only liberalization made it possible for the victims of holocaust heard in post ussr. And that the soviets were very antisemitic and downplayed romani or other oppressed people by branding them as counter revolutionary.

What are your thoughts on this? On the narrative that liberalisation made the victims of holocaust heard and before that Ussr was only trivializing holocaust by mentioning them as soviet citizens.

First of all, I'm sorry if my question could be easily answered by finding the right source. Overall I'd say I read very little theory written by contemporary comrades, and that's something I need to fix once I have the time.

How have they maintained their ideological purity so well, even after reform and opening up? How come the CPSU let figures like Khruschev slip in through the cracks?

Was reading some biographies of American/British communists during the Cold War, a couple of them were in fraternities in college. I find it somewhat amusing that Greek life is supposed to be evil. But that didn't seem to stop them from being Tankie. I saw some fraternities flying the Palestinian flag outside their houses when I visited Columbia University New York, strange and funny. Lemmygrad, as ML, are you guys involved in Greek life or similar student organizations? Why/why not?

Dear comrades,

As we all know there are two soviet eras pre and post death of Stalin. We all know Khrushchev basically did a coupe detat, by killing all Stalinists and also by starting the anti Stalin propaganda. We know he was the cause of the Soviet Sino split.

But what exactly caused the split? What policies did he push that were reformist or capitalist in nature ? How exactly did he fuck up? I know the results, but I lack in knowledge of the causes.

Do you think that you can help bring about the revolution or do you just want a minor less risky role? What kind of role can you participate on and die with a smile in your death bed when you think about how you lived your life?

Marx:

Today's wage-labourer is tomorrow's independent peasant or artisan, working for himself. He vanishes from the labour market - but not into the workhouse.

Sakai:

A study of roughly 10,000 settlers who left Bristol from 1654-85 shows that less than 15% were proletarian

many English farmers and artisans couldn't face the prospect of being forced down into the position of wage-labor.

Is it the difference of time periods? I just noticed now that the time period Sakai is talking would be a pretty early period of colonization, wouldn't it? So it may be that by Marx's time of writing (late 1860s-early 70s?) it was proletarians headed to America and had been in recent historical memory?

Hey there. I was listening to a podcast and someone said this, how do we know this for sure, are there any primary sources indicating such, please send them here thank you

Russian speaking lemmygrad users - could you recommend a communist anti-imperialist community on runet?

The same with Mao, in terms of balancing good and bad policies, of their OWN time.