They're never going to be able to argue Stalin didn't send firing squads to murder the Spanish revolutionaries. After seeing this meme they'd be crazy to try.
The Spanish Civil War is a bit weird in nomenclature, though. The 'revolutionaries' were the fascist branches of the military and monarchists, who were mad at the leftist elected governement.
Usually revolutionaries aren't conservatives, but in the Spanish Civil War they were. Both Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin jumped at the chance to test out their offensive capabilities and sent their armies there. And it was a bloody affair where both parties slaughtered civil parties.
But Russia, for once, supported the democratically elected party in this war.
I'm not affiliated with the tankies and hate the fables they spin, but as an historian this one point really needed some context.
It's easy to make a list of all communists countries that turned fascists and massacred people. You don't do that with capitalists because there are simply too many, everywhere, in about all of history.
Just that most captialist counties are democracies and all communist countries are authoritarian because communism and it's limiting of rights doesn't go without a dictatorship and the murder of millions of innocent people 😇
As [email protected] less succinctly put it. Capitalism is barely a few hundred years old. It's barely existed a fraction of human history. It's barely older than many of the original socialist ideals. Let alone all of history. Markets and currency predate capitalism and socialism by millennia. And neither has claim to them. Despite both making use of them.
That said fuck leninists. Actual communists are pretty chill though. But leninists and capitalists are a threat to everyone. Including themselves.
That's not entirely true. The Hudsons Bay Company, for instance, was on the stock market in the 1600s. The London Royal Exchange was built in the 1500s.
So capitalism has existed since "about all of history"? About as dumb a take as folks insisting that the Israel/Palestine conflict has been going on for thousands of years.
If only we could imagine what a truly capitalist country would look like in the future! Like, I don't know, we call this genra something like cyberpunk?
That may have something to do with the fact that there is no such thing as "true capitalism." Capitalism is as "true" as it can possibly get.
Economies are always mixed.
There can be no "mixture" between socialism and capitalism. If the means of production isn't controlled by workers it means there is no socialism to "mix" in the first place.
Liberal countries are the only ones capable of providing a safe and prosperous society for all. It doesn't mean all liberal societies are like that, but liberalism is the only one that can create and maintain one.
All but those who are excluded from it. Who are the slaves in your countries? How many societies had to be destroyed for your country to become what it is now?
NNNOOOO!!! HOW DARE YOU UN-WHITEWASH LENIN!!!! NOOOO!!! Tankies tried SO HARD to make Makhno disappear like Trotsky! You LIBERAL AMERICANS!!! REEEEEE!!!
Here is Makhno in 1920 after agreeing to a temporary ceasefire:
"Military hostilities between the Makhnovist revolutionary insurgents and the Red Army have ceased. Misunderstandings, vagueness and inaccuracies have grown up around this truce: it is said that Makhno has repented of his anti-Bolshevik acts, that he has recognized the soviet authorities, etc. How are we to understand, what construction are we to place upon this peace agreement?
What is very clear already is that no intercourse of ideas, and no collaboration with the soviet authorities and no formal recognition of these has been or can be possible. We have always been irreconcilable enemies, at the level of ideas, of the party of the Bolshevik-communists.
We have never acknowledged any authorities and in the present instance we cannot acknowledge the soviet authorities. So again we remind and yet again we emphasize that, whether deliberately or through misapprehension, there must be no confusion of military intercourse in the wake of the danger threatening the revolution with any crossing-over, 'fusion' or recognition of the soviet authorities, which cannot have been and cannot ever be the case."
— quoted in Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack, a pro-Makhno book
Yeah quite a large portion of lemmings are politically insane. It's either 'burn the rich, overthrow the government' or 'Maybe the windmill party has a valid point'
I think the hurtling toward climate crises has a lot of people desperate for governments to actually do something to help assuage it, not make it worse.
Well put! I love this place and have had some good discussions but I've also seen a lot of teenage political craziness and had that "oh, I'm talking to a lunatic or a child" sensation more often than I'd have liked to.
There are still plenty of members of the Leninist tankie cult left - look at the positions of most Communist Parties in Europe. To make things worse, I think most of them don't even realize that the Soviet Union is gone and that China became a cyberpunkish corporatocracy that puts the worst western country to shame.
I'm a fan of the term Kleptocracy. It seems to describe well a lot of newish regimes in south east Asia and south America, and it applies well to China and the United States of America as well.
I'm not familiar with the incident with Khrushchev, but the others didn't just kill the anarchists for no reason. Each leader was faced with an incredibly unstable country and economy. Anarchists hate government. So naturally, they'll join with the other leftists to take down the government. But, once the revolution is over, it's time to reorganize and reestablish a government. As I said though, anarchists hate government. So, they continue to destabilize and fight against the government, even though the new government is trying to reorganize and develop a stable economy.
Each groups was told to stand down and join in rebuilding the their respective countries or risk causing more widespread famine and throw the country into... Well anarchy. The problem isn't that these leaders are necessarily evil men for what they did to the anarchists. The problem is the dangers that the anarchists created for the people of China and the Soviet Union. This is why Anarchism has never succeeded on a large scale. It's only good at disruption and destruction. Read about Spain in the late 19th century for examples. No country can survive under constant revolution.