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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 2024

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Between April 1978 and the Soviet invasion of December 1979, Afghan Communists executed an estimated 27,000 political prisoners at Pul-i-Charki prison six miles east of Kabul. Many of the victims were village mullahs and headmen who were obstructing the modernization and secularization of the intensely religious Afghan countryside.

You cut off "Some claim that" from the begining of the sentence, and the only source is a book by an American journalist written twenty years after the event is said to have taken place. Far from me being some Soviet fan, but a mass murder of such enormity requires a bit more evidence.

even the freaking Soviets thought it was too much.

"The freaking Soviets" would go on to enact Loudness, Perestroika, and agree to dissolve in just a couple of years. The stereotype of ruthless invaders, who destroy everything and anyone whom they see as a threat, is based on Stalin, not every General Secretary. Hard to imagine Gorby ordering the Katyn Executions.

I do wonder how the Soviets of the latter-era Union felt about these kinds of extreme measures compared to the Soviets of Lenin and Stalin. This was the era of the Gerontocracy, men like Andropov were most likely alive to witness Stalin's regime. Then again, perhaps the gerontocrats were soft by comparison precisely because they were alive to witness Stalin's regime.

"The freaking Soviets" would go on to enact Loudness

Incorrect, Loudness was a Japanese project.