What I said, huh?! Maybe before you throw in the Stasi Wikipedia article, you should check out the CCC's. They advocate for a strong state regulations, strong democratic structures and freedom of the individual, including privacy. Transparency for the state, privacy for the individual. Large parts of their member base are anticapitalists and anarchists, minding the collective welfare, so I figured from an American perspective that's quite far left.

You won't find advertisement or any commercial interests on their very large conferences, which are completely organized and managed by volunteers. On every level. There is absolutely no tolerance for right wing ideas, police or military.

That's why I think their political background here is important, they always been activists advocating for everyone's welfare and rights. Something rather unusual for non left wing politics.

It is historically accurate to identify the extreme left with the ComIntern, i.e. the Soviet communist party, ruled during his lifetime by Stalin. Almost all communist parties were in the mould designed by Lenin, and refined by Stalin.

Even today, socialist / communist parties operate using the Leninist style of organisation, e.g. in the UK the SWP or RS21.

It is useful to know this, just as it's useful to know that Cambridge Analytica was owned by a company whose board is full of UK military/security-service types [1].

[1] http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/03/20/scl-a-very-british-c...

No, it is absolutely not.

Start by asking yourself which non-fringe socialist/communist party was not using the Leninist model of organisation, and which was not a member of the ComIntern and its successors? Which did not receive funding and ideological schooling in the Soviet Union?

You have an uphill struggle against history against you.

> non-fringe socialist/communist party was not using the Leninist model of organisation, and which was not a member of the ComIntern and its successors?

UK Labour party? Has everyone forgotten the Fabians?

The modern Green parties tend to be "left" but not necessarily inheriting from the Marxist tradition at all, generally post-dating WW2 (although this produces endless arguments about "watermelons"). Also modern left-wing parties of almost all colours are explicitly pro-human rights, which includes not only the right to privacy but the right to property!

Again, I'm not saying that there aren't some actual pro-Stalin "tankies" around, but it gets incredibly tedious having to defend everyone to the left of the Daily Mail from automatic charges of being a Stalinist. Congratulations on your dozen posts of derailing.

You don't have to go from "left-wing hacker collective" right to Stalin if there's data readily available on the actual subject being discussed.

(There should actually be a left-wing equivalent of Godwin's law. Maybe "There-Is-No-Godwin's law"?)

This correction is especially apt since Germany is still full of Stasi victims.

I think the problem with your comment is that you're flat-out misrepresenting the 'reeeally left wing'. There are plenty of 'leftist' movements that are just as opposed to 'the state' as they are to our corporate overlords. Arguing otherwise is either plain stupidity or intentional misrepresentation.

Why not? Historically anarchists played a mentionable role in this whole leftist thing.

EDIT: Also, could you elaborate on what you mean with 'a mature position'? I've found that kind of statement to be an effective but dishonest way to dismiss things.

Politically, anarchists are really quite different from the socialist/communist tradition:

- Anarchists: reject the state

- Socialists/communists: reject capitalism

Naturally there could be overlap, and indeed there is a well-known tradition of anarcho-communism [1] which was especially potent in the Spanish Revolution of 1936 (note that there were bitter fights between anarchists and the Stalinists), but at the same time, it's difficult to reconcile the philo-capitalism of the libertarian wing of anarchism with the socialist tradition. Likewise, it's difficult to reconcile the philo-stateism of the socialist tradition with anarchism.

As to "mature": as a first approximation, I'd say, having a written, elaborate and communicable theory behind one's political actions, one that has survived multiple round of (friendly) critique. A mature political position includes reflection on the nature of political power, the shape of politial organisation, and political activism, and clear end goals with reasons why the desired end-goals are likely to come about. A mature political position also contains an understanding of other political positions, including those of one's political adversaries. An prime example of a mature political position is Marx. As an example of political immaturity, I'd point to myself when I was 19. I was nothing but an angry, raging young person, who railed against "the system", wanted to "stick it to The Man" and save the world. But I would not have been able to explain why, in way that I would have found plausible.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-communism

Is there any way I could continue this conversation via email or some other form of communication? I very much would like to pick your brain on some of this in a more personal form.

EDIT: my email is my username at gmail.com

The description uses "left wing" to help you conjure up the right mental image. Because "anticapitalist idealists and antiauthoritarians" would also describe buddhists and anarchists.