• SomeLemmyUser@discuss.tchncs.de
    1694·
    2 years ago

    Agree with you in general, but I think a lot if people here are not really informed what differences there are materialistic ideologies.

    Yes, Stalin bad.

    But Guevara is not Stalin.

    Marx is not che

    Engels is not Marx

    China is not communist.

    Marxism is not materialism

    Socialism is not communism

    Also the amount of people bringing the “the 3 times people tried socialism were bad, so the whole ideology must be bad” argument are way to high IMHO.

    How many times was capitalism tried? How many times it worked out? Is the USA a “functioning” state with all the oppression, racism, greed, invading other countries out of monetarian interest and environment destruction?

    While I agree with you, that oppression is bad, no matter what the oppressor calls himself, we should talk about policies without resorting to dogmas and generalising people in favor of fear the hegemonic class is propagating to stay in power.

    • Sekoia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1181·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, that’s not the tankies here; these are “North Korea is a great country, actually” tankies.

      • TrashcanMarxist@sh.itjust.works
        212·
        2 years ago

        Should probably listen to Blowback Season 3.

        Not to say they’re a perfect country but to pretend that anyone in the West can critique them when their material conditions are dictated by the actions of the West is just comical.

        If you aren’t a materialist, what are you even doing? As if history happens in the realm of pure thought…

          • TrashcanMarxist@sh.itjust.works
            7·
            2 years ago

            Something something worlds largest prison population?

            Again, it’s not like North Korea is some shining example or anything, but to pretend that the west has the moral high ground here is laughable.

            Again, listen to Blowback Season 3, recognize that their country was basically bombed to the stone age Curtis le may style and then maybe reevaluate, just a little, the chauvinist attitude.

            DPRK is not a great country but it’s not as if they were ever given a chance either.

            • Sekoia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
              61·
              2 years ago

              Yeah, the US prison system is absolutely abhorrent and counterethical to all the principles it’s supposed to hold.

              First, the US is basically the only western country like that:tm:, second, more than one thing can be bad. “‘North Korea is a great country’ is a dumb position”, the only (implied) assertion I made about it in my original comment, is still true, even if they got dealt a shit hand (which, so did most of the east after WW2; South Korea was in a pretty similar state (it was actually worse than NK shortly after the Korean war), yet they’re doing… much better than NK at least).

              Being “basically bombed to the stone age” doesn’t mean a dictatorship is inevitable, nor that their government is suddenly blameless; being victimized doesn’t mean you can victimize others.

              Genuinely, if you take “the west” as a whole and compare it to North Korea… yeah, I do think they have a high ground. No, I’m not saying the west is perfect, far from it. No, I’m not saying communism is automatically bad, I’m totally cool with communists.

              Basically my base position is “a functional democracy is the governance system that works the best”. Most western states are much closer to that than North Korea (yes, I know what the Electoral College is and why it’s bad), so I do think their political system is better.

              • RedMarsRepublic@vlemmy.net
                2·
                2 years ago

                All of the so called ‘functional democracies’ of the West are abysmal, China has 94% government satisfaction where I doubt there’s one western country over 50% (and the US is at 24%)

              • TrashcanMarxist@sh.itjust.works
                1·
                2 years ago

                I still wonder why you’re so obsessed with North Korea. It’s not like the South wasn’t also a dictatorship until very recently. I wonder what the difference in economic outcomes was. Surely not the political system but instead the different material conditions between south and north i.e. embargo and isolation.

                Again, I don’t think that NK is the best example of AES, in fact their country is probably the worst. But I don’t think the people who have produced the economic emisseration of the country and have worked to undermine its regime at every term get to scold them about their political choices.

                Why should democracy be privileged when the choices of that democracy, at least internationally, are immoral. Should we praise democracy when it produces an evil outcome? Why are you so wedded to a system? After all democracy produces trans and drag bans in the south. Is that good? This isn’t to say dictatorship is superior, I don’t think it necessarily is, but to pretend the virtue is in the system rather than the outcome is pretty lib. If democracy produces fascism is it still good? If we throw our trans friends or homeless into the wood chipper because voters say it’s good with 51% of the vote, does that legitimate it?

            • IriYan@lemmy.world
              1·
              1 year ago

              The country that holds the record for number and percentage of people in prison is the US. In the US the percentage of black people in prison was higher than the percentage of black people in prison in South Africa during apartheid.

              No other western/industrialized (at some stage) nation has had so many political exilees and people whose citizenship was revoked based on “anti-american” views than the US. At some point the general secretary of RCP was in exile in France with his citizenship revoked. So, not all states are equal, and their historic development as modern capitalist states should be studied within context.

    • SuddenDownpour@lemmy.world
      813·
      2 years ago

      When a liberal says “tankie” they mean anything remotely communist-looking. When a leftist says “tankie”, they mean authoritarians who like red flags and self-proclaimed communists who nonetheless support hierarchies and have no plan or intention to bring them down. I think the vast majority of people here knows this already.

    • 𝔊𝔦𝔫𝔧𝔲𝔱𝔰𝔲@lemmy.world
      475·
      2 years ago

      Is the USA a “functioning” state with all the oppression, racism, greed, invading other countries out of monetarian interest and environment destruction?

      I hope you realize that this is an incredibly privileged take. The US is rife with issues, but the hardships experienced by the average western citizen doesn’t even compare to the suffering that you would find in, say, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or (to a less extreme extent) Maduro’s Venezuela. To compare what a US citizen deals with on a daily basis due to capitalism to what a citizen of any of those countries had to go through is very reductive and may be perceived as disrespectful to many who had to live those experiences.

      • proletariatnerd@iusearchlinux.fyi
        303·
        2 years ago

        The US is rife with issues, but the hardships experienced by the average western citizen doesn’t even compare to the suffering that you would find in, say, Pol Pot’s Cambodia

        I have some fellas from Detroit that would disagree.

      • Definitely_me@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        241·
        2 years ago

        The United States, for all it’s faults, is the pretty side of capitalism.you don’t even need to look to the most poor countries to see a standard of living that makes even directly post ww2 soviet union look like a great place.

      • SomeLemmyUser@discuss.tchncs.de
        91·
        2 years ago

        1. Im not from USA, and from my point of view its mich worse than most other countries (no healthcare, no independend courts, murder sprees in schools nearly every day, opression of half of the world (a half of them just to get more oil to destroy the planet faster), one of 3 of the biggest war-pushers in whole earth, polutes and destroys earth mode than every other country per citizens, etc. PP.)

        2. capitalism mostly opresses and profits from people out of the country to Funktion. if its Bad in Venezuela or Cuba or Afghanistan, or even early russia, thats at least partly fault of US.

        3. Venezuela is not communism, China isnt, russia isnt. Most of them have failed, at least partly because caputalist societys atack them and stop a as soon as they are born and they can’t form a stable democracy. Before reading Marx, your bashing of communism isnt worth anything, as you clearly don’t understand what you are talking about. We never had communism, and some would say not even socialism. You sound like you don’t even know the difference, since you keep talking about communism, which is a utopian society after humanity has stopped a lot of bad habits and has learned to live without working against each other in competition and working together instead, which arises maybe after generations of workig socialism, which we clearly didn’t have.

        4.you exactly prove my point. I dont agree with tankies either, but the number of people around here blindly copying capitalist propaganda while understanding nothing they bash about is too damm high.

        • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
          2·
          2 years ago

          You have a warped view of USA that doesn’t reflect reality. You’re seeing it through the lens of sensationalist news media and hyperventilating social media posts.

          The actual reality for Americans is that it’s a vast, beautiful land with an amazing spectrum of various experience. Violent crime is rare overall, and most Americans have never seen or heard any gun violence in person. Health care is available to pretty much everyone, even if you don’t have money. We have state-run healthcare facilities that the poor can make use of like county health departments.

          My life in the USA is great, because I don’t live in a big city. I live on my own land, in a nice house that I own, and I’m just middle class income level. It’s pretty easy to accomplish if you choose a low cost of living area rather than a big metropolis or suburb thereof.

      • Cynosure@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 years ago

        Well of course the standard of living in the imperial core is higher than the countries it has exploited or destabilized. A lot of American wealth is the fruit of imperialism.

  • BlinkerFluid@lemmy.one
    7712·
    2 years ago

    Thank fuck. I thought Lemmy was some ultra militant leftist hellhole before the shift.

    I don’t like extreme radical left any more than extreme radical right.

    Fuck Che Guevara. Read a book.

        • river@lemmy.world
          61·
          2 years ago

          already have. maybe u should get urself another book to read for once.

            • river@lemmy.world
              6·
              2 years ago

              the US state department dogma must be a much better read😌

              lmao

              How will you perform a non-authoritarian revolution? How will you quash racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.? By being polite?

              the main idea is dual power structures. spreading awareness, and people will do whats necessary, mobilize, organize, all that fun stuff. if u can teach people about the struggles of marginalized groups, they will be able to recognize it in their own lives and stand up against it.

              Or are you going to vote us towards communism🤩

              and there wont be a need for political parties to enforce “compliance”, people are naturally empathetic. well not all people, but the vast majority.

              And I have plenty more books, but go on🤗

              try “Are you an anarchist? the answer might surprise you” by David Graeber, if ur ever looking for something else.

              or “Anarchy works” by Peter Gelderloos for a more comprehensive description of these ideas.

        • ATGM 🚀@beehaw.org
          3·
          2 years ago

          Do you know its possible to read books and disagree with them?

          The ML obsession with treating books as religious tomes is getting tiring.

    • SunsetFruitbat@lemmygrad.ml
      161·
      2 years ago

      Che Guevara did a lot of good for people, like the people of Cuba. Considering he fought, and helped Cuba free itself from being a colony to the United States and against Batista. I didn’t know people fighting for the right to not be under colonial rule and have their own self determination is “extreme”.

      Also maybe go check out “On revolutionary medicine” by Che Guevara. I’ll also leave this quote from him.

      …the life of a single human being, is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth…

  • animelivesmatter@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    662·
    2 years ago

    finds social media developed by tankies

    looks inside

    finds tankies

    fr I’m down with having a good old purge eventually but noone should be surprised

  • buckykat@lemmy.fmhy.ml
    591·
    2 years ago

    What are some good actual communist lemmy communities that aren’t supporting the fucking capitalist imperialist russian invasion?

          • Discoslugs@lemmy.world
            23·
            2 years ago

            Okay Stalin’s Moustache,

            Listen there’s more kinds of people than liberals tankies, and fascists.

            There are also anarchist who can critizes these three groups ( and others) with out being within them.

            I have no problem with ML and other comrades of various flavors but if your going to be really Into to stalin your not going to be working with me.

            You should read about the Spanish civil war.

              • Discoslugs@lemmy.world
                4·
                2 years ago

                Sure. There are plenty of people who are anarchists, who are people I would not work with. Like armchair anarchists.

                And the word “tankie” does get used by armchair anarchists A lot often inappropriatly.

                But still tankie is a valid crique of Red fascism.

                And if you are a person who believes In communism, and can see it’s benefits but are unable to see it’s faults your probably a tankie.

                Please remember on multiple instances The Soviets turned their back on anarchists. Like in the Spanish civil war.

          • Silverstrings@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            211·
            2 years ago

            To tankies fascist means opposing whatever flavor of authoritarian “communism” they prefer regardless of the reasons or context. This conveniently allows any number of pogroms, mass slaughters or engineered famines to be reframed as anti-fascist action, rather than a brutal expression of state power at the expense of the working class.

              • PlasmaK
                11·
                2 years ago

                “Genocide and enthnical discrimination is good, book told me so.”

          • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
            171·
            2 years ago

            Then what would you have me call people who make excuses for invasion, oppression, and genocide just because it was committed by the Russian or Chinese government instead of a western one?

        • Frod@lemmy.world
          17·
          2 years ago

          “tankies” criticize the Soviet union, you know? They also criticize the ebil See See Pee but apparently there’s no room for nuance

          • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
            212·
            2 years ago

            What’s your definition of “tankie”? If you’re willing to call out Putin’s homophobic journalist murdering authoritarian bullshit and the Chinese government’s massacring of protesters and genociding of ethnic minorities you’re not a tankie imo, you’re just a communist.

              • aski3252@lemmy.world
                303·
                2 years ago

                Westerners slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for decades on end, and it was fine because we labeled them all terrorists.

                No, it wasn’t fine, that’s kinda the point… It isn’t fine when the west does it, it’s not fine when others do it too…

                • ATGM 🚀@beehaw.org
                  9·
                  2 years ago

                  It’s pretty typical tankie behavior that we’re seeing.

                  When you say it’s bad that Stalin implemented genocidal policies such as against the Krim Tartars, Kalmykks and other ethnic groups, they come back with wHaT aBoUt aMeRiCa.

                  They know that both things can be bad, but they have similar incentives to right-fascists. That is to say they’re liars.

    • HornyOnMain🏳️‍⚧️
      14·
      2 years ago

      didn’t they have a problem with people doing alt-right dogwhistles about anti-white racism recently? and it got so bad that they had to make a mod announcement telling people to stop doing it and all of the users started trying to explain to the mods how it definitely wasn’t a right wing dogwhistle

    • AtomicAria@beehaw.orgEnglish
      657·
      2 years ago

      ? The developers of Lemmy are tankies, it’s important to make sure that tankies know they aren’t welcome here.

      • setVeryLoud(true);@lemmy.caEnglish
        341·
        2 years ago

        Gotta ask for both a source and your definition of a “tankie”.

        You keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means.

        • sp6@lemmy.worldEnglish
          633·
          2 years ago

          A tankie is someone who supports authoritarian communism (I believe the term originated from using tanks to suppress protests)

          Here’s a post showing that the main instance of Lemmy (hosted by the main 2 Lemmy devs) removes any negative posts about the Chinese or Russian governments for “orientalism”: https://lemmy.pineapplemachine.com/post/5784

          In the comments of that post, you can find one of the devs borderline defending what China is doing to the Uyghurs: https://lemmy.pineapplemachine.com/comment/5950

          That same dev has a github repo called “essays on communism”: https://github.com/dessalines/essays

          I’m pretty sure both of the devs’ profile pictures are Fidel Castro too

          • setVeryLoud(true);@lemmy.caEnglish
            411·
            2 years ago

            Aight fair enough, that’s pretty concerning.

            Nothing wrong per se with communism itself, it just tends to be extremely unstable and quickly turns to authoritarianism, I don’t think it’s ever worked for any nation in history so far.

            The defending of Uyghur genocides, and the defending of the CCP and Russian government is really concerning though. Good thing this platform is federated.

            libretro has a similar problem, it’s developed by a team of transphobic, homophobic, racist Russian apologists who border on Nazism. I don’t know what attracts these people to FOSS development.

              • JasBC@beehaw.orgEnglish
                152·
                2 years ago

                the modern russian state is not the soviet union, it is who america put in charge after creating a situation that led to millions of deaths.

                The fact that you can believe this narrative literally spawned by the people who currently control and siphon away 50% or more of Russia’s entire GDP into foreign bank accounts under the whip of Vladimir “East German KGB-operative” Putin is pretty astounding.

                • (deleted-account)@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  172·
                  2 years ago

                  Hey, just fyi, there are different branches of communism. The most popular ones vehemently oppose Russia, China, and North Korea.

                  u/CommunistLady is part of the delusional few who are pro-China, but please don’t attack communists as a whole because of the loud idiots.

                • psilocybin@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
                  11·
                  2 years ago

                  Your outrage is completely misguided.

                  Say Russia was trying to “exterminate gay people”: it is a capitalist country.

                  You can’t present the deeds of capitalists as evidence of communist wrongdoing.

            • ciko22i3@sopuli.xyzEnglish
              4·
              2 years ago

              “Let us take by way if example a cotton spinning mill. The cotton must pass through at least six successive operations before it is reduced to the state of thread, and these operations take place for the most part in different rooms. Furthermore, keeping the machines going requires an engineer to look after the steam engine, mechanics to make the current repairs, and many other labourers whose business it is to transfer the products from one room to another, and so forth. All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy. The workers must, therefore, first come to an understanding on the hours of work; and these hours, once they are fixed, must be observed by all, without any exception. Thereafter particular questions arise in each room and at every moment concerning the mode of production, distribution of material, etc., which must be settled by decision of a delegate placed at the head of each branch of labour or, if possible, by a majority vote, the will of the single individual will always have to subordinate itself, which means that questions are settled in an authoritarian way.”

              This is the dumbest take i ever read. You can literally choose not to work at that factory. Did you really read this book? Or are you just defaulting to a NPC response? If you really read the book you would understand how dumb it is to recommend it to people who are against authoritarianism.

        • verdare [he/him]@beehaw.orgEnglish
          472·
          2 years ago

          “You criticize society, yet you participate in it? Curious…”

          Judging by your username, I’m going to guess you’re a communist. Will you continue to participate in this forum using a computing device that was produced by a capitalist economic system? If you demand this level of ideological purity, it seems rather hypocritical.

              • Neptium@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
                101·
                2 years ago

                You are completely ignorant in how the real world works.

                Labour costs are artificially kept low in the global south due to imperialism. The US’ dollar hegemony helps them artificially depreciate Global South currencies, in which you, a Westerner benefits immensely from.

                Low wages doesn’t signify anything about the mode of production. Truthfully, wage labour existed even prior to capitalism.

                You don’t even know what you are talking about but you, in typical orientalist and racist fashion, thinks you know anything about a civilisation that has lasted 4000 years.

                What is fact is that China has had the highest wage growth for the past few decades, which taking into account its 1.3billion population, means it has have helped uplift more people out of poverty than the entire population of the West.

                Calling China “state capitalist” is an insult to all the people that were colonized by the Europeans, where ACTUAL capitalism destroyed, pillaged and genocided entire civilisations for the benefit of Capital, which is still happening btw.

                • ParsnipWitch@feddit.deEnglish
                  91·
                  2 years ago

                  Well I wouldn’t exactly use the name of a political party as evidence for whether or not they actually follow that ideology… There are plenty of examples for the fact that the name is not the deciding factor but what they actually do. And, considering the definition of communism, it is kinda weird to consider China communist just because that’s the name the leading party gave themselves.

                  I just think that “Authoritarian Regime” or similar isn’t something a party would call itself.