However I find myself being disagreed with quite often, mostly for not advocating or cheering violence, “by any means possible” change, or revolutionary tactics. It would seem that I’m not viewed as authentically holding my view unless I advocate extreme, violent, or radical action to accomplish it.
Those seem like two different things to me.
Edit: TO COMMUNISTS, ANARCHISTS, OR ANYONE ELSE CALLING FOR THE OVERTHROW OF SOCIETY
THIS OBVIOUSLY ISN’T MEANT FOR YOU.
What do the words socialist and communist actually mean to you?
I think with the way you’re using the word socialist, what you actually mean is social democrat, which is a newer term people use to mean capitalism but with heavy regulation and strong welfare / social safety nets.
When you ask people who are actually anti-capitalists and consider themselves some flavor of socialist or communist to distinguish between the two you will get as many different answers as people you’ve asked. In Marxist theory socialism is generally understood as a transitional state towards communism. Historical events led to communism being used mostly to refer to the authoritarian ideology championed by the Bolsheviks, so people started using socialism to differentiate themselves from that definition.
The only thing you’ll get most leftists to agree on is that both socialist and communist mean anti-capitalist, and those who disagree are confused liberals.
To be clear, the Bolsheviks were definitely Communists and Socialists, and implemented a more democratic and Worker-focused society than Tsarist Russia. Low-bar that may be, the US and Western Powers deliberately attempted to shove a wedge in the Leftist movement by trying to paint the USSR as “not true Communism.”
I agree that the USSR was more democratic and worker-focused than Tsarist Russia, but saying they were definitely Communists and Socialists depends on your definition of those words. An originalist Marxist for example would vehemently disagree that they were communist because communism was envisioned as this pure ideal stateless society, the “end goal” to work towards. Statelessness is definitely no longer a requirement of communism for modern Marxists, but it used to be.
While this is definitely the case, people at the time had legitimate critiques of the USSR that may have led them to see it as “not true Communism,” see above. Wedges are driven into splits that already exist.
Because everyone seems to have their own unique definition of what Communism/Socialism is, saying that something is/isn’t socialist/communist should be taken more as an expression of that person’s values than a semantic argument. If someone says they are socialist and [insert government here] is not, what they are really saying is that there are aspects of [insert government here] that they disagree with to the point that it’s a dealbreaker for them.
Not entirely true, actually. Marx was not an Anarchist, and often fought vehemontly against them. You may wish to visit Critique of the Gotha Programme. Communism, in Marx’s original view, would still have a Government, just not a State. The State for Marx is specifically the apparatus of government by which one class oppresses the others. Notably, the State according to Marx could only whither away globally, not in a single country. Marx himself would say the USSR was absolutely a Socialist state working towards Communism.
There were many issues with the USSR, and sometimes even bourgeois elements. However, it was fundamentally a Marxist state building towards Communism.
This is unfortunately true, I see it many times, and generally this is sectarian nonsense that gets in the way of coalition building.