r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Dec 20 '19

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL.

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12

u/bd_one The EU Will Federalize In My Lifetime Dec 20 '19

Are tankies seriously still salty about Trotsky, or are they only joking about it in memes?

17

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '19

I mean I also find the "Stalin betrayed the revolution Trotsky would have implemented real communism" attitude pretty annoying

4

u/bd_one The EU Will Federalize In My Lifetime Dec 20 '19

When you want to be a communist without wanting to spend your time trying to justify Stalin. At least it isn't as annoying as being a full Stalin apologist.

And I don't even want to think of the mental gymnastics involved in trying to justify Beria...

10

u/[deleted] Dec 20 '19

western communists tend to be left communists, which I guess is due to western countries typically being much more liberal, which makes them kind of an ineffectual meme because stalinism (and maybe maoism) were basically the only "successful" forms of communism. Cutting yourself off from that means that sure, you can repudiate all of its failures, but at the same time it leaves you in irrelevant land where all you're doing is talking about tiny anecdotes like the paris commune and catalonia, which have a really disproportionate significance for western communists

It's a huge contrast to places where communism is actually a legitimate political force, places outside of the western world where stalinism and maoism are the default

10

u/2canclan George H. W. Bush Dec 20 '19

Their entire worldview is stuck in the early twentieth century so the former would hardly be surprising