You're viewing a single thread.
Why does the compromise guy have a hammer and sickle on him? Is it because these countries were formally part of the USSR?
There are online self-proclaimed leftists who simp for the totalitarian Soviet regime, and often for China as well. The slang term for them is 'tankies'. Generally speaking, they're the ones you see online spreading the "Ukraine has to compromise for Russia's Legitimate Security Concerns!" The hammer-and-sickle is there to represent them.
It's very bizarre, considering that most leftists I know, even the ones I butt heads with, recognize that Putin's Russia is an imperialist and fascist state. But no one has ever accused tankies of being consistent.
Don't worry, some tankie will be along to correct you that Russia doesn't meet the exact textbook definition of Fascism, so it is actually a utopia.
My favorite incorrect definition for tankies is, they dont actually like communism, they just like tanks.
They like "dictatorships of the proletariat," and if they think that is given to them by Daddy Big Boots, then theyll simp for him hard as they can.
Absolutely loving the pushback against their shit here on .world, it was getting bleak there for a minute..
Yeah. Tankies in most places are absolutely inconsequential, but they're very prominent on the Fediverse. It's good to push back against the poisonous parts of their ideology (like 'Imperialism is good if it's a capitalist state that's not part of the West doing it').
Would hate to see that kind of vile fascist shit normalized on here.
Yep, authoritarianism and imperialism is wrong left or right. The United States has a horrible track record on this front it's true. But they'll lose their shit when you state a simple fact like ML nations are generally just as bad. Russia basically invaded and forcefully annexed many nations post WWII. Tried to invade Afghanistan. Imprisoned and slaughtered millions in Siberian prisons to this very day even. All for simple dissent. Nivalny anyone? China isn't really any better either.
They usually break into a sputtering revelry of "But imperialists and the west did X". Which you can easily tear apart with a simple "And?". Because it doesn't justify them doing it.
Id still argue that tankies and authoritarians of all kinds dont fit in in the left, but otherwise agreed.
I want a society thats classless, cashless, stateless. Currency, billionaires, socioeconomic classes, dictators dont fit.
Same here. It's a long road. And unfortunately ml and tankies specifically have set us back on it quite a bit. But the evolution Karl Marx originally spoke about is absolutely worth continuing to pursue.
Keep being the change u wish to see in the world. Love u bae <3
Absolutely loving the pushback
And it's being replaced with liberalism - which is every bit as bad.
"Liberalism"
Liberalism is when no tank
...in the most verbose way possible, with bonus points for referencing people out of context, cherrypicking their worst takes, or just deferring to lunatics in a ghish gallop too exhausting to be worth challenging.
They have grocery stores with bread you know. Suck on that imperialist!
“Fascism” is thrown around entirely too much as a term, when it’s just one variety of authoritarianism, which is the term we should be using
Russia doesn't qualify as a fascist state.
Not when you ask putler, try asking people who aren't running a fascist state.
Has Putin stated that he's running a fascist state?
I have news for you, liberal - strengthening, enabling and exploiting fascist elements within a capitalist state to protect the status quo existing within said capitalist state is not a fascist thing to do. It's a liberal thing to do. That is literally how fascists get into power in the first place - they can't get into power by themselves.
Is this a difficult thing to understand? I'd say it's quite simple.
Also... good luck with the whole "putler" thing. Somehow, I don't see that taking off.
He’s a communist from lemmygrad
"communist"
Today were can clearly see that, communism was always a red herring. Tankies during cold war and tankies today (that love to dress in American flags), were always about supporting of totalitarian regimes.
The hammer and sickle is to support USSR.
Tankie is a special sort of communist. Doesn't seem fair to paint all communists as tankies.
Tankie is just facist wearing red instead of brown. Leave communism out of it.
Seems pretty fair to me. Socialism and communism are inherently totalitarian.
Right when bad things happen under capitalism it's just the profit motive
Bad things don't happen under capitalism.
Bitch, bad things are happening RIGHT NOW under capitalism wtfdym
Lolwut?
You'd see if you'd open your eyes and stopped trolling
What is happening? Stock prices are through the roof, markets are booming, everything is bloody awesome.
I know this is a troll but just in case anyone passing by buys into this.
Capitalism is a huge reason why we've had such difficulty fighting the ongoing climate catastrophe, plastic pollution issue, PFAS pollution issue, Mercury pollution issue and housing crisis.
The reason is twofold, first fiduciary obligation will make sure that any publicly traded corporation has to prioritize short-term gain over long term sustainability both for themselves and the planet.
The second reason is that once a company has sufficient control over a market they can use their money to influence legislation and competition with little regard for societal effects.
These are just some things off the top of my head.
"Capitalism is when everyone just has a good time"
- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
fucking what
Definitely not imo, if we are talking about the ideology. Many socialist/communist countries have been totalitarian though, so there's a big divide between the ideological basis and goals and what has ended up happening.
Sort of? Vanguardism is inherently totalitarian, for example. The core idea is that the vanguard know better than the poor proles what's good for them (Maoism is basically vanguardism). Stalinism is quite obviously and clearly totalitarian, putting rapid "strong" decision-making for the goal of rapid economic development above everything.
There are more democratic and equal forms of socialism, like Democratic socialism, syndicalism, mutualism (if you accept anarchists as part of the umbrella) and so on.
My core point is that socialism can be totalitarian or not depending on the actual ideology inside the big varied umbrella term.
Well put. I just meant more that socialism and communism doesn't have to be totalitarian, ideologically a lot of the views inside those can be close to anarchism. The real life examples of socialist and communist states we've had (the thing people think of often when they think of socialism and communism) have just been examples of it either having been a totalitarian form of it or have devolved to totalitarianism (depending a bit on the interpretation, but that's a really heave topic).
Anarchism is an inherently socialist and communist ideology.
Anarchism in short: heirarchy should be abolished
Socialism: workers should own the means of production. Being forced into wage labor is a form of heirarchy
Communism: a stateless (hierarchical structure), classless (social heirarchy), moneyless (a system of power that easily lends itself to hierarchical means) society.
One way to look at anarchism is a description of the way to realize communism, and continue past it into a more egalitarian social structure. Nobody has successfully realized communism for an extended period of time, but there are/have been projects that were well on their way. The zapatistas, CNT-FAI, and rojava come to mind. We're lead to view the USSR and China (for example) as socialist/Communist because associating those places with the word understandably puts people off of the idea. Their insistence that they are socialist/communist doesn't help that either. They never really met the mark imo
I knew of the Zaptistas, but reading up on the other two u mentioned. CNT-FAI, im vaguely familiar with the anarchist movement in the Spanish Civil War, but did not know of this acronym for their organizing efforts. Thought this bit taken from their wiki (itself sourced from an archived version of their statutes published in 77) was a fun condemnation of tankie claims on this website that not participating in the current political system is part and parcel for far-left politics (emphasis mine):
"...the aims of the CNT are to "develop a sense of solidarity among workers", hoping to improve their conditions under the current social system, prepare them for future emancipation, when the means of production have been socialized, to practice mutual aid amongst CNT collectives, and maintain relationships with other like-minded groups hoping for emancipation of the entire working class."
Will be reading more about them, and rojava as well, thanks!
Happy to give you a new rabbit hole! The more you learn about libertarian socialist tactics/theory the more you realize just how little of the popular conceptions of what "anarchism" is holds up to scrutiny. It's not all breaking windows and punching cops. Currently, there's very little of that. Most of it is starting unions, co-ops, non-profits and general mutual aid. It's all prefigurative and done with intent. Sometimes the state apparatus is used (insofar as it doesn't negatively impact your goals) sometimes it isn't, it's all contextual and nuanced. Something a lot of auth-left people seem to struggle with. Guess they're not used to having a toolbox instead of a script
Ive a positive view on anarchy since reading Conquest of Bread, though id hesitate to call myself an anarchist as much as a far leftist. I agree with Kropotkin on his views on man, our propensity towards mutual aid, and I also agree that smaller communes would prolly be the way to go. I dont agree, however, with anarchist notions of revolution which seems impossible in an age of drones, mass surveillance, and militarized police. Nevertheless, I feel the anarchists are doing something rare in the world, and actually imagining what utopia would look like; i cant help but believe that, long term, humans must either learn to live together in harmony, or perish.
I dont agree with anarchist notions on how we get there necessarily, but anarchist methods of direct action do work in practice, as evidenced by history, just not necessarily at getting all of mankind to rise up together so much as improving, or deshittifying, if you will, existing conditions. Which is a point in and of itself, i dont think utopia happens on a less than global level due to nation-states propensity for imperialism when they can get away with it.
Anyway, i will dive into these rabbit holes over the next week, maybe. Cheers, and thanks if I hadnt said it yet!
Zapatistas have a good PR arm, that's it. Always stick up for the CNT-FAI and Rojava though.
If I may ask, why do you think that? They've been a big inspiration to me and most of what Ive read about them has been great. Outside of authoritarians wildly misunderstanding their recent restructuring I haven't seen much in the way of criticism. If anything, I'm a bit more critical of rojava. They have something that appears to be (or could turn into) an embryonic state at the top of their organization. The fact that there is a "top" to their organization is cause for concern of we're speaking strictly in terms of libertarian socialism
Much of the Zapatista 'success' narrative has been coasting on the fact that there was enough protest over the place being shot up in the early 2000s that the Mexican government stopped trying to send troops there. Since, there's been very little improvement in their situation (relative to the rest of Mexico, mind) despite massive amounts of outside aid being poured in for local, supposedly sustainable, projects; including large amounts of aid from the Mexican government. The younger generation has largely abandoned the movement because the place is under crushing poverty and political infighting has hamstrung their ability to utilize the aid they get. The localties that pledge their allegiance to the Zapatista cause generally have an only skin-deep connection to the ideology, mired in oppressive traditions and the power of each village's elites, who generally have a clientistic relationship with the Zapatistas and change sides whenever the government or the Zapatistas offer them more. And recently they all but dissolved their main organizational body because, for all of their military posturing, they were incapable of fending off drug lords who moved into the area (unsurprising, considering that the local loyalty to the Zapatista cause is shaky at best). Their response? To blame the Mexican army for not fighting them off.
They have an amazing PR arm for outreach to other leftists internationally. But it's just a PR arm.
I don't know about Rojava's long-term prospects, (and considering how long the Syrian Civil War has gone on, I'd be a fool to try to prognosticate) but they've done good work in restoring educational capacity and creating a seemingly stable left-wing organization in the middle of a very brutal civil war. They transitioned from an ethnic-based org to an extremely pluralistic org with remarkable speed and efficiency, and their militia forces have been very effective in defending their territory from both other rebels (and terrorists), and state forces. The local economy is thriving with the system of cooperatives and local councils, and corruption is noticeably less than in surrounding areas.
Gods only know how it'll end, though. I have concerns about what happens when the Syrian state recovers (or is replaced). Plus, Turkiye won't stand for it if they don't have to, Iranian proxies in Iraq are unlikely to look fondly on Rojava, and the US support for Kurds is tepid at best and prone to sudden drawbacks for domestic or international political concerns. That's a hell of a position to be in.
The whole point of these ideologies is a totalitarian regime.
As someone above said it well, it depends. The whole of socialism and communism though, no.
Yes. One must be utterly delusional to believe that communism is not totalitarian.
Nah communism is just naive people trying to enact collectivist policies wholesale not realising or not wanting to believe that such policies are incredibly open to subversion by authoritarian groups.
collectivist policies
Why do you fine folks draw lines on political and skin pigmentation if it's about collectivism?
At the risk of feeding a troll.
My argument is basically the 'china/russia were never real communism' one but with the caveat that real communism isn't possible in the first place with real human beings because its so easy for a bad actor to hijack the entire thing and thus that will inevitably happen almost immediately. Any real communist is probably naive, deluded or excessively optimistic.Tankies are just the same kind of bad actor who are the reason such a system is impossible in the first place and promote communism simply as way to seize ever more power. Its a very pedantic point of view but I'm sick of the right wing changing the definition of words.
No, you're talking about tankies
I was talking about tankies, whose definition says those are communists that were also fine with using tanks on population by Soviets during the Hungarian revolution.
I'm trying to say those people weren't as much in love with communism as with the love of the Soviets and this is much easier to see today since Russia isn't communist.
OP thinks the west should continue to send weapons to Ukraine until Russia pulls out of all former Ukrainian territory, and putin is deposed and sent to the hague, and Russia is balkanized.
Most communists want it to end as soon as possible, with the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia remaining either independent or in Russia if they vote that way.
This is usually misconstrued as supporting Russia.
Ah, so you were in favor of the initial peace plan proposed by Zelenskyy at the start of the invasion?
with the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine remaining either independent or in Russia if they vote that way.
... and what about the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine remaining part of Ukraine? Is that not an option? Does democracy only count if it benefits Russian interests?
This is usually misconstrued as supporting Russia.
No, it's simply recognizing the Motte-And-Bailey style arguments put forth by red fash. It's the same pattern as the alt-right.
and what about the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine remaining part of Ukraine?
This could be an option but what the cost? You all couch generals understand tha not only Russian ppl but Ukranians lifes are being destroyed?
Do you undeestand that your option is to the deaths and war crimes keep on going right? Retaken these territories is almost free for you but not for Ucranians.
Also, no Communist I know defends Putin, Russia is an imperialist scum as US, UK and France that are using Ukraine as their war table.
Ah, so you were in favor of the initial peace plan proposed by Zelenskyy at the start of the invasion?
I'm not sure which instance you're talking about.
Do you mean the one in March 2022 that was torpedoed by Boris Johnson, resulting in Zelenskyy adding such realistic conditions as Putin stepping down before talks can begin after the US/UK gave greater assurances of support.
But yes, I was in favor of that peace. If you want to go back further, we could have avoided the whole civil war if the US didn't back a coup, and it could have been smothered in the cradle if the right were purged from the parliament and army in 2014 or any time after, it could have ended without an invasion if Minsk II was simply enforced.
… and what about the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine remaining part of Ukraine? Is that not an option?
The russian-speaking parts of Ukraine are occupied by Russia. To change this would require a longer war and more death, all to annex regions that already voted once to join Russia after nearly a decade of civil war.
Given what was going on during the civil war, even if Russia unilaterally abandoned the territory, there would not be an end to the destruction.
"If the US didn't back a coup"
"already voted once to join Russia"
lmao
And you wonder why no one takes you lot seriously.
Putin is genociding Ukraine.
stop supporting this, thanks.
Do you mean the one in March 2022 that was torpedoed by Boris Johnson
This is incorrect. It was torpedoed by Ukrainians finding out about the Bucha massacre about a week earlier.
if Minsk II was simply enforced.
Who should have "enforced" Russia to move their soldiers out of Donbas and how?
What is this cicil war you keep talking about?
Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass.
The one in Ukraine following Maidan, from 2014 until the invasion.
The invasion started in 2014. It was not an organic movement.
I mean you're not wrong that it wasn't organic beyond a brief moment near the start of Maidan, before right-wing paramilitaries started sniping cops and massacring civilians and "volunteers" started showing up from both sides, but calling the civil war an invasion seems disingenuous.
Not that that justifies either side supporting right-wing militias in Ukraine.
So uh … Russia invaded the Sovereign nation of Ukraine.
It’s a civil war in the same way the USA invading Mexico would be a civil war.
I mean Russia wasn't the only country with "volunteers" in Ukraine. I'd hardly say America invaded it, instead I say they backed factions within Ukraine, just as Russia did.
Dude, Russia literally invaded the country and annexed part of it, in 2014.
The USA didn’t invade Ukraine. That was Russia.
You sound like a nazi supporter in 1939 supporting the annexation of the sudetenland. What do you mean the nazis should pull out of the formerly czech territories? I haven't heard the russian government give any reason they should be there, that the nazis didn't give.
with the Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine
Only if all the non-Russian speaking parts of Russia get to vote to leave Russia as well.