Look I'm all for making the chill anarchist peeps here feel welcome but I think the strict enforcement anti-sectarianism rule has maybe led to some people having a slightly distorted view of things. I've seen people on here say "most real life anarchists support AES states" which is, like, totally not true at all, seriously. Go to an anarchist group and bring up China or the USSR.
And yeah it's kind of been a thing for a while that a lot of anarchists seem to have a rather western sympathetic geopolitical analysis cuz they see a lot of socialist state as more domestically repressive than western bourgeoisie democracies. It's a thing MLs have been talking about since the 60s. But we all seem to feign ignorance of this stuff in the name of making the rather small community of anarchists who post here feel welcome, but let's be Frank, a big part of the reason they do feel welcome here is they're far more sympathetic to ML talking points than they're average anarchist. If this site had a larger anarchist community there would be a lot more conflict between them and the ML user base because at the end of the day we very strongly disagree with each other on some very important issues.
Most real life anarchists I know are indifferent or incoherent on AES states, just from anecdotal experience. They're a mixed bag. Like one guy I know used to call all American cops "tankies" but he was weirdly both pro-DPRK and anti-China. Might have been because his dad fought in Korea, so he ended up with weird stances.
The most common opinion though is that it just never comes up. Even in anarchist groups I've been with they might mention China occasionally, but then the moment passes and they'd get back to handing out food or whatever. It's normally irrelevant and people doing real life stuff tend to recognize that, at least.
I'm trying to imagine myself having an internet style debate over the Soviet presence in the Spanish civil war with the 67 year old Christian anarchist lady who made muffins for the shelter
I mean yeah I find working with anarchists is fine if you just avoid broaching the subject.
I will say I WAS an anarchist and, often when among other anarchists, the word "tankie" was used a lot, as well as "Stalinism".
I would point out if you've had cordial experiences with anarchists, that maybe an attempt by them to be anti-sectarian themselves. Which is commendable, but they're doing it out of the same desire an ML in the same room isn't going to start calling them "anarchakitties", politeness and a desire to work together. Behind closed doors and among ideological peers we often have harsher words for each other.
Edit: thought of another point I wanted to make.
It's normally irrelevant and people doing real life stuff tend to recognize that, at least.
I hear this get said a lot and yeah I think it's true for like, mutual aid type stuff like Food Not Bombs or whatever. I think when trying to organize bigger stuff we run into an issue. I mentioned elsewhere in the thread the new Bevins book If We Burn and how it made me really think that a lot of "leaderless" and "decentralized" modes of organizing are ineffective at best and horribly counter productive at work, and any successful socialist movement is going to require some kind of centralized leadership. Anarchist groups, in the west at least, are pretty opposed to this and it makes organizing larger actions in tangent with them difficult to impossible, since actually unifying a group with a specific message or demand is impossible when you have a contingent that wants it to be a bit more like a spontaneous street fair. Not saying that to be derogatory, I've literally seen anarchists groups describe their actions as being street fair like.
Maybe, I have no idea what they say amongst themselves. My experiences might be different than most folks here. I'm from the south and a lot of anarchist orgs here sometimes have crossover with church groups, and sometimes people will belong to both. The Unitarian Universalists also a somewhat big leftist presence here and they often swing a little anarchist.
So a lot of anarchists I've worked with don't have the same global geopolitical outlook as we might have. They're more concerned with right here and now, or spiritual matters. If they have an opinion on AES states it tends to swing either the same as any other American or complete indifference. Hope my perspective and experiences help.
Anarchists are often true believers. We treat them with utter disdain but they genuinely believe the USSR or whatever the target of their wrath is to have been bigoted/genocidal/whatever.
We’re so used to dealing with liberals that deploy this stuff cynically that it’s kind of off putting, but these are not opportunists or even people particularly deserving of our malice, just people deeply misled.
Yes, I know, “propaganda is just an excuse”, but these people have been legitimately led to believe that most communists want to repress and hurt them, and the terminally online but ever present queerphobic “comrades” in many online spaces don’t help.
This isn’t really an inherent aspect of the ideology, but instead, I think it’s a side effect of the already existing contradictions between ML and anarchist thought
Did anybody have anarcho-collaborationism on their 2024 bingo card?
Honestly, yeah kinda.
Look I'm all for making the chill anarchist peeps here feel welcome but I think the strict enforcement anti-sectarianism rule has maybe led to some people having a slightly distorted view of things. I've seen people on here say "most real life anarchists support AES states" which is, like, totally not true at all, seriously. Go to an anarchist group and bring up China or the USSR.
And yeah it's kind of been a thing for a while that a lot of anarchists seem to have a rather western sympathetic geopolitical analysis cuz they see a lot of socialist state as more domestically repressive than western bourgeoisie democracies. It's a thing MLs have been talking about since the 60s. But we all seem to feign ignorance of this stuff in the name of making the rather small community of anarchists who post here feel welcome, but let's be Frank, a big part of the reason they do feel welcome here is they're far more sympathetic to ML talking points than they're average anarchist. If this site had a larger anarchist community there would be a lot more conflict between them and the ML user base because at the end of the day we very strongly disagree with each other on some very important issues.
Most real life anarchists I know are indifferent or incoherent on AES states, just from anecdotal experience. They're a mixed bag. Like one guy I know used to call all American cops "tankies" but he was weirdly both pro-DPRK and anti-China. Might have been because his dad fought in Korea, so he ended up with weird stances.
The most common opinion though is that it just never comes up. Even in anarchist groups I've been with they might mention China occasionally, but then the moment passes and they'd get back to handing out food or whatever. It's normally irrelevant and people doing real life stuff tend to recognize that, at least.
Always good to keep in perspective. So many slap fights are about things no one involved has any real stake in.
I'm trying to imagine myself having an internet style debate over the Soviet presence in the Spanish civil war with the 67 year old Christian anarchist lady who made muffins for the shelter
I can visualize being hit with a wooden spoon tbh
I mean yeah I find working with anarchists is fine if you just avoid broaching the subject.
I will say I WAS an anarchist and, often when among other anarchists, the word "tankie" was used a lot, as well as "Stalinism".
I would point out if you've had cordial experiences with anarchists, that maybe an attempt by them to be anti-sectarian themselves. Which is commendable, but they're doing it out of the same desire an ML in the same room isn't going to start calling them "anarchakitties", politeness and a desire to work together. Behind closed doors and among ideological peers we often have harsher words for each other.
Edit: thought of another point I wanted to make.
I hear this get said a lot and yeah I think it's true for like, mutual aid type stuff like Food Not Bombs or whatever. I think when trying to organize bigger stuff we run into an issue. I mentioned elsewhere in the thread the new Bevins book If We Burn and how it made me really think that a lot of "leaderless" and "decentralized" modes of organizing are ineffective at best and horribly counter productive at work, and any successful socialist movement is going to require some kind of centralized leadership. Anarchist groups, in the west at least, are pretty opposed to this and it makes organizing larger actions in tangent with them difficult to impossible, since actually unifying a group with a specific message or demand is impossible when you have a contingent that wants it to be a bit more like a spontaneous street fair. Not saying that to be derogatory, I've literally seen anarchists groups describe their actions as being street fair like.
Maybe, I have no idea what they say amongst themselves. My experiences might be different than most folks here. I'm from the south and a lot of anarchist orgs here sometimes have crossover with church groups, and sometimes people will belong to both. The Unitarian Universalists also a somewhat big leftist presence here and they often swing a little anarchist.
So a lot of anarchists I've worked with don't have the same global geopolitical outlook as we might have. They're more concerned with right here and now, or spiritual matters. If they have an opinion on AES states it tends to swing either the same as any other American or complete indifference. Hope my perspective and experiences help.
That's fair. Perhaps check my edit I'm curious your response to that.
Anarchists are often true believers. We treat them with utter disdain but they genuinely believe the USSR or whatever the target of their wrath is to have been bigoted/genocidal/whatever.
We’re so used to dealing with liberals that deploy this stuff cynically that it’s kind of off putting, but these are not opportunists or even people particularly deserving of our malice, just people deeply misled.
Yes, I know, “propaganda is just an excuse”, but these people have been legitimately led to believe that most communists want to repress and hurt them, and the terminally online but ever present queerphobic “comrades” in many online spaces don’t help.
This isn’t really an inherent aspect of the ideology, but instead, I think it’s a side effect of the already existing contradictions between ML and anarchist thought
OP’s link is from 2022 actually