Should the Soviet flag be shunned like the Nazi swastika?

Liquid Plejades · May 2, 2018

So, most of us are familiar with all the atrocities committed by the USSR. Just like the Nazi party, symbolism was a huge thing and they used it heavily. It instilled power and fear. Now, you have people walking around with hats, shirts, or pins that have the soviet symbols. Should this be shunned since what it represents was a lot of horrible actions?

Someone will argue no since it is also a symbol of communism and it's not the same thing, but then the swastika is also a religious symbol in Asia and the east, but you dont see people walking around with swastikas everyday..since the imagery is so connected to nazism.

This question came up in my head since there was a group of students in my town the other day handing out pamphlets about capitalism being bad, and they all had soviet pins on them and some hats etc, and after talking to them they were telling me how their group is very inclusive and LGBTQ friendly..which was extra odd since the soviets were so heavily against that.

anyway, thoughts on the matter?

Aquavelvaman · May 2, 2018

Shun all flags

Madison · May 2, 2018

I'm not sure, it is true that adoring soviet symbols can be a bit weird when you consider the amount of awful things associated with the Soviet Union, but Nazism was and still is an active threat to the world, while Soviet fanatism will probably never surpass the "those guys are weirdos" phase.

Doof · May 2, 2018

Aquavelvaman said:
Shun all flags

Fuckin 'A, my dude.

lupinko · May 2, 2018

The Nazi swastika is a perversed version of the original Sanskrit.

It's definitely not the same.

When I see the Nazi swastika I don't even think of anything else that can come to mind.

AcademicSaucer · May 2, 2018

Yes to the hammer and sickle in any form

Deleted member 14002 · May 2, 2018

A couple people I used to know grew up in the USSR. They seemed to be of the opinion communism was bullshit and said that their families to suffered immeasurably while they were there.

Pretty sure if they were still alive they'd say fuck that flag.

Deleted member 9986 · May 2, 2018

And what about the American and British flag? Spanish flag?

Oh wait no you just hate the Soviet Union specifically and would even go as far as to set them side by side with the Nazis. Of course.

Sorry but it is hard to not doubt your intentions or you truly are ignorant to your obvious bias.

TheIdiot · May 2, 2018

Unless its waved by crazy Russians saying death to all Ukrainians, no. The USSR was an entire state that covered several countries. Citizens were from the USSR. It would be like shunning the Prussian flag or something.

Pwnz · May 2, 2018

No, the Soviet Union was not nearly as bad as Nazi Germany. With this line of thinking it's a slippery slope. American flags should be shunned for slavery, trail of tears, borderline genocide of natives.

Brakke · May 2, 2018

Pwnz said:
No, the Soviet Union was not nearly as bad as Nazi Germany. With this line of thinking it's a slippery slope. American flags should be shunned for slavery, trail of tears, borderline genocide of natives.

But. It’s totally reasonable to shun the American flag.

sphagnum · May 2, 2018

No. The USSR is not synonymous with Stalin. If you're going to ban a flag because a country is an autocracy or an empire, you might as well ban the Union Jack or the American flag, especially since the former literally ruled a quarter of the earth at one point.

spam musubi · May 2, 2018

Condom said:
And what about the American and British flag? Spanish flag?

Oh wait no you just hate the Soviet Union specifically and would even go as far as to set them side by side with the Nazis. Of course.

Sorry but it is hard to not doubt your intentions or you truly are ignorant to your obvious bias.

I guess that your point starts with the literal words "what about" is fitting considering the term "whataboutism" comes from Soviet propaganda that aimed to distract from criticism of the Soviet Union by pointing fingers at the US/UK instead.

Not that I don't think the atrocities committed by the west don't get enough attention, but this isn't really the thread for it and whataboutism isn't a good counter-point.

caffe misto · May 2, 2018

Pwnz said:
No, the Soviet Union was not nearly as bad as Nazi Germany. With this line of thinking it's a slippery slope. American flags should be shunned for slavery, trail of tears, borderline genocide of natives.

The genocide of Native Americans is absolutely an atrocity on par with the holocaust. Many Americans would do well to think harder about the imagery they champion.

sphagnum · May 2, 2018

Liquid Plejades said:
This question came up in my head since there was a group of students in my town the other day handing out pamphlets about capitalism being bad, and they all had soviet pins on them and some hats etc, and after talking to them they were telling me how their group is very inclusive and LGBTQ friendly..which was extra odd since the soviets were so heavily against that.

There's nothing odd about this. The anti-LGBTQ attitudes of the old Communist states has really nothing to do with communism itself and was just a reflection of bigotries that already existed. When the Bolsheviks took power, they undid all the Imperial laws, including those against homosexuality. Stalin is responsible for the reactionary turn as he sought to bolster the Soviet population by encouraging traditional family relationships.

In contrast, by nature of being revolutionary and against the status quo, socialists, communists, and anarchists have always been heavily involved in minority group struggles in the West, including that if the LGBTQ community.

Senator Toadstool · May 2, 2018

Deleted member 9317 · May 2, 2018

AcademicSaucer said:
Yes to the hammer and sickle in any form

Its still a massive symbol of communist parties around the world. Just saw it predominantly used in Portugal, mass ads around the capital.

UltimateHigh · May 2, 2018

Aquavelvaman said:
Shun all flags

I like this first reply.

Mezentine · May 2, 2018

Eh in the same way that someone who does too enthusiastically embrace "The American Flag, fuck yeah" or the Union Jack, I get a bit...itchy around people who are too into the old Soviet flag. I know its a broader communist symbol but sometimes history warps things

Deleted member 37235 · May 2, 2018

Liquid Plejades said:
So, most of us are familiar with all the atrocities committed by the USSR. Just like the Nazi party, symbolism was a huge thing and they used it heavily. It instilled power and fear. Now, you have people walking around with hats, shirts, or pins that have the soviet symbols. Should this be shunned since what it represents was a lot of horrible actions?

Someone will argue no since it is also a symbol of communism and it's not the same thing, but then the swastika is also a religious symbol in Asia and the east, but you dont see people walking around with swastikas everyday..since the imagery is so connected to nazism.

This question came up in my head since there was a group of students in my town the other day handing out pamphlets about capitalism being bad, and they all had soviet pins on them and some hats etc, and after talking to them they were telling me how their group is very inclusive and LGBTQ friendly..which was extra odd since the soviets were so heavily against that.

anyway, thoughts on the matter?

I'll preface this by foregrounding my own political dispositions, I'm a Marxist and a revolutionary socialist, so regardless of what you may think of that politically I would imagine that you would want the perspective of someone who won't just dismiss the question out of hand.

The hammer and the sickle are symbols of worker and peasant power, their origin comes out of the struggle of these oppressed and exploited groups to fight for their own liberation. The symbol itself was adopted from an open invitation to all artists in the early USSR, the winner of the design was a peasant themselves.

The comparison between this and the swastika isn't quite right for many reasons, but chiefly because their political contexts are different, even from the start. The Nazis were, from the very beginning, racist fascists. Their adaptation of the swastika as their symbol is unfortunate, for the reason you stated, but as a political symbol it's meaning is pretty much unambiguous.

The hammer and sickle is now associated with the atrocities of Stalinism, and that is also unfortunate, but the symbol was never conceived as a hate symbol in a racial, gendered, or sexual way. Even in the heyday of authoritarian Stalinism the symbol was not deployed for that reason, it was mainly used to reinforce the ruling ideology of Stalinist Russia as some kind of "international worker's state".

Some other things I'd like to mention, since they're also bound up with the discussion:

Re - LGBT rights in the Soviet Union: Directly after the October Revolution all laws criminalizing homosexuality were repealed by newly empowered Bolsheviks, so was divorce at the request of either spouse (previously women could not divorce their husbands without their consent). This was only reversed in the 1930s (after Stalin took power). There was a flourishing of LGBT life in the early Soviet regime, and I think it's important to understand that nuance when considering that the Soviet Union was the first place on Earth to legalize same-sex relations almost 100 years before the rest of the bourgeois world managed to catch up (and not even then!).

Mimosa97 · May 2, 2018

Condom said:
And what about the American and British flag? Spanish flag?

Oh wait no you just hate the Soviet Union specifically and would even go as far as to set them side by side with the Nazis. Of course.

Sorry but it is hard to not doubt your intentions or you truly are ignorant to your obvious bias.

I think Stalinism is up there in terms of destruction and human death count. Mao's great leap forward is also one of the darkest times of the 20th century. Different ideologies than Nazism and the consequences and the loss of human life in the end was almost just as bad.

For most people now the soviet flag is just the symbol of communism so I don't think it's as offensive as the swastika. But still I can understand people who would find it offensive (mainly people who lived under soviet oppression and suffered from it).

Mezentine · May 2, 2018

Mimosa97 said:
I think Stalinism is up there in terms of destruction and human death count. Mao's great leap forward is also one of the darkest times of the 20th century. Different ideologies than Nazism and the consequences and the loss of human life in the end was almost just as bad.

I mean, the British Empire also has buckets of blood on its hands that we don't really like to count because it feels awkward. I don't think Nazism is quite the right comparison, but as I said above I do look a bit side-eye at anyone who embraces it too enthusiastically, same as I do the American flag

Veggen · May 2, 2018

sphagnum said:
No. The USSR is not synonymous with Stalin.

True, but Stalin isn't shunned the same way Hitler is either.

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/armando-iannucci-death-of-stalin-trumps-funeral-w517602

Hitler is poison. Hitler is toxic. You wouldn't get any portraits of Hitler in any hotels in Germany, but the hotel we were staying at in Moscow had a portrait of Stalin up. He's gotten away with it, really. We've quietly drawn a veil over him and not really concerned ourselves too much about him.

Kurdel · May 2, 2018

Aquavelvaman said:
Shun all flags

One and done

Unmei · May 2, 2018

This sounds almost hateful, a flag that represents their people, and nation. How can you justify this type of thinking?

Unknown Soldier · May 2, 2018

LMAO Aeroflot's logo still carries the hammer and sickle to this day. So good luck with completely shunning an emblem which is still being used right now, today, this second

Xiaomi · May 2, 2018

Most socialists you meet aren't looking to start another Great Purge. Most people who fly the Nazi flag would absolutely not mind starting another Holocaust. That's a pretty key difference.

FreedomFighter · May 2, 2018

Aquavelvaman said:
Shun all flags

This.

baden · May 2, 2018

I mean the Nazi Swastika is shunned because when people use it they are basically saying "i wanna genocide the jews", the hammer and the sickle, the us flag, the union jack have different meanings.

platocplx · May 2, 2018

Aquavelvaman said:
Shun all flags

Nailed it.

Mimosa97 · May 2, 2018

Mezentine said:
I mean, the British Empire also has buckets of blood on its hands that we don't really like to count because it feels awkward. I don't think Nazism is quite the right comparison, but as I said above I do look a bit side-eye at anyone who embraces it too enthusiastically, same as I do the American flag

I can understand why people would see the british flag as a symbol of colonioalism but today waving the british flag doesn't mean that you belong to a particular political movement or that you believe in a specific political ideology. If you have a british flag it's probably because you just happened to be born british or you just like the current country and its culture.

Wolven Hammer · May 2, 2018

Maybe. The Soviet Union does have a comparable body count. Only difference is they were focused mostly on class hatred instead of race.

Dicer · May 2, 2018

Fuck all flags...

passepied joe · May 2, 2018

Yeah.

Mammoth Jones · May 2, 2018

Nah. Russia has issues for sure. Most nations have dirt. This logic would require me to shun all flags which I don't support. I'm not gonna start flying Russian flags but then again I'm not going to have some visceral reaction if I see a Russian flying theirs.

sphagnum · May 2, 2018

Veggen said:
True, but Stalin isn't shunned the same way Hitler is either.

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/armando-iannucci-death-of-stalin-trumps-funeral-w517602

Largely because he was an ally in WWII. If the Allies had teamed up with Hitler to crush the USSR instead, I'd imagine it would be the other way around.

I remember being caught offguard when I saw a Mao portrait being sold in the Chinese pavillion at Epcot!

Madison · May 2, 2018

Xiaomi said:
Most socialists you meet aren't looking to start another Great Purge. Most people who fly the Nazi flag would absolutely not mind starting another Holocaust. That's a pretty key difference.

This is a pretty good post

PanickyFool · May 2, 2018

Unknown Soldier said:
LMAO Aeroflot's logo still carries the hammer and sickle to this day. So good luck with completely shunning an emblem which is still being used right now, today, this second

Those are the tools they use to fix those pieces of crap airplanes they use.

sphagnum · May 2, 2018

Unmei said:
This sounds almost hateful, a flag that represents their people, and nation. How can you justify this type of thinking?

Pretty easily actually. The Nazi swastika and the Confederate flag deserve to be burned wherever they pop up.

I just don't think that should apply to the red banner.

Edit: Also the hammer and sickle was never supposed to represent a nation. The fact that it ended up being synonymous with Russia is a degradation of its meaning and part of the Russian chauvinism that crept into the USSR.

Liquid Plejades · May 2, 2018

Condom said:
And what about the American and British flag? Spanish flag?

Oh wait no you just hate the Soviet Union specifically and would even go as far as to set them side by side with the Nazis. Of course.

Sorry but it is hard to not doubt your intentions or you truly are ignorant to your obvious bias.

what are you trying to say here? legit confused

ham bone · May 2, 2018

All flags from nations that participated in genocide or colonization should be sternly frowned upon.

Ogodei · May 2, 2018

Nazism was born in hate, lived its time in power in hate, and perished in spiteful hate as they rushed to complete their vile work before the allied troops came.

The Soviet Union's history is more complex. Bolshevism ended up being a terrible evil, but it was born as something else and sometimes stood for something else.

Unknown Soldier · May 2, 2018

PanickyFool said:
Those are the tools they use to fix those pieces of crap airplanes they use.

That's a pretty funny statement considering Aeroflot flies a fleet which is almost entirely Airbus. So I don't know if you're commenting on Airbus vs. Boeing or something else here because it certainly isn't a comment about Aeroflot.

Regardless of that, the hammer and sickle is still the official emblem of the Chinese Communist Party as well.

Deffers · May 2, 2018

I mean, the correct answer is this:

Aquavelvaman said:
Shun all flags

As people have pointed out, there are some major distinctions between the swastika and the hammer-and-sickle, such as the H&S predating Stalin's brutal regime. I wouldn't completely ignore the idea that the Hammer and Sickle might be a way to marginalize Ukrainians but I've certainly not heard of it happening.

Now, would it be better for us socialists, branding-wise, if we abandoned the hammer and sickle? Yunno, probably. But socialists are fucking dogshit at marketing their ideas. The H&S still makes me uncomfortable sometimes, ngl. But then, I have an ushanka that has the symbol for East German hammer and compass around here, and it was apparently taken from surplus from the border guards. I also have a Red Army surplus ushanka, and it came with a hat pin with a hammer and sickle in the red star (I ended up losing that thing). So am I in position to judge? Fuck no.

If someone were wearing the emblem for the NKVD, I'd be a bit more concerned about them.

Deleted member 15440 · May 2, 2018

i'd sooner ban the american flag

Deleted member 9986 · May 2, 2018

nynt9 said:
I guess that your point starts with the literal words "what about" is fitting considering the term "whataboutism" comes from Soviet propaganda that aimed to distract from criticism of the Soviet Union by pointing fingers at the US/UK instead.

Not that I don't think the atrocities committed by the west don't get enough attention, but this isn't really the thread for it and whataboutism isn't a good counter-point.

This is the perfect thread for it. There is a lack of argumentation why those two specific flags should be banned above those of other cruel empires like the American, British and Spanish.

In public policy this is unacceptable, the OP is about a policy proposal.

EDIT: Realized that 'shunned like' may mean different things in the US vs certain European countries. In the EU that would mean being banned from public view by law. In the US it would be more socially unacceptable, where my 'policy proposal' argument falls flat.

PanickyFool · May 2, 2018

Unknown Soldier said:
That's a pretty funny statement considering Aeroflot flies a fleet which is almost entirely Airbus. So I don't know if you're commenting on Airbus vs. Boeing or something else here because it certainly isn't a comment about Aeroflot.

Regardless of that, the hammer and sickle is still the official emblem of the Chinese Communist Party as well.

Talking about those fucking superjets.

tino · May 2, 2018

Soviet Union has condemned Stalin for 60+ years now.

Regulus Tera · May 2, 2018

I would shun the American flag myself along with the Soviet flag.

Also the Union Jack for good measure.

Mass_Pincup · May 2, 2018

nynt9 said:
I guess that your point starts with the literal words "what about" is fitting considering the term "whataboutism" comes from Soviet propaganda that aimed to distract from criticism of the Soviet Union by pointing fingers at the US/UK instead.

Not that I don't think the atrocities committed by the west don't get enough attention, but this isn't really the thread for it and whataboutism isn't a good counter-point.

No, it’s important to acknowledge the selective outrage that some people have, especially when it comes from propaganda.

The USSR was an awful regime, but it’s interesting to see some people being especially angered by that particular one and the reasons behind it.

Should the Soviet flag be shunned like the Nazi swastika?

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