• sarsaparilyptus@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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          1 year ago

          “You don’t tolerate Nazis? Perhaps YOU are the REAL Nazis”

          Why are you people all the same? Do you get a 50 Cent Army script or something?

          • floorpigeon@aussie.zone
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            1 year ago

            I fail to see how your first statement has anything to do with my comment. Of course I don’t tolerate Nazis, fascists or anything of the sort and trying to lump your idea of ‘tankies’ into this category does remind me of what conservatives and reactionaries sometimes do with ‘woke’ Also just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean I’m one of ‘you people’ ‘tankies’ ‘red fascists’ or wumaos and you are just lumping me in with anyone who you associate with being part of that vague group. Just because I don’t agree with you on any issue doesn’t mean that I’m a state propagandist.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      What would you call the position that defends authoritarian communism even to the point of justifying genocide and brutal suppression of opposition and free press?

        • Silverstrings@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          What the fuck does that question have to do with anything? The US could have a personal hatred for every individual Uyghur Muslim in the world and China would still be in the midst of trying to genocide them.

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I’m an American and I care, so at least partially yes, America does care. And because we have a democracy, the government (at least imperfectly) reflects the priorities of the people.

          But I also agree with the other poster that doesn’t really have anything to do with anything we were taking about

    • ToxicHyena @sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      at what level of desperation do you have to be that you look at totalitarian states and decide they’re the forefront of leftism in the world, instead of just like, admitting they didn’t work and trying to avoid the mistakes they made? seriously, why? in an ideology and belief system heavily entrenched in nuance why do you view the world in black and white? why is it being a “lib” to say that governments who repress the human rights and civil liberties of minorities are not practicing leftism in good faith? the same governments who have horrifically and violently crushed workers rights movements? who have enforced crippling wealth inequality in their own borders? do you even know what leftism is?

        • Comrade Spood@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The state owning the means of production is no better than capitalists. Only when the workers control it themselves will communism be achieved and settling for anything less shouldn’t be accepted

          • WhatTrees@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 year ago

            I get your general point, but I’d like to say that theoretically you could have a socialist system where the state owns the means of production for certain industries and the workers would have control through the state as long as the state is an actual functioning democracy.

            The problem, of course, is that states with that much power almost always devolve into authoritarianism because of the corrupting force of power.

            All I’m trying to say is that, if done right, you could have actual worker control via the state as long as the state is actually listening to and, in some sense, subservient to the people.

            This is no way defends the state capitalism we see in China and Russia since they are not even close to a functioning democracy.

            • Comrade Spood@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              States with that much power will always devolve into authoritarianism. If there is a power structure, it will be corrupted. That’s the issue.

              • MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Yea that’s where I’m at. Human nature is a bitch.

                I believe I’m an anarchist at heart, though I’m not sure the world, with its current population, is ready for that level of self reliance and community building. Lots of learned behavior to break.

                We kind of dug ourselves a mighty deep hole as a species. We need to be better.

                Growing up in a western capitalist state has left me fairly jaded as far as politics go, tbf

                The question always comes down to how do we stop people from being bad. The answer escapes me tbh.

                • citsuah@lemmygrad.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  “The question always comes down to how do we stop people from being bad.” This is the problem with not having a materialist analysis of the world, its not about being bad or being good or morality at all. At large people are motivated by self interest, perpetuating and sustaining their material conditions. Its only through struggle of the oppressed against those in power that change can come about.

                • Comrade Spood@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I am an anarchist. And I understand that. I flip flop between having hope and thinking there is none. Some days I think we missed our chance and now we’re too far gone. Other days I look at movements like the Zapatistas and Rojava and think that their may be hope. Ultimately I don’t think any first world country is gonna have it happen. Maybe if a country had a successful anarchist revolution and society, it’d be able to inspire people in first world countries. But I do think our hope lies outside of first world countries. At least till there is a proper example to inspire people.

                  I do still try to put an effort into organizing where I live. As I think it is still important to do that. Even if I don’t think it will garner fruit till there is a true example of anarchism in action.

                  • MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    I really feel what you have said.

                    I’ve found that the most I can do is to touch people in my everyday, hopefully sparking some sort of revolution within themselves, but not in an intrusive or dogmatic way. I live in a particularly conservative area, and I find that they are just people, people whove been indoctrinated to the point of apathy, with a side of fear of the unknown ie racism etc. I’m knee deep in the shit, and it’s overwhelming sometimes.

                    I am not hopeful for any political or economic agenda. But I am hopeful of the human spirit.

                    It’s pretty resilient, but also malleable. You add in our self perpetuating ‘I me mine’ mentality and you end up with bad actors taking advantage of the majority, decent people.

                    I do agree that the 1st world, at least where I am, would need something pretty tragic to spark some sort of sweeping change. We are not taught self awareness, at least I wasn’t, and I think that’s where alot of our progress will need to come from.

        • barsoap@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Supporting Cuba doesn’t a tankie make: Good arguments can be had that Cuba is actually a democracy, and not in the “democracy is when party rules” kind of way. Supporting North Korea, OTOH…

        • HelixDab@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Fun fact: you can be opposed to capitalism without being a communist.

          You [tankies] maybe opposed to capitalism, but you’re still in favor of the coercive control of individuals by a state-level entity. That’s just another flavor of authoritarianism.

            • animelivesmatter@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Feudalism will be different this time we swear.

              You’ll get to vote on a lord to rule the town, and they’ll get to vote on the barons to rule over each barony, and each barony will basically be its own country anyway so they maintain the right to secede and stuff like that, and the barons will get to elect a monarch and a council to advise them who will rule the country.

              So you see it’s totally democratic and it definitely won’t turn into a de facto autocracy that’s not meaningfully different from regular feudalism this time

            • HelixDab@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              That’s closer to anarchism then communism. Communism, as it’s generally developed, has a central state authority.

              Personally, I see the existence of a state and individual liberties as always under tension. You can’t have a state without some infringement on individual expressions. But some restriction on individual expression is necessary for a functioning society. The question is what infringements and under what circumstances are acceptable.

        • Comrade Spood@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You’re just licking a different boot. All forms of hierarchy need to be abolished. State and capitalist. You don’t advocate for workers, all you advocate for is state control.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              We’d have more than two if it hadn’t been for tankies stabbing us in the back. But go, go on, tell me how Makhno was a counter-revolutionary or something. Kulak? Or was it about not being able to tolerate a non-authoritarian alternative.

              As to successful tankie revolutions… there’s none. They devolved into either state capitalist tyranny, capitalist tyranny, or straight tyranny. Cuba and Vietnam don’t count they were wars for independence from colonial powers first, communist second in Vietnam’s case and in Cuba’s fourth or fifth or something.

              • Valbrandur@lemmygrad.ml
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                We’d have more than two if it hadn’t been for tankies stabbing us in the back.

                This is a phrase that keeps popping up in anarchist spaces but once you look at what it makes reference to it’s… Simply not true? It’s mostly used to refer to the Spanish Civil War, but one only needs to pick up a high school history book to learn that the May Days were a result of the anarchists attempting to antagonize the entirety of the Republican side by hindering war efforts, and not only the PCE or other Soviet-alligned communists, who held a rather small amount of power inside the Republican government.

                But go, go on, tell me how Makhno was a counter-revolutionary or something. Kulak? Or was it about not being able to tolerate a non-authoritarian alternative.

                If to not be authoritarian is a priority for you, reading Voline’s accounts of his participation in the makhnovist movement should be enough to realize that his project is probably not the one you want to rally behind the most.

                • Comrade Spood@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Just ignore the Zapatistas who are a current example of anarchism in practice.

                  And saying the Soviets held little power in the Spanish Republic is just a bald faced lie. The Soviets withheld supplies from non-soviet militias and actively damaged the war effort because they’d rather focus on garnering power than actually fighting fascists.

                  • Valbrandur@lemmygrad.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    Just ignore the Zapatistas who are a current example of anarchism in practice.

                    Their words, not mine. Yes, the Zapatista project has worked at their current scale and is doing well, I have no problems admiting that. That does not mean however that I think their methods would work on a larger scale, especially if they ever became a threat for imperial capitalism to be attacked with military force beyond attempting to contain them inside Chiapas as they have until now. As it happened to the USSR facing invasion during the Russian Civil War, as it happened to Cuba with the Bay of Pigs invasion and as it happened to Vietnam. And the Zapatistas do so too, as they claim that they are not driven by ideological purities and will adopt whatever it is that works for them.

                    And saying the Soviets held little power in the Spanish Republic is just a bald faced lie.

                    I said that the PCE and the Soviet-alligned communists had a rather small amount of power within the Republican government, and that is not a lie. The PCE only controlled three ministries within the government during the May Days, which is the event seen as the “betrayal” that led to the anarchists’ demise in Spain.

                    Soviets withheld supplies from non-soviet militias and actively damaged the war effort because they’d rather focus on garnering power than actually fighting fascists.

                    It is hard to work with abstract mentions, but I am willing to address this if you use more specific examples of Soviet sabotage of the war effort that I can look at and work with.

                    Edit: formatting.

                • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  You know it’s kinda rich of you to refer to, of all people, Voline. If he was critical of Platformism guess what he had to say about Bolshevism. Even before Trotsky tried to have him killed.

                  See one factor of Anarchism is that you invariably don’t end up having the same ideas of how to do stuff once the dust has settled and power is secured. Yes, Makhno was quite a bit of a Bonarparte. That doesn’t mean that he would’ve crushed disagreements with tanks, he would’ve taken an offer of “Comrade, we thank you for all you’ve done but you’re a fighter not a politician, here’s a nice Dacha”, and then written his memoirs. Anarchism adapts itself, Anarchists adapt themselves to local circumstances and culture, shaping it as much as the utopia is shaping people. As a gestalt, it is shapeless, therefore, it can succeed: Because it does not need to, must not, fight the people.

                  …somehow you also ignored the two successful ones. I kinda wonder whether you even know which I’m talking about.

                  Also, if you bother answering at all I’d like you to give an example of a revolution of yours that didn’t end in tyranny. Shouldn’t actually be that hard for a tankie as you don’t think tyranny is bad, so why not admit it that there’s none?

                  • Valbrandur@lemmygrad.ml
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                    You know it’s kinda rich of you to refer to, of all people, Voline. If he was critical of Platformism guess what he had to say about Bolshevism. Even before Trotsky tried to have him killed.

                    I am not talking about Voline’s personal opinions on neither platformism nor bolshevism, but on his accounts on the makhnovite project. I do not know what is your definition of tyranny since, as you implied, ideas amongst anarchists vary quite a lot. However, if you consider that the actions taken by state socialist projects to ensure their survival are tyrannical, I suppose you would too consider tyrannical the anti-mennonite massacres perpetrated by the black army after Eichenfield, the existence of a 200-men personal bodyguard corps (the Black Sotnya) for Makhno or the closure of the Bolshevik revolutionary committees of Alexandrovsk and Ekaterinoslav and threats of arrest and execution of its members, which ensured that the only speech that enjoyed of freedom in Makhnovia had to be anarchist-alligned. Acceptable? You will say if yes or no. Anti-authoritarian? I’d beg to differ.

                    …somehow you also ignored the two successful ones. I kinda wonder whether you even know which I’m talking about.

                    Rojava and the Zapatistas, I presume. The Zapatistas have already declared publicly and explicitly that they are not anarchists and that they reject such label, so there is not much else to say. Rojava on the other side is one project that anarchists in my area began to detract from after they began collaborating with the US army, but even then there exists fair criticism of it and accusations of repressing minorities by closing down Assyrian schools. Don’t misinterpret me: despite its faults I do have a generally positive view on Rojava, but I do not think it is the paragon of non-hierarchical and anti-authoritarian virtue that western anarchists generally set as the bare minimum.

                    You have not addressed my comments on the anarchist actions in the May Days during the Spanish Civil War, but I will not assume malicious intent from your part.

                    Also, if you bother answering at all I’d like you to give an example of a revolution of yours that didn’t end in tyranny. Shouldn’t actually be that hard for a tankie as you don’t think tyranny is bad, so why not admit it that there’s none?

                    I have no bad faith in this discussion, and I would like to ask you to do the same. We do not think that “tyranny is good”: we think that the state is needed for a revolutionary project to survive as much as it is its fate to disappear as class contradictions do too. We are dialectical materialists: even if we wanted for some reason the state to persist, the march of history would do away with it nonetheless, and we would have to accept it.

                    To answer your question: I am, again, not aware of what do you consider tyranny, but I have found most anarchists to be pretty accepting of Sankara’s Burkina Faso and admit that its pros outweight the cons.

                    Edit: grammar.

          • Bryn@lemmy.worldB
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            1 year ago

            Thank you for commenting Comrade_Spood on this post made in the 196 community.

    • dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I thought it meant the crazy liberals who want a communist utopia where no one works. The ones that specifically are so deranged they useally ban any discussion that’s against their ideology.

      • chaogomu@kbin.social
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        Tankies are the ones who think you need a strong state (read authoritarian) to enforce communism.

        They support the use of literal tanks to crush any rebellion or uprising against the authoritarian communist state, and then deny that it happened at all.

        The term was coined when the soviets crushed the Hungarian rebellion of 1956 (local communists didn’t want to be under soviet rule, soviets sent in tanks) The original tankies supported the soviets

        Then there’s Tiananmen Square, the CCP crushed protesters with tanks until fire hoses could wash the sludge down into the sewers, Tankies claim it was justified, when they acknowledge that it happened at all.

        Tankies deny the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs. Or claim that china is only detaining “rebels”.

        And finally, tankies tend to be pro-Russia, even though it stopped pretending to be communist in the 90s. The tankies tend to be anti-Ukraine in this conflict.

        Another aspect is the 100% denial of any western media or released intelligence, because it’s all evil capitalist propaganda.

        Basically these types of Tankies have picked up a history book, seen the overwhelming evil that the western powers have propagated and decided that anyone who stands against the western powers must be good. Which is stupid as fuck.

        The world isn’t black and white, it’s not good vs evil, it’s varying shades of greed and evil vs other shades of greed and evil. Tankies tend to not understand this simple truth.

        • REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Holy strawman. Can you do something else but repeating western propaganda as facts? Your Tiananmen tirade is based on lies, eye witnesses debunked it. Completely.

          You also whitewash the hungarian counterrevolution. And use the wrong acronym for the CPC. And STILL believe in the Uyghur genocide hoax?! Still, no muslim country supports the western accusations. And have no clue about anti-imperialism. Because a country pushing back US influence form its doorstep is bad somehow?

          Buddy: When western intelligence (any intelligence really) relase something, they do so intentionally. You need to be incredibly gullible to believe otherwise.

          You talk about “simple truths”, yet don’t even understand what the fuck you’re talking about. Grow the fuck up and learn to use your brain, it felt embarrassed reading your stupidity.

      • HelixDab@kbin.social
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        I don’t think that it’s accurate to call tankies liberals.

        A lot of this gets thought of on a left-right spectrum, but it’s really more like a compass, with economics being left-right, and authoritarian/antiauthoritarian being top-bottom. Liberals in the US would be slightly left of center on the economic spectrum, but largely centrist on the authoritarianism spectrum. Tankies would be far left on the economic spectrum, but at the top of the authoritarian spectrum. Libertarians (or, what gets called libertarian now) would be at the extreme right on the economic spectrum, but at the very bottom of the authoritarianism spectrum. (The most modern libertarians are not actually anti-authoritarian, although they claim to be. E.g., many of them oppose abortion rights.)