Be careful where you tread here. You must be careful to separate "communists" (people who believe in economic reorganization away from the power of capital) and "tankies" (those who support corrupt regimes that project the illusion of communism).
There are indeed quite a few communists and various other alt-camp political spectrum believers on here. They do have quite liberal beliefs but don't typically cause much of a fuss, because rational people can coexist with differing beliefs... and i dont mind them one bit. But the tankes, like lemmygrad, hexbear, etc, do stir up an anti-west "commie propaganda"fuss every chance they get, without being related to actual communism, especially if one mentions a hot button like Israel or Ukraine. And if you get into an argument with a tankie, they will just sling mud on you and call you a Nazi.
The cool part is, you can filter a lot of the chaff by just blocking the ugly instances from your user settings page (since Lemmy supports that now), blocking frequent flyers, and trimming/moving your subscribed community list to other, often smaller instances. A minimal amount of effort VASTLY increases the quality of content you'll see on lemmy.
I'd definitely describe myself as a communist, but I do realize we never had a proper communist state on this planet, just authoritarian states that acted like communists to win over the workers. Capitalism needs to be regulated as fuck to create a fair society, so for now, I strive for socialism, because I understand going straight to communism probably won't work.
Sorry if this was uncalled for, I just wanted to show there are sensible communists who don't excuse Russia and China for the shit they're pulling. But neither do I excuse the west for a lot of shit we are pulling.
Those states would agree that they have not achieved communism, and they would agree that they are authoritarian, namely the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin, 1917, The State and Revolution
Bourgeois democracy is a separate term. It can describe something like European nations voting between which bourgeoisie will rule the proletariat. The more you know.
The only time they’re not synonyms is when the capitalist class finds kayfabe democracy insufficient, at which point they deploy fascism. That’s what’s been developing in many Western capitalist states around the world in recent years. The working class is more and more agitated by their deteriorating conditions under neoliberalism. Even the petit bourgeois feel threatened. The far-right surge isn’t organic, though: the capitalist class fuels it to maintain their position.
You scratch some accuratish points now that the comment is redone from the pre-edit slip-up.
Let's sum it all to the audience:
Western capitalist states are being agitated with far-right surges by the Eastern capitalist states to cause internal instability with have the same foreign sources, and yes, targeting to mislead the working classes. Even the "moderate" right wingers let that happen because they'd rather have fascists in power than lose capitalism.
Basically capitalists are infighting between the previous topic of bourgeois democracy & bourgeois dictatorship camps. East and West have integrated fascism in their systems, just with slightly different methods. Western capitalism that voting makes a difference, eastern capitalism lies that their dictatorships are something else and just a facade of fascism.
Both are pretty obvious 'open secrets' / kayfabe. Even the states don't act like this with straight faces and many from the populations see through it all (and displays fascist state lie parrots as pretty comical — but it just bolsters the suffering). The critical mass is still in theater mode, which is enough for the oligarchies as it prevents revolutionary action.
Capitalism needs to be regulated as fuck to create a fair society, so for now, I strive for socialism, because I understand going straight to communism probably won’t work.
Isn't this the exact reasoning behind China's market reforms, beginning under Deng Xiaoping?
If we take this poster at their word, then their disagreement with modern China is not ideological in nature!
Does that mean their disagreement is about the practical implementation? Of course not! That would contradict a key piece of evidence: This World Bank report!
According to the report, 800 million Chinese people have been lifted out of poverty - accounting for three quarters of worldwide poverty reduction! No reasonable person could called that a failed implementation!
If this poster really supports a transitional phase of regulated markets, then why would they be condemning China for successfully implementing the very approach they advocate for?
It might have worked in that regard but at what cost? An authoritarian state that commits genocide inside it's own borders, so yes it clearly failed in the regard that it does not treat everyone equally, a core principle of real communism.
It doesn't matter whether it actually fits the definition of genocide. Human rights get abused there, which is well documented and agreed upon by several sources. That means there is no equality and thus no communism in China.
Look man, whether its a genocide or not doesn't matter. The human rights abuse is well documented and agreed upon by many independent parties. The point is, there is no equality there. So it can't be actual communism, despite them claiming that it is.
Who cares what the exact number is? Of course China says they're just trying to help people, why would they say anything else? But you don't need watchtowers to help people get educated right?
And that AMA thing... It's an information war. Even the US wouldn't be stupid enough to use the real name of someone for that. I feel like it's more likely someone was trying to discredit the genocide claims with that.. Just throwing the name into aechive.org is too easy.
It's certainly difficult to tell what's really going on from here. But usually there is more abuse going on than one would like to think, no matter where you look.
Global news communities in instances like beehaw or lemmy.world seem to have predominantly communist and leftist posters. The nazbols congregate on their own famous three instances.
Sure. That's a phrase which also works. And when English isn't everyone's first, or even second, language, either way is fine as long as the intended message is interpreted somewhat
This is the position you get when you understand capitalism is fucked but you still believe capitalist states' propaganda about socialist revolutions that have actually managed to successfully overthrow the capitalist class, which gets worse the more those states have managed to rival and threaten capitalist rule globally.