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I hate it when liberals call themselves anarchists, it's really harming the reputation of actual anarchists
I mean, this seems to be an actual anarchist group that's done actual anarchist organizing stuff before this. I don't think we can write this one off as "fake internet anarchists".
Why would anarchists help the Ukrainian state though?
same reason Castro sent gay people to camps. Sometimes it really be your own.https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67U4JE/
Not willing to take Reuters completely at their word, but the article has a fairly neutral tone so I'd say it's most likely true.
the article has a fairly neutral tone so I'd say it's most likely true
Not a great way to evaluate veracity. Similar articles from the same outlet will casually refer to AES states as dictatorships, for instance. The nonchalant tone just signals "everyone knows this and you're a fool if you dare question it."
This article pulls from research by a Cuban-born, Cuban-educated academic (El cuerpo nunca olvida by Abel Sierra Madero). That research would probably be the best take on the subject if someone better at Spanish wants to track it down (it mentions interviews with actual participants). From the El Pais article, even reading with a critical eye, it seems fair to say:
- From 1965 to 1968 the Military Units to Aid Production (UMAP) system existed, which served as "served as centers of production and political correction." I'd call those "labor camps," although the article provides little information on typical conditions (though it does hint at some bad anecdotes).
- There was at least "the pretext of performing compulsory military service," and "homosexuals and religious people predominated." Not a lot is said about who had what intentions with respect to the program, but it's clear there was some prejudice.
- 30,000 people passed through UMAP out of a 1965 population of 8 million, or about 0.375% of Cubans.
This isn’t a case of No True Scotsman, if you’re sending guns to a bourgoisie state you’re not an anarchist lmao
Like imagine someone claiming Pol Pot is indicative of real ML’s or something
Well, if we're gonna go down that route.
Other leftist tendencies have argued for making strategic alliances with non-leftists in the name of achieving a goal. For example, MLs arguing that anti-imperialism sometimes necessitates making alliances with nationalist groups in opposition of foreign occupation. So I don't see why an anarchist couldn't argue that making an alliance with a LESS authoritarian state to oppose the aggression of a MORE authoritarian one is any different than an ML arguing for making an alliance with the national bourgeoisie against the imperialist bourgeoisie.
Well, because “authoritarian” isn’t actually a real thing, I always got the impression modern anarchists had more complex beliefs than that (and have good reason to have that impression)
I always got the impression modern anarchists had more complex beliefs than that
I was an anarchist for several years and still have friends in that community and the term authoritarian is still very much popular and commonly used
So I've read a bit of Vincent Bevins "If We Burn" and it's convinced me that horizontalism and leaderlessness are both both terrible ways to organize.
Nothing more anarchist than providing equipment and support to a bourgeois state.
"horizontal volunteer organization" sounds like they're loading up the mass graves of the latest batch of Ukrainian conscripts
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.
it just never comes up... It's normally irrelevant
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 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.
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
Could you elaborate? I had a friend who stanned Makhno and said that them not getting crushed by the USSR would have been "the good timeline for socialism". I was wondering what the controversy was between Makhno and the USSR.
Iirc the Makhnovites didn’t do the pogroms, but they were common among the bandit armies during the civil war. The red army thing is true, obviously
oh so that's where all the fucking milsurp boots are going to, huh?
It's already that there's been "anarchist" volunteers to Ukraine last year. I remember talking mad shit to them when they were mourning their losses on the Ukrainian frontline alongside their neo-nazi paramilitary comrades who's unit they were attached to.
I also remember there was like six other dudes with this guy that were in Right Sector who were KIA alongside him.
Who knows if they're still doing it but it was a thing that happened
The anti-sectarianism rule hasn’t gone far enough, all it’s done is prevent actual discussion and allowed people to subtly dunk on anarchists with no clap back, and prevent actual theory synthesis. We need to go farther and force people to actually make left Unity theory
We need to go farther and force people to actually make left Unity theory
Well step one to that is making an honest assessment of each sides honest criticism of each other. Thing is I think the current anti-sectarian rule kind of forbids that.
There's a comment I tried to save but it got deleted, but it basically points out how the rule works now is mods just ban anything that offends anyone. Issue is, substantial criticism usually stings worse than light jeering, so really while the rule is SUPPOSED to allow for polite intellectual disagreement, it doesn't really work out that way cuz that tends to piss people off more than making snide but welling meaning jokes.
I kind of disagree that snide comments are better because IMO they’re so much worse, especially over years and years of the same stuff. The fact they’re mostly allowed is easily the worst part of the rule, it’s just not strong enough
Y'all meme, but actual anarchists looking at an invasion by any military force is going to fight it. They figure they'll live another day under Ukraine than Russia.
They're not really fighting it though, they're just directly giving aid to the military of their government. I'd at least respect them enlisting, forming their own militia to fight, doing aid work for refugees or what-have-you, but it seems kinda dumb to just give equipment to a force that's probably going to be turned on you once the conflict is over. At least if they enlisted themselves they'd get their own guns.
What do you think Russia is going to do when they win this war? I'm not seeing how one right wing state is better than another for anarchists. If anything, shouldn't they be fighting against the state that is celebrating nazis?
The faster the anarchists in Ukraine can help end this war, the faster Ukraine's fascists will be able to get back to their domestic political goals of crushing leftists into a fine paste. Be real about this, Ukraine isn't going to play nice just because anarchists coughed up a few pairs of boots.
Ukraine and Russia are the same thing and run by the same types of people. Anarchists would fare the same in either place.
You're also wrong, because when WW1 began the correct leftist stance was revolutionary defeatism, not national chauvinism. That is, the correct stance was actively encouraging the war to cease, not joining it. This is why the second international ended up splitting, because some leftists broke off to support their own country in the war. The Bolsheviks were correct by declaring all sides were detrimental to the working class and refusing any part in it.
The correct anarchist stance would be sabotaging any war effort at all to prevent more pointless death.
