Replies (2)

• @Riverside@reddthat.com 2026-04-15 19:40

  >Being better at violence doesn't make you more left Being better at violence against fascism and imperialism *definitely* makes you more left, though. Actual praxis and results are to me the definition of successful leftism, not the realm of ideas. The lack of proper violence against such regimes leads to a destruction of the left wing. >Your argument boils down to "might makes right" and could be expanded to classify social democracy as "more left" Social democracy also regularly turns to fascism when it needs to, it's definitely lacking violence against fascism, amazing that you'd say this in 2026. I fucking wish our mighty social democracies in Europe fought against Israeli fascism and USA fascism, unfortunately they're buddies! >(after all, it's left of the global status quo and its citizens are the happiest on average) By excluding imperialism from the measure of average happiness, you're committing a sampling error. That would be like polling monarchs of medieval Europe to ask whether monarchy is the system making people happier. Ask the people in India and Sri Lanka and Peru extracting the resources of the goods social democracies consume and sewing the clothes we wear how happy they are with social democracy. >Sure, it frequently decays into fascism, but so did the USSR So, we have one example of a Marxist-Leninist state decaying to fascism (after saving Europe from Nazism) and several examples of countries *not* doing this (China, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba). How about we engage in honest criticism of the flaws of the Soviet model that led to its dissolution in order to prevent that from happening again?

  Open ##1172587

• @Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2026-04-15 18:09

  Social democracy in the imperial core is to the *right* of the global status quo, because it depends on imperialism, neocolonialism, and unequal exchange. The USSR, on the other hand, supported anti-imperialist and decolonial movements materially, and set up a socialist economy. Being able to both establish and maintain socialism is a necessary first step for anything that can be considered left, because it's the only leftism that's actually *real.* No, socialism isn't fascism, and equating the two is a form of Holocaust trivialization with ties to [Double Genocide Theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_genocide_theory). >To place Russian communism on the same moral level with Nazi fascism, because both are totalitarian, is, at best, superficial, in the worse case it is fascism. He who insists on this equality may be a democrat; in truth and in his heart, he is already a fascist, and will surely fight fascism with insincerity and appearance, but with complete hatred only communism. - [Thomas Mann](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann)

  Open ##1172588