Hell yeah
Based left unity moment
wholesome af
Left unity
Tankies aren’t leftists, they’re fascists and can fuck off.
dogs aren’t canines, they’re birds and can fuck off
When ever you see someone say this you can guarantee they have no problem with actual fascists
I can assure you that I have a problem with all types of fascists and authoritarians no matter the aesthetic.
Yeah, but you’ve already admitted that you can’t actually identify fascists
Marxists aren’t fascists, though. Fascism is insepparable from Capitalism and bourgeois interests. Further, considering Marxists to be “authoritarian” implies that the only non-authoritarian form of government is a fully horizontal, Anarchist structure. Grouping all governments together as “fascist” is just a smokescreen in front of the quantitative and qualitative differenced between forms of government, which are often extreme, as they have historically been between Marxists and fascists.
Marxists are absolutely leftists. Fascism is Capitalism when it needs to violently defend itself, meanwhile Marxist movements throughout history have established Socialist systems that dramatically improved the lives of the working class. I suggest you read Blackshirts and Reds, Marxist movements and fascist movements are in no way similar and Dr. Michael Parenti does a great job analyzing them historically.
tankies (ie people who endorse violence as a valid path forward from right here) == marxists?? man, i don’t know jack
“Tankie” is the modern terminally online equivalent to “commie” or “pinko.” It’s just a pejorative for those who support Marxist movements around the world.
By your definition, though, the belief that the use of force is necessary to progress, ie revolution, Marxists are indeed “tankies.” Marxism is thoroughly revolutionary, a fact made clear repeatedly by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and proven by their successors.
LEFT UNITY!
(in all caps this time)
If the communists and state Socialists are willing to work alongside anarchists like me than I would gladly accept their help in the fight for liberation. However left unity cannot come through coercion or force.
Cheers to the troops!
Communism stateless anti authoritarian? Are we not confused with Anarchism?
See my comment here.
You better not be sending me into recursion when I click this
I’m clicking all the “read my other comment” links until I’ve basically read Capital Vol. 1 in its entirety through Lemmy posts.
You’ll get vol. 2 and vol. 3 from watching all the dang lectures we link too.
Here’s the latest one I linked, Michael Hudson on Marxism, Parasites, and Debt Cancellation
Lmao, I’ve tried to minimize my copy-pasting of comments over time so there’s more links in my comments now, haha.
The distinction between Marxists and the anarchists is this: (1) The former, while aiming at the complete abolition of the state, recognize that this aim can only be achieved after classes have been abolished by the socialist revolution, as the result of the establishment of socialism, which leads to the withering away of the state. The latter want to abolish the state completely overnight, not understanding the conditions under which the state can be abolished. (2) The former recognize that after the proletariat has won political power it must completely destroy the old state machine and replace it by a new one consisting of an organization of the armed workers, after the type of the Commune. The latter, while insisting on the destruction of the state machine, have a very vague idea of what the proletariat will put in its place and how it will use its revolutionary power. The anarchists even deny that the revolutionary proletariat should use the state power, they reject its revolutionary dictatorship. (3) The former demand that the proletariat be trained for revolution by utilizing the present state. The anarchists reject this.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch06.htm
What does “Commune” entail in this context?
A Commune, in Marxist-Leninist theory, is a revolutionary political-economic structure where the proletariat collectively owns and democratically controls the means of production, abolishing capitalist hierarchies and bourgeois state machinery. It is rooted in the analysis of the Paris Commune of 1871 by Marx and Engels who saw it as a prototype of proletarian dictatorship. The key aspect of a commune is that it embodies direct workers’ democracy, dismantling the separation between state and society. Lenin further expanded this as a transitional framework where a decentralized network of soviets composed of laborers self-govern, eroding class distinctions and advancing toward a stateless, classless communism.
Are there any examples of this ‘late stage Communism’? I thought it was more about the central planning aspect. And if not are the USSR/China/Russia even Communist?
Late-Stage Communism must be global, so no, it hasn’t existed yet. The USSR and PRC are examples of Socialist countries governed by Communist parties trying to bring about Communism.
Does a global expansion require imperialism? Getting the entire world to sign up before dissolving sounds pretty mission impossible.
Spreading revolution is not imperialism. Imperialism isn’t just “when I invade another country” it has a specific economic meaning
The contradictions of capitalism are universal and inherent to the system. Much the contrary, as soon as the major seats of global financial capital are defeated I don’t see why the unwashed masses of the world would wait very long to seize power. As the system currently stands, comprador colonial governments only maintain stability because they can buy weapons and maintain large armies thanks to the imperialist powers.
If by Imperialism you mean millitant expansionism, no. If by Imperialism you mean the form of economic extraction practiced by countries like the US, also no. The basis for the abolition of borders isn’t one of legalistic matters, but economic redundancy. Borders become more and more unnecessary in more and more interconnected economies, and even become a barrier on progress, ergo they will wither over time much the same way the state would.
It’s an ideological competition between different ways of organizing society. We have a western model of capitalist organization and the socialist model advanced by China. The western model is visibly failing in every regard right now, so there is every reason to expect that more and more countries will look to Chinese model as a result.
This is all so wrong. First of all, most anarchist advocate for prefiguritive politics, or “building a new world within the shell of the old” which is why things like Food Not Bombs exists, along with many many other anarchist projects specifically aimed at building a stateless, moneyless, classes society. They don’t NOT want to simply abolish the state completely overnight.
Anarchists have come up with a WHOLE lot of ways that a society could be run, and they generally don’t think that there’s a one size fits all solution that would work for everybody.
You haven’t read a single thing about anarchism that didn’t come from a Marxist source, have you?
There still has to be a point where there is a state and then a point where there is not. Are you advocating for seizing control of that state before it seizes to exist, or does your political program want to stay outside of the state until the state stops existing?
That really depends on the anarchist and what they believe about how capitalism comes to an end. But that’s all theory anyway. Anarchists are usually considers materialists, so theory usually comes second to practice. Like, "If I can fill that pothole on my street right now, then why not just do it? For example.
Anarchists are usually considers materialists, so theory usually comes second to practice.
That’s not what materialism means
Sure, but can you offer me at least one example? I don’t mean to bore you with the Socratic method so I should just lay my cards on the table:
In my view, either you aim to exist outside of the state until the state ceases to exist, which is a morally admirable view but extremely fragile. The second the state acquires enough hegemonic force to wipe you off the face of the planet, they will and you will leave no trace, so there goes your revolutionary project (that you never stood much of a chance to defend, either).
Or you do want to use the state to wage class war. In this case, that’s really the same as what the Marxists want, fundamentally at least. You’re just stronger in your moral condemnation of the state, while Marxists focus on functionally describing how the struggle from the current capitalist status quo can evolve into a stateless society via a historical process.
Sure, but can you offer me at least one example?
Yes I can. But you may not be totally satisfied, because anarchists and Marxists view the “revolutionary project” as slightly different things. My previous hypothetical about potholes wasn’t actually hypothetical. It was based on a real thing called PARC (Portland Anarchist Road Care) which I had the pleasure of participating in back in 2017.
There’s the old standard Food Not Bombs which has fed probably millions of people since the early 80s and are often the first people on the scene in the wake of a natural disaster along with anarchist darlings Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
But if you’re looking for things that more closely emulate state level actions, you’re going to be more out of luck, as anarchists don’t advocate for a state at all, and so that would be a little antithetical. There are, however, a few examples to point to when it comes to highly intricate levels of organization and resources distribution. For example the aforementioned Zapatistas who don’t claim to be anarchists (there movement is much more multifaceted and intersectional due to the intersecting indigenous rights issues), but they DO adhere to primarily anarchist principle. There’s also Rojava or Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria which operates on a sort of localized version of Social Ecology/Libertarian Municipalism called Democratic Confederalism, that was, and it’s worth noting, developed out of an ostensibly Marxist-Leninist structure.
Of course there are historical examples in Revolutionary Catalonia and the Makhnovshchina, both of which I genuinely believe would have more successful with a little left unity.
In my view, either you aim to exist outside of the state until the state ceases to exist, which is a morally admirable view but extremely fragile. The second the state acquires enough hegemonic force to wipe you off the face of the planet, they will and you will leave no trace, so there goes your revolutionary project (that you never stood much of a chance to defend, either).
This is a valid critique. I personally tend to envision a scenario that would NECESSITATE mutual aid (think, the total dissolution of anything that resembles social welfare in a given location or a massive natural disaster or just the inevitability of destabilization due to climate change), which would have the positive side effect of concentrating more power into the hands of the proletariat. But there’s certainly other ideas about exactly HOW a revolution would take place, I just don’t personally tend to concern myself with those.
Or you do want to use the state to wage class war. In this case, that’s really the same as what the Marxists want, fundamentally at least. You’re just stronger in your moral condemnation of the state, while Marxists focus on functionally describing how the struggle from the current capitalist status quo can evolve into a stateless society via a historical process.
This really depends on what you mean. Anarchists usually see the state and capitalism and inextricably linked, and to defeat one, you must defeat both. But many anarchists also consider capitalism to be inherently unstable and prone to crashes, affording a prime opportunity to step in and show people that people are capable of taking care of people. But I wouldn’t consider the inevitability of the state using force against the proletariat as “using the state to wage class war”, as much as revolutionary potential.
*I’m really sorry this is so long, but you gave me a lot to think about and I didn’t want to just give you a bullshit non answer.
Thank you for the thoughtful answer. I’ll reflect on those points.
Just one final question that’s a bit unrelated: I’ve seen a tendency online from anarchists to be extremely critical of revolution, in general. Some say that Marxists are doing nothing because they’re all waiting for “the glorious revolution” that will fix all problems. Some say that revolution is a gradual process that happens through many reforms. Other say that revolutionary politics are reactionary because the revolution will inevitably harm a lot of marginalized people, like the disabled who won’t have their care infrastructure while there is a civil war going on. I think you can probably spot a lot of contradictions and weaknesses in those arguments, maybe to the point that it looks like I’m presenting a strawman. But I actually mean to ask with genuine interest: what do we say to those people? If there are people who lose faith in revolution because they’re more concerned with morals and “anarchist principles” or “anti-authoritarian principles” to ever actually join a revolutionary struggle, how do we win them back?
The fact that anarchists can’t agree on a unified course of action is a big part of the reason why all these different ways of running society that people have dreamed up remain firmly in the realm of fantasy.
There are at least six feuding Marxist orgs where I live, I don’t think this is a valid critique of anarchism.
Sure, in initial stages you’ll have many different orgs. This was the case during Russian revolution as well. However, eventually a single unified vanguard emerges and people get on the same page regarding how to move forward. There is no mechanism for creating a unified vanguard under anarchist approach where there is no central authority by design.
Good point.
I’m not an anarchist but in their defense, while anarchism proper has never had lasting success the Zapatistas are much less centralized than other socialist experiments and have taken a lot of inspiration from anarchist principles. Left unity should mean that we take an earnest and good faith approach to learning about what we have in common, not just seizing any opportunity to dunk on the other “team.”
Also, even MLism still recognizes that different contradictions demand different approaches. Marx doesn’t prescribe a one-size-fits-all approach either. For some revolutions the right move is a guerilla struggle. For others a general strike. For others it’s about landless peasants doing protracted struggle. So on and so on.
I generally agree that there’s no one size fits all approach. However, any effective organization needs to be grounded in material reality. Discussing concrete examples of organization like Zapatistas is useful because they are achieving something tangible, but saying that people dreamed up plenty of ways to organize society is not very useful of itself.
I just don’t want to get into all the nitty gritty if you haven’t done the reading. We could talk about mutualism, anarcho-communism, syndicalism, democratic confederalism, zapatistas, Makhnovshchina, social ecology, library socialism, etc, etc, etc if you want. We can talk about about all of those and specifically HOW they prescribe a society, how they could interact and/or intersect ALL DAY LONG. But anarchists tend to be materialists, and praxis often takes priority over just theory.
But anarchists tend to be materialists, and praxis often takes priority over just theory.
Are you implying this is somehow different from Marxists?
What a fucking straw man definition lmao
The former, while aiming at the complete abolition of the state, believe that this aim can only be achieved after classes have been abolished by the socialist revolution, as the result of the establishment of state-socialism, which supposedly leads to the withering away of the state. The latter want to abolish the state completely overnight, understanding that the conditions under which the state can be abolished must be different from the conditions which allowed the state to flourish
FTFY
Also to me the biggest reason I call myself an anarchist is that I respect the diversity of not only tactics for abolition of the state and capital, but also the diversity of ways communal living may look when influenced by difference socioecological conditions.
A socialist revolution cannot magically abolish relations that have been internalized by a society born out of capitalism. The notion that you can just flip a switch and transition from one type of society to another is precisely what underpins anarchist achievements to date.
Marxists and Anarchists have a different view on what the “state” entails, and what constitutes “class.” The former see the state as an instrument of class oppression, while the latter see it as an institution of hierarchy. The former see class as relations to production, the latter see class as relations of hierarchy.
I recommend reading my comment here where I go over why this is the case, and why Marxists see Communism as a fully publicly owned and planned economy, while Anarchists see Communism as a fully decentralized network of communes, and neither recognizes the other as truly “stateless” or “classless” due to these differences.
Plenty of communists see a form of Anarchism as the goal endpoint, but realize the need for strong state power in the hands of workers to get there.
Do you have any examples? I’m not aware of this, Marxists generally advocate for a centralized stateless society while Anarchists advocate for horizontalist structures, generally.
I’m not thoroughly read up on theory and I’m not about to heavily defend the previous argument. I’m still not certain after reading in between replying here.
I don’t see why a centralized state can’t have more flattened power hierarchies, especially as needs and material conditions are improved.
The structure of society largely depends on the mode of production. As production advances well into Communism, it would likely flatten more and more, though administration and whatnot may still continue to exist.
anti authoritarian and the chinese flag, that’s a good joke.
[looks at poster username]
oh that was not a joke. worse
missed him on the meme.
a lot of people think the new pope Leo XIV chose his name in honor of Leo XIII but he actually was giving a subtle nod to Leon Trotsky. That’s because he’s about to be extremely annoying about China for the next 15 years.
I thought it was because he’s about to move to Mexico.
nah we’re good
Why is the NK flag here?
because DPRK is an existing socialist state
I don’t think anti-authoritarian can be there at the same time as North Korea
So, what makes korea more authoritarian than, lets say, china?
