One of the biggest topics of these days is that of mods in lemmy.ml banning and censoring people because they’re Tankies. This has had a rather sizeable discussion of people agreeing and even arguing for defederating ml. I’m sure a lot of people are arguing from good intentions, but there’s also bad faith actors among them, as I will try to show in this post. The original post was based on the moderation history of the ml instance so I respond in a similar fashion.
I browsed through the discussion for a while, and stumbled upon a comment of someone who had created an instance in response, namely de_ml@lemmy.blahaj.zone The original post in about the moderation in ml has to do with the Tiananmen Square Massacre, so I decided to make a few posts in this new instance about other historical facts which are less discussed, but that we should remember too, namely the Bengal Famine and the US support of fascism in Spain.
Initially these posts were well received and had some upvoted, but after a while I got a notification that one of them had been banned. To my surprise, I looked at the mod log of the instance and found this. So, both posts being about historical atrocities committed by capitalist countries were either banned or locked, and I had been banned from the community altogether for the reason “commie?”
I checked through the admin’s history of comments and found this.
Is this admin, who censors posts that talk about historical grievances committed by capitalism, who pins “fuck Tankies” to the instance, really a person without an agenda trying to protect a community from a supposed malignant moderation, or is it someone with an agenda trying to call everyone to the left of centrism a Tankie?
We should, in my opinion, be careful with accusing and polarising one of the biggest communities in Lemmy away, which is full of non-political content, and really examine what’s going on and what agenda there is behind it.
Marxist-Leninists in an overwhelming majority oppose the current Russian government. Putin isn’t at the service of communism or the USSR, he’s a capitalist, oligarch, fascist kleptocrat, waging an illegal war between countries that used to be brothers in the USSR times.
I never heard Varoufakis talk about modern Russian imperialism, what does he say about it? In my experience, hardcore commie internet personalities such as Hakim or Second Thought oppose the current Russian imperialist government.
Of course there are stupid idiots everywhere, including ml, and there are bound to be “leftists” whose entire ideology is “USA bad, so NATO bad, so Putin good”, which is insane because USA bad and NATO bad but modern Russia also bad. But as I say, in my experience in leftist spaces (as a hardcore leftist), this is very fringe and not representative of commies or Marxist-Leninists at all
I genuinely want to believe you, but my attitude towards western leftists has radically changed after the full scale invasion. That being said I actually hold pretty strong anti-oligarch views that are not taken well by the vast majority of Americans (lived in north america for 10 years, travelled extensively). Great place, great country, lots to see, but it’s extremely corrupt and people are heavily brainwashed by oligarch word salad and overly focused on the PR component of various widgets/services/companies. But the reactions I saw (not everyone in the US, Sanders has a pretty sober take on russia) made western leftism a bridge too far for me.
I’ve discussed Varoufakis in a reply to your other post. One other example would be Corbyn and his supporters; they pretty much de facto support russian imperialist (they make vague statements that imply otherwise, but it’s a ruse). Many German leftists are also largely aligned with russian imperialist goals.
There is also the issue that I don’t just oppose the russian government. Based on my personal experiences living in russia for 10 years and seeing how my former friends reacted in 2014 (and 2008 for that matter) and a wide range of sociological research, I have come to the conclusion that:
I will end this post with quote from a Ukrainian solider who died in the summer of 2022 (it’s commonly misattributed to the former Ukrainian ambassador to Kazakhstan):
I’ve read through both your replies, and I want to say that thank you for your detailed perspective, it’s good to hear, and I generally agree with the overall sentiment while I disagree with a few things. Right now I don’t have the time to answer both in detail, so I will answer you when I find some time later today or tomorrow, with a better thought out answer. A lot of food for thought in your comments anyway, you have quite a bit of insight on the whole thing and it’s a pleasure to read well-thought, well-structured comments like yours, so already thank you for that.
Thanks for taking the time to read.
All good man.
I probably come off as a bit categorical, but I have my reasons for this. A lot of the foreign policy positions of western leftists make me question whether they are sincere (or even in their right minds) when it comes to social/economic issues; where I am somewhat more in alignment (w.r.t. corruption, oligarchs and the need for radicalism in resolving the aforementioned points) with them.
Cheers!
No, they don’t.
If that wasn’t their whole ideology, they wouldn’t be tankies. Even in ml, which is much less radical than grad or hexbear, discussions are firmly split between “Russians go the fuck home” and “nato provoked Russia” and the usual idiot talking points. Just search “Ukraine” on ml and see what people say in the comments and what he’s upvoted.
I will add that (most?) MLs don’t openly claim support for the russians, but their positions and rhetoric is almost always pro-russian imperialism.
The “nato provoked Russia” argument is for idiots who don’t know russians, don’t anything about russian history and culture and who have never lived.
Did what you said and searched “Ukraine” in ml. First post had a poll about citizens from EU and from US wanting the war to end. Went to the comments, first comment, 15 upvoted: “then tell Putin to to home”. Response to that comment, 4 downvotes: “how original”. As I said, the overwhelming sentiment, because people generally aren’t idiots, is that yes, USA bad, NATO bad, and USA has been pushing NATO further to the east and that’s a really bad thing, but also Putin isn’t a saviour of Russia and a freedom fighter but a Russian oligarch in an imperialist war who additionally pushes fascist-like policy at home such as degradation of social rights, boosting of religion, and militarisation of the country. Criticism of NATO and the USA doesn’t amount to “Ukraine deserves to be invaded”.
Marxist-Leninists, in an overwhelming majority, oppose Putin and the modern Russian state, since it represents the opposite of what the USSR represented.
Lmao.
I said ml was less radical. You still ignored the pro Russia shit in that thread. But if you want to talk about tankies as a whole, check grad and hexbear for more than 5 seconds.
I literally can’t find the post or comment you sent a screenshot of. I looked in lemmygrad and in hexbear for posts containing the words “simple as”, sorted by new, and nothing appears. Can you link to it please? I’d love to see the comments, maybe you can change my mind.
I just ss’d it and it was already 5 days old so look around that time. But that one thing isn’t the point. Literally go on grad local and just pick a thread. I just found people (asklemmygrad) saying unironically that Russia had no choice but to invade Ukraine because nato would have invaded them. Absolutely disconnected from reality.
Yeah no, looked through the past few weeks, post isn’t there in either lemmygrad or hexbear.
And yeah there are people saying insane shit like that no doubt, but that doesn’t mean it’s the general sentiment which is the entire point of the conversation
https://hexbear.net/comment/4979215
And I don’t know what else to tell you. Just go say “Russia should leave Ukraine” or “maybe Mao wasn’t such a great guy” on those instances and see what happens.
0 upvotes, not 92 as your screenshot shows…
Would you like to remind me what the second largest party in Russia is, currently? And what their stance is on the current government’s actions?
That, of course, is not even getting into all of the “BUT THE WEST PROVOKED THEM” apologia for Ukrainian genocide by Western MLs.
The second biggest party in Russia is as communist as the biggest party in Germany is socialist: exclusively in name. The communist party of Russia was co-opted, and currently absolutely doesn’t espouse any ideal of communism, the only thing it does is to channel nationalist sentiment of people who were alive during the USSR, and redirect it towards support of the current regime. No communist in the west supports the Russian communist party, and I say this as someone from a western country who is involved in hardcore leftist spaces, where people generally espouse the opinion: “USA is an imperialist country, NATO is a US tool to further their interests and to skew policy outside the US in their favour, but also Putin is a kleptocrat and an olicarch. He pushes fascist policy like degradation of social rights in his homeland, imperialism and expansionism such as the Ukraine war, and he’s a consequence of the dismantling of the USSR and the auctioning of the country to the most corrupt bidder”. Hating NATO and hating Putin are complementary positions, not contradictory, and as I said, in my experience it’s what most hardcore leftists espouse.
my sides. This is genuinely one of the most ridiculous things I have heard, and that’s something coming from a person who is exposed to nausea inducing amount of USSR propaganda every day here. I am literally speechless. People tortured and killed, families torn apart, overwhelming protests for freedom crushed with tanks and young men and women poisoned with gas to the point of not being recognizable. BROTHERS? No man, no Georgian or Ukrainian sees Russians as brothers. We see you for the only thing you have done over and over again - invaded, killed, tortured and raped us.
I’m not Russian
If you see “Russians” as a continuous evil people over time I have bad news for you: you’re racist. Comparing a contemporary russian, to a russian from the 1970s, to a russian from 1915 is absurd, the social changes experienced in 1 century have turned upside down the Russian society and what “being Russian” means, in multiple occasions. If you’re Ukrainian, it makes sense that in the context of a war you’ve been polarised to hate Russians as a people and I can’t blame you for it, if you’re not Ukrainian you’re just racist and speaking from nationalism and hate and not from actual facts.
That’s not how racism works. Racism is prejudice+power, so only the dominant force in the area can be racist, it’s a systemic form of prejudice. For instance in America white people control everything and only white people can be racist, if any other race holds bigoted opinions they’re prejudiced. For China that would be Han Chinese (I think they’re still the dominant race in China anyway) or for Japan it would be the Yamato Japanese.
This is what they teach in sociology classes. You may disagree but you’ll have to take it up with Big Sociology because I didn’t invent it.
Unless the guy above is a minority in Russia, your point kinda doesn’t work for the instance. I suspect they don’t live in a Russian-majority country
He very well may live in russia, but in any case him talking about the russian state’s actions is hardly systemic oppression of russians.
He’s explicitly using the word “Russians”, and referring to them as people who murdered, killed and raped. If you read through the comments again you’ll see I agree with criticism towards the russian government and engage in it myself.
Is it racism if you’re objecting to a group of people that use racism to justify every horrible thing they’ve done over the last 2 centuries to the people around them?
You obviously have a bigger axe to grind than the people you’re accusing of racism.
Criticise the former Russian Empire for being imperialist. Criticise the current Russian government for being imperialist. Don’t call Russians rapists and murderers. Makes sense or it doesn’t? I criticise heavily the US government for its actions and I don’t go around calling Americans murderers and colonialists.
Being Russian has never changed throughout my country’s history. We have been murdered and abused the same from the empire to the USSR to current Russia. The behavior has been same and consistent and far surpasses the context of current wars, so you can’t blame Ukrainian and Georgian people’s refusal to be re-invaded by Russia one more time and wanting to do nothing with them on “being polarized” by the war.