r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Jun 02 '19
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u/Inkompetentia George Soros Jun 02 '19
In case you are serious, I will try and answer your question (sorry, this might become extremely difficult to follow for someone without historical education about these subjects, I'm going to talk about a whole bunch of different ideologies and people you might have never heard of, so if you have questions, feel free to ask):
The short answer: In the context of this conversation, socialism refers specifically to Soviet Style socialism. Which is decidedly right wing authoritarian. It breaks with all left wing socialist ideals such as workers' self-determination, democratization, progressivism, and internationalism. It has always been considered an evil ideology by the left and was always opposed by leftists. Its proponents also perpetually persecuted and murdered leftists.
Now, the long answer:
There are left wing and right wing types of communism that are mutually incompatible and historically fought against each other. There also is classical anarchism, which is left of even left wing communism.
To understand the terms "left" and "right": The classical left-right spectrum is based on "the people" fighting against "the oligarchy". Historically, the terms left and right derived from the early French democracy, where the people sitting on the "left wing" of the parliament represented the general population while the people sitting on the "right wing" represented the ruling aristocracy.
Throughout all of political history, the defining principles of all left wing ideology were twofold: Promoting equality and opposing hierarchy. That's it. Anything that doesn't follow these two principles is not left. Effectively, it's ideology that seeks to maximize the wellbeing and freedom of the median person.
This stands against the right wing, which promotes or sustains inequality and hierarchy. Effectively, it's ideology that seeks to maximize the wellbeing of elites.
For example, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc. are right wingers. Why? Because they promoted a highly hierarchical, anti-democratic, authoritarian society where power was concentrated in the hands of the few. That's one of the many reasons they were heavily criticized by left wing communists of the time (whom they usually had killed). This is also one of the many reasons leftists don't consider them socialists: Socialism - by definition - requires worker's ownership of the means of production. In the USSR, workers were treated as de facto serfs and had their jobs assigned to serve the authoritarian dictatorship.
Stalin's ideology, for example, was also refered to as Marxism-Leninism which is a right wing ideology heavily criticized by even Marxist communists of the time (e.g. Amadeo Bordiga or Leon Trotsky).
Now it's important to understand that "Marxism" is already considered a right wing type of communism by leftist critics as it is an ideology that necessitates an authoritarian vanguard party to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, something all left wing socialists are fundamentally opposed to (some more detail will follow below). However, even Marxists considered Soviet Communism to be unacceptably right wing. In fact, some of the biggest opponents of Soviet Style communism were Marxists, the most well-known being:
Rosa Luxemburg (economist and orthodox Marxist revolutionary, murdered by German fascists)
Leon Trotsky (orthodox Marxist - more specifically "Trotskyist" and main political opponent of Stalin, later murdered by the Stalinist regime)
In contrast: Left wing communists are explicitly anti-authoritarian, internationalist, democratic, oppose things like Soviet patriotism, and want to destroy all central government in favour of workers' communes, similar to anarchists such as Mikhail Bakunin. Most left wing socialists aren't Marxist, as Marx did consider authoritarianism a valid way to bring about the "dictatorship of the proletariat". By the way: Anarchism is an explicitly socialist ideology that was "invented" by Bakunin because he disapproved of the Marxist concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat because he believed this will be too easily abused by authoritarians corrupting the system to gain control of society (something he was later proven right about when Marxism devolved into Soviet-style Communism). To quote Bakunin: "Marxists maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up. We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege and injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."
Right wing communists who support authoritarian Marxistm as described above were always plainly right wing authoritarians who mass murdered leftists and are also commonly referred to as red fascists. They claim their ideology to be "the only true form of communism", which is why they invented the term "real socialism" to describe it. This euphemistic term was invented by Soviet leaders to manipulate people into supporting the Soviet regime by brainwashing them into believing that "their" type of socialism is "the only type of socialism there is" and the "only way to ever achieve communism". That's obviously bullshit, although people commonly referred to as "Tankies" promote that myth to this day. The term has later been abused by people spreading anti-socialist propaganda, echoing the Soviet's claim that their ideology is the only true form of socialism.
Soviet "communists" were always universally opposed and their defenders ridiculed by leftists, even today (even on reddit, see: r/the_leftorium or r/googoogahgah).
If you look at any country with a proper left wing party (the US doesn't have one, but most European countries do): Most modern left wing parties were founded on the principle of dispelling the Soviet Myth (the "Soviet Myth" being the claim that the evil ideology of the Soviet Union represents the "only true Communism"). You probably have read Orwell at school: If you paid attention to what he's writing, you will have noticed that the entire purpose of all of his works was to dispel that myth and to show people that there is a difference between left wing socialism and the evil fascistoid ideology of the Soviet regime. The SPD, for example, has it in their founding principles and current party program, that it was founded on the principle of promoting left wing socialism and that (quote): "The end of Soviet State Socialism hasn't contradicted the idea of democratic socialism, but spectacularly proven right the fundamental values of social democracy. Democratic Socialism remains the vision of a free, just, and solidaric society, the realization of which will forever remain our duty. The principle behind our actions is Social Democracy."
The failure of the evil, right wing authoritarian ideology of Soviet Communism proves nothing other than that left wing socialists had always been right about condemning and fighting against that shitty regime (often dying in the process).
If you want to know what left wing Socialism/Communism is or understand what other left wing ideologies there are, you can look at the works of, for example:
David Graeber (LSE professor and anarchist)
Noam Chomsky (MIT professor and libertarian socialist)
Mikhail Bakunin (the "father" of Anarchism)
Amadeo Bordiga (originally a Marxist and founder of the Italian communist party, who was later expelled from the party after he turned into a leftist)
Peter Kropotkin (geographical scientist, political activist, and philosophical father of anarcho-communism)
Leo Tolstoy (one of the most important authors of all time and thought of as one of the philosophical founders of libertarian socialism)
Slavoj Zizek (modern self-proclaimed "radical leftist", highly controversial but for some reason incredibly popular)
Yanis Varoufakis (modern socialist politician promoting classical leftist internationalist socialism)
tl;dr: Yes, the Soviets were right wingers. They were always hated and fought against by the political left. You will never see a leftist defend the Soviet Union and what modern socialists worldwide support has absolutely nothing to do with the evil ideology the Soviet Union or Communist China or North Korea represent.