wait, so you’re saying that even the fascist states (e.g. the nazis) were only trying to defend themselves against foreign powers trying to destabilize their state? or am i misinterpreting you?

I was referencing socialist states, but yes they do both resist political pressure. The difference is fascist states are a minority class resisting domestic dissent by the majority class. It’s a forced ideology undermining a natural uprising, which is why it draws so many parallels with socialism in its revolutionary anti-establishment sentiment but is as a result lacking in internal consistency. In other words it’s reactionary.

The post WW1 German government was resisting political pressure from socialist factions that were especially dominant in Germany due to the aftermath of the war. There was constant turmoil including insurgencies, massacres, executions and of course the massive surge of the KPD into electoral politics that lead capitalists to fund the staunchly anti-communist Nazi party (read “Who Financed Hitler” by James Pool) and subsequently purged communist thought.

a state doesn’t have a mind of its own, it consists of people

The state is the monopoly of power in the hands of one class; they’re a state because the interests of the people in it align. Though it can, the state doesn’t have to be a conspiracy. What capitalists believe or think about on a personal level is irrelevant, their material interests lead them to support the same thing.

those people are often power-hungry

They’re power hungry, so they appeal to the interests of the most powerless class in defiance of the most powerful class, only to then alienate the powerless class as well? They’re power hungry so they isolate their state from the world stage and reduce themselves to running an impoverished nation? I think your view of ‘authoritarianism’ is shaped by the misconceptions about the cause of Nazi Germany addressed above.

Even if we assume this is true, it’s not a useful observation. It avoids pinpointing the conditions we need to address. There isn’t much we can do about an ‘evil’ dormant in an undefined subset of the population. You’re just fingerpointing, which is a primer for fascism.

by placing a powerful leader without accountability on the top you have undermined the whole concept

First, there’s no lack of accountability. Socialist parties consist of MILLIONS in members and hundreds to thousands in parliament, which is much larger than all parties in liberal democracies combined. Socialist countries don’t have singular dictators but operate through massive debate and cooperation. What they lack are people promoting goals contrary to socialism (and yes this does lead to wrongful punishment, that’s par for the course given the chaotic nature of covert war). Accountability and dissent are WILDLY different things that can’t be conflated. Every state is accountable to the material interests it serves.

Second, the concept of socialism is abolition of the state. There’s no ‘rule’ or empirical justification prescribing socialism to be an erratic transition rather than gradual. The point of communism isn’t just electing different leaders. Where you think socialism must come from tolerance to an undefined time of unchecked capitalist rule before an abstract ‘mass revolution’ ushers in socialism, communists simply think socialism must come from intolerance to capitalist rule but concrete tolerance to state functions that can resist capitalist subjugation until they aren’t needed anymore.

By tolerating the bureaucracy of capitalism for the sake of awaiting ‘principled’ instantaneous global revolution, you’re already admitting you’re willing to compromise for the goal of socialism. So it doesn’t make sense to pretend your aversion to socialist states has anything to do with principled opposition to a similar bureaucratic structure serving the working class(by providing housing, education, healthcare and food) instead of elites.

You can believe Leninism is a flawed way to achieve socialism and maybe even doomed to fail, but if you can’t even appreciate it as better than capitalism, you’re just not a socialist.

maybe cia actions were what caused them to be authoritarian, but that doesn’t excuse their actions in any way. the moment they became authoritarian, cia had already defeated socialism

‘Authoritarian’ is just a state, no more powerful than any other, at war. I don’t understand what you mean by ‘excusing actions’ when you admit it’s caused by US intervention. You’re saying their actions aren’t excusable while personally providing the excuse.

And what’s the point in a ‘principled stance’ when this stance consists of letting your own people be massacred and condemning billions of people to extreme poverty? What’s the point of ‘principles’ when it consists of tolerating the mass genocide of the entire planet? You tolerate the obscenely rich and ‘peaceful’ because dominant tyranny of capitalism, but the minority socialist states that always form in the countries with the worst conditions must be flawless and overcome hurdles with complete ethical perfection.

You don’t seem to appreciate that the struggle for socialism is a war, not civil debate. You demand people meet artillery fire with a cool headed essay recital and wonder why anarchist communes are nowhere to be found.

You start by saying you want to be ‘respectful’. You end up calling me ‘absolutely delusional’. It seems you can’t even be consistent in your own behavior. Do you think Einstein was delusional as well? (Source: Born-Einstein Letters)

Again, I recommend you read the book ‘Killing Hope’ by William Blum to properly contextualize the response of socialist states, including the ones you brought up that to be frank read like ChatGPT prompts, if you truly come here to talk in good faith.

Authority exists. It exists everywhere. That’s what states are. What doesn’t exist is this idea of a state that has more authority over its country than other states. Every state has a monopoly of power by definition. That’s what allows a state to define its own laws and values.

There is suppression of dissent because this is the sole purpose of a state. What distinguishes so called ‘authoritarian’ countries is the extent of brute force required to suppress it. In capitalist nations, this presents itself as fascism. In socialist nations this presents itself as Leninism.

I might add you have to at least acknowledge there must be some reason the only socialist states to have ever existed for longer than a year have been exclusively authoritarian. They didn’t outnumber anarchists, socdems or demsocs by any stretch. Leninism has been as succesful as it is because socialist states live in a capitalist world. A world that wants to eradicate communism root and stem with whatever magnitude of violence and cruelty necessary. Lenin and Stalin expressed this and reality has proven their thesis correct.

Now, you bring up examples, which you seem to be unaware are sourced primarily from CIA investigations. First, I would like to note that you call these actions disproportionate while admitting to being ignorant to the interference these countries faced. Second, I would note you trivialize the mass poverty in western states, disassociate it with its fascist sattelite states and ignore mass policing by the NSA on a GLOBAL scale. You also ignore the immensive devastation these states wrought upon their colonies, including recurring mass famines, only ever seeming to consider these deaths mass murder the moment managment falls into the hands of a collectivist meaning to eradicate it.

Of every single country you’ve mentioned, I would like to remind you the US and its allies have invaded extensively, used terrorism, had numerous assassination attempts and in China particularly used WMD.

Now I would like you to compare this response to the response of the west to the isolated 9/11 attack by Al Qaeda(an organization funded by the US to overthrow the socialist Afghan government), rendering entire cities level to the ground, murdering millions of men, women and children and letting whoever knows how many more to die of famine or drown at the European border.

Is it ‘ethical’ or ‘utopian’? Absolutely not (and you evidently don’t understand what communism is if you think it can be utopian while having a state at the same time).

But these measures undountedly are the grim reality of the way every state operates. It doesn’t matter if it’s socialist, capitalist, feudal or anything else. So the question isn’t if you support purges or no purges. They are the current reality of every state. The question is whether you support a movement for the transition away from the state towards communism or the continuation of the state.

Socialist states aren’t perfect, far from it. But mismanagement is not the same as malice that is pervasive in capitalist society.

The common thread of ‘authoritarian’ countries isn’t communism or fascism. It’s having significant opposition. Almost always from the US.

No Communist supports suppression of dissent. It’s a countermeasure to foreign interference. It doesn’t exist because tankes feel like authoritarian states work better but because the US has an extensive and well known track record of breaking international sovereignty laws and installing fascist regimes by force.

Communists didn’t want to be slaughtered for wanting to abolish poverty. Therefore every real life communist is a tankie, either because they understood that class war is war or because they’re buried under capitalist soil.

This suppression of opposition doesn’t have ideological basis. It’s an emergency measure in a time of war. Hence why even every CAPITALIST country opposed to US interests is ‘authoritarian’.

Authoritarianism isn’t a thing. No state wants to suppress dissent.

Dissent is suppressed when it needs to be because there’s foreign powers trying to destabilize your state. Like when the most powerful country in the world creates a Central Intelligence Agency with the overt purpose of eradicating communism. Which they did covertly through the funding of internal dissent, terrorism and sabotage of infrastructure.

Unless you think the CIA just twiddled their thumbs for 70 years, of course. In that case I recommend reading the book ‘Killing Hope’ by William Blum.

Most people who are labeled tankies don’t support Russia like the Beehaw user wants you to believe FYI, we just think historical conditions caused the Ukraine war and that those conditions show a trend of US expansionism rather than expansionist ambitions by a country with the GDP of Italy.

…But just like how not supporting democrats makes you a republican, not supporting America makes you a Putinist in their eyes. So wharever.

China is actually a controversial subject because a lot of people think the Deng reforms marked the moment China turned capitalist. Others think it was necessary to mature China’s economy and particularly since Xi Jing Ping became chairman have had a lot of faith in China’s transition plan.

What they said about tankies being fascists also doesn’t make sense. Fadcists exist because of the threat of communism. They took state power to eradicate communists, preserve capital and, often times, establishing a superior racial class while doing so. Communists takes state power to abolish capitalism, eradicate poverty and create a classless society. They are literally opposites.

And always remember this suppression of free speech ONLY happened after western powers attempted to “strangle Bolshevism in its crib” through invasions, coup attempts and supporting reactionary groups.

So yes, surprisingly, socialist states suppressed dissent after the most powerful states in modern history openly declared a holy war on their existence (which includes supporting fascist states like Nazi Germany btw). Very strange.