Also, fascism has a lot to do with imperialism. All examples in Europe had this connection and support from the previous rulers.
I recommend Antifa manual by Mark Bray.
As I see it Fascism is just Feudalism with the Bourgeoisie as the Monarchy and with higher productivity than actual Feudalism had (by, for example, giving people a bit more Education) so that overall wealth creation is higher and thus the elites taking most of it are wealthier.
Capitalism is just a softer version of it with looser control done via more indirect means (fenced fields and padlocks rather than collars on necks) in exchange for having an even higher productivity (because the “peasants” think they’re free).
Think about it: what exactly other political systems are there where the Bourgeoisie is at the top of the power pyramid?
Communism was literally a response to Feudalism (at least in Russia) and naturally kept on being a response to the Bourgeoisie’s version of it, Fascism.
Fascism is essentially capitalism when bourgeois democratic methods of control do not work any longer. Feudalism was its own specific mode of production based on rent in kind. When socialism came to Russia, it came from a combination of the rising industrial proletariat and the rural peasantry.
Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.
- Tommy Douglas
Anti-socialist. That’s the word they are using this round.
I was just about to say. All of the SMS ads I’m getting from conservatives/Republican groups is “Democrats will bring socialism!”
My response to these is “…You promise? 🥹”
I just wish didn’t see dems also saying they won’t
Socialism is a transitional status towards communism, they oppose both, and continue to propagandize against socialist countries led by communist parties, like Cuba and China.
For those skeptical:
Communism. Community ism. Antifa. Antifascist. Socialism. Social ism
See how conservatives are against helping? See how conservatives undermine the most basic of governmental functions? See how we are worse off with those three things absent from the country?
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Equating communism to authoritarianism is naive and only serves the interests of the right wing.
Communism is not inherently authoritarian. Anarchist communism is a thing that exists.
I really don’t believe anarchist communism makes any sense at all. If you’re living in anarchy you can decide to form a commune, but that doesn’t make it communism.
Then you need to read Kropotkin and Graeber. Because anarchism and communism are perfectly compatible and makes leagues more sense than authoritarian communism.
Communism is just an economic system where the laborers share ownership of the means of production. Anarchism is a system of government that is decentralized, avoiding the authoritarian structures such as a state.
There is nothing incompatible about the two.
The problem is that anarchism proposes decentralized, communalist cells, making it impossible to actually practice total global collectivization along a common scientific plan. That’s what Marxist communism actually is, a fully collectivized world economy, while the decentralized nature of anarchism is in some respects totally opposite. They share in common statelessness, classlessness, etc. only when judged from how Marxists and anarchists individually recognize class and the state, ie for Marxists anarchism retains class, while for anarchists Marxism retains the state.
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I don’t think this is particularly convoluted. Anarchists seek full horizontalism, Marxists seek full collectivization. That isn’t particularly difficult to grasp, nor a rant. Further, some people do listen to me, otherwise I wouldn’t keep trying to talk to people about Marxism.
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Literally calling communists less than human lmao, I wonder who else said that 🤔
I realize the author of what I’m reading is ontologically evil
it’s so bad I don’t even consider its proponents human anymore
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was an anti-semitic Nazi sympathizer, and was arrested as such. His fiction is based on the folklore of the gulag system, and archival evidence and historical texts paint a much clearer picture of the soviet prison system. He’s essentially Yeonmi Park but for the USSR.
Here’s a real quote:
From an excellent thread going over his many ideological failings:
In his 2003 book, Two Hundred Years Together, he wrote that “from 20 ministers in the first Soviet government one was Russian, one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 Jews”. In reality, there were 15 Commissars in the first Soviet government, not 20: 11 Russians, 2 Ukrainians, 1 Pole, and only 1 Jew. He stated: “I had to bury many comrades at the front, but not once did I have to bury a Jew”. He also stated that according to his personal experience, Jews had a much easier life in the Gulag camps that he was interned in.
According to the Northwestern University historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern: Solzhenitsyn used unreliable and manipulated figures and ignored both evidence unfavorable to his own point of view and numerous publications of reputable authors in Jewish history. He claimed that Jews promoted alcoholism among the peasantry, flooded the retail trade with contraband, and “strangled” the Russian merchant class in Moscow. He called Jews non-producing people (“непроизводительный народ”) who refused to engage in factory labor. He said they were averse to agriculture and unwilling to till the land either in Russia, in Argentina, or in Palestine, and he blamed the Jews’ own behavior for pogroms. He also claimed that Jews used Kabbalah to tempt Russians into heresy, seduced Russians with rationalism and fashion, provoked sectarianism and weakened the financial system, committed murders on the orders of qahal authorities, and exerted undue influence on the prerevolutionary government. Petrovsky-Shtern concludes that, “200 Years Together is destined to take a place of honor in the canon of russophone antisemitica.”
His own wife called the Gulag Archipelago “folklore,” why on Earth are you listening to a rabid anti-semite and fiction author over actual historical evidence? You continue your Nazi ideology by dehumanizing communists.
To place Russian communism on the same moral level with Nazi fascism, because both are totalitarian, is, at best, superficial, in the worse case it is fascism. He who insists on this equality may be a democrat; in truth and in his heart, he is already a fascist, and will surely fight fascism with insincerity and appearance, but with complete hatred only communism.
- Thomas Mann
liberal moral slop
“hurr hurr authoritarianism booo”
god im so glad you people only exist on the internet
Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, the Black Panther Party, PSL, Socialism and Liberation party of Brazil, etc. all found out they don’t actually exist IRL
I meant people like the person I was replying to
The attitude is certainly more online, but the sentiment is very real. Marxist opposition to liberal moralist framing of political issues is as old as Marx, same with struggles against simplistic ideas of “authoritarianism.” The groups I listed all have similar sentiments.
No they don’t.
Hence the modern scare about “tankies,” and the DNC and GOP collaborating against even the social democratic DSA as “communism.”
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In that “tankie” is largely a pejorative used to describe those that support existing socialist states, yes, I’m pro-tankie, just like Cuba, the Black Panther Party, etc. You are fulfilling the premise of the meme to a T.
First, I promise I’m not trolling, but I do disagree with your conclusion.
In that “tankie” is largely a pejorative used to describe those that support existing socialist states
Perhaps coincidentally, but the “tankie” moniker is added to those who support authoritarian regimes that many times contradict socialist values. I find value in a number of socialist approaches, but I reject authoritarianism as a desired method of government.
Perhaps coincidentally, but the “tankie” moniker is added to those who support authoritarian regimes that many times contradict socialist values. I find value in a number of socialist approaches, but I reject authoritarianism as a desired method of government.
The only times I see it used online is by people insulting those to the left of fucking Reagan
Bars.
What is “authoritarianism” as a method of government? I mean that quite literally. What is empirically true about socialist states that makes them worthy of dismissal, in the structure of their governments? The reason I described “tankies” as such is because this is something both “tankies” and non-“tankies” can agree “tankies” do. It’s a group of people that support existing socialist states, and the group that does not support existing socialist states uses the word as a pejorative to attack them.
And no, I don’t think you’re trolling, but I am not either. I am a communist, I support existing socialist states, as do the Cubans, Black Panthers, etc.
The reason I described “tankies” as such is because this is something both “tankies” and non-“tankies” can agree “tankies” do.
I disagree. I’m not a tankie. The authoritarian angle is my commonly understood distinction between a socialist and tankie.
What is “authoritarianism” as a method of government?
I’m not sure I have a full definition, but off the top of my head:
- Suppression free speech, religion, association, assembly, and the cultural practices of minorities
- Concentration of ultimate authority into one person at the top
- Silencing those voicing critical opinions of the state
Marx himself was subjected to these things and spoke out against them. This is what bothers me about tankies is the hypocrisy the embrace of authoritarian regimes and pointing to them as examples good examples of socialism. I’m not naive enough to believe a government needs to be 100% perfect in all their ideals or execution of matters of state, but the trend lines should lean more away from authoritarianism than toward them.
I’m aware that you do not identify as a tankie, but I would also guess I’m correct in saying you do not support existing socialist states, which you label as “authoritarian.” However, you did provide a handy list of what you think constitutes “authoritarianism,” so I’ll respond.
Suppression free speech, religion, association, assembly, and the cultural practices of minorities
Religion and cultural practices of minorities are protected in socialist states, so I will ignore them for now as irrelevant. The more important bit is the liberal conception of free speech and assembly, vs. the Marxist understanding. “Free speech” does not exist. Speech is always dominated by the ruling class of society, in capitalism private media is the dominant force and squeezes out everything in opposition. In socialism, capitalist speech is censored. The same applies to association and assembly.
Concentration of ultimate authority into one person at the top
This does not exist in socialist societies, so again, I have to disregard this as irrelevant. See professor Roland Boer’s Socialism in Power: on the History and Theory of Socialist Governance for scholarly work on the subject.
Silencing those voicing critical opinions of the state
This is just a return to the Marxist conception of freedom of speech. Criticism is fundamental to how socialist governments advance, capitalist criticism is silenced.
This is why, fundamentally, class must be the basis of our analysis. You erase it from yours, I make it central to mine.
This is why, fundamentally, class must be the basis of our analysis.
Do we? The high ideals vs the practical application go to the heart of the problem with tankies vs socialist. To quote Standord Beer, “The purpose of a system is what it does”. We can absolutely talk about class as theory, but the end goal of the theory isn’t simply logical analysis, its the resulting system that arises from it. I reject the notion that good socialist theory always will lead to authoritarianism. So the problem can’t be the theory, but instead the execution.
The more important bit is the liberal conception of free speech and assembly, vs. the Marxist understanding. “Free speech” does not exist. Speech is always dominated by the ruling class of society, in capitalism private media is the dominant force and squeezes out everything in opposition.
I think you’re referring to Marx’s historical observation was that free speech was restricted to those that could disseminate their voice (because of ownership of capital, press, media broadcast). I don’t believe that he was aligning with your assertion that it [can never] exist.
In socialism, capitalist speech is censored. The same applies to association and assembly.
That’s also a wrong reading I believe. Marx was talking about restricting speech *as a means to gain power in a regressive system, not as an ongoing means of control of the populous at-large forever.
I would also guess I’m correct in saying you do not support existing socialist states, which you label as “authoritarian.”
Lets remove the ambiguity here. You’ve named a total of one state in your post in this thread you identify as socialist: Cuba. What other nations exist on your list of described socialist states, which you also contend are not authoritarian?
