PSA: Alternatives for the most popular lemmy.ml communities
For all your boycotting needs. I'm sure there's some mods caught in lemmy.ml's top 10 that are perfectly upstanding and reasonable people, my condolences for the cross-fire.
- !memes@lemmy.world and !memes@sopuli.xyz. Or of course communities that rule.
- !asklemmy@lemmy.world
- !linux@programming.dev. Quite small, plenty of more specific ones available. Also linux is inescapable on lemmy anyway :)
- !programmer_humor@programming.dev
- !world@lemmy.world
- !privacy@lemmy.world and maybe !privacyguides@lemmy.one, lemmy.one itself seems to be up in the air. !fedigrow@lemm.ee says !privacy@lemmy.ca. They really seem to be hiding even from another, those tinfoil hats :)
- !technology@lemmy.world
- Seems like !comicstrips@lemmy.world and !comicbooks@lemmy.world, various smaller comic-specifc communities as well as !eurographicnovels@lemm.ee
- !opensource@programming.dev
- !fuckcars@lemmy.world
(Out of the loop? Here's a thread on lemmy.ml mods and their questionable behaviour)
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It feels like .world is going to defederate soon, which will likely result in a multipolar Lemmy. Leftists and Leftist-aligned communities, and Liberals and Liberal-aligned communities, with hands-off communities like Lemm.ee being visible on either.
At this point, without any active Marxist communities, and defederating from almost all overtly Marxist instances, it is pretty obvious .world is anti-Marxist, so I doubt Marxists will stay with .world accounts.
Considering .world has a far less leniant defed policy it might just collapse on itself and the user base go back to Reddit, but that won't be a rapid process.
Are they? The only post I found is https://lemmy.world/post/16233963, and there is clearly no consensus nor communication from the LW admins.
I said "feels like," the communication from Dessalines is that .ml will not defed, so it's either .world does or it doesn't happen yet. Given that .world has already defeded from Hexbear and Grad, the sliding target is now on .ml, and will probably continue on to dbzer0, etc.
For people curious, I found Dessalines comment: https://lemmy.ml/post/16523224/11490454
.ml still have a lot of niche communities, hexbear and lemmygrad didn't. Ironically, if they were to defederate, that might push people to move to other instances, especially now that migration is built-in. Last time, when LW blocked !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com, it was not the case.
Nobody in the replies mentioned it, but you could easily sign up to an instance that federates with both .ml and .world.
Will automated account migration be the next big feature?
Could be.
Either way if .world defeds, I will probably stick with .ml, I'd rather not deal with what will become of .world if they succeed in becoming both the largest instance and one of the least federated with other large instances among the major instances.
Nobody is talking about marxists or leftists here, tankies are a breed of their own
What Marxists get the "not a tankie" pass? Marx and Engels both called themselves authoritarian.
Council communists, definitely, functionally that's the same as Syndicalism. Some Trotski and Tito fans. A lot of Cubans, over there authoritarianism seems to be more and more a habit than principle.
So nobody that has actually succeeded in putting theory to practice in hundreds of years, got it.
Don't you think it might be that you're predisposed to not liking any AES countries at all because it's easier to denounce real attempts for not being "authentic enough" than it is to truthfully acknowledge what went right and what went wrong in them?
I'm actually quite positive when it comes to Cuba, and Vietnam might follow suit. The rest range from falling to capitalism to falling to fascism.
Anyhow this wasn't about the success or failure of "AES" countries but making clear that not all Marxists are tankies.
The Marxists you called not Tankies were the ones that haven't done much, except Cuba. Cuba would probably count as Tankie to you though because Che was a Stalinist and Castro has stated that China post-Deng is Socialist.
That's the thing, judging countries not by their purity to Socialism but by how they stand against Imperialism and for their own people is how they should be judged. China absolutely isn't a shining beacon, but it's less Capitalist and far less Imperialist than the US, for example, yet people love to say we should support Biden over Trump while denouncing China more than the US.
That's what I am referring to.
Che was highly critical of Stalin's authoritarianism and cult of personality. The, you know, defining factors of Stalinism in modern parlance.
And I have no idea why you're bringing up the US or how it's relevant to anything, are you American or something they love to do that, all self-important.
With regards to imperialism: Do you know how I earned my permaban from lemmygrad? As a, quote, "NATO propagandist"? By telling them that Russian imperialism evil. I don't even like NATO, short of it being a vehicle to keep the US somewhat on a leash. The month ban from !worldnews@lemmy.ml was for pointing out that Ukraine does not in fact lay claims to Russian territory Ukraine describes as "Historically Ukrainian-speaking". Because they don't. As the article that OP there linked said itself.
As are many. He still openly supported Stalin and read Stalin:
“In the so called mistakes of Stalin lies the difference between a revolutionary attitude and a revisionist attitude. You have to look at Stalin in the historical context in which he moves, you don’t have to look at him as some kind of brute, but in that particular historical context. I have come to communism because of daddy Stalin and nobody must come and tell me that I mustn’t read Stalin. I read him when it was very bad to read him. That was another time. And because I’m not very bright, and a hard-headed person, I keep on reading him. Especially in this new period, now that it is worse to read him. Then, as well as now, I still find a Series of things that are very good.” -Che Guevara
I think it's a bit hypocritical to wash the words of revolutionaries you claimed were good Marxists. Of course he was critical of Stalin, everyone is. He banned homosexuality, was generally a brutal person, and ended up building a cult of personality that partially helped lead to the collapse of the USSR. Che still supported him.
The comparison to America was because people can easily find nuance within liberalism but only accept the purest and most righteous of Socialism, even if it ends up never existing. It loses its revolutionary potential and becomes Idealism.
As for your bans, I don't really have the full picture. Based on what you have claimed and that alone, I believe they went too far, but I would also like to see it from the mod's perspectives.
I never said "Che was one of the good ones". I called Cuba promising (as in: On its way to proper democratic socialism) and I called Council Communist essentially Anarchists.
If you want me to say something positive about Marx we'd have to talk labour theory of value or such.
See from the anarchist POV most Marxist-type socialisms are idealism, down to mostly two factors: a) no means/ends unity, making failure inevitable, and b) trying to foresee the future. We, at our current level of understanding of human nature and society, influenced by various material factors holding us back in terms of even imagination, cannot possibly craft plans that would be appropriate for our grandchildren: The revolution must necessarily be gradual because that's the only way that our descendants get to put us up against the wall for being counter-revolutionary. Without those things there cannot be theory of revolution that's actually material.
Alright, fair enough. You express support for the direction Cuba looks to be going down, not the figures and movements that allowed that to happen, got it. It's more consistent with your other views, at least.
As for your last statement, I really don't think it makes any real sense. Taking Cuba as our example, Marxism guided the revolution, and it hasn't seemed to fail yet, and in your own words looks to be going down a promising path. Is this not what you are hoping for, or is it a freak accident?
Secondly, if Anarchism is an ever-evolving theory that hasn't really seen any large-scale results, would it not make sense to concede that Anarchism can play a valuable role outside of Revolutionary change while Marxists actually change the whole of society? It seems Marxists have a far better track record in changing the Mode of Production, while Anarchists do a lot of good charity work that is also valuable.
The Cuban revolution was not a Marxist one, it was a war of independence and once Batista was toppled and Castro got to make hour-long speeches at the UN, the USSR wasn't his first choice of ally, but the US. The revolutionaries were generally lefties, yes, but far from unified Stalin-admirers. They absolutely would've gone with a vaguely socdem "between New Deal and Europe" like thing with the US as an ally: Workers' rights, unions, yes expropriate the slavers but that doesn't mean we can't have capital in the country. The US wanted to have none of it, just having lost its colony, I mean think of the United Fruit and Bacardi campaign contributions.
As such, when Cuba adopted Marxism-Leninism as a prerequisite of being an USSR ally they adopted it with Cuban characteristics. On their own terms, generally from first principles, without a forge-welded vanguard at its core.
There's parallels of that in Vietnam, of course, also a war of independence.
No, it wouldn't. Because a priori there's no reason to believe that a proper revolution is materially possible when you insist on going for "large-scale results" (whatever that's supposed to mean), and a posteriori there's neither. See means/ends unity. Materialism doesn't care about your impatience. To quote Adorno: Actionism is the anti-intellectualism of the left.
And, no, MLM states didn't change the mode of production: State capitalism is still capitalism. Again, Yugoslavia would've been a better example. Sometimes I do wonder how the world would look like now had Stalin sent another assassin and then Tito his single one.
Castro and the other revolutionaries were Marxist-Leninists. What would be a Marxist revolution in your eyes, if not a revolution against Imperialism by Marxists? Marxism isn't a static dogma, but a tool to be applied to material conditions. Of course it would have Cuban characteristics, that's the point of Marxism.
Secondly, I truly don't see what the purpose of advocating against change is for, is that just a way to say that Anarchists don't actually need to make consistent progress as long as they continue to perform mutual aid and help people? Sounds great for a charity, but not for liberating the workers.
The USSR was Socialist, this is silly. A worker state where the workers collectively own production is what Marx advocated for. There were numerous struggles and problems with the USSR, but being Capitalist is not one of them. There was no competition, no M-C-M' circuit resulting in accumulation among borgeois actors, no tendendcy for the rate of profit to fall. You can argue against the effectiveness of the USSR without saying it was actually Capitalist, the mode of production was entirely different from Tsarist Russia.
Also this isn't even about Marxism or Leninism as-such. This is about the good ole attempt to expand democratic centralism to a population which is actually revisionist in itself because it either ignores that Lenin conceptualised democratic centralism as a discipline for a party, or because it wants to forego with the vanguard position of the party and expand it to the populace, take your pick.
Plenty of anarchists on those instances you call "liberal", tankies won't be missed.
I didn't imply all Leftism is Marxist, .world doesn't much care for Anarchists either. Hexbear is largely Anarchist and was blocked before they even had a chance to federate, and dbzer0 is largely on strained terms over "piracy concerns."
Not really sure what you mean by spreading "Democratic Centralism" by saber rattling about Lemmy.ml, but that's your right.
It is nice that you admit that all Marxism is tankie, that's refreshing. Most pretend to draw a distinction, but ultimately decide only Marx himself is somehow not a tankie and everyone got his words wrong.
Oh he definitely leaned that way for most of the time, all that vanguard stuff I mean and not to mention Engel's infamous (and absolutely gaslighting) "On Authority" (I'll lump the two together), but in his final works he was way more amenable to Anarchist modes of organisation, as a reflection on the Paris Commune.
The "expanding democratic centralism to the whole populace" is basically Stalin's invention. Lenin wanted the party unified and not bogged down in constantly questioning already-made decisions, fair enough, it's quite a different ballpark to expand that kind of unity to a whole population. And that's where I draw the parallel to lemmy.ml's moderation policies: While you only see the whole deal on lemmygrad, lemmy.ml is still very much up there when it comes to "We said there were no deaths during the Tienanmen incident, we decided it, it's not to be questioned, no we don't even care for you quoting the CCP itself to contradict us enjoy your ban".
His reflections on the Paris Commune weren't that Anarchism is better, but that the entire state needed to be replaced, and the old can't simply be siezed. Marx was never an Anarchist and never would be, even if he felt they had good intentions.
Lemmygrad's very own Prolewiki says there were 300 deaths. I am not sure where you are getting the idea that they believe there were no deaths, 300 may be low but is certainly higher than 0. Maybe you're referencing the bit where they say the killings didn't happen on the Square itself, and you took that to mean no deaths at all? An understandable confusion on your part, but not accurate to what even hard-line Lemmygradders say.
Well he pretty much stopped railing against anarchists being good for nothing idealists who are inherently incapable of getting things done or organised. The Paris Commune made mistakes, also readily acknowledged by Anarchists, but it was also very much run to a significant degree on anarchist principles.
Mao was the one going on a "What was wrong is that they didn't have a vanguard party" rant. I guess Yugoslavia would be a good example of Marx' late positions actually put into practice, without all that Bolshevik revisionism.
Honestly I was just pulling the details out of my ass to circumscribe the pattern.
Yep, he softened his bite, but ultimately there are still an extremely small number of successful Anarchist movements compared to Marxist ones. Anarchists can get things done, but usually a lack of organization leads to struggles.
Yugoslavia was supposedly nicer to live in, compared to the rest of the USSR, but I wouldn't say the Bolsheviks were revisionist. They saw their conditions and acted accordingly.
Fair enough to admitting that Lemmygrad bit, but it's an extremely common talking point here that Lemmy.ml "can't admit it happened." Not even Lemmygrad believes it didn't happen, it's deliberately bad actors putting words in people's mouths at this point.
If by "successful" you mean "took over a whole state, sustainably" then there's zero (both Rojava and Chiapas are mere territories), but then the only ML states left are basically Cuba and Vietnam, the USSR collapsed, China has richer billionaires than plenty of liberal democracies, etc.
If with "successful" we also mean "feed the poor, organise the disenfranchised, and punch Nazis" then there's uncountably many. It's all predominantly prefiguration and avoiding liberal democracies to regress, in line with more recent theory.
See I'm an anarchist, revisionist is not actually an insult to me. But it surely does rile up MLs if you point out that they're ever so slightly disagreeing with previous canon so I might be using it more liberally than them :)
China is still Marxist-Leninist, just with a strategy of welcoming international finance while maintaining a Dictatorship of the Proletariat to keep the bourgeoisie in check. They saw what happened to the USSR and opted to make concessions, staying intrgrated with global Capitalism while trying to subvert Lenin's idea of Imperialism. Whether or not this pans out in Socialism's favor is unknowable at this present moment.
I do believe feeding the poor, punching Nazis, and establishing Mutual Aid is fantastic, and I agree that in the Global North, Anarchists are more effective than Marxists have been. I still don't see any actual long-term success or movements in Anarchism's favor.
I wasn't calling you a revisionist, I understand that you're an Anarchist. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Deng absolutely was a revisionist.
...and you have to have billionaires for that? Also, heck, the GDR was integrated into capitalism and they had a mostly (asides from the trades) planned economy. They built industrial robots which then churned out cars in Wolfsburg, and stomped a silicon industry out of the ground to keep competitive in that area. Western mail-order catalogues were full of GDR washing machines, fridges, etc.
What's the cutoff point for how much a Capitalist should own? A good amount of China's top companies are state owned, and there is a good amount of planning too, so I am just curious at what point becomes too much.
I am all for good critique of China, but it's the strategy they have stated, and we can only wait and see how it pans out over time.
Once it has systemic impact. Turn their company into a foundation, put them on the board, rest of the seats go to workers and something like the local university, allow that their kids two generations down the line are rich enough to never have to work a second in their life (if they manage to not squander), but definitely don't allow inheritance of that kind of capital which is what China does. Interesting paper especially about the inheritance thing, ultimately that alone is sufficient to curb concentration of wealth:
How would that impact China's goal of luring in investment if it scares off Capitalists?
Surely the problem is that people are bringing politics into forums which clearly don't require it. Like, why would the political stance of someone matter in a technology forum?
It's a tech forum run by Marxists, there are other Tech forums run by Anarchists or Liberals or even conservatives.