Gotta keep in mind that many internet Anarchists are angry young people who haven't had much if any connection with Anarchist or other left movements. They still mostly trapped in a world of NATO propaganda and if you uncritically accept everything NATOstan says about communism then internet "No gods no bedtimes" no theory "anarchism" looks reasonable. I'd suggest go dig in to real shit - The old school stuff like Kropotkin, but also look up modern, functioning Anarchist projects. There aren't a lot of big ones but there are lots of places where communities are run on either explicitly Anarchist lines or on lines that meaningfully run parallel to Anarchist thought. Try to look for projects outside of NATOstan and the Anglosphere. Places in the global south seem to be a lot less prone to being infected with NATO brainworms. I wish I had some examples but it's been a while since I've looked it up, but you're looking for coops, community self defense orgs, community infrastructure development, things like that. I'd say look up the Zapatistas as a starting point. Don't worry too much about what the rest of the world calls them, try to dig up their own writings about their project and how it works day to day.

If you want deliberate critique, the list in the sidebar has entries for explicitly anti-ML writings; the post-left (the real kind, not the Twitter kind) section also has some zine-sized critiques of the organizational methods of the "old Left". Also lots of other good stuff to read.

I think part of the reason for a lack of substantive ML critique is that many anarchist currents are organized around creating and advancing a (often quite narrow) political project in the Here and Now, and do not necessarily concern themselves with the dissection of dead leaves. Some of these manifest as gangs, squats, ZADs, insurrectionary movements, FnB, etc. This is not to say that these groups do not or have not Read Theory, but that the digestion and interpretation of Theory is subordinate to the acts of creation and destruction.

It is also important to draw a distinction between Anarchism the Western political philosophy and anarchism the lived practice. Key to small-a anarchism are taking up space and a cognizance of cotemporality. We are Here together Now. Communal farms and living spaces, traditional ecological knowledge, communal child-rearing and education practices, and temporary affinity groups can all demonstrate these ideas. The default Western perspective on the apportionment of space by contract and the linearization and quantification of time mediates the relation of both the individual and the collective to the Here and Now. In this way, the importation of a Marxist or Anarchist body of theory and practice may grind against the principles that guide an existing current. Marxists and Anarchists are perhaps at odds since they disagree about the proper way to exploit the resources of the planet, but they are both bound up fundamentally in production relations.

On this last point, there are some extant sources regarding indigenous critiques of Marxism:

• Red Skin, White Masks
• Indigenous Peoples, Marxism and Late Capitalism
  • This also cites an older paper, The Silko Road
  • The Silko Road draws on the works of Leslie Marmon Silko
  • Some additional commentary on Silko's Almanac of the Dead in the context of 2008

I also found Beyond Settler Time: Temporal Sovereignty and Indigenous Self-Determination illuminating.

To be pithy about it, Marxist and much of Anarchist thought place Now at the end of a line called History and Here within the long-collapsed walls of dead empires. Lived anarchist practice does not fix Here and Now beyond the immediate.

I am also obligated to say: Read Desert.

"communism doesn't work because communists are doomed to repeat the same exploitative power structures of the capitalist state">

I'd love it if you expanded on this cause i've been on this massively ML dominated space for years and still haven't been convinced that they're not (though i was always an anarchist so that might not matter that much). One of the main function of a state is reproducing it's power, that's why it can't wither away, especially in a world dominated by capitalist mode of production where communist states are forced to develop their productive forces.

"we dont know what an anarchist society will look like we gotta wait til we get there!"

We don't know what a communist society will look like either, mind you, we have blueprints at best. I posted an essay a few weeks ago about revolutionary spain and how anarchists there organized themselves and they definitely were getting there. You can check out Diego Abad de Santilan's writings to see a pretty concrete vision of how they wanted to make things work (though he's somewhat of a pariah cause he joined the revolutionary government, which is, yeah, not very anarchist).

Apart from that Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos (it's in the sidebar) is, while a pretty basic, but is another good example that shows why anarchism is anything but idealistic since it shows that the basics of anarchism together or separate were actually laid into praxis tons of times.

One thing to keep in mind tho which i see all the time is that anarchists have a different notion of what a successful revolution is than marxists, since their methods are different and i see this turning into a dick measuring contest still. For anarchists any revolution and any activity that creates stateless bubbles is a success, even if it's crushed in two years. That's why i specifically can't look at the USSR and say it's a success story, because while it existed, the state never withered.

Apart from that, what i think is also a huge and catastrophic misunderstanding is that most MLs still think On Authority is the greatest gotcha ever existed, but in my opinion doesn't do anything apart from conflating authority and force. Anarchists have proven thousands of time since it was written that they are very willing to use force against capitalists and fascists but biting the hand that beats you in itself is not an authoritarian act. What anarchists didn't do is setting up state structures where everyone's every step is monitored and you're encouraged to snitch on your friends and neighbours. Yes, i know we live in a system like that currently as well. That's why i say, from an anarchist standpoint there's no difference.

So yeah two critique's of Engels i've found interesting is this one and this one.

The EZLN does not identify with the western political paradigm and thus they are not anarchist and they openly reject the label, but they are radical and they are opposed to MLism, not in an absolute opposition sort of way but in a strongly critical sort of way.

Subcommandante Marcos has written criticisms of MLism and similar stuff. One of his big communiques in this respect is the unequivocal I Shit On All the Revolutionary Vanguards of this Planet which is a response to criticisms leveled against the EZLN.

For something a bit more dry and measured is Listen, Marxist! by Murray Bookchin, who is a contentious figure in anarchism as he too doesn't truly fit within anarchism as he broke with it later in his life, although this piece was written prior to this development in his politics so I'd say it's a decent example of an anarchist counter-argument to what MLs argue for.

For a longer-form defense of the anarchist position in a more general sense, one that addresses ML criticisms without necessarily responding directly to them, is Anarchy Works by Peter Gelderloos. It's not really something that attempts to deconstruct the ML position but I think that it will still be valuable in challenging your beliefs.

Check out the work of Wayne Price. Pick whatever seems interesting https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/wayne-price

This is somewhat related to the thread as this guy critiques Marxism a lot on his channel, what are Hexbear anarchist thoughts on this guy: https://www.youtube.com/@Anark/videos

He seems at first glance more coherent than most Internet Anarchists I've encountered, is he a good source on anarchist theory?

idk, looking at beehives and termite mounds I was never able to pick out which one of them was the General Secretary

were you?

You don't really need to read something as specific as anarchist theory to challenge a bias towards Leninism.

If Leninism itself leaves comparatively too much to be desired, or plenty of other strategies have something sufficiently desirable that Leninism lacks, that's enough to challenge Leninism.

Anarchism is a very specific strategy, centered on prefiguration, as well as effective and horizontal power building that developed in Europe in response to an increasingly industrial society. But of course, plenty of effective and horizontal power building movements arose in response to different conditions and weren't anarchist. The Zapatistas are explicitly anti-anarchist (though another commenter in this thread you were interacting with seems to be implying that they self-identify as anarchists and it's the rest of the world that refuses to acknowledge them as such???), and are an anti-colonial movement centered around a national identity of being colonized.

What distinguishes anarchism is that, because it is in response to industrial society, it developed strategies specific to a structural analysis befitting industrial society. Even if nothing about anarchism turned out to be compelling to you, there would still be plenty of room to challenge Leninism. The organic centralists of the ICP have plenty to say about Leninism, as do councilists, and all of these theories share with anarchism all kinds of desirable things that Leninism lacks.

But that said, a pretty comprehensive reading to get an idea at least for what contemporary organizational dualists are up to these days is Turning the Tide which was published May of last year.

As for why it shifted to anarchism, so for background, it was for a while just sort of sympathetic to both historical materialist-style communist strategies (what you call 'Marxism,' henceforth 'histcom') and anarchist strategies. Namely, a lot of left-communist doctrines and anarchist doctrines had a great deal of predictive and explanatory power, and seemed to provide a plausible way to combat the ubiquity of domination (especially the domination of nonhumans, which was of particular interest to it). So it was never a Leninist histcom, but it was pretty sympathetic to histcom approaches.

Two things make histcom approaches extremely unappealing. First, histcom texts and discussions are extremely unconducive to filling in holes in their structural analysis. Be honest, how much success have you had explaining suicidism to a group of Leninists who've never heard of it? How much success would you expect if you did this: Go from Leninist group to Leninist group. They aren't antecedently anti-psychiatry. Make them listen to mad people about why therapy and psychiatry must be smashed at all costs.

it can tell you from experience that your success rate will be very low. Leftcoms have this problem to a great extent too. This is a problem. At the pro-Hamas actions where it is, a Leninist group that hates queer people keeps trying to infiltrate the actions and capture members, the majority of whom turn out to be queer or queer allies. That is truly how far behind their structural analysis is, putting aside the fact that they're a well-known abusive cult here. This is not cherry-picking, it is par for the course for large Leninist groups with local chapters everywhere to have no cognizance of anti-queer violence, sanism, suicidism, speciesism, no conception of what heteropatriarchal slurs are, no willingness to understand the transmisogyny of punitive degendering, just a total lack of analysis of our objective or subjective conditions.

Second, histcom texts and discussions are extremely incapable of recognizing abuse, or even conceiving of what abuse even is, and it's often downplayed! Abuse is, to be clear, a huge issue in anarchist spaces, especially Food Not Bombs chapters. It's not specific to any tendency. But after starting a pro-survivorship specific organization nearly a decade ago, what it's found is that anarchists have the tools to unlearn abuse and learn what abuse is. To recognize that abuse is ubiquitous, that we are all born fascists and colonists and must unlearn that violence, that to address abuse is to assume it will occur and to study, analyze, and plan accordingly.

Histcoms, and especially Leninists, are not in a similar position. And this seems to be a phenomenon that owes itself to the origin of both traditions. Where anarchists are incredibly willing to recognize Bakunin's treatment of his Jewish comrades and the incredible trauma and pain that must have caused, histcoms are generally extremely unwilling to admit to Marx and Engels's pattern of forming abusive relationships with those more vulnerable than them and forcing them into isolation. Or, they're unwilling to really put themselves in the uncomfortable position of really sitting with Lenin's choice to harbor Bauman after Bauman drove a woman to suicide by abusing her over a long period of time. To really sit and internalize what she must have felt, what she would have felt knowing Lenin upheld Bauman to the point that he is today memorialized with a statue while she is forgotten, having gotten to achieve nothing.

it thinks it understands why Leninists and mainstream Leninist texts so frequently do this. This denial is a way of maintaining social strength. If you admit to atrocities, it makes your ideology less appealing. But it sees it differently. If you are willing to sit with the atrocities and the pain of your ideology, and really grapple with the mistakes in analysis and action that made those atrocities possible, then you're willing to do the work to ensure you don't immediately drive off victim-survivors. Abuse denialism doesn't wave a red flag with a yellow hammer and sickle, it just raises a red flag. One that says "you'll be victimized here too."

Addressing abuse among revolutionaries is such a pressing issue, and over and over histcoms (including some leftcoms!) glorify their favorite figures, deny the historical record when it says these people are abusers, even to victim-survivors. How could anyone reasonably conclude that a tendency that consistently does that over and over could ever be the right path forward?

Abuse among anarchists is just as ubiquitous, but if you talk to an anarchist about power dynamics as being central to abuse, they won't hazily quote Engels's "On Authority" at you and say the concept of 'power' is reductive or whatever. They'll understand. And they'll genuinely improve and do better next time when figuring out who to deplatform and who to empower. They'll recognize anti-survivorship, they'll recognize when some org refuses to center a victim and is kicking out an abuser for appearances without actually listening to what the victim wants or needs for their safety. Anarchism just has a better fucking track record at being a bulwark against chauvinism and abuse.

it was never really sympathetic to Leninism in particular, but it was sympathetic to other histcom tendencies, and to some extent it still is. But a lot of love's been lost from these experiences, and hopefully that answers your question of how it shifted from histcom-leaning to anarchist-committed.

But as it said above, if you don't find anarchism convincing, it would far sooner you gain an interest in the ICP than sticking with Leninism.

Read Listen Marxist by Bookchin.

It's pretty good. It's a history book.

The take-home point is that the Bolsheviks crushed their opponents including the Russian working class.

If you want a comprehensive resource then An Anarchist FAQ has an entire section dedicated to state socialism https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionH.html.

Some your questions are answered there like:

• H.1.4 Do anarchists have "absolutely no idea" of what to put in place of the state?
• H.3.7 What is wrong with the Marxist theory of the state?

And if you want some more examples of an anarchist society then Section I is dedicated to that.

Although It is worth noting that there are a lot of different anarchists and the FAQ does not speak for all of them. I just think it manages to get the basics across very well.