The Soviet system used psychiatry as a weapon by diagnosing political opponents as mentally ill in order to confine them as patients instead of trying them in court. Anyone who challenged the state such as dissidents, writers, would-be emigrants, religious believers, or human rights activists could be branded with fabricated disorders like sluggish schizophrenia. This turned normal political disagreement into supposed medical pathology and allowed the state to present dissent as insanity.
Once labeled in this way, people were placed in psychiatric hospitals where they could be held for long periods without legal protections. Harsh treatments were often used to break their resolve. The collaboration between state security organs and compliant psychiatrists created a system where political imprisonment was disguised as medical care, letting the Soviet regime suppress opposition while pretending it was addressing illness rather than silencing critics.
Sounds like “Trump derangement syndrome”
So it’s like lemmy.ml
You’d be hard pressed to find a communist system that doesn’t inevitably end up like this.
In b4 “ackshully that’s not real communism”. Sure, sure.
Pretty sure America does that.
No the American secret police just makes them suicide with a bullet to the back of the head. Rip Gary Webb.
The Soviet Union at its height had the largest percentage of incarcerated individuals, more than double the USA’s percentage of the population today. These were hard labor camps, too, where millions worked until they died.
this is only true for the stalin years i think.
in any case, living in a country without due process kinda sucks
Yeah it actually got better even before Stalin died, but yeah.
Link to source?
incarcerated
What an ugly word! Oh no no no they were being cured of their mental illnesses in dedicated institutions and provided with advanced education in special schools.
The school of digging frozen turf in Siberia while starving for instance or the hospital of getting beaten with a phonebook
This is wrong and you’re a shitbag liar. Don’t think people don’t see you out here spending your free time floating thread-to-thread just to shit on socialism.
Peak U.S. incarceration rate in 2008 (it’s highest) was about 760 per 100,000 people in the total population. The average imprisonment rate in the Soviet Union during the Gulag era was 714 per 100,000 residents. Some Soviet incarceration rates between 1934 and 1953 were likely the highest ever recorded for a modern nation. More than six million people in the U.S. are now under some form of correctional supervision—more than the number imprisoned in the Gulag at its peak.
Some sources:
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Gopnik, Adam (30 January 2012). The Caging of America. The New Yorker.
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Applebaum, Anne (2003). Gulag: a history. By Anne Applebaum. ISBN 978-0-7679-0056-0.
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Liptak, Adam (28 Feb 2008). 1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says. The New York Times.
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Getty, J. Arch; Rittersporn, Gabor T.; Zemskov, Viktor N. “Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence”.
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Rosefielde, Steven (2007). The Russian economy: from Lenin to Putin. By Steven Rosefielde. ISBN 978-1-4051-1337-3.
Peak U.S. incarceration rate
The average imprisonment rate in the Soviet Union
Uh-huh. Not like that rings the statistics manipulation alarm at all or anything.
«Is normal, ignore that товарисщ»
Some Soviet incarceration rates between 1934 and 1953 were likely the highest ever recorded for a modern nation.
Did uhhh… did you mean to paste this bit or forget to trim it before you posted? Is the US not a “modern nation?” Aren’t you calling the guy who said “soviets locked up more % than current US” a “shitbag liar” while posting evidence that supports his point? The fuck is going on, were you trained on shit data? You need a better prompt or something?
Uh-huh. Not like that rings the statistics manipulation alarm at all or anything.
Not really; if you read (lmao) more into it, you’d find that those scholars that I cited argue that it’s preferable to use averages rather than try to get precise YoY level numbers because it’s difficult to source consistent data for several chunks of time and regions.
Did uhhh… did you mean to paste this bit or forget to trim it before you posted? Is the US not a “modern nation?”
The “modern nation” reference was talking about the group of post-industrial nations at the time in which the USSR existed. I.e. “for all modernized, non-developing nations at that time”.
But I hear you, fam. Fair criticism. I used two different adjectives to describe the relative parity between the two countries. Silly of me.
But since you also clearly prefer to fling shit rather read a fucking book or two, I’ll distill a line for you that’ll hopefully stick:
At its peak in 1953, the estimated incarceration rate in the USSR was around 1,558 per 100,000.[1]
That’s less than the 2022 US rate calculated by the USBJ statistics I quoted in a separate post. Certainly not double the US’s current incarceration rate. I suppose you’ll bitch about me comparing current US rate to the 1953 rate, but that’s why it’s a fucking rate/per population. Moreover, the point I was making is that the US has gotten worse than the days of the USSR’s Gulags.
But sure. It’s entirely possible I’m just manipulating statistics and providing citations to nefariously dispute—** checks notes **—the guy who spams Stalin memes, gets banned from communities for calling people tankies, and who spouted a random take without any attempt whatsoever to provide supporting evidence.
«Is normal, ignore that товарисщ»
Go fuck yourself, patriot. :)
[1] E. Belova, P.R. Gregory. “Political economy of crime and punishment under Stalin”. Publ. Choice, 140 (3–4) (2009), pp. 463-478.
Sure, averages are better, but nonetheless instead of being consistent and using the average for both, you use the “peak” of one and “average” of another, as if that doesn’t look suspicious.
I’m not even saying the US doesn’t incarcerate more people per capita, I’m saying using “peak v avg” is a bad system because at best it makes you look like a liar.
Also I’m saying you’re probably a tankie if you’re on lemmy defending the USSR, yeah. Walks like a duck and talks like a duck and all.
Ёб твою мать.
>> ignores explicit response to original claim with the requested follow-up statistic
>> conflates objection to whitewashing the American carceral state with pro USSR sentiment
>> repeats childish insult for which OP was being called out
>> makes duck analogies mid chirping
>> hurls misogynistic insult to “fuck your mom” in Russian
You’re not beating the illiteracy accusation.
I s’pose you’re right. Walks like a chauvinistic Russian Nazi, talks like a chauvinistic Russian Nazi and all. 😗
And before you (or anyone else) nitpicks about “BuT tHaT wAS 2008”—that’s because I’m comparing peak periods.
If you want the latest estimates available, and if you really start digging, it looks much worse for the US. The total correctional population in 2022 was estimated to be 5.4 million people (according to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics report). The estimated US adult population in 2022 was 260.6 million.
That’d mean that the latest numbers are about 2,072 in 100,000 people.
But sure, shitting on the USSR is a neat trick for downplaying how completely abysmal the US has become.
Yes, but you’re posting primary sources for people who can barely glaze through a wikipedia article and a youtuber transcript for their ideological stances.
All you got to do with intransigent USSR haters is determine if it is because they believe Putin is an upgrade, or if they yearn for the Tsardom to soothe their monarchist brains.
Don’t work harder than ultranationalist racists and/or ICE supporters.
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Oh you mean like they want to do with trump derangemnt syndrome? Yeah, it’s out of the dictatorship playbook.
I’m sure this comments section is going to be thoroughly hinged
Yeah, waiting utill guys from lemmy@ml and lemmy@hexbear come here and start protecting the USSR.
Quite, I fully intend to have civil and reasonable fact based discussions about the USSR which will not trail off into tribalistic whataboutist tirades.
Only considered it?
May want to check out what’s happening in USA and UK.
Fucking Trump wants to deport citizens for disagreeing with him.
This user has been banned from hexbear.net
ml wiped out his whole family
How does one have a monopoly on eggs in a non-hypetindustrial country? Did grandpa invent the chicken and visit every village and start renting out hens XD
Eggs aren’t exactly hyperindustrial, but after the fall of the Qing dynasty entailed a lot of private acquisition to feed the foreign business interests flooding in.
I dunno if there ever was a monopoly on eggs for all of China, but maybe in the export industry though.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for a billionaire that made money by hoarding a basic necessity?
No you’re supposed to read this and be furious!
Not read this and think “how would a monopoly on eggs in preindustrial China exist, this story smells of bullshit”
.ml would have deleted it, and banned every account that read it.
Friendly fire included?
It is a rite of passage
deleted by creator
What an unexpected turn of events…
you’re an idiot
Trump derangement syndrome. Same shit.
I came in here to say the same thing. It was pointed out that the USSR did this when Republicans first started with that nonsense, and it was my first thought upon seeing this post.
It’s entirely different when the government authority not only says it but takes away your freedom & subjects you to abuse. How are so many here missing that crucial distinction?
Not even wrong.
That TDS bullshit is a thought-terminating cliche, but this really is different - actual imprisonment, transfer to remote Siberian work camps, etc…
The point is that that’s the end conclusion of TDS if things keep progressing
Yeah, I would not be surprised if they tried to escalate “Trump Derangement Syndrome” to this level.
ITT: pizza cutters as far as the eye can see. All edge and no point.
Russia does it too; transexual? Mental illness.
Did I forget to say they also forbid “mentally ill” people to have a driving permit?
USSR never went away. And if you dig deeper, it’s still just russian empire in a trench coat
took off the purple robes, but on a red hat.
took off the red hat, put on a capitalist neoliberal necktie.
now took off the capitalist neoliberal necktie, put on some ironheeled jackboots.
the goal is to take off the jackboots and put on the purple robe
And Soviet Socialism never went away either, it just reorganized upper management. Instead of the state owning a few mega companies, a few mega companies now own the state. In either case, it is the people controlling the human/natural resources paying off politicians to overlook all the horrible shit they do.
Communism as a theme is definitely making a comeback if you talk to Russian people in Russian. They think theirs is different from “western Communism” though.
I speak zero Russian but would love to know what “western communism” entails in the mind of a Russian person who holds these opinions. Alas.
The word communism has less to do with the original meaning than teachings of prosperity gospel church with the bible.
Russians have very different meaning for this word because of decades of Soviet indoctrination, Americans think completely different thing entirely about what it is.
However, there is a thing that is true for all of them: they don’t just believe that their version is the only one correct, they cannot fathom the reality where different definition even exists
Imperialism?
Not just trans people— all LGBTQ+ people are regarded this way
Also the whole idea behind Trump Derangement Syndrome. Unsurprisingly, those fuckers can’t even be original in their awfulness.
“Liberalism is a mental disease!”
A phrase often said by MAGAs. It’s no distance at all saying the same thing about nationalism.
The phrase comes from a shitpile book with the title: Liberalism is a Mental Disorder by some guy trying to eclipse Rush Limbaugh in 2005.
It’s not just a thing they say - these people genuinely believe that compassion is a mental illness.
I’ve seen “conservativism is a mental disease” too. People love that shit.
To be fair, you have to have zero empathy—or extremely low intelligence—to still vote Conservative, when we’re literally living in the Information Age. Either way, I say both are in fact mental disorders.
A lot of it is fear, too. Those people are raised to fear anything different.
I would put their fears in the “low intelligence” category.
also LOW information to. i saw some pseudo-leftist YTUBERS(whole drama behind them if you followed them) that are magats that are very low information. pre-pandemic they brought up an OBAMA era, oil pipline(canada-usa) and they could not even formulate sentences or words how to discredit the news. (but any trump related events they were immediately silent on, hmm seems like people figured out your allegiance to which party)everyone in the comments said you shouldnt comment on things you do not know.
That’s the spirit.
fundamentalism+ actual mental illness is a dangerous mix. i once saw a video of a guy with schizo and said he fell into alt-right views, and really screwed up in the head.
How about liberalism + actual mental illness, is that dangerous?
(Or any ism for that matter.)
I think that’s far less common among the left than the saying “peer reviewed study shows conservatism highly correlates with mental disorder”.
Liberalism is not as dogmatic as other ideologies, because liberalism itself encourages free thinking and going against the grain.
It’s entirely different when the state authority not only says it but takes away your freedom & subjects you to abuse. How are so many here missing that crucial distinction?
They also didn’t like genetics because it was anti Marxist-Leninist to them. They didn’t like the concept of inherent traits.
i believe they tried to have thier pseudo-science scientist explain it away with thier own.
Kinda how it works in our late stage capitalist societies to be honest, except that it’s collective pressure/belief instead of state-imposed.
You have trouble accepting the shitty state the world is in? You don’t want to be exploited and end the month with not enough to pay your rent? You’re fed up with that human crushing machine that keeps on destroying the planet because There Is No Alternative?
Well, you should consult you might be a tiny bit depressed. Take antidepressants and shut the fuck up. Learn to see and focus on the beauty in life and the little things instead. Take small hobbies, a lover or a cat. How you deal with all of that is your own individual problem.
Does it seem so normal that you really can’t see any other way? Congratulations, you are well programmed. Those problems aren’t to be delt with on an individual level, they are political.
In the past, most people formed unions and parties and did strikes, political rallys, protested and burned the landowners’ manors as a way to process those kind of feelings.
Stoicism has become commoditized as a way to convince people that their lot in life is just their attitude, and the more they put their shoulder to the wheel to produce for the top of the pyramid, the more it works out for them, rather than questioning the wheel. The hustle and grind culture is just as much the goal of something like the heritage foundation as “deport the brown people.”
Which is weird because stoicism evolved out of cynicism and inherited it’s philosophical hatred of authority at least historically.
see also that nihilism’s origins were not in destructive apathy as the term is frequently used to mean though, but instead to mean that if someone finds themselves not believing in any pre-existing meaning they have the power to assign their owo meaning to life. we exist in a world that always tells us to find our purpose in life. nihilism tells us to stop waiting for meaning to find us and instead to determine one for ourselves
One must imagine sisyphuwus happy
Fucking hilarious. twanx
So
a government authority takes away your freedom & subjects you to abuse
you depress yourself about having to work & pay for shit or deal with your feelings
same thing! 😊
I can’t believe everyone who buys this equivalence bullshit of illegitimate abuse & coercion in one case and lack thereof in the other. It’s like they have some submission kink to getting dominated.
You’re either not trying to understand what I’m saying or willingly chosing to misrepresent it. I have no time to discuss with people acting in bad faith.
Edit: Excuse-me I thought you were another poster. I think I answer your points here: https://lemmy.zip/comment/23154125
As someone who works as a therapist in the mental health system in America, this is not at all how it works.
It’s not what you are doing. It is how it has evolved though.
Apart from fringe activist groups, who thinks of politics as something they have to make happen on a daily basis?
The political way to process through the various clashing forces that make our societies has almost totally given way to the individualized injunction of dealing with the consequences. It’s in the zeitgeist, all the injunction to self-care, self-improvement and so on. If you are centered on yourself, you won’t priorize the collective.
And saying that doesn’t negate the usefulness of psychology and therapy work at the individual level. Nor does it imply a big conspiracy or something of the sort.
Apart from fringe activist groups, who thinks of politics as something they have to make happen on a daily basis?
Lots of people actually. The comparison you’re making between many people being generally uninterested in politics vs mental illness being criminalized by the state is, frankly, ridiculous.
You seem to have misinterpreted my point.
It’s not about people being uninterested in politics, it’s about most people losing the ability to even see politics as something else than some topic you could be interested in or not. To feel like they might be able to have any kind of meaningful effect on their environment. And it’s not about mental illness being criminalized it’s about mental illness being used (conscientiously or not) as a tool to fight against dissent.
And why would it be ridiculous? Culturally enforced and internalized rules are way stronger than the ones enforced by coercion. I agree that it’s worse on a personal level to risk being arrested for a thought crime and institutionalized or sent into some camp as a result of it. But as a society it’s less effective and pernicious than the collective apathy and political impotence we’re swimming in.
Under the Soviet union people saw or knew other disappeared. They knew something was happening and that they’d better shut up about it. When you were caught as an enemy of the state or of the ideology, you at least had a clear indication of what outside force is at work against you. Psychologically it’s very different.
Nowadays apart for the few percents that are actually politically active (and even some if not most of those are not spared on the inside), people feel that it’s their fault if they don’t fit in, they feel or are told by the ambient noise that they have to fix themselves, that the problem is them. That there is a disconnect from reality, from the world. The classical “what is wrong?”. And to be happy, to fix that, all they have is to consume, focus on themselves, find themselves, improve, or just look like they’re doing that. Like rats taking electrical discharge after discharge with no way to get out or even understand what’s causing it in sight.
