The country with a communist party and 60% of state ownership of the stock market is less socialist than the Nordic countries currently electing fascists into government like Finland and increasing poverty rates by 2% of their total population in 3 years?

Yeah, you’re actually right. Sorry for being a smug ass, I guess I’m sensitive about this part of history which is heavily misunderstood and propagandized against socialists like me, but you’re right and I’ll try to be more chill about it. Thanks for the chat

Most voted party is still far-right, at least Italians just organized a general strike against genocide in Palestine.

“Tankie is when you support the Spanish republicans in their antifascist struggles” has to be the dumbest take ngl. You could just say you can’t provide any examples because history isn’t on your side.

they didn’t “fight against fascism” until Germany invaded

Did you not read my comment? I specifically mentioned the Soviets being the only country in the world that meaningfully helped the antifascists in Spain with weapons, tanks, artillery and aviation, back in 1936, 3 years before the start of WW2 while all of western Europe was doing appeasement with the Nazis and “non-intervention” against fascism in my homeland.

Before the start of the war, the Soviets were famously trying to urge all of Europe against Fascism and in particular against Nazi Germany through mutual defense agreements. They signed one with Czechoslovakia together with France, which France refused to honour (see Munich Betrayal), which, and I quote Wikipedia: “The Soviet Union announced its willingness to come to Czechoslovakia’s assistance, provided the Red Army would be able to cross Polish and Romanian territory; both countries refused.”, again back in 1938, before any Fascist invasion of the Soviets. Furthermore, the USSR under the Litvinov doctrine sought after mutual defense agreements with Poland, France and England, to the point of offering to send ONE MILLION SOLDIERS to France (Archive mirror to bypass paywall) together with tanks, aviation and artillery to France on exchange for a mutual defense agreement, which France declined.

Looking into Soviet interwar policy, it’s patently obvious that they were the strongest antifascist formation in Europe except possibly for the Spanish republicans during the Spanish civil war.

I’m also over-simplifying a bit in that I’m focusing mostly on leadership

My point stands though. Fascism was fought predominantly by Communist and Anarchist leadership. China against fascist Japan, Cuban revolutionaries against fascist dictator Batista, Spanish Republican government in the Spanish civil war… Whereas it was capitalist countries funding fascist coups all over the world such as that of Augusto Pinochet in Chile against socialdemocrat Allende, the Iranian coup against socialist-aligned Mosaddeq…

Single example? 80% of Nazi soldiers died in the Eastern Front against the Soviets. Communist China kicked out fascist Japan from the mainland through unthinkable armed struggle. Communist Cubans kicked out fascist dictator Batista from the island. Tell me now about my single examples. You don’t have to support each of those movements to see the historical fact: communists and anarchists are historically the first and most successful to fight fascism. Please provide counterexamples of capitalist countries or movements fighting against fascism and winning, until then stop spitting on the memory of the antifascist partisans in Spain and Italy.

Many people don’t have that luxury.

France is going down the same path, as are Italy and Spain.

Please don’t insult the memory of my ancestors with your ignorance. I’m a Spaniard, and our civil war against fascism in 1936-1939 was mainly fought by anarchists and communists using Soviet-made weapons, airplanes and tanks

How is China fascist? It hasn’t participated in a war in 40 years, it lifted 800mn people from poverty, has strong public healthcare, education and retirement, and routinely cancels sovereign debt from global-south countries. I went to China last year and people there are pretty happy and hopeful for the future compared to our bleak outlook here in the west.

fascism was stopped by the Axis losing a war. That’s not happening this time.

What do you mean? NATO can’t even win a war against similarly fascist Russia, Rutte himself said that Russia (an impoverished country with less GDP than Germany) produces ammo 4 times as fast as the entirety of NATO. Whenever western fascism inevitably engages militarly against China, it will be swiftly swept out of the map by the strongest industrial power in history.

I’m not sure anyone really fought it last time

25+ million Soviet people died in the struggle against fascism, resulting in 80% of the total Nazi casualties being in the eastern front. Please don’t insult the memory of the heroes who died saving Europe from fascism.

Also, I’m a Spaniard. Anarchists in Spain organized and fought fascism in the Spanish civil war, with Soviet assistance too back in 1936-1939. If you’re not sure who fought fascism, I urge you to educate yourself in communist/anarchist movements.

China. It’s the socialist industrial power of today, and the west keeps positioning itself geopolitically against it.

The only time nazis go down is when they are put down

Usually by communists in particular

The source of fascism is Europe itself, not Russia. We literally invented fascism, first in Italy, then Germany and finally allowed it to live unbothered in Spain.

Russian media was censored already what, two years ago? And the far right keeps exploding in popularity. Europe can’t keep blaming the Russians for every bad thing happening in the continent, we have a responsibility in fighting fascism and waving hands saying it’s somebody else’s fault isn’t going to solve it.

Racism, misogyny, islamophobia and the total loss of faith in the current system are the main reasons for far-right vote. Europe has been in an economic crisis since 2008, and electing socdems or christiandemocrats has led to the exact same policy everywhere for the past 17 years: austerity, austerity, and more austerity. Kid Starver in England, supposed labour party, enacts policy as far-right as the far-right government in Finland, both countries driving hundreds of thousands of people into poverty and austerity.

What we need to fight fascism in Europe is what worked last time: less hand-waving, and more worker organizing. Whether you like or dislike the anarchists from the CNT in Spain, or the communists from the CPSU in the east, they were the only ones who meaningfully fought, and in the latter case ultimately defeated fascism. Organize, unionize, join local worker struggles, push for international worker solidarity with Palestine.

Yes, furthering capitalism doesn’t solve the problems of capitalism, it only makes them run deeper. We should socialize companies through a mixture of state ownership and unions.

Socialist countries? You mean like China? Or are you talking about European-style socialdemocracy? Plenty of suburban neighborhoods with detached housing in Germany or Norway too

This has less to do with the admittedly awful automobile-based society and more to do with the allocation of housing. High prices and low availability lead to people generally living randomly far away from their workplace. Soviet Union citizens for example accessed housing mostly through their labor union, and were allocated housing near their workplace so they could easily go walking or with public transit. It made cities very efficient with regards to commute, together with the division of urban areas into so-called “mikroraion” units, which established the concept of 15-minute neighborhoods already 70 years ago.

The post still applies to you in its entirety except for the 1h unpaid overtime. And yes, socialist ideas are good, that’s the entire point of the post.