‘Tankies’ (for the lack of a better word) have been against communism throughout history. It’s disingenuous to assume they could be capable of unity
I always wonder what the political left would look like in different European countries in the 20th century had it not been for the influence of the Soviet Union. Soviet influence ran, in my humble opinion, like poison through the veins of European socialist organisations. It seems to me like successful left wing mobilization is directly correlated with a relative lack of Soviet influence.
Many anarchists were simply murdered:
- nazy-germany the anarchist movement was whole-sale murdered. Since then there is no anarchsist movment in germany.
- franco-fascist-spain he murdered 200,000 anarchists after the civil war
- ukraine machnowiki anarchists
- russian anarchists and many more…
that is the reason why there is no anarchist movement in europe today. Before these events Anarchists were a major part of the workers movement.
Most people nowadays also seem to buy into the idea that anarchists worship chaos and destruction. I’m not sure exactly where that idea comes from, but it’s certainly convenient.
I’m not sure exactly where that idea comes from
It’s been propagated by the detractors of anarchism. The same defamation was used towards the republic when monarchies where the rule rather than exception. People often equated the concept of a republic with chaos and disorder, just like they now do with anarchism.
Yeah. They executed a lot of leftist thinking and set back progress for decades. And inadvertently were the reason for the red scare still deeply ingrained in many
Even ignoring the executions, they set the party agenda for a lot of European communist parties, struck down independent local organization (which were more in line with traditional communitarian ideas), and made the political left wing something that could more legitimately be written off as a foreign influence rather than a legitimate political movement because to an uncanny degree, that was just what it was.
This reflects my impression in countries like France - in Spain they of course took it to another level.
Stalin was also partially to blame for the rise (and, to give him his due, fall) of Hitler. The recalcitrance of the Communist party in Weimar Germany was a big part of what prevented a left coalition from being able to take power and cut the Nazis off at the root.
To be fair, in the German context the conservatives were also terrified of the socialist democrat party, who were relatively moderate and if I remember correctly did not have too close ties with Soviet. Hindenburg made the fatal mistake of being more afraid of moderate socialists than of radical fascists.
I also wouldn’t give Stalin too much credit for defeating Hitler. The Soviet Union only turned on Germany when they were invaded, and Stalin’s military strategy was ruthless and incredibly inefficient. When the Red Army freed Europe I’d argue it was in spite of Stalin rather than because of him.
Maybe I’m looking at history with a view to avoid giving Stalin credit for anything, but turning on a fascist country only when they invade you does not impress me much, and ordering your soldiers to march into a meat grinder without weapons is not an efficient military strategy.
You mean the coup, revisionist, governments of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and the following reactionary anti-communists that destroyed the USSR were actually bad for leftism? Color me shocked.
Even “tankies” would agree that all the anti-communism, anti-Stalinism and anti-Leninism of the USSR after Stalin really fucked communism and leftism all over the world.
Or do you think “tankies” think the USSR after Stalin was “based”? What even is this take?
The USSR has been bad since the USSR existed
Uhum uhum, it’s been “bad”. Like it’s only been one of the best countries in history, if you like, actually materially analyse human history and stuff.
Do people like you think what, Sweden is a good country? Or there has been 0 good attempts at social organization in human history, and we better just kill ourselves and give up?
Or rather, my personal position is that indeed the USSR sucked (likely in different ways than you think), and it was still one the best nations ever. We should learn from what it did right, but also what it did wrong.
Brother u on some liberalism
Brother YOU are on some liberalism lmao what are you talking about?
What even is this indeed. I was talking about the influence of the Comintern, through which the Soviet Union set the agenda of socialist parties all over Europe.
The Comintern ended in '43, but there’s a broken part of the European left that never stopped sucking up to Russia. These days they’re thankfully just a bunch of weirdos that nobody really gives a shit about, but back in the 30s this stuff mattered.
Your point being the USSR was influential because it was… what evil?
Doesn’t it make sense they were influential because they were like the only socialist state at the time? And they actually did support many, if not most, anti-colonial and leftist movements all over the world. Like, if you were a leftist in Africa, and needed help fighting against colonialism and stuff, there was only the USSR around to help you. And they did help, a lot.
They had the largest increase in quality of life in history prior to China, they pioneered space exploration and computation. They had the most advanced laws to protect minorities, to guarantee equality for women etc. Their universities were free for people on the 2nd AND 3rd world to attend.
How exactly were they so terrible? And please, don’t list things every country did exactly the same or worse.
Or do you think all the good they did is completely nullified by the bad?
Would it be best for humans to stop trying to do good, never try to learn from the bad, and just give up?
I recommend reading Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia!
It’s a great read and gives a lot of insights into the dynamics I’m describing. The infighting between leftist fractions gets pretty technical, but Orwell does a great job with it.
Orwell is a piece of shit traitor who worked for the UK government to fight communists. AND he was a racist piece of shit. I will never read any books by him, thanks.
I refuse to read explicit anti-communists who worked for fascists states outing communists and disrupting their parties.
Just call em authoritarians. That’s what they are
You know, there’d be a whole lot less gish-galloping propaganda in the comments here if you were to defederate hexbear. Just sayin. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hexbears don’t bother me, but I seem to be bothering them quite a lot
Just like with fascists though, it’s better not to let them propagandize, even if you aren’t personally triggered by it.
Eh half of them are just making asses out of themselves by going full mask off. I don’t think they’ve had a great showing.
The quality of their arguments doesn’t really matter though, nor does it matter whether they’re able to convince a majority of people. What matters is that they can reach the few people that will find their overall presentation intriguing enough to merit further investigation, and then pull those people down the rabbit hole. It’s the same strategy that fascists use, just red-flavored instead of brown.
It also makes the space overall less appealing to your actual target audience, which is a cardinal sin of online community management.
Just saying, if you have Kbin nazis tempting you to defederate hexbear, you need to reevaluate how you’re carrying yourself.
What an impressive turn out. Looks like they’re all using the exact same “arguments” (a combination of manipulation techniques and logical fallicies) that they use every single time.
It’s worrying how much of a presence these people create in online discourse because they come out in full force, dominating and suppressing anyone or thing that challenges them. There is no healthy debate.
But i suppose it all makes perfect sense; these people glorify the state, single party rule and dictatorship. Their behavior is a logical result of these beliefs
okay
you’ve taken your shit on the table, you can leave now
Yo, it’s one thing to have fun with me, it’s another to attack everyone else here. Behave yourself, ya shitstain.
oh no the brave CIAnarchist is protecting his fake leftist buddies, whatever will I, the evil tankie villain, do against this?
If he didn’t want a clapback he shouldn’t have walked in and given his shit take
the exact same “arguments” (a combination of manipulation techniques and logical fallicies)
are you going to name any of these “arguments” or are you just going to decry any person that disagrees with you as illogical and hysteric?
This comment sounds like it was written by the official AI of liberalism.
Hexbear comes here to be the debate bros they try so hard to dunk on. They are dying looking for just one little morsel of dunk. Not a good showing, not a leftist unity moment lmao
They create such lame excuses to defend things like Trotsky assassination it’s awful
If the anarchists in the soviet union were allowed power, general plan Ost would have come to fruition. Anarchists have historically not been able to lead mass industrialization in a coordinated way, and have not been able to lead successful military campaigns across territories as large as the USSR. If the soviet leadership didn’t protect the revolution from anarchists, part of my family would have died in a death camp instead of being liberated from one by red army soldiers.
But the tankies stabbed the pure hearted anarchists in the back! Okay, maybe the anarchists shouldn’t have been idealists who cared more about coops than actually prosecuting a successful socialist transition. Literally read Lenin’s interaction with the anarchist prince.
Ah, at least we come to the crux of the disagreement. “Anarchists, babies! MLs, strong!”. It always comes down to that, but it’s refreshing to see you just straight up say it sometimes, so that people can see it.
Anyway, please take your historic fiction in the appropriate places. I can pull stories out of my ass as well, but that convinces no-one.
PS: I like how you sneaked in that call to emotion at the end. Very manipulative. Love it!
Have you read anything about the failures of coordination among the anarchist militias in Catalonia? Or their failures of economic coordination beyond the local level?
Have you even absorbed the critiques enough that you are in a place to argue against them?
Because this is serious stuff that you should be educated about before you make judgements about it.
I’m very sympathetic to anarcho syndicalism, but it showed its weaknesses in Spain and sectarian anarchists blame it on the USSR instead of learning from it.
PS: I like how you sneaked in that call to emotion at the end. Very manipulative. Love it!
It is not socially well adapted to declare “appeal to emotion” when someone is communicating why something is personally important to them. What I’m doing is expressing myself in a normal human way, and you consider that manipulative?
Have you read anything about the failures of coordination among the anarchist militias in Catalonia? Or their failures of economic coordination beyond the local level?
Ah, nice try, but I already told you I’m not going to debate you on the Spanish Civil War. Why don’t you go to the places where there’s anarchists up for that sort of thing?
What I’m doing is expressing myself in a normal human way, and you consider that manipulative?
You implied that not crushing anarchists would have directly led to a successful genocide. Ye it’s pretty manipulative.
Ah, nice try, but I already told you I’m not going to debate you on the Spanish Civil War.
I asked you if you’ve even read anything about it, not if you want to debate me about it.
You implied that not crushing anarchists would have directly led to a successful genocide. Ye it’s pretty manipulative.
It isnt manipulative to point out that my family would have been killed if the anarchists won, it is giving you an explanation for why I have little sympathy for complaints by anarchists repeating the “stabbed in the back” myth instead of actually digging into the history of their project and learning from its failures to do better next time.
I asked you if you’ve even read anything about it, not if you want to debate me about it.
That’s how they get you! taps forehead
It isnt manipulative to point out that my family would have been killed if the anarchists won,
lol, yea it is. You don’t have any idea what would have happened if the anarchists won. Maybe they Spanish revolution would have worked without the backstab and Hitler would have expended himself. Who the fuck knows. It’s pretty manipulative to posit a major historical event going completely differently would have worked out the same way except that it would have led this one really horrible thing which everyone has an emotional reaction to. Cmon…
That’s how they get you! taps forehead
If the goal is to get you to read yes, that is the secret tankie plot, to make you a better anarchist who is able to grow from previous failures instead of acting like an aggrieved post ww1 german soldier.
It’s pretty manipulative to posit a major historical event going completely differently would have worked out the same way except that it would have led this one really horrible thing. Cmon…
Were any anarchists talking about the need for massive industrialization at any cost in the late 1920s early 1930s in the soviet union? No? Then if the anarchists were in charge, yes, the nazis would have won and been able to implement plan ost.
Were any anarchists talking about the need for massive industrialization at any cost in the late 1920s early 1930s in the soviet union? No? Then if the anarchists were in charge, yes, the nazis would have won and been able to implement plan ost.
Tell me when the novel comes out.
If your action is to punch left, your output is to move the current situation rightwards.
This goes for both anarchists and lemmygrad types, who equally harm the collective movement by punching left at one another.
If the marxist brigades, (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine(DFLP), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC)) in Palestine can prioritise the need for cooperation even with hamas in order to put up a resistance against oppression, we can all do the same when we have fewer reasons to fight.
Sure, but there’s a reason the anarchist presence on Hexbear haa dramatically waned over the years. Like how much is anyone actually valuing left unity while federating with an instance that memes about killing anarchists? A lot of the early drama came out of specifically ML’s harassing people associated with anarchists, like that John Kerry shit, including accusations of an “anarchist cabal” (which to be fair remains extremely funny to this day).
And this exists alongside an attitude that left unity in fact is a waste of time, that communists and anarchists want fundamentally different things. And when you combine that with memes about anarchists being reactionaries and feds (oh, but not our anarchists!) and glorification of figures that killed a lot of anarchists and the occasional “anarchists get the wall” memes, like you can’t be comrades with people who fundamentally see you as a problem to one day violently remove. There cannot be useful criticism without mutual trust, and I don’t think there has been that trust in quite a while.
Good thing that State Capitalism isn’t “left”
I honestly find this behaviour incredibly disrespectful to the people that are currently dying as they do real resistance. Are you opposed to the Palestinians too then? The leftist brigades of Palestine are all “tankies” and Hamas are considerably worse (but resistance is more important than broaching the issues with them). Do you wage sectarian bullshit against them too from your comfortable room while they fight and die for the cause? Serious question.
You think posting on online forums make a lick of a difference for those who “do real resistance”? You’re in the left shitposter heaven and you come here to judge me? Seriously?
The vast majority of the people here found their way into the left through learning in the online posting grounds before eventually joining orgs. Anyone that thinks what we do online doesn’t matter is not really thinking straight.
You didn’t really answer the question though and it concerns me. Are you opposed to the Palestinian resistance currently fighting for freedom?
Oh come off of it. There’s a pretty big difference between such struggles and the impact of arguing online.
I also don’t answer because I don’t like to be interrogated like this.
No. There fundamentally is not.
This space is not “pretend” while the offline world is “real”. The people here are real people (I hope lmao) and the emotions people have here are real.
One day we will all be thrown into our own very real resistance. Are you willing to die for it? I am. I’ve said many times that I will die in bed an old lady in a currently non-existent socialist state or I will die in the fighting to bring it about.
We post here and have some fun and argue and do all sorts of shit in our off time. But in our on time? A lot of us are genuinely active in political orgs. Here in the UK it might be resisting landlord evictions through Acorn, performing party work or shutting down weapons factories through Palestine Action. Do you think sectarianism would benefit orgs like Palestine Action shutting down zionist weapons factories? Whose principle need is BODIES willing to get on rooftops and smash up these buildings and get arrested? Does reducing the pool of people that would join that org benefit them in any way by being sectarians? Does it matter whether someone on the roof of an israeli weapons factory waves a black flag or a red flag? Of course it doesn’t. And the people who try to flare up sectarian bullshit anywhere are rightfully shouted down or expelled because all they are functionally doing by punching left is weakening those orgs and their ability to do praxis.
That doesn’t change online. The number of people who actually transfer from the online space to offline organising is directly tied to the sectarian bullshit that occurs. There are dumbass marxists that refuse to take part at certain orgs because of some anarchist sectarian bullshit and there are dumbass anarchists that refuse to take part in some socialist led things because of sectarian bullshit.
If I saw anyone at the march in London this weekend say a single fucking word about sectarian shit I would have punched them in the face.
This shit hurts the left. There is no case for it benefiting the left in any way.
One day we will all be in an existential armed struggle ourselves. Really consider the priorities. There is no benefit to any of this shit, and in fact it risks harming support for Palestine. I assume you’re not anti-Palestine, even though you won’t state it. If you can support Palestinian resistance despite Hamas, you can support marxist-leninists despite sectarian disagreement, and you already are doing just that by supporting Palestine. Not to mention that almost every single fucking pro Palestine march currently happening is being organised by the “tankies” you’re currently railing against.
Oh and just in case - anyone that doesn’t support Palestine deserves a brick to the back of the head.
We’ve spoken about this before, you and me, iirc. So long as y’all keep doing anarchist direct action for mutual aid, we can be allies. Once you start trying to seize hierarchical control like some illuminated vanguard, is where it gets difficult.
This meme is about exactly this difficulty.
Let’s be serious for a moment, y’all descended on me shit-posting about well known problems anarchists had with MLs. Y’all don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You had the counter-arguments ready to post. But I’m not here to debate with you and we won’t solve these disagreements here. You know what you know, I know what I know. We can agree to disagree.
But then y’all got mad that I didn’t debate 12 people at a time, as if I have nothing better to do with my life on the comments of a shitpost. You can’t handle one single anarchist making one single meme in an obscure anarchist sub.
This all has nothing about us being able to collaborate on things that matter. When we do those actions, nobody is going to say “Aha, I remember what you wrote in lemmy.dbzer0.com that one time about leftist unity”. This is all about 1) the ego of those hexbear tankies who couldn’t handle not being debated and 2) The shitposters of hexbear who just came here to have flamewars because the mods of hexbear apparently don’t control anything anymore and your “left unity” only goes so much as someone disagreeing with your takes and then they’re a “liberal” and therefore fair game.
I am honestly not upset. I’m am however just disappointed at the greater hexbear behaviour…
What’s a Tankie?
EDIT: The range of definitions below is interesting
To give a nore detailed answer… Tankies are “lefties” who have failed to realize one or two extremely important facts about the world:
-
“Strong men” are not a good thing. No matter your political opinion, using force to get it is literally incompatible with many leftist teachings. The very act of violent rebellion requires the use of force that many believe a government shoudn’t have. Thusly, any violent revolution stands a STRONG chance of being shunned by those who do not want a government with sanctioned violence. Getting a “leftist” government through basic violence WILL result in a fascist government. Always.
-
Strong men cannot be allowed unjust power no matter how just they are. They cannot be allowed power because despite how cliche the expression, “power corrupts”, it is wholly true. It doesn’t matter how good a particular ruler is. If the levers of power exist, someone WILL pull them very bad directions.
Basically… Tankies are leftists who have not or cannot think through how authority is actually bad to allow to exist in any unchecked form. They think a ruler who does good things is good, when most leftists SHOULD be answering they don’t want any ruler.
The horseshoe theory exists because of tankies and extremists. If you want leftist policy but want to achieve it through uncouth means, that’s definitionally authoritarian in nature for many answers, and authoritarian answers should be antithetical to the left. Even forcing a utopia still creates a coercive government.
Thusly, any violent revolution stands a STRONG chance of being shunned by those who do not want a government with sanctioned violence.
I disagree with this part. Violent revolution—violent opposition to our oppression—is absolutely necessary. However, turning it on ourselves—that is, in any direction other than that which opposes authority—is a recipe for disaster as you say.
It’s not violence itself that is the problem. There are literally always forms of violence sanctioned by every single political philosophy (including absolute pacifism/non-violence, which sanctions violence performed by the state even if its subscribers often don’t realize this). The question is how and when that violence is performed and by whom, and the anarchist/non-authoritarian answer is that it must only be in the struggle for liberation, not the fight to gain and maintain power over others.
I absolutely agree. Peaceful protest has never brought meaningful or lasting change. Violent uprisings are the only way to reduce unjust hierarchy, because those in power have never given it up willingly.
-
A white kid from North America who simps for Russia and China despite never having set foot in either
Tankies are not at all a uniquely US phenomenon
Ukraine Free Territory
Literally bandit kingdom under an absolute leader
Stalin vs Spanish Leftists
The USSR was the only nation to provide any support to the Republic, and it was the anarchists that fucked up by being unable to organize any kind of national army and just letting the fascists roll up their ‘independent’ cities one by one. Saying “it was Stalin’s fault” is the anarchist stab-in-the-back myth.
Mao
I’ve never heard of the ‘Manchurian communes’ and neither has wikipedia (which would never miss the chance to play up a supposed communist atrocity) and ah yes, that famous leftist tendency “intellectuals”. Not saying the Cultural Revolution was correct, but you also can’t just blame one person for it.
Hungarian Worker’s Councils
A fascist counterrevolution, Hungary was an Axis power and it was a mere eleven years after WW2 - for “”“worker’s councils”“” they sure lynched a lot of Jewish people! Read this.
Futhermore, did even a single one of these leaders claim to support an abstract “left unity”? Lenin sure didn’t:
“Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers’ cause needs is the unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism.”
Nor did all the millions and millions of workers who supported each of these leaders. How unfathomably arrogant to think that the millions of committed revolutionaries that worked tirelessly to build socialism in these places were too fucking stupid to see they were working for the ‘wrong’ ideology, that they should have rejected their leadership organization and just slotted in your preferred coterie of “libertarian socialists & anarchists” and that would have simply solved all their murderous authoritarian ways. A nice horizontal, non-hierarchical, non-coercive network of free-organizing collectives would definitely have stood up in the face of the Wehrmacht, wouldn’t it!
Now, ironically the “tankie” instances in this federation actually have rules about sectarianism so I wouldn’t post this on there, but I have no qualms saying it here (you can feel free to ban me though, if you want to indulge in the ultimate irony). So I can say that I am sectarian, because revolution is a problem that has a correct answer - there’s the answer that saved hundreds of millions of lives from fascism, and then there’s the ‘answer’ that lets online “”“leftists”“” living eighty years after the fact feel smugly superior to the people who actually fought and bled for a better world. Further reading on this matter:
- “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder - Lenin
- A Critical Read of Animal Farm - Jones Manoel
- Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism - Michael Parenti (<- especially this)
Edit: I was kinda pissed off when I wrote this so my dismissals of those points were definitely sloppy - though in hindsight with this guy “more nuance” would probably have been a waste - but I absolutely can’t tolerate such ignorant attacks against the projects that actually came the closest to human emancipation anywhere in history. Regardless, I don’t want any anarchist comrades to feel like I’m attacking them, and although I obviously believe MLism (and the collected work of its offshoot branches) is the best basis for the theory and practice of revolution, the good work of anarchist groups that were able to keep fighting in the imperial core when Marxist groups were stamped out can’t be ignored. If you punched a fascist then you’re a comrade of mine.
I’m assuming.you’re just ignorant of Makhno, and not intentionally spouting century old propaganda but here. From the article "Makhno’s anarchism, however, was not confined to verbal propaganda, important though this was to win new adherents. On the contrary, Makhno was a man of action who, even while occupied with military campaigns, sought to put his anarchist theories into practice. His first act on entering a town – after throwing open the prisons – was to dispel any impression that he had come to introduce a new form of political rule. Announcements were posted informing the inhabitants that they were now free to organize their lives as they saw fit, that his Insurgent Army would not “dictate to them or order them to do anything.” Free speech, press, and assembly were proclaimed, although Makhno would not countenance organizations that sought to impose political authority, and he accordingly dissolved the Bolshevik revolutionary committees, instructing their members to “take up some honest trade.'” Does that sound like a bandit king?
The USSR absolutely betrayed the Spanish Anarchists, this isn’t controversial at all. Here’s a well sourced thread from someone who wrote a research paper on the topic breaking it down.
I don’t know enough about Hungary to have an opinion on the matter and can’t be bothered to do all the reading for it right now. Based on your characterizations of previous libertarian left movements I’m going to assume you’re full of shit though.
Hard agree on “left unity”. Authoritarians and libertarians shouldn’t waste their time on trying to get along, it’s counter productive.
Further reading/listening for anyone interested:
The State is Counter Revolutionary is a theory and history series covering the Russian and Chinese revolutions. The Maoist one may be of particular interest to you.
Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth
Authoritarians and libertarians
I don’t give a shit what you say, if your politics is “authoritarian bad and libertarian good” you’re a fucking idiot.
Oh look, a leftist “enlightened centrist”. Please, provide us your grand left unifying theory that will bring about peace and prosperity for two mutually exclusive schools of thought. Authoritarians and libertarians got lumped together a long time ago and it’s been made abundantly clear that that was a mistake. We should stop trying to force it. It’s counterproductive
Who said I was pro-left unity? Im a Marxist Leninist. Did the name not say “stalinism” loudly enough?
although ill take a real anarchist to work side by side with over your illiterate ass any day. Your ilk are charlatans and failures, always have been, always will be. Stop wasting our time with your illiteracy.
So you’re a Marist lenninist who’s against left unity and thinks that people who are either only pro authoritarian or pro libertarian are fucking idiots? Do I need to spell that out more or are you aware of how stupid you sound right now? Are you sure I’m the illiterate one in this exchange?
bitch I actually read theory, i don’t ascribe to “authoritarian” or “libertarian” as political movements. Its not a word used by any Marxist movement nor theorist that has actually accomplished something besides never getting past local party level.
you don’t even understand the world well enough to be mad at me properly. Do I have to spell it out for you or do you want to continue to roll in the mud with your ignorant pig friends?
Stay mad. Your politics are shit and no amount of theory is going to change the oppressive nature of the world you want to create. Dress up the attrocities your ideology represents in all the $5 words you want. It won’t change the fact that at the end of the day you’ll be another reactionary supporting a new generation of bourgeois pigs ruining life for the rest of us. I read state and revolution too, it was mid. Find a different Russian dipshit to base your life around, there’s better ones out there.
