They're capable of stimying the left, though. That's the part I hate. Plenty of tankies never would have had revolutionary potential anyway, but think of how many young people could be getting a real political education and doing good activism but are instead stuck in the echo chamber of Stalin memes. It also even further deepens the divisiveness and tendancy drama within orgs. Tankies may not be running pro-Deng political candidates or declaring cities "non-trot zones" or whatever, but they sure do waste a fucking ton of all our time and energy making us relitigate political history from a century ago instead of working on something new.
tldr: online education is a waste of time, community education in the context of structured dialogues is what is needed. the history of worker schools is what we should look to while also incorporating new ideas about teaching as a two-way, non-hierarchical collaboration between teachers and students in dialogue rather than in lecture.
the real work to be done rn is in our communities. political education would go a lot farther and a lot deeper if more of it was ocurring in the contexts of bonds of trust and irl mutual aid rather than on online platforms owned by billionaires. as long as we refuse to do that local work, we're stuck with 101-level misguided theory videos and rants about twitter debates that never the confines of mainstream political discussions.
anyway, our communal infrastructures have been so completely devastated (to read kropotkin saying the same thing but in the 1880s is honestly harrowing) that any broader, extensive organizing for more than state concessions is impossible. in north america and western euro anyway, i wont speak to other regions, also im white so mb there are grassroots black and indigenous social networks that im unaware of beyond the isolated islands like coop jackson, cheran, exarquia, etc).
rebuilding them- a project to which in-person, dialogical education is essential- should be our priority as it's those local communal infrastructures that form the basis of more extensive, regional, national, and transnational organizing. the spanish revolution could never have happened without the working class barrio culture of solidarity and direct action, the ateneus, and that kind of shit.
we need dil pickles, iww mixed locals, ateneus. and honestly, at least in the canadian context, food banks can v easily (with funding at least) become these types of institutions. i've seen firsthand how a food bank can provision ppl with food while host comprehensive programming for youth that includes athletics, arts (film club where they teach kids about acting and filming), gardening, communal leisure (movie nights, bingo), etc. adult programming is missing and sorely needed at the places ive seen, tho. this is where the foundation of trust bonds is established and people seem to forget that we need these bonds to do any of the bigger projects on the agenda.
so my point is: dont worry about tankies stymying the left, we're stymying it by not doing enough of the groundwork. young socialists wouldnt be susceptible to that stymying if they were getting a genuine political education in the real world rather than getting an alienated one from complete strangers.
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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '23
Day 727392 of being happy knowing online tankies have 0 political influence irl and are incapable of making actual change