Communists support the PRC as a Socialist state run by Marxist-Leninists, yes. No Communist supports the Russian Federation outright, however, only reserved, temporary, and highly critical support for Russia’s anti-US Hegemony stance, which it only adopts for its own survival and not out of any moral superiority. No Communist “shills” for the Russian Federation.
If China is a socialist state worth supporting then I’m a donkey with a laser dick :P But I’m more anarchistically inclined so different perspective.
I see your point though. What I’m saying is not that communist = tankie, on the contrary. I’m saying that tankies claim to be communists but spend all day parroting their favorite Russian or Chinese state propaganda because they believe everything else is clearly controlled by Obamna™ himself. They rarely actually talk about communism, they just roam Lemmy all day calling everybody who disagrees with them a liberal :D
Per the origins of the term, a tankie is a communist that supported the Soviets wuelling the Hungarian 1956 uprising. It was an insult concocted by British Trotskyists, who also consider themselves communists.
The modern use of the term is just a liberal sentiment leveled against anyone that doesn’t fall neatly in line with US Empire’s vilification campaigns. If you dare to say that Russia has material motivations that are a counter to those of the US rather than being a kingdom run by a madman that just loves killing, you are a tankie. If you don’t want Ukraine used as a proxy for the US to hurt Russia, regardless of how many Ukrainians die, you are a tankie. If you treat the PRC as country filled with normal people living normal lives rather than the dystopian nightmare it’s falsely depicted as, uou are a tankie. If you know anything at all about Dengism, you are a tankie.
Really, the liberal position on both countries is premised on orientalism and it is never a surprise when the criticisms inevitably turn into vague tropes. And when this laziness is called out, well, it’s time to deploy a tactical tankie reference. I definitely don’t care about being insulted, these situations are really just a way for the other person to give themselves an excuse to stop thinking or engaging.
You know that thing where when someone gets called a pedophile and they defend themselves with extremely narrow definitions of the various parts of human development but couched in enough legal terminology to put themselves as having gotten too close to the subject? You did that for tankies. It might be time to get some basic interaction with people. Go to a library, sit down to a story time, and look around at how happy other people can be just experiencing the company of others. You need to be with people.
It’s always hilarious to see how the most ignorant libs are always the most confident. You might as well believe you’re a donkey with a laser dick as it makes as much sense as everything else you believe.
hehe Yogthos I was actually thinking of you when I mentioned China stans :P no offense
I really don’t like being called a liberal though :( what makes me come across like a liberal? Is it my anarchism? My hatred of capitalism, colonialism and western hegemony?
Okay we might have a different definition of liberal. (ironically under a post where I’m arguing about the definition of tankie lol). I’m talking about people who think capitalism can work or can be made to work. People who conflate capitalism and the fake meritocracy sold by the American dream with actual freedom.
If liberal just means somebody who believes that freedom is important, then yeah I’m a liberal. But maybe you have a different definition? (genuinely asking, not trying to be standoffish)
You have a misconception about anarchism being about individualism though. Anarchists focus on community and communes. Most anarchist theory I’ve consumed laments the individualism that capitalism tries to sell because it destroys culture and community.
Liberalism is fundamentally an ideology of private property ownership and that’s why it always inevitably devolved into fascism in times of crisis.
Therefore, whenever economic liberalism finds itself under threat from “populism”, it quickly jettisons the principles of political liberalism to which it is theoretically tied.
In other words, these “principles” are not principles at all, just convenient postures designed to cloak the unpleasant reality of the economic liberals’ capitalist system.
Anarchists talk a lot about community, but reject actual practical way to organize communally and combat capitalism. And the argument for rejecting practical means is that these approaches restrict individual freedoms. Anarchists place their individual freedom above collective good, and thus align with liberal capitalists in action.
Liberalism is fundamentally an ideology of private property ownership and that’s why it always inevitably devolved into fascism in times of crisis.
What does this have to with anarchism, which rejects private property?
Anarchists place their individual freedom above collective good, and thus align with liberal capitalists in action.
Anarchists believe that it is neither a supreme ruler nor the majority that decide what collective good is. I reject your idea that the collective good is something we have to decide on collectively and then force upon those who disagree. Anarchists have been brutally repressed in Western countries, they in no way align with liberal capitalists in action.
Everything anarchists do in tangible terms helps maintain liberal capitalist rule. That’s the reality of the situation. Hence why anarchists are just LARPing without any tangible plan of action. Anarchists love moaning about being brutally repressed, but refused to take any action against the repression.
The conversation around China will take a minute, so I’ll skip ahead to your second paragraph and circle back to do your statement justice.
The people you describe as “tankies” do not exist in any reasonable number. You are extending a belief in some aspects of anti-western sources as full blind dogmatism. Secondly, in order to even consider oneself a Communist in a western-dominated website means exposure to constant western-narrative, the idea that eastern propaganda is much more effective is more of a smokescreen to avoid discussing hard topics than anything else.
As for the PRC, they absolutely aren’t Anarchist. They are, however, Marxist-Leninist, and Socialist. They have a Socialist Market Economy. Their Public Sector has supremacy over the direction of the Private Sector as key heavy industries the Private Sector relies on are entirely State Owned, and the Private Sector itself is trapped in a “birdcage model” whereby the CPC increases ownership and control as Markets naturally form monopolist syndicates.
This is entirely in line with Marxism. Marxists believe that markets naturally centralize and form monopolist syndicates ripe for central planning, and thus are more efficient vectors for growth at earlier stages in development, but that as they centralize this becomes less efficient and public ownership and central planning takes priority.
The people I’m describing as tankies are people I’ve interacted with myself. I’m sure they don’t exist in huge numbers, but they are more concentrated on .ml, they are loud, and they are impossible to converse with. I still like it here because most people here, like yourself, are smart and offering interesting perspectives I haven’t explored before.
I agree that the idea of only Eastern propaganda being dangerous and pervasive is wrong. Western propaganda is everywhere too and also dangerous.
One thing that is different is the lack of government-critical sources available from China, also Russia. Freedom of Speech in the West is wobbly, but in China and especially Russia it is even worse (from everything I’ve read).
This is a lovely segue into our China sidequest, and while I agree on the definition, I have doubts on how public the public sector really is. The way that national election results look and the way vocal dissidents or political opposition are treated does not give me the idea that the people truly have all the power here.
Capitalism concentrates power in the capitalist class. This class can then subvert democracy, resulting in oligarchy. In a similar way, central planning concentrates power in the central government, which actually makes it even easier to abuse that power. Chinese government is not transparent nor federal enough for me to call it democratic or owned by the people.
One thing that is different is the lack of government-critical sources available from China, also Russia. Freedom of Speech in the West is wobbly, but in China and especially Russia it is even worse (from everything I’ve read).
What have you read?
Your freedom of speech is tolerated in the West to the extent thst it doesn’t threaten ruling class interests. The ruling class already owns all of the papers and TV channels and think tanks, they drown you out. You can never hope to push socialism through their apparatus. That is how effective their cemsorship already is: you’re told you have freedom of speech and then deplatformed. If you get a little louder, you might get a platform on occasion, but will then will still be drowned out by “competing” views.
And if you fly too close to the sun, you will get direct government censorship. Ask Germany how “free speech” is going with regards yup Palestinian solidariry. Ask comrades in the US how free speech is going with Samidoun declared a terrorist orgsnization. Ask a former Black Panther for free their speech was while being soued on snd martyred by the feds and cops.
If you actually do anything that matters, if you truly challenge the ruling powers in the West, you will need to be realistic and expect oppression. The idea that you have free speech is just pure propaganda.
Re: China go on Weibo you will find plenty of criticism of the government. The idea that you can’t criticize the government in China is xenophoboc propaganda.
Re: Russia: okay, but what is your point? There are bad things that happen in Russia so… their role against US imperialism is bad? Because that tends to be the only thing supported by “tankies”. The Russian Federation is a capitalist project created by capitalist revanchist shock therapy on the USSR that killed 7-10 million people. The West created the RF, its “oligarchs” are hust centralized capitalists like in othet countries in Europe, except the West continued to exclude Russia from the imperisl core, attempting to force it into the periphery (extraction snd poverty). What you see today is a regional capitalist power that is respinding to that. One where the national bourgeoisie are dominant rather than the international bourgeoisie, due to circumstances imposef on them. As a consequence, they often align against Western imperislism.
This is a lovely segue into our China sidequest, and while I agree on the definition, I have doubts on how public the public sector really is. The way that national election results look and the way vocal dissidents or political opposition are treated does not give me the idea that the people truly have all the power here.
Which is to say, you don’t actually know anything about it. Public means state-owned, by the way. Do you believe they aren’t actually owned by the state?
Capitalism concentrates power in the capitalist class. This class can then subvert democracy, resulting in oligarchy.
This has the false premise that the historical course of capitalism is to enter spaces that were already “democratic” in the bourgeois democratic sense. This is not true. Instead, capitalism itself gained power through the replacement of feudalistic giverning powers (like monarchies) with structures they could control, compatible with their ideas of “progress”. In short, they created bourgeous democracy. They were already in control. The question of concentration of capital changes the words but not the fact of who is in control.
In a similar way, central planning concentrates power in the central government, which actually makes it even easier to abuse that power.
In countries run by socialists, central planning is an exercise of power that already exists. The power is maintained through the oppression of competing classes and, traditionally, party bureaucracy.
I don’t know what it could possibly mean to say it is “easier to abuse that power”, it is so vague and decontextualized thst it just sounds like something you’re makinh up on the spot. Socialists endeavour to speak in terms of concrete realities and draw conclusions from them. What is your standard of abuse? Of power? How are you comparing these things?
btw central planning is not unique to countries run by socialists. Highly concentrated capitalism also has central planning aspects, as do their governments in times of emergency. But it is, in that case, central planning for bourgeois interests.
Chinese government is not transparent
How so? Tell me how the Chinese system works for, say, someone working to get a hospital built in their town.
nor federal enough
This sounds like America-centrism. There is nothing inherently democratic about federalism and it is often antidemocratic. If you are in the US, do you applaud the electoral college?
for me to call it democratic or owned by the people.
Tell me which other peripheral countries hsve done so much for their people. Tell me who has alleviated so much poverty, built so much infrastructure, and by their own hand rather than imperialism and capitalist ventures. The proof is in the doing.
I appreciate you calling me smart and trying to have a conversation, however I want to stress something you said:
I’m saying that tankies claim to be communists but spend all day parroting their favorite Russian or Chinese state propaganda because they believe everything else is clearly controlled by Obamna™ himself. They rarely actually talk about communism, they just roam Lemmy all day calling everybody who disagrees with them a liberal :D
What you are seeing is one aspect of people, and moreover the ones with “favorite state propaganda” that distrust all western sources as liberal propaganda don’t exist. Even just seeing people debating endlessly on Lemmy.ml is just one aspect, people frequently have different accounts or discuss Communism on different threads than the ones they get into debates in.
With respect to China, I encourage you to look into processes like Whole Process People’s Democracy, State Owned Enterprises, and other aspects to see how Socialism with Chinese Characteristics works. I encourage you to read the article I linked, as well. Additionally, while I know you said you are an Anarchist, your point on centralization being a bad thing goes directly against Marxist understanding. I recommend the article Why Public Property?
Additionally, I encourage you to look beyond the western veil. There are plenty of Russia-critical sources and China-critical sources in the east.
Capitalism concentrates itself and centralizes, which prepares the productive forces for the mechanisms required to centerally plan them after folding them into the Public Sector. Central Planning is the only way to truly democratize production in the eyes of Marxists.
Communists support the PRC as a Socialist state run by Marxist-Leninists, yes. No Communist supports the Russian Federation outright, however, only reserved, temporary, and highly critical support for Russia’s anti-US Hegemony stance, which it only adopts for its own survival and not out of any moral superiority. No Communist “shills” for the Russian Federation.
If China is a socialist state worth supporting then I’m a donkey with a laser dick :P But I’m more anarchistically inclined so different perspective.
I see your point though. What I’m saying is not that communist = tankie, on the contrary. I’m saying that tankies claim to be communists but spend all day parroting their favorite Russian or Chinese state propaganda because they believe everything else is clearly controlled by Obamna™ himself. They rarely actually talk about communism, they just roam Lemmy all day calling everybody who disagrees with them a liberal :D
Per the origins of the term, a tankie is a communist that supported the Soviets wuelling the Hungarian 1956 uprising. It was an insult concocted by British Trotskyists, who also consider themselves communists.
The modern use of the term is just a liberal sentiment leveled against anyone that doesn’t fall neatly in line with US Empire’s vilification campaigns. If you dare to say that Russia has material motivations that are a counter to those of the US rather than being a kingdom run by a madman that just loves killing, you are a tankie. If you don’t want Ukraine used as a proxy for the US to hurt Russia, regardless of how many Ukrainians die, you are a tankie. If you treat the PRC as country filled with normal people living normal lives rather than the dystopian nightmare it’s falsely depicted as, uou are a tankie. If you know anything at all about Dengism, you are a tankie.
Really, the liberal position on both countries is premised on orientalism and it is never a surprise when the criticisms inevitably turn into vague tropes. And when this laziness is called out, well, it’s time to deploy a tactical tankie reference. I definitely don’t care about being insulted, these situations are really just a way for the other person to give themselves an excuse to stop thinking or engaging.
You know that thing where when someone gets called a pedophile and they defend themselves with extremely narrow definitions of the various parts of human development but couched in enough legal terminology to put themselves as having gotten too close to the subject? You did that for tankies. It might be time to get some basic interaction with people. Go to a library, sit down to a story time, and look around at how happy other people can be just experiencing the company of others. You need to be with people.
It’s always hilarious to see how the most ignorant libs are always the most confident. You might as well believe you’re a donkey with a laser dick as it makes as much sense as everything else you believe.
hehe Yogthos I was actually thinking of you when I mentioned China stans :P no offense
I really don’t like being called a liberal though :( what makes me come across like a liberal? Is it my anarchism? My hatred of capitalism, colonialism and western hegemony?
It is your repetition of radlib talking points to punch left.
Anarchists are liberals who like LARPing as leftists. You share the same ideology and focus on individualism above all else.
Okay we might have a different definition of liberal. (ironically under a post where I’m arguing about the definition of tankie lol). I’m talking about people who think capitalism can work or can be made to work. People who conflate capitalism and the fake meritocracy sold by the American dream with actual freedom.
If liberal just means somebody who believes that freedom is important, then yeah I’m a liberal. But maybe you have a different definition? (genuinely asking, not trying to be standoffish)
You have a misconception about anarchism being about individualism though. Anarchists focus on community and communes. Most anarchist theory I’ve consumed laments the individualism that capitalism tries to sell because it destroys culture and community.
Liberalism is fundamentally an ideology of private property ownership and that’s why it always inevitably devolved into fascism in times of crisis.
https://orgrad.wordpress.com/articles/liberalism-the-two-faced-tyranny-of-wealth/
Anarchists talk a lot about community, but reject actual practical way to organize communally and combat capitalism. And the argument for rejecting practical means is that these approaches restrict individual freedoms. Anarchists place their individual freedom above collective good, and thus align with liberal capitalists in action.
What does this have to with anarchism, which rejects private property?
Anarchists believe that it is neither a supreme ruler nor the majority that decide what collective good is. I reject your idea that the collective good is something we have to decide on collectively and then force upon those who disagree. Anarchists have been brutally repressed in Western countries, they in no way align with liberal capitalists in action.
Everything anarchists do in tangible terms helps maintain liberal capitalist rule. That’s the reality of the situation. Hence why anarchists are just LARPing without any tangible plan of action. Anarchists love moaning about being brutally repressed, but refused to take any action against the repression.
The conversation around China will take a minute, so I’ll skip ahead to your second paragraph and circle back to do your statement justice.
The people you describe as “tankies” do not exist in any reasonable number. You are extending a belief in some aspects of anti-western sources as full blind dogmatism. Secondly, in order to even consider oneself a Communist in a western-dominated website means exposure to constant western-narrative, the idea that eastern propaganda is much more effective is more of a smokescreen to avoid discussing hard topics than anything else.
As for the PRC, they absolutely aren’t Anarchist. They are, however, Marxist-Leninist, and Socialist. They have a Socialist Market Economy. Their Public Sector has supremacy over the direction of the Private Sector as key heavy industries the Private Sector relies on are entirely State Owned, and the Private Sector itself is trapped in a “birdcage model” whereby the CPC increases ownership and control as Markets naturally form monopolist syndicates.
This is entirely in line with Marxism. Marxists believe that markets naturally centralize and form monopolist syndicates ripe for central planning, and thus are more efficient vectors for growth at earlier stages in development, but that as they centralize this becomes less efficient and public ownership and central planning takes priority.
I recommend the article Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism.
The people I’m describing as tankies are people I’ve interacted with myself. I’m sure they don’t exist in huge numbers, but they are more concentrated on .ml, they are loud, and they are impossible to converse with. I still like it here because most people here, like yourself, are smart and offering interesting perspectives I haven’t explored before.
I agree that the idea of only Eastern propaganda being dangerous and pervasive is wrong. Western propaganda is everywhere too and also dangerous.
One thing that is different is the lack of government-critical sources available from China, also Russia. Freedom of Speech in the West is wobbly, but in China and especially Russia it is even worse (from everything I’ve read).
This is a lovely segue into our China sidequest, and while I agree on the definition, I have doubts on how public the public sector really is. The way that national election results look and the way vocal dissidents or political opposition are treated does not give me the idea that the people truly have all the power here.
Capitalism concentrates power in the capitalist class. This class can then subvert democracy, resulting in oligarchy. In a similar way, central planning concentrates power in the central government, which actually makes it even easier to abuse that power. Chinese government is not transparent nor federal enough for me to call it democratic or owned by the people.
What have you read?
Your freedom of speech is tolerated in the West to the extent thst it doesn’t threaten ruling class interests. The ruling class already owns all of the papers and TV channels and think tanks, they drown you out. You can never hope to push socialism through their apparatus. That is how effective their cemsorship already is: you’re told you have freedom of speech and then deplatformed. If you get a little louder, you might get a platform on occasion, but will then will still be drowned out by “competing” views.
And if you fly too close to the sun, you will get direct government censorship. Ask Germany how “free speech” is going with regards yup Palestinian solidariry. Ask comrades in the US how free speech is going with Samidoun declared a terrorist orgsnization. Ask a former Black Panther for free their speech was while being soued on snd martyred by the feds and cops.
If you actually do anything that matters, if you truly challenge the ruling powers in the West, you will need to be realistic and expect oppression. The idea that you have free speech is just pure propaganda.
Re: China go on Weibo you will find plenty of criticism of the government. The idea that you can’t criticize the government in China is xenophoboc propaganda.
Re: Russia: okay, but what is your point? There are bad things that happen in Russia so… their role against US imperialism is bad? Because that tends to be the only thing supported by “tankies”. The Russian Federation is a capitalist project created by capitalist revanchist shock therapy on the USSR that killed 7-10 million people. The West created the RF, its “oligarchs” are hust centralized capitalists like in othet countries in Europe, except the West continued to exclude Russia from the imperisl core, attempting to force it into the periphery (extraction snd poverty). What you see today is a regional capitalist power that is respinding to that. One where the national bourgeoisie are dominant rather than the international bourgeoisie, due to circumstances imposef on them. As a consequence, they often align against Western imperislism.
Which is to say, you don’t actually know anything about it. Public means state-owned, by the way. Do you believe they aren’t actually owned by the state?
This has the false premise that the historical course of capitalism is to enter spaces that were already “democratic” in the bourgeois democratic sense. This is not true. Instead, capitalism itself gained power through the replacement of feudalistic giverning powers (like monarchies) with structures they could control, compatible with their ideas of “progress”. In short, they created bourgeous democracy. They were already in control. The question of concentration of capital changes the words but not the fact of who is in control.
In countries run by socialists, central planning is an exercise of power that already exists. The power is maintained through the oppression of competing classes and, traditionally, party bureaucracy.
I don’t know what it could possibly mean to say it is “easier to abuse that power”, it is so vague and decontextualized thst it just sounds like something you’re makinh up on the spot. Socialists endeavour to speak in terms of concrete realities and draw conclusions from them. What is your standard of abuse? Of power? How are you comparing these things?
btw central planning is not unique to countries run by socialists. Highly concentrated capitalism also has central planning aspects, as do their governments in times of emergency. But it is, in that case, central planning for bourgeois interests.
How so? Tell me how the Chinese system works for, say, someone working to get a hospital built in their town.
This sounds like America-centrism. There is nothing inherently democratic about federalism and it is often antidemocratic. If you are in the US, do you applaud the electoral college?
Tell me which other peripheral countries hsve done so much for their people. Tell me who has alleviated so much poverty, built so much infrastructure, and by their own hand rather than imperialism and capitalist ventures. The proof is in the doing.
I appreciate you calling me smart and trying to have a conversation, however I want to stress something you said:
What you are seeing is one aspect of people, and moreover the ones with “favorite state propaganda” that distrust all western sources as liberal propaganda don’t exist. Even just seeing people debating endlessly on Lemmy.ml is just one aspect, people frequently have different accounts or discuss Communism on different threads than the ones they get into debates in.
With respect to China, I encourage you to look into processes like Whole Process People’s Democracy, State Owned Enterprises, and other aspects to see how Socialism with Chinese Characteristics works. I encourage you to read the article I linked, as well. Additionally, while I know you said you are an Anarchist, your point on centralization being a bad thing goes directly against Marxist understanding. I recommend the article Why Public Property?
Additionally, I encourage you to look beyond the western veil. There are plenty of Russia-critical sources and China-critical sources in the east.
Capitalism concentrates itself and centralizes, which prepares the productive forces for the mechanisms required to centerally plan them after folding them into the Public Sector. Central Planning is the only way to truly democratize production in the eyes of Marxists.