Those are just reformulation of the same concept which has nothing to do with communism, just with soviet state nostalgia. Plus a few were banned after Russia’s invasion for supporting the invaders (and they are related to the soviet nostalgia kind). Anyway they lost almost all support, I was even a bit surprised that any Ukrainian I know, even Russian-speaking pro-Russia-ties people are very anti-Russia now - being invaded feels even more like an betrayal for them. Of course I do not exclude that some Ukrainians genuinely support the Russia’s narrative, but among hundreds I know personally there is not a single one.

Banning certain parties is along the same lines as Germany banning Nazi party, or would you suggest that’s oppression of freedom as well?

Clearly, I do not enjoy this division with Russia, I have Russian family, friends, colleagues. But what their state did is just not the way to do things, it damaged irreparably relations and any remaining pro-Russian political parties or sentiments in Ukraine for a generation. I rather prefer some balance and discourse would continue but nobody did more to push Ukraine away from any pro-Russian politics (even shaped as soviet nostalgia with “communist” banner) than Russia itself.

Time zones are kind of useful though.

What is banned is communist party, and not because it was communist (it was not) but because it was pro-imperialist restoration, and also just for old people who wanted to remember their youth.

I am ukrainian and have ukrainian communist friends, and they are now just as fiercly antirussianimperialism as every one I know in Ukraine. It just shows that the leftist ideas live on, especially among young people (but also their parents, who in 2014 protested for ideas of their children, when children were assaulted for now good reason, starting all the violence). The problem is that any explicit reference to communism or state socialism is very tainted. So you can see why the title meme makes a lot of sense.

Regulated capitalism can be a lot of things. Even good things, I claim. Furthermore, unregulated capitalism turns into feudalism, which is someything we see now in digital sphere a lot. EU tries to regulate capitalism to get the best parts of it, like rewarding fair competetive environment - paradoxically, fair competetion favors collaboration. An alternative to favoring individual and collectove agency is authocracy, and dictors never remain benevolent for long.

There was a soviet joke about a banner “our party is fighting for the title ‘communist’”. I can not translate it well, but it shows that people sensed the absurdity of the continious slogans about fighting for something they forgot is related to the meaning of the world communism. In the last decades especially, thd pride in building a better future through emancipation was replaced by simply nationalist pride and the pride in ww2 victory.

As AI gets more involved in decision making, the politics of AI will become a big point I think. Reponsibility, accountability, and maybe something resembing rights, or maybe access capacities. It may be a tool, but it is gaining something like an agency. So the polics of AI might be communist one.

As someone from postsoviet state, I could not agree more. Those pushing soviet union as example of comunist project are really not doing any good for the comunist projext.

The story of ukrainian anarchist communist, Machno, is interesting in this resect. Bolsheviks treated his so well. Russian revolution, although started occasionally with good ideas, quickly revealed itself as authorithian russian nationist imperialism.

I guess that’s the best way put it I saw in this post. I’d just add that after growing up in soviet and postsoviet state, and later coming to western Europe, my first impression was that they somehow almost managed to build here what “communist” soviet party tried to build so unsuccessfully.

Even Marx thought that path to communism is through capitalism, what soviet state did is something very different.

It’s true that this should not be about communism, but about soviet state, which was an authoritharian state dominated by russian nationalism, but under banner of communism. Their kind of messed up the banner of communism for everybody. If used, it should be discussed with care.

They know from their parents and grandparents. Source: I am rather in the parent category.

I think labels are still useful for discussion, but I completely agree that we should regularly rediscuss what they mean and how they evolve.

The polls quoted are not representative because of the demographics change. The oldest part of the population, who grew up after WW2, prefers soviet union, but it’s because it was their youth. Their children, who spent most of their lives in “developed socialism” are much less happy about it. Young people, who grew up in independent states, are overwhelmingly against soviet baggage. And since 2010, when some of the quoted polls were made, older people died.

The only ones who actually regret the decay are russians who morn loss of their empire. Soviet union was just another incarnation of it. Also serbs and hungarians who are a bit isolated in their space.

It is especially strange to see this comment while ukrainians, one of the largest postsoviet states, overwhelminly support and enact literal fight against russian restorational imperialism which tries to bring russian-dominated soviet state back. Or are you questioning this proposition too?