this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2025
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MeanwhileOnGrad

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Debunking Dessalines' anti-voting meme (infosec.pub)
submitted 4 days ago by Best_Jeanist@discuss.online to c/meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
38 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

https://discuss.online/post/29250428/18869440

I thought I'd try my hand at explaining why this meme fundamentally misunderstands communist theory and that I'd better move it here after I posted it, because the people on that community sure love downvoting and/or removing any good point made against the tankie dogma.

Oh, and remember to always lead by challenging tankies' attempts to portray themselves as the ingroup of communism and any critics as the outgroup. That's a tactic they love using, they construct their opinions as the absolute communist truth, and brand any opposing opinion as liberal and capitalist, while also strawmanning it. If you open by criticising their communist credentials, they can't dismiss you as a liberal and pretend they're arguing in good faith.

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[–] Glide@lemmy.ca 24 points 4 days ago (1 children)

"classical examples of capitalism prove that ogliarcy is the outcome" isn't a great argument when every real-world attempt at communism has led to fascism. Or, you know, China lying about being Communist while being exactly as economically capitalist as the states, abusing their poor class in exactly the same ways as the American prison system

It's not like Dessalines, or the rest of .ml gives a shit about the reality of what they say though. It's easy to make an argument when you lie through your teeth.

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

There are plenty of real-world attempts at communism that didn't lead to fascism, including Catalonia, Turtle Island, and indigenous Australia.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm always very hesitant about pointing towards 'primitive communism', because of the often immensely unjust social interactions which characterize such societies but are often ignored or denied by people seeking to lionize those societies. It goes against the spirit of communism as most people would understand it, even if it is, technically, in some cases, a classless, moneyless, stateless society.

But Anarchist Catalonia, certainly.

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online -3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Nothing is perfect. Achieving communism won't end all prejudices overnight, the revolution will need to continue essentially forever. There are plenty of problems with historical examples of communism like the division between men's business and women's business, but there are also things white people call problems which are simply different, like payback. Many white people call payback barbaric, but after actually reading what indigenous people have to say about it, I like it better as a punishment for crimes than the white prison-based "justice" system. I believe the wisdom of indigenous societies can be synthesised with the wisdom of western societies to create a truly equal communist society. Some might call that historical dialectics.

If you're hesitant to comment on indigenous societies, then the best advice I can give you is to talk to indigenous people and read what they've written, so you can use your voice to amplify their comments. The indigenous people where I live have told me that they're the original socialists. Their words, not mine. Indigenous people are not a monolith and many indigenous societies were not socialists, but I speak from what I know from talking to the people on whose land I live and learn.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Nothing is perfect. Achieving communism won’t end all prejudices overnight, the revolution will need to continue essentially forever.

Of course, but that's not the point I'm disputing. Anarchist Catalonia was imperfect, but I regard it extremely highly as a model for examination and emulation in terms of a modern conception of socialism or communism.

Many white people call payback barbaric, but after actually reading what indigenous people have to say about it, I like it better as a punishment for crimes than the white prison-based “justice” system.

... that's an extremely concerning position. That's what leads to 'honor societies' pretty inevitably.

If you’re hesitant to comment on indigenous societies,

I'm not hesitant to comment on them. I'm hesitant to regard the concept of 'primitive communism' as positively connected to modern conceptions of communism, given the past ~100 years of anthropology, political philosophy, and sociology. Societies develop tools and systems according to their own circumstances and needs; 'primitive communism', again, acknowledging my dislike of the term, is not reflective of a society that has developed modern ideas of justice and equality, but of societies which face issues entirely different from modern ideas of justice and equality.

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online 0 points 4 days ago

I think many of the issues they faced were the same issues we face today. Working hard to make a living. Fighting over a girl. Wanting to know your kids are learning the right lessons in life. Worrying about whether the stories are being retold correctly. Posturing over resources and territory. Wanting revenge for perceived wrongdoing. Wanting respect from your community.

We've got more problems today, but the solutions for the old problems are still good. We just need to add more solutions.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You're being pretty liberal with your attempts there.

Indigenous Australia was a tribal society, where there was no such thing as class.

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

So you're saying it was a classless society.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Probably. Indigenous Australians didn't keep many records of their society or way of life because they lacked writing materials, so it was mostly an oral history.

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They kept a more detailed, ancient, and intact history than any other continent up until the invaders committed genocide and killed many of their storytellers. "Didn't keep many records" my ass.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

no they didn't. Aboriginal history was mainly oral, passed down from generation to generation. We don't have any physical records of their society because they didn't write about it.

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Okay so what's happening right now is that I'm subtly pointing out that oral histories are historical records and you're not getting it.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And the accuracy of these records isn't nearly as solid as physical records. With oral history, how do you differentiate fact from fiction?

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And there's the racism. To answer your question, the record keepers are verified in skill and trustworthiness by their predecessors, and they take their jobs very seriously because if they mess up, their friends could die. The information in oral histories is practical and academic in equal measure. If a tribe has a bad record keeper, they don't survive very long.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's at least as accurate as all the nonsense Herodotus wrote down. Putting it on paper didn't keep half of it from being made up. And Australian historical records go a lot further back than Herodotus' age.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

lmao im not being racist

where are you from anyway? since i'm from australia and you're pulling so much shit from your ass

[–] greenbit@lemmy.zip 22 points 4 days ago (2 children)

It's important to note that their brand of ideology has always turned out not to be communism, like a Scooby Doo villain pretending to be something they're not

[–] Skiluros@sh.itjust.works 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Authoritarian state capitalism.

Why would one care whether they are being exploited by American oligarchs or allegedly commie goons.

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online 15 points 4 days ago

100%, they're like evangelical christians - they spend all day praising the Bible, but if Jesus returned tomorrow morning they'd have him up on a cross by nightfall - If these jokers ever met Karl Marx they'd call him a libshit.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 19 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

It's particularly funny since Marx urged participation in elections, even in states where he did not think change would come electorally, precisely because he recognized that there are few better ways to get an accounting of the people who are both behind you and are willing to perform the bare minimum of action to support your ideals.

For that matter, Marx considered that it may be possible for some bourgeois democracies to achieve a workers' democracy via elections - though that was never his main area of focus, considering, probably correctly, that direct action was more relevant in the vast majority of cases.

That's not even getting into questions of harm reduction.

Also particularly gruesome to cite Ancient Greek philosophy in opposition to democracy, since such opposition was generally from explicitly aristocratic grounds. But I guess that clicks with vanguardist oligarch-wannabes.

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wow, thank you for that information about Marx. For anyone else in the thread, here's the source:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1873/01/indifferentism.htm

It cannot be denied that if the apostles of political indifferentism were to express themselves with such clarity, the working class would make short shrift of them and would resent being insulted by these doctrinaire bourgeois and displaced gentlemen, who are so stupid or so naive as to attempt to deny to the working class any real means of struggle.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm

The relationship of the revolutionary workers’ party to the petty-bourgeois democrats is this: it cooperates with them against the party which they aim to overthrow; it opposes them wherever they wish to secure their own position.

the workers, and above all the League, must work for the creation of an independent organization of the workers’ party, both secret and open, and alongside the official democrats, and the League must aim to make every one of its communes a center and nucleus of workers’ associations in which the position and interests of the proletariat can be discussed free from bourgeois influence.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I was thinking, specifically, from that same address to the Communist League:

Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.

[–] Best_Jeanist@discuss.online 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

That's a good one, but I fear tankies might misuse the immediately following quote for evil:

They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body.

In 2016, the USA's Green party took enough votes in swing states that had those votes been for the Democrats instead, Clinton would have won.

In December 2018, two reports commissioned by the US Senate found that the Internet Research Agency boosted Stein's candidacy through social media posts, targeting African-American voters in particular.

So, Russia intentionally conned black people into voting for the "workers" party and it lead to a fascist becoming president. Marx might have underestimated the danger on that one.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I like to think that the threats of the imperial presidency and the necessity of a united front in that case, there being only one presidential position, would be recognized by Marx. He does, after all, qualify that the gains of such an operation outweigh the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. Especially considering his praise of Abraham Lincoln, who was not even the most radical candidate in 1864.

Even if one took that as a universal injunction, it necessarily only dismisses reformism, not the necessity of harm reduction in the face of the total capture of the state apparatus, or at least the capture of the most influential parts of it. It would, I think, be much more applicable to those voting third party for reps - not that the any US third parties actually put in an effort to run serious candidates for the fucking legislature.

Tankies will twist anything to their own fuckwit uses, of course. Red fash, like their brownshirt brethren, play with words because words mean nothing to them.

[–] GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago

Fantastic response 👏. Voting can be used as a tool to further sensitive the populace on class consciousness and the dangers of oligarchy by electing left wing populists that deliver the message in order to create the conditions where revolution is more favourable. In fact, it's currently happening in the US with Mamdani.

Of course ml'ites and their accelerationist brains cannot grasp this because they've read 10 pages of Das Kapital and have reached enlightenment

[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 10 points 4 days ago

Idk, sounds like he will like the current president of USA, because trump think the same.

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 8 points 4 days ago

Lol, hope Dessalines has a specialized burn trauma unit nearby, great response mate!

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

What about that time we elected Tommy Douglas and got public healthcare?

[–] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 4 days ago

Idk I understood the meme as making fun of people who think only voting is enough for democracy to function

[–] sqgl@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

OTOH there is sortition:

Most Greek writers who mention democracy (including Aristotle, Plato, Herodotus, and Pericles) emphasize the role of selection by lot, or state outright that being allotted is more democratic than elections (which were seen as oligarchic).