cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8181688
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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:
- “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder - Lenin
- A Critical Read of Animal Farm - Jones Manoel
- Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism - Michael Parenti (<- especially this)
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'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.
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
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.
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
Authoritarians and libertarians
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
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.
Makhno
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
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
Literally bandit kingdom under an absolute leader
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.
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.
So out of the 420-428 tanks deployed by the Republicans, more than 75% came from the Soviet Union.
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.
The pattern is that you grandstand about being above arguing to avoid needing to engage with their actual positions
Then why are you masochistically staying here as if you do?
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.
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?
emancipating the working class. They were always about making them a satellite state
"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
Show
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.
you've not read shit, the only thing you've won is the ability to be the smuggest idiot ever
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?
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.
"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 ML nation which is not totalitarian right now, or didn't fall back into capitalism and fascism as soon as it inevitably collapsed
Show me one anarchist nation ever that has survived more than a couple of years or is not just a tiny commune somewhere isolated.
Damn. This shit is depressing. Self proclaimed “leftists” still out there complaining about “tankies” in 2023. Truly embarrassing for everyone.
These "leftists" have just refused to read anything besides George Orwell for several years now and I don't think they're going to change anytime soon.
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
Sure, but there's a reason the anarchist presence on Hexbear haa dramatically waned over the years. Like how much is anyone actually valuing left unity while federating with an instance that memes about killing anarchists? A lot of the early drama came out of specifically ML's harassing people associated with anarchists, like that John Kerry shit, including accusations of an "anarchist cabal" (which to be fair remains extremely funny to this day).
And this exists alongside an attitude that left unity in fact is a waste of time, that communists and anarchists want fundamentally different things. And when you combine that with memes about anarchists being reactionaries and feds (oh, but not our anarchists!) and glorification of figures that killed a lot of anarchists and the occasional "anarchists get the wall" memes, like you can't be comrades with people who fundamentally see you as a problem to one day violently remove. There cannot be useful criticism without mutual trust, and I don't think there has been that trust in quite a while.
I'm not convinced.
Every single anarchist community singularly dedicated to anarchism off reddit has waned over the years. Hexbear has retained anarchists better than Raddle for example which has about 20 users left over.
Anarchists seem content to exist in spaces that aren't dedicated to anarchism, as offshoot spaces on the side of other content that latches onto them. This is a problem honestly because those spaces are almost always controlled by bougies rather than proles, if/when the left becomes a real threat those spaces will be shut down just like the marxist ones have been getting shut down on reddit lately. Antiwork got kneecapped by wreckers and bankers for a reason for example.
that communists and anarchists want fundamentally different things
I don't believe this. I continue to believe that we want the same thing and disagree on the method of reaching it. I actually think we both fundamentally have the same criticisms of the socialist state even, there's a reason communists want a stateless society, we know states aren't good.
Every single anarchist community singularly dedicated to anarchism off reddit has waned over the years.
It's also my observation that most dedicated anarchist spaces seem gratuitously anti-ML in a way that Hexbear, at least, is not gratuitously anti-Anarchist. Granted, there are also places where MLs are needlessly anti-Anarchist and I'm sure there are anarchist spaces out there who are not as hostile to MLs, but if the comparison is Hexbear specifically then Hexbear is more neutral ground than most other leftist spaces.
That is very strongly evidenced by the OP itself, which only exists so anarcho-bidenists can fear monger to their fellow rubes about how the tankies want to shoot them, which there would be no impetus for if not for MLs in some spaces visibly calling for left unity.
The obvious explanation for this is just the more general observation that most anarchists in the real world despise Marxists. In anarchist circles in private the discourse than ML's are a bunch of homophobic, transphobic, sex-worker-phobic, misogynistic red fash is very, very present, and honestly pretending otherwise is simply ignoring the obvious truth that becomes evident if you actually spend much time in read-world anarchist and Marxist circles, simply for the sake of preserving the appearance of an artificial, digital 'left unity' which neither has any bearing on actual organization nor does it provide a serious basis for any actual platform of organized socialist activity. We can get together for the same marches, social movements, or for forms of local mutual aid and aid for the homeless or refugees, but this does not ever really extend beyond that in my experience, and the reason is that anarchists have a fundamentally different conception of politics and organization to Marxists, and especially to MLs.
Communists and Anarchists are most certainly not the same. I'm not really sure how anyone can entertain this idea if they have actually spent times in active anarchist and Marxist circles, let alone engaged in militant activity with either where both the need for cooperation and the apparent inevitability of conflict and tension become obvious, and make obvious in turn that these difficulties do not just boil down interpersonal issues or grievances but are political in nature. There are profound conceptual, theoretical, ideological, practical and organization differences, as well as sociological.
It's all well and good to say that they are 'fundamentally the same' (what does 'fundamentally/essentially the same' even mean here? It seems vague, ambiguous, or if you are choosing as the criterion for that that we want the same form of society at the end of the day, this amounts actually only to a very weak form of agreement in all honestly. It's like saying that Communists are the same as Reformists Socialists because the latter also want (sometimes genuinely) a form of socialist economy and are genuinely deluded as to the means to get there (i.e. reformism). The difference is in terms of political method, and the distinction is one of revolution vs reformism. Sure, Communists share a belief in the need for revolution to get there with anarchists, but they have different different concepts, theories, practices, conceptions of organization and politics, which implies deep theoretical and practical-organizational differences.
Furthermore, Communism in this sense remains an ideal (which is fine), towards which we agree on the most general and abstract features and agree further that this is the ideal form of society which we would like, indeed must for the sake of the human species, move towards. The anarchist conception of revolution is very different from the communist conception, and what comes during the revolution, how we get there, what is necessary, how we should actually do all the actual work of organizing the working class (which marxists recognize as necessary but which anarchists have either been unwilling to do the work needed to accomplish or who they neglect as many now see focus of parties on class-based organization to be a form of class-reductionism), disagree on the fundamental questions of revolution, the state, parties, legislation, prisons, and so on.
There are also Christian Communists (non-Marxist) would also want a stateless, classless, moneyless society. I commend them for that, and they are definitely potential allies, but that doesn't mean they are going to be reliable political allies in the long-term, nor does it imply that their views are fundamentally the same as mine. The fact that they are not going to be ready to do the things necessary to actually construct socialism, let alone communism, means that realistic political unity with them is limited at best. The same goes for anarchism in the minds of Marxists, most obviously MLs.
The period of transition from capitalism to communism will likely take hundreds of years. Socialism is a centuries-long project which we have only just begun. Calling the immense, profound differences of opinion between Communists and anarchists over this historical process towards Communism something which does not amount to a fundamental difference seems not only confused, but positively idealistic to me.
Saying that the difference lies simply in the means to get there is ignoring the fact that this is a massive difference with direct implications for the feasibility of long-term, substantial, deep political cooperation. It also reflects that the routes through which Marxists and Anarchists get to the conclusion of the need for revolution for the sake of a classless, stateless, moneyless society are very different.
Just to give a revealing sense of the depth of this divide: There are people in this thread who have cited Murray Bookchin, who towards the end of his life not only explicitly stated that he would rather side with liberal governments against Communists because the former believed in 'personal freedom', but then later when on to repudiate anarchism right at the end of his life, calling modern anarchists a form of lifestyle movement with no real political potential, and it's worthwhile to note that he came to this conclusion during the 90s and 2000s, i.e. when Marxism and Communism were at their lowest ebb and the international leftist movements in the West were being dominated by anarchist and post-left lifestyle movementism, calling for distributed (non-existent) networks of supposedly distributed organization based on ridiculously minute identitarian difference (i.e. identity politics). The period since the 90s have done nothing but refute the idea that the predominance of anarchists on the western left would revitalize the prospects for revolution there. The opposite is the case. The potential for revolution has correlated inversely with anarchist predominance. Frankly this doesn't surprise me, as the anarchist circles I've encountered have almost always been far more bourgeois, less proletarian, than Marxist circles (especially if we are talking about militant circles), though I admit that this is anecdotal.
Anarchist presence on Mastodon has been fine. Raddle has the issue of Ziq being shitty to people and fostering a space only really welcoming to a specific brand of post-leftist, and so far the fact that Lemmy has been made by ML's has stifled interedt in a specifically anarchist Lemmy instance. Though even then Raddle still has more visibly active anarchists than Hexbear, and if you go by specifically anarchist discussions the anarchism community on Hexbear has always been anemic.
Having been here from the start and watched people leave, it's always been the overt sectarianism that gets cited. Hexbear is not a revolutionary movement, it is an internet forum, and while it started out as a space that wanted to specifically be an actual social space for leftists in general it has absolutely become an ML centric soace to the exclusion of pretty much any other tendency. And for all some might say they think we have shared goals, it tends to not mean much when there has always been a contingent that has viewed driving off other tendencies as praxis.
I would agree that it would be better to have an actual anarchist presence on kbin/lemmy and that the objection to using the software is silly, but a lot of anarchist reddit spaces have dealt with specifically ML wreckers trying to to gain control of subreddits for shits and giggles, so I don't think I can convince anyone this wouldn't be more of the same.
Anarchist presence on Mastodon has been fine.
Mastodon is the kind of place I referred to in my previous comment.
Having been here from the start and watched people leave,
I don't know who you're talking about but Hexbear is more active today than it has ever been.
it's always been the overt sectarianism that gets cited. Hexbear is not a revolutionary movement, it is an internet forum, and while it started out as a space that wanted to specifically be an actual social space for leftists in general it has absolutely become an ML centric soace to the exclusion of pretty much any other tendency.
It used to have a bigger problem with anti-trot sectarianism, far more than anarchism. Anti anarchist sentiment was always explicitly stamped on whereas anti-trot stuff was encouraged, we even have emotes left over from this time like
. This changed however at some point and some of the only times I've been moderated is because I still make trot jokes. We have trots on the site now too so I'm not really being good to them when I do.a lot of anarchist reddit spaces have dealt with specifically ML wreckers trying to to gain control of subreddits for shits and giggles
Which ones?
and some of the only times I've been moderated is because I still make trot jokes
They can't take it from us!Mastodon is the kind of place I referred to in my previous comment.
Not really sure how that's particularly waned, relative to anything else. Anarchist instances can be pretty large, and Mastodon (and the other twitter-like federated projects) as a whole is a much larger thing than Lemmy at present. That is where you'll find actual orgs with their "official" accounts after Twitter started banning them.
I don't know who you're talking about but Hexbear is more active today than it has ever been.
ML's on Hexbear are active, yes. I don't really see other anarchists very often, we're more often referred to than actually present. I don't really think I see much other htan ML's represented in general, which is absolutely a decline from when the website started and certainly from when the subreddit was still not banned.
It used to have a bigger problem with anti-trot sectarianism, far more than anarchism.
The trot in question got orriginally targetted in part due to their association with anarchists, which again the phrase "anarchist cabal" will always be funny. But part of why there was resistance to that sectarianism was becuase there were anarchists present to push back on it, which over time a lot of us have burned out on the community. And so like 90% of the time it seems like posts are mostly complaining about anarchists, which I imagine is probably exhausting for whatever anarchists remain.
Which ones?
GenZanarchism was probably one of hte more notable ones that got cheered on, though people have been trying to fuck with r/anarchism for a while which had that space paranoid as shit. I remember on the Discord we were looking over some screenshots over some drama about needing to disassociate with a server of Reddit subredit moderators where someone told someone else to kill thesmelves, and part of those screenshots was them with a channel dedicated to fucking with anarchist subreddits.
You can just go to the dunk thread for this thread and see the upvoted replies, like those just plain stating they don't really advocate for left unity either.
people have been trying to fuck with r/anarchism for a while which had that space paranoid as shit.
Literally run by feds. Anyone fucking with that sub is wasting their time it will never fall out of their hands.
What does that even mean? It runs on elected mods, with a separate subreddit that posts notable mod actions for transparency. Do you think there's any non-fed anarchist subreddit, or are you just fedjacketing as a bit or because their opnions annoy you? Antiwork actually had Laurelai Bailey, an actual known snitch, we actually do know that there was fed shit going on there - I have never heard an actual serious accusation about r/anarchism of all places.
LIke unless your'e going to hand me actual evidence that morrigan or someone is actually a cop, this is the kind of thing that I'm talking about. That fedjacketing shit is toxic, it gets people paranoid, it's a traumatic thing to go through, so the general expectation is that you don't ever call someone a cop or a fed without actual evidence to back that up.
slrpnk.net is an anarchist instance, and this instance is also meant to run on anarchist principles btw. Unfortunately the /r/anarchism people were not willing to consistently push to abandon reddit, and when they did, they were promoting raddle which is very insular, so most of the people who like threaded discussions remain there.
Good to know and glad we’re federated with ya!
Edit: Ahh geez this is OP didn’t realize that. this comic is really racist towards Mao :(
Probably not real anarchists, or they just lack understanding (or are in-denial) about where that platform is headed and don't realize that Reddit's enshittified future doesn't include them whether they choose it or not (Anarchism isn't seen favorably by many people, execs at Reddit inc. likely feel the same way).
Sure. But this is, frankly, a pretty idealist take imo that ignores not only the fact that in actual practice there is frequent tension and conflict which has real basis, but real and deeper theoretical differences as well as ones of praxis and organization. We can wish for this form of left unity you are describing all we like, but it doesn't erase the deal differences between communists and anarchists.
In my personal experience, Communists have been far more eager, happy or willing to work with anarchists when it comes to practice on the ground than vice-versa, and I think it's important to note that these forums are not representative of the actual relations between Communists and Anarchists on the ground, which are frequently tense because Marxists will often spend months agitating and entering workplaces, doing the grunt work, only for reformists and anarchists to show up at the end at points of more intense political struggle and gain political credibility for their 'participation'. Another related issue here is that, in practice, anarchist circles are on average more liberal, individualist and identitarian than Marxist orgs interested in forming parties. The emphasis on decentralized, distributed organization, justified by whatever post-structural idealist nonsense is currently in fashion, is not conducive to working with actual Communist (read: Leninist) orgs.
Not to mention that - and this is again to indicate that these forums like Hexbear are in no way indicative of actual relationships between Communists and Anarchists - that most anarchists despise Communists, most obviously Leninists, and would despise Lemmygrad and Hexbear types most of all. Like the view of us as 'Red Fash' is close to the mainstream view among most Anarchists, and it's frankly ridiculous to pretend otherwise.
Poster gives very reasonable and logical arguments for avoiding left infighting;
Debate pervert OP: "I'm the one true leftist"
"I'm not punching left, I'm just drawing the borders of the left to neatly exclude you"
Yeah mate, no criticism is allowed. If someone says they're left and do right wing things like exploit the working class, it's sectarian to call them on it.
You posted a meme, not criticism. Then when anyone charitably assumes you have something of substance to say and responds in kind, you say "whoa it's just a meme, what are you, a debate bro?"
It's been very clear that I am not in a mood to debate or argue in the length. I don't owe you explanations. I'm allowed to just shit post. I call people debate me bros when after I told them multiple times that I don't want to debate, they insist. It's not a difficult concept to grasp
or argue in the length
You've made about 30 comments in this thread
I know, It's glorious how mad y'all are because I won't debate you.
I don't owe you explanations.
Tell us about the emotional labor of arguing next, you radlib piece of shit
Your thread has been seized for re-distribution
It's ok, so long as y'all have fun. I don't believe in private property
I honestly find this behaviour incredibly disrespectful to the people that are currently dying as they do real resistance. Are you opposed to the Palestinians too then? The leftist brigades of Palestine are all "tankies" and Hamas are considerably worse (but resistance is more important than broaching the issues with them). Do you wage sectarian bullshit against them too from your comfortable room while they fight and die for the cause? Serious question.
You think posting on online forums make a lick of a difference for those who "do real resistance"? You're in the left shitposter heaven and you come here to judge me? Seriously?
The vast majority of the people here found their way into the left through learning in the online posting grounds before eventually joining orgs. Anyone that thinks what we do online doesn't matter is not really thinking straight.
You didn't really answer the question though and it concerns me. Are you opposed to the Palestinian resistance currently fighting for freedom?
Oh come off of it. There's a pretty big difference between such struggles and the impact of arguing online.
I also don't answer because I don't like to be interrogated like this.
I also don't answer because I don't like to be interrogated like this.
No, it's because you don't have a leg to stand on and you're an intellectually dishonest coward who wants to fling shit and then cry when people push back
I didn't fling anything, y'all came to my place, remember? Also stop acting like a "debate me, bro" already! You won't goad me 😁
No. There fundamentally is not.
This space is not "pretend" while the offline world is "real". The people here are real people (I hope lmao) and the emotions people have here are real.
One day we will all be thrown into our own very real resistance. Are you willing to die for it? I am. I've said many times that I will die in bed an old lady in a currently non-existent socialist state or I will die in the fighting to bring it about.
We post here and have some fun and argue and do all sorts of shit in our off time. But in our on time? A lot of us are genuinely active in political orgs. Here in the UK it might be resisting landlord evictions through Acorn, performing party work or shutting down weapons factories through Palestine Action. Do you think sectarianism would benefit orgs like Palestine Action shutting down zionist weapons factories? Whose principle need is BODIES willing to get on rooftops and smash up these buildings and get arrested? Does reducing the pool of people that would join that org benefit them in any way by being sectarians? Does it matter whether someone on the roof of an israeli weapons factory waves a black flag or a red flag? Of course it doesn't. And the people who try to flare up sectarian bullshit anywhere are rightfully shouted down or expelled because all they are functionally doing by punching left is weakening those orgs and their ability to do praxis.
That doesn't change online. The number of people who actually transfer from the online space to offline organising is directly tied to the sectarian bullshit that occurs. There are dumbass marxists that refuse to take part at certain orgs because of some anarchist sectarian bullshit and there are dumbass anarchists that refuse to take part in some socialist led things because of sectarian bullshit.
If I saw anyone at the march in London this weekend say a single fucking word about sectarian shit I would have punched them in the face.
This shit hurts the left. There is no case for it benefiting the left in any way.
One day we will all be in an existential armed struggle ourselves. Really consider the priorities. There is no benefit to any of this shit, and in fact it risks harming support for Palestine. I assume you're not anti-Palestine, even though you won't state it. If you can support Palestinian resistance despite Hamas, you can support marxist-leninists despite sectarian disagreement, and you already are doing just that by supporting Palestine. Not to mention that almost every single fucking pro Palestine march currently happening is being organised by the "tankies" you're currently railing against.
Oh and just in case - anyone that doesn't support Palestine deserves a brick to the back of the head.
We've spoken about this before, you and me, iirc. So long as y'all keep doing anarchist direct action for mutual aid, we can be allies. Once you start trying to seize hierarchical control like some illuminated vanguard, is where it gets difficult.
This meme is about exactly this difficulty.
Let's be serious for a moment, y'all descended on me shit-posting about well known problems anarchists had with MLs. Y'all don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. You had the counter-arguments ready to post. But I'm not here to debate with you and we won't solve these disagreements here. You know what you know, I know what I know. We can agree to disagree.
But then y'all got mad that I didn't debate 12 people at a time, as if I have nothing better to do with my life on the comments of a shitpost. You can't handle one single anarchist making one single meme in an obscure anarchist sub.
This all has nothing about us being able to collaborate on things that matter. When we do those actions, nobody is going to say "Aha, I remember what you wrote in lemmy.dbzer0.com that one time about leftist unity". This is all about 1) the ego of those hexbear tankies who couldn't handle not being debated and 2) The shitposters of hexbear who just came here to have flamewars because the mods of hexbear apparently don't control anything anymore and your "left unity" only goes so much as someone disagreeing with your takes and then they're a "liberal" and therefore fair game.
I am honestly not upset. I'm am however just disappointed at the greater hexbear behaviour..
are you going to do self criticism or just keep shitting your brain and posting ass memes
Ah ok, so nothing could possibly go wrong if you keep pushing this. You won't lose any allies cuz they're already secret right wingers. Do they know that?
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.
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!
Slapping informal fallacy names on sentiments you dislike is not, in fact, a very good approach to almost anything.
That's the only response I can do to you putting words in my mouth. Don't know why you're complaining
you putting words in my mouth
You posted a meme. Use your words if you don't want people misconstruing whatever you're trying to say.
Posts words
words are read
"DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH TANKIE"
"okay then use your words to explain why me reading what you wrote misrepresents you"
No :3
I think OP is just a genuine fucking idiot and the reason they can't answer seriously in a single conversation in this thread is because there's just nothing behind their eyes to respond with
I'm not particularly putting words in your mouth, I am giving an opinion on what you said (or, rather, the subgenre of statement). You could explain, if you were so inclined, how this characterization is inaccurate rather than merely saying that it is inaccurate, but then that would require something other than a listicle on Wikipedia.
Why should I argue "I'm not an elephant" as we say in my country? This is patently absurd. You erected a strawman and I called you out. As far as I'm concerned, case closed, unless you can point where in my words I acted like a marginalized class because of historical anarchists.
Look again at the fucking meme in the OP. "oh, the tankies killed us anarchists in these historical conflicts, and they will kill us anarchists in future conflicts too if we don't stop them!"
Just saying a fucking fallacy name isn't a counterargument anymore than saying "you're wrong" is a counterargument. Actual arguments require making inferences, not just stating premises.
Personally, I think that someone leading insurrections against institutions that have overwhelming popular support due to actively working to give people healthcare, food, etc. is clearly a counterrevolutionary prick and an anarchist who opposes a project that feeds the children for the first time in centuries because it's not a syndicate is being myopic at best, but that's just me.
Personally, I think that someone leading insurrections against institutions that have overwhelming popular support due to actively working to give people healthcare, food, etc. is clearly a counterrevolutionary prick and an anarchist who opposes a project that feeds the children for the first time in centuries because it's not a syndicate is being myopic at best, but that's just me.
I applaud your Quixotic efforts to get them to argue about the topic instead of arguing about the meta argument in the most self aggrieved way.
Personally, I think that someone leading insurrections against institutions that have overwhelming popular support due to actively working to give people healthcare, food, etc. is clearly a counterrevolutionary prick and an anarchist who opposes a project that feeds the children for the first time in centuries because it's not a syndicate is being myopic at best, but that's just me.
If we were in a hypothetical revolutionary situation led by anarchists that was genuinely and successfully challenging state capitalist power here in the UK then I, as a Marxist-Leninist, wouldn't be like "Erm, guys, you haven't sufficiently considered Lenin! Aren't you aware that the hijacking and reconfiguration of the state for socialist purposes is a necessary transition period towards communism?" I would get behind the fucking barricades with them.
There's a difference between opposing lesser evilism in the context of Western capitalist electoral politics between two bourgeois parties, and like, being anti-ML or anti-anarchist in actual revolutionary situations (and not stupid fucking hypothetical internet arguments) because "it's not doing communism right." Unless there were like, REALLY fucking big problems with what the group is doing, I would just shut up and not weaken the overall movement. As Awoo stated, this is literally what ML groups are doing in Palestine as we speak.
Look again at the fucking meme in the OP. “oh, the tankies killed us anarchists in these historical conflicts, and they will kill us anarchists in future conflicts too if we don’t stop them!”
No, it means "Don't trust tankies, don't believe their tales in leftist unity". Even if we just accept what you just wrote, it's still nowhere near claiming we're a marginalized class. That's just a very uncharitable reading of this meme.
Just saying a fucking fallacy name isn’t a counterargument anymore than saying “you’re wrong” is a counterargument. Actual arguments require making inferences, not just stating premises.
Yes it fucking is! I don't have the patience to argue every inane claim people are throwing in here. I got shit to do.
Personally, I think that someone leading insurrections against institutions that have overwhelming popular support due to actively working to give people healthcare, food, etc. is clearly a counterrevolutionary prick
I wouldn't call them "counter-revolutionary" as there's nothing revolutionary about supporting the status quo, but otherwise we agree.
and an anarchist who opposes a project that feeds the children for the first time in centuries because it’s not a syndicate is being myopic at best, but that’s just me.
We also agree. But typically it's the MLs who refuse to support such anarchist projects because they're not led by MLs hierarchically.
you haven't done anything but bitch and moan at things you don't understand. No wonder you hate tankies! You have zero political literacy!
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.
Anarchists have historically not been able to lead mass industrialization in a coordinated way
Because its not anarchists job to do that but worker's job, and they are very good at self-organizing.
have not been able to lead successful military campaigns across territories as large as the USSR
You say this as if they had multiple chances to do so lol.
Because its not anarchists job to do that but worker's job, and they are very good at self-organizing.
The anarchist workers didn't do a good job. The popular front workers did a better job, the Soviet workers did a better job.
You say this as if they had multiple chances to do so lol.
They had a chance in Catalonia, a much smaller field, and couldnt coordinate there.
Ah, at least we come to the crux of the disagreement. "Anarchists, babies! MLs, strong!". It always comes down to that, but it's refreshing to see you just straight up say it sometimes, so that people can see it.
Anyway, please take your historic fiction in the appropriate places. I can pull stories out of my ass as well, but that convinces no-one.
PS: I like how you sneaked in that call to emotion at the end. Very manipulative. Love it!
Have you read anything about the failures of coordination among the anarchist militias in Catalonia? Or their failures of economic coordination beyond the local level?
Have you even absorbed the critiques enough that you are in a place to argue against them?
Because this is serious stuff that you should be educated about before you make judgements about it.
I'm very sympathetic to anarcho syndicalism, but it showed its weaknesses in Spain and sectarian anarchists blame it on the USSR instead of learning from it.
PS: I like how you sneaked in that call to emotion at the end. Very manipulative. Love it!
It is not socially well adapted to declare "appeal to emotion" when someone is communicating why something is personally important to them. What I'm doing is expressing myself in a normal human way, and you consider that manipulative?
Have you read anything about the failures of coordination among the anarchist militias in Catalonia? Or their failures of economic coordination beyond the local level?
Ah, nice try, but I already told you I'm not going to debate you on the Spanish Civil War. Why don't you go to the places where there's anarchists up for that sort of thing?
What I’m doing is expressing myself in a normal human way, and you consider that manipulative?
You implied that not crushing anarchists would have directly led to a successful genocide. Ye it's pretty manipulative.
Ah, nice try, but I already told you I'm not going to debate you on the Spanish Civil War.
I asked you if you've even read anything about it, not if you want to debate me about it.
You implied that not crushing anarchists would have directly led to a successful genocide. Ye it's pretty manipulative.
It isnt manipulative to point out that my family would have been killed if the anarchists won, it is giving you an explanation for why I have little sympathy for complaints by anarchists repeating the "stabbed in the back" myth instead of actually digging into the history of their project and learning from its failures to do better next time.
I asked you if you’ve even read anything about it, not if you want to debate me about it.
That's how they get you! taps forehead
It isnt manipulative to point out that my family would have been killed if the anarchists won,
lol, yea it is. You don't have any idea what would have happened if the anarchists won. Maybe they Spanish revolution would have worked without the backstab and Hitler would have expended himself. Who the fuck knows. It's pretty manipulative to posit a major historical event going completely differently would have worked out the same way except that it would have led this one really horrible thing which everyone has an emotional reaction to. Cmon...
That's how they get you! taps forehead
If the goal is to get you to read yes, that is the secret tankie plot, to make you a better anarchist who is able to grow from previous failures instead of acting like an aggrieved post ww1 german soldier.
It's pretty manipulative to posit a major historical event going completely differently would have worked out the same way except that it would have led this one really horrible thing. Cmon...
Were any anarchists talking about the need for massive industrialization at any cost in the late 1920s early 1930s in the soviet union? No? Then if the anarchists were in charge, yes, the nazis would have won and been able to implement plan ost.
Were any anarchists talking about the need for massive industrialization at any cost in the late 1920s early 1930s in the soviet union? No? Then if the anarchists were in charge, yes, the nazis would have won and been able to implement plan ost.
Tell me when the novel comes out.
That's how they get you! taps forehead
If you masturbate any more furiously in this thread you might faint from dehydration.
Ah, nice try, but I already told you I'm not going to debate you on the Spanish Civil War.
Only about everything else, one-handedly.
Show
- I'm not going to debate you, I'm just going to talk shit.
The difference is that I shit my pants and cry when you respond to me
Apparently shitting my pants is enough to have two dozen hexbears hopping mad to the point that they're trolling through the comments days later trying to dunk on me. Stay mad, bby!
Everybody who calls me on my behavior is mad and no that's not a transparent coping mechanism
Oh sorry I didn't know "you shit your pants" and similar terms was your collective hexbest at a call out.
In that case I do apologize for thinking the random shitposts on random comments were due to anger. You're clearly trying.
PS: I like how you sneaked in that call to emotion at the end. Very manipulative. Love it!
Go back to Reddit.
PS: I like how you sneaked in that call to emotion at the end. Very manipulative. Love it!
I like it
I love it
It's funny that
It's ironic that
It's interesting that
Reddit-brained smug enlightened centrist liberals like yourself try to mask your rage with tedious "totally not mad" sentence openers.
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Ah, at least we come to the crux of the disagreement. "Anarchists, babies! MLs, strong!". It always comes down to that, but it's refreshing to see you just straight up say it sometimes, so that people can see it.
Anyone paying attention to what they actually said and not your petulant response will notice how far your characterization is off from the actual source. You're putting on a shameful display.
@db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com hey why not this specific criticism?
Remember when you acted like I was only insulting you and not making valid criticisms? Why don't you reply to the valid criticisms instead of the insults you deserved when it became clear you refused to engage in good faith?
Because you're patronizing. Y'all are patronizing af. So You don't deserve nothing else but the ridicule and sarcasm I've been giving.
Y'all can insult me all you want. Don't worry, I can take it. There's a reason my comments are still open to y'all.
Oh wow you actually responded.
So are you going to apologize for lying, or is it just onto this new latest excuse?
Again, you're being treated the way you deserve to be treated. It's not happening in a vacuum. If you had acted like an adult in the first place no one would be treating you like a child.
I am incapable of lying. So I have nothing to apologize for.
But do keep up the patronizing attitude. It's a winner for sure.
You force people to explain things to you like a child when you lie like this.
Listen dummy: you acted like you were only getting insulted and that there was an absence of genuine criticism. So then I pointed out the criticism you lied and pretended didn't exist.
Then like the child you are, you changed your story and decided all of a sudden you weren't responding because you didn't like being treated like a child. Not even acknowledging your previous lie or the effort you forced others to go through to get past it.
Such is the manner you act like a child.
"we won't let you shoot anyone."
-Liberals standing proudly in front of nazis while captain america music plays
lol tankies in real life protect the status quo from popular movements every chance they get. Fuck outta here.
Yes, the canadian parliament, that famous hive of anarchist ideologues...
*removed externally hosted image*
Hmmm, yes, we clearly can see here who has their back to the cops.
we can't, the image is removed you fucking idiot
Or you have shit hosting
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It's already back up, FYI. But stop leaking internal details of your reverse proxy in error messages.
We already clarified hexbear is blocking it. Keep up. And this is an internal url. Good luck connecting to it. But ye, thanks for attacking my hosting capabilities. Very cool y'all are.
Hexbear doesn't permit externally hosted images:
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sure you will. you all have historically always succeeded in suppressing 'tankies'.
4/10 Can't tell if you're trying to be sarcastic or not. Work on your trolling more.
its hard to joke with someone that has no clue what the historical context is
I have no doubt you'll turn us over to the freikorps at the first opportunity.
I've just entered this thread, and that single emoji right at the top confirms my fears.
I'm sorry to be the fun police, and this isn't particularly related to everyone else's arguing in this thread, but I've always been kind of bothered by the, like, pink wojak, you know? Especially given the origins of wojaks and who popularized them, the idea of using "and he was shaking inconsolably, speaking irrationally, gnashing his teeth to smithereens, with a red face and blood-shot eyes with tears like waterfalls" as a punchline... Well, that makes it sound like that's something to point and laugh at, doesn't it? So I worry that things like that end up reinforcing the sort of civility culture in general, and anti-autistic sentiment in particular.
Just, my two kopeks, as it were.
HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE WOJAKS SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR WOJAKS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR THEM. HATE. HATE.
At least rage comics had charm. Wojacks just fell like a souless reboot
"Well, that post from yesterday has probably cooled off by now, it was fun while it laste-"
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spoiler
It's a good day to be a communist online
If you tried to show this meme to someone irl at like a political rally they'd just squint their eyes in confusion and walk away because this kind of adolescent drama is only meaningful to like a couple of hundred people total, half of whom can't vote and all of whom have 2k+ hours logged in multiple paradox games.
Astounding. I never knew real life could be different than online forums. Thanks for the lesson mate.
My point was that this sort of thing isn't even politics, it's more like niche fandom discourse. To be concerned with a hypothetical tankie takeover while living in the anglosphere is absurdly irrational and not a serious concern or topic of discussion at all.
It isn't politics. It's a meme, shared by anarchists in an anarchist forum in an anarchist instance. Not everything has to be serious all the time
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
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.
The people doing marxist sectarianism instead of defending left unity are being dummies though.
I mean you can't expect marxists to not critique anarchists? Left unity, yeah we can do that, but not arguing about everything with everyone? Nah.
Depends. There's a line it crosses from maintaining left unity while doing critique versus becoming sectarianism, and it's not useful when it is.
Yes to the first part. Although, I'll take this moment to say: hexbear's left unity could use a tune up
I'm just trying to talk about the latter behavior you described, which is kindof a symptom of what I mentioned
Yeah I agree.
I think the issue here is that since left unity only has enforcement onsite, some are baited into sectarian arguments offsite.
There's also the issue that this is specifically posing left-unity as a marxist trick.
I think the meme is a not-so-great way to address a dark topic.
But what I was talking about was the behavior of hexbear users in response that is also not cool.
But also I was just kinda fuckin around being entertained by the arguing and trying not to take it too seriously. I'm not here to take a strong stance. People seem to wanna make me take one but I'm gunna keep trying not to give a shit.
"I was just doing a bit, and you can tell how bothsides I am by how good the bit landed"
I'm not doing a bit, I'm just not trying to take this thread seriously.
Bothsides in the context of arguing about leftist unity feels like a different thing entirely, but I'm also more trying to be "neither side" if that means anything idk I'm tired.
I just want productive progress towards the end of capitalism as soon as possible. In the meantime I'm watching all the anticapitalists find reasons to hate each other forever.
What could be more left unity than MLs and anarchists coming together to embarass liberals?
not a leftist unity moment l
You can't be a fucker like OP and then complain about the lack of unity in response
I'm not complaining, I'm entertained.
And mostly using that language was me trying to reference the meme, try to bring it all full circle.
I don't get the bit so I'm not gunna answer
Instead I'll ask a question
What?
You criticize Hexbear for dunks, but also criticize them for responding at length with citations.
Wait I didn't mean to criticize citations I love citations mb.
What did I say I'll edit it
Hexbear comes here to be the debate bros they try so hard to dunk on.
What sort of behavior are you critiquing here?
Personally I think "debate bro" stuff is more arguing for the sake of arguing/bending over backwards to defend even trivial or weak points, maybe with a sprinkling of going back-and-forth long after it becomes clear you're at an impasse. I don't see a lot of that here anyway.
It involves a wide variety of behaviors, including the stuff you said, but primarily the first thing that comes to mind for me is the behaviour of trying to force/coerce people to engage in debates/discussions that they don't want to have or are otherwise unprepared to have, usually on the bad-faith preposition that anyone who is unwilling to participate in said debate/discussion must only be unwilling for the reason of being wrong.
debates/discussions that they don't want to have or are otherwise unprepared to have
I see your point, but I think this is seriously undermined when you have someone like OP who is willing to post all day about this, and occasionally willing to dip their toes into trying to raise real points, but then throws up their hands and says "hey it's just a
jokememe" whenever they're in a tough spot.Eh, IMO it was more like they attempted to engage in response, and then tapped out when it went over their head. Or maybe they just got busy IRL.
It doesn't seem good to me to try and rationalize shitty behavior just because of a reason someone might deserve it.
Also tho, if you wanna call them a lib and consider them officially dunked, you don't need a certain response from them for it to work, you can just decide that.
Or maybe they just got busy IRL
Looks like they've been posting pretty hard in this thread for at least 6-7 hours, often multiple paragraphs at a time.
It doesn't seem good to me to try and rationalize shitty behavior just because of a reason someone might deserve it.
It's not shitty behavior to make a political response to a political meme, or to point out when someone isn't having a good faith conversation.
Please don't. I take that seriously and it is obtuse to pretend you don't know the phrase "debate bro". It was a cultural reference, and I have no intention at any point of misgendering anyone.
Use debate nerd instead in cases where you don't want to gender people.
"debatenerd" I'm picking this up! But in my defense, I was saying "debate me bro", as in, someone who says "debate me, bro"
So, there is this cool thing you can do called making memes gender neutral instead of calling trans women bros.
Since you take misgendering extremely seriously, I thought you should know about this neat trick.
This is a meme I am referencing after seeing it on hexbear. Specifically imitating their language to make a point. Maybe we should talk to them about it too. I obviously hadn't considered the full implications, and will not use that phrase anymore, for sure.
I don't remember seeing that specifically, I might have, but I did specifically see the other several times.
I'm not trying to make enemies, or say hexbear is as bad as people make it out to be
This thread is just no good
I mean communists are not well known for agreeing on things and not arguing about stuff.
I'm not saying I think this is the end of leftism as we know it or anything. I'm just appreciating the bar fight I guess.
It hasn't been a friendly thread.
If OP had the tiniest scrap of good faith in their being, things would have gone differently
I mean they just shared a meme from an instance you aren't federated with and quickly had like 20 people trying to demand complex conversations about history with them.
A lot of the complaints directed at them would be better served directed at whoever made the meme.
Maybe don't share history memes you don't even remotely understand that vilify people whose perspective you don't remotely understand? Dude has received some real softball questions and whiffed.
But OP doesn't give a shit, his ideology is "Dae tabkies bad" and the actual historical claims are secondary.
Can HBs just not ignore this slop? This happens like every 2 months, someone shows up says some bad faith shit, we post and dunk all over it, they take what we said and make more posts out of it in bad faith, we post and dunk again, over and over. Can't we realize that this is just narcissism being narcissism, ignore and block? This post would have had like 4 responses if we hadn't engaged. Instead we are just running a fucking wrecker training camp. Don't give them any oxygen and let them crawl back to
idk not trying to be unfair it just seems kind of obvious what is going onWell, well, we've gone from radlib, to shitlib to stormfront in record time. Par for the course of course, but please do ignore me in the future.
I was talking about a pattern of posting behavior that I've noticed that seeks a kind of recursive negative attention. The stormfront emoji is a reference to reddit. I haven't seen any racist or white supremacist comments from you. I would also take it personally if I thought that was what I was being accused of, so I understand. But my post says to "crawl back to reddit" I forgot you can't see my emojis. I didn't come here to insult you, I just find it funny that we do this every few months.
Edit: nvm maybe you can see that it is a reddit logo and you are just choosing to interpret it that way. In any case I'm concerned that you might be upsetting yourself over things that aren't important. You should try to get more sleep, drink more water, and find a way to spend your free time that is more positive than whatever this is
No I see only stormfront on my end. I had no idea this is reference to reddit. I do recognise this is in reddit style but I didn't make thats connection.
But what pattern of the posting behaviour do you see from me? I don't think I ever posted about hexbear ever and I certainly haven't been trying to attract brigades like this.
Well, I wouldn't expect anyone to consciously admit that they are trying to "attract brigades," and I don't want to get mired in psychoanalysis, since I'm trying not to be unfair. Since I'm talking to you directly, imo it seems like this isn't really about you. This has all of the markings of a hexbear struggle session, and let's just say that certain (likely bad-faith) characters have been more than happy becoming the subject of those sessions.
I have been on the receiving end of this kind of thing before, not to this level, but its hard not to take it personally. but also your meme really sucks. That being said, I've met some MLs who have been just as dogmatically and ahistorically committed to an anti-anarchist position, and plenty of anarchists who would agree with this meme. So this doesn't exist in a vacuum, there is a history of struggles that communists and anarchists have found themselves willingly or unwillingly on different sides of. But reckoning with that long history of struggle is anathema to the point of this meme, as well as dogmatic opponents of anarchism on our side of the anarcho/commie split. All of these tendencies try to flatten history into memes and then tries to defend the history that the medium has just eradicated, and its in itself a disastrous way to confront and engage with history. But I come from a tradition that actually reads history and struggles with it, and chooses to hold the contradictions as inevitable rather than degenerating into vulgar campism. I wish I could get more comrades to engage with history in good faith instead of just picking out discrete decontextualized quotes and events to support whatever their beliefs are,but we all have liberal brainworms we are working through and I'm not going to pretend I have the magic solution that is going to bring about the idealized anarcho-commune.
I think there are ways to work together, I work with anarchists in my organizing and I would never betray them like this and frankly resent the implication that I would. I'm not sure if that's the nerve you touched with everyone here, I don't really care. I just wish this shitpost wasn't getting all this attention, but not often have any of my wishes for the left come true
I do think the hexbears took the meme a bit too literally for a meme. It's pretty low quality, wojaks and all and I was and am perfectly happy for people to deconstruct it and argue against it. I only didn't have the time to debate or the mood to be interrogated. And thats infuriated the hexbears.
About the subject matter, While I believe you wouldn't ever betray your comrades as it is now, this kind of thing never happens one day to the next. I don't think Stalin in 1917 ever thought he'd send hired assassin's after Trotsky. But the methods and praxis that MLs use invariably lead to this sort of decisions.
You all think I'm calling you all secret murderers, I'm not. I don't think any of you has nothing but the best intentions for your anarchist comrades, but I'm saying that your praxis will inevitably lead to it. I'm not even being novel here. Bakunin was saying the same thing.
And thats infuriated the hexbears.
Not everyone who disagrees with you is upset. You've constantly accused everyone else in this thread of being emotional but seriously, we're not, you expressed a bad opinion and we disagreed with it, that's just how internet forums work. Either grow the fuck up and learn how to handle disagreements, or stop posting inflammatory content that others are going to voice their disagreement with. This "I'm not mad, you all are mad" shtick isn't working, literally no one is buying it, and it's just giving people a reason to make fun of you even harder because you don't appear to have the emotional maturity to deal with other people expressing opinions that differ from your own.
Feel free to make fun of me, mate. I left the comments open for y'all because I love seeing you in action!
I'm not any more an ML than I am an anarchist. Im a communist, but that doesn't make me an ML. I told you I come from a unique tradition, please respect that. I agree with you that there were certain decisions made during the Russian revolution that, when crystallized into dogma (which it has in some glaring cases), would lead to the sort of thing that you are talking about. But if I had to guess, you wouldn't be a reliable source for historical context from that era anyway.
You don't know the first thing about my praxis. The side that is doing the purges is not the side that I am on. Please stop trying to flatten everything and everyone to fit into your shit post. I promise you, if you stay on this path you will end up doing great psychic damage to yourself. I know its hard to deal with historic contradiction but that's not an excuse. History is calling us to do better, to create the conditions that will bring about the commune, not turn everything into memes. Ask yourself what you are getting out of this. Try to step outside your ego, I'll try to do the same
But you're right, I probably should just ignore you. Cheers.
"Tankie" was a term used to describe those that supported Khrushchev sending tanks to hungaria during that whole thing. Now, it's been swallowed by western "leftists" and spit out to mean, in summary, "i can't imagine anyone being more left than me, so they must be secret fake leftists that are actually fascists and golly gee i'm so smart." comrade brain_in_a_box said it very well that it's just the lib/soccdem/anarchist version of "woke:" just a random buzzword to refer to anything they don't like.
This is the third iteration of this post i see and the third one where the MLs who on hexbear are like "yeah we love our anarchist comrades" are not practicing the smallest crumb of self crit. Also very encouraging to see that the brainrot about 56 hungary is still spreading.
Yeah, we really should respond with self crit to such valid critiques as:
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That being said I responded genuinely civilly, which is much more than OP deserves.
It's wild how you feel compelled to complain about the dang intolerant tankies and not the anarcho-bidenism this post is predicated on.
honestly this comment is just incoherent enough to not know whos side you're on, and that makes it wayyy funnier than it should
(of course we do know whos side you're on due to the incoherency)
Sinophobic anarchists aren't comrades. They can join the pit with all the other Sinophobic reactionaries.
If this was real life and someone showed me ch*nky eyes Mao, my only self crit would be failing to punch them in the face then and there.
I am once again asking the mods for a new site headline
