Edit for clarity: I'm not asking why the Tankie/Anarchist grudge exist. I'm curious about what information sources - mentors, friends, books, TV, cultural osmosis, conveys that information to people. Where do individuals encounter this information and how does it become important to them. It's an anthropology question about a contemporary culture rather than a question about the history of leftism.

I've been thinking about this a bit lately. Newly minted Anarchists have to learn to hate Lenin and Stalin and whoever else they have a grudge against. They have to encounter some materials or teacher who teaches them "Yeah these guys, you have to hate these guys and it has to be super-personal like they kicked your dog. You have to be extremely angry about it and treat anyone who doesn't disavow them as though they're literally going to kill you."

Like there's some process of enculturation there, of being brought in to the culture of anarchism, and there's a process where anarchists learn this thing that all (most?) anarchists know and agree on.

Idk, just anthropology brain anthropologying. Cause like if someone or something didn't teach you this why would you care so much?

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]
    ·
    5 days ago

    At least to me, Lenin's feelings on Kautsky seem kind of odd. Obviously he hated him, but he was still able to admit that Kautsky wrote useful and elucidating things.

    I should have just dug up the Kropotkin quote the first time:

    Lenin is not comparable to any revolutionary figure in history. Revolutionaries have had ideals. Lenin has none. He is a madman, an immolator, wishful of burning, and slaughter, and sacrificing.

    Idk, this doesn't seem like a professional disagreement in the manner of what is expressed in the transcription of their meeting.

    Edit: Lenin of course had great respect for Kropotkin, but it seems like it was very one-sided by the end.