Thanks for the charitative reading of my post, I appreciate that you took the time and we’re having a discussion and not a dunk contest.

I generally agree with mostly everything you’re saying in your comment, except for a few things like non-proliferation treaties for nuclear weapons, and sanctions not starving Russians.

On the first hand, I simply don’t think it’s fair that the “international rule-based order” that allows the genocide of Palestinians gets to decide who has the right to nuclear weapons and who doesn’t. Historically, it’s one of the best assurances against western invasion, and for example Iran clearly regrets now not pursuing nuclear weapons, as regardless of whether it does or not, it has been treated as though it does (we’ve been seeing news headlines of Iran being a year away from nuclear weapons for 30 years). I do not like nuclear weapons, but I can’t blame a country whose history with the US is that of invasion and bombing, for wanting to ensure its own retaliation capabilities.

On the other hand you’re right that the sanctions in Russia aren’t having the impact that they have on, say, Venezuela or Cuba, if only simply because of the dynamics of economic development and resource availability. That said, I just wanna make it a point that the sanctions include the medical and pharmaceutical sector, and the Russian economy, being capitalist, relied on import of such medical goods for treatment of certain conditions. Applying sanctions to the medical and pharmaceutical industry also amounts to murdering people, although ofc not on the same scale as the sanctions to NK or Cuba.

I’d like a Mosin Nagant to feel closer to my Spanish antifascist ancestors

Nah, I’m not against all weapons, that’s idealism. I’m against weapons owned by capitalist empires, I’m in favour of weapons used to fight fascism, like the rifles and tanks sent by the Soviets to the Spanish Republicans, Anarchists and Communists in the Spanish Civil War.

The bias of English Wikipedia is inherently pro-western, I already explained you, you just lack the literacy to understand that. If even Wikipedia portrays the atrocities, it’s because they are so flagrant and patent that they’ve become popular knowledge in the west.

If you prefer, I can cite from ProleWiki next time, but I doubt you’d read that

You don’t pick sides, therefore you side with status quo in your region, the US. Between the country murdering half a million a year through economic violence and the one uplifting 800mn from poverty, you don’t see a difference. But I bet you did go and vote for Kamala didn’t you? Not that I criticize that, BTW.

Those are countries, not conflicts

What conflict over the past 40 years has China provided arms for

continues to cause massive suffering

By uplifting 800mn people from poverty in the biggest industrialization effort in human history?

China has provided the arms for numerous conflicts

What conflict over the past 40 years has China provided arms for?

If North Korea had the power and projection it would do far worse than the US

That’s evidently American exceptionalism, you’re out of your mind. The US is literally founded on genocide, and even being the richest nation in the world it can’t afford universal healthcare to its own citizens. I can’t possibly think of a worse nation to project power. You’re absolutely high on American exceptionalism.

Would I rather have the China calling the shots? No

Why not? China hasn’t participated in any war over the past 40 years. The US is by far horrifyingly worse than China.

Again, which human right abuse has North Korea committed that is comparable to the leveling of essentially every building in a country through mass bombing campaigns?

The USSR were the ones who created the proxy war in the first place

So, the USA setting up a puppet regime on the other side of the ocean in a peninsula that shares land borders with the former Soviet Union is totally ok? How would you feel as an American if the southern half of Mexico were controlled by modern Russia (assuming you’re from the US)? Do you understand how threatening that was to the Soviet Union geopolitically? Remember: the USA had already invaded the Soviet Union during the Russian Revolution, Churchill was clear about the motives for doing so: “I think the day will come when it will be recognized without doubt, not only on one side of the House, but throughout the civilized world, that the strangling of Bolshevism at its birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race”. Obviously the Soviets didn’t want an American puppet regime at their doorstep.

North Koreans are no saints, quite the opposite. They are well known for some of the worst human rights atrocities in the worl

The US killed 1.5 million civilians in North Korea alone during the war. How many millions of people has North Korea murdered? Sure, they have had quite an oppressive regime, but compared to leveling 90% of the buildings of North Korea through bombs, what accusation of human right violation do you bring up?

When it comes to human suffering the world would have been better off if North Korea fell

Knowing that the USA murders half a million people yearly through economic sanctions, and that the US would go on to also carpet bomb Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, destroy Iraq, support puppet fascists in the entire Latin America, destabilized the entire middle east, and as of today support materially and diplomatically the genocide of over half a million Palestinians for the past 2 years, do you agree that it’s imperative that the USA falls?

USSR is mostly to blame for the entire situation

USSR literally freed the Korean peninsula from Imperial Japanese occupation before the US even considered joining. Only when the US realized this may lead to communism in the region did they join in from the south to prevent total soviet liberation of Korea. The US then proceeded to bomb North Korea into hell, killing literal millions of people and leveling the entire country. How any of that is USSRs fault is beyond me.

I don’t particularly love the Juche ideology, it’s marked by very strong nationalism, but if you’re incapable of understanding why the government is so quirky, think about this: one terrorist attack in the USA, 9/11, led to mass hysteria, oppressive laws regarding freedom of movement, widespread islamophobia, mass state surveillance, and it’s one of the biggest scars of the country in recent history. If you don’t think that the leveling of 90% OF BUILDINGS IN THE COUNTRY and the MURDER OF 15% OF THE POPULATION through bombs for the sin of being communist may have long-lasting consequences in the government and population, I encourage you to rethink that.

I wasn’t condemning Ukraine for not holding elections during a war, I was seriously arguing about the difficulty of holding elections when you’re under severe economic and political duress because of consequences of mass-bombing of your country by the US (which is important and you failed to mention in your comment) and economic blockade.

I call it blockade not because it’s exerted militarily, but because it doesn’t consist of unilateral sanctions by the US, it consists of a prohibition of companies from trading in the largest economy in the world if they trade previously with North Korea, as is the case of the blockade of Cuba. In this manner, if a Chinese company wants to do any trade in the US, it cannot do trade in North Korea too. A sanction is applied only within your own jurisdiction in my opinion, as for example what the EU is doing to Russia.

As for the study I promised, in the findings it says these words:

We estimated that unilateral sanctions were associated with an annual toll of 564 258 deaths (95% CI 367 838–760 677), similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict

This is why I don’t bother making a distinction between pressure to elections from military violence as from economic violence, both are equally harmful even in number of deaths, and both represent a similar strain on the institutions and the trust of people in the government. As I quoted in my previous comment, the US itself admits this, by talking of “bringing about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government”. I don’t bring up the frozen Korean war because as of today it doesn’t produce the amount of deaths and suffering that the American economic blockade does by any materialist metric. My point is not to argue about technicisms of whether a country is technically at war hence no elections, but rather about the measurable, material impact of western pressure, whatever form it may take.

Ok I thought I was talking to someone with basic political literacy. Yes, the overwhelming majority of EU citizens were/are against rise of retirement age and against defunding of public healthcare and education.

Greece was threatened with a default because EU states with Euro as their currency gave up their monetary sovereignty to the European Central Bank. England, the US or Japan have their own currencies so the state cannot default by definition, because the state can literally create an unlimited amount of the money it borrows through debt. Greece had a DEMOCRATIC REFERENDUM to revise its sovereign debt and the idea won by a long shot, and then the country was not allowed to exercise its democratic will under threat of cutting Euro supply by the ECB, i.e. default.

Every poll in the USA comes to some result close to 70% of USians supporting the idea of implementing universal healthcare because essentially every Democrat wants this and many Republicans want it too. It’s not done because the US isn’t a democracy, it’s a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

I’m actually done talking with you. You pretend to be a leftist but you have literally 0 support to offer to the working class, you have the narrowest understanding of politics as defined by whatever western outlets you consume, and you’re a smug debatelord who doesn’t care to inform themselves in the slightest, you haven’t picked up a single book about politics in your entire life and it shows. You constantly replicate lies and don’t care to admit it, you constantly miss information and you don’t care to admit it, and you think you’re the smartest person in the universe. Go waste someone else’s time.

Ok, now apply that beautiful logic of yours to North Korea.

North Korea was bombed to the stone age in 1955 by the glorious and democratic USA (without consulting its people), to the point that 15% of North Koreans were murdered and 90% of all buildings were leveled. Afterwards, the most thorough and long-lasting economic blockade in history was imposed by the USA, which left the economy in shambles and made it very hard for the country to recover. It was recovering when, in 1991, its greatest commercial partner during blockade, the USSR, was dissolved, which left food insecurity in a country that wasnt allowed to import grain and whose cold climate and mountainous geography make agriculture quite complicated. For reference, a recent study showed that US economic blockades murder 500.000 people a year, quite a bit more than death rates from war in Ukraine.

US could end the criminal blockade of North Korea right now if he simply chose to, but no, the US doesn’t want to stop murdering people through economic violence. As the Office of the Historian of the USA holds in its database:

every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.

Hmmm, I wonder why they dont celebrate free elections in such critical conditions…

If you’re unwilling to as much as listen, be honest to me and to yourself and stop wasting our time

You’re being purposefully obtuse. Did Bush obey the popular will when he invaded Iraq?

The only and best measure of democracy is the existence of multiple parties?

I’m trying to have an actual conversation with you, dont be a dick

Again, way to ignore 90% of my comment.

Democracy isn’t when there’s three parties, it’s when people generally get what they want. People in the entirety of Europe have been consistently overwhelmingly against Austerity Policy since 2008 and that’s all we’ve gotten, regardless of party in government or country in question, and when one country (Greece) decided to ignore austerity, it was literally threatened with a default by the European Central Bank and wasn’t allowed to do so. Plenty of parties and free vote in Europe, it all means nothing at the end of the day. If you’re USian instead, you’re probably aware that the overwhelming majority of USians want universal healthcare for decades and that’s systematically ignored by either party in government. What’s democracy then?

Again: why would an antidemocratic dictatorship of an owning class create free universal healthcare, free education to the highest degree, guaranteed housing and work, public services, thoughtful urban planning and walkable neighborhoods, quality public transit for the period, subsidies of basic foodstuffs, sports centres aplenty, paid holidays for everyone, high workplace safety, etc? Maybe, possibly, because it was more democratic than you’ve made out to think? Again, I’ve given you plenty of sources mate, and you’re just ignoring 90% of the comments I’m writing. Are you even a leftist at all? I wouldn’t have this patience with a rightoid

I provided three sourced quotes from contemporary western sources corroborating that the given reason for invading Finland was to put extra Soviet-controlled territory between the USSR and Nazi Germany.

Additional source, from Wikipedia’s article of the Winter War:

“In April 1938, NKVD agent Boris Yartsev contacted Finnish Foreign Minister Rudolf Holsti and Finnish Prime Minister Aimo Cajander, stating that the Soviets did not trust Germany and that war was considered possible between the two countries. The Red Army would not wait passively behind the border but would rather “advance to meet the enemy”. Finnish representatives assured Yartsev that Finland was committed to a policy of neutrality and that the country would resist any armed incursion. Yartsev suggested that Finland cede or lease some islands in the Gulf of Finland along the seaward approaches to Leningrad, but Finland refused”

Your and Soviet gut feelings about Finns collabbing with Nazis, however right they ended up being afterwards, weren’t the official reason to invade Finland’s south, the reason was simply putting extra land on the way, as explicitly said by Soviet officials during negotiations to try and peacefully get that land, and as proven by the fact that the Soviets stopped the war when they got these territories.

My point is you don’t need to assume inclination to allying with the Nazis. I personally believe it too, but the motives for the invasion were ultimately different, as explained by the sources I’ve given you.

People needing to line up for basic goods

This is, as you say, the Soviet Union close to its dissolution. These are the post-1985 times of Perestroika, in which unsuccessful liberal reforms were implemented to Soviet industry in a radical manner, such as overnight replacing 50% of resource allocation by planning committee to markets that didnt exist, and general chaos ensued. It was a big mistake that led to issues such as bread lines, but it’s specific to the late 80s. You and I have lived the lack of stock of basic goods in supermarkets such as toilet paper and sunflower oil or eggs from particular historical events. Bread lines just did not happen in the USSR from the postwar recovery to the perestroika, and focusing on a few years of turmoil due to war or to bad policy towards the end isnt accurate of the experience of the rest of the time.

Based on the personal accounts of a relative

Then do your reading, mate, I’m sorry. I have relatives who have personal accounts of the streets being dangerous just because they’re racist pieces of shit and saw a black person. Look at the crime rates of my area and they’re at historic low, despite what personal accounts say. If you want personal accounts, go ask an old soviet person, most old people in Russia want the USSR back, and it was the case in Ukraine too until 10 years ago. Go ask old people in former Yugoslavia whether life was better under Tito or on what ensued. Or, be materialist, and don’t “listen to one personal account”: do your reading of actually researched studies. I gave you plenty of sources for my information regarding foodstuffs, access to housing and work, access to public transit, urban planning, infrastructure and the rural exodus since 1990, education, healthcare, sports… The information is there, and these books use sources that you can check by yourself. So please, don’t tell me “but I heard a relative say something different”.