this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Orientalism, plain and simple. Wonderful. I wasn’t able to find much information on the extolled Lev Tchorny, but his wiki states that: “On September 25, 1919, together with a number of leftist social revolutionaries, the Underground Anarchists bombed the headquarters of the Moscow Committee of the Communist Party during a plenary meeting. Twelve Communists were killed and fifty-five others were wounded, including among the wounded the eminent Bolshevik theorist and Pravda editor Nikolai Bukharin.” So the organization Tev (this wonderful anarchist martyr) was a part of was actively engaging in adventurist terrorism against the communists (and great that “rumors” are suitable for a mention in this article, classic wikipedia). Strange that Goldman adds no mention of anarchist terrorism in her letter, although perhaps this is suitable to the false narrative of Bolshevik betrayal and anarchist victimhood which she is attempting to create.
And let us assume the words of these bigoted children are true: does the undue prosecution of anarchists in the volatile beginning of the revolution when the bolsheviks were being terrorized at all sides from SR assassinations, imperialist-backed white guards, and the landed remnants of Tsardom indicate some foul and total condemnation of Marxism? Plus what relation does this have to the CPC?
No mention that the latter was mobilizing the Black Guard into a military force against the Bolsheviks. The anarchists are of course a real enemy of Marxism, in that their ultimate goal is to undermine the workers state and create a vacuum of power which may only be filled by the bourgeoisie and DOTB thereof. They are, then, the true enemy of the masses as well, since they deny the revolutionary character of the proletariat and present no alternate scientific historical framework for the inevitability of mass power, suiting themselves instead with taking up the role of the utopian socialists that Marx and Engels had banished into obscurity, then basking in their empty purity; anarchism also lends itself to Euro-fascism from this angle, which you demonstrated with your own source.
Do you have any evidence that this is false or do you just not like it?
Alls I hear is a lot of what aboutism.
"Emma goldman is writing about anarchist being murdered but whatabout the the bad things anarchists did? "
Emma goldman was a russia born anarchist critiquing The USSR.
Are you going to respond the to claims they are making or are you going to cherry pick out the racist stuff?
We can stop honeslty. if you believe that anarchism is eurofacism we have very little to talk about.
Great rebuttal. "Cherry pick about the racist stuff" yeah no, you clearly didn't read what I linked about this or you would understand where this "cherrpicking" fits in.
God I hate that term. Demanding the mention of anarchist terrorism (including terrorism by the organization admitting several of the "victims" mentioned) rather than one-sided references to Bolshevik terrorism? A basic call for consistency? Whataboutism! By merely mentioning an informal fallacy I have torn your argument asunder! You are the one who has proven nothing.
Yeah the racist Republicans in the US use whataboutism all the time to skirt around actual critiques. They really hate it when you call them out on it
Did anarchist attack and kill communists during that time period? Yes. Does that make thier critiques about soviet authoritarianism invalid or make emma Goldman letters false. No. It just means there is nuance in history.
I dont categorically support emma goldman. And Im not surprised they said some racist things. Thats why I am able to separate the good things they did while critizing the bad.
You should try it!
It is a known fact that the USSR consolidated power within russia after the october revolution. They killed and jailed anarchists and many other opossing groups.
And when lenin died and stalin took over, he did it too. This is what large goverments must do to maintain power.
The fact that you can't admit that means you a defintiately a tankie.
You sound like a jackass when you write this way. imo.
Thx.
You didn’t address the connection between the racism in the anarchist critique of Bolshevism and fascism, which I linked a full explanation of. I already discredited Goldman by showing that the “martyr” she was praising was involved in an organization that was actively bombing communist institutions (she didn’t mention this, and pointing this out is not whataboutism but again, a basic call for consistency). You didn’t address this. And “authoritarianism” will never be a real concept; it’s just the ignorance of authority to which the accused movement is responding. No movement or world-historical system maintains itself without authority. I already mentioned the circumstances the Bolsheviks were under, why can’t you dispense with this idea? You know that if they let up authority for a second the white guards and imperialists would decapitate every revolutionary in sight, because revolutions are not a peaceful affair. A bombing is not slight, assassinations of revolutionaries (by SRs) could break apart the worker’s power. Anr I never said anarchist critiques of “Soviet authoritarianism” were discredited by their own use of authority (this is not authoritarian for some reason). I specifically critiqued anarchism in general as well as pointing out terrorism, which proves I never thought the latter refuted anarchist theory. Everyone recognizes that governments must use authority to maintain power, but this is exactly why the blanket opposition to authority is counterrevolutionary (it condemns the DOTB and DOTP on the same grounds and is neither revolutionary nor nuanced).