Do they think the Catalan Anarchists had no bourgeois blood on their hands? Do they think the Makhnovites never executed counterrevolutionaries? Fucking idiots. I preferred it when anarchists actually threw pipe bombs.
Do they think the Catalan Anarchists had no bourgeois blood on their hands? Do they think the Makhnovites never executed counterrevolutionaries? Fucking idiots. I preferred it when anarchists actually threw pipe bombs.
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.
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
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In the US, it’s been the ones who are either old punks, or just normal people that gravitate to anarchist organizing, without making it their identity. When I say warm it’s not that they’re “pro-CCP” it’s that they’re not knee jerk going china bad, and certainly aren’t going out of their way to try to make it a purity test for social interactions.
I wonder if a lot of it is bot accounts in the employ of the security services. Not all the users, but enough in key positions to shape the narrative. A safe and harmless way of neutralising disaffected youth. And for those who won’t be neutralised, a little encouragement to commit a crime that can be ‘stopped’ or let happen to justify more funding. Harder to do that in Marxist spaces (I’m sure there are examples), as Marxists argue against adventurism/propaganda of the deed/lone-wolfism and argue for organising the masses.
Anarchism has so many varied branches as to almost mean nothing. Like how the hell do pacificist anarchists get along with insurrectionary anarchists who praise assassinations and propaganda of the deed?
This is what makes me think of it as a synonym for ‘bit of a rebel’; it doesn’t hint at what type of rebellion the anarchist will go in for.