Many people on lemmy.ml deeply respect and admire authoritarian governments and organizations.
Iran, China, North Korea, Soviet Union…
The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.
Iran hangs homosexuals. Iran shot 30,000 people in less than than 2 weeks. The Soviet Union had to build a fucking Iron wall to prevent people from escaping. The Soviets lied about the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. China censors the internet. China wants to eliminate Islam. North Korea is a totalitarian hellscape. Watching anime is a crime.
Why is lemmy.ml so fascinated with authoritarians?
Keep it nice people!
Locking. Too many people breaking rule 1.
Because they don’t live under them.
In my experience the attitude of many of the more prolific users there is something like “America and the West are doing evil things, so their enemies must be the good guys”. Atrocities by Western-aligned states are readily accepted as facts, but those committed by countries on “their” side never happened and are merely Western propaganda. They’ll cite North Korea’s constitution to “prove” that it’s a free and democratic country, but when you point out reports showing that the reality on the ground is quite different from what’s written in the constitution, that’s of course just Western propaganda and the people who fled the country are being paid to spread lies. That dismissive attitude makes it impossible to have a serious discussion with them.
That said, I now have a solid blocklist of their “worst offenders” and found that there are plenty of people with way more balanced opinions as well.
Hello, a rational .ml guy reporting in
My political opinions are:
what if we just like were able to eat and stuff like that, that’d be pretty dope
Actually after meaning to do it for a while and constantly forgetting about it I’ve decided to make myself go ahead and make a piefed account before I once again fall into the loop of “eh I’ll make it later” and them promptly forgetting it 2 seconds later
I’ll be a bit greedy and add in: Not kill each other over ideological differences and just do our own shit and be happy.
I realize this sounds like Utopia, but one can dream!
The greed of it all!!! 😱
Come over to our server 😘
That’s implying that this is actually controversial and ot supported by other ideologies.
But that’s just a pet peave of mine.
It’s honestly suspicious that you haven’t been banned yet.
Nah, they fit right in at Lemmy.ml.
“America and the West are doing evil things, so their enemies must be the good guys”
It’s illuminating. I used to be a hardcore anarco-capitalist/radical libertarian and that community had exactly the same thought pattern:
- Vietnam/Middle East show how USA lies for domination
- Snowden showed how CIA/NSA lies for control
- Markets showed how the Fed lies for moneyed elites
… and so on, so that it becomes a given truth that everything the government says is a lie, no matter what.
So then COVID comes along and all the libertarians are “FAUCI LIES! COVID IS JUST FLU!”
A few months (and a lot of Russian influence ) later, these people are believing that mRNA vaccines cause heart disease, etc etc etcANYWAY, what’s interesting to me is how these two diametrically opposed ideological communities – Tankies and AnCaps – have almost exactly the same group dynamics pathology.
Wait until you read what real anarchists think of AnCaps.
ofc you understand AnCaps feel the same way about AnComs; that they’re fundamentally a contradiction
If one lacks compassion, then of course they won’t understand how someone can choose to support their community even without the government making them do it.
It’s not so much not being able to understand how an individual could choose to support their community without being compelled.
But if you fail to consider the likelihood of enough individuals choosing to do that to make it work, then you’re walking in blindly.
And to assume that everyone will just chip in and do their part out of pure altruism is to be radically out of touch with the way people tend to be.
Come on now. We’ve all met people. I grew out of my days of utopian idealism a long time ago.
You think Tankies were anti-vaxxers?
If not, how do you account for that difference?
Me personally? I’d say it’s because Tankies have critical thinking skills.
it’s because they want to feel special.
the root of so much of the people that get caught in these delusional thought pattern is simple massive insecurity. and by clinging to a delusion you can mask it with a feeling of superiority because you KNOW THE TRUTH.
same reason people get recruited into cults. the cultists specifically target insecure people they can emotionally exploit and isolate. they are not interested in secure people who are grounded in reality, because there is nothing for their manipulation tactics to work on.
extremist politics also always become quasi-religions, or merge with fundamentalist religious belief.
superiority because you KNOW THE TRUTH
Oh God yes, this this this!!
The Conspiracy folks all really get off on being Smarter Than You because the have Access to the Secret Knowledge. Once you have seen the evidence (eg “Fahrenheit 451”) and started associating yourself with “like-minded people”, then you too will become an Anointed One.
Culty culty cult
It is very seductive for people who feel their intellect and insights are not being seen.
Relevant Contrapoints: https://youtu.be/teqkK0RLNkI
Edit: lol at the .mls downvoting this
Telling on yourself
I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of “anarcho-capitalists”. Glad it’s past tense for you.
Tankies and ancaps both want to be unrestricted in their capacity to dominate others. The only difference is their proposed mechanism of domination.
Sure, that’s why the absolute greatest poverty alleviation programs have come from Tankies
Yeah, it’s so easy to solve poverty when you just kill all the poor people, take their grain, and distribute it to everyone who passes your purity test as a True Believer (which is everyone you didn’t kill)
Horseshoe theory strikes again
Horseshoe theory is agitprop, no academic takes it remotely seriously because it’s patently bullshit with no support. If you believe horseshoe theory, congratulations, you’re uncritically consuming accelerationist propaganda.
Also some people have complete and utter, naive faith in the written law and intent.
like israel/palestine being a terrorist is a totally fine resistance against 100 years of apartheid and colonialism
but they don’t support terrorism
authoritarian mass murderers are the logical class struggle government of resistance against the war mongering, CIA backed coup colonials
but they don’t like stalin some of the time
having cake and eating it - no accounting for the intellectually diverse/broken
Care to PM this list of offenders, please? I’m also trying to sanitize my feed.
I blocked the entire lemmy.ml. After a few months of paying attention I found that there were no thoughtful or interesting posts or comments from any user there, only glorification of authoritarians.
i blocked them because .ml users constantly harass me, telling me what a brainwashed idiot I am for not thinking China is a utopia.
That is a good summary.
I don’t block them. I just keep pressing them for an explanation of their personal philosophy. Not regurgitated, preconstructed points, actual personal philosophy. It usually goes “accusation of fascism/zionist”, “bad faith/strawman/red herring/I don’t have to explain it to you”, “you’re a nihilistic anarchist”, non-sequitur, list of actions they’ve taken irl but can’t/won’t break anonymity to prove (anybody can claim they’ve done anything in an anonymous forum), and finally inform me they’re blocking me. I mean, that’s great, block me online. I still exist in the real world and you’re going to have to face me someday. Unless of course you empower your own authoritarian regime that will keep my constant demands for your individual opinion and “nihilistic anarchist” viewpoints blocked from society. Which is what I think they want, zero challenge from any source or counter philosophy.
i feel like thier accusation of zionism, is just the same thing as being anti-semetic in a way too.
I see this refrain a ton but have not had the same experience and I fairly regularly get into arguments with them. I’m perma banned from some communities on those instances cause of the PTBs they are. The worst I received was my first ever “kys” message from one member’s alt(but them and their main were handled in pretty short order). But that was one message of harassment, out of the probably hundred or so people I’ve pissed off so far.
To be very clear, I don’t go into their communities looking for fights. But I have 2 big principles I’m not willing to waiver even a tiny bit on. Those being Hasan absolutely shocked his dog, and Harris would in fact have been better than trump.
They just hate me because I have a basic grasp of economics and I don’t think businesses and landlords are inherently evil.
Who is Hasan? Some dumbass tiktoker?
don’t think businesses and landlords are inherently evil.
Literally every capitalist theory, from Adam Smith’s to Mill, from Hayek to Henry George:
Landlords are inherently evil.
Streamer they worship like maga worship trump.
Why did he shock his dog? Not that there is any reasonable justification, I just want context.
Why do right wingers and “both sidesers” always imagine the left uplifts cults of personality like they do? Lefties mostly don’t care about this guy. His fanboys stan the guy pretty hard but his fanboys ain’t “the left.”
right, so an abusive narcissistic POS person they wish they could be.
make sense he’d abuse his dog rather than train it. god forbid you like… have empathy or compassion for another living thing and use that to bond with it… lol
i blocked the triads, hexbear, lemmygrad, ml. lemmygrad is less of a problem since i dont see thier posts as much anyways, usually its mostly ml or hexbear, and they have taken over some other instances too.
Atrocities by Western-aligned states are readily accepted as facts, but those committed by countries on “their” side never happened and are merely Western propaganda
You’ll never find more staunch and nuanced criticism of socialist mistakes than that which takes place within socialism. It’s through communists that I learned and loathed things such as the deportation of ethnic Koreans in THE USSR, the actual scope and mechanisms and functioning of the GULAG system, or the anti-landlord revolts in China.
I highly encourage you to actually go with an open mind, and have an honest conversation with a comrade like @Cowbee@lemmy.ml or @AnarchoBolshevik@lemmygrad.ml about any of those topics. Not an argument, just a discussion to listen to what they have to say. You may be surprised.
Of course those people exist. Heck, I consider myself a socialist and the socialist party in my country has no issues whatsoever criticizing countries like China or North Korea. But those kind of nuanced opinions aren’t really the ones you’ll find over and over again on the frontpage of ml.
Of the users you named, I only know Cowbee, as Lemmygrad is defederated anyway. He’s definitely very knowledgable about communist theory and he’s capable of having an actual discussion, yes. Not even close to one of the worst users over there. But from my discussions with him, he’s quite obsessed with theory over practice and is perfectly willing to defend the IMO indefensible regime of North Korea.
I don’t put theory over practice, they are both crucial. I am perfectly willing to defend the DPRK from Yeonmi Park-style nonsense as it’s the most propagandized against country in the world. Is it perfect? No, no country is, but it also isn’t literally hell on Earth either, it’s a real socialist state that does a lot with how little they have due to sanctions, similar to Cuba (and both Cuba and the DPRK have historically been on great terms, which is a good litmus test to begin with).
the socialist party in my country has no issues whatsoever criticizing countries like China or North Korea
But they exclusively criticise said countries, no praise for their achievements. Assuming you’re from the EU/US/Canada/Australia, your “socialist” party offers no alternative to Capitalism, just milquetoast reforming at best and continuation of austerity policy (as for the past 20 years) at worst. If they don’t want off capitalism, they can hardly call themselves socialists.
But they exclusively criticise said countries, no praise for their achievements.
No, that’s entirely untrue. They (Die Linke in Germany FYI) have frequently praised China’s economic system and social progress, while still criticizing its authoritarianism and aggressive foreign policy.
Can you imagine pretending that China has an aggressive foreign policy when it hasn’t dropped a single bomb since 1989? What the fuck is your definition of aggressive foreign policy that somehow China is a serious offender?
Die Linke? Die “Israel’s right to exist is non-negotiable” Linke? If “socialists” are Zionist they’re not socialists.
Also, Germany saying that a country’s foreign policy is aggressive is laughable. At least Chinese men below 45 can leave their country without notifying their army lmfao
So instead of staying on-topic (the claim that Western socialist parties never praise China’s achievements), you’re somehow trying to deflect the topic to Israel when disproven. Then instead of judging China’s foreign policy on its own merit, you go all “what about” and with false, outdated information as well. And that’s supposed to be the “honest conversation” you were talking about? Yeah no. It’s exactly what I described in my initial post. My blocklist grows by 1 today.
Then instead of judging China’s foreign policy on its own merit
Hi. I’m willing to discuss China’s foreign policy on its own merit.
China has been at peace for decades. Before that, they had very shitty foreign policy, and their current approach of peacefully trading with everyone while avoiding conflicts is in part a reaction to that. This approach has it’s flaws, like a tendency to avoid getting involved in Israel/Palestine rather than supporting the Palestinians, but overall it’s been fairly effective and positive. It’s also nice that they’ve invested in poor countries and forgiven debts.
What part of their foreign policy is supposed to be “aggressive” exactly?
Ok but it’s fucking ridiculous to criticize China’s foreign policy as aggressive and then defend Israel.
Marxist criticism of China is they aren’t aggressive enough! (I don’t necessarily agree with that)
Keep supporting “socialist” pro-Israel parties, you keep proving us how much German “leftists” care about non-germans. Bunch of fucking Nazis supporting genocide.
Criticise China, support Israel, what a fucking great socialist party!
Lol thank you for destroying your own credibility and saving me the trouble
You dont have a socialist party, they are social democrats at best and proponents of western imperialism
As if the USSR wasn’t imperialist.
As if the PRC isn’t imperialist.
Define imperialism, then cite evidence for the PRC being imperialist.
The Tibetan plateau is enough evidence. If you need more, take a look at Urumqi. Or ask the Vietnamese.
USSR was infact not imperialist, PRC is also way better than the west.
It was only the biggest fucking country in the world, but sure I’m sure everyone in Siberia and Chechnya and Ukraine and all the other regions absolutely loved being subjected to the Muscovite dictatorship. Totally not imperialism /s
biggest being doesnt necessarily implies imperialism. You have no proof to back up people who lived in USSR didnt support it.
And you still think that communism is the way? If so you’re just spreading their propaganda.
It did volunteerly kill millions, and still is in its remnants of russia for example. If you need a nuanced person to “open your eyes” for the atrocities made in URSS/USSR why not talk with a nuanced nazi, you might learn that they too did bad things. /s
Those discussions are such shit shows, stop trying to reanimate the old horrors of past, we actually have new interesting theories that might actually work without killing everyone.
It did volunteerly kill millions
Yeah, killing Nazis and landlords is necessary for progress sometimes, not something to criticise. Those are the vast majority of the people communism killed on purpose.
If you need a nuanced person to “open your eyes” for the atrocities made in URSS/USSR why not talk with a nuanced nazi
Because you’re committing a fallacy by comparing the two. Socialism has achieved, in practice, lowest inequality where it has been applied, universal healthcare, universal education, guaranteed employment, guaranteed housing, guaranteed state pensions for retirees, redistribution of land from landlords and nobility to peasants… In my homeland of Spain we had fascism, and it literally fought against all those things, we still have plenty of people in their 70s and 80s who cannot even read as a consequence. Communism saved Europe from Fascism, they’re literally the antithesis.
stop trying to reanimate the old horrors of past
Stop trying to maintain capitalism by fighting against the only system in history which has proven it can destroy it and improve our lives.
The old: if you’re not with me you Must be pro USA/Capitalism.
Is that all you got?
Also the millions killed I referred to were the direct orders from stalin to kill millions of their own people (holodomor included).
But that’s just propaganda from “the west” right?
direct orders from stalin to kill millions of their own people (holodomor included).
You’re literally making that up, though. Executions in the USSR aren’t numbered in the millions during the great terror, and holodomor was an unintentional famine, nobody was “killed”, it’s the result of unintentional side effects of the first successful mass collectivization in human history. The Soviet leaders knew the process would be chaotic if they embarked in rapid collectivization as they did, but it was a necessary choice enforced by the threat of external invasion and the need for rapid industrialization. It was a hard measure but it worked, and thanks to the rapid collectivization and industrialization, the soviets could create the industry that would 15 years later enable them to defeat Nazism, saving many more tens of millions than were lost in Holodomor.
See? We can do nuanced analysis of the policy. However, if you make ahistorical claims, such as “Stalin ordering the holodomor” (which is untenable under modern historiography), you’ll get called out for it.
For clarity, clashes between the kulaks and Red Army absolutely happened during collectivization in the 1930s, and many kulaks were killed as they took up arms to defend their bourgeois lifestyle. I’m not shedding tears for them just like I won’t shed tears for Nazis, landlords, etc, but these clashes did happen.
I did specify the great terror, for the most part the destiny of Kulaks in the early 1930s was sentenced by peasant trials, not by the Red Army. If I’m not wrong, most Kulaks who died during collectivization weren’t executed, they died during deportation.
Stalin never gave direct orders to kill millions of soviet citizens, nor indirect. Even the Great Purge never exceeded ~700,000 sentencings to death, and was stopped because these sentencings far exceeded what Stalin and Molotov had set at a maximum number, which was around 70,000. The famine in the 1930s was not intentionally caused even if you believe it to have been amplified by mismanagement, either.
Once discovered that a famine was occuring, the soviets did what they could to prevent and alleviate it once it had started. The idea of an intentional famine is simply fringe among contemporary historians, same with claims of white genocide in South Africa. For example, serious bourgeois academic sources tend to say it was a failure of planning, rather than intentional and genocide. For instance, Mark Tauger wrote:
[data] indicate that the famine was real, the result of a failure of economic policy, of the ‘revolution from above,’ rather than of a ‘successful’ nationality policy against Ukrainians or other ethnic groups.
Tauger believes it was a failure of economic policy, not an intentional attack on ethnic Ukrainians. The 1930s famine was a combination of drought, flooding, and mismanagement. Further, the Kulaks, wealthy bourgeois farmers, magnified matters by killing their own crops in the midst of a famine rather than letting the Red Army collectivize them. The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:
From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.
Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.
The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.
Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN
Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].
Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
Comrade Kosior!
You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation in villages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?
Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.
Sincerely, J. Stalin
Muggeridge and Jones reported on the famine. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. Why would the soviets try to starve their own people? It was because of the soviets and collectivization of agriculture that famine was ended, and that’s why outside of wartime the 1930s famine was the final famine in those regions, with life expectancies doubling.
Overall, trying to hold on to red scare historiography does absolutely nothing to help the cause of socialism. The soviet archives have provided a wealth of knowledge largely affirming the communist narrative, and debunking liberal and fascist narratives about existing socialism. If you consider yourself a leftist of any sort, then you’ll inevitably run into people using the red scare against you too, so perpetuating their mythos just shoots your own movement in the foot.
these sentencings far exceeded what Stalin and Molotov had set at a maximum number
Imagine defending a state that set an arbitrary number of human lives to end for ideological reasons. Repugnant
And before you start on it I don’t believe any state should have the right to execute its citizens.
That wasn’t what happened, though. The soviets had discovered in the 1930s that not only was there a plot against the soviet state from within, but also severe corruption and remnants of the former ruling classes and their sympathizers in place. The soviets had set up means of internal investigation, and by and large managed to kick out corrupt officials from government. They found many guilty of treason, corruption, and other serious crimes, but the number of found guilty and sentenced to death exceeded their estimates, and hence it was called off.
The death penalty should be abolished, sure. However, socialist states, and especially the soviet union, are in a constant state of siege and infiltration. They weren’t killing random people willy-nilly.
Anything’s possible when you make shit up kiddo
Wow, one minute and downvoted.
Guess that’s all you have left.
And you still think that communism is the way? If so you’re just spreading their propaganda.
Socialism in real life has achieved the absolute highest rates of improvement for the working classes in terms of life metrics, immense social equality, and has presented a path forward in an era of dying capitalist imperialism. You’re spreading propaganda too, knowingly or not, given that propaganda is merely agitating for your own beliefs.
It did volunteerly kill millions, and still is in its remnants of russia for example.
The “millions intentionally killed” by socialism consist of landlords, capitalists, fascists, the Nazis, etc. Socialism has never killed people willy-nilly, but has run into conflict with the old ruling classes time and time again, as socialism is the establishment of working class power over the former ruling classes.
If you need a nuanced person to “open your eyes” for the atrocities made in URSS/USSR why not talk with a nuanced nazi, you might learn that they too did bad things. /s
This implies the communists and Nazis are equal evils, a form of Holocaust trivialization called Double Genocide Theory. Communists, upon gaining politucal power, did and do their best to uplift the lives of working people. The Nazis on the other hand built industrialized mass murder, and attempted to colonize Europe the way Europe had colonized the world.
Those discussions are such shit shows, stop trying to reanimate the old horrors of past, we actually have new interesting theories that might actually work without killing everyone.
What are these theories? Any establishment of socialism will necessarily put you into conflict with the ruling classes of capitalism. Socialism historically has not been a “horror” for the working classes, and as such has been popularly supported by them. A theory being “interesting” doesn’t make it practical, nor is socialism “killing everyone.”
Above all, here, you cling to vagueposting. You erase class analysis, weeping for killed Nazis, and when it comes time to present a solution, you just say “other things might work” without elaborating. It’s sterile and negative “left” criticism that serves nobody.
Lol ok genocide lover, if it’s the URSS doing it, it’s okay.
Blocked.
I despise genocide, what the hell is that pivot? The USSR never committed genocide, this is backed up by modern historical analysis. Are you calling killing Nazis “genocide?”
What do you call the Holodomor?
The Holodomor was a genocide
No, it was not. Once discovered that a famine was occuring, the soviets did what they could to prevent and alleviate it once it had started. The idea of an intentional famine is simply fringe among contemporary historians, same with claims of white genocide in South Africa. For example, serious bourgeois academic sources tend to say it was a failure of planning, rather than intentional and genocide. For instance, Mark Tauger wrote:
[data] indicate that the famine was real, the result of a failure of economic policy, of the ‘revolution from above,’ rather than of a ‘successful’ nationality policy against Ukrainians or other ethnic groups.
Tauger believes it was a failure of economic policy, not an intentional attack on ethnic Ukrainians. The 1930s famine was a combination of drought, flooding, and mismanagement. Further, the Kulaks, wealthy bourgeois farmers, magnified matters by killing their own crops in the midst of a famine rather than letting the Red Army collectivize them. The Politburo was also kept in the dark about how bad the famine was getting:
From: Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.
Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine, March 16th, 1932.
The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.
Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN
Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].
Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, April 26th, 1932.
Comrade Kosior!
You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation in villages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?
Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.
Sincerely, J. Stalin
Muggeridge and Jones reported on the famine. Völkischer Beobachter reported on it as intentional, and then spread the story around further. Why would the soviets try to starve their own people? It was because of the soviets and collectivization of agriculture that famine was ended, and that’s why outside of wartime the 1930s famine was the final famine in those regions, with life expectancies doubling.
Overall, trying to hold on to red scare historiography does absolutely nothing to help the cause of socialism. The soviet archives have provided a wealth of knowledge largely affirming the communist narrative, and debunking liberal and fascist narratives about existing socialism. If you consider yourself a leftist of any sort, then you’ll inevitably run into people using the red scare against you too, so perpetuating their mythos just shoots your own movement in the foot.
Get a job
Man I just made an account and happened to pick the most controversial one apparently
These people are called “tankies”. It’s communists who like militarism and imperialism, as long as it’s of their own flavor. The internet has many such “bunkers” where these people congregate. They unironically support the countries you mention, and they do not represent the entire left-wing community.
I’d argue that they aren’t the result of capitalist policies being shitty. Such communities have existed on the internet since the early 00s. It’s just their ideology.
Why are they on lemmy? My guess is that Reddit banned some of their communities for posting violent content (threats of violence etc.) so they moved to lemmy, which does not censor people to the degree Reddit does.
The .ml for lemmy.ml supposedly stands for “marxism leninism”.
our flaws are nothing
Completely true if you don’t consider Palestinians as equals. Or Vietnamese. Or Koreans. Or Black people. Or Ukrainians. Or women. Or the entire continent of Africa. Or the entire continent of South America. Or the entire continent of Asia.
Literally unbelievable you’d be saying this during genocide in Palestine and western invasion of Iran.
It’s not lemmy.ml as a source, but rather a symptom.
I see two things going on:
- A general fall in trust in democratic institutions, as those institutions fail to represent people adequately;
- A clear realization of global injustice perpetuated by democratc countries against the will of people.
There aren’t many that that think that Iran’s goverment is good for Iranian people, but they do see that they are defending their civilization. This umderstanding requires that the observer is able to maintain two observations at the same time, instead of requoring complete black & white intepretations.
Wait… Do you think the Iron curtain was a literal iron wall?
Your post is deeply unserious to the point of seeming like bait, homie
Well I can’t speak for others, but I’m on lemmy.ml because the instance says it’s “A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers”. And in my experience that pretty much checks out, for all the talk I see from others about how it’s a den of authoritarianism and whatnot the actual amount of that I see on the actual instance is minimal. Yeah moderation sucks sometimes, but so it does on most every other instance though. Their approach to defederation seems to be avoiding it, and I don’t have to see any Nazi stuff or shit like that, so I’m good for now. Pick your poison.
The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.
Well if you look a bit closer at the history of the cold war you will find that “the West”, mostly in the form of the CIA, destroyed a lot of nascent communist or even just social democratic governments worldwide through covert means, and sometimes even militarily. In the face of such a threat you are basically forced to become even more authoritarian, if you want your communist government to survive that is. So “the West” instituted a process of selection through political (and military) pressure if you will. Hence why there are no surviving liberal communist states left to discuss.
Anyway, I don’t think there is much of consensus here on lemmy.ml whether these countries are good or bad (or even something more nuanced). What I think often happens is that someone voices “critical support”, as in they say something like “Iran has a right to self-defence” although they don’t agree with everything else Iran does, and someone from another instance comes along to read it and confirmation-biases that into “typical lemmy.ml user, fully supports that theocratic regime”.
I mean just look at the straw man you build in your OP, supposedly I’m supporting the Islamic regime in Iran, and the anti-Islamic regime in China!? Bit of a stretch there mate…
You haven’t been paying attention then. Dessalines, the head admin, regularly instance bans people for speaking about the genocide in China in .ml communities.
There is no genocide in China, people with far more credibility on the topic than any westerner have investigated in person, you should try listening to them
I mean I have seen that accusation thrown around a lot, but from what I remember it was a few cases a long time (years?) back. But yeah to be honest I haven’t really been paying attention, so if you have evidence to the contrary feel free to let me know. The goals and rules of the server as stated seem fine to me, and I haven’t seen anything that really deviated too far from that.
Anyway, like I said I may not agree with every moderation decision, but I probably wouldn’t on other instances either. Didn’t your instance just defederate the Germans for their heavy-handed moderation of anything remotely antisemitic? I mean I would get it with any other instance I guess, but your users didn’t get why the Germans would be a bit iffy with this stuff?
This is part of why ml users get a bad rap. Both of your core statements/assumptions here are false, to a degree that it would be easier to assume bad faith and move on with my life than to type this response up.
So Dessalines’s continued and ongoing banning of any negative talk about China or Russia:
I’m not a particular fan of !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works, but what I see when I look at that community for the past month is mostly a running log of questionable at best bans that lemmy.ml admins, including Dessalines, have handed out.
I picked out some that stand out to me, but please peruse that community and your own instance’s mod logs at your leisure. You should be able to filter the mod logs themselves by action, and I believe by the mod or admin that took the action.
- https://infosec.pub/post/45516756
- https://infosec.pub/post/45465185
- https://infosec.pub/post/45126301
- https://lemmy.cafe/post/33294487
- https://lemmy.cafe/post/32620981
That poster clearly has a bone to pick, and that community does especially, but there is a concerning pattern there as well.
Didn’t your instance just defederate the Germans for their heavy-handed moderation of anything remotely antisemitic?
That is… quite an interpretation of what happened. Anti-semitism is not tolerated on db0. You see it, go report it and tell us what happens. Anti-zionism is not anti-semitism.
From the db0 admin team’s mouths, their take on what happened: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/63525728
Funny enough, they don’t look kindly on Meanwhile on Grad/MoG. And I downvoted that post, voting that I did not want to defed from feddit.
You seem way too knowledgeable about lemmy sever bans and federations for being “just some casual ml dude”.
Defending the TERF dessalines too … Bravo
“Knowing enough to call me out on my bullshit is actually a red flag” lol fuck off clown
I had my first account on .ml because “hey this is the official instance run by the devs, that sounds like a solid starting point” but after seeing how strong the anti-west, pro-authoritarian nonsense is on there (especially leading up to the 2024 election, the apathetic “both sides” people were out in full force), I decided to move to a different instance.
“A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts
An admin over there literally tried to dox me and deleted any trace of it within a few hours. No. You are not safe visiting
lemmy.mllolUsing this post as a honeypot for my blocklist. We need a fresh post like this every month.
Short answer: the Kremlin.
Long answer: Kremlin paid propaganda leaking everywhere.
The Soviet Union had to build a fucking Iron wall to prevent people from escaping
holy fuck lmao
.ml Is made by and ran by Marxist-Leninists.
Marxist-Leninism being an entirely made up bullshit ideology from Stalin to paint any and all actions he committed as “communism” or “progress to communism”.
Its also the adopted “ideology” of every self proclaimed communist state such as China, North Korea, Vietnam, etc. Any contradictions of the ideology between how these states practice it is brushed off by M-L fans as “Marxist-Leninism with <INSERT COUNTRY> characteristics”.
To a M-L fan, none of the core principles of communism actually matter, and are never actually pursued. They don’t care about::
- Proletariat ownership of the means of production
- Elimination of the system of Capital
- Proletariat rule of society
And both hilariously and bafflingly, they will point to what benefits a respective M-L country has as “proof” that that country is following or pursuing communism, even if that country blatantly shows it refuses to adopt those big three above. They also blame the West, specifically the USA for those faux communist countries failing to achieve communism.
I.E. M-L fans fall for bread and circuses very easy as long as they’re told its a communist bread and circus
So TL;DR, .ml’s are Marxist-Leninists who don’t actually care about socialism or communism and are voluntary NPC propaganda machines for authoritarian regimes that abandoned a pursuit of communism long ago.
my favorite part was when you pointed out corruption and capitalism so rife in every country that is supposedly communist, they say it’s ‘necessary for the transition’… right.
some of them are still under the delusion that Russia still a ML state…
necessary for the transition
Eerily similar to the MAGAs who are happy to suffer the “temporary” pain of tariffs today, since it’s going to “Make Us Great” in the ill-defined future
There’s a reason M-Ls are called “tankies” and “red fascists”.
They just simply are. They are fascists in Che Guevara t-shirts.
Do anybody care about anarchist/liberal opinion about MLs? ML ideology defeated nazis and has changed landscape of the planet, your ideology is cringe and non existent, keep seething. ML is a science and it will always exist
Do anybody care about anarchist/liberal opinion about MLs?
I care more about their opinions on MLs than MLs’ opinions on anything
ML ideology defeated nazis
No, it didn’t. Defeat of the Nazis was a collaborative effort between allied nations and factions of varying ideologies, mostly liberal, one made up (Marxist-Leninist)
Actually, you can credit MLs (especially as its OG was in charge at the time), with severely weakening the Soviet Union with massive purges (including of the military), famine of Ukraine, complete fumbling of preparation for war, and the Nazis almost reaching Moscow until Stalin’s generals begged him just enough to fuck off and let them do their jobs.
Oh, and let’s not forget the alliance MLs made with the Nazis to take Poland together. Their first instinct was alliance with Nazis. That only changed after Operation Barbarossa.
and has changed landscape of the planet,
Yeah, it caused irreparable damage to the communist movement by appropriating it for fascism that pretends to be communist.
your ideology is cringe and non existent, keep seething.
- What is my ideology? Do inform me and provide evidence.
- Psychological projection that rivals your average MAGAt
ML is a science and it will always exist
FUCKING
LMAO
ML wouldn’t even cut it as an art, let alone a science. But I bet the rest of the 13 year olds in your discord server thought that line went hard.
I care more about their opinions on MLs than MLs’ opinions on anything
Ofcourse you care about opinion of CIA and global capital ideology
No, it didn’t. Defeat of the Nazis was a collaborative effort between allied nations and factions of varying ideologies, mostly liberal, one made up (Marxist-Leninist)
Such a shameless downplaying of sacrifices of soviet people. 80% nazis were killed on eastern front by the red army. Liberals suffered little to no damage in WW2. It was collaborative, sure but the biggest contributors by far were soviets.
Actually, you can credit MLs (especially as its OG was in charge at the time), with severely weakening the Soviet Union with massive purges (including of the military)
Debateable to say red army got weak due to purges, alot of counter revolutionaries were purged.
famine of Ukraine
not intentional
complete fumbling of preparation for war
Who told you that? stalin tripled size of red army in 2 years following the MR pact and shifted industries towards east, they were preparing but they just didnt have enough time.
Stalin’s generals begged him just enough to fuck off and let them do their jobs.
Lie.
alliance MLs made with the Nazis to take Poland together
No, it was a non aggression pact
Yeah, it caused irreparable damage to the communist movement by appropriating it for fascism that pretends to be communist.
I mean no other form of communism has ever been tried and people like you have played whatever the establishment say about communism, the global capital will obviously defame communism, it has done since century but so called people of left has played major role in spreading that narrative too. No other form of communism being tried results to no failures and no challenge to the global capital or status quo, so you can just keep blaming the tankies while the status quo isnt threatned at all. ML is still the morst popular far left ideology, theres a reason for it.
What is my ideology?
A radlib or democratic socialist, mamdani AOC type.
Psychological projection that rivals your average MAGAt
There is big world outside US politics, get some help.
ML wouldn’t even cut it as an art, let alone a science.
lol
But I bet the rest of the 13 year olds in your discord server thought that line went hard.
A lot of such parties made by 13 y.o. are at the forefront of communist movement while all you do is larp online
So … fascists who idolize rapists
Isn’t that all fascists tho?
che was a rapist? wow thats news to me
Or the Brexiteers convinced that the sunlit uplands are just around the corner of the “short term pain” of abandoning the UK’s closest and largest trade partner.
Fucking morons, happily led around by their prejudices.
“With every mistake, we must surely be learning” -George Harrison
Can you guys ever think out of your american chauvinist mindset? Marxism Leninism exists for more than a century, it has nothing to do with MAGA and have hundreds of pages of theory and have been applied in real life multiple times, atleast think, its crazy how stupid you people are.
some of them are still under the delusion that Russia still a ML state…
Literally no sane ML thinks that, russia is a liberal bourgeosie state
