A guy I know, real nice guy but super liberal, was telling me how his Cuban grandfather suffered under Castro. Sure enough, when he got into more details, it turns out his grandfather was a wealthy landlord whose farmland got collectivized and he only had to go to jail after he got very vocal about trying to get people to oppose the revolution (in which he was very much the minority BTW, his own friend turned him in)

I have a relative that lived in the USSR and they didn’t complain about being imprisoned or questioned, they complained that Nazis destroyed their old village, they complained that there was not as much food (note: as much, not none)during the war, issues that people face during war, not during times of poor leadership.

Same thing about the (I'm pretty confident it's fake) stories about people who would escape gulags by using another escapee as food - if you're willing to kill and eat another person, you probably should be in a gulag!

tbf there are a few reasons why someone who didnt deserve it would suffer in a socialist country but those reasons are typically external, like embargoes

I said basically this to my friend group politics chat and then had 3 different friends all try and quibble with me about it.

Yeah my familly left the USSR in the 20s less because of oppression and more because of their incorrect beliefs that America was a golden palace. My grandpa used to laugh about how his dad would complain that food costs money and that the company town was basically feudalism in America. Yet here I am, working in the coal mine just like my ancestors. Part of me yearns for the mines, and enjoys it more than my days off. My depression keeps me from feeling anything but hard work is still satisfying.

leave my Tom cat alone , he is my favorite cat XD