:geordi-no: leftist infighting
:geordi-yes: left unity :lenin-shining: :left-unity-3: :kropotkin-shining:
Like, I identify with anarchist philosophy not because of some single-minded opposition to authority for its own sake, I do so because anarchism best describes the praxis I am capable of engaging in and because I believe that in the near term building the sort of parallel support structures like mutual aid organizations and advocating for prison and police abolition are important for creating the sort of material conditions necessary to engage in and promote more organized revolutionary action.
Tenants' unions, free kitchens/food pantries etc. are great safety nets to support communities and make people less afraid of mobilizing general strikes and other more targeted direct action and at the same time if a true revolutionary vanguard party somehow manifests within the imperial core (something I am skeptical of ever being possible in my lifetime) you bet your ass I would join that effort in a heartbeat.
:left-unity-2:
I think it's weird since in the US anti authoritarianism and pro socialism are the same thing. Like, if you look at Marx, he talks a lot about humans being everything they can, democracy, and even freedom at times. Lenin was addressing a scenario where if there wasn't a centralized army and coerced production, the revolution would fail, but honestly that's not what Marx was talking about. In the US, where the centralized army is the big bad and labor is already centralized and coercive we have the luxury of fighting directly for socialism.
no, Makhno should've been BTFO'd because his bands were doing pogroms & not assisting with the anti-imperialist war in the West
Lionizing Makhno is just comporting oneself with anti-communist Western Sovietology, not with the facts on the ground of the revolution
"“Historian Michael Malet writes that at this time,“criminals entered the army for what they could get out of it, especially plunder in the towns.”
Excerpt From: Sean Patterson. “Makhno and Memory: Anarchist and Mennonite Narratives of Ukraine’s Civil War, 1917–1921.”
It's very much just denialism of Soviet success & idolizing what never "could've been" rather than accepting reality
We can't beatify Makhno and write hagiographies for a man who when:
"A delegation from Novozlatopol once went to Machno [sic] to discuss his raids against the Jews. Machno’s reply was “What can I do ? They’re just a bunch of ignorant peasants”, referring to his own men.”
How does someone get the idea that a philosophy that has mutual aid as one of its core principles is "individualistic"?
Anarchism is a broad descriptor and a good portion of recorded anarchist thought has been quite explicitly individualist. Our task in responding to these kinds of Marxist criticisms is not to deny this fact, but to suss out what is meant by "bourgeois individualism," understand if and how it differs from individualist anarchism, and describe how such a philosophy is compatible with -- or even necessary for -- communism.
Of course meme politics allows no such discussion to take place, but if we want "left unity," we have to progress past this discursive mode of binary positions and intellectual siege mentality.
It's a lot easier for rad libs to call themselves anarchists than MLs because the propaganda against anarchists isn't as intense and the punk movement kinda made it cool.
I vote to keep the term anarkiddie, but not use it as a derogatory term for anarchists, just a derogatory term for radlibs larping as anarchists because they like the Dead Kennedy's.
Exactly. My problem isn't with anarchism, it's with liberalism which has captured anarchists more than other tendencies. We all just need to unite as communists then work out our differences there. Communist is a good filter for scaring away liberals and I think all anarchists and MLs can agree that the end goal is some form of communism.
Anarchists are useually anlprim egoists in every movie I havee seen.
This would be like the nexflix special anarchism.
The leftist blackpill. When you think every activist group is just another Emmanuel Goldstein from 1984.
I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on it, because this is a question I'm currently grappling with.
Revolution means compromising on your ideals. Malatesta argued that revolutionary violence is self defense against structural violence. So while anarchism is anti violent, it isn't non violent. He was arguing that we should start from anti violence and then compromise to the degree necessary to realize anarchy.
I think you can take this and apply it to other concepts like "defending the revolution." You start from a position of no collaboration from the state and no heirarchy and then compromise. Maybe the police want to raid your squat so you buy it and make it a land trust. Maybe the whites want to take back power, so you form a centralized army but use rotating authority and officer elections (as the PKK does and Red Army did during the revolution), or you have permanent officers but they get the same wage, go by first name, come from the ranks, and sleep in the trenches (as with the POUM).
Bonanno said anarchism isn't a plan to be realized, but a tension where anarchists pull whatever situation they're in closer to liberty within the constraints of reality.
its hard to not be lib when some mods on anarchist subreddits are literally modding r neolib
ah, you see, 95% of online anarchists aren't real anarchists, it's very simple
I think I disagree overall, seems that a large subreddit like GenZedong is more ML than the large anarchist subreddits are ancom
MLs put a ton of work into ideological agreement while anarchists focus more on tactical agreement. Go on completeanarchy and ask if direct action and mutual aid are the preferred tactics and watch the uniformity happen
Some, like graeber even say "don't call me an anarchist. ... Anarchism is something you do."
people who don't like anarchism at least read the bread book challenge
I'm not an anarchist but pretending anarchists aren't trying to materially improve conditions is ridiculous. You can argue whether you think it's effective or what the long term result will be if you want, but anyone doing praxis is an ally of mine :left-unity-2: :left-unity-3: :unity:
Oh I absolutely agree, gimme that DoTP. I'm ready to beat some capitalists with the People's stick and re-educate the shit out reactionaries with the full force of a state (or state-like entity).
Anarchists are still my comrades despite that ideological difference, and i've learned a lot from them. Their distrust of hierarchy is honestly warranted, and mutual aid is good and effective at helping people, especially during times like right now where there isn't alternatives'/. Additionally, the ideological ideals of anarchism is coming from a place of wanting everyone to have want they want and need, which is identical to the reasons i am a communist. And to be clear, I'm not talking about libs who say they are anarchists and don't seem to even know what that means, but actual real anarchists who actually do praxis and live by anarchist ideals.
I’m not an anarchist but pretending anarchists aren’t trying to materially improve conditions is ridiculous.
In America, it's easy to get confused by the bourgeois understanding of freedom - to bully and extort people of lower class than you - with the anarchist understanding of freedom - to retaliate against the bureaucratic means by which bourgeois power is exerted over us. This is particularly true, when the person expressing anarchist principles is relatively young and from a nominally wealthy family.
Rebelling against parental conservatism is a gateway to rebellion against a broader social stigmatization of economic liberation. But it often gets portrayed as immaturity in public media and dismissed as "something you'll grow out of" by older peers who are higher up the economic ladder and no longer subject to the abuses casually inflicted on young people.
Big technocratic energy in "measurable material improvements for society".
It's a product of communist discourse being shaped by people in power I think. The reasonable trots like CLR James don't talk like this.
I am going to pretend whoever made this is talking about right libertarians and not anarchists :)
The meme's a bit weird though- "measureable material improvements" to society aren't what comprise materialism and materially based class politics. MLs that argue along Deng's or Khrushchev's reasoning tend to end up sounding a bit like liberal technocrats or neoliberals. The criticism for anarchists is generally pretty fair and generally true.
I think the argument there of "productive forces" building wouldn't be building socialism in a vacuum though, just improving material conditions, which is not unique to socialism. It's not western neoliberal hegemony, but it's still capitalism (useful for the case of improving past agrarian obstacles and industrializing) and should not be called socialism, best used to note post DOTP social structuring.
A vast majority of poverty improvements neolibs claim certainly are due to China's development. It's still useful to realize then that this is due to technocratic improvements in China still within capitalism-better than the alternative of poverty and exploitation by foreign capitalists, but there will come a point where international proletariat organizing and direct confrontation with capitalists can address the problem. Class collaboration and obfuscation of socialism now may hamper such efforts down the line.
