It can be vexing at times to work out how to talk about communism, and socialist state projects, in particular around those with anti-communists views, but sometimes even around sympathizers when you are just trying to dispel propaganda or put it in perspective.
I’ve noticed you can find yourself in this realm where you’re sort of first trying to dispel the “monster under the bed” binary view of what communism is in both theory and practice. And in doing so, it can come out sounding like you are saying communists are not devils, but they are angels. When the point is that they are neither devil nor angel, but are humans who are doing their best to build a more equitable and just world, free of class and caste-based oppression. But if you simply start out by saying this, it can sound like you are admitting to the truth of every absurd narrative against them. This sort of “yes, they are flawed, so that means all the stories about them are true.”
But that is not what you want. You want to shake the anti-communist narratives. So you might sort of say, no look, they made incredible strides in quality of life. We can talk about the failures and the excesses and so on later. It can feel like a very awkward way to engage. You know that communism and communists are not perfect, that no one is, that they are not demi-gods but are regular people dealing with difficult material conditions who overcame through organizing. But the good and evil worldview, I think can sort of find this way of describing them to be disappointing or underwhelming, on top of the aforementioned point about some viewing it as an admission of guilt.
I don’t have a strong conclusion here, which is why I wrote the title like a question. It may be one of those things where western Christianity rears its head and contributes to difficulties with viewing the struggle as something more nuanced than good vs. evil, or David vs. Goliath. But whatever the cause of it is and the means of getting past it, it seems critical to get there. Even just for the nuance of an anti-imperialist stance combined with communism, it is fundamental to notions of “critical support” to recognize the gray; staying stuck on good vs. evil but sympathizing with communism seems like a fast track to becoming an ultra, for example.
You need to differentiate then and emphasise the different conclusions you make compared to the person you are discussing with.
In the late Soviet Union there were indeed standing lanes for products. This is true and I don’t think this was good. I think a anticommunist would say the same, but my conclusion is not that the Soviet Union was bad or socialism itself leads to such things. Through further discussion I would explain it more and more.
Often enough their propaganda includes some truth, but is bastardised. When Hungary 1956 happened it was indeed a tragedy. It was not a pure product of CIA, the communist party there made clear mistakes which made people unhappy. But the situation was then also used by CIA (probably also other foreign agencies), which is meanwhile proven how they provided weapons, and this lead all to a lot of causalities. In my opinion this short explanation puts this historic event in a more correct light, then “people were unhappy and then soviet tanks invades and committed a massacre”.
The same goes for all those other topics. The famine in Soviet Ukrainian and western part of Soviet Russia. It was awful, absolutely. We know that the were many causalities for that and the communist party made mistakes¹
Kronstadt also, anarchists are mentioning it often. Kronstadt was a tragedy, nothing good about that. But it was really necessary for taking it, otherwise the revolution would be in danger.
First you need of course enough knowledge about a certain topic and second then patiently explaining. If you try Lenin and read more from him, you will discover how much he explains and he repeats his self a lot. He was a great pedagogue.
From all what I wrote now, I provided more information, then a liberal would do about that topics and I am not talking like it was all a cool.
I don’t know if this helps you somehow. What me helped in the past was reading Lenin. I guess every 3th comment I make here on Lemmygrad is something about how much reading him helps in theory and praxis. In the collected works there are also his speeches he gave to students. As long as you engage more and more in explaining, you will get better with that. And don’t forget, admit mistakes that were made or are made, but emphasise that your critique comes from the left and doesn’t align with the anticommunist propaganda.
¹I shouldn’t write more about the famine in Ukraine. So far as I know, I can get into trouble with the German law, if I say in a public space, that my conclusion is not a anticommunist one (I know, I formulated it strange). They would probably find a way to get me doxxed.