Ukraine had a national identity before Lenin, tho.

It was suppressed and the language was dying out in written form.

Although the dude is/was ahead of it’s time. And the social idealism that follows looks pretty neat. Sadly he quickly died and another fella came to power. Usually when people bash USSR they bash Stalin’s regime. It’s far from socialist ideals. You shouldn’t mix it up and just nitpick what you like.

It was Stalin’s USSR that transformed from a quasi-feudal backwater into a superpower that defeated the Nazis. It did so following Marxist-Leninist principals, which is to say, the development of Marxism based on the Bolsheviks’ contributions - they seized the reins of capital and directed them to develop productive forces at a lightning pace and in a way that is never an option for imperialized countries. They ended famines, electrified the country, built rail at a scale that horrified and surprised the Nazi invasers, who remarked that little of it was on their mapsnfrom just a few years ago. And it did this under sanctions and attempted isolation by the major powers, the European capitalist forces that capitulated to the fascists, refused pacts with the USSR to build an alliance against the fascists, as they hoped they would turn east and deal with their red problem.

You should educate yourself about the USSR.

If people are subjugated and still remain under democratic rule, they can still be under repression, due to voting majority.

This can happen without voting as well and it is not inherently good or bad, relative to circumstances. We oppress murderers in one form or another. The impetus for thatbis understandable. Some have oppressed ethnic minorities for land grabs. That is not acceptable. Revolution requires oppression, you have to undo the order against which you are revolting. It does not immediately disappear just because you seized the army or run the newspapers.

It’s the same reason why Israel fears giving the vote access to palestinians.

Israel oppresses Palestinians because it seeks to steal their land and they know that Palestinians will oppose them in this. Israel is not an example of “tyranny of the majority” and it is not democratic. It is an ethnic supremaxist settler colonial apartheid state and should be destroyed as such.

You can try to follow Nazi fascism idea of fascism by following history notebooks. But it will get us nowhere.

That will get you the whole way. You must read history to understand this historical reference. No shortcuts!

Since for example Lithuania had a president which was with dictatorial levels of power during the time. He was not aligned with Nazi Germany. What kind of word would you use to describe the rule? There are reasons why fascism is defined like it is.

Lithuania’s president was a racist, antisemitic anticommunist liberal nationalists that dabbled a bit with fascists. Liberals have had all of the qualities of fascists over time and done the same kinds of deeds on a much greater scale. This is why you have to read history. If you just go by simple modern definitions, they will tell you that liberals are all about personal freedoms and equality. They will neglect to mention that liberals were the most brutal and racist colonizers and ethnic supremacists and misogynists and that this might pose a problem for their definition. They become an infinite No True Scotsman, defined in a way that means they never committed any crimes and it may be that, per their logic, no liberal has ever truly existed.

Fascists are really just a form of reactionary liberals that emerged out of inter-imperialist struggle after World War I. The fallout of WWI led to various nationalist and separatist movements in Europe as well as attempts to claim imperialist power. In particular, fascism rose most strongly in those places where conditions were degrading and communists were organizing for revolution. Fascists presented a triangulating position. They criticized the problems of capitalism by coopting socialist phrases but sought, in reallobersl simply organize capitalism into a nationalist form that had ambitions for Imperialism of their own. They built on the “fallen nation that must return to glory”, a sentiment that could only resonate among people living in a country losing its status and among degrading conditions. They offered scapegoats playing on old forms of racism. Antisemitism, anti-Roma, Anti-Russian, many more. And most importantly, they opposed the communists, which is why they were so well-funded by capitalists and found friends among liberals. Fascists found their most committed and prominent recruits from the petty bourgeoisie and their sons, an inherently liberal base.

And dude, you can’t be racist against a country.

I think you did not mean it to be racist. But Russian is also an ethnicity and Russophobia is at a peak in Western countries and they are reviving their age-old racist talking points. Tell me if any of these old school racist talking points seem familiar: they’re just throwing masses of soldiers at the wall hoping to win, they are uncivilized/barbarous, they are not European, they are inherently untrustworthy, they are ugly, and their lives are just plain worth less.

You and I operate with completely different definitions. I doubt we’ll come to a conclusion. Would love to discuss it next to a beer, since it’s fascinating to find these so wildly difderent ideas. How do you even get to a point where you know so much but manage to draw completely different conclusions.

It is because communists live in the same world as everyone else and describe it in nearly the same way as liberals, but emphasize knowledge of history, political theory, and real-world organizing experiments. In contrast, liberalism is hegemonic ideology that offers narratives that, despite being false or misleading, go largely unchallenged. In a disagreement, someone drawing from hegemonic liberalism only needs to pluck an idea from a massive vat of talking points they have been bombarded with since birth. A communist needs to become fairly familiar with the topic, as they must criticize it and defend their talking points against hegemonic liberal ideas. They have to read the sourcec materials and understand why, say, Robert Conquest was an absolute hack when it came to certain topics because a liberal will unknowingly repeat one of his lies as “common knowledge”.

Ukrainians aren’t russian.

Many people in Ukraine are ethnically Russian. Ethnically Russian people have faced reoression in Ukraine since Euromaidan, particularly those in the separatist Donbas areas. Those there under the Kyiv regime face(d) cultural oppression. Those in separatists controlled areas face(d) artillery shelling.

Their language is different.

Many Ukrainians speak Russian as a first language, their everyday spoken language, and their language at work. Most people in Ukraine do not speak Ukrainian in that capacity. Ukrainian is more of a way for people from different backgrounds to communicate with one another.

Since Euromaidan, Ukrainian nationalists have been imposing Ukrainization on their people, suppressing other languages in schools, offices, and public life.

Their culture is drastically different.

Ethnic Russians in Ukraine have both cultures. Averaged out, Ukrainian and Russian cultures are very similar. Russians have an affinity fot the Kievan Rus, like an origin story nostalgia, and tie many of their practices to those of Ukraine.

Damn even regions inside Ukraine could count as different cultures.

There is certainly cultural diversity in Ukraine, yes. Some is represented by ethnic Ukrainians, some by Poles, some by ethnic Russians, and some by various diasporas.

For the split. It happened quite recently. I do recommend talking to people why they split and what was the common ideas on the streets back then from people who lived there.

Speaking of Ukraine, polls consistently showed that the generations that were adults at the time preferred to stay as part of unuon with Russia, I.e. “be in the USSR but with reforms”. Those same people said it was better to live in the USSR than after it fell. Such a story is fairly typical of most post-Soviet states with the exception of the Baltics, who are a whole host of things, but the main one is their astonishing level of racism.

There were massive forced mixing in of Russians in those countries.

That sounds like a racist framing to me.

Those people are usually the ones that still find as “it was better back then”.

Central Asians also had this opinion. It is really basically everywhere except the Baltics and Czechia.