This is my experience as well. It’s also laughable that they call themselves communists and love China and Russia. Those people aren’t communists, they are authoritarians.
That’s why I too am not a believer in horseshoe theory and actually agree that communism hasn’t been practiced properly before. A peaceful emancipation of the common person is still unpracticed. If this is all tankies said, I’d be fine with it. But they say communism has never been practiced before along side arguments that the Soviet Union and China are communist. They are parroting real modern communists without understanding them and mixing in their revisionist history to create a paradox they don’t seem too concerned about.
I think it’s more about rebelling against their Reagan loving, USSR hating dads than sound political theory.
Communism in practice is USSR and China type dictatorships. Fantasising about “real” “peaceful” communism ever existing is delusional.
If you want to abolish private property and there are people who disagree (and there will always be) the central power will need to “neutralize” them.
This is what Marx envisaged socialism as - the transitional stage between capitalism and communism.
Shame that every single time this has been attempted its been quashed externally or coopted internally by bad actors.
Isn’t that pretty much exactly what a “Tankie” is? An authoritarian communist? One that believes the revolution can only occur through state violence?
All communist regimes are authoritarian by nature
Is this a comment on the inevitably of human nature, or a misunderstanding of communism (which if done properly is stateless)?
Communism if done properly is Stateless insofar as it means there is no Class, and therefore no aparatus like the Police that uphold the dominance of one class over another.
Communism was always, in Marxist tradition, meant to have a democratically accountable world republic.
You may or may not be referring to Anarcho-Communism, which rejects both the transitional state of Socialism and prefers more decentralized networks of Mutual Aid.
Probably just that every rendition of communism so far has been authoritarian.
Hippie communes are a counterexample.
I would argue that an authoritarian state cannot be communist, though plenty have called themselves so.
Is it better if I rephrase it as “all regimes founded on communist ideas and visions are authoritarian by nature”?
A truly communist “regime” is not something that should ever exist as communism is a stateless philosophy thus inherently not authoritarian by its very nature.
It’s the bit in between capitalism and communism that historically has been coopted by bad actors to create authoritarian regimes, these regimes tend to still call themselves communist because “lol fuck your revolution I’m in charge now” doesn’t have the same PR value.
To be fair. “that wasn’t true Communism” is true. The problem is dictatorships keep getting sold with its name. Ironically proving how hard it would be to actually achieve a world or country of communes.
The only kind of Communism I’m willing to accept is the Star Trek Communism. Until then I’m pro Team “Social market economy”!
Fully Automated Gay Space Communism or bust!
Except those people prefer the Chinese and USSR style of social autocracies to actual socialist projects. Some of them even trash worker coops, although that was more true to the InfraHaz style lolcows than the tankies of lemmy…
The bolshivek revolution made it certain that any communist nation is a dictatorship. The menshiveks would have achieved better results.
The Mensheviks wouldn’t have been much more different than German and French socialdemocrats who accepted capitalism. But there were other relevant left-leaning political forces during the Russian Revolution that were neither Bolsheviks nor Mensheviks - I wonder what happened with them?
I wonder what happened with them?
Gulag happened to them.
Wait until you learn whatt the SPD did to the Spartactus League.
By that stupid definition there’s no true capitalism either, so what’s your point?
Oh? Are there no countries with private ownership of industry?
Oh? Are there no countries with state ownership of industry?
If that’s your criteria, then yes, there are both truly communist and truly capitalist countries.
Tell me which country claiming to be communist is not actually just a dictatorship with a veneer?
None? That was like 200% sarcasm. You used a single criteria to mark countries as truly capitalist, so I though I might as well do the same.
Communism is inherently authoritarian as it puts the needs of a social construct (in this case a “commune” or “society”) over the needs, rights and freedoms of an individual. It is hard to achieve anything good with communism, because totalitarian dictatorship is the only possible outcome for any advanced enough authoritarian ideology.
Communism is a classless, moneyless, stateless society.
Whose going to take care of the utilities?
It ✨ d e p e n d s ✨ on what kind of communist answers.
Extended Version:
Needs an “EU BAD” square
You forgot a square for circle-jerking over reading theory.
It is a weird world where the Tankies align with Moscow Marjorie
It’s not surprising at all, they’re working for the same people.
i don’t think “that wasn’t true communism” belongs with the rest. saying Russia good , USSR good and China good requires you to pretend they are true communism, isn’t that what tankies do?
i think this is more what actual leftie/communist people say about those countries because they think the authoritarian regimes don’t reflect communism, not to mention the fact that Russia and China are capitalist countries in everything but name.
saying Russia good , USSR good and China good requires you to pretend they are true communism
Russia hasn’t been anything resembling Communist since perestroika and the subsequent dismantling of the USSR. Might as well call France a monarchy or complain about Japanese Imperialism.
The long struggle session over “Is China Communist?” has been tilting back in the “Enthusiastic Yes!” column for years, as Xi’s abandoned the Dengist market integration strategy and increasingly put his chips on a new Third-World Export model for Chinese aid and trade (incidentally, much more in line with the USSR peace dividend strategy circa 1950s/60s). If nothing else, Xi’s proposal to have a housing sector that is 30% public (up from the current 5%) would be the AES guy’s wet dream.
Russia and China are capitalist countries in everything but name.
Russia after '91 spend a solid decade under the Shock Doctrine mass sell off of domestic assets. Its rapid transition to capitalism had more in common with a pillaging than any economic reform. The Russian state was never fully integrated into the European trade model. And it was always held at arms length by NATO military advisers, limiting the possibility of fully internationalized markets. After the second failed “Russian Reset” under Obama, the state has begun re-nationalized a host of traditionally private assets as multi-national industries abandoned the country.
Chinese single-party state administered economic policy - the Five Year Plan model that’s been building steam since the 1950s - is about as far away from the Western Laisse-Faire model of capitalism as you can get and still plausibly cling to the name. If China is capitalist, it is doing capitalism in a way wholly alien to any Chicago School economics professor or McKinsey consultant.
You might be able to shoehorn their economies into the broad definition of profit-seeking private ownership. But in both form and function, they look radically different from a US, German, or Japanese private economy.
Oh good, this seems like a good place to ask something that’s been bothering me for a while.
I see the posts from Hexbear and Lemmygrad. I can understand why they are in favour of theoretically communist regimes like China. What I can’t for the life of me see is why they seem to unconditionally support modern Russia which is surely as far away from communism as you can get.
I must be missing something but not sure what?
Because they’re anti-west not pro-communist.
Anything critical of Russia is obvs western propaganda and as Russia is an enemy of the west, they will support them.
They see the enemy of their enemy as their friend, instead of realising it’s just another enemy.
“I hate the US”
“Oh Russia and Iran hate the US. I love Russia and Iran!”
Unfortunately sometimes people are actually as stupid as they make themselves out to be.
They’re not actually communists, it’s just a facade for Kremlin and CCP propaganda.
But you see, Russia is just what is left of the glorious soviet union who got destroyed by the western evils. Whatever they do is totally justified in their bid to rebuild the union under a dictator, dont you know anything? And Ukraine is full with jewish nazis.
Noo you don’t ._. Their train of thought is more often than not “USSR=Good. USSR hates USA. USA=Bad. Modern Russia hates USA. So Russia = Good.”
Someone says: USA Bad (with proof)
USApes: It must mean they think China and Russia are good.
¿Por Qué No Los Tres?
You’re being obtuse, they actively defend Russia/China.
It’s usually * Russia/China does something horrific *
Normal People: Hey, this is pretty terrible.
Tankies: IT’S NOT TERRIBLE BECAUSE WHAT USA DID IS MUCH WORSE.
In 98% of my Encounter with Tankies, they are the one who try to steer the topic away from the horrible thing China/Russia has done and towards: LOOK USA BAD! Even if the USA has NOTHING to do with the topic at all. It’s like that’s their go-to argument. And of course: " Yeah, it’s not bad because the puppet States of China and/or Russia said it’s not bad. "
