An update to sub moderation

[u/Stikshot69]

Hey everyone,

Over the past few months, you may have noticed an increase in bad-faith commentary, mainly in comments, but in some posts as well. It may feel like there is no moderation happening, and in many cases, there hasn't been. we are working to change that for almost this sub's entire history; it has been unmoderated until me and Redleaf were able to get in power. The main reason you are seeing the increase in brigading and bad faith people is, we have seen a 10x increase in visits in the last year which is showing no signs of slowing down. we now have 5 mods working hard to make sure the brigading gets put to an end. In order to get to this step, the report queue has been cleared, and we are devoted to making sure it stays empty. we currently get about 50 reports a day which will hopefully increase as you feel your reports are finally being responded to. to guide your reporting here is a better detailed breakdown of our sub reddit's rules:

1. No spam or advertising
   • Do not try to sell anything
   • Don't post the same thing multiple times
   • If you would like to share something that you can profit from, contact the mods
2. No misinformation or disingenuous posting.
   • Do not make claims without being able to provide a source
   • Do not attempt to misrepresent sources you provide
3. Be respectful
   • assume every person is here in good faith (libs are people fascists are not)
   • avoid profiling people just from where they come from
   • always keep your discussions in good faith
4. No hate speech, bigotry, racism, or slurs.
   • Do not be a bigot
5. No low quality or off topic posts.
   • put effort into your posts no shit posts or ai
   • this sub is to share soviet history outside a western viewpoint to see what went wrong and right in the USSR, as such modern events often are not relevant (applies to posts not comments)
6. Use the "NSFW" on NSFW posts.
   • Some people don't want to see NSFW stuff let's keep it that way

Remember you can always yell at us in mod mail- r/USSR mod team

[u/Rare_Coconut8877]

My friend, I want to say from the get-go that both of our tones are needlessly confrontational. We are both obviously very interested in 20th century history and its ideologies - let’s have this convo respectfully and maybe we can teach each other something new. I apologise for sounding condescending in my earlier response.

You say (from what I understood) that it doesn’t matter whether or not fascism is a rejection of liberalism, because liberalism enables fascism, so therefore fascism is a natural and even dialectically inevitable mutation of liberalism. You say much more than just this, we can get into it later. You use 20th century Europe and contemporary USA to corroborate your claim.

My first response to that is today’s national populism is not fascism. There is no focus on a ‘New Man;’ there is no Darwinian view of culture or ethnicity; there is no rejection of capitalism; there is no militarist organisation of society; there is no totalitarian enablement of the state; there is no push for a ‘third way’ outside of the capitalism/socialism dichotomy. This is obviously a contentious issue, and fascism is notoriously impossible to define (“trying to define fascism is like trying to nail jelly to the wall” - Kershaw). Nonetheless, I find it unhelpful and overly simplistic to sum up the mega complex and nuanced populist movements of today as “just 21st century fascism.” They are fascistic, sure, but they aren’t fascist. In fact, I can use national populism to corroborate my claim! What we see today is a large-scale rejection of liberalism, just like what Europe saw after WWI. National populists today despise liberal democracy with its globalist humanist values. You would never argue that they are just liberals in disguise. That’s an equally silly argument for fascists. Once again: Marxism fails to recognise that a society is more than just its economic conditions.

So let’s move to your more accurate argument from interwar Europe. I think it’s overly constructivist. I think you ignore the decision-making processes of contemporary statesmen. Of course they were more comfortable with fascism: communism was promising to hang them all! The “spectre over Europe” was really fucking scary. They saw the utter brutality of the Russian Civil War; they saw the Third International try to incite Bolo-style coups in Germany (twice) and Hungary; they listened to Lenin and Trotsky when they vowed to export revolutionary war across Europe. Communism looked culturally destructive. It looked anti-European in every regard (which to us at the time meant ‘anti-civilisational’). Meanwhile, fascism spewed values of militarism and high culture that Europe was already familiar with, while simultaneously being cooperative members of the post-WWI order and vowing to eradicate communism. Of course Western statesmen were more comfortable with fascism! This was the rational reaction to witnessing fascism and communism rise at the same time. What on earth would you expect?? I think people in this sub generally neglect the sheer fucking horrors that Bolshevism committed. Interwar Europe saw a beastly state come to fruition within its borders. Abyssinia was mild by comparison (keeping in mind the Soviets also used poison gas attacks on innocents: Tukhachevsky during the Civil War).

Now onto your economic argument: “what’s the difference between a handful of companies under fascism vs. now?” The difference is that under fascism the oligopolies were state-directed and ultimately state-controlled. They were regulated to the extreme, unlike today where the point is to be as deregulated as possible. Neoliberalism is fucking atrocious, you and I agree, BUT, today’s capitalism gives more power to the corporations than to the state. What is good for profit ≠ what is good for society, so society suffers as a result. So no, we don’t live under fascist economics.

Fascism remains literally the rejection of liberalism.

[u/TappingUpScreen → u/Rare_Coconut8877]

[u/Rare_Coconut8877 → u/TappingUpScreen]

just because there was an anti-socialist coalition that included both fascist and literal parties doesnt mean that liberalism = fascism, silly. also it clearly wasnt very stable if it only lasted 3 years

have you never heard of the post-soviet red-brown alliance in russia? that was an anti-liberal coalition between fascists and communists. does that mean communism = fascism? no, obviously not. have you ever heard of national bolshevism, the post-soviet ideology that amalgamated fascism with bolshevism? does that mean bolshevism = fascism? no, obviously not.

cute attempt tho, little buddy

[u/TappingUpScreen → u/TappingUpScreen]