this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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This is a public forum that's federated with plenty of non-leftist instances, and that's well known to even more non-leftist instances we aren't federated with. We have occasional efforts to direct more people back here, including lifeboat comms for reddit communities. There are even more ties to the much larger reddit through shared users and the whole history of the CTH sub.
We're not speaking to the most general of audiences, but there is a benefit to not looking like cranks. This isn't even a particularly good hot take to cling to, as Stalin himself eventually allied with social democracies against fascists.
I wouldn't be too worried about what the imagined liberals in the walls might think. There can't be too many of them and bad faith actors will always be able to find something and take it out of context. And if you can't speak freely as a communist on a communist niche forum where can you?
Stalin, unlike any of the morally pure western leftists, actually held power and had to defend it and he did so successfully. It's not like aligning the USSR with "moderate" imperialist nations didn't have it's downsides but the alternative was to be overrun and slaughtered by the more radical fascists.
A pragmatic alliance made for lack of better alternatives doesn't change the analysis of the nature of social democracy. They serve the same master as the fascists. Where the social democrats wants to preserve capitalism by bribing a select labour aristocracy into complementary the fascists use more direct violence but ultimately they will both tend to side with capital if it's rule is threatened.
How are they imagined? They comment here regularly. Our threads show up in their feeds. Their threads show up on ours, and we comment on them. We talk to mods of reddit communities looking to move somewhere better. None of this is hypothetical.
I've made the the exact "Stalin actually held power and had to defend it against hostile empires and genocidal fascists" argument online and in person many times. From those conversations I've learned that calling (for instance) FDR and everyone to his right (including all modern Democrats) "moderate fascists" comes across as crank shit, and most people tune out when they hear crank shit. Even people who stick it out and eventually become leftists clock it as crank shit! It doesn't work, so why are we so dug in on it? (My guess: a mix of contrarianism and residual "he was a Great Man so his word is infallible" thinking.) It's not even a good point to go to the mat on; see below.
This is "if 99% Hitler and 100% Hitler are on the ballot, you should pragmatically vote for 99% Hitler." We rightly point out the problems with this logic when libs tell it to us. There are two ways to resolve this contradiction:
The second approach is at least as theoretically sound as the first, and it does not cause most people to think "oh I'm dealing with a crank, I can disregard."
The quote that social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism, doesn't mean the same thing as saying social democrats are fascist. The quote acknowledges the subjective difference, the fact that social democrats view themselves differently. What the quote neans is that, despite this subjective difference, despite the intentions of social democrats, their efforts ultimately only serve to help and enable fascism, because it accepts capital and the liberal democratic framework.
Repeating the quote now, today, is not the same thing as saying AOC is a fascist. You are misunderstanding the quote. And are further misunderstanding the history, and using a misunderstanding of that history to justify your misunderstanding of the quote
I get that you care about optics on this site and think that it should be the same as irl organizing. I don't agree with that, but if that's your point, okay. I can accept that's what you think and you care about it even if i don't. But i want to point out how you are misinterpreting the quote. Not because i think Stalin is a "great man" or "infallible", and not because I'm "contrarian," but because i think the quote is right, and important for communists or peoole who want to be on an actual left to understand. If you want our optics held to the same standard as irl organizing, then i insist we hold our education to the same standard. Because if we're organizing, it should be with people that are capable of understanding this quote - otherwise we'll end up organized with the kind of people this quote refers to who will betray and destroy any real left efforts
Calling someone a moderate fascists is calling them a fascist the same way calling someone a moderate Democrat is calling them a Democrat. We don't make any real distinction when we add "moderate" ("if the time ever comes understand she'll advocate the same insane violence against us that the fascists will"), people don't hear a distinction, and it's ridiculous to try and retroactively try and create some thin theoretical difference when this is pointed out.
The only reason people (sometimes) add the "moderate" modifier is they're memeing about a Stalin quote they haven't actually interrogated, and it seems most people haven't even read:
We can't say "if you sit down at a table with fascists you're a fascist" all day then pretend "moderate fascist, fascism's twin" means "not fascist."
I never said anything like this. I said this place is useful for moving people left, and that it will be less useful for that if we get so up our own online asses that we can't tell when we're saying crank shit that doesn't even have a good theoretical basis.
Even with the full quote you still misunderstand it. I'm not sure how you can look at that and not see hiw what i just told you is correct.
They are "Twins" because they were "born" at the same time from the same material conditions. He's not using twin to mean "identical." They aren't identical, but they both exist to serve capital and defebd it from proletarian revolution. That's why social democracy is "objectively tge moderate wing if fascism." This is not saying "AOC us a fascist" its not even saying "AOC is a moderate fascist." Its saying that social democracy serves the same purpose. Conflating it with the "sit down with fascists..." saying is just you running with your misinterpretation and justifing yourself.
I'm not doing anything retroactively. I'm just telling you what Stalin meant when he wrote it, and what we mean when we say it. Once again you're misinterpreting it and calling us cranks based on your misinterpretation
This isn't crank shit. Your misinterpretation definitely is though. And you've been corrected on this multiple times it sounds like, and you really want to die on this hill over some kind of optics argument that we're "cranks" when the crank opinion your argueing against is just your own misinterpretation.
I'm sorry if you think the niche communist internst forum is "too online" if we read Stalin, understand him, and quote him about things he was correct about.
You aren't a mind reader and you aren't some authority on the subject. We are both reading the same 100-year-old text and coming to different conclusions. I am not misinterpreting, you are not correcting, and the condescension is obnoxious.
My point from the beginning is that when people hear "XYZ is a moderate fascist," they interpret that to mean "XYZ is basically a fascist, even if this person thinks some other fascist is worse." No amount of quoting Stalin and claiming to know What He Truly Meant will change that this is what people hear.
Okay, you're not engaging in anything approaching good faith on this issue with me or anyone else here.
Except your conclusion is a willful misunderstanding. I am correcting, because you are wrong. I'm not condescending. I'm talking to like an adult and an equal. Its okay to be wrong about something. Ive been generous by using the term misinterpretation because the text is so clear its not even open fir interpretation. I've gone out of my way to not be condescending despite your choice to mischaracterise the incredibly blatant text. your inability to engage in good faith is not only obnoxious but tedious.
I'm not presenting what I'm saying as "What he truly meant" as some sort of divination. I'm basically just repeating what the literal text said because it makes its point extremely clearly. That's why I'm even telling you your misunderstanding it and saying that I'm correcting you because its such a clear statement that its not even open to interpretation. Its not cryptic in the slightest, yet you choose to argue over it, and need to paint it like I'm divining its intent like a religious text to prove your point. Bad faith bullshit on your part, and for no reason.
Yeah, your point is just some dumb optics shit that has nothing to do with the quote. But we're all just cranks who are too online to see the truth lol.
I'm not talking with you anymore about this, because this is pointless and tedious. We're all just "too online" and you're the one true leftist. Congratulations
Lmao if you spoke to a stranger like this -- "you keep misinterpreting this," "you've now been corrected a few times," -- they'd either walk away or tell you to fuck off.
Another sign of engaging in good faith -- "your point is dumb shit, why can't we talk about my point instead"!
Tell me more, O Master of Discourse!