Asklemmy

43950 readers

102 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Are you a 'tankie' (lemmy.ml)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

189 comments fedilink hide all child comments

edit: this is now closed future comments won't be counted

I keep seeing this instance is overrun with tankies so hey, lets do an informal survey like I've seen on hexbear

respond with YES or NO in the first line of your comment and i'll tally everything in a couple of days, lets say I'll try and collect everything on the sunday the 9th (10+gmt sorry)

not sure thisll work, be nice, have fun

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago (2 children)

no. I'm probably a communist but authoritarianism can fucking shove it

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Fredrich Engels, 1872: On authority

Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is. It is the act by which one part of the population imposes its will on the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannons — by the most authoritarian means possible; and the victors, if they do not want to have fought in vain, must maintain this rule by means of the terror which their arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if the communards had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach them for not having used it enough?

Therefore, we must conclude one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are only sowing confusion; or they do know, in which case they are betraying the proletarian movement. In either case, they serve reaction.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

How about, I don't know, establishing some sort of democracy? Just a crazy idea

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Maybe capitalist states should do that, but they won’t because they’re capitalist states. They’ll form bourgeois democracies at best and fascism at worst[1][2][3].

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

You misunderstood me. I'm saying after the revolution. The Engels quote implies that because revolution is authoritarian, so is whatever system it implements. Which I disagree with

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

At what point does a leftist system become authoritarian? Where is the line? Is it just a vibe check, or is there a definitive metric we can check?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I mean that's a good question but there's no reason to apply it just to leftist governments

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

There is, for the purpose of this question.

You have separated "Authoritarians" from the rest of "Communists." At what point does Communism become authoritarian?

I'm framing this question in this manner to try to understand what you believe Communism should look like in a manner that goes against what people often described as tankies want it to look like.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The line is when the communist system collapses as usual and a dictatorship seizes power.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

So Cuba, China, Vietnam, and the DPRK are by your definition not authoritarian, got it.

Does that make you a tankie?