Just reposting this excellent point from lemmygrad

  • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    Edit: A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.

    We now have literal “Soviets were godless barbarians” arguments. The revolution is never perfect enough, is it? Wish there was a time machine to send people back to moralize about doing what needs to be done and Christian moral goodness to the leaders of a nascent revolution being ruthlessly attacked on all sides. I’m going to reserve my tears for the thousands of dead Jews and millions of starving and dying peasants.

    Maybe we can have a struggle session over dead teenage Nazis from WWII next time.

    • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      I don’t like this. While it was probably necesarry to kill the royal family to avoid a counter-revolution or a government-in-exile, that does not mean we should make death, murder or the fear of those about to be murdered into something to laugh at.
      Yes the Tzar was a murderous bastard encouraging pogroms and generally just a guy who got off easy, this photo doesn’t really convey that to me. It seems like it’s just laughing at something awful that happened to a family. Did the family deserve it? Yes. That doesn’t mean we should make the act into something funny. Violence is necessary, but it shouldn’t be glorified.
      I don’t think it’s a black & white thing, but this image crosses my line anyway. Feels wrong.

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          The difference is that we are here depicting actual people that was in this actual situation as crying wojaks and the guy who shot them as the yes-chad. It’s pretty clear the intent is to ridicule and glorify.

          • zerograd [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            Yes I wouldn’t have made or posted that image and I feel bad looking at it. Yet I also feel the same way looking at any (justified) combat or gore footage whatsoever and I ask myself where to draw the line. I’d be OK with pulling the trigger but I wouldn’t have made a meme about it. Reading this out loud makes me sound like a hypocrite however. Where do we draw the line because I don’t really know. I wish we could just turn them into cute animals instead like comrade Sonic did.

            • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              I think stuff like pit is fine because 1. It’s a Nazi and 2. It’s not a real person. I think barbara-pit is fine because it was a bunch of partisans getting retribution during wartime. They had no time or resources for a fair trial and they knew the people they executed anyway, so the evidence was pretty clear.

              I think the reason that image crosses my line is because it depicts a traumatic event that happened to actual people, and some of those people didn’t really have the agency to do anything else. I’m not sad the Romanovs are dead, and I think the overthrow and owning of a doofus failson named Nicky is something that should be celebrated, but I just don’t think that justifies mocking people in their last moments. Had things been different then some of them might’ve gotten the Puyi treatment, it’s sad that that wasn’t possible. I’m not losing any sleep over it - they are caviar as their people were starving and dying at the front - but that doesn’t mean I think it should be turned into an object of ridicule.

              It reeks of aesthetic communism. Like some chuds support the USSR because they think the holodomor was real and they think it was a good thing. They just like cool mosin nagant, human wave death machine, lol kill people. That’s what that image reeks of.

              • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                Aesthetic communism is when you support the actual, real life actions of an actual, real life revolution.

                I think stuff like pit is fine because 1. It’s a Nazi and 2. It’s not a real person.

                I know a bunch of dead Nazis in a pit that would disagree with that second statement.

                I think barbara-pit is fine because it was a bunch of partisans getting retribution during wartime.

                Sounds very similar to Russia in 1918

                Maybe it’s a response to the 100 years of liberals sobbing their hearts out for a murdering pogroming failson and his murdering pogroming family.

                But no, I just like killing people. That’s it.

                I don’t want to be hostile but I’ve got years of disingenuous libs grinding my patience down

                • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Comrade, no reason to interpret this in the worst possible way. This wasn’t meant as an insult to you or an attack on you.
                  Reducing this to me saying “the soviets were bad, their revolution was bad” is incredibly bad faith, or at the least incredibly reductive.
                  I’m sorry I’ve made you feel as though I think you think killing is good. It was not my intention, though I struggle to see how I created that experience

                  • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    I guess it’s because that’s usually implied whenever a critique of the Romanov execution.

                    And I don’t mean to imply that you’re against the Soviets, I just find calling the execution “aesthetic communism” anathema.

                    I think talking about “killing” in a vacuum is meaningless. I’m sure most people would be against it in the abstract, but I think killing monarchs in a revolution is a justifiable action. I don’t feel insulted by anyone saying I support the Romanov execution, because that would be true, but by the implication that I support killing for the sake of it. It’s hard not to read that into the last paragraph of the comment I replied to. I certainly don’t think it takes bad faith to interpret it that way.

                    With the whole federation thing, it’s really hard to tell between genuine criticisms and liberals concern trolling. I’m sorry for the initial reaction.

      • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        While it was probably necesarry to kill the royal family to avoid a counter-revolution

        Gestures broadly at the Russian Civil War that happened anyway.

        Here’s a rule for those of you at home, don’t machine gun kids.

                • SixSidedUrsine [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  I’m just making sure we’re all on the same page about not machine gunning children.

                  I’m honestly shocked that this even has to be said here, let alone that apparently so many really aren’t on the same page that machine-gunning children is both wrong and unjustifiable.

                  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    Eh, I know it’s a minority position on the left but that’s why it’s a drum I beat every time it comes up. Unironically forced me back into religion when I realized that leftist politics without axiomatic moral grounding results in disaster.

                    Now I go to leftist meetings to avoid being useless and Quaker meeting to avoid being terrible.

              • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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                How are we supposed to convince people of our vision of a better world if we can’t even get the easy stuff like “don’t murder children” down? Christ even the liberals have the sense to pretend to feel bad about drones strikes on weddings when pressed.

                • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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                  I also think murdering children is bad. I think the specific situation with royal family of a monarchy is significantly different. Reducing my opinion to “machinegun kids lol” strikes me as very bad faith.
                  Either way I don’t really think what you and I think of the murder of a royal family more than 100 years ago matters enough to get into an argument that can only sour relations. Seems unproductive. I apologise for making the mistake of stoking this argument.

                  • a_blanqui_slate [none/use name, any]@hexbear.net
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                    1 year ago

                    I’m not looking to sour relations and am not going to take your position on the matter personally, and it’s not that you stoked this argument, it’s that I’m actively evangilizing a humanism first leftism. I think as soon as machine gunning kids enters into the political toolkit, regardless of what problems it resolves, we’ve lost the plot. Whatever nuance you want to inject into the scenario is fine, but at the end of the day it does boil down to you thinking that under certain circumstances it’s acceptable, so I don’t think I’m unfairly characterizing your position at all.

      • RunningVerse [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Ah it’s about that… Yeah death for me will always be a last resort. Because if it’s glorified then we will be no better. We use death as a last ditch to resolve Contradictions.

            • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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              I don’t get people that say they miss pre-federation, because these were the pre-federation vibes to me. People willfully misinterpreting another user, assuming the worst and digging their heels in, in order to score a dunk on a fellow leftist. There’s no libs in this thread and we’re still fighting.

              In these situations in my experience it helps a lot to use “I statement” rather than “you”. So instead of saying “you’re reducing my argument to saying ‘killing kids is good’” then saying “I feel frustrated, because my argument has been reduced to that of ‘killings kids is good’”. It’s basic I know, but it does a lot for keeping hostility low.