I just discovered that Radical Reviewer believes the western account of the 1932 Ukranian famine, and I could not be more disappointed.

  • volkvulture [none/use name]
    ·
    4 years ago

    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

    • CoralMarks [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      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 countervailing 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.

      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.

      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.

      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?