It's a pity that my app only shows the link text to the photograph instead of the image itself, but I'm glad, in some way, that now I am aware of the existence of such an image of loss. It's pure loss.
The first photo of a black hole is the most historically significant "first photo of x" that happened in my life time and that I actually understood its historical significance when it came out. So I'd say that's probably my favourite.
The gateway to the Ai processing is still the sensor used. Modern mirrorless digital cameras can use Ai tools internally, but the starting medium is always what is captured to begin with.
Its not hard to find that there are legitimate academic criticism of this 'photo'. For example here. The comparison you made is not correct, more like I gave a blurry photo to an AI trained on paintings of Donald Trump and asked it to make an image of him. Even if the original image was not of Trump, the chances are the output will be because that's all the model was trained on.
This is the trouble with using this as 'proof' that the. Theory and the simulations are correct, because while that is still likely, there is a feedback loop causing confirmation bias here, especially when people refer to this image as a 'photo'.
This is one team that disagrees out of many that agree.
To explain what you are seeing. The above image is the inverse Fourier transform (FT) of different frequencies of sinus waves that compose an image.
The very large baseline interferometer (VLBI) applied in the event horizon telescope (EHT) is using different telescopes all over the world, in a technique called interferometry, to achieve high enough resolutions to observe different frequencies in Fourier space that make up an image. If you observe all, you can recreate the full image perfectly. They did not, they observed for a long time and thus got a hefty amount of these "spatial" frequencies. Then they use techniques that limit the image to physical reality (e.g. no negative intensities/fluxes) and clean it from artefacts. Then transform it to image space (via the inverse FT)
Thereby, they get an actual image that approximates reality. There is no AI used at all. The researchers from Japan argued for different approach to the data, getting a slightly different inclination in that image. This may well be as the data is still too few to 100 % determine the shape, but looks more to me like they chose very different assumptions (which many other researchers do not agree with).
Edit: They did use ML for simulations to compare their sampling of the Fourier space to.
Most of what you said is correct but there is a final step you are missing, the image is not entirely constructed from raw data. The interferometry data is sparse and the 'gaps' are filled with mathematical solutions from theoretical models, and using statistical models trained on simulation data.
We recently developed PRIMO (Principal-component
Interferometric Modeling; Medeiros et al. 2023a) for in-
terferometric image reconstruction and used it to obtain
a high-fidelity image of the M87 black hole from the 2017
EHT data (Medeiros et al. 2023b). In this approach, we
decompose the image into a set of eigenimages, which
the algorithm “learned” using a very large suite of black-
hole images obtained from general relativistic magneto-
hydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations
Thanks for sharing that paper. I was indeed missing that information and now agree with your earlier statement.
I think them using magnetohydrodynamical black hole models as a base for the ML is a better approach than standard CLEAN though that the Japanese team used. However, both "only" approach reality.
You're welcome. I think calling it the output of an 'AI model' triggers thoughts of the current generative image models, i.e. entirely fictional which is not accurate, but it is important to recognise the difference between an image and a photo.
I also by no means want to downplay the achievement that the image represents, it's an amazing result and deserves the praise. Defending criticism and confirming conclusions will always be vital parts of the scientific method.
I think, at best, it shows that the observations are consistent with the model, or to take it back to the blurry low light photo... The photo wasn't obviously not Trump.
I remember reading the original paper at the time and thinking, if I had been a reviewer I'd have wanted clear acknowledgement of the confirmation bias danger in the methodology. Ideally some sort of quantification of risk. It just seemed like too large a flaw to just be glossed over.
This one really affected me. It's one of the first images from the surface of Mars. I was quite young, and it clicked in me that other planets actually exists and are out there in space.
Deepwater Horizon sinking in the Gulf of Mexico on April 22, 2010.
It caused an equivalent oil spill of 4.9 million barrels and exposed the surrounding wildlife to toxic materials, covering thousands of animals in oil. The cleanup efforts took years.
A prime example of humans messing up this planet for their own gains.
OP’s photo is my favorite, so I will have to mention my second favorite (though calling it a “favorite” feels off).
This photo was taken in 2003 in Iraq. This man is comforting his son. They are being held in an American camp. IIRC to this day we don’t know what happened to these two.
I think if I had to explain the last 25 years to a time-traveler, this would be the one photo I would choose.
On the one hand, very important photo to understand the context of the time.
On the other hand, monstrous that a child going to school was such a big deal and so much attention was focused on her. Can't imagine that making a positive impression on a child.
The little girl in the picture is Ruby Bridges. In 1960, she was one of the first Black kids to integrate a school. In this picture, she is walking to an all-Whites school and the guards are protecting her because the racist white adults wanted to harm her just for wanting to go to school.
Pretty much only the federal agents who were directly ordered to though, most of the rest of them were busy putting the boot on minorities here and everywhere else in the world.
The self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc never fails to amaze me. It's just unreal.
And Antonio Turok's photograph of the 1991 total eclipse of the sun in Chiapas, Mexico. This one because even when I know what an eclipse is and how does it happen, there's a moment in my head when I think "What if it never ends? What if everything stays like this forever?" I see that instant of terror in this photo.
Believe me, that photograph can't be unseen, it's like the Sun itself is watching you, mad at you. Sorry I couldn't find something of better quality to upload.
The "Pale Blue Dot" image of earth taken by Voyager 1. Carl Sagan pushed to have Voyager take a parting shot before they turned off the camera. The earth is about one pixel in size.
WW1 cavalry soldiers who still carried a lance, for charging against infantry.
(Even in the later stage of the war, when they already had steel helmets and gas masks)
It confirmed the cosmic insignificance of Earth, the profound vastness of space and time, and — at the same time — the rarity, beauty, and fragility of life. Human perception, memory, and understanding is tiny. But, it reaches toward infinity.
The method for the color photos is interesting. He used three images with 3 colored filters on them. The film was black and white but when the same color was projected with them and they were added together you got the original colors.
Great post and I really enjoyed the replies. Mine is of Chavez visiting Castro in 2006 in Havanna, as Castro was dying of cancer. Both men were imprisoned for a failed coup but later rose to power (Chavez democratically and Castro by revolutionary liberation of the country), and both men died in a hospital bed in their respective countries in 2013.
There's a good chance the US actually did kill Chavez with a slow-acting poison of some kind. You can find a lot of articles about his rapid deterioration.
They still would have preferred him rotting at Guantanamo, isolated of his loved ones, with Juan Guaido as president of Venezuela, giving away all the oil he could to American companies. I'll take it like a win.
this portrait of Frederick Douglass—an escaped slave who had become a lauded speaker, writer, and abolitionist agitator—is a striking exception. Northeastern Ohio was a center of abolitionism prior to the Civil War, and Douglass knew that this picture, one of an astonishing number that he commissioned or posed for, would be seen by ardent supporters of his campaign to end slavery. Douglass was an intelligent manager of his public image and likely guided Miller in projecting his intensity and sheer force of character. As a result, this portrait demonstrates that Douglass truly appeared “majestic in his wrath,” as the nineteenth-century feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton observed.
“What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.
I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of “stealing the livery of the court of heaven to, serve the devil in.”" - Frederick Douglass
That Christianity of the land, of the South, never went away. Fredrick Douglass is only like 5~ generations away from us today and many churches have never changed from being corrupt and wicked and bad. Denying food to people cutoff by food stamps, closing their giant stadiums during floods, using their God's name to get their congregation to buy them a new private jet, and are right now, using the literal actual (orange) depiction of sloth and gluttony to hurt "the people he needs to be hurting" for them. They still celebrate their kills and there's been a surge of lynchings of black and brown folk.
On a less dreadful note, I know one of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's descendants! I forget how many grands- there are in her lineage, but she is my favorite modern day feminist, the most badass woman I've ever met and am glad to call a friend!
I have many good ones, but i think my favourite is this one:
It's from the famous victory parade in Moscow in 24.06.1945, Japan and USSR were not at war yet, so in a truly masterful trolling stroke, Japan was invited to parade to celebrate defeat of their own allies. On the photo you can see Japanese army colonel and a navy officer (hat visible partially) congratulate marshal Zhukov while French, British and American officers are waiting in line.
The Black Book of Communism was debunked by its own writers. Conquest was described as obsessed with reaching 100 million, and to do so he included Nazis killed during World War II, non-births as deaths, made up numbers, dramatically exaggerated existing events, and more. Citing the 100 million number in the modern day when even those that helped invent that claim have since denounced it isn't particularly historically truthful.
Independent scholars across China, the USSR, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and North Korea all documented millions upon millions upon millions of deaths from engineered famines, purges, forced labor camps, and political executions.
Who are these "independent scholars?" No modern historian using data from the soviet archives, or other such reputable source, believes that there were "engineered famines" in socialist countries. Famine existed, and was in all cases a common phenomenon pre-socialism, ended by the communists. The highest plausible death total from purges in the soviet union is around 700,000, though actual analysis shows that this number is simply those condemned to death, when it was common for the soviets to walk back death condemnations, meaning total executions is far below. The majority of deaths in socialist prisons came from starvation during World War II, when the Nazis took Ukraine, the USSR's bread basket.
Adding on to this, Cambodia's "agrarian communism" isn't recognized by the overwhelming majority of Marxists as actually socialism. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge denounced Marxism, and they worked with the US Empire, being stopped by the Vietnamese communists.
To the contrary, millions of deaths from engineered famines have been proven by capitalists, such as the Bengal Famine by Churchill. Churchill had this to say:
I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits.
There is also the capitalist Nazi Germany, which inflicted the holocaust, murdering tens of millions in around a decade.
Whether the exact total is 60 million, 80 million, or more, the sheer magnitude is confirmed far beyond the Black Book.
The sheer magnitude is confirmed to have been far less both in ratio and in total than capitalism.
Facts: Communist governments were responsible for mass mortality on a historic scale.
To the contrary, communist governments have been responsible for mass uplifting in life expectancy and poverty eradication on a historic scale. From the USSR:
To the PRC:
Communists have been responsible for doubling life expectancy, tripling literacy rates, eradicating poverty, rapidly improving production and distribution, democratizing society, and far more.
These are great. Is there a good place to get hi res print ready files for some of these and other historical noteworthy photos for personal use? Or at least sources that aren't charging 300 dollars for something that is or should be public domain.
I like this one here because it’s the unedited version. As I’m sure you know, you can see the soldier in the bottom right has two watches. It shows how the soviets covered up the looting that their troops did when they reached Berlin.
Another cool historic photo is all those samurai sitting in the sphinx
I ain’t defending nazis! Just pointing out how the Soviet Union edited this photo to make themselves look better
It wasn't even a watch but the wrist compass, they were issued to junior officers and senior NCO's in Red Army, and the soldier in photo was senior NCO.
It was made later since the discussion about photo also only surfaced later. And of course there was some looting, but the punishment for it was harsh, so they might want to protect the soldier in photo just in case someone not familiar with Red Army equipment (or anticommunist propagandists) made the accusation. Remember that even Zhukov was once accused of possessing items from looting and was so scared of that accusation he lived in abject fear for few weeks. Ultimately he wasn't officially accused because he was celebrated war hero, but he was sidelined somewhat, he also never forgiven this which might been a factor in him later joining Khrushchev (Losurdo wrote about it i think).
should’ve just went with “so what”
Right, after horrors Soviet soldiers witnessed in occupied USSR and Poland while marching west i'm quite amazed Germany wasn't completely razed to the ground.
The ones called "tankies" don't believe Stalin never made mistakes or did nothing wrong. We uphold current and formerly existing socialism, such as the USSR, as genuinely progressive movements, and leaders like Stalin as socialist leaders.
Comparing Trump to Stalin is funny, actually, because no matter the mistakes and errors Stalin made over his decades as the leader of the soviet union, he was never a genocidal imperialist. Looking at what the US Empire, helmed presently by Trump, is doing in Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, and the entire global south, it's obvious that Trump is far more of a negative impact on the world.
Of course, Stalin made mistakes, and committed errors, but as the leader of the soviet union helped facilitate doubling of life expectancies, tripling of literacy rates, huge scientific and industrial advancement, free education and healthcare at an expanded access, and more. The soviet union was dramatically better for the workers and peasants than Tsarism, and was better than modern-day capitalism.
Equating the soviet achievements and mistakes entirely to Stalin is also more of a liberal, "great man" critique. Stalin was a leader, yes, but the tremendous gains made by socialism were built by billions of workers and peasants. So too were mistakes and struggles run into along the way. Trying to blame all of the failings of socialism on Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc. is to also place all of their successes on their shoulders. Both are equally wrong frames of analysis.
So yes, "tankies" are just those that uphold existing socialism, not your strawman.
It's a fascinating photo outside of the main subject. The destroyed city, all the people below, and the crowd of people gathered around the T-34-85 tank at the bottom left. So much to look at!
The soviets were absolutely better than the Nazis, the Nazis committed mass genocide and tried to wipe out jewish and slavic peoples. This is teetering into Double Genocide Theory, a form of holocaust trivialization. The soviet union was a massively progressive movement over its history while the Nazis were brutal butchers.
Theres about 5 million dead Ukrainians who died from famine, and a couple million more who died in the gulag who would tell you it ain’t much of an upgrade
Even including famine, and the mass starvations in soviet prisons during World War II (when the Nazis took Ukraine, the USSR's breadbasket), life expectancy doubled in the USSR compared to pre-socialist levels:
Literacy rates went from 20-30% to 99.9%, healthcare and education were made free and dramatically expanded, and Russia itself went from semi-feudal to space in half a century. Socialism was an incredible success, even if there were flaws and struggles along the way.
Establishment of first socialist state, one the most progressive states in history and truly ahead of its times, inspiring countless people and revolutions across the globe
The Hungarian revolt in 1956 was infested with anti-semitic pograms. MI6 funded, supplied, and trained the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries. These counter-revolutionaries were allied with fascists who were lynching Jewish people and Communists. The Truth About Hungary by Herbert Aptheker heavily relies on citing western sources like the New York Times. Aptheker backs up his claims heavily.
"The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. “There is no longer any room for doubt,” said the Yugoslav reporter, “it is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,” continued this writer, "coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways."
"But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing."
"Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements' ...." (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)
"The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary."
"A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:
During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: “Down with Jew Gero!” “Down with Jew Rakosi!” or just simply “down with the Jews!”
Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.” Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."
Further, the CIA also backed Hungarian resistance forces:
Prague in 1968 was a similar fascist uprising in both cases there were some elements of progressive protest, but these were greatly overshadowed by the fascist movements. Dubcek wanted to sell out to the IMF, and restore capitalism. The idea that any of this was about "democracy" or "freedom" is silly, it was always about Cold War tactics to destabilize socialism.
TL;DR imagine if the January 6th rioters were armed and trained by foreign governments, started lynching officials and Jewish people, and the US sent in the army to put down the insurrection. The MAGA chuds would claim that it was about "freedom" and "democracy," but we all know that they just wanted Trump in office.
But let’s assume that all of his claims are true, since both the soviets and the west spied on eachother a lot. So even if MI6 trained some hungarian it had a mere effect compared to the huge grass-roots uprising in various cities by the commoners.
Your source confirms that MI6 aided the fascists. The west took advantage of far-right elements and aided them, they didn't invent new far-right elements. CIA propaganda outlets like Radio Free Europe stoked grassroots resentment against the communists, combined with MI6 training and arming former members of the Arrow Cross Party. This strategy of taking existing levers and massively tilting the scales and facilitating them, forcing more radical action, is the way color revolutions typically play out.
The “fascist elements” author was expelled for a time by the CIA in suspicion of being biased towards the communists.
Reality aligns with the communists, any honest journalist would be found guilty of such bias. Anna Louise Strong was also punished for honestly reporting on the socialist sphere as a Statesian. The CIA and US State Department find it unacceptable when journalists report positively or sympathetically towards communists and socialists, and pull various levers to silence them.
Another CIA document which doesn’t believe there was a rise of fascism.
Former far-right elements made up a portion of the communist government and millitary, as this was only a decade out from World War II. The fact that they were retained doesn't mean they weren't fascists, or that they had pulled a full 180. Just a decade prior, Horther's regime had been gleefully assisting the Nazis, such a complete turnaround is impossible in such a short span of time.
“Anti-semitism was marginal. From sources I checked, anti-semitic acts and various messages did happen and come up (mainly in the countryside), they were more sideline occurences that did not come to shape the overall tone of events.”
Downplaying the infestation of anti-semitic pograms described as especially bad in Hungary. The "freedom fighters" restarted the pograms, and would mark the homes of Jews with black crosses, for nightly executions by the fascists. The fact of the matter is that the counter-revolutionary moment was starting and facilitating pograms, while the communists had stopped them.
Just by seeing how many antisemite people every country has even now, it is reasonable to assume that these incidents weren’t way above than the average. However Stalin and Brezhnev used antisemitism extensively under their rule
Anti-semitism was punishable by death penalty in the USSR, this is largely Red Scare fearmongering. In fact, the soviets were accused of being jewish supremicists, hence the hysteria around "Judeo-Bolshevism." The USSR was the opposite of anti-semitic:
Source: Works, Vol. 13, 1930 - January 1934 Publisher: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954
"National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.
Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle.
Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism. In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty."
J. Stalin January 12, 1931
On the other hand, killing communists by the revolutionaries was definitely a more common thing. Imagine as a young student seeing the Communist Party win with a huge blue ballot election fraud, implementing brutal planned economy tactics which lead to country-wide famine (my grandma as a child seen newspaper as a rich person’s item, life was so brutal), your people being deported to Gulag just because they dared to even question the dictatorship in any way, instilling fear by the ÁVH, political members being executed on false charges, etc. and not having the urges to kill hardliner stalinists with a lead pipe. Ofc killing people are awful, but brutal times can bring out the extremes of some people.
Linking a right-wing anti-communist think tank for the majority of your sources, and cherry picking tragic mistakes in order to justify killing communists is awful. Planned economy aided food production, and fascists were jailed, that doesn't justify murdering leftists.
The soviet prison system was actually very progressive for the time. Mary Stevenson Callcott documented it quite well in Russian Justice. Similarly, the soviet stystem of democracy was dramatically expanded on what came before it, documented by Statesian journalist Pat Sloan in Soviet Democracy. Coming out of World War II, when Hungary had sided with the Nazis and gleefully participated in the holocaust, political struggle was rife. As such, trying to erase the fascist elements from a post-World War II Hungary is a process that takes more than a mere decade (as we see with the reintroduction of lynchings and pograms by the countet-revolutionaries).
That CIA document happened way after 1956, and the CIA was caught in a surprise after the revolution have began. They were only doing small intelligence gathering before that.
The CIA did not spark the revolt, but they assisted with it, as did MI6. As shown earlier, CIA propaganda outlets like Radio Free Europe stoked grassroots resentment against the communists, combined with MI6 training and arming former members of the Arrow Cross Party. This dramatically emboldened the fascists and radicalized them, steering and fostering an environment for counter-revolution.
Also if the CIA would have funded this uprising then the revolter party wouldn’t have been a socialist lead party by Imre Nagy.
The west has a proven track record of supporting liberalization and undermining socialism, which is what Imre Nagy was doing, along with allowing the lynching of Jews and communists. There were progressive elements in Nagy's faction, but these progressive elements were outweighed by the overall fascist nature of the movement, and as such the worker councils established during 1956 need to be understood within that context. Similar to Kronstadt, fascists took advantage of anti-communist "left" dissent to steer a grassroots movement into a darker, terroristic direction.
Overall, your goal here seems to be to downplay antisemitic lynchings, paint lynching communists as a good thing, and try to pretend that the soviets were brutal monsters, all while linking right-wing anti-communist propaganda outlets. This whitewashes literal Nazis. According to polling, 72% of Hungarians are worse off than under socialism, being proud of resisting such a liberatory system is deeply confused.
Silly Cowbee, they said there were only minimal lynchings, Jewish people were only prosecuted to a marginal degree. Don't forget how there's multiple whole wikipedia articles on how Stalin is ebil.
Yea that one bugged me a lot. There were literal nazis let out of prison, and lynchings of Jewish people and communists. Trying to downplay the anti-semitism was sad to see.
Using “counter-revolution”. The definition of a revolution is going against the currently established authority / government. If you imply the 1956 revolution is a counter-revolution, then simply I guess in some way the Communist Party wasn’t the ruling party and never had any power in Hungary despite clearly them having absolute control over it.
This is just phrasemongering. Socialism is revolutionary compared to capitalism, wishing to reinstate capitalism and/or fascism is trying to turn the clock back, ie counter-revolutionary, and serves the bourgeoisie.
Right under that journalist who was willing to provide favorable / biased views a communist leader in change of him being allowed to visit said country in the CIA doc.
Not sure what you're getting at, here.
Aptheker clearly thinks burning communist and communist aligned literature is a vile thing.
He'd be correct.
But when we are talking about cleansing and removing fascistic, everything is quite acceptable then. He would still prefer to see some of the books being present as examples, but clearly he doesn’t find major issues with it, even if he realized this degenerated into a full-scale censorship.
Yes, it's much better to censor fascist literature than communist. You're equating fascism and communism in this point, censorship was employed against fascists and capitalists.
There are some publications which analyzies Apthaker takes coming from the Young Socialist in this example, where he automatically thinks that the Social Democratic Party supported Horthy, because they existed under his regent
The SDP being more friendly to Horthy than the Bolsheviks were to the Tsar isn't unheard of. In Germany, for example, the SPD sided against the KPD and indirectly aided the Nazis in coming to power.
He clearly dismisses and doesn’t talk about how each eastern bloc countries were exploited and it’s resources were straight up funneled into the USSR, with way way less things to receive from them, which only started to turn around way later after Stalin’s death.
He dismisses this because the extent was exaggerated. The RSFSR was more developed, but did not export capital nor did it have any colonies nor neocolonies. Socialism involved lots of trade, and all of the members in the socialist bloc dramatically benefited from socialism. The sheer scale of plunder by capitalism far exceeds the uneveness in the USSR.
The author also presents that he took the Communist Party’s opinion of Laszlo Rajk’s execution as absolute truth with no question, only to be finally changed about this subject.
As a communist, he sided with the predominent opinion among communists, until shown proof of otherwise. Not surprising.
But what about the sources? It seems like he indeed cherry-picks too by using bias far-right sources and fabricated communist sources with no independent verifications.
But what about the sources? It seems like he indeed cherry-picks too by using bias far-right sources and fabricated communist sources with no independent verifications.
Yep, he does use far-right sources, like the New York Times, when they admit inconvenient truths. When capitalists praise communists, this makes it easier to accept than the standard demonization. Further, the idea that non-communist sources, independent and opposed to the system, need to confirm communist sources is deeply misunderstanding how media works. Discrediting a source because ideologically opposed sources don't back it up is false.
What is more damning is that his claim of the initial hours of where the freedom fighters supposedly instantly began to do antisemitic remarks, causing chaos, attacking innocent policeman has no source.
Your own source automatically discredits non-communist sources that back up his claims.
And not only that he states that noone knows who shot into the public at the Parlamient square which is absolutely debunked by now, and it was made by the ÁVH members with some tanks as additional measures.
Much of this article itself is unsourced, and as we know Wikipedia is right-wing biased. Even if this is indeed true, his lack of knowledge doesn't mean he is incorrect.
With so so much bias and willfully keeping off informations, it’s hard to trust any of his statements. One statement can be accepted, that antisemitism were indeed present in 1956, albeit in rural and isolated incidents. A fresher analyisis has a publication on the presence of antisemitism in 1956.
Your own sources were equally biased, and removed information as well. Being biased does not inherently mean incorrect, and your own articled willingly discredited communist-aligned sources.
As we can see these indeed happened, and in really cruel ways, but only in small instances. 4 towns and a few villages compared to the 3184 villages and 58 towns. There are also eyewitness accounts despising antisemite people’s remarks in Budapest by the crowds, but I can’t find sources for these.
Other jewish members aiding the revolution: Donáth Ferenc, István Kovács, György Fazekas, Erika Szeles, István Angyal, Istvan Eörsi, Gábor Földes, József Gáli, Miklós Krassó, László Nickelsburg, Ottó Szirmai
Peter Hidas, your source, was a participant in the 1956 counter-revolution. Hardly an unbiased source, with clear motivations to minimize the pograms. The presence of Jewish people in the counter-revolution does not discredit the fascist nature of it, but again confirm what I always said: there were faux-progressive elements combined with fascist elements in an overall counter-revolution.
While it can be agreed that pre-Stalin era leaders such as Lenin probably wasn’t antisemite, what about Stalin? He murdered a number of high profile jewish politicians, maybe this is just a coincidence, he was a paranoia filled psychopath maniac after all. Khrushchev and other people claimed he having antisemite sentiments, although I don’t know if there are verifications for these. While publicly he stated not being an antisemite, his actions seems suspicious. What about suddenly dissolving a pro-communist JAC in the name of imperialism according to him?. And what about this statement? It just seems convenient to call everyone who you don’t like an american agent or any word. But if he really thought they were american agents, it still specifically hurted jewish communities.
Perhaps the Doctor’s Plot where it so happens to be that a higher percentage of them were jews.
Again, quoting my prior comment:
Anti-semitism was punishable by death penalty in the USSR, this is largely Red Scare fearmongering. In fact, the soviets were accused of being jewish supremicists, hence the hysteria around "Judeo-Bolshevism." The USSR was the opposite of anti-semitic:
Source: Works, Vol. 13, 1930 - January 1934 Publisher: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954
"National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.
Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle.
Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism. In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty."
J. Stalin January 12, 1931
This is teetering into Double Genocide Theory, a form of Holocaust trivialization by painting the soviets as antisemitic. This is really just projection.
Well fascists are still remaining in today’s age, I don’t need to mention on what is happening in USA with Trump and in Russia with Putin. It cannot be argued that Horthy was a controversial person (liberals like I hate him), an antisemite scum, and enacted policies which were fascist, like limiting jews number in pursuing higher education to an X number in 1920, but as the Head of State even having basically absolute power, he barely used his powers when any then present party made legislations and such.
You're running interference for a fascist for not using the state as much as he could have? He was a Nazi collaborator.
Stating that Horthy gleefully assisted the Nazis are incredibly biased, because this was more nuanced than a simple black and white comparison. While in fact he did part with the Nazi regime more than the USSR, a gleefully nazi supporter wouldn’t have banned the Arrow Cross Party.
He sided with the Nazis in World War II and participated in the Holocaust.
Additionally he refused Hitler’s demands when he wanted hungarian troops to help the attack on Checzhoslovakia, took in polish refugees in 1939 when the war broke out and helped them escape to the allied powers if they wished to do so, and only joined the war in 1942. He also wanted to leave from the war in 1944, but he was forced to resign and give power to the banned Arrow Cross Party in threat of his son’s life.
You're again running interference for someone that sided with Hitler and participated in the holocaust.
On the other side Horthy ofc done some other vile things, such as the war crime of the Novi Sad raid, putting jews on forced labor programmes, deporting them to ghettos, etc., but fortunately atleast they weren’t so insane to comply with nazi deportation requests in 1942-44.
Again, trying to minimize Holocaust participation.
In this case he used his executive powers and replaced the then antisemite party in 1944 and stopped the deportation of Jews into nazi territory, but ofc this feels more like a trying to leave the Axis powers, and not feeling the blood of dead jews on his soul.
Horthy never once needed to side with the Nazis, nor participate in the Holocaust.
But let’s go back to the 1956 Revolution. You insist of thinking that the whole Revolution was made entirely or mainly by fascists, so let’s see what kind of leaders were present in this revolution.
I don't insist that, actually. Color revolution typically has some progressive or faux-progressive elements that get steered by fascists.
Imre Nagy -> Main figure of the revolution, former member of the Communist Party (because he was expelled after trying to relax the brutality of stalinist hardliners scums), held socialistic beliefs who was against stalinism and would have let coalition parties to exist in a socialist framework. Executed by Kádár
An anti-communist that wanted to weaken the socialist system, a-la Kronstadt. He was expelled for undermining socialism, not for "trying to relax brutality." Rather than helping Hungary, coalition parties would have likely undermined and destroyed the socialist framework given the intense presence of fascists.
Pál Maléter -> Initially fought with the Axis in WW2, but became a communist and fought against the nazis in Transylvania. Was a member of the Communist Party. He insisted to only support the revolution if it goes against any horthyst restauration efforts.. Executed by Kádár
So a former-Nazi that had a change of heart, but then went the Kronstadt-way similar to Nagy. Willing to destroy socialism.
Miklós Gimes -> Political friend of Imre Nagy. His parents were jews, but he was converted to unitarianism. Founder of Magyar Szabadság. Held socialistic beliefs. Executed by Kádár
Same as the prior 2.
Géza Losonczy -> Was a member of the Communist Party. Held socialistic beliefs. Directed the Communist Party led newspaper called Szabad Nép.
Same as the prior 3.
Zoltán Tildy -> Christian, former member of the Smallholders’ Party. Voted in the 2nd jew legislation, which also limited higher education and factory ownership under an X number. However later he stated that “anti-Semitism was contrary to the principles of humanity, and warned that it began with hatred of Jews and extended to all men”. and created a Holocaust memorial.. There is also another document stating he was present in commemorating jewish victims of the Holocaust. Also he was a part of the antifascist Magyar Front.
Same as the prior 4, former member of a right-wing populist party and former anti-semite.
Béla Kovács -> Also a member of the Smallholders Party. He was participating in anti nazi movements. Anti communist. Soviet authorities deported him and sentenced to 20 years, just because of not supporting the Rákosi regime.
So an outright anti-communist, that the supposed "communists" were willing to work with, simply due to opposing communism. This is why the previous 5 need to be deeply questioned in motive, if they were willing to work with anti-communists to undermine and destroy socialism. This was a member of a right-wing populist party.
Anna Kéthly -> Former member of the Social Democratic Party. Opposed all anti-jewish legislations. She made socialistic articles. Opposed of merging into the Communist Party, and several of the Social Democratic Party members including her were arrested by the communists.
Again, another anti-communist.
József Dudás -> Was a member of the Communist Party before WW2, also was a member of the Smallholders party after WW2. Communist beliefs. He was also a member of the antifascist Magyar Front. Executed by Kádár
Another right-wing populist you claim to have "communist beliefs."
Sándor Kopácsi -> Not jewish, however his parents and himself were anti-fascists and hid and rescued their jewish friends. They saved Katalin Fodor and Mihály Gyarmathy, Pál Fodor, Miklós Világ, László Neumannn and myriad of others. Sándor specifically rescued Ibolya Fried from a ghetto. Source 2
Cool, still working with anti-communists.
Béla Király -> Fought on the Eastern front with the Axis both before the Arrow Cross got into power and after. He guarded a jewish batallion in the Don River, where he gave them warm clothing, decent food, and medical attention. Israel gave him the “Righteous Among the Nations” accolade. Joined the Communist Party. Rákosi regime arrested and tried to hang him due to charges on espionage. Ernő Gerő, a hardliner stalinist paroled him. He is the one who became the leader of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters Federation by the CIA in 1963, where the HFFF was created AFTER the 1956 revolution. You may wish to disprove me that a HFFF existed before 1956, however this certain HFF was made by the hungarian Communist Party and it’s purpose was to train the population, especially with slogans such as “Take your aim at the imperialist enemy! Fire!”. There is no evidence that this HFFF is the same HFFF that Béla became the leader of in 1963
A member of the Axis that collaborated with Nazi Germany and fought for the Arrow Cross Party.
Gergely Pongrátz -> Definitely anti communist, including his parents. Led the Corvin Köz, part of the rebel military after Pál Maléter. He hated his more communist friendly allies, like Maléter Pál, but cooperated with the nevertheless. I didn’t find any specific antismeite or Nazi Germany supporting viewpoints, however he founded the Jobbik party which was undeniably a far-right party in the mid 2000s.
So an outspoken member of the far-right everyone else was willing to work with.
As you can see this leadership groups was pretty varied, but it definitely had way more socialist or communist friendly participants than possible fascists. It would be foolish to label the entire revolution led by fascists only on 1 possible fascist out of the 11 definitely non-fascists and primarily socialist leaders.
To the contrary, I see a ton of right-wing populists, and a few supposed "communists" that were more than willing to work with them, as well as some outright fascists.
Any antisemite killing is vile, but it is important to distunqish if these were systematically planted by XYZ governments, or these were more individual and isolated cases by crazy antisemite individuals. I can also forge that the russian civil war was lead by fascists if I want to, because some sources claims the jews were persecuted in XYZ places by individuals from the Red Army.
The Hungarian fascism was home-grown, not planted, but was emboldened by the west. That's my point. The CIA didn't make Hungary fascist, they helped existing fascists. The fact that the fascism was Hungarian and not entirely from the US doesn't make it better fascism.
But lets go back on Aptheker more then and his book. It is important to know that Aptheker was a soviet apologist communist in the american Communist Party, where this publishment exiled him from said party, which can imply huge bias (as you may call it, a think tank book). Ofc this goes to the other way too. I wouldn’t trust a published book made by a nazi or a far-right article made by Orban, but valuable facts can possibly still be present in these if we can verify it.
Aptheker was a communist, and used sources both from communists and the west. You're again equating communists with Nazis to make a point, but you were more than willing to downplay Horthy's fascism and the Nazi-collaboration of Hungary.
These claims didn’t get any verifications, so it either happened or not. This seems to be why this claim didn’t get much popularity in non-communist cirlces, and with independent historians. If true, they were only able to make modest help, all the insurgencies made in all towns and cities were grass-roots movements. It’s either wishful thinking or a heavy bias if one wants to believe in unverified claims.
The CIA indeed broadcasted the Radio Free Europe, but only after they got surprised when the revolution has happened. It is important to note that foreign involvement only supported the revolution, and didn’t organize it or were physically involved with a bunch of troops such as the USA in the Vietnam war, and the USSR in the Afghan war
RFE began broadcasting its propaganda in 1949. Foreign involvement was in aiding, supplying, and arming the far-right, emboldening them to strike. Nobody is claiming that the west physically invaded Hungary, but instead that they provoked the most violent reactionaries into violence, a tried and true method of Color Revolution.
If you are commenting these to undermine the 1956 revolution, then we can also undermine all the insurgencies / revolutions / civil wars if any foreign involvement got into it, even if it was mainly / only by broadcasting radio signals, like these soviet attempts in regime changes or upholding them, or american attempts.
There's a massive difference between soviet aid for anti-colonial and anti-imperialist forces, and the west arming and supporting fascists. My point isn't that intervention is always bad, but instead that the west intervened in ways that furthered imperialism and fascism while the soviets were liberatory and expanded socialism.
The claims of the Arrow Cross Party being involved in 1956 was a propaganda campaign made on false allegations by János Kádár.. This is the source which contains his speeches where Kádár tried to legitimize his regime found on page 460. He (rightfully) executed Mihaly Francia Kiss, a former White Terror member probably as a legitimization of his propaganda, but there is no mention of him being involved in the 1956 uprising. Not in here either.. Kádár never provided proof for these involved Arrow Cross Party members.
MI6, when training the far-right elements, found despondent Hungarians that were supportive of the previous fascist regime. This included Arrow Cross Party members, but not exclusively, and the idea that no Arrow Cross Party member or supporter took place in the anti-communist violence has no proof whatsoever, while there is evidence of their presence.
Any former Cross Party shadow power was neutered by ÁVH’s action in finding political enemies. Also in 1944-45, these nazi scums were executed as well. You can only stay on this belief, if you assume that the ÁVH was ineffective at this mission.
The ÁVH did fail, that's why so many Nazis in Hungary went unpunished, and why the counter-revolution could have begun in the first place.
So your source says "A colour revolution is a term given to a revolution that appears to be led by the proletariat in search of liberal ideals, but is actually coordinated and funded by imperialist interests. ", and the definition for imperialism saying "It is a global system of economic, political, and military domination, with the imperialist powers using a variety of means, including economic sanctions, military interventions, and cultural influence to maintain their dominance over other nations. " by conveniently saying the non-capitalist can’t be imperialist. Cambridge and Wiki includes every ideology too..
Cambridge and Wikipedia define imperialism through liberal, pro-capitalist analysis. Prolewiki takes Lenin's observations about imperialism, which actually take analysis of imperialism to scientific levels. It's like Wikipedia saying trees are plants and stopping at that, while Lenin goes further into it, describing trunks, leaves, and other common characteristics. Wikipedia and Cambridge are of course liberal biased, heavily so, and since late-stage capitalism necessitates imperialism, it obscures this.
Going by this definition the Rakosi led puppet communist party using proletariat-led like slogans and campaigns which won with the blue ballot election fraud with USSR involvement, common people being exiled to Gulags who dared question the regime and instilling fear via ÁVH, forcing all the eastern bloc countries into the Warsaw Pact, etc. seems pretty imperialistic to me, or an oppressor. Same deal.
Intervention isn't imperialism, nor is imprisoning fascists. Imperialism is specifically about international extractionism, which late-stage capitalism necessitates. You think you've made a point by changing the definition of a word, but taking Prolewiki's definitions consistently, the USSR was not "extractionary imperialist," while the west was.
If you want to call your definition "influence imperialism," then this isn't a bad thing. The Statesian north liberating the slaves in the south would classify as imperialism, as would the soviets winning World War II, as would the PLA liberating Tibet.
Fair enough, even if these said journalists are extremely biased, or going against the establishment (rightfully), a healthy government shouldn’t exile or silence people and their media. Let people have all the free informations they can get. Unfortunately a lot of countries silenced media, like the banned communist books in the USA, Stalin removing any journal, article he doesn’t like, and only allowing movies which aligns with the USSR’s interests. Well these are media, but reality also aligned with non-communists, by showing the truths about Gulags, but Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was exiled there by the USSR. Others: Osip Mandelstam (prison camp), Isaak Babel (executed), Lina Shtern (exiled), etc. Subsequently all the other satellite stated used massive censorship too.
Censorship is employed in all states, by the class in power. It is better for the working classes to restrict the speech of capitalists and fascists than to let them use Radio Free Europe and other such propaganda outlets to spark counter-revolution and tragic bloodshed, but you seem to be arguing that that's a good thing.
Sure! Here are some not “think tank” sources on these subjects! Opposition parties being removed from running in the election due to communist party pressure, soviet troops deporting the secretary of the Smallholders’ Party, blackmailing an elected prime minister into exile, communists being able to vote like 15-20 times aka blue-ballot election fraud, another source
Forcing every peasant into giving their land to coop’s and requiring such an insane plan requirement that didn’t leave you enough seeds to replicate the next harvest as well was a failure
The communists socialized production, and committed an error afterwards. It sounds like you're arguing that production shouldn't be socialized at all, and that socialization caused the error, not the mistakes in calculation. There's good reason crop yields in all socialist countries went up overall post-collectivization.
Fascists were indeed jailed and executed, but you miss the point. The revolution didn’t happen because the communists executed Arrow Cross Party members and such, but because the Communist Party won in a fraud, instilled fears with ÁVH, produced famine due to the failure of collectivization, issued massive censorships, not being able to leave the country as a hungarian, making staged show trials (László Rajk) and conveniently sending anyone who dares to question the government to Gulags, not just straight up fascists.
The counter-revolution happened because lingering fascist elements from a decade ago were emboldened by the west, and while there were some legitimate greivances, the character of the counter-revolt was fascist and western supported. Kinda like what's happening in Iran recently, legitimate greivances twisted into extreme fascist violence. Socialism was amazing for the Hungarian People's Republic overall, achieving astounding economic growth and development.
If we are think tank-ing, then Comrade’s Library is also a think tank source. Hearing the word “progressive” and sending people to work camps only getting 1 soup per day in Siberia, Recsk or other places doesn’t sound too progressive to me.
Comrade's library isn't a source, it's a book repository. That's like debunking a public library as a source when I tell you to read a book housed within it. Soviet prisons were quite progressive overall, and pretending the only ones that existed were the ones in harsher conditions is classic propagandizing, exaggerating extremes and pretending they were the norm. The soviets even abhored using handcuffs as being too barbaric. Read the book.
Yes, I can see that the CIA funded the Radio Free Europe. I have expressed all the others previously.
Then it shouldn't be surprising that it emboldened the fascists, just like Fox News with the Jan 6 rioters in the US Empire.
Both the west and the soviet bloc had a proven track record to support their ideologies or give a huge prestige blow to eachother. Everything was explained earlier, but fascism didn’t outweigh the socialistic ambition of the revolution, especially seen by the leadership and antisemitism being in small isolated incidents.
Fascism absolutely outweighed the minor progressive side, especially considering the "progressive" side still ultimately wanted to liberalize the economy and sell out to the west. This sparked one of the largest migrations of Hungarian Jews out of Hungary since the Holocaust itself.
Overall to me it seems you are upplaying the amount of antisemite, fascist, Horthy sympathizers in the Revolution from an incredibly biased source from Aptheker, who was even removed from his communist party, making up facts, and conveniently not mentioning relevant informations trying to paint the 1956 Revolution as an event made by fascists and the west, and trying to pretend that anyone who questions the Communist Party is a fascist, even if they are socialists and not a hardliner stalinist.
You're downplaying the role of fascism in Hungary, as though they all disappeared after 1956. The fact is, the overwhelming majority of those oppressed by the communists were fascists, hence the widespread pograms and Jewish flight from Hungary.
Anyone who does election fraud, state-wide censorship, sending anyone to work camps, eliminating the option to emigrate, doing propaganda 24/7, and shooting into civilians is a monster to me. Maybe if Lenin wouldn’t have died so early, we wouldn’t have seen the light of stalinism. Who knows.
The fascists were doing worse in Hungary, at a far larger scale. Stalin continued Lenin's legacy. You're confusing the incredibly tumultuous period post-war with the entirety of the socialist experience.
The only good thing I can say about you is that the commie apartment block program was a really great investment, even if they were poor quality, it did make considerable amount of subsidization into these to have something for people to live in, even there was like 6 people in 1 small apartment.
And these massively progressive programs extended to education, healthcare, development, jobs, and more. The fascists wanted to take them all away.
And on the other hand where 47% polish people are living better and 35% are worse isn’t mentioned in Poland’s wiki. How convenient.
Poland is a seperate conversation, and too benefited dramatically from socialism while having serious problems with fascism.
This 72% of are regarding the Kádár era, which is indeed true according from my grandma’s and parents’ statements, however this doesn’t mean that economic life was great all times. At Rákosi people had to resort back to a ticket based system in order to get basic food like bread, where the last ticket system was in WW2 or WW1, mainly due to the force of collectivization and industrializations in an agricultural country with plenty of farmable land.
Nobody ever said economic life was great at all times. Coming out of World War II and dealing with the political instability of lingering fascism was immensely destructive. The Kádár era was better not because Kádár was a better person, but because socialism had had longer to solidify.
Additionally this poll was made in 2009, 3 years after the deviza crisis in Hungary and 1 year after the 2008 bank crisis.
Not many polls regarding socialism are made, further the longer we are removed from the dissolution of socialism in Europe the less reliable polling results become.
Luckily Kádár wasn’t as a hardliner stalinist like Rákosi, but he especially prioritized wellbeing in order to not experience another 1956 again. Life did improve around the mid 60s, especially by abolishing the collectivization efforts. It seems private farmland ownership works better than having everything in the state.
Rákosi also prioritized wellbeing, you can't just snap your fingers in a post-war, post-fascist environment to make things better. Rákosi was more of a hardliner, and this over-reliance on soviet-style economy without adhering to Hungary's conditions did slow growth, but it was still positive. Selling out to the IMF was disastrous, as this contributed to the decline in socialism and its dissolution.
Even if hungarians lived in goulash communism, it was still forbidden to act against the government, critiquing the soviet occupation, talking about 1956, questioning Kádár, etc
Again, simply letting western media have their way with Hungarian public opinion and provoke another 1956 would have been another tragedy.
There were more hospitals, subsidizied house programme, starting to be able to attend vacations, seeing some whitelisted western media, but only those which aligned with communist interests, like the Bud Spencer + Terence Hill movies. (These are simple but pretty entertaining movies, I can easily recommend Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure) We can also thank for the Information Age for better living, where basically all countries improved by it worldwide.
Socialism indeed produced good results for the people, as did the internet.
Unfortunately after the oil crisis, Kádár wasn’t able to retain the current living conditions, so he had to resort into a debt spiral indefinitely. This caused the start of massive inflation, especially after the regime change. Also emerging unemployments
Selling out to the IMF was avoidable, and exactly where even the "progressive" elements in the 1956 counter-revolution were heading. You're arguing for disaster to have come earlier.
Also collectivelly all the eastern bloc countries have lost their companies due to the western items were usually much better, like Trabant, Lada (still exists tho, but not as popular anymore), Ikarus etc. Maybe if we would have remained non-communist, then we would have had more competent companies, who knows.
Building up industry in lesser-industrialized countries took time. China is now overtaking the rest of the world, but it didn't happen overnight. If the Eastern Bloc was never socialist, then they would have had the slower growth they had post-socialism.
EDIT: Atleast we can hopefully agree, that the current monopol corpos such as Google, Amazon, etc. are downright evil.
Sure, I believe that, but it seems that you're more aligned with them than against.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Standing_by_the_Crematory
This one. The cost of any war summarized in one picture.
It's a pity that my app only shows the link text to the photograph instead of the image itself, but I'm glad, in some way, that now I am aware of the existence of such an image of loss. It's pure loss.
The first photo of a black hole is the most historically significant "first photo of x" that happened in my life time and that I actually understood its historical significance when it came out. So I'd say that's probably my favourite.
Not a photo.
It's the output of an AI model trained on simulations of black holes being asked to fill in the gaps from sparse observations.
Nah, the hivemind is being cringe as shit rn.
Recreating an image with Ai is not the same even remotely from capturing raw data directly from a digital sensor and cranking the exposure up.
The Ai is approximating what it sees, digital sensors are not, they don't approximate anything. It's either there or they don't see it.
objective and subjective
Modern phone cameras use AI to fill in the gaps in low light photos.
Your brain uses assumptions to fill in missing data like the blind spot in your retina.
The gateway to the Ai processing is still the sensor used. Modern mirrorless digital cameras can use Ai tools internally, but the starting medium is always what is captured to begin with.
Wasn't the gateway to the black hole image the measurements NASA made?
Its not hard to find that there are legitimate academic criticism of this 'photo'. For example here. The comparison you made is not correct, more like I gave a blurry photo to an AI trained on paintings of Donald Trump and asked it to make an image of him. Even if the original image was not of Trump, the chances are the output will be because that's all the model was trained on.
This is the trouble with using this as 'proof' that the. Theory and the simulations are correct, because while that is still likely, there is a feedback loop causing confirmation bias here, especially when people refer to this image as a 'photo'.
This is one team that disagrees out of many that agree.
To explain what you are seeing. The above image is the inverse Fourier transform (FT) of different frequencies of sinus waves that compose an image.
The very large baseline interferometer (VLBI) applied in the event horizon telescope (EHT) is using different telescopes all over the world, in a technique called interferometry, to achieve high enough resolutions to observe different frequencies in Fourier space that make up an image. If you observe all, you can recreate the full image perfectly. They did not, they observed for a long time and thus got a hefty amount of these "spatial" frequencies. Then they use techniques that limit the image to physical reality (e.g. no negative intensities/fluxes) and clean it from artefacts. Then transform it to image space (via the inverse FT)
Thereby, they get an actual image that approximates reality. There is no AI used at all. The researchers from Japan argued for different approach to the data, getting a slightly different inclination in that image. This may well be as the data is still too few to 100 % determine the shape, but looks more to me like they chose very different assumptions (which many other researchers do not agree with).
Edit: They did use ML for simulations to compare their sampling of the Fourier space to.
Most of what you said is correct but there is a final step you are missing, the image is not entirely constructed from raw data. The interferometry data is sparse and the 'gaps' are filled with mathematical solutions from theoretical models, and using statistical models trained on simulation data.
Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.10322
Thanks for sharing that paper. I was indeed missing that information and now agree with your earlier statement.
I think them using magnetohydrodynamical black hole models as a base for the ML is a better approach than standard CLEAN though that the Japanese team used. However, both "only" approach reality.
You're welcome. I think calling it the output of an 'AI model' triggers thoughts of the current generative image models, i.e. entirely fictional which is not accurate, but it is important to recognise the difference between an image and a photo.
I also by no means want to downplay the achievement that the image represents, it's an amazing result and deserves the praise. Defending criticism and confirming conclusions will always be vital parts of the scientific method.
I think, at best, it shows that the observations are consistent with the model, or to take it back to the blurry low light photo... The photo wasn't obviously not Trump.
I remember reading the original paper at the time and thinking, if I had been a reviewer I'd have wanted clear acknowledgement of the confirmation bias danger in the methodology. Ideally some sort of quantification of risk. It just seemed like too large a flaw to just be glossed over.
What do you mean AI? This is an interferometric Image reconstructed from information of the very large baseline interferometer (VLBI).
Edit: Although I wouldn't call it AI, they used machine learning (ML) with simulations in their image reconstruction, so I agree
I don't mean LLM. I mean a specific ML model for the job, but still trained off simulations.
Had some conversation with another commenter, I agree with you now. Cheers
Malcolm X holding an M2, looking cool as hell
Bad trigger discipline though
First moon landing. It shows what we are capable of
We can go further. We need to support science and dream.
We already have. We have pictures. Oh you mean flying there like Peter Pan and living a Star Trek life? Never going to happen.
Correct picture would be this one
context
Kubrick can make good movies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw
I heard that Kubrick was such a perfectionist, he insisted they shot on location.
Good one.
srsly go back on facebook
I really should have added that /j, eh?
you cannot imagine my ptsd from these people/bots. mb. and it was actually spielberg
It is hard to pick one, but this photo has always stuck with me. That is a picture from the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression.
The series of pictures apparently inspired Peter Gabriel for the song "don't give up".
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VjEq-r2agqc
This one really affected me. It's one of the first images from the surface of Mars. I was quite young, and it clicked in me that other planets actually exists and are out there in space.
It reminds me of places like the Nevada desert.
Deepwater Horizon sinking in the Gulf of Mexico on April 22, 2010.
It caused an equivalent oil spill of 4.9 million barrels and exposed the surrounding wildlife to toxic materials, covering thousands of animals in oil. The cleanup efforts took years.
A prime example of humans messing up this planet for their own gains.
Oil executives aren't humans
dehumanizing people never leads to something good.
Looks like a screencap from District 9 or some other Sci-Fi movie
OP’s photo is my favorite, so I will have to mention my second favorite (though calling it a “favorite” feels off).
This photo was taken in 2003 in Iraq. This man is comforting his son. They are being held in an American camp. IIRC to this day we don’t know what happened to these two.
I think if I had to explain the last 25 years to a time-traveler, this would be the one photo I would choose.
Had never seen that one. Powerful.
Neocons have been dehumanising Arabs for a very long time.
US Liberals are still doing it to this day. One of their heroes, Obama, dropped an average of 80 bombs per day on the ME and North Africa.
The terror of war.
Nobody wins in war, and I hate how angry this photo makes me feel.
True, and admirable. But the cost of winning, even if losing isn't an option, is still loss.
So many people lost.
Yeah true. It's fucking sick. Can't really say it any other way.
Don't forget napalm and defoliants.
President Taft riding a water buffalo. Always gives me a chuckle.
Margaret Hamilton standing next to listings of the software that she and her MIT team produced for the Apollo Project.
I love her, and the code she used is adorable:
"LOL Memory" (Core Rope): The code was literally woven into hardware by women in factories, dubbed "Little Old Lady" memory.
6-year old Ruby Bridges walking to school.
This picture was always so powerful to me. I think I had that one famous illustrated storybook about Ruby Bridges.
On the one hand, very important photo to understand the context of the time.
On the other hand, monstrous that a child going to school was such a big deal and so much attention was focused on her. Can't imagine that making a positive impression on a child.
What's the context for this? What country?
This is in the United States, during segregation.
The little girl in the picture is Ruby Bridges. In 1960, she was one of the first Black kids to integrate a school. In this picture, she is walking to an all-Whites school and the guards are protecting her because the racist white adults wanted to harm her just for wanting to go to school.
Ruby Bridges is still alive today.
Thanks. Did you just expect everyone to just know this when you posted the photo?
You guys have such a crazy history. And present.
It's a very famous photo here.
Not here
wouldn't really expect it to be
Cheers. 1960... it blows my mind.
When federal agents were actually protecting minorities.
Pretty much only the federal agents who were directly ordered to though, most of the rest of them were busy putting the boot on minorities here and everywhere else in the world.
yeah this is the era of COINTELPRO, they were only helping minorities while on camera
Oooh that's a good one!
I read about Ruby Bridges when I was a child in NZ, it made a huge impression on me.
Free Huey is a great one:
Maybe that time a dove landed on Fidel's shoulder during a speech right after the victory of the Cuban revolution.
The self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc never fails to amaze me. It's just unreal.
And Antonio Turok's photograph of the 1991 total eclipse of the sun in Chiapas, Mexico. This one because even when I know what an eclipse is and how does it happen, there's a moment in my head when I think "What if it never ends? What if everything stays like this forever?" I see that instant of terror in this photo.
First time I'm seeing the second one, that's amazing, thanks for sharing.
Believe me, that photograph can't be unseen, it's like the Sun itself is watching you, mad at you. Sorry I couldn't find something of better quality to upload.
The "Pale Blue Dot" image of earth taken by Voyager 1. Carl Sagan pushed to have Voyager take a parting shot before they turned off the camera. The earth is about one pixel in size.
This one always makes me melancholic:
Such a big turning point in time, captured on a photograph.
Is that Batman on a horse?
Batman on his bathorse
What's an orse and why does it need a bath?
I’d have guessed emperor Wilhelm II, but it seems to just be a German officer.
Similar ones:
WW1 cavalry soldiers who still carried a lance, for charging against infantry.
(Even in the later stage of the war, when they already had steel helmets and gas masks)
It's especially crazy that this is like .001% of the sky.
Oh, it's much, much, much less than that.
0.0000416%, 1/24 millionth of the sky.
Here, a .gif on Reddit
It confirmed the cosmic insignificance of Earth, the profound vastness of space and time, and — at the same time — the rarity, beauty, and fragility of life. Human perception, memory, and understanding is tiny. But, it reaches toward infinity.
This is Emir Seyyid Mir Mohammed Alim Khan, the last Emir of Bukhara.
The emirate existed from 1785
This is a pre-WW1 colored photograph (1911) by Prokudin-Gorsky
Great choice. I love his pictures, they look so good, it’s as if he had traveled back in time with a digital camera.
The method for the color photos is interesting. He used three images with 3 colored filters on them. The film was black and white but when the same color was projected with them and they were added together you got the original colors.
All of the photos taken by Prokudin-Gorsky are incrediblely breath taking
Great post and I really enjoyed the replies. Mine is of Chavez visiting Castro in 2006 in Havanna, as Castro was dying of cancer. Both men were imprisoned for a failed coup but later rose to power (Chavez democratically and Castro by revolutionary liberation of the country), and both men died in a hospital bed in their respective countries in 2013.
A fact the US bitterly weeps about still
There's a good chance the US actually did kill Chavez with a slow-acting poison of some kind. You can find a lot of articles about his rapid deterioration.
Well that fucking sucks.
They still would have preferred him rotting at Guantanamo, isolated of his loved ones, with Juan Guaido as president of Venezuela, giving away all the oil he could to American companies. I'll take it like a win.
Indeed! Castro famously opted for a moral vest over kevlar when visiting the US.
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/145681/frederick-douglass
“What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other.
I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of “stealing the livery of the court of heaven to, serve the devil in.”" - Frederick Douglass
That Christianity of the land, of the South, never went away. Fredrick Douglass is only like 5~ generations away from us today and many churches have never changed from being corrupt and wicked and bad. Denying food to people cutoff by food stamps, closing their giant stadiums during floods, using their God's name to get their congregation to buy them a new private jet, and are right now, using the literal actual (orange) depiction of sloth and gluttony to hurt "the people he needs to be hurting" for them. They still celebrate their kills and there's been a surge of lynchings of black and brown folk.
On a less dreadful note, I know one of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's descendants! I forget how many grands- there are in her lineage, but she is my favorite modern day feminist, the most badass woman I've ever met and am glad to call a friend!
That's an incredible quote. I still need to read more Douglass. Thank you!
Also, nice turn toward the positive there at the end.
Called "Earthrise", taken during the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968. Always tried to imagine what it was like to have had that view IRL.
I have many good ones, but i think my favourite is this one:
It's from the famous victory parade in Moscow in 24.06.1945, Japan and USSR were not at war yet, so in a truly masterful trolling stroke, Japan was invited to parade to celebrate defeat of their own allies. On the photo you can see Japanese army colonel and a navy officer (hat visible partially) congratulate marshal Zhukov while French, British and American officers are waiting in line.
As of why, it never fail to make me smile.
Yury Gagarin and Gina Lollobrigida. First man into space and one of the most famous actresses back then.
Because it's a nice innocent photo of a man walking with nobody on his left side.
Just a random man, no one important in particular.
It doesn't look like anything to me, comrade.
The Socialist Fraternal Kiss
"Thanks comrade. But are you sure we're supposed to use our tongues?"
"I'm sure they were just good friends"
All photos are historical photos. That's a lot to choose from.
Only photos that made history are historical
If they made history, then they are historic, not historical. Well, they're historical too, to be fair.
Communists defeated fascism.
We won 20th century.
We will win 21st century.
Seeing how things are now, I don't think communists can take much more of this winning
The Black Book of Communism was debunked by its own writers. Conquest was described as obsessed with reaching 100 million, and to do so he included Nazis killed during World War II, non-births as deaths, made up numbers, dramatically exaggerated existing events, and more. Citing the 100 million number in the modern day when even those that helped invent that claim have since denounced it isn't particularly historically truthful.
Who are these "independent scholars?" No modern historian using data from the soviet archives, or other such reputable source, believes that there were "engineered famines" in socialist countries. Famine existed, and was in all cases a common phenomenon pre-socialism, ended by the communists. The highest plausible death total from purges in the soviet union is around 700,000, though actual analysis shows that this number is simply those condemned to death, when it was common for the soviets to walk back death condemnations, meaning total executions is far below. The majority of deaths in socialist prisons came from starvation during World War II, when the Nazis took Ukraine, the USSR's bread basket.
Adding on to this, Cambodia's "agrarian communism" isn't recognized by the overwhelming majority of Marxists as actually socialism. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge denounced Marxism, and they worked with the US Empire, being stopped by the Vietnamese communists.
To the contrary, millions of deaths from engineered famines have been proven by capitalists, such as the Bengal Famine by Churchill. Churchill had this to say:
There is also the capitalist Nazi Germany, which inflicted the holocaust, murdering tens of millions in around a decade.
The sheer magnitude is confirmed to have been far less both in ratio and in total than capitalism.
To the contrary, communist governments have been responsible for mass uplifting in life expectancy and poverty eradication on a historic scale. From the USSR:
To the PRC:
Communists have been responsible for doubling life expectancy, tripling literacy rates, eradicating poverty, rapidly improving production and distribution, democratizing society, and far more.
I like pictures with bright colors in them.
To me that's a sign towards a bright present and future.
All those war, hunger and oppression photos just depress me.
I'm stuck on that too. It almost looks like a projection of the curtains and of the people. Are those real?
I can't think of a great historical photo right now but I'm loving this thread
These are great. Is there a good place to get hi res print ready files for some of these and other historical noteworthy photos for personal use? Or at least sources that aren't charging 300 dollars for something that is or should be public domain.
I like this one here because it’s the unedited version. As I’m sure you know, you can see the soldier in the bottom right has two watches. It shows how the soviets covered up the looting that their troops did when they reached Berlin.
Another cool historic photo is all those samurai sitting in the sphinx
I ain’t defending nazis! Just pointing out how the Soviet Union edited this photo to make themselves look better
I suppose if the Nazis didn't want their capital looted they shouldn't have tried to exterminate poor former peasants.
It wasn't even a watch but the wrist compass, they were issued to junior officers and senior NCO's in Red Army, and the soldier in photo was senior NCO.
Iirc that's an explanation made up later. I don't see why it mattered enough to try to edit out though, should've just went with "so what"
It was made later since the discussion about photo also only surfaced later. And of course there was some looting, but the punishment for it was harsh, so they might want to protect the soldier in photo just in case someone not familiar with Red Army equipment (or anticommunist propagandists) made the accusation. Remember that even Zhukov was once accused of possessing items from looting and was so scared of that accusation he lived in abject fear for few weeks. Ultimately he wasn't officially accused because he was celebrated war hero, but he was sidelined somewhat, he also never forgiven this which might been a factor in him later joining Khrushchev (Losurdo wrote about it i think).
Right, after horrors Soviet soldiers witnessed in occupied USSR and Poland while marching west i'm quite amazed Germany wasn't completely razed to the ground.
My God the copium.
Regardless of what the object on this man's wrist is. The Soviet Union edited the image to remove it to cover up the fact that looting was happening.
Your brain on anticommunism: "there was no looting involved but they hidden the looting anyways".
There's liberalism and there's being a dronie.
Don't be a dronie.
Go back to reddit
"Tankie" isn't a position, it's a pejorative for those that support and uphold existing socialism.
It's a pejorative for anyone to the left of the western liberal using it.
The ones called "tankies" don't believe Stalin never made mistakes or did nothing wrong. We uphold current and formerly existing socialism, such as the USSR, as genuinely progressive movements, and leaders like Stalin as socialist leaders.
Comparing Trump to Stalin is funny, actually, because no matter the mistakes and errors Stalin made over his decades as the leader of the soviet union, he was never a genocidal imperialist. Looking at what the US Empire, helmed presently by Trump, is doing in Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, and the entire global south, it's obvious that Trump is far more of a negative impact on the world.
Of course, Stalin made mistakes, and committed errors, but as the leader of the soviet union helped facilitate doubling of life expectancies, tripling of literacy rates, huge scientific and industrial advancement, free education and healthcare at an expanded access, and more. The soviet union was dramatically better for the workers and peasants than Tsarism, and was better than modern-day capitalism.
Equating the soviet achievements and mistakes entirely to Stalin is also more of a liberal, "great man" critique. Stalin was a leader, yes, but the tremendous gains made by socialism were built by billions of workers and peasants. So too were mistakes and struggles run into along the way. Trying to blame all of the failings of socialism on Stalin, Mao, Castro, etc. is to also place all of their successes on their shoulders. Both are equally wrong frames of analysis.
So yes, "tankies" are just those that uphold existing socialism, not your strawman.
It's a fascinating photo outside of the main subject. The destroyed city, all the people below, and the crowd of people gathered around the T-34-85 tank at the bottom left. So much to look at!
The soviets were absolutely better than the Nazis, the Nazis committed mass genocide and tried to wipe out jewish and slavic peoples. This is teetering into Double Genocide Theory, a form of holocaust trivialization. The soviet union was a massively progressive movement over its history while the Nazis were brutal butchers.
Theres about 5 million dead Ukrainians who died from famine, and a couple million more who died in the gulag who would tell you it ain’t much of an upgrade
Oh you mean from the larger Soviet famine?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%931933
Even including famine, and the mass starvations in soviet prisons during World War II (when the Nazis took Ukraine, the USSR's breadbasket), life expectancy doubled in the USSR compared to pre-socialist levels:
Literacy rates went from 20-30% to 99.9%, healthcare and education were made free and dramatically expanded, and Russia itself went from semi-feudal to space in half a century. Socialism was an incredible success, even if there were flaws and struggles along the way.
Establishment of first socialist state, one the most progressive states in history and truly ahead of its times, inspiring countless people and revolutions across the globe
It hasn't happened yet. Not much longer though maybe 10 years at most.
The Hungarian revolt in 1956 was infested with anti-semitic pograms. MI6 funded, supplied, and trained the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries. These counter-revolutionaries were allied with fascists who were lynching Jewish people and Communists. The Truth About Hungary by Herbert Aptheker heavily relies on citing western sources like the New York Times. Aptheker backs up his claims heavily.
Further, the CIA also backed Hungarian resistance forces:
Prague in 1968 was a similar fascist uprising in both cases there were some elements of progressive protest, but these were greatly overshadowed by the fascist movements. Dubcek wanted to sell out to the IMF, and restore capitalism. The idea that any of this was about "democracy" or "freedom" is silly, it was always about Cold War tactics to destabilize socialism.
TL;DR imagine if the January 6th rioters were armed and trained by foreign governments, started lynching officials and Jewish people, and the US sent in the army to put down the insurrection. The MAGA chuds would claim that it was about "freedom" and "democracy," but we all know that they just wanted Trump in office.
That would be very interesting, yes I would be! And welcome back, comrade!
Your source confirms that MI6 aided the fascists. The west took advantage of far-right elements and aided them, they didn't invent new far-right elements. CIA propaganda outlets like Radio Free Europe stoked grassroots resentment against the communists, combined with MI6 training and arming former members of the Arrow Cross Party. This strategy of taking existing levers and massively tilting the scales and facilitating them, forcing more radical action, is the way color revolutions typically play out.
Reality aligns with the communists, any honest journalist would be found guilty of such bias. Anna Louise Strong was also punished for honestly reporting on the socialist sphere as a Statesian. The CIA and US State Department find it unacceptable when journalists report positively or sympathetically towards communists and socialists, and pull various levers to silence them.
Former far-right elements made up a portion of the communist government and millitary, as this was only a decade out from World War II. The fact that they were retained doesn't mean they weren't fascists, or that they had pulled a full 180. Just a decade prior, Horther's regime had been gleefully assisting the Nazis, such a complete turnaround is impossible in such a short span of time.
Downplaying the infestation of anti-semitic pograms described as especially bad in Hungary. The "freedom fighters" restarted the pograms, and would mark the homes of Jews with black crosses, for nightly executions by the fascists. The fact of the matter is that the counter-revolutionary moment was starting and facilitating pograms, while the communists had stopped them.
Anti-semitism was punishable by death penalty in the USSR, this is largely Red Scare fearmongering. In fact, the soviets were accused of being jewish supremicists, hence the hysteria around "Judeo-Bolshevism." The USSR was the opposite of anti-semitic:
Source: Works, Vol. 13, 1930 - January 1934 Publisher: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954
Linking a right-wing anti-communist think tank for the majority of your sources, and cherry picking tragic mistakes in order to justify killing communists is awful. Planned economy aided food production, and fascists were jailed, that doesn't justify murdering leftists.
The soviet prison system was actually very progressive for the time. Mary Stevenson Callcott documented it quite well in Russian Justice. Similarly, the soviet stystem of democracy was dramatically expanded on what came before it, documented by Statesian journalist Pat Sloan in Soviet Democracy. Coming out of World War II, when Hungary had sided with the Nazis and gleefully participated in the holocaust, political struggle was rife. As such, trying to erase the fascist elements from a post-World War II Hungary is a process that takes more than a mere decade (as we see with the reintroduction of lynchings and pograms by the countet-revolutionaries).
The CIA did not spark the revolt, but they assisted with it, as did MI6. As shown earlier, CIA propaganda outlets like Radio Free Europe stoked grassroots resentment against the communists, combined with MI6 training and arming former members of the Arrow Cross Party. This dramatically emboldened the fascists and radicalized them, steering and fostering an environment for counter-revolution.
The west has a proven track record of supporting liberalization and undermining socialism, which is what Imre Nagy was doing, along with allowing the lynching of Jews and communists. There were progressive elements in Nagy's faction, but these progressive elements were outweighed by the overall fascist nature of the movement, and as such the worker councils established during 1956 need to be understood within that context. Similar to Kronstadt, fascists took advantage of anti-communist "left" dissent to steer a grassroots movement into a darker, terroristic direction.
Overall, your goal here seems to be to downplay antisemitic lynchings, paint lynching communists as a good thing, and try to pretend that the soviets were brutal monsters, all while linking right-wing anti-communist propaganda outlets. This whitewashes literal Nazis. According to polling, 72% of Hungarians are worse off than under socialism, being proud of resisting such a liberatory system is deeply confused.
Silly Cowbee, they said there were only minimal lynchings, Jewish people were only prosecuted to a marginal degree. Don't forget how there's multiple whole wikipedia articles on how Stalin is ebil.
Yea that one bugged me a lot. There were literal nazis let out of prison, and lynchings of Jewish people and communists. Trying to downplay the anti-semitism was sad to see.
This is just phrasemongering. Socialism is revolutionary compared to capitalism, wishing to reinstate capitalism and/or fascism is trying to turn the clock back, ie counter-revolutionary, and serves the bourgeoisie.
Not sure what you're getting at, here.
He'd be correct.
Yes, it's much better to censor fascist literature than communist. You're equating fascism and communism in this point, censorship was employed against fascists and capitalists.
The SDP being more friendly to Horthy than the Bolsheviks were to the Tsar isn't unheard of. In Germany, for example, the SPD sided against the KPD and indirectly aided the Nazis in coming to power.
He dismisses this because the extent was exaggerated. The RSFSR was more developed, but did not export capital nor did it have any colonies nor neocolonies. Socialism involved lots of trade, and all of the members in the socialist bloc dramatically benefited from socialism. The sheer scale of plunder by capitalism far exceeds the uneveness in the USSR.
As a communist, he sided with the predominent opinion among communists, until shown proof of otherwise. Not surprising.
Yep, he does use far-right sources, like the New York Times, when they admit inconvenient truths. When capitalists praise communists, this makes it easier to accept than the standard demonization. Further, the idea that non-communist sources, independent and opposed to the system, need to confirm communist sources is deeply misunderstanding how media works. Discrediting a source because ideologically opposed sources don't back it up is false.
Your own source automatically discredits non-communist sources that back up his claims.
Much of this article itself is unsourced, and as we know Wikipedia is right-wing biased. Even if this is indeed true, his lack of knowledge doesn't mean he is incorrect.
Your own sources were equally biased, and removed information as well. Being biased does not inherently mean incorrect, and your own articled willingly discredited communist-aligned sources.
Peter Hidas, your source, was a participant in the 1956 counter-revolution. Hardly an unbiased source, with clear motivations to minimize the pograms. The presence of Jewish people in the counter-revolution does not discredit the fascist nature of it, but again confirm what I always said: there were faux-progressive elements combined with fascist elements in an overall counter-revolution.
Again, quoting my prior comment:
Anti-semitism was punishable by death penalty in the USSR, this is largely Red Scare fearmongering. In fact, the soviets were accused of being jewish supremicists, hence the hysteria around "Judeo-Bolshevism." The USSR was the opposite of anti-semitic:
Source: Works, Vol. 13, 1930 - January 1934 Publisher: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954
This is teetering into Double Genocide Theory, a form of Holocaust trivialization by painting the soviets as antisemitic. This is really just projection.
You're running interference for a fascist for not using the state as much as he could have? He was a Nazi collaborator.
He sided with the Nazis in World War II and participated in the Holocaust.
You're again running interference for someone that sided with Hitler and participated in the holocaust.
Again, trying to minimize Holocaust participation.
Horthy never once needed to side with the Nazis, nor participate in the Holocaust.
I don't insist that, actually. Color revolution typically has some progressive or faux-progressive elements that get steered by fascists.
An anti-communist that wanted to weaken the socialist system, a-la Kronstadt. He was expelled for undermining socialism, not for "trying to relax brutality." Rather than helping Hungary, coalition parties would have likely undermined and destroyed the socialist framework given the intense presence of fascists.
So a former-Nazi that had a change of heart, but then went the Kronstadt-way similar to Nagy. Willing to destroy socialism.
Same as the prior 2.
Same as the prior 3.
Same as the prior 4, former member of a right-wing populist party and former anti-semite.
So an outright anti-communist, that the supposed "communists" were willing to work with, simply due to opposing communism. This is why the previous 5 need to be deeply questioned in motive, if they were willing to work with anti-communists to undermine and destroy socialism. This was a member of a right-wing populist party.
Again, another anti-communist.
Another right-wing populist you claim to have "communist beliefs."
Cool, still working with anti-communists.
A member of the Axis that collaborated with Nazi Germany and fought for the Arrow Cross Party.
So an outspoken member of the far-right everyone else was willing to work with.
To the contrary, I see a ton of right-wing populists, and a few supposed "communists" that were more than willing to work with them, as well as some outright fascists.
The Hungarian fascism was home-grown, not planted, but was emboldened by the west. That's my point. The CIA didn't make Hungary fascist, they helped existing fascists. The fact that the fascism was Hungarian and not entirely from the US doesn't make it better fascism.
Aptheker was a communist, and used sources both from communists and the west. You're again equating communists with Nazis to make a point, but you were more than willing to downplay Horthy's fascism and the Nazi-collaboration of Hungary.
MI6 trained and both MI6 and the CIA supplied arms for the Fifth Column elements in Hungary. This is a common tactic, these "stay behind" operations and mechanisms for arming far-right death squads was the basis of Operation Gladio.
RFE began broadcasting its propaganda in 1949. Foreign involvement was in aiding, supplying, and arming the far-right, emboldening them to strike. Nobody is claiming that the west physically invaded Hungary, but instead that they provoked the most violent reactionaries into violence, a tried and true method of Color Revolution.
There's a massive difference between soviet aid for anti-colonial and anti-imperialist forces, and the west arming and supporting fascists. My point isn't that intervention is always bad, but instead that the west intervened in ways that furthered imperialism and fascism while the soviets were liberatory and expanded socialism.
MI6, when training the far-right elements, found despondent Hungarians that were supportive of the previous fascist regime. This included Arrow Cross Party members, but not exclusively, and the idea that no Arrow Cross Party member or supporter took place in the anti-communist violence has no proof whatsoever, while there is evidence of their presence.
The ÁVH did fail, that's why so many Nazis in Hungary went unpunished, and why the counter-revolution could have begun in the first place.
Cambridge and Wikipedia define imperialism through liberal, pro-capitalist analysis. Prolewiki takes Lenin's observations about imperialism, which actually take analysis of imperialism to scientific levels. It's like Wikipedia saying trees are plants and stopping at that, while Lenin goes further into it, describing trunks, leaves, and other common characteristics. Wikipedia and Cambridge are of course liberal biased, heavily so, and since late-stage capitalism necessitates imperialism, it obscures this.
Intervention isn't imperialism, nor is imprisoning fascists. Imperialism is specifically about international extractionism, which late-stage capitalism necessitates. You think you've made a point by changing the definition of a word, but taking Prolewiki's definitions consistently, the USSR was not "extractionary imperialist," while the west was.
If you want to call your definition "influence imperialism," then this isn't a bad thing. The Statesian north liberating the slaves in the south would classify as imperialism, as would the soviets winning World War II, as would the PLA liberating Tibet.
Censorship is employed in all states, by the class in power. It is better for the working classes to restrict the speech of capitalists and fascists than to let them use Radio Free Europe and other such propaganda outlets to spark counter-revolution and tragic bloodshed, but you seem to be arguing that that's a good thing.
NYT is a capitalist propaganda rag too, though. They've been called out numerous times for willingly participating in pro-imperialist narratives, especially in Palestine recently.
The communists socialized production, and committed an error afterwards. It sounds like you're arguing that production shouldn't be socialized at all, and that socialization caused the error, not the mistakes in calculation. There's good reason crop yields in all socialist countries went up overall post-collectivization.
The counter-revolution happened because lingering fascist elements from a decade ago were emboldened by the west, and while there were some legitimate greivances, the character of the counter-revolt was fascist and western supported. Kinda like what's happening in Iran recently, legitimate greivances twisted into extreme fascist violence. Socialism was amazing for the Hungarian People's Republic overall, achieving astounding economic growth and development.
Comrade's library isn't a source, it's a book repository. That's like debunking a public library as a source when I tell you to read a book housed within it. Soviet prisons were quite progressive overall, and pretending the only ones that existed were the ones in harsher conditions is classic propagandizing, exaggerating extremes and pretending they were the norm. The soviets even abhored using handcuffs as being too barbaric. Read the book.
Then it shouldn't be surprising that it emboldened the fascists, just like Fox News with the Jan 6 rioters in the US Empire.
Fascism absolutely outweighed the minor progressive side, especially considering the "progressive" side still ultimately wanted to liberalize the economy and sell out to the west. This sparked one of the largest migrations of Hungarian Jews out of Hungary since the Holocaust itself.
You're downplaying the role of fascism in Hungary, as though they all disappeared after 1956. The fact is, the overwhelming majority of those oppressed by the communists were fascists, hence the widespread pograms and Jewish flight from Hungary.
The fascists were doing worse in Hungary, at a far larger scale. Stalin continued Lenin's legacy. You're confusing the incredibly tumultuous period post-war with the entirety of the socialist experience.
And these massively progressive programs extended to education, healthcare, development, jobs, and more. The fascists wanted to take them all away.
Poland is a seperate conversation, and too benefited dramatically from socialism while having serious problems with fascism.
Nobody ever said economic life was great at all times. Coming out of World War II and dealing with the political instability of lingering fascism was immensely destructive. The Kádár era was better not because Kádár was a better person, but because socialism had had longer to solidify.
Not many polls regarding socialism are made, further the longer we are removed from the dissolution of socialism in Europe the less reliable polling results become.
Rákosi also prioritized wellbeing, you can't just snap your fingers in a post-war, post-fascist environment to make things better. Rákosi was more of a hardliner, and this over-reliance on soviet-style economy without adhering to Hungary's conditions did slow growth, but it was still positive. Selling out to the IMF was disastrous, as this contributed to the decline in socialism and its dissolution.
Again, simply letting western media have their way with Hungarian public opinion and provoke another 1956 would have been another tragedy.
Socialism indeed produced good results for the people, as did the internet.
Selling out to the IMF was avoidable, and exactly where even the "progressive" elements in the 1956 counter-revolution were heading. You're arguing for disaster to have come earlier.
Building up industry in lesser-industrialized countries took time. China is now overtaking the rest of the world, but it didn't happen overnight. If the Eastern Bloc was never socialist, then they would have had the slower growth they had post-socialism.
Sure, I believe that, but it seems that you're more aligned with them than against.