I just discovered that Radical Reviewer believes the western account of the 1932 Ukranian famine, and I could not be more disappointed.
I just discovered that Radical Reviewer believes the western account of the 1932 Ukranian famine, and I could not be more disappointed.
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Those were actually in different parts of Ukraine, and that bourgeois you speak of were Ukrainians, and they got gulagged for burning grain, whatever nationalist reasons they had for doing so don't make any difference.
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The Makhnovists power base was the peasantry, they were the centrist option between white army serfdom and red army collectivization and requisitioning grain for the cities. Though Makhno would later lose support due to him too using forced requisitioning and conscription of the peasantry under the pretext that the community had as a whole voluntarily accepted anarchism and as a whole had volunteered for mobilization, meaning individuals had no say in the matter.
And why would the Bolsheviks collaborate with Anarchists who had committed terrorist acts against Bolshevik figures and engaged in pure banditry against supply lines while openly advocating the razing of the soviet state? This great betrayal shit is fucking cringe, own up to the fact that the Anarchists were locked in a mortal battle with the Bolsheviks and fucking lost once the white army threat was eliminated.
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The most infuriating part is if I point out the literal terrorist bombings that nearly killed prominent figures like Bukharin or the assassination attempt on Lenin, a ton of anarchists will reply that that stuff was cool and based without resolving the contradiction of the Bolsheviks betraying people who literally tried to destroy the Bolsheviks.
The truth of the matter is the Bolsheviks didnt betray the anarchists, the anarchists who wanted a revolution and recognized reality in what was happening joined the Bolshevik party, and those who were more interested in idealistically fighting all states equally decided to attack the Bolsheviks and were therefore obviously enemies to be destroyed.
Yeah, I would wish that in a future revolution, that brings forth ML and Anarchist organized communities like back then, one doesn't stab the other in the back and roots them out completely.
Or am I naive for thinking that a commune could even exist under let's say an ML led federation because it directly would be evidence that even this state is unnecessary and it would therefore be in conflict with the bureaucracy of the ML state needing to keep itself alive, especially ideologically?
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You are working under the assumption that anarchist communes couldn't federate with each other to defend a wider territory.
Although, I have to admit I wouldn't call myself the best read, but I think the communes in Spain should give an example of such things being totally possible and actually working quite well.
Or take the example of Native Americans resisting their colonizers:
FYI the quotes are from Gelderloos' "Anarchy Works".
but in the case of Ukraine we only need to look at what actually happened with these anarchist "communes"... practically no one participated
so the Makhno tales have always been overblown. and while he did contribute to defeating the White army, the average peasant wanted nothing to do with this project
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGFGJXXcAEgiDZ?format=jpg&name=large
If no one participated how the fuck could they organize an army that held out for years against the Red army and the whites?
practically no one participated in the communes... are you reading the link I provided correctly?
and it's not as though Makhno really held out against the Reds, at least not after Trotsky moved against Makhno
The black army was more like the green armies just with an anarchist figurehead, the peasantry that were Makhnos power base supported him as a centre position between the whites and the reds and mostly didnt care for his commune shit. The workers in his territory were ignored and neglected, which Makhno advicing that poor railway workers who needed wages for food should try and hold up and extort a toll from passing red trains, full of soldiers.
Makhno destroyed trains & wrecked equipment that needed to be be preserved
this is largely why figures like Kropotkin advocated for the nascent Soviet states & criticized anarchists in their overzealous actions& lack of foresight
It's honestly amazing that people still idolize Makhno, he's practically a mythical figure at this point with no possible connection to the man himself or the armies he led, a construct of left-anticommunists who need a martyr that would have done everything absolutely correct if those devilish Communists just hadn't betrayed him for their own power.
this is why anarchism as such is ultimately an insect reared in the nest of socialism, just as destructive in the medium term to the aims of the Left as are SuccDems
This is an SLP publishing in 1901 talking about a bourgeois German newspaper in Chicago at the time:
"That German capitalist paper, with its intimate knowledge of European matters, counseled the State to “rear the Anarchist insect in the nests of Socialism to devour the Socialist eggs”.... "The European “Anarchist,” accordingly, turns his whole effort towards destroying. But destroying what? The Capitalist System? No! Such destruction, being constructive in its nature, implies virility. Hatred, malevolence and envy are attributes of degeneracy. The degenerate never tackles the strong: he tackles the weak. Capitalist Society being powerful, he leaves it substantially alone: the camp of Socialism, having to be raised under the fire of the enemy, is exposed and substantially weak. The Anarchist, accordingly, turns his face against Socialism."
I don't approve of the term "degenerate", but it's interesting to see that these strains existed even 120 years ago
The assertion that anarchists don't even want to destroy capitalism or private property is completely wrong. Of course anarchists want to do exactly that and then establish a community based on socialist principles, like mutual aid and absolute solidarity.
Honestly, if I hadn't recently started reading more anarchist theory I would've probably written something like your reply as well, either describing anarchists as naive utopians at best and wreckers at worst, but please for the love of god just pick up any book. Something basic and introductory like "Anarchy Works" from Gelderloos does a great job of explaining anarchism or something from Kropotkin like "Mutual Aid" or "Conquest of Bread" and you will at least begin to understand where anarchists are coming from. You don't have to agree but this vitriol is totally unnecessary.
I have no problem with having different opinions on how this or that is best achieved or whatever but describing each other as insects is just disgusting language, I wouldn't say anything about it if it was just in that quote there, but that you would refer to your fellow comrades here like this is a bit disappointing I have to say.
Here is just the introduction to "Anarchy Works", maybe despite everything, you might find it interesting:
spoiler
Anarchy Would Never Work
Anarchism is the boldest of revolutionary social movements to emerge from the struggle against capitalism — it aims for a world free from all forms of domination and exploitation. But at its heart is a simple and convincing proposition: people know how to live their own lives and organize themselves better than any expert could. Others cynically claim that people do not know what is in their best interests, that they need a government to protect them, that the ascension of some political party could somehow secure the interests of all members of society. Anarchists counter that decision-making should not be centralized in the hands of any government, but instead power should be decentralized: that is to say, each person should be the center of society, and all should be free to build the networks and associations they need to meet their needs in common with others.
The education we receive in state-run schools teaches us to doubt our ability to organize ourselves. This leads many to conclude anarchy is impractical and utopian: it would never work. On the contrary, anarchist practice already has a long record, and has often worked quite well. The official history books tell a selective story, glossing over the fact that all the components of an anarchist society have existed at various times, and innumerable stateless societies have thrived for millennia.
How would an anarchist society compare to statist and capitalist societies? It is apparent that hierarchical societies work well according to certain criteria. They tend to be extremely effective at conquering their neighbors and securing vast fortunes for their rulers. On the other hand, as climate change, food and water shortages, market instability, and other global crises intensify, hierarchical models are not proving to be particularly sustainable. The histories in this book show that an anarchist society can do much better at enabling all its members to meet their needs and desires.
The many stories, past and present, that demonstrate how anarchy works have been suppressed and distorted because of the revolutionary conclusions we might draw from them. We can live in a society with no bosses, masters, politicians, or bureaucrats; a society with no judges, no police, and no criminals, no rich or poor; a society free of sexism, homophobia, and transphobia; a society in which the wounds from centuries of enslavement, colonialism, and genocide are finally allowed to heal. The only things stopping us are the prisons, programming, and paychecks of the powerful, as well as our own lack of faith in ourselves.
Of course, anarchists do not have to be practical to a fault. If we ever win the freedom to run our own lives, we’ll probably come up with entirely new approaches to organization that improve on these tried and true forms. So let these stories be a starting point, and a challenge. What exactly is anarchism?
Volumes have been written in answer to this question, and millions of people have dedicated their lives to creating, expanding, defining, and fighting for anarchy. There are countless paths to anarchism and countless beginnings: workers in 19th century Europe fighting against capitalism and believing in themselves instead of the ideologies of authoritarian political parties; indigenous peoples fighting colonization and reclaiming their traditional, horizontal cultures; high school students waking up to the depth of their alienation and unhappiness; mystics from China one thousand years ago or from Europe five hundred years ago, Daoists or Anabaptists, fighting against government and organized religion; women rebelling against the authoritarianism and sexism of the Left. There is no Central Committee giving out membership cards, and no standard doctrine. Anarchy means different things to different people. However, here are some basic principles most anarchists agree on.
Autonomy and Horizontality: All people deserve the freedom to define and organize themselves on their own terms. Decision-making structures should be horizontal rather than vertical, so no one dominates anyone else; they should foster power to act freely rather than power over others. Anarchism opposes all coercive hierarchies, including capitalism, the state, white supremacy, and patriarchy.
Mutual Aid: People should help one another voluntarily; bonds of solidarity and generosity form a stronger social glue than the fear inspired by laws, borders, prisons, and armies. Mutual aid is neither a form of charity nor of zero-sum exchange; both giver and receiver are equal and interchangeable. Since neither holds power over the other, they increase their collective power by creating opportunities to work together.
Voluntary Association: People should be free to cooperate with whomever they want, however they see fit; likewise, they should be free to refuse any relationship or arrangement they do not judge to be in their interest. Everyone should be able to move freely, both physically and socially. Anarchists oppose borders of all kinds and involuntary categorization by citizenship, gender, or race.
Direct Action: It is more empowering and effective to accomplish goals directly than to rely on authorities or representatives. Free people do not request the changes they want to see in the world; they make those changes.
Revolution: Today’s entrenched systems of repression cannot be reformed away. Those who hold power in a hierarchical system are the ones who institute reforms, and they generally do so in ways that preserve or even amplify their power. Systems like capitalism and white supremacy are forms of warfare waged by elites; anarchist revolution means fighting to overthrow these elites in order to create a free society.
Self-Liberation: “The liberation of the workers is the duty of the workers themselves,” as the old slogan goes. This applies to other groups as well: people must be at the forefront of their own liberation. Freedom cannot be given; it must be taken.
Again, I was quoting an SLP publication from 1901, and I was not using that language against anyone as such. I said that "anarchism" without qualification or further clarification is and always has been a disastrous & destructive counterproductive undertow within leftism at worst. And in the short-term it's a purposeful swamp light and diversionary tactic at best. Lofty & noble to think about, but far more contradictory & dependent on weird niche community fandoms than ML states. Anti-communist anarchists are still just anti-communists.... there's not really much to discuss beyond that.
The point is to see that this language isn't anything new, and these tensions don't belong totally to us or to this moment. Anarchists who want to help defeat communists can go ahead call themselves "leftists", but we get into some seriously counterproductive and counterrevolutionary territory when "tankies" become the prime target for these "self-identified" anarcho-socdem whatevers.
States & jurisprudential authority and organizational methods of hierarchical/knowledge-based expertise will still be absolutely necessary in the medium term. We can't forget that or side-step or put it off til after the cops & imperialists & capitalist-funded death squads just suddenly "give up" because the anarchists are just too "principled" and logically compelling to crush outright.
Kropotkin had much the same criticism of anarchists' tendency to criticize communists & revolutionaries far more than they plan to engage in the work of rebuilding after capitalists & imperialists have been ousted. Kropotkin says “We anarchists have talked much about the revolution, but how many have ever taken pains to prepare for the actual work during & after the revolution? The Russian Revolution has demonstrated the imperativeness of such preparation of practical reconstructive work”
Lucy Parsons was a noted anarchist & communist & socialist & committed revolutionary who never backed down & always stood for these positions at key points. Parsons again disagrees with Goldman's privileged & aloof anti-communism, "After telling that the Russian revolution was doomed at its birth, fought by united capitalism of all countries, she tries to show that it was only the Marxian policies that weakened the strength of the revolution. Not entirely satisfied with this statement, which she knew to be false when she wrote it, she adds, “Counter-revolutionists, Right-Social-Revolutionaries, Cadets, and Mensheviks were the disrupting internal forces against Russia.” She could have also truthfully said, “Anarchists of the Mahkno school, leader of the bandits,” of which Emma seems to be a warm disciple. Something more will be said of the viciousness of this type of anarchist. Miss Goldman quotes from somewhere, “It was not against the Russian people, but against the Bolsheviks—they have instigated the revolution, and they must be exterminated.” This is given as the hypocritical attitude of the interventionists, but I ask if it is not exactly the thing she had in her heart to do with her miserable malignant stories. "
"authoritarianism" is a canard, and in this way... especially within Left discourse & historical discussion, left anti-communists act as merely vessels for Cold War propaganda & McCarthyist self-annihilation
Then I misunderstood your point, to me it seemed like you were dismissing anarchism and anarchists as a whole, sorry.
The rest I think I can mostly agree to except for this part maybe, I'd say I am a bit more optimistic about what people are capable of themselves without needing any high court to tell them what they can and cannot do, what they are allowed to think, and so on and so forth.
Otherwise, what is your opinion on having, in the event of something as monumental of scope as the Russian revolution actually were to happen in the future, would you think there is a possibility for communes(of course based on the principle of AnCom) to exist side-by-side with an ML state and not be crushed by it?
communes did exist, that's what artels & sovkhozy were
I'll look into those once I have more time, thanks for the hint.
np!
Yeah, i read it but i'm more susceptible to believe books that were written by people who were there than 4 line screenshots from Twitter.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Makhnovshchina_1917_1921.html?id=cMCEnQAACAAJ
this is the source used... what is your expert criticism of the source? or will you dismiss it out of hand because the warlord Makhno isn't getting his typical hagiography?
You're aware he wrote a new book about Makhno, don't you ?
yes, and Darch talks shit about the wrecker Makhno in that one too
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eq4QxxJXUAI27Zu?format=png&name=900x900
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eq4U2hRXYAEkwGH?format=png&name=900x900
all you have is Arshinov's hagiography. We can look at Makhno in a more critical way today lol
You're not looking at Makhno critically, you're just a sectarian dickhead.
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Forced conscriptions, they demanded that peasants join under the excuse that the community had consented to anarchism and as a community volunteered to mobilize, and as such individuals who refused were branded traitors and liable to be punished or flat out summarily executed as sympathizers by the anarchist secret police.
Literally everyone who read anything about Makhno knows this is not true,
I have read about Makhno, from literally people who knew him personally like Voline, I should add that him and his men were notorious for gang rape during drunken parties and refused to pay his workers for things like repairing armored cars and running the railways.
But these examples end in military defeat, and Socialist states have not suffered collapses due to military defeats but instead fought off military threats long term.
True, but not because of how they were organized, but because they were severely outnumbered.
But what you're calling a federation of autonomous zones fulfills exactly the same role and functions that Marxists call a proletarian state. You're just using a different name.
Frederick Engles, On Authority (1872)
This is where i started McMahon-facing. No wonder we don't learn this stuff in school.
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I think in the event of something as monumental of scope as the Russian revolution actually happening in the future, it should IMO, at first at the least be tolerated and some form of mutual agreement should always be possible, and once there is no more immediate danger new forms of stateless societies should even be encouraged to also explore ways for the future when even the ML state might begin to wither away.
The question to me is only if any state ever will let itself wither away or if that will turn out never actually to happen because the bureaucracy that operates said state, and profits from holding these elevated positions within society, will always try to maintain that order?
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Even though I have to say I'm not quite sure where I really stand between the Anarchist and ML ideas at this moment, having only recently begun reading Anarchist theory, but I would say, even if my understanding of it is still relatively basic, it would be preferable not having to find that out if those bureaucrats have formed their own class again or not in the first place.
But anyways, any movement that overthrows capitalism and private property and establishes a new society formed on socialist principles, sign me up for that.
Sorry, I unfortunately don't have the time to think more about this and come up with a better response right now, it is late, I really need to go to bed.
You know, gotta work, work, work. lol
It is possible to build institutions that are designed with trust and accountability in mind.
We are not familiar with these institutional principles because the only context from our lived experience is from institutions that were never designed to serve us in the first place.
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The condition for the state withering away is the end of class conflict. The state is merely an instrument of class conflict, through which one class exerts its will and dominance over the other. So long as there is a capitalist class anywhere in the world that is organized militarily and is capable of re-asserting itself as a dominant geopolitical force, then the conditions that necessitate a proletarian state still exist and the withering away of that state would be premature.
Well, yes it would, because it would show that part of the territory can operate without any state whatsoever, so thereby making the point: "Why shouldn't the whole federation be able to operate in the same manner?"
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You don't show that the territory can operate without any state whatsoever. You demonstrate that a territory can be managed around anarchist principles when there is a strong state surrounding it that is capable of protecting the anarchist project from the inevitable sabotage that is faced by every existing anti-capitalist project.
It wasnt a stab in the back, the Anarchists took active actions to try and sabotage the Bolshevik leadership to raze the Soviet state, all the anarchists who were focused on just defending the revolution had joined the Bolsheviks already, those left were aiming to try and destroy it.
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It wasn't only them but they could've hold them back if the Bolsheviks leave them be instead purging them and then leaving since they were doing that long before their conflict started.
Makhno did not accomplish anything
he's beatified in a way comporting with Western anti-communism, not in a historically or functionally accurate manner
In this same way Emma Goldman was only ever published in 1920s because of anti-USSR sentiment. Not because "anarchism" is interesting
And while Makhno himself may not have technically "ordered" or even approved of pogroms. Anarchist groups did carry them out
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eq153D1XYAElHIP?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGKG7_W8AA0irL?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGKHrJXEAEUr44?format=jpg&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eq14CdiWMAQSeKB?format=png&name=medium
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGFGJXXcAEgiDZ?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGFG-DW4AEcIhi?format=jpg&name=large
Makhno would have had no bearing on disempowering the greedy kulaks & moving the state of productive forces forward here
Hmm, this comment reeks of good faith. :)
are you suggesting that your blaming the 1930s Ukraine famine on Makhno destroying property and acting like a bandit(events occurring over a decade apart) was done in good faith?
What are you talking about lol
the Ukraine famine happened in the 1930s & Makhno's MGTOW rebellion was put down in 1921
Makhno's "communes" were never very successful and few in the countryside ever participated
so you're simply engaging in wishful thinking & trying to pump up & obscure Makhno's history of banditry & warlordism
If you're using 4 lines cut out of books by Arshinov or cite Skirda (who took back vbasically every negative stuff about Makhno when he was confronted about it), at least read the whole thing.
I still don't see where i was talking about the famine here.
OP & entire thread was about the famine, what do you mean?
your bringing up Makhno & defending his warlordism and banditry here at all is deflection & hand-waving on its face
"The USSR fucking over and slaughtering the Ukranian anarchists and allowing the bourgeoisie to reclaim the territory is enough to justify the Ukranians not cooperating with the USSR."
Makhno's warlordism & idiotic wrecking of equipment and trains is not something to simp for here, bubba
It is absolutely something to simp in any serious socialist site,
not at all
yes at all
no, Makhno was all-in-all a wrecker & counterrevolutionary
Nah, he wasn't. But now that i know that you're coming at him from a guy's critique who uses sources biased towards the whites, i'm not surprised you say that.
nah, I am coming at Makhno from Lucy Parsons' POV, who bodied Emma Goldman's idiot elitist ass, and had real impact on American radical tradition
Parsons again disagrees with Goldman’s privileged & aloof anti-communism, "After telling that the Russian revolution was doomed at its birth, fought by united capitalism of all countries, she tries to show that it was only the Marxian policies that weakened the strength of the revolution. Not entirely satisfied with this statement, which she knew to be false when she wrote it, she adds, “Counter-revolutionists, Right-Social-Revolutionaries, Cadets, and Mensheviks were the disrupting internal forces against Russia.” She could have also truthfully said, “Anarchists of the Mahkno school, leader of the bandits,” of which Emma seems to be a warm disciple. Something more will be said of the viciousness of this type of anarchist. Miss Goldman quotes from somewhere, “It was not against the Russian people, but against the Bolsheviks—they have instigated the revolution, and they must be exterminated.” This is given as the hypocritical attitude of the interventionists, but I ask if it is not exactly the thing she had in her heart to do with her miserable malignant stories. "
*yawn
so you're going to worship Makhno strictly on the basis that he was an anti-Bolshevik
typical Western anti-communism
that's not leftism, bubba... and Makhnovism in practice wasn't either
Can you point out where the fuck did i do that?
I'm literally from the Eastern Bloc.
*yawn
what does being from Eastern Europe have to do with believing Western anti-communist lies or not? don't take it so personally hehe. it's all the same ahistorical revisionism, doesn't matter where you're from. Cold War anti-communism informs "anti-authoritarian" busy bodied nattering no matter where you go.
you can "asterisk yawn" all you want, but you're proving my point that you're not here in good faith, and merely wish to pimp a false historiography about what "could've" been if only more than a few highly educated & well-positioned families took Makhno's nonsense seriously
Calling every account that speaks positively of Makhno hagiographic is totally not ahistorical and not bad faithed.
All i did here was pointing out that anarchists could've handled the kulaks if they weren't slaughtered since they did that already. You were the one coming in with boring shit that was debunked decades ago attacking me for nothing with fucking Twitter screenshots.
I'm all about having a honest discussion about Makhno, but you proved you won't be the person i'll have it with here.
anarchists couldn't handle kulaks, and kulaks weren't "slaughtered", they were just declassed
they are screenshots and quotes of actual scholarly articles & published sources both printed at the time and recently... you haven't brought any scholarly or primary source material to bear here, just vague hand-waving & "*yawn" and no real credible information to back up your strange misconceptions about USSR history.
You don't want actual discussion about Makhno, you just want to believe in him as some inviolate alternative to the boogieman of USSR
Arshinov is fucking primary source material, it's not my fault you haven't read a word of him.
What i use = actual primary infallible sources with very credible information
What you use = Anticommunist slander
Yeah i want actual discussion but you're still not wanting to have any. That's unfortunate.
Arshinov is the one who can't help but overexaggerate the "importance" of Makhno & only writes glowingly
all you have is Arshinov's idiotic hagiography of Makhno. Makhno and Arshinov both in reality were clowns. In no way is Arshinov's biased effusive Makhno fanfic infallible or completely credible
This is how even-handed & unbiased Arshinov is in his recounting the history: "The Makhnovshchina is a colossal event in contemporary Russia. By the breadth and profundity of its ideas, it transcends all the spontaneous working class movements known to us"
Give me a break lol
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EpGFFNaW8AAsRZ4?format=png&name=medium
Arshinov's work is the original beatifying propaganda I am referring to lol. Others also reference it as such
Arshinov can't even keep his own contradictions straight.
At one point Arshinov says: "It must be noted that, like vast and spontaneous peasant insurrections which rise without any preparation, these organized guerrilla actions were always performed by the peasants themselves, with no help or direction from any political organization" and then no more than a paragraph later he says.... "The most important role in this effort at unification and in the general development of the revolutionary insurrection in the south of the Ukraine was played by the insurrectionary detachment guided by a peasant native to the region, Nestor Makhno"
That's not just a hypocritical and confounded untruth, it's silly
I will quote another primary source documentation of the period from the perspective of an anarchist again in Lucy Parsons: "The “anarchist” Mahkno is mentioned by Emma Goldman as a friend and sending food to Kropotkin. In a diary of Fedora-Gianko, the wife of Mahkno, are recorded facts and dates to show that these marauders were guilty of arson, train-wrecking, murder, robbery, all committed against the Soviet Government. By them workers were killed, villages destroyed, bridges blown up, wrecks caused by wild engines turned loose against approaching trains until Mahkno was driven from the country. This kind of work against the Soviet Government meets with the approval of Miss Goldman. Her heart was never with the Bolshevik revolution. Compelled to leave the United States, she came to Russia as there was no other place to which she could go. Friends have not cut her off; she has excommunicated herself. "
"What i use = actual primary infallible sources with very credible information
What you use = Anticommunist slander"
Lucy Parsons as primary source. Ok.
In no way is Arshinov’s biased effusive Makhno fanfic infallible or completely credible
Lucy Parsons lived during the time and visited Russia in this period. She published this scathing dismissal of Goldman in 1922 a year before Arshinov's book was published... making Parsons' writing even more of a primary source lmfao
Oh she visited Russia, that's fine, she was probably very well versed in life there then.
"What i use = actual primary infallible sources with very credible information
What you use = Anticommunist slander"
yes, she was... at least far more than the elitist radlib Goldman was
"It is to be regretted that Emma could not have visited Sparrow’s Hill, and seen there the thousands of children, boys and girls, robust and rugged, rosy-cheeked and beautiful in their remarkable collective exercise. Or have spent days at Pushkino, or some of the many hundreds of similar communities throughout Russia, where the summer homes of the bourgeoisie are turned into children’s colonies. At one of these homes I saw between forty and fifty of these little tots just after their bath, romping and frollicking, laughing and full of glee, a sight that would please the heart of almost any man or woman. Too bad that Miss Goldman could not have visited the Moscow River within the environs of the city, where on summer days anyone could see the naked boys and girls at play enjoying a plunge in the water. She should have met the children that Mary Heaton Vorse had temporarily adopted while here. Little Demitrus and his friends would have been other laughing children to her credit. It is a great loss to think that she did not visit Children’s Town. There the babes are learning, as they do in play, the advantage of association and solidarity. It is possible that Miss Goldman might have learnt, even from the little ones, that rules of order, discipline and self-government are the essentials of a socialised community. Miss Goldman would mention in the same breath men of such splendid character and attributes as Lunaraharsky and Gorky, comparing them with that crooked little politician, Judge Linsay, who conducted the juvenile Court in Denver, Colorado, and who only by the efforts of the officials of the Western Federation of Miners was prevented from sending little boys, who for delinquency were dealt with in his court, to work in the beet fields of Colorado, there to take the place of Russian emigrants who seasonally migrated from industrial centres for that work."
sounds like Arshninov and Emma just have a touch of Russophobia lol, which isn't really all that surprising considering
again, I notice you don't quote from any of these works, and still aren't bringing much to bear here other than personal sideways remarks & temperamental deflection
Emma Goldman the Russophobe russian.
"What i use = actual primary infallible sources with very credible information
What you use = Anticommunist slander"
she was born in an Orthdox Jewish family in modern day Lithuania, but keep deflecting lmfao
Being born in an Orthodox Jewish family is bad.
is that how you really feel?
No, but it would be just as stupid as calling Goldman a russophobe.
she is listed as a Jewish-Lithuanian most places I read about her. She was taught within Prussian education system to hate Russia and admits in her anti-USSR screed that "My Russian at this time was halting"
and I was more speaking about the Ukrainian Arshinov's hint of Russophobia in his writings, recall that I said I detected a HINT. Also Emma Goldman similarly takes quite a dismissive attitude toward Bolsheviks despite her also admitting they fed orphaned children & did much in the way toward righting the wrongs of the Tsarist period.
Goldman literally admits to growing up hating Russia and Russian culture "Under the discipline of a Germanschool in Königsberg and the Prussian attitude toward everything Russian, I had grown up in the atmosphere of hatred to that country. I dreaded especially the terrible Nihilists who had killed Tsar Alexander II, so good and kind, as I had been taught. St. Petersburg was to me an evil thing"
Though she admits to growing spiritually in later years, and through all her talks & history as an activist appears to take stands for these nations from a Western vantage, Emma just can't seem to hide her elitism & underhanded dismissal of USSR & Russian attempts to socially & economically & politically address its own issues
"I began to suspect that the reason for much of the evil was also within Russia, not only outside of it.But then, I argued, police officials and detectives graft everywhere. That is the common disease ofthe breed. In Russia, where scarcity of food and three years of starvation must needs turn mostpeople into grafters, theft is inevitable."
"After showing us about, Zorin invited us to the Smolny dining room. The meal consisted of goodsoup, meat and potatoes, bread and tea--rather a good meal in starving Russia, I thought. "
I suspect she never really outgrew some of her kneejerk Russophobia from her childhood
what's important today is how these historiographies are used to demonize USSR/communism generally and Russia specifically.
Makhno is often lifted up by Ukrainian nationalist historians and his name invoked in their desperate attempts to demonize Soviet history.
ok
okay
The ukrainian peasants opportunistically supported Makhno because they thought he'd not conscript or requisition their grain like the Bolsheviks had to, and that they would get to keep their land without being subservient to the bourgeoise like the white army wanted.
But once War Communism began to end and Makhno had started doing the exact same shit as the Red army by necessity they stopped giving a fuck, there is no correlation between Makhno getting victory royaled and kulaks burning their grain and cattle.