Trying to figure out if the people doing the revolution are justified in their violence...
Alright, I think I've got it.
The purpose of this community is sort of a "work out your frustrations by letting it all out" where different leftist tendencies can vent their frustrations with one another and more assertively and directly challenge one another. Hostility is allowed, but any racist, fascist, or reactionary crap wont be tolerated, nor will explicit threats.
Trying to figure out if the people doing the revolution are justified in their violence...
Alright, I think I've got it.
Doesn’t really work, Soviets of all races and ethnicities along with French and German communists are still horrifically despised. Their violence is also seen as “unjustifiable”.
Slavs aren’t “really white.” You expect western “leftists” to know about the Paris commune or German revolution?
Soviets of all races and ethnicities along with French and German communists are still horrifically despised
I don't think they're really recognized as a cohort. When you talk about the German proletariat, its presumed you're talking about some blue collar auto worker or engineer or PMC banker. What's more, any kind of media coverage of Germany always fixates on the far-right elements of anti-government action. You'd never know East Germany was a thing, much less that German communists exist as a political force.
With France, you get a vague acknowledgement of labor unions and riotous dissidents. But they're also traditionally described in the context of far-right parties, xenophobic ideology, and a blanket disdain for Anglophones rather than any kind of Internationalist labor sentiments. French communism as a movement is also heavily occluded in international media monologues.
When you do get into anything resembling leftist ideology, it is typically described as a foreign element - Muslim/Hindu family homes/rejection of modern banking/vegetarianism or anarchism/anti-police sentiment in African ghettos or the insidious influence of the Chinese Communist Party on French/German domestic economies. I guess, we get a bit of an inversion of the trope. Less that "revolt is bad because foreign" and more "foreign is bad because its revolutionary".
Eastern Europeans are a whole different thing. You've got the "good" Eastern Europeans (your Latvians and Estonians and Orbans and Navalneys) who align with the western finance sector. And then you've got the "bad" Eastern Europeans (your Putins and Lukashenkos and Serbs and Moldovians) who operate as a foreign policy boogieman that justify more NATO spending.
I was more referencing the historical elements, not really the current status quo.
But your analysis makes sense.
Anti-communist messaging and its consequences have been a disaster for anarchists. Too many people take the label because they recognize that capitalism isn't great, but don't go far enough to see the propaganda the state perpetuates. I desperately wish these "anarchists" would read theory, or join a cool anarchist group, and see the error in their ways.
It's weird how people can recognize that the government and the rich control what you see, know the terrorist and propaganda pushing actions of the CIA, but will not put two and two together and realize how it follows that they're not getting the complete story on the USSR, AES etc from them.
I know because I was one of them and I still struggle with holding opposing opinions than what is constantly broadcasted by media and propagated by others.
To quote myself "Vaush and "anarch-bidenism" have done terrible things to the online anarchist community."
"Caring too much and putting in actual effort to change things is stupid, actually" combined with "no veggies at dinner, no bedtimes, don't tell me what to doooooooo" unexamined theory-free pop-anarchism is distressingly common.
And it kinda is, even Lenin said things along the lines that and revolution is a group forcing it's view onto society(only those views are dope and for the good of the people), it requires authority and structure therefore anarchists are either anti revolutionary or hypocritical about their revolutionary ideals
Why do we always put quotes around "anarchist" whenever an anarchist has a bad take? It's not like sincerely identifying as an anarchist makes one immune from bad takes. We don't do this for any other leftist tendency, we don't put quotes around "ML" or "Trot" whenever one posts some cringe ass shit.
Because we hold out some modicum of respect for actual, real anarchists and not just some teenage-minded shopaholics at the supermarket of ideology who found some loophole to larp as being leftists while having zero skin in the game and a perfect vantage point to support western supremacy while believing they have a unlimited license to feel smug.
It seems to me that self styled anarchists use the label because it's an easy, safe way of saying you're a bit of a rebel. It has a common, dictionary definition. At least in my country, you could shout that you're an anarchist from the rooftop and never lose your job.
The same is not true of Maoists, Trots, other kinds of Marxists. Nobody I've ever met claims to be one of those without having read some theory (the 'some' is variable, naturally). Claiming those labels brings heat and everyone knows it. If anything, I know more people who have read lots of Marxist theory who still don't claim the label because they know that it will put their skin in the game and potentially their job on the line.
Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think anyone would put quotation marks around 'anarchist' when describing or criticising e.g. Kropotkin. To me, it's more of a nod to the fact that 'anarchist' is often used in a meaningless way by people who aren't seeking accuracy.
They just want you to know that in an ideal world we wouldn't have a government or bosses or crime, etc, and everyone would decide all at the same time to share power and work together and all live happily ever after. Quite different to those who participate in direct action or the Catalan anarchists and Makhnovites of old. Or maybe 'anarchists' would like to cosplay as a violent revolutionary anarchist to achieve their goals but idk. That strikes me as more adventurist than anarchist even if both labels 'fit' according to the common psyche.
Like I said, as a broad descriptor, it's not a label seeking accuracy as it's been co-opted so many times. It's a label for those who want the aesthetics of being a revolutionary without risking their job or friendships. The quotation marks make it clear that neither real anarchists nor Marxists accept that breadth.
The online space for anarchists is so weird to be honest. I organize with a bunch in my daily life and I would peg it at solidly 75% are warm on China and more pissed at their landlord than Putin or whatever. It's extremely jarring going into some online anarchist spaces and having it uniformly be the democratic national convention.
75% are warm on China
Which sounds absolutely surreal online but totally ordinary irl. Turns out that people who reject mass society as a whole don't trust the Washington Post, don't see the world with staunch liberal ideals and don't pretend to know everything about a place they never went to
Because of the mythical existence of "based real life anarchist" as opposed to the "terminally online anarkiddies".
Idk if those exist, irl anarchists i know or i know of in Poland are and always were without exception anticommunists.
Was gonna say, people here talk about "fake internet anarchists" but it ain't exactly like the anarchists I've known irl are super pro-USSR. If anything I've encountered more AES sympathetic anarchists online than off.
I've run into a number of Greek anarchists whose complaints of the USSR boiled down to "Stalin didn't send enough weapons or troops and abandoned us"
"Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is!" ~~Karl Marx's sugar daddy~~ Frederick Engels
Anarchism and social justice language have and are heavily used by the bourgeoisie to scatter and depower radical social movements.
The eager embrace of anarchism by westerners and the cia “I am a poc with anxiety” recruiter, should be the clear indictment of the current absolute subservience of those ideas to the status qou.
A new Hunger Games movie is dropping next month, I need a few weeks of Libs to stop being so genocidal so I can mentally prepare myself for all the comparisons of (insert X country that libs hate here) and Panem from Hunger Games.