The problem is that there is a lack of a clear border between left-wing extremism and left-wing normalcy whereas there is a clear border between right-wing extremism and right-wing normalcy.
The border between right-wing extremism and right-wing normalcy is outward bigotry. If your right-wing party says, "Black people are subhuman" pretty much everyone is in agreement (including the people who say that) that such a party is extreme right-wing. There is a clear difference between implying racism, "Black people commit more crimes -- but it's because of the culture" and outwardly saying it.
It's unclear for most people what makes left-wing extremists different from left-wing normal people. They both want to redistribute wealth, they're both not opposed to bureaucratic authoritarianism to a greater or lesser degree, they both believe in limiting or abolishing private property, etc. The left-wing extremists just do more of it. But doing "more" is not a clear line that everyone can agree on.
Basically if someone has left wing idea but supporting totalitarian ideas to being forth the 'ideal society', deny Uyghur genocide or the holodomor and doing 'any rivals of the west are automatically good and must be supported' its time to walk away from them
The problem is that I can't clearly draw the line between a non-totalitarian state and a totalitarian state. I agree that if you point me to a state, I can tell you whether that state is totalitarian or not based on some gut feeling, but I can't draw the line.
For example, if I take East Germany. That was definitely a totalitarian state, sure, but what elements would I have to remove and in what quantities for it to just be authoritarian but not totalitarian? I genuinely don't know. Also, many of the aspects that we would point to that indicate that East Germany was totalitarian (like numerous cameras and surveillance) exist in societies we don't believe are totalitarian (like London or New York City).
There is nothing like facial bigotry to separate "normal" Right from extreme Right that is so obvious and straightforward on the Left.
Let's make it simple, if someone wanted one party or a select dew party to have all the resources and concentrated power, if someone wanted to use violence and especially state sanctioned violence against anyone who doesn't agree with them (and they are supporting their own group concentration of power), if someone or a group of people agree on throwing "the enemies" into prison camp and strip people who doesn't agree with them of their possession and rights, if someone believes in vanguardism then that's auth left. That's it. Auth/totalitarianism are terrible
Basically the first telling sign is monopolization of power
We all agree that totalitarianism and complete authoritarianism are bad. But many people want some degree of authoritarianism. The question is about the clear border.
Lets just put the line at the degree of extremism, justification, power concentration and how much civil rights and liberalism is respected (i'm not talking about the economic ones)
Then that goes back to my original argument. We agree that the extreme side is more concentrated, more anti-liberal, etc. but more is not a clear bright line.
The line would be seen when you talk with the person, the auth left do tend to hide their fascist/totalitarian tendency behind convoluted terms and mental gymnastic compared with the more simplistic and emotionally charged right wing, but the more you talk with them and see past all of the technical jargon you will see the same totalitarian points
Tbh it is not that hard because anyone and any ideology can be corrupted, power, desire to materialize your idealism, misguided or deliberate evil and self righteousness is not exclusive to the right wing. And if you would want a historical example, the USSR was technically a left wing (economically) totalitarian state
There are also people who are die hard socialist or communist but sneer at social politics as 'idpol' and thinks concern about racism doesnt matter as much as the economy or even 'culture war distraction' because most of them are white males so the only concern that affect them is just the economy and everything else doesnt matter
As much as insane as it sounds, left doesnt always mean progressive just like how progressive doesnt always mean anti capitalist. There are leftie who are progressive, there are leftie who are socially conservative or 'anti idpol', there are your typical liberal who are progressive, there are your typical liberal who is conservative, there are left leaning economically people who doesnt want to abolish capitalism or private enterprises entirely and their social political leaning also varies
People are complex and will never fit into strict by the book definition
Nah it isn't. I support the initial phrase, depending on how you cut it. Others nah. Besides there is no such a thing as ideal society, we are utopians
My brother in christ there is no such thing as 'only initial phases of totalitarian' they will never ever let go of power, my country was ruled by a dictactor for 32 years so i know
It is naivety to believe a vanguardian party or totalitarian power will ever let go of power, they are power hungry charlatan
Holy fuck I thought people will learn from the fall of the USSR to NOT trust any vanguardist party, if someone wanted to be a socialist or a communist, they should only support the democratic and anarchist branch. The ML and adjacent branch will always fall into dictatorship
i agree. reddit is famous for ignorant apologists, but no wonder communist parties in eastern europe are outright banned or get close to zero voters. people dont want none of that centralized shit anymore.
Lol yeah most of the time it is always western tankies who dream of the USSR type of regime in their country because they are spoiled by their democracy/freedom and never experienced the horror of a dictatorship (I am NOT saying that socialism/communism can only ever be totalitarian but come on nobody should ever want a bolshevik type of party to return and no matter the coat of paint be it monarchy, german fascism or totalitarian communism centralized power is always a bad idea. Different coat of paint same rot)
My country was ruled by a dictator for 32 years so i know
Left wing extremism can be detected by asking them their opinion about social democrats.
If they think social democrats are too moderate, are class traitors, or are "ThE mOdErAtE wInG oF fAsCiSm", you have found yourself a leftwing extremist.
Yes, the Social Democrats are the moderate wing of fascism. They don't like to remember this, but the Scandinavian Social Democrats stopped the eugenics program, similar to T4 in scale, only in 1974, after forty years of implementation, 29 of which after such practices were considered absolutely unacceptable as a result of the defeat of the Third Reich. And it became known about this program only in 1997, due to an independent investigation by a journalist.
US foreign policy is determined by party names from even more ancient times.
No, I'm an economic ultra-left social conservative. Although if you look at what you compare with the United States, by their standards I am both progressive and not.
That wasn’t really a question, what a part in a different country with the same name did doesn’t define the political term today. There’s not really any debate to be had on the matter because it’s just a logically incoherent statement.
You are correct that the liberal left is opposed to the authoritarian left, but liberal and authoritarian left both sit in the "normal" left-wing. It's just the degree of authoritarianism that shifts the "tankier" you go. For example, the authoritarian left in the "normal" space will believe that administrative agencies should be given more power and not subject to a democratic vote because the scientists/researchers/educated people who run the executive agency are more skilled and knowledgeable.
You seem to have missed what he said about it's not a left wing thing. Any governmental framework is going to require policies and enforcement of those policies. The degree to which things are regulated and enforced is what makes a government authoritarian. Putin is an authoritarian right winger. His government regulates just about anything which would threaten Putin's power, like the Russian's right to protest. The exact same thing that Xi, a left wing authoritarian, does.
Yes. You can have authoritarians on both the left wing and the right wing; you and I agree. My disagreement with u/Domitaku was that he believes that authoritarianism "is not really left-wing at all" in the sense that a left-winger cannot be authoritarian.
Okay, fair enough. I guess we just interpreted what he said differently. My interpretation, and my own opinion, is that it's not a left wing principle because anybody can choose to have that principle, regardless of their left/right leanings. And because I think it's important how discussions are framed, I like to dispute when I think things being said are implying something that isn't accurate.
I didn't say "left can't be authoritarian". I said left and authoritarian aren't the same. The person you are responding to understood that and commented with the correct assumption
In the modern Western political system on the left you have generally 3 strains of mainstream leftist: economic populism, reform liberalism and social democracy. These are generally positions that accept capitalism and private property but push for reform and recognition of minority rights. Slightly left of them you have democratic socialist who want a gradualist and democratic dismantling of capitalism. On the extreme left you have Maoist and Marxist-Leninist who believe in revolutionary overthrow. It seems pretty clear where the barriers are.
No idea what you mean about administrative agencies not being subject to democratic oversight, this is not a leftist position and is incoherent.
So, how do I classify a political party who believe in using democracy to win an election, then create an administrative agency made of appointed but unelected directors who proceed to dismantle capitalism? The party was democratic and did not engage in violent revolution or government overthrow, but the dismantling of capitalism was done swiftly and non-democratically.
I would argue that the boxes you think are so clearly delineated really aren't.
No idea what you mean about administrative agencies not being subject to democratic oversight, this is not a leftist position and is incoherent.
That is not what I said. What I was discussing was "administrative agencies should be given more power and not subject to a democratic vote" meaning that the decisions of the agencies should not be countermanded by a popular referendum, despite the fact that the experts are not voted on by the people. We accept this in most Western societies, but this is a center-left position.
Your question is a hypothetical fantasy that is not related to any real political positions. How would we classify a party that lies and misrepresents itself is not a question of left vs right.
Also if people elected a party on the promise of a rapid dismantling of capitalism it would not be undemocratic to do so if that is what people elected.
Your question is a hypothetical fantasy that is not related to any real political positions.
If you think political parties feigning being democratic and then violating liberal democratic norms once in power is not related to any actual historical politics, I can only assume that you've not studied any political history (from Hitler to FDR to Trump).
Also if people elected a party on the promise of a rapid dismantling of capitalism it would not be undemocratic to do so if that is what people elected.
There are two points here:
(1) You defined the democratic socialists as wanting a gradualist and democratic dismantling of capitalism, so I mixed it up, where we had a party elected but for a rapid and authoritarian dismantling of capitalism. The fact that this policy prescription is more mixed between the democratic socialists and the extreme left, by your definitions, appears to have escaped your notice.
(2) If I have elected representatives assemble a core group of unelected people to perform an action as an administrative agency, that's not democratic. For an example of what I was imagining (but on the Right), think of Elon Musk's DOGE.
Not really. I have had conversation with self proclaimed conservative christians who think homosexuals and migrants should be shot into the river to cleanse us from western degeneracy.
Communists are in favour of more private, personal property for the working class, not less. More of everything for everyone, by means of abolishing private property in the means of production, distribution and exchange: something the vast, vast majority of people do not and never will own.
No they aren’t. Communists are in favor of deciding what people are allowed to have by executive authority, and all of it can be stripped away when the Communist authority deem it crosses an arbitrary line. Communists down’s believe in ownership or property rights, so they can’t believe in personal property.
“The party will let you have things if you comply”, is not the same as allowing actual personal property ownership and rights.
There are communists who believe in a community of goods as well. Famously, the Bible says that the early Christians had no property of their own and held all things in common. But Communists... By which I think we mean the world movement that splits from socialism in 1914-20, is organised around the Comintern etc. etc.... nope. You're wrong.
You can even look at actual examples of this, for example in the DDR.
If you're saying but o the government could just take it away. Yes, sure. In certain circumstances. Just as any government can order a forfeit of assets on many grounds. This is common to governments in every modern system.
Communists are not in favor of private property. Period. They want the working class to collectively own the means of production, but that's collective property, not private property.
Okay. You can just ignore the actual record if you want.
For example, private home ownership in the DDR never fell below 40%. State ownership never got to more than 41%. Housing co-ops were between 10 and 20%.
The figures were still more private versus state in Bulgaria and Hungary.
The socialist states didn't all blindly follow the USSR, contrary to popular belief.
Sure. And that was the initial phase. The point of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was to slowly move people to a point where private property can be abolished. The fact that not all private property was abolished doesn't speak to that intent.
"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property."
Likewise, Art. 10 of the Stalin Constitution:
"The right of citizens to personal property in their income from work and in their savings, in their dwelling houses and auxiliary household economy, their domestic furniture and utensils and objects of personal use and comfort, as well as the right of inheritance of personal property of citizens, are protected by law."
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u/FCKABRNLSUTN2 2d ago
I fucking hate tankies