My dad called me one last week. I told him I’m not even a communist, just a moderate social democrat who likes Soviet symbols for the shock value. (Not true, I’m a Marxist-Leninist, but gotta keep the peace with family, IYKYK.) But now I’m wondering, is “Stalinism” even a thing? Are any of you bears “Stalinists”?

  • PiraHxCx@lemmy.mlEnglish
    12·
    1 month ago

    You can also put like this… do you prefer Lenin’s Constitution that decriminalized homosexuality, legalized abortion and let women initiate divorces unilaterally, or do you prefer Stalin’s Constitution that reversed all of that?

    • purpleworm [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      17·
      1 month ago

      Lenin’s Constitution that decriminalized homosexuality, legalized abortion and let women initiate divorces unilaterally

      Lenin wasn’t a king, it’s the 1918 Constitution, which did not have the features you describe. For example, the decriminalization of homosexuality was a characteristic of the 1922 Criminal Code, not the Constitution. The other two were decrees, not the Constitution (then the divorce policy was put in the 1918 Family Code, so again law, a year after its decree).

      Stalin’s Constitution that reversed all of that

      Though they happened around the same time, they are not features of the 1936 Constitution, they are all laws.

      You can just say “Under Lenin” and “Under Stalin” and be both more concise and more accurate. Hell, even the “Lenin Regime” and the “Stalin Regime.” Yes, I am being pedantic, but this talk about the respective “Constitutions” is a senseless affectation.

      But what you are talking about, besides eliding the entire content of the Constitutions, is simply not useful on a fundamental level because no one here is going to argue that we should be implementing either Constitution wholesale and will obviously disagree with those actions under Stalin. But again, this isn’t from either Constitution, so how am I supposed to answer? The Constitutions with these laws tacked on? Why these laws specifically, and why bring the Constitutions into it? I disagree with the laws you tacked on, but the 1936 Constitution has many good provisions in it that the previous did not have regarding economic rights and the like, not that I’m even blaming Lenin (mostly*), since I think all of these Constitutions were written in response to current conditions and there’s only so much you can do to declare a better society by fiat (though I grant you the mentioned laws under Lenin are a good example of it, though you’re missing of course that abortion was also free, and that cannot be merely declared but requires infrastructure, and so was only guaranteed because they could provide it).

      *I said “mostly” because I broadly believe in universal suffrage and there were people the 1918 Constitution banned from voting who I don’t think it was very helpful to ban, not that I’m kept up at night by the injustice of it. I just think it’s minimally a mild detriment without a real benefit, at least in some cases.