This is a lie! Deng explicitly introduced market reforms, privatization, and allowed foreign investment. If it wasn’t capitalism, why does China today have billionaires, stock markets, and private enterprise?

Execution was relatively rare in comparison.

Another lie! The Stalinist purges killed millions. Denying this is blatant historical revisionism. Vasily Blokhin the chief executioner of the NKVD and one of the most prolific executioners in world history has more than 7,000 executions to his name. Are you denying this clear evidence? Also, don't get me started on the massive number of graves that were discovered

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

No, it is not a lie. Socialism is a Mode of Production characterized by Public Ownership and Planning as primary in an economy. Markets are not Capitalism. If you recall from Politzer's work, you can't look at structures as disconnected from the rest of their context and judge them accurately. Economies aren't 30% Socialist, 70% Capitalist, or anything like that. They can be 30% public, 70% private, but these factors are part of the same connected whole. The private interacts with the public at every step.

The United States is Capitalist because it is driven by Capital and the State supports that. The PRC is Socialist because it is driven by Public Ownership and planning, and markets support that. If you want yet another article, Domenico Losurdo's Has China Turned to Capitalism? Reflections on the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism is a good article on the subject. We can go in-depth about the PRC's economy if you want to, and why it's much better to categorize it as Socialist.

As for the Great Purge, I am not lying. My belief, based on archival evidence, is that Western historians often intentionally lie, such as Robert Conquest, that millions of people were killed, and that everyone purged was executed. The real character is that the vast majority were not killed, but simply expelled from the party, and of those sentenced to death, many were sent to the GULAGs for re-education and released later. This is backed up by archival evidence. The KGB's own internal records day 700,000 were condemned to death, and we know that many of those in the Soviet justice system condemned to death were instead rehabilitated in GULAGs. Even if all 700,000 were killed, this isn't millions, yet Robert Conquest reports 12 million killed.

I, very clearly, did not say that nobody was executed. Many were. However, those killed during the era of the Great Purge were often rapists (which was a crime sentenced to death at the time), murderers, and general spies and terrorists. The vast majority of those millions purged were not sentenced to death or executed.

That also doesn't mean everyone punished was guilty either. I am not defending the excesses of the Great Purge, but explaining that the idea of the Great Purge that exists in your head is likely far and away different from the reality of the situation. I think you did me a disservice by misinterpreting my claims. Moreover, a lot of the Purges from the party were entirely necessary, as the somewhat small but notable Trotskyists and Bukharinists were directly working to sabotage the Socialist system with assassinations, factory espionage, and more. I can't think of any situation where the correct answer would be to let that continue.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

China itself refers to its system as "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," indicating that they acknowledge capitalist mechanisms within their socialist framework. I didn't say China is capitalist (although it is technically correct to say that at present China is state-capitalist with hopes of transitioning to full on socialism), I only said Deng introduced capitalist elements to offset economic downturn which, if i may remind you, resulted in the quadrupling of China's GDP. Calling it market socialism is a matter of nomenclature alone.

You're still making revisionist claims in your analysis of Soviet history, but i don't even know if i have the strength to go on as it's just back and forth.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

SWCC introduced controlled markets, the point about Dialectics is that it isn't accurate to call them "Capitalist elements." China already considers itself Socialist, it hopes to transition to later stages of Socialist development. The claim you're drawing from, that China plans to be a "developed Socialist country by 20XX" is from the standpoint of a country that considers itself Socialist already. We can talk more about SWCC if you want, and how a Socialist Market Economy doesn't at all function as a Capitalist economy even if it has markets, but that's not the main point here.

I really want to ask, what claim about the USSR is revisionist? That millions were counted as purged, but purges don't mean execution? That the KGB's internal documentation indicates 700,000 were condemned to death, not 12 million like Conquest states, and further that the Soviet justice system frequently didn't actually execute, just rehabilitate? That there were real assassinations and reasons calling for the Great Purge, like Trotskyist factions working to sabotage factories?

I never once denied that many people were executed. This is undeniable fact, of course it is. However, this was not a case of a rogue state murdering 12 million innocent people, and portraying it as such is part of Western distortion. If you don't want to continue, I'd suggest digging more into the subject than Wikipedia alone, there are many books on the subject based on archival evidence.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

What makes a system capitalist if not markets, private ownership, and wage labor? Self-identification does not determine economic reality.

The revisionism I'm referring to is: Your claim that the Soviet justice system "frequently didn't actually execute" those sentenced to death is false. Archival NKVD data shows that most of the 700,000 sentenced to death were executed.

Your claim that the purges were primarily about “Trotskyists". The Great Purge targeted high-ranking Party officials, innocent civilians, and the Red Army, NOT just saboteurs. E.g., Stalin purged 80% of his military leadership before WW2. Were all of them traitors?

If Soviet archives themselves acknowledge hundreds of thousands of executions, how is that a “Western lie"? If the KGB’s own documents contradict Stalinist apologists, why should we trust modern revisionists instead?

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I have said it before, a system is determined by that which is Primary in it. This is Dialectical and Historical Matetialism. If 90% of the economy is public but it has 10% markets, is this Capitalist, or Socialist? What about 50/50? If we ask Marx, some countries were Capitalist even before markets had overtaken 50% of production. This is because Markets were primary in the Capitalist mode of production. In China, markets are not primary, public ownership and planning is.

As for the claim of revisionism, where are you getting the archival evidence that the vast majority were in fact executed? I'd like to see the numbers you found, personally, but moreover you just admitted that not all of them were killed. Just 2 comments ago you were saying millions were killed, you keep moving goal posts to call me a liar without acknowledging that you were just wrong, and willing to accept whatever number you wanted.

As for the purges, many weren't "traitors" outright. Many were corrupt, criminals, inefficient, etc. That's why of the millions purged, only a fraction were actually condemned to death, most were just expelled from the party. Some were members of the White Army that were allowed in government until the purges. Many were legitimate fascist infiltrators friendly to the Nazis, who had risen to power in Nazi Germany and were heavily involved with wrecking the Soviet State.

So far, the only "revisionism" seems to be your understanding of the word "frequently" to mean what I assume you interpreted as "overwhelming majority," and not, you know, often enough to not be insignificant in the greater context. One of the problems you have that gets in the way of your own understanding is a seemingly permanent wish to take my words in the worst way possible, rather than trying to reach an understanding or consensus. Whenever there can possible be percieved a gray area in my words, you take it to the extreme, which is generally unhelpful.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 0 points 29 minutes ago* (last edited 29 minutes ago) (1 children)

Just 2 comments ago you were saying millions were killed,

Any million number was referring to the greater Stalinist terror not explicitly the purges. That was my mistake (which is a direct result of you arguing me towards tiredness if i might say).

From the Wikipedia article i initially cited on the graves found:

Between 5 August 1937 and 17 November 1938 the scale of killing reached its apogee. In a series of 12 national operations the NKVD executed at least 680,000 men and women. Original source in Russian That is the documented total: the real figure is almost certainly higher. In preparation for mass murder on such a scale the NKVD People's Commissar Yezhov instructed his subordinates throughout the Soviet Union to identify areas not far from the major urban centres where thousands of bodies could be quickly concealed. This was described by the late Arseny Roginsky. Also in Russian

One of the problems you have that gets in the way of your own understanding is a seemingly permanent wish to take my words in the worst way possible,

I don't always want to do that, you denying the facts leads me to.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 minutes ago

You don't have to argue with me, that's your choice. Further, I don't know what you mean by the "Stalinist Terror" specifically, we were talking about the Great Purge itself.

Your quoted text doesn't contradict me either. They say it is "likely" that more than 680,000 were executed, but there's nothing confirmed. Again, these figures use the condemnation to death figures, not the total killing figures. For clarity, my stance is that the total number of those killed is in the several hundreds of thousands, but not millions, not that only a few people were killed. Even if all 680,000 were killed, that still fits what I have actually said, you've been putting words in my mouth. Moreover, you'll want to read this excerpt from the book The Triumph of Evil, specifically page 74:

The claim that Stalin and other Soviet leaders killed millions (Conquest, 1990) also appears to be wildly exaggerated. More recent evidence from the Soviet archives opened up by the anticommunist Yeltsin government indicate that the total number of death sentences (including of both existing prisoners and those outside captivity) over the 1921-1953 interval (covering the period of Stalin's partial and complete rule) was between 775,866 and 786,098 (Getty, Rittersporn, and Zemskov, 1993). Given that the archive data originates from anti-Stalin (and even anticommunist) sources, it is extremely unlikely that they underestimate the true number (Thurston, 1996). In addition, the Soviet Union has long admitted to executing at least 12,733 people between 1917 and 1921, mostly during the Foreign Interventionist Civil War of 1918-22, although it is possible that as many as 40,000 more may have been executed unofficially (Andics, 1969).

These data would seem to imply about 800,000 executions. The figure of 800,000 may greatly overestimate the number of actual executions, as it includes many who were sentenced to death but who were not actually caught or who had their sentences reduced (Getty, Rittersporn, and Zemskov, 1993). In fact, Vinton (1993) has provided evidence indicating that the number of executions was significantly below the number of civilian prisoners sentenced to death in the Soviet Union, with only 7,305 executions in a sample of 11,000 prisoners authorized to be executed in 1940 (or scarcely 600/o ). In addition, most (681,692) of the 780,000 or so death sentences passed under Stalin were issued during the 1937-38 period (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993), when Soviet paranoia about foreign subversion reached its zenith due to a 1936 alliance between Nazi Germany and fascist Japan that was specifically directed against the Soviet Union (Manning, 1993) and due to a public 1936 resolution by a group of influential anti-Stalin foreigners (the Fourth International which was allied with the popular but exiled Russian dissident Leon Trotsky) advocating the overthrow of the Soviet government by illegal means (Glotzer, 1968).

Stalin initially set a cap of 186,500 imprisonments and 72,950 death penalties for a 1937 special operation to combat this threat that was to be carried out by local 3-man tribunals called ''troikas" (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). As the tribunals passed death sentences before the accused had even been arrested, local authorities requested increases in their own quotas (Knight, 1993), and there was an official request in 1938 for a doubling of the amount of prisoner transport that had been initially requisitioned to carry out the original campaign "quotas" of the tribunals (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). However, even if there had been twice as many actual • executions as originally planned, the number would still be less than 150,000. Many of those sentenced by the tribunals may have escaped capture, and many more may have had their death sentence refused or revoked by higher authorities before arrest/execution could take place, especially since Stalin later realized that excesses had been committed in the 1937-38 period, had a number of convictions overturned, and had many of the responsible local leaders punished (Thurston, 1996)."

This is why relying exclusively on Wikipedia is silly, do some actual reading. A solid rule of thumb with respect to any Wikipedia article on enemies of the US is to look at where the figures and sources come from and analyze them yourself, as you can see Wikipedia made the error of conflating condemnations with executions.