#left unity

I think this counts.. (Excuse to draw leftist unity)

(Also scrapped thing cuz I didn't rlly like it)

Seeing more MLs again in my feed, to no surprise. Listen there are some good among them, hard to believe as it may be, but Jesus it seems like 80% of them are the most horrifically uneducated 15 year olds on the planet. "Anarchism has never worked, and Democratic Socialists are fascists, Marxism-Leninism is the only viable option because it's the only one that's produced results (after killing millions of course to get there)!!1!"

Anyone who says that Anarchism has never worked is just uninformed. The CNT in Spain during the Civil War is an excellent example, and probably the biggest one. Within less than a year, they had peacefully collectivized between 50-65% of the farmland within the Republican (so, anti-fascist in this case) zone and controlled 70% of industrial manufacturing.

Production both agricultural and industrial also saw a 20% boost across the board under them, and products fell to 1/4 or less than their prices before the CNT gained power if they weren't outright free (which they were in many areas). Oh and they gave women full equality and built hospitals and abortion clinics of course. In addition, they pushed for more relaxed social attitudes towards sex and love, and created a sort of free-love culture that wouldn't be seen again in the West until a few decades later with the Free Love hippie movement.

All in less than a year. They were incredibly efficient. That's what you get when you have 12.12% of the population of workers united under a leftist cause (that number is a combined statistic from CNT membership numbers and UGT members, the UGT was a more mild socialist organization that collaborated with the CNT in their work and contributed significantly), instead of just a few hundred at the top calling all the shots and making the workers carry out their orders, regardless of whether or not they're "for their own good."

The only reason the Spainish Anarchists failed was because of the Civil War. They had to join ranks with the other leftist factions in the Republic, and more and more concessions were made until their power was gone for the sake of leftist unity and ease of organization for the Republicans and MLs, because during war you have to make compromises to survive sometimes. They gave up everything they gained to help their comrades win the war against fascism.

And then, on December 17th of 1938, Pravda published this "The purge of Trotskyists and anarcho-syndicalists has already begun in Catalonia; it has been carried out with the same energy as in the Soviet Union."

Anarchism failed in many cases because Marxist-Leninists stabbed their comrades in the back. It happened in the Russian Revolution and Civil War, too. Saying that Anarchism never works as a Marxist-Leninist is like when Liberals say that Socialism never works while ignoring the fact that the CIA has destroyed every Socialist revolution it possibly could. Historically, agents of states run by people following your ideology have done very similar things.

And I'm not even an Anarchist. I'm a Democratic Socialist with strong syndiclist beliefs and I sympathize a lot with Anarchists, but I believe Democratic Socialism is our current best bet in the USA and Europe. I don't think that Anarchism can properly take root and flourish here like it did in Spain for those precious few years. We don't have a wider sociopolitical climate that's conducive to it yet, and I don't know if we will again. But that doesn't mean it can't be tried on a local level (I'm all in favor of trying to form local collectives and mutual aid if such a thing is ever possible and I think we should try it) and that doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried in the developing world, where it could really shine right now. If I woke up tomorrow and saw that suddenly there was an Anarchist uprising in, say, Madagascar, I would be overjoyed. If I were a rich girl, I'd buy a plane ticket to go assist for as long as I reasonably could, I would be incredibly hyped.

Bourgeois?!

I’m sorry, did he just say his last name is bourgeois?!?!

I used to be pretty hardcore about hating on MLs etc. in my defence, some of them can be pretty annoying, but I’m sure much the same is true of anarchists if you’re stood on the other side of the argument.

One thing that is almost certainly and provably true is that the overwhelming majority of radical leftists believe what they believe because, at their core, they think the current state of society is unjust, and want to work to build a better one.

But I also don’t think the argument that runs something like “we’re all just communists with different methods of getting to communism” holds much water. I don’t think anarchists can completely work with their ideological opponents; the belief that hierarchies are unjust and need to be dismantled is fundamentally incompatible with the idea that you need a centralised proletarian vanguard that derives its power from the representative democracy of workers councils. There has been significant and bloody conflict between both camps for a reason.

On the other hand, right now, those conflicts are petty and ridiculous when neoimperialism and neoliberalism continue their stranglehold over society and economy. I have worked and do work with many MLs/Trots/Maoists etc., and we need some serious solidarity with the left right now.