The following began as a reply to the xxxxx post on r/xxxxx, or maybe xxxxx. "join the xxxxxx". It got long, so I’ll make it a post. edit: along with removing link info, ive added and removed a few words.

When I started communicating with the ‘xxxxxx’ group on discord, I was referred to a reddit post

( https://www,xxxxxxx the mods asked me to remove the link )

arguing for female conscription using the Russian revolution of 1917 as part of its argument. Reading that post and some of the surrounding discourse left me feeling quite uncomfortable. It took me a bit of time to sort through those feelings, and produce some constructive criticism. The intellectual problems in that post are not limited to that author, forum or community, I see them as serious problems within the Mens Rights ecosystem as a whole (and the broader internet, broader culture etc. i am writing about a broad cultural pattern here). I believe that these types of flaws, this type of propaganda-masquerading-as-truth makes our goals harder to achieve, and in all honesty I want my fucking rights.

I’m not interested in critiquing the argument for female conscription, I think it is a losing fight. I don’t want anyone to be conscripted, I want an end to nation-state-warfare. My concern is that the narrative regarding the Soviet Union, while not being entirely false, was selectively framed in a fundamentally dishonest and manipulative way. It engages in a type of intellectual manipulation disturbingly similar to feminism and cult dynamics.

It starts with a kernel of truth, retroactively applies modern identity-understandings to the past, and then it massages that truth to preclude critical thought in favor of reactive emotion. The exact same process occurs in cults of any sort: a foundational truth is weaponized and becomes the reason to emotionally dismiss criticism of any ideas built on top of that kernel of truth.

A short quote from the referenced post:

"To keep the peace in the cities, the Bolsheviks sent the Red Army to steal grain from male farmers. The "peace" women won in 1917 was paid for by the execution and starvation of millions of men during the Civil War, it had nothing to do with Russian men's liberty from serving the aristocracy."

I’m going to focus on the use of 'male' and 'female', ‘men’ and ‘women’. While humans currently have a much more complex understanding of social dynamics and identity than was available in 1917, we cannot retroactively apply those understandings to Russia in 1917. Those male farmers were a part of families, local communities, ethnic groups, and many other types of organizations. Russia in 1917 was a ferment of intellectual curiosity; to those farmers, any of the other identity layers would have likely outweighed their sex. If you tried to explain to them that they were being stolen from because they were men, they would have laughed at the absurdity. They knew that food was taken from them because they were poor, uneducated, powerless, and most importantly, they were not the urban power-base the bolshevik government relied upon. Not because they were men.

Nor did the 'women' who 'won the peace' view themselves through the singular lens of ‘woman’. Many of those urban women were industrial workers(approximately 40-50%) and likely involved in a union. Those that weren’t working were often involved in labor solidarity, anti-war activities, and familial and community survival. They were actively and intentionally helping the men around them, just as the men were helping them. The exploited were working together.

Further, it was most certainly not just men that were executed and starved during the Russian Civil War; any superficial historical search confirms this. While men made up the majority of the casualties, there were cultural, economic and military reasons that more men died. It was not just 'because they were men'. This just-so-story is an exact mirror of the incomplete, misleading narratives feminism constructs to produce strong, reactionary emotional responses.

This type of narrative creation enslaves its followers. It takes real, complex historical phenomena, shrinks them to an uncomplicated caricature, and inserts key identity buzzwords to trigger an emotional reaction. One easily recognizes this pattern in feminism: "domestic violence is primarily perpetrated by men against women"(known to be false since at least the 1970s, 50% of DV is bilateral-both people), "women were burned as witches" (ignoring the thousands of men burned alongside them), or "women make up 99% of rape victims" (achieved only by legally defining rape as penetration by a penis). All of these myths are built around a tiny kernel of truth, wrapped in intellectual and emotional manipulation.

It is strikingly similar to cult dynamics, producing insular groups based on the idea that outsiders just don’t understand. It actively manufactures an environment where the default relation between the sexes is organized, historic hostility. In fact this relation is something distinctly modern. These narratives force followers into a position where they need to see others as simultaneously too ignorant to see truth, yet dangerous enough to sway believers away from truth.

This is made explicit in the phrase, “The ‘peace’ women won in 1917.” This is exactly the type of rhetoric used by cultic groups, conspiracists, and politricksters. Women are constructed as a monolith that is simultaneously weak, irrational, and incapable of ‘building the world,’ but powerful and organized enough to engineer a bloody revolution at the expense of men. This is exactly the trap. The outsider is both pathetically weak and terrifyingly omnipotent. We need to start reading 1984 as a warning, rather than reproducing this feel-good 2-minutes-hate so lovingly produced by feminism’s corporate and intellectual leaders for their own financial benefit.

This type of material creates arbitrary division, in-groups and out-groups. It makes the group members both victims and perpetrators instead of human beings capable of thinking and feeling for themselves.

I recall talking to a group of women at a protest in the early 2010s while working as a street medic. I asked what feminism meant to them, and they returned the standard liberal talking points: glass ceiling, climbing the ladder, and getting a seat at the table. when one of them asked me why I was there, I told them I was there to pull the ladder down, smash the table and chairs and burn the house to the fucking ground. There was no response.

In the same way, I don’t want conscription of women. I want an end to conscription. I don’t want to win the gender war, or even fight back. I want to end that disgusting garbage so thoroughly that no one ever uses the phrase ‘battle of the sexes’ ever again. I want a world where no one feels shame for their immutable characteristics, where no one who endures sexual violence lives in silence, and where no child is mutilated. I’m pretty fucking sure we need women on our side to get there, we’re going to have to work together to achieve those goals. These historical lies only propagate the division.

The presentation of International Women’s Day in this post is historical revisionism at best. The women’s march on march 8, 1917, was not a modern, liberal feminist protest with pink pussy hats.

It grew out of terrible deprivation and violence, starvation and sacrifice. Women had filled the factories making war material as the men were being slaughtered at the front. The women who led that wildcat strike did so explicitly against the directions of established political parties. They went directly to their male comrades in factories, called them to join in, and together they made the possibility of revolution.

Whatever you think of the Soviet Union, and I am not one who only sings its praises, they showed the entire world that something else was possible. All of us who dream of dignity and liberty, however we conceive it, owe them a debt for showing that the impossible may only be a step away. We can fight and win, if we are willing to risk it. Instead of weaponizing the memory of these courageous human beings who fought for all workers to gain shitty internet points and cult followers, I’d like to see some organize for the men in their lives to have some kind of support. Maybe organize their coworkers for a wildcat. I was a union organizer for a time, I’ll help. I think there are many of us who would love to help. Probably some women too.

Lets kick this kind of manipulative garbage to the curb, where it belongs.