Cross-posted from “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution” by @Db0@dbzer0.com in !dbzer0.com@dbzer0.com
I see tankies keep trying to argue with people about “Actually Existing Socialist” states like USSR and China and try to argue with me or others about how “they were good actually”. It’s bad enough when most of their arguments are whataboutism, but it grinds my gears when I hear then prattle on about all the statistically significant material improvements the life of the people received. It’s like listening to a terminally-liberal prattle on about how “statistically, the life quality actually increased under capitalism”.
Why is this bothering me so much? Because tankies completely suppress the freedom aspects of those states. Sure the improvements in life quality in those nations improved compared to the feudal/agrarian societies they had before, much like liberal capitalism also improved those same metrics.
But the freedom of the populace barely improved improved whatsoever because that freedom is anathema to authoritarian regimes. When anarchists talk about our ideal society, we mean both positive and negative freedom together together. It’s not enough if your health expectancy is increased and infant mortality is reduced, if you have to constantly fear the secret police knocking on your door. It’s not enough to have food on your plate, when the state determines what you can create and where you can work. It’s not enough to get a free car and internet, if your family member got shipped to the concentration camp for criticizing the movement leaders online.
Tankies explicitly avoid this. They are desperate to argue that “authoritarianism is not a thing actually”, hilariously and endlessly promoting the worst socialist essay ever written to justify this. But authoritarianism is very much the crux of the problem here. A society with a hierarchical structure like capitalism or marxism-leninism (i.e. state capitalism) can never be good. It might be better than other states, but it will only get worse and worse as power concentrates to fewer hands and the grip of authority tightens the more control slips through their fingers.
We keep seeing this historically both in liberal and ML states. Clearly material quality of life is not enough to justify the system, or even be stable long-term, when actual human liberty is the sacrifice for it.
Reminds me of this reply to my comment on lemmy.world simply asking if there was a non-liberal non-authoritarian apologist communist:
https://lemmy.ml/comment/15506678
On mobile trying to paste
authoritarian regime
Both of these terms are obfuscstory propaganda that mean a person hasn’t placed enough scrutiny on what they have internalized. That might sound like I am simply attacking you, but I mean this as a way of answering your (combative) question: you want a space where people have some basic ideas about cold war propaganda but where they retain a significant amount of chauvinist framibgs from that propaganda. You can find like-minded people wherever left education arrests itself, which is why you won’t find it in organizations or spaces that require reading on these topics.
To explain my response, I’ll go over the two words.
Authoritarian. This word is poisoned beyond clear meaning. Every state is authoritarian, so what is the meaning of calling a particular state authoritarian? Every revolution is authoritarian, so do you also criticize them as such and seek out anti-revolutionary spaces? In reality, I know that this term is just thrown around in chauvinist contexts as a dog whistle. In this context it just means “bad” and “the enemy”. It’s the liberal version of, “they hate us for our freedoms”.
Regime. This term is synonymous with givernment or state, but just colors it as, again, “bad”. Venezuela must always be described as being led by a regime, not a government. As a target of imperialist propaganda, it must be implicitly propagandized as illegitimate and bad. Think of someone saying, “the Biden regime”. How often do you hear that phrase? If you’ve heard it, it was a socialist trying to make this point and even the playing field.
If you remove the propaganda aspects, your framing becomes, “still not pretend it isn’t a government”. Becomes less spicy, doesn’t it? Despite having no differences in meaning outside of implying it is bad.
Finally, Xi didn’t make himself president for life, he must be regularly reelected. The government itself removed term limits in the normal way: with a vote. Imperialist media calls this “president for life” because they are chauvinists. When the US had no term limits, was every president “president for life”? Aren’t term limits antidemocratic, i.e. more authoritarian?
In short: please do some self-criticism on this internalized chauvinism and you will find it easier to find comrades. You are currently in an incoherent position and that means you’d only find comeradery among the incoherent snd incurious. Be around people that challenge you based on their reading and knowledge.
Ye this kind of argument is so well known in anarchist circles, it’s very hard not to roll our eyes at it.
This is news to me! Could you suggest any easy reader on such topics? Such as comparing the two’s merits?
Communism is appealing in what it can materially achieve but there is never a could communist answer to anti-authoritarianism and the problem of police. I’m always just told well communist police will be better because they’re of the people, lol
There’s also a decent Bakunin piece on the topic of authority here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mikhail-bakunin-what-is-authority which I think helps to differentiate between freely choosing to regard someone or some organization as an authority, versus it being forced upon you by some external power (e.g. the State).