>>2314879I think it was easier when there was only one socialist country (the USSR) for communists to soy out about. The USSR was the red fortress. They didn't see a contradiction between their ideals and the twists in Soviet foreign policy (although some did). But it became more complicated when more socialist countries came into being. In a historical plot twist, Stalin had formulated socialism in one country, but during his lifetime his armies installed new socialist governments in Eastern Europe, and more new socialist states emerged in China and Yugoslavia which were outside of his grasp.
Another issue is how communist parties themselves changed once they came into power. I think a lot of people who treat historical commuism as fandom glide this over, but there were real and violent disputes about this, culminating in the Cultural Revolution in China where Mao launched a mass campaign directed at his own party. But there were also the "new class" theories about the Soviet Union, that the communists, state-owned factory directors and various low-cunning strivers had essentially formed a new social class even though the official ideology held that there were no classes (and many people who were doing pretty well and had privileged positions probably believed that because that's how ideology works).
The main thing is that there's a strong argument it had started to turn into a conservative regime focused on stability above all else. Now it was a different kind of conservatism compared to traditional reaction, but nonetheless shared the basic elements of dogmatism (like Catholic dogma), coasting on historical inertia, and assuming an attitude of opportunism to the world as it is. Now there might have also been elements of this during the Stalin era, but there were also really radical things happening during the Stalin era too, so one might say the Stalin era was also a transition period between the initial revolutionary period and the conservative period of the USSR later on.
But a lot of noob communists on the internet probably shy away from these criticisms, either because they don't understand it and never really learned about these things, or they don't (understandably) want to lend ammunition to the liberals and others on the right who use what I'm saying as a way to dismiss socialism.
>>2315126You hear a lot about how every Palestinian hero the Zionists kill, they will produce a million more, and that is understandable as a morale and willpower-building method, but it is actually a problem to have your best militants killed.
A big problem is that the Arab countries are also run by various conservative monarchs, or weak military men like Sisi in Egypt. And they'd all prefer the Palestinian issue to go away. Like basically none of these governments are democratic at all, man, and the Palestinians are a huge and inconvenient hassle for them, and also a threat. Because when Palestinians stand up and resist due to the lack of democratic rights that come with military occupation, other Arabs come to see their own situation under "their" own regimes in similar terms to the Palestinians. I don't like Islamism at all (and I'm talking about Al Qaeda guys here) but that's why those guys want to overthrow all of the Arab governments, and they talk about this constantly, and I don't think they're "wrong" as a matter of strategic analysis.
BTW, this is where I think some of the "state power as ultimate victory regardless of what it is" ideologies crash into a wall. You end up just internalizing a lot of propaganda from resistoids telling you that anyone who opposed Assad was in cahoots with Israel, but it's not like Assad was doing anything. Ahmed Al Sharaa is running a real dictatorship now, but also one that's popular with the Sunni majority. Horrible for the Alawites though. There is some reporting now that Netanyahu is seeking a backchannel through the U.S. but I honestly cannot say they will normalize relations, and I don't think the Israelis trust Sharaa at all. But we'll see.