I've never heard of the 'Manchurian communes' and neither has wikipedia...

I think they might be referring to these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People%27s_Association_in_Manchuria https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/francesco-dalessandro-the-forgotten-anarchist-commune-in-manchuria

I don't have enough intimate knowledge to be able to comment though, apart from my natural suspicion that once again, as usual, the anarchists will paint their lack of political efficacy as moral virtue and communist nefariousness, though I'm happy to be corrected.

and ah yes, that famous leftist tendency "intellectuals". Not saying the Cultural Revolution was correct, but you also can't just blame one person for it.

I would assume this is referring to the aftermath of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, but those intellectuals were pretty much all rightists

“Nor did all the millions and millions of workers who supported each of these leaders. How unfathomably arrogant to think that the millions of committed revolutionaries that worked tirelessly to build socialism in these places were too fucking stupid to see they were working for the 'wrong' ideology, that they should have rejected their leadership organization and just slotted in your preferred coterie of "libertarian socialists & anarchists" and that would have simply solved all their murderous authoritarian ways. A nice horizontal, non-hierarchical, non-coercive network of free-organizing collectives would definitely have stood up in the face of the Wehrmacht, wouldn't it!“

Well fucking said Comrade. This part right here is the thing that always clinches it for me. Whatever can be said in anarchisms favor as an ideology, it all dissolves once the question is asked “how does Anarchism defend itself from a fascist state?”

I don’t have a single issue with anarchists that have the humility and intellectual honesty to accept the clear and obvious shortcomings of Anarchism in regards to revolutionary defense. In fact I admire them for wanting to reconcile those contradictions. It’s not an easy task and that’s what accounts for their rarity more than anything else IMO.

If you call yourself an Anarchist because you have aversion to hierarchy, violence, and big books, you’re just a child, or more likely, an American with the political understanding of a child.

Fucking heroic post o7

I'm assuming.you're just ignorant of Makhno, and not intentionally spouting century old propaganda but here. From the article "Makhno's anarchism, however, was not confined to verbal propaganda, important though this was to win new adherents. On the contrary, Makhno was a man of action who, even while occupied with military campaigns, sought to put his anarchist theories into practice. His first act on entering a town -- after throwing open the prisons -- was to dispel any impression that he had come to introduce a new form of political rule. Announcements were posted informing the inhabitants that they were now free to organize their lives as they saw fit, that his Insurgent Army would not "dictate to them or order them to do anything." Free speech, press, and assembly were proclaimed, although Makhno would not countenance organizations that sought to impose political authority, and he accordingly dissolved the Bolshevik revolutionary committees, instructing their members to "take up some honest trade.'" Does that sound like a bandit king?

The USSR absolutely betrayed the Spanish Anarchists, this isn't controversial at all. Here's a well sourced thread from someone who wrote a research paper on the topic breaking it down.

I don't know enough about Hungary to have an opinion on the matter and can't be bothered to do all the reading for it right now. Based on your characterizations of previous libertarian left movements I'm going to assume you're full of shit though.

Hard agree on "left unity". Authoritarians and libertarians shouldn't waste their time on trying to get along, it's counter productive.

Further reading/listening for anyone interested:

The State is Counter Revolutionary is a theory and history series covering the Russian and Chinese revolutions. The Maoist one may be of particular interest to you.

Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth

Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists

Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control

Literally bandit kingdom under an absolute leader

Classic imperialist shite of "spreading freedom" no better than any other imperialist. DOobetter.

The USSR was the only nation to provide any support to the Republic, and it was the anarchists that fucked up by being unable to organize any kind of national army and just letting the fascists roll up their ‘independent’ cities one by one. Saying “it was Stalin’s fault” is the anarchist stab-in-the-back myth.

You can lie to yourselves all you want. Anarchists remember the backstabbing very well and the real reason why they couldn;t fight back efficiently. I'm not here to discuss with tankies though. Plenty has been written about this stalinist revisionism already.

A fascist counterrevolution, Hungary was an Axis power and it was a mere eleven years after WW2 - for “”“worker’s councils”“” they sure lynched a lot of Jewish people! Read this.

Ah yes, everything USSR wanted to conquer or quiesce is "counterevolution". Kronstadt too. Same exact bullshit every imperialist nation cooked up to invade and take over. Y'all ain't foolin' anyone you know.

So I can say that I am sectarian, because revolution is a problem that has a correct answer - there’s the answer that saved hundreds of millions of lives from fascism,

Lol, where? Show me one ML nation which is not totalitarian right now, or didn't fall back into capitalism and fascism as soon as it inevitably collapsed from the mortally defective ideology of leninism.

Wasnt the japanese the ones to end the commune in manchuria?

Sure, but there's a reason the anarchist presence on Hexbear haa dramatically waned over the years. Like how much is anyone actually valuing left unity while federating with an instance that memes about killing anarchists? A lot of the early drama came out of specifically ML's harassing people associated with anarchists, like that John Kerry shit, including accusations of an "anarchist cabal" (which to be fair remains extremely funny to this day).

And this exists alongside an attitude that left unity in fact is a waste of time, that communists and anarchists want fundamentally different things. And when you combine that with memes about anarchists being reactionaries and feds (oh, but not our anarchists!) and glorification of figures that killed a lot of anarchists and the occasional "anarchists get the wall" memes, like you can't be comrades with people who fundamentally see you as a problem to one day violently remove. There cannot be useful criticism without mutual trust, and I don't think there has been that trust in quite a while.

Good thing that State Capitalism isn't "left"

Sure. But this is, frankly, a pretty idealist take imo that ignores not only the fact that in actual practice there is frequent tension and conflict which has real basis, but real and deeper theoretical differences as well as ones of praxis and organization. We can wish for this form of left unity you are describing all we like, but it doesn't erase the deal differences between communists and anarchists.

In my personal experience, Communists have been far more eager, happy or willing to work with anarchists when it comes to practice on the ground than vice-versa, and I think it's important to note that these forums are not representative of the actual relations between Communists and Anarchists on the ground, which are frequently tense because Marxists will often spend months agitating and entering workplaces, doing the grunt work, only for reformists and anarchists to show up at the end at points of more intense political struggle and gain political credibility for their 'participation'. Another related issue here is that, in practice, anarchist circles are on average more liberal, individualist and identitarian than Marxist orgs interested in forming parties. The emphasis on decentralized, distributed organization, justified by whatever post-structural idealist nonsense is currently in fashion, is not conducive to working with actual Communist (read: Leninist) orgs.

Not to mention that - and this is again to indicate that these forums like Hexbear are in no way indicative of actual relationships between Communists and Anarchists - that most anarchists despise Communists, most obviously Leninists, and would despise Lemmygrad and Hexbear types most of all. Like the view of us as 'Red Fash' is close to the mainstream view among most Anarchists, and it's frankly ridiculous to pretend otherwise.

In my experience the hexbears are the most aggressive sectarians on lemmy. They also openly simp for autocrats and make tyrants into folk heroes.

I don't think it counts as "punching left" when the one doing the dunking believes the dunkee is to the right of them. The way you're using that phrase renders it meaningless.

This is why left v. right seems like the wrong dimension to be worrying about IMHO. Up v. down is the only dimension that matters. Is coercion acceptable or not is the question. It doesn't matter what reasons or methods are used, dominating or attempting to dominate is wrong whether one is capitalist or Marxist.

I always wonder what the political left would look like in different European countries in the 20th century had it not been for the influence of the Soviet Union. Soviet influence ran, in my humble opinion, like poison through the veins of European socialist organisations. It seems to me like successful left wing mobilization is directly correlated with a relative lack of Soviet influence.

Just call em authoritarians. That's what they are

Unlike tankies, who are definitely not weird and larpy about their ideological forebears. /s

Nice strawman you erected there.

Anarchists have historically not been able to lead mass industrialization in a coordinated way

Because its not anarchists job to do that but worker's job, and they are very good at self-organizing.

have not been able to lead successful military campaigns across territories as large as the USSR

You say this as if they had multiple chances to do so lol.

Ah, at least we come to the crux of the disagreement. "Anarchists, babies! MLs, strong!". It always comes down to that, but it's refreshing to see you just straight up say it sometimes, so that people can see it.

Anyway, please take your historic fiction in the appropriate places. I can pull stories out of my ass as well, but that convinces no-one.

PS: I like how you sneaked in that call to emotion at the end. Very manipulative. Love it!

The post exclusively attacks Hexbear's ideological "left unity" position so it's kinda fair game for people from that position to want to say something in its defence.

The people doing marxist sectarianism instead of defending left unity are being dummies though.

What could be more left unity than MLs and anarchists coming together to embarass liberals?

this meme is explicitly anti-left unity, as is the OP

not a leftist unity moment l

You can't be a fucker like OP and then complain about the lack of unity in response

You criticize Hexbear for dunks, but also criticize them for responding at length with citations.

Straight up misgendering half the posters lol

They're starving, man

I've just entered this thread, and that single emoji right at the top confirms my fears.

don't worry, we won't let you shoot anyone.

i just fucking hate wojaks in general

Neat, now we can see how long before/if federated instances update that.

Just a hint: if you find yourself accidentally doing racism, maybe stop and consider if you're doing the right thing.

Liberals would sooner censor out the surface level racism than consider if maybe the underlying message is racist.

It's for liberals what "woke" is to conservatives.

A slang term for authoritarian communists.

A white kid from North America who simps for Russia and China despite never having set foot in either

To give a nore detailed answer... Tankies are "lefties" who have failed to realize one or two extremely important facts about the world:

1. "Strong men" are not a good thing. No matter your political opinion, using force to get it is literally incompatible with many leftist teachings. The very act of violent rebellion requires the use of force that many believe a government shoudn't have. Thusly, any violent revolution stands a STRONG chance of being shunned by those who do not want a government with sanctioned violence. Getting a "leftist" government through basic violence WILL result in a fascist government. Always.
2. Strong men cannot be allowed unjust power no matter how just they are. They cannot be allowed power because despite how cliche the expression, "power corrupts", it is wholly true. It doesn't matter how good a particular ruler is. If the levers of power exist, someone WILL pull them very bad directions.

Basically... Tankies are leftists who have not or cannot think through how authority is actually bad to allow to exist in any unchecked form. They think a ruler who does good things is good, when most leftists SHOULD be answering they don't want any ruler.

The horseshoe theory exists because of tankies and extremists. If you want leftist policy but want to achieve it through uncouth means, that's definitionally authoritarian in nature for many answers, and authoritarian answers should be antithetical to the left. Even forcing a utopia still creates a coercive government.

Someone that thinks people are cool but states are cooler

"Tankie" was a term used to describe those that supported Khrushchev sending tanks to hungaria during that whole thing. Now, it's been swallowed by western "leftists" and spit out to mean, in summary, "i can't imagine anyone being more left than me, so they must be secret fake leftists that are actually fascists and golly gee i'm so smart." comrade brain_in_a_box said it very well that it's just the lib/soccdem/anarchist version of "woke:" just a random buzzword to refer to anything they don't like.

A liberal who waves a red flag and pretends they aren't liberal. Often they call everyone else (including us) liberal. 😂 😉

Astounding. I never knew real life could be different than online forums. Thanks for the lesson mate.

Hexbears don't bother me, but I seem to be bothering them quite a lot

This comment sounds like it was written by the official AI of liberalism.

What is the appropriate way to object? It seems like asking them to substantiate checks notes literally anything about what they claim is being pretty open, it certainly is different from making a conscious effort to just harass them off the platform.

But no matter what we did, it would be "a logical result of these beliefs" that in some way is incriminating and demonstrates how evil we are, any behavior except perhaps capitulating. Your psychoanalysis, like that of Freud, is an unfalsifiable, post-hoc myth-making that impedes rather than enables causal understanding of what is going on.

And all for these shitty little West Wing monologues about how the real authoritarianism is making a rude comment on a forum.

the exact same "arguments" (a combination of manipulation techniques and logical fallicies)

are you going to name any of these "arguments" or are you just going to decry any person that disagrees with you as illogical and hysteric?

There is no healthy debate.

Is this because every attempt at "healthy debate" with OP ends with them shitting their pants and crying "I don't owwwwwwwwwwwe you a debate"?

Nah, it's the damn tankies!

cry harder. or disable downvotes on your instance, that also works

We need to connect, which then leaves us open to cointelpro. The problem of cointelpro has not been resolved, questioning our capabilities to organize ourselves.

We need a code of honor that makes cointelpro tactics a waste of time.

We don't kick in doors, what do you think the tanks are for

Actually anarchy is not chaos or a state of everybody vs everybody. Anarchy is greek for without rulers. It is basically synonymous with democracy in it's original sense.

Anarchy is a organized(even industrialized and modern) society but without powers concentrated in the hands of a few. Anarchists like myself believe that power corrupts, and even if you joined government as an angle in due time you might fall to the temptation and divert the power granted you by the massed for your own ends, in turn betraying your mandate. I believe this to be the fatal flaw of both systems like USSR and the one we live in, both are state-capitalism.

Anarchists believe that you cannot part with your freedom and then ever expect it back...

God and state is a great book to interest you further or the conquest of bread there is also lucy gonzales parsons and others like proudhon.

I hope you enjoyed this little write up and become an anarchist. 😘

This will stand as a great monument to Hexbear

Well, well, we've gone from radlib, to shitlib to stormfront in record time. Par for the course of course, but please do ignore me in the future.

Yeah, we really should respond with self crit to such valid critiques as:

That being said I responded genuinely civilly, which is much more than OP deserves.

It's wild how you feel compelled to complain about the dang intolerant tankies and not the anarcho-bidenism this post is predicated on.

Sinophobic anarchists aren't comrades. They can join the pit with all the other Sinophobic reactionaries.

If this was real life and someone showed me ch*nky eyes Mao, my only self crit would be failing to punch them in the face then and there.

It doesn't really. Just keep doing anarchist things and don't allow ML entry-ism and agitate for direct action moves instead of top down decision making.