I've noticed something about anarchists that i find pretty funny: they'll praise marxist revolutions and revolutionaries AS LONG AS they dont actually succeed.
I've noticed something about anarchists that i find pretty funny: they'll praise marxist revolutions and revolutionaries AS LONG AS they dont actually succeed.
You'll see anarchists praising Rosa Luxemburg, who if they had actually read her writings -- they would see that she was very clearly one of the "authoritarian" socialists that they rail against so much.
You see them praise the Black Panthers, who were supported financially by the DPRK and aligned themselves with the Juche ideology of Kim Il Sung.
They even praise Thomas Sankara, who purged anarchists and arrested syndicalists.
If these people had succeeded, i have no doubt in my mind that anarchists would call them "tankies," they would call their experiments "capitalism with a red flag." And I also have no doubt in my mind that if the October Revolution, Chinese Revolution had been crushed, they would hail Lenin and Mao as proletarian heroes.
Another thing I find hilarious with Anarchists is that many of them are huge EU supporters. Turns out they're totally fine with centralization and large unelected bureaucracies in practice. These people are just LARPing.
Can't say I've seen this among anarchists... Any examples?
My personal experience talking about the EU with people like @[email protected]
Yeah, definitely! Once you win a revolution, you have to govern, and that inolves rules and tradeoffs etc.
You might like this essay: Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture
lmao I literally clicked this thread to post this exact essay
it's very good 😊
Yeah, Anarchists don't seem to actually want to succeed in anything. They just want to perpetually feel superior about their morals as well as comfortable that nothing will ever change. They want to be cool, contrarian good guys, imagining a world that will only ever exist in books and stories.
That's why my anarchist phase was short-lived. I was reading about anarchism and I found out that many of them don't even expect that the revolution will succeed. It's just a desperate moral opposition to the status quo without any serious intention to change the material reality.
Not a great strategy to make the world a better place lol
I'm very much the same. Had a short anarchist phase, don't entirely disagree with a lot of the worldview, but feel the situation is too desperate to rely on fantastical situations when there's already existing theory on how to fix the world.
A Psalm from the Apostle, Parenti: “They do not explain how the manifold functions of a revolutionary society would be organized, how external attack and internal sabotage would be thwarted, how bureaucracy would be avoided, scarce resources allocated, policy differences settled, priorities set, and production and distribution conducted. Instead, they offer vague statements about how the workers themselves will directly own and control the means of production and will arrive at their own solutions through creative struggle. NO SURPRISE THEN THAT THE PURE SOCIALISTS SUPPORT EVERY REVOLUTION EXCEPT THE ONES THAT SUCCEED.”
another parenti W
They're pretty much more liberal ultras. They bang on about this wonderful utopia and tear down any attempts at socialist revolution or maintaining a workers state. And not only that, but they don't put in the needed work into building towards revolution or increasing class consciousness among the working class. They're entirely fine trying to build cooperative farms or doing performative mutual aid.
Most self professed leftists don't actually have a plan for what happens if they get the revolution they want. I guess they think the point of the ideology is just killing people and burning shit, not creating a better society.
Aside from the what it is to be said by the already recomended text on western marxism and christianity by Jones Manoel on RedSails, which I find very fitting here, I have found out by experience that anarchists usually have a very strong tendency to romanticize the act of revolution in general, of sublevation to overthrow the existing hierarchies, and very little focus on what comes after, which is the organization of the new society that is to come.
Chances are that this lack of focus is the result of the development of an anarchist's conceptualization of a post-capitalist society falling an overwhelming majority of times in one of two fields: either authoritarianism (most of us have witnessed an anarchist accidentally developing the idea of vanguards in their search to defend their revolutions) or the most bizarre and impractical modes of production and self-defense that could be concieved, such as the idea that medicines and other highly complex products could ever be produced by individual people as a form of pastime.
This is, overall, too much hassle for the average western anarchist, who doesn't find the need to concern themselves with that simply because, for them, anarchism is just an aesthetic used as a form of expressing one's identity and individuality, and not as a project to work towards.
Edit: Grammar.
It is easy to support failed attempts because then they can imagine that this time those folks would have done things "perfectly" or in other words, the way the person imagining it would have done things. Without any of the messy details of having to work in the real world with real conditions.
for the revolution to succeed, youll need some sort of mechanism to oppress the oppressors. Most anarchists seem to want the revolution, but dont want to secure it cause oppression /authoritarianism/hiearchies is bad. A problem with being an absolutist.
This article is a must read imo: https://redsails.org/western-marxism-and-christianity/
yeah. that part about how Che is seen by the western left, in comparison to Castro, rings true
Online anarchists are a flandering version of the ideology they preach.
Noob Q: why is it always anarchist vs authoritarian? Surely there's a middle ground?
If you're ok with a longish read, I think this lays it out pretty clearly:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/12/x01.htm
The short answer is that anarchists and ML's don't have the same goals, and don't have the same chosen methods to reach them. The only thing we agree on is (roughly) who the enemy is: capitalism.
It goes back over 100 years to the Bakunin/Marx split in the first international. It's been going for a while!
I doubt very much that they have ever read Rosa Luxemburg. The most they pick up on is the nonsense that Luxemburg had something against the Russian revolution, which is not true.
Anarchism lacks a materialist basis. Above all, an understanding of the role of the state.
The differences between anarchism and Marxism were decided well over 100 years ago. Those works are still relevant, so it is enough to read them.
Rosa Luxemburg's writings are more closely related to Trotskyism and disagrees with the notion of a monolithic party, essentionally saying it isn't democratic enough. It's a derivative of marxism just like anarchism i.e. it doesn't subscribe to many of the ideas of leninism.
SMH. I can't wait until Hexbear federates so sectarians can have the sectarianism bullied out of them.
I'm not arguing with 10 people at once, none of whom are interested in any actual discussion. Please tell me how because I'm an anarchist i don't read books and must be a racist lmao. Good bye 👋
The sectarianism is annoying (inshallah for Hexbear federation to bully the sectarians), but the narrative about MLs regularly teaming up with anarchists only to stab them in the back turns out to be bullshit when investigated.
Btw an anarchist from blahaj coming here and complaining about sectarianism is mighty rich when a 80% of entire lemmy modlog bans are people banned from there for being "tankie" - specifically interesting since their comments for which they are banned are not specified, that is, they haven't been banned for anything concrete.
Also preempive fishing for a ban, lol, how old they even are?
i dont want left unity. also, "misinformation?" you're telling me that no anarchists praise the black panthers? that no anarchist praises rosa luxemburg and sankara?
Why put the Black Panthers in here? 🤨
The Black Panther platform, as I understand it, was:
- We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
- We want full employment for our people.
- We want an end to the robbery by the Capitalists of our Black Community.
- We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
- We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
- We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
- We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
- We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
- We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
- We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.
The Juche platform is:
- We must give our all in the struggle to unify the entire society with the revolutionary ideology of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung.
- We must honor the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung with all our loyalty.
- We must make absolute the authority of the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must make the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung's revolutionary ideology our faith and make his instructions our creed.
- We must adhere strictly to the principle of unconditional obedience in carrying out the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung's instructions.
- We must strengthen the entire party's ideology and willpower and revolutionary unity, centering on the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must learn from the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung and adopt the communist look, revolutionary work methods and people-oriented work style.
- We must value the political life we were given by the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung, and loyally repay his great political trust and thoughtfulness with heightened political awareness and skill.
- We must establish strong organizational regulations so that the entire party, nation and military move as one under the one and only leadership of the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung.
- We must pass down the great achievement of the revolution by the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung from generation to generation, inheriting and completing it to the end.
The Black Panthers were complimentary of the DPRK, and had warm relations with them:
I don't think your quote is a summary that really shows what the BPP might've liked about Juche:
The Juche idea was created on the basis of such a practical requirement of the Korean revolution. The revolution is a struggle to meet the masses' desire for independence by enlisting their strength. It is a struggle of the masses to free themselves. When they are armed with the revolutionary idea and united into an organized political force, the masses can emerge victorious in the revolution. The duty of revolutionaries is to go among the popular masses, masters of the revolution. to educate, organize, and inspire them to a struggle. The revolutionary forces, too, should be trained from among the masses, and all problems arising in the revolutionary struggle should likewise be resolved in reliance on their wisdom and strength.
(On the Juche Idea - Kim Jong-Il p7)
I italicized the bit that stood out to me as most like the BPP.
The DPRK is mostly viewed pretty well here, btw. It's not an insult or a smear to align the Black Panthers with them. It's a compliment.
They were on amicable terms with each other
"Juche is a political ideology that serves as the guiding principle of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly known as North Korea. It was developed by the country's first leader, Kim Il-sung, and is still upheld by subsequent leaders, including Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un.
Juche is often translated as "self-reliance" or "self-determination" and emphasizes the self-reliance and sovereignty of the nation. It promotes the idea that the Korean people are the masters of their own destiny and should rely on their own efforts, resources, and capabilities rather than being dependent on external forces. It encompasses political, economic, and cultural aspects of society.
From the perspective of the DPRK and its citizens, Juche emphasizes the importance of independence and the pursuit of their own unique path. It places great significance on the Korean people's revolutionary spirit and their ability to shape their own destiny. Juche encourages self-sufficiency and the development of domestic industries and resources, aiming to reduce reliance on foreign aid and external influences.
In practical terms, Juche has manifested itself in various policies and practices within North Korea. These include an emphasis on economic self-reliance, the pursuit of nuclear weapons as a means of national defense and deterrence, the promotion of a distinct national identity and culture, and the concept of "military-first politics" (Songun) which prioritizes the military in the allocation of resources.
It's important to note that the understanding and interpretation of Juche can vary depending on who you ask. While the DPRK government presents it as a fundamental principle that guides their policies, some critics argue that Juche is used as a tool for maintaining the regime's control and isolating the country from the rest of the world.
Overall, Juche, from the perspective of the DPRK and its citizens, promotes the idea of self-reliance, independence, and the pursuit of their own unique path in political, economic, and cultural spheres."
One can easily see the parallels with the Panther's approach to self reliance, and community care/defense organizations etc.