• JamesConeZone [they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Sankara is a tankie by everyone's definition here. He came to power via a coup, held military tribunals trying people for corruption, formed armed groups to defend the revolution, and was vehemently against NATO, the IMF, and other western powers.

    What does anti-authoritarian mean to you if Sankara is anti-authoritarian

    • barrbaric [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Also arrested trade union leaders and got into it with a teacher's union. I obviously support Sankara, and like you say he's really not different from any other communist leaders except that he was assassinated and his work undone.

    • Sprinklebump@lemm.ee
      ·
      1 year ago

      He came to power via a coup, held military tribunals trying people for corruption, formed armed groups to defend the revolution, and was vehemently against NATO, the IMF, and other western powers.

      You think trying people for corruption make you authoritarian?

      Are you a liberal?

      • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think that authoritarian is a basically meaningless term when applied to a states.

        All states are in the business of using lethal violence, or the threat of it at least, to enforce their rule within their borders.

          • TheLepidopterists [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Okay so if being "authoritarian" is bad and means you shouldn't be supported, and Sankara ran a state, making him authoritarian, by a definition you're now agreeing with (again, anyone who runs a state) why are you pretending you don't think he's an authoritarian and trying to use him as a cudgel against people who actually share an ideology with him?

      • Graylitic@lemm.ee
        ·
        1 year ago

        Is whether or not something is "authoritarian" to you simply determined by vibes, or is it actual actions? By all measures, you should hate Sankara as well. Be consistent.

        • Sprinklebump@lemm.ee
          ·
          1 year ago

          By all measures, you should hate Sankara as well. Be consistent.

          i dont think. so sankara did some really cool things.

          The USSR did some cool things too , AT FIRST: then they started murdering anarchist and consolidating power and becoming a police state. As an anarchist I oppose this.

          Maybe Sankara would have done the same if he lived. But he didn't. He was murdered in a US back coup. He was murdered for being an anti imperialist.

          The USSR is not anti imperialst. Neither is the CPC. These communists experiments became police states. Sankara didnt.

          Sankara fought for nitrution, literacy anticorruption anti imperialism. He put more women in government snd fought against female genital mutilation. Anarchist support all of these things.

          What we dont support is police states. Among other things.

          • Graylitic@lemm.ee
            ·
            1 year ago

            Sankara was a supporter of the USSR and a Marxist-Leninist. Sankara isn't a non-tankie just because he didn't live to the tankie phase, he was always acting as an ML. If that makes you sympathize more with MLs, or makes you hate Sankara as you do tankies, either is your choice.

            • Sprinklebump@lemm.ee
              ·
              1 year ago

              Sankara isn't a non-tankie just because he didn't live to the tankie phase, he was always acting as an ML.

              I believe there is a difference in being ML and having police state aspirations/trending authoritarian. Which is when I use the term tankie.

              Maybe I'm wrong tho you tell me. I liked what sankara did and I dont want to negate the cool things he did simply becuase he got murdered and we dont know what he was going to become.

              There is nuance in his life that I can accept. But what I cannot accept is modern day MLs who look fondly on the actions of the USSR, russian federation and the modern day CPC. they are large authoritarian states that I cannot support as an anarchist.

              Everytime I bring this up tho. I get called a lib.

              • Graylitic@lemm.ee
                ·
                1 year ago

                It's pretty simple. Most MLs critically support ML states. Almost all of them, for example, hate that Stalin banned homosexuality. At the same time, they can also appreciate how both Mao and the USSR doubled life expectancy and ended famine. By metrics, both states improved rapidly.

                As an Anarchist, you can learn a lot from MLs on how to actually get stuff done. Anarchism is a beautiful dream currently, outside of fringe cases like Revolutionary Catalonia it hasn't actually existed to a meaningful extent. I'm not saying you should become an ML, but MLs typically take their routes because it gets results, even if the Means aren't pretty at all.

                I'm saying this as a non-ML Marxist.

              • Frank [he/him, he/him]
                ·
                1 year ago

                Sankara was murdered 31 years after the revolt in Hungary was put down. He supported the USSR. He was, by definition, a tankie.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            then they started murdering anarchist

            A number of those anarchists were counterrevolutionaries. Some, I'm sure, were good people.