“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Actually we just won an election
Ok that’s just an outright fucking lie.
The Bolsheviks didn’t start “winning” elections until they’d already forced everyone into supporting them, the 1917 election featured the Bolsheviks being blown out of the goddamned water by the SRs, and getting tailed pretty hard by the Ukrainian Regional Socialist Party
All this comic does is bend history into absolute knots to try and sell an image of what a democratic revolution would look like, but the tone and telling it represents is blatantly revisionist to a fucking maddening degree.
What are you talking about?
This strip is not even about the actual Bolsheviks.
Everything the “Bolsheviks” say is boilerplate stuff a modern democrat (or any reasonable person for that matter) would want.
The whole joke is that the republicans frame super normal stuff as communism.
Did you really not get that?
“All this comic does is bend history into absolute knots to try and sell an image of what a democratic revolution would look like, but the tone and telling it represents is blatantly revisionist to a fucking maddening degree.”
I’d say that’s what they’re talking about.
And I agree with them, imo this comic is absolutely not working for getting the intended message across.
Edit for clarification: i realized during first reading that the devil’s advocate in the comic was meant to represent USA republicans, but I still think that the comic doesn’t work.
This strip is not even about the actual Bolsheviks.
Have you skipped over the first panel?
not about the 1917 revolution. kinda like how MASH wasn’t about the korean war.
MASH was invoking historical parallels.
This is just inventing them out of thin air in an era that is already overflowing with rampant politically motivated disinformation.
This thread has been a lesson in how many ways people can find to miss the joke. The cartoon isn’t that subtle, surely?
Maybe if you aren’t familiar with US politics? Even then, the last panel should clue you in.
It’s not hard to interpret it as “russia in 1917 was awesome, actually”. The message wouldve come across far better just using an alt history US election or something imo. Like, it’s extremely clear the comic is satirizing americans calling everything communist and saying communism is inherently evil, but doing that by applying these talking points to 1917 russia isn’t helping in making it not seem like it comes from a tankie, on a platform that has a ton of those. Especially when you don’t recognize everything as a democratic talking point because why the fuck would you when you’re not american.
Okay, I’m genuinely trying to understand “the joke.” Is it supposed to be “modern democrats do not resemble the bolshevic revolution?” Because it really doesn’t read that way.
It is: Republicans keep calling Kamala Harris and the Democrats communists, or saying that what they propose is literally the definition of communism. And they say that communism is the most evil thing. Yet if we imagine a world where communism were just what the Democrats propose to do, the history of communist revolutions and the capitalist fear of communism would look absurd. Here is a humorous re-enactment of an imaginary Russian revolution where instead of Bolsheviks we had modern Democrats. From it we see how ridiculous the Republican fear-mongering around Democratic “communists” is, because the changes they propose are very trivial, and the panic of the capitalists is clearly over the top compared to the danger.
Ok. Then it’s just poorly framed. The first frame should have been “America, 2025: a second communist revolution”. As written, it reads like boilerplate “not real communism, and it wasn’t that bad” revisionist history.
I mean I get it, but it still feels very disrespectful towards all the eastern europeans killed by bolshevism
In my opinion that is the second layer to this comic. Bolsheviks were pretty autocratic and tyrannical, so comparing their deeds towards left leaning politics today is disrespectful to the real victims.
My take for the comic is that voting for those “communists” will not change anything, and capitalism will still eat us alive.
There has to be some option that is not Bolshevik dictatorship or capitalism with some virtue signaling dressing.
