I can’t really think of a reason for that as Reddit is hated somewhat equally by “both” sides of the spectrum. It’s just something I find interesting.
I can’t really think of a reason for that as Reddit is hated somewhat equally by “both” sides of the spectrum. It’s just something I find interesting.
Are you saying this as a retort to me indirectly calling tankies authoritarians? If so, that’s pretty rich.
The Soviet Union suppressed people who used Marxist analysis to argue that the higher echelons of the party aparatus had constituted itself as a separate, dominant class that held the ultimate political power, which resulted in a tendency to exert that power undisputed and continued accumulation of privileges. Once enough time had passed, some of the people leading that aparatus decided they wanted an even larger share of the cake, so they decided to drop the pretense, drop the nominal communism and embrace privatisation. When working people tried to oppose that process, the authoritarian state used its repressive forces to protect the ruling class. What is most interesting about this is that you can see similar processes in almost every single country that followed the leninist vanguardist model, ultimately losing any political equality that was initially sought in its revolution, and any self-respecting Marxist should have taken the hint that this makes Leninism and its godchildren a failed avenue for socialism.
To connect this with your not too hidden assertion that “since every state is authoritarian, me supporting authoritarian states is ok”: any state and society is going to decide the margins outside of which behavior and politics are not acceptable, but that is absolutely no excuse to give free reign to any government to become as authoritarian as they aim to no matter the cost. When we do that, we come across disgusting situations such as the difficulties for working class Chinese people being unable to self-organize and protect their rights if the local party strongman arbitrarily decides they’re too much trouble. Any kind of emancipatory project soon turns crippled under those circumstances, which you could have easily noticed if you weren’t drown in liturgy.
https://redsails.org/western-marxism-and-christianity/
ML states are the only successful socialist states in history to hold out for a significant amount of time against the United States empire. I’m not super attached to the vanguard model myself, but can you show me a single other successful model? I think this quote is quite relevant here:
Authoritarianism under the banner of socialism isn’t success. It’s just a different kind of failure.
Is it better to be too “authoritarian” and protect your revolution, or just let reactionary states destroy your newly formed socialist state, carve up the remains and enjoy the spoils while people suffer?
If you’re authoritarian, who are you protecting? It’s not for the people or the workers, so it’s not a revolttion worth protecting.
How do you personally determine whether a revolution is for the people?
Are we talking about a revolution or a government, here? If you believe the revolution is ever-ongoing, fine, substitute your own words for the taking-power part and the governing part. If the taking-power part, I’m not sure we can know. Look at the Iranian Revolution. There were leftists involved with the taking-power part, but not so much with the governing part. As far as a government for the people, there are probably many different ways it can turn out, but the essence is fulfilling people’s basic needs while also respecting their human rights. No one’s gotten it right yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t.
I used to think this way, but does this not seem the height of arrogance to you? That all the past attempts were dumb and stupid, but we are the true socialists and will get it right this time! I urge you to read this article, western socialists have a really bad problem with this kind thinking
I could show you a lot of stats from past and current socialist experiments that show how much the quality of life changed for the better for the average citizen (if you would even accept those), but I think a bigger hangup for many people is human rights.
I pose the same question I asked someone else earlier, is it better to go overboard and be too “authoritarian” in trying to protect your socialist project, or be too kind and see it torn up by the reactionary forces of the world?
No, I don’t think it’s arrogance. I’m not saying we have the answers, I’m saying we need to keep trying, because our past attempts were insufficient. It’s not arrogant to try to learn from one’s mistakes. And it’s not arrogant to assume that a movement’s chances of success can be altered by changing material conditions.
I’m well aware that in many cases, authoritarian socialism/communism has improved material conditions for many people. But I also notice that not a lot of Westerners defending these governments attempt to move there. All our current systems are fucked, and acknowledging that is awareness, not hubris.
In answer to your question of “which is better,” it probably depends heavily on the preexisting local circumstances. But I’m from the US, so I’m sick of being forced to choose between two shitty options in a false dichotomy. Neither. Neither is better, and we need to stop pretending what exists now is the end of political and economic philosophy. It’s not. We need to do better.
Even in the United States after the revolution they implemented authoritarian measures to ensure the security of their revolution. They sized the land of Loyalists and effectively drove them out if the country. They killed Loyalists, who were their fellow colonists, for their opposition to the revolution. They attempted tirelessly for peaceful transition to independence but the Monarchy refused them and ignored them until they were left with no choice but to begin violent armed revolution. All revolutions are authoritarian in their nature. The American revolutionaries were seizing their power by force and imposing their self actualized authority over the colonies in pursuit of their own economic and social freedoms.
The United States is authoritarian and many of the same ways that socialist states are authoritarian. If you don’t believe me, look at the history of the socialist movement in America. Look at what the state was and still is willing to do to its own citizens for criticizing and organizing against the capitalist and imperialist system that the state runs on.
Are you here to tell me that McCarthyism and the red scare were democratic in their execution? That they were in line with the Free Speech and Free Expression ethos the United States projects? They were not times of political democratic freedom. Even in recent times you have leaders of movements critical of the state being killed for their political positions. Students killed during the anti-war movement in the 60s and 70s. Anti-War activists driven out of their employment and careers over their opposition to the state and it’s actions in Vietnam.
So what do you call authoritarianism under capitalism then? Democracy??