this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2026
34 points (97.2% liked)

Ask Lemmygrad

1285 readers
60 users here now

A place to ask questions of Lemmygrad's best and brightest

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Reading Blackshirts & Reds and am at about 40% through the book. The amount of critique he is giving to how poorly the economic situation in the USSR was, how Stalin's way of running things and how people were negligible about their jobs because there was no reason to be competitive or to do a good job is honestly a bit stark. Is this anti-communism or is this just good faith criticism?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Can you share some quotes? I don't remember this.

Still, the early USSR wasn't a paradise, the bolsheviks took over a very backwards and underdeveloped nation with a myriad of problems, mistakes were bound to happen.

[โ€“] znsh@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 week ago

Don't have them on hand right now, but pages 65-70 or so is when he talks about it. It just came as a bit of a shock as until that point he wasn't overtly critical of anything AES related.

load more comments (2 replies)