this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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Anarchism

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Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8181688

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (37 children)

Ukraine Free Territory

Literally bandit kingdom under an absolute leader

Stalin vs Spanish Leftists

The USSR was the only nation to provide any support to the Republic, and it was the anarchists that fucked up by being unable to organize any kind of national army and just letting the fascists roll up their 'independent' cities one by one. Saying "it was Stalin's fault" is the anarchist stab-in-the-back myth.

Mao

I've never heard of the 'Manchurian communes' and neither has wikipedia (which would never miss the chance to play up a supposed communist atrocity) and ah yes, that famous leftist tendency "intellectuals". Not saying the Cultural Revolution was correct, but you also can't just blame one person for it.

Hungarian Worker's Councils

A fascist counterrevolution, Hungary was an Axis power and it was a mere eleven years after WW2 - for """worker's councils""" they sure lynched a lot of Jewish people! Read this.


Futhermore, did even a single one of these leaders claim to support an abstract "left unity"? Lenin sure didn't:

“Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers’ cause needs is the unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism.”

Nor did all the millions and millions of workers who supported each of these leaders. How unfathomably arrogant to think that the millions of committed revolutionaries that worked tirelessly to build socialism in these places were too fucking stupid to see they were working for the 'wrong' ideology, that they should have rejected their leadership organization and just slotted in your preferred coterie of "libertarian socialists & anarchists" and that would have simply solved all their murderous authoritarian ways. A nice horizontal, non-hierarchical, non-coercive network of free-organizing collectives would definitely have stood up in the face of the Wehrmacht, wouldn't it!

Now, ironically the "tankie" instances in this federation actually have rules about sectarianism so I wouldn't post this on there, but I have no qualms saying it here (you can feel free to ban me though, if you want to indulge in the ultimate irony). So I can say that I am sectarian, because revolution is a problem that has a correct answer - there's the answer that saved hundreds of millions of lives from fascism, and then there's the 'answer' that lets online """leftists""" living eighty years after the fact feel smugly superior to the people who actually fought and bled for a better world. Further reading on this matter:


Edit: I was kinda pissed off when I wrote this so my dismissals of those points were definitely sloppy - though in hindsight with this guy "more nuance" would probably have been a waste - but I absolutely can't tolerate such ignorant attacks against the projects that actually came the closest to human emancipation anywhere in history. Regardless, I don't want any anarchist comrades to feel like I'm attacking them, and although I obviously believe MLism (and the collected work of its offshoot branches) is the best basis for the theory and practice of revolution, the good work of anarchist groups that were able to keep fighting in the imperial core when Marxist groups were stamped out can't be ignored. If you punched a fascist then you're a comrade of mine.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I've never heard of the 'Manchurian communes' and neither has wikipedia...

I think they might be referring to these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People%27s_Association_in_Manchuria https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/francesco-dalessandro-the-forgotten-anarchist-commune-in-manchuria

I don't have enough intimate knowledge to be able to comment though, apart from my natural suspicion that once again, as usual, the anarchists will paint their lack of political efficacy as moral virtue and communist nefariousness, though I'm happy to be corrected.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (87 children)

If your action is to punch left, your output is to move the current situation rightwards.

This goes for both anarchists and lemmygrad types, who equally harm the collective movement by punching left at one another.

If the marxist brigades, (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine(DFLP), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC)) in Palestine can prioritise the need for cooperation even with hamas in order to put up a resistance against oppression, we can all do the same when we have fewer reasons to fight.

https://youtu.be/90AAcSvJAl0

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 10 months ago (2 children)

'Tankies' (for the lack of a better word) have been against communism throughout history. It's disingenuous to assume they could be capable of unity

[–] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago (28 children)

I always wonder what the political left would look like in different European countries in the 20th century had it not been for the influence of the Soviet Union. Soviet influence ran, in my humble opinion, like poison through the veins of European socialist organisations. It seems to me like successful left wing mobilization is directly correlated with a relative lack of Soviet influence.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago

Just call em authoritarians. That's what they are

[–] [email protected] 38 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (21 children)

If the anarchists in the soviet union were allowed power, general plan Ost would have come to fruition. Anarchists have historically not been able to lead mass industrialization in a coordinated way, and have not been able to lead successful military campaigns across territories as large as the USSR. If the soviet leadership didn't protect the revolution from anarchists, part of my family would have died in a death camp instead of being liberated from one by red army soldiers.

But the tankies stabbed the pure hearted anarchists in the back! Okay, maybe the anarchists shouldn't have been idealists who cared more about coops than actually prosecuting a successful socialist transition. Literally read Lenin's interaction with the anarchist prince.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 months ago (30 children)

Hexbear comes here to be the debate bros they try so hard to dunk on. They are dying looking for just one little morsel of dunk. Not a good showing, not a leftist unity moment lmao

[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The post exclusively attacks Hexbear's ideological "left unity" position so it's kinda fair game for people from that position to want to say something in its defence.

The people doing marxist sectarianism instead of defending left unity are being dummies though.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago (3 children)

this meme is explicitly anti-left unity, as is the OP

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 months ago

Damn. This shit is depressing. Self proclaimed “leftists” still out there complaining about “tankies” in 2023. Truly embarrassing for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (27 children)

Anarcho-bidenists have this weird habit of talking about themselves like they are Jewish or something in the sense of having a history of brutal persecution, even if the speaker in question is just some white guy from a liberal family with absolutely no connection to those historical anarchists except for that they now also call themselves an anarchist. Is really weird and LARPy.

In the crosspost, a comrade added:

Its a way for boring people who hate reading to tap into that "the communists KILLED my PEOPLE" narrative, its like a politcal personality starter pack. You get an underdog "subversive" ideology, a formative tragedy and an eternal enemy!

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (1 children)
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