The use of the word “tankie” these days is so over-used it has become synonymous with “left of the DNC.” I’ve even seen Anarchists described as “tankies,” it’s getting ridiculous. Still, the word “tankie” is most often used by liberals against Marxists, though they won’t admit to having an anti-Marxist bias, mostly because they think they agree with Marx generally but are unfamiliar with Marxist analysis.
Really, more people need to read theory before having an opinion on it to avoid speaking past each other. I wrote an introductory reading list for Marxism-Leninism if anyone wants to get a better understanding of Marxism.
Back when I used reddit it seemed like everyone threw around Fascist in a similar way. Lemmy seems to prefer Tankie. For a lot of people the thinking doesn’t go any farther than “I disagree with you, therefore you are ________ist” or whatever.
It varies from instance to instance. The main users of the word “tankie” are blahaj.zone, lemmy.world, and sh.itjust.works from what I’ve seen, most other instances generally aren’t as bad about it IMO.
I think I posted something critical of conscripting people to make them fight over who they pay taxes to at the end and got called a tankie and Russian bot.
It is entirely consistent with anarchism to be critical of states using coercive violence to force people to fight for their preservation.
Some of the libs on this protocol are intensely derranged, I think for many it’s their first time seeing that people out there disagree with some of their sacred assumptions and it breaks their brains.
As I said in another comment, Tankies are often in support of the modern Russian state and the modern CCP. These are not positions that are “left of the DNC”.
Supporting the PRC is absolutely a Leftist position, as a Socialist country and a rising superpower it’s the current best hope for Socialism, whether you agree with all of the CPC’s actions or only some.
Critical, reserved support for Russia’s temporary and strategic anti-US Hegemony stance does not mean Leftists critically supporting Russia agree with the Russian state or support it.
Support for Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine in no way supports anti-US hegemony stances. They’re literally stealing children and indoctrinating them-the same thing the US did while committing genocide against the First Peoples.
Just opposing the US doesn’t make Russia the good guys.
Not believing in blatant right-wing propaganda is a leftist position. Parroting right-wing propaganda is a right-wing position. You are parroting right-wing propaganda. Please stop doing that, especially if you consider yourself on the left.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t “genocidal,” what would be closer to genocidal is the West’s intention to fight Russia to the last Ukranian standing. Several times, Russia has tried to reach a peace deal, only for the UK and US to step in and tell Ukraine not to take it. The “stealing of children” is taking orphans from warzones and making sure they don’t die.
Russia’s goal isn’t to ethnically cleanse Ukraine, nor is it to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Russia’s goal is to totally ruin Ukraine’s military capabilities as a means to prevent further extension of NATO encirclement around it’s borders. This is a consequence of the 2014 Euromaidan coup, and goes all the way back to the dissolution of the USSR. When the USSR was sliced up and sold to the West for profit, 7 million people died, and a Nationalist movement led to domestic Nationalist bourgeoisie reclaiming industry from the West, beginning a long series of NATO expansion and encirclement to force Russia to open themselves up again for the West to profit.
No, Russia are not the “good guys.” No Communist believes Russia has morally just intentions and is here to save everyone. Communists believe Russia is acting in its own material interests, and those interests happen to align against US-Hegemony, which Communists see as the primary block for progress.
Communists have as such advocated for both countries to negotiate a cease-fire since the beginning of the invasion. An ideal situation would be a cessation of NATO expansion and no bloodshed, but Communists have no real control over that.
Generally yes, I support the CPC. I’m a Marxist, and their dedication to developing Socialism, eliminating poverty, developing green energy, and presenting an alternative for the Global South should be admired. The PRC and CPC aren’t perfect, not by any stretch, but among the major world powers they are the least problematic and present the greatest potential for Humanity moving forward.
I cannot take you seriously if you willfully swallow the firehose of US propaganda about how cHiNa BAD ebil aUthOrItArIaN when it’s a country whose government has the enthusiastic approval of over 90% of the population, the country that lifted 850 million people out of abject poverty, the only large country doing anything significant about the mass extinction event that is climate change, the country that… well, I could go on. But no, keep believing those lies like a good lil western capitalism enjoyer.
Why do you say that? First of all, the CPC is the party in charge of the PRC, not the PRC itself. Secondly, which of the things I said do you disagree with? We can discuss them if you want, but otherwise I can’t really take you seriously either if that is your response to me answering your question honestly.
thank you for that and the “what is socialism” post; but i’m encountering that theory is somehow still a HEAVY read for someone like who me has been inside the leftist sphere of influence for his entire life; there’s needs to be some sort of sound-bite-able way of sharing these messages and i wish that ml’s had the capitalists’ deep pockets that guarantees a deep bench of talent that could figure something like this out.
it reminds of my own own experience of going from technical support to software engineering by simply reading. your ignorance makes it daunting as first and you have to put in A LOT of effort to understand it when you don’t even know the basics and you’ll get there eventually if you stick with it; but most won’t stick with it and if you’re REALLY knowledgeable at it, it becomes difficult to understand why it’s difficult for other people.
i’m convinced that if i had fewer vulnerable identities that i would never have been able to see through practice all the “common sense” bullshit levied against me all my life and i also think that’s the only reason why i try when others with identical backgrounds, like my family, don’t bother; i’ve learned the hard way that ignorance will hurt me long before it will hurt them.
That does help. After all it was black Americans who invented wokeness, before white liberal Americans co-opted it and perverted its meaning. The marginalized have always experienced the fascism that’s been baked into the American project since the beginning.
i suspect that facism is going to force me to move back into the country that my parents immigrated from if trump gets his way and in the same way that incidents like operation wetback deported millions of american citizens.
I don’t know your situation, and I don’t have a crystal ball, but I think Trump’s rhetoric is going to rub up against the will of the bourgeoisie which relies on exploiting immigrant labor. Republicans talk a big game about immigrants and then exploit the precarity & fear that it generates. Not to imply that the fear isn’t justified, because it’s not all talk.
Haha, if you want the most bang for your buck I stand wholeheartedly behind my introductory reading list. I truly put a lot of effort into it and several comrades helped tremendously.
Marxism and Marxism-Leninism are not the same, and should not be treated as the same. One is an economic theory/philosophy, one is an ideology. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which.
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism.
Marxism-Leninism carries these 3 foundations forward, and analyzes Capitalism as it reaches Imperialism, as well as numerous expansions on the foundations of revolutionary theory and practice.
They are not “the same,” but the vast majority of Marxists are Marxist-Leninists, because Lenin’s application of Marxism to higher stages of Capitalism are invaluable to Marxism.
Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, yes. He did so on the basis of Lenin’s theoretical advancements on Marxism. Stalin himself wasn’t that much of a theoretician, hence why it’s Marxism-Leninism, though Stalin has a few works under his belt. Yes, the Stalin. You’re free to read my introductory reading list if you want to learn more about Marxism.
Secondly, you have no idea what you’re talking about if you’re pretending Lenin came up with the idea of revolution and using the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to suppress fascists and the bourgeoisie. Such ideas came from Marx and Engels, who always advocated for revolution. From Marx:
“We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”
I suggest you take the advice of @Edie@lemmy.ml and read up on Marxist theory and history before speaking nonsense from a pedestal.
That quote is extremely hinged on context in which it was made, and it would serve you well to internalise that context before throwing this quote around pretending it to have been something Marx lived by.
Secondly, you have no idea what you’re talking about if you’re pretending Lenin came up with the idea of revolution and using the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to suppress fascists and the bourgeoisie.
That was not my claim, but thank you for so generously misinterpreting what I said. Lenin implemented the violent oppression of dissenters and opposition in a socialist system. That was carried further by Stalin, under whom ‘counter-revolutionary’ became an extremely malleable term that could mean anything not fully aligned with his ideas. The fact that you think political violence and terror is a core tenet of Marxism tells me that you’re the one who might need to brush up on their history a little bit.
In fact, authoritarian socialism - as practiced in virtually every single Marxist-Leninist country that ever existed - was completely counter to the ideals of Marx and Engels. The people we have to thank for creating the violent authoritarianism that pervaded communist countries in practice are Lenin and Stalin. “Dictatorship of the proletariat” may have been a phrase used by Marx, but he never fully elaborated on what that should or could look like. And fascism as created by Mussolini and unleashed upon the world by Hitler didn’t even exist during Marx’s lifetime. Even Marx’s views on religion were a lot more complex and multifaceted than what Marxist-Leninist governments turned them into.
I don’t know if either of you have ever lived in a Marxist-Leninist country (as in lived, not just visited). I was born in one. I lived in another for five years. I’ve seen the before and after, first-hand. That’s my pedestal. How’s the weather up there on yours?
In fact, authoritarian socialism - as practiced in virtually every single Marxist-Leninist country that ever existed - was completely counter to the ideals of Marx and Engels.
[T]he anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction
…or is there some other Engles I should know about?
I don’t know of any person called Engles who would be significant in this context, so I can’t tell you if there is one you should know about. The Engels who said what you quoted above, also said - literally in the sentence preceding your quote:
Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society.
As always, context matters. And I’ll trust the context created by the words and interpretations of respected historians way more than I’ll trust some randos on Lemmy who only excel at selective quoting.
Right, and the part you quoted is in the context of what immediately followed. The clarification that he was talking about the eventual ideal, and that in the meantime, using authoritarian measures were necessary to the point that anyone who opposed them was supporting reactionaries.
It should of course be noted that Marx expected a spontaneous, worldwide revolution, starting from the most developed countries. This was something that he got completely wrong, (he was not a prophet) and the socialists who put his ideas into practice had to adapt to the real circumstances that they found themselves in. In the case of a worldwide revolution, of course it would be easier to persue the phasing out of authoritarian measures sooner, since they wouldn’t be necessary to protect against foreign threats and subversion (something presumably included in the not-yet-destroyed “social conditions that gave birth to the political state”). Even in such a scenario, Engles was extremely clear that he considered such measures absolutely necessary.
What “respected historians” are you referencing? I haven’t seen you cite any. Care to share with the class?
That quote is extremely hinged on context in which it was made, and it would serve you well to internalise that context before throwing this quote around pretending it to have been something Marx lived by.
Correct, Marx wasn’t just randomly terrorizing people. He was referring to the Proletariat making no apologies for revolution and taking up arms against the bourgeoisie and their enablers, something Lenin and the people of the USSR carried into reality. Lenin descibed what you’re doing to Marx and Engels right now quite well:
“What is now happening to Marx’s teaching has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the teachings of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their teachings with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their names with a certain halo for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time emasculating the essence of the revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. At the present time, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the working-class movement concur in this “doctoring” of Marxism. They omit, obliterate and distort the revolutionary side of this teaching, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). And more and more frequently, German bourgeois scholars, but yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the “national-German” Marx, who, they aver, educated the workers’ unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of conducting a predatory war!”
That was not my claim, but thank you for so generously misinterpreting what I said. Lenin implemented the violent oppression of dissenters and opposition in a socialist system. That was carried further by Stalin, under whom ‘counter-revolutionary’ became an extremely malleable term that could mean anything not fully aligned with his ideas. The fact that you think political violence and terror is a core tenet of Marxism tells me that you’re the one who might need to brush up on their history a little bit.
Lenin implemented the world’s first Socialist state, and this state violently oppressed the bourgeoisie, fascists, the White Army, rebels, and so forth. The fact is, political violence is often sadly necessary against those who would crush the Socialist state, like the 14 Capitalist countries that jointly invaded the USSR after its founding. A Marxist project that rolls over and dies the second fascists and the bourgeoisie fight against it isn’t Marxist. Blackshirts and Reds is a good quick read on the tangible benefits AES states achieved despite brutal opposition from the outside.
In fact, authoritarian socialism - as practiced in virtually every single Marxist-Leninist country that ever existed - was completely counter to the ideals of Marx and Engels. The people we have to thank for creating the violent authoritarianism that pervaded communist countries in practice are Lenin and Stalin. “Dictatorship of the proletariat” may have been a phrase used by Marx, but he never fully elaborated on what that should or could look like. And fascism as created by Mussolini and unleashed upon the world by Hitler didn’t even exist during Marx’s lifetime. Even Marx’s views on religion were a lot more complex and multifaceted than what Marxist-Leninist governments turned them into.
This is nonsense. First of all, what separates “authoritarian” Socialism from “non-authoritarian” socialism? All Marxist-Leninist states practice democracy and allow more participation in the way society is run than Capitalist states for the average person. Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan is a good resource on this. Secondly, the idea that Marx and Engels never had a clear idea of what the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would look like is further nonsense - Marx described the Paris Commune as the first implementation of the DotP in reality. Marx and Engels knew quite well that violent suppression of bourgeois elements was required.
Furthermore, whether Marx or Engels really observed fascism is utterly irrelevant, unless your point is that they would not have been anti-fascist, which is nonsense.
I don’t know if either of you have ever lived in a Marxist-Leninist country (as in lived, not just visited). I was born in one. I lived in another for five years. I’ve seen the before and after, first-hand. That’s my pedestal. How’s the weather up there on yours?
A non-sequitor. Spending early childhood in an AES state does not mean you know how it works, nor what it deals with on a daily basis. Even people who live their entire lives in Capitalist states go without knowing how they function.
I don’t know if either of you have ever lived in a Marxist-Leninist country (as in lived, not just visited). I was born in one. I lived in another for five years. I’ve seen the before and after, first-hand.
Could you please name those countries? And share your experiences, if possible? Were they not Marxist?
The countries were the German Democratic Republic, where I was born; and Cuba, where I lived from 1985 to 1990.
And what are experiences? By all accounts what I grew up in was normal, because I didn’t know any different. We grew up like any kids really, playing, riding bikes, watching TV, getting up to mischief. I have a lot of good memories from both the GDR and Cuba, and even getting started on them would take me hours.
Sure, we knew about the West. Some of my friends had relatives in the West and occasionally got packages with sweets and other things. We watched Western TV and were exposed to Western toys, comics and music, to a degree. In Cuba there were a lot of Western movies and series on TV. But we also knew that you could get into trouble for being too open about that.
But after it all came down, we learned a lot about what went on. The oppression, the secret police, the lack of basic freedoms.
Once in art class, we were tasked with drawing something we had seen or experienced. Just a short time prior to that, we had gone to see a well known boat lift east of Berlin. The boat that came through the lift was a freight barge flying the West German flag. So that’s what I drew. Only years later my parents told me that they had subsequently been summoned by the school and had to explain that it was nothing more sinister than that - a child drawing a picture of something they had seen.
Another thing that struck me as odd at the time was this. Most of the socialist countries we knew as ‘friendly’ had state-run youth organisations. Ours were called the pioneers. Once there was an afternoon activity with a little quiz, and one of the quiz questions was ‘name three friendly youth organisations’. So I named three that I remembered from my pioneer calendar - and one of them was Finnish. My quiz came back with the correction ‘friendly youth organisations’.
I will always remember and defend the good aspects about the countries I grew up in. By the same token I will always vociferously criticise the bad things, and anyone who wants to try them again.
West German flag. So that’s what I drew. Only years later my parents told me that they had subsequently been summoned by the school and had to explain that it was nothing more sinister than that - a child drawing a picture of something they had seen.
That seems like a normal response.
I’m from India and if a child suddenly drew and submitted a Pak flag for an assignment, teachers would be alarmed.
What are some positives and negatives you saw in those countries?
It’d also be very cool if you could share how the education there is like?
I, for one, haven’t seen people over-using the word “tankie”, I haven’t seen people getting called tankies for the reason alone that they are leftists or even communists.
However, I’ve seen many tankies insisting that the word is meaningless or that it just means anybody on the left.
People I’ve seen using the word tankie have been surprisingly consistent about who they call a tankie: supporters of authoritarianism, especially Putin and the CCP.
The only Communists that don’t support the PRC are Maoists, generally, Marxists and Marxist-Leninists consistently support the CPC. None of them support Putin, only critical, reserved support for the Russian Federation’s temporary and strategic opposition to US Hegemony, which Communists see as the primary obstacle in the way of Socialism across the world.
Oh I know quite a few communists who would absolutely not support the PRC. They wouldn’t shill for the US either. Nor for Russia nor the USSR for that matter.
These are people I know personally. So no, not online people. And some are organized, some were, it varies. They are at best ambivalent on China. The idea that if you identify as a communist, talk like a communist, or are member of a communist organization, you should automatically support China would be frankly absurd in my circles. A strong minority of communists were at best ambivalent on the USSR even back in the day, so this is not new. And yes there are also those who will identify with and feel the need to support any regime that is in name or in some of its practices “communist”. Whereas others will take a more critical stance. I am in Europe by the way, this may matter, I find that the way words are used across the pond sometimes varies. Even within Europe, in much of Eastern Europe I understand that “communist” and “Russophile ” are thought to go hand in hand. Not so in my country, not necessarily. Anyway, it’s complicated.
The point about you knowing these people online or in person was secondary to my point about organizing. Individual people considering themselves Communists but unaffiliated with an org vere frequently misunderstand theory, develop strange and contradictory stances, and otherwise fail to bounce their ideas off of actual, practicing Communists who daily test their theory and refine it. That’s why “Party Lines” exist. These “Party Lines” generally form around specific tendencies within Marxism, because there do exist right and wrong answers when faced with material reality and consistent frameworks of analysis. No, a Communist shouldn’t automatically support anything, they should test their theory and keep what works and toss what doesn’t. The fact that the overwhelming majority of actual practicing Communists do support the PRC and USSR does not mean they are doing so thoughtlessly. Blackshirts and Reds is a good book.
The most major tendency of Marxism is Marxism-Leninism, as it has had the most direct proof of validity and consistency with theory and practice. ML organizations have had numerous successful revolutions, and most AES states follow an ML line. As such, the vast majority of Communists worldwide support the PRC and USSR.
Maoists, generally, reject Deng’s reforms that returned the PRC to a more traditional Marxist understanding of economics, and see him as a right-deviationist. Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, a more fringe ideology popularized by the Communist Party of Peru, are less consistent on this matter.
The only other major current of Marxism is Trotskyism, which has produced no real revolutions and no real results. Trots are common in the Western Left because it fits with the West’s overall anti-AES stance, and thus is easier to come to from a Western perspective. Outside of tiny pockets mostly in Latin America, Trots do not exist in the Global South. Trotskyism is a misanalysis of Socialism, Marxism, and Revolutionary Theory, and as such I was not including them as actual Communists. A good article is Trotskyists Don’t Believe Anything.
Seeing as how you’ve admitted to a European point of view, everything coincides with what I’ve said. I have been speaking internationally, you’ve been speaking from a Trot-heavy Euro-centric point of view. Again, the Western Left’s tendency to reject actual Socialism is more to do with compatability with existing world views. I recommend Jones Manoel’s Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, But Not Real Revolution.
Hey thanks for making the effort. You are clearly more passionate about this than I am. And you clearly consider today’s China a case of “existing socialism”. I do not. And I’m surprised that a number of people still do. Indeed the Trotskyist left and other related currents in the West have always had to deal with the paradox of advocating communism while at the same time opposing most if not all regimes that claimed to be communist. On the other hand more traditional communists - some would call them Stalinists if we’re using labels - who would advocate for regimes that many considered oppressive and were happy to see fall (including everyone who considered such regimes to be a degeneration of the original revolutionary potential). Personally I don’t feel I have a big stake in this. I am more and more thinking that these are experiments that largely failed no matter how you look at it, and hope to see new movements that will update their repertoire, learn from the failings, and succeed better. I am not sure what form or shape such movements will take. But am also not betting on capitalism not leading to the destruction of the world sooner or later. When I sometimes appear to defend China it is because I do not think that western-style capitalism and liberal democracy are the only ways that capitalism can function.
I appreciate you taking the time to read my write-up. I want to ask, why do you claim the PRC isn’t Socialist? 50% of the economy is in the public sector, a tenth in the cooperative sector, and the Private Sector is run with strict central planning and oversight from the government. Socialism doesn’t refer simply to a fully publicly owned economy - it’s a transitional economy towards Communism. In the PRC, the Public Sector further controls key heavy industries and infrastructure that the Private Sector relies on, so the Private Sector is subservient to the demands of the Public. The presense of Markets is not enough to claim an economy isn’t Socialist. From Engels himself:
Will it be possible to abolish private property at one stroke?
Answer : No, no more than the existing productive forces can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. Hence, the proletarian revolution, which in all probability is approaching, will be able gradually to transform existing society and abolish private property only when the necessary means of production have been created in sufficient quantity.
The reason Marxists believe Socialism comes after Capitalism is because Markets have a tendency to centralize in order to combat the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, which naturally forces the development of strategies and tools for internal planning. This naturally prepares the way for Central Planning. In the PRC, Capital in the Private Sector is trapped in a birdcage model, and the CPC increases ownership as these markets do their job and centralize. This is Marxism in action. I suggest you read the articles What is Socialism? as well as Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism.
Also, as a side note, “Stalinism” isn’t a thing. Stalin was not much of a theoretician, the proper term is Marxism-Leninism, as it is founded on the writings of Marx and Lenin primarily.
Additionally, you need to analyze who was happy to see the fall of the USSR. The answer? The West. In the vast majority of the post-Soviet populace, Capitalism brought death and destruction, 7 million people died due to it, and most long for a return to Socialism. In the Global South, the fall of the USSR was seen as an immense tragedy. The only ones benefiting were the Imperialist Capitalists that swooped in and looted the USSR’s former state structures and industry for profit at dirt cheap prices.
Ultimately, I think you have a lot of research to do if you want to hold a truly internationalist perspective, and not one tainted by Western bias, which is notoriously adversarial to Communism and the Global South in general, as the West relies on export of industrial and financial Capital to the Global South to super-exploit for super-profits. This is what Marxists call Imperalism.
They’re using the same playbook as the fascists, insisting the word is overused and meaningless while painting themselves as victims. It’s actually fascinating how similar hexbear snd the_donald feel.
The use of the word “tankie” these days is so over-used it has become synonymous with “left of the DNC.” I’ve even seen Anarchists described as “tankies,” it’s getting ridiculous. Still, the word “tankie” is most often used by liberals against Marxists, though they won’t admit to having an anti-Marxist bias, mostly because they think they agree with Marx generally but are unfamiliar with Marxist analysis.
Really, more people need to read theory before having an opinion on it to avoid speaking past each other. I wrote an introductory reading list for Marxism-Leninism if anyone wants to get a better understanding of Marxism.
Back when I used reddit it seemed like everyone threw around Fascist in a similar way. Lemmy seems to prefer Tankie. For a lot of people the thinking doesn’t go any farther than “I disagree with you, therefore you are ________ist” or whatever.
It is what it is.
It varies from instance to instance. The main users of the word “tankie” are blahaj.zone, lemmy.world, and sh.itjust.works from what I’ve seen, most other instances generally aren’t as bad about it IMO.
I think I posted something critical of conscripting people to make them fight over who they pay taxes to at the end and got called a tankie and Russian bot.
It is entirely consistent with anarchism to be critical of states using coercive violence to force people to fight for their preservation.
Some of the libs on this protocol are intensely derranged, I think for many it’s their first time seeing that people out there disagree with some of their sacred assumptions and it breaks their brains.
For sure, libs get scratched easily these days.
Probably because there are a lot of tankies here. 🙃
Yep, and unfortunately a lot of fascists on Reddit.
I do like how whenever a conservative Lemmy pops up, it has more trolls than users and the mods abandon it within a few weeks.
As I said in another comment, Tankies are often in support of the modern Russian state and the modern CCP. These are not positions that are “left of the DNC”.
Supporting the PRC is absolutely a Leftist position, as a Socialist country and a rising superpower it’s the current best hope for Socialism, whether you agree with all of the CPC’s actions or only some.
Critical, reserved support for Russia’s temporary and strategic anti-US Hegemony stance does not mean Leftists critically supporting Russia agree with the Russian state or support it.
Support for Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine in no way supports anti-US hegemony stances. They’re literally stealing children and indoctrinating them-the same thing the US did while committing genocide against the First Peoples.
Just opposing the US doesn’t make Russia the good guys.
Not believing in blatant right-wing propaganda is a leftist position. Parroting right-wing propaganda is a right-wing position. You are parroting right-wing propaganda. Please stop doing that, especially if you consider yourself on the left.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t “genocidal,” what would be closer to genocidal is the West’s intention to fight Russia to the last Ukranian standing. Several times, Russia has tried to reach a peace deal, only for the UK and US to step in and tell Ukraine not to take it. The “stealing of children” is taking orphans from warzones and making sure they don’t die.
Russia’s goal isn’t to ethnically cleanse Ukraine, nor is it to “de-Nazify” Ukraine. Russia’s goal is to totally ruin Ukraine’s military capabilities as a means to prevent further extension of NATO encirclement around it’s borders. This is a consequence of the 2014 Euromaidan coup, and goes all the way back to the dissolution of the USSR. When the USSR was sliced up and sold to the West for profit, 7 million people died, and a Nationalist movement led to domestic Nationalist bourgeoisie reclaiming industry from the West, beginning a long series of NATO expansion and encirclement to force Russia to open themselves up again for the West to profit.
No, Russia are not the “good guys.” No Communist believes Russia has morally just intentions and is here to save everyone. Communists believe Russia is acting in its own material interests, and those interests happen to align against US-Hegemony, which Communists see as the primary block for progress.
Communists have as such advocated for both countries to negotiate a cease-fire since the beginning of the invasion. An ideal situation would be a cessation of NATO expansion and no bloodshed, but Communists have no real control over that.
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Staying ignorant is cool, you heard it here first folks.
This one isn’t just staying ignorant, they’re loudly proclaiming their ignorance as if they’re proud of it. Yikes.
I first read it in Warhammer 40000 lore, how nice for libs to be uncritically internalising over the top satirical nazism.
Cool 👍
I’m sorry if I’m misunderstanding but are you in support of the CCP?
Generally yes, I support the CPC. I’m a Marxist, and their dedication to developing Socialism, eliminating poverty, developing green energy, and presenting an alternative for the Global South should be admired. The PRC and CPC aren’t perfect, not by any stretch, but among the major world powers they are the least problematic and present the greatest potential for Humanity moving forward.
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I cannot take you seriously if you willfully swallow the firehose of US propaganda about how cHiNa BAD ebil aUthOrItArIaN when it’s a country whose government has the enthusiastic approval of over 90% of the population, the country that lifted 850 million people out of abject poverty, the only large country doing anything significant about the mass extinction event that is climate change, the country that… well, I could go on. But no, keep believing those lies like a good lil western capitalism enjoyer.
Why do you say that? First of all, the CPC is the party in charge of the PRC, not the PRC itself. Secondly, which of the things I said do you disagree with? We can discuss them if you want, but otherwise I can’t really take you seriously either if that is your response to me answering your question honestly.
thank you for that and the “what is socialism” post; but i’m encountering that theory is somehow still a HEAVY read for someone like who me has been inside the leftist sphere of influence for his entire life; there’s needs to be some sort of sound-bite-able way of sharing these messages and i wish that ml’s had the capitalists’ deep pockets that guarantees a deep bench of talent that could figure something like this out.
it reminds of my own own experience of going from technical support to software engineering by simply reading. your ignorance makes it daunting as first and you have to put in A LOT of effort to understand it when you don’t even know the basics and you’ll get there eventually if you stick with it; but most won’t stick with it and if you’re REALLY knowledgeable at it, it becomes difficult to understand why it’s difficult for other people.
It’s certainly difficult, but when in doubt I love sharing this person’s articles as more bite-sized bits of theory and soundbites from Michael Parenti speeches, haha.
even more material to “read”; now i’m wondering if i’ll ever be finished with any of it. lol
We’ll never be finished with bourgeois theory: it’s what we’ve been fed our entire lives, usually without even realizing it. It’s just common sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony
i’m convinced that if i had fewer vulnerable identities that i would never have been able to see through practice all the “common sense” bullshit levied against me all my life and i also think that’s the only reason why i try when others with identical backgrounds, like my family, don’t bother; i’ve learned the hard way that ignorance will hurt me long before it will hurt them.
That does help. After all it was black Americans who invented wokeness, before white liberal Americans co-opted it and perverted its meaning. The marginalized have always experienced the fascism that’s been baked into the American project since the beginning.
i suspect that facism is going to force me to move back into the country that my parents immigrated from if trump gets his way and in the same way that incidents like operation wetback deported millions of american citizens.
I don’t know your situation, and I don’t have a crystal ball, but I think Trump’s rhetoric is going to rub up against the will of the bourgeoisie which relies on exploiting immigrant labor. Republicans talk a big game about immigrants and then exploit the precarity & fear that it generates. Not to imply that the fear isn’t justified, because it’s not all talk.
Haha, if you want the most bang for your buck I stand wholeheartedly behind my introductory reading list. I truly put a lot of effort into it and several comrades helped tremendously.
i’m starting there because i’ve learned that audio books are the best way to cheat at “reading” lol
Thanks! Feel free to ask questions 🫡
Marxism and Marxism-Leninism are not the same, and should not be treated as the same. One is an economic theory/philosophy, one is an ideology. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is which.
Marxism is broken up into 3 major components:
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Critique of Capitalism via the Law of Value
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism.
Marxism-Leninism carries these 3 foundations forward, and analyzes Capitalism as it reaches Imperialism, as well as numerous expansions on the foundations of revolutionary theory and practice.
They are not “the same,” but the vast majority of Marxists are Marxist-Leninists, because Lenin’s application of Marxism to higher stages of Capitalism are invaluable to Marxism.
Marxism-Leninism was not actually thought out by Lenin, but by Stalin. The Stalin.
And how invaluable were Lenin’s ideas about violently suppressing opposition, resistance, and unwanted societal classes?
Oppose Book Worship
When you get anywhere near making a point, just send up a flare, ok?
Stalin synthesized Marxism-Leninism, yes. He did so on the basis of Lenin’s theoretical advancements on Marxism. Stalin himself wasn’t that much of a theoretician, hence why it’s Marxism-Leninism, though Stalin has a few works under his belt. Yes, the Stalin. You’re free to read my introductory reading list if you want to learn more about Marxism.
Secondly, you have no idea what you’re talking about if you’re pretending Lenin came up with the idea of revolution and using the Dictatorship of the Proletariat to suppress fascists and the bourgeoisie. Such ideas came from Marx and Engels, who always advocated for revolution. From Marx:
“We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”
I suggest you take the advice of @Edie@lemmy.ml and read up on Marxist theory and history before speaking nonsense from a pedestal.
That quote is extremely hinged on context in which it was made, and it would serve you well to internalise that context before throwing this quote around pretending it to have been something Marx lived by.
That was not my claim, but thank you for so generously misinterpreting what I said. Lenin implemented the violent oppression of dissenters and opposition in a socialist system. That was carried further by Stalin, under whom ‘counter-revolutionary’ became an extremely malleable term that could mean anything not fully aligned with his ideas. The fact that you think political violence and terror is a core tenet of Marxism tells me that you’re the one who might need to brush up on their history a little bit.
In fact, authoritarian socialism - as practiced in virtually every single Marxist-Leninist country that ever existed - was completely counter to the ideals of Marx and Engels. The people we have to thank for creating the violent authoritarianism that pervaded communist countries in practice are Lenin and Stalin. “Dictatorship of the proletariat” may have been a phrase used by Marx, but he never fully elaborated on what that should or could look like. And fascism as created by Mussolini and unleashed upon the world by Hitler didn’t even exist during Marx’s lifetime. Even Marx’s views on religion were a lot more complex and multifaceted than what Marxist-Leninist governments turned them into.
I don’t know if either of you have ever lived in a Marxist-Leninist country (as in lived, not just visited). I was born in one. I lived in another for five years. I’ve seen the before and after, first-hand. That’s my pedestal. How’s the weather up there on yours?
Do you mean the Engles who said this:
…or is there some other Engles I should know about?
I don’t know of any person called Engles who would be significant in this context, so I can’t tell you if there is one you should know about. The Engels who said what you quoted above, also said - literally in the sentence preceding your quote:
As always, context matters. And I’ll trust the context created by the words and interpretations of respected historians way more than I’ll trust some randos on Lemmy who only excel at selective quoting.
Right, and the part you quoted is in the context of what immediately followed. The clarification that he was talking about the eventual ideal, and that in the meantime, using authoritarian measures were necessary to the point that anyone who opposed them was supporting reactionaries.
It should of course be noted that Marx expected a spontaneous, worldwide revolution, starting from the most developed countries. This was something that he got completely wrong, (he was not a prophet) and the socialists who put his ideas into practice had to adapt to the real circumstances that they found themselves in. In the case of a worldwide revolution, of course it would be easier to persue the phasing out of authoritarian measures sooner, since they wouldn’t be necessary to protect against foreign threats and subversion (something presumably included in the not-yet-destroyed “social conditions that gave birth to the political state”). Even in such a scenario, Engles was extremely clear that he considered such measures absolutely necessary.
What “respected historians” are you referencing? I haven’t seen you cite any. Care to share with the class?
Correct, Marx wasn’t just randomly terrorizing people. He was referring to the Proletariat making no apologies for revolution and taking up arms against the bourgeoisie and their enablers, something Lenin and the people of the USSR carried into reality. Lenin descibed what you’re doing to Marx and Engels right now quite well:
“What is now happening to Marx’s teaching has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the teachings of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes struggling for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their teachings with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to surround their names with a certain halo for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time emasculating the essence of the revolutionary teaching, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. At the present time, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the working-class movement concur in this “doctoring” of Marxism. They omit, obliterate and distort the revolutionary side of this teaching, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). And more and more frequently, German bourgeois scholars, but yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the “national-German” Marx, who, they aver, educated the workers’ unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of conducting a predatory war!”
Lenin implemented the world’s first Socialist state, and this state violently oppressed the bourgeoisie, fascists, the White Army, rebels, and so forth. The fact is, political violence is often sadly necessary against those who would crush the Socialist state, like the 14 Capitalist countries that jointly invaded the USSR after its founding. A Marxist project that rolls over and dies the second fascists and the bourgeoisie fight against it isn’t Marxist. Blackshirts and Reds is a good quick read on the tangible benefits AES states achieved despite brutal opposition from the outside.
This is nonsense. First of all, what separates “authoritarian” Socialism from “non-authoritarian” socialism? All Marxist-Leninist states practice democracy and allow more participation in the way society is run than Capitalist states for the average person. Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan is a good resource on this. Secondly, the idea that Marx and Engels never had a clear idea of what the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would look like is further nonsense - Marx described the Paris Commune as the first implementation of the DotP in reality. Marx and Engels knew quite well that violent suppression of bourgeois elements was required.
Furthermore, whether Marx or Engels really observed fascism is utterly irrelevant, unless your point is that they would not have been anti-fascist, which is nonsense.
A non-sequitor. Spending early childhood in an AES state does not mean you know how it works, nor what it deals with on a daily basis. Even people who live their entire lives in Capitalist states go without knowing how they function.
Could you please name those countries? And share your experiences, if possible? Were they not Marxist?
The countries were the German Democratic Republic, where I was born; and Cuba, where I lived from 1985 to 1990.
And what are experiences? By all accounts what I grew up in was normal, because I didn’t know any different. We grew up like any kids really, playing, riding bikes, watching TV, getting up to mischief. I have a lot of good memories from both the GDR and Cuba, and even getting started on them would take me hours.
Sure, we knew about the West. Some of my friends had relatives in the West and occasionally got packages with sweets and other things. We watched Western TV and were exposed to Western toys, comics and music, to a degree. In Cuba there were a lot of Western movies and series on TV. But we also knew that you could get into trouble for being too open about that.
But after it all came down, we learned a lot about what went on. The oppression, the secret police, the lack of basic freedoms.
Once in art class, we were tasked with drawing something we had seen or experienced. Just a short time prior to that, we had gone to see a well known boat lift east of Berlin. The boat that came through the lift was a freight barge flying the West German flag. So that’s what I drew. Only years later my parents told me that they had subsequently been summoned by the school and had to explain that it was nothing more sinister than that - a child drawing a picture of something they had seen.
Another thing that struck me as odd at the time was this. Most of the socialist countries we knew as ‘friendly’ had state-run youth organisations. Ours were called the pioneers. Once there was an afternoon activity with a little quiz, and one of the quiz questions was ‘name three friendly youth organisations’. So I named three that I remembered from my pioneer calendar - and one of them was Finnish. My quiz came back with the correction ‘friendly youth organisations’.
I will always remember and defend the good aspects about the countries I grew up in. By the same token I will always vociferously criticise the bad things, and anyone who wants to try them again.
That seems like a normal response.
I’m from India and if a child suddenly drew and submitted a Pak flag for an assignment, teachers would be alarmed.
What are some positives and negatives you saw in those countries?
It’d also be very cool if you could share how the education there is like?
I, for one, haven’t seen people over-using the word “tankie”, I haven’t seen people getting called tankies for the reason alone that they are leftists or even communists.
However, I’ve seen many tankies insisting that the word is meaningless or that it just means anybody on the left.
People I’ve seen using the word tankie have been surprisingly consistent about who they call a tankie: supporters of authoritarianism, especially Putin and the CCP.
The only Communists that don’t support the PRC are Maoists, generally, Marxists and Marxist-Leninists consistently support the CPC. None of them support Putin, only critical, reserved support for the Russian Federation’s temporary and strategic opposition to US Hegemony, which Communists see as the primary obstacle in the way of Socialism across the world.
Oh I know quite a few communists who would absolutely not support the PRC. They wouldn’t shill for the US either. Nor for Russia nor the USSR for that matter.
Are these Communists members of any Communist orgs, or just online people?
These are people I know personally. So no, not online people. And some are organized, some were, it varies. They are at best ambivalent on China. The idea that if you identify as a communist, talk like a communist, or are member of a communist organization, you should automatically support China would be frankly absurd in my circles. A strong minority of communists were at best ambivalent on the USSR even back in the day, so this is not new. And yes there are also those who will identify with and feel the need to support any regime that is in name or in some of its practices “communist”. Whereas others will take a more critical stance. I am in Europe by the way, this may matter, I find that the way words are used across the pond sometimes varies. Even within Europe, in much of Eastern Europe I understand that “communist” and “Russophile ” are thought to go hand in hand. Not so in my country, not necessarily. Anyway, it’s complicated.
The point about you knowing these people online or in person was secondary to my point about organizing. Individual people considering themselves Communists but unaffiliated with an org vere frequently misunderstand theory, develop strange and contradictory stances, and otherwise fail to bounce their ideas off of actual, practicing Communists who daily test their theory and refine it. That’s why “Party Lines” exist. These “Party Lines” generally form around specific tendencies within Marxism, because there do exist right and wrong answers when faced with material reality and consistent frameworks of analysis. No, a Communist shouldn’t automatically support anything, they should test their theory and keep what works and toss what doesn’t. The fact that the overwhelming majority of actual practicing Communists do support the PRC and USSR does not mean they are doing so thoughtlessly. Blackshirts and Reds is a good book.
The most major tendency of Marxism is Marxism-Leninism, as it has had the most direct proof of validity and consistency with theory and practice. ML organizations have had numerous successful revolutions, and most AES states follow an ML line. As such, the vast majority of Communists worldwide support the PRC and USSR.
Maoists, generally, reject Deng’s reforms that returned the PRC to a more traditional Marxist understanding of economics, and see him as a right-deviationist. Marxist-Leninist-Maoists, a more fringe ideology popularized by the Communist Party of Peru, are less consistent on this matter.
The only other major current of Marxism is Trotskyism, which has produced no real revolutions and no real results. Trots are common in the Western Left because it fits with the West’s overall anti-AES stance, and thus is easier to come to from a Western perspective. Outside of tiny pockets mostly in Latin America, Trots do not exist in the Global South. Trotskyism is a misanalysis of Socialism, Marxism, and Revolutionary Theory, and as such I was not including them as actual Communists. A good article is Trotskyists Don’t Believe Anything.
Seeing as how you’ve admitted to a European point of view, everything coincides with what I’ve said. I have been speaking internationally, you’ve been speaking from a Trot-heavy Euro-centric point of view. Again, the Western Left’s tendency to reject actual Socialism is more to do with compatability with existing world views. I recommend Jones Manoel’s Western Marxism Loves Purity and Martyrdom, But Not Real Revolution.
Hey thanks for making the effort. You are clearly more passionate about this than I am. And you clearly consider today’s China a case of “existing socialism”. I do not. And I’m surprised that a number of people still do. Indeed the Trotskyist left and other related currents in the West have always had to deal with the paradox of advocating communism while at the same time opposing most if not all regimes that claimed to be communist. On the other hand more traditional communists - some would call them Stalinists if we’re using labels - who would advocate for regimes that many considered oppressive and were happy to see fall (including everyone who considered such regimes to be a degeneration of the original revolutionary potential). Personally I don’t feel I have a big stake in this. I am more and more thinking that these are experiments that largely failed no matter how you look at it, and hope to see new movements that will update their repertoire, learn from the failings, and succeed better. I am not sure what form or shape such movements will take. But am also not betting on capitalism not leading to the destruction of the world sooner or later. When I sometimes appear to defend China it is because I do not think that western-style capitalism and liberal democracy are the only ways that capitalism can function.
I appreciate you taking the time to read my write-up. I want to ask, why do you claim the PRC isn’t Socialist? 50% of the economy is in the public sector, a tenth in the cooperative sector, and the Private Sector is run with strict central planning and oversight from the government. Socialism doesn’t refer simply to a fully publicly owned economy - it’s a transitional economy towards Communism. In the PRC, the Public Sector further controls key heavy industries and infrastructure that the Private Sector relies on, so the Private Sector is subservient to the demands of the Public. The presense of Markets is not enough to claim an economy isn’t Socialist. From Engels himself:
The reason Marxists believe Socialism comes after Capitalism is because Markets have a tendency to centralize in order to combat the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, which naturally forces the development of strategies and tools for internal planning. This naturally prepares the way for Central Planning. In the PRC, Capital in the Private Sector is trapped in a birdcage model, and the CPC increases ownership as these markets do their job and centralize. This is Marxism in action. I suggest you read the articles What is Socialism? as well as Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism.
Also, as a side note, “Stalinism” isn’t a thing. Stalin was not much of a theoretician, the proper term is Marxism-Leninism, as it is founded on the writings of Marx and Lenin primarily.
Additionally, you need to analyze who was happy to see the fall of the USSR. The answer? The West. In the vast majority of the post-Soviet populace, Capitalism brought death and destruction, 7 million people died due to it, and most long for a return to Socialism. In the Global South, the fall of the USSR was seen as an immense tragedy. The only ones benefiting were the Imperialist Capitalists that swooped in and looted the USSR’s former state structures and industry for profit at dirt cheap prices.
Ultimately, I think you have a lot of research to do if you want to hold a truly internationalist perspective, and not one tainted by Western bias, which is notoriously adversarial to Communism and the Global South in general, as the West relies on export of industrial and financial Capital to the Global South to super-exploit for super-profits. This is what Marxists call Imperalism.
They’re using the same playbook as the fascists, insisting the word is overused and meaningless while painting themselves as victims. It’s actually fascinating how similar hexbear snd the_donald feel.