Remember kids, Tankies wants to undermine democracy - same as facists.
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Authoritarian communists.
You can only have one or the other, not both, since they are inherently incompatible. People calling themselves communists, doesn't mean that's what they are.
I think theoretically communism requires a society with no state, but I think historically a vanguard party has come in and said "yeah we will do bureaucracy for a while and then dissolve the state" aaaaaand now you have a dictator and stazi and gestapo and thought crimes and a gulag. Oops 😋
So.. You're describing how they blatantly didn't practice communism to.. defend the continued use of the word to define them?
I don't think you're making the point you think you're making.. 🙄🤦♀️
(to be clear: trying to achieve communism, and actually doing it are very different things, and if you end up with an authoritarian regime, you've not achieved communism, no matter what you call it, it really isn't complicated)
Thanks for the clarification, yeah I agree
Bit of a no true scotsman discussion.
Only if you're the kind who would argue that Hitler was a socialist, or that the CCP is communist.
Communism and socialism aren't vague nebulous concepts, they are very well defined, and those definitions are, as stated above, inherently incompatible with tankies' actions (or at least the actions they support and stand for), never mind that co-opting leftist language and ideas is a well known and documented tactic the right use to manipulate people in to supporting them, before they drop the mask to reveal their true authoritarian bigoted selves (ETA: even if a dictator started out meaning well, once they become a dictator, they've abandoned communism).
But sure, name an unrelated fallacy instead of thinking for yourself, that's sure to end well.. 🙄
Don't feel too bad, at least you got to feel like you "got me" there for a millisecond!
(pasting this edit here too, to be clear: trying to achieve communism, and actually doing it are very different things, and if you end up with an authoritarian regime, you've not achieved communism, no matter what you call it, it really isn't complicated)
How so? Communism ultimately describes a society where power is spread amongst the people, while authoritarianism describes a system where power is concentrated at the top. What could possibly be communist about an authoritarian regime?
Look at Indonesia in 1965–66 to see what happens to peaceful communists. Or Chile in 73. They’re rounded up and slaughtered by US-backed fascists. The reason ML theory prescribes a period of authoritarianism is to defend against this.
But power being spread among the people doesn't mean there's no rules or organisation, just because you work in a communist run flour mill doesn't mean you can piss in the flour.
So we get into structure issues, we can all vote on if pissing in the flour should be allowed and what the punishment should be for doing it - this is the difference between communism and anarchy, literally living without a ruler Vs living in commune under shared values.
We dont all want to spend all day voting on what we can piss on so we could theoretically vote for a representative we like to do that for us - if all the local villages did that the representatives could all get together and debate and vote somewhere but to stop everyone talking over each other you'd want a secretary so they could vote for one and if the secretaries all got together for a regional or national meeting they would want a secretary too...
It would be natural to expect these people to act in the best interest of the people without ruining and asking everyone to vote on every little thing but of course they're not going to be acting in the best interests of the flour pissers - from the flour pissers perspective if the top secretary passes a bill to say no flour pissing then they're a big bad authoritarian.
(And don't confuse dictator with authoritarian, they're not synonyms)
That's entirely secondary to whether people get called communists. If everyone calls them communists, including themselves, it's ultimately futile to try to call them anything else.
North Korea calls itself democratic, does that make it so? No.
I too believe that anarcho-monarchism is valid and not at all contradictory
This kind of parsing is dangerous and its how bad actors are able to infiltrate and get into power. Yes totalitarian communists didnt practice it in their true form and were totalitarian dictatorships, but its dangerous to pretend like they didnt sprout organically from a communist movement, and didnt identify and define communism for decades.
Stalin wasnt a nazi no matter how much he fits the bill more and it's important to recognize them in your ranks clawing for power and waiting to take advantage of good will.