This is my experience as well. It’s also laughable that they call themselves communists and love China and Russia. Those people aren’t communists, they are authoritarians.
Isn’t that pretty much exactly what a “Tankie” is? An authoritarian communist? One that believes the revolution can only occur through state violence?
I think it should be updated, as Russia and China are not communist and those people love them.
I feel like the “communism” was used, because “authoritarianism” sounds worse.
That’s why I too am not a believer in horseshoe theory and actually agree that communism hasn’t been practiced properly before. A peaceful emancipation of the common person is still unpracticed. If this is all tankies said, I’d be fine with it. But they say communism has never been practiced before along side arguments that the Soviet Union and China are communist. They are parroting real modern communists without understanding them and mixing in their revisionist history to create a paradox they don’t seem too concerned about.
I think it’s more about rebelling against their Reagan loving, USSR hating dads than sound political theory.
Communism in practice is USSR and China type dictatorships. Fantasising about “real” “peaceful” communism ever existing is delusional.
If you want to abolish private property and there are people who disagree (and there will always be) the central power will need to “neutralize” them.
This is what Marx envisaged socialism as - the transitional stage between capitalism and communism.
Shame that every single time this has been attempted its been quashed externally or coopted internally by bad actors.
Communism is inherently authoritarian. Thus they’re Communists.
All communist regimes are authoritarian by nature
Is this a comment on the inevitably of human nature, or a misunderstanding of communism (which if done properly is stateless)?
Communism if done properly is Stateless insofar as it means there is no Class, and therefore no aparatus like the Police that uphold the dominance of one class over another.
Communism was always, in Marxist tradition, meant to have a democratically accountable world republic.
You may or may not be referring to Anarcho-Communism, which rejects both the transitional state of Socialism and prefers more decentralized networks of Mutual Aid.
Probably just that every rendition of communism so far has been authoritarian.
I would argue that an authoritarian state cannot be communist, though plenty have called themselves so.
Hippie communes are a counterexample.
Every large scale rendition, then.
Is it better if I rephrase it as “all regimes founded on communist ideas and visions are authoritarian by nature”?
A truly communist “regime” is not something that should ever exist as communism is a stateless philosophy thus inherently not authoritarian by its very nature.
It’s the bit in between capitalism and communism that historically has been coopted by bad actors to create authoritarian regimes, these regimes tend to still call themselves communist because “lol fuck your revolution I’m in charge now” doesn’t have the same PR value.
To be fair. “that wasn’t true Communism” is true. The problem is dictatorships keep getting sold with its name. Ironically proving how hard it would be to actually achieve a world or country of communes.
The bolshivek revolution made it certain that any communist nation is a dictatorship. The menshiveks would have achieved better results.
The Mensheviks wouldn’t have been much more different than German and French socialdemocrats who accepted capitalism. But there were other relevant left-leaning political forces during the Russian Revolution that were neither Bolsheviks nor Mensheviks - I wonder what happened with them?
I wonder what happened with them?
Gulag happened to them.
Wait until you learn whatt the SPD did to the Spartactus League.
The only kind of Communism I’m willing to accept is the Star Trek Communism. Until then I’m pro Team “Social market economy”!
Fully Automated Gay Space Communism or bust!
Except those people prefer the Chinese and USSR style of social autocracies to actual socialist projects. Some of them even trash worker coops, although that was more true to the InfraHaz style lolcows than the tankies of lemmy…
By that stupid definition there’s no true capitalism either, so what’s your point?
Oh? Are there no countries with private ownership of industry?
Oh? Are there no countries with state ownership of industry?
If that’s your criteria, then yes, there are both truly communist and truly capitalist countries.
Tell me which country claiming to be communist is not actually just a dictatorship with a veneer?
None? That was like 200% sarcasm. You used a single criteria to mark countries as truly capitalist, so I though I might as well do the same.
Communism is inherently authoritarian as it puts the needs of a social construct (in this case a “commune” or “society”) over the needs, rights and freedoms of an individual. It is hard to achieve anything good with communism, because totalitarian dictatorship is the only possible outcome for any advanced enough authoritarian ideology.
Communism is a classless, moneyless, stateless society.
Whose going to take care of the utilities?
It ✨ d e p e n d s ✨ on what kind of communist answers.
The LW admins are violating their own ToS by allowing LML posts to get federated to LW.
I’m not sure what you mean?
Extended Version:
Needs an “EU BAD” square
Oh good, this seems like a good place to ask something that’s been bothering me for a while.
I see the posts from Hexbear and Lemmygrad. I can understand why they are in favour of theoretically communist regimes like China. What I can’t for the life of me see is why they seem to unconditionally support modern Russia which is surely as far away from communism as you can get.
I must be missing something but not sure what?
“I hate the US”
“Oh Russia and Iran hate the US. I love Russia and Iran!”
Unfortunately sometimes people are actually as stupid as they make themselves out to be.
What is there to love about the U.S.?
European here. The US are far from being the great country that they are presented as in a lot of US media, but it’s also far from the terrible place that some people will claim it to be. Sure, it has some massive flaws, but it’s still “better” than a lot of other places. You can love plenty of things about it. It’s not just black or white.
Mensch Hubi, dich hab ich hier aber nicht erwartet
Ich bin überall 👀
American here. It’s not that the U.S. is a terrible place to live, it’s that a lot of America’s wealth comes from the extraction of wealth and resources from other countries:
On the backs of children: Why U.S. companies exploit foreign child labor and how to stop it
There’s lots of states where weed is legal.
The government doesn’t have a secret police force to blackbag me for what I say.
I live in a beautiful place near the mountains.
The elections aren’t rigged.
The people I know are here.
It’s impossible to stage an effective invasion.
There’s lots of things to love about the place I live. That doesn’t mean I think it’s perfect, and I still think about how to make life better. Throwing in with Russia is not an effective strategy to affect positive change, and so I think those who do so are foolish.
Now, imagine not being born in America. But in the Philippines or Iraq or Afghanistan. Would you still love the U.S. after seeing what it did to your people?
I don’t see how that’s relevant to the previous topic. You asked a question, and I answered. Before that, the discussion was about how naive lionizing Russia is when the motivation is counteracting U.S. imperialism. Frankly, it was the wrong question to ask.
Judging from your response, it was exactly the right question to ask. I was trying to give incite into how people might side with international interests against American imperialism.
They’re not actually communists, it’s just a facade for Kremlin and CCP propaganda.
Noo you don’t ._. Their train of thought is more often than not “USSR=Good. USSR hates USA. USA=Bad. Modern Russia hates USA. So Russia = Good.”
I bet they have never been to Russia
Its not even that, its more the USSR apologism that is horrifying to me, it is clear they have never interacted with someone who has lived through the USSR, especially non-russians. They keep parroting how bad most post-soviet economies are, conveniently leaving out what the USSR did to those same economies on its way out.
Because they’re anti-west not pro-communist.
Anything critical of Russia is obvs western propaganda and as Russia is an enemy of the west, they will support them.
They see the enemy of their enemy as their friend, instead of realising it’s just another enemy.
But you see, Russia is just what is left of the glorious soviet union who got destroyed by the western evils. Whatever they do is totally justified in their bid to rebuild the union under a dictator, dont you know anything? And Ukraine is full with jewish nazis.
They dont unconditionally support Russia. I disagree with them but they see Ukraine and the US as even worse. Considering the prelavance of Nazi imagery in the Ukraine military, or how Ukraine banned leftist opposition parties, or how they removed minority language rights etc.
I think in their minds in a fight of two reactionary autocracies they prefer the one fighting against the west.
You can see on ProleWiki what Lemmygrad.ml’s stances are, in their words, and why. Their article on the Russian Federation backs up what you’ve said, they believe it is extremely reactionary with horrifying treatment of LGBTQ people and is currently ruled by the Nationalist party, but critically support Russia insofar as it opposes Western hedgemony and Imperialism, and no more than that.
Critically, Lemmygrad, Hexbear, and much of Lemmy.ml see Lenin’s definition of Imperialism as the number one obstacle in Socialism’s advance, that is, the state in Capitalism where Imperialist countries export machinery and finances to the third world in order to super-exploit outsider populations for super-profits domestically. This is a necessity within Capitalism to combat the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall. It’s the concept of unequal exchange.
Now, of course you do not have to agree with Lemmygrad or Hexbear or Lemmy.ml, but as someone who regularly sees these posts, there are no delusional posters who somehow think the Russian Federation is still Communist or that Putin is secretly rebuilding the USSR.
The delusional part comes from supporting countries that have a tendency to kill gay people and saying that they are against lgbtq oppression
You forgot a square for circle-jerking over reading theory.
You have a problem with educating yourself?
I hope you find your way out of this bullshit spiral you’re descending in, best of luck to you
They aren’t making fun of you for having read The Conquest of Bread.
They are making fun of you for thinking that was enough.
What do you suggest reading?
Currently I am reading the island of the day before by Umberto Eco.
Its pretty good, but not his best.
What did you think after reading The Conquest of Bread?
I’m not sure I thought just 1 thing about it when I finished it. Can you be more specific in your question?
Go easy on me now, I haven’t read it in probably 14 years. You would probably get more of asking me about “Red Victory!”, and its portion on the early months of famine.
I don’t know of Red Victory. Just wondering if you identified with the anarchist aspects of the book? Or, would you recommend The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn instead?
“Russian special military operation in Ukraine is an anti-imperialist project.”
“US military aid to Ukraine is an imperialist act.”
Statements made by the utterly deranged.
It’s much easier I find in .ml to just ignore the tankies tbh. Though the bingo sheet is admittedly, very funny.
I feel like no matter what instance I go to I’m probably just going to end up disliking a large chunk of the posters, because I think after 20 years of being raised online, I just fucking hate memes straight up.
>thread about cakes
Tankie: This is US propaganda!
Source?
Red Devil cake
“USA bad” should be the free space, because anyone with as little as half a rotten brain can identify that it’s true - The US is a shithole. That does preclude conservatives, of course.
We definitely have our issues.
Mostly, they are the ones other places can ignore because they aren’t the cultural battleground for the world at large. Not that I’m complaining, since we’re not generally the physical battleground for the world at large.
Mostly, there’s not a good culture of actually facing issues and processing them, anywhere in the world, outside of some spiritual practices. If you’re someone who does do that, though, the US is the place to be.
the cultural battleground for the world at large.
You far overrate the importance of your country.
Not really. I’m not saying melting pots don’t exist elsewhere, nor am I saying that somehow the US matters more because of the ideologies it (barely) holds. I’m just saying that the US is one of the largest melting pots, globally. But the ideas it holds are more important than the nation by far. Those ideas will continue to exist (and find another center) whether or not the US manages to be centered in them - for example, if the US is torn apart in the process of those cultural interactions.
But whether or not you like it - regardless of whether you think it’s arrogant, that’s the way it is, currently. And if that cultural battleground shifts to some other nation, or some other individual nation becomes comparable (there are plenty of ways that could happen), you’ll probably also assert that they overrate their importance. And likely, some of them will, just as plenty of folks in the US do.
Edit: Also note, when I said
Mostly, there’s not a good culture of actually facing issues and processing them, anywhere in the world, outside of some spiritual practices. If you’re someone who does do that, though, the US is the place to be
…that it’s both because this is a cultural battleground, and because the issues manifest here. It’s not exactly a “positive” statement.
The nickname tankies is pretty funny because tanks are becoming obsolete.
Is the name meant to be related to war machines or the things you keep fish in? 🤔
These words also instantly make me lose respect for anyone who repeats them:
- Western imperialism
- Colonialism
- Neo-liberal
There has to be some memo that gets passed around and every ml comment is contractually obbligated to include these phrases.
Even in a historical context? Colonialism was absolutely real, 1930s neoliberalism was a real political movement, and the British Empire was absolutely a western imperialist system.
I never said they weren’t real, did I? I just said I don’t have to hear about it in every goddamn comment. Someone shits in the woods and an ml account will login to mention colonialism of neo-liberal policies influenced the color of my shit in the woods. It doesn’t have to be repeated. every. goddamn. time.
well when we are from those places and still suffer from the consequences, its reasonable to still be mad about it regardless of your feelings
Ok chief. Safe to say we’ve all been impacted in one way or another. Did y’all just wake up yesterday and discover Reaganomics or some shit? C’mon.
what makes you think we started hating neoliberalism yesterday?
Dunno. The fact that you guys bring it up incessantly in every conversation like it’s fresh news?
nah, we bring it up like most of you are ignoring it.
What’s a good privacy respecting instance besides lemmy.ml? I don’t wanna be blocked from seeing content for being on .ml :(
You can see more content on .ml, because .ml is federated with Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and the other instances like shit just works, lemmy.world, and so forth.
If you want to see a lot of content, it’s a good instance for that.
If you want to post what you want to post, it is not a good instance for that, though. They’ll straight up delete your comments for expressing certain views, and there’s a bot that will edit your comments to remove certain curse words from them.
