Thread by @fenrir_71

<A long thread>

One of Stalin's greatest victories was pitting Russians against one another. This led to decades of otherwise good people so scared of the Soviet State that they reported one another to the GRU/KGB, in misguided attempts to save themselves from the gulags.
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https://twitter.com/morethanmySLE/status/1244251471543181313

In time, they knew the Soviet regime would take every accusation seriously; the officers THEMSELVES were afraid they'd be arrested for inaction/collaboration. A system set against ITSELF.

Soviet party members (read: most USSR citizens) would make accusations against others...
2/

...so they could get rid of a wife who stood in the way of a cheating husband, or a neighbor who might've gotten an inside track to extra bread or whatnot. It WORKED too.

There were a myriad of ways Stalin achieved this society of fear and hate, but the FIRST thing he did...
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...was force every single Soviet party member to believe that EVERYTHING was about politics. Even the early name of Lenin's party had political implications: "the bolsheviks," which translates into "the majority," which the bolsheviks most certainly were NOT in the early days.
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But through misinformation and a careful stoking of hate and fear, (pitting the citizenry against each other), gulags for dissenters, etc, the Soviet Union became the totalitarian state it was.

There are stories of the Soviet block apt. housing and how the state police...
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...used red tape across the apts. of people who'd been taken by the KGB/GRU. Those folks would wake up one day and the only apt. without the red tape would be theirs.

Of course then they knew what was coming next.

Satlin also knew that the power of the voices...
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...of religious leaders would hamper the effect of the Soviet regime's "all politics, all the time" control of Russian society. The only thing that transcends politics is religion, as we see in the US re: evangelicals voting against their own interests.
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Which brings me back to the tweet I QTed WAY up there at the top.

You'll notice @SpeakerPelosi merely wanted to repeat the Pope's msg. of peace and human solidarity. To which Mnuchin reacted with an unabashed desire to quote the markets, which as we all know trump has...
8/

...publicly made about his re-election. His POLITICS.

This is what I feared from the beginning y'all: the @GOP, through their constant desire to keep the social conservative base's support while doing nothing for them (also a Stalin habit btw), would eventually make...
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...every aspect of our daily lives about politics, to pit us against each other. All we have to do is look at bumper stickers and we see the success of these efforts.

This is dangerous territory folks, a crux point that I'm not sure our corrupt system has the tools to fix.
10/

The @GOP is now attempting to make EASTER about trump's cult of personality, thus trump HIMSELF, by "opening up the country" this coming Easter sunday.

Which reminds this atheist of a particular bible verse about Lucifer's intentions towards his creator:
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And now, since I refuse to stay on Twitter constantly, because we CANNOT fall into the "everything is about politics" that had been thrust upon us, Imma go hang with my wife & dogs.

Then blow digital shit up gaming.

I recommend the same to you.

Be well y'all. ❤

- fen