this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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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).