i’m just being observant, an overwhelming amount of people calling others ‘tankies’ are perfectly fine with team blue sending in the tanks/bombs/drones.
No not really, I am way left of Biden, universal Healthcare, free community College, strong social safety net etc. are not radical left ideas, they are centrist.
I also know enough about history to understand that power systems formed around Marxism communism or anarchism are not inherently good or just when put into practice.
I despise the wholesale slaughter of civilians by the military industrial complex, I also despise the violent crushing of dissent by ‘communist’ or ‘socialist’ governments.
A good and just society will always be a mix of different ‘isms’ and marxism definitely needs to be a prominent part of the mix. I’m against total ideological purity, be it capitalist imperialism that can justify industrialized human suffering, or naive tankie bullshit that can justify being on the side of the tanks in Tiananmen square.
the “good society is a mix of isms” line is classic lib dead-enderism. it sounds reasonable but it’s a way of never committing to anything that would actually challenge capital.
i am opposed to a system that unpersons people just because they can’t pay rent, your ‘way left of biden’ horizon stops way short of that.
you seem to resort to thought-terminating cliches to shut down any serious discussion of a change to that system and without engaging with the material conditions those states that did challenge that system operated under.
A government of ideological purity is also a dead end. I agree with you that there is no excuse for tossing people out like trash because they cant keep up with the capitalist rat race. It’s absolute bullshit, and proof positive the USA needs more socialism. The more robust the social safety net, the less that can happen.
You seem to need to misinterpret, and put words in my mouth to make your point, which makes the point questionable at best. A ‘mix of isms’ doesn’t mean all isms should be treated equally, and the mix in the USA is horribly off base.
I want: stronger labor unions that encompass more industries, large increase in wages / the minimum wage. Four day workweek with no pay reduction. Massive reduction in runaway defense spending, and funds conditional on mandatory audits being passed. New improved trust busters equipped to break up modern style monopolies. Renewed focus on spending local and self/community reliance to reduce the power of mega corps, Policing reform with much more training and the requirement for police to carry liability insurance. Strong shift away from burning fossil fuels as an energy source. The list goes on and on, and I’m sure there are many points we agree on.
I do what I can as an individual, but of course I’m still working on it. What do you commit to? So far I’m not sure.
yes i get that you’re a social democrat, you already made that clear. you goals are to stay entirely within capitalism with a handful of minor reforms to attempt to manage capital rather than actually challenge it.
what’s your plan for when capital pushes back against your reforms? i don’t think your framework has an answer outside of wishful thinking.
What do you commit to? So far I’m not sure.
i vote in every fucking primary, municipal election and offyear election. i don’t participate in electoral campaigns because it’s a waste of energy. my organizing work is with antiwar groups and other anarchists making sure people in my city have food.
You’re putting words in my mouth again. I applaud you being anti war and helping feed your community. I think the role capitalism plays in society needs to be massively reduced for sure. Capital only cares at all when you hit them in the wallet, so I try to do that wherever possible.
Your animosity towards those who dont pass your purity test isn’t helpful, and won’t help build momentum for your goals, whatever they are.
For the record I am registered independent, though I do vote for democrats most of the time. I try to pull things left in the primaries as much as possible and I’m not too good to choose the least bad option in the general.
You’re a dumbass. Liberals don’t even know what a tankie is, let alone call anyone that.
“Tankie” is what rational socialists call the irrational people on the extreme fringes of the left who are incapable of arguing in good faith, like you for instance.
No, that’s not even true. You’re just calling anyone a liberal who calls you a tankie, so clearly it’s only liberals using the term from your perspective. That’s called mental gymnastics.
Also,
the reality is that ‘tankie liberal’ is one of those terms that gets stretched until it’s just a pejorative for anyone to the left center of the person using it.
No, “tankie” is just a pejorative for anyone that defends and supports existing socialist states. Being good faith doesn’t matter, what matters is what people support, whether they be Marxists, anarchists, or even SocDems.
Mind telling us what “existing socialist states” you’re referring to? Do the PRC and DPRK feature in that list? Because yes, defending and obfuscating for those authoritarian and rigidly hierarchical ethno-states truly is something that tankies often do. How astute for you to point that out!
And no, if someone is capable of rational discourse and argues in good faith, then by definition they’re not a tankie and I’ve never seen anyone call someone like that a tankie. Tankies are usually all about “less chat, more splat”
At present, the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba are all socialist. In each state, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and the working classes control the state. They each have hierarchy, sure, but hierarchy isn’t class, and calling them “ethno-states” is also bad-faith. You seem to think arguing in favor of these states makes someone inherently bad-faith, but that would mean the Cuban government and the Black Panther Party are also inherently “bad faith.” It’s a thought terminating technique to immediately assume anyone defending these is malicious or duplicitous.
As for whether or nor being a tankie is disqualified by good-faith and rational discussion, this is ironically bad-faith. You are not the arbiter of who is and is not a tankie, and I’ve seen the term hurled against many people, including but not limited to myself, based on what we support, rather than rationality of our logic or how genuine we are. This seems to be more of a way for you to front-load your own views as inherently correct and impossible to criticize, as you immediately assume anyone defending, say, the DPRK is a liar, malicious, ingenuine, etc.
At present, the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba are all socialist. In each state, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and the working classes control the state.
1.) The PRC is socialist-in-name-only. In reality they’re highly capitalistic, it just happens to be state-controlled capitalism. (Class, what do we call state-controlled capitalism?).
1.5.) Also, the PRC state is controlled by an entrenched uni-party with rigid hierarchies and complete control of the state apparati including elections, banking, commerce, industry, telecom, and media. Not controlled by the working class, despite the “communist” party label.
2.) I’ve spent time in Vietnam living with a working class Vietnamese family. They do not “control the state,” and everyone there knows that. There’s a lot of cynicism and apathy surrounding politics there, but the working class people there generally do not feel empowered. Politics and everyday life are in a completely separate bubbles, and that most of the politicians and government officials are corrupt and self-serving is generally viewed as a given.
3.) The PRC is literally a Han-dominated ethno-state which habitually commits forced assimilation and cultural erasure as a matter of policy (called “national unity”), which they’ve committed against the Cantonese-speaking populations in the south, indigenous communities such as the Hmong and other groups, and the local populations of colonized regions including Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia.
You seem to think arguing in favor of these states makes someone inherently bad-faith
4.) Obfuscating the facts is bad faith. Calling that out isn’t thought-terminating, it’s critically engaging.
[…] as you immediately assume anyone defending, say, the DPRK is a liar, malicious, ingenuine, etc.
5.) Holy shit… I can’t make my fifth point any better than you’ve already made it for me…
The PRC has a socialist market economy, a form of developing socialism where the commanding heights and critical industries are socially owned, while emerging industries are marketized. This is because the CPC understands the Marxist critique of capitalism, which isn’t that private property is morally wrong, but that the basis of social ownership is centralized, socialized production as seen in developed markets, not decentralized and scattered production, which instead suits markets.
The CPC already tried the more dogmatic method of collectivizing everything, and this went the way Marxists would predict: unstable. The developing areas were in contradiction between their unsuitable level of productive forces, and an attempt at forcing a higher level of social organization upon them. This resulted in dogmatic errors that have since been corrected.
Regarding the CPC, they are a proletarian party. The state in Marxist analysis can never be a neutral “state,” it can only be a “feudal state,” a “capitalist state,” a “socialist state.” They can only represent the ruling class of society, as determined by which class controls the economic base. The proletariat and peasantry took power in 1949, and since then have had dominating control over the base and superstructure. Hierarchy is not class, that is not Marxist. The capitalists that exist in China are under the domination of the state, they are not in power.
Vietnam is much the same way. A vibes-based anecdote does not actually argue against the fact that Vietnam’s economy is dominated by the state, which is run by the working class against capitalists. This was decided by the revolution.
Regarding the chauvanist claims you’ve made of China’s laws regarding national unity, they are always there to support national identity of ethnic minorities while promoting a greater socialist unity. You sourced none of your claims here, but if you actually listen to what ethnic minorities in China have to say, or if you understand that ethnic minorities are overrepresented in the NPC as a part of affirmative action, then this falls apart.
I have obfuscated no facts whatsoever. You operate from a position where you assume your own point of view is correct, then again immediately dismiss me as you would Cuba or the Black Panther Party for upholding the DPRK as a legitimate socialist state born out of an anti-colonial struggle. It’s enormously anti-critical and entirely bad-faith.
Your entire comment was one long-winded attempt at obfuscation, complete with PRC state-media sources to back it up.
You sourced none of your claims here
Because I don’t need to. The facts speak for themselves as easily-accessible “common knowledge” to anyone who looks at objective sources.
Plus I’ve had these arguments with .mls like you, and even when I do provide objective sources, you all reject them just because they’re not from PRC-controlled state media. I’m not wasting my time.
You operate from a position where you assume your own point of view is correct
Oh, really? Traveling to other countries and seeing how people live there, getting a sense of the cultural milieu and the routines of daily life, and listening to people when they talk about how they feel about various things, is all just an “assumption” I’m making that my “own point of view is correct”?
As opposed to what you’re doing, which is what, sitting at home somewhere immersed in rabbit holes on the fringiest corners of the internet? Or are you sitting in a comfy office building somewhere with a database full of party-approved talking points you’re getting paid to disseminate?
A vibes-based anecdote does not actually argue against the fact that Vietnam’s economy is dominated by the state, which is run by the working class against capitalists. This was decided by the revolution.
This you telling me to reject the evidence of my eyes and ears? You don’t know shit about real life there, and it shows. If observing first-hand is a “vibes-based approach,” then you’re rejecting empiricism in favor of dogmatic idealism.
Regarding the chauvinist claims you’ve made of China’s laws regarding national unity, they are always there to support national identity of ethnic minorities while promoting a greater socialist unity.
Big LOL there. 'nuff said.
Also, what’s chauvinist in this situation is the Han-dominated PRC committing ethnic cleansings and cultural erasure against every minority in their empire.
As for the rest of what you said, that’s a lot of mental gymnastics just to say “well yes, the PRC is centralized, authoritarian, and hierarchical, as well as capitalistic and market-driven, but it’s okay when they do it because they’re not the Evil West™.”…
Yeah, people need to stop conflating MLs with Marxists, because Leninism and Marxism are not the same thing at all.
Leninists appropriated the “Marxist” label to lend credibility to their own ideology. Hence it’s “Marxist-Leninism,” not “Leninist-Marxism.”
Nobody is out there calling actual Marxists “tankies.” We’re calling MLs tankies, and then they retreat behind a mote and bailey by saying “yOuR cAlLiNg AlL mArXiStS tAnKiEs?!1?1?!1?1??1?1!!”
Also, “tankie” is a term I exclusively hear used by the left to refer to their own fringe (who, by the way, refer to the rest of the left as “liberals” and “fascists” for not being as extreme as them…). It’s like the left-wing version of maga. They’re completely irrational, bad-faith, militant, and authoritarian.
I never hear centrists, liberals, or conservatives call anybody a “tankie.” To them, the entire left are all just “commies,” because that’s the pejorative they use. They don’t need the term “tankie,” because the entire point of that term is to differentiate between the irrational, extremist fringe of the left, and the rest of us leftists who are capable of both rational thought and empathy (crazy idea, I know…), and are typically somewhere in the democratic range of the socialist spectrum.
disclaimer:
(Although I’ll add that anarchists exist among us reasonable socialists too, but that’s a very broad term and some self-declared “anarchists” truly are actually authoritarian tankies, which becomes clear when you listen to the things they say and how they handle disagreement.
Conversely, some “anarchists” are also actually neofeudal capitalist/corporatist fascists cosplaying as freedom fighters when all they really want is deregulation of industry…).
Leninism is not a replacement of Marxism, Leninism refers to Lenin’s own advancements on Marxism. Lenin used Marxist analysis to bring Marxism to a new era, from the era of industrial capitalism to the imperialist stage of capitalism. The primary advancements of Leninism are the following:
The Leninist strategy and tactics of revolution
The Leninist critique of Imperialism
The Leninist understanding of the national question, and the right of self-determination.
Marxism-Leninism is called as such because the basis of Marxism-Leninism is Marxism. Marxism-Leninism carries over the 3 basic fundamentals of Marxism:
Dialectical and historical materialism as the guiding worldview
The Marxist critique of capitalism based on the Law of Value
The scientific approach to socialism, grounded in class struggle.
In the modern era, the number of Marxists that reject Lenin are incredibly fringe. Lenin’s work as a Marxist is incredibly obvious to anyone who has read both Marx and Lenin, and it’s very clear that Lenin was history’s greatest Marxist, after the deaths of Marx and Engels. MLs are the dominant form of Marxism in the modern era, and most relevant historically, so trying to claim Marxism-Leninism isn’t Marxist requires an enormous level of justification on your part.
The primary advancements of Leninism are the following:
You forget to add "Assassinating the soviet leadership because they defeated the bolsheviks in a fair election, and that was unacceptable to Lenin; and then replacing the dead soviets with bolshevik stooges while appropriating the term “Soviet.”
Oh and betraying the anarchists and other groups who supported them during the revolution.
Oh and highly centralized and controlling surveillance state apparatus, and making the so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat” a permanent fixture rather than a transitional government.
Marxism-Leninism
It’s Marxist-Leninism, not “Marxism-Leninism.” You might want to get your own label right before trying to school people on the internet about it.
In the modern era, the number of Marxists that reject Lenin are incredibly fringe.
No, you said Marxism-Leninism isn’t Marxist. Marxism-Leninism is Marxist. All of Marxism in the modern day has historically evolved from the era of Marx, be it through accepting ideas, changing them, or rejecting them. There is no such thing as a Marxist that has no opinion on Lenin one way or the other, for example. The ideology “Leninism” is used to refer specifically to Lenin’s advancements, “Marxism” to the ideology created by Marx and Engels, and “Marxism-Leninism” as the unified ideology created by Lenin and forged in practice.
You then make vague references to the Russian Civil War without actually contextualizing them. The Bolsheviks did not “lose fair elections,” and fighting amongst the Soviets did coalesce around the Bolshevik line, as the Bolsheviks were supported by both the proletariat and peasantry. The fighting between the communists and anarchists wasn’t some one-sided betrayal either, it was a civil war and some sections of the anarchists that did not join the Bolsheviks took up arms against the soviets.
Further still, the soviet state was not some “permanent fixture.” Such an idea is inherently against Marxist understanding of dialectical materialism, as nothing in the world is permanent, as well as the economic basis for the withering of the state. The USSR was a socialist state gradually building towards communism.
As for “Marxist-Leninism,” no, I mean Marxism-Leninism, as understood by Wikipedia, science direct, and Stalin when coining the term. You’re very confident about this point despite being trivially proven wrong.
As for Merleau-Ponty, yes, Western Marxism is incredibly fringe in the global and historical context.
Yeah, people need to stop conflating MLs with Marxists, because Leninism and Marxism are not the same thing at all.
Leninists appropriated the “Marxist” label to lend credibility to their own ideology. Hence it’s “Marxist-Leninism,” not “Leninist-Marxism.”
Nobody is out there calling actual Marxists “tankies.” We’re calling MLs tankies, and then they retreat behind a mote and bailey by saying “yOuR cAlLiNg AlL mArXiStS tAnKiEs?!1?1?!1?1??1?1!!”
You quite explicitly made the claim that “actual Marxism” and Marxism-Leninism are two separate things, stating essentially that Marxism-Leninism is fake Marxism.
Each of those statements I made suggests that “Marxist-Leninism” is not the same thing as “Marxism” outright. As in, they’re not synonymous terms, contrary to the popular usage of the term “Marxist,” (i.e.: noun; an adherent of Marxism).
That’s not the same thing at all as claiming it isn’t “Marxist,” (i.e.: adj; deriving inspiration, origins, or ideological alignment from Marxism.)
The closest thing I said to implying what you claim I said was contrasting MLs with “actual Marxists,” which yes, I admit was poor word choice. The meaning I was aiming for was closed to either “Marxist originalists,” as in people who study Marx’s writings and derive their theoretical outlooks from that rather than from Lenin or Trotsky; or more particularly “Marxists as a broader category,” as in not limiting it to only one sub-school of thought.
Either way, my entire original point was that referring to “Marxist-Leninists” simply as “Marxists” is a misnomer because it conflates Leninism with Marxism, implies that all forms of Marxism are actually Leninism, and erases even the possibility of exploring other forms of Marxism as either intellectual possibilities, innovative theories, or novel iterations of praxis itself. It reduces the entire field of “Marxism” to one point, namely: Leninism.
Which is damaging, precisely because there’s a very real equivalence between “Marxist-Leninism” and bolshevism. In effect, it says “if you’re not a bolshevik, then you can’t be a communist.”
It’s a form of gatekeeping when it happens on the left, and it’s a caricaturization when it happens on the right, because when they use the term “Marxist” as a pejorative for the left as a whole, what they’re saying is that we’re all bolsheviks.
I personally would like to distinguish between myself and bolshevism without rejecting Marxism outright. I do that by rejecting Maxist-Leninism, while pointing to the distinction between it and Marxism.
You can still try to monopolize the entire field of Marxism across philosophical, sociological, political, and economic spheres. You can claim being a Leninist is a requirement for being a Marxist. I would still disagree with you, and honestly that approach isn’t going to advance leftwing causes anywhere in the world.
It’s pretty simple, Marxism-Leninism is the largest and most significant subset of Marxism. Much of Marxism-Leninism is just Marxism, and as such it shares with other branches of Marxist thought. When pertinent, it is more useful to use Marxism, rather then Marxism-Leninism, such as discussing the Marxist law of value or theory of the state, neither of which Marxism-Leninism meaningfully deviates from.
^ that, friends is what we call a “bad-faith argument” based on a distorted interpretation of what was actually said, utilizing flashy one-liners to deride a commenter without actually addressing any of the content of the comment they made.
it’s called paraphrasing, you wanted to make it very clear that you’re one of the good ones for the liberals, as opposed to tankies who are the bad ones. i don’t think i misrepresented you.
the term is literally a left facing pejorative the way it’s used, especially how you were using it.
Cowbs there is fully ideological and fails to reconcile his understanding of classroom theory with real world application. Fucker genuinely believes the cow is a perfect sphere and is a bad faith propagandist. He’ll probably report my comment too because he’s a little bitch that just gish gallops bullshit and pivots every time you pin him down. You’re wasting your time. Their whole account is dedicated to getting republicans in power.
I organize in real life, my perspective is based on what I actually do as an organizer and activist as well as someone who studies Marxist-Leninist theory and history so as to apply it better. Just because I oppose the democrats doesn’t mean I support the republicans, I oppose the entire capitalist system. My goal is socialism, and like all Marxists, I believe that this can only be established through revolution, which means I do spend a fair bit of time combatting misconceptions surrounding reformism.
I haven’t reported any of your comments yet, btw. You have this absurd caricature of me that lives on in your brain, this must be the second dozen comment you’ve made about me specifically with no actual substance. Take a break, touch grass.
You’re telling on yourself. I just said tankies, if you choose to identify with that, and make it about all marxists and anarchists, that’s on you.
Removed by mod
Who’s generalizing now?
i’m just being observant, an overwhelming amount of people calling others ‘tankies’ are perfectly fine with team blue sending in the tanks/bombs/drones.
No not really, I am way left of Biden, universal Healthcare, free community College, strong social safety net etc. are not radical left ideas, they are centrist.
I also know enough about history to understand that power systems formed around Marxism communism or anarchism are not inherently good or just when put into practice.
I despise the wholesale slaughter of civilians by the military industrial complex, I also despise the violent crushing of dissent by ‘communist’ or ‘socialist’ governments.
A good and just society will always be a mix of different ‘isms’ and marxism definitely needs to be a prominent part of the mix. I’m against total ideological purity, be it capitalist imperialism that can justify industrialized human suffering, or naive tankie bullshit that can justify being on the side of the tanks in Tiananmen square.
the “good society is a mix of isms” line is classic lib dead-enderism. it sounds reasonable but it’s a way of never committing to anything that would actually challenge capital.
i am opposed to a system that unpersons people just because they can’t pay rent, your ‘way left of biden’ horizon stops way short of that.
you seem to resort to thought-terminating cliches to shut down any serious discussion of a change to that system and without engaging with the material conditions those states that did challenge that system operated under.
A government of ideological purity is also a dead end. I agree with you that there is no excuse for tossing people out like trash because they cant keep up with the capitalist rat race. It’s absolute bullshit, and proof positive the USA needs more socialism. The more robust the social safety net, the less that can happen.
You seem to need to misinterpret, and put words in my mouth to make your point, which makes the point questionable at best. A ‘mix of isms’ doesn’t mean all isms should be treated equally, and the mix in the USA is horribly off base.
I want: stronger labor unions that encompass more industries, large increase in wages / the minimum wage. Four day workweek with no pay reduction. Massive reduction in runaway defense spending, and funds conditional on mandatory audits being passed. New improved trust busters equipped to break up modern style monopolies. Renewed focus on spending local and self/community reliance to reduce the power of mega corps, Policing reform with much more training and the requirement for police to carry liability insurance. Strong shift away from burning fossil fuels as an energy source. The list goes on and on, and I’m sure there are many points we agree on.
I do what I can as an individual, but of course I’m still working on it. What do you commit to? So far I’m not sure.
yes i get that you’re a social democrat, you already made that clear. you goals are to stay entirely within capitalism with a handful of minor reforms to attempt to manage capital rather than actually challenge it.
what’s your plan for when capital pushes back against your reforms? i don’t think your framework has an answer outside of wishful thinking.
i vote in every fucking primary, municipal election and offyear election. i don’t participate in electoral campaigns because it’s a waste of energy. my organizing work is with antiwar groups and other anarchists making sure people in my city have food.
You’re putting words in my mouth again. I applaud you being anti war and helping feed your community. I think the role capitalism plays in society needs to be massively reduced for sure. Capital only cares at all when you hit them in the wallet, so I try to do that wherever possible.
Your animosity towards those who dont pass your purity test isn’t helpful, and won’t help build momentum for your goals, whatever they are.
For the record I am registered independent, though I do vote for democrats most of the time. I try to pull things left in the primaries as much as possible and I’m not too good to choose the least bad option in the general.
“unpersons”
This is Lemmy I don’t know why you’re censoring yourself.
You could have just checked a dictionary
You’re a dumbass. Liberals don’t even know what a tankie is, let alone call anyone that.
“Tankie” is what rational socialists call the irrational people on the extreme fringes of the left who are incapable of arguing in good faith, like you for instance.
lmao have you been on the internet in the last few years? it’s their latest word that they learned.
the reality is that ‘tankie’ is one of those terms that gets stretched until it’s just a pejorative for anyone to the left of the person using it.
No, that’s not even true. You’re just calling anyone a liberal who calls you a tankie, so clearly it’s only liberals using the term from your perspective. That’s called mental gymnastics.
Also,
FTFY
No, “tankie” is just a pejorative for anyone that defends and supports existing socialist states. Being good faith doesn’t matter, what matters is what people support, whether they be Marxists, anarchists, or even SocDems.
That’s rich, coming from you.
Mind telling us what “existing socialist states” you’re referring to? Do the PRC and DPRK feature in that list? Because yes, defending and obfuscating for those authoritarian and rigidly hierarchical ethno-states truly is something that tankies often do. How astute for you to point that out!
And no, if someone is capable of rational discourse and argues in good faith, then by definition they’re not a tankie and I’ve never seen anyone call someone like that a tankie. Tankies are usually all about “less chat, more splat”
At present, the PRC, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba are all socialist. In each state, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and the working classes control the state. They each have hierarchy, sure, but hierarchy isn’t class, and calling them “ethno-states” is also bad-faith. You seem to think arguing in favor of these states makes someone inherently bad-faith, but that would mean the Cuban government and the Black Panther Party are also inherently “bad faith.” It’s a thought terminating technique to immediately assume anyone defending these is malicious or duplicitous.
As for whether or nor being a tankie is disqualified by good-faith and rational discussion, this is ironically bad-faith. You are not the arbiter of who is and is not a tankie, and I’ve seen the term hurled against many people, including but not limited to myself, based on what we support, rather than rationality of our logic or how genuine we are. This seems to be more of a way for you to front-load your own views as inherently correct and impossible to criticize, as you immediately assume anyone defending, say, the DPRK is a liar, malicious, ingenuine, etc.
1.) The PRC is socialist-in-name-only. In reality they’re highly capitalistic, it just happens to be state-controlled capitalism. (Class, what do we call state-controlled capitalism?).
1.5.) Also, the PRC state is controlled by an entrenched uni-party with rigid hierarchies and complete control of the state apparati including elections, banking, commerce, industry, telecom, and media. Not controlled by the working class, despite the “communist” party label.
2.) I’ve spent time in Vietnam living with a working class Vietnamese family. They do not “control the state,” and everyone there knows that. There’s a lot of cynicism and apathy surrounding politics there, but the working class people there generally do not feel empowered. Politics and everyday life are in a completely separate bubbles, and that most of the politicians and government officials are corrupt and self-serving is generally viewed as a given.
3.) The PRC is literally a Han-dominated ethno-state which habitually commits forced assimilation and cultural erasure as a matter of policy (called “national unity”), which they’ve committed against the Cantonese-speaking populations in the south, indigenous communities such as the Hmong and other groups, and the local populations of colonized regions including Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia.
4.) Obfuscating the facts is bad faith. Calling that out isn’t thought-terminating, it’s critically engaging.
5.) Holy shit… I can’t make my fifth point any better than you’ve already made it for me…
The PRC has a socialist market economy, a form of developing socialism where the commanding heights and critical industries are socially owned, while emerging industries are marketized. This is because the CPC understands the Marxist critique of capitalism, which isn’t that private property is morally wrong, but that the basis of social ownership is centralized, socialized production as seen in developed markets, not decentralized and scattered production, which instead suits markets.
The CPC already tried the more dogmatic method of collectivizing everything, and this went the way Marxists would predict: unstable. The developing areas were in contradiction between their unsuitable level of productive forces, and an attempt at forcing a higher level of social organization upon them. This resulted in dogmatic errors that have since been corrected.
Regarding the CPC, they are a proletarian party. The state in Marxist analysis can never be a neutral “state,” it can only be a “feudal state,” a “capitalist state,” a “socialist state.” They can only represent the ruling class of society, as determined by which class controls the economic base. The proletariat and peasantry took power in 1949, and since then have had dominating control over the base and superstructure. Hierarchy is not class, that is not Marxist. The capitalists that exist in China are under the domination of the state, they are not in power.
Vietnam is much the same way. A vibes-based anecdote does not actually argue against the fact that Vietnam’s economy is dominated by the state, which is run by the working class against capitalists. This was decided by the revolution.
Regarding the chauvanist claims you’ve made of China’s laws regarding national unity, they are always there to support national identity of ethnic minorities while promoting a greater socialist unity. You sourced none of your claims here, but if you actually listen to what ethnic minorities in China have to say, or if you understand that ethnic minorities are overrepresented in the NPC as a part of affirmative action, then this falls apart.
I have obfuscated no facts whatsoever. You operate from a position where you assume your own point of view is correct, then again immediately dismiss me as you would Cuba or the Black Panther Party for upholding the DPRK as a legitimate socialist state born out of an anti-colonial struggle. It’s enormously anti-critical and entirely bad-faith.
Your entire comment was one long-winded attempt at obfuscation, complete with PRC state-media sources to back it up.
Because I don’t need to. The facts speak for themselves as easily-accessible “common knowledge” to anyone who looks at objective sources.
Plus I’ve had these arguments with .mls like you, and even when I do provide objective sources, you all reject them just because they’re not from PRC-controlled state media. I’m not wasting my time.
Oh, really? Traveling to other countries and seeing how people live there, getting a sense of the cultural milieu and the routines of daily life, and listening to people when they talk about how they feel about various things, is all just an “assumption” I’m making that my “own point of view is correct”?
As opposed to what you’re doing, which is what, sitting at home somewhere immersed in rabbit holes on the fringiest corners of the internet? Or are you sitting in a comfy office building somewhere with a database full of party-approved talking points you’re getting paid to disseminate?
This you telling me to reject the evidence of my eyes and ears? You don’t know shit about real life there, and it shows. If observing first-hand is a “vibes-based approach,” then you’re rejecting empiricism in favor of dogmatic idealism.
Big LOL there. 'nuff said.
Also, what’s chauvinist in this situation is the Han-dominated PRC committing ethnic cleansings and cultural erasure against every minority in their empire.
As for the rest of what you said, that’s a lot of mental gymnastics just to say “well yes, the PRC is centralized, authoritarian, and hierarchical, as well as capitalistic and market-driven, but it’s okay when they do it because they’re not the Evil West™.”…
Yeah, people need to stop conflating MLs with Marxists, because Leninism and Marxism are not the same thing at all.
Leninists appropriated the “Marxist” label to lend credibility to their own ideology. Hence it’s “Marxist-Leninism,” not “Leninist-Marxism.”
Nobody is out there calling actual Marxists “tankies.” We’re calling MLs tankies, and then they retreat behind a mote and bailey by saying “yOuR cAlLiNg AlL mArXiStS tAnKiEs?!1?1?!1?1??1?1!!”
Also, “tankie” is a term I exclusively hear used by the left to refer to their own fringe (who, by the way, refer to the rest of the left as “liberals” and “fascists” for not being as extreme as them…). It’s like the left-wing version of maga. They’re completely irrational, bad-faith, militant, and authoritarian.
I never hear centrists, liberals, or conservatives call anybody a “tankie.” To them, the entire left are all just “commies,” because that’s the pejorative they use. They don’t need the term “tankie,” because the entire point of that term is to differentiate between the irrational, extremist fringe of the left, and the rest of us leftists who are capable of both rational thought and empathy (crazy idea, I know…), and are typically somewhere in the democratic range of the socialist spectrum.
disclaimer:
(Although I’ll add that anarchists exist among us reasonable socialists too, but that’s a very broad term and some self-declared “anarchists” truly are actually authoritarian tankies, which becomes clear when you listen to the things they say and how they handle disagreement.
Conversely, some “anarchists” are also actually neofeudal capitalist/corporatist fascists cosplaying as freedom fighters when all they really want is deregulation of industry…).
Leninism is not a replacement of Marxism, Leninism refers to Lenin’s own advancements on Marxism. Lenin used Marxist analysis to bring Marxism to a new era, from the era of industrial capitalism to the imperialist stage of capitalism. The primary advancements of Leninism are the following:
Marxism-Leninism is called as such because the basis of Marxism-Leninism is Marxism. Marxism-Leninism carries over the 3 basic fundamentals of Marxism:
In the modern era, the number of Marxists that reject Lenin are incredibly fringe. Lenin’s work as a Marxist is incredibly obvious to anyone who has read both Marx and Lenin, and it’s very clear that Lenin was history’s greatest Marxist, after the deaths of Marx and Engels. MLs are the dominant form of Marxism in the modern era, and most relevant historically, so trying to claim Marxism-Leninism isn’t Marxist requires an enormous level of justification on your part.
That’s literally what I just said.
You forget to add "Assassinating the soviet leadership because they defeated the bolsheviks in a fair election, and that was unacceptable to Lenin; and then replacing the dead soviets with bolshevik stooges while appropriating the term “Soviet.”
Oh and betraying the anarchists and other groups who supported them during the revolution.
Oh and highly centralized and controlling surveillance state apparatus, and making the so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat” a permanent fixture rather than a transitional government.
It’s Marxist-Leninism, not “Marxism-Leninism.” You might want to get your own label right before trying to school people on the internet about it.
Someone’s never read Merleau-Ponty, and it shows…
No, you said Marxism-Leninism isn’t Marxist. Marxism-Leninism is Marxist. All of Marxism in the modern day has historically evolved from the era of Marx, be it through accepting ideas, changing them, or rejecting them. There is no such thing as a Marxist that has no opinion on Lenin one way or the other, for example. The ideology “Leninism” is used to refer specifically to Lenin’s advancements, “Marxism” to the ideology created by Marx and Engels, and “Marxism-Leninism” as the unified ideology created by Lenin and forged in practice.
You then make vague references to the Russian Civil War without actually contextualizing them. The Bolsheviks did not “lose fair elections,” and fighting amongst the Soviets did coalesce around the Bolshevik line, as the Bolsheviks were supported by both the proletariat and peasantry. The fighting between the communists and anarchists wasn’t some one-sided betrayal either, it was a civil war and some sections of the anarchists that did not join the Bolsheviks took up arms against the soviets.
Further still, the soviet state was not some “permanent fixture.” Such an idea is inherently against Marxist understanding of dialectical materialism, as nothing in the world is permanent, as well as the economic basis for the withering of the state. The USSR was a socialist state gradually building towards communism.
As for “Marxist-Leninism,” no, I mean Marxism-Leninism, as understood by Wikipedia, science direct, and Stalin when coining the term. You’re very confident about this point despite being trivially proven wrong.
As for Merleau-Ponty, yes, Western Marxism is incredibly fringe in the global and historical context.
I quite clearly said it isn’t the same thing as “Marxism,” as anyone who scrolls up will plainly see.
I’m done wasting my time on you.
You quite explicitly made the claim that “actual Marxism” and Marxism-Leninism are two separate things, stating essentially that Marxism-Leninism is fake Marxism.
Each of those statements I made suggests that “Marxist-Leninism” is not the same thing as “Marxism” outright. As in, they’re not synonymous terms, contrary to the popular usage of the term “Marxist,” (i.e.: noun; an adherent of Marxism).
That’s not the same thing at all as claiming it isn’t “Marxist,” (i.e.: adj; deriving inspiration, origins, or ideological alignment from Marxism.)
The closest thing I said to implying what you claim I said was contrasting MLs with “actual Marxists,” which yes, I admit was poor word choice. The meaning I was aiming for was closed to either “Marxist originalists,” as in people who study Marx’s writings and derive their theoretical outlooks from that rather than from Lenin or Trotsky; or more particularly “Marxists as a broader category,” as in not limiting it to only one sub-school of thought.
Either way, my entire original point was that referring to “Marxist-Leninists” simply as “Marxists” is a misnomer because it conflates Leninism with Marxism, implies that all forms of Marxism are actually Leninism, and erases even the possibility of exploring other forms of Marxism as either intellectual possibilities, innovative theories, or novel iterations of praxis itself. It reduces the entire field of “Marxism” to one point, namely: Leninism.
Which is damaging, precisely because there’s a very real equivalence between “Marxist-Leninism” and bolshevism. In effect, it says “if you’re not a bolshevik, then you can’t be a communist.”
It’s a form of gatekeeping when it happens on the left, and it’s a caricaturization when it happens on the right, because when they use the term “Marxist” as a pejorative for the left as a whole, what they’re saying is that we’re all bolsheviks.
I personally would like to distinguish between myself and bolshevism without rejecting Marxism outright. I do that by rejecting Maxist-Leninism, while pointing to the distinction between it and Marxism.
You can still try to monopolize the entire field of Marxism across philosophical, sociological, political, and economic spheres. You can claim being a Leninist is a requirement for being a Marxist. I would still disagree with you, and honestly that approach isn’t going to advance leftwing causes anywhere in the world.
It’s pretty simple, Marxism-Leninism is the largest and most significant subset of Marxism. Much of Marxism-Leninism is just Marxism, and as such it shares with other branches of Marxist thought. When pertinent, it is more useful to use Marxism, rather then Marxism-Leninism, such as discussing the Marxist law of value or theory of the state, neither of which Marxism-Leninism meaningfully deviates from.
post summary:
‘tankies bad, i’m not a tankie, anyone who disagrees with me is a tankie’
hate to break it to you but liberals learned a new word and it’s just a left-facing pejorative now.
‘youre a librul lobrul bad, you jerk off the markets don’t you.anyone who disagrees with me is a librul.’
if they’re pro capitalist it’s just describing their position, sorry that the term offends you
^ that, friends is what we call a “bad-faith argument” based on a distorted interpretation of what was actually said, utilizing flashy one-liners to deride a commenter without actually addressing any of the content of the comment they made.
it’s called paraphrasing, you wanted to make it very clear that you’re one of the good ones for the liberals, as opposed to tankies who are the bad ones. i don’t think i misrepresented you.
the term is literally a left facing pejorative the way it’s used, especially how you were using it.
Cowbs there is fully ideological and fails to reconcile his understanding of classroom theory with real world application. Fucker genuinely believes the cow is a perfect sphere and is a bad faith propagandist. He’ll probably report my comment too because he’s a little bitch that just gish gallops bullshit and pivots every time you pin him down. You’re wasting your time. Their whole account is dedicated to getting republicans in power.
I organize in real life, my perspective is based on what I actually do as an organizer and activist as well as someone who studies Marxist-Leninist theory and history so as to apply it better. Just because I oppose the democrats doesn’t mean I support the republicans, I oppose the entire capitalist system. My goal is socialism, and like all Marxists, I believe that this can only be established through revolution, which means I do spend a fair bit of time combatting misconceptions surrounding reformism.
I haven’t reported any of your comments yet, btw. You have this absurd caricature of me that lives on in your brain, this must be the second dozen comment you’ve made about me specifically with no actual substance. Take a break, touch grass.