Now you see how bad is in Moscow, tankies?

I can imagine - last 8 years in Poland we had some catholic indoctrination, fortunately it gave almost opposite effect - many kids resign from religion lessons. Sadly, liberal propaganda is overwhelming and so common that regular people even do not notice it ☹️

Oh I recall the poster

And the predictive power is probably the most accurate measure of scientific theories.

That is all true, and it is somewhat uplifting. However, there is a long way for Russia to be a communist country, also many people can be just nostalgic about their youth, as well as many people may remember USSR as the late one, where many of ideals of the original Bolsheviks were compromised. Some of them just miss «the strong nation», not the Bolsheviks’ ideals of creating a just workers’ society and propagating it to the whole World. Without clear and not-too-pragmatic socialist leadership, they see a shadow of a shadow. I think KPRF is exactly in this flavour – the flavour of late USSR. But with no serious alternatives, their popularity gives me joy as well.

Nothing fools people more as religion.

We will disagree here comrade. While nationalism may offer short-term advantages (maybe justified during a war), it is almost a referencing to some basic, tribal instincts, so it cannot be considered as a long-term goal for a rational, conscious, healthy communist society. I believe this is one of causes of slowly rotting of USSR.

This is exactly what happened, especially seen in 90s.

I have the same impression comrade and I deeply regret this drift to the right. It destroyed one of the noblest endeavours in human history (the USSR), but maybe far more damage has been done by slandering and depreciating the idea of communism and by giving the fuel to liberal and right-wing propaganda. Short-term, pragmatic benefits of the right drift ended with long-term disaster. This is how right-wingers and liberals think. I hope that I do not sound as an ultra, I just admire ideas of the original Bolsheviks and wish to preserve them uncompromised.

Edit: it almost makes me cry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwaXhTGEhIk

Well, I admit that – for example – the far-right propaganda of Radio Maryja in Poland, backed by Russia or not, fall in a fertile ground – racism, antisemitism, clericalism were there since a long time before. One thing that I am «angry» on the People’s Republic of Poland is that they not eradicate religion and clericalism from Poland, as did the communist government in Czechoslovakia.

Russia is stuck for now in a sort of limbo of an unfinished counter-revolution, partly because of the internal dynamics of Russian society itself and partly due to the renewed hostility of the West toward Russia since around 2008 which has frozen the liberalization process.

It looks like this, I am just afraid that when the times will go hard, then Russia will turn fully into nationalism, chauvinism, etc.

One thing is certainly not true, namely the allegation that PiS is “backed by the Kremlin”. Up until the last election Poland was governed by the PiS party and from the very beginning of the conflict in Ukraine they were one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine in Europe. highest ranking members are personally deeply russophobic.

Superficially, it seems like this. But I am somewhat suspicious. The government of PiS seemed extremely russophobic (what spy says he likes the country of the employer?) but still they imported enormous amount of fuels from Russia, e.g.: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/polish-senator-russian-coal-still-flowing-into-poland/ Undoubtedly, the support for Ukraine was enormous, but at some point abruptly stopped. Maybe they were pushed by US at some point to support or they wanted to balance between these two powers, like Orban. When they sold Lotos, a big oil company, they bought petrol stations in Hungary, and the stations were literally Lukoil, and they use Russian oil to be sold there. They are also other circumstantial evidences of ties between Russia and PiS: https://www.veridica.ro/en/acf/the-russian-connection-in-poland

Like you said, all this matter is nuanced, and additionally obscured by propaganda from all sides. I just feel confused, so oversimplifications are possible.

A comment to the edited part:

Meduza sources close to the Kremlin have pointed out that this “ideological” course is essentially a direct equivalent of the “scientific communism” taught in Soviet-era universities.

Official ideological line may be very different to the actually followed. About the Soviet history: yes, it’s fight against nazism should be proclaimed and praised, as well as great social and scientific achievements of the whole USSR and allied countries. But when patriotism turns into nationalism, it should be despised. «The working men have no country.» True socialists – while enforced to act within some existing country – know that the goal is to lift all national, racial, sexual and other barriers and put the idea of the nation into a trash.

This says that it is not so bad – but still Russia cannot be called a communist country nor going in that direction. With using conservative rhetorics, references to tradition, history and religion, it – at least officially – presents itself as a far right country. Look at their coat of arms – it even looks like a tsarist one. Many – if not most – of European conservatives think of Russia as of «the last bastion of Christianity and European civilization». Far right scums like Le Pen was very supportive for Putin. You know there is much more. For me all such things looks plainly reactionary.

Russia should be allowed to find whatever allies they want

Russia is not only allowed, but it has means to enforce it. I am rather concerned that ideologically, morally and mentally Russia is far, far inferior to the early USSR. And this trend affects other countries of the Eastern Block. I live in Poland, which is divided by liberals and ultra-catholic far-rights, most probably backed by Kremlin. The country is literally divided – I can not talk with my father, since he belongs to PiS supporters and acts like a member of a sect. This is not a country I want to live in.

I am aware that the market turn was a complex and unclear process, as well as deciding whether Stalin was personally leaned towards more nationalist policies or he was forced by the external factors is difficult (both things extremely interesting, but somewhat outside of the scope of this thread). Anyway, thank you for interesting answers comrade.

spreading far-right ideology to countries aligned with the west is how Russia aims to gain support and a sphere of influence in a competition of blocs

In my view this is a shameful and destructive strategy, completely opposite to ideals of communism, who should rather enlighten people, than make their minds darker. Not to mention that breeds xenophobia, nationalism, fascism, etc. hand to hand with U$ imperialism. Some may call my view childish and utopian, but for me the truth is essential. I’m not sure about China, but seems that the biggest countries become nationalist, what I perceive as a great danger. There is no moral leader, as one hundred ago biggest minds, scientists and politicians in the East and in the West supported USRR and took example. We are living in dark times again.

The USSR became further economically liberal as time went on, and the Gorbachev reforms accelerated it - introducing the market economy collapsed the state and caused the breakup of the USSR.

I see it similarly, but when – you think – it started? Brezhnev? As long as Khrushchev? It may be seen that China also went toward market economy, but – in the metric of GDP – with a great success. So what went wrong with USSR? Is it that it was more laissez-faire than the controlled Chinese economy? I am aware that I essentially ask another question than in the topic, but explaining what went wrong really concerns me.

This makes sense and I also learn something about the Orthodox churches. Thank you comrade. I think Polish catholic church is similar in extremism, racism, xenophobia, etc. and it is also very tightly tied with the far-right «PiS» party and ultra-right «Suwerenna Polska» small party. They all also believe in conspiracy theories – such that the Smoleńsk Tu-154M catastrophe was actually an assassination, while this particular theory was legitimized by highest politicians of PiS, who ruled as long ago as last December…

Read paper books, with all electronics off, the best place to start is Marks, Engels and Lenin. Personally, Engels and Lenin are most fun to read for me – Marks is difficult. Talk a lot with people in real life – may be tricky, so one need to find some club or organization.

I tried being vegan, but it is hard when nobody in family is a vegan too, so I stopped, sadly. I also tried, for quite a long, fasting – I ate nothing one day per week, and this helped me to loose more than 15 kg. Now, I have too much duties but I want to come back to it.

I suppose that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

You sound correct Comrade, however, in my experience, it is very hard to change a mind of people who are strongly biased. Maybe our words matter, but if they are only a drop of truth in a brown nazi sea, they change almost nothing. When I tell a man that franco was mass murderer, but he responds that “this does not matter, cause they were communist”, I see no point to talk more (real situation, sadly). If there is no fertile field, you will fail to grow a seed.