A small town in eastern Germany banned the installation of new Holocaust memorial plaques that mark the last known residence or workplace of Jews and other victims of the genocide.

The motion was proposed by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)...

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[–] SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Soviet rule killed tens of millions. And was not democratic.

Don't take this the wrong way but you might be in the wrong instance. Also, colonialism.

[+] modem_down@thebrainbin.org -21 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Don't take this the wrong way but you might be in the wrong instance.

How so? I'm not promoting any extreme viewpoints, and Lemmy.ml is the primary instance of Lemmy so surely ought to be welcoming

Also, colonialism.

That seems very OT. No-one in this thread is advocating colonialism, AFAICT.

[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 26 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

promoting the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is an extreme viewpoint.

[+] modem_down@thebrainbin.org -18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Where did I "promote the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie"? You're talking out of your hat.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You're promoting it as an alternative to the dictatorship of the proletariat. East Germany went from a proletarian democracy under dictatorship of the proletariat to a bourgeois democracy under dictatorship of capital when reunification happened.

[+] modem_down@thebrainbin.org -19 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

a proletarian democracy under dictatorship of the proletariat

Do you not see the contradiction there?

You're promoting [dictatorship of the bourgeoisie] as an alternative to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Like I said: point me to where I did that. Oh, you can't, because I didn't.

[–] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Do you not see the contradiction there?

there is no contradiction
you only believe there is because you don't know what the term means and refuse to investigate and learn

[–] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

in simple terms, dictatorship of the proletariat means that the proletariat (the working class, those of us who make our income by selling our labor power) controls the state apparatus as a class
as opposed to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which means the bourgeoisie (the capitalist class, those who make their income by owning the means of production) controls the state apparatus as a class
the second is the current state of things in most countries around the globe

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Do you not see the contradiction there?

  We are sometimes inclined, I think unwisely, to treat democracy and dictatorship as two mutually exclusive terms, when in actual fact they may often represent two aspects of the same system of government. For example, if we turn to the Encyclopedia Britannica, to the article dealing with “Democracy,” we read: “Democracy is that form of government in which the people rules itself, either directly, as in the small city-states of Greece, or through representatives.”
  But the same writer goes on to say this: “All the people in the city-state did not have the right to participate in government, but only those who were citizens, in the legal and original sense. Outside this charmed circle of the privileged were the slaves, who had no voice whatever in the making of the laws under which they toiled. They had no political and hardly any civil rights; they were not ‘people.’ Thus the democracy of the Greek city-state was in the strict sense no democracy at all.”
  The Greek city-state has been cited time and again by historians as the birthplace of democracy. And yet, on reading the Encyclopedia Britannica, we find that in fact this was a democracy only for a “charmed circle of the privileged,” while the slaves, who did the work of the community, “had no voice whatever in the making of the laws under which they toiled.”
  The classical example of democracy was, then, a democracy only for certain people. For others, for those who did the hard work of the community, it was a dictatorship. At the very birthplace of democracy itself we find that democracy and dictatorship went hand in hand as two aspects of the same political system. To refer to the “democracy” of the Greek city-state without saying for whom this democracy existed is misleading. To describe the democracy of the Greek city-state without pointing out that it could only exist as a result of the toil of the slaves who “had no political and hardly any civil rights” falsifies the real history of the origin of democracy.
  Democracy, then, from its origin, has not precluded the simultaneous existence of dictatorship. The essential question which must be asked, when social systems appear to include elements both of democracy and dictatorship, is, “for whom is there democracy?” and “over whom is there a dictatorship?”

—Pat Sloan, in the Introduction to Soviet Democracy

[+] modem_down@thebrainbin.org -12 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Cheers, but that doesn't resolve the contradiction.

“for whom is there democracy?” and “over whom is there a dictatorship?”

Case 1: Sloan's example

Athenian citizens had democracy; non-citizens didn't.

Two separate groups: no contradiction. (Partial suffrage, as opp. universal suffrage.)

Case 2: OurToothbrush

"a proletarian democracy under dictatorship of the proletariat".

Same group ("proletarians"), so there is contradiction.

[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

no, in the dictatorship of the proletariat the majority of people, this means the working class, imposes a dictatorship upon the bourgeoisie, the minority group that lives by stealing other people's work.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

A citizen democracy under dicatorship of the citizen. The citizen made up the dictatorship

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.

Somehow always remind me when people mention Athenian democracy

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 weeks ago

There basically has never yet been a democracy for all residents of a state. The purpose of the state is to impose the will of the ruling class upon the other classes.

Bourgeois democracy is a democracy for the bourgeoisie, to the exclusion of the proletariat.

Proletarian democracy is a democracy for the proletariat, to the exclusion of the bourgeoisie.

Until capitalism/imperialism has been nearly universally phased out, there will be competing economic classes. Once capitalism is gone, there will only be one economic class, the proletariat, allowing democracy to finally be for everyone. That’s what Marxists mean by a “stateless” society: one that is classless.

Previously:

The US government was never not captured by the bourgeoisie, because the US was born of a bourgeois revolution[1]. The wealthy, white, male, land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority”. It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (at least those not disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton & Northwestern] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy

The game is rigged. The election cycle’s pomp and circumstance is to divert your energy and attention from the fact that it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.

As you have already chosen to remain ignorant by blocking me, this is for the peanut gallery.

[–] ttayh@lemmy.zip 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The athenian citizens had a democracy under the male-citizen dictatorship. You are just using a different definition of dictatorship than the one that is used for "dictatorship of the proletariat"

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 weeks ago

They also had slaves.

[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

you just don't know what these words mean and you think they're bad things. read a fucking book and stop acting like a smug.

[+] modem_down@thebrainbin.org -16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm smug? You're the one claiming I said something I didn't, and refusing to provide evidence.

[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

you're doing cia propaganda talking points motherfucker what is there that you don't understand? promoting western imperialism is an extreme view, the only thing that your cracker ass brain can't process is how white settler colonialism can be an extreme viewpoint. do you understand now? doing what you did means you're bourgeois shill, thus you're promoting the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. is that enough evidence bro? or do you want to quote some literal nazi propaganda bullshit to keep your red scare story straight?

[–] ferric_carcinization@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Don't take this the wrong way but you might be in the wrong instance.

How so? I'm not promoting any extreme viewpoints, and Lemmy.ml is the primary instance of Lemmy so surely ought to be welcoming

Unless it has changed recently, signing up requires copying a sentence from a communist text. This should hint at the views typically held here.

This is the instance run by Lemmy's developers. And like them, a lot of the users here are communists, or at least other leftists.

I too hope that you won't take this the wrong way, but you might feel more at home on another instance, with more like-minded individuals.

[+] modem_down@thebrainbin.org -9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Unless it has changed recently, signing up requires copying a sentence from a communist text. This should hint at the views typically held here.

I see. Thanks for explaining.

a lot of the users here are communists, or at least other leftists.

I'm fine with that. Many of the replies in this thread, though, seem to be from "big-C" Communist (authoritarian/denialist/Stalinist) perspectives, rather than "small-c" communist or leftist ones. IMO there's a big difference.

I too hope that you won't take this the wrong way, but you might feel more at home on another instance, with more like-minded individuals.

Appreciate it. I'll bear it in mind before cross-posting in future.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Many of the replies in this thread, though, seem to have come from Stalinist or Soviet (authoritarian/denialist) perspectives, rather than communist or leftist ones. IMO there’s a big difference.

We actually are communists. To say that “Stalinists,” “Soviets,” or “authoritarians” (lord knows what you mean by “denialist”) aren’t is absurd.

By far most communists in the world are Marxist-Leninists, and that’s what we are. Most Western communists/Marxists are not, but they are a small minority in the grand scheme of things. And there is a big difference: one has had several successful revolutions, some of which have survived to the present day, the other never has.