I don't like spending this much time arguing against campism but they just keep talking at me.
I prefer Stakeholder Socialism.
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2026
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Idk what communist movement you think is going to emerge pristine out of this horrific, traumatizing, wasteland of human suffering without being wrong in really terrible ways.
A socialist or anti-imperialist movement does not have to be morally correct for me to back them. Class struggle does not have to be led by good people to succeed, they don't have to have a correct interpretation of Marxism or be Marxist at all, they don't have to not have corruption, and they will almost always carry reactionary baggage. In a lot of situations (almost universally) it's not realistic or possible at all for a resistance to capitalist exploitation, colonialism or imperialism to exist without all of those problems and more, but doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. If they're opposing capitalism, even if they're doing it badly, they deserve support.
Also, yes, MLs shouldn't do apologia for the things the USSR did or other socialisms did, they should state the truth clearly without discomfort. I'm kinda disillusioned with ML spaces on the internet, actually, because they really suck. It's like a game to some people; a game about being right and not caring about fucking anything. It puts me off when I see like uncritical support of past socialisms as if they were perfect, which is impossible, and you'll always end up being disappointed, which is the one of the points of this whole message, but it only serves to make them look like atrocity-denying historical revisionists to other people. Like the Soviets really did deport Tatars in trains, and really didn't work to correct the colonialist past they inherited from the Russian Empire.
However, the dissolution of the USSR and the throwing of its people to the wolves of finance capital was a humanitarian catastrophe for Eastern Europe and created a situation that even now is actually sickening to think about, and I don't know at all how or when things will recover and get better for people there. It put into motion the fucking tragedy that is happening now in Ukraine plus all of the unseen suffering in the poor regions of what was the Eastern Bloc. The ex-Soviet countries are are perfect example of what losing looks like.
Like I'm sure there are lurid, real crimes that Hamas, or Iran, or Ansar Allah committed, but I hope to god they don't lose, because they're fighting against the IDF and the American military and all of the bad things that the resistance has done cannot hold a candle to what the US and Israel have done. That's how I feel about resistance to capital.
Like you've gotta understand historical materialism and a lot more than just that, you have to keep trying to understand things for years to be good communist. I'm not a good communist. If you approach politics with the goal of having the correct hot takes, you'll never want to understand anything. Just stop making hot takes, and look at the world.
Thanks for sharing this perspective.
As a baby leftist, I don't want to fall into the traps of others when it comes to heralding the goods of past socialist experiments without criticizing the ills as well.
Nothing is perfect, as you say, and it a materialist socialists' life long project to see the world clearly for all the material conditions that exist, and have existed up until this point. Idealist socialists and idealist communists will capsize their entire movement, and endlessly make things about purity tests.
The words "purity tests" sets off my liberal detector, because of accusations of "purity testing" being used to defend Democratic party entryism and terrible DSA candidates from criticism.
The words "purity tests" sets off my liberal detector, because of accusations of "purity testing" being used
Outside of any liberal usage, you have to acknowledge the phenomenon of leftist purity testing, especially on Lemmy. It's part of what makes the ML spaces so unsavory.
defend Democratic party entryism and terrible DSA candidates from criticism.
I mean,
A socialist or anti-imperialist movement does not have to be morally correct for me to back them.
Even the terrible DSA candidates are DSA candidates, and so far as socialist movements go they have the absolute advantage of popularity right now. I'm really, really tired of publicly glazing Democrats because the general class consciousness is so low that slowing the bleeding is the best we can get electorally.
I would be absolutely chuffed if terrible DSA candidates displaced terrible DNC candidates, because at the very least it puts "Socialist" in the general public awareness, and lowers the barrier for decent DSA candidates. And the DSA is a better class of lesser evil overall. And the better the lesser evil, the more effective my dual power is going to be.
Which is to say, purity testing is a real problem, and you don't have to be a liberal to recognize that any proper leftist movement is going to need to engage the actual proletariat, and most of those guys are tribalistic dummies.
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Regardless of the system, it will always have PEOPLE running it. It will always be fucked.
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Can't wait for the tankies to show up and once again try to defend bootlicking.
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In every story what post apocalyptic society survives? Communist. Every post apocalyptic society that leads to hellish dystopia? Capitalist. Prove me wrong.
Ok.
Every post-apocalyptic society we can point to is fictional. After all, we’ve never actually experienced an apocalypse on that scale.
But just off the top of my head, The Book of Eli depicts a post-apocalyptic society that has largely devolved into anarchy, with power concentrated in the hands of warlords and whoever can enforce their will through violence.
Cyborg presents a similar picture: societal collapse, competing factions, and survival through force.
Then there’s Mad Max, where civilization has collapsed into violent competition over increasingly scarce resources, with whoever controls the necessities of life holding the power.
But I’d also venture to say that many of the post-apocalyptic societies people point to as examples of socialism are actually post-scarcity societies, or at least societies in which scarcity has been resolved to some degree. When the necessities of life are readily available, the incentive to hoard resources and compete for basic survival diminishes. That creates the conditions for people to organize society around collective needs rather than individual accumulation.
In other words, what people identify as socialism in these fictional settings may actually be the result of a fundamental change in the material conditions of society.
The interesting question isn’t whether people are naturally selfish or naturally cooperative. It’s how the conditions people live under influence which behaviors become necessary for survival. When resources are scarce and institutions collapse, people may turn to violence and self-preservation. When their basic needs are reliably met, cooperation and collective ownership become much more practical.
Of course, neither outcome is inevitable. Scarcity doesn't automatically produce anarchy, and abundance doesn't automatically produce socialism. But the material conditions of a society have a tremendous influence on the political and economic systems that can realistically emerge.
you know anything can happen in fiction? you can plausible write a post-apocalyptic capitalist society as well.
Snowcrash is an example.
yup
Dune. Turns out feudalism was what made it out of the machine apocalypse and ensuing Butlerian Jihad. Feudalism with nukes.
So you're saying that communism only exists as a literary fantasy?