ML is run by heavily-indoctrinated communists. They’re the type that straight up worship communist leaders.
lemmy.world is kind of run by pussies. They blocked the piracy sublemmy for no real reason other than that.
It doesn’t surprise me they are butting heads. Hopefully the instances that allow interaction with both instances triumph over those that try to restrict access.
Supporting communists is not the same as worship. The devs and mods are certainly ideologically committed, but not out of sheer blind religious adherance.
I’ve been critical of communists and communist leaders before, I think you’re confusing disinformation being removed with any and all critique being removed. Critique based on disinformation isn’t valid critique.
Maybe you weren’t banned because you wre from .ml they have banned me on an alt account for expressing my opinion that soviet occupation didn’t help my country.
I’ve mentioned that the PRC is lacking in LGBTQIA+ rights (though they are improving), that population transfer in the soviet union was one of its worst crimes, that Stalin’s homophobia was deeply reactionary, that I’d prefer if the PRC was more millitantly anti-imperialist than they are presently, that revisionism and mismanagement began a trend of liberalization in the USSR that contributed to its collapse, that the PRC made a huge error in backing Cambodia against Vietnam, and much more than this.
I’m not “indoctrinated,” and anyond can look at the Lemmy.ml modlog to see for themselves that you’re full of shit.
They’re the type that straight up worship communist leaders.
I wouldn’t phrase it at that. They’re fans of Russia, China, Iran, and pretty much any other country that’s antagonistic to the US. This regardless of whether said state is communist, especially Russia, which has become fascist under Putin’s rule.
MLs aren’t “fans” of Russia or Iran, but value their geopolitical opposition to the west, the imperialist hegemony. MLs do tend to be fans of the PRC, as it’s a socialist country. The idea that a country has to be 100% ideologically aligned in order to get even critical support from a communist just plays into the idea that communists are obsessed with purity testing, but that’s not the case.
If you disagree that .ml are communist and insist that they’re “tankies” instead, it seems to imply that not all communists are “tankies.” However, every single communist I’m aware of is called a tankie. What does a communist who isn’t a tankie look like? Are there examples of such a thing?
The anarchist conception of communism is more like communalism, while the Marxist conception is more like collectivism. When I say “communalization,” I mean anarchists propose horizontalist, decentralized cells, similar to early humanity’s cooperative production but with more interconnection and modern tech. When I say collectivization, I mean the unification of all of humanity into one system, where production and distribution is planned collectively to satisfy the needs of everyone as best as possible.
For anarchists, collectivized society still seems to retain the state, as some anarchists conflate administration with the state as it represents a hierarchy. For Marxists, this focus on communalism creates inter-cell class distinctions, as each cell only truly owns their own means of production, giving rise to class distinctions and thus states in the future.
For Marxists, socialism must have a state, a state can only wither with respect to how far along it has come in collectivizing production and therefore eliminating class. All states are authoritarian, but we cannot get rid of the state without erasing the foundations of the state: class society, and to do so we must collectivize production and distribution globally. Socialist states, where the working class wields its authority against capitalists and fascists, are the means by which this collectivization can actually happen, and are fully in-line with Marx’s beliefs. Communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society is only possible post-socialism.
Abolishing the state overnight would not create the kind of society Marxists advocate for advancing towards, and if anything, would result in the resumption of competition and the resurgance of capitalism if Marx and Engels predictions are correct.
None of this was specific to Marxism-Leninism, but Marxism in general. In this sense, Marxist communism does believe in using state authority to oppress the bourgeousie and reactionaries, just like capitalists use the state to oppress the working classes and revolutionaries. The major difference is that socialist states are working class authorities, not owning class, and as such the class interest points to negating class and therefore the basis of the state. This is why dialectical materialism is core to Marxism.
Anarchists are cool, but they’re really only a minority of communists worldwide. Whatever you think “authoritarianism” is (as far as I’m concerned if you believe in having a state at all, then that state will exercise a monopoly on violence and will be repressive) it describes almost every single communist on planet earth. The game of splitting hairs on what does and doesn’t count as a “tankie” achieves nothing but divide a movement that has common cause.
If I’m being forthright, I’ll just go ahead and ask: if anarchists are the only communists, why even have the concept of “tankies” at all? Why not just say you’re pro-anarchist and anti-communist? From my perspective, all that the whole thing of saying that there supposedly are communists who aren’t “tankies” achieves is create two categories:
Real people who exist in the real world and have actual, flawed political movements
Imaginary perfect people that only exist in your head
Then because you can find real examples of the first category, you can find the flaws they have, and compare them to the ideal people in the second category. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe there really are a ton of Marxists out there that figured out the secret to having a perfectly consistent anti-authoritarian ideology that is still distinct from anarchism. If you could let me know who they are, that’d be awesome.
We live in a dictatorship of capital, you’re not going to be able to get consent from capitalists to overthrow them.
If you’re intersted in revolutionary change you’re going to be authoritarian to someone. The capitalists not going to be on board for getting their property redistributed.
If you’re not interested in revolution you’re the compatible left
Are you seriously conflating communism with authoritarianism?
It’s like you guys went through the red scare and instead of figuring it was a stupid insane witch hunt without any real foundation, decided that the republican definition of “communism = evil” was actually true, but you wanted in anyway. It’s ridiculous.
I remain at the same place, yet to understand how one can be a communist and not authoritarian. And I feel like you’re failing to interrogate whether your concept of authoritarianism is being used with any amount of consistency or if it’s just a club you wield against people who have positions you disagree with for other reasons.
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Another fun quote, though not from the manifesto:
We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.
OK, so maybe you don’t know what “authoritarian” means? Because,
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Is not it.
Edit: A period of time where the proletariat organizes power to eliminate the bourgeoisie in order to get rid of those previous class divides, is not authoritarianism.
Edit: A period of time where the proletariat organizes power to eliminate the bourgeoisie in order to get rid of those previous class divides, is not authoritarianism.
Ok, so how can this be done in such a way that it is not? Were the Soviets, Cubans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans, Venezuelans, Laotians, Grenadians, Nicaraguans, Tanzanians, Angolans, Zimbabweans, and Burkinabes just not quite smart enough to figure it out?
Edit: A period of time where the proletariat organizes power to eliminate the bourgeoisie in order to get rid of those previous class divides, is not authoritarianism.
It is though, you are being authoritarian toward the bourgeois in that case.
They’re not all going to consent to having their property redistributed.
I know perfectly well what Marx is talking about. Socialist states, as they exist in real life, are that dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. Until all production and distribution is collectivized globally, there will not be the grand stage of communism, and instead we are in the radical transformation between capitalism and communism called socialism.
But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
The transition between capitalism and communism is long, messy, queer, gradual, protracted, bumpy, and involves working out many contradictions.
It’s such an irony to me that people who call us “tankies” and say that we are somehow caricatures of communists, always make such caricatures out of themselves. Like, instead of engaging with any of FunkyStuff’s very reasonable, calmly stated questions, you go off about how we (“tankies”) just decided to be evil, and calling us ridiculous while behaving in such a ridiculous, blatantly and needlessly antagonistic way yourself. It’s over the top.
Paraphrasing:
FunkyStuff: asks a calm, concise series of questions that are meant to help clarify the issue.
lunnrais: “See?! Look how frothing these evil, ridiculous lunatic tankies are!!”
And this after correctly recognizing that the red scare was a terrible witch hunt? But it was people like us, people who believe what we believe, that were the “witches” of that particular persecution. We are simply what most communists in the world look like, we believe what most communists in the world believe, people who have very clear and consistent views. But instead of honestly trying to engage or actually understand why “tankies” believe the things they do, you just smear us with lies and pretend that the position of Marxist-Leninist communists is just some bananas, made-up-on-the-fly, contrarian position, rather than one with deep foundations that have been developed over decades of intense thought and practice including by people fighting in the trenches for their own and others liberation. To you, were the Black Panthers “tankies”? Do you know about their mutual support of and with North Korea, or did they just decide to be “evil” to pwn the libs? Was Che Guevara a “tankie”? Is Michael Parenti? Were they all just ridiculous contrarians who liked the picture that reactionaries (“republicans”) painted of them?
Great to see straight up McCarthyism come back into fashion. Why consider other views when you can just declare anyone who disagrees with you to be a non-human foreigner.
no, it was calling another poster a dumbass, and a dumb fuck
Where do you dumb fucks get this shit from?) Thirdly Russia had to invade and hold phony referendums in order to somehow prove eastern Ukraine didn’t want to become part of Europe. Keep on making shit up you dumb ass.
It’s a shame, because I do think China is doing a lot of things correct right now. But these people make me question every fucking thing I read about them.
ML is run by heavily-indoctrinated communists. They’re the type that straight up worship communist leaders.
lemmy.world is kind of run by pussies. They blocked the piracy sublemmy for no real reason other than that.
It doesn’t surprise me they are butting heads. Hopefully the instances that allow interaction with both instances triumph over those that try to restrict access.
It’s absolutely absurd that westerners consider people with wildly heterodox views to be the “indoctrinated” ones.
Supporting communists is not the same as worship. The devs and mods are certainly ideologically committed, but not out of sheer blind religious adherance.
Right. You guys don’t just “support” communists; you worship them.
No? I’m a communist, and I support communism. Worship has nothing to do with it. Can you explain what you mean by that?
If you’re truly clueless and not just feigning ignorance, then head on over to !worldnews@lemmy.ml and say something critical of a communist leader.
See how quickly you get banned.
You are feigning ignorance though because that’s how indoctrinated you are.
I’ve been critical of communists and communist leaders before, I think you’re confusing disinformation being removed with any and all critique being removed. Critique based on disinformation isn’t valid critique.
Maybe you weren’t banned because you wre from .ml they have banned me on an alt account for expressing my opinion that soviet occupation didn’t help my country.
Modlog link? I maintain that critique based on disinformation isn’t valid critique, so it depends on what you said.
Sure you did. You’re going to say whatever you think will defend your indoctrination.
That’s how this works.
Anyone with a brain can look at the lemmy.ml modlog to see for themselves that you’re full of shit.
I just checked the most recent lemmy.ml modlog and it was someone getting their comments removed for calling someone a racist because they said that most white people are racist.
I’ve mentioned that the PRC is lacking in LGBTQIA+ rights (though they are improving), that population transfer in the soviet union was one of its worst crimes, that Stalin’s homophobia was deeply reactionary, that I’d prefer if the PRC was more millitantly anti-imperialist than they are presently, that revisionism and mismanagement began a trend of liberalization in the USSR that contributed to its collapse, that the PRC made a huge error in backing Cambodia against Vietnam, and much more than this.
I’m not “indoctrinated,” and anyond can look at the Lemmy.ml modlog to see for themselves that you’re full of shit.
See everyone? Look at how delusional the .ml crowd is.
Look at who you’re replying to. They’re not capable of fulfilling your request.
I already have done so, though.
I wouldn’t phrase it at that. They’re fans of Russia, China, Iran, and pretty much any other country that’s antagonistic to the US. This regardless of whether said state is communist, especially Russia, which has become fascist under Putin’s rule.
In short, the .ml owners are tankies
MLs aren’t “fans” of Russia or Iran, but value their geopolitical opposition to the west, the imperialist hegemony. MLs do tend to be fans of the PRC, as it’s a socialist country. The idea that a country has to be 100% ideologically aligned in order to get even critical support from a communist just plays into the idea that communists are obsessed with purity testing, but that’s not the case.
If you disagree that .ml are communist and insist that they’re “tankies” instead, it seems to imply that not all communists are “tankies.” However, every single communist I’m aware of is called a tankie. What does a communist who isn’t a tankie look like? Are there examples of such a thing?
Are you saying communism necessarily implies authoritarianism? What about anarchists?
The anarchist conception of communism is more like communalism, while the Marxist conception is more like collectivism. When I say “communalization,” I mean anarchists propose horizontalist, decentralized cells, similar to early humanity’s cooperative production but with more interconnection and modern tech. When I say collectivization, I mean the unification of all of humanity into one system, where production and distribution is planned collectively to satisfy the needs of everyone as best as possible.
For anarchists, collectivized society still seems to retain the state, as some anarchists conflate administration with the state as it represents a hierarchy. For Marxists, this focus on communalism creates inter-cell class distinctions, as each cell only truly owns their own means of production, giving rise to class distinctions and thus states in the future.
For Marxists, socialism must have a state, a state can only wither with respect to how far along it has come in collectivizing production and therefore eliminating class. All states are authoritarian, but we cannot get rid of the state without erasing the foundations of the state: class society, and to do so we must collectivize production and distribution globally. Socialist states, where the working class wields its authority against capitalists and fascists, are the means by which this collectivization can actually happen, and are fully in-line with Marx’s beliefs. Communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society is only possible post-socialism.
Abolishing the state overnight would not create the kind of society Marxists advocate for advancing towards, and if anything, would result in the resumption of competition and the resurgance of capitalism if Marx and Engels predictions are correct.
None of this was specific to Marxism-Leninism, but Marxism in general. In this sense, Marxist communism does believe in using state authority to oppress the bourgeousie and reactionaries, just like capitalists use the state to oppress the working classes and revolutionaries. The major difference is that socialist states are working class authorities, not owning class, and as such the class interest points to negating class and therefore the basis of the state. This is why dialectical materialism is core to Marxism.
Anarchists are cool, but they’re really only a minority of communists worldwide. Whatever you think “authoritarianism” is (as far as I’m concerned if you believe in having a state at all, then that state will exercise a monopoly on violence and will be repressive) it describes almost every single communist on planet earth. The game of splitting hairs on what does and doesn’t count as a “tankie” achieves nothing but divide a movement that has common cause.
If I’m being forthright, I’ll just go ahead and ask: if anarchists are the only communists, why even have the concept of “tankies” at all? Why not just say you’re pro-anarchist and anti-communist? From my perspective, all that the whole thing of saying that there supposedly are communists who aren’t “tankies” achieves is create two categories:
Then because you can find real examples of the first category, you can find the flaws they have, and compare them to the ideal people in the second category. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe there really are a ton of Marxists out there that figured out the secret to having a perfectly consistent anti-authoritarian ideology that is still distinct from anarchism. If you could let me know who they are, that’d be awesome.
We live in a dictatorship of capital, you’re not going to be able to get consent from capitalists to overthrow them.
If you’re intersted in revolutionary change you’re going to be authoritarian to someone. The capitalists not going to be on board for getting their property redistributed.
If you’re not interested in revolution you’re the compatible left
Are you seriously conflating communism with authoritarianism?
It’s like you guys went through the red scare and instead of figuring it was a stupid insane witch hunt without any real foundation, decided that the republican definition of “communism = evil” was actually true, but you wanted in anyway. It’s ridiculous.
I remain at the same place, yet to understand how one can be a communist and not authoritarian. And I feel like you’re failing to interrogate whether your concept of authoritarianism is being used with any amount of consistency or if it’s just a club you wield against people who have positions you disagree with for other reasons.
I think you maybe need to read a book then. Try starting with “The Communist Manifesto”
Will do!
Another fun quote, though not from the manifesto:
OK, so maybe you don’t know what “authoritarian” means? Because,
Is not it.
Edit: A period of time where the proletariat organizes power to eliminate the bourgeoisie in order to get rid of those previous class divides, is not authoritarianism.
Ok, so how can this be done in such a way that it is not? Were the Soviets, Cubans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Koreans, Venezuelans, Laotians, Grenadians, Nicaraguans, Tanzanians, Angolans, Zimbabweans, and Burkinabes just not quite smart enough to figure it out?
It is though, you are being authoritarian toward the bourgeois in that case.
They’re not all going to consent to having their property redistributed.
I know perfectly well what Marx is talking about. Socialist states, as they exist in real life, are that dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. Until all production and distribution is collectivized globally, there will not be the grand stage of communism, and instead we are in the radical transformation between capitalism and communism called socialism.
Critique of the Gotha Programme is also quite helpful:
The transition between capitalism and communism is long, messy, queer, gradual, protracted, bumpy, and involves working out many contradictions.
It’s such an irony to me that people who call us “tankies” and say that we are somehow caricatures of communists, always make such caricatures out of themselves. Like, instead of engaging with any of FunkyStuff’s very reasonable, calmly stated questions, you go off about how we (“tankies”) just decided to be evil, and calling us ridiculous while behaving in such a ridiculous, blatantly and needlessly antagonistic way yourself. It’s over the top.
Paraphrasing:
FunkyStuff: asks a calm, concise series of questions that are meant to help clarify the issue.
lunnrais: “See?! Look how frothing these evil, ridiculous lunatic tankies are!!”
And this after correctly recognizing that the red scare was a terrible witch hunt? But it was people like us, people who believe what we believe, that were the “witches” of that particular persecution. We are simply what most communists in the world look like, we believe what most communists in the world believe, people who have very clear and consistent views. But instead of honestly trying to engage or actually understand why “tankies” believe the things they do, you just smear us with lies and pretend that the position of Marxist-Leninist communists is just some bananas, made-up-on-the-fly, contrarian position, rather than one with deep foundations that have been developed over decades of intense thought and practice including by people fighting in the trenches for their own and others liberation. To you, were the Black Panthers “tankies”? Do you know about their mutual support of and with North Korea, or did they just decide to be “evil” to pwn the libs? Was Che Guevara a “tankie”? Is Michael Parenti? Were they all just ridiculous contrarians who liked the picture that reactionaries (“republicans”) painted of them?
edit: removing duplicate comment.
It’s run by Russia bots who are pumping out Kremlin talking points whilst deleting anyone who is critical.
I got deleted for pointing out Putin runs a mafia state.
Shit even the Russian communist don’t like Putin.
I wonder how much the “Russian running ML” is getting paid to shape the opinions of all 25 people on this platform. Must be making bank
Great to see straight up McCarthyism come back into fashion. Why consider other views when you can just declare anyone who disagrees with you to be a non-human foreigner.
From checking the modlog you got a comment removed and a temp ban for insulting someone
Is it an insult against Putin to declare he is running a mafia state?
Modlog strikes again.
Every time.
*Clutches pearls*
no, it was calling another poster a dumbass, and a dumb fuck
insults people
gets moderated
“I AM A FREE SPEECH WARRIOR FIGHTING PUTIN”
Kremlin and China.
It’s a shame, because I do think China is doing a lot of things correct right now. But these people make me question every fucking thing I read about them.