Many people on lemmy.ml deeply respect and admire authoritarian governments and organizations.
Iran, China, North Korea, Soviet Union…
The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.
Iran hangs homosexuals. Iran shot 30,000 people in less than than 2 weeks. The Soviet Union had to build a fucking Iron wall to prevent people from escaping. The Soviets lied about the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. China censors the internet. China wants to eliminate Islam. North Korea is a totalitarian hellscape. Watching anime is a crime.
Why is lemmy.ml so fascinated with authoritarians?
A note on my biases: I am a leftist. I am generally “anti-authoritarian”, but I have read some theory and listened to enough commentary to understand why folks are pro-authoritarian (and why Authoritarian is a label only applied to enemies of american hegemony). I am on .ml - which I don’t think matters, anyone’s account can be anywhere: fediverse, baby.
Lemmy.ml is a website hosted on a server. Why do its mods and some users hold those beliefs?
Many of those people are communists. Opposition to american hegemony is the main reason, or critically supporting other actually existing socialist states. They may think China isn’t perfect, but they’re attempting socialism and are standing up to the US and have the best shot at success. In the case of North Korea, they may think that attempt at socialism is genuine and much of the bad stuff they do is falsified or exaggerated for propaganda or just be giving critical support to a country that has been destroyed by the US via war and sanctions.
Or, in the case of Russia & Iran, they have stood in firm opposition to American hegemony, military bullying, etc. even though they are not Communist/Socialist. So, even though they do a lot of bad things and don’t have socialist values, they are a lesser evil than America. For Russia, them pushing back against NATO is seen as a direct war against the advance of global capital, even though Russia is capitalistic and fascistic (much like a weaker version of the US).
In all of these cases, when a person supports these governments, they are not really saying “Country good”. They are saying “I critically support Country in opposition to American hegemony and global Capital”. There’s a lot of memes and jokes, and some people just really support Russia and NK uncritically - humanity is a rich tapestry - but that’s the gist of it.
Understanding this POV requires an understanding of history (re: socialism & US interventionalism), critical theory (re: media), and an ability to be generous to edgelords online who are not always the best messengers of this (valid) viewpoint. It is socialist realpolitik, not idealpolitik - a view where current events can be interpreted in a way that their outcomes may foment the material conditions favorable to socialism.
Now a question for you: How can a democratic & socialist country exist in a world where American hegemony exists and America is hell-bent on maintaining the global capitalistic order?
Given the US’ massive power and history of destroying socialist movements with tremendous violence (military and economic), can a country maintain its status as a real democracy without the US:
covertly funding extremist groups to coup the democratic government (Iran),
committing direct election tampering to elect a pro-US party (Venezuela, unsuccessfully),
launching proxy wars to murder their people (Vietnam, North Korea),
destroying the country’s economy with sanctions and completely disconnecting them from global trade - causing mass starvation and poverty (North Korea, Cuba)
The answer is that without the aid of a country capable of standing up to the US, they do not. These countries that still have socialist goverments have to hold on to power in a world where US hegemony is a fact.
Maybe a naive question but is there no way to have a country that stands strong against the US and its interference without being repressive/authoritarian against your own people? What’s the point of being a socialist dictator for many years/decades if you’re not allowing the people to gain collective control of the land/resources/means of production/etc. for their own benefit?
I think the trouble is that “freedom of speech”, “freedom of expression”, etc. can be and are weaponized by colonial/hegemonic forces.
But, that said, that’s why I am not 100% supportive of this view. Possibly naïvely on my end, I think those sorts of freedoms are important not only for individuals but also as a check on state power. That said, I see how manipulative the US state department can be - and for that matter how manipulative foreign govts have been to the US - especially in recent election cycles… so I think it is a double edged sword.
That’s part of the reason I am also not a full blown anarchist/libertarian socialist. I can see the value in centralized state power when it comes to defending the state and people
Socialist countries are generally more liberating for their working classes than oppressive, hence high public support, but necessarily curb absolute freedoms such as those of capitalists.
The point is you’re making that up. Example: USSR.
The USSR reduced inequality to the lowest levels in history, redistributed the land to the peasants from the nobility and the landowners, guaranteed healthcare for everyone for free, free education to the highest level, guaranteed employment and abolished unemployment, guaranteed housing (at an average cost of 3% of monthly income), high quality public transit at affordable prices, heavily subsidized basic foodstuffs, and arguably most importantly, LITERALLY DESTROYED NAZISM saving tens of millions of lives in the process.
Did the system have mistakes? Of course it did, and you won’t find richer criticism than within communist circles, because people actually read about the topic instead of getting our information from the CIA. But despite its flaws, it was still the most liberating and anti-imperialist project in human history, it uplifted hundreds of millions from literal destitute poverty under tsarist autocracy and these people gave themselves all of this progress, importantly, without exploiting the global south.
How can you hate in 2026 the main system that has shown itself capable of facing and destroying fascism?
The problem is that “critical support” effectively boils down to affirmative defense for being a hypocrite, and the entire framework has literally nothing to do with any particular economic system or theory of statecraft. It’s literally just being mad about the cold war in a very weird way which insulates them from self reflection. It’s the exact baggage which keeps leftist ideas marginalized in most of the world.
It’s no accident that .ml is banned in China. Even the world’s most ostensibly successful socialist state understands that this tankie extremism is not helpful.
Thank you for sharing and clearly being one of the people able to hold two ideas in their head at the same time, even when the ideas don’t jive.
Everybody who feels this way should be celebrating Donald Trump. He’s almost finished a job in 1 year that many thought would take generations.
I think they don’t completely diverge. I am sympatetic to this viewpoint, I just don’t fully endorse it. I think as leftists we should be generous to other leftists and their ideas.
Some do feel that way. Others feel that he isn’t a strong departure from where we were already heading. I think accelerationism is bad and we should never put ourselves in a position where fascism wins. Fascism needs to always be playing defense until it is totally defeated. Especially when it supports american hegemony, genocide, global poverty, etc.
Allow me to play Devils advocate. Can you give me an example of a country getting corporate money put of government without fascism?
“As a leftist” lol yeah good one that.
Oh, the old Whatabout the USA (/west).
Nah, historical communism is fascist (so URSS, China, NK. Russia is just a dictatorship nowadays).
They’re right, you’ve got nothing
Assuming you’re good faith, I really just don’t think it’s that simple. There’s also no whataboutism. If you had read and engaged with the OP and my comment, you’d see OP was directly comparing these countries to the West, which notably does include the US. My comment does the same, because I am engaging with the OP.
I’d recommend looking into the history of fascism if you want to learn what makes a country fascist. There’s many different viewpoints, and some do define fascism in a way that would capture what you’re saying and exclude the US. I don’t think those are very good definitions - they usually say “fascism is when dictatorship”, basically.
Others use definitions that explicitly tie fascism to particular ideological views (specifically views held by fascist Italy and Germany) like anti-semitism or anti-communism. That’s probably too prescriptive and excludes basically any government that is not Italy or Germany in the 20s-40s.
You can see a good summary in the wikipedia article caleld “definitions of fascism”. You’ll see there are many definitions of varying quality and historical accuracy. The best definitions, in my opinion, focus on traits that capture the governmental structure of fascist states that make them different from non-fascist states. That includes economic and structural points.
I think we can use a tighter definition of fascism. Fascist governments have these traits:
privatization of public goods/services (that’s a hallmark of fascism, they literally invented privatization in Germany in the 30s, and maybe actually Italy in the 20s)
some sort of in-group supremacy dynamic (racial in the case of Germany & Italy)
extreme nationalism & militarism
suppression of democratic groups (e.g. trade unions)
a government characterized by state-directed autarky, with production organized into government-sponsored cartels. (This is why privitization is important: that’s what makes this possible)
So, does the USSR have some of these characteristics? Sure. Of course. Modern day China, too. And the US & Russia. But to be fascist, a government needs to do these things at once - it needs to have the economic and structural factors that distinguish fascism from other forms of government.
Lol what a wall of useless text to just try to wry away the soviet union(et al) away from fascism, like they were not as bad even if “technically” they were not fascists.
What a stupid take too, they were competing to be the worst and the soviets won, they murdered and oppressed more people.
Socialism and fascism are entitely different, both in theory and historically. In socialist countries, the working classes are in power and public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, while fascism is the violent assertion of power in capitalist countries to prevent the working classes from taking power.