this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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But the terminology 'authoritarian and oppressive' doesn't really make sense in leftist circles where all states are understood to be just that by definition. I mean, that's why people are socialists. Tankie is lib terminology referencing anything that undermines liberal democracy. It only makes sense when coming from anarchists.
You've never had the pleasure of interacting with someone that can produce endless excuses for the USSR or PRC?
Hey, I am one of them. The usa is always 100x worse, arguing does not change this reality.
Nobody was arguing that, two things can both do bad.
There is a world war going on and I have picked the side that fights against the usa.
thats fine honey
Only that it is almost never the case. And never when people start giving your talking point.
What is my talking point?
"Two things can be bad" - never the case it situations when people start saying it. It ignores scale and often takes hearsay as fact.
I specifically said "do bad"
Where does China do bad then? On the scale of the US? The supposed Uyghur "genocide" which lacks any strong evidence, even after years? Supposed debt traps, that even westen capitalist outlets like Bloomberg denied the existence of? Military wise? The PRC waged its last war almost 50 years ago (aside the ongoing civil war ofc), that's twice as long as the US had years not in a war in its entire history.
You take the position that China does no bad?
Read again: "Bad" as categorization alone is worthless. Because it is far to inprecise. If one car driver is 10 km/h over the speed limit on a country road and another drives over and kills a child, then both are "bad". But to treat both incidents as equal would be plain demented. Yet you do just that regarding China and the USA...
Scale is the difference.
Also what "bad" stuff are you even talking about? Because if you are talking about invented events, then they are also not "bad" of course, because they did not happen in the first place!
The point there is not that the USA is bad but that it is order of magnitudes worse, which means that opposing its enemies must be considered through the lens of "Does this help the US?"
To say nothing of the incredible amount of State Department propaganda that many western so-called leftists readily accept at the same time as "disavowing" the US as "also bad". If you believe the same things about the US's enemies that the US is actively campaigning to make you believe, that is a red flag.
Words that can only be spoken by someone who's never tried to get together with others to change things for the better. You don't get to take an entire society and immediately make it equitable and free it of centuries of hangups. You do the revolution with the people in your country, warts and all, and struggle to make them better at the same time. You do not have the luxury of only organizing people that already 100% agree with you, nor will you be "in charge". And, let's be honest: any of us in charge would bring our own hangups, because all of us look back on ourselves 5-10 years ago and say, "wow that person believed some problematic things".
For example, the October Revolution and Russuan Civil War were fought by, believe it or not, Russians born (mostly) in the 1800s in a semi-feudal country without universal education and a large peasantry. The communists were incredibly progressive in comparison to the rest of thr country. But because they retained some of the harmful biases of their culture at the time, you write off the whole project and carry around little lists in your head about how actually they were also just "bad".
Found the lib
Sure 🙄
Yes, but that doesn't make them more authoritarian or oppressive because no matter what every state is using what it deems the most effective path to enforcing its will and if that means violence it will always resort to violence. It makes them bad communists.
It's not a matter of oppression or no oppression but a matter of oppressing the right people. If the USSR and PRC were perfect they would be a contradiction to their own purpose, no?
Look amigo, I get there is a lot of depth to be had in a discussion like this, but I'm just explaining what people generally mean when they say tankie.
I would agree they are bad Communists, but unfortunately they are extremely visible and influence how non-Leftists see Communists, which is why many Leftists are quick and eager to disavow any connection with them.
They are bad because they oppress the privileged, I assume. The privileged do not need communism. Leave communism to the unprivileged people.
No I mean like how homosexuals were persecuted
and im a trans communist, and so are many people on this site. you think we dont know our own history?
They were persecuted, sadly. Communist countries stopped doing that shit earlier than capitalist ones.
True, an example of this was homosexuality being decriminalized in the GDR (East Germany) in 1957, it was only in 1969 that the FRG (West Germany) did it.
for real. compare cuba and china with other countries in their regions.
Yes, but I'm referring to people defending that persecution instead of just accepting that Communist countries can also be criticized
Do you have an example of this? Because I've literally never once seen this here.
It took West Germany 2 decades to catch up with East Germany re: LGBTQ rights. Tge USSR was the primary opponent of the Nazis, do you know what they did to anyone falling outside of the sexual or gender norms? Germany was a bastion for queer people before the Nazis took over - Nazis quietly supported by Western powers under the hope that they would kill the Soviets (spoiler alert: they tried to kill every Slav). During the cold war in capitalist countries, homosexuality was generally illegal, often criminal, and was used to blackmail people, and notably used against high profile civil rights activists.
Does that make the oppression that did exist in some socialist countries okay? Of course not. But they did much better than the capitalists, so it's ridiculous to choose that as your primary criticism. Socialism isn't a utopia and no socialists ever claim it is. It is a struggle, and the earlier it starts the better we can progress.
Cubs is currently running circles sround capitalist countries with its new family code. Were you aware of this?
I don't think reunified Germany has even caught up with East Germany on trans rights, though I don't follow it that closely.
Okay, so you're not the kind of person I'm talking about, I'm referring to the people that excuse those things
I've never met one and I think I've probably met way more commies than you.
That's good to hear.
It's good to endlessly excuse the USSR and PRC, as most criticisms of them are bullsit that is only believable by people with poor knowledge of history and zero capacity to critically engage with the media. Unfortunately, this is basically everyone under capitalism.
It really isn't
I suggest you read the entire argument before responding to it.
"endlessly excusing" is mutually exclusive with "critically engage"