Tankies reaction to Beehaw removing itself from Lemmy -- "When you adopt an anti-communist stance, you pave the way for unhealthy social trends to takeover" also apparently Beehaw are fascists?
pick one, because they are not interchangeable.
One is antithetical to authoritarianism, and the other seeks nothing but.
There is plenty of good reason for LGBTQ+ folks to be attracted to communism.
Anarcho-communism is antithetical to authoritarianism. But the use of the word today is nearly synonymous with Lenin’s or Bolshevik’s communism (and their further variations by multiple future parties, like Mao-communism), because this was the only flavor that actually existed as ideology in countries where communist parties were/are in power.
You my run with your own definition of communism being of a particular flavor, but you will always face people that do not understand you, because the common definition is not that.
Think of it this way - you're a queer person who has struggled most of your life to feel safe and accepted. Then you meet a community that tells you all transphobes get the firing squad. Suddenly you feel safe, accepted, and like you matter. That emotional contrast is veryy appealing and addicting.
Nevermind that in real life, if you were putting people to the firing squads for as little as saying "neopronouns are stupid" will actually just make the majority of people fear and hate the queer community in the long run.
Oh yeah, no argument there, just like those log cabin conservatives or whatever, there will always be people who both internalise their own oppression to such a degree, and also have the willingness to step over others to benefit themselves, who will act as "one of the good ones" for the oppressing group, tokens they think will be spared but never are.
The point being raised, I believe, is that 'communist' countries are generally as 'communist' as they are 'the people's' or 'democratic' - it bears little resemblance to the 19th century theories which spawned the term and which are still in use amongst socialist thinkers today.
I mean, countries controlled by communist parties themselves would say that. Communist parties generally claim to run a socialist worker's state which will lead to communism.
In reality, it's just a power grab, with little to do with the workers.
There have been socialist polities in the past 100 years, genuinely socialist. None without their faults, but certainly not the totalitarian farce that people think of when they think of communism.
I recon the Neozapatista communes in Chiapas come pretty close. Historically, Revolutionary Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, the Makhnovshina during the Russian Civil War, and a couple others also came very close to the definition of communism, although all of them, because they still had to interact with the outside economy, continued to use some form of money.
In the case of the aforementioned historic governments, they met their demise because they relied too heavily on an alliance with tankies, who then proceeded to shoot them in the back. The Neozapatistas did not ally with any authoritarian groups, which is why the sprung up in 1994 in the form of MAREZ and still exist today in the form of GALs.
No, these countries have implemented 19th century theories extremely accurately. After all, Marx manifesto is openly calling for violence and genocide and Marx was also a big fan of Taiping Rebellion which resulted in more than 20 million deaths. I bet he was dreaming about the same destiny for Europe.
an authoritarian calling his dictatorship the leftist thing doesn't make it the leftist thing, it just makes it part of a pattern of the power hungry intentionally co-opting of leftist ideas to gain popularity.
As for the first question, if you had followed the conversation at all or bothered reading any of the information I linked you would be able to answer that yourself, and I'm done doing the work for you, if you care, make your own effort to find out.
Huge difference. While the authoritarianism stage is not the end goal of Communism, Marx himself believed it was a necessary step. It is entirely reasonable on the topic of political theory to reference Leninism as Communism because it is a defined characteristic of one of the stages of a long-term Communist plan. Even though there is an implicit dream of a utopian future where that behavior stops, the behavior is still intentionally defined in the process. As a formal part of the process, there is an explicit pursuit of authoritarianism.
That said, there may be people who think communism can be achieved without the authoritarianism stage... But I think the "ACAB" statute needs to apply. Until Communists come out in open and extreme opposition to "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", they must be judged to be at the very least complicit.
The Zapatistas have organized a net of interconnected communes in Southern Mexico that have operated independently from the Mexican state since 1994.
In these communes, productive property is held in common by the inhabitants. There are no employers or employees. Difference in wealth is negligible. Governance is achieved via participatory democracy. It is as close as you can get to communism when you're still forced to trade with capitalists and thus use money.
By definition, socialism is social ownership of the means of production. Social ownership can be public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee, depending on which brand of socialism you are interacting with.
I don't see "totalitarian dictatorship" as a form of social ownership and I imagine most people alive wouldn't either.
You know, if you'd opened with that line, instead of a completely fictional line about a Fascism being literally socialism, you might have made more friends from the start.
Still being a communist is analogous to being a tankie, because to still be a communist in 2023 demonstrates delusional belief in an obsolete political theory while choosing to accept its endless failures and its millions of victims. It's an active choice.
-Are average Americans "capitalists" because they sell their labour for money in a market economy?
-Is China a socialist nation?
-Were the National Socialists actual socialists?
If your answer to any of the above was "yes" you need to take a step back and ask yourself some questions, namely:
-What is a capitalist?
-What makes a nation socialist?
-What is authoritarianism, and is it distinct from socialism?
RIDF stands for Russian Internet Defense Force: those who are paid to further the foreign policy goals of Putin by shitposting online, but also includes the pro-Russian, anti-West, or just plain easily-manipulated idiots who do it for free. Concern trolling, forum sliding, sealioning, simping for the failed states and ideologies in Russia's sphere of friendship, these are all RIDF characteristics. See also: 50 Yuan Army.
I don't really agree. There's nothing wrong with communist theory, it's never really been embraced somewhere it should/would actually work out well. Vietnam I guess is probably the best real world example of success.
Marx, the original father of communism theorized it to be the next logical step in the evolution of an economic system. From his perspective only the most advanced industrialized nations would be capable of the transition. For whatever reason communism has almost exclusively been adopted by countries who were not or were currently struggling through the early stages of industrialization. Marx and his vision for a communist society was definitely not meant for a agrarian society as it was almost exclusively attempted in.
Communist ideas could work somewhere like America or Europe possibly. Most countries already employ many of Marx's pillars of a communist society. America and all EU countries don't really practice a pure form of capitalism, and haven't for a really long time. There's socialist and communist ideas employed all over. They just don't openly get called that. Communism doesn't have to be a bloody revolt with a totalitarian leader installed.
Vietnam I guess is probably the best real world example of success.
Yugoslavia but take away all the Yugoslavs
For whatever reason communism has almost exclusively been adopted by countries who were not or were currently struggling through the early stages of industrialization. Marx and his vision for a communist society was definitely not meant for a agrarian society as it was almost exclusively attempted in.
Because Marxism-Leninism proposed that if you have a small group of people who hold all the power, you can just will your way past the bourgeois democracy stage with the help of the peasantry, and the Soviet Union put a great deal of effort into supporting ML movements, and crushing non-ML leftists.