Where do we put the *cides from left dictatorships?
Generally, the left wing is characterized by an emphasis on “ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism” while the right wing is characterized by an emphasis on “notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism”.
Left and Dictatorship do not have compatible definitions. This is like asking “where do we put all the pregnant virgins?”
Notions of right and left have been muddled througout Russian history. The Soviet Communists professed left-wing slogans, but practised right-wing ideologies, embracing a neo-feudalist and unfree order.
I don’t mind working with different definitions, but I don’t think yours is very common.
What do you think about Marx, is he not left wing either?
If he is, what do you think about his notion of dictatorship of the proletariat?
Because this notion is pretty much the ideological justification for the dictatorships that were built in Soviet Union, China and other Marxist governments.
I don’t mind working with different definitions, but I don’t think yours is very common.
It is the standard definition. You just aren’t personally familiar with it, because, and I’m sorry if this sounds like a personal attack, your education system and media are designed in part to indoctrinate you into liberal ideology.
What do you think about Marx, is he not left wing either?
Uh - yes? It is from Marx that we get this definition you call “not common”!
If he is, what do you think about his notion of dictatorship of the proletariat?
That it is absolute democracy, run by the people themselves!
Because this notion is pretty much the ideological justification for the dictatorships that were built in Soviet Union, China and other Marxist governments.
Indeed, you resorting to personal attacks makes it less likely for me to be willing to talk with you or your friends at Hexbear. I’m not American by the way, my country is way more socialist but never was communist (the split happened by opposition with Soviet dictatorship).
How can dictatorship be absolute democracy? You said dictatorship is completely opposed to left ideology just before.
If it’s absolute democracy how can it be also a dictatorship?
By the way, this dictatorship is supposed to be an intermediate step in Marx’s ideology, to protect the revolution from counter revolutions, before “real” communism is instated. Strangely it seems to never have happened, the countries that tried it staid at the dictatorship level, which was pretty much an oligarchy.
What happened in your opinion? Why did it not work?
you resorting to personal attacks makes it less likely for me to be willing to talk with you or your friends at Hexbear
I didn’t attack you in any way. Not sure what you’re on about. I’m also not a Hexbear user.
I’m not American by the way, my country is way more socialist but never was communist (the split happened by opposition with Soviet dictatorship).
I didn’t call you American. I called your country liberal, which is a pretty safe bet since you’re here on Lemmy speaking English, and the majority of the Imperial Core and Periphery have some kind of liberal democracy going on. Unless you’re in Cuba or Vietnam, there’s little chance your country has anything resembling socialism going on.
How can dictatorship be absolute democracy?
Because it is the whole population doing the dictating.
You said dictatorship is completely opposed to left ideology just before.
Yes, dictatorship in the common parlance, meaning absolute rule by an individual or minority.
If it’s absolute democracy how can it be also a dictatorship?
You have spent a very long time on this point. I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t you think for a moment you might have misunderstood? Dictatorship of the proletariat means the common people rule themselves.
By the way, this dictatorship is supposed to be an intermediate step in Marx’s ideology, to protect the revolution from counter revolutions, before “real” communism is instated.
Only if you believe Lenin. And…
Strangely it seems to never have happened, the countries that tried it staid at the dictatorship level, which was pretty much an oligarchy.
Yes, strange, indeed. Because the USSR was revisionist trash, as I already stated. They forgot the “proletariat” part of “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Odd that you seem unaware of Cuba and Vietnam, though.
What happened in your opinion? Why did it not work?
Look up what European social democracy means. It is just called socialism in most countries in there, and it’s distinct from communism. I think there’s a difference of vocabulary evolution compared to the Anglo-Saxon world.
Didn’t mention Cuba and Vietnam because they had less impact and deaths than the big two. But please describe me how they avoided oligarchy and allowed proletariat dictatorship which is not a actually dictatorship but something certainly better than liberal or European style social democracy.
If it is just the common people ruling itself why is it not just democracy?
What I said about the intermediate step is in Marx writings not just Lenin’s.
It seems I am actually opposing more genocides than you do. I just want people to consider they happen on both sides of the political compass, because the issue is human nature rather than a specific political theory. Once you get that, you may stop stupid politician polemics at best, killing each other at worse, and start building consensus to reach social progress.
It seems I am actually opposing more genocides than you.
I oppose all genocide. In my country, we’re paying for one and I want to stop. I have little patience for those who see people who want to stop funding genocide and are like “yeah? Whatabout all the genocides you’re not funding? Huh? Huh?!”
It’s the definitions currently used by Americans. Conservatives and the GOP are Right Wing, and they directly oppose progress and changes in all of their policy stances, in some cases even wanting to dismantle the laws already implemented and return to a previous era.
Thats fair sorry, I was thinking it meant something different in another culture but I was probably confusing it with Liberals or some other political identification.
If I say I’m being persecuted as a Scotsman and someone points out I have never been to Scotland and have no Scottish heritage, that’s not a “no true Scotsman” fallacy because I don’t meet the definition of Scotsman no matter how much I claim to be one.
How did you somehow misunderstand my comment so badly? Okay, I edited it for clarity.
You are the one who, in this instance, is trying to insist orange juice is in fact coke. You are the one claiming no true scotsman.
Even in your attempt to twist it, you still include an explanation of why “no true scotsman” just doesn’t apply here. What you are calling communism does not meet any definition of communism, just as no orange juice meets the definition of coke.
The Bolshevik Party which took control in 1927 onwards were the party of centralized disciplined government structure, so compared to the Menshevik party that wanted to structure Russia after a Western Social Democracy rather than the current path they were on to Dictatorship, The Bolshevik’s would be right wing. I take a very small amount of liberty to call going from a Monarchy to Dictatorship as fairly conservative and transitioning to democracy as Progressive.
Let’s ignore the political opponent massacres of the Great Purge and ideology fueled agricultural disasters of the Great Chinese Famine, and focus on the Holodomor in Ukraine, the Cambodian genocide, the Uyghur genocide in China.
Happened under communist dictatorships that are generally considered to be at the left.
Generally, the left wing is characterized by an emphasis on “ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism” while the right wing is characterized by an emphasis on “notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism”.
I’m not sure what your comment means, but I’m actually saying the opposite of dictatorship being of a specific political side. I’m highlighting the fact that political extremists will end up killing in the name of their ideology, which ever it is, left, right or whatever other cult.
My comment means a Dictatorship, by definition, isn’t left wing.
I’m highlighting the fact that political extremists will end up killing in the name of their ideology
How do you define extremist? It used to be an extremist view to say women should have the right to vote, or people shouldn’t own slaves. Hell, Democracy used to be an “extremist” view.
So someone willing to kill in the name of an ideology is an extremist, but that’s the easy extreme case. In general in modern democracies, no politician would admit to that, so the definition is rather relative to how far the political positions of a party are from the average of the last governing parties for a specific country.
So someone willing to kill in the name of an ideology is an extremist
So you’re highlighting the fact that extremists will kill people in the name of their ideology, and you define extremists as people who will to kill for their ideology. Sounds pretty tautological no?
You’re confusing tautology with just writing the same definition in two different orders.
A square has four sides of equal length. Four sides of equal length length make a square. That’s not a tautology.
Dictatorships aren’t progressive. I don’t even consider them communisms, tbh. How can workers own the means to production if one guy or family owns the nation?
Agree with your last sentence but it is the path all the Marxist revolutions have taken. A reason being that proletariat dictatorship is a step to communism in Marx’s ideology. But from history, it seems it just stops at the dictatorship.
So maybe the conclusion is that Marx methodology doesn’t actually lead to a progressive/left country.
There is Kerala, a state in India with 34.6 Million people.
TBF there probably would be more than a few if not for USA intervention, like when they overthrew the Marxist Democratic Socialist Allende of Chile in 1973.
There is also Nepal currently, although they’ve very recently enacted a constitution in 2015 and score lower than the USA according to DemocracyMatrix they still qualify as a “Deficient Democracy” the same as the USA.
There was also San Marino from 1945 to 1957 where the “Rovereta Affair” ended in a coup and the Christian Nationalist party took control of the government. TBF though they probably would have just had a shitty Stalinist communism just like Turkmenistan did.
I realize most people define communism and socialism as republics in which most if not all goods are public, but I personally like to include nations in which a sizeable number of goods and services are state owned or distributed, which would include a great many democratic nations like Germany or the UK (as long as we agree the crown has no real political authority in the UK).
Where do we put the *cides from left dictatorships?
Left and Dictatorship do not have compatible definitions. This is like asking “where do we put all the pregnant virgins?”
So by your definition, Soviet Union and communist China were not actually left, just pretending ?
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russian-politics-right-confusion/
Giving lip service to being “left wing” but not actually behaving in such a manner does not make a government left wing.
I don’t mind working with different definitions, but I don’t think yours is very common.
What do you think about Marx, is he not left wing either?
If he is, what do you think about his notion of dictatorship of the proletariat?
Because this notion is pretty much the ideological justification for the dictatorships that were built in Soviet Union, China and other Marxist governments.
It is the standard definition. You just aren’t personally familiar with it, because, and I’m sorry if this sounds like a personal attack, your education system and media are designed in part to indoctrinate you into liberal ideology.
Uh - yes? It is from Marx that we get this definition you call “not common”!
That it is absolute democracy, run by the people themselves!
Revisionist trash!
Indeed, you resorting to personal attacks makes it less likely for me to be willing to talk with you or your friends at Hexbear. I’m not American by the way, my country is way more socialist but never was communist (the split happened by opposition with Soviet dictatorship).
How can dictatorship be absolute democracy? You said dictatorship is completely opposed to left ideology just before.
If it’s absolute democracy how can it be also a dictatorship?
By the way, this dictatorship is supposed to be an intermediate step in Marx’s ideology, to protect the revolution from counter revolutions, before “real” communism is instated. Strangely it seems to never have happened, the countries that tried it staid at the dictatorship level, which was pretty much an oligarchy.
What happened in your opinion? Why did it not work?
I didn’t attack you in any way. Not sure what you’re on about. I’m also not a Hexbear user.
I didn’t call you American. I called your country liberal, which is a pretty safe bet since you’re here on Lemmy speaking English, and the majority of the Imperial Core and Periphery have some kind of liberal democracy going on. Unless you’re in Cuba or Vietnam, there’s little chance your country has anything resembling socialism going on.
Because it is the whole population doing the dictating.
Yes, dictatorship in the common parlance, meaning absolute rule by an individual or minority.
You have spent a very long time on this point. I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t you think for a moment you might have misunderstood? Dictatorship of the proletariat means the common people rule themselves.
Only if you believe Lenin. And…
Yes, strange, indeed. Because the USSR was revisionist trash, as I already stated. They forgot the “proletariat” part of “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Odd that you seem unaware of Cuba and Vietnam, though.
Because it was revisionist trash.
Look up what European social democracy means. It is just called socialism in most countries in there, and it’s distinct from communism. I think there’s a difference of vocabulary evolution compared to the Anglo-Saxon world.
Didn’t mention Cuba and Vietnam because they had less impact and deaths than the big two. But please describe me how they avoided oligarchy and allowed proletariat dictatorship which is not a actually dictatorship but something certainly better than liberal or European style social democracy.
If it is just the common people ruling itself why is it not just democracy?
What I said about the intermediate step is in Marx writings not just Lenin’s.
Yes! Exactly that!
Which ones of those are we funding?
Who’s we? I’m not American.
Good. I’m glad you can’t vote in our elections. We have too many genocide supporters who like whataboutism already.
It seems I am actually opposing more genocides than you do. I just want people to consider they happen on both sides of the political compass, because the issue is human nature rather than a specific political theory. Once you get that, you may stop stupid politician polemics at best, killing each other at worse, and start building consensus to reach social progress.
I oppose all genocide. In my country, we’re paying for one and I want to stop. I have little patience for those who see people who want to stop funding genocide and are like “yeah? Whatabout all the genocides you’re not funding? Huh? Huh?!”
Well, then you should orient your impatience at someone else than me because I’m not supporting that either.
If you say so.
File them under fiction
Name one. I think almost everyone here is operating on USA definitions of Right = Conservative and Left = Progressive, btw
That’s not a US definition, that’s how the seats where distributed in the french parliament after the revolution
It’s the definitions currently used by Americans. Conservatives and the GOP are Right Wing, and they directly oppose progress and changes in all of their policy stances, in some cases even wanting to dismantle the laws already implemented and return to a previous era.
Yes and I’m telling you that the same definition is used around the world.
Btw back then the frech conservatives were monarchists that opposed the new democracy itself and wanted to dismantle it
Thats fair sorry, I was thinking it meant something different in another culture but I was probably confusing it with Liberals or some other political identification.
Holodomor, the current Uyghur issue.
Cambodia was more of an omnicide, but it counts
Ah yes, the well known leftist government on 1930s Soviet Russia…
Someday we’ll find a true Scotsman
If I say I’m being persecuted as a Scotsman and someone points out I have never been to Scotland and have no Scottish heritage, that’s not a “no true Scotsman” fallacy because I don’t meet the definition of Scotsman no matter how much I claim to be one.
You: “Hey dude, could you pass me that can of Coke?”
Sane person: “Huh? There’s no coke here. No cans of anything.”
You: “What do you mean? That right there-” points to bottle of orange juice
Sane person: “Wtf? This isn’t a can of coke!”
You: “Pfft, so it doesn’t meet your fake standards. No True Scotsman!!”
Edited to add names for clarity.
More like
“Here’s your coke”
“This is orange juice”
“What are you, an idiot? This is clearly orange juice, why would you think it’s coke? Here’s a coke”
“Still orange juice”
“Well you see, coke is made from sugar and artificial flavors, and orange juice is made from orange. That’s why orange juice isn’t coke.”
Nah you’re right, this isn’t No True Scotsman, just regular gaslighting
How did you somehow misunderstand my comment so badly? Okay, I edited it for clarity.
You are the one who, in this instance, is trying to insist orange juice is in fact coke. You are the one claiming no true scotsman.
Even in your attempt to twist it, you still include an explanation of why “no true scotsman” just doesn’t apply here. What you are calling communism does not meet any definition of communism, just as no orange juice meets the definition of coke.
The Bolshevik Party which took control in 1927 onwards were the party of centralized disciplined government structure, so compared to the Menshevik party that wanted to structure Russia after a Western Social Democracy rather than the current path they were on to Dictatorship, The Bolshevik’s would be right wing. I take a very small amount of liberty to call going from a Monarchy to Dictatorship as fairly conservative and transitioning to democracy as Progressive.
Let’s ignore the political opponent massacres of the Great Purge and ideology fueled agricultural disasters of the Great Chinese Famine, and focus on the Holodomor in Ukraine, the Cambodian genocide, the Uyghur genocide in China.
Happened under communist dictatorships that are generally considered to be at the left.
This guy: This dictatorship is on the left.
I’m not sure what your comment means, but I’m actually saying the opposite of dictatorship being of a specific political side. I’m highlighting the fact that political extremists will end up killing in the name of their ideology, which ever it is, left, right or whatever other cult.
My comment means a Dictatorship, by definition, isn’t left wing.
How do you define extremist? It used to be an extremist view to say women should have the right to vote, or people shouldn’t own slaves. Hell, Democracy used to be an “extremist” view.
So someone willing to kill in the name of an ideology is an extremist, but that’s the easy extreme case. In general in modern democracies, no politician would admit to that, so the definition is rather relative to how far the political positions of a party are from the average of the last governing parties for a specific country.
So you’re highlighting the fact that extremists will kill people in the name of their ideology, and you define extremists as people who will to kill for their ideology. Sounds pretty tautological no?
You’re confusing tautology with just writing the same definition in two different orders.
A square has four sides of equal length. Four sides of equal length length make a square. That’s not a tautology.
Dictatorships aren’t progressive. I don’t even consider them communisms, tbh. How can workers own the means to production if one guy or family owns the nation?
Agree with your last sentence but it is the path all the Marxist revolutions have taken. A reason being that proletariat dictatorship is a step to communism in Marx’s ideology. But from history, it seems it just stops at the dictatorship.
So maybe the conclusion is that Marx methodology doesn’t actually lead to a progressive/left country.
There is Kerala, a state in India with 34.6 Million people.
TBF there probably would be more than a few if not for USA intervention, like when they overthrew the Marxist Democratic Socialist Allende of Chile in 1973.
There is also Nepal currently, although they’ve very recently enacted a constitution in 2015 and score lower than the USA according to DemocracyMatrix they still qualify as a “Deficient Democracy” the same as the USA.
There was also San Marino from 1945 to 1957 where the “Rovereta Affair” ended in a coup and the Christian Nationalist party took control of the government. TBF though they probably would have just had a shitty Stalinist communism just like Turkmenistan did.
I realize most people define communism and socialism as republics in which most if not all goods are public, but I personally like to include nations in which a sizeable number of goods and services are state owned or distributed, which would include a great many democratic nations like Germany or the UK (as long as we agree the crown has no real political authority in the UK).
The Uyghur genocide would be the most recent.
I wouldn’t call that leftist, but more authoritarian.
That said, do a subset of leftists have the weirdest obsession for defending it because they somehow view China as leftist? Yes.
They’re not mutually exclusive. To give another example, Cuba is unquestionably leftist but it’s also a dictatorship.
China’s a Communism like North Korea is a Democratic Republic.