The Soviet system used psychiatry as a weapon by diagnosing political opponents as mentally ill in order to confine them as patients instead of trying them in court. Anyone who challenged the state such as dissidents, writers, would-be emigrants, religious believers, or human rights activists could be branded with fabricated disorders like sluggish schizophrenia. This turned normal political disagreement into supposed medical pathology and allowed the state to present dissent as insanity.
Once labeled in this way, people were placed in psychiatric hospitals where they could be held for long periods without legal protections. Harsh treatments were often used to break their resolve. The collaboration between state security organs and compliant psychiatrists created a system where political imprisonment was disguised as medical care, letting the Soviet regime suppress opposition while pretending it was addressing illness rather than silencing critics.
Pretty sure America does that.
In the US, they do that today. Also if you’re old
Don’t let this distract you from the fact that America and capitalism and the CIA are all bad and this is all ultimately their fault
The first thing I thought was “damn so like future america” lol
Won’t distract me that’s for sure
Only considered it?
May want to check out what’s happening in USA and UK.
Fucking Trump wants to deport citizens for disagreeing with him.
Oh you mean like they want to do with trump derangemnt syndrome? Yeah, it’s out of the dictatorship playbook.
The Soviet Union at its height had the largest percentage of incarcerated individuals, more than double the USA’s percentage of the population today. These were hard labor camps, too, where millions worked until they died.
Link to source?
this is only true for the stalin years i think.
in any case, living in a country without due process kinda sucks
Yeah it actually got better even before Stalin died, but yeah.
incarcerated
What an ugly word! Oh no no no they were being cured of their mental illnesses in dedicated institutions and provided with advanced education in special schools.
The school of digging frozen turf in Siberia while starving for instance or the hospital of getting beaten with a phonebook
Won’t be long now
Seriously, they should just lock me up or do away with me now, because I’m going to be a fucking thorn in their side.
cant say they were wrong after what capitalist west did to sabotage em
No -ism is immune to hubris. I still believe in people sharing in the profit of their labor, and appreciate this post clarifying one of the many ways dissent can be crushed, albeit temporarily.
If one’s idea is genuinely good, it better be able to handle dissent. Once gulags get involved, you’ve long ago lost the people’s belief, and are on a timer.
Evil never perseveres. Never has, never will.
Evil never perseveres. Never has, never will.
Huh? Have you not been paying attention for the last several decades?
Amen for [real] democracy.
Try be a dissident in democracy, and you’re just doing more democracy.
Humanity is on a hard fought, slow, and with many setbacks, trend towards a better world. Evil is pushed out by good but not without the blood, sweat, and tears of many good people.
Better late than never.
They also didn’t like genetics because it was anti Marxist-Leninist to them. They didn’t like the concept of inherent traits.
i believe they tried to have thier pseudo-science scientist explain it away with thier own.
Someday I would really love to hear a breathless tale about how bad the Soviet Union was, that doesn’t involve something the United States did to Black people. But I don’t think any country has ever treated its citizens as badly as the US treats Black people.
You’re really showing your ass when you get upset about human rights abuses from your global competitors, but don’t care when your allies do the same. Pull the plank out of your own eye.
You’re right I’ve never heard of the US’ mistreatment of black people before, why aren’t more people talking about this?
OH WAIT people talk about it all the time and you just needed a convenient whataboutism. Imagine if someone brought up the Katyn Massacre every time someone talked about Jim Crow laws lmao.
I am a Black person you absolute twat. Caring about my own life is not “whataboutism” and it’s fucking ghoulish for you to discount my life because it’s more convenient for you.
Get bent.
So intellectual consistency is too much ask.
You just said something about something bad US did, but I didn’t see anything in your comment about all the other atrocities that all the other counties commited.
Inconsistent hypocrite much?I notice you didn’t mention Israel or the nazis being bad either, be ideologically consistent and talk about Myanmar and Unit 731 and NK killing dissidents and everything right now then, since you have to talk about everything bad at the same time and can’t focus on the topic for ONE THREAD.
Go cry about it
I’m sure this comments section is going to be thoroughly hinged
Yeah, waiting utill guys from lemmy@ml and lemmy@hexbear come here and start protecting the USSR.
Quite, I fully intend to have civil and reasonable fact based discussions about the USSR which will not trail off into tribalistic whataboutist tirades.
Now where have I heard that before… few recent comments I think…
“Liberalism is a mental disease!”
A phrase often said by MAGAs. It’s no distance at all saying the same thing about nationalism.
The phrase comes from a shitpile book with the title: Liberalism is a Mental Disorder by some guy trying to eclipse Rush Limbaugh in 2005.
It’s not just a thing they say - these people genuinely believe that compassion is a mental illness.
Liberalism is not as dogmatic as other ideologies, because liberalism itself encourages free thinking and going against the grain.
It’s entirely different when the government authority not only says it but takes away your freedom & subjects you to abuse. How are so many here missing that crucial distinction?
I’ve seen “conservativism is a mental disease” too. People love that shit.
To be fair, you have to have zero empathy—or extremely low intelligence—to still vote Conservative, when we’re literally living in the Information Age. Either way, I say both are in fact mental disorders.
A lot of it is fear, too. Those people are raised to fear anything different.
I would put their fears in the “low intelligence” category.
also LOW information to. i saw some pseudo-leftist YTUBERS(whole drama behind them if you followed them) that are magats that are very low information. pre-pandemic they brought up an OBAMA era, oil pipline(canada-usa) and they could not even formulate sentences or words how to discredit the news. (but any trump related events they were immediately silent on, hmm seems like people figured out your allegiance to which party)everyone in the comments said you shouldnt comment on things you do not know.
That’s the spirit.
fundamentalism+ actual mental illness is a dangerous mix. i once saw a video of a guy with schizo and said he fell into alt-right views, and really screwed up in the head.
How about liberalism + actual mental illness, is that dangerous?
(Or any ism for that matter.)
I think that’s far less common among the left than the saying “peer reviewed study shows conservatism highly correlates with mental disorder”.
