As I said, tankie is a pejorative used against people that defend socialist states. Self-described “democratic socialists” are not socialists that have “learned from history,” they are those who have removed themselves from it. Socialism, both in theory and historically, is fundamentally democratic. Demsocs are, in practice, those who claim to support socialism while accepting bourgeois historiography, whining and weeping for the oppressed fascists, landlords, and capitalists that wind up at the short end of existing socialism.
As for the idea of there being no authoritarian socialist states, I mean quite the opposite. There has never been a “non-authoritarian state” in general, as the state itself is a monopoly on violence in the hands of a given class. All slave, feudal, capitalist, and socialist states have been authoritarian, but each serves wildly different classes, the socialist state representing working class authority. That’s why the question isn’t “is this state authoritarian or not” and instead is “which class controls this state?”
As for the bit on the Donbass, 14,000 people were killed by Kiev, many civilians. Do these civilians not have a right to their own self-determination, to secede from a neofascist state?
As I said, tankie is a pejorative used against people that defend socialist states. Self-described “democratic socialists” are not socialists that have “learned from history,” they are those who have removed themselves from it. Socialism, both in theory and historically, is fundamentally democratic. Demsocs are, in practice, those who claim to support socialism while accepting bourgeois historiography, whining and weeping for the oppressed fascists, landlords, and capitalists that wind up at the short end of existing socialism.
As for the idea of there being no authoritarian socialist states, I mean quite the opposite. There has never been a “non-authoritarian state” in general, as the state itself is a monopoly on violence in the hands of a given class. All slave, feudal, capitalist, and socialist states have been authoritarian, but each serves wildly different classes, the socialist state representing working class authority. That’s why the question isn’t “is this state authoritarian or not” and instead is “which class controls this state?”
As for the bit on the Donbass, 14,000 people were killed by Kiev, many civilians. Do these civilians not have a right to their own self-determination, to secede from a neofascist state?