this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

:::spoiler Excerpt from Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds

Some leftists and others fall back on the old stereotype of power hungry Reds who pursue power for powers sake without regard for actual social goals. If true, one wonders why, in country after country, these Reds side with the poor and powerless often at great risk and sacrifice to themselves, rather than reaping the rewards that come with serving the well-placed.

For decades, many left-leaning writers and speakers in the United States have felt obliged to establish their credibility by indulging in anticommunist and anti-Soviet genuflection, seemingly unable to give a talk or write an article or book review on whatever political subject without injecting some anti-Red sideswipe. The intent was, and still is, to distance themselves from the Marxist-Leninist Left.

Adam Hochschild, a liberal writer and publisher, warned those on the Left who might be lackadaisical about condemning existing communist societies that they "weaken their credibility" (Guardian, 5/23/84). In other words, to be credible opponents of the cold war, we first had to join in cold war condemnations of communist societies. Ronald Radosh urged that the peace movement purge itself of communists so that it not be accused of being communist (Guardian, 3/16/83). If I understand Radosh: To save ourselves from anticommunist witchhunts, we should ourselves become witchhunters.

Purging the Left of communists became a longstanding practice, having injurious effects on various progressive causes. For instance, in 1949 some twelve unions were ousted from the CIO because they had Reds in their leadership. The purge reduced CIO membership by some 1.7 million and seriously weakened its recruitment drives and political clout. In the late 1940s, to avoid being "smeared" as Reds, Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a supposedly progressive group, became one of the most vocally anticommunist organizations.

The strategy did not work. ADA and others on the Left were still attacked for being communist or soft on communism by those on the Right. Then and now, many on the Left have failed to realize that those who fight for social change on behalf of the less-privileged elements of society will be Red-baited by conservative elites whether they are communists or not. For ruling interests, it makes little difference whether their wealth and power is challenged by "communist subversives" or "loyal American liberals." All are lumped together as more or less equally abhorrent.

Even when attacking the Right, left critics cannot pass up an opportunity to flash their anticommunist credentials. So Mark Green writes in a criticism of President Ronald Reagan that "when presented with a situation that challenges his conservative catechism, like an unyielding Marxist-Leninist, [Reagan] will change not his mind but the facts." While professing a dedication to fighting dogmatism "both of the Right and Left," individuals who perform such de rigueur genuflections reinforce the anticommunist dogma. Red-baiting leftists contributed their share to the climate of hostility that has given U.S. leaders such a free hand in waging hot and cold wars against communist countries and which even today makes a progressive or even liberal agenda difficult to promote.

A prototypic Red-basher who pretended to be on the Left was George Orwell. In the middle of World War II, as the Soviet Union was fighting for its life against the Nazi invaders at Stalingrad, Orwell announced that a "willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty. It is the only thing that from a literary intellectual's point of view is really dangerous" (Monthly Review, 5/83). Safely ensconced within a virulently anticommunist society, Orwell (with Orwellian doublethink) characterized the condemnation of communism as a lonely courageous act of defiance. Today, his ideological progeny are still at it, offering themselves as intrepid left critics of the Left, waging a valiant struggle against imaginary Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist hordes.

Sorely lacking within the U.S. Left is any rational evaluation of the Soviet Union, a nation that endured a protracted civil war and a multinational foreign invasion in the very first years of its existence, and that two decades later threw back and destroyed the Nazi beast at enormous cost to itself. In the three decades after the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviets made industrial advances equal to what capitalism took a century to accomplish—while feeding and schooling their children rather than working them fourteen hours a day as capitalist industrialists did and still do in many parts of the world. And the Soviet Union, along with Bulgaria, the German Democratic Republic, and Cuba, provided vital assistance to national liberation movements in countries around the world, including Nelson Mandela's African National Congress in South Africa.

Left anticommunists remained studiously unimpressed by the dramatic gains won by masses of previously impoverished people under communism. Some were even scornful of such accomplishments. I recall how in Burlington Vermont, in 1971, the noted anticommunist anarchist, Murray Bookchin, derisively referred to my concern for "the poor little children who got fed under communism" (his words).

Those of us who refused to join in the Soviet bashing were branded by left anticommunists as "Soviet apologists" and "Stalinists," even if we disliked Stalin and his autocratic system of rule and believed there were things seriously wrong with existing Soviet society. Our real sin was that unlike many on the Left we refused to uncritically swallow U.S. media propaganda about communist societies. Instead, we maintained that, aside from the well-publicized deficiencies and injustices, there were positive features about existing communist systems that were worth preserving, that improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people in meaningful and humanizing ways. This claim had a decidedly unsettling effect on left anticommunists who themselves could not utter a positive word about any communist society (except possibly Cuba) and could not lend a tolerant or even courteous ear to anyone who did.

Saturated by anticommunist orthodoxy, most U.S. leftists have practiced a left McCarthyism against people who did have something positive to say about existing communism, excluding them from participation in conferences, advisory boards, political endorsements, and left publications. Like conservatives, left anticommunists tolerated nothing less than a blanket condemnation of the Soviet Union as a Stalinist monstrosity and a Leninist moral aberration.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Related excerpt:

The pure (libertarian) socialists' ideological anticipations remain untainted by existing practice. They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. No surprise then that the pure socialists support every revolution except the ones that succeed.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Fun fact: the word count of the people shidding and pissing and cumming about how long this excerpt is now exceeds the word count of the excerpt itself.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

Libs out here proudly being like

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gonna paste a comment I made a couple weeks ago. Seems relevant again, both because of the accusation levied against hexbears and also because Parenti.

Oh a hexbear. ... You lot only have overly simplistic takes.

When we respond to blatant ignorance with carefully chosen wording, backing up our position with citations and links, and calmly explaining the nuance of complex geopolitical realities, we get accused of "always throwing walls of text at people." When we answer that same ignorance with short and pithy responses, we "only have simplistic takes."

parenti-hands

There's no winning with you simple-minded dronies, but I guess there never is when one side can just make shit up that fits their vibes-based outlook on the world.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (8 children)

TLDR

Do you guys actually write this shit out or are you ctrl + v from some source? Every time i see hexbears they write up a whole journal article as a comment that most likely nobody is going to read.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago

...I said "Excerpt from Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds," because it's, uhh, an excerpt from Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds.

I copied it from a pdf of the book I cited because I found it relevant. Really, if you want to fully understand how fascism and communism are different and not comparable, you should read the whole book. I know, I probably sound like a crazy person for suggesting that people read a whole entire book to better understand politics instead of going off vibes, but that's just how I roll I guess.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago (2 children)

most likely nobody is going to read

Being too lazy and uncurious to read a handful of paragraphs is not something to be proud of

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

landlord-sus Say it with me now

No investigation....

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's a quote from a book they read. You should try reading books sometime, it's cool.

If you want a summary, the last two paragraphs they quoted could serve as one.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Can you read,serious question?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's a bit fucking stupid to ask that question through the medium of the written word, no?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's probably still less stupid than asking whether the clearly labelled excerpt from a clearly labelled book and author is copied "from some source"

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

No he wasn't asking it seriously obviously

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Are you asking if she copied and pasted an excerpt from a book? Yes, of course she did. Lol

Edit: If I took a video of myself retyping it or writing it by hand, would you read it then? I'll do it.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Just read it ffs you libs are just the laziest

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s like 2 sentences. Your post is practically the same length

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's 11 paragraphs -- click to expand.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Strange it’s only showing the first 2 sentences on the app I’m using

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think a part of good, honest discourse is recognizing and respecting the time of the person you are talking with.

If you are going to respond with 11 paragraphs quoted from a book, you should preempt it by saying something to diffuse it. Something like, "oh man, this is super long but actually quite beneficial. I wrote a tldr though at the end in case you don't have time to read the whole thing."

I use this site while I'm at work. I literally don't have time to read all of that lol.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (19 children)

That's why I put it behind a spoiler to avoid clogging up the thread.

I put in the time of reading the book in the first place, then I remembered a relevant bit so I went back and looked through the book to try to find it, read through it again to make sure it was actually relevant, edited it because it was from a pdf and had wierd line breaks, and considered which parts were relevant to include and whether I should omit some of the examples. I cited that book not only because it expressed what I wanted to say, but also because it's written in a modern style that's easier to read than many socialist works.

I guess I'm just used to an environment on Hexbear where people are more receptive towards reading relevant theory and some of us actually read not just posts and excerpts, but whole entire books. Maybe I should've just posted Pig Poop Balls instead.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (15 children)

You are wasting your time shitposting on social media. Your time means nothing. I respect neither it, nor you.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

On Hexbear we regularly bully each other into reading entire books when someone has a bad take. This is mild.

11 paragraphs is like one single page, maybe two.

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