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    9 months ago

    I think about this every time some centrist claims that no leftist system has ever worked.

    • Traister101@lemmy.today
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      9 months ago

      I mean the big ones people like to point at (Rushia and fucking Nazi Germany) sure as shit weren’t doing communism or socialism

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        9 months ago

        I don’t think anyone points at Nazi Germany as an example of a leftist system. They were literally fascist lol

        • TxzK@lemmy.zip
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          9 months ago

          I don’t think anyone points at Nazi Germany as an example of a leftist system

          I’ve seen many idiots do that unfortunately

        • DoctorSpocktopus@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          There are definitely some folks that see “National Socialism” as the party name and look no further. Fortunately, I don’t think it’s a strong majority, but they pop up online.

        • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          Both Crowder and Shapiro have claimed this. They point out that the Nazi party was the ‘National Socialist German workers’ party’ and claim that’s enough for it to be socialist, and then also claim Russia is a communist country.

          • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            9 months ago

            The USSR was a communist country. A normal use of that term is that a country communist is one that’s run by a communist party.

            If you mean it didn’t achieve communism, well duh communism is a hypothesized society achieved through socialism where the state ceases to exist. No socialists, including the people of the USSR, would think that their nation-state has achieved communism as that’s oxymoronic. They would think of it as a transitional socialist state.

          • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            9 months ago

            There’s a Hitler quote somewhere, in some letter that was like “we laugh at the fools who think our ideology has anything to do with the socialism of the bolsheviks”

            There was another one where he says “I didn’t want to kill the Jews, but they’re all communists”

            Someone with a better ability to keep track of sources than me probably knows where to find them

        • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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          9 months ago

          Correct. They are both idiots who pointed at Nazi Germany as an example of a leftist system.

        • Traister101@lemmy.today
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          9 months ago

          It’s always as a “See!! Socialism bad!!” but yep they were literally fascist, Rushia too and yet here we are with people still thinking communist Rushia was communist.

      • darvit@lemmy.darvit.nl
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        9 months ago

        Not sure if alternative spelling or if your autocorrect really likes controversial vtuber Uruha Rushia.

      • ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de
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        9 months ago

        Even the DDR wasn’t doing socialism. The public had to be all-in the idea, or they were discredited or arrested. It was an authoritarian autocracy acting in the name of socialism.

        • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          9 months ago

          That is indeed what your capitalist NGOs tell you with unlimited funds.

          Consider that socialism is about control over the means of production, of deposing the capitalist system, and that your dismissal of the DDR as socialist didn’t address that at all. Do you think it’s possible you’ve been lied to?

          • ohitsbreadley@discuss.tchncs.de
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            9 months ago

            No, I think I’m far enough on the left to be aware of capitalist propaganda. In all fairness to you, my statement did not treat the subject with the appropriate nuance the subject should require.

            The DDR was socialist. However, it was state socialism, which in my opinion is not ideal and not something we should strive to replicate. Yes, the means of production were “owned by the people,” but the state tasks itself with protecting the people. And therein lies the problem with state socialism - the state is easily commandeered by a corrupt minority who then uses the governmental apparatus to run an authoritarian regime. Precisely what happened in the DDR and the USSR.

            We should be able to recognize the imperfections in prior socialist attempts, without immediately calling it “capitalist NGO propaganda.”

            • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              9 months ago

              There was no issue re: nuance in your statements, they were just nonsensical and revealed a lack of understand the basic ideas of the topic. This trend has continued with this reply.

              The DDR was socialist. However, it was state socialism, which in my opinion is not ideal and not something we should strive to replicate.

              The framing of socialism as ownership of the means of production goes hand-in-hand with control over the state. It’s how it was originally formulated by Marx, Engels, etc. The term “dictatorship of the proletariat” is stated in the same breaths and texts and concepts. There is no such thing as non-state socialism in this conception, the only conception that is relevant to this discussion.

              This is something a person would know if they had ever read even a basic summary of this topic.

              Yes, the means of production were “owned by the people,” but the state tasks itself with protecting the people. And therein lies the problem with state socialism - the state is easily commandeered by a corrupt minority who then uses the governmental apparatus to run an authoritarian regime.

              You’re even using the liberal NGO lexicon for this description! Vague generalizations about authoritarianism and cute little stories with no grounding in reality.

              We should be able to recognize the imperfections in prior socialist attempts, without immediately calling it “capitalist NGO propaganda.”

              It’s not hard to identify a poor understanding when you have, you know, actually learned about these things. And interacted with thousands of people just like you and know why they parrot such nonsense. If you had an informed or valid criticism that would be something to talk about, but we are not in that situation. I think we are looking at a graduate of Reddit University, with all the intellectual humility that implies.