Marxists support the USSR as the world's first Socialist State. They don't believe it was some perfect wonderland free from troubles, issues, problems, etc, rather, they acknowledge that the USSR was real Socialism with real victories, like free healthcare and education, an elimination of famine in a country where starvation was regular, doubled life expectancies, dramatically lowered wealth inequality while dramatically raising wages, and over tripled literacy rates to near 100%.
Hexbear aren't unique in general support for the Soviet Union, the overwhelming majority of Marxists see it as far better than Tsarist Russia and the modern Russian Federation.
I try to be both, lol. Thanks!
Who do you mean by "you people?" Which category are you specifically targeting here? Which box am I in?
Mind clarifying which part you are using ableist attacks on?
Why would supposed right-wingers be holding Leftist theory reading groups, hosting mutual aid comms, donating to Palestinian gofundmes, and supporting trans rights to some of the highest degrees on the fediverse? Irony? Seems like a silly hypothesis.
For transparency, you were banned not only from Hexbear but from other instances for racism, misogyny, transphobia, and COVID denial.
Technically, the X-axis doesn't represent anything either, as the far-right plot point curves upward, rather than continuing.
There's no support for the Russian Federation. Support for the USSR? Absolutely, but not the RF. There's critical support, as in the RF currently takes an antagonistic stance towards the United States, which many Leftists see as the greater global evil, but no leftist genuinely thinks the RF is doing that out of "good intentions" or has any model that Leftists should replicate.
That sums it up.
Hexbear.net is a Left-Unity instance populated mainly by Marxists and Anarchists. They generally don't get along with Lemmy.world, whose admins defederated from the major Marxist-aligned instances.
Whether you block Hexbear is up to you, I enjoy my time there a lot but it's also because I'm a Marxist. The ones saying they are "pretending" to be Leftist never seem to be able to explain why a large group of people would all ironically have theory reading groups and ironically support trans rights for years, even before federating with anyone else. What would they have to gain?
If I were you, I'd ask on an instance actually federated with them. You'll get different perspectives than you will here, which is always the case when it comes to controversial topics like Marxism, where opinion varies greatly from instance to instance.
I'll reply as best I can, but really, I don't think it makes any sense to continue. This convo moved very far from the original roots being that the 3 arrows symbol is anti-Socialist, and I don't think either of us has had our minds changed in any way, really. If yours was, you haven't indicated it at least.
In this comment, you make a bunch of unsupported claims and use terms in ways that indicate you aren't really familiar with them at all and are just responding to what I said based on what the terms sound like. A quick example is calling Russia the "Global North," which is geographically correct but from the geopolitical definition is very wrong. The "Global North" refers to the United States, Western Europe, Australia, Japan, etc. These are the more developed Capitalist countries that make the bulk of their income off of Imperialism, which you also use in a manner that is entirely different from what I have been using.
Imperialism isn't a military intervention, for Marxists. Imperialism is sort of like an international Capitalism, where wealthier countries rely on slave-like labor internationally in order to grossly underpay. Consider this, why is most of the world's production in countries in Africa, Latin America, and particularly in China and southeast Asia? Because wages are kept low and overexploited. The ruling classes of colonized countries make deals with foreign Imperialists in order to pocket the vast majority of the money sent, while their citizenry is kept destitute. This is the concept of "unequal exchange."
Labor productivity isn't what drives European economies. China has more developed automation these days, as a necessity for being essentially the world's factory. What drives European economies is the concept of generational wealth at a country level. If you have, say, 1 million euros invested, and hand it down in a century, it would grow to much greater heights, yes? This is also true for countries, if an abstract example. What truly rules the US and Western Europe is financial Capital, not industrial. The Global South produces, and the Global North consumes.
Your foreign policy is indistinguishable from Thatcher and Reagan, and yet you claim to be a Leftist. You really need to read more books like the ones I linked if you want to keep yourself honest, you blaming the colonized and Imperialized is like the trust fund kid telling the poor immigrant family to "pick themselves up by their bootstraps."
Even if we assume the best intentions for this one specific deal, which I won't because I haven't read up on it, Imperialism and neocolonialism still drive the economies of the Global North. I recommended many sources that thorughly document this process to the point of no longer being deniable.
There's really nowhere to go if you won't even entertain the idea of reading sources beyond glancing at Wikipedia.
As for the German-Nambian Hydrogen Project, I am not familiar with it and don't have the time to research for a satisfying answer on it. I'm not going to speak on something I don't know enough about.
Wikipedia, however, does consider it democratic and used a source I already gave you that proves that it was, along with another that does as well. You have nothing working in your favor.
As for your racism against Eastern-Europeans, it's no shock that they preferred the Socialist system when 7 million people died due to its dissolution and the introduction of Capitalism brought mass poverty. Pretending that they are "too stupid and uneducated" to tell you that they had it better under Socialism than under Capitalism is that neoliberal chauvanism oozing out. Really, you have a lot in common with Reagan and Thatcher in worldview. Really, it's similar to Orwell's view of Eastern Europeans as stupid, illiterate, and destined to be taken advantage of, as he portrayed them in Animal Farm.
Denying the existence of G-7 and NATO wasn't on my bingo card, neoliberals like yourself love those. Trying to pretend you do "good" Imperialism is European Chauvanism, it's nice to see you own up to it. The IMF brutally exploits the Global South with predatory loans. This is a process also referred to as Neocolonialism, and exerting power is often done under the convenient guise of "helping" the Global South. This is the same sham as calling the IDF "the most moral military in the world." The fact that you blame the imperialized and colonized countries you yourself benefit from for being imperialized and colonized is monstrous behavior, akin to Churchill blaming Bengali's his policies starved on themselves:
“I hate Indians,” he told the Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery. “They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” The famine was their own fault, he declared at a war-cabinet meeting, for “breeding like rabbits.”
Or, more topically, Macron recently saying African countries should be thankful to France for colonizing them:
"I think [Africans] forgot to thank us. It doesn't matter it will come with time. Gratitude, I am well placed to know it, is a disease not transmissible to humans. But I say this for all African rulers who did not have the courage with respect to their public opinions to say it: none of them would today have a sovereign country if the French army had not been deployed in this region"
It's hilarious that you think you're trying to save me when you've been fighting against Socialism and defending Colonialism and Imperialism. Such a Neoliberal "Anarchist" is an oxymoron.
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
-Michael Parenti
Guess Wikipedia is "tankie" now. For a better source, Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan (also referenced as a source on the Wikipedia page). I also recommend Is the Red Flag Flying? Political Economy of the Soviet Union. Again, nobody is going to care what you say if you keep doubling down, when you have been given sources and you provide none other than "only bad people agree with you" you've already admitted to not having done the research necessary to make such a claim.
Your next paragraph is worse, when you rely on "any East European." Nostalgia for the Soviet Union is well-documeneted. 66% of Russians polled in 2015 want Socialism back, and this number is actually a good deal higher in many post-soviet sattelite states. When you do no research and assume yourself to be right, you show others exactly how unreliable your other points are. Why make a point easily googled to disprove?
As for your defense of Imperialism, I'm quite happy to be proven right, you're a neoliberal at heart with an Anarchist coat of paint. No Anarchist I have ever spoken to, regardless of their opinion of the USSR, has said Imperialism is fine once it has been pointed out. The US maintains 750 foreign military bases just for the US military, it's much higher if you include Western Europe, and they make up the same economic bloc. These countries exert power to force slave-like labor in countries they intentionally under-develop by expropriating vast amounts of resources. Imperialism in the 21st Century as well as Super Imperialism are great books to check out to remove the neoliberalism from your brain and take a proper anti-Imperialist stance.
To quote Michael Parenti:
The Third World is not poor. You don’t go to poor countries to make money. There are very few poor countries in this world. Most countries are rich! The Philippines are rich! Brazil is rich! Mexico is rich! Chile is rich! Only the people are poor. But there’s billions to be made there, to be carved out, and to be taken. There’s been billions for 400 years! The capitalist European and North American powers have carved out and taken the timber, the flax, the hemp, the cocoa, the rum, the tin, the copper, the iron, the rubber, the bauxite, the slaves, and the cheap labour. They have taken out of these countries. These countries are not underdeveloped, they’re overexploited!
Why do you keep replying? What is your goal?
Your bits on the USSR translate to "I said it wasn't democratic" as well as "state and public control is totally different and in the USSR it wasn't public" so they can be safely ignored, given the books I already linked proving otherwise.
As for Imperialism, I mean you specifically who said you wanted to live in a Social Democracy in the Global North rather than Socialism. I don't think you share many views with most Anarchists, based on how you seem to understand Anarchism and prefiguration.
As for labour vouchers, those aren't the only way to get things, and they'd likely become unnecessary once production advances enough. You can have social services and whatnot, but during the development of Communism (and Anarchism, whether you agree or not) labour vouchers are a necessary form of accounting. "From each according to their ability, to each according to their work" can only truly become "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" at a higher phase of Communism with more advanced Means of Production. Things like healthcare and education are usually free or inexpensive in AES countries, same with food.
It is not "the same as Capitalism," because production is not done for accumulation of profit in an M-C-M' circuit, and because production is publicly owned and planned. Very, very different from private ownership and competition for accumulation and profit.
Please explain how a democratic, publicly owned economy is "feudalism."
Furthermore, please, try to actually understand Marxism and not just make up whatever you want about it. Labor vouchers and credits aren't money, money is made to be exchanged amond individuals. Labour vouchers being used to buy goods and services from the social fund isn't money, because they are destroyed upon use. No "greater good" sacrifices necessary for you to live on the backs of those with the short end of the stick!
As for prefiguration, it doesn't seem to be possible in a Capitalist state so far either, so again you just approve of Imperialism and Capitalism so long as it's your state that sits on top of the Global South.
Truly, you have no clue what Marxists actually advocate and you don't understand Marxist states either, why are you bothering to reply? What's your goal here?
You're running into even more contradictions as we move right along. You'd rather have Capitalism, warts and all, than Socialism. Further still, assuming you're in the Global North, you'd rather perpetuate Imperialism and vast exploitation of the Global South, which is a necessity for Social Democracy in the Global North and perpetuation of Capitalism. Really, this reveals your true intentions, by approving of Social Democracy for as long as "prefiguration" lasts, you approve of the Imperialism it requires to sustain itself. You oppose Socialism more than you oppose Capitalism and Imperialism.
Moreover, this "prefiguration" phase would be be better accomplished in a Socialist state, would it not? Socialism for Marxists is already a transitional phase to Communism, and Marxists want collectivization. Seems you just want to live off of the exploitation of the Global South until they are milked dry, then live in a utopian commune free from struggle, or bad things like pooping.
As for your nonsense notion that I don't "respect" sanitation workers, it's the opposite. I respect them greatly, but I understand that their jobs are extremely dirty and toxic, risk their health and safety, and most do so because they need to make a living. Someone will have to end up doing such work, it is not fully automated, so it is better to have systems like job rotation or lower working hours for the same pay as a form of "hazard adjustment" as is in place in several AES states.
Your last paragraph is just pseudo-intellectual idealist masturbation. It was funny to laugh at, but that's about it.
I thought you were an Anarchist, why are you requiring society to advance to full automation of dirty jobs before changing the system? What happens between now and that level of automation?
I absolutely know solidarity, I've worked in factories and industrial environments, alongside union members and leaders, and have contributed to my family and community. You're making assumptions about me to try to dig yourself out of a logical hole. You want incredibly advanced technology and people to willingly take dirty jobs, but to not have any formalized administration beyond the informal structures that arise naturally. You want this now, but can't describe how to get there beyond "solidarity."
What you are describing is fantasy. You can't describe how you'd get people to do the unquestionably horrible jobs that are nonetheless necessary without requiring them to be automated. The real issue is that you seem to be detatched from the broad working class and think everyone would magically do what's needed without any administration or direction, this is not even in line with Anarchist thinking.
I suggest reading The Tyranny of Structurelessness, it's the formalizing of structure that provides for actual democracy and collective aggreement, leaving it informal and based on respect leaves it unaccountable.
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