Erika Hall: I studied it. I visited it. It was bad. The Russian Federation never really had a chance given that the only functional institutions were networks of secret police/cronies/criminals and the homegrown social sciences had been utterly corrupted by ideology.

Your regular reminder that I personally loathe Noam Chomsky for the reprehensible things he said in apologia for the Khmer Rouge - and has never really taken back. He was no friend to the Cambodian people. (Not to mention his stance on Ukraine).

Makes me sad that folks on the left like him, ngl.

It does indicate someone who perhaps has not done nearly as much research as they like to think they have

It's a bit funny because how quick the left usually is to cut people loose for failing purity tests, but there's always the few who manage to get into the state of grace where the test must be wrong.

Tbh the left is pretty fucking awful at enforcing the “supporting Russia/genocides committed by vaguely leftist seeming countries” purity test nowadays

I kind of got supporting Russia when it was a purportedly communist state, but now that it's basically a kleptocracy, what's the point?

I mean ... supporting Russia when it was a purportedly communist state was also really fucking dumb

I really, really winds me up with folks valorize the USSR. I really do not think most folks understand the sheer scale of horror and baseline violence society operated under, how totally pervasive the kleptocracy was, how incompetent it was, how vicious it was, or how nationalistic and expansionist.

I studied it. I visited it. It was bad. The Russian Federation never really had a chance given that the only functional institutions were networks of secret police/cronies/criminals and the homegrown social sciences had been utterly corrupted by ideology.

My favorite thing in Moscow was ВДНХ, the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy which was so run down and bleak. I am sad I didn't take photos.

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