Had a heated argument with a tankie who glorified stalin and lenin. So fucking tired. The worst thing he’s a discord mod of a good streamer, and i left the server because i can’t be there anymore. Context: i’m russian whose grand-grandparents were repressed and forcibly relocated. Left Russia several years ago because i didn’t want to support the aggressive war in Ukraine. And his american (no offense to amreicans tho) ass tried to explain me that stalin is an actual hero who singlehandedly saved Europe from fascism, and all repressed were rich “bourgeois land owners” (actually, no. but even if yes, that’s a terrorism). Then he and other user started posting stupid tankie memes. Ofc they ignored my questions how LGBT+, religious groups and small nations were treated and deleted the message. I’m sick of that shit. Needed to vent somewhere.
I’m not generally a fan of memes that imply an equivalence between the auth-left and auth-right, because they tend to be used by “enlightened centrists” to push horseshoe theory and over-simplify an already over-simplified political compass.
…but the “but I wish it had been” got me pretty good. They really do be like that.
Also, it’s “so forth”, not “so fourth”.
I made this two months ago, on horeshoe theory:
Communism itself obviously isn’t nazism, if someone says that your comment may apply. But tankies are as close as it gets.
The thing is that communism on it’s own doesn’t mean much or can mean many things. Kropotkin’s anarcho communism? Hell, I’m in. But nowadays, the term communism is pretty much only used by tankies and I’m fine with letting them keep the term. I don’t need it that much.
a few friends from post soviet states introduced me to that what we in the west refer to as left vs right or communist vs capitalist they refer to as anarchist vs fascist. the communist label got so attached to a fascist form of government that it probably can’t ever be reclaimed, and we have to find another label that is more resistant to cooption
“freedom and order” vs “censorship and chaos”
first is whatever anarchocommunism is, second is fascism, capitalism, and all forms of totalitarianism (including Trump’s MAGAs)
because if there’s freedom, that’s an order of liberty
and if there’s chaos, there’s only censorship
Anarchism isn’t seen as positive by everyone but very difficult to corrupt by auth*ritarians
yup. and it’s easier to talk people through anarchism isn’t as bad as they’ve been led to believe than to reclaim communism from authoritarians. the problem you run into talking about anarchism is socdems and enlightened centrists calling you a simple minded brute
Same reaction from tankies btw
at least i know to study history AND theory, and know that those theories are just privileged academics studying what marginalized people have been doing to resist all along, and that if you deify a theorist, you are no longer practicing a social cause, you have created a religion…
Graeber once said that it’s possible to study Marxism on a university level and do it all in an armchair level while anarchist academics (himself included) will engage in some level of action.
That said, there totally are selfaware armchair anarchists. “Anarchism explained to my father” is written by one (great book btw)