I think something both the Vaushites and PatSocs have in common is viewing things in a vacuum like liberals do, they try to carve up ideologies like football teams and insist that you cannot be an anarchist if you don't swallow NATO propaganda, or that you can't be a socialist if you acknowledge the unique struggles of LGBTQ people or colonized people in the US for example.

Meanwhile historically the lines are a lot fuzzier and both groups have aligned and clashed in various ways over a whole century.

We also do not need to keep rehashing hundred year old ideological beefs when we can simply examine the causes of those divides and also the points of agreement and learn from past mistakes. This should be something all contemporary communists of any tendency should agree on.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yep, it's 100% vibes based and excessively frustrating to deal with. You don't even have to support the USSR or anything, just please be historically and politically consistent!

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I have critical support for the USSR because they were clearly a net good and their existence gave leverage and power to workers' movements in the US because they were terrified of us doing our own october revolution. It is glaringly obvious that the existence of the communist bloc held at bay the unrestrained voracious maw of capital because we can see what happened in the years since its (illegal) dissolution.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 8 points 7 months ago

Sure, I largely agree. I don't believe the USSR was perfect, but I see it as invaluable to seeing how a large-scale socialist project can actually work, and what parts didn't. Regardless of tendency, it's one of the best examples of Socialism at work, period, for good or ill.