Both are good, one is better
should i mention that under one of them many coups around the world were orchestrated? no, dems are no better than gops.
dems are no better than gops
Unless you’re gay, lesbian, trans, atheist, Muslim, Jewish, Satanist, black, brown, female, an immigrant, or really anything other than a straight white Christian man.
What an incredibly privileged take. Try having some empathy for other people sometime.
No way you’re unironically pulling out the identity politics when just about every single revolutionary party in the US’ history was led by minorities. We are the first to feel the brunt of capitalism and for that reason we are the ones to lead the charge against it while the privileged sit in their condos waiting for everything to blow over so they can say “Oh I actually supported civil rights this whole time :)”
Well, except you are wrong. Biden reversed Trump’s decision to pull out of Somalia. You are just being fed right wing propaganda to make one of the groups seem better than the other.
of course. let’s have some respect for the american minorities while minorities abroad can be tortured in some basement in a third world shithole while being watched over by a cia agent.
and i get to be called privileged by some oversized gringo. oh the imperialist exceptionalism.
And also, the US bombs all the groups above you just mentioned without distinction. The Obama administration for example dropped an average of 80 bombs every day of his presidency on the middle east and north africa.
For trans people in the U.S., the difference between a GOP win and a Dem win in the house, senate, and presidential elections is the difference between having or not having certain rights.
Federal prisons now will force trans women to be transferred to male prisons and they will be denied gender-affirming care like access to estrogen.
If you are a trans person in the U.S. there is a clear difference between the Dems and the GOP - one is clearly better than the other.
Nothing in response has responded to this, shown it to be false, etc.
It does not require that we overlook that the Dems have far-right policies, especially on immigration and international affairs. It does not require we defend U.S. imperialism to say the Dems are better than the GOP for trans people in the U.S. Both are true.
I understand the moral disgust and the impulse to see how villainous the Dems are, I feel the same way, but if you care about the political outcomes, you can’t ignore that there remain significant and tangible differences between the parties and their policies.
Rights are proclaimed and fought for by the marginalized, not gracefully given by our rulers. If you put so much emphasis on which group of tyrants to vote for, you’ll never think “maybe I should become a Stormé DeLarverie and actually make a difference”
Ah, I think you may have missed my point - I am responding to the claim that both parties are equally bad. While I can understand if you are primed to expect my points to be accompanied by a liberal attitude that voting is the main form of political action, let me clarify for you that this is not what I’m saying.
Obviously middle-class Americans have a tendency to think voting is the most significant political action that can be taken, maybe if they are really into politics they might make different consumer choices (avoiding Chick-fil-a, refusing plastic straws, etc.), and even more extreme people might participate in a peaceful protest.
Brick throwing on the other hand is something people who have nothing left to lose do, desperate acts from those who are barely surviving poverty, who are being harassed, jailed, raped, and killed by the police, and so on. Brick throwing isn’t done to carve out civil rights, it is survival.
To that end, Democrats who might advocate for and uphold civil rights have a pacifying and stabilizing effect in so far as some of those pressures that result in marginalized groups throwing bricks are alleviated. The GOP on the other hand seems to care little about stability, they are unskillful tyrants in that sense.
Ultimately all I am saying is that elections do have consequences, which is so obvious it should not have to be said. My statements do not imply elections are the only political events that matter.
Just because US democrats stopped calling them “detention camps”, and prefer “influx” facilities, doesn’t mean they did anything to dismantle the immigrant prison system that’s currently holding 30,000+ people in camps.
Alright no hate on Bernie tho, that dude is a role model through and through.
Before 2017 sure.
What did he do in 2017?
Continued to support Democrats after they fucked him in the 2016, I’m guessing?
I don’t know, I still like him
Same. He saw *gestures broadly* coming and tried to prevent it as best as he could. What’s that Greek legend about an oracle whose catastrophic prophecies always come true, but they’re never believed and always blamed for them?
Cassandra, cursed by Apollo to have the gift of prophecy but to never be believed.
Absol? (j)
Maybe for those who wish to support bombing foreigners while funnelling the military industry into their state.
Motherfucker parades around like he’s antiwar because he voted “nay” on a single ballot initiative that was already a shoo-in and inconsequential for him to vote against. Literally a couple months later, he voted to further the funding for those military actions.
Bernie has had blood on his hands for 30-40 years now and continues to try to wash it off with more blood.
Someone who pretends to support the poor at home while simultaneously supporting bombing and invading the poor elsewhere sure is a role model, just not a good one.
Bernie has been pretty shitty on foreign policy. He supported the NATO bombing of Belgrade for 78 straight days, which is why he fell out of favor with his socialist friend, Michael Parenti. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLNQEHbusSA&t=39s
Bernie is basically a modern day version of Bernstein. Though a century apart, both peddle reformism as a political pacifier, diverting energy from the radical systemic change required to dismantle capitalism. Their approaches, while superficially progressive, function as ideological traps, diverting energy from serious movements necessary to upend capitalism.
Bernstein was a leading figure in Germany’s SPD, and he famously rejected Marxist revolutionary praxis in favor of evolutionary socialism. He argued capitalism could be gradually reformed into socialism through parliamentary means, dismissing the inevitability of class conflict. He neutralized the SPD’s revolutionary potential, channeling working-class demands into compromises like wage increases or limited welfare programs that left capitalist hierarchies intact. As Rosa Luxemburg warned in Reform or Revolution, Bernstein’s strategy reduced socialism to a “mild appendage” of liberalism, sapping the working class of its transformative agency.
Likewise, the political project that Bernie pursued mirrors Bernstein’s trajectory. While Sanders critiques inequality and corporate power, his platform centers on social democratic reforms, such as Medicare for All, tuition-free college, a $15 minimum wage, that treat symptoms instead of root causes. By framing electoral victory as the primary objective, Sanders diverted a what could have been a millions strong grassroots movement into the Democratic Party, an institution structurally committed to maintaining capitalism. His campaigns absorbed activist energy into phone banking and voter outreach, rather than building durable, extra-parliamentary power such as workplace organizations, tenant unions, and so on.
When Sanders conceded to Hillary Clinton and later Joe Biden, his base dissolved into disillusionment or shifted focus to lesser-evilism. Without autonomous structures to sustain pressure, the movement’s momentum evaporated much like the SPD’s integration into Weimar Germany’s capitalist state. However, if his agenda were enacted, it would exist within a neoliberal framework. Much like FDR’s New Deal coexisted with Jim Crow, imperial plunder, and union busting. Reforms within the system are always contingent on their utility to capital, and their purpose is demobilize the workers.
A meaningful challenge to capitalism requires a long-term strategy that combines direct action, mass education, and dual power structures. Imagine if Sanders had urged supporters to unionize workplaces, organize rent strikes, and create community mutual aid networks alongside electoral engagement. Movements like MAS in Bolivia, show how grassroots power can pressure institutions while cultivating revolutionary consciousness. Instead, Sanders’ campaign became a referendum on his candidacy, leaving his followers adrift after his defeat.
Bernstein and Sanders, despite their intentions, exemplify the dead end of reformism. Their projects mistake tactical concessions for strategic victory, ignoring capitalism’s relentless drive to commodify and co-opt. In the end, the reformist approach ends up midwifing full blown fascism. By channeling energy into parliamentary politics, the SPD deprioritized mass mobilization. Unions and workers were encouraged to seek concessions rather than challenge capitalist power structures. This eroded class consciousness and left the working class unprepared to confront the nazi threat.
When the Nazis gained momentum, the SPD clung to legalistic strategies, refusing to support strikes or armed resistance against Hitler. Their faith in bourgeois democracy blinded them to the existential threat of fascism, which exploited economic despair and nationalist resentment. In the end, SPD famously allied with the nazis against the communists.
The “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party is following in the footsteps of the SPD’s reformist trajectory. While advocating for policies like Medicare for All or climate action, it operates within capitalist constraints, undermining radical change and inadvertently fueling right-wing extremism. The Democrats absorb grassroots energy into electoral campaigns. Their reliance on corporate donors ensures watered-down policies that fuel disillusionment.
The SPD’s reformism actively enabled fascism by disorganizing the working class and legitimizing capitalist violence. Similarly, the Democratic Party’s commitment to pragmatic incrementalism sustains a system that breeds reactionary backlash. Trump is a direct product of these policies. We’re just watching history on repeat here.
Well said
thanks for the breakdown and for your continued work here.
o7
What the hell you talking about? These are all revolutionary heroes acting in self defense and promoting solidarity.
Calling Fanon a tankie is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read today. Try reading a book for once in your life. He talks about how violence psychologically harms the revolutionary more than it does the people they attack.
Malcolm X was protecting himself after being firebombed here.
Fred Hampton was a socialist and preached cross racial solidarity and black power as a way of elevating black people into solidarity.
The Zapatistas are indigenous heroes who are resisting oppression of the state, who prefer civil disobedience but will act to protect themselves.
Sacco and Vanzetti were organizing a general strike and were framed then murdered by the state
Leila Khalid was separated from her family at 15 during the Palestinian expulsion and resisting Israeli occupation
Where the hell are the tankies in this pic? What are you people even talking about
Drag didn’t accuse anyone in the picture of being a tankie. Drag thought the image was relevant to the discussion. As you can see in this thread, users of this community are defending the use of tanks to suppress the 1956 Hungarian revolution. Drag thought that tankies might like to comment on your meme, and called them tankies. And as everyone can see, drag was right.
drag is defending a fascist counter-revolution, and refused to read sources after asking for them. drag wasn’t right about anything. You are defending people that lynched and massacred Jewish people and Communists.
Section from the book “The Truth about Hungary” by Herbert Aptheker; a prominent figure in U.S. scholarly discourse in the 1940’s, and Marxist Historian. Written in 1957 it outlined what later would be confirmed by the bourgeois Western press:
"The special correspondent of the Yugoslav paper, Politika, (Nov. 13, 1956) describing the events of those days, said that the homes of Communists were marked with a white cross and those of Jews with a black cross, to serve as signs for the extermination squads. “There is no longer any room for doubt,” said the Yugoslav reporter, “it is an example of classic Hungarian fascism and of White Terror. The information,” continued this writer, “coming from the provinces tells how in certain places Communists were having their eyes put out, their ears cut off, and that they were being killed in the most terrible ways.”
“But the forces of reaction were rapidly consolidating their power and pushing forward on the top levels, while in the streets the blood of scores of massacred Communists, Jews, and progressives was flowing.”
“Some of the reports reaching Warsaw from Budapest today caused considerable concern. These reports told of massacres of Communists and Jews by what were described as 'Fascist elements’ …” (N.Y. Times, Nov. 1. 1956)
“The evidence is conclusive that the entry of Soviet troops into Budapest stopped the execution of scores, perhaps thousands of Jews, for by the end of October and early November, anti-Semtic pogroms - hallmark of unbridled fascistic terror - were making their appearance, after an absence of some ten years, within Hungary.”
"A correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv (Tel Aviv) reported:
During the uprising a number of former Nazis were released from prison and other former Nazis came to Hungary from Salzburg . . . I met them at the border . . . I saw anti-Semitic posters in Budapest . . . On the walls, street lights, streetcars, you saw inscriptions reading: “Down with Jew Gero!” “Down with Jew Rakosi!” or just simply “down with the Jews!”
Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.” Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."
Perhaps if the revolutionaries had been allowed to seize the government and impose order, they would have put down the opportunistic fascist movement. Instead, it seems at first glance that the USSR sent their tanks in to cause chaos, created the lawlessness that allowed the fascists to fester, and then took credit for solving the problem they themselves caused.
The fascist movement was the “revolution.” If you’re saying that the Soviets caused this by beating the Nazis and the Axis powers in World War II, you’re siding with the Nazis.
Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.” Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."
Leading rabbinical circles in New York received a cable early in November from corresponding circles in Vienna that “Jewish blood is being shed by the rebels in Hungary.”
That’s hearsay.
Very much later-in February, 1957-the World Jewish Congress reported that “anti-Semitic excesses occurred in more than twenty villages and smaller provincial towns during the October-November revolt.” This occurred, according to this very conservative body, because “fascist and anti-Semitic groups had apparently seized the opportunity, presented by the absence of a central authority, to come to the surface.” Many among the Jewish refugees from Hungary, the report continued, had fled from this anti-Semitic pogrom-like atmosphere (N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1957). This confirmed the earlier report made by the British Rabbi, R. Pozner, who, after touring refugee camps, declared that “the majority of Jews who left Hungary did so for fear of the Hungarians and not the Russians.” The Paris Jewish newspaper, Naye Presse, asserted that Jewish refugees in France claimed quite generally that Soviet soldiers had saved their lives."
You already posted all of that. Since your memory is struggling, drag will help you by repeating what drag said when you said all that the first time:
Perhaps if the revolutionaries had been allowed to seize the government and impose order, they would have put down the opportunistic fascist movement. Instead, it seems at first glance that the USSR sent their tanks in to cause chaos, created the lawlessness that allowed the fascists to fester, and then took credit for solving the problem they themselves caused.
No, it seems that drag ks working overtime to sympathize with Nazi collaborators upset that they had to pay reparations for the devastation and genocide they contributed to during World War II. These were not “revolutionaries.” Hungary had a problem with Nazis since World War II and even before that, to blame the Soviets for Hungarians siding with the Nazis is so utterly confused that it can only be interpreted as deliberate bad-faith.
Genuinely, from me to drag, why does drag do this? Why does drag bat so hard for Nazi collaborators and against Socialists in the real world when it is absolutely clear when the Socialists were in the right?
Drop the idiotic act. I’m blocking you now, Maybe you can get people to defend your moronic third person shit but I can see your ridiculous trolling for what it is. How dare you make a mockery of people who genuinely need to come to terms with their identities. Fuck off.
horseshoe theory with “I’m not like other girls” characteristics
The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defence of the Soviet use of tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.
The term was literally created by Marxist-Leninists to insult the kind of person who wants to use tanks to suppress a worker’s revolution. Tankies aren’t communists. They’re counterrevolutionaries who want to stop all progress made towards dissolving the state as Marx said.
They were putting chalk marks on the doors of jews and communists. It wasn’t a worker’s revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demands_of_Hungarian_Revolutionaries_of_1956
We demand general elections by universal, secret ballot are held throughout the country to elect a new National Assembly, with all political parties participating. We demand that the right of workers to strike be recognised.
We demand complete revision of the norms operating in industry and an immediate and radical adjustment of salaries in accordance with the just requirements of workers and intellectuals. We demand a minimum living wage for workers.
So you’re saying the revolution demanding minimum wage and the right to strike wasn’t a worker’s revolution? Are all tankies this right-wing or just you?
drag does realize that the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries were working with literal Nazis, and were marking the doors of Jews and Communists, right? They were lynching people, and even freed Nazis from jail to help with the lynching. The “political parties” they wanted to be able to participate were not worker parties, but fascist ones.
This is genuinely what liberals often accuse “tankies” of doing: uncritically supporting movements based on nominally being progressive, despite in reality being highly reactionary. Further, Hungary wanted to get out of paying reparations for World War II, that was one of the biggest cruxes of the situation. Who did Hungary fight alongside in WWII, does drag remember?
Spoiler: the Nazis.
Source?
This is a decent overview of the background that led up to the events of 1956, and this is a decent overview of the darker side, where the lynchings happened. Content Warning: lynched corpses. Here is a source on MI6 training and arming the counterrevolutionaries. Those 3 articles give only the briefest overview of the events, but don’t do the real buildup to them, their complexities, what the people actually supported, or the real character in any depth. If drag wants to actually take a deep dive, these are additional sources:
The History of the Working Class Movement in Hungary
1956 Counter-Revolution in Hungary
Others can offer more sources.
Overall, when it comes to geopolitical enemies of the United States in particular, it would not be a bad idea to treat drag’s current understanding with extreme skepticism until you’ve investigated counter-sources as well. That doesn’t mean the US always lies, in fact it frequently tells mostly the truth, but will distory either the quality or quantity of an event.
What do you think “all political parties participating” means in 1956 Hungary?
One of the biggest and most dangerous mistakes made by Communists is the idea that a revolution can be made by revolutionaries alone. On the contrary, to be successful, all serious revolutionary work requires that the idea that revolutionaries are capable of playing the part only of the vanguard of the truly virile and advanced class must be understood and translated into action.
- Lenin, 1922
It probably means they read Lenin and liked his ideas a lot better than Stalin’s nonsense. Now, you were explaining how tankies oppose minimum wage and the right to strike?
To be clear, you’re calling Nazis and Nazi sympathizers “the advanced working class.” Trying to twist Lenin into supporting fascism is incorrect, to say the least.
Moreover, Stalin was dead before 1956, this was Khrushchev.
There two sides.
1% and their zombies
The rest of us.
Let’s not split up and weaken. 💪
That is indeed the two sides depicted in the meme
Is equating the defense of Ukraine with that hat the entire point of the meme?
.ml people will stand by people resisting the imperialism of one country, and then condemn people resisting the imperialism of another, and still won’t realize they are effectively nationalists.
Liberals will invent fanfiction about Marxists before genuinely trying to engage with Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism or attempt to have a genuine conversation about it.
Marxists are great people. Leninists have fantastic ideas. And Marxist-Leninists betray everything Marx and Lenin stood for.
“Socialism in one country” is the invention of a bourgeois dictator who sought to destroy communism because it was a threat to his power.
“Socialism in one country” is the invention of a bourgeois dictator who sought to destroy communism because it was a threat to his power.
Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.
A lot of the cold war propaganda about the USSR turned out to be bullshit, as contemporary Western academic historians will tell you, including Domenico Losurdo.
Karl Marx died an anarchist.
This is laughably false by simply reading what Marx actually wrote.Please judge this source by the content of the writing and the sourcing of its own arguments rather than by the hosting medium.
Even if it were true that Marx threw out his entire life’s work and became an anarchist on his deathbed, how did the Paris Commune turn out? Why has no anarchist society lasted more than a few months before collapsing from within, or from without by capitalist/imperialist forces? Anarchism has not and can not succeed in the world we presently live in, if for no other reason than they cannot defend themselves against the imperialist forces of the monopoly capitalists who want to profit from everything everywhere.
From Michael Parenti’s 1997 book Blackshirts and Reds:
But a real socialism, it is argued, would be controlled by the workers themselves through direct participation instead of being run by Leninists, Stalinists, Castroites, or other ill-willed, power-hungry, bureaucratic cabals of evil men who betray revolutions. Unfortunately, this “pure socialism” view is ahistorical and nonfalsifiable; it cannot be tested against the actualities of history. It compares an ideal against an imperfect reality, and the reality comes off a poor second. It imagines what socialism would be like in a world far better than this one, where no strong state structure or security force is required, where none of the value produced by workers needs to be expropriated to rebuild society and defend it from invasion and internal sabotage.
The pure socialists’ ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.
The pure socialists had a vision of a new society that would create and be created by new people, a society so transformed in its fundaments as to leave little opportunity for wrongful acts, corruption, and criminal abuses of state power. There would be no bureaucracy or self-interested coteries, no ruthless conflicts or hurtful decisions. When the reality proves different and more difficult, some on the Left proceed to condemn the real thing and announce that they “feel betrayed” by this or that revolution.
Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.
Davel, you do know that this is not a statement by the CIA, but a comment collected from an undisclosed USSR informant?
If we take these unevaluated comment reports as what the CIA thought, they would have changed their mind some time later.Comments on the Current Soviet Situation:
Stalin was a fanatic, an all-powerful dictator with a persecution complex and a mania for greatness. He wanted to see his goals accomplished during his life- time. If he were still alive, the Soviet Union would be either on the brink of or in the midst of a catastrophe. It is hoped that the present authorities will permit their pursuit of their aims to be tempered by reason, and a recognition of the realities of life. They are normal people, not sick, and see that resistance to change must be considered. As Bukharin and Rykov proposed, many of the changes made by the Soviets can be retained; the others can be abandoned gradually, It is important to make concessions to the peasantry, and the authorities appear to have chosen that road. Malenkov’s speech of 8 August 1953 is regarded as a change from an unreasonable to a reasonable policy, Freedom, of course, is the most important thing and the regime can scarcely grant that and retain power. The disappointment to those who regard Malenkov’s speech as the beginning of a new era will be terrifying and may have consequences.
I think that report wasn’t an honest assessment but rather the cold war talking points to be used for cold war propaganda. The CIA is as much in the job of disinformation as it is in information. Contemporary Western academic historians, having access to declassified US & USSR documents from the time, have published accounts that put these cold war cartoon villain narratives to bed.
My country has been Gladioded, no need to convince me that they’re manipulative fucks 😜
My issue isn’t about which is closer to the truth, but about using these documents as a proof, as the CIA admitting this or that. I’ve seen many otherwise well informed MLs frame it that way, and it’s a bad look since it make them appear as willingly obtuse or disingenuous. Both the quoted documents are just collected intelligence, and certainly not from an internal source from the politburo which, by the CIA’s own admission, they weren’t able to infiltrate. And you said it yourself, there’s many historians that did their job well; quoting them instead of some unverified crap would be more convincing.Edit:
By the way, while looking at my notes on the topic, I found something I saved from “Titoism and Soviet Communism”. Given the nature of this document, an analysis for “those who need to know”, it’s actually closer to a statement about what they thought of the USSR under Stalin at the time.
About “Stalinism” (their word, not mine):
This term is used to denote the teachings of Marx, Engels and Lenin as dogmatically interpreted by Stalin, and as imposed by him on the International Communist Movement.
The term denotes in particular the theory and practice connected with Stalin’s personal dictatorship – “one man rule” – over the CPSU, the Soviet State, and – under the guise of “the leading role” of the CPSU – over the International Communist Movement as a whole.Edit 2: said document https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80T00246A073800530001-4.pdf
No, lol. Marx wanted a fully publicly owned and planned economy free of class antagonisms, Anarchists want decentralized networks of communes. These are very different systems with very different analysis.
Socialism in One Country is correct, Trotsky wanted to abandon building Socialism essentially and just keep trying to do revolutions elsewhere. The correct path is to not abandon building Socialism, while still supporting Socialist movements elsewhere.
Yeah this is some not-so-subtle propaganda from our komrades.
literally just poking fun at this brand of american liberals be so serious
Da, all in good fun.
the fucking hat lmao
This is stupid, you will just get Lemmy labeled as extremist and then we will have one less antifascist platform.
Nuh uh, you’re stupid, in fact you’re the worlds dumbest man.
Why couldn’t your meme show like solar punk utopian imagery, and people living in beautiful harmony with nature.
Oh, that’s why.
The problem with Solarpunk is that it isn’t really grounded in theory, it’s a vibe and an aesthetic, a hope for a better future but without any real binding ideology. It’s easy to transform, like cottagecore being weaponized into upholding traditional gender roles.
Solar will absolutely be a huge part of the future, but getting there requires taking supremacy over Capital to go against the car and oil industries. This requires Socialism.
Oh yeah fair points. It’s an ideal not anything near an immediate option by any stretch.
Democrats are fascists
The “left” is way too broad of a grouping today. The classic political compass is 2D with left-right referring to economic and up-down (authoritarian-libertarian) to social policy. And even that is oversimplifying it, many saying it should be 3D. Grouping everyone into either A or B is I guess what humans do when their understanding of a topic is too narrow.
I find this especially funny with Trump’s tariffs. You know, the mechanism with which you control the market… closing it… like leftist economic policy does. Trump is a leftist now? Any more tariffs and he’ll be a complete communist! Dismantle more government and he’ll be an anarchist! It just completely falls apart.
This is supposed to be a tetrahedron, but I suck at drawing 3D shapes. Just imagine that anarchism is the top of the tetrahedron and that the triangle is the base.I’ll offer an explanation, I think it would be helpful.
First, mapping complex political beliefs on ill-defined and vague lines adds more confusion than it clarifies. What is authoritarianism? What is meritocracy? We have a general idea, but these aren’t useful for measuring ideologies.
Second, making it 3D makes little sense. Why is Liberalism in the “meritocracy” column, when one of the most widely agreed countries to focus on an idea of meritocracy, China, is a Socialist Market Economy? Why is liberalism distinct from conservativism enough to be an entirely separate leg?
All in all, it’s nice to think about how to view ideologies, but we should view them as they are, and not on some map that doesn’t exist. For example, why is a fully publicly owned, democratic society considered more “authoritarian” than society decided by the whims of few Capitalists competing like warlords?
Those are all good points. Thank you.
No problem!
EDIT 2: I have no qualm with down-voting, but I would prefer a comment explaining what parts specifically you did not like, so I know how to not make the same mistake in the future.
Political compasses are silly and pointless brainrot. Yes, this includes trying to make new and better galaxy brain political compasses. It especially includes that. “Meritocracy” lol.
While this is somewhat true, in all of the west there are only 3 groups currently : liberals, fascists and leftists.
Liberals are a diverse group, ranging from socio-democrat and liberal green parties to libertarian who leans on fascism.
Fascists are all the brands of conservatives who leverage racism, authoritarianism and nationalism.
Leftists are basically the groups opposed to both fascism and liberalism.
Those are 3 objective groups. They are the groups that determine how likely they will cooperate or oppose each other, or how elections will turn.
Some parties will be a bit in between, but that’s merely political communication. In practice a group that promote itself as a middle group is actually leaning right. This means that “leftist liberals” (who range from some green parties and movements to the socio-democrats) will always pick liberals if they must choose between them and the left. Likewise, conservatives and libertariens are leaning toward fascism when given the choice.
The political spectrum is radicalised and triparted. You can deny this model and blur the information, but it usually means that you are leaning more to the right than you are pretending.
Cool! More division! Exactly what we need!!!
You have to be together to be divided. I don’t consider the people that have caused or enabled all of the suffering in the US to be united with the working class, personally.
I think unity can only be achieved through a genuine alliance in values and methods. Liberals, fundamentally, disagree on what the prime issue is and how to fix it. Marxists and Anarchists, despite having different goals and methods, are at least aligned in opposition to Capitalism and Imperialism and can work together. Liberals support Capitalism and therefore, intentionally or not, support its Imperialism, so any feigned resistance towards the atrocities of the US Empire rings hollow coming from Liberals.
Yes divided because you are pure and most others aren’t
lemmy.world users and completely missing the point of every single argument
name a more iconic duo
Easy: .ml users and self righteous arrogance
cowbee is being neither self-righteous nor arrogant, you got in over your head with this conversation and don’t know what to do with yourself lmao
I never once tried to engage them in the way they wanted. I’ve been really close to blocking them (finally did) several times because fuck tankies. Yes there I said it, I used a label. Because that’s all I was afforded. Y’all don’t need to get so butthurt about being self righteous. The fact that you are is telling.
I got blocked for asking what you mean? I just wanted to hear what you were genuinely trying to ask about, but guess that doesn’t matter anymore because you can’t read this.
are you 12?
I don’t know what you mean by “pure,” nor what value that would have. If Leftists seek to establish some form of Socialism, and Liberals wish to perpetuate and maybe tweak the current system just a bit, then these people are never going to be able to meaningfully work together. “Purity” has nothing to do with it, and never has.
It’s whatever your definition is. Your labels matter, other views are trash
My definition of what? What are you actually talking about? Genuinely.
All one has to do is read your comments. Every word is dripping with self righteousness
My dear fellow user, there is no need to be so defensive. No one is going to kill you or shame you because you express your views. I and many others here may even be convinced by you. Your opinion does matter, and so does you, so, there is no need to disregard someone open to discussion just because you diverge in something. If you don’t want to discuss on something, there is always the option to not give these quick-witted responses, saying few words and assuming positions from “the enemy” that the person has never said. No one here is your “enemy”.
If you really think u/Cowbee is wrong, and wish for other people to understand you, articulate your answers. Say in a comprehensible way WHY he is wrong, instead of making arguments like “oh yes because my opinion is shit and you are the only pure socialist” or some ironic weak shit like that. We are (mostly) all adults, there is no need to engage in childish behavior, and you should not expect that we will understand what you mean by saying “his definition is wrong” without saying what “definition”.
If you really think that there is no convincing anyone here, because we are all hopeless mfs or smth, just stop arguing and save yourself the time and sanity.
Can you elaborate in any way? I thought I gave a fairly well-thought out response to why division exists between Leftists and Liberals in the first place, and you responded with vague character assassinations. I don’t know what to make of this, really, it just seems silly.
Exactly! Marxists, anarchists, and leninists are alllies. Statist liberals on the other hand, whether they be social democratic corporate capitalists or stalinistic state capitalists, will always try to infiltrate and divide the communist movement.
It’s just like this motte-and-bailey meme. The implied position is that the communists were wrong to tell the Americans to vote against fascism. The strong position, which is claimed to be the only position when it meets resistance, is that it’s only against capitalist liberals.
This framing isn’t particularly helpful for solidarity.
The left relies on coalitions. Criticizing the stewards of those coalitions because they fail to address the needs of the people they rely on for votes is helpful and constructive. Just reducing all left-wing voters to a pair of stereotypes and trying to push one of those stereotypes away from the other? Not helpful.
We need nuanced dialogue and mutual aid. It’s a matter of survival. This isn’t that.
They are imperial murderers and managers of corporate oligarchy. The solidarity we form is against them. They are not left-wing at all, they are hard right wing reactionaries in a nation where the overton window has been shifted and the population is so brainwashed that they can even entertain that they are left-wing. They are barely left of most right wing politicians in the world. As a prosecutor, Kamala Harris has condemned thousands of innocent people to hard labor in slave camps and is an agent of the carceral state. Anyone in the US government is the enemy of free people in the US and around the world.
Do you think it’s realistic to take back any branch of government from like, actual whole ass conservatives by dividing the only coalition we have?
deleted by creator
There’s 2 kinds of upvotes, ⬆ upvotes from comrades, and ⬇ upvotes from liberals
⬆ Jokes on you, I am liberal accelerationist
One day these liberals are going to realize the ⬇️ is more telling then a comment
then a comment
Typical leftoid
Did I hurt your feefees? 😘🩹🤕
No lol. Your spelling is wrong just like your ideals
Which ideals? It kinda sounds you just just left reddit homie.
Anti liberal? I mean, you probably dont meet many like me who arent going to just take that ignorant shit.
Oh you mean pro-Incarceration, pro-imperialism, pro-colonialism pro-genocide? Honestly I think you need to pick up a book if you think supporting any of that isn’t ignorant shit. Shit, there’s whole songs about you how you’re wrong.
I hate liberals because they think they can stay in their heated box and ignore their community while people freeze and starve to death because they can’t contribute to some oligarch’s capital and only leave to work for said oligarch so they can afford their funco pops and magic cards.
I hate liberals because they don’t intersectionalize and they’re quicker to bend a knee to their boss then to join in a strike.
But you do you, spineless lib.
What if I’m neither?
0·3 months agoIf you aren’t one of these, then what are you? I guess there still is reactionary, off to the right of the image.
If someone said they were leftist then I would very much hope they were pro EU and pro Ukraine
It’s the far right that is against those
Oh yeah that Ukraine is definitely the last bastion of communism
It’s about a super power trying to exploit a small country
Palestine isn’t leftist either but you will find people campaigning for the protection of their people
Nah dude. A good portion of leftists want Ukraine genocided.
The stated goal of the US State Department is to drag out the conflict for as long as possible. Years ago, Boris Johnson threatened to cut Ukraine out of financial markets if Zelenskyy held peace talks with Russia.
There’s a group that wants as much suffering as possible out of this war. But it’s not the people who recognize that being the proxy in a struggle between the US and Russia is only going to hurt the people of Ukraine.
There’s definitely some BS the west is imposing on Ukraine to drag this conflict out. It feels like it’s to financially ruin Russia. I just don’t understand why Russia doesn’t cut it’s losses and just take what they already have. Ukraine is never going to be a part of NATO so I don’t understand the NATO expansion argument either.
Russia could foil all those plans by simply ceasing the invasion and going home.
Why would they? That’s like saying the Capitalists in the US could willingly implement Socialism. This isn’t an actual solution, as long as it is in Russia’s interests to continue, they will. Russia gains nothing by packing up and going home, and they have the means and will to continue.
What do they gain by continuing the war?
It’s hardly in Russia’s interest for their sons to die, their equipment to explode, and their economy to crumble. It’s self destructive, which it has in common with capitalism, but worse than that it’s a genocide of the Ukrainian people.
Russia’s economy isn’t crumbling, and its industrial capacity is fairly high. What Russia wants, ultimately, is either an assurance of Ukranian neutrality with respect to NATO or full demillitarization of it. Russia went to war to combat NATO encirclement of its borders. If a peace deal isn’t met, Russia can just continue to slowly advance while the US carves out Ukraine for profit.
Right, because being willing to accept an end to the war in any other way than Zelensky’s impossibly maximalist goals means wanting Ukrainians to be genocided. Also history began on Feb. 24, 2022.
If Ukraine wants to breakup with Russia. The correct response is to not rape and murder them.
Hey, I’m actually interested in your personal opinion. Are you pro Russian and if so why? Is there a long game being played out that fits your views with Russian expansion? Or rather the west’s decline.
I don’t think Russia currently has an interest in expansion. I already linked above to the reasons for Russia’s invasion, and they weren’t revanchism or Lebensraum, as Western governments & media claim.
It’s also often said that Russia is imperialist. I think that if Russia could be imperialist it would be, but since it presently can’t, it presently isn’t. Putin tried to join NATO once, to join the imperialism club, but the US rejected Russia, because the US wanted (and still wants) Russia Balkanized and re-plundered instead. Russia has figured out that it’s better off allying with Global South countries than attempting imperialist adventures upon them. And this war has accelerated that allyship.
Are you pro Russian and if so why?
I’ve answered this before: https://lemmy.ml/comment/9498456
Thanks. The nuance is appreciated. If Russia “reclaims” Ukraine through total victory do you think they would allow the Ukraine identity to subsist? Are there more countries Russia would like to revanche? I think Moldova would be an easy grab.
I think Russia knows full well that it can’t “reclaim” western Ukraine: few people there want to be part of Russia, and the Banderite fascists especially don’t. It would be a absolute nightmare to hold. There would be endless insurgencies and bloodshed, and it would be a huge drain on state resources. Russia wants what is says it has wanted since the 1990s: a neutral buffer state.
Keep in mind that when the invasion started, Eastern Ukraine had been in a civil war with Western Ukraine for almost a decade, and some in Eastern Ukraine had for years pleaded Russia to intervene. Eastern Ukraine is a very different situation from Western Ukraine. Russia had almost no issues when it “invaded” Crimea in 2014, because most of the people were glad to no longer be ruled by the Banderite coup government. They were right, too, because they didn’t suffer nine years of fascist paramilitary terrorism like their northern neighbors in Eastern Ukraine did.
Are there more countries Russia would like to revanche? I think Moldova would be an easy grab.
As I said, revanchism isn’t what this was ever about, despite what Western states publicly claim and Western media repeat. Russia would piss off its allies and its enemies if it invaded another country, and its enemies would probably ramp up their war machines against it significantly.
Probably not left then
Just want to pretend they are because they aren’t as far right as someone they can point to
I’m trying to avoid certain words on .ml. there are different kinds of “leftists”
But in doing so you’re making your message less clear, because it’s saying that tankies are leftists. (Uh oh you made me say it!)
Citation needed
Pro EU being left leaning is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while
This is why I usually try not to label myself these days. Invariably there is nuance that I’m not aware of, or that some others interpret differently.
I’m NOT a democrat, republican, conservative, communist, socialist, liberal, maga, or anarchist.
But I lean left on social issues, often hard left, though I say that while also saying I’m firmly anti-authoritarian. And I don’t really put fiscal on a separate axis because there are fiscal impacts to any set of beliefs with regard to how various social issues should be considered. I’m also not at all conversant in the slightest bit of nuance regarding how the economy works.
I’m sure some folks would call me a leftist based on the above. Others would insist I’m a liberal. Am I a progressive? Not sure.
