It is worth mentioning there is a difference in general how people think in new authoritarianisms and in those that have been ongoing for decades. Here someone dreams that dreams are forbidden and does it anyway. When one's lived their entire life under authoritarian rule one's dreams are often already self censored. When your next door neighbor is dragged out of his flat at 4am by secret service never to appear again and You think that is how things should be any manifestation of "reactionary" thought is unbearable. This makes the fact we have diaries and books written even in places like Russian gulags in which people record such thoughts even more astonishing. Long time ago as a teenager I hated being forced to read those "horribly depressing" books, but now I think it should be required reading in schools specially in countries that did this stuff to their citizens and others.
Dostoyevsky is a good example of that - he was caught taking part in (relatively innocent) freethink anti-carist meetings and got sent for 8 years to a severe Siberian labor camp for it. While staying there, he gradually converted to being pro-carist and pro-regime, a stance that was not just a fake to potentially get him out of there sooner.
The conversion is not fake, that is a pretty common trajectory. BTW, he was scheduled for execution, brought to the gallows and pardoned at the last second. That alone changed him.
>"but now I think it should be required reading in schools"
Let me up the ante. Put real unedited war / oppression / prison / etc. etc. footage including most gory stuff on youtube and TV and feed it to people every day "specially in countries that did this stuff to their citizens and others."
It had come to [Squealer's] knowledge, he said, that a foolish and wicked rumour had been circulated at the time of Boxer's removal. Some of the animals had noticed that the van which took Boxer away was marked "Horse Slaughterer," and had actually jumped to the conclusion that Boxer was being sent to the knacker's. It was almost unbelievable, said Squealer, that any animal could be so stupid. Surely, he cried indignantly, whisking his tail and skipping from side to side, surely they knew their beloved Leader, Comrade Napoleon, better than that? But the explanation was really very simple. The van had previously been the property of the knacker, and had been bought by the veterinary surgeon, who had not yet painted the old name out. That was how the mistake had arisen.
Authoritarian regimes often come from revolutions and present themselves as revolutionary, even many decades after the revolution. So anyone suspect of being against the regime is described as being reactionary.
Iran's IRGC - Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (i.e. the ones guarding the revolution from interior and exterior threats) - is perhaps the most literal extant example of this phenomenon.
"Left" and "Right" are some of the least specific terms used to describe political views, so detouring through them to muddy up a more precise term would seem to cloud understanding.
I used to find them completely meaningless, until I saw a piece of writing advice about making realistic characters from the other side of the political spectrum. The advice was,
"If you're right-wing, you want the state to be a dad. If you're left-wing, you want the state to be a mom".
Which is a weird take the first time you hear it, but I've yet to find even one example of a policy position that doesn't fit this filter. And of course, it leaves plenty of room for those of us who don't think the state should be a parent without invalidating the polarity itself.
Left and right are incredibly well defined and understood if people are being genuine. Left wing politics generally believe that the government and central planning are good in varying degrees, right wing politics generally believe that government is a necessary evil and should be given as little responsibility as possible with economics and social planning.
With that aside, they were socialist revolutionaries. Terms are only imprecise because of people trying to redefine it when it's inconvenient for their views. Whether it's in the original interpretation in europe, they literally killed their russian royals... or in the modern interpretation of the word they were socialists who believed in the power of the state and central planning as being tenants of a good society.
>Left wing politics generally believe that the government and central planning are good in varying degrees, right wing politics generally believe that government is a necessary evil and should be given as little responsibility as possible with economics and social planning.
Under this definition, the Drug War is left-wing, as are restrictions on access to abortion or contraception, restrictions on children's attendance or participation in beauty pageants or drag shows, and restrictions on either public nudity or traditional religious garb. Now if you really believe all of those policies are left-wing, fine, but I think it's not as simple as you want to make it seem.
Also there is currently no left wing in the US. What's often called left by the right is people who disagree with them.
What we actually have is a supermajority who believe in typical US values like publicly funded education, providing modest social safety nets and one person one vote. A small minority on the far-right leaning towards secession. And a small minority on the left so disenfranchised that their well-meaning causes like unionization and protecting the environment are portrayed as little more than punchlines on the evening news.
Which brings up the importance of media in political discourse. In journalism, one always punches up, doing investigative reporting on politicians, religious leaders, titans of industry, etc. Propaganda punches down at immigrants, the poor, the less fortunate.
Which means that we also don't have news in the US, just infotainment that endlessly distracts and denies. A handful of outlets like FSTV and Public Television try to get at the truth, but have such small viewerships that they're tolerated so the big players have something to point to as alternative. Which is by design, to suppress any left-leaning sentiment among voters.
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished. Left-wing politics are also associated with popular or state control of major political and economic institutions.
Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authority, property or tradition. Hierarchy and inequality may be seen as natural results of traditional social differences or competition in market economies.
Sorry, but no. Those things used to be like that, but they aren't any more. It seems even ironic(no doubt you didn't mean it as such). Let me give you Poland as an example where the "right wing government lead by an ex-banker" has established the biggest system of social benefits we've ever had in the country(and won its second election as a result). Why are they considered right wing? Because they are social conservatives, pro religion in schools, against "lgbt culture", abortion etc. Then there is one of the oldest parties of the "left" (descendants of the old communist regime). Despite a lot of talk about social equity, "working people" etc, when they did rule the benefits available were one of the lowest since the transformation (that however may have been more a function of them being a band of thieves rather than ideology, but I digress), at the same time that "left" party had many people in there that used to be openly homophobic not that long ago. These are just two examples which many people will no doubt a lot to add to. Also, why are those terms of left/right so meaningless in my country today? Mainly because two opposing camps now are not divided between left and right, but those that don't want the thieves to get back in power(even if they disagree with a lot of actual policies of the ruling party at least most of them are not thieves), and the other camp that is convinced the ruling party tries to establish a fascist dictatorship so they prefer pretty much anything else. There are more nuanced points to make, but this is the gist of it.
In a sense you can see it applied to the entire EU. Social conservatives are described as fascist, homophobes etc while the other side is portrayed as horribly corrupt, inefficient, nepotic. And both sides of course say the other is the one that breaks the rule of law(which they both do). The economic policies disappear in all of this.
> Left wing politics generally believe that the government and central planning are good in varying degrees, right wing politics generally believe that government is a necessary evil and should be given as little responsibility as possible with economics and social planning
Sorry, no. You're cherry picking the aspects of left-right that make for a favorable argument. In a different context, one could point out how leftists favor decentralization while rightists are fans of centralized control. Rather than getting bogged down in painting with a broad brush, just so the two contemporary "left" and "right" teams can duke it out over who gets to take blame/credit for the past, it's better to stay focused on specific beliefs and dynamics.
I agree that in this case, the revolutionaries are appropriately described as leftist. However once they've taken power and become entrenched, it's appropriate to describe those attempting to preserve the status quo of that power structure as reactionaries - just as it would be appropriate to describe any group (rightist or different leftist) attempting to overthrow that leftist-branded power structure as revolutionaries.
Another definition is that the left wing generally believe that a society's wealth should be more evenly distributed to those of the right. This can be done by taxation not necessarily by socialist central control. Also the right wing can believe in the inherent superiority of one section of society, e.g. a class or a "race".
I am not sure what are you confused about: who are Marxists who read Marx's works? It's literally the definition. Or what works are by Marx? He is not Banksy, is he? Attribution of his works is well established.
