So, more propaganda that Biden is a Communist? Really, that’s how you make that point and comparison? Tired of the Dems are Communist trope when it’s not true. Sure Biden is for the worker - THE WORKER IS THE MIDDLE CLASS!!
Which by Trump has been shrunk, and not in a good way, making it harder for middle class workers. Biden, whether I agree with him or not, clearly thinks MORE about the middle class and worker protections than Trump ever has done.
Your interpretation of this meme is very funny. It has nothing to do with Biden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neue_Rheinische_Zeitung
Revolutionaries thinking that only if they terrorize enough people a new better society will magically come into existence.
And of course they will be the new ruling class, never on the receiving end of the terror.
Anti-communists thinking that by doing blanket condemnations of past mistakes instead of historical and material analysis of why it happened, how much was necessary, and how much was the excess, they can totally avoid them in the future and bring down capitalism with the power of love.
How many times does the same mistake have to repeat? Communists didn’t invent revolutions you know. Peasant rebellions were a thing in medieval Europe, and many different kinds of uprisings were tried during the centuries. And there’s the same pattern repeating again and again - it either fails in bloodshed, or succeeds only for the winners to establish a new tyrannical system.
The only exception was started by rich landowners because they didn’t want to pay taxes to the king. (American)
Note that I’m talking about violent revolutions - there were quite a few examples of non-violent or semi-violent revolts/uprisings that didn’t end up catastrophically. India, South Africa, Portugal, post-communist Eastern Europe come to mind.
The only exception was started by rich landowners because they didn’t want to pay taxes to the king. (American)
You really think the US is the only American colony that seceded from its colonial authority by means of violence? And are you implying that the current US government isn’t tyrannical?
or succeeds only for the winners to establish a new tyrannical system
You’re just making that up. You’re tautologically defining any successful violent revolution as failed because it didn’t eliminate every single hierarchy overnight. Even if I’m a Marxist-Leninist I can conceive why you’d make that argument about the USSR (though I’d disagree with you), but if you make that argument about Cuba too you’re just wrong. Cuba is a state much more democratic and much less oppressive by every metric than its predecessor. You’re just falling into that mentality that “the only acceptable revolutions are those which failed”.
Additionally, you’re failing to acknowledge that non-violent revolutions, such as Allende’s Chile and the Spanish Second Republic, can end up in bloodshed and a more authoritarian and repressive form of government not as a consequence of violent revolution, but as a consequence of the lack of it. As a Spanish myself, I’d have much rather seen a version of my country where there was an armed socialist repression against fascism (for example by the CNT or some Bolshevik party), than the history we lived, where a democratically elected, non-violent leftist government was nevertheless couped, plunged into civil war, and eventually turned into fascism. An armed revolution could have actually possibly prevented that. (Funny historical note: the only country that really supported the struggle against fascism in Spain was the USSR, despite the Italian and German fascists helping their Spanish counterpart.)
Right, so your solution is to get the people you like to do the terrorizing? Genius play. Really smart. I see no downsides.
What’s the alternative? Ending up like Allende, or the Spanish second republic, or Rosa Luxembourg? “The only good socialist movements are those who fail”
You need to take power in a way that doesn’t make a majority of the population hate your guts. Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others.
Revolution can only effectively happen with a mass worker movement, yes. Communists aren’t advocating for coups.
Please read any revolutionary theory, even Lenin. None advocate for coups.
You say that as if communists don’t want democracy. I want the highest degree of democracy possible, I just understand that the material conditions that allow revolutions don’t always allow for extremely high democracy at the beginning, and how a vanguard party of communist intellectuals can initially serve well to guide an uneducated populace or, worse, educated against communism as we are now.
nah, the actual bottoms are the people who have been so conditioned to subjugation that they can’t even imagine being in charge
Hey, just because they’re being homophobic doesn’t mean you should stoop to their level
Friedrich 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.
To this day, nobody’s actually articulated any counterpoints to it, so yeah.
Just cause you chose to ignore the well-founded critique, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Yes, Engels does a pretty good job of explaining why “authoritarian” complaints are usually explained purely by vibes.
He mostly explained how he actually didn’t really have a proper grasp of what authority actually means. He conflated them with a lot of things without actually making sense. I’m surprised why “On authority” is so widely known.
On authority is used to justify the fact that many communist movements of the past turned into brutal dictatorships and that “it’s fine actually that mao starved half of China because you can’t have a revolution without being authoritarian”.
The actual paper is short and kind of stupid. What Engels was arguing in that short essay with a ridiculously outsized influence was that he was technically correct (the best kind) that anarchists are silly because any type of government someone could propose inevitably involves one person imposing their will on another like your quote says.
Really what Engels (who was a prominent communist thinker) was doing was fucking up any attempts at communist organization because now 1/3 of communists think that brutal authoritarianism is based and necessary for a revolution.
Engels conflates authority with basically everything: necessity, organization, processes, violence, self-defense, etc.
