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.
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.
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
You’d be opening an can of ethnic worms over the technical historical ownership of North-East China / Manchuria / Dergi Ilan Golo / (the northern part of ) Goguryeo (who’s legacy is claimed by South Korea to further justify shitting on China because they got little dog syndrome)
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh look, a leftist “enlightened centrist”. Please, provide us your grand left unifying theory that will bring about peace and prosperity for two mutually exclusive schools of thought. Authoritarians and libertarians got lumped together a long time ago and it’s been made abundantly clear that that was a mistake. We should stop trying to force it. It’s counterproductive
Who said I was pro-left unity? Im a Marxist Leninist. Did the name not say “stalinism” loudly enough?
although ill take a real anarchist to work side by side with over your illiterate ass any day. Your ilk are charlatans and failures, always have been, always will be. Stop wasting our time with your illiteracy.
So you’re a Marist lenninist who’s against left unity and thinks that people who are either only pro authoritarian or pro libertarian are fucking idiots? Do I need to spell that out more or are you aware of how stupid you sound right now? Are you sure I’m the illiterate one in this exchange?
bitch I actually read theory, i don’t ascribe to “authoritarian” or “libertarian” as political movements. Its not a word used by any Marxist movement nor theorist that has actually accomplished something besides never getting past local party level.
you don’t even understand the world well enough to be mad at me properly. Do I have to spell it out for you or do you want to continue to roll in the mud with your ignorant pig friends?
Stay mad. Your politics are shit and no amount of theory is going to change the oppressive nature of the world you want to create. Dress up the attrocities your ideology represents in all the $5 words you want. It won’t change the fact that at the end of the day you’ll be another reactionary supporting a new generation of bourgeois pigs ruining life for the rest of us. I read state and revolution too, it was mid. Find a different Russian dipshit to base your life around, there’s better ones out there.
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.
So correcting a patently false characterization = stanning makhno? K lol. Are you trying to out trivia me or something? Keep spouting whatever little bits and pieces of history you’ve managed to warp to fit your own preconceptions and leave the real conversation for people who don’t need to have their politics spoonfed to them from a bunch of state capitalist dictators that have been dead for decades
I’ve only referenced things that Makhnovists agree to, it’s hardly the Bolshevik history of him. You can be extremely charitable in sourcing and still come to the conclusion that Makhno was mainly pathetic and harmful (though platformism is interesting). I also think that enabling actual genocide is a little more than “trivia”, but it’s not owning the tankies, so I can see why you would be uninterested in it.
Makhno did, in reaction to a rather brutal set of evidence that you can’t just toss out arms and training everywhere and tell people to sort themselves out, fight at least some of the fascists he equipped and made a more pointed effort of helping the surviving Jewish people with community defense, but the underlying problem of him overwhelmingly serving to spread violent chaos in a state that had already been war-torn twice over remained, and that’s part of the “banditry” accusation.
When occupying cities or towns, Makhno’s troops would post notices on walls that read:
This Army does not serve any political party, any power, any dictatorship. On the contrary, it seeks to free the region of all political power, of all dictatorship. It strives to protect the freedom of action, the free life of the workers against all exploitation and domination. The Makhno Army does not therefore represent any authority. It will not subject anyone to any obligation whatsoever. Its role is confined to defending the freedom of the workers. The freedom of the peasants and the workers belongs to themselves, and should not suffer any restriction.61
But left in control of territory that they wanted to secure, the Makhnovists ended up forming what most would call a state. The Makhnovists set monetary policy.62 They regulated the press.63 They redistributed land according to specific laws they passed. They organized regional legislative conferences.64 They controlled armed detachments to enforce their policies.65 To combat epidemics, they promulgated mandatory standards of cleanliness for the public health.66 Except for the Makhnovists, parties were banned from organizing for election to regional bodies. They banned authority with which they disagreed to “prevent those hostile to our political ideas from establishing themselves.”67 They delegated broad authority to a “Regional Military-Revolutionary Council of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents.” The Makhnovists used their military authority to suppress rival political ideas and organizations.68 The anarchist historian Paul Avrich notes, “the Military-Revolutionary Council, acting in conjunction with the Regional Congresses and the local soviets, in effect formed a loose-knit government in the territory surrounding Guliai-Pole.”69
[…] skipping a paragraph and a quote for brevity
Anarchist attacks on the Bolsheviks’ civil war policies often focus on the severe military discipline, conscription, grain requisitioning, and creation of a secret police. Yet, under the same conditions of civil war, Makhno’s army adopted all these measures, albeit with different names.
military discipline and conscription:
In his army, Makhno claimed that units had the right to elect their commanders. However, he retained veto power over any decisions.71 He increasingly relied on a close group of friends for his senior command.72 As Darch notes, “Although some of Makhno’s aides attempted to introduce more conventional structures into the army, [Makhno]’s control remained absolute, arbitrary and impulsive.”73 One regiment found it necessary to pass a resolution that “all orders must be obeyed provided that the commanding officer was sober at the time of giving it.”74 As the war went on, his forces moved from voting on their orders to carrying out executions ordered by Makhno to enforce discipline.75
The pressures of war forced Makhno to move to compulsory military service, a far cry from the free association of individuals extolled in anarchist theory. Tellingly, all the anarchist histories call it a “voluntary” mobilization (complete with quotation marks).76 Historian David Footman describes the linguistic back-flips:
Accordingly, at Makhno’s insistence, the second Congress passed a resolution in favor of “general, voluntary and egalitarian mobilization.” The orthodox Anarchist line, expressed at an Anarchist gathering of this period, was that “no compulsory army…can be regarded as a true defender of the social revolution,” and debate ranged round the issue as to whether enlistment could be described as “voluntary” (whatever the feelings of individuals) if it took place as the result of a resolution voluntarily passed by representatives of the community as a whole.77
Just in case people did not understand the meaning of “voluntary,” the Makhnovists issued a clarifying bulletin:
Some groups have understood voluntary mobilization as mobilization only for those who wish to enter the Insurrectionary Army, and that anyone who for any reason wishes to stay at home is not liable…. This is not correct…. The voluntary mobilization has been called because the peasants, workers and insurgents themselves decided to mobilize themselves without awaiting the arrival of instructions from the central authorities.78
The Makhnovists needed conscription for the same reason the Bolsheviks did: the bulk of the peasantry was sick of fighting. The difference between the two is that the Bolsheviks had a political outlook that saw conscription as part of a transitional period with the future depending on world revolution, when the productive power of humanity first unleashed by capitalism could be brought to bear on all spheres of life, in the interest of the vast majority. The peasants of Russia and the Ukraine were still using wooden ploughs and harvesting by hand. They stood to gain immensely from an increase in both productivity and leisure time. In contrast, Makhno had no similar perspective and had no generalized plan or vision for the future.
food requisitioning:
An army needs to eat. As they moved through the Ukraine, locals would point out the kulaks who would “agree” to provide food.79 Despite orders to the contrary, Makhnovists would loot town after town, adding to the workers’ misery. One witness recalled:
Food supply was primitive, on the traditional insurgent pattern: the bratishki—the Makhnovists’ name for each other—would scatter to the peasant huts on entering a village, and eat what God sent; there was thus no shortage, although plundering and thoughtless damage to peasant stock did occur; I saw them shoot peasant cattle for fun more than once, amid the howls of women and children.80
From their earliest days, they took the equipment they needed from those who had it.81 As they passed through towns and villages, they required the populace to quarter them.82
secret police:
While condemning the Soviet Cheka as an authoritarian betrayal, Makhno created two secret police forces that carried out numerous acts of terror.83 After a battle in one village, they shot a villager suspected of treachery with no trial. They summarily executed many of their prisoners of war.84 Their secret police were tasked with getting rid of “opponents within or outwith [sic] the movement.”85 Their activities led to one anarchist Congress asking Makhno to explain his activities:
It has been reported to us that there exists in the army a counter-espionage service which engages in arbitrary and uncontrolled actions, of which some are very serious, rather like the Bolshevik Cheka. Searches, arrests, even torture and executions are reported.86
This is an excerpt from a longer article. I added the three headings for readability
turns out that, regardless of ideology, the material situation of a revolution drives how groups act
Classic imperialist shite of “spreading freedom” no better than any other imperialist. DOobetter.
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.
You can lie to yourselves all you want. Anarchists remember the backstabbing very well and the real reason why they couldn;t fight back efficiently. I’m not here to discuss with tankies though. Plenty has been written about this stalinist revisionism already.
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.
Ah yes, everything USSR wanted to conquer or quiesce is “counterevolution”. Kronstadt too. Same exact bullshit every imperialist nation cooked up to invade and take over. Y’all ain’t foolin’ anyone you know.
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,
Lol, where? Show me one ML nation which is not totalitarian right now, or didn’t fall back into capitalism and fascism as soon as it inevitably collapsed from the mortally defective ideology of leninism.
You can lie to yourselves all you want. Anarchists remember the backstabbing very well and the real reason why they couldn;t fight back efficiently. I’m not here to discuss with tankies though. Plenty has been written about this stalinist revisionism already.
So out of the 420-428 tanks deployed by the Republicans, more than 75% came from the Soviet Union. This is not “backstabbing.” If the Republicans didn’t want the Soviet Union to “interfere” with their civil war, they could have fun with their 89 tanks versus the Francoists’ 280 tanks. Yes, when you accept material aid from another country, that country has a say in the trajectory of your political project. That’s literally how all aid works. The Soviet Union was not a charity. If the Republicans did not want the Soviet Union to interfere with their political project, they could’ve just rejected the material aid. But to accept the substantial material aid and then cry about Soviet interference is called being ungracious. It’s called biting the hand that feeds you.
I haven’t even gone over how some of the colonized Moroccans sided with the Francoists while none of them sided with the Republicans. You would think that the side with the socialists and anarchists would be on board with decolonization, but I guess it’s horizontally organized society for white people, brutal colonial regime for brown people. The white people can own the means of production while the brown people can labor with them.
this is a ridiculous mischaracterization, the Moroccans didn’t ‘side’ with Franco, the only Moroccans left with guns were the comprador regiments after 7 years of slaughtering the independence movement. it was still militarized and patrolled by those fuckers. You wanna talk about Popular Fronts being pro-colonial, look at France’s not supporting decolonization, the Spanish one had no grasp or opportunity. if they’d somehow dropped some rifles into Morocco, if the people had the spirit to rise up at all the French would’ve bombed them to keep it from getting into their bit of Morocco
Lol the soviets are not a charity. Omg the fact that you post that imperialist drivel unironically is just the cherry on top. I don’t have to add anything here.
You are making grievous accusations and then just saying “nah, I don’t need to substantiate anything”. Let me tell you, anti-intellectual wreckers and slanderers are much worse than people who want to argue against the cold war consensus.
Japanese fascists were a far bigger threat to the Soviet Union than the Nazis during the 1930s. Japan already sacked Nanjing. In one city, the Japanese fascists butchered the same amount of people as the Francoists did for the entire civil war. This is how brutal the Japanese fascists were relative to the Francoists. And unlike the Francoists, the Empire of Japan actually tried to invade the Soviet Union but got owned before venturing too far. Why should the Soviet Union send those 400+ tanks to Republican Spain without expecting something in return? If anything, the Soviet Union shouldn’t have wasted material with a lost cause that is Republican Spain and shipped those tanks to the Republic of China instead where they wouldn’t be squandered. One tank to Spain is one less tank to China. Frankly, Stalin bet on the wrong horse.
when the soviets were first formed, they were the working class, so what do you mean? at what point in the degeneration of the workers state are you discussing?
“Totalitarian” is a totally made-up, meaningless distinction. There is no conceivable metric by which you could call any socialist state “totalitarian” that wouldn’t apply a hundredfold to the US Empire. Seriously, this conversation cannot continue unless you read Blackshirts and Reds, it sums up every point I could make to argue with you with much more depth and eloquence. If you have the slightest pretention to intellectual seriousness, go and read that. Then, once you have, message me and I’ll send you a link to season 3 of a podcast called Blowback, covering the Korean war. I think you’ll find it informative.
I’ve taken a harsh tone with you, because you need to be jolted out of this fundamentally incorrect mindset. But if you read what I’ve suggested and actually process the information, if you try to understand the societies you harshly criticize in the depth and richness of their actual existence and not the literal Saturday morning cartoon evil version you’ve had ingrained in you by a multi-trillion dollar propaganda campaign, you’ll arrive at the same opinions I have now - including feeling the way I do about people espousing the views you have done. Until you understand that no “western” country has EVER come closer to socialism than the USSR, China, Cuba or the DPRK (or even had the merest potential to) you are not only useless to the international cause of the workers but an active detriment, a stooge of the Empire that is currently enslaving humanity. That might only manifest as irritating, trivial anticommunist memes on a backwater internet forum, but it still might as well be fought against, and if there’s the slightest chance you can be educated into a helpful comrade then I might as well try.
No I’m not going to go do homework just to argue to you. Just because I disagree with tankie talking points doesn’t mean I’m ignorant.
In any case you’ve missed the point that the “closest to socialism” doesn’t count for shit. It will never be socialism. In fact it’s just state Capitalism and always devolves into Capitalism. That’s what ML always leads to when left to it’s own designs. This is undeniable by now.
In fact it’s just state Capitalism and always devolves into Capitalism
I will reply with a meme
I’m not going to go do homework just to argue to you
Then that’s the end of our conversation. I’ve pointed out a direction in which you can expand your knowledge, even if it’s just knowledge of what your “enemy” thinks - you can have some intellectual curiosity, or you can not, but in the latter case there’s no reason for me to spend further effort trying to force it upon you.
Just because I disagree with tankie talking points doesn’t mean I’m ignorant.
That is true! What have you read about the Spanish civil war or the ukrainian anarchist movement from an ML perspective? I’ve read a fair amount of critique of the situations from an anarchist perspective and I still broadly agree with the ML take on the situation.
Goddamn! People, please! Posting a meme is not an invitation to invite me to a debate on the historical context of the Spanish Revolution. Cheezus. There’s dedicated anarchist forums for that!
You complain when people take your post seriously, you complain when people dismiss it, you complain when people “put words in your mouth” and whine about straw men but do exactly those things to others, you write pages of comments but suddenly refuse to elaborate when pressed on an inconvenient point.
What are you doing here besides sectarianism and acting like a horse’s ass?
Look mate, I don’t owe you shit. Not even an explanation. But I’ll tell you this, seeing tankies evolve into their “debate me bro” forms is amusing to me. Seeing them get more and more upset because I refuse to play their game is amusing to me. Seeing them think I’m very upset is amusing to me.
This is all the more amusing because I didn’t even try to annoy tankies but they came over here to be annoyed.
Look into your heart, you know this to be true.
Y’all are buzzing around an anarchist community as if I personally kicked your hornet’s nest for posting this one meme. This is amusing to me.
Y’all are good peeps when dunking on libs, but fucking hell, choose your battles, eh?
Goddamn! People, please! Posting a meme is not an invitation to invite me to a debate on the historical context of the Spanish Revolution
Why don’t you be a good little authoritarian and lock the thread then, or is that M next to your name just there to show you like taking Ls after Ls like a Masochist.
Okay, would you prefer to instead talk about the lack of anarchist purges in China and how in the meme you shared, everyone has eyes except for Mao who has slits instead? Can we talk about how that is in inappropriate way to depict Asian people?
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's_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
You’d be opening an can of ethnic worms over the technical historical ownership of North-East China / Manchuria / Dergi Ilan Golo / (the northern part of ) Goguryeo (who’s legacy is claimed by South Korea to further justify shitting on China because they got little dog syndrome)
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
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.
I don’t give a shit what you say, if your politics is “authoritarian bad and libertarian good” you’re a fucking idiot.
Oh look, a leftist “enlightened centrist”. Please, provide us your grand left unifying theory that will bring about peace and prosperity for two mutually exclusive schools of thought. Authoritarians and libertarians got lumped together a long time ago and it’s been made abundantly clear that that was a mistake. We should stop trying to force it. It’s counterproductive
Who said I was pro-left unity? Im a Marxist Leninist. Did the name not say “stalinism” loudly enough?
although ill take a real anarchist to work side by side with over your illiterate ass any day. Your ilk are charlatans and failures, always have been, always will be. Stop wasting our time with your illiteracy.
So you’re a Marist lenninist who’s against left unity and thinks that people who are either only pro authoritarian or pro libertarian are fucking idiots? Do I need to spell that out more or are you aware of how stupid you sound right now? Are you sure I’m the illiterate one in this exchange?
bitch I actually read theory, i don’t ascribe to “authoritarian” or “libertarian” as political movements. Its not a word used by any Marxist movement nor theorist that has actually accomplished something besides never getting past local party level.
you don’t even understand the world well enough to be mad at me properly. Do I have to spell it out for you or do you want to continue to roll in the mud with your ignorant pig friends?
Stay mad. Your politics are shit and no amount of theory is going to change the oppressive nature of the world you want to create. Dress up the attrocities your ideology represents in all the $5 words you want. It won’t change the fact that at the end of the day you’ll be another reactionary supporting a new generation of bourgeois pigs ruining life for the rest of us. I read state and revolution too, it was mid. Find a different Russian dipshit to base your life around, there’s better ones out there.
They are saying the lense of authoritarian/libertarian as a system of values is stupid
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.
So correcting a patently false characterization = stanning makhno? K lol. Are you trying to out trivia me or something? Keep spouting whatever little bits and pieces of history you’ve managed to warp to fit your own preconceptions and leave the real conversation for people who don’t need to have their politics spoonfed to them from a bunch of state capitalist dictators that have been dead for decades
I’ve only referenced things that Makhnovists agree to, it’s hardly the Bolshevik history of him. You can be extremely charitable in sourcing and still come to the conclusion that Makhno was mainly pathetic and harmful (though platformism is interesting). I also think that enabling actual genocide is a little more than “trivia”, but it’s not owning the tankies, so I can see why you would be uninterested in it.
Makhno did, in reaction to a rather brutal set of evidence that you can’t just toss out arms and training everywhere and tell people to sort themselves out, fight at least some of the fascists he equipped and made a more pointed effort of helping the surviving Jewish people with community defense, but the underlying problem of him overwhelmingly serving to spread violent chaos in a state that had already been war-torn twice over remained, and that’s part of the “banditry” accusation.
freedom under Makhno has been overstated.
https://isreview.org/issues/53/makhno/
click here to expand, it's a long excerpt
This is an excerpt from a longer article. I added the three headings for readability
turns out that, regardless of ideology, the material situation of a revolution drives how groups act
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Classic imperialist shite of “spreading freedom” no better than any other imperialist. DOobetter.
You can lie to yourselves all you want. Anarchists remember the backstabbing very well and the real reason why they couldn;t fight back efficiently. I’m not here to discuss with tankies though. Plenty has been written about this stalinist revisionism already.
Ah yes, everything USSR wanted to conquer or quiesce is “counterevolution”. Kronstadt too. Same exact bullshit every imperialist nation cooked up to invade and take over. Y’all ain’t foolin’ anyone you know.
Lol, where? Show me one ML nation which is not totalitarian right now, or didn’t fall back into capitalism and fascism as soon as it inevitably collapsed from the mortally defective ideology of leninism.
My dude, the vast majority of Republican tanks were provided by the Soviet Union. Let’s take a look at the Wikipedia article about tanks in the Spanish Civil War shall we: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tanks_in_the_Spanish_Civil_War#Tanks_supplied_by_foreign_powers
Locally produced tanks: 24-32
Soviet tanks: 331
French/Polish tanks: 64
Paraguayan tanks: 1
So out of the 420-428 tanks deployed by the Republicans, more than 75% came from the Soviet Union. This is not “backstabbing.” If the Republicans didn’t want the Soviet Union to “interfere” with their civil war, they could have fun with their 89 tanks versus the Francoists’ 280 tanks. Yes, when you accept material aid from another country, that country has a say in the trajectory of your political project. That’s literally how all aid works. The Soviet Union was not a charity. If the Republicans did not want the Soviet Union to interfere with their political project, they could’ve just rejected the material aid. But to accept the substantial material aid and then cry about Soviet interference is called being ungracious. It’s called biting the hand that feeds you.
Stop the fight!
I haven’t even gone over how some of the colonized Moroccans sided with the Francoists while none of them sided with the Republicans. You would think that the side with the socialists and anarchists would be on board with decolonization, but I guess it’s horizontally organized society for white people, brutal colonial regime for brown people. The white people can own the means of production while the brown people can labor with them.
this is a ridiculous mischaracterization, the Moroccans didn’t ‘side’ with Franco, the only Moroccans left with guns were the comprador regiments after 7 years of slaughtering the independence movement. it was still militarized and patrolled by those fuckers. You wanna talk about Popular Fronts being pro-colonial, look at France’s not supporting decolonization, the Spanish one had no grasp or opportunity. if they’d somehow dropped some rifles into Morocco, if the people had the spirit to rise up at all the French would’ve bombed them to keep it from getting into their bit of Morocco
Lol the soviets are not a charity. Omg the fact that you post that imperialist drivel unironically is just the cherry on top. I don’t have to add anything here.
I’m sensing a pattern
Is the pattern that I don’t have patience to entertain fools?
The pattern is that you grandstand about being above arguing to avoid needing to engage with their actual positions
man, debate me bros are the fucking worst…
You are making grievous accusations and then just saying “nah, I don’t need to substantiate anything”. Let me tell you, anti-intellectual wreckers and slanderers are much worse than people who want to argue against the cold war consensus.
Then why are you masochistically staying here as if you do?
It’s a mystery!
then fuck off
Japanese fascists were a far bigger threat to the Soviet Union than the Nazis during the 1930s. Japan already sacked Nanjing. In one city, the Japanese fascists butchered the same amount of people as the Francoists did for the entire civil war. This is how brutal the Japanese fascists were relative to the Francoists. And unlike the Francoists, the Empire of Japan actually tried to invade the Soviet Union but got owned before venturing too far. Why should the Soviet Union send those 400+ tanks to Republican Spain without expecting something in return? If anything, the Soviet Union shouldn’t have wasted material with a lost cause that is Republican Spain and shipped those tanks to the Republic of China instead where they wouldn’t be squandered. One tank to Spain is one less tank to China. Frankly, Stalin bet on the wrong horse.
That’s the kind of unfiltered tankie logic I so enjoy see expressed for all the leftists to see.
I don’t think a racist comic is a good look for anarchism, but you do you.
Maybe Mao is just enjoying a really pretty sunrise.
🤣🤣😂💀
“fascism bad” is tankie logic now
are you saying it was an IMF style financial imperialism dirty loan?
Genuine question!
I am saying that the soviets were never about emancipating the working class. They were always about making them a satellite state
when the soviets were first formed, they were the working class, so what do you mean? at what point in the degeneration of the workers state are you discussing?
I am talking in context of the Spanish Revolution
Right, right, sorry, forgot where this started for a sec.
so the working class of spain, and making spain into a satellite state, is what you meant? Gotcha
the working class of spain, the state of spain
Thanks, the wording confused me.
“Totalitarian” is a totally made-up, meaningless distinction. There is no conceivable metric by which you could call any socialist state “totalitarian” that wouldn’t apply a hundredfold to the US Empire. Seriously, this conversation cannot continue unless you read Blackshirts and Reds, it sums up every point I could make to argue with you with much more depth and eloquence. If you have the slightest pretention to intellectual seriousness, go and read that. Then, once you have, message me and I’ll send you a link to season 3 of a podcast called Blowback, covering the Korean war. I think you’ll find it informative.
I’ve taken a harsh tone with you, because you need to be jolted out of this fundamentally incorrect mindset. But if you read what I’ve suggested and actually process the information, if you try to understand the societies you harshly criticize in the depth and richness of their actual existence and not the literal Saturday morning cartoon evil version you’ve had ingrained in you by a multi-trillion dollar propaganda campaign, you’ll arrive at the same opinions I have now - including feeling the way I do about people espousing the views you have done. Until you understand that no “western” country has EVER come closer to socialism than the USSR, China, Cuba or the DPRK (or even had the merest potential to) you are not only useless to the international cause of the workers but an active detriment, a stooge of the Empire that is currently enslaving humanity. That might only manifest as irritating, trivial anticommunist memes on a backwater internet forum, but it still might as well be fought against, and if there’s the slightest chance you can be educated into a helpful comrade then I might as well try.
No I’m not going to go do homework just to argue to you. Just because I disagree with tankie talking points doesn’t mean I’m ignorant.
In any case you’ve missed the point that the “closest to socialism” doesn’t count for shit. It will never be socialism. In fact it’s just state Capitalism and always devolves into Capitalism. That’s what ML always leads to when left to it’s own designs. This is undeniable by now.
I will reply with a meme
Then that’s the end of our conversation. I’ve pointed out a direction in which you can expand your knowledge, even if it’s just knowledge of what your “enemy” thinks - you can have some intellectual curiosity, or you can not, but in the latter case there’s no reason for me to spend further effort trying to force it upon you.
Very enlightened of you, thank you, master.
you’ve not read shit, the only thing you’ve won is the ability to be the smuggest idiot ever
That is true! What have you read about the Spanish civil war or the ukrainian anarchist movement from an ML perspective? I’ve read a fair amount of critique of the situations from an anarchist perspective and I still broadly agree with the ML take on the situation.
Goddamn! People, please! Posting a meme is not an invitation to invite me to a debate on the historical context of the Spanish Revolution. Cheezus. There’s dedicated anarchist forums for that!
You complain when people take your post seriously, you complain when people dismiss it, you complain when people “put words in your mouth” and whine about straw men but do exactly those things to others, you write pages of comments but suddenly refuse to elaborate when pressed on an inconvenient point.
What are you doing here besides sectarianism and acting like a horse’s ass?
Look mate, I don’t owe you shit. Not even an explanation. But I’ll tell you this, seeing tankies evolve into their “debate me bro” forms is amusing to me. Seeing them get more and more upset because I refuse to play their game is amusing to me. Seeing them think I’m very upset is amusing to me.
This is all the more amusing because I didn’t even try to annoy tankies but they came over here to be annoyed.
Look into your heart, you know this to be true.
Y’all are buzzing around an anarchist community as if I personally kicked your hornet’s nest for posting this one meme. This is amusing to me.
Y’all are good peeps when dunking on libs, but fucking hell, choose your battles, eh?
Wym, we’re dunking on a lib right now
You make a post directly attacking “online tankies,” then act all
when said group responds to it. You brought this on yourself lmao.
Maybe you should have considered this advice before making this post to begin with.
K
Why don’t you be a good little authoritarian and lock the thread then, or is that M next to your name just there to show you like taking Ls after Ls like a Masochist.
I just love to be dunked by my Hexbears mommies and daddies.
Alright, you do you.
Keep posting memes like these and you’ll aways be our little pain piggy
Okay, would you prefer to instead talk about the lack of anarchist purges in China and how in the meme you shared, everyone has eyes except for Mao who has slits instead? Can we talk about how that is in inappropriate way to depict Asian people?
Yes it is. If you don’t like it you can always delete your post Lmaoo. You don’t get to decide how people react to your post.
I mean, you’re free to challenge me all you want and I will continue to make fun of you for it
No, you’ve done a pretty good job of embarrassing both of us already.
“leftists” actually knowing what they’re talking about and reading theory challenge (impossible if you did it you would be a tankie)
Show me one anarchist nation ever that has survived more than a couple of years or is not just a tiny commune somewhere isolated.
Wasnt the japanese the ones to end the commune in manchuria?