Hey y'all! :D So, a couple days ago I decided to write a critique to the God awful preface to the edition of Capital that I own, and while I already shared it on the discord server, I felt like sharing it on the reddit too! Please give it a read, I worked quite hard on it :)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FQNletA3Za-7wOf_pCR1saqzVGah6c8GtLli9wnRFeE/edit?usp=drivesdk

Also, here's the full preface itself translated into English:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aAOX4q0f8fZ-Pco-KW_alw4AlteEnAyj_kE4fnmikiQ/edit?usp=drivesdk

What should be the uncompromising points of unity amongst the "left" in the current times?

So, I wouldn't really consider myself a Marxist, though I have read Marx and agree with most of his theory. I'm a libertarian socialist and I'm skeptical of state authority in general. I don't have a concrete position on this topic, and I'm very open to new information. From my research so far, the Holodomor seems to have been intentional. Here's why I think that:

1: During the famine, the USSR raised grain quotas and increased exports from Ukraine. If the famine wasn't intentional, why would you increase quotas and exports, specifically in Ukraine?

1. From the 1932 harvest, Soviets only got 3.4 million tons of grain compared to the 7.2 tons from the year prior. Immediately they cut back on rations to Ukrainian villages, leading to starvation in the following winter. Ukrainian villagers weren't allowed to leave, and if they did they were arrested and sent back to their villages, which was effectively a death sentence. Uncooperative villages were completely blacklisted from aid, and food imports were blocked.

I'm aware the famine affected other soviet regions (and other ethnic groups) as well, and that much of the soviet leadership were in fact Ukrainian. But based on these policies, it seems Ukraine was intentionally targeted, IMO, to suppress growing Ukrainian nationalism. I think most leftists can agree that the Bengal famine and the Irish potato famine were intentional for similar reasons, why does the USSR get special treatment? Or is there anything I'm missing? Feel free to correct me on any of these, I just want to know the perspective of more well read leftists on the USSR and the Holodomor.

(I'm aware the 1947 famine was caused by the Nazi's and not the government, and that post 1947, according to a CIA paper, soviet citizens ate the same calorie requirements as Americans and had healthier diets. This is specifically about the Holodomor.)

I am not a rabid anti soviet union, the communists were more evil than the nazis liberal. I just want to know more.

Oh boy them fascists really do be mean I gotta say, yeesh they sure know how to make bad things happen. I really don’t appreciate what they say and do. At all.

earlier today, I got into debate with someone who argued that it's apart of a country's dialectic process to have sweatshops, and the exploitation that comes with it, when industrializing within an socialist country and argued that this outcome is pretty unavoidable. I gave my response but I left a bit dumbfounded. Like "this isn't the type of leftist discourse I'm used to..." Until I got introduced to stagism. Most famous example is China being in its "primary stage" of socialism, eventually going towards full communism.

I still don't know much China's "primary stage" so please bear with me, but from what I understand is that this stage is where the state will be the sole driver towards communism, which could take centuries. Using profits generated from capitalistic practices to fund and activate social programs for it's citizens.

Learning about this was an reality check on what kind of person I was debating and it forced me to look at the sub I was in, ironically. I went in that conversation not caring about where I was because I assumed it didn't matter. But I digress, what do you think about stagism in the leftist current? To me, it doesn't feel right to say that at this stage we can't avoid exploitation because the historic materialism doesn't show another way.