I’ve been part of the online left for a while now, part of slrpnk about 2 months, and if there’s one recurring experience that’s both exhausting and revealing, it’s trying to have good-faith discussions with self-identified Marxist-Leninists, the kind often referred to as “tankies.” I use that term here not as a lazy insult nor to dehumanize, but to describe a particular kind of online personality: the ones who dogmatically defend Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and every so-called “existing socialist state” past or present, without room for nuance, critique, or even basic empathy. Not all Marxist-Leninists are like this. But these people, these tankies, show up in every thread, every debate, every conversation about liberation, and somehow it always turns into a predictable mess.
It usually goes like this: I make a statement that critiques authoritarianism or centralized power, and suddenly I’m being accused of parroting CIA talking points, being a liberal in disguise, or not being a “real leftist.” One time, I said “Totalitarianism kills” — a simple, arguably uncontroversial point. What followed was a barrage of replies claiming that the term was invented by Nazis, that Hannah Arendt (who apparently popularized it, I looked it up and it turns out she didn’t) was an anti-semite, and that even using the word is inherently reactionary. When I clarified that I was speaking broadly about state violence and authoritarian mechanisms, the same people just doubled down, twisting my words, inventing claims I never made, and eventually accusing me of being some kind of crypto-fascist. This wasn’t a one-off, it happens constantly.
If you’ve spent any time in these spaces, you know what I’m talking about. The conversations never stays on topic. It always loops back to defending state socialism, reciting quotes from Lenin, minimizing atrocities as “bourgeois propaganda” and dragging anarchism as naive or counter-revolutionary. It’s like they’re playing from a script.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand why these interactions feel so uniquely frustrating. And over time, I’ve started noticing recurring patterns in the kind of people who show up this way. Again, a disclaimer here: not everyone who defends Marx or Lenin online falls into these patterns. There are thoughtful, sincere, and principled MLs who engage in real, grounded discussions. But then there are these other types:
- The Theory Maximalist
This person treats political theory like scripture. They’ve read the texts (probably a lot of them) and they approach every conversation like a chance to prove their mastery. Everything becomes about citations, dialectics, and abstract arguments. When faced with real-world contradictions, their default move is to bury it under more theory. They mistake being well-read for being politically mature, and often completely miss the human, relational side of radical politics.
- The Identity Leftist
For this person, being a leftist isn’t about organizing or material change. It’s an identity. They call themselves a Marxist-Leninist the way someone else might call themselves a punk or a metalhead. Defending state socialism becomes a cultural performance. They’re less interested in the complexity of history than in being on the “correct side” of whatever aesthetic battle they’re fighting. Anarchists, to them, represent softness or chaos, and that’s a threat to the image they’ve built for themselves.
- The Terminally Online Subculturalist
This one lives in forums, Discords, or other niche Internet circles. Their entire political world is digital. They’ve likely never been to a union meeting, a mutual aid drive, or a community organizing session. All their knowledge of struggle is mediated through memes and screenshots. They treat ideology like a fandom and conflict like sport. They love the drama, the takedowns, the purity contests. The actual work of liberation? Irrelevant.
- The Alienated Intellectual
This person is often very smart, often very isolated, and clings to ideology as a way of making sense of the world. They’re drawn to strict political systems because it gives them order and meaning in a chaotic life. And while they might not be malicious, they often struggle to engage with disagreement without feeling personally attacked. For them, criticism of Marxism-Leninism can feel like an existential threat, because it destabilizes the fragile structure they’ve built to cope with life.
These types don’t describe everyone, and they’re not meant to be a diagnosis or a dismissal. They’re patterns I’ve noticed. Ways that a political identity can become rigid, defensive, and disconnected from real-world struggle.
And here’s the thing that’s always struck me as particularly ironic: Let’s face it, a lot of these people would absolutely hate to be part of real socialist organizing. Because the kind of organizing that builds power, the kind that helps people survive, defend themselves, and grow; it’s messy, emotionally challenging, and full of conflict. It requires flexibility, listening, and compromise. It doesn’t work if everyone’s just quoting dead guys and calling each other traitors. Anarchist or not, actual socialist practice is grounded in real life, not in endless internet warfare.
That’s why this whole cycle feels so tragic. Because behind all the posturing, the purity tests, and the ideological gatekeeping, there’s a legit reason these people ended up here. Of all the ideologies in the world, they chose communism. Why? Probably because they hurt. Because they saw the ugliness of capitalism and wanted something better. Because, at some point, they were moved by the idea that we could live without exploitation.
And somewhere along the way, that desire got calcified into a set of talking points. It got buried under defensiveness and online clout games. The pain turned inward, and now they lash out at anyone who doesn’t match their script. That’s not an excuse. But it is something to hold with empathy.
I don’t write this to mock anyone. I write it because I want us to do better, recognize our differences and hopefully come to a fair conclusion. And Idk, I still believe we can. Ape together strong 💖
Myself, I’ve seen a bit of similar stuff.
Since arriving on Lemmy, I’ve sometimes stumbled on instances where ideological purity is enforced with an iron fist, and dozens of communities have the same overlapping moderators (no point in appealing any decision).
In such places, I’ve sometimes ended up arguing - usually describing history from the viewpoint that Wikipedia takes, from the viewpoint which has the benefit of supporting evidence. In those few places, this has been deemed “reactionary” and I’ve been banned a few times.
Upon examining the moderation logs of the threads where I got banned, I’ve found other peculiarities, like people getting banned for voting the wrong way.
I’ve never been too sure about what the appropriate response is, but my response has been reminding the admin of a local Lemmy instance (I have accounts on multiple instances) that federating with strange places has adverse consequences.
If one federates with an authoritarian place where censorship occurs strongly, everyone will see the counterfactual narratives pushed there, but nobody can argue, since they’ll get banned in those communities super fast. That’s not a balanced exchange of views and I’ve come to dislike that.
Well written and sober. A stark contrast to what I typically read coming from the degenerate minds of common Tankies and Tea Party MAGA (who are both cut from the same rotted out cloth).
If what you read angered you, go touch some fucking grass, I don’t care about the opinions from dipshit Tankies or MAGA
The internet tankies are just a small, mostly self-isolating group of authoritarian west-haters who wank each other off about how much theory they’ve read. They do not reach out to engage with the rest of the internet for any other reason than because their usual circlejerk spankbank ran dry and they need to refill it with new material. That entails baiting unsuspecting people into arguing with them by spouting rehearsed and reused, easily disproven talking point so the unsuspecting person is engaged with them for a few replies until they’re deep enough into a comment thread that nobody else is going to read it. That’s when their friends show up and they begin jerking each other off over you.
If you get to this point, you lost. Further replies add to their spankbank. Not replying proves them right and adds to their spankbank.
The only winning move is not to reply.
Of all the ideologies in the world, they chose communism. Why? Probably because they hurt. Because they saw the ugliness of capitalism and wanted something better. Because, at some point, they were moved by the idea that we could live without exploitation. […] The pain turned inward, and now they lash out at anyone who doesn’t match their script. That’s not an excuse. But it is something to hold with empathy.
I wish I could easily subscribe to your call for empathy. The reason why I can’t is because I have seen so many tankies deny the pain of others. It’s not just the historical revisionism and the denial of Stalinist atrocities, but denying that people in the here and now are suffering like they do. Often this was tied to them insisting that they had every right to abuse others, because they themselves were suffering from capitalism. They completely failed to acknowledge that everyone around them was suffering under the very same conditions.
And there is the crux of the issue: One unspoken, implicit tenet of their beliefs is the denying others the same humanity they claim to uphold and represent. They demand to be accepted and their behavior to be tolerated, but will not grant the same basic rights to others.
The same notion allows them to deny the humanity of victims of Stalinist and Maoist terror.And that’s why I have a hard time to show them empathy, because I know they will not show the same empathy towards me.
I have seen so many tankies deny the pain of others
That’s as often as not tit-for-tat. In my experience, particularly when “Tankie” is flung out as a slur rather than a serious material analysis, you’ll see people respond in what is effectively an in-kind retort. “My grandparents left Cuba because they were being persecuted by the villainous Castro government! You’re a tankie if you support them!” often signals a person (or online persona) that’s aligned itself with a class of Cuban who profited from the abusive practices of slave plantations and child brothels, pre-Revolution.
Go straight back to the term’s root - the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the subsequent quashing by Khrushchev’s armored cavalry - and what you’re effectively advocating in defense of is a CIA/Nazi collaborative stay-behind network that ushered in the Years of Lead. Are we expected to show empathy for the Hungarian Rebels if they’d been bombing and butchering civilians a decade earlier without compunction?
One unspoken, implicit tenet of their beliefs is the denying others the same humanity they claim to uphold and represent.
Empathy cuts both ways. It isn’t merely a sense of naive compassion and maudlin despair at the atrocity du jour. Empathy can be a source of fiery opposition and vengeful passion, in response to historical crimes and horrors committed by the current-day self-professed victims.
that’s why I have a hard time to show them empathy
Understandable. But again, that’s exactly the position these “tankie” types are coming from. They’re reading the history from a different angle and viewing the revolutionary violence of a given period as social justice extracted by an empowered proletariat. They’re reading your defense of the historic persecutors as a defense of prior persecutions and an obstruction of justice - possibly even an apology for revanchism and a return to the old horrors.
To reference Mark Twain
“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
I am not going to respond to you in detail, because - I think - we mostly agree with each other, but allow me to explain where I am coming from with an anecdote: I was once part of a grassroots movement which aimed to unionize a particular sector of the entertainment industry. (Sorry, for being vague, even after all those years, the events are still a sore point for many involved.) There were a few hundred people taking part in all of this.
One chunk of people who joined the group were the worst kind of tankies who would hurl abuse at anyone who did not agree with them. The reasons for that behavior varied and ranged from the entirely trivial to the usual “Stalinism was great, anybody who says something different is a CIA plant.”
One regular point of contention was tankies’ demand to include praise for China in the group’s official communications, which was way off topic for what the group was about. Of course, most of the group refused and - because the tankies were a very vocal minority, they could not ultimately prevent democratic decisions of the majority. Which - of course - annoyed them even more and created even more drama. Rinse and repeat.
The group ultimately imploded during the Black Lives Matter protests. One major reason for that was because the tankies prevented a statement of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. AFAIR the justification was something like “fighting racism is a distraction from the real struggle of the working class”. Most of the PoCs left the group in exasperation because the group could not even speak out against racist police violence without the tankies completely derailing the proceedings.
The reason why I bring this up is because this was a group of workers who were actively working on organizing a worker’s movement. But it was not enough for the tankies, they had to bring in their political sectarianism and demanding adherence to it, while simultaneously claiming that the others in the group did not represent workers like they did and thus the tankies were justified to pressure and abuse the other members until they agreed with the tankies’ positions.
So yes, empathy cuts both ways. And I may have empathy for tankies on a personal level, but if people can’t leave their ill behavior at the door and show solidarity towards their fellow workers when trying to get a grassroots movement off the ground, then these people have no place in it.
So, obviously, I wasn’t at these meetings and have no experience with them. That said, I do have a DSA group in Houston and they’ve got a fairly wide range of views that regularly causes degrees of friction. I do see the periodic heated argument over Israel/Palestine or China/Taiwan or any other number of foreign policy issues. And that does periodically cause someone to storm off or some local person to get involved. But I’m not seeing “chunks” of people with these views nearly so much as I see particular individuals from particular backgrounds with an unorthodox ideology.
When I was (very tangentially) working with people on the Starbucks union drive, there were definitely a few people with these more radical views in the group. But I can’t recall any instance of it being raised as part of the union organizing drive. Everyone at the meeting seemed to be on the same page - that working in these coffee shops was unnecessarily immiserating and the goal of the meetings was to address the immediate labor concerns first and foremost.
Where I see people lashing out against one another for being “Tankies” is almost entirely online. Internet communities where an administrator imposes some kind of auto-ban rule for using keywords they don’t like. Or power users posting spam in the chats because they’ve got the tact of a ball-peen hammer.
Admittedly, I’m out in Houston, TX. Finding a dozen lefties to rub together is a challenge. People are much more reserved about their left-leaning political views for fear of reprisal or alienation. So maybe just being in a deeply conservative setting mutes the discord between left-groups off-line. But what you’re experiencing is the sort of thing I’ve only ever heard about from the extraordinarily fringe groups (Black Hammer, for instance).
Internet communities where an administrator imposes some kind of auto-ban rule for using keywords they don’t like. Or power users posting spam in the chats because they’ve got the tact of a ball-peen hammer.
Well, as I have done some modding here on Lemmy and previously Reddit, you can probably count me among one of those administrators/mods, because that’s where I encountered many of them, apart from the particular incident in my previous comment.
The communities I have managed always had tight rules in regards to what was allowed and what was not. Yet far too many tankies did not care much about those rules at all. A particular favorite of the tankies was…
R-Slur
Libtard
…and it was explicitly forbidden for anyone to use that. So guess, how much “fun” it was to argue with tankies in modmail why they were supposed to be allowed to use that term because they were “suffering under capitalism” and the users they argued with “deserved” to be called that.
It was not only the disregard for the rules that was aggravating, but their complete lack of empathy for whoever they argued with. They completely denied that other users could “suffer under capitalism” too, showing exactly the lack of empathy for others that I decried in my original comment.
You may have made different experiences, but these interactions and the previously mentioned unionization effort shaped my perception of tankies. And ultimately that’s where things come down for me: If people cannot leave their ill behavior at the door and show no respect for others who may be in a similar situation as they are (let alone work with them), they do not deserve to be part of that community.
I mean, I’m coming out of a background on Reddit community - particularly /r/neoliberal and /r/libertarian - where you regularly got all sorts of eliminationist rhetoric (“Helicopter Rides”, “Franco did nothing wrong”, lots of stanning of everyone from Chang Kai-Shek to Tony Blair). And the definition of “Tankie” was someone who though Che Guevera was a cool, smart guy and wasn’t shy about supporting nationalization of domestic oil industry.
No shortage of R-slurs in these spaces. They just didn’t carry the Lib prefix.
It was not only the disregard for the rules that was aggravating, but their complete lack of empathy for whoever they argued with.
When people see one another as adversarial, they tend to see the rules (particularly rules that are deliberately designed to censor a perspective) as obstacles to be overcome rather than amenities to be appreciated. Same shit happens in /r/conservative, with the mods periodically doing ban-waves aimed at anyone who doesn’t adhere to the orthodoxy of the moment. People roll up new accounts to circumvent the bans. Tensions rise as the mods and the base users grow increasingly adversarial. And the end result is a bunch of spin-off communities that hot-house their outrage at one another until it explodes into people screaming at one another in some third space.
You may have made different experiences, but these interactions and the previously mentioned unionization effort shaped my perception of tankies.
If the biggest hurdle you’ve ever experienced in unionizing an office is “tankies”, you’ve been truly blessed. Nothing I’ve read or heard about people trying to organize offices at Amazon or Walmart or Starbucks have suggested tankies were the problem. Virtually everything has been deliberately adversarial actions by corporate.
I really do not appreciate the insinuations, particularly not “If the biggest hurdle you’ve ever experienced in unionizing an office is “tankies””. Have I said that? You have no basis for this claim and if you really want to question my union activities in order to score a point, that says more about you than me.
I mean, we’re two dudes on the internet. You could be Jimmy Hoffa, unionizing from beyond the grave. You could be a fucking Pinkerton, for all I know.
But this is so wildly outside every personal, professional, and anecdotal experience I’ve ever had, I’m forced to assume you’re either an outlier or just a regular liar.
Go straight back to the term’s root - the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the subsequent quashing by Khrushchev’s armored cavalry - and what you’re effectively advocating in defense of is a CIA/Nazi collaborative stay-behind network that ushered in the Years of Lead. Are we expected to show empathy for the Hungarian Rebels if they’d been bombing and butchering civilians a decade earlier without compunction?
You are conflating the resistance to the Russian backed Hungarian regime with the ‘years of lead’ in Italy, which are two entirely unrelated events… also you call the uprising a CIA/Nazi collaborative.
I’ve never read anything from any scholar (holding a degree in history) that has used those terms in discussing the Hungarian uprising and frankly… It smacks a bit of:
reading the history from a different angle and viewing the revolutionary violence of a given period as social justice extracted by an empowered proletariat.
That’s your quote on what tankie terrific is like.
You are conflating the resistance to the Russian backed Hungarian regime with the ‘years of lead’ in Italy
I’m drawing parallels between the various efforts by western anti-communist forces during Operation Gladio, which showed up all across southern and western Europe from the end of WW2 to the fall of the USSR.
I’ve never read anything from any scholar (holding a degree in history) that has used those terms in discussing the Hungarian uprising and frankly
Then you’ve never read a biography of Allen Dulles.
I’m drawing parallels between the various efforts by western anti-communist forces during Operation Gladio, which showed up all across southern and western Europe from the end of WW2 to the fall of the USSR.
The ‘Years of lead’ did involve a pro-communist side, though, which is a typical thing to exclude.
Then you’ve never read a biography of Allen Dulles.
I havent. Point me to one written by a scholar of history and point me to the passages, please. Im not going to debate that McCarty era USA did anti-communist stuff, I want proof of your claim that it actively collaborated with nazis.
The ‘Years of lead’ did involve a pro-communist side, though
Famously. Quite a few celebrated union activists and popular labor leaders were its victims.
Point me to one written by a scholar of history
I mean, pretty much anyone writing a biography on Dulles is a scholar of history. But take your pick. He’s an exhaustively well-documented public figure.
Im not going to debate that McCarty era USA did anti-communist stuff, I want proof of your claim that it actively collaborated with nazis.
You want proof that Walter Kopp was a Nazi?
You want proof that Walter Kopp was a Nazi?
No I want proof that the CIA colluded with Nazis to spurn the Hungarian Revolt. If you could point me to the direct evidence of that. No circumstantial stuff. Just that the CIA and Nazis caused the Hungarian uprising, scholarly sourced. I’ll wait
I’ve never read anything from any scholar (holding a degree in history) that has used those terms in discussing the Hungarian uprising
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2025/0318/104-10110-10525.pdf
Thats no source from a scholar holding a degree in history, now is it?
It’s a primary source directly from the US government. It’s the best source possible
Governements are rarely a good source. They are not usally in the bussiness of transparency. Furthermore it needs context. Anyone can xerox a typewritten page alledging something.
It’s from the declassified jfk files from last month
Also you can’t spell
Personally I find their constant bad faith arguments tiring so I usually don’t engage. Many campists have the right critique of the existing systems but are useless at knowing what to do to change it. Their best takes are usually to emulate socialist movements of the early 20th century like a cargo cult and hope if they do the same motions, it will magically lead to the same socialism (with them on the vanguard ofc). So ultimately worthless praxis built on stale rhetoric. It’s telling that even the most “left unity” oriented campists manage to thoroughly alienating most of those they believe they should be united with.
It’s telling that even the most “left unity” oriented campists manage to thoroughly alienating most of those they believe they should be united with.
Every time they say left unity, it means “agree with us or you’re ignored.”
You don’t want to have a state when where done? What about left unity! It’ll go away in 5, 10 years tops.
You think having labor camps makes us as bad as capitalists? That’s silly, what happened to left unity?
Every time an anarchist group works with a state socialist group, they are often the last ones removed when the Statists can secure enough of a foothold without them.
Every. Time. I might be willing to work with them to get something removed but if they want to just swap the flag of the state instead of abolishing it, they just want to be the person who stomps on the faces of the workers they claim to support.
You think having labor camps makes us as bad as capitalists? That’s silly, what happened to left unity?
Exactly this. It makes me more inclined to think all of them are Russian troll accounts sent to further divide us rather than actual people. And if they’re actual people, I still very much don’t find them worthy of engaging with.
I have noticed how they often use identical tactics to the Alt-Right movement in the USA, as described masterfully in Innuendo Studios’ The Alt Right Playbook. As such, I’ve started thinking of tankies as a kind of Alt-Left, where facts matter little to none and instead feelings are supreme - though exclusively theirs, while yours count for little (although ironically not none, bc cruelty is the point).
And since algorithms that foster “engagement” tend to make this argumentation style more prevalent, it is becoming more prominent all over the world.
Sadly, it’s fairly prominent in Lemmy as well, though tbf, we who came here from Reddit joined their space, not the other way around. This is why supporting independent development of software such as PieFed and Mbin is so crucial, bc otherwise authoritarianism seeps into everything. E.g. Lemmy has a modlog but no modmail, no notification sent to inform the recipient of a moderation action, no ability to enquire or dispute it even if you somehow find out about it - bc the modlog simply says it was done by a “mod” - and therefore Lemmy is actually somehow more authoritian than Reddit itself was??? (Caveat: admins have near total freedom, at the cost of potentially great efforts required to modify the codebase, and mods have elevated privileges as well, but for the end user… it is much the same, at least with regard to a specific community - they can take what it offers, or else leave).
What makes the Threadiverse fantastic and worth visiting is its userbase. Highly ironically then, what makes the Threadiverse toxic AF is its userbase. 🙃 (So many people over on r/RedditAlternatives saying how they could not tolerate it…) Thus, blocking it is then, with people who use such bad faith arguments chief among my own prioritization for such. (Btw it’s not really possible to fully block all users from a specific instance on Lemmy - that feature would have far better been named as a “community mute” imho - unless you use the Sync or Connect app, switch to PieFed, or delve into making Ublock filters or creating your own instance to defederate them, none of them particularly easy to do, for a mainstream non-technical normie, who might otherwise be a fantastic content creator if the Threadiverse hadn’t decided to run them off with its high level of toxicity.)
On the alt-right playbook, at the end of the day its mostly an analysis of fascism as an analysis of rhetoric. I would argue that I’ve see most of these strategies used by people of every single tendency. I haven’t caught up since they returned from hiatus, but ironically the way they’re presented would be something I would point to as an example of #1, announcing rhetorical devices authoritatively like you’re reading from scripture or something.
If anything since the first run of alt-right playbook the alt right has just won and become the right.
I’ve had a tankie tell me alt right playbook is Nazi propaganda before
Wow. That’s either some serious head-up-the-ass or a depressing lack of listening comprehension.
“Everything the other side does is wrong, while my own side is incapable of doing wrong.” While somehow at the same time, “bOtH sIdEs SaMe”. It sounds tribal to me… yet what do I know 🤔.
Links or it didn’t happen.
Yeah if you can recover my comment and its replies. https://sh.itjust.works/comment/2866047 And if you go to my shit just works account forgive my immaturity and bad arguments, I’ve grown a lot since then
I’ve been having a decent time here. sure there is an asshole here and there but that’s just GIFT for ya. the threadiverse feels like reddit back when it didn’t suck
The users here are definitely a higher quality than Reddit.
Or much lower, depending on where you go. Your instance is defederated from ~95% of the worst of the bad faith tankie posts though, so your recent experience is a success story that blocking such works to help people enjoy themselves here!
In contrast, I almost left the Threadiverse myself, after being trolled in both Hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml (again, both of which slrpnk.net is defederated from) by making innocuous comments (I thought) yet receiving spam replies for WEEKS and WEEKS afterwards. Tbf that is kinda the entire purpose of [email protected] - to dunk on lib takes (or even ones not leftist enough) - but a new person (me!) wouldn’t know that by arriving at a random post by browsing All, which doesn’t show the sidebar text anywhere before you have a chance to reply in a comment. I would rather not use social media entirely than have to constantly put up with such.
So instead I switched instances, getting rid of lemmygrad.ml, then petitioned the new one to defederate from Hexbear.net, which was successful, then switched to PieFed which allows me to block all users from any instance I choose without requiring admin support, and thereby blocked lemmy.ml. I managed to get rid of the entire Big Three in my feed! And yes it does make experiencing the Threadiverse much better 😊.
I was curious so I checked the hexbear modlog, you posted a weird comment and people posted a lot of “wtf” replies, the mod message for removing your comment was
I’m honestly not sure what you’re referencing, but most of the responses here were just people making fun of you for blaming Putin for funding Israel?
Honestly, a good portion of them probably are the alt right. For some reason leftists on Lemmy have been taken in by this idea that everyone they talk to who purports to be a leftist must be taken at their word in good faith, even if everything they say literally sounds like a right-wing parody of leftism.
The fact that this vulnerability exists necessitates that we assume it’s being used.
Why did the economist walk straight past a $1000 bill sitting in the middle of the sidewalk? Because if it had been there someone would have already picked it up.
It would be absolutely absurd to assume that no conservatives are cosplaying as leftists spouting exactly the stuff they accuse leftists of spouting and doing everything they can to disrupt any form of leftist solidarity. It’s a $1000 bill sitting in the middle of the sidewalk that we can literally watch them picking up if we’re not too willfully naive to acknowledge that it’s happening.
Would you leave a secure server open with the password to the root account literally on the front page? No? Then why is anyone leaving this vulnerability wide open and pretending it isn’t?
I think you just described the genesis of Hexbear:-D.
Some people simply like to be contrarian and troll online communities, including leftist ones. Or they’re doing it out of anger or despair or low self esteem (or they’re paid to by a government lol). Good modding, that has the tools, time, and numbers to do a good job, may be an answer to that side of it.
Otherwise, I think being involved with local irl groups doing things and then posting report backs is going to be a less-theoretical form of posting. I’d hope that would lead to more productive and inspiring discussions.
Thanks for your post!
One thing we don’t understand is why the focus is always on marx/lenin and marxist-leninism. Surely not all anarchist thought and actions are based on that and indeed there has probably been more thought since them which has critiqued it or just moved on from it.
Anyway, interesting writeup and discussion. Not sure we fit into any of these neatly as we’ve had a complicated history politically, we realise there is more we could be doing though, we just aren’t sure how yet.
I’ve had similar experiences - endless tiring bad faith discussions. I sincerely believe market socialism is a realistic step we can take to improve human condition, but they seem convinced against it and hell bent on ‘revolution’. It’s clearly a cult with group think, they’ve arrived at their conclusions by reading theory, not from personal experience, self awareness, empathy & logic.
Not an anarchist, but I think this is an excellent write-up, good job.
Though, I could argue that points 2, 3 and 4 aren’t necessarily exclusive to ML’s but rather the online ideology cultures as a whole - Anarchists, Communists, Liberals, Conservatives or Nazis included. There’s always going to be terminally online people who make political ideologies as their personality and attacks upon them being taken as personal attacks, and this doesn’t apply to ideologies exclusively but rather to hobbies like video games as well. However, both from what I’ve seen and experienced, it is just a phase that does blow over - after a while the enthusiasm subsides, other interests start taking priority, and while the ideas do stay, they do become less prominent and room opens for a more nuanced discussion.
Frankly I’ve also run into #1 from different directions too, people can be dogmatic from any tendency.
I don’t write this to mock anyone. I write it because I want us to do better, recognize our differences and hopefully come to a fair conclusion. And Idk, I still believe we can. Ape together strong 💖
I’ve always defended that aswell, and I guess I’ve chosen my communities well enough to never see outright hatred towards anarchists within the ML circles I’m a part of. Not gonna argue that it’s not the case when it comes to talking about liberals, there is a lot of frustration and resentment, but I think the current state of the world and the historical treatment of commies/anarchists alike justifies that.
There’s disagreements of course (regarding the nature of authority and some historical events), and some unserious jokes, but the news sources, podcasts, online discussion that I consume often feature anarchists in a completely non-adversarial way. There’s quite a few anarchists who I defer to first when it comes to current and historical analysis. I’ve recently discovered Greg Stoker on an ML podcast for example. He is a US army veteran turned anarchist, has great insights into US military and foreign policies and is someone I’ve listened to a lot ever since.
I do see a lot of hate aimed at Marxism-Leninism, but I choose to ignore it. I’m responding to this post because I think it is genuine. Marxism (dialectical materialism) has been the most valuable tool for me to make sense of the world, but the main drive that makes me desperately need to understand the world and try my best to move in the right direction is anti-imperialism.
It’s not the need for an identity, dogmatism to fit in, or because I think it’s “cool” (which would be delusional, even among leftist spaces). If there’s one reason it’s all the horrors I’ve seen and read about that keep me up at night. There’s psychos in all our movements, and you won’t see me stand for people defending the invasion of Ukraine for example (I’m not sure what’s going on in those folks’ heads to be honest, but it’s definitely not theory). While I can’t take seriously a lot of the accusations commonly thrown at Marxism-Leninism, I at least understand the fear and unease behind authority as a whole.
My informed belief is that this fear is manufactured in big part as a way to prevent oppressed people from seizing power (directing very real oppression towards “human nature” or the nature of authority), and this is something that has sunk its teeth so deeply in us that I can’t seem to find a TV show or movie these days that doesn’t feature the “false prophet that ended up being worse than the oppressor” trope.
Regardless, I’ve seen countless grounded, empathetic discussions between different leftists currents that didn’t resort to name calling and willful mischaracterizations, so I second you entirely on this point comrade, I’d love to see more of that ❤️
I find your use of the phrase “Apes” derogatory, and it completely justifies my vote for Stein in 2024. Slander simians at your peril, liberal stooge.
I mean, the fact that people tear each other into pieces over a Jill Stein vote illustrates how feeble and easily fractured the modern western leftist movements have grown. You’ve got people fighting tooth and nail over a vanity vote in a fully captured and completely undemocratic process.
Nobody seems to have their eyes toward any kind of real social projects. We’re not talking about building up food banks or opening housing to the indignant. We’re not talking about engaging the lumpen proletariat in revolutionary action or disrupting the cash flows and power dynamics of the corrupt elite. We’re not talking about any kind of material accomplishments. Much less doing any of them.
It’s just arguing over your favorite political sports team.
“indigent”, not “indignant”, probably.
I like your comment. I do hear a lot more complaining than organizing.
Tankies are just another extremist cult, that’s extremely online.
Authoritarian Communists have a long tradition of fracturing into political sects. The whole theory heavy stuff is alike to religious texts and their interpretation.
These are political cults. They prey on the weak and lost by giving them something to believe in and a community of sorts. They can only stay part of the community by ideological purity.
This gives these small groups outsized propaganda reach. They will attack all leftists for not being extreme enough. That has a chilling effect.
Todays society, especially on social media, is fractured into small groups that punish disagreement harshly. Gen Z is more into conformity for example.
It’s like you said, an identity or fandom picked by vibes. Actual political change is irrelevant.
Prime example: the biggest left political streamer Hassan Piker is an extremist anti west tankie.
This tankie left completely ignores everything Frankfurt School for example. It‘s just about disillusionment and being anti west.
You’re a zionist. I frankly take offense on the behalf of all leftists to have someone like you pretend to represent our world view. You’re not a leftist, you’re a genocide supporting reactionary. The irony of you talking about “preying on the weak” and punching left in your psychoanalyzing drivel is clear as day. All you can do is punch left, because everyone here is left of you.
Also funny that you would mention your own personal parasocial feud with a streamer when everyone else is trying to have an adult discussion about politics, while maintaining that a broad century old worldwide movement is a “fandom”.
on the behalf of all leftists
Fuck off.
Zionist as in, I think Israel has a right to exist, sure. Palestinians have a right to self determination as well. I don’t support genocide.
Hamas are Islamists, which is right wing extremist, if you haven’t noticed. They are against everything leftist.
Is Israel committing a genocide?
But isn’t that irrelevant to whether the country has a right to exist as a country? Does a country only have a right to exist when they do nothing wrong? Are all people in a country responsible for the actions of leadership?
Trump is crashing the entire world’s economy, because he’s a fucking short-bus slack-jawed special-ed moron. Does the harm that Trump and his oligarchs are causing mean that the US as a whole has no right to exist? Does Putin’s invasion of Ukraine mean that Ukraine has no right to exist?
And let’s flip that; Hamas attacks and kills civilians as a political stand-in for the Israeli government. That’s the very definition of terrorism. Hamas is the government in Gaza. Does that mean that Palestinians have no right to a country of their own due to the actions of their gov’t?
You are confused and mix up country and state. Germany didn’t disappear magically after WW2. Do you believe the third reich had a right to exist? International law (as lacking as you might think it is) has prescriptions against that. Israel has been in constant and repeated breach of said law, including but not limited to the Rome Statute and Genocide convention, generally seen as the worst possible offense a state could ever commit. They’ve done nothing but ignore UN Sec Council resolutions.
Using the fact that the US has committed similar atrocities, including this one which they are the main sponsor of, completely unabated is really not the argument you want to make. Also sorry but it’s hilarious to take Trump’s tariffs as an example of something so horrible it would justify the dissolution of the state, consider it’s the US we’re talking about.
Ukraine’s invasion by Russia is illegal, immoral and indefensible and yet is still not even comparable to those atrocities. Russia has faced countless sanctions for their actions, from banks cut off from SWIFT, frozen assets, banned export of petrol and gas, wide international bans on tons of goods, military equipment, and many other sanctions around shipping and transport. To my knowledge, Israel hasn’t received any single coordinated material sanction for their innumerable crimes. I’m assuming you meant “does that mean that Russia has no right to exist”, because otherwise this makes even less sense.
Hamas is but the latest governance of a people who have tried to defend themselves from said continued crimes. But this is just my meaningless opinion as some random guy on the internet, a court should be the judge of whether or not their actions should be sanctioned in the context of the atrocities they faced alongside their oppressor. You’re trying to defend the point of a genocide denier, but hopefully you’ll agree with me on that, right?
You’re trying to defend the point of a genocide denier, but hopefully you’ll agree with me on that, right [emphasis added]?
First, that’s a manipulative way of stating something; it’s intended to force agreement. Although it’s phrased as a question, it’s not. This is a common tactic used by both high pressure salespeople, and by cults. It was one of the ways I was taught to pressure people into joining the Mormon church when I was a missionary. My suggestion is that, if you want to argue in good faith, then that’s a rhetorical device that you should stop using entirely.
You are confused and mix up country and state.
You are correct. I am confusing them. However, in the context of Israel and their genocide against Palestinians, they’re very nearly interchangeable. Hamas–and Iran, I believe–want to abolish Israel. Yes, the land itself would still be there, but it would not be a Jewish state/political entity. The country that Israel is would functionally cease to exist if Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran had their way.
Do you believe the third reich had a right to exist?
If you’re limiting the question to existence, then yes, I do believe that the 3rd reich had the right to exist. However, I don’t believe that they had the right to murder 6M+ Jews, Romani, LGBTQ+ people, and political dissidents, or to start a war of aggression. The force used to stop their murders and aggression also happened to be the same amount of force that ended the 3rd reich, but it’s not necessarily that way.
They’ve done nothing but ignore UN Sec Council resolutions.
Well. Not exactly. I’m pretty sure that it’s usually general assembly resolutions. I believe that the UN Security Council needs to be unanimous to pass a resolution, and the US–as a permanent member–always objects when it comes to condemning whatever atrocity Israel is currently committing. Which is pretty goddamn awful. And Russia does the same thing when one of their allies is doing awful shit. The ability of one member of the security council to hold up resolutions effectively de-fangs the council.
But - to your point, I agree entirely that the government of Israel, with the support of the majority of the Israelis, is committing and has committed war crimes against Palestinians.
“does that mean that Russia has no right to exist”,
Yes, sorry, I flipped Russia and Ukraine there. Me no type good sometimes.
But, at that–it is true that Russia has been severely sanctioned (…although $10 says Trumps ends most/all of those sanctions; did you see that Russia was the only country that didn’t get tariffs?). But should the state of Russia be entirely wiped out? Should Russia–as a state–cease to exist? (Russia certainly wants Ukraine to cease to exist as both a country and a state; Putin wants it to be part of Russia.) And no, Israel has not faced any consequences, and that is an utterly shameful failure of leadership in the US and in the rest of the world.
…But it’s also not directly relevant to the narrow question of whether Israel should be allowed to exist.
You’re trying to defend the point of a genocide denier
How so? He lit. said that he thinks Palestinians should have the right to self-determination, and that he didn’t support Israel’s genocide. (“Palestinians have a right to self determination as well. I don’t support genocide.”)
Israel commission of genocide is independent of their right to exist; they DON’T have the right to commit genocide, and the world should be–should be–united in stopping it. Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran want to wipe Israel out, and commit acts of terrorism in pursuit of that; despite their actions–which I can understand given the actions of Israel–Palestinians and a Palestinian state also have, or should have, a right to exist.
I’m not sure where the disconnect is here.
I think that a true 2-state solution is the only realistic option, with borders returning to the, what, 1947? borders. I think that the world probably needs to have UN Peacekeepers there for the next century or so, and those troops should be allowed and required to use force to stop aggression from any side. I think that it was probably a mistake to have shoehorned Israel into the middle east in the first place; we should have given them Florida instead. (…Except that hardline Zionist Jews really, really wanted Jerusalem, because that was the territory that the believed god have given to them.)
First, that’s a manipulative way of stating something
That’s me being charitable and making the assumption that at least you recognize they should face a court of justice. Again, the argument starts at genocide denial here, I’m working with what I got.
However, in the context of Israel and their genocide against Palestinians, they’re very nearly interchangeable
This very confusion is often used to try to extrapolate something that I think is very reasonable, the dismantlement of the state of Israel, into something that is not, like the removal of all jews from the area, or the implicit support of their counter-genocide (which is an old fascist theory that’s very popular in my country, the great replacement).
I do believe that the 3rd reich had the right to exist. However, I don’t believe that they had the right to murder 6M+ Jews, Romani, LGBTQ+ people, and political dissidents, or to start a war of aggression.
I’m trying to assume your good faith, but you’re very conveniently talking about a state before it did any of those acts. Again if I’m being very charitable and assume you talk about the genesis of those states in the context of Israel being a colonial project, then no, of course Israel as a freshly conceived settler colonial state built on ethnic cleansing had no right to exist. But that only highlights the fact that Israel has never been justified, even if that’s not the point I was making.
But should the state of Russia be entirely wiped out?
Like you said, It doesn’t really matter because it’s not the subject. But yes, Russia wants to destroy the state of Ukraine. Russia however is not an apartheid ethnostate built and run on constant ethnic cleansing and genocide. You could argue that in court if you wanted, but as despicable and bloody as Russia is today, it’s not built on an inherently inhumane ideology.
How so? He lit. said that he thinks Palestinians should have the right to self-determination, and that he didn’t support Israel’s genocide.
This is why you misinterpreted my initial question, I didn’t catch it. He never said Israel is committing a genocide. You assume he did because he said he didn’t support genocide, I only asked the question because I know full well he wouldn’t answer. You seem to agree that Israel is currently committing a genocide, and I think you might not have been as exposed to liberal zionism as some of us. He will never admit to that, because he understands as well as I do that this is the greatest sin of states, and you don’t come back from it. If you think a state should survive a prolonged, livestreamed, unapologetic genocide, I urge you to reconsider your position.
I think that a true 2-state solution is the only realistic option
I disagree because it’s untenable. The Israeli state will refuse the presence of UN peacekeepers (the 3 of them that we have). If that was a possibility we could entertain it, but I don’t see another option other than UN administrative control, as has happened in the past in similar cases (Germany, Japan, Somalia, Kosovo, Timor-Leste). The two state solution was defended for decades with similar arguments as yours, but the reality is that an ethnostate is not something that we can ever let happen, and Israel continued existence is truly the perfect example of it.
There had always been very strong opposition both Jewish and not (and way before the formation of Israel) to the creation of a Jewish ethnostate, even in the context of continued Jewish persecution. For fairly nefarious reasons, this was done anyway. I think we’re far enough now into the genocide that this idea should be permanently put to rest and left as one of many dark stains in our history. There’s a very long list of emancipations throughout history, and how oppressed people dealt with their aggressors. The idea that this would be any different in Palestine, especially if it’s done properly, is nothing more than good old fashioned racism, painting Arabs as monsters.
This process certainly isn’t one I’d dare to outline exhaustively, but it would at the very least include the expulsion of settlers from the West Bank, reparations (I would personally consider it unthinkable if the US took on less responsibility than the sum they poured into arming this genocide), the rebuilding of the Gaza strip and of course an international trial of those responsible for this genocide. This might seem like a lofty ideal, but anything else is just defeatism and waiting for the last Palestinian to die or be expelled.
Both sides need to calm down.
I have never seen any discussion like you are describing. However I see a post complaining of tankies every day.
You’re on .world, you’re isolated from the worst of the Tankie Triad (Hexbear and Lemmygrad), .ml admins in an effort to avoid larger calls for defederation like with hex and grad, try to do things far more subtlety through mod action or in action (e.g. removing comments and posts critical of their favored Authoritarian regimes but allowing known propaganda outlets from those Regimes to fester and spread)
Just a few days ago, for example, a users comment was removed and then banned for calling the USSR a Dictatorship and North Korea a monarchy using one of 2 “catch-all” instance rules they use to justify the removal of any speech they don’t like (Rule 1 is “officially” no bigotry and Rule 2 is “officially” Be respectful)
and there’s much much much more on [email protected] documented
The posts “complaining” about the tankies are mostly from users like slrpunk or .ee that don’t defederate from the Triad and thus are exposed to it far more often
I told people to vote to at least halt the hate machine. They involved gazan lives and said I was to blame.
I still don’t understand how, I cannot vote, and have nothing but time in this fragmentary calmness we feel. I just wanted them to appreciate their days at least.
