this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/26512687

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

I've been a democratic socialist for years. Communism is not an authoritarian belief, it is a socioeconomic model separate from that concept. Stalinist Communism -in practice- was an absolutely authoritarian dictatorship with well documented hardship suffered by the Russians, that people for some reason can't seem to unhook from actual proper communism and will defend to the death in a fit of tribalist rage as if all communism is good communism. I chose to define Democratic Socialism rather than use the term intentionally, because I felt like just blurbing it out would come across as a buzzword. I'm not opposed to communism and would prefer socialism, but I am absolutely not going to advocate for Stalinist Communism.

I don't know, the thing annoying me about the tread is everyone is correcting the person by saying "They're Communist, not Fascist!" instead of saying that it was "Authoritarian rather than Fascist". I feel like framing it in the latter way unhooks the term from authoritarianism, but also doesn't preclude it from possibly becoming authoritarian like any other socioeconomic system. I feel like the prior framing gave the impression that Stalinist Communism had nothing to do with authoritarianism in general, which I will absolutely disagree with. Stalinist Communism was absolutely not Fascism, but it was absolutely an Authoritarian Dictatorship and I don't appreciate the implication that it wasn't.

I don't know if any of that makes sense, I have a hard time articulating my points. Feel free to critique and thank you for the conversation.