1/2 [Communist revolutions can be bloody and can lead to authoritarian states.]
– Yes, revolutions can be bloody, whether they’re communist or otherwise. That’s not really unique of communist revolutions.
“Authoritarian state” is a meaningless redundancy; there’s no such thing as a non-authoritarian state. If your criticism is that the revolutions didn’t immediately result in a communist society, then that’s also a poor criticism since they were never meant to…
…immediately transition to communism because that would be impossible, or at least strategically impractical. The plan of Marxist-Leninist revolutions was always to create a transitional state that would eventually transition into a stateless classless society once the state was no longer needed.
@Radical_EgoCom @NoiseColor @yogthos immediate transition is not only possible in theory but actually has some precedent (although so far it’s only happened in the wrong place and time to last at scale for more than a few years). On the other hand expecting a transitional state to actually continue the transition is even less rational than expecting Jesus to show up and start helping.
On the other other hand, choosing to stay in a capitalist system and expecting to be treated like a human being is less rational than expecting God even cared enough to want to help in the first place.
@jeremy_list @NoiseColor @yogthos
[immediate transition is not only possible in theory but actually has some precedent]
– How is it possible in theory, and what precedent does it have?
[expecting a transitional state to actually continue the transition is even less rational than expecting Jesus to show up and start helping]
Why?
The actual reason anarchist experiments always fail is because they lack organization and structure necessary to keep them going. Maybe if spent some time to learn what a state is, then you wouldn’t feel the need to make inane statements like this.
I agree that revolutions can always be bloody, but when people say authoritarian, they mean a state where dissent is surpressed by violent means. At least in modern times, most western states (and, in fact, most states) don’t suppress discourse as much as the USSR often did.
most western states (and, in fact, most states) don’t suppress discourse as much as the USSR often did
This is hard to say outright just because of variation between and even within western states (I’ve seen very petty arrests over discourse in my state), but overall I agree, yes.
I also think it’s important to understand why it was the case. Western countries all have a similar media landscape so I propose the propaganda model described in the book Manufacturing Consent applies generally to them. The result of those filters being, the loudest voices are those of state (relevant former-CIA interview!) and commercial interests (in the US, mass media it’s almost all subsidiaries of Comcast, TimeWarner, Disney, News Corp, NA and Sony at this point), which may clash, but rarely ever enough to threaten the state or the status quo - the state treats the biggest companies well. Major news broadcasters aren’t promoting major change even when they criticize a government or leader, they usually just say ‘vote for the other liberal politician!’. The discourse is generally so tame, within the bounds of simple policy and culture changes, rather than threatening the state, so it doesn’t really need to be suppressed by the state. But when it does (see Jan 6, or laws about threatening the president at all), we start seeing the limits of where discourse is allowed.
In my understanding, USSR didn’t have as much luxury there. The people with the most money, rather than those with the least, have an interest in fighting the state and allowing them to have the freedom to use their money freely to gain power. So discourse which threatens the state will probably be a bit more scary to the leadership. I don’t think it’s a good thing (for example, it reminds me of news I saw of China’s state suppression of Maoist protesters, which comes off to me as fragile and repressive) but I understand why they don’t give as much liberty as the well-established propaganda model of the USA.
There’s also something to be said about the suppression of discourse that our economic system implies, rather than the state suppressing it. See this clip of filmmaker George Lucas talking about freedoms in film art wrt USSR and USA. Obviously I’m not suggesting the inability to publish art is the same as being arrested by a state, obviously not! Rather, I want to highlight that one can’t just point to state policy to compare the freedom of discourse.___
1/3 [most western states (and, in fact, most states) don’t suppress discourse as much as the USSR often did.]
I have to partially disagree. While it is likely true that the USSR was more outward with its suppression methods than most western states today, countries, like America for example, do suppress dissent on a regular scale (Campus protest, George Floyd protest are just two notable examples, but there are plenty of more).
