this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
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[–] [email protected] 44 points 2 years ago (15 children)

'tankie' is 'woke' for liberals just saying

[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No it's an insult for red fascists

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Explaining a meaningless insult using another one kind of just proves his point

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 years ago (1 children)

"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?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I fail to see how your first statement has anything to do with my comment.

Not surprising

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago

Maybe you could try explaining your reasoning to me instead of immediately comparing me to the Nazis?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What are your opinions on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

A last-ditch effort to defend against a war of extermination by fascists after the UK, France and America spent years rejecting the Soviet Union's offers of a united front, what about it?

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Some strawman stuff here. Define authoritarian? I look at the US and cant think of a better description. Seriously. I support Cuba. Oh but state control of economic structure you tankie!!!

It's a pejorative used to stop talking is all. Id rather actually engage in dialogue instead of shouting memes at each other

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (5 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years 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...

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Some kind of ultra-leftism maybe?

I don’t support justifying genocide. Since you’re probably talking about Xinjiang though, do you think the US actually cares about Muslims in China considering its actions in the Middle East?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

Could you link a source that doesn't lead back to one religious zealot who thinks he's on a godsent mission to destroy beijing and asked like 8 people how many uighurs they "thought" were in reeducation centers, then extrapolating these numbers to the entire Xinjiang population ?

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I actually think of capitalists as the real bootlickers but I definitely agree shouting names at each other online is the quickest way to change someone's opinion! I have seen the light!

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

you can be opposed to capitalism without being a communist

Feudalism might make a comeback lads

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 years 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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You can be a communist without being a tankie.

I'm a Libertarian Communist. Small groups of people helping each other with a small government in terms of social control.

A gobwnrmwnt sole job should be to help those that need of, not control peoples day to day lives.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Communism is an economic framework, not a political one.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Economics is political. Always has been.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

you’re still in favor of the coercive control of individuals by a state-level entity.

Find one.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago (3 children)

damn brb gonna tell xi to press the gommunism button thank you internet anarchist for showing us it was that easy, we just had to take a quick look at your list of successful revolutions to take inspiration from

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Maybe quite stabbing us in the back and practice some of that "left unity" you tankies love to preach about

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Perfect projection, no notes

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago (13 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years 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.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Bro if a communism button existed Biden would be infinitely more likely to press it than Xi, and Biden sure as shit is not a communist.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)
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