Dialectical Materialism

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH:  100 MILLION KILLED

The common “100 million figure” is a lie from the propaganda piece: “The Black Book of Communism”, which has been debunked and includes people who were not even born as well as Nazis defeated by Soviet forces in WW2. 

• The Triumph of Evil  by Austin Murphy

• Human Rights in the Soviet Union  by Albert Syzmanski

• Another View of Stalin  by Ludo Martens

• Stalinist Terror: New Perspectives  by Getty and Manning

• Origins of the Great Purges  by J. Arch Getty

• The Road to Terror  by J. Arch Getty

• Other studies by historian  by J. Arch Getty

• The Legacy of Stalinism  by "brown-eggs"

• Khrushchev Lied  by Grover Furr

• Blackshirts and Reds  by Michael Parenti

• Blood Lies: The Evidence that Every Accusation against Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union in Timothy Snyder's 'Bloodlands' Is False  by Grover Furr

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH:  DICTATORSHIP, REPRESSION OF RIGHTS, AND INEQUALITY

Every political system needs to restrict rights to establish itself and maintain itself in periods of stress. Take the sedition act and repression of loyalists in the United States or restrictions on press freedoms during the American Slavery war. Liberal Capitalism dominance is certainly paved with blood. Without the Spring of Nations or the French revolution it certainly would not have taken hold as the Monarchies of old would never let their power be challenged. Similarly, Capitalists won’t let Socialists develop a peaceful and gentle Socialism. When Allende tried to in Chile the democratic government was overthrown in a U.S. backed military Coup. They are forced to adapt ‘authoritarian’ measures to stay alive. This all being said, the extent of ‘authoritarianism’ is often greatly exaggerated by western propaganda. When America does it it is a prison. When the Soviets do it, it is a Gulag. We are taught to conceptualize these things differently. 

𓇻 The Soviet Government and its Electoral System | Miscellaneous Files

1918 constitution | 1936 constitution | Stalin's election speech 1937  | Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan

Workers Participation in the Soviet Union by Mick Costello  | The CPSU in a Soviet Election Campaign by Ronald J. Hill

The Stalin-Constitution by Prof. I. Trainin | “Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform, Part 1 and Part 2 by Grover Furr

• Soviet Communism: A New Civilization  by Sydney and Beatrice Webb

• Is the Red Flag Flying?  by Albert Syzmanski

• Socialism Betrayed  by Keeran and Kenny

• Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934–1941  by Robert Thurston

• Democracy, East Germany, and the Berlin Wall  by Stephen Gowans

• The Russians are Coming: The Politics of Anti-Sovietism  by V.L. Allen

• The 1936 Soviet Constitution

• Soviet Democracy  by Pat Sloan

• There is no Freedom of Speech under Capitalism  

• Totalitarianism is a colossal lie

• The Myth that Communism robs you of Individuality 

Individuality is the inherent quality or state of being a unique, distinct person with specific traits, preferences, and perspectives that set one apart from others. It is a natural condition of human diversity, representing the “fruit” of becoming a psychologically separate being and celebrating the unrepeatable expression of one’s specific existence.

Individualism, by contrast, is a philosophical, social, or political ideology that prioritizes the rights, interests, and autonomy of the individual over those of the group or society. It is a collective practice or belief system that emphasizes self-reliance, independence, and freedom from external constraints, often positioning the individual as the primary unit of value in social and economic structures

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH:  HUMAN NATURE 

Human nature is plastic to its environment. People certainly acted differently 1420 than they did in 2020. Democracy was against the great chain of being and the divine right of kings. Modern medicine is against human nature. Our human nature was certainly cooperative during the long period of human history that functioned under primitive communism. Our great ability for memetic advancement is one humanity’s defining traits. In addition, what does it mean to be “greedy”? Does it mean to look out for one own’s material interest? Well then most people should be socialist, as the lives of most people are improved under socialism. The working class looking out for their own interests is exactly what Marx advocated for. 

• Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work?  by Stephen Gowans

• From Farm to Factory  by Robert Allen

• The Rise of Socialism  by William Z. Foster

• We Lived Better Then  by Stephen Gowans

• The Cooperative Human by Nature Human Behaviour  

• Michael Parenti: Human Nature and Politics

• Capitalism is against human nature, not Communism  

• Stop blaming human nature for capitalism 

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH:  GULAGS!

• The Truth about the Soviet Gulag - Surprisingly Revealed by the CIA (Penal labor Was Common All Around the World at the Time. The Soviet Union abolished their penal labor system as a punishment in 1955) 

• “Gulag Archipelago”: Exposing the anticommunist fabrications of Solzhenitsyn   (Video Discussion) 

It's Important to Note that Solzhenitsyn was a Nazi Collaborator. Here is a quote by him: “The German army could liberate the Soviet Union from Communism but Hitler was stupid and didn't use that weapon”. 

Blackshirts and Reds, Chapter 5 by Michael Parenti: 

"Soviet labour camps were not death camps... There was no systematic extermination of inmates"

"In any given year, 20 to 40 percent of the inmates were released, according to archive records"

"More than half of all gulag deaths for the 1934-53 period occurred during war years (1941-45), mostly from malnutrition"

"In 1944, the labour camp death rate was 92 per 1000. BY 1953... 3 per 1000" 

"those arrested for political crimes ("counterrevolutionary offenses") numbered from 12 to 33 percent of the prison population, varying from year to year"

"Total executions from 1921 to 1953... were 799,455"

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH:  NO INNOVATION AND NO INCENTIVES  

That socialism can take a country from Rasputin to Sputnik and people can still be convinced that socialism crushes innovation is a testament to the encompassing strength of anti-communist propaganda. They really can’t keep getting away with this. Jokes aside, economic systems do not innovate. People innovate and thus the economic system that liberates the people will allow them to innovate the most. Here is a long list of inventions in just the USSR alone. Plenty of other socialist countries have had innovations as well, in particular Cuba’s many advancements in the medical field including the lung cancer vaccine CimaVax-EGF. The real question is, what innovation does capitalism bring? Is planned obsolesce innovation? What innovations do come from capitalist countries tend to come from government research, not the market. Innovation comes from the hard work of scientists and engineers funded by your tax dollars, not the capitalist class. Furthermore, the idea that people won’t have incentives to work hard without the profit motive is silly. People obviously did things prior to capitalism so there must be other incentives. There are plenty of motives such as survival, satisfaction of your work, serving your community, passion, and just plain boredom. One of our favorites is metals, a common incentive in the USSR. What makes you want to be the best pilot, a potential raise or knowing that you’re serving your people and country and you will be given a shiny award for your efforts?   | Science has Become Less Innovative Under Capitalism ⬥ How Capitalism Stifles Innovation

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: EVERYBODY HATED SOCIALISM

• Homesick for a Dictatorship

• 60% of Russians Want Communism Back

• Former Soviet Countries See More Harm from Breakup

• Russians say Aug 1991 events are tragedy, not triumph of democracy

• Struggling Romanians Yearn for Communism

• Tajikistan Pines for Old Soviet Union Strength

• Referendum on the Preservation of the USSR

• Central Asia in Nostalgia for the Soviet Period

• Freest Under Czech Communism!

• Seven Myths about the USSR  by Stephen Gowans

• An experiment in living socialism: Bulgaria then and now  by F.S.

• Growing Up Under Communism Was The Happiest Time Of My Life  by Zsuzsanna Clark

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH:  "MY FAMILY SUFFERED UNDER SOCIALISM"

If by suffered you mean they had their slaves and plantation taken away, good. That the dictatorship of the proletariat takes power from the Bourgeoisie is no surprise and it is a good thing. Besides that, if your family actually suffered under a socialist government, that is sad to hear. While there is much to be learned from the past socialist experiments they all certainly made mistakes and sometimes people did suffer when they did not need to. It is worth mentioning however that the experience of your family is not representative. Most people who lived under Socialism want it back according to many polls done in Russia, what formerly made up East Germany, Hungary, Czechia, and Serbia. It is also worth noting that the greatest suffering in many socialist countries came not from socialism but from the collapse of the USSR. While the 90s in the US was a time of peace and prosperity Cuba was devastated by famine in what’s referred to as the “Special Period”. The DPRK was similarly struck by famine in the 90s and the collapse of Yugoslavia also came out of the USSR’s demise.  

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: EVERYONE WAS POOR

• Labor and Purchasing power of workers in the Soviet Union (1972)

This Article states that although prices didn't change much, if at all that wages did increase over time due to the USSR's planned economy, meaning that by 1970, on average it only took 20 hours of work to feed a family of 4 for a week, with the average working week somewhere in the low 40s (41-45).

• The Soviet Economy was INSANE(ly good) 

• The Need for Planning  by Joseph Ball

• Mathematical Methods of Organizing and Planning Production by Leonid V. Kantorovich, USSR, 1939

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: THE USSR COLLAPSED DEMOCRATICALLY  

• 1993: Russians defending the Soviet Union

• Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union by Vladislav M. Zubok

• US agents helped Yeltsin break coup

• The man who "brought down" the Soviet Union was a terrible human being  

•  The collapse of the Soviet Union: A British perspective 

• 'My Ambition was to Liquidate Communism' - Mikhail Gorbachev  

• Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny

• The destruction of the USSR and transition into capitalism led to a catastrophic loss of life  

• People largely miss communism and regret the transition to capitalism: Part One, Part Two

• According to records, Germany admitted that their goal was to  ‘Make life for communists as difficult as possible’ as part of a State-run anticommunism and ‘psychological warfare’ in the early years of the Cold War

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: THE HOLODOMOR GENOICDE / COMMUNISM NO FOOD

What exactly makes the death of those in Holodomor the fault of Communism? Stalin could not control the clouds and make it rain over Ukraine.

• Holodomor, myth and reality

• Debunking the “Holodomor” Myth

• The Hitlerite Holodomor Myth

• Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard by Douglas Tottle

• Famine was not intentionally created by USSR leadership as some claim but was a famine of natural causes exacerbated by private capitalists resistance to collectivizing for shared yields 

• The caloric intake of the USSR was the same as the US, according to the CIA

• The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933  by Mark Tauger

• Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931–1933  by Mark Tauger

• The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931–1933  by Davies and Wheatcroft

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: MAO KILLED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE  (Refer to Historical Figures Page for more on Mao)

• Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?  by Joseph Ball

• Monster or Liberator?  by Carlos Martinez

• The Battle for China's Past  by Mobo Gao

• Was Mao Really a Monster? The Academic Response to Chang and Halliday's "Mao: The Unknown Story"  by Benton and Chun

• How did Mao manage to kill ~78 million people?  by Godfree Roberts

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: CHINA WAS A TOTALITARIAN DICTATORSHIP

• The Rise of the Chinese People's Communes  by Anna Louise Strong

• The Chinese Road to Socialism: Economics of the Cultural Revolution  by E. L. Wheelwright

• Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village  by William Hinton

• Shenfan: The Continuing Revolution in a Chinese Village  by William Hinton

• Turning Point in China: An Essay on the Cultural Revolution  by William Hinton

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: CHE WAS A BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHER (Refer to Historical Figures Page for more on Che)

• Che: A Revolutionary Life  by Jon Lee Anderson

• Debunking the 'Che Guevara Was Racist!' Lie  by Cuervo Rojo

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: CUBA HAS NO DEMOCRACY AND IS A HORRIBLE PLACE TO LIVE

• 20 Reasons to Support Cuba - Invent the Future.

• Cuba: A Revolution in Motion: Saney, Isaac: 9781842773635: Amazon.com: Books  by Isaac Saney

• Library Genesis: Arnold August by Arnold August 

• Cuban Democracy Factsheet (2015)

• All in this together: Cuba’s Participatory Democracy

• The Elected Delegate and the Dissident in Cuba’s Municipal Elections | Dissident Voice by Arnold August

• Cuban Constitution of 1976, with all amendments to 2002, in English

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: NORTH KOREANS BELIEVE IN UNICORNS AND THEY THINK KIM JONG-UN IS IMMORTAL

• Western DPRK Propaganda: The Worst, Occasionally Hilarious, and Often Racist, Lies  by Alyx Mayer

• Anti-DPRK Propaganda War – a Cavalcade of Comedy  by Red Youth

• Tourist who took camera inside North Korea shocked by 'ordinary' lives of citizens

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: THE DPRK IS A FASCIST MONARCHY

• Korea Resilient! Socialism in Democratic Korea  by Vince Sherman

• How to Think about Socialism in Korea

• Understanding North Korea  by Stephen Gowans

• A Model of Democratic and Participatory Socialist Planning

• Constitution of the DPRK

• Socialist Korea: A Case Study in the Strategy of Economic Development  by Brun and Hersch

• Interview: Understanding and Defending North Korea

• Democracy: US vs DPRK – Towards the Annihilation of a Narrative

• The secret genocide in South Korea you’ve probably never heard of

• Resources to Research North Korea
  
  

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH: ALBANIA WAS A TOTALITARIAN DICTATORSHIP

• Pickaxe and Rifle: The Story of the Albanian People  by William Ash

• Insights into Socialist Albania from 'Pickaxe and Rifle'

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH:  THE RED ARMY AND MASS RAPES 

The mythology of Red Army mass rapes in Berlin (and elsewhere throughout Germany) was slow to development in the post-WWII anti-Soviet climate. Even in 1945, as the Soviets and US collaborated to secure and rebuild a defeated Germany, Western generated rumours were being spread of the Red Army committing between 20,000 and 150,000 rapes throughout Germany (not just Berlin). As there was no documented evidence surrounding these rumours, no mainstream historian took them seriously (although the Western far-right ideologues continued to espouse Goebbels’ ahistorical ramblings). This changed with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1992, two (bourgeois) German feminists – named , Helke Zander and Barbara Yor – published a book entitled ‘Liberators and Liberated’, within which they ahistorically stated that the Red Army had committed 2 million rapes throughout Germany during the closing months of WWII. This was a dramatic reworking of Goebbels’ main anti-Soviet idea, and a massive increase in supposed ‘victims’, but a logical assumption of how these ‘authors’ arrived at this number reveals the fallacy of their argument. This incorrect number was arrived at using the following flawed methodology. Zander and Yor focused on a single Berlin Hospital for the years 1945-1946, and assessed the births that occurred there. For both years it was reported that around 500 babies were born respectively, with 15-20 fathers being recorded as ‘Russian’. In two or three cases it was reported that the pregnancy was caused by rape. These two ‘authors’ then ignored the fact that the vast majority of pregnancies were consensual, and assumed that ALL were the product of rape. They then presented Goebbels’ Nazi German propaganda of the Red Army raping all German women between the ages of 8-80 years, and concocted the arbitrary figure of ‘2 million’ as an ‘estimate’ of supposed rapes committed throughout the Soviet occupied areas of Germany. (These two ‘authors’, incidentally, remain silent about the well documented rapes carried-out in Germany by US and British troops). However, even after this highly unreliable book was published, the idea of ‘2 million’ rapes did not gain much traction until the British historian Anthony Beevor published his ‘Fall of Berlin’ in 2002, within which he repeats without question the research of Zander and Yor, and perpetuates the anti-Soviet rhetoric of Goebbels’ Nazi German propaganda. This is the history behind how the Red Army was misrepresented by Nazi Germany and modern German and British revisionist ‘historians’ sympathetic to the political rightwing. However, four months later, on July 12th of 1917, the death penalty was restored for all military crimes, murder, rape, and offences against the state committed during war time (Browder & Kerensky, 1961). This measure was adopted by the Provisional government as a result of the deteriorating political and economic situation in Russia due to its unsuccessful participation in WWI and associated civil disturbances. After the war Soviet officers began mass executing thousands of their own soldiers. The reason? War rape. Almost all Russian WW2 historians support this. One such example is Oleg Rzheshevky. According to Oleg Rzheshevsky, a President of the Russian Association of World War II Historians, 4,148 Red Army officers and many soldiers were convicted of atrocities and punished with capital punishment, while only 69 U.S. soldiers were executed.

• Professor Elena Senyavskaya Dispels the myth of mass red army rapes in Germany 1945

• The Instrumentalization of Sexual Violence in German Cold War Anti-Communist Discourses

• The myth of millions of raped German women

• BERLIN OPERATION 1945: Beevor's source points to P. 54, 59. "Befreier und Befreite" Sander und Johr, 1992. These figures were not direct evidence, they were calculated based on data on the births in one clinic, Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, 1945-46. 34 children born there were of Russian descent from 45-46. Out of those 34, 9 were a result of rape. Based on another hospital's data, Charite, Johr claims that pregnancy happened in 20% of the cases of rape. So let's go over this:  

1. Official Berlin statistics for childbirth in late 45-46 is 23,124 children

2. According to Empress Augusta Victoria's data, 5% of children born there in 45-46 have Russians as fathers, so transferring that ratio to Berlin's data gives 1,156 Russian children.

3. 90% of pregnancies resulting from these rapes were interrupted, hence the number of those pregant = 1,156 x 10 = 11,560 women

4. 20% of rapes resulted in pregnancies so the number of women rapes = 11,560 x 5 = 57,800

5. Berlin at that time had around 600,000 women of childbearing age, aged 18 to 45, so 57,800 gives you 9.5% of 600,00.

6. Besides them, there were also girls aged 14 to 18 and older women above 45, there were around 800,000 of them in Berlin. Johr deduces that since Russians were probably not averse to pedophilia (with no evidence) the 9.5% estimate would hold for them too, so she adds another 73,300.

7. This is how you get the number of around 110,000.

Essentially these figures are then extrapolated to the population in general, not just Berlin. All from one clinic.

So these are bloated figures based on the data of a single hospital. Now obviously there were more cases than reported and not everyone in the Red Army acted correctly. But there is no direct evidence that it was widely accepted in the Red Army, encouraged by Stalin, or that perpetrators were not punished.

I am not saying there was no issue and there are still more sources I need to go through. But every source so far just cites Beevor, who cites Johr or they cite Johr directly, or they have a vague claim of "it has been estimated" with no citation. The two million number has become popularized because it conforms to a certain narrative.

On the statistical methods used to support Beevor's claims, N. Mendekovich finds them flawed. He notes that if 20-25% of all young women were raped, then such massive numbers would have to be confirmed by a scientific, sociological survey. That isn't what Beevor used. Mendekovich says that with this methodology, one can produce estimates of millions of rapes committed by Allied forces in western Germany. For example, at a large Hamburg [West Germany] health clinic, there were 133 abortions in 1944, 2,200 in 1947 and 20,96 in 1948. If we assume these abortions were due to rape and assume that they are representative of the entire western-occupied zone, then Mendekovich says that can be charged the Americans and British with hundreds of thousands or millions of rapes.

There is a fake quote from Nazi media credited to Soviet propaganda writer Ilya Ehrenberg that encourages "Red Army soldiers to take German women as their 'lawful booty' and to 'break their racial pride'. This fake statement is still repeated today by modern scholars like Anita Grossman who endorse the Red Army mass rape theory in their academic work. However, no record of this quote exists at all, despite supposedly being published in the newspaper. Anthony Beevor and others, who endorse the Red Army mass rape narrative, have debunked it: Ilya Ehrenburg's own mesmerizing calls for revenge on Germany in his articles in the Red Army newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) had created a huge following among the frontoviki, or frontline troops. Goebbels ... accused Ehrenburg of inciting the rape of German women. Even though Ehrenburg never shrank from the most bloodthirsty harangues, the most notorious statement, which is still attributed to him by western historians, was a Nazi invention. 

ANTI-COMMUNIST MYTH:  COMMUNISM OPPOSES ALL RELIGION 

• Socialism and Religion by the International Socialist Review in 1907 

• Soviet Russia and Religion by Corliss Lamont

• The Fiery Brook: The Essence of Christianity by by Ludwig Feuerbach , The Principles and Contradictions within Religious Doctrine

• "Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen’s religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated. No subsidies should be granted to the established church nor state allowances made to ecclesiastical and religious societies." A quote from Socialism and Religion by Lenin 

• Can you be religious and a communist?  | People by in large struggle distinguishing between the philosophical position of Marxism and the political tactics of a proletarian party in relation to religion. Those living under exploitation, poverty, and insecurity often turn to religion because it offers comfort in conditions they feel powerless to change. Because of this, a communist party cannot treat religion primarily as an ideological enemy to be attacked in isolation. If communists simply go around insulting believers, they risk alienating the very workers they are trying to organize. Lenin therefore argued that the struggle against religion must be conducted mainly through educating the masses and abolishing the material conditions that produce religious belief. This is why some people get touchy. They often correctly sense that crude anti-religious rhetoric can divide the working class. But sometimes they go too far in the other direction and start defending religion itself, which is also incorrect from a Marxist standpoint. As Lenin said, the best way to overcome religion is not argument alone, but the practical struggle to abolish exploitation and the misery that sustains religious belief in the first place. No educational book can eradicate religion from the minds of masses who are crushed by capitalist hard labor, and who are at the mercy of the blind destructive forces of capitalism, until those masses themselves learn to fight this root of religion, fight the rule of capital in all its forms, in a united, organized, planned and conscious way. - Vladimir Lenin, The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion

• Hammer, Sickle, Square, Compass: Freemasonry in Cuba | An important clarification to make is that the Soviet Union wasn't against the Free Masonry craft and comradery, the issue was that during the Nazi regime and World War II, Freemasonry in Germany and all countries that were either allied with the Nazis or under Nazi control, the Soviets also considered it to be part of the bourgeoisie establishment, so it was banned by edict.  

Honorable Mentions: 

• The rumor that at the 17th Party Congress in 1934, nicknamed the "Congress of Victors", Stalin was unexpectedly outvoted by Kirov in the election of the Central Committee. It has often been theorized that this electoral defeat was a protest against Stalin's reign, and that Stalin reacted to the threat by orchestrating the assassination of Kirov soon after, from which he was able to wage the Great Terror against the remainder of the Congress. So what actually happened at the Congress of Victors, and did it serve as the motive for Stalin's revenge?  (Video)

• The Lies of Robert Conquest 

• Pol Pot Was Not A Communist / Similar Article

• 📃The Soviet Union didn't Invade Poland in 1939