#stalin — Public Fediverse posts

Thursday, July 30, 2026

https://activitypub.writeworks.uk/2026/07/thursday-july-30-2026/

“When you mix science and politics, you get politics:*…

Tina Hesman Saey on a looming threat to the U.S…

Soviet scientists in the 1930s knew what could happen if they bucked the party line: denunciation, firing and banishment from the scientific establishment, even imprisonment and death. Political reprisals against those who opposed the views of dictator Joseph Stalin and his followers — and the dubious science they endorsed — led to the starvation of millions, as well as to decades of lost progress in fields from agriculture to molecular biology.

Now, scientists are warning that history could repeat itself — but in the United States.

A new proposal from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget would put political appointees in charge of funding decisions traditionally overseen by scientists. In recent years, the federal government has funded about 40 percent of basic science research in the United States.

The OMB’s more than 400-page proposed rule change would let political appointees decide how to hand out federal research funds and who can get them. It would cut funding for collaboration with scientists in other countries and restrict scientists’ ability to communicate their findings. What’s more, it could prevent research on matters that President Donald Trump’s administration has deemed “not in the national interest” — such as studies on health disparities, mRNA-based vaccines and research that doesn’t recognize biological sex as a strict binary.

The new rules would also give OMB the power to rescind previously approved research funds. The proposal “poses a sweeping threat to federal grantmaking and the responsible stewardship of American taxpayer dollars,” the science advocacy group Stand Up for Science Foundation said in a report. In addition, it would impact nonscientific grants supporting services for mental health, housing, education, veterans and Tribal nations, affecting the health and well-being of millions.

So far, OMB has received more than 98,000 comments on the proposal. The public comment period closes July 13. It then will be up to OMB to decide whether to keep the rule as is, revise it or scrap it.

These far-reaching measures are already drawing parallels to dark moments in scientific history. Some researchers say the recent mass firings, policy changes and grant cancellations at federal research institutions, including the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, closely mirror what happened in the U.S.S.R. under Stalin. “A similar threat now hangs over U.S. science,” the editorial board of The New England Journal of Medicine wrote in June.

Its editorial invoked the example of Trofim Lysenko [see here], an agronomist and astute political operator who rose to power in the 1930s Soviet Union under Stalin.

Until the 1930s, “the Soviet Union was a real powerhouse in the field of genetics,” says Lee Dugatkin, an evolutionary biologist and historian of science at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Then, Lysenko came along. “This guy was your sort of classic charlatan,” Dugatkin says. “He had the equivalent of a mail order degree in agriculture, but he was quite good with the press, and he started to basically spread this idea out there that he was capable of dramatically increasing crop yield, particularly wheat.”

Lysenko’s supposed innovation was a process called vernalization and amounted to soaking seeds in freezing water. The resulting plants — and all their offspring — should be resistant to the U.S.S.R.’s famously cold winters, Lysenko reasoned.

His reasoning was based on a disproven idea in evolutionary biology called Lamarckian inheritance. French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and his followers thought that things an organism experiences in its lifetime can be handed down to the next generation. The classic example is a giraffe that has to stretch to reach leaves producing offspring with long necks.

This idea ran counter to Mendelian genetics, which holds that genes — not environmental influences — control traits and are passed to offspring. Mendelian geneticists thought it would take five years to breed more cold-tolerant crops. Lysenko said he could do it in two to three years.

Stalin didn’t have time to wait. He was trying to get collective farms going and needed to increase crop yields to feed more than 150 million people. Large parts of the country had already suffered from famine in 1932 and 1933 and about 6 million people died. Some resorted to cannibalism.

Stalin embraced Lysenko’s quick-fix approach. That decision, says Michael Gordin, a historian of science at Princeton University, was “something that the majority of people at the time, and everyone since, considers the wrong side of the dispute.”

Lysenko was put in charge of a prestigious genetics institute and forced his scientifically unsound farming practices on the collective farms. His methods were disastrous.

Soaking seeds in freezing water hampered germination, leading to crop losses. Millions starved. Meanwhile, Mendelian genetics was branded a “whore of capitalism,” and geneticists were forced to renounce their views or lose their jobs. Many were jailed, and almost a dozen were executed or died in prison.

The Soviet Union lost its scientific leadership role and sat on the sidelines for important scientific discoveries of the 1950s and beyond. One, Gordin says, was the development of “massively” productive hybrid corn. The country also missed out on the discovery of DNA and the advent of molecular biology, putting Soviet genetics decades behind the rest of the world.

Soviet genetics did not recover from Lysenko’s influence until after the break-up of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gordin says. “I think you’d be hard pressed to find anybody who thinks that … Russia is today, or Ukraine, or any post-Soviet successor state, is a leading molecular biology country.”…

The Soviets did it, and it didn’t end well: “Here’s what happens when you put politicians in charge of science,” from @thsaey.bsky.social in @sciencenews.bsky.social.

See also: Idiocracy

* John M. Barry

###

As we remember the past so as not to repeat it, we might recall that it was on this date in 1834 that the Spanish Inquisition (finally) ended. Authorized by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478, the Inqusition was initially led by inquisitors (Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martín) who were appointed by the future Catholic monarchs, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. It was originally (ostensibly) intended primarily to identify heretics; its aim, to maintain Christian orthodoxy. But it became an effective instrument of state power by replacing the Medieval Inquisition, which was under Papal control.

Over its course, the Inquisition prosecuted an estimated 150,000 people for various offences. An estimated 3,000–5,000 were turned over to the state for execution, particularly in the initial 50 years, mostly by burning at the stake. Other punishments included penance and public flogging, exile, enslavement on galleys, and prison terms ranging from several years to life. In many of these punishments an important motive was the confiscation of all the victims’ property.

As Monty Python observed, “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.” And nobody expected it to last 356 years.

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Workers of the world unite!
#marx #engels #lenin #stalin #communism #mao #fanon #marxismleninism

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Comparison to Hitler, Mao, Stalin? Trump says: ‘Sounds good to me!’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/19/trump-hitler-mao-stalin
#Resist #protest #Authoritarianism #Fascism #Dictatorships #Nazism #news #Trump #Hitler #maozedong #mao #Stalin

Disarray: Alarm inside #Pentagon after #Hegseth staff purges

Since #Trump’s first term, they have been viewed comfortingly as the “adults in the room,” a last line of defense against the impulsive whims of a president with access to the #nuclear codes.

After unprecedented wave of #firings that has been compared to #Stalin’s purges, Pentagon top brass no longer seem like such a reliable bulwark

https://www.europesays.com/uk/935086/

#dictatorship #DementiaDon #USAggression #USThreats #BoycottUSA #sociopaths

L’ambizioso progetto sovietico del biplano in grado di cambiare in volo il numero delle sue ali
https://www.jacoporanieri.com/blog/?p=44356

#volo #tecnologia #progettazione #invenzioni #biplani #sesquiplani #secondaguerramondiale #conflitti #storia #sovietici #russia #novecento #invenzioni #ali #portanza #biplani #monoplani #mosca #personaggi #stalin #prototipi #idee #aerodinamica #caccia

https://omdaruliterature.blogspot.com/2026/03/daniil-andreev-from-spiritual-world-i.html Daniil #Andreev from the #Spiritual World: "I am not a #prophet, I am a #messenger who has seen more" #channeling #esoterics #spirituality #literature #antichrist #logos #roseoftheworld #demon #historiosophy #stalin #russia

The PEOPLE'S pseudoscience!

https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1855250/the-people-s-pseudoscience

The PEOPLE'S pseudoscience!

https://piefed.social/c/tankiejerk/p/1855246/the-people-s-pseudoscience

Having different opinions than The Party is COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY, comrade!

https://piefed.social/c/tankiejerk/p/1853654/having-different-opinions-than-the-party-is-counter-revolutionary-comrade

GULAG for everyone!

https://piefed.social/c/tankiejerk/p/1737331/gulag-for-everyone

Befreiung Europas vom deutschen #Faschismus - die Hauptlast trug die Rote Armee.

Wie werden wir uns vom US-Faschismus befreien?

„Die Hitlerschen Schurken... haben es sich zum Ziel gesetzt die Bevölkerung der Ukraine, Belorusslands, des Baltikums, der Moldau, der Krim und des Kaukasus zu versklaven oder auszurotten.
Unser Ziel ist klar und edel:
Wir wollen unseren Sowjetboden befreien."
J. Stalin

#Stalin #Antifaschismus #SovietUnion #Sowjetunion #Berlin #TreptowerPark #treptower_park

#UK has become an unequivocal #PoliceState under #Starmer, whose #Stalinist instincts have always been clear

Murray & others are fighting this appalling legislation, its misuse & have set up a crowd fund to raise money for legal costs the fight will incur

https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2025/10/17/palestine-action-trials-juries/

#ToxicLabour #RedReformUK #DictatorStarmer #Stalin #StalinCourts #DemocracyNOW #FairTrials

[3/3]

Un ouvrage général, mais malgré tout pointu, sur les notions de #fascisme, #nazisme et de #RégimesAutoritaires. L'auteur parvient à couvrir, en un peu moins de 300 pages, et à l'aide d'une abondante bibliographie, les traits qui définissent ces #idéologies du début du 20è siècle. Tout comme l'a fait Philippe Burrin, dans le livre précédemment lu, il met le doigt sur ce qui distingue l' #autoritarisme du #totalitarisme, le fascisme d'autres formes d' #ExtrêmeDroite.

Cette lecture permet aussi de montrer que notre époque, même si elle présente des similarités avec cette période, s'en différencie aussi énormément. Le monde n'est plus du tout celui du tournant entre le 19e et le 20e siècle. Comme on dit, l'histoire ne repasse jamais deux fois les plats, mais elle hoquette. La détérioration de nos démocraties post-Seconde Guerre Mondiale n'a rien à voir avec les balbutiements des démocraties d'il y a 100 ans.

Il va falloir s'y faire, mais nous ne vivons pas du tout un nouveau début de 20e siècle. Nous sommes au début du 21e siècle et nous devrons trouver nos propres termes pour décrire et définir les régimes dits #illibéraux, voire les nouvelles #dictatures qui émergent aux USA, en Europe de l'Est et qui semblent plus que frémir en Europe de l'Ouest. Après tout, nos ancêtres ont bien dû en faire de même pour faire sens des régimes fascistes, nazis, catholico-conservateurs et soviétiques, sans précédents, auxquels ils ont dû faire face.

D'ailleurs, en cela, ils ont été aidés par les promoteurs-mêmes de ces régimes. Aujourd'hui, l'extrême-droite n'a plus grand-chose à voir avec celle des années 70-80. Et d'ailleurs, les promoteurs de la nouvelle #GuerreCulturelle contre le #wokisme et le #gauchisme, se qualifient d' #altright ou de #FarRight . Sans se limiter à leurs propres auto-qualifications, je pense qu'elles peuvent nous aider à identifier ces phénomènes politiques. Est-ce que Trump est fasciste? Et Victor Orban? Vladimir Putin? Tayip Erdogan? Et Benjamin Netnayahou? En tous cas, il manque plusieurs critères pour classer leurs personnalités et leurs méthodes dans cette catégorie. Ça ne signifie pas pour autant qu'ils soient moins nocifs et dangereux que des #Mussolini, #Hitler, #Stalin, #Pétain, #Salazar, #Franco de cette époque. Mais pour les combattre et résister, il va falloir les étudier dans le contexte actuel et pas simplement tenter des décalques entre eux et les leaders totalitaires ou autoritaires des années 1920.

Cependant, ce genre de lecture reste essentielle, à mon sens, pour nous aider à faire sens de notre époque, parce que, comme déjà dit, l'histoire fait des crises de hoquet et qu'il faut voir quels sont les éléments philosophiques, moraux, idéologiques et politiques qui restent, se transmettent, renaissent ou se renouvellent. Et à quoi ils peuvent contribuer à donner naissance.

(comment on Fascisme, nazisme et régimes autoritaires en Europe)

@perkoch Somewhere in hell, #Stalin and #Lysenko are smiling.

20 Lessons from the 20th Century About How to Defend #Democracy from #Authoritarianism, According to Yale #Historian #TimothySnyder

in History | January 20th, 2017

"Timothy Snyder, Housum Professor of History at Yale University, is one of the foremost scholars in the U.S. and Europe on the rise and fall of #totalitarianism during the 1930s and 40s. Among his long list of appointments and publications, he has won multiple awards for his recent international bestsellers '#Bloodlands: Europe between #Hitler and #Stalin' and last year’s 'Black Earth: The #Holocaust as History and Warning.' That book in part makes the argument that #Nazism wasn’t only a #German #nationalist movement but had global #colonialist origins—in #Russia, #Africa, and in the #UnitedStates, the nation that pioneered so many methods of human extermination, #racist #dehumanization, and ideologically-justified #LandGrabs.

"The hyper-#capitalism portrayed in the U.S.—even during the Depression—Snyder writes, fueled Hitler’s imagination, such that he promised Germans 'a life comparable to that of the American people,' whose 'racially pure and uncorrupted' German population he described as 'world class.' Snyder describes Hitler’s ideology as a myth of racialist struggle in which 'there are really no values in the world except for the stark reality that we are born in order to take things from other people.' Or as we often hear these days, that acting in accordance with this principle is the 'smart' thing to do. Like many far right figures before and after, Hitler aimed to restore a state of nature that for him was a perpetual state of race war for imperial dominance."

https://www.openculture.com/2017/01/20-lessons-from-the-20th-century-about-how-to-defend-democracies-from-authoritarianism.html
#History #Histodon #Hitler #Fascism #Authoritarianism #HyperCapitalism #CorporateFascism #CorporateColonialism

Sez the #fascists!

#ErikPrince Told Russian Banker That #Trump and #Putin Should Be Like Roosevelt and #Stalin

Published Dec 06, 2017

"Prince said he went to the hotel bar and used his phone to find a picture of the man. They met and discussed oil and commodity prices and trade between #Russia and the United States, he testified. They also talked about 'how the United States and Russia should be working together to defeat Islamic terrorism,' according to Prince. 'I remember telling him that if Franklin Roosevelt could work with Joseph Stalin to defeat fascism, certainly the United States could work with Vladimir Putin to defeat Islamic fascism.''"

https://www.newsweek.com/erik-prince-testimony-house-intelligence-committee-meeting-740572
#ErikPrinceColonialism #ErikPrinceIsAWarCriminal #authoritarianism #AuthoritarianRule #RussianAsset

https://youtu.be/_1lXUpKWIZc?feature=shared

Gabriel #Rockhill: Western #Marxism, #Imperialism, Slavoj #Zizek, #Stalin, USSR, #China, Deng Xiaoping

#losurdo #indiaGlobalLeft

One of the architects of #Project2025 praised #Stalin for overturning the no-fault #divorce law and introducing policies that were "designed to encourage family life." She also heaped praise on Stalin for outlawing #abortion and making divorce so "expensive and complicated" that he effectively instituted a "prohibition on divorce."

#Christofascists #ChristianNationalism #religionOfHate #HeritageFoundation #GOPfascists #endOfDemocracy #Kamala2024 #VoteBlue #VoteBlue2024

https://www.alternet.org/project-2025-divorce/

And then there's #Russia...

30 years of #LGBTQ+ history in Russia: from #decriminalisation in 1993 to ‘#extremist’ status in 2023

Published: January 10, 2024

"In 2023, the “LGBTQ+ movement” in Russia was labelled as “extremist”. This marked the culmination of a troubling 30-year cycle from the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993, via the introduction of the “gay propaganda law” in 2013 through years of political and public discrimination against sexual minorities.

"The progression in the mistreatment of LGBTQ+ people in Russia has coincided with the progression of Putin’s regime, which has become more autocratic. The Russian supreme court’s recent judgment that the international LGBTQ+ community is an “extremist” movement represents a hybrid recriminalisation of homosexuality 30 years after the ban was removed.

"From now, on identifying as LGBTQ+ is hazardous in Russia as it can be interpreted as “participating in an extremist organisation”, which is a criminal offence. Essentially, we are back to the situation before 1993.

Before #Putin

Even back in 1993, the decriminalisation of homosexuality by Boris #Yeltsin’s government appears to have been something of a box-ticking exercise, required for joining the Council of Europe. The bill that decriminalised consensual sex between men was adopted without any public debate as part of a package of legislation.

"There was no official explanation of why it was being adopted, let alone why #homosexuality had been criminalised in the first place. Even Russia’s prison officers were not aware of the reform as there was no follow-up order to release inmates convicted of “sodomy”.

"While the change of law represented a step forward, there was no real attempt to bring the Russian public along with it. This meant that in most parts of Russia it failed to indicate any real social shift in attitudes. This lack of open dialogue allowed entrenched #homophobia to persist and social #stigma to endure.

"This absence of meaningful change resulted in rising prejudice that thrived in political discourse. The early 2000s saw an alarming surge in negative portrayals and hate speech against the LGBTQ+ community. And these emanated from the highest levels of government.
Homophobia under Putin

"In 2000s, different legal initiatives targeting LGBTQ+ people emerged, framed under the guise of “protecting morals”.

"In his 2017 study, Russian Homophobia from Stalin to Sochi, historian of Russia Dan Healey tracks the discourse surrounding this demonisation of sexual and gender minority movements with derogatory comments and baseless accusations against LGBTQ+ people. They have been variously branded as “seducers of children” and accused of “spreading HIV infection, moral vices, and the destruction of the nation”.

"Proposals to reinstate #Stalin’s 1934 ban on homosexuality were introduced in 2003, 2004 and 2006, reflecting a growing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment at government level. While the bills were unsuccessful, they marked a disturbing shift as anti-gay rhetoric penetrated the government and set the stage for more restrictive measures in the years that followed.

"At first, some Russian regions (13 out of 83) adopted legislation that restricted LGBTQ+-related expressions in public between 2006 and 2013. This initiative was considered successful and in 2013 Putin’s government brought in the federal gay propaganda law. This turned out to be a watershed in the mistreatment of LGBTQ+ people.

"This law was ostensibly aimed at protecting minors from information that could “entice them into a homosexual lifestyle” (my translation of the language of the 2013 bill). In 2014 the constitutional court claimed that the ban was needed to protect the rights of minors and that it was proportionate, since it does not prohibit gay-related information completely.

"In reality the law worked as a blanket ban, restricting any neutral to positive expressions related to homosexuality. The cases when people were fined for “gay propaganda” varied greatly – from screening LGBTQ+-themed movies to wearing clothes with rainbow print, from providing psychological help to discussing homosexuality in public.

"The “protection of minors” was mere window dressing. The chairman of the constitutional court himself stated that “the legal meaning of this ban is not so much to solve the problem of promoting homosexuality among minors – but to outline an understanding of the deviating nature of this type of behavior”.

"In 2022 this false pretense was abandoned when the ban was extended to the “gay propaganda” among all citizens, not just minors. It also introduced bans on the “propaganda of pedophilia” and the “promotion of gender reassignment”, making it illegal for people to change their legal gender."

Read more:
https://theconversation.com/30-years-of-lgbtq-history-in-russia-from-decriminalisation-in-1993-to-extremist-status-in-2023-220569

#GayRights #LBTQI

#Russia revives #Stalin era #SMERSH to hunt down resistance in occupied #Ukraine
#StandWithUkraine #Zaporizhzhia #Crimea #LetMyPeopleGo #StopRussia
https://khpg.org/en/1608813284

Współpraca Niemiec i Związku Radzieckiego – opinia publiczna nadal nie wie o niej zbyt wiele. Najczęściej kojarzy się nam z sowieckim atakiem na Polskę 17 września 1939 roku i to wszystko. A współpraca krajów, które przez ponad dekadę posługiwały się narodowymi flagami w tym samym, czerwonym kolorze, zaczęła się znacznie wcześniej.

@w7voa Just what if the #CCP hadn't launched mass attacks against the #UnitedNations forces in #Korea in 1951 and given the despotic kim dynasty life support over the following decades... 🧐

What would the 26 million 'DPRK' subjects think about the 'PRC' if they only knew anything...

The Chinese #dictatorship was quite busy after overthrowing the republic of China in 1949. The communist party's private army they insist calling the "people's *liberation* army" was still hard at work invading #Tibet from 1950 onwards.

The neighbouring despot #Stalin of the #USSR had received so much #LendLease hardware from the USA during #WWII that he could afford to donate plenty to the #Chinese upstarts' war efforts. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#PLA #koreanwar #multitasking #AxisOfDespots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_spring_offensive

#Goldman und #Stalin, #Zetkin und #Bogdanow, #Hegel und zweimal #Marx, öffentlicher #Luxus und #Vergesellschaftung – das sind die Themen unseres Herbstprogramms. Interessiert? Hier geht es lang: https://dietzberlin.de/verlagsprogramm-herbst-2023/

11 Jan 2023 ⬇️

Host Sergey #Mardan talked about Russia's #demographic issues, wished that #Stalin had "deported western #Ukraine," asked experts whether #Russia is running out of ammo and pondered: “Will we have to eat fire ants?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18uVBT7Hydo

#PapaFrancesco oggi ha detto:
"Pensiamo alla martoriata #Ucraina: questo sabato ricorre l'anniversario del terribile genocidio dell'#Holodomor, lo #sterminio per la #fame nel 1932-1933 causato artificialmente da #Stalin".

Hi Tamil Nanbargale Take a look at 𝔑𝔞𝔳𝔞𝔫𝔢𝔢𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔨𝔯𝔦𝔰𝔥𝔫𝔞𝔫 (@Iampronk): https://twitter.com/Iampronk?s=09 இதான் என்னோட டுவிட்டர் ஐடி இங்கே பின்தொடர்பவர்கள்.
என்னை அங்கேயும் பின்தொடரவும்.
#Ajith #Vijay #Vijayakanth #Bigil #Valimai #Thala #Thalapathy #தமிழ் #தமிழன் #Tamilan #India #IndvsBan #Dhoni #Vadivelu #Comedy #Stalin #Aiadmk #Dmk #Dmdk #PMK