The consensus is that they don’t read any theory apart from kropotkins bread book. That makes me wonder how anarchists are placed within the class hierarchy. If they have no immediate concerns for their own struggle, enough of a concern to read legitimate strategy regarding their position, does this not mean that they’re outside the lens of struggle? Are they too well off to care, but at the same time envisioning a utopian equitable future for all? Myself, I’m a devious class traitor and will use all my resources to bring about communism. I dabbled with anarchy because at first it was appealing and sounded amazing (too good to be true?) - but then I got down to brass tacks about HOW we go about transitional governance, and how to take care of the impoverished and the workers while the transition takes place. Lenin and Mao grabbed me by the short and curlys and I’ve never looked back.
Well class and ideology are completely independent concepts. You can have someone in the bourgeoisie who is communist (like Engels), or someone in the proletariat who supports capitalism (like most of the working class in the first world). So for Anarchists it also depends on their material conditions, from what I see most online, of them live in western countries, and are not affected that much by oppression.
My opinion is that they are genuinely against capitalism and fascism, and as such are already better than socdems or demsocs. But their lack of understanding of class and materialism will prevent them from implementing a dictatorship of the proletariat, which means they will never gain any permanent success. And they even stand against actual socialist states, siding with capitalists at the worst.
But in the end it all depends on material conditions, and the good thing is that anarchism is a first step for many people into Marxism-Leninism.
What do you make of Greece’s radical left being majority anarchist instead of communist?
I dont really know anything about Greek politics, so I cant answer that. But from what I heard, they arent very successful overall.
lenin is unreadable imo tried reading State n Rev and I never want to again. complete waste of time
Yeah a lot of theory even if it has good stuff can be a pain to read, although I do try to read it when I can. I’ve been really enjoying the Red Menace podcast for help studying theory.
In what sense are anarchists idealists?
In the sense that they have no actual theory how a communist revolution works. Basically they just hope that people will all work together, and that this cooperation will magically overcome the organized forces of reaction.
I’m surprised you think this. Have you read much anarchist theory?
More surprising even is how you really think anarchists are this silly.
Anarchists of Marx’s time were were highly influential on Marx, such as Bakunin and Stirner, and Marx was often engaging directly with their work, adjusting his own views as he did.
There’s a lovely podcast by Marxist Revolutionary Left Radio in conversation with anarchist Mark Bray that presents differences in such a way that actually takes seriously both positions, you might want to engage it as a basic introduction to anarchism. It’s here, if you are curious.
I read the bread book, but not much else because there doesnt seem to be much actual theory. I definitely never saw any anarchist writing that took account of class or material conditions. Sure you can point to tribal societies and call them anarchist, but that has nothing to do with the material conditions of nation states.
Then you have anarchists who attack countries like the Soviet Union, and act like these are exactly the same as imperialist countries like the United States. That is just pure ignorance.
Sorry I’m not into podcasts so I wont listen to that.
It seems most ‘party communists’ refuse to take anarchists seriously, referring to them with diminutives like “naive” from the get-go. Then a confirmation bias comes into play where the communist judges anarchists using the same yardstick they would use for communists: 'wheres the dialectical materialism? Do they even want a vanguard state?? They don’t have a solid theory!"
The reality is that most anarchists are very class conscious, most are actually working class. The attempt to break down unjust power structures is all about class (inclusive of gender, race, etc.) I’ve seen rhetoric here that anarchists “must not be concerned about their struggle, and so they’re outside the lense of struggle.” That idea is laughable. Most of the proletariat hasn’t read theory. But even more bizarre is the idea that one needs to be well versed in academics to successfully engage in class struggle.
I believe the reality of why communists see anarchists as naive and foolish is a combination of confirmation bias and not understanding anarchist theory, while not even looking for it to begin with
I have read anarchist theory before, but I found it very lacking. The gist of it is always “anarchism is possible in these very specific circumstances, so lets hope it happens here”. There is no accounting for external and internal revisionists, no accounting for counter-revolution. The next problem is that anarchists always blame communists for “betraying them”. If your society couldnt resist against communism, how could it ever resist capitalism?
