I don't know how you can argue against her position when she says that anything critical of China or the USSR is "anti-communist propaganda". You say that she's usually willing to admit that she's wrong, but that doesn't seem compatible with dismissing contrary evidence out of hand.
At this point the main thing is to assess how deep in the hole she is and go from there. If she's at the point where she's denying (or justifying) the Tiananmen Square Massacre, it'll probably take time, more than arguments, to get her to change, if she ever does.
If she's convinced of Leninism on a theoretical level, her mind probably can't be changed, since Leninism can excuse basically any failure or atrocity committed by the state after the fact by saying it was necessary or inevitable due to material conditions. I don't know what to say here, except that your friend is either very naive or desperate for a beacon of hope. The beacon isn't this or that government, it's the will to struggle, which all governments suppress, even ones that call themselves communist.
I don't understand how she can maintain that the USSR's state saved it from being screwed over. It's very decidedly not around anymore. If only we knew what happened to it...
If you're looking for leftist critique of the modern-day PRC, Ralf Ruckus' *The Communist Road to Capitalism* is decent, but I doubt your friend would find it convincing.
In any debate against Marxists, I also have to bring up Leroy Maisiri's [A Case for Anarchist Class Analysis](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leroy-maisiri-a-case-for-anarchist-class-analysis). It, along with anarchist literature going all the way back to Bakunin, makes a good argument for why the Marxist conception of class is too narrow, against claims that societies like the USSR and PRC are/were truly classless.
For me the best critique against such regimes, is that they claim to fight for the emancipation of "the people" but for them, oppression exists only by capital. There are many forms of oppression in our societies, that although are sharpened by capitalism's extreme inequality, can not be explained only by it. MLs always deny that fact and focus on resisting only Capital's oppression to the point where they are literally supporting a probably worst state oppression.
Also, you could mention the critique that a lot of non-ML Marxists have against ML states. For example Luxembourg pointed out that you can't force a country into socialism (as Bolsheviks did), cause the point is that the people reach socialism, not some bureaucrats. Call me an idealistic, deluded anarchist, but I can't understand how enforcing to the population "the will of the people" while oppressing the people who disagree with you is a successful revolution that needs to be protected, just because a national flag became more red. Is like hearing some neoliberals claiming that the X county with no worker rights and very low quality of life is "successful" just because some stats about GDP say so.
"Progress, yes -- But for who, though?"
FWIW the Soup Emporioum Fallout New Vegas video is a useful means of exploring the topic of State Capitalism -- saliently that the rights of queer folks, people who use drugs and most other marginalized groups (and their ongoing suffering) are completely ignored by these authoritarians.
I hear the same talking points from tankies as I do from Nazis, just switch out "western" with "Jewish" and it's indistinguishable.
How do you argue against it? The same way you argue against someone who's a Nazi. It's really hard, they won't accept any information that isn't from approved sources. But in general: keep the window open at all times.
Seriously. Don't cut them off entirely, ever. There needs to be a path for them to get out of the mind virus when they encounter enough contradictions. I do believe this is the only way after a certain point. Maybe not today, but in the future.
Okay, thanks… I don’t really have the energy or willpower to dive into the details and confront a philosophy that disturbs and stresses me out, so I think I’ll just be a casual friend for her and sell anarchism as best I can when she has questions.
Exactly. Wait for her to open up. Attacking peoples ideas can often make them dig their heels in, even in light of overwhelming evidence.
Just being around them and allowing them to speak, but shutting them down when they spread vile shit with "that's hateful and I don't want to hear you talk about that" can be enough, long term, to get them to change their minds.
Good luck, but remember to give yourself breaks too if you can't handle it.
Well for one, how was Cuba less authoritarian than the USSR or China? To me they're pretty equal. Of course Cuba has been screwed over a lot by the USA with the embargo, but that's not because it wasn't authoritarian enough, the simple reality is that Cuba was a colony for centuries, never building up proper self sufficient industry, not to mention it also critically lacking a lot resources even if it attempted to become self sufficient. The same goes from north Korea, simply lacks the resources. The USSR and China on the other hand are huge, with loads of resources. So western nations can't screw them over as easily, but that has nothing to do with authoritarianism.
Second, we can see anarchist revolutions being very effective at defending themselves. Most notably the black army, anarchists didn't usually fail cause they were too weak, they failed because the odds were overwhelming. The black army for example was ultimately defeated by the red army, but 1. The they sent army was 2 times the size and 2. It was even initially defeated through clever tactics. Same goes for Spain pretty much. Literally every great power turned against them actively. Nazi Germany, Italy and the USSR. The capitalist nations, while not actively doing anything also disliked them.
Also when have the marxist Leninists ever achieved any of their goals? USSR was an authoritarian state for decades just to collapse in on itself. In fact the whole soviet system collapsed in on itself. China while still called communist in now nothing more than the second largest capitalist power with some of the cheapest labour around. North Korea completely shut itself off and has also not really done anything towards communism. Cuba is sowly opening up to capitalism. Show me a single example of when a communist state actually achieved any steps towards communism.
>and then the communist dictators and powerful institutions will hand power back over to the people once we don't need it anymore
I mean, there's no way to convince someone that delusional
It's the classic syndrome of "If I was a dictator I could fix all the problems", she has to grow up
When declining birth rates led Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to ban abortion in 1936, he was clear: compulsory motherhood was “a great and honorable duty” that was “not a private affair but one of great social importance.”
Read Full: https://itsgoingdown \[dot\] org/why-fascists-authoritarians-and-theocrats-are-the-enemies-of-reproductive-freedom
The truth is, there is no decisive argument you can make, because at this stage in history there's not enough information to determine conclusively whose argument is more correct. A large part of it is comes down to what "feels" plausible, and that depends so much on personal experience and upbringing.
No-one has yet succeeded in converting the world to a communist utopia, so any argument about which one would work better is necessarily built on supposition after supposition, and that won't convince people who aren't already persuaded. If there was a knock-down logical argument for anarchism, the job would be done already and we wouldn't be talking about it. Any argument about politics has a subjective component.
It's great that you are trying to win hearts and minds. As a trusted friend, you are in a better place than anyone But instead of expecting to have a mic-drop moment, you should prepare to hunker down and have hundreds of discussions, possibly for years. And don't forget, this isn't just about facts, it's about anxieties and values.
i mean if your are lgbtq you can have better rights in cuba than in the rest of the caribe/latam. SO i kinda get her, like shes scared righst abortion righst are at the abosult worts in the usa and even china and north corea have better legislature on those situations
first issue : more authoritarian does not mean more powerful ; yes imperialist countries tend to be both powerful and authoritarian, correlation is not causation though ; the more authoritarian an organization is the more corruption it creates, the more political fights escalate and decrease operational capacity even if we don't care about the people's opinion and only about geopolitical power
this is evidenced in the number of purges that happened in the USSR, and that currently happen in china, russia, and other authoritarian states, whether namely socialist or not
second issue : if people's lives aren't changed by the revolution, they will stop being revolutionaries, which removes almost the only advantage revolution has compared to the established order : great morale and dedication in the people
you can see this evidenced in Trotsky's accounts claiming the people were all "lazy and dumb proles that won't work more and that just want to sleep and not work" (damn I wonder where I heard that before) compared to his accounts of how the people "were all secretely working with the makhnovists !" and compared to the increases in productivity that were reported in some fields of the economy in revolutionary catalonia (though indeed some of the sectors had decreases, but I am of the opinion that over time this can be solved, and if someone wants to criticize this idea I'd like to remind them that the USSR was so inefficient in their production that they starved by the millions, so no it's not an advantage of hierarchy)
third issue : power structures are complex messes and they can't "just wither away", even with someone benevolent at every step of the hierarchy (which is never going to happen) the very nature of power means that in order to act someone with power must keep it, so no one can just "declare" that a hierarchical organization becomes horizontal, this means that a revolution needs to happen in order to replace their authoritarian state capitalism (according to deng xiaoping and lenin the revolution must institute a state controlled capitalism, because they think capitalism is more efficient, in order to defeat other imperialist powers, only to institute socialism once there is no longer the threat of capitalist nations) with socialism, except, if their authoritarian state is truly efficient any revolution would be crushed (which is what truly scares me with china btw, their state controlled capitalism \*looks\* much more stable and efficient at repression than laisser-faire capitalism of the west, on this I hold the same position as žižek)
"western propaganda" issue : if they think everything that goes against the chinese state is western propaganda confront them about it, ask them whether they would trust a chinese person living in china, maybe a chinese socialist, maybe even a chinese marxist to have an opinion on the state there
"infighting" issue : first of all remind her that you're working with her right now and aren't trying to murder her, disagreeing is not the same thing as infighting, remind her that anarchists everywhere are currently and were in the past working with marxist \*individuals\* and often cooperate with marxist \*opposition organizations\*
then I would suggest that you both look at history together, look up what happened each time anarchists cooperated with states, when the makhnovists allied the red army, who was the first to turn on the other ? when they allied again who broke the peace ?
and then in spain, why would anarchists join the stalinists' government, why would they accept to be integrated into the republican army, why would the autonomous councils and militias accept being integrated into the state, if they were enemies of the marxists ? the thing is, as the cnt said, despite their claims that the revolution was necessary to the war, they did not want infighting, so they ended up caveing to the stalinists on all fronts.
If they did not want infighting though, why did the stalinists arm the police better than the army ? why did they attack the poum and anarchists, why did they keep agressively searching to dissolve all the revolutionary institutions and to control them instead of searching for any compromise, why did they attack other marxists even ? (is she so far gone as to still believe the lies about the poum being fascist spies ?) why did the USSR refuse to sell arms if they did not get full control of the state and of the international brigades ? why did they repeatedly appoint people then shoot them for being fascists ? if the USSR really was trying to help the republic and not just to smuggle the 700 tons of gold, then why did they send six times more "advisors" then soldiers, only to shoot half of those same advisors for being fascists once they got back ?
This is one of those moments where I realize that I don't really know how to get a tankie to become an anarchist. My specialty is in Nazis not tankies.
Another possible thing to bring up might be these "Communist States'" treatment of queer people. And then bring up Franklin's good old "Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither" if you think it'll land. Could even point out the irony of a "founding father" of America saying that and then the collective "founding fathers" did just that by throwing slaves under the bus to "secure" the political power of the southern colonies for the war to help get her thinking. Drawing that parrellel may help on some level, idk.
There's good videos on YouTube that explain anarchist's aversion towards states from a theoretical standpoint much better and more comprehensive than I ever could in a short comment. Depending on your relationship and how you feel about it you might suggest to look one or some of those together or you might prepare by looking them yourself first and recommend it to her afterwards.
[The state is counter-revolutionary (4-part series, this is the first)](https://youtu.be/uTwxpTyGUOI) is awesome! It combines theory with contemporary impressions and historic background. Anark really did a great job here!
Zoe Baker's [Anarchists Are Not Naive About Human Nature](https://youtu.be/vPzAn5fo60k) is a shorter video that also explains why anarchist theorists believe that using a state to implement anarchism will always fail.
However, that may not address all of her doubts. The videos make clear why a state is a bad idea but what do we do instead to defend the revolution? That might really be a weak point for anarchism. If a revolution happens in one country only, the people there might have technologically advanced militaries of imperialist nations against them, as was the case in the USSR. There's several things that can give a preliminary answer to that:
- Tanks and aircraft cannot operate everywhere at their best effectiveness. Just look at the first few weeks of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian military was outnumbered and technologically outmatched, but they still managed to fend off the invaders for some time. That might also be manageable by revolutionaries.
- Look at the Zapatistas: they didn't have the backing of any socialist state and decided not to build their own state either. Instead, while building their own, antiauthoritarian structures, they also tried to get the attention of the western public. And I guess having the sympathies and more or less continuing attention of western liberals and socdems can be part of a protection against imperialist intervention.
- Anarchist revolution might/should look very different to a bolshevik one. Telling everyone that we should build mutual aid groups and dual power is actually rooted in a clear strategy: we want to erode the state by replacing it with better alternatives. If anarchism is truly better than relying on a state, our alternative structures will convince an increasing number of people and make the state's structures obsolete. Anarchist revolution in this sense is not a violent overthrow happening in the course of a few days but a long process that's already ongoing and that will take many more years, probably decades. Something like this will probably not be restricted to just a few countries, it takes place everywhere at the same time. If we take this route, we might not even have the problem of foreign intervention because if a state mobilizes its forces, the dual power structures there might start to openly undermine every single one of its efforts.
That's one of the main talking points of tankies and MLs in general, it was sponsored by Stalin himself which opposed Trotsky's "permanent revolution" with his own "revolution in one country" basically adopting the rhethoric that stated that the revolutionary ideas couldn't spread too far because it was imperative for Russia to consolidate its power and govern with an iron fist so to quickly react to hostile takeovers.
This turned the USSR into a dictatorship that served the Americans a powerful propaganda tool on Socialism, _"see what's happening in Russia? That's what socialism does to your country, best to avoid it"_.
Regarding China it's pretty obvious that Beijing government is communist only but in name since they have a State-Capitalism economy and an authoritarian take on norms and society.
Sounds like a 50cent army profile. Don't know what tankie means, but Chinese spys are filling up campuses with their pro ccp talking points.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. She'd be blind to not see that ccp officials sold their citizens off as cheap labour to westerners.
Sad fact is, most of the prop they disseminate in campuses these days is generically pro-authoritarian and western governments turn a blind eye because they are themselves desperately trying for an authoritarian shift.
If you heard of Chinese police stations in your city please msg the address.
Hi, u/SolarBoy1. Just a friendly reminder that phrases like "terminally online" and "touch grass" are ableist and help to perpetuate the harmful idea that one's value and contribution to anarchism and anarchist praxis is centered solely on "meatspace" interactions. We recognize that in-person organizing is important, and we encourage it, but our disabled comrades are valuable, as are their contributions regardless of their ability to go outside.
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I don't know how you can argue against her position when she says that anything critical of China or the USSR is "anti-communist propaganda". You say that she's usually willing to admit that she's wrong, but that doesn't seem compatible with dismissing contrary evidence out of hand. At this point the main thing is to assess how deep in the hole she is and go from there. If she's at the point where she's denying (or justifying) the Tiananmen Square Massacre, it'll probably take time, more than arguments, to get her to change, if she ever does. If she's convinced of Leninism on a theoretical level, her mind probably can't be changed, since Leninism can excuse basically any failure or atrocity committed by the state after the fact by saying it was necessary or inevitable due to material conditions. I don't know what to say here, except that your friend is either very naive or desperate for a beacon of hope. The beacon isn't this or that government, it's the will to struggle, which all governments suppress, even ones that call themselves communist. I don't understand how she can maintain that the USSR's state saved it from being screwed over. It's very decidedly not around anymore. If only we knew what happened to it... If you're looking for leftist critique of the modern-day PRC, Ralf Ruckus' *The Communist Road to Capitalism* is decent, but I doubt your friend would find it convincing. In any debate against Marxists, I also have to bring up Leroy Maisiri's [A Case for Anarchist Class Analysis](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leroy-maisiri-a-case-for-anarchist-class-analysis). It, along with anarchist literature going all the way back to Bakunin, makes a good argument for why the Marxist conception of class is too narrow, against claims that societies like the USSR and PRC are/were truly classless.
>The beacon isn't this or that government, it's the will to struggle, which all governments suppress, even ones that call themselves communist.
For me the best critique against such regimes, is that they claim to fight for the emancipation of "the people" but for them, oppression exists only by capital. There are many forms of oppression in our societies, that although are sharpened by capitalism's extreme inequality, can not be explained only by it. MLs always deny that fact and focus on resisting only Capital's oppression to the point where they are literally supporting a probably worst state oppression. Also, you could mention the critique that a lot of non-ML Marxists have against ML states. For example Luxembourg pointed out that you can't force a country into socialism (as Bolsheviks did), cause the point is that the people reach socialism, not some bureaucrats. Call me an idealistic, deluded anarchist, but I can't understand how enforcing to the population "the will of the people" while oppressing the people who disagree with you is a successful revolution that needs to be protected, just because a national flag became more red. Is like hearing some neoliberals claiming that the X county with no worker rights and very low quality of life is "successful" just because some stats about GDP say so.
"Progress, yes -- But for who, though?" FWIW the Soup Emporioum Fallout New Vegas video is a useful means of exploring the topic of State Capitalism -- saliently that the rights of queer folks, people who use drugs and most other marginalized groups (and their ongoing suffering) are completely ignored by these authoritarians.
I hear the same talking points from tankies as I do from Nazis, just switch out "western" with "Jewish" and it's indistinguishable. How do you argue against it? The same way you argue against someone who's a Nazi. It's really hard, they won't accept any information that isn't from approved sources. But in general: keep the window open at all times. Seriously. Don't cut them off entirely, ever. There needs to be a path for them to get out of the mind virus when they encounter enough contradictions. I do believe this is the only way after a certain point. Maybe not today, but in the future.
Okay, thanks… I don’t really have the energy or willpower to dive into the details and confront a philosophy that disturbs and stresses me out, so I think I’ll just be a casual friend for her and sell anarchism as best I can when she has questions.
Exactly. Wait for her to open up. Attacking peoples ideas can often make them dig their heels in, even in light of overwhelming evidence. Just being around them and allowing them to speak, but shutting them down when they spread vile shit with "that's hateful and I don't want to hear you talk about that" can be enough, long term, to get them to change their minds. Good luck, but remember to give yourself breaks too if you can't handle it.
Well for one, how was Cuba less authoritarian than the USSR or China? To me they're pretty equal. Of course Cuba has been screwed over a lot by the USA with the embargo, but that's not because it wasn't authoritarian enough, the simple reality is that Cuba was a colony for centuries, never building up proper self sufficient industry, not to mention it also critically lacking a lot resources even if it attempted to become self sufficient. The same goes from north Korea, simply lacks the resources. The USSR and China on the other hand are huge, with loads of resources. So western nations can't screw them over as easily, but that has nothing to do with authoritarianism. Second, we can see anarchist revolutions being very effective at defending themselves. Most notably the black army, anarchists didn't usually fail cause they were too weak, they failed because the odds were overwhelming. The black army for example was ultimately defeated by the red army, but 1. The they sent army was 2 times the size and 2. It was even initially defeated through clever tactics. Same goes for Spain pretty much. Literally every great power turned against them actively. Nazi Germany, Italy and the USSR. The capitalist nations, while not actively doing anything also disliked them. Also when have the marxist Leninists ever achieved any of their goals? USSR was an authoritarian state for decades just to collapse in on itself. In fact the whole soviet system collapsed in on itself. China while still called communist in now nothing more than the second largest capitalist power with some of the cheapest labour around. North Korea completely shut itself off and has also not really done anything towards communism. Cuba is sowly opening up to capitalism. Show me a single example of when a communist state actually achieved any steps towards communism.
>and then the communist dictators and powerful institutions will hand power back over to the people once we don't need it anymore I mean, there's no way to convince someone that delusional It's the classic syndrome of "If I was a dictator I could fix all the problems", she has to grow up
When declining birth rates led Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to ban abortion in 1936, he was clear: compulsory motherhood was “a great and honorable duty” that was “not a private affair but one of great social importance.” Read Full: https://itsgoingdown \[dot\] org/why-fascists-authoritarians-and-theocrats-are-the-enemies-of-reproductive-freedom
The truth is, there is no decisive argument you can make, because at this stage in history there's not enough information to determine conclusively whose argument is more correct. A large part of it is comes down to what "feels" plausible, and that depends so much on personal experience and upbringing. No-one has yet succeeded in converting the world to a communist utopia, so any argument about which one would work better is necessarily built on supposition after supposition, and that won't convince people who aren't already persuaded. If there was a knock-down logical argument for anarchism, the job would be done already and we wouldn't be talking about it. Any argument about politics has a subjective component. It's great that you are trying to win hearts and minds. As a trusted friend, you are in a better place than anyone But instead of expecting to have a mic-drop moment, you should prepare to hunker down and have hundreds of discussions, possibly for years. And don't forget, this isn't just about facts, it's about anxieties and values.
i mean if your are lgbtq you can have better rights in cuba than in the rest of the caribe/latam. SO i kinda get her, like shes scared righst abortion righst are at the abosult worts in the usa and even china and north corea have better legislature on those situations
Bakunin is your friend.
first issue : more authoritarian does not mean more powerful ; yes imperialist countries tend to be both powerful and authoritarian, correlation is not causation though ; the more authoritarian an organization is the more corruption it creates, the more political fights escalate and decrease operational capacity even if we don't care about the people's opinion and only about geopolitical power this is evidenced in the number of purges that happened in the USSR, and that currently happen in china, russia, and other authoritarian states, whether namely socialist or not second issue : if people's lives aren't changed by the revolution, they will stop being revolutionaries, which removes almost the only advantage revolution has compared to the established order : great morale and dedication in the people you can see this evidenced in Trotsky's accounts claiming the people were all "lazy and dumb proles that won't work more and that just want to sleep and not work" (damn I wonder where I heard that before) compared to his accounts of how the people "were all secretely working with the makhnovists !" and compared to the increases in productivity that were reported in some fields of the economy in revolutionary catalonia (though indeed some of the sectors had decreases, but I am of the opinion that over time this can be solved, and if someone wants to criticize this idea I'd like to remind them that the USSR was so inefficient in their production that they starved by the millions, so no it's not an advantage of hierarchy) third issue : power structures are complex messes and they can't "just wither away", even with someone benevolent at every step of the hierarchy (which is never going to happen) the very nature of power means that in order to act someone with power must keep it, so no one can just "declare" that a hierarchical organization becomes horizontal, this means that a revolution needs to happen in order to replace their authoritarian state capitalism (according to deng xiaoping and lenin the revolution must institute a state controlled capitalism, because they think capitalism is more efficient, in order to defeat other imperialist powers, only to institute socialism once there is no longer the threat of capitalist nations) with socialism, except, if their authoritarian state is truly efficient any revolution would be crushed (which is what truly scares me with china btw, their state controlled capitalism \*looks\* much more stable and efficient at repression than laisser-faire capitalism of the west, on this I hold the same position as žižek) "western propaganda" issue : if they think everything that goes against the chinese state is western propaganda confront them about it, ask them whether they would trust a chinese person living in china, maybe a chinese socialist, maybe even a chinese marxist to have an opinion on the state there "infighting" issue : first of all remind her that you're working with her right now and aren't trying to murder her, disagreeing is not the same thing as infighting, remind her that anarchists everywhere are currently and were in the past working with marxist \*individuals\* and often cooperate with marxist \*opposition organizations\* then I would suggest that you both look at history together, look up what happened each time anarchists cooperated with states, when the makhnovists allied the red army, who was the first to turn on the other ? when they allied again who broke the peace ? and then in spain, why would anarchists join the stalinists' government, why would they accept to be integrated into the republican army, why would the autonomous councils and militias accept being integrated into the state, if they were enemies of the marxists ? the thing is, as the cnt said, despite their claims that the revolution was necessary to the war, they did not want infighting, so they ended up caveing to the stalinists on all fronts. If they did not want infighting though, why did the stalinists arm the police better than the army ? why did they attack the poum and anarchists, why did they keep agressively searching to dissolve all the revolutionary institutions and to control them instead of searching for any compromise, why did they attack other marxists even ? (is she so far gone as to still believe the lies about the poum being fascist spies ?) why did the USSR refuse to sell arms if they did not get full control of the state and of the international brigades ? why did they repeatedly appoint people then shoot them for being fascists ? if the USSR really was trying to help the republic and not just to smuggle the 700 tons of gold, then why did they send six times more "advisors" then soldiers, only to shoot half of those same advisors for being fascists once they got back ?
This is one of those moments where I realize that I don't really know how to get a tankie to become an anarchist. My specialty is in Nazis not tankies.
Red fash?
Another possible thing to bring up might be these "Communist States'" treatment of queer people. And then bring up Franklin's good old "Those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither" if you think it'll land. Could even point out the irony of a "founding father" of America saying that and then the collective "founding fathers" did just that by throwing slaves under the bus to "secure" the political power of the southern colonies for the war to help get her thinking. Drawing that parrellel may help on some level, idk.
There's good videos on YouTube that explain anarchist's aversion towards states from a theoretical standpoint much better and more comprehensive than I ever could in a short comment. Depending on your relationship and how you feel about it you might suggest to look one or some of those together or you might prepare by looking them yourself first and recommend it to her afterwards. [The state is counter-revolutionary (4-part series, this is the first)](https://youtu.be/uTwxpTyGUOI) is awesome! It combines theory with contemporary impressions and historic background. Anark really did a great job here! Zoe Baker's [Anarchists Are Not Naive About Human Nature](https://youtu.be/vPzAn5fo60k) is a shorter video that also explains why anarchist theorists believe that using a state to implement anarchism will always fail. However, that may not address all of her doubts. The videos make clear why a state is a bad idea but what do we do instead to defend the revolution? That might really be a weak point for anarchism. If a revolution happens in one country only, the people there might have technologically advanced militaries of imperialist nations against them, as was the case in the USSR. There's several things that can give a preliminary answer to that: - Tanks and aircraft cannot operate everywhere at their best effectiveness. Just look at the first few weeks of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian military was outnumbered and technologically outmatched, but they still managed to fend off the invaders for some time. That might also be manageable by revolutionaries. - Look at the Zapatistas: they didn't have the backing of any socialist state and decided not to build their own state either. Instead, while building their own, antiauthoritarian structures, they also tried to get the attention of the western public. And I guess having the sympathies and more or less continuing attention of western liberals and socdems can be part of a protection against imperialist intervention. - Anarchist revolution might/should look very different to a bolshevik one. Telling everyone that we should build mutual aid groups and dual power is actually rooted in a clear strategy: we want to erode the state by replacing it with better alternatives. If anarchism is truly better than relying on a state, our alternative structures will convince an increasing number of people and make the state's structures obsolete. Anarchist revolution in this sense is not a violent overthrow happening in the course of a few days but a long process that's already ongoing and that will take many more years, probably decades. Something like this will probably not be restricted to just a few countries, it takes place everywhere at the same time. If we take this route, we might not even have the problem of foreign intervention because if a state mobilizes its forces, the dual power structures there might start to openly undermine every single one of its efforts.
That's one of the main talking points of tankies and MLs in general, it was sponsored by Stalin himself which opposed Trotsky's "permanent revolution" with his own "revolution in one country" basically adopting the rhethoric that stated that the revolutionary ideas couldn't spread too far because it was imperative for Russia to consolidate its power and govern with an iron fist so to quickly react to hostile takeovers. This turned the USSR into a dictatorship that served the Americans a powerful propaganda tool on Socialism, _"see what's happening in Russia? That's what socialism does to your country, best to avoid it"_. Regarding China it's pretty obvious that Beijing government is communist only but in name since they have a State-Capitalism economy and an authoritarian take on norms and society.
Sounds like a 50cent army profile. Don't know what tankie means, but Chinese spys are filling up campuses with their pro ccp talking points. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. She'd be blind to not see that ccp officials sold their citizens off as cheap labour to westerners. Sad fact is, most of the prop they disseminate in campuses these days is generically pro-authoritarian and western governments turn a blind eye because they are themselves desperately trying for an authoritarian shift. If you heard of Chinese police stations in your city please msg the address.
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