this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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Oh, well if the CIA said his decades of brutal autocratic power don't count, I guess that doesn't what the fuck are you talking about of course he was a textbook dictator.
He wasn't autocratic, nor did everything he want to happen, happen. Much of the ongoing, day to day decisions were made by Worker Councils.
The CIA literally stated that the notion that he was a dictator were exaggerated, in an internal memo. "Comments on the change in Soviet leadership."
Maybe you've never seen Lemmy apologia for repressive totalitarian governance because you don't own a mirror.
Amazing how he could do all that while apparently being a totally normal non-autocratic political figure, clearly beholden to democratic workers' councils below him. Thirty years of unchallenged power (violently suppressing any internal opposition!) and that's not at all the same thing as dictatorial power over a nation-state.
Do you think hair-splitting is what barbers do?
Yeah, I read your one citation the first time. You, personally, here, now, are still listing a bunch of horrifying shit the man did, and could just as easily have not done, by his whim alone, during his decades of unitary executive power over a nation which brutalized any citizens who did not fall in line. 'Well he had a team!' Yeah dude, most autocrats do, or they get stabbed in their sleep.
I don't understand how you can talk about purging political opponents and still not get that 'well he's teeechnically not a dictator' is stupid word game. By the definition you're using - does Hitler count? Does anyone?
There's people here absofuckinglutely defending Stalin's atrocities. And the atrocities of other allegedly-communist or at least anti-"western" governments. Those are the tankies we're supposed to be talking about. When you say you've never seen them, I don't believe you.
It is our national shame that Andrew Jackson was ever elected - let alone twice - but the motherfucker was in fact beholden to congress and the courts, and when his time was up, he left like anybody else. More recently, we had The Idiot try not to leave. Nothing that narcissistic bastard did compare with Jackson's atrocities. And yet: if The Idiot had maintained power, in spite of popular opposition and without apparent limit, he would be an American dictator. And there would be assholes defending him, as they now excuse his failed coup. They'd loudly declare we're a republic, not a democracy - and other word-salad excuses for their desired conclusion - and it would be exactly the same kneejerk ingroup-loyalist hierarchy game as saying Russia / China / Hamas did nothing wrong.
Where are the people defending his atrocities? Specifically. Citation needed, because I haven't seen anyone defend any of what I just said, nor anyone believe a leader should have absolute power, like you posited.
That's why I'm asking what your answers are.
Is there anyone actually defending any of the heinous shit I listed, or are they defending other sensible policies that a broken clock got right?
Is there anyone actually advocating for a system of power whereby the leader is uncontested and absolute, which has never existed in the USSR?
That's my point, your definition of a tanky doesn't actually exist in any meaningful quantity.
Have a scroll.
I'm not playing this stupid word game where it's only dictatorship if it's from the dictateur region of France, and any micron short of literal absolute power means it doesn't count. Ask any normal person to define dictatorship and they'll name all the shit you already said Stalin did. The mechanics of his inner party don't fucking matter. They don't change the effect. When a king has viziers and vassals and so on, and needs them to enact his next pogrom, that's still absolute monarchy. "The riddle of steel" doesn't make Charlemagne a respected bipartisan official. Dude owned a country.
You will almost never see someone describe their worship of that hierarchy, because they don't understand there's any alternative. It's like saying things should obey gravity. But it is visibly the ideology shared by a shockingly broad variety of bootlickers. It's what every Republican twat is saying, when their defense of The Idiot's abuse of power is, 'but he had that power!' Listen to those people. They are telling you how they think. They don't understand power can be abused. It is a contradiction, in their worldview. Either a figure has that power, and can use it however they see fit - or they do not deserve power in the first place. There's no third option. This is every aggravating non-argument you've had with Elon Musk fanboys who think disagreeing with him means you have to be smarter and richer and less bald.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
Cool, so it's just vibes I guess. Not even once did I see anyone defend absolute power hierarchy defended, nor the heinous shit I mentioned defended.
The absolute closest is defending violence against settlers, which I'd argue is still wrong but is still rooted in anti-colonial, anti-imperialist sentiment, rather than a defense of genocide or absolute power hierarchy. You're not going to find me defending people killing settlers, but you've still misrepresented them.
"That's only sparkling authoritarianism!"
Sorry, no, you even denied Stalin's rule qualified as that. He did a bunch of bad stuff but how dare anyone use blunt terms to describe when one guy in charge until he dies gets to do basically anything and kill his opponents. And nobody better call kneejerk defenses of that hierarchy a kneejerk defense of hierarchy!
Name an actual dictatorship. Tell me what the hell you mean when you use that word, if you mean anything when you use that word.
You made the blanket statement that tankies are those who "demand a hierarchy where your betters are unquestionable and those below you are subservient."
Not once did you back any of this up without moving goal posts.
I ask you again:
I haven't seen a single person defend the heinous shit Stalin has done that I described. Do you believe defending individual actions means defending the entire person and thus every extent of their actions?
Do you believe that defending certain aspects of the USSR, such as guaranteed housing, free education, and free Healthcare, means defending the Katyn Massacre as well?
Following the previous 2 questions, do you seriously believe people are defending Stalin's abuses of state power wholeheartedly, and are doing so because they love hierarchy?
All of your points so far have been pure anticommunist rhetoric, and using the term tankie to avoid actually having to engage with leftist ideas.
Here's a game: based on what I've said so far, do you legitimately believe me to be a tankie?
If you notice, I actually made that accusation toward all forms of conservatism, so you're not even doing a good job of this mindlessly rigid literalism. You seem to expect I'm describing unreasonable people who would come out and say "why yes, I am being unreasonable, thank you for noticing." No, genius: I am describing inferred motivation behind visible behavior. Explaining that isn't a moving goal-post, it's how a fucking argument works.
You could build a battleship from this much irony.
No, asshole, I don't think you're a tankie, but you are being an asshole by using a lot of their same stupid tactics, including and especially denying there is any such thing as a tankie.
Or a dictatorship.
It's not really how arguments work, considering you just virtue signaled without making any actual points.
My point isn't that there isn't such thing as a tankie, or a dictatorship. Pinochet, Pol Pot, Hitler, and by some stretches, Stalin, are all dictators.
Here's the nuance, and my driving, central points: what you describe as a tankie doesn't fundamentally exist in the quantity you pretend it does. There are always crazy people on any side, but the people you linked don't fit what you described, except in the most extreme, fringe cases. Meanwhile, the majority of people may be "edgy," but aren't supporters of the Katyn Massacre, or the numerous issues in the USSR.
That's why MLs even have a term they call "critical support," whereby they recognize leftist movements like the USSR, and recognize the actions resulted from material conditions and responses to said material conditions, rather than out of a moralistic desire to commit evil.
Pretty sure that covers it. There are very, very few people that actually fit your definition, and you extend it to anyone on the left that's more radical than you as a way to disengage from actual leftist conversation.
Guess I should finish this convo by suggesting you read Marx?
'You could call Stalin a dictator,' allows someone previously going to the paint to declare there's no possible way Stalin was a dictator.
Someone now pretending that when I condemn tankies, I must be describing all leftists, and all leftists don't believe what I'm condemning, therefore nuh-uh. Even though that's completely fucking stupid and the opposite of how labels work. Like there's no possible way I am specifically talking about a minority of crazy people, the same way there's no possible way I am specifically talking about the abuses of a by-some-stretch-dictator, even though you freely fucking acknowledge both problems do exist.
An accusation based on literally nothing. The opposite of everything I've argued here. A fantasy of your own invention.
I wasn't defending Stalin, I was pointing out flaws in your logic, which you continue to double down on. It's like you're in a shit pit, making your own shit castle, flinging it everywhere. Nothing you've actually said has mattered at all.
The people you've described don't fit your definition. You've given a specific definition, then when asked to clarify, you showed people that don't fit that same definition.
Read Marx, I guess.
Cool, who asked? I'm accusing you of saying Stalin wasn't a dictator, because that was kinda your central objection, several comments in a row, until I guess you forgot.
I am calling you a blithe hypocrite and you don't even understand which claim you just fumbled. This whole conversation started with me saying tankies just like leftist-colored dictatorships and you saying 'that wasn't a dictatorship.' Now you want to casually slip that yeah okay you guess it might be, "by some stretches," and pretend it's my fault for not dragging it out of you sooner?
You've looked straight at comments saying 'I wish Stalin gulag'd more people' and 'the uigher genocide is a de-radicalization program' and go, nope, that can't possibly be defending the evils of allegedly communist countries. That's still not a me problem. You can mumble about critical support, but there's ever any context where genocide is an acceptable... political strategy.
These people are out there.
That crazy bullshit is really what they think.
Loyalist hierarchy is the best model explaining their crazy bullshit.
My central objection was to you operating purely on vibes, which you continue to do.
Your second paragraph is more you missing the point, as you always do, so it doesn't really matter.
Do you really think people saying they wish Stalin gulag'd more people are serious? The second claim is half correct, there is absolutely mass imprisonment and mass erasure of culture, it depends on how you define genocide. Is it absolutely evil? Yes. Genocide? Iffy.
You look at everything completely black and white and give them ammo, because then they can turn around and say that China isn't genociding Uighers, when you should just be saying that the de-radicalization program is evil regardless.
All in all, read Marx.
'Nobody says that.' Proof given. 'Oh they're joking.'
Fuck off.
Okay, guess the tankie can't take a joke.
I wish you meant things when you say words.
Case in point.