I am on hexbear because I like the memes. I consider myself a centrist, but I do agree with their general stance of a revolution that leads to the abolition of private property, there should be a dictatorship of the proletariat, and the complete dedication to elevating our marginalized comrades. I just try not to get political there, and it's fine really.
I believe the comrade is making a joke about our politics. Not everything we don't like is fascism, some of it is liberalism. But of course, we all know what bleeds when a liberal gets scratched.
As communists we're staunchly anti-NATO and against the US imperialist order. There's a degree of critical support for the Russian Federations struggle against NATO, but thats not really pro-russia, or at least how we would define being pro-russia.
Similarly we have critical support for Iran in its struggle against the US led imperial order, and we support when they do things like engaging in trade with AES like Venezuela. Thats not the same as direct support for the theocracy there or all their domestic policies for example
NATO aid and their not allowing Ukraine to negotiate peace is what is prolonging this war. We aren't arguing for all of Ukraine to become Russian territory, which hasn't been the position of the Russian Federation either.
We would like a negotiated peace that alllows the Donbas republics to leave Ukraine and join the Russian Federation as they've voted to do, and a promise for Ukraine to not become part of NATO. That senario is not the alternative you're talking about, or what you're implying we support.
We act as if the land wasnt invaded. The quickest way to achieve peace is for Putin yo withdraw. If the Ukrainians push into Russia after a withdraw, then we are having a different conversation.
You cant claim to believe in peace while in another territory.
do you sincerely think Ukraine will be like "it's all good you were a good sport we're gonna end the match here, everyone go home" if Russia suddenly decided to up and leave.
Even if Russia were to withdraw to pre-war borders, Ukraine would keep fighting because they insist on taking Crimea which is a large majority Russians who want to be part of Russia.
Crimea has never truly been Ukrainian. It was internally transferred to the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950s, but its population was Russian then and stayed Russian the whole time since. But Ukraine insists on having it back.
And if they did somehow get it back, they would start ethnically cleansing it of Russians. I hope you understand how that’s a bad thing.
Without NATO aid, Ukraine will just plainly be taken over by Purine Russia.
The war would end, a whole lot of people would stop getting killed, and it would open a sliver of space to organize on class lines instead of nationalist ones.
As it is, it is basically illegal to be a communist or an anarchist in Ukraine, and the country is under martial law with NATO-armed and trained fascist brigades doling out summary justice. Could it get worse? Why should the left advocate for people to die on the hill of a country which arrests communists, dismantles labor unions, and liquidates public infrastructure on internet auctions for foreign investors?
If you take the most vulgar Anarchist approach, all states are bad, full stop. Political practice doesn't even operate on that paradigm. You struggle to undermine oppressive hierarchical systems that you come in direct contact with through direct action. If you take the vulgar Leninist approach, the Proletariat should struggle for the overthrow of their Bourgeoisie (this would include the proletariat of Ukraine and Russia respectively, as well as the proletariat of Western countries which see this conflict only as a means to strengthen their military alliances and diplomatic positions). Of course, the situation is too nuanced to apply such a vulgar approach, but that should be the STARTING POINT for anybody who considers themselves anti-capitalists. You should be able to justify any deviation from those bedrock positions.
Im no fan of US imperialism, but you all conveniently leave out the alternative to NATO aid in Ukraine right now.
Nope it's mentioned all the time: diplomacy, peace talks, and to make that even possible, establish legitimacy by abiding by your own agreements. The undermining of all of these things has been discussed at length. They don't really need to be rehashed in our spaces for the benefit of new people that don't ask questions, though.
Without NATO aid, Ukraine will just plainly be taken over by Purine Russia.
lol RF could take over UA any time they wanted to if they took the NATO approach of completely destroying civilian life and essential resources via bombing. Military "aid" to Ukraine just keeps Ukrainian soldiers getting killed en masse, which is characterized by Russia as their compromise version of Denazification.
As far as Im concerned, Putins expansion is really helping NATOs by giving them a justification to exist
NATO obviously requires no credible justification to exist. This doesn't matter.
I find it completely unreasonable to request a peace talk whilst in a neighboring sovereign nation invading. That's lunacy to think Ukrainians are being the unreasonable ones here in regards to a peace talk.
I find it completely unreasonable to request a peace talk whilst in a neighboring sovereign nation invading.
You have a very funny idea about the realities of war. By your logic most could never end. Wars are resolved through diplomacy or full collapse and loss. Your sociopathic ideas about what is "reasonable" devalues the lives and well-being of Ukrainians living through war.
This is liberal "moral victory" nonsense that no serious person believes.
That's lunacy to think Ukrainians are being the unreasonable ones here in regards to a peace talk.
Thank you for conceding my point and implicitly retracting the claim I replied to.
When in the history of ever did a nation willingly withdraw from its enemy before even holding peace talks?
Did the US withdraw from Mexico before they started hashing out Guadalupe Hidalgo?
Did Germany withdraw from Russia before negotiating Brest-Litovsk?
Even the 'we do not negotiate with terrorists' US negotiated with the Taliban before leaving Afghanistan.
It’s a deal, and withdrawal is one of the terms. You don’t do it before the deal has been made. That gives up all leverage.
And Ukraine has already demanded they get absolutely everything, including Crimea. If you want a deal to be everything you want and nothing you don’t, you need an unconditional surrender, not peace talks. Good luck getting Ukrainian tanks into Moscow.
Putin has started multiple times that he does not consider Ukraine a legitimate country. If he does not think they should exist, where would the other portion of it go?
I think you are being reductive. One can simultaneously be anti Russia and Anti US imperialism.
Idk why America being bad means oligarchic Russia is good. There's no nuance in your ideology. The US generally sucks. They happen to be in the correct side of this conflict. They arent always, but here they are.
Are you implying NATO is just the US? That no other NATO nation has sway, and that they are all US puppet?
This isnt a US vs Russia issue. Its the majority of Europe as well. I tend to trust them as a collective before Id trust Russia.
Again. I think you are being reductive and turning this into a US bad issue when the US isnt even the most important player here. ID argue Ukraine is the most important player here.
The US is not the center of the world. Its a very American perspective
This is essentially what I used to think as well, until I spent more time there. There's some stock phrases busted out, and some users probably leave it at that and don't engage beyond it. However, they genuinely have a deeper framework for an analysis of the world than what you're going to see from conservatives.
Basically as part of their extremely liberal ideology, they analyze things through a materialist lens, even the non-marxist liberals there, and through that there is a lot of seeking out of what material causes and contradictions have lead to where we are which can be really neat.
There is probably some disagreement over what is fascist, what's not, blah blah. But it's really not as simple as "what I don't like is fascism".
They stay inside and rant and rave about how things SHOULD be while we are out there actually making the incremental changes to try to bring it about.
Incremental changes like allowing abortion bans, trans bans, the cost of living to skyrocket, drone striking workers around the world, doing nothing about the climate, allowing millions of avoidable covid deaths for the sake of the rich... Oh and presiding over the restoration of child labour? Those incremental changes? Anything I missed?
You're useless. You are projecting enormously when you say we socialists only talk when literally everything is going backwards even when you're in power.
What do you even do anyway? Are you organising? Or do you just vote every few years and act like that means you do something? We organise.
And brigading ain't fucking organising numbnuts, nor is anyone doing any brigading when it's at the top of our /all/ page right now. I'm talking about unions, salting, activist groups, direct action, REAL shit. Not fucking voting and posting on the internet. What do you do? Anything at all?
Completely skipped over the fact that ALL of the above things happen when liberals are in power too didn't ya? Just utterly sidestepped it. You ignore the reality happening in front of your eyes and only listen to meaningless words. You're naive as fuck and very easily fooled.
I can't speak for everyone but there are a lot of union members and organisers among the ranks of Hexbear. Before I went back to school I used to organise with my local Tennant Union personally, but trying to balance 2 jobs, school, and organising work came to be a bit much for me so I guess we really aren't that different
Once again, the moment someone whips this one out, all I gotta do is look at when they joined. And see yup, that's a reddit refugee. Works 100% of the time, every time.
You've been here two weeks, cool your jets and enjoy federation.
Me personally, I teach and make my students aware of the dictatorship of capital, imperialism, the profite motive.. Basically marxism-leninism 101 on a introductionary level.
Other than that, I'm active in the teachers union and volunteer in the local chapter of the Marxist leninist party tog et local projects of the ground, like extending the public transport network, social housing, and most important of all, talking with people about their problems, the rise of fascism where I live and how to counter it, as well as the current neoliberal line of thought in both local and federale government.
while we are out there actually making the incremental changes to try to bring it about.
lmao most of the activism by liberals here is voting every 2 - 4 years and posting, don't kid yourself. Just keep carrying water for an unrepentant segregationist and telling yourself that the incremental steps you are supporting are towards progress and not a third world war.
Sorry, I'm sure you'll get your anti-imperialism candidate on the Primary debate stage one day! They still can't win, but they'll be on the stage once. And to make sure that that day comes, it only makes sense to do the bidding of imperialists in the meantime.
You're not doing anything you're literally just actively promoting fascism. Congratulations, you beat the Republicans by becoming Republicans. So cool and very effective!
China lifted 800 million people out of poverty by building healthcare, transport, housing, jobs, education and food security? Heh, but what about that time European settlers got richer by genociding Native Americans? Technically that was "poverty reduction" too, commie
Chinese poverty elimination didn’t come on the backs of any of those things you goober. “Well have you considered that sometimes OTHER countries did bad things to reduce domestic poverty, and therefore China doing so is inherently bad actually !?” Grow the fuck up, this isn’t a real argument.
Please watch this documentary co-produced by literally PBS on the poverty alleviation campaign. I'm sure you'll just dismiss it as all a charade and propaganda, but I hope you approach it with an open mind. What the Chinese have been able to accomplish (through sheer hard work and determination) is nothing short of incredible and it honestly pisses me off you would compare that to the literal genocide of Native Americans.
All governments are authoritiarian. They have the authority to tax you and can do that cuz they have a monopoly on violence. But if you have "HUMAN RIGHTS" written on a piece of paper in your capital building that basically makes you a democracy, right?
This argument is essentially "words have no real meaning". Having authority does not make a government authoritarian. The term authoritarianism is defined. The CCP is authoritarian, by definition, starting with (but not ending with) having only one political party.
maybe if more people voted for them they would be bigger parties does a party stop being a party because it's smaller than the dominant party? By that measure, Japan is authoritarian as they've been run by a single party (the LDP) for nearly 70 years!
America. This is America. It's the same picture. America does the same thing but in a different fashion. Please at least admit America is authoritiarian. Why not? I'm a principled maoist, but this makes me want to burn down Walmarts
its not whataboutism, Im saying a lake is a pond a pond is a lake. I watched john oliver in high school, but really tho would you have supported the entente in ww1 cuz the axis were "authoritarian"??? I know history, I know this shit is bullshit. I'll talk to you all day about the shortcomings of the USSR, or the PRC, or the DPRK, whatever the fuck, they all have valid criticism, but fuck if america aint some kinda authoritarian state, then idk what
Would you think china was more democratic if the 8 parties had a larger share of the votes
Yes, broader representation would literally be more democratic.
Why would a larger share be better?
Because that's how democracy works.
Is democracy a function of how many parties are in government?
Democracy is a function of broad representation in government, ideally complete representation, though this is difficult to achieve in practice.
Would it be a good thing if the president had a minority share of the vote?
In the PRC, only local officials are elected, and only candidates which are approved by the ruling party can be nominated for those elections. The president is not subject to direct popular election.
Under the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, the CCP is guaranteed a leadership role, and the National People's Congress therefore does not serve as a forum of debate between government and opposition parties as is the case with Western parliaments.[9] At the same time, the Constitution makes the Party subordinate to laws passed by the National People's Congress, and the NPC has been the forum for debates and conflict resolution between different interest groups. The CCP maintains control over the NPC by controlling delegate selection, maintaining control over the legislative agenda, and controlling the constitutional amendment process.[9]
The ruling party controls delegate selection, the legislative agenda, and constitutional amendments, which ensures that they can maintain their own control indefinitely. This is the opposite of democratic.
Any argument in favor of Ukraine surrendering territory to Russia is pro-Putin. It doesn't have to explicitly say "I support Putin". If the comment suggests that the invasion is in any way justified or that the conquest of Ukrainian territory should be legitimized, it is a pro-Putin argument.
It's only the most brainwashed liberals that turn into this kind of frothing cult of personality turning an entire country of hundreds of millions into a single figurehead.
Evidenced further by the reactionary stance "I'm not listening to a single fucking thing that doesn't 100% align with the most one sided propaganda that I exclusively seek out"
Real good way to not know a single thing you're talking about and look like an idiot when you try
Dumb fuck. You literally said that exact thing in your own words. Projection is something you can accuse someone of if you HAVEN'T completely walled yourself off from knowing the nature of their arguments.
My point and calling you a dumb fuck are one in the same. You need to be and deserve to be called a dumb fuck right now. Did you really read past my several valid criticisms of you and absorb nothing more from it than a pissy attitude?
Pro-Putin is when I want there to still be Ukranians after this. Pro-Ukranian is when I cheer on wave after wave of old men and young boys get mulched by artillery while a bald guy with a sonnenrad tattoo points a rifle at their backs to make sure they don't try to run.
Abstract principles really do matter more than human lives to you libs. Don't talk about "legitimate interest in fewer Ukrainians dying" when you wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice every last one of them for one inch of soil.
I don't actually think. I just know I'm right. Then whenever I'm in an argument I can just link the [word we're arguing about] wikipedia article. Since I'm right and wikipedia has objective information the argument is over every time and I win.
The conversation was you linking a Wikipedia article, I was at least hoping you'd link like a book or something. Like we could have a discussion if you were trying to argue against authoritarianiam as defined by say Bakunin or some other anarchist thinker.
Then I could respond with On Authority which argues that authority is a natural consequence of any organization and calling something authoritarian just means you're saying that it's a system that is able to successfully reproduce itself.
You could also try to link "authoritarianism" to fascism, but again that is pointless because there's already a term for fascism, which is Fascism.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP),[3] officially the Communist Party of China (CPC),[4] is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
I thought this exact thing, but the more I learned about them, it turned out to really not be true. While there is a kind of meme culture there of asking Xi to nuke the town they're currently residing in, and pointing out all of the white supremacist symbols used by the Ukraine's army or whatever, there is a deeper context for it.
They don't necessarily support every move these people make and particularly in regards to Putin there is a lot of criticism towards his social stances.
They're more looking at this through the lens of what a nato conflict is causing in terms of a more multi-polar world and also Russia turning away from the neoliberalism that has dominated it since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Not saying you have to agree with it. I'm more of a centrist myself, but it's really not fair to say this as a blanket statement with no context.
You should check out Vincent Bevins' book The Jakarta Method. He covers the genocide of leftists in Indonesia but throughout it talks to people who've been victims of the Jakarta Method, people who were ostensibly where you are, they were communists who were against the use of force. And do you know what happened to them and their friends? They had to flee for their lives while their friends got murdered because as it turns out Capitalists will absolutely use authority to squash and kill anything that even remotely threatens their power. They've since changed their mind.
300 years after the revolution people who talk about 'communism' will be using your definition. For now when people say 'communism' they're talking about the ML(M) project of achieving that goal. This is a conversation that's been going on for 150 years now. Not only have people argued out what you're talking about, they've been able to see in real life what happens when you try to put principle to practice. You can't have communism without class war. And if you don't suppress the ruling class they will inevitably erode and destroy whatever victories you take from them. You have to use 'authority'.
Before "tankie" became such a popular term the difference was framed as a question of "socialism from above" versus "socialism from below," as discussed in this Hal Draper pamphlet.
Yeah but still I wanted to draw extra attention to it because you made the point so briefly that it may not come off as the important sticking point that it is.
Looking back "why do you believe the thing you do" should be such an obvious line of interrogation if you disagree with someone it's some kind of miracle you never see it in any of these all/active threads
So, someone who supports totalitarian rule to achieve communism? Like... A revolution vs voting? I'm asking in good faith btw, I am legit trying to understand
I mean, there's pretty clearly a difference between the Cuban approach of letting capitalists leave vs the Russian approach of imprisoning them.
There's also a difference between the Bolivian approach of arming and training the peasantry and the GDR approach of maintaining an armed military police into peace time.
There is a meaningful difference between methods of protecting working class power, and pretending there isn't serves more heavy handed approaches.
For those of us who are abolitionists, this is a central question.
I don't understand your response. How is what you've described authoritarian, especially in order to achieve communism as op stated? Those were all communist governments.
I could be mistaken, but this sounds people in different revolutions at different times defend themselves differently against the threats of the bourgeoisie. I don't see how that is authoritarian, especially if the people are the ones involved, heard, and implementing decisions
“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?”
― Frederick Engels
Moreover, the natural development of economic antagonisms, the waking consciousness of an important fraction of the proletariat, the constantly increasing number of unemployed, the blind resistance of the ruling classes, in short contemporary evolution as a whole, is conducting us inevitably towards the outbreak of a great revolution, which will overthrow everything by its violence, and the fore-running signs of which are already visible. This revolution will happen, with us or without us; and the existence of a revolutionary party, conscious of the end to be attained, will serve to give a useful direction to the violence, and to moderate its excesses by the influence of a lofty ideal.
The beginning of that quote is worth adding for context for folks unfamiliar with Engel's argument here:
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. But the 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?
And his conclusion:
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.
I was comparing more or less heavy handed ways of doing it. I'm advocating for as light a touch as possible. I'm trying to say that authority is a meaningful concept and that we should engage with it because it's actually very important.
It's like how some US cities put you on a payment plan for debts, while others put you in jail. They're both situations of capitalist class rule, but it's fair to call the latter authoritarian.
I think the framing is off on that question. Communism is not a political system, its an economic one. Tankies are pro authoritarian, but just so happen to have a communist economic theory.
I believe in Democratic communism, preferably with a much smaller government.
How is human society organized? What do humans do? They create things and they consume things. What is politics? It is deciding who in a society resources are taken from and what they applied to.
Why do you draw a line between these things? Especially as a socialist who presumably wants to bring democracy to the workplace?
Communism is most definitely a political system as it has an inherent system of power relations, representation of workers, ownership of the means of production by the workers themselves, and distribution of decisions among the people until the state can be dissolved. Internationalism is a huge part of communism as is real politik, historical materialism, and other political approaches.
What I don't understand is what you mean by authoritarian? Do you mean a literal dictatorship like in Latin America? I don't know if a single communist country that has not had better representation than the USA as far as voting goes. I guess maybe the Khmer Rouge (I don't know anything beyond Wikipedia for that one)?
authoritarianism is when you do things and get results, the more results you get the more authoritarian it is
true democracy is when so much nothing is happening that everyone is stochastically dissolving into elementary particles like it's the heat death of the universe
There aren't that many Communist experiments, sadly. According to Marx, Communism as we think of it is post Capitalism. We just aren't there yet unfortunately. I think we are edging towards the socialist stage, then we can achieve communism, although I'd like it sooner.
Communism is indissociable from its three components, which includes a political system: dialectical materialism (the philosophical part), the labour theory of value (the economic part), and the class struggle (the social thus political part).
Anything other than Marxism is ineffectual in the real world and leads to nothing as exemplified by 200 years of history. "Tankies" don't "happen" to have an economic theory, it's an integral part to the whole of Marxism and Marxism could not exist without the economic basis for it. Why do we dislike capitalism? Because through math we can prove it is rife with contradictions and invariably leads to imperialism. Otherwise why would we want communism? Just because it's cool to be a communist? Just because it's a hobby? There has to be an actual justification for what we want.
I appreciate the attempt to engage in discussion about it, but it is an interesting position. Do you not think your position directly competes with assertions from The Communist Manifesto, or State and Revolution, or most communist texts?
I do not think communism, as paid out by Marx, was anything more than an economic framework, and as such do not believe that an authoritarian component is required or even recommended for a communist society. So no
I know Hexbear skews very, very liberal. I haven't spent much time in other lemmy places.
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I am on hexbear because I like the memes. I consider myself a centrist, but I do agree with their general stance of a revolution that leads to the abolition of private property, there should be a dictatorship of the proletariat, and the complete dedication to elevating our marginalized comrades. I just try not to get political there, and it's fine really.
I'm a centrist; Anarchists and Marxist-Leninists both make good points
Based
posting
You're such a centrist!
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Honestly this might be the best bit to genuinely convince centrists
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banger
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Everyone left of me is red fascist and everyone right of me is normal fascist
LOL
Haha we were owned.
It's basically a mayor Pete fan club over there
Every time his face gets posted, a grocer in Canada gets the sudden urge to raise the price of bread.
Actually they're raising the price of meat now.
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BTW I use NixOS
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I hate those hexbear shit libs.
me too man fr fr
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Liberal? They’re as extreme as conservatives who call communism everything they don’t like (cause they call everything they don’t like “fascist”)
the leftism understander has logged on
Maybe you don't understand what fascism is.
Or maybe you do, and you're a supporter of it.
I believe the comrade is making a joke about our politics. Not everything we don't like is fascism, some of it is liberalism. But of course, we all know what bleeds when a liberal gets scratched.
I like the communism talk. I don't like the pro russia talk on hexbear.
What exactly are you seeing as pro-russia?
As communists we're staunchly anti-NATO and against the US imperialist order. There's a degree of critical support for the Russian Federations struggle against NATO, but thats not really pro-russia, or at least how we would define being pro-russia.
Similarly we have critical support for Iran in its struggle against the US led imperial order, and we support when they do things like engaging in trade with AES like Venezuela. Thats not the same as direct support for the theocracy there or all their domestic policies for example
They want all the us state department propaganda included with the communism talk.
Im no fan of US imperialism, but you all conveniently leave out the alternative to NATO aid in Ukraine right now.
Without NATO aid, Ukraine will just plainly be taken over by Purine Russia.
If you think that end result is OK, then I don't know what to tell you.
As far as Im concerned, Putins expansion is really helping NATOs by giving them a justification to exist.
How does communism inform your perspective?
NATO aid and their not allowing Ukraine to negotiate peace is what is prolonging this war. We aren't arguing for all of Ukraine to become Russian territory, which hasn't been the position of the Russian Federation either.
We would like a negotiated peace that alllows the Donbas republics to leave Ukraine and join the Russian Federation as they've voted to do, and a promise for Ukraine to not become part of NATO. That senario is not the alternative you're talking about, or what you're implying we support.
We act as if the land wasnt invaded. The quickest way to achieve peace is for Putin yo withdraw. If the Ukrainians push into Russia after a withdraw, then we are having a different conversation.
You cant claim to believe in peace while in another territory.
And then get couped and have the war continue under the leadership of a right wing hardliner
Please look up critiques of great man theory as it seems relevant to your line of thinking on this matter.
I don't even know what this means because it has no grounding in reality.
They can't negotiate peace because they are in a war? How is it possible to resolve this conflict in any realistic way if thats the criteria?
do you sincerely think Ukraine will be like "it's all good you were a good sport we're gonna end the match here, everyone go home" if Russia suddenly decided to up and leave.
Even if Russia were to withdraw to pre-war borders, Ukraine would keep fighting because they insist on taking Crimea which is a large majority Russians who want to be part of Russia.
Crimea has never truly been Ukrainian. It was internally transferred to the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950s, but its population was Russian then and stayed Russian the whole time since. But Ukraine insists on having it back.
And if they did somehow get it back, they would start ethnically cleansing it of Russians. I hope you understand how that’s a bad thing.
The war would end, a whole lot of people would stop getting killed, and it would open a sliver of space to organize on class lines instead of nationalist ones.
As it is, it is basically illegal to be a communist or an anarchist in Ukraine, and the country is under martial law with NATO-armed and trained fascist brigades doling out summary justice. Could it get worse? Why should the left advocate for people to die on the hill of a country which arrests communists, dismantles labor unions, and liquidates public infrastructure on internet auctions for foreign investors?
If you take the most vulgar Anarchist approach, all states are bad, full stop. Political practice doesn't even operate on that paradigm. You struggle to undermine oppressive hierarchical systems that you come in direct contact with through direct action. If you take the vulgar Leninist approach, the Proletariat should struggle for the overthrow of their Bourgeoisie (this would include the proletariat of Ukraine and Russia respectively, as well as the proletariat of Western countries which see this conflict only as a means to strengthen their military alliances and diplomatic positions). Of course, the situation is too nuanced to apply such a vulgar approach, but that should be the STARTING POINT for anybody who considers themselves anti-capitalists. You should be able to justify any deviation from those bedrock positions.
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Nope it's mentioned all the time: diplomacy, peace talks, and to make that even possible, establish legitimacy by abiding by your own agreements. The undermining of all of these things has been discussed at length. They don't really need to be rehashed in our spaces for the benefit of new people that don't ask questions, though.
lol RF could take over UA any time they wanted to if they took the NATO approach of completely destroying civilian life and essential resources via bombing. Military "aid" to Ukraine just keeps Ukrainian soldiers getting killed en masse, which is characterized by Russia as their compromise version of Denazification.
NATO obviously requires no credible justification to exist. This doesn't matter.
I find it completely unreasonable to request a peace talk whilst in a neighboring sovereign nation invading. That's lunacy to think Ukrainians are being the unreasonable ones here in regards to a peace talk.
So, no peace talks during war time, got it.
You have a very funny idea about the realities of war. By your logic most could never end. Wars are resolved through diplomacy or full collapse and loss. Your sociopathic ideas about what is "reasonable" devalues the lives and well-being of Ukrainians living through war.
This is liberal "moral victory" nonsense that no serious person believes.
Thank you for conceding my point and implicitly retracting the claim I replied to.
When in the history of ever did a nation willingly withdraw from its enemy before even holding peace talks?
Did the US withdraw from Mexico before they started hashing out Guadalupe Hidalgo?
Did Germany withdraw from Russia before negotiating Brest-Litovsk?
Even the 'we do not negotiate with terrorists' US negotiated with the Taliban before leaving Afghanistan.
It’s a deal, and withdrawal is one of the terms. You don’t do it before the deal has been made. That gives up all leverage.
And Ukraine has already demanded they get absolutely everything, including Crimea. If you want a deal to be everything you want and nothing you don’t, you need an unconditional surrender, not peace talks. Good luck getting Ukrainian tanks into Moscow.
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Ukraine offered neutrality which was what Russia wanted and Russia rejected it. Then Ukraine accepted aid.
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No it wouldn’t. At most they would take the southern half, Novorossiya. The rest they just want a guarantee won’t align with the West.
Putin has started multiple times that he does not consider Ukraine a legitimate country. If he does not think they should exist, where would the other portion of it go?
You have that backwards and are welcome to learn about the context behind the conflict, just ask
Ah, I think I've found the issue. Here at Hexbear we only support Pyrimidine Russia. We hate fuckin' cytosine, don't we folks?
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I think you are being reductive. One can simultaneously be anti Russia and Anti US imperialism.
Idk why America being bad means oligarchic Russia is good. There's no nuance in your ideology. The US generally sucks. They happen to be in the correct side of this conflict. They arent always, but here they are.
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Are you implying NATO is just the US? That no other NATO nation has sway, and that they are all US puppet?
This isnt a US vs Russia issue. Its the majority of Europe as well. I tend to trust them as a collective before Id trust Russia.
Again. I think you are being reductive and turning this into a US bad issue when the US isnt even the most important player here. ID argue Ukraine is the most important player here.
The US is not the center of the world. Its a very American perspective
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You don't know about anything you're talking about
Haven't liberals been the ones calling us fascists ever since we federated?
This is essentially what I used to think as well, until I spent more time there. There's some stock phrases busted out, and some users probably leave it at that and don't engage beyond it. However, they genuinely have a deeper framework for an analysis of the world than what you're going to see from conservatives.
Basically as part of their extremely liberal ideology, they analyze things through a materialist lens, even the non-marxist liberals there, and through that there is a lot of seeking out of what material causes and contradictions have lead to where we are which can be really neat.
There is probably some disagreement over what is fascist, what's not, blah blah. But it's really not as simple as "what I don't like is fascism".
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Incremental changes like allowing abortion bans, trans bans, the cost of living to skyrocket, drone striking workers around the world, doing nothing about the climate, allowing millions of avoidable covid deaths for the sake of the rich... Oh and presiding over the restoration of child labour? Those incremental changes? Anything I missed?
You're useless. You are projecting enormously when you say we socialists only talk when literally everything is going backwards even when you're in power.
What do you even do anyway? Are you organising? Or do you just vote every few years and act like that means you do something? We organise.
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Team? You're not on our fucking team you side with fascists every fucking chance you get. You're fake, full of shit and untrustworthy allies.
Comrade Patrick Stewart playing Lenin says it best.
And brigading ain't fucking organising numbnuts, nor is anyone doing any brigading when it's at the top of our /all/ page right now. I'm talking about unions, salting, activist groups, direct action, REAL shit. Not fucking voting and posting on the internet. What do you do? Anything at all?
Completely skipped over the fact that ALL of the above things happen when liberals are in power too didn't ya? Just utterly sidestepped it. You ignore the reality happening in front of your eyes and only listen to meaningless words. You're naive as fuck and very easily fooled.
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I'm sorry Civility I have failed you and will continue to do so.
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I can't speak for everyone but there are a lot of union members and organisers among the ranks of Hexbear. Before I went back to school I used to organise with my local Tennant Union personally, but trying to balance 2 jobs, school, and organising work came to be a bit much for me so I guess we really aren't that different
I'm a
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Here's something for you teammate
wait for it
Brigading is when silly posts appear on my federated front page and I make fun of your bad opinions.
Once again, the moment someone whips this one out, all I gotta do is look at when they joined. And see yup, that's a reddit refugee. Works 100% of the time, every time.
You've been here two weeks, cool your jets and enjoy federation.
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What organization have you done?
Me personally, I teach and make my students aware of the dictatorship of capital, imperialism, the profite motive.. Basically marxism-leninism 101 on a introductionary level.
Other than that, I'm active in the teachers union and volunteer in the local chapter of the Marxist leninist party tog et local projects of the ground, like extending the public transport network, social housing, and most important of all, talking with people about their problems, the rise of fascism where I live and how to counter it, as well as the current neoliberal line of thought in both local and federale government.
What have you done?
Whataboutism!!
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lmao most of the activism by liberals here is voting every 2 - 4 years and posting, don't kid yourself. Just keep carrying water for an unrepentant segregationist and telling yourself that the incremental steps you are supporting are towards progress and not a third world war.
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Sorry, I'm sure you'll get your anti-imperialism candidate on the Primary debate stage one day! They still can't win, but they'll be on the stage once. And to make sure that that day comes, it only makes sense to do the bidding of imperialists in the meantime.
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I have no idea what point it is that you think was proved so well here
You're not doing anything you're literally just actively promoting fascism. Congratulations, you beat the Republicans by becoming Republicans. So cool and very effective!
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Phonebanking for Biden doesn't count as doing shit btw
Exactly why I've been phone banking for Hilary since 2016. We will overcome. ✊
Can't wait for her rematch against drumpf. It's her turn!
Just like Rocky vs Ivan.
Ait lemme know when that incremental change actually changes something
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Hexbear also has a large number of Putin and CCP apologists. Authoritarian bootlicking isn't liberalism.
if supporting a project that lifts 800M out of extreme poverty is wrong, I don't wanna be right
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Pushing Native Americans onto reservations lifted a lot of European immigrants out of poverty.
Burning fossil fuels lifted entire nations out of poverty.
Campaigns against the barbarians lifted many Romans out of poverty.
If you think this "lift" is some example of public good in action that hasn't come at the cost of exploitation, you're delusional.
Chinese poverty elimination didn’t come on the backs of any of those things you goober. “Well have you considered that sometimes OTHER countries did bad things to reduce domestic poverty, and therefore China doing so is inherently bad actually !?” Grow the fuck up, this isn’t a real argument.
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Typical whataboutism from a centrist liberal tankie!!
Please watch this documentary co-produced by literally PBS on the poverty alleviation campaign. I'm sure you'll just dismiss it as all a charade and propaganda, but I hope you approach it with an open mind. What the Chinese have been able to accomplish (through sheer hard work and determination) is nothing short of incredible and it honestly pisses me off you would compare that to the literal genocide of Native Americans.
All governments are authoritiarian. They have the authority to tax you and can do that cuz they have a monopoly on violence. But if you have "HUMAN RIGHTS" written on a piece of paper in your capital building that basically makes you a democracy, right?
Anarchy in the streets, MLM in the sheets
This argument is essentially "words have no real meaning". Having authority does not make a government authoritarian. The term authoritarianism is defined. The CCP is authoritarian, by definition, starting with (but not ending with) having only one political party.
China has 8 other political parties in its congress
also it's officially the CPC (Communist Party of China), not the CCP
Mmmhmm, and how many of those tiny parties have any functional political power? When was the last time that a non-CCP member led the PRC?
Oh right, never. These other parties are tokens. Period.
maybe if more people voted for them they would be bigger parties
does a party stop being a party because it's smaller than the dominant party? By that measure, Japan is authoritarian as they've been run by a single party (the LDP) for nearly 70 years!
I mean, maybe? I'm not particularly educated on Japanese politics, but they are a constitutional monarchy.
But as I noted above, being a single-party state is not the entire definition of authoritarianism, just one part of it. The Chinese political system is authoritarian.
America. This is America. It's the same picture. America does the same thing but in a different fashion. Please at least admit America is authoritiarian. Why not? I'm a principled maoist, but this makes me want to burn down Walmarts
I'm not playing whataboutism games right now.
its not whataboutism, Im saying a lake is a pond a pond is a lake. I watched john oliver in high school, but really tho would you have supported the entente in ww1 cuz the axis were "authoritarian"??? I know history, I know this shit is bullshit. I'll talk to you all day about the shortcomings of the USSR, or the PRC, or the DPRK, whatever the fuck, they all have valid criticism, but fuck if america aint some kinda authoritarian state, then idk what
Whataboutism is when you hold two governments to the same standard.
If capitalist bootlickers didn't have double standards, they wouldn't have any standards at all.
These parties also haven't liftend millions of people out of poverty, that should help them get elected then
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Yes, broader representation would literally be more democratic.
Because that's how democracy works.
Democracy is a function of broad representation in government, ideally complete representation, though this is difficult to achieve in practice.
In the PRC, only local officials are elected, and only candidates which are approved by the ruling party can be nominated for those elections. The president is not subject to direct popular election.
ref
The ruling party controls delegate selection, the legislative agenda, and constitutional amendments, which ensures that they can maintain their own control indefinitely. This is the opposite of democratic.
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Since this is demonstrably not the case, I have to assume that you don't know what the word means, which is somewhat ironic...
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"The United States is also a one-party system, but in classic American extravagance, they have two of them"
-Julius Nyerere, first president of Tanzania
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Any argument in favor of Ukraine surrendering territory to Russia is pro-Putin. It doesn't have to explicitly say "I support Putin". If the comment suggests that the invasion is in any way justified or that the conquest of Ukrainian territory should be legitimized, it is a pro-Putin argument.
It's only the most brainwashed liberals that turn into this kind of frothing cult of personality turning an entire country of hundreds of millions into a single figurehead.
Evidenced further by the reactionary stance "I'm not listening to a single fucking thing that doesn't 100% align with the most one sided propaganda that I exclusively seek out"
Real good way to not know a single thing you're talking about and look like an idiot when you try
Careful, your projection is showing.
Dumb fuck. You literally said that exact thing in your own words. Projection is something you can accuse someone of if you HAVEN'T completely walled yourself off from knowing the nature of their arguments.
I'm sorry, are you arguing that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is justified? Is that your point?
Also, if you can't make your point without insults then your point isn't worth making.
My point and calling you a dumb fuck are one in the same. You need to be and deserve to be called a dumb fuck right now. Did you really read past my several valid criticisms of you and absorb nothing more from it than a pissy attitude?
Pro-Putin is when I want there to still be Ukranians after this. Pro-Ukranian is when I cheer on wave after wave of old men and young boys get mulched by artillery while a bald guy with a sonnenrad tattoo points a rifle at their backs to make sure they don't try to run.
"Anyone who doesn't want to maximise the amount of dead Ukrainians is pro-Putin!"
You know what would keep more Ukrainians alive? If Russia stopped attacking them.
If you were legitimately interested in fewer Ukrainians dying you would be overtly critical of Russia's invasion.
Abstract principles really do matter more than human lives to you libs. Don't talk about "legitimate interest in fewer Ukrainians dying" when you wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice every last one of them for one inch of soil.
There is no "abstract principle" here. Russia started a war.
And that matters more to you than every single Ukrainian life put together.
Define 'Authoritarian'
How about you do some reading yourself.
I don't actually think. I just know I'm right. Then whenever I'm in an argument I can just link the [word we're arguing about] wikipedia article. Since I'm right and wikipedia has objective information the argument is over every time and I win.
Did you have something useful to add to the conversation?
The conversation was you linking a Wikipedia article, I was at least hoping you'd link like a book or something. Like we could have a discussion if you were trying to argue against authoritarianiam as defined by say Bakunin or some other anarchist thinker.
Then I could respond with On Authority which argues that authority is a natural consequence of any organization and calling something authoritarian just means you're saying that it's a system that is able to successfully reproduce itself.
You could also try to link "authoritarianism" to fascism, but again that is pointless because there's already a term for fascism, which is Fascism.
You may as well talk to a wall. It would be about as useful although probably less frustrating.
You man have more luck in talking to 'walls' or people in general if you were willing to engage in good faith discussion
Something most hexbear users do not do.
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It's CPC you sound like a yokel
And why exactly are you so emotionally attached to CPC vs CCP that you felt the need to throw in a epithet? CCP is the common abbreviation.
Read the first fucking sentence of the link you just sent me
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POTUS -> TUSP (The United States President)
CIA -> CAI (Central Agency of Intelligence)
FBI -> BFI (Bureau of Federal Investigation)
It's fun to just change around acronyms for official governing bodies. I'm gonna go edit Wikipedia to include these as common abbreviations too
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Liberalism is bad, hope that helps clarify
I thought this exact thing, but the more I learned about them, it turned out to really not be true. While there is a kind of meme culture there of asking Xi to nuke the town they're currently residing in, and pointing out all of the white supremacist symbols used by the Ukraine's army or whatever, there is a deeper context for it.
They don't necessarily support every move these people make and particularly in regards to Putin there is a lot of criticism towards his social stances.
They're more looking at this through the lens of what a nato conflict is causing in terms of a more multi-polar world and also Russia turning away from the neoliberalism that has dominated it since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Not saying you have to agree with it. I'm more of a centrist myself, but it's really not fair to say this as a blanket statement with no context.
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It's the core of liberalism.
I say this as actual communist, hexbear is full of tankies.
And as an actual communist, that's a good thing
Tankieism is good? At least you are honest about it.
Yeah communism is great, or as you call it, "tankieism"
I believe in communism as an economic framework.
Authoritarianism paired with communism is just as bad as any other Authoritarinism.
So you support communism you just insist it exist within the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie
I don't even believe in money. So I'm not sure how that reading of my opinion would work.
You should check out Vincent Bevins' book The Jakarta Method. He covers the genocide of leftists in Indonesia but throughout it talks to people who've been victims of the Jakarta Method, people who were ostensibly where you are, they were communists who were against the use of force. And do you know what happened to them and their friends? They had to flee for their lives while their friends got murdered because as it turns out Capitalists will absolutely use authority to squash and kill anything that even remotely threatens their power. They've since changed their mind.
300 years after the revolution people who talk about 'communism' will be using your definition. For now when people say 'communism' they're talking about the ML(M) project of achieving that goal. This is a conversation that's been going on for 150 years now. Not only have people argued out what you're talking about, they've been able to see in real life what happens when you try to put principle to practice. You can't have communism without class war. And if you don't suppress the ruling class they will inevitably erode and destroy whatever victories you take from them. You have to use 'authority'.
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Every government is authoritarian. The US is authoritarian.
Correct. That's why I'm a small government communist.
Cool. I'm a government that can exist in the world we live in communist.
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Define "tankieism"
Leave them a alone it's a good bit.
IMO, authoritarian communism.
I prefer a democratic communism. Communism is not a political framework, its an economic kne
Can you explain this new socialost tendency that you've created? What is "democratic" communism?
Before "tankie" became such a popular term the difference was framed as a question of "socialism from above" versus "socialism from below," as discussed in this Hal Draper pamphlet.
I don't this this person has any idea about any of this
Communism, as in no private industry, run for the people and by the people (not the state).
You sound like you heard what communism is through word of mouth in a country with 80 years of genocidal anticommunism
Okay, you've described communism as a theoretical state that we as socialist want to arrive at as we resolve the contridictions within society.
How is this different than what people like me that you call tankies are talking about. What fo you know that we don't?
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How do you expect that to happen?
Check out this fed over here
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What is a tankie
Communists who want to actually have a communist system instead of just pretending to.
Every single liberal in this thread should engage with this point.
They won't because they are intellectual cowards.
Yeah but still I wanted to draw extra attention to it because you made the point so briefly that it may not come off as the important sticking point that it is.
Looking back "why do you believe the thing you do" should be such an obvious line of interrogation if you disagree with someone it's some kind of miracle you never see it in any of these all/active threads
A real communist instead of a fake, ineffective one that has no interest in communism succeeding anywhere.
Communist (not a problem) that supports totalitarian rule to achieve those means (a big problem)
So, someone who supports totalitarian rule to achieve communism? Like... A revolution vs voting? I'm asking in good faith btw, I am legit trying to understand
I mean, there's pretty clearly a difference between the Cuban approach of letting capitalists leave vs the Russian approach of imprisoning them.
There's also a difference between the Bolivian approach of arming and training the peasantry and the GDR approach of maintaining an armed military police into peace time.
There is a meaningful difference between methods of protecting working class power, and pretending there isn't serves more heavy handed approaches.
For those of us who are abolitionists, this is a central question.
I don't understand your response. How is what you've described authoritarian, especially in order to achieve communism as op stated? Those were all communist governments.
I could be mistaken, but this sounds people in different revolutions at different times defend themselves differently against the threats of the bourgeoisie. I don't see how that is authoritarian, especially if the people are the ones involved, heard, and implementing decisions
“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?” ― Frederick Engels
--Ericco Malatesta, Anarchy and Violence
The beginning of that quote is worth adding for context for folks unfamiliar with Engel's argument here:
And his conclusion:
The short entire essay is worth reading for other folks reading.
I was comparing more or less heavy handed ways of doing it. I'm advocating for as light a touch as possible. I'm trying to say that authority is a meaningful concept and that we should engage with it because it's actually very important.
It's like how some US cities put you on a payment plan for debts, while others put you in jail. They're both situations of capitalist class rule, but it's fair to call the latter authoritarian.
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I think the framing is off on that question. Communism is not a political system, its an economic one. Tankies are pro authoritarian, but just so happen to have a communist economic theory.
I believe in Democratic communism, preferably with a much smaller government.
Revolutions that are anti authoritarian is great.
The problem is authoritarianism, not communism
This distinction is pure capitalist ideology
Well that's unlikely since I don't even believe in currency.
How is human society organized? What do humans do? They create things and they consume things. What is politics? It is deciding who in a society resources are taken from and what they applied to.
Why do you draw a line between these things? Especially as a socialist who presumably wants to bring democracy to the workplace?
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Communism is most definitely a political system as it has an inherent system of power relations, representation of workers, ownership of the means of production by the workers themselves, and distribution of decisions among the people until the state can be dissolved. Internationalism is a huge part of communism as is real politik, historical materialism, and other political approaches.
What I don't understand is what you mean by authoritarian? Do you mean a literal dictatorship like in Latin America? I don't know if a single communist country that has not had better representation than the USA as far as voting goes. I guess maybe the Khmer Rouge (I don't know anything beyond Wikipedia for that one)?
authoritarianism is when you do things and get results, the more results you get the more authoritarian it is
true democracy is when so much nothing is happening that everyone is stochastically dissolving into elementary particles like it's the heat death of the universe
Interesting! Are there any Communist countries that you would classify as non-authoritarian/tankie?
There aren't that many Communist experiments, sadly. According to Marx, Communism as we think of it is post Capitalism. We just aren't there yet unfortunately. I think we are edging towards the socialist stage, then we can achieve communism, although I'd like it sooner.
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Kibbutzism would fall under a non authoritarian communism, I think.
ooh, a "small government" communist
Yes sir. Communism's root word is "commune". Those are pretty small.
You're not getting all your theory from Websters, are you?
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Communism is indissociable from its three components, which includes a political system: dialectical materialism (the philosophical part), the labour theory of value (the economic part), and the class struggle (the social thus political part).
Anything other than Marxism is ineffectual in the real world and leads to nothing as exemplified by 200 years of history. "Tankies" don't "happen" to have an economic theory, it's an integral part to the whole of Marxism and Marxism could not exist without the economic basis for it. Why do we dislike capitalism? Because through math we can prove it is rife with contradictions and invariably leads to imperialism. Otherwise why would we want communism? Just because it's cool to be a communist? Just because it's a hobby? There has to be an actual justification for what we want.
I appreciate the attempt to engage in discussion about it, but it is an interesting position. Do you not think your position directly competes with assertions from The Communist Manifesto, or State and Revolution, or most communist texts?
I do not think communism, as paid out by Marx, was anything more than an economic framework, and as such do not believe that an authoritarian component is required or even recommended for a communist society. So no
you should read more Marx if you think Marx only said things about economics
Tries to act like he's read anything, clearly hasn't, opinion discarded
This commenter thinks that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves.
Amirite my fellow communists?
Please tell me about this actual communism?
No actual communist even uses that dumb term but sure bud you do you
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No "actual communist" considers the word tankie meaningful