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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts
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Tankies are a tiny subset of extreme far leftists which even far leftists have a right to despise, though.
if they truly are a "tiny subset" then why even spend the time to complain about them?
Because they're very vocal online, are annoying, and also give actual leftists bad rep. If you're promoting egalitarianism and distributing social power among everyone, you wouldn't like people who support authoritarism to share a label with you.
every state in the world is authortarian
Are you saying this as a retort to me indirectly calling tankies authoritarians? If so, that's pretty rich.
The Soviet Union suppressed people who used Marxist analysis to argue that the higher echelons of the party aparatus had constituted itself as a separate, dominant class that held the ultimate political power, which resulted in a tendency to exert that power undisputed and continued accumulation of privileges. Once enough time had passed, some of the people leading that aparatus decided they wanted an even larger share of the cake, so they decided to drop the pretense, drop the nominal communism and embrace privatisation. When working people tried to oppose that process, the authoritarian state used its repressive forces to protect the ruling class. What is most interesting about this is that you can see similar processes in almost every single country that followed the leninist vanguardist model, ultimately losing any political equality that was initially sought in its revolution, and any self-respecting Marxist should have taken the hint that this makes Leninism and its godchildren a failed avenue for socialism.
To connect this with your not too hidden assertion that "since every state is authoritarian, me supporting authoritarian states is ok": any state and society is going to decide the margins outside of which behavior and politics are not acceptable, but that is absolutely no excuse to give free reign to any government to become as authoritarian as they aim to no matter the cost. When we do that, we come across disgusting situations such as the difficulties for working class Chinese people being unable to self-organize and protect their rights if the local party strongman arbitrarily decides they're too much trouble. Any kind of emancipatory project soon turns crippled under those circumstances, which you could have easily noticed if you weren't drown in liturgy.
https://redsails.org/western-marxism-and-christianity/
ML states are the only successful socialist states in history to hold out for a significant amount of time against the United States empire. I'm not super attached to the vanguard model myself, but can you show me a single other successful model? I think this quote is quite relevant here:
Authoritarianism under the banner of socialism isn’t success. It’s just a different kind of failure.
Can you define what you mean by "authoritarian" in a way that doesn't include actions the US does ? What is authority in your mind?
Why would I do that when I think the US is authoritarian, too?
Alright but like, which states aren't then?
Like, if none of them aren't which I assume is your take (I was an anarchist myself until the climate crisis started hitting hard so I have some sympathy for anti statism myself) and you can see that socialist states provide a better quality of life than capitalist states when compared at an equal level of development, surely you can admit that one is a lesser evil than the other? But that's not what the people shouting about "authoritarian states" functionally do with their rhetoric, functionally they defend capitalist states and uphold the status quo by forming part of the opposition to the end of capitalist states and the formation of socialist ones.
None, afaik. We need to do better. I don’t oppose ending capitalist states and forming socialist ones. I oppose violations of human rights by both corporations and governments. If we can’t set the bar above “marginally better for most people than late stage capitalism, but we’ll disappear you if you speak out against us,” we’ve already lost.
What exactly do you think happens to people that actually threaten capitalism?
The issue isn't "speaking out" about problems. The issue is people attempting to overthrow the socialist system. Capitalism disappears and murders those of us that attempt to overthrow it just the same. You're allowed to speak about problems so long as you are not actively trying to overthrow governments while doing so (and being effective at it). If you're effective you end up like everyone in The Jakarta Method, like Allende, or like Assange. The US operates hundreds of blacksites all over the world and yet people pretend that people aren't disappeared for being a threat to it. The lack of self awareness is perplexing.
I’m not saying the US doesn’t disappear people. It absolutely does. The threshold’s just usually a bit higher than in, say, China. China’s better at meeting basic needs for people at the bottom, and the US will usually only throw you in a black site if you actually foment revolution, rather than simply criticizing the government. It’s amazing how many people assume you have to pick an existing model to root for here. I repeat, I think everyone are bastards, and that we can and must do better.
I think you've really got a warped perspective on this. China has more protests than every other nation. And they don't just disappear people for criticism. That is reserved for those actively fomenting revolution just as you say it does in the west. This site is obviously intended to be anti-China propaganda but I have a quite different take on it, what you're seeing in this data is actually the real quantity of protests that China perfectly allows. In the last 12 months 1196 protests have occurred and I assure you the hundreds of thousands of protesters involved in those events aren't "disappeared". It would be utterly absurd. In just a few years you'd have nobody fucking left in the country. So this data is, in my opinion, useful to demonstrate the quantity of allowed demonstration rather than the quantity that is prevented. It's shit like the hong kong attempt at literally overthrowing the government with shady western support that get real murky.
Is it better to be too “authoritarian” and protect your revolution, or just let reactionary states destroy your newly formed socialist state, carve up the remains and enjoy the spoils while people suffer?
If you’re authoritarian, who are you protecting? It’s not for the people or the workers, so it’s not a revolttion worth protecting.
How do you personally determine whether a revolution is for the people?
Are we talking about a revolution or a government, here? If you believe the revolution is ever-ongoing, fine, substitute your own words for the taking-power part and the governing part. If the taking-power part, I’m not sure we can know. Look at the Iranian Revolution. There were leftists involved with the taking-power part, but not so much with the governing part. As far as a government for the people, there are probably many different ways it can turn out, but the essence is fulfilling people’s basic needs while also respecting their human rights. No one’s gotten it right yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t.
I used to think this way, but does this not seem the height of arrogance to you? That all the past attempts were dumb and stupid, but we are the true socialists and will get it right this time! I urge you to read this article, western socialists have a really bad problem with this kind thinking
I could show you a lot of stats from past and current socialist experiments that show how much the quality of life changed for the better for the average citizen (if you would even accept those), but I think a bigger hangup for many people is human rights.
I pose the same question I asked someone else earlier, is it better to go overboard and be too “authoritarian” in trying to protect your socialist project, or be too kind and see it torn up by the reactionary forces of the world?
No, I don’t think it’s arrogance. I’m not saying we have the answers, I’m saying we need to keep trying, because our past attempts were insufficient. It’s not arrogant to try to learn from one’s mistakes. And it’s not arrogant to assume that a movement’s chances of success can be altered by changing material conditions.
I’m well aware that in many cases, authoritarian socialism/communism has improved material conditions for many people. But I also notice that not a lot of Westerners defending these governments attempt to move there. All our current systems are fucked, and acknowledging that is awareness, not hubris.
In answer to your question of “which is better,” it probably depends heavily on the preexisting local circumstances. But I’m from the US, so I’m sick of being forced to choose between two shitty options in a false dichotomy. Neither. Neither is better, and we need to stop pretending what exists now is the end of political and economic philosophy. It’s not. We need to do better.
My point is that all of this is really easy to say when you don’t actually have to control and wield power and defend your gains for the working class against reactionaries. I don’t really understand what your hangup is here, every socialist strives to learn from the mistakes of past experiments, but I would never say they weren’t legitimate attempts, which is what it seems like you’ve been implying?
The latter.
Good to know you hate working class people
Even in the United States after the revolution they implemented authoritarian measures to ensure the security of their revolution. They sized the land of Loyalists and effectively drove them out if the country. They killed Loyalists, who were their fellow colonists, for their opposition to the revolution. They attempted tirelessly for peaceful transition to independence but the Monarchy refused them and ignored them until they were left with no choice but to begin violent armed revolution. All revolutions are authoritarian in their nature. The American revolutionaries were seizing their power by force and imposing their self actualized authority over the colonies in pursuit of their own economic and social freedoms.
The United States is authoritarian and many of the same ways that socialist states are authoritarian. If you don't believe me, look at the history of the socialist movement in America. Look at what the state was and still is willing to do to its own citizens for criticizing and organizing against the capitalist and imperialist system that the state runs on.
Are you here to tell me that McCarthyism and the red scare were democratic in their execution? That they were in line with the Free Speech and Free Expression ethos the United States projects? They were not times of political democratic freedom. Even in recent times you have leaders of movements critical of the state being killed for their political positions. Students killed during the anti-war movement in the 60s and 70s. Anti-War activists driven out of their employment and careers over their opposition to the state and it's actions in Vietnam.
So what do you call authoritarianism under capitalism then? Democracy??
When did I say the US wasn’t authoritarian? It’s possible for every side to be dickheads.
The compulsion that you feel to distance yourself from past proletarian movements so that your attackers won't associate you with the supposed atrocities of those movements only functions to move you further and further right. It doesn't work because the attackers will do it regardless of how much you moderate yourself. This instinct leads you to not only distance yourself from their own goals, and to condemn your own movement, but to uphold reactionary lies about our movements, sometimes even outdoing those lies by exaggerating them, in order to further emphasize the attempt to distance. It doesn't matter how much we try to twist and turn and distance ourselves from atrocity propaganda, rubbish will be heaped upon the graves of working class leaders.
Functionally all this compulsion does is move you rightwards. You are attempting to make yourself more appealing to the right because you think that doing so will magically make people on the right suddenly like socialist politics. In the meantime they will attack you with every single piece of propaganda regardless, and you will moderate yourself even more. This deradicalises the movement and blunts the radical edge it requires to get things done.
It's exactly the same compulsion that liberals have that has caused them to move further and further right over the decades. Every time they get called a communist by the republicans they desperately try to move rightwards in order to get it to stop happening, it will never stop happening though because it is not said in good faith, and the tactic of accusing them of it works well in moving them right.
Because some of the founders of Lemmy are the worst examples.
do you mean the devs or people using it? because the only 2 main devs are ML, not "some"
(also I'm a lemmygrad user, I'm a spooky scary tankie btw
)
You're a homophobic authoritarian?
I doubt he's an American.
cuba has the most progressive family code in the world, try again next time
Things that are mainstream in British politics would get you called a tankie by american liberals though, because they have no left and have no idea what level of radicalism is required to get welfare and healthcare in europe and then maintain it.
Jeremy Corbyn defends the USSR.
Diane Abbot defended Mao on national tv.
John McDonnell's job is "to overthrow capitalism". Or the time John threw Mao's little red book at Osborne. Etc etc.
Mainstream elected British MPs in Britain's soft left, saying and doing things that have absolutely zero negative effect on anyone's opinion of them in Britain. But anything they believe or say would get them called a tankie by americans. Corbyn's christmas message a couple years ago extolling the virtues of the Black Panthers (an ML party) would send some people here into a fit, especially if they noticed the CCCP figure in the bottom right of the video at 2:10.
We have people like Frankie Boyle on national television funded by the taxpayer saying we should kill all the rich. and making pretty clear tweets about his own political position(before he quit managing the account himself). It's just a completely different environment.
Defending the USSR is indeed tankie shit. If the UK has a problem with communists being represented and taken seriously, they should do something about that
This is why I love the internet, for such takes as "Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the labour party that 40% of people (12.87million) voted for is a tankie".
There certainly are tankies in the labour party and the british hard left. But all of the people above are the soft left, not remotely tankies. The issue is that american libs are so far right that you can't differentiate between the demsocs and those of us that want and support revolution.
With that said if you want to see more communist representation in mainstream britain you'll enjoy learning about the Durham Miner's Gala which I made a short post on after attending the 137th year of it just a couple weeks ago.
You're not getting communists out of mainstream european politics mate, communists built the entire labour movement, trade unionism wouldn't exist without it. Ironically it's also communists building your current american unions such as Amazon's union, you just aren't aware that people like Chris Smalls read Lenin because you're not tuned into the underground american left.
And this is why I love the internet lol
Keep telling yourself that the amazon union just spontaneously appeared out of thin air and wasn't the result of an absolutely massive organised salting effort by socialists then. Just deny reality.
I have literally never written words "Amazon union" until this comment right here. You sure did show that man of straw a thing or two, though.
I said that Corbyn said tankie shit. He's also an antisemite. Communism is clown shoes.
Also unironically I think Jeff Bezos should buy the Amazon Rainforest and change "Amazon" to the Amazon logo, officially.
IT'S TWENTY TWENTY THREE AND NEOLIBERALS ARE STILL SAYING THIS RUBBISH
Embarrassing.
You seriously don't have an opinion on The Amazon Rainforest Brought To You By Amazon?
That makes me sad
Eh?
I don't think any of the examples you linked are things which could credibly be called Tankieism in my eyes. Corbin saying that those regimes on balance did more good than harm is not the same as directly defending genocide as some of the programmers of this site do.
I'm a Bernie Sanders democrat and disagree with both the Tankie positions of the programmers and those you link to, but I don't consider both to be examples of Tankieism.
This is literally what all MLs believe. All MLs acknowledge the mistakes of past socialist experiments the people that don't are a literally tiny insignificant number of people inflated into a meme that is used to attack socialism in general. There are only too positions that have been used to create this myth and that is the idea that holodomor was intentional (it absolutely was not) which is used by nitwits to claim a genocide was performed by way of famine, and the xinjiang issues that were inflated into nonsense and then backtracked on by the US state department.
The point generally is that tankie is a nonsense word used to attack the entire left and eliminate nuance. It prevents conversation. It is a thought-terminating word dumped into conversation by everyone that opposes socialism as a means of preventing any and all discussion that might make people think critically or understand any nuance that people in the left actually have.
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https://piped.video/kmFGS7TyBPk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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If you think that, then I don't think you understand the term Tankies. Tankies are apologists for the genocides and wrongdoings of Communist regimes.
Just wanting welfare or healthcare doesn't come anywhere near the level needed to be called a Tankie.
So like defending Mao, the USSR and praising and recommending the Black Panthers, who met with government of north korea and defended juche thought then. Like, literally everything I just linked to above?
Lmao what part of "my job is to overthrow capitalism" do you not understand?
Jeremy Corbyn is a notorious antisemitic twat who was so shit people literally voted for Boris fucking Johnson to avoid having Corbyn in power! How terrible do you have to be to get people to support Johnson?
Give it a rest with the fake news. Anti-zionism is not anti-semitism. Opposing Israel is not anti-semitism. And the claims of antisemitism in labour being terrible were always fucking nonsense. The extent of this being nonsense were all unveiled in The Labour Files investigation, I strongly advise you watch it.
It's fucking absurd that you neoliberals are still pushing this rubbish in 2023 lmao. Embarrassing.