It is certainly not without historical precedent. Anarchists were quite heavily involved with the Russian revolution for example, although many historical-revisionist marxist-leninists would prefer to downplay that.
I appreciate that you don’t, I even have you tagged as “a polite marxist” so I must have had a positive interaction with you before, but many MLs I’ve debated before have downplayed anarchist contributions to the Russian revolution. I can understand how you might not encounter that very often since you’re not putting yourself out there as an anarchist.
Point taken, but although it may not have ended well for the anarchists I believe their involvement in the Russian revolution was for the better since it could easily have gone in a much worse direction without them. Anarchists are always putting themselves in harm’s way to make this world a better place.
Ask the Anarchists on Hexbear why they’re fine with Marxists.
In my experience, Hexbear is a much less toxic instance due to the anti-sectarian rules. Someone described it as “less like a Communist Party and more like the bar Communists hang out at after the meeting,” which is both cute and accurate. It’s a nice atmosphere if you aren’t a liberal.
Doesn’t sound like it would have a nice atmosphere for socialists or anarchists either
Edit: Also that place allows coordinated attacks against non-tankies, and the most troubling users from blåhaj ran to that place, so I’m not super impressed.
Doesn’t sound like it would have a nice atmosphere for socialists or anarchists either
Like I said, you can ask the anarchists and socialists there yourself. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, it’s a nice atmosphere, and I get along with the Anarchists there as well.
Edit: Also that place allows coordinated attacks against non-tankies, and the most troubling users from blåhaj ran to that place, so I’m not super impressed.
Mind explaining what you mean by “coordinated attacks?” And what do you mean by “troubling users from blåhaj?” People leaving one instance for Hexbear isn’t necessarily indicative of Hexbear being bad.
Hexbear has been problematic from the start. I would love to find some sources, but that would require effort that I’m not willing to expend right now. Basically hexbear has done a lot of brigading and bullying in the past, with blessings from their moderators.
I do not consider tankies socialists, as socialism is inherently anti-authoritarian, and I honestly have little respect for socialists and anarchists that hang out with them. History has seen the regimes the tankies defend ruin attempts at socialism and anarchy countless times, especially considering that these regimes are often military takeovers of actual socialist revolutions.
Hexbear has been problematic from the start. I would love to find some sources, but that would require effort that I’m not willing to expend right now. Basically hexbear has done a lot of brigading and bullying in the past, with blessings from their moderators.
I would love to see sources.
I do not consider tankies socialists, as socialism is inherently anti-authoritarian, and I honestly have little respect for socialists and anarchists that hang out with them. History has seen the regimes the tankies defend ruin attempts at socialism and anarchy countless times, especially considering that these regimes are often military takeovers of actual socialist revolutions.
Are you genuinely making the argument that Marxism isn’t Socialist? Marxism isn’t Anarchist, correct, but Marxism is fundamentally Socialist. It’s the largest and most significant strain of Socialism, historically and presently.
I dunno where to find sources on hexbear being bad, but please stop using marxist and tankie as if they are synonymous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
You’re using them synonymously, you denied the Marxist states as “not Socialist,” and have claimed the Marxists on Hexbear are “tankies.” Can you meaningfully explain the difference between Marxism and “tankies?” Engels himself even wrote On Authority because Anarchists constantly accused him and Marx of being authoritarian, it isn’t a new concept, because Marx advocated for centralization of the Means of Production Anarchists stood firmly opposed.
I’m not going to spend too much time debating a tankie, but I think most of these regimes kinda by definition are not socialist given how little power the workers had. When unions are suppressed and the military and the dictatorship are essentially the same thing, how could they be socialist? Socialism requires that workers own their workplaces, that they run them. This was not the case in the soviet union nor is it the case in china today, where businesses are either organized by the state (like in the soviet union) or mixed (CCP). The state organizing businesses or whatever you want to call them would be fine if the people owned the state, but again these were/are dictatorships.
The people don’t control anything at all in your so called marxist states, and so therefore they are not marxist. Centralization is not something that I’m opposed to, but what does it matter how decentralized or centralized something is if it’s not also democratically owned?
I would probably call myself a marxist if tankies hadn’t so thoroughly stained the term.
Edit: I am also well aware that there were unions in the soviet union, hence the name. However they had little power, and mostly could only ever push for worker safety regulations.
I’m an anarchist and I agree with what you’re trying to say, but marxist-leninists are going to jump all over you with semantics arguments because of your unorthodox use of the word socialist.
I’ll admit my perspective may be skewed because I spend a good amount of time debating marxist-leninists, but I really don’t like arguing semantics unless it’s important to the discussion at large. For that reason I’ll often avoid using words in a way that will start semantics arguments that derail the discussion.
It’s also why I typically avoid calling people I’m currently debating tankies, because I think that makes them defensive and is bad for outreach. Maybe I’m wasting my time trying to change people’s minds, but if that’s the case then people who argue aggressively are definitely wasting their time.
Why would anarchists associate with tankies? I don’t wanna share any space with authoritarians of any kind
It is certainly not without historical precedent. Anarchists were quite heavily involved with the Russian revolution for example, although many historical-revisionist marxist-leninists would prefer to downplay that.
MLs don’t downplay the participation of Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, at least not from what I have seen.
I appreciate that you don’t, I even have you tagged as “a polite marxist” so I must have had a positive interaction with you before, but many MLs I’ve debated before have downplayed anarchist contributions to the Russian revolution. I can understand how you might not encounter that very often since you’re not putting yourself out there as an anarchist.
That’s a fair point.
Historically it has never worked out very well for the anarchists, so I would hope that they have learned their lesson by now
Point taken, but although it may not have ended well for the anarchists I believe their involvement in the Russian revolution was for the better since it could easily have gone in a much worse direction without them. Anarchists are always putting themselves in harm’s way to make this world a better place.
Ask the Anarchists on Hexbear why they’re fine with Marxists.
In my experience, Hexbear is a much less toxic instance due to the anti-sectarian rules. Someone described it as “less like a Communist Party and more like the bar Communists hang out at after the meeting,” which is both cute and accurate. It’s a nice atmosphere if you aren’t a liberal.
Doesn’t sound like it would have a nice atmosphere for socialists or anarchists either
Edit: Also that place allows coordinated attacks against non-tankies, and the most troubling users from blåhaj ran to that place, so I’m not super impressed.
Like I said, you can ask the anarchists and socialists there yourself. I’m a Marxist-Leninist, it’s a nice atmosphere, and I get along with the Anarchists there as well.
Mind explaining what you mean by “coordinated attacks?” And what do you mean by “troubling users from blåhaj?” People leaving one instance for Hexbear isn’t necessarily indicative of Hexbear being bad.
Hexbear has been problematic from the start. I would love to find some sources, but that would require effort that I’m not willing to expend right now. Basically hexbear has done a lot of brigading and bullying in the past, with blessings from their moderators.
I do not consider tankies socialists, as socialism is inherently anti-authoritarian, and I honestly have little respect for socialists and anarchists that hang out with them. History has seen the regimes the tankies defend ruin attempts at socialism and anarchy countless times, especially considering that these regimes are often military takeovers of actual socialist revolutions.
I would love to see sources.
Are you genuinely making the argument that Marxism isn’t Socialist? Marxism isn’t Anarchist, correct, but Marxism is fundamentally Socialist. It’s the largest and most significant strain of Socialism, historically and presently.
I dunno where to find sources on hexbear being bad, but please stop using marxist and tankie as if they are synonymous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
You’re using them synonymously, you denied the Marxist states as “not Socialist,” and have claimed the Marxists on Hexbear are “tankies.” Can you meaningfully explain the difference between Marxism and “tankies?” Engels himself even wrote On Authority because Anarchists constantly accused him and Marx of being authoritarian, it isn’t a new concept, because Marx advocated for centralization of the Means of Production Anarchists stood firmly opposed.
I’m not going to spend too much time debating a tankie, but I think most of these regimes kinda by definition are not socialist given how little power the workers had. When unions are suppressed and the military and the dictatorship are essentially the same thing, how could they be socialist? Socialism requires that workers own their workplaces, that they run them. This was not the case in the soviet union nor is it the case in china today, where businesses are either organized by the state (like in the soviet union) or mixed (CCP). The state organizing businesses or whatever you want to call them would be fine if the people owned the state, but again these were/are dictatorships.
The people don’t control anything at all in your so called marxist states, and so therefore they are not marxist. Centralization is not something that I’m opposed to, but what does it matter how decentralized or centralized something is if it’s not also democratically owned?
I would probably call myself a marxist if tankies hadn’t so thoroughly stained the term.
Edit: I am also well aware that there were unions in the soviet union, hence the name. However they had little power, and mostly could only ever push for worker safety regulations.
I’m an anarchist and I agree with what you’re trying to say, but marxist-leninists are going to jump all over you with semantics arguments because of your unorthodox use of the word socialist.
It’s really not unorthodox in leftist spaces, only in tankie and non-leftist places :/
I’ll admit my perspective may be skewed because I spend a good amount of time debating marxist-leninists, but I really don’t like arguing semantics unless it’s important to the discussion at large. For that reason I’ll often avoid using words in a way that will start semantics arguments that derail the discussion.
It’s also why I typically avoid calling people I’m currently debating tankies, because I think that makes them defensive and is bad for outreach. Maybe I’m wasting my time trying to change people’s minds, but if that’s the case then people who argue aggressively are definitely wasting their time.
Here’s me discovering socialism, new to the (actual) ideas but vibing with them pretty well.
Start talking about it online.
Anarchist: fuck you you stupid fucking tankie.
I had no idea what a tankie was, but I figured out real quick that anarchists are the angsty atheists of the political world.