• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    23 hours ago

    The thing is, on parts of Lemmy there is a widespread notion that it isn’t the ones reading theory, joining parties and unions, and discussing with fellow comrades who are the real Communists. This notion, in my experience, has come entirely from non-Marxists, and I don’t mean Marxists that haven’t passed some vague purity test, I mean people who openly admit to not being a fan of Marxism or not being Marxists in general. These people usually have extremely simplistic views of Communism, yet think themseleves an authority on Communism to speak over people who have read theory and take it seriously. They also frequently misrepresent the views of Communists, and as a result run into friction when Communists either try to correct them or give into frustration and call them out.

    When I say Hexbear, Lemmygrad, etc are Marxists and Anarchists, I say that based on the fact that I read theory and take it seriously. The idea that there are Real Communists out there that significantly diverge from those on Hexbear and Lemmygrad is not really backed up by anything. The consensus views of Hexbear and Lemmygrad are very standard for practicing Communist parties, outside of fringe ideologies like Gonzaloism.

    What I’m trying to get at here is that by intentionally shutting yourself off of Communists, you start to form visions of what said Communists believe that aren’t connected to reality, and the more you dismiss and block (be it by defederation, personal blocking, etc) the more distorted from reality this vision of the average Lemmy Communist becomes.

    The fact is, Lemmy Communists hate Putin and the Russian Federation and see it as an incredible tragedy that the former Soviet Union went from a good, Socialist state to a brutal Capitalist country, but they understand that Russia has to fight US dominance in order to survive, and see that as a temporary good move. It’s an “enemy of my enemy” situation, not enthused support, and yet by shutting yourself out you act like there is some Putin fanclub on Lemmy.

    I dunno, this turned into a bit of a longer comment than I intended, my goal was more to get you to reconsider how you percieve Marxists and people you disagree with in general like Communists as it seems to be causing friction.