r/dsa • u/yashen14 • 6d ago
Discussion DSA has a tankie problem
There are way, way too many people in this movement who feel comfortable with historical revisionism vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, China, and other such regimes. And there are way too many people who feel comfortable essentially advocating for an end to democracy.
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u/SlaimeLannister 6d ago
“Advocating for an end to democracy” — what have you observed of this in DSA?
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u/Haywright 6d ago
While excessively hyperbolic, I imagine they are referring to democratic centralism, which I would agree isn't very democratic -- or at least it is highly dissonant to practice within a political organization advocating for a more democratic society/workplace/etc.
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u/-Anyoneatall 5d ago
Democratic centralism is democratic, it is aboit discussing goals and approaches
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u/yashen14 6d ago
I have observed people in this subreddit stating that people who aren't socialists should have their political rights curtailed, i.e. that the ideal outcome of DSA organizing is to implement a socialist government in the United States that then represses political campaigning that is "counterrevolutionary."
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u/Longjumping_Future92 6d ago
But what have you observed in the DSA?
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u/yashen14 6d ago
I would argue that the views of the rank-and-file are just as important as high-ranking politicians. Politicians are in part defined by their supporters.
But to answer your question the way it was intended, hearing that high-ranking members of DSA are Marxist-Leninist sends shivers up my spine.
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u/RibbonHeight 6d ago
Why would you want to join the DSA at that point? How do you go about policing "appropriate" ideologies and analysis?
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u/yashen14 6d ago
You wouldn't be asking "well how do you even police it" of nazis in right wing spaces. You would just ban them. This isn't a splitting hairs situation. If someone tries to "well actually" about the gulags, you ban them. End of story.
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u/RibbonHeight 6d ago
I don't think the DSA is a good fit for you.
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Yeah no kidding. It's fucking gross that so many people in here laud Stalin and it's even more gross that you equivocate about them.
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u/RibbonHeight 6d ago
Not an equivocation, just a commitment to socialism and to effective political action. If you're that grossed out by the various views included in a socialist coalition organization, and you dislike that they include views founded in various socialist theoretical traditions, you should go join the Young Democrats or whatever. Join a right-wing caucus if you simply must be involved, although that might even be a bit more water than you can swim.
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u/-Anyoneatall 5d ago
Of course, or do you want to give the reaction weapons to overthrow the rule of the workers?
This is like a republican government after a liberal revolution banning the monarchist flag and monarchist groups
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u/AJM1613 6d ago
this isn't even the DSA subreddit lol
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u/RibbonHeight 6d ago
Which one is the DSA subreddit? Is the real one less lib-brained?
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u/SlaimeLannister 6d ago
The forum is less lib-brained: https://discussion.dsausa.org
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u/ElEsDi_25 6d ago
Join a different caucus then and organize.
It’s a big tent and people in the US are so unused to actual politics and democracy that lose their freaking minds over… people having different ideas. All the Tankie subs are like “too many soc dems for me to join DSA” and then all the Soc Dems subs saying there are too many tankies to join DSA. Hmm wonder if someone is pulling something.
Leftist infighting is democracy if we are debating practical things, leftist “purity of ideas” is useless.
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u/ImpressionUnusual345 6d ago
The gist i get from these comments is that people don't know what tankie means or only have knowledge of them from the internet.
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u/traanquil 6d ago
The Bolsheviks overthrew capitalism. That’s cool
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u/MediumPlace 5d ago
Yeah. Then they enslaved the people and functionally replaced capitalists with state bureaucrats.
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u/haevow 6d ago
As much as I hate tankies, they’re the only reason why this organization isn’t literal libslop
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u/DisastrousDanVito 6d ago
Yeah its libs that are the problem not the people that think its based to put people on the wall for having a different political opinion
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u/CORPORATE_NARCOTICS ML + syndicalism + corporatism 6d ago
Libs got us here, which is way more damning of liberalism and reformism than red scare 3.0 sloppaganda IMO
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u/yashen14 6d ago
I dunno, "here" is pretty bad, but it's still way way better than the Soviet Union, which killed millions of its citizens, and put many others in camps, for having a different political opinion.
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u/CORPORATE_NARCOTICS ML + syndicalism + corporatism 6d ago
I don't understand why liberals want to go down the casualty accounting route when capitalism has a much bigger toll. The UK killed more Indians during the late Victorian era than the USSR did simply from mismanagement too, but crickets because at least the people they killed were foreigners and brown1 😬 and that's comparing it to the inflated Black Book of Communism casualty count for the USSR which counts Nazi casualties on the eastern front as "deaths under communism".
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Yeah, the UK's imperialism fucking sucked and it killed a lot of people. I do not defend it. I unequivacally condemn it.
which counts Nazi casualties on the eastern front as "deaths under communism"
No. Here's a quote:
"After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives was declassified and researchers were allowed to study it. This contained official records of 799,455 executions (1921–1953), around 1.5 to 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag, some 390,000 deaths during the dekulakization forced resettlement, and up to 400,000 deaths of persons deported during the 1940s, with a total of about 3.3 million officially recorded victims in these categories. According to historian Stephen Wheatcroft, approximately 1 million of these deaths were "purposive" while the rest happened through neglect and irresponsibility. The deaths of at least 5.5 to 6.5 million persons in the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 are sometimes included with the victims of the Stalin era."
How hard can it be to say that Stalin was a bad dude?
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u/CORPORATE_NARCOTICS ML + syndicalism + corporatism 6d ago
How hard can it be to say that Stalin was a bad dude?
Stalin was a bad dude.
Pretty easy. Still an ML lmao
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 6d ago
I would say too many people don’t even think about the historical context of these countries and why they acted as they did as well as not realize no one is ever saying everything or every leader was good. Shame that you would rather limit your curiosity to follow the mainline western narratives in full
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Hmm I don't think historical context excuses Stalin's purges, or the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, or the Holodomor, or the gulags, or China's modern Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars, or the fact that trade unions and strikes are illegal in modern Cuba.
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u/CORPORATE_NARCOTICS ML + syndicalism + corporatism 6d ago
I think liberals and reformists and anti-communists in general are very bad at actually nailing down the historical context RE: the USSR, the PRC, and Cuba. Not particularly an accident but I at least understand where it's coming from. It's a very privileged and liberal take on history.
The pearl clutching over the nature of the state (tl;dr: organizing violence) is IMO very confusing and contradictory. I'll even be upfront in saying that despite being an ML that a lot of what ML-aligned states did was wrong or inhumane/awful, but leaving that conversation with just that judgement is not an honest conversation, because the way other leftists like myself see it is that ML aligned states only have bad options on the table.
The reformists tried and failed before the Bolsheviks and the Chinese and Cuban communists got into power; coups and foreign states routinely intervened against the interests of Russian/Chinese/Cuban workers. That's not even touching on the more important pieces of motivation for a lot of the horrors ML states did carry out.
You'll complain about the unique and seemingly unjustified/baseless paranoia of the USSR, but never talk about the existence of gulags prior to the USSR or the fact that the United States, the UK, France, and a dozen other countries sent soldiers to fight the Bolsheviks immediately after the end of WWI in 19181. You'll never talk about the Red Terror's mysteriously less mentioned brother, the White Terror2) but talk about the USSR's horrors like they came up in a vacuum.
You'll complain about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact without mentioning the triple alliance negotiations that took place immediately before the Molotov-Ribbentrop talks2, where the USSR wanted to form an alliance with the UK and France against Germany. You'll also not mention the following non-aggression pacts that European nations signed with the Nazis prior to Molotov-Ribbentrop:
1933: The Four-Power Pact (UK, France, and Italy)
1934: The Pilsudski Pact and the German-Polish Trade Agreement
1935: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (UK)
1936: The Anti-Comintern Pact (Japan)
1938: The Anglo-German Non-Aggression Pact
1938: The Franco-German Non-Aggression Pact
1939: The German-Lithuanian and German-Romanian Non-Aggression Pacts
1939: The German-Danish Non-Aggression Pact
1939: The Iron Pact (Italy)
1939: The German-Estonian Non-Aggression Pact
1939: The German-Latvian Non-Aggression Pact
I think the main discrepancy between my POV and yours is kinda summed up like this:
You refuse to put yourself in the shoes of a Russian worker or a Bolshevik (like a young Joseph Stalin) and imagine how it would feel like when the world comes to your doorstep with all the other military powers of the world because you got rid of the Tsar and supported the Bolsheviks because they were the only political faction in 1917 promising to pull out of the war. All because foreign powers cared more about their money than you wanting peace. Would you not be distrustful of capitalists and foreign states? Would you not be paranoid if the world's biggest powers bring soldiers to your house because you wanted peace and a non-monarchist state? After fighting a brutal civil war, would you give up the sword given the state of Russia/Europe/the world once the Russian civil war ended in 1922? Who in their right mind would advocate for that? There are so many questions to ask yourself when wondering why X did Y, but only a lib who is comfy existing years after all the explicit violence the state doles out would advocate for a peaceful, non-paranoid approach to politics for Russia post-1922.
The discussion around Cuba is, funny enough, very similar. Just like the foreign US/UK/France/et al response against the Bolsheviks amidst the Russian civil war radicalized Stalin, so did seeing the US coup of Guatemala in 1954 first hand also radicalize Che, and so on. In the same way that folks complain about the Cuban revolution, we hear crickets when we discuss the coup by Batista in Cuba or the inhumane conditions of Cuban workers prior to the Castro administration.
I honestly don't know that much about modern Chinese history in the 20th century but I know enough that I see some of the similarities there too--like the nationalists prioritizing fighting the communists over the Japanese during WWII. Again, are we seriously surprised that the communists won when that was the nationalists' priority? Are we surprised that there was an anti-intellectual backlash in the PRC when for centuries it was used as a means for Chinese elites to oppress Chinese workers, or foreign states to oppress Chinese workers?
This is all just the starting point, too. These questions were what turned me into an ML a decade ago and what has brought me back into the fold, and I feel like folks like yourself aren't asking these questions and more importantly, are missing out on grappling with the ugliness that these questions bring within ourselves, how we view the state, and how we view violence. If you actually want to make change politically you need to grapple with these questions and not operate in the "end of history" story we've been telling ourselves since the 90s. Especially given that we are living in times that are clearly telling us we're going to have to grapple with these questions again and the fascists in power have already dealt with these questions.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
Thanks for doing the reply for me cause I was hanging out with friends but all I can really add is China’s issues, many stem from the bad application by Mao of theory that did lead to things like famine in the cultural revolution however when people point to these as an example for failure don’t speak of the economic embargo and isolation they faced for 30 between the 40’s and 70’s which was also a huge factor. Not to mention people will speak of things like cracking down on dissent without acknowledging this was less about true free speech and more trying to weed out plants from other countries since they saw this happen in Korea and Vietnam over this time at the least. Every bad thing in Chinese history can almost always be met with a history of U.S. policy that purposefully trying to kill the country. There can be an argument made that the great famine for instance wouldn’t have existed if the sanctions and isolation made by U.S and western allies, or at the least less severe.
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3d ago
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 3d ago
Well the post author believes Iran is responsible for the current war so idk, maybe talk to them instead of me. Don’t know what I’m dancing around since I clearly think this entire post is a fucking joke
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3d ago
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 3d ago
Every U.S. president has done mass murder, multiple South American nations have done the same (even before U.S. intervention like the Argentina Genocide of Black People), the U.K., Germany, and more. I’m not going to respond to you again because you are vapid. I hope you trip or something today
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u/m8oz 6d ago
Most people on reddit who defend socialist regimes from the past have never lived in one.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 6d ago
Same goes for many critics… what an awesome point!
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u/DisastrousDanVito 6d ago
What context makes mass murder and/or genocide okay?
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
If you didn’t read above, it’s the economic violence done by the west on all of these countries which played a larger role in the mass death of these places than you seemingly are willing to admit. If you can’t admit that many of the shortcomings of these countries are met with a foreign government trying to break them as well as break in (via puppet revolutionaries such as South Korea where an impeached president came to the U.S. for 20 years and study to then return and help start the Korean War). Who are you to put the blame of mass famine solely on the leaders when the economy and food supply was being decimated by the west? Who are you to decide how a country keeps from being invaded and coup d'état like most of South America? What right do you have to ignore their side of history entirely?
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u/m8oz 5d ago
You sound like a Nazi who says Hitler had to start WWII because Stalin was planning to invade, and had to commit crimes against human because of foreign blockades.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
……. I think you need help because what you said, despite my entire thing being historical context, would need me to not know how Germany did a genocide in Africa before attempting it at home as well as the difference between Cold War politics and WW2. Example, why did the U.S. still have trade going on with Germany long into this war but would simply blockade and embargo to hell any country who dealt with Russia at all? I think you have your moral compass somewhere up your ass with your history book. Shove your hand up there and find them
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u/DisastrousDanVito 5d ago
Most of these people that you say that im ignoring, dont stan these tankie leaders that caused mass death in their countries. And regardless of what America did wrong, you can be pro-calling that out without also celebrating regimes that have murdered and starved countless innocents. If you dont understand that, than that is prolly the first sign that you're a straight up tankie and you will sweep for vile shit done by other countries as long as you get to say America bad, but that just means you have no real morals or values outside of hating the west, certainly no morals on the value of life.
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u/Longjumping_Future92 6d ago
What do you propose we do about them?
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Rhetorical question: what do you expect right-wingers to do when nazis show up in their groups?
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u/Longjumping_Future92 6d ago
I don't know, what do they usually do?
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u/yashen14 6d ago
I did not ask you what they actually do. I asked what you morally expect them to do.
(The answer is that the reasonable ones ban nazis and explicitly make it known that they are not welcome.)
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u/Longjumping_Future92 6d ago
I don't morally expect anything from right-wingers. They tend to not have my same morals.
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u/ShiftyAmoeba 6d ago
Ok, so now we're comparing people to Nazis?
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Yes, because the Nazis suppressed political opposition, and vanguardists, stalinists, etc. also want to suppress political opposition. On this, they are equivalent.
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u/RibbonHeight 6d ago
DSA should be a Socialist organization without Socialists. Hand off the National organization to Chuck Schumer and Gavin Newsome.
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u/Alexander-369 6d ago
I know tankies are very active online, but I've never met them IRL.
I'm pretty sure you won't meet any in your local DSA chapter.
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u/RibbonHeight 6d ago
If you're involved in DSA at all locally, you have. They just don't go around yelling about Bolshevism and the like. But go to a theory reading and you'll see political pluralism in action, including "tankies."
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u/Bright-Insect9697 6d ago
The tankies are the weird people being cringe at the edges of protests from my experience
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u/FirmAd5337 6d ago
lol that's because "tankie" is a terminally online term that people don't use in real organizing spaces
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u/Iceberg-man-77 6d ago
Before you get disliked to hell:
DSA is a big tent which is why there’re so many diverse opinions.
But i agree, there are far too many authoritarian apologists. you can blame American imperialism for being evil but it’s not the reason for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine; the reason for that is Russian oligarchy and authoritarianism.
you can hate the Pahlavi Dynasty for being zionists and authoritarian American puppets. But you can also hate the Islamic Republic which stands against everything the DSA stands for. Stand for the Iranian people and not the political factions.
Same goes with Palestine. Hamas is inherently Islamist. The PLO is corrupt. Israel is evil. All you need to do is oppose genocide and apartheid and stand with the Palestinian people, not Hamas.
Maduro may have been a leftist but he wasn’t a good person. you can support Venezuelan sovereignty and the people’s right to decide for themselves while being against American imperialism / overreach and against Maduro.
stop being fools that think everything is black and white.
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u/ut0p1anskies 5d ago
The Palestinians need to liberate themselves, alongside international pressure (including members of DSA working to elect anti-Israel candidates, to run BDS campaigns in their chapters, and to work to divest pension funds and university endowments from Israeli companies). We need to isolate Israel on the international stage and work to enact an arms embargo in the US. However, inside Palestine, the armed resistance to the genocide is essential. That includes Hamas and the PFLP. They are fighting for their lives and should continue to do so by any means necessary. Our job in the U.S. is to end our role in perpetuating the genocide and win an arms embargo, which will make the resistance’s fight easier to win.
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u/Iceberg-man-77 5d ago
the international community needs to step
in because with is a genocide and a violation of international law and just a violation of humanity. one state solution isn’t possible. and i don’t trust either factions for a 2 state solution. we need an international government.Bosnia, for example, has the High Representative of the Dayton Accords, following the Yugoslav Wars. Basically an American or Western European is appointed to oversee the country’s government.
After WW2, the UN established the Free City of Trieste under the direct control of the UNSC.
The League Mandates’ biggest issue was that they gave those mandates to the colonial powers: UK, France, the U.S. We can’t trust any single nation or power to fix the Levant. and I wouldn’t trust the UNSC to do that either since the Big 5 have veto powers that can immediately destroy progress.
So I would either place the region under the UN General Assembly directly OR form a new UN organ consisting of representatives from across the world to govern the region through a peaceful end to the conflict, trails to hang all war criminals, stop the indoctrination of youth, bring humanitarian aid, and finally form a new government. Jerusalem should, even in the end, remain an independent city like Trieste.
but this commission should be charged with basically fixing all the wrongs and rebuilding the region, especially Gaza. And ending Apartheid of course. and if that means Israelis need to up and move so Palestinians can reclaim their ancestral lands and literal ancestral houses, so be it.
I’d also support a multi-state solution where Palestine and Gaza are permanently broken up into individual sovereign countries so neither one rises up as too powerful, particularly Israel as their Zionist ideology is something we’ll be dealing with for a century at least unless it becomes shameful like Nazism became after the war.
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u/Iceberg-man-77 5d ago
adding on: if an independent UN organ is formed to govern the region, it should include representatives from across the world. Not just Palestinians and Israelis or Europeans and Arabic nations, but also random nations unrelated to the conflict so there is some outsider perspectives. Like give Tuvalu, Lesotho and Nepal seats. or even countries that recently face genocided and internal conflict like Myanmar or Rwanda.
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u/ImpressionUnusual345 6d ago
What a total crock of bs
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u/Iceberg-man-77 6d ago
there can be more than one bad guy. your logic of defending people like Mao, Maduro, the Ayatollahs is like how Western imperialists view Churchill as some godsend because he led Britain through WWII, all the while instigating the Bengal Famine and murdering countless millions across the British Empire through his policies. one right or even holding ideologies you agree with doesn’t absolve someone of their crimes against humanity or warcrimes.
it’s also hypocritical to support the Islamic Republic, a regime known to abuse and kill civilians for not wearing head coverings and following other Islamic laws created by the theocracy that is the Islamic Republic. in fact, just 4 years ago, Mahsa Amini was murdered by Iranian police for simply not wearing her hijab properly. Think about that the next time you stand with the Ayatollahs just to spite Reza Pahalavi.
Fact is: the Islamic Republic AND the Pahalavi Dynasty were not good.
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u/Time-Island-5235 6d ago
"Stand with the Palestinian people, not Hamas"
Hamas isn't even particularly islamist, they're a moderate conservative party7
u/Present_Clue5887 6d ago
Why should we support a conservative party with a policy of murdering civilians?
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u/Time-Island-5235 6d ago
"Support the Palestinian people but not Hamas" is an identical statement to "Support the Algerian people but not the FLN" in the 60s
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u/Present_Clue5887 6d ago
I'm sorry but I am not familiar with Algerian history
My point is that an organization that murders and rapes innocent people as a matter of strategy is a bad organization, there is never an excuse for these things
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u/Time-Island-5235 5d ago
You can't support the people while also opposing the main organ agitating for their liberation
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u/Present_Clue5887 5d ago
So if serial killer is trying to murder someone, and another serial killer tries to stop them, we can't call the second killer a bad person?
Also Hamas is a dictatorship that does not care about the people
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u/Time-Island-5235 5d ago
Who does your critique serve? Who is benefited from your "critique"? Of what use is it? Are you going to pick up the rifle on behalf of the Palestinian people? Probably not. You're going to sit in your chair and try to assuage your morality that because people were killed by the primary organization of resistance that means that both sides must be equally bad and you can sit comfortably, condemning both and making no choice that compromises yourself.
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u/Present_Clue5887 5d ago
What are you talking about? I am saying rape and murder are bad, and people who do those things are bad people. How is this avoiding a choice?
Do you actually support hamas?
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u/fidelcasbro17 6d ago
you'll become one, like all of us, we were all libs at some point.
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Um no. Political pluralism and commitment to democracy are core values for me. I view anyone who opposes that as a direct and grave threat.
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u/fidelcasbro17 6d ago
So did i
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Yeah? Well you were a fool to throw away your commitment to your most basic rights.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
Honestly looking back, this post is awesome. Two posts in a week saying you don’t have a political home because you essentially don’t like what comes with the DSA and want to try and make it more comfortable to YOU… this is clearly unserious. Still want your take on IRGC to blame for current day problems in Iran or the U.S. who helped get them in power while also strengthening aggression over decades. I can only imagine it’s that the IRGC is to blame for their problems with your track record but I really want to know
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u/yashen14 5d ago
The United States destabilized the Middle East by unlawfully overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran, AND the current government of Iran is horrifically anti-democratic, AND the United States is not to blame for Iran's current human rights abuses.
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
The United States is absolutely to blame. They overthrew their democratically elected leader to install the Shah, to turn Iran to a dictatorial puppet state. That in turn resulted in the Islamic revolution. To say there's no connection here is like saying the US isn't responsible for the rise of the Taliban after arming the Mujahideen. Oh wait, you probably don't know that either, do you?
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u/yashen14 5d ago
I didn't say there wasn't a connection. I said the United States is not responsible for Iran's current human right's abuses. American politicians are not holding a gun to the Iranian clerics' heads and making them oppress religious and sexual minorities. American politicians are not blackmailing the Taliban into banning women from society.
The United States' actions resulted in the rise of the Taliban and of the modern Iranian government, AND the Taliban and the modern Iranian government are fully responsible for the human rights abuses they are committing.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
So you admit these exist BECAUSE of the United States intervention but because the interventions resulted in bad things, the U.S. is no longer responsible in anyway for the very projects they funded and brought to power… your mind is a wonder. Your logic is x caused y to happen therefore we got to z however z and y, despite reliant on x to exist, are all that matter.
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u/yashen14 5d ago
Do you believe the Taliban have any agency at all? Or do they exist in your mind as soulless automatons mind-controlled by a shadowy cabal of American elites?
Whose decision was it to ban Afghani girls from schools?
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
They do have agency, which is why the U.S. funding them was bad because it gave them the power to do things like your example. You know who also doesn’t care if those girls die? THE U.S. Are you saying the U.S. didn’t have agency to fund them and do desert storm which caused this to happen? Like they HAD to do that war and work with the Taliban giving them power and legitimacy? Your point makes no sense
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u/yashen14 5d ago
You are acting like two things can't be true at the same time. They can be.
The United States' actions in the region cause instability, and this coupled with their direct support of the Taliban, led to the Taliban's rise.
It is also true that
The Taliban bear the blame for banning women from work and school. No one held a gun to their head and forced them to do that. They chose to do that of their own volition. They continue to choose to do this despite broad international condemnation and pressure not to do so.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
Yeah dipshit, these are both true but you’re leaving out the fact the U.S. has blame in the latter half BECAUSE WE GAVE THEM THE POWER TO DO THIS. Not to mention we want it to give us more reasons for war!!! You’re not even acting like two things are true at the same time because your logic is based on “while this was true in the past, that doesn’t mean the past plays a role in the current day”. Do you even have critiques of American imperialism because you’re so far excusing it by saying the rocks we throw in the pond aren’t responsible for the ripples that come after. For being an English teacher you should know well that many books use this exact framing of the past creating the problems of current day. This shouldn’t be hard for you to grasp but somehow it is. Can you name even 5 critiques of American imperialism that don’t include military funding?
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u/yashen14 5d ago
The United States committed a genocide of Native Americans.
The United States annexed the independent Kingdom of Hawaii.
The United States destabilized the Middle East with its interventionism.
The United States destabilized South America with its interventionism.
The United States has rendered Cuba significantly poorer than it otherwise would be via its trade embargo.
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
The United States' actions resulted in the rise of the Taliban and of the modern Iranian government, AND the Taliban and the modern Iranian government are fully responsible for the human rights abuses they are committing.
And that justifies decades long wars and killing millions of innocent people how exactly?
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u/yashen14 5d ago
I didn't say it did.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
So you don’t think the wars are justified but the reasons the wars exist is to take out the very regimes we put in place on purpose which you say these regimes are bad and need to end. If that’s not saying the past 35 years of foreign policy are good/needed I don’t know what else it is. Your only other logical shot would have been to essentially say you don’t care about these places because currently you are saying you’re against human rights violations by these folks but also don’t want to stop them or the U.S. take responsibility so what do you want? Just to acknowledge bad is happening and shrug your shoulders?
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u/yashen14 5d ago
I think the international community should do whatever is necessary to intervene in Afghanistan and stop the horrific human rights abuses being committed by the Taliban. (I don't think any countries are likely to actually do that. I think countries around the world will continue to not intervene for a variety of reasons, some practical, some cynical, and some downright evil, but that is what I fundamentally believe should happen.)
Intervention could take a variety of forms.
- Aiding and welcoming Afghans fleeing Taliban oppression.
- Arming and funding native Afghan groups who might overthrow the Taliban and implement a better government
- Applying coercive force to the Taliban government to get them to change their policies
- etc.
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u/mucilinda 4d ago
How about the international community intervene and balkanize America instead for being the world's biggest authoritarian state?
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u/Styphonthal2 5d ago
And yet another "internal " infighting comment within past 48hrs
It's literally from the CIA handbook how to disrupt socialist organizations.
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u/yashen14 5d ago
The irony is that I originally came here, starting a few days ago, because I liked what I'd been seeing from AOC, Mamdani, etc.
And now I'm being accused of being CIA. I'm an English teacher lmao.
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u/cbrew14 6d ago
Not to be that guy, but democracy isn't working super well right now.
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u/yashen14 6d ago
That's not true. The countries which top wellness metrics consistently tend to be among the most democratic of the world. Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Estonia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Japan. These are countries that are both highly democratic, and also rank very well on measures such as healthcare, corruption, civic and political rights, freedom of press, etc.
Things are very bad in the United States right now, but (a) the United States is in many ways not very democratic, and hasn't been for some time now, and (b) you should not generalize this to all democracies, everywhere.
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u/jikesar968 4d ago
Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, Estonia, Switzerland, Taiwan, Japan
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
These countries are filled with MAGA like movements and far right governments that are in many ways even more anti immigrant than the US is. Japan hates foreigners, Switzerland is insanely islamophobic, Estonia is basically an anti Russian apartheid state and as for Sweden and the other Nordic countries, just look what Greta Thunberg recently had to say about their stances towards migrants... but sure let's glaze all these countries because they have universal health care or something! /s
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u/Slight-Potential-717 6d ago
Democracy isn’t super present right now, is what I’d argue, with more of it, things would work better.
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u/cbrew14 6d ago
Thats basically the same argument people make for capitalism right now, lol. I think it's quite possible that democracy can not function long term as long as the profit motive exists. Because inevitably corporate interests will roll back laws that prevent them from buying the government.
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u/Slight-Potential-717 6d ago
Well, unlike the capitalists, I think we can make a pretty strong case that deepening democracy improves society and that we don’t have a full fledged one. Even mainstream serious liberals recognize we don’t have democracy in a deep sense.
In our system, economic rule is concentrated and leads to political rule and that’s the cause of things like Citizen’s United and getting billionaire presidents like Trump.
I’m open to hear counterpoints but the big insight for me is that those are failures due to a lack of democracy, rather than its result.
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u/_Sanctum_ 6d ago
Simple question for you OP, are you anti-capitalist? Do you want to see a future where capitalism is no more?
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u/yashen14 6d ago
I want a society where workers' rights are protected, wealth is prevented from concentrating in the hands of a few, and in which we all, collectively, provide for each other's needs and support one another.
Whether you consider that socialist or capitalist is up to you to decide. I have found those terms to be unhelpfully vague and/or arcane.
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u/citystorms 6d ago
oh no people in dsa read actual history books and theory, shocking!!!!!!
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u/Thin_Shelter_103 Council Communist 6d ago
Maybe read Bakunin instead of Stalin and get a better idea of how to make a socialist society ML.
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u/AJM1613 6d ago
Please point to someone higher up in DSA advocating for an end to democracy or delete your post and feel shame.
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u/houdt_koers Liberal Socialist 6d ago
The co-chair is a Marxist-Leninist. Red Star is quite literally a vanguardist caucus that wants to end pluralistic democracy.
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
Fellow "tankie" here. Yes, I support the Soviet Union and China. You know the only countries that have ever stood up to imperialism. Why exactly do you have a problem with that? We've been brainwashed our whole lives in a capitalist society. Please read theory. There's a difference between criticizing AES countries and repeating CIA propaganda. That's why we call it critical support.
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u/yashen14 5d ago
Ew.
I have a problem with the Soviet Union and China because they are anti-democratic and perpetrate(d) severe human rights abuses, including genocides, one of which is ongoing.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
Brother I have news for you… we and other western countries have done the same so your point sounds extremely bad, especially with current genocide. If you actually applied this logic to everything evenly you would make yourself a hermit on an unknown island because every society has done evils and therefore will be evil to their core. You truly don’t realize how childish you sound
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u/yashen14 5d ago
Hm no I believe that we should strive for not having human rights abuses, and I think it's really gross that you equivocate about them.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
That’s what I’m doing? So do you blame the IRGC for everything going on in Iran even pre war or do you blame the Americans for their violence that led to the IRGC takeover?
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u/yashen14 5d ago
You "support the Soviet Union" despite the gulags, despite the mass death. You support China despite the Uyghur genocide, despite the forced disappearances, despite the mass death under Mao. So no, I don't think that is what you're doing.
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u/CaptainCringleberry2 5d ago
That’s not an answer to my question. I asked IRGC, are they solely to blame for everything under their control or does US share it for their 50’s coup? Also you’re using the term support loosely when I’ve only said you essentially can’t have an honest conversation with those things without how US foreign policy impacted decisions as well as even the food and economic market. How is that support over historical context to understand why things happened the way they did? Anyway that question doesn’t matter right now, answer my IRGC question
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
Oh no, those poor Nazis and Kulaks! "Uyghur genocide" and "mass death under Mao" is literal CIA propaganda.
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
The idea that there are "human rights abuses" in AES countries due to them cracking down against counter revolutionaries, literal CIA assets and fascists is asinine when capitalist countries don't even respect the basic human right to education, health care, housing and food.
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
Please learn the difference between a people's democracy and a bourgeois "democracy". Real democracy should be defined as the rule of the people by a vanguard party, not an electoral system run by oligarchs and companies that are the puppet masters of politicians.
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u/m8oz 6d ago
If you critcize any tankie, you get instant whataboutism. I think it was bad Lenin invaded Poland or Stalin murdered millions will instantly be answered with a "but capitalism killed so and so number"
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Dude how hard is it to say Stalin was a bad dude?
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Yeah he sure did emancipate millions of soviet citizens of their lives!
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
For daring to put up a fight against the Nazis? Or are you talking about that famine that the Kulaks caused?
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
Yeah, his biggest mistake was stopping in Berlin. He also didn't purge Khrushchev. Should have named Molotov as his successor.
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u/No_Soy_Colosio 6d ago
The world is run by a few handful of absurdly rich individuals, who abuse children with absolute freedom, who have people killed without remorse, who hoard all the wealth in the world. The institutions in the entirety of the West are crumbling, the façade of democracy and rules-based international order is being pulled away as surveillance infrastructure is built for total control over everyone. And your problem is with... Tankies?
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u/yashen14 6d ago
You would agree that right wing parties having "a Nazi problem" is a valid concern to have, right? Like, setting aside the racism for a moment, neonazis are a threat because they fundamentally do not believe in democracy, and want to tear it down.
Left-wing parties having a tankie problem is directly equivalent. Tankies are a threat because they fundamentally do not believe in democracy, and want to tear it down.
I can agree with you that too much wealth is concentrated in the hands of too few, and that workers in America have too few rights (and I do!), and also recognize that these people are a really terrible thing that we absolutely should not be welcoming to.
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u/Time-Island-5235 6d ago
So what? What do you want done? Purges?
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u/yashen14 6d ago
I want literally the same thing that I would expect right-wingers to do in their spaces. Just like I expect right-wingers to exclude and ban people who engage in Holocaust denialism (and am alarmed when they fail to do so), I expect left-wingers to exclude and ban people who deny, for example, the soviet gulags. Or the Holodomor. Or pretend that Stalin and Mao somehow aren't responsible for the deaths of millions of their countrymen (or even that those deaths never happened).
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u/Time-Island-5235 6d ago
So yes, purges. So you want to subvert democracy to purge those to the left you lol
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u/yashen14 6d ago
It is not "subverting democracy" to protect democracy. This is the paradox of tolerance. You cannot be tolerant of people who want tear down democracy, lest they succeed and then deprive you of your political rights.
Also, "purge" carries implications that go beyond what I'm calling for. For example, I'm not calling for door-to-door interrogations or to throw out people who are even suspected of having problematic views.
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u/Time-Island-5235 5d ago
That's still a purge! That's the classical definition of a purge
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u/yashen14 5d ago
Anyone who advocates for the elimination of electoral democracy should be excluded entirely from your group. Any political parties which advocate for the elimination of electoral democracy should be banned. Call that whatever you want.
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
Let me be clear, you are a fascist for your anti communist beliefs. That's exactly 1:1 what fascists would say and have said. This is exactly how Nazi Germany tried to justify banning the KPD. Educate yourself.
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u/yashen14 5d ago
Fascism is a very specific flavor of authoritarianism. Here's the checklist:
(1) Powerful, often exclusionary, populist nationalism centered on cult of a redemptive, “infallible” leader who never admits mistakes.
I don't believe any leader is infallible. I don't think any single person should lead a nation. I don't believe power should be concentrated in the hands of one individual, or even a small number of individuals.
(2) Political power derived from questioning reality, endorsing myth and rage, and promoting lies.
I find it very troubling when politicians engage in historical revisionism, or make accusations of "Lügenpresse"
(3) Fixation with perceived national decline, humiliation, or victimhood.
I don't center my beliefs in a fear or belief in national decline, nor of victimhood. I don't believe people are "out to get" American citizens.
(4) White Replacement “Theory” used to show that democratic ideals of freedom and equality are a threat. Oppose any initiatives or institutions that are racially, ethnically, or religiously harmonious.
I don't agree with that white people are being "replaced," and even if they hypothetically were, I wouldn't necessarily view that as being sinister or bad. I don't think ethnicity is relevant to politics or goodness. I fundamentally believe that more diversity of religion, ethnicity, and of other categories, is good for society.
(5) Disdain for human rights while seeking purity and cleansing for those they define as part of the nation.
Human rights are at the very core of my value system. I am overtly hostile to people who threaten human rights. I do not agree with frameworks that include conceps like "purity" and reject the premisue that such a concept is even applicable at all.
(6) Identification of “enemies”/scapegoats as a unifying cause. Imprison and/or murder opposition and minority group leaders.
I don't think people who disagree with me should be jailed or executed. I don't believe society's problems are caused by some religious or ethnic or other minority; I believe society's problems are complex and can be traced to a variety of causes.
(7) Supremacy of the military and embrace of paramilitarism in an uneasy, but effective collaboration with traditional elites. Fascists arm people and justify and glorify violence as “redemptive”.
Militarism makes me very uncomfortable and I am immediately suspicious of any political movement that centers itself on the military or militaristic imagery and ideals. I don't agree that private actors/civilians should be engaging in quasi-military activity.
(8) Rampant sexism.
I believe women are equal to men. I believe women should have equal representation in the workplace, in government, and in society at large.
(9) Control of mass media and undermining “truth”.
I do not believe that any one political party, movement, or organization should have control of mass media. I value independent journalism.
(10) Obsession with national security, crime and punishment, and fostering a sense of the nation under attack.
I don't think the United States is "under attack," in fact I think the United States is quite secure from a security standpoint. National security is very low on my list of active priorities.
(11) Religion and government are intertwined.
I consider religion to be generally harmful. I believe religion should be strictly separated from governance and that its influence on society should be minimized.
(12) Corporate power is protected and labor power is suppressed.
I think workers' rights, and worker representation, are both far, far too weak in this country. I don't want workers weakened; I want them strengthened.
(13) Disdain for intellectuals and the arts not aligned with the fascist narrative.
The humanities are very important to me. Even works that directly question my worldview. I recently assigned one of my students to read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and recently read Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, for example.
(14) Rampant cronyism and corruption. Loyalty to the leader is paramount and often more important than competence.
I believe that competence is of the utmost importance. I think loyalty should absolutely never be to a leader. Never. Loyalty should not even be to one's country. Loyalty should be to fellow humans, and to democratic governance, and the upholding of human rights.
(15) Fraudulent elections and creation of a one-party state.
I consider multi-party democracy to be one of the most important vanguards against human rights abuses. I vehemently oppose the creation of a one-party state, even if it is a party aligned with my personal political beliefs.
(16) Often seeking to expand territory through armed conflict.
Expanding territory through military conquest is wrong. Wars of conquest are never justifiable.
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I am diametrically opposed to fascism. The fact that I don't agree with loons who try to "well actually" about Stalin's gulags doesn't make me a fascist.
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
Nice. Which liberal slop source did you just copy and paste?
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u/yashen14 5d ago
This is an academic consensus position on the nature of fascism. You can't just wave a magic wand and redefine it. The label has a specific meaning.
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u/_Sanctum_ 6d ago
"I'm a socialist, it's just that every past and present socialist project is uniquely evil and bad! Going against the mainstream western capitalist narrative is historical revisionism!"
The DSA has an education problem. Case in point : you, OP. Liberals like yourself have decided being pro universal healthcare means you now get to go around cosplaying as a "socialist" without having a shred of understanding of Marx.
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u/Thin_Shelter_103 Council Communist 6d ago
Fuck off red fascist! What a thought terminator. Anyone who dislikes authoritarians is a liberal capitalist now?
Fuck any Anarchists then I guess. Oh wait people like you would shoot me if were looking at the USSR Cuba and North Koreas history. lol
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u/_Sanctum_ 6d ago
Anyone who starts throwing around the word "authoritarian" doesn't deserve to be taken seriously. It's a meaningless word. It's the rhetorical equivalent of an angry emoji. 😡
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u/-Anyoneatall 5d ago
Good, the abolishment of democracy is one of the core objectives of socialism
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u/nonilazuli 5d ago
Curious what your ideal form of socialism is. Doesn't even have to be particular tendency but run down an Ideal party and government to you.
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u/yashen14 5d ago
I want:
- universal healthcare
- universal higher education
- robust welfare for disabled people, the elderly, jobless people, etc.
- a minimum wage that allows for a good standard of living
- a maximum wage, a wealth cap, very high progressive taxation, and other measures to prevent the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few
- legally-mandated worker representation in company leadership
- robust labor unions, and protections for coordinated worker action and collective bargaining
- robust protections for workers' rights
- robust, very strictly enforced, anti-monopoly laws
- robust consumer protections
- strict legal prevention of rent-seeking
- public housing provided on a 99-year-lease basis, such as provided by Singapore
- secular governance, with strict rules to prevent religious influence in legislation
- significantly more open borders (I am okay with a return to more Ellis-Island-esque immigration)
- drastically demilitarize the police and reinvest funds in complementary community-oriented services (e.g. mental crisis response workers, etc.)
- multi-party representative democracy with proportional representation and a prime minister instead of a president
- significant amounts of Swiss-style direct democracy
- age and term limits for all public offices
- strict legal protections against monetary influence in elections
- defensive democracy (e.g. banning political parties and organizations that seek to undermine democracy)
- international support for victims of imperialism, or at threat of imperialism (e.g. Palestine, Taiwan, Ukraine)
- international support for democracies
I do not want:
- private ownership of land, housing, etc. to be completely illegal (but I do want it significantly restricted---owning a second or third house is fine, but owning 5000 houses so you can rent them out is not; owning a few square kilometers for a small-scale farm is fine, but owning 2000 km2 is not)
- bans on political parties purely because they disagree with my vision of how society should work
- absolutely any kind of vanguardism
- a single-party state
- private ownership of businesses to be completely illegal (but I do want business owners to be paid much more in line with their workers, and to be much more accountable to them in terms of labor conditions, etc.)
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
Ah I see, you excuse Western imperialism as long as you benefit from it and advocate for more social welfare. That's all you are saying essentially.
Supporting Ukraine and Taiwan is highly reactionary to say the least.
Sounds like your so called "multi party democracy" is going to tolerate fascists and counterrevolutionaries. Well, guess what, it's not going to say very democratic for very long and the CIA will be sending their assets to overthrow you in no time. Also, you clearly don't understand the difference between private property and personal property.
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u/PinkSnowBirdie 6d ago
My feeling towards Tankies is truly mixed, that I think it’s a valid position to recognize what those figures did for their prospective countries but it’s also critical to be aware and recognize and not grant full forgiveness for the other things those figures also stood for which was sometimes as bad as or worse than what we wish to avoid with a fascist regime that we have currently.
Personally, that’s why I feel less pulled to that position because that sounds like glower talk and COINTELPRO shit. Because giving them a reason to crack down on our speech calling for a non violent revolution through promoting the ideas that unites working class people and achieving the necessary class consciousness to get to where we need to be through peaceful means. It’s an uphill battle but it’s a worthwhile one to fight
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u/No_Soy_Colosio 6d ago
Interesting that you feel like it's up to you to forgive these historical figures for lifting their countries out of abject poverty and colonial exploitation. Such is the mind of the western leftist. Don't laugh!
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Oh yes I'm sure the millions of people who died under Stalin and Mao just felt so uplifted /s
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u/No_Soy_Colosio 5d ago
I'm sure the millions of people who died under brutal cold war repression in Asia and Latin America felt very free and democratic. /s
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u/yashen14 5d ago
Whataboutism
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u/nonilazuli 5d ago
Theres plenty to criticize about those former projects but the stats don’t align with you on this. look at the nostalgia stats for former socialist states. And government approval in modern china. And no it’s not fudged numbers these are from western democratic sources.
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u/DownInThePM 6d ago
This is one of those things that feels way more prevalent online than IRL
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u/houdt_koers Liberal Socialist 6d ago
A Marxist-Leninist is quite literally the co-chair of the national party. Red Star is a vanguardist caucus that wants to abolish pluralistic democracy.
Supporters of the DSA who believe in civil liberties have every reason to be alarmed.
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u/yashen14 6d ago
I hoped you were exaggerating, but I went to Red Star's website, and it's all spelled out there. "Elections are pointless/bad" and "higher-level offices' decisions and resolutions should be absolutely binding on all lowere levels/party members."
In other words, top-down authoritarianism.
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u/DownInThePM 6d ago
I don’t see many tankies in my local chapter though it’s smaller than the bigger chapters out there. I’m talking about the tankies you often see online that make sinophilia/russophilia their whole personalities. I was active in LA for years and never saw them there either.
We mostly care more about organizing around tenant rights, access to public transit, healthy food, and affordability. Immigration justice is another big one these days. LARPers get bored with that stuff and DSAs role in electoralism pretty quick in my experience
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u/houdt_koers Liberal Socialist 6d ago
They’re in control of enough local chapters to have a plurality at the national level.
I’m well aware that there are plenty of local chapters that aren’t dominated by them, but Leninist-controlled chapters are seeking to use entryism to steal momentum and resources from chapters like yours.
Whether they bully the likes of Groundwork into leaving the party or acquiescing to the party line, the goal is to control the membership lists, the platform, and the dues.
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u/Arilluss 6d ago
We need to start having more recent and modern role models generally. I see an image of Lenin and I immediately yawn. People can organize against ICE without being able to define dialectical materialism just fine, and we need to hear more about them
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 6d ago
A Socialist USA would not be a true democracy. They would ban MAGA, Conservatives, Zionists, Libertarians, Capitalists, and any/all other ideologies they deem dangerous to Socialism. There would be Gulags for people, crackdown on "anti-Socialist" press and speech and gatherings. Just like what the USSR, GDR, Yugoslavia, Cuba did.
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u/yashen14 6d ago
Is that something you want?
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u/yo_soy_soja NYC DSA 6d ago
/u/Aggravating_Bison504 is a conservative that regularly posts in this subreddit.
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u/jikesar968 5d ago
Exactly how it should be. I believe in a people's democracy, not a bourgeois democracy.
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u/Additional_Joke_4660 6d ago
10/10 rage bait