tankies aren’t “further left than me” they’re “more authoritarian than me”
“further left than me” are idealist utopian communists and “more libertarian than me” are idealist utopian anarchists
Yep. Authoritarianism does not lie leftward, it is not a leftist principle.
nobody can agree what “left” means
That is nonsense.
The left was coined by its opposition to the monarchy while the right supported it.
So left has been currently and historically speaking in opposition of hierarchies and in favor of equality.
The right consequently has been in favor of hierarchies.
Okay, but just grounding it in historical context doesn’t make it the definition. If Mamdani established Mamdanistan and abused courts to execute people polluting ground water with data centers, that would be hierarchical, but very clearly not “right wing” in the common understanding.
Opposing hierarchies is generally fitting, but the minutia of politics make such simple definitions harder to agree on by everyone, which touches on their point.
Weird example but ok.
And no, it is not only historical. I stated that in my original comment and I invite you to look at left wing politics but some “left wing” politician’s position on some random issue, but a widely supported position by the left wing community. You will see that they are all in opposition of hierarchy.
But let’s take your weirdly racist example, where is the hierarchy?
I think it’s weird that you think it’s “weirdly racist”. Weirdo
the point of the meme is to be wrong…
Yeah, exactly. This graphic is really bad. I guess it’s supposed to be incorrect, but it sends a bad message.
Also, the only people calling anyone “shitlibs” are literal tankies. Sane leftists don’t call anyone “shitlib.”
Any leftist to the right of my on the spectrum is probably considered center-left. I prefer democratic socialism and/or social democracy, using incremental progress to achieve leftist reform.
People are allowed to have different opinions than me. That’s what democracy is. But no one can be allowed to be authoritarian in a democracy, because authoritarianism is incompatible with democracy and a danger to it.
Authoritarians don’t respect diversity of opinion, they don’t tolerate differences. So I’m so tired of authoritarian-minded people whining and calling me intolerant just because I shut them down when they’re trying to dominate others.
>democracy
look inside
>attachment to particular institutions, policies and practices
How is Utopian communist further left? A non-realizable ideology isn’t left, left is one which actually has political power and is based on material reality, because it’s the one which ends up achieving results.
the farthest extremes on either side are unrealistic and deluded. just because you like one side doesn’t mean they dont get crazy when you go far enough. it’s VERY important not to lose site of that.
yes a communist utopia is unachievable. yes there are people who are actively pursuing that impossible goal. that does not make them unleft.
libertarians are not anarchists
Anarchists and Libertarian used to be synonymous, since Libertarian was a way to talk about Anarchism without being persecuted. Later in the US Proprietarians coopted the term Libertarian, and later even Anarchism by claiming to be ‘Anarcho-Capitalists’.
Anarchists are a genre of libertarians though. It’s just that who dominates the landscape of “libertarian” is ancaps, who are just fascists with a weirder set of steps to implement a fascist nightmare.
I felt similarly until I discovered anarchism
I don’t consider tankies lefter than me.
Shit, there’s plenty of Non Tankies to my left. Tankies want to use force to control people’s thoughts and actions.
Tankies are drunk on hierarchy and violence.
Seriously. Tankies are authoritarians who consider themselves leftists.
They’re on the Leftest off-ramp that heads back the other way.
Tankies support systems that have brought about immense increases in life expectancy, worker’s rights, women’s rights, free healthcare, free education, and literally defeated fascism. It’s still baffling to me that in 2026, witnessing the descent to fascism of the west (Trump, Meloni LePen, AfD, Vox…) you’re still so threatened by Chinese socialists who literally don’t have a fascist party or by the Soviet socialists who literally saved Europe from Nazism.
support systems that have brought about immense increases in life expectancy, worker’s rights, women’s rights, free healthcare, free education, and literally defeated fascism
Cool, you can make literally that exact same argument about capitalist neo libs.
Replaced Nazism in Europe*
France got liberated thanks to the Soviets too, we’re talking all of Europe here.
In the rest of places, as I said, replacing it by a system with full free healthcare, worker’s rights, respect of minorities and their languages and cultures, free education to the highest level, anti-imperialism and industrial development and self-reliance. The dismantling of the Eastern Block is the biggest demographic catastrophe in Europe since WW2.
Anti imperialism? How did they become the largest country on earth?
Respect of minorities? Tell that to the tens of thousands of people executed in forests. Or starved to death. Because of their identity.
Industrial development? Yes, current Russia having an economy the size of Italy is a testament to that.
Plenty of countries have free education and Healthcare.
Anti imperialism? How did they become the largest country on earth?
Imperialism is not when big country, believe it or not. Imperialism is about having peripheral colonies from which you extract raw materials and where the citizens have fewer rights, and a core which benefits from the labor of the rest of the periphery. The USSR engaged in the opposite by providing raw materials and energy inputs to the Eastern-Block countries at subsidized prices precisely with the intention of helping them industrialize and develop. As an example, the GDP per capita of Estonia was 20% higher than that of the Russian republic during the USSR.
Respect of minorities?
Yes. Ukraine got its borders and political representation for the first time in history during Soviet rule. You may be surprised to find that Rosa Luxembourg argued against this, there are some fun letters between her and Lenin where the latter argued in favour of supporting the national identity of Ukrainians. This was carried out as soon as the revolution took place, in the Korenizatsiya policy of boosting ethnic minorities once oppressed by the Russian empire. You may be surprised to learn that Stalin was the commissar for nationalities when the Russian Revolution happened. The communists elected a Georgian leader in 1925, unthinkable just 10 years prior.
All republics in the USSR had the right to determine their own languages, and people had a right to an education in these languages up to university level (not always included). The majority of books and newspapers printed in areas with national languages different to Russian were in said languages (Ukrainian, Kazakh, Armenian, Georgian, Estonian…). You can get informed about this in Albert Szymanski’s “human rights in the Soviet Union”. There were big mistakes during a few years due to hysteria against Nazism and Japanese invasion (see deportations of Crimean Tatars and Koreans), but other than that the USSR has a mostly impeccable record in this regard. Compare that to France murdering 1 million Algerians in the 1960s in the Algerian war of independence, or with Occitan language becoming almost extint in the 20th century.
Industrial development? Yes, current Russia
The USSR was at the time the second largest economy in the world, idk why you compare it with modern capitalist Russia, of course capitalism destroyed the progress achieved by socialists.
Yes, muscovites just made friends, that’s not imperialism. Sakha just wanted to give it’s oil and minerals to Moscow. Yakutia just wanted desperately to learn Russian. It’s not imperialism if there are no boats involved!
Estonia? Now their GDP per capita is not 20% higher, it’s 200% higher than Russia. Yes, triple as high. Obviously Russia was robbing them blind, and holding them back. Same as most other republics and Warsaw pact nations. GDP explosions after ditching the red parasite.
Ukraine had borders just fine when Soviets invaded them. If not for the war they lost against Poland in 1920 they would have kept invading and repressing nations. Belorussian language is almost extinct nowadays after all the russification. Same for Ukrainian in Eastern Ukraine.
French killed 1 million Algerians? Rookie numbers, they should have learned from the holodomor.
Worthwile to note that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were longstanding allies before Operation Barbarossa and a critical amount of steel and oil that supplied the Nazi war machine after the allied embargo was supplied by the Soviet union.
Which says nothing of the monumental sacrifice given by Soviet civilians, but let’s separate that from Stalin’s policy, perhaps?
I’ve replied to the whole “Nazis and Soviets were allies” in another comment in this post, I encourage you to read it and reply. Thank you!
We don’t need to read propaganda and lies thanks.
It’s well known history that Russia and Germany split up Poland and had a peace deal. End of story.
Tell me which actually existing, relevant, long-lasting leftist projects you support and how they’re further to the left than Cuba.
They’re so left they’ve wrapped around and became fascists
Authoritarian / libertarian is on a completely different axis from left / right, no?
Only on the political compass, which uses a definition of left vs right that a lot of leftists disagree with. Really, the entire history of “left wing” politics has been about questioning and dismantling authority. The terms “left wing” and “right wing” come from the French revolution, when the people in favour of simply reforming the monarchy sat on the right side of the room, while the people who wanted to fully dismantling the monarchy sat on the left. A lot of more modern leftist thought is about questioning the power that capitalist businesses have.
Well said. Still; can you not have authoritarian left and libertarian left viewpoints? I just don’t see how questioning the power capitalist businesses have is limited to the libertarian left.
What’s wrong with the definition of left & right on the political compass? I’m not super tuned into political science but this is the first I’ve heard that many leftists have take issue with it. I have seen the authoritarian left referred to as “red fascists”, but do they not also take issue with the power capitalist businesses have?
I suppose I’d consider myself a left libertarian. The power of the state should be limited and what power is granted to the state should be used to improve the life of the people.
can you not have auth left and lib left viewpoints?
Yes, but actually no. The distinction is fundamentally unstable. If the left is constantly questioning power structures, it will inevitably turn to whatever structure the auth left comes up with.
what’s wrong with the definition of left and right on the political compass?
It’s specially economic left/right, which is almost always defined by taxation, government spending, and social welfare. While leftists usually say social welfare is a good thing, it’s not changing the fundamentals of how capitalism works, which is the current dominant power structure that leftists are against.
do auth left not also take issue with the power capitalist businesses have?
Yes, but they usually put something just as bad in its place. You might have heard people saying that the USSR was “state capitalist rather than communist”. This means that the workers and customers had just as little say in how things are run than they would under capitalists, only is was directly with the state rather than individual business owners.
Thanks, I appreciate your replies.
Oh, cool, tell me what historically successful, relevant and long-lasting leftist movements you support! Wait, you don’t support any actually existing leftism…?
Being better at violence doesn’t make you more left, it makes you better at violence. That can be useful, but it isn’t the same thing. Your argument boils down to “might makes right” and could be expanded to classify social democracy as “more left” (after all, it’s left of the global status quo and its citizens are the happiest on average). In fact, you might even be able to use the argument for liberalism; it’s left of monarchy and fascism. Sure, it frequently decays into fascism, but so did the USSR.
Being better at violence doesn’t make you more left
Being better at violence against fascism and imperialism definitely makes you more left, though. Actual praxis and results are to me the definition of successful leftism, not the realm of ideas. The lack of proper violence against such regimes leads to a destruction of the left wing.
Your argument boils down to “might makes right” and could be expanded to classify social democracy as “more left”
Social democracy also regularly turns to fascism when it needs to, it’s definitely lacking violence against fascism, amazing that you’d say this in 2026. I fucking wish our mighty social democracies in Europe fought against Israeli fascism and USA fascism, unfortunately they’re buddies!
(after all, it’s left of the global status quo and its citizens are the happiest on average)
By excluding imperialism from the measure of average happiness, you’re committing a sampling error. That would be like polling monarchs of medieval Europe to ask whether monarchy is the system making people happier. Ask the people in India and Sri Lanka and Peru extracting the resources of the goods social democracies consume and sewing the clothes we wear how happy they are with social democracy.
Sure, it frequently decays into fascism, but so did the USSR
So, we have one example of a Marxist-Leninist state decaying to fascism (after saving Europe from Nazism) and several examples of countries not doing this (China, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba). How about we engage in honest criticism of the flaws of the Soviet model that led to its dissolution in order to prevent that from happening again?
Hey I found the Tankie who thinks they’re on the left!
You can answer the question too! Which actually existing current or historical leftist movements do you support? Or is your ideology purely theoretical and you don’t actually care about the results?
Anarchist Catalonia, modern Rojava, more than a few pre-Columbian North American societies, the Paris Commune of 1793… Maybe read some theory instead of making arguments from ignorance.
And you can care about results without having historical results. Anti-monarchism in general had basically zero results post-Industrial Revolution until the liberals won in North America in the late 18th century, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t care about results, just that they hadn’t achieved much yet. The American Revolution was pretty quickly followed by the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, several more French revolutions, Brazilian independence, and eventually the October Revolution, the most recent Chinese civil war, the Cuban Revolution, and so on.
Between 1775 and 1925, the general concept of people voting on matters of statewide policy went from a relic of the Classical Era that had ended more than 1800 years earlier to the norm in North America and Europe. 1800 years of obscurity, then 150 years to ubiquity in the world’s wealthiest states and another 50 to expand to most of the rest.
Sure, anarchism has had a longer period out of the spotlight, not having been the norm since roughly the invention of agriculture ~8000 years ago, but you never know when it might return. Having a concrete, achievable plan to get results is good, but you also want to make sure that the results you’re striving for are just, otherwise you end up with liberalism again. And we all know how that ends up.
Anarchist Catalonia, modern Rojava, more than a few pre-Columbian North American societies, the Paris Commune of 1793
Pre-columbian societies aside (you can’t turn history around), all the rest ended up in fascism/monarchism/failed state in a matter of how many years/months?
And you can care about results without having historical results
Yes, you can do that if your goal is moral purity or intellectual amusement and not the material improvement of the lives of actual people. All other system changes you’ve proposed are just changes of ruling class and production system due to the slow motor of history and development, except for the socialist revolutions in Russia, China and Cuba. We literally have the recipe that works, why do you reject it?
Having a concrete, achievable plan to get results is good, but you also want to make sure that the results you’re striving for are just
Agreed. That’s why I praise the immense increases in welfare and quality of life in actually existing socialist countries, both historical and ongoing.
Bruh just out here punching the air in an empty comment section of a shit posting sub
Go back to your echo chamber tankie. Nobody likes you. Nobody wants you. But I’m sure your fans enjoy your circle jerk.
Which actually existing current or historical leftist movements do you support?
Are you a fucking cop? Get the fuck out of here you loser. I’m sorry everyone hates you. But thats a you issue.
I’m not sorry everyone hates them
Tankies are not further left, they are further right
Forgive my ignorance, what is a tankie?
A person who believes that an authoritarian state is righteous and justified as long as it calls itself communist (even if it’s not), examples being the USSR, North Korea, China, and oddly the current capitalist Russian federation. You can find a more in-depth answer here.
Someone who sees through cold-war anticommunist propaganda and defends the anti-imperialist and massively progressive Actually Existing Socialist states (USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam…) instead of belonging to the “compatible left” that doesn’t actually have a history of successful struggle against capitalism and imperialism.
People will be called tankies for defending the socialist figures and projects which get vilified in western discourse precisely because of their success against capitalism and fascism (Fidel, Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh), whereas anticommunists will only praise historical figures and projects who failed (Allende, Rojavas, Spanish anarchists) because their metric is not actual improvements to quality of life of people but ideological purity.
Tankie started out as a pejorative word against communists with the attempt to associate them with militarism. Notice how other leftists don’t call liberals “dronies” for supporting Obama despite the drone attacks on civilians in the middle east, don’t call fascists or Nazis “campies” despite the extensive usage of concentration camps, and don’t call capitalists “colonies” despite the widespread colonialism, such violent terms are only reserved to socialists. I consider myself a communist and I reclaim the label “tankie”, since it was actually Soviet tanks (T-34s mainly) which destroyed Nazism and saved hundreds of millions of lives in Europe from extermination.
oh god, it’s like reading parenti
make it stop
Block me already, Mussolini enjoyer
I will never understand anarchists, if I can read and enjoy Kropotkin as a Marxist-Leninist, what the fuck prevents you from reading and enjoying Parenti
“Mussolini enjoyer”
this is some bad faith bullshit
Tanking the definition of fascism from a fascist because it’s convenient to your “all states are actually the same” ideology is also bad faith, especially when you explicitly ignore the differences in outcomes between different modes of governance.
To you it’s a theoretical/philosophical debate about what’s more pure, to me it’s a matter of whether people get to have food, housing, healthcare, rights and education (which you explicitly ignored)
when does kropotkin infantalize and dismiss marxists?
Someone you dont like, with a vaguely leftist connotation.
Oh, I know better than to participate in this discussion.
Yeah, lots of pointless arguing further down in here. Like arguing about whether authoritarianism is left or right like that even matters. There are no set of single labels that can describe everyone’s motivations, goals, and what they are willing to do to get them, so arguing about the labels is pointless.
are you pro or anti sea piracy?
Probably anti overall, though context could change that. It’s just sea banditry and most bandits aren’t Robin Hood.
The digital version shouldn’t even be compared by using the same name, but if it was honest, then it wouldn’t work as propaganda (not that it seems to be working anyways).
A one dimensional political spectrum! Proper shit post, sir!
I would strongly contest the idea that tankies are durther left than anarchists. This only make since if you’re a shitlib.
Anarchists aren’t more left in principle, it’s just that their theoretical ideas don’t actually face the stark realities of confronting global capitalism and imperialism because no significant anarchist movement ever actually got to the part where you defeat capitalism, and therefore didn’t have to defend itself from imperialist siege
Still waiting for the tankies to defeat capitalism. Last I see China has fully embraced it and the Soviets collapsed.
They’ll have China remove it all when they get more billionaires. Marx famously said that socialism can only be done with billionares, and Mao said political power grows from the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
China has fully embraced it
Weird, then why are there no fascist parties in China like in the capitalist west? Why was China able to lift 800mn people from poverty in 30 years? Why has China become the manufacturer of 95% of photovoltaic modules in the planet against the interests of the capitalist fossil fuel lobby? Why has China not engaged for 50+ years in wars like the US, EU and Russia? Why does China not engage in imperialist extraction and plunder from the global south like capitalist countries? Fucks sake, ask Chinese people in which system they live. You can also ask Laotians, Vietnamese, Cubans…
Whataboutism, they still are capitalist.
Whataboutism is changing the topic, mate, I’m giving the reasons why China is actuslly not a capitalist country, it’s a mixed socialist economy.
Tankies aren’t leftists in reality.
Maybe left of Nazis, but they aren’t leftists.
The political left and authoritarianism are inherently contradictory.
Its the political right that embraces authoritarianism. Hence why we call them “Red Fascists”
Found the tankie.
Ironic that you’d call “red fascists” to the people supporting the socialist movement that literally saved Europe from fascism.
Tankies support systems that have historically brought massive improvements to working and peasant classes in the oppressed world. Doubling and tripling life expectancy wherever communism arrives and succeeds, literacy from 20-30% to 100% in a few decades, women’s rights, worker rights, free massive healthcare, free education… You just argue against tankies because you’re a westerner whose leftism is conformed by CIA propaganda. You don’t support any historically successful socialist movement (Cuba, Soviets, China, Vietnam, Laos) precisely because they defeated capitalism and fascism.
Especially hurtful as a Spaniard, where we leftists lost our civil war because the biggest leftist movements were anarchists and they couldn’t win a war, and we were left with 40 years of fascist dictatorship. You’d just rather praise the anarchists that lost against fascism than the communists who defeated it elsewhere.
The nazis’ economy was a shell game of debt, and they were overextended militarily. Their regime would have fallen even if they had won the war. Secondly, the USSR at first joined forces with the nazis until they were betrayed by them, and after the soviets joined the allies, they received massive aid under the lend-lease act. And even with the aid, they still had to rely on human-wave tactics.
the Nazis would have fallen either way
Perhaps in the long run, not without genociding the entirety of Eastern Europe first. Not an argument to me.
received massive assistance
England received far more assistance from Lend-Lease, they weren’t the ones who won the war.
human wave tactics
Literally Nazi propaganda of “Asiatic hordes”, the number of combat casualties in the eastern front isn’t that different between Nazis and Soviets, Soviets sustained more casualties simply because the Soviet industry had had 10 years of development compared to the 100 years of the German one.
the USSR at first joined forces with the Nazis
It takes a lot of information to dispel misinformation, so forgive me but I’m gonna paste a comment that I wrote some time ago responding to the whole “Soviets sided with the Nazis” phrase that is often propagated on Lemmy. Feel free to respond to it, I’d love to engage with you in its contents:
The only country who offered to start a collective offensive against the Nazis and to uphold the defense agreement with Czechoslovakia as an alternative to the Munich Betrayal was the USSR. From that Wikipedia article: “The Soviet Union announced its willingness to come to Czechoslovakia’s assistance, provided the Red Army would be able to cross Polish and Romanian territory; both countries refused.” Poland could have literally been saved from Nazi invasion if France and itself had agreed to start a war together against Nazi Germany, but they didn’t want to. By the logic of “invading Poland” being akin to Nazi collaboration, Poland was as imperialist as the Nazis.
As a Spaniard leftist it’s so infuriating when the Soviet Union, the ONLY country in 1936 which actively fought fascism in Europe by sending weapons, tanks and aviation to my homeland in the other side of the continent in the Spanish civil war against fascism, is accused of appeasing the fascists. The Soviets weren’t dumb, they knew the danger and threat of Nazism and worked for the entire decade of the 1930s under the Litvinov Doctrine of Collective Security to enter mutual defense agreements with England, France and Poland, which all refused because they were convinced that the Nazis would honor their own stated purpose of invading the communists in the East. The Soviets went as far as to offer ONE MILLION troops to France (Archive link against paywall) together with tanks, artillery and aviation in 1939 in exchange for a mutual defense agreement, which the French didn’t agree to because of the stated reason. Just from THIS evidence, the Soviets were by far the most antifascist country in Europe throughout the 1930s, you literally won’t find any other country doing any remotely similar efforts to fight Nazism. If you do, please provide evidence.
The invasion of “Poland” is also severely misconstrued. The Soviets didn’t invade what we think of nowadays when we say Poland. They invaded overwhelmingly Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian lands that Poland had previously invaded in 1919. Poland in 1938, a year before the invasion:
“Polish” territories invaded by the USSR in 1939:
The Soviets invaded famously Polish cities such as Lviv (sixth most populous city in modern Ukraine), Pinsk (important city in western Belarus) and Vilnius (capital of freaking modern Lithuania). They only invaded a small chunk of what you’d consider Poland nowadays, and the rest of lands were actually liberated from Polish occupation and returned to the Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian socialist republics. Hopefully you understand the importance of giving Ukrainians back their lands and sovereignty?
Additionally, the Soviets didn’t invade Poland together with the Nazis, they invaded a bit more than two weeks after the Nazi invasion, at a time when the Polish government had already exiled itself and there was no Polish administration. The meaning of this, is that all lands not occupied by Soviet troops, would have been occupied by Nazis. There was no alternative. Polish troops did not resist Soviet occupation but they did resist Nazi invasion. The Soviet occupation effectively protected millions of Slavic peoples like Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians from the stated aim of Nazis of genociding the Slavic peoples all the way to the Urals.
All in all, my conclusion is: the Soviets were fully aware of the dangers of Nazism and fought against it earlier than anyone (Spanish civil war), spent the entire 30s pushing for an anti-Nazi mutual defence agreement which was refused by France, England and Poland, tried to honour the existing mutual defense agreement with Czechoslovakia which France rejected and Poland didn’t allow (Romania neither but they were fascists so that’s a given), and offered to send a million troops to France’s border with Germany to destroy Nazism but weren’t allowed to do so. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a tool of postponing the war in a period in which the USSR, a very young country with only 10 years of industrialization behind it since the first 5-year plan in 1929, was growing at a 10% GDP per year rate and needed every moment it could get. I can and do criticise decisions such as the invasion of Finland, but ultimately even the western leaders at the time seem to generally agree with my interpretation:
“In those days the Soviet Government had grave reason to fear that they would be left one-on-one to face the Nazi fury. Stalin took measures which no free democracy could regard otherwise than with distaste. Yet I never doubted myself that his cardinal aim had been to hold the German armies off from Russia for as long as might be” (Paraphrased from Churchill’s December 1944 remarks in the House of Commons.)
“It would be unwise to assume Stalin approves of Hitler’s aggression. Probably the Soviet Government has merely sought a delaying tactic, not wanting to be the next victim. They will have a rude awakening, but they think, at least for now, they can keep the wolf from the door” Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the United States, 1933–1945), from Harold L. Ickes’s diary entries, early September 1939. Ickes’s diaries are published as The Secret Diary of Harold Ickes.
"One must suppose that the Soviet Government, seeing no immediate prospect of real support from outside, decided to make its own arrangements for self‑defence, however unpalatable such an agreement might appear. We in this House cannot be astonished that a government acting solely on grounds of power politics should take that course” Neville Chamberlain House of Commons Statement, August 24, 1939 (one day after pact’s signing)
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this
Now that is quite a fun game of gymnastics, but just to pick one out and ohrase it differently.
The Soviets invaded Poland to weaks late according to the treaty with Germany, because they were held back in Belarus, the Baltics and Ukraine, but gladly took the promised lands.
Yeah right. However you spin this the USSR was by no means an innocent country, nor were they anti-imperialist. They might have seen themselves that way. But that’s like me saying I am dilligent and disciplined, lying to oneself is what we do best.
The Soviets invaded Poland to weaks late according to the treaty with Germany, because they were held back in Belarus, the Baltics and Ukraine
You’re misunderstanding the post. Those territories at the time belonged to Poland. It is not until two weeks after the Nazis invaded, at a point when the Polish government collapsed, that the Soviets entered those “Polish” territories that now we consider Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian, and a very minor part of what nowadays we consider Poland.
Again, what was the alternative to Soviet presence in said territories after Polish government collapse?
Bruh tankies aren’t further left than me
Tankies are left?
No.
Yes, we support the movements that have brought the most significant development of worker rights, welfare state and anti-imperialism.
If you believe in the horseshoe theory they aren’t. I believe in the horseshoe theory
E: uppon more research i don’t believe in the horseshoe theory per se. But in speaking to many tankies, they exhibit many traits that the far right has.
The biggest similarity is that we are both willing to use violence to oppress our enemies. The difference is that the enemy of communists are our oppressors and the enemy of fascist is whoever they decide to not like at the moment. The ultimate attack on capital (communism) is materially different than the ultimate defense of capital (fascism).
Fun fact though, liberalism also supports violence (or at least passively accepts it) as long as it is mostly external. We don’t get to choose non-violence. You can attack the people doing violence, join the people doing violence, or accept the people doing violence.
With the slight clarification that communists will redifine oppressors at their will, making them effectively the same in practice.
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You are a worker that doesn’t support the movement? Class traitor, gulag.
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You made a joke about dear leader? Traitor, gulag.
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You would like free elections? Foreign agent, gulag.
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I appreciate your point of view, but from my interactions here, that’s not my experience.
To be clear I am not trying to argue with you here I’m just curious what you think.
What part of what I said have you found to be untrue? What sort of interactions led you to this conclusion?
I think, it needs to be clarified, that not everything you said I would say is “untrue”, and I want to thank you for approaching this conversation constructively. I think we agree on many points, e.g. housing is a human right, as is access to food, Healthcare, water, etc.
The biggest similarity is that we are both willing to use violence to oppress our enemies.
I can’t speak to that point, so I will defer to you.
The difference is that the enemy of communists are our oppressors and the enemy of fascist is whoever they decide to not like at the moment.
I do know that fascism needs an enemy in order to function, but, from my interactions with various people who claim to be communist, they are just as happy to view anyone who dissent with their views as a sheep, or, an enemy to their cause. For example, we both agree that Israel is committing genocide, we both agree that, at the very least, Israel is certainly on its way to doing the same in Lebanon. We both agree that what the US did in Iran, and Vensuela is inexcusable (keeping it recent). Now when another country, russia, does something similar to ukraine, and, it’s called out, well now im a shit lib who is pro Imperialism and the enemy of what is “communism”
The ultimate attack on capital (communism) is materially different than the ultimate defense of capital (fascism).
If you mean communism, and not whatever russia and China are, then yes, no argument here.
Fun fact though, liberalism also supports violence (or at least passively accepts it) as long as it is mostly external.
I think liberals, generally are ok with it, as you said, externally, there was a lot of liberal support for the Iraq bullshit.
We don’t get to choose non-violence. You can attack the people doing violence, join the people doing violence, or accept the people doing violence.
Yes, boiled down, that is very unfortunately the case, and from an idealistic point of view, we need to collectively move past that stupidity.
I certainly reassessed.
yes
I hate this left/right shit. There’s only conservatives and everyone else.
And the “conservatives” are liberal as hell. The only thing they “conserve” is value for the ultra rich and some cherry-picked Biblical social order. Restrictions on capitalism? Let freedom ring.
itt: people proving op right
What if my political spectrum isn’t on the spectrum at all.
Right wing wants to ban all abortion. Left wing wants all requested abortion to be legal.
Whereas I want mandatory abortion on all pregnancies. I’m not pro-life. I’m not pro-choice. I’m pro-death. Everybody dies!
I also fully support nuking cities, but only as a means of killing all humans. It’s not a political or religious statement.
Actually, can we invent nukes that kill all the humans, but don’t affect the animals? I’m ok with life on earth, just as long as that life isn’t human. Cats are cool. They just look at humans, and judge them, and enslave them. If only they had opposable thumbs, they could take over the world.
As it stands the dominant species on this planet is so dumb it hates other members of it’s own species, just for being a darker shade skin. Or for believing in a different theoretical invisable man in the sky.
And why’s God/Allah/whomever always depicted as male? Why would an omnipresent spirit have genitals at all? Yeah, choke on that. If God did exist, it’s trans by default. And for all you know God and Allah are the same, in the same way that manzanas and apples are the same thing. Jose is eating a manzana, and Bob is eating an apple. Corporate wants you to find the difference in these pictures.
And can we get a government policy that takes a firm stance on vampires? Not ONE government has a prewritten policy on the matter! You can’t convince me Batman isn’t a vampire!
So, lets start a tax system where all of the residents force feed the president bird seed until he throws up, and then use eugenics to create cats capable of mind control. That’s my political stance, and no candidates represent me! These are the flaws in a two party system. There’s a very significant chance that neither party has your best interest at heart.
Can’t get enough of that sugar crisp…keeps me going strong (to kill all the humans)
Does left and right just mean prosocial Vs antisocial? What do these directions used as political labels even mean? Are they useful labels?
It’s about hierarchy. Leftists want equality, fairness, freedom from power. Rightists want authority, order, freedom for power.
