I don’t like spending this much time arguing against campism but they just keep talking at me.

  • abc@suppo.fi
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    3 minutes ago

    Benevolent idiot vs malevolent idiot, or as they were historically called: trotskyites and stalinists.

  • StudyTheDerg@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    5 hours ago

    Tankie here. I would agree on the following point – that we are not the same. But, neither are communities where most people are respectful of others’ liberties the same as, or suited to the same kind of rule as, communities where most people are authoritarians. Anarchism doesn’t work among authoritarian populations.

    In some places, there isn’t a whole lot of class struggle – I could see anarchism working in those places, but not with most modern people. Those are typically isolated places where people are self-sustaining and disconnected from modern industry, places where states can’t naturally grow on account of the pre-existing lack of class struggle in those areas.

  • Yeller_king@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    18 hours ago

    If you value any economic system above democracy, you’ll end up being authoritarian no matter what your preferred system is.

    • SethW@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      14
      ·
      17 hours ago

      How do you justify democracy when people are voting for life to be worse instead of better, even to the point of undermining the democratic process itself? Sure we could argue at some point democracy had the effect of improving living conditions but should we expect that to be true forever in all circumstances?

      I dont believe that democracy is valuable as an end unto itself, it is a tool that should serve its people and if it stops doing that we shouldn’t be dogmatic about it. Authoritarian systems certainly arent the way, and I would guess what we need doesnt even have a name yet.

      • IamMoonPie@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        11 hours ago

        Democracy works, the problem is we don’t have a true democracy. We have corporate capitalist democracy. It’s a system that makes most people think it’s democracy — but it’s not.

        Democracy and capitalism can not exist in the same stratosphere if democracy is to succeed.

      • cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        11 hours ago

        Pointing out the flaws in some democracies is not a great argument when every other system is so clearly inferior. To answer your question, democracy requires a culture that supports it. It won’t work everywhere and it doesn’t work overnight.

      • nanometer1625@thelemmy.club
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        16 hours ago

        How do you justify democracy when people are voting for life to be worse instead of better

        How are you determining “better” and “worse”? In most cases, there’s no way of knowing what is “better” or “worse” sub species aeterinatis, because most government decisions are not optimizing a single parameter, and are instead making a judgement call by choosing one of multiple options from a Pareto frontier. With democracy, the people get what the majority of people want. Majority rule is better than minority rule.

          • punchmesan@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            15 hours ago

            There’s a big difference between the ideal democracy and the bastardization of a democratic process we have in America, much like how Marx’s vision of communism is hugely different from any actual communist implementation. I personally don’t believe that any one governing/socioeconomic system taken in a vacuum is the right answer, they all seem to rely on humans being fundamentally good-natured but it just isn’t true for much of the humans attracted to positions of power.

            • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              ·
              14 hours ago

              an ideal democracy would be a democracy where the people have power, as opposed to one where money rules. such is the case in the fake ‘democracies’ under capitalism. it’s not just america and it’s nothing to do with humans needing to be ‘good natured’.

              • Sarah Valentine@pawb.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                12 hours ago

                The problem is “the people” in a democracy literally just amounts to “the majority”, and would thus favor the average and the interests thereof over the interests of underprivileged minorities. Can we count on the average person to be concerned about the well being of those who lack the collective power they enjoy? As of now, I would say definitely not.

      • ZMoney@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        16 hours ago

        Elections are not democratic because the candidates are always elites of some form. Even with universal sufferage and an egalitarian society there will always be a selection bias towards people who want power and people who are good at winning elections (but not necessarily good at governing). A real democracy would have election by lottery to ensure every segment of the population was represented. This hasn’t ever existed because past governments who elected by lottery (e.g. Ancient Athens) had only a small percentage of society represented as citizens.

      • Yeller_king@reddthat.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        17 hours ago

        Let me know when you come up with a way to force people to accept an unpopular system without an authoritarian regime.

  • btsax@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    arrow-down
    9
    ·
    19 hours ago

    Tankies: ackshually, the term “authoritarian” is not narrowly defined and therefore has no meaning! Checkmate libs1

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    34
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    22 hours ago

    For tankies, communism must be authoritarian, and the worst tankies will just prefer even actual fascism to “childish naivety of democracy”. Technically tankies are just the leftist version of your right-wing grandpa trying to convince you to finally grow out of leftism, except they’re overtly obsessed with “On authority” by Friedrich Engels.

    • Equinox1289@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      21
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      17 hours ago

      I hate being told I’m not socialist for wanting coöperative ownership and a coöp commonwealth economy, but that they are real the “real” socialists when they just want state owned corporations.

    • leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      17 hours ago

      the leftist version

      Are they leftists, though? They call themselves leftists, sure, but if it walks like a duck…

      • pheelicks@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        14 hours ago

        Yeah. I dont know exactly what I would call them but the German “far”-“left” splinter party BSW just supported the actually far-right party AFD in voting for the first far-right state governor since the Nazi era… that’s not exactly behavior that anybody would seriously consider left.

      • takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        14 hours ago

        Good point, they seem to be authoritarian with the extra requirement that government should also control the means of production.

    • BilSabab@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      21 hours ago

      which was written in 1872 and is kinda way way way way way way way past its selling date.

    • psycholocomotor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 hours ago

      Trotsky the person was acceptable, I don’t agree with him, but he was acceptable. Trotskyists… idk, they’ve really embarrassed themselves lately.

  • psycholocomotor@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    39
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    Idk what communist movement you think is going to emerge pristine out of this horrific, traumatizing, wasteland of human suffering without being wrong in really terrible ways.

    A socialist or anti-imperialist movement does not have to be morally correct for me to back them. Class struggle does not have to be led by good people to succeed, they don’t have to have a correct interpretation of Marxism or be Marxist at all, they don’t have to not have corruption, and they will almost always carry reactionary baggage. In a lot of situations (almost universally) it’s not realistic or possible at all for a resistance to capitalist exploitation, colonialism or imperialism to exist without all of those problems and more, but doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist. If they’re opposing capitalism, even if they’re doing it badly, they deserve support.

    Also, yes, MLs shouldn’t do apologia for the things the USSR did or other socialisms did, they should state the truth clearly without discomfort. I’m kinda disillusioned with ML spaces on the internet, actually, because they really suck. It’s like a game to some people; a game about being right and not caring about fucking anything. It puts me off when I see like uncritical support of past socialisms as if they were perfect, which is impossible, and you’ll always end up being disappointed, which is the one of the points of this whole message, but it only serves to make them look like atrocity-denying historical revisionists to other people. Like the Soviets really did deport Tatars in trains, and really didn’t work to correct the colonialist past they inherited from the Russian Empire.

    However, the dissolution of the USSR and the throwing of its people to the wolves of finance capital was a humanitarian catastrophe for Eastern Europe and created a situation that even now is actually sickening to think about, and I don’t know at all how or when things will recover and get better for people there. It put into motion the fucking tragedy that is happening now in Ukraine plus all of the unseen suffering in the poor regions of what was the Eastern Bloc. The ex-Soviet countries are are perfect example of what losing looks like.

    Like I’m sure there are lurid, real crimes that Hamas, or Iran, or Ansar Allah committed, but I hope to god they don’t lose, because they’re fighting against the IDF and the American military and all of the bad things that the resistance has done cannot hold a candle to what the US and Israel have done. That’s how I feel about resistance to capital.

    Like you’ve gotta understand historical materialism and a lot more than just that, you have to keep trying to understand things for years to be good communist. I’m not a good communist. If you approach politics with the goal of having the correct hot takes, you’ll never want to understand anything. Just stop making hot takes, and look at the world.

    • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      Thanks for sharing this perspective.

      As a baby leftist, I don’t want to fall into the traps of others when it comes to heralding the goods of past socialist experiments without criticizing the ills as well.

      Nothing is perfect, as you say, and it a materialist socialists’ life long project to see the world clearly for all the material conditions that exist, and have existed up until this point. Idealist socialists and idealist communists will capsize their entire movement, and endlessly make things about purity tests.

      • psycholocomotor@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        1 day ago

        The words “purity tests” sets off my liberal detector, because of accusations of “purity testing” being used to defend Democratic party entryism and terrible DSA candidates from criticism.

        • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 day ago

          The words “purity tests” sets off my liberal detector, because of accusations of “purity testing” being used

          Outside of any liberal usage, you have to acknowledge the phenomenon of leftist purity testing, especially on Lemmy. It’s part of what makes the ML spaces so unsavory.

          defend Democratic party entryism and terrible DSA candidates from criticism.

          I mean,

          A socialist or anti-imperialist movement does not have to be morally correct for me to back them.

          Even the terrible DSA candidates are DSA candidates, and so far as socialist movements go they have the absolute advantage of popularity right now. I’m really, really tired of publicly glazing Democrats because the general class consciousness is so low that slowing the bleeding is the best we can get electorally.

          I would be absolutely chuffed if terrible DSA candidates displaced terrible DNC candidates, because at the very least it puts “Socialist” in the general public awareness, and lowers the barrier for decent DSA candidates. And the DSA is a better class of lesser evil overall. And the better the lesser evil, the more effective my dual power is going to be.

          Which is to say, purity testing is a real problem, and you don’t have to be a liberal to recognize that any proper leftist movement is going to need to engage the actual proletariat, and most of those guys are tribalistic dummies.

          • psycholocomotor@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            1 day ago

            The DSA cannot at all be compared to the groups I was talking about because they fail at one of the main requirements, to be an anti-imperialist movement, their candidates have like backed out from every meaningful thing. They are not really “democratic socialists” they are closer to social democrats.

            • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              4
              ·
              1 day ago

              Not really? The official DSA platform includes dissolving the Senate. The movement itself is pretty anti-imperialist, even if individual candidates have to waffle a bit to get elected by the tribalistic dummies.

              Still though, a better class of lesser evil than the DNC in any case, that can’t be denied. I haven’t seen a significant level of “backing out”, and certainly not from every meaningful thing. Until class consciousness attains a level to make more direct means practical, I’d rather shill for a lesser evil that sucks a bit less. DSA > DNC, even if both are a far cry from a proper International.

    • Andy@slrpnk.netOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      Yep, I agree with all of that.

      I’m not sure if you’re into this sort of thing, but I’m working with some friends on a tabletop game jam that we’re planning to run (online) over a weekend some time early next year about stories set in the midst of a future revolution. You can see the draft document into which we’ve been occasionally adding ideas here. Let me know if you’re interested.

    • Martti@suppo.fi
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      1 day ago

      It is possible. We had socialist consenus not that long ago :/ The only possible way to achieve at least near-socialist system is democratic. If the system does not directly represent views of their citizens, eventually you get oligarchic corpocracy with planned economy, that will crush all the nations beneath their boots. Furthermore: Bolsheviks were fucking extremists. When post-revolution parliament was established, and parties ran for seats, the majority of votes were Social-Revolutionaries, bolsheviks didnt have nearly as much votes. But then bolsheviks just shut down the parliament because they lost, and put their opponents in jail or even executed. So much for the people’s republic ig.

      Instead, we need to actually get support in southeen countries, fight US hegemony and get votes in european countries, but this time hwlping global south first would be priority, so the european and us capitalists couldnt move their capital to poorer parts of the world and thus destroy the socialist consensus.

      • psycholocomotor@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        What is “socialist consensus?” What are these words? “Oligarchic corpocracy?” “Social Revolutionaries?” Are you talking about the Mensheviks? Is this some kind of social democratic stroke?

        • Martti@suppo.fi
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          9
          ·
          1 day ago

          The fact you have no idea who social-revolutionaries are, means you gave a huge rant about your views, meanwhile having no idea how the most important socialist revolution went. Or even such a simple thing like socialist democratic consensus of pre-60s Congratulations you are a fucking tankie. And I dont get paid to explain history to americans. May your extremist pseudosocialist brainrot mythology stay with you

          • culprit@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            7 hours ago

            The SRs supported the Whites during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, but the White movement’s anti-socialist leadership increasingly marginalized and ultimately purged them.

            Seems like a very successful political ideology right there.

          • psycholocomotor@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            1 day ago

            The Socialist Revolutionary Party, the ones who supported the provisional government originally? And who supported the white army? I didn’t think it was possible anyone supported them in 2026.

            • Martti@suppo.fi
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              6
              ·
              1 day ago

              “Hey gemini, pls tldr history of social-revolutionaries”. Just shut up and dont embarass yourself. Dont try to narrow my original answer and read the wikipedia at least.

              With every answer Im more and more convinced you live in american suburb or some.

              • psycholocomotor@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                5
                arrow-down
                5
                ·
                1 day ago

                I thought you were talking about some mythical social democrats or something, based on your language and talking about votes in European countries. My brain turned off after I read the words oligarchic corpocracy. I thought you were a garden variety rad-lib. First person I’ve known who supports the SRs it didn’t even register in my brain.

                • Martti@suppo.fi
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  9
                  arrow-down
                  4
                  ·
                  1 day ago

                  What I meant is that bolsheviks were not popular nor they ever represented people of russia. And you still cant bother to read how the revolution went. Any totalitarian ‘socialist’ regime is not socialist, it is purely oligarchic corporcracy. Why corpocracy? Because both USSR and China busted worker unions, had hilarious elections, prevented regular people from becoming politicans or have any say. And ensured only their oligarchic circle could get to power. How is this different from authoritarian capitalist corporacy? Corporations also have planned economy, they also bust their worker union, and they also keep their people in fright of the state machine.

                  This kind of system is just as far from socialism as a late-stage capitalist state, and serves capitalists and imperialists.

  • Psythik@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    84
    arrow-down
    11
    ·
    1 day ago

    Can’t wait for the tankies to show up and once again try to defend bootlicking.

      • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 day ago

        There’s this new invention called “planes”.

        If you think it’s a moral imperative, you really would have been here already and done the job.

        But no, you’ll just watch Hitler from afar and post one liners

        • MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          15
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 day ago

          9 day old account with 200+ comments regularly suggesting political violence. I appreciate your effort, but you should just tag them as a troll and save your time.

          Anyone acting as if getting rid of Trump does anything is clearly not serious. Vance is Thiels little bitch and would approve company towns hour one. We’re lucky we have Trump still because his incompetence is really doing us more favors than we realize. If Trump died early in his term, JD would’ve had a bunch of competent evil people in power and they would at least know how to properly file court documents. We’re lucky Trump likes suck ups and fox new hosts more than people who can string together a sentence. JD would not make the same mistake.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 day ago

        Bootlicking is when you’re unwilling to martyr yourself in a nearly assured failure of an assassination attempt is certainly a take…

      • Psythik@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        1 day ago

        You say that as if 70% Americans don’t already want this. Bootlicking is when one worship people like Jinping, Putin, etc. instead of wishing terrible things would happen to them. That’s the difference between tankies and normal people.

        • Sharkticon@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 day ago

          Utterly disagree with your 70% contention. If anything its the exact opposite.

          Also do you really think Americans are any different than those who live under Putin? Or do you think just like the vast majority of Russians do Americans keep their head down during the day and in private in their heads and on anonymous message boards, they make wishes. Wishes that don’t mean anything. That’s why they’re called wishes.

          • 4am@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 day ago

            30% of Americans are MAGA.

            The rest found want as far off this ride and as far left as we can go, and we want it democraticly so those MAGA fucks don’t try to civil war us

            • Sharkticon@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              1 day ago

              70% want America as far left as we can go? I mean come on. You must know even at your most outrageously optimistic hopeful self that that’s nonsense. A lot of us could certainly wish it were true, but you’d have to be as high as a kite to think it is.

          • Psythik@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            I’m not pulling the number out of my ass. That is Trump’s actual disapproval percentage.

            • Sharkticon@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              1 day ago

              That’s my point though. Disapproval on a poll is a big fucking difference from action. That’s the difference between loyal opposition and actual opposition. Just because 70% disapprove doesn’t mean 70% actually want to do anything much less will.

              Edit: Hell 70% won’t even vote against it.

        • Carrots@quokk.auBanned from community
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          1 day ago

          30% want it

          30% want whatever the winner wants

          30% don’t want it

  • JayK117@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    21 hours ago

    In every story what post apocalyptic society survives? Communist. Every post apocalyptic society that leads to hellish dystopia? Capitalist. Prove me wrong.

    • mechoman444@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      21 hours ago

      Ok.

      Every post-apocalyptic society we can point to is fictional. After all, we’ve never actually experienced an apocalypse on that scale.

      But just off the top of my head, The Book of Eli depicts a post-apocalyptic society that has largely devolved into anarchy, with power concentrated in the hands of warlords and whoever can enforce their will through violence.

      Cyborg presents a similar picture: societal collapse, competing factions, and survival through force.

      Then there’s Mad Max, where civilization has collapsed into violent competition over increasingly scarce resources, with whoever controls the necessities of life holding the power.

      But I’d also venture to say that many of the post-apocalyptic societies people point to as examples of socialism are actually post-scarcity societies, or at least societies in which scarcity has been resolved to some degree. When the necessities of life are readily available, the incentive to hoard resources and compete for basic survival diminishes. That creates the conditions for people to organize society around collective needs rather than individual accumulation.

      In other words, what people identify as socialism in these fictional settings may actually be the result of a fundamental change in the material conditions of society.

      The interesting question isn’t whether people are naturally selfish or naturally cooperative. It’s how the conditions people live under influence which behaviors become necessary for survival. When resources are scarce and institutions collapse, people may turn to violence and self-preservation. When their basic needs are reliably met, cooperation and collective ownership become much more practical.

      Of course, neither outcome is inevitable. Scarcity doesn’t automatically produce anarchy, and abundance doesn’t automatically produce socialism. But the material conditions of a society have a tremendous influence on the political and economic systems that can realistically emerge.

    • leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      18 hours ago

      Dune. Turns out feudalism was what made it out of the machine apocalypse and ensuing Butlerian Jihad. Feudalism with nukes.

    • BilSabab@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      21 hours ago

      you know anything can happen in fiction? you can plausible write a post-apocalyptic capitalist society as well.

  • HocEnimVeni@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 day ago

    Didn’t Marx warn of an authoritarian takeover of a people’s revolution and how that was no different than having a bourgeoisie?

    • UiUiUiUiUi@piefed.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      23 hours ago

      Rosa Luxemburg certainly did but who cares about women in history am I right? /s

      • DaGreenGobbo@feddit.uk
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        18 hours ago

        Sylvia Pankhurst promoted Luxemburg’s views after her death. She also became disillusioned with Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

      • Doc_Crankenstein@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        19 hours ago

        Right? Who’d ever listen to women of history, like Emma Goldman, and especially women of color, like Lucy Parsons. They’ve certainly never mentioned anything worthwhile about this topic. /s

    • psycholocomotor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      I don’t think Marx ever condemned the word “authoritarian.” Or said anything about a dictatorship of the proletariat becoming more unjust than a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. That doesn’t sound like anything he’d say.

    • thethrilloftime69@feddit.online
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      15 hours ago

      Guy Debord criticized the Soviet Union for creating a new class system. He still believed in Marxism, but didn’t believe that the structure of the Soviet Union was able to create the conditions for communism.

    • key95@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      1 day ago

      Not according to “tankies” :D They love shiny boots holding a red flag. They just hate brown flags, but love a good boot-liking

  • thethrilloftime69@feddit.online
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    10
    ·
    15 hours ago

    I struggle with the term “Tankie”. Who is a Tankie? What makes them a Tankie? What makes them so frustrating? This term feels so vague that it just makes it easy lump all leftists into the term.

    As far as I can tell, you’re a leftist if you’re not unpleasant to deal with and you’re a Tankie if I find you unpleasant.

    It sounds like some Boogeyman I’ve never seen or spoken to but I’m obligated to dismiss everything they say even tho I’ve never seen one.

    • kestrel7_7@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 hours ago

      The term originally comes from a divide amongst Anglo communists between those who supported the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, and those who were critical. The tankies were the ones who supported “sending in the tanks.” These days it’s a disparaging term for any authoritarian socialists.

      • culprit@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        10 hours ago

        The tankies were correct.

        https://www.joewrote.com/p/jfk-files-reveal-the-cia-role-in

        In 1996, journalist Michael Smith published a book where MI6 officers, a branch of British intelligence, admitted they trained and armed Király’s fighters.8 The officer told Smith:

        “We were taking them [fighters] into the mountains and giving them a crash course. I would be told to pick somebody up from a street corner at night in the pouring rain. Graz was our staging point. Then, after we’d trained them — explosives, weapons training — I took them back. We were training the agents for the uprising.”

        Nagy admitted such factions were active during his October 28th radio speech.

        “The Government condemns the viewpoints according to which the present formidable movement is a counterrevolution [against socialism]. Without doubt, as always happens at times of great popular movements, this movement too was used by criminal elements to compromise it and commit common criminal acts. It is also a fact that reactionary and counterrevolutionary elements had penetrated into the movement with the aim of overthrowing the popular democratic regime.”

        Here’s the newly released, un-redacted version. It reads:

        The Hungarian Freedom Fighters were Agency sponsored.

        The “Agency” in question was, of course, the Central Intelligence Agency. In the context of the JFK assassination, the CIA was suggesting anti-Castro groups meet with Béla Király, likely to replicate the Hungarian uprising in Cuba to oust the communist government.

        Undoubtedly, some will downplay this revelation and claim the CIA’s role in the Hungarian Rebellion was minor, insisting it was always a popular movement against Soviet-style communism. As has been since 1956, I’ll be called a tankie for suggesting the American foreign policy establishment was 100% honest and weren’t the pristine Good Guys of History. Oh well. It won’t be the first time and it won’t be the last.

        In my opinion, there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the Central Intelligence Agency encouraged, if not instigated, the bloody fighting that swept through Budapest in 1956. I don’t doubt the students and protestors shared Nikita Kruschev’s desire for de-Stalinization. But as that movement went from a demand to readjust the Hungary-Soviet relationship to outright destruction of the Soviet Union’s defensive pact in less than two weeks, there was obviously a secondary, driving force that compelled Nagy to go further. As these documents admit, Béla Király and the broader combative force were supported, trained , and armed by the CIA and MI6; you don’t need to be a genius to figure out who was pushing the Hungarian Uprising to move from civil protest to alignment with Washington D.C.’s geopolitical goals.

    • RudeOnTuesdays@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      14 hours ago

      Not all leftists blindly support Russia or China just because they’re anti-western. Tankies seem to ignore all the evil shit Russia does just because they’re not the U.S./E.U/Israel.

      • thethrilloftime69@feddit.online
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        12 hours ago

        Ok but we all agree that the US/Israel is the greatest evil on Earth right? Like sure Russia does bad stuff, but like the US is worse.

          • thethrilloftime69@feddit.online
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            12 hours ago

            Yeah but if your goal is to bring the most good to the world, you’ll get closer to your goal by fighting against the US than you will fighting against Russia.

            • r1veRRR@feddit.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              12 hours ago

              That’s only true if a stronger Russia somehow would be a better country than a strong USA. There’s absolutely FUCK ALL to suggest that’s remotely true.

              It also a false dichotomy. You can hate Russias imperialism AND USAs imperialism.

            • Sarah Valentine@pawb.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              12 hours ago

              Again, you’re making this into a two-sided contest between two huge turds. I don’t choose either of them. I choose to fight the bad ideas and behaviors they’re known for, at all scales and in all walks of life, regardless of comparisons between them.

        • Yamees@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          12 hours ago

          They’re both guilty of imperialism on a world wide scale and all the evils that includes, but aside from it’s early days the US has generally been a better neighbour by pointing their evil overseas, Russia has largely been a menace to it’s neighbours in every era of history. I would say that’s the biggest difference.

      • FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        11
        ·
        13 hours ago

        Meanwhile, non-tankies blindly ignore the evil shit the west does on a much larger global scale and blindly accept the western narratives about Russia and China just because they’re too propagandized to realize they’re being lied to and misinformed. Not sure who the “blind” ones in this scenario are.

    • Andy@slrpnk.netOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      11 hours ago

      A Tankie is anyone who self-identifies as a Tankie.

      I don’t apply the term to folks as insult, I’m just acknowledging people who choose to identify as such.

  • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    1 day ago

    All governments are authoritarian at some point. Even anarchist communities theoretically will exert force on intruders by mustering up the people where they are, where they live.

    • cobalt32@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 day ago

      Exerting force ≠ authoritarian. These words have completely different meanings. For example, community defence against an authoritarian state can involve the exertion of force, but would be categorically anti-authoritarian.

      • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        16 hours ago

        Sorry, I should have said intruders as well as internal bad faith actors.

        There will still be psychopaths and sociopaths and serial killers and pedophiles in a communist or anarchist society.

        Communities will still need to deal with those malignant people, whether by outcasting/exiling/deporting them or inflicting punishment + delivering rehabilitation. Those activities will be authoritarian over the bad actors.

        • cobalt32@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          6 hours ago

          No, those activities would not be authoritarian over bad actors. Authoritarianism specifically involves concentrated hierarchical power that operates without accountability or consensus. Anarchist communities would handle bad actors in a bottom-up manner, even from the perspective of the bad actor.

          Also, your use of the terms “psychopath” and “sociopath” are harmful. These are medical conditions and should not be stigmatized. People with these conditions can lead normal lives if they get the help that they need.

          Edit: Apologies if I come across as a bit of a pedant. I just think it’s important that these terms are used correctly. <3

          • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            5 hours ago

            I was meaning authoritarian as in the sense of authority being commonly understood as the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. And my argument was that even communist and anarchist societies will use power over other bad actors inside that society if those bad actors pose as threats to the prevailing political system.

            If a bad actor seeks the pain and suffering of others, regardless of their mental health, or even if a bad actor seeks to persuade a society’s peoples away from the prevailing political principles, such as someone advocating for hierarchy in an anarchist society or a capitalist advocating for private property in a communist society, then those societies will still use their power to self preserve those modes of political power.

            To the bad actors, those societies will appear authoritarian.

      • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        16 hours ago

        Shouldn’t have just said intruders. Of course self defense isn’t authoritarian. Authoritarianism takes place above and over a society’s own people. I meant to also include internal bad actors like psychopaths, sociopaths, serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, racists, etc. For those criminals within society, it’s still best to remove them from that same society via exile/deportation or take away their rights to punish them then rehabilitate them. Those actions will appear as authoritarian to the bad actors.