how much research have you done? Have you only looked at anticommunist sources, or also pro-communist sources? Does the revelation that the riots were led by Nazis change your opinion of the actual character of the events, or not?

As with most of my knowledge about history, it comes from Wikipedia pages and YouTube videos. Concerning whether the revelation that the riots were fascist-led has changed my opinion on the character of the events. I would say maybe a little bit. It doesn't change the fact that there were clear grievances with the system and there were many dissidents in the revolution, and maybe Nazi support was a way out for them? I don't know. However that's for me to do more research on.

On your point about misinformation, i can agree that there is some level of bias when it comes to Western reporting on AES states, but it's not so easy to recognize where the misinformation is coming from: especially when it is well known China has a habit of suppressing negative news about them. Evidenced by the Tiananmen square protests being a taboo topic there, so it's also not clear to me where I'm supposed to be getting accurate information from if leftist sources are taking China's every word for things like the Ughyur pogroms, Tiananmen square protest, etc etc.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Regarding Wikipedia and Youtube videos, I want to make this clear. English media is overwhelmingly Western. The biases presented in English media will inevitably rest on whatever those with the most power in the Western world want to present. Analyzing the Western world alone, that means the interests of the United States and Western Europe are dominant, and the class in power in these countries is undeniably the wealthy Capitalists, like Musk, Bezos, etc. Historically this was even worse, as media was mostly physical and an "internet" didn't exist. Much of the data on the USSR, for example, comes from this period of little fact checking and unchecked corporate dominance. These narratives get passed along uncritically today, even if they directly contradict the Soviet Archives opened in the 90s.

Today, Wikipedia and YouTube aren't scholarly sources. You have to check the sources of these sources. Many Wikipedia articles reference Robert Conquest, a crank historian disavowwed by his colleagues. That's why it's important to seek non-western sources to compare against, and to read scholarly sources. Without doing as such, I recommend you not believe anything about geopolitical adversaries of the US without hard evidence, and adopt the notion of "no investigation, no right to speak." Otherwise, you uncritically accept a US State Department approved narrative uncritically, such as being unaware of the Nazi involvement in the Hungarian riots, a fact deliberately hidden to push a narrative.

As for China, another example presents itself. The CPC frequently mentions the Tian'anmen Massacre under the name "June 4th incident." This is because the hundreds of deaths of protestors and lynchings of PLA officers happened outside the square. What gets censored is stuff like BBC reporting 10,000 people died on Tian'anmen Square, when there's no proof that there were any deaths on the Square itself (despite tons of evidence of deaths outside the square) and there's no proof that the total deaths were anywhere near 10,000. The source? A British Ambassador later confirmed to have abandoned the square before, and in contrast to a US ambassador who stayed saying no massacre happened on the square. Meanwhile, the CPC often references the events as the "June 4th incident," which is why little comes up when searching "Tian'anmen Square Massacre" in China. That is like searching "New York Attack" to find 9/11 information, sure you can probably find something but it will take a while.

Really, that whole exercise was to show that ultimately, you need to look at many sources. The Western media and English speaking internet will, without fail, largely allow the narrative to be dominated by that which upholds US legitimacy, even if it means changing the Quantity (many hundred deaths to 10,000) to Quality (deaths on Tian'anmen Square vs the overwhelmingly well documented deaths outside the square as the PLA advanced to the Square). Don't accept anything at face-value, try to find the bias of the author and see if they have weak points you can poke. Everyone has bias, that's why I don't hide mine. I encourage an unapologetic pursuit of truth, and encourage not sharing information you aren't sure of.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 1 points 46 minutes ago (1 children)

These narratives get passed along uncritically today, even if they directly contradict the Soviet Archives opened in the 90s.

That's why we often don't just take the words of the CIA for instance, but we back it up with accounts from people that lived under these governments. There's a lot of interviews out there of people sharing their experiences. Sure their memory of events might not be completely accurate, but you can't just dismiss it as entirely false either.

Also your Tiananmen Square example strikes me as being a bit nitpicky. Yes, it's important to question dominant narratives, but the focus on whether deaths happened on the square itself seems overly semantic. Even if most deaths occurred outside the square, it still feels like you're/they're trying to downplay the broader violence against unarmed protesters and the suppression of their dissent. Similarly, wouldn’t state-controlled narratives in China have an interest in minimizing the scale and nature of the violence to preserve legitimacy?

Further, you’re right that Wikipedia and YouTube shouldn’t be treated as definitive sources, but isn’t that why they include citations to trace information back to its origins? Let's accept that Robert Conquest’s work is controversial; dismissing all scholarship on the USSR from Western historians because of bias that may or may not be there seems like overcorrection.

Also the point you made about how all media echoes the biases of the bourgeois is kinda reductive. I agree that dominant Western narratives often align with elite interests, but doesn’t the diversity of perspectives in democratic societies complicate that? Investigative journalism, academia, and even dissenting voices within the West often challenge these narratives. Wouldn’t it be more constructive to identify when elite biases appear rather than assume all narratives are controlled?

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 15 minutes ago

The thing is, you don't listen to the CIA directly. You listen to the New York Times, Radio Free Asia, etc who are paid by the CIA to report in the way you do. It isn't intentional listening to the CIA, but happens regardless. Parenti's Inventing Reality is a great resource on this.

As for Tian'anmen, it isn't nitpicky at all. If we accept the common Western narrative, there were 10,000 students rolled over by tanks on the square as peaceful protestors. If we accept the PRC's narrative, there was a month long protest that eventually attracted US support, until eventually protestors lynched unarmed PLA officers, prompting sending in tanks and hundreds of deaths in total. Such a mischaracterization perists to make the US' adversaries look bad, while the thousands killed by South Korean dictators in the Gwang-Ju Massacre around the same time are unheard of. Why? Why this double standard? Because the US wants you to know about some things and not others.

As for dismissing all western reporting on the USSR, I don't. Blackshirts and Reds is a critical look at the USSR by an American that isn't even a Marxist, just sympathetic to working class movements.

The "diversity" in thought in Western Nations does not blunt the dominance of narrative. The fact that true information exists and is accessible, as I have been linking, does not mean that the dominant narrative isn't selected for via specific funding and popularization. Figures like Orwell and Chomsky that are aesthetically left but denounce Socialists and Socialist movements are deliberately taught in schooling because of this. Endless interviews to coopt leftist movements. Actual, genuine challenges are usually erased, like author Domenico Losurdo or Michael Parenti.