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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329 comments

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.
- Taking Cuba as our example, Marxism guided the revolution, and it hasn’t seemed to fail yet
  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.
  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?
  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.
  
  What would be a Marxist revolution in your eyes, if not a revolution against Imperialism by Marxists?
  The usual way they happened were a) a vanguard capturing a spontaneous revolution, followed by brutal authoritarianism, or b) a coup of some sort by a vanguard, also with brutal authoritarianism.
  Secondly, I truly don’t see what the purpose of advocating against change is for
  Me neither. Why do you think I'm doing that? Have some Malatesta in the context of how anarchism is necessarily gradualist:
  [W]e can’t make the revolution on our own; nor would it be desirable to do so. Unless the whole of the country is behind it, together with all the interests, both actual and latent, of the people, the revolution will fail. And in the far from probable case that we achieved victory on our own, we should find ourselves in an absurdly untenable position: either because, by the very fact of imposing our will, commanding and constraining, we would cease to be anarchists and destroy the revolution by our authoritarianism; or because, on the contrary, we would retreat from the field, leaving others, with aims opposed to our own, to profit from our effort.
  I know, I know, it's hard to get rid of the spooks. But that's what materialism looks like.
  A worker state where the workers collectively own production is what Marx advocated for.
  ...so Lenin lied when he spoke about the system being state captalist, not communist, and now somehow capitalism was "really existing socialism"? It's a bunch of rhetorical smoke grenades to obscure the fact that power moved from the nobility to the nomenklatura.
  There was no competition, no M-C-M’ circuit resulting in accumulation among borgeois actors, no tendendcy for the rate of profit to fall.
  No, there was the exact same thing just with corruption.
  
  So because Castro and the gang weren't brutal authoritarians, they weren't Marxists? This is getting sillier.
  As for your quote from Malatesta, believe it or not, is the Marxist-Leninist stance. The most radical among the Anarchists are a sort of Vanguard. All a Vanguard is is a group of radicals that are helping organize the revolution, at the forefront.
  If you're trying to say that everyone should be equal in terms of theory, in terms of purpose, spontaneously before a revolution is possible, then this is pure Idealism.
  As for State Capitalism, Lenin was purely referring to the NEP, and had this to say: "The whole question is who will take the lead. We must face this issue squarely—who will come out on top? Either the capitalists succeed in organising first—in which case they will drive out the Communists and that will be the end of it. Or the proletarian state power, with the support of the peasantry, will prove capable of keeping a proper rein on those gentlemen, the capitalists, so as to direct capitalism along state channels and to create a capitalism that will be subordinate to the state and serve the state." State Capitalism was not meant to describe the whole of the USSR.
  Please explain how there was competition, accumulation among bourgeois elements competing in markets, forcing prices lower and thus rates of profit, with private corporations. This is silly.
  
  The most radical among the Anarchists are a sort of Vanguard. All a Vanguard is is a group of radicals that are helping organize the revolution, at the forefront.
  Noone's organising the revolution. We're organising society such when the revolution happens it won't be hijacked by vanguard fucks attempting, yet again, to take power from the people. Also, in the mean time, chocolate pudding.
  As for State Capitalism, Lenin
  ...conveniently forgot to mention that he was crushing worker's councils with that move. He was taking absolutely nothing from capitalists, he took it from the workers.
  Please explain how there was competition, accumulation among bourgeois elements competing in markets, forcing prices lower and thus rates of profit, with private corporations.
  The way in which influence and backrubs were traded mirrors capitalism, which shouldn't be too surprising because capitalism is essentially legalised corruption.
  
  I would just like to digress by pointing out that I found your discussion interesting and that .world defederating .ml would kill potential future ones like it. It also seems to me that rejecting ML impulses, say by disassociating the .ml and .world users, would not contribute to organising society in a way that would allow for the revolution you speak of.
  MLs do not go away by ignoring them. One of their main tenets, which they are to be admired for, is precisely their obstinancy to making themselves heard. If I understood you correctly as a proponent of a solution that is yet to be evolved, why reject the input of MLs? I am personally curious about learning more about anarchism, that is if the theory is not so weak it would but all be destroyed by the breath of a ML.
  
  I'm on lemm.ee... and I never said anything about defederating, I think that'd be silly. The whole post was about making it easy and convenient for users from all over to not be subjected to lemmy.ml mod policies.
  If this conversation was on grad, it'd have been silenced ages ago... in fact it wouldn't even have started as I'm banned there so gradists can't see me. It may or may not have survived on lemmy.ml.
  If I understood you correctly as a proponent of a solution that is yet to be evolved, why reject the input of MLs? I am personally curious about learning more about anarchism, that is if the theory is not so weak it would but all be destroyed by the breath of a ML.
  The theory is absolutely deep, though I can see how it might seem otherwise when all you ever see is people writing short essays about specific things or aspects, we have quite little of that "big, grand, theory" stuff going on. That said though, Anark recently made a synthesis of pretty much all cornerstones out there, video (there's three parts) and script.
  Oh, as to "why reject them": Because it's like talking to a TV that makes up shit on the spot. Because they've killed off multiple revolutions, often while allying with fascists. People defending that line of thought are generally one of two things, and that is naive to the actual history and experience of revolutionary movements at large, or they're assclowns who just want power. Anarchists very much try not to be naive and want noone to have power over nobody so that's some rather crass incompatibility, there.
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  video
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  Someone is organizing any revolution, otherwise it just won't happen.
  The Soviets formed the basis of the Democratic process of the Soviet Union. The Worker's Councils weren't killed and forgotten, they were replaced.
  It's cool if you want to deviate from Marx's analysis of Capitalism and go for a vibes-based approach, but people who take Marx seriously can plainly see that even if the USSR was flawed, it was Socialist.
  
  Someone is organizing any revolution, otherwise it just won’t happen.
  History tells us otherwise. You might be confusing revolutions with coups.
  The Worker’s Councils weren’t killed and forgotten, they were replaced.
  In the beginning of the Russian revolution, they had power. Come the Bolsheviks and they ceased to have power, they became mere propaganda appendices of the party.
  The USSR was most of all one thing: The continuation of Russian imperialism with a new coat of paint.
  
  It does not. Revolution occurs without prompting, yes, but there will always be a group of the most radical within the larger group, the group taking the majority of the action.
  As for the Workers Councils, yes, they were replaced with the Union system.
  As for Imperialism, I absolutely agree that it was expansionist, and follows the Liberal definition of Imperialism. This isn't good! However, if you're focusing on Lenin's definition, Castro had this to say: "if the USSR was imperialist then where are it's private monopolies? Where is its participation in multi-national corporations? What industries, what mines, what petroleum deposits does it own in the underdeveloped world? What worker is exploited in Asia, Africa or Latin America by Soviet capital?"
  The reason most Marxists accept Lenin's definition of Imperialism as a sort of bourgeois/proletarian relation at international scale, is because countries in the Global South can't become Socialist until they throw off the thumb of Imperialism, and Imperialist countries won't become Socialist until they stop being Imperialist.
  Again, liberal meaning of Imperialist? Yes, absolutely. Expansionist? Yes, absolutely. Marxist definition of Imperialism? Eh, closer to no than yes.
  The USSR absolutely wasn't perfect, it was highly flawed, just as we should expect the first major Marxist state in history to be. We can learn from what worked and what didn't.
  
  It does not. Revolution occurs without prompting, yes, but there will always be a group of the most radical within the larger group, the group taking the majority of the action.
  That certainly wasn't the Bolsheviks in Russia. They weren't the sailors of Kronstadt, they weren't the workers in the factories.
  “if the USSR was imperialist then where are it’s private monopolies? Where is its participation in multi-national corporations? What industries, what mines, what petroleum deposits does it own in the underdeveloped world? What worker is exploited in Asia, Africa or Latin America by Soviet capital?”
  If the Mongol empire was imperialist, then where are its private monopolies?
  Are you saying that before capitalism, there could not possibly have been empires, or imperialism? If that's the case, then, again, that's rhetorical slight of hand, serving nothing but the confusion of the masses instead of their radicalisation.
  ...also just as an aside much of Russia is absolutely underdeveloped, and yes that's where the natural resources are.
  We can learn from what worked and what didn’t.
  Oh and by golly did Anarchists learn from it. For one, that you should never turn your back to a Marxist-Leninist.
  
  The Bolsheviks were a revolutionary party, yes. Among the entire revolution, they were among the most radical. In any revolution, there will be a group that is the most radical and moving the most, even if they don't formalize it. Do you expect everyone to be an Anarchist before the revolution?
  As for the Imperialism bit, you're being even more dishonest than usual, haha. I explicitly said that it was expansionist and Imperialist in the liberal sense of the word. That doesn't mean wrong! This is silly, the rest of your paragraphs are nailing down on a point I never made.
  As for the jab about Anarchists, Marxists can't trust Anarchists either, infighting is always a 2 way street among leftists. You may be interested in reading this meeting between Lenin and Kropotkin. Kropotkin criticizes Lenin, and Lenin criticizes back, it's a really interesting meeting and neither makes themselves a fool IMO.

329 comments