cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8181688
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this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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Anarchism
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Literally bandit kingdom under an absolute leader
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Wait, did they seriously confuse Chinese and Korean? I guess I shouldn't have expect much from a comic that depicts Mao with slanty eyes.
i mean it was located in Manchuria if you want to be charitable, but it was fuckall to do with Mao in any case--he was busy getting encircled by the nationalists at the time
Online "leftist" losers love to pretend that they can discard the past in favor of their stupid orientalist gamer view of politics and act like they've done something
Marxist Leninists stay winning
I would assume this is referring to the aftermath of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, but those intellectuals were pretty much all rightists
“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!“
Well fucking said Comrade. This part right here is the thing that always clinches it for me. Whatever can be said in anarchisms favor as an ideology, it all dissolves once the question is asked “how does Anarchism defend itself from a fascist state?”
I don’t have a single issue with anarchists that have the humility and intellectual honesty to accept the clear and obvious shortcomings of Anarchism in regards to revolutionary defense. In fact I admire them for wanting to reconcile those contradictions. It’s not an easy task and that’s what accounts for their rarity more than anything else IMO.
If you call yourself an Anarchist because you have aversion to hierarchy, violence, and big books, you’re just a child, or more likely, an American with the political understanding of a child.
Fucking heroic post o7
I'm assuming.you're just ignorant of Makhno, and not intentionally spouting century old propaganda but here. From the article "Makhno's anarchism, however, was not confined to verbal propaganda, important though this was to win new adherents. On the contrary, Makhno was a man of action who, even while occupied with military campaigns, sought to put his anarchist theories into practice. His first act on entering a town -- after throwing open the prisons -- was to dispel any impression that he had come to introduce a new form of political rule. Announcements were posted informing the inhabitants that they were now free to organize their lives as they saw fit, that his Insurgent Army would not "dictate to them or order them to do anything." Free speech, press, and assembly were proclaimed, although Makhno would not countenance organizations that sought to impose political authority, and he accordingly dissolved the Bolshevik revolutionary committees, instructing their members to "take up some honest trade.'" Does that sound like a bandit king?
The USSR absolutely betrayed the Spanish Anarchists, this isn't controversial at all. Here's a well sourced thread from someone who wrote a research paper on the topic breaking it down.
I don't know enough about Hungary to have an opinion on the matter and can't be bothered to do all the reading for it right now. Based on your characterizations of previous libertarian left movements I'm going to assume you're full of shit though.
Hard agree on "left unity". Authoritarians and libertarians shouldn't waste their time on trying to get along, it's counter productive.
Further reading/listening for anyone interested:
The State is Counter Revolutionary is a theory and history series covering the Russian and Chinese revolutions. The Maoist one may be of particular interest to you.
Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth
Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists
Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control
I don't give a shit what you say, if your politics is "authoritarian bad and libertarian good" you're a fucking idiot.
Yes, I spoke in anger and I don't really know that much about Makhno, I also don't care because he's an irrelevant footnote. The proletarian masses spoke, they chose who to give their energy and strength to and their choice was the Bolsheviks. Those Bolsheviks safeguarded the Soviet people against the capitalists literally turning out the bowels of hell upon them. Without the Red Army, the genocidal colonial expedition of Nazi Germany would have exterminated every single person between Ukraine and Siberia. And the Red Army was ONLY built through the absolutely tireless work of millions upon millions of workers building socialist industry under the guidance of the Communist Party. Communist Parties! Each region had its own branch! Each nation had its representation guaranteed! Soviet linguists helped invent alphabets for languages that had never been written down before, so they could record their oral histories and partake in the creation of culture on an equal basis with other nations! Truly the actions of a totalitarian dictatorship.
Ah, but it's much easier to talk about "authoritarians and libertarians" and read the opinions of a bunch of white westerners who know better, than read the words of the people who built socialism under constant siege from the world empire. Hypocritically (?), I'm not interested in reading anything you have to link because I've already passed through the phase of anarchism I had before stumbling across The State and Revolution. I'm pressed because I used to be you until I got schooled, and had the humility and intellectual honesty to actually try and learn more. So go and read Blackshirts and Reds, S&R, Losurdo's Stalin, Vijay Prashad's Red Star Over the Third World and Washington Bullets and then come back and tell me whether or not you followed my footsteps or just bounced off back into "western-left" arrogance.
Imagine stanning a guy who armed and trained pogromists on an oopsie, and then in exile didn't have the spine to support a much better anarchist seeking to kill a notorious leader of pogroms. Makhnovists are people who look at Trotsky and say "we need someone even less dignified, someone who accomplished still less and was spiteful and shit-flinging to even more people" and old Nestor comes to their rescue. Go follow his example and publish a newspaper that no one reads except to disparage it while alienating every leftist in your life even despite having the common enemy of the boogeyman tankies, and then die alone.