Political Theory

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Marko — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:55:28 GMT

Certainly communists get the same treatment as nazis in eastern europe.

Overgeneralisation. There are 19 UN members in Eastern Europe, to my knowledge only 5 ban Communist symbols. I know of that many that stil have streets and markets that are named after Communist personalities, but probably there are more.

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Raudsarw — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:01:30 GMT

It depends on where. Here in Estonia there is a ban on using it as a provocation, you can't go waving it on the streets. Not something I support, but just pointing it out. Certainly communists get the same treatment as nazis in eastern europe. That's because we have experienced communist atrocities while the west has only experienced nazi atrocities.

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Bert — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:50:54 GMT

Soviet symbolism is fashionable, it's easily marketed, and pseudo-intellectual jackasses will buy it up. It's a way of revolting against the system without thinking. Plus, if you bring up any events of communism in history, they will be quick to say that wasn't true communism. Simply put, they just do not think. The Swastika on the other hand will always be a Heathen symbol to me, regardless of what the Nazis did to it. I still employ it in artwork, but that's on a personal level and I wouldn't wear one in public.

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Marko — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:25:48 GMT

No, I really do see it as a contradiction. I can't believe that it just happened to be that one symbol that represented the slaughter of millions in the name of social utopia is despised and another symbol that represents (in my mind) the same thing is an acceptable symbol.

Well there you go, one and the same symbols mean different things to different people.

But I think that you must admit that the Soviet flag has a wider array of non-nonsensical meanings than the Nazi flag.

Lets think of KKK symbolism and official US heraldry. Both can represent murder of innocents, and even more people were killed under the US flag than the burning cross, but US symbols also mean many other things to people. Things that an average person does not have a strong negative reaction against. While the burning cross means only a few things, all of them highly negative.

It is a simple fact Communist symbols are symbols of fracticious and evolving global movement and ideology spanning more than 150 years in offical use in dozens of diverse countries. They can not be boxed in to the same extent and assigned as specific and as narrow meaning than a flag in use for 12 years by a highly local ideology can be.

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Seraiah — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 16:51:03 GMT

Marko
Are you honestly interested in an answer, or are you trying to make a point?

No, I really do see it as a contradiction. I can't believe that it just happened to be that one symbol that represented the slaughter of millions in the name of social utopia is despised and another symbol that represents (in my mind) the same thing is an acceptable symbol.

I am interested and am reading the responses, lots of good points have been made that I hadn't really thought about in relation to the perception of nazi/soviet symbols.

A simpler explanation is that the US, France, UK unlike most countries which bann Soviet symbols have no pro-Nazi past and therefore don't need to try to wash a stigma from a dark episode in their history by villifying the Soviets as the Nazis.

Actually, from what I understand, that isn't entirely true. While officially the US wasn't pro-Nazi, there were companies in the United States that sold resources to the Nazi's.

This seems to be a good example.
Though, the left has used this book for anti-capitalist propaganda.

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Marko — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:18:59 GMT

Actually, it is in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and a lot of other Eastern European countries. A Che shirt there will get you about as far as one in southern Miami, or a swastika armband in France. It's not seen as such in the States due to the then widespread influence of communists and other Soviet-sympathizers in the media (and in FDR's advisers, to boot!), such as Walter Duranty and Alger Hiss, who managed to almost completely cover up the Holodomor in American news reports, and not so in Old Europe and the UK due to the even more widespread influence of far-left elements, such as the resurgent Spanish Communists or the French and German Greens.

Legacy of Duranty is a very unlikely explanation given 45 years of the Cold War in which he was superseded by the likes of Conquest and Pipes.

A simpler explanation is that the US, France, UK unlike most countries which bann Soviet symbols have no pro-Nazi past and therefore don't need to try to wash a stigma from a dark episode in their history by villifying the Soviets as the Nazis.

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Esuric — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:25:20 GMT

Because the Soviets won WW2 (they were on the winning side).

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Marko — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 10:15:30 GMT

Are you honestly interested in an answer, or are you trying to make a point?

The difference is that the worst Nazi crimes were ideologically mandated, but the worst Soviet crimes were not.

A comparison could be made with American symbols which are presently the most hated ones in the world and which won't get you far in many countries. And jet few American crimes were ideologically mandated. They were more the result of detachment and inhumanity of buerocracies than of the things American symbols try to represent.

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Praetyre — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:27:59 GMT

Actually, it is in Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and a lot of other Eastern European countries. A Che shirt there will get you about as far as one in southern Miami, or a swastika armband in France. It's not seen as such in the States due to the then widespread influence of communists and other Soviet-sympathizers in the media (and in FDR's advisers, to boot!), such as Walter Duranty and Alger Hiss, who managed to almost completely cover up the Holodomor in American news reports, and not so in Old Europe and the UK due to the even more widespread influence of far-left elements, such as the resurgent Spanish Communists or the French and German Greens.

Also, Naziism is a nationalistic ideology, which lets the Eurocrats browbeat anybody who doesn't want their country's national sovereignity and cultural identity obliterated in the EU (sound familiar, Southerners?) as "far-right" (which the Nazis weren't, but that's another story), much like the non-Fox (i.e. non-rightist) American media labels anybody who criticizes Obama as a racist. It's also been expanded to include gays and indite all Catholics (and even sometimes all Christians) as evil.

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

James — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:59:36 GMT

The Second World War was the last great war between national socialist bad guys on one side and global socialist bad guys on the other. We all know who won.

Re: The Soviet Symbol -Question

Clayton — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:51:32 GMT

Tyranny - properly adorned - is not only tolerated but admired.

The Soviet Symbol -Question

Seraiah — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:48:18 GMT

So we've all seen the soviet symbol, the red flag with the yellow star, sickle, and hammer. What I really want to know is: Why is it socially acceptable?

The Nazi symbol is rightly hated, and while it's not explicitly outlawed, anyone who admires nazi-ism is seen as dangerous, stupid, or both.

Why doesn't the soviet symbol get the same treatment? While the symbol isn't exactly mainstream, it's not entirely frowned upon either.

Does anyone know more on this subject, because it's baffling to me.