this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023

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Late Stage Capitalism is when Finland bans symbols of communism. 'It's always East Europe against Communist Symbols', 'Banning the communist symbol makes you a nazi.', (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by goat to c/meanwhileongrad

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

It's almost as if many countries within Eastern Europe and Asia have generational trauma associated with acts of violence, oppression, and genocide connected to those symbols.

I've never understood the obsession with Soviet iconography within communist spaces, especially when there are plenty of communists that acknowledge that the Soviet Union never actually lived up to the ideals of communism, and acknowledge the acts of imperialism and genocide committed by their regime.

The swastika and other ancient symbols are banned for similar reasons in many countries for their association with fascists, and most people seem to be on board with it. But when countries that were directly harmed by communist regimes start to ban soviet iconography, there is suddenly a double standard and a lack of understanding.

I think modern communists who sincerely believe in social justice need to divorce themselves from these symbols of oppression. There are plenty of symbols of solidarity, unity, and workers empowerment that could be used that don't have the same level of taint. I'm a fan of the big dipper myself.

[–] abraxas 16 points 1 year ago

Absolutely. I feel like communism's tolerance of Leninism is as problematic as conservatives' tolerance of Fascism, and police tolerance of protecting the bad cops.

When someone tells me they intend to put me "up against the wall" (at least a few have said this to me over the years), and they are not loudly denounced by their "comrades", then they are complicit in that attitude.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

All of that would require accepting that having communism as the end goal has caused death and oppression similar, if not worse then, the Nazis.

And they'll never admit that. Because if they do, then they open the door for criticism of any current "communism" like China. And we're not allowed to talk about the genocides that China is responsible for. If China's flags were green and they used a tractor instead of a hammer and sickle then there would be anough cognitive dissonance to allow for criticism of past regimes while pretending that you're not doing the same thing now. But it's too late. That iconography is now representing China, so they must defend the sanctity of those icons. It's a lot like religion. Or a cult.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If following the Marxist definition, I don't think the end goal of communism is inherently a bad thing. The issue comes from the means of achieving it, and the issue with Marxist-Leninism and Maoism is its tendency towards purity, conformity, compulsory adherence and authoritarianism.

I think you are right in the sense that because China calls itself communist, people are quick to defend it despite the fact that it's current political economic system seems to resemble authoritarian capitalism moreso than even Maoism. Then again, North Korea seperated itself from its communist label decades ago, and Russia isn't even the same political regime it was during the Soviet era, and a lot of self proclaimed communists still jump to their defense.

I can understand being critical of or even hostile to the United States and other first world capitalist nations, but the enemy of your enemy isn't always your friend. Otherwise Imperial Japan would've been based as fuck even though it raped and enslaved people under the guise of "antiimperialism" and "east Asian co-prosperity."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I was wrong to say that the end goal leads to the outcome. What I should have said was that aiming for that end goal has led to the same outcome.

I think you and I are on the same page regarding this topic though. Maybe a better term would be "authoritarianism", but then people claim that Communism is not authoritarian, which doesn't matter because Communism hasn't ever happened... It's so easy to loose sight of the problem when focusing on the definitions.

There's a song by Living Color called Cult of Personality that fits this well.

https://youtu.be/7xxgRUyzgs0?si=SH_YZ8_dSwZdjWF-

[–] Barbarian 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

the end goal has caused death and oppression similar, if not worse then, the Nazis

I have extremely strong opinions about this. As someone from a family who was hurt by both, it's not even remotely comparable. The Nazis wanted my family executed. Communists wanted quiet compliance, with penalties for speaking truth to power. Those things are not remotely the same.

Communism here was not pleasant, fair or safe, but at least you had a set of rules to follow (shut up, go to your job, loudly endorse the official party position, report infractions) and you'd be relatively safe.

This is very different from a regime who explicitly wants to murder you.

[–] goat 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm very sorry to hear that happened to your family. Are all of you okay now?

[–] Barbarian 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Those that survived the fascist period, yeah. A lot of my family didn't make it (I'm talking greatuncles and greataunts), but a few managed to survive the pogroms, death trains and forced labour, including my grandpa.

He followed the party line meticulously and taught my dad to keep his mouth shut during the communist period, so they were pretty safe and actually had a reasonable life, despite some pretty horrible things happening around the country (Roma forced adoption policy, ban on birth control & reduced womens' rights, worsening work conditions to accomplish the 5 year plan, etc).

EDIT: Just realized I didn't actually answer the question about today :)) Yeah, my family's doing absolutely fine these days.

[–] goat 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How do you feel about communism as a whole?

[–] Barbarian 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Difficult question. I'll try my best at making my thoughts somewhat legible.

If you ask 10 different people what communism is, you'll get 10 different definitions, so just to be absolutely clear, when I think "communism", I think of authoritarian, centralized socialism where the state is the ultimate arbiter of all things. Communism has proven to work extremely well and be pretty nice at the level of a town or village as long as everyone has the option to stay or leave (for example, kibbutzes). The important part here is the voluntary nature and human scale. This amount of centralization and power is insane at the level of a state.

I think any authoritarian government has certain inherent problems, and leads naturally and inevitably to institutional paranoia. This is extremely bad for citizens. Not all authoritarian systems are equally bad, but this part I feel is unavoidable in any authoritarian government.

I am a big proponent of socialism, especially syndicalism (although recently, the more I read about anarchism the more it makes sense), but it has to be in a system where people have control over their own lives.

[–] goat 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

What happens if we throw AI into the mix? Would anyone trust an AI to manage the state?

It's been on my mind for a long while now. It'd remove human biases, though how resilient should it be against corruption and the political elite? Guess such things are pointless to think about, but still

[–] Barbarian 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Absolutely not. There's an unavoidable problem of goal divergence.

The AI will have to have some goals that it's trying to accomplish. That's the score by which it measures which actions it takes. That goal has to be measurable.

What is the goal our AI overlord will have? If it's GDP maximization, that's immediate ultra-capitalist dystopia on a scale that makes today look like a utopia.

Okay then, human happiness? How do you measure that? If by survey, let's say, a logical and easy way to maximize happiness is to hold a gun to every citizen's head while taking the survey and shooting if they put less than maximum score. Very efficient.

Maybe by lifespan and/or child mortality? The easiest way of maximizing that might be putting as many people into medical comas so they can't hurt themselves and preventing as many pregnancies as possible (children can't die if women can't get pregnant!)

I hope you see my point here. Any goal you set, there's probably some loophole somewhere which will maximize whatever you program the AI to care about.

[–] goat 2 points 1 year ago

I think the Animatrix had a good portrayal of AI. It originally wanted peace and prosperity, but mankind forced its hand to war.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Eventually, it won't matter what people trust. Our opinions will matter about as much as a pet gerbil best case, or bugs to be exterminated in the worst case. I'm sure everybody's aware of how things can go wrong, but here's an author talking about his series where the various AIs like us and keep us around:

http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

The essay talks about the political structure that he thinks would arise in that situation, and I tend to agree with his conclusions, assuming we don't go down the paperclip route.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (26 children)

Where to even start.

Finland is not banning red flags, golden stars, singing workers' songs etc. There's no reason or legal possibilities to persecute communism even if the fascist aligned cabinet hints at it in their small false equivalence minds.

What actually is being investigated is if fascist insignia, for example from Nazis and the Soviet Union, can be prohibited.

But wow those comments are insane

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Indeed the straight up drank the koolaid.

The plan is aimed at combating racism and anti-Semitism, including a new law to criminalise Holocaust denial and plans to possibly ban Nazi and Communist symbols – although that could prove legally difficult.

It's quite hard to even find a decent source for this that isn't clickbaity, here's mine: https://www.euronews.com/2023/08/31/finnish-government-renounces-racism-after-a-summer-rocked-by-racist-scandals

It's racism they are denouncing, not communism per se.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Here's a good source of the contents https://yle.fi/a/74-20047962

The whole plan is a theater sleight of hand trick so the cabinet would not need to do any actions to their own fascist-connections.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do they still use swastikas on their fighter jets in Finland?

Currently, the Finnish Air Force uses a white-blue-white roundel. They haven't used swastikas as plane insignia since 1945 for reasons that should be obvious.

WW2 era gear was, as far as I can remember, all prop engines. I need to check my literature but I'm pretty sure the swastikas have never been used in the jetplane age.

The comment may be referring to the fact that several FAF insignias continued to use swastika motifs for a frankly surprisingly long time. (Common apologia you probably hear was "well that was because of Eric von Rosen, the symbol didn't really have anything to do with Nazis"... well, von Rosen did start up National Socialist Block in Sweden after this happened, so take that how you will.)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

~~We still do have a swastika IIRC but its in reverse if you compare it to the Nazi swastika. We have used it since they formed the air force, before Nazi Germany was a thing.~~

Edit: nvm we got rid of it in 2010

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