You claim to know with great detail and certainty what anarchists believe without citing any anarchist thinkers. All you are doing is constructing a strawman of anarchists based on vibes hoping that none will be here to refute it. Anarchy is more than the absence of the state, and none who are knowledgeable posit that anarchy will materialize without effort. Anarchists are idealists not out of naivete, but necessity. It has been born out of history that when means and ends are not unified, the means become the ends. This was true of the Russian revolution when “all power to the Soviets” became hollow words and “war communism” became the new oppressor of the people.
Nah, I’m going by the actual tangible achievements, or lack of thereof as the case may be, of anarchists based on the teachings of their thinkers.
The Bolsheviks discount anarchist achievements by claiming them as their own. Anarchists fought alongside the Bolsheviks because they promised to realize the anarchists’ goal of all power to the Soviets. When it became clear the Bolsheviks lied in order to selfishly establish themselves as the intelligentsia, a privileged class, the anarchists resisted and were violently repressed by their former brothers and sisters in arms.
I would like to hear about your experiences growing up in the USSR as I know there were many positive aspects, but by betraying the values for which many of the revolutionaries fought they created a society with an unstable foundation, as evidenced by its’ eventual collapse. Anarchists did not reject real world solutions, they defended them with their lives and lost. The Bolsheviks have themselves to blame for the collapse.
You’re using the same argument capitalists use to dismiss socialism, namely that socialism clearly doesn’t work because all socialist projects ended in collapse or continue in a state of poverty. This is, in essence, victim-blaming. Just as socialism struggles under the oppression of capitalist hegemony, anarchism struggles under the oppression of both capitalists and statists.
What Bolsheviks achieved was the betrayal of all who fought for the liberation of the proletariat. If power had gone to the Soviets as the Bolsheviks promised then the USSR would not have collapsed under the weight of its’ contradictions. You speak as if the USSR only repressed the forces of reaction, but it also repressed the very same workers it claimed to support when they tried to claim the worker control of the means of production they were promised.
What I’m pointing out is that all ideologies compete with others. That’s the reality of the world. If Anarchists are not able to defend the way they want to organize society then their ideology ends up being trampled by others. That’s the world we live in. Calling this victim blaming doesn’t change the material reality of the world.
The Bolsheviks’ had the ill-gotten might to push their agenda, but might does not make right. The Bolsheviks lied to and used the anarchists to achieve what they did, but anarchists have learned from their past mistakes and will prove you wrong.
USSR existed under siege from global capitalism throughout its whole existence, and that was the reason it was organized the way it was.
Capitalist aggression did not make necessary the regressive views on social issues and science the USSR had (which resulted in famine), nor the widespread corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency of state officials. You cannot simply excuse all flaws of the USSR by blaming global capitalism.
This is getting repetitive and we’re just talking past each other so let’s just agree to disagree about the USSR. I just want to make the point - which I hope we can agree on - that the revolution wouldn’t have been successful without political pluralism within the ranks, and no future revolution will either. Dismissing the contributions of anarchists will only harm your cause.
You claim to know with great detail and certainty what anarchists believe without citing any anarchist thinkers. All you are doing is constructing a strawman of anarchists based on vibes hoping that none will be here to refute it. Anarchy is more than the absence of the state, and none who are knowledgeable posit that anarchy will materialize without effort. Anarchists are idealists not out of naivete, but necessity. It has been born out of history that when means and ends are not unified, the means become the ends. This was true of the Russian revolution when “all power to the Soviets” became hollow words and “war communism” became the new oppressor of the people.
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The Bolsheviks discount anarchist achievements by claiming them as their own. Anarchists fought alongside the Bolsheviks because they promised to realize the anarchists’ goal of all power to the Soviets. When it became clear the Bolsheviks lied in order to selfishly establish themselves as the intelligentsia, a privileged class, the anarchists resisted and were violently repressed by their former brothers and sisters in arms.
I would like to hear about your experiences growing up in the USSR as I know there were many positive aspects, but by betraying the values for which many of the revolutionaries fought they created a society with an unstable foundation, as evidenced by its’ eventual collapse. Anarchists did not reject real world solutions, they defended them with their lives and lost. The Bolsheviks have themselves to blame for the collapse.
Removed by mod
You’re using the same argument capitalists use to dismiss socialism, namely that socialism clearly doesn’t work because all socialist projects ended in collapse or continue in a state of poverty. This is, in essence, victim-blaming. Just as socialism struggles under the oppression of capitalist hegemony, anarchism struggles under the oppression of both capitalists and statists.
What Bolsheviks achieved was the betrayal of all who fought for the liberation of the proletariat. If power had gone to the Soviets as the Bolsheviks promised then the USSR would not have collapsed under the weight of its’ contradictions. You speak as if the USSR only repressed the forces of reaction, but it also repressed the very same workers it claimed to support when they tried to claim the worker control of the means of production they were promised.
Removed by mod
The Bolsheviks’ had the ill-gotten might to push their agenda, but might does not make right. The Bolsheviks lied to and used the anarchists to achieve what they did, but anarchists have learned from their past mistakes and will prove you wrong.
Capitalist aggression did not make necessary the regressive views on social issues and science the USSR had (which resulted in famine), nor the widespread corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency of state officials. You cannot simply excuse all flaws of the USSR by blaming global capitalism.
Removed by mod
This is getting repetitive and we’re just talking past each other so let’s just agree to disagree about the USSR. I just want to make the point - which I hope we can agree on - that the revolution wouldn’t have been successful without political pluralism within the ranks, and no future revolution will either. Dismissing the contributions of anarchists will only harm your cause.