this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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Tankiejerk
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Dunking on Tankies from a leftist perspective.
A tankie is someone who defends/supports authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes who call themselves "socialist". The term originated from people supporting the 1956 invasion of Hungary by the Soviet Union. Nowadays they are just terminally online, denying genocides, and falling for totalitarian propaganda and calling such regimes "true democracies". remember to censor usernames when necessary.
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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.
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...
Social Autocracy, oh wow that's a new one on me. They're just brutal dictatorships with a shiny veneer.
I call any dictatorships that barely does anything more than the Baltic states, while calling themselves as "socialists".
I think it gives them too much credit. They might give you housing but they'll kill you in the middle of the night because someone gave your name to stop the torture.
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!
I'm with you there. If we get poop->food magic machines then all bets are off. Until then we need a democratic state to prevent abuse.
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?
Gulag happened to them.
Wait until you learn whatt the SPD did to the Spartactus League.
"Accepting capitalism" is a bit like like "accepting crime."
It's a natural byproduct of a series of extremely complex systems which exist in every society, and you either need to understand the right way to respond to it and restrain it, or you will become a dystopian hellscape trying to eliminate it entirely. This is pretty much the lesson we have learned from every ML experiment this far. They always seem to end up with an even worse form of capitalism, just like "tough on crime" societies always end up with an even worse form of crime.
Eliminating capitalism requires conditions which we should work towards, but will likely never exist in our lifetime. But in the meantime, there is a lot of good we can do to diminish the social ills we have now, within that context, without being otherwise distracted by something which is effectively impossible in the short term.
That's the problem though. When you study revolutions you overwhelmingly find there is a group doing reforms in a civilized way after the previous government is removed. And they almost always get lined up against a wall by a power hungry asshole.
You have to remember that your slow and patient reforms can drag their feet to the point it becomes indistinguishable from malice. That's what happened to e.g. the "socialists" who allied with the Russian provisional government and kept supporting the war against the will of the people.
Well that's what the Bolsheviks claim at any rate. It's always what the dictator claims.
The masses supported the Bolsheviks in the summer and fall of 1917 because they were the most radically and consistently antiwar party, regardless of their other faults. It was the most urgent issue in politics at the time for reasons that should be obvious. This is a pretty widely accepted narrative even among right wing historians.
I agree with that but it's still just one issue that could have been solved with actual representation.
That's also why I think people are too quick to reject pax America. It's a locally stable region in which we can build. Reverting back to a revolutionary stance has a very real possibility of going quite far in the wrong direction before we can advance over the status quo.
Unless, of course, the path to post scarcity communism is just "21st century tech, 17th century population." Which I suppose is probably valid.
Toussant would've been better for Haiti than Dessalines. But him being a tyrant doesnt make me not an abolitionist.
Right, the problem is they turn around and defend the dictatorship because obviously Marxism cannot survive less you continuously sanitize the marketplace of ideas.
Well their version can't at any rate. I'd say Marxism can't survive violence in the ideas market.
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.
Lmao, good point!
Only in your imagination.
I thought that was the point. That actual communism only exists in the imagination. Until we get star trek tech as others have mentioned.
Well, that just confirms that Communists are lunatics.
This week in "didn't understand the prompt":
This week in "Nazis pretend they're not Nazis".
Oof the individualists didn't like that. I don't think it's inevitable though. I just think it's going to take some special people and circumstances we haven't found yet. For example a George Washington like figure who refuses to become another king.
Actual braindead take. A monkey with a typrewriter would come up with something more sensible.