i go out of my way to experience different cultures and it seems like the immigrant communities in the united states originating from communist countries tend to be some of the chuddiest people imaginable. chinese, russian, cuban, vietnamese. literally every person who i ever talked to that has lived in a communist country and then moved to the united states, or is like second or third generation from that, tends to be incredibly reactionary and anti communist. i feel like i am a more well versed communist when talking to people that lived in a communist country.
its like that everyone that comes to the united states from a communist country forgets the values of marxism, socialism, and communism. i have been too polite to ask what really made these people move to this fucking shithole and if i had to guess they have something severely wrong with them and they want to participate in some small business tyrany and become capitalists. like all these assholes be chasing the dollar and they bring great shame on their own nationality even being here.
i have had much better discussions with people from countries that are still being exploited by capitalists since they already have an understanding of what colonialism and capitalism even is and they arent here to try to become small business owners or worse. people from puerto rico dont got the brain worms that cuban expats do for example.
and i should mention, they all state, they love their country but they blame everything bad with their country on communists. It infuriates me hearing these people, who were born in a nation with socialized healthcare, state controlled industry, basic welfare for citizens, just trash talk the system that make them so successful in the first place and gave them the resources they probably didn't deserve to open up a shitty restaurant selling borscht. they would know exactly why these social programs cant meet demand if they just took the blindfold off and realized that america, the great fucking satan, is the reason why the global economy is so unequal ITS ALL BECAUSE OF FUCKING AMERICA NOT COMMUNISM YOU STUPID FUCK!
ive been told not to view myself as more communist than others, but i fucking am around these parts with expats who are not communist whatsoever, that makes me more communist than them. if i was to draw a hundred mile radius around myself odds are there probably wouldnt be someone more communist than me. nobody in my life reads theory, every fucking time i tried reaching out with dsa or the bernie shit i have only met shitlibs, i have found no comrades in bipoc communities, the lgbt, religion, or labor. just having someone say to me face to face they are a communist would help me anchor my belief system to something real and not entirely made up and on the internet.
idk, communism is basically what i use to fill my god hole and its fucking hard to find communists irl and its real shitty that people from communist countries arent oftentimes communists. i just want some validation in my belief in communism by someone who is fucking real.
Their experience of communism is not the same as your version and experience of communism. If you happen to dismiss their experience by saying it wasn’t really communism, you will get a punch in the face because for them, it was a very real, grim reality they had to go through. And the lies of capitalism are very alluring.
You greatly overestimate how much unambiguous hatred there is towards socialist governments. I know plenty of people from Poland, East Germany, Romania, former Yugoslavia that even if they're not super-politicized, revolutionary marxist-leninists or whatever that are not exactly frothing at the mouth anticommunists. Even if they come to the conclusion that those were not the government they wished, they are often willing to talk about how getting a job was easy, how there was little crime and visible poverty, etc. even the simple yet common "those times were not so bad".
It's easy to paint an entire population with the same brush. And it's understandable, it's easy and doesn't require unending investigation.
I am from one of the former Eastern Bloc states. My parents, who were born in the 60s and experienced both literally said at a family meeting a few months ago that that they came to the conclusion that overthrowing the socialist governments in the East was a mistake and they had fallen for the mirage of cheap consumer goods while throwing away the achievements of their socialist governments that they had taken for granted. State provided employment and housing are major things they mentioned as definite positives from that era. And among other people their age or older, this is not in any way a rare perspective. If anything, the loudest victims of communism tend to be born 1990+.
The joys of being marinated in nationalist propaganda every day.
In 2020 during the food shortage/hoarding crisis, I saw some comments about how it’s “just like east Germany” or maybe it was news about east Germany. Anyway, several people from that era chimed in and said that no one ever starved in east Germany. You didn’t many options and the food wasn’t always great, but people didn’t become desperate over that. Then a few Germans born after 1991 started attacking them, calling them dumb or too nostalgic including their own East German parents even though they admit their family is struggling more than ever
Emigrees (certainly the ones I’ve met) are almost always either:
Owned significant amounts of capital before communism, or
Are strivers and/or see themselves as entrepreneurs who will get rich one day; or believe with their intelligence, talent and hard work they deserve to have a lot more than others
I would not expect these kinds of people to have any love at all for communism, of course not. My issue though is that we are supposed to take their experience as a blanket truth for everyone who lives where they came from. It ignores how communism is so much better for people who, for example, do not have parents who own an egg monopoly or a sugar plantation.
(Formatting for this post is getting messed up, not sure why)
My third is apolitical dumdum who moved to the US.
Also if you explicitly state on your immigration papers that you were part of a communist or socialist party, youre prolly not getting in. Theres a whole few questions that ask about that.
We were just poor
I know a person who lived most of their 20s, as a woman, in Communist Romania. Romania was by far the "worst" eastern bloc nation, had major economic woes and a lot of misogyny and oppression of women via fertility policies, and she has openly stated that while the leadership sucked and was justly hated, most people wanted to keep the system, which they pretty much all liked and thought they could keep while also getting free speech and MacDonalds.
And she's pretty pissed about what happened. She'd tile the whole goddam world with the Romanian System circa 1985 if she could, warts and all.
Over 60% of Romanians are nostalgic for Cuseceau. Nostalgia doesn’t mean positive preference though. Neoliberalism has just been so bad that they would rather suffer under him
For some, sure. But she had gone from being a committed communist to Dem Soc in the early 90s, and then, very rapidly, straight back to a level of Communist that makes Maoist Red Guards look like bored 1980s nomenklatura.
She is my idol