For all your boycotting needs. I'm sure there's some mods caught in lemmy.ml's top 10 that are perfectly upstanding and reasonable people, my condolences for the cross-fire.

!memes@lemmy.world and !memes@sopuli.xyz. Or of course communities that rule.
!asklemmy@lemmy.world
!linux@programming.dev. Quite small, plenty of more specific ones available. Also linux is inescapable on lemmy anyway :)
!programmer_humor@programming.dev
!world@lemmy.world
!privacy@lemmy.world and maybe !privacyguides@lemmy.one, lemmy.one itself seems to be up in the air. !fedigrow@lemm.ee says !privacy@lemmy.ca. They really seem to be hiding even from another, those tinfoil hats :)
!technology@lemmy.world
Seems like !comicstrips@lemmy.world and !comicbooks@lemmy.world, various smaller comic-specifc communities as well as !eurographicnovels@lemm.ee
!opensource@programming.dev
!fuckcars@lemmy.world

(Out of the loop? Here's a thread on lemmy.ml mods and their questionable behaviour)

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The Bolsheviks were a revolutionary party, yes. Among the entire revolution, they were among the most radical. In any revolution, there will be a group that is the most radical and moving the most, even if they don't formalize it. Do you expect everyone to be an Anarchist before the revolution?

As for the Imperialism bit, you're being even more dishonest than usual, haha. I explicitly said that it was expansionist and Imperialist in the liberal sense of the word. That doesn't mean wrong! This is silly, the rest of your paragraphs are nailing down on a point I never made.

As for the jab about Anarchists, Marxists can't trust Anarchists either, infighting is always a 2 way street among leftists. You may be interested in reading this meeting between Lenin and Kropotkin. Kropotkin criticizes Lenin, and Lenin criticizes back, it's a really interesting meeting and neither makes themselves a fool IMO.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Among the entire revolution, they were among the most radical.

"radical" in what sense? As in "fuck over everyone who brought about the February revolution, do a coup in October and call it a revolution?"

“No, no,” Kropotkin replied, “if you and your comrades think in this way, if the power is not going to their heads, and if they feel that they will not be going in the direction of oppression by the state, then they will achieve a lot. Then the revolution is truly in good hands.”

...yep, Anarchists back then hadn't yet understood that there's no way around power getting to ML's heads. Maybe not individually but structurally it's going to happen one way or the other. I do acknowledge that Lenin said that under no circumstances must Stalin be allowed to be his successor -- he still became his successor. That's why centralisation of power is inherently counter-revolutionary. Power corrupts, and power attracts the already corrupted. What you're left with is a mess.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No, as in the ones pushing the revolution the hardest, and typically the ones with the strongest level of understanding of leftist organizational theory, be it Marxist or Anarchist or even whatever else.

You're free to make that critique, I would just hope that you can actually make concessions just like Marxists do when it comes to unifying theory and practice.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I already made that critique: If your means employ authoritarianism and domination, then your ends will never be a classless society, for you are fuelling the very beast of domination and oppression. Giving it another coat of paint or another justification does not change its character. It's like saying "but my anger is righteous!" instead of realising that anger is always blind, unproductive, irrational, self-destructive to the individual and society. You're much better off taking a step back, take breaths until you've collected yourself, and then start to strategise with a cool head.

It's why I gave (dunno if in this conversation but definitely in this thread) Council Communists the non-tankie pass. I think they're a bit uptight, just like Syndicalists, but whatever that I can deal with.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

By your definition all states are authoritarian, it doesn't matter if I want a democratic state or not, that's authoritarian in the eyes of an Anarchist.

Council Communists get a pass because they are relegated purely to academia and never to praxis, seemingly.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago

The anarchist definition of state is a very different one from the Marxist and also from the dictionary one ("people, organisation, territory"). You can usually freely replace "state" in Anarchist texts with "hierarchical power". I myself don't like and don't use the anarchist definition as there's better terms it's just unnecessary confusion. Has its historical reasons, but we're usually not ones to pray to ashes instead of passing on the fire so why should we be doing it there.

And, sorry, but no, it isn't Anarchists who are couping liberal democracies. That'd be Bolsheviks.

Council communists would have a better track record if they realised that they are Syndicalists, which have plenty a track record. Until that happens, it'll continue to be methadone therapy for recovering MLs.