The “socialists” on R*ddit in 2026 are controlled opposition. It’s why /c/chapotraphouse got banned while a bunch of Gonzaloites still maintain their subreddits. R*ddit socialists^TM are either radlibs, ultras, or patsocs.

Everybody in that subreddit is jumping off the sinking ship and pretending they never supported the crayon eater lol

First and foremost, I think people should consume media that is not from the West. You really can’t claim to be an internationalist if your media bubble (I’m including social media as well) is entirely situated within the West. To be an internationalist means recognizing that Western thought isn’t the end all of human civilization. What constitutes the West is actually pretty small. It’s only through imperialism that the West has a very oversized presence. But the West is only one of many viewpoints. At a bare minimum, you have to read what non-Westerners say.

But it’s not just a case of picking any random non-Western country since many of their news media has been captured by the West through NGOs. Personally, I find news from Anglophone non-Western countries (India, Nigeria, and so on) to be bad overall as far as echoing what has already been said on Reuters and the BBC. The easiest way is to get out of the bubble is to pick news media from countries that are hostile to the West. That’s one of the reasons why you see Russian/Chinese/Iranian/Venezuelan news media cited in ML circles. It’s an easy way to pierce through the Western bubble even if you must be cognizant of the geopolitics at play. It’s not the only way by any means. In many ways, social media by non-Westerners can be superior even when accounting for botting and censorship. There’s a reason why the US wanted to get rid of Tiktok and I strongly suspect they will move to do the same with XHS, which actually has authentic Chinese people (of a certain demographic) on social media.

When you step outside the Western bubble, it’s very obvious that the vast majority of criticism of China comes from a broader Cold War 2.0 strategy by the US to attack China. Whatever is not wholly made up is put an exorbitant emphasis on. There are numerous problems with Chinese society, of course. Many of them are actually pretty apparent if you consume Chinese social media made by Chinese people in China. However, you’re not going to find this in any article by the BBC unless it’s to push some ridiculous narrative about how Taiwan is going to be invaded or Tokyo is going to be nuked by China. You have to step outside the Western bubble.

So you support neither the Allies nor the Axis during WWII because both sides comprise of state actors? Non-state actors didn’t exist in any meaningful capacity during WWII. Even partisans and underground resistance groups were affiliated with the Allies.

You say this, but I bet you and almost everyone here support the Allies during WWII even though most of the Allies had colonial empires and had already committed multiple genocides to build those empires. I do not think people here would seriously think that the principled socialist position is to hold “neither Berlin nor Moscow nor London” signs while the Blitz was happening or to hide in a cave while the Nazis were exterminating people in death camps because the British were also starving Bengalis to death.

They deserve credit for this, but they also deserve blame for their earlier cooperation with fascist Germany

The Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with fascist Germany because it was already at war with fascist Japan. It then had a non-aggression pact with fascist Japan while it was at war with fascist Germany. The entire pact was just the Soviet Union not wanting to fight in two different fronts against fascists.

The Soviet Union was already waging war against fascists in 1935. Can’t say the same for the rest of the Allies outside of the Republic of China.

Communal society: Electoralism is cringe.

Slave society: Electoralism is cringe.

Feudal society: Electoralism is cringe.

Liberal society: noooooo, electoral democracy portents the end of history elections are based nooooo

Socialist society: Electoralism is cringe.

Communist society: Electoralism is cringe.

You can lie to yourselves all you want. Anarchists remember the backstabbing very well and the real reason why they couldn;t fight back efficiently. I’m not here to discuss with tankies though. Plenty has been written about this stalinist revisionism already.

My dude, the vast majority of Republican tanks were provided by the Soviet Union. Let’s take a look at the Wikipedia article about tanks in the Spanish Civil War shall we: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tanks_in_the_Spanish_Civil_War#Tanks_supplied_by_foreign_powers

Locally produced tanks: 24-32

Soviet tanks: 331

French/Polish tanks: 64

Paraguayan tanks: 1

So out of the 420-428 tanks deployed by the Republicans, more than 75% came from the Soviet Union. This is not “backstabbing.” If the Republicans didn’t want the Soviet Union to “interfere” with their civil war, they could have fun with their 89 tanks versus the Francoists’ 280 tanks. Yes, when you accept material aid from another country, that country has a say in the trajectory of your political project. That’s literally how all aid works. The Soviet Union was not a charity. If the Republicans did not want the Soviet Union to interfere with their political project, they could’ve just rejected the material aid. But to accept the substantial material aid and then cry about Soviet interference is called being ungracious. It’s called biting the hand that feeds you.