[dalbasal]

Orwell is being obtuse when he says "nationalism."

What he meant is some flavour of what we'd call "ideologist" today, whether or not the ideology has much to do with nations or nation states. Communism was a major political movement all over europe (and the world) at the time. Most labour movements considered themselves communists.

Anglo-American liberalism was the biggest ideological faction, but Orwell doesn't seem to count that as "Nationalism." After that, communism probably was the biggest faction in universities in 1945.

[icebraining]

But it's not just Communism, it's Russia itself. I see it even today among some members of our national Communist Party (which was historically Stalinist). They not only irrationally¹ defended the USSR, as they transferred that to current Russia and Putin. It truly boggles the mind.

And they are not Russians, or particularly care about the land or the people, it's a support of the Russian nation specifically.

¹ By irrationally, I mean what Orwell describes - defending actions they would never defend in other countries and ignoring inconvenient facts

[mantas]

Those people just love to support enemy of their enemy. It's mind boggling how many mental hoops they're willing to jump.

As eastern european, it was very sad to meet fellow europeans who didn't like that my country got away from monstrosity that was USSR and couldn't care about suffering of people as long as it helped to move forward their idolised ideology. Meanwhile they pretended to be "progressive" and caring about "common man" whatever that is...

[icebraining]

Well, in our case it's a bit more complicated, because here, the USSR was actually helping the common man. We were living in a right-wing dictatorship ourselves and the communist party, which was one of the most important groups fighting against it (and whose members were tortured and sent to concentration camps in Africa), got a lot of help from the USSR.

I was born after the transition, so it's easy for me to separate the issues (and to understand that good deeds are not always done for good reasons), but to the people who lived it, there is a real dissonance that is hard to deal with.

[mantas]

Did communist party built at least single successful country in Africa?

It's like saying that Nazis helped a common man in Germany. And they did! Life for a common German man definitely got better in mid-late 1930s. But at a cost..

Regarding USSR, that help to far away countries was one of the reason why it fell. Life in USSR was shitty (maybe not Africa-shitty, but still). And people were unhappy that resources are sent away instead of improving their lives. There were plenty of jokes that there's no food or merchandise since some revolutioner dude in South America or Africa eats or wears them.

[fwdpropaganda]

> ¹ By irrationally, I mean what Orwell describes - defending actions they would never defend in other countries and ignoring inconvenient facts

I just wanted to comment on your use of "irrational". That's a bad definition (meaning no connection with how people use the word). Every nationalist in every nation attacks others for things that they themselves would do if it benefited them. If the attacks work it's very rational.

[icebraining]

I agree that it can be used as a rational tactic, but I don't think it's the case here; as Orwell mentions, it's more of a process of self-deception. It doesn't actually work - those I know can't even convince their fellow party members.

[dalbasal]

This is true, obviously very true in his time. I think it is inevitable though, one becomes a symbol of the other.

Were the east european liberals of the 70s & 80s not obsessed with America? Cowboys, rockstars, blue jeans, holywood gangsters...