Community this happened on: [email protected]
Mod: likely GodlessCommie, I think that comm only has one mod and they make majority of the posts.
Penalty: removed comment. Text of the comment is on the screenshot. The post it was on: https://lemmy.world/post/50296041
I get that that community is supposed to be dunking on capitalists, but let’s not pretend all the countries MLs glorify are/were actually socialist. When protecting dictators takes priority over anti-capitalism, that’s when we’re truly cooked.
Bernie isn’t a socialist and DemSocs are socialists in the same way cryptozoologists are veterinarians - if your movement has never once in the history of society every produced socialism, it’s a stretch to call yourself a socialist.
Remind me, what communism did the supposed communists produce during their rule from 1922 to 1991?
The USSR was meant to be state socialism to transition to communism. If that movement never once in the history of its society every produced communism, it’s a stretch to call yourself a communist.
You do realize that, of every single thinker, of every single text, of every single successful revolution, of every single revolutionary movement, not a single one of them has ever said that communism is state of being that we can knowingly and deliberately achieve in our current society, right?
7 successful ML revolutions, not a single one has produced “communism” the way you’re thinking about it.
Engels writing about communism says this:
That’s what communism is. Not something you produce. Not a recipe you follow. Not a decision you make or a policy you enact. It is a doctrine and it is specifically the doctrine of establishing the conditions that are necessary for the liberation of the proletariat.
What did the communist party achieve in the USSR?
Because you know what the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat are? They start with food, shelter, medicine, and safety from literal Western Nazis and their international liberal backers.
But the USSR failed. Everyone is fully aware that they failed. You think that they failed is some kind of gotcha? You think that failing to survive counter-revolutionary forces and failing to protect the revolution means that there was no communism, there was never any communism, and everyone who claimed to be a communist is a liar? You think the Mets aren’t really a baseball team because they lose? You think a startup isn’t a company if it fails?
Your position is ridiculous, unexamined, ignorant, and internally inconsistent.
Now read your comment that I responded to again.
The position I provided was to mirror your own, to highlight the ridiculousness of it.
Perhaps you confused social democracy with democratic socialism, then you may have had a point.
Yeah, I know that’s what you were doing. It’s a ridiculous position. What you’re saying is that 7 successful ML revolutions that established societies organized around the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat is equivalent to over 100 years of Democratic Socialism literally have never achieved anything other than welfare concessions within capitalist societies and zero change in ruling class power.
There is no mirror. Democratic Socialism has never moved beyond compatibalism and “peaceful coexistence” with the ruling class. MLism has successfully demolished ruling class power 7 times in 60 years. No single political praxis has even come close to it.
Successful?.. Again, where’s the communism?
Demolished ruling class power?.. Demolished the current ruling class perhaps, but only to replace it with another.
“When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the People’s Stick”
Again, completely ahistorical. Despite the USSR’s total abandonment of the communist road and revisionism that led to terrible outcomes for the people, polling in Eastern Europe and Russia still shows that the majority of people believe the dissolution of the USSR was a net negative. Because again, every single communist movement that successfully overthrew the ruling class improved the lives of the people at scales that seemed completely impossible.
Under every single communist country today, the majority of the people support it and want it to continue. Even under the USSR the prison system was smaller than the USA’s and the outcomes were better. This is true in every communist country. Women do better, children to better, education is better, medicine is better, nutrition is better, mental health is better, housing is cheaper, cost of living is cheaper, participatory government is more extensive.
You are doing the thing we’re saying you’re doing, which is spewing anti-communist and capitalist apologetic propaganda and every anemic talking point you’ve raised has been endlessly researched for decades and shown to be distortions put forth by anti-communists.
You and I are not living in the same reality. You have not done the work to learn about the history and present of the global movement for communism. You operate from your indoctrination and from that conclude that everyone who disagrees with you is indoctrinated.
You will continue to engage in these sorts of debates where the only thing you can do is intone “it is known” until you actually start reading about the history that you think you already understand without having studied. You are ignorant and there’s nothing wrong with that. But ignorance is not a political position worthy of respect and equal time.
Nice baseless ad hominems, thanks!
You have no idea what I have read, or what work I have done. I am in fact a communist. One who knows what the word solidarity means and therefore calls out when other leftists are being ridiculed by MLs. You are creating division within a leftist space and yet claim I’m the one “spewing anti-communist and capitalist apologetic propaganda”.
I think you should read that part of your comment over again a few times. Mull it over.
Combine it with these parts:
You literally have drawn upon no facts, historical or present, about actual communist revolutions. You have no counter arguments. Your only move has been to assume your position is correct because of course it is, and that if I can criticize you then you must be able to reverse the criticism because anyone critiquing you is not doing so from a basis in reality but in vibes.
You know how I know that you’re operating from indoctrination and I’m not? Because I know what my indoctrination was and it sounds exactly like the shit you’re saying. I used to get on everyone’s case about communism is authoritarian and the bread lines and the poverty and the horrible conditions and the prisons and the police state and on and on because how could anyone think those horrible people who claimed to be communists actually did anything worth studying let alone celebrating.
I see my words in your words. I know those words. I was raised by anti-communists, in the US, with all the same schooling and media and social indoctrination as you and the people you grew up around. Do you know how freaked out I was the first time someone recommended that I read Lenin? It felt insane because how could anyone want to read a monster’s writing.
But as it turns out, I was indoctrinated. And now, instead of being indoctrinated, I study history.
If you scroll through this thread, you will only see historical claims about the revolutionary states I am discussing. If you look at your comments, you will find nothing of the sort. I comment about the actual factual historical events, you speak in moral judgements about “not actual communists because authoritarianism” and aphorisms about “the people’s stick”.
We are not having a disagreement about facts about the world out there. We are having a disagreement about what’s in your head. I say that what’s in your head is not founded in historical reality but in indoctrination and you have yet to say a single thing that resembles anything else.