Just to contribute to this point with something to reflect upon:

During the (laughably titled) "Red Vienna" era, when SocDems ran the city, the government built high quality housing blocks for the working people, which would house one tenth of the city's entire population.

Rent in these blocks was around 4% of a working class income.

Are you pulling in more cash than a Viennese worker in the 1932, dollar-for-dollar (adjusted)? Probably.

Are you spending somewhere from 25-75% of your income on housing alone, making you effectively worse off than that Viennese worker in 1932? Again, probably.

When you crunch the rawest of numbers you can get some really skewed ideas about what the reality is. Statistics lie.

Here are some good podcast episodes from Actually Existing Socialism that cover the GDR if you want a bit of an introduction:

East Germany: Stasi State or Socialist Paradise? w/Bruni de la Motte

The American Soldier Who Defected to East Germany (Part 1) w/ Victor Grossman

The American Soldier Who Defected to East Germany (Part 2) w/ Victor Grossman

What Has Socialism Ever Done For Women? w/ Julia Mead (This is a bit more tangential)

Writings available from the authors here:

Stasi State Or Socialist Paradise? The German Democratic Republic and what Became of it by Bruni De la Motte and John Green

Victor Grossman's autobiographies

What Has Socialism Ever Done for Women? Reflections on Women’s Emancipation in the Eastern Bloc by Julia Mead and Kristen Ghodsee

Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence by Kristen Ghodsee

Add "no bosses" to that list too.

Y'all think that any sort of construction or manufacturing is going to run in a self-organised fashion without foremen? Lol, good luck.

If you've never worked in a factory before, that's cool but there are much better ways of announcing this fact and I think that it's important to remember the old "No investigation, no right to speak" or, in their terms "In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker".

I try not to focus too much on these types because I'm convinced that a couple of years of touching grass, working for a living, and spending time doing on the ground organising will bring these infantile urges in people to a conclusion in all but the most stubborn-minded. Although you can cut through these naive ideological positions by tracing out how there was (vulgar) vanguardism in their favourite historical socialist projects and how leadership was crucial to their functioning. That being said I have more important things to do with my time than engaging people with discussions on that stuff tbh.

Yeah, more broadly the western left is in shambles but to see how (comparatively) rapidly it's shaping up gives me hope.

This could be representative of the circles I've moved in with my own political journey but MLism wasn't even on the table. Heck, being a revolutionary wasn't really either. If you look at, say, the anti-globalisation protests and the anti-war movement(s) around the bush era the left was mostly what I'd characterise as being extremely progressive. There was a time when Naomi Klein was extremely influential on this cohort.

Nowadays Klein isn't a name I see brought up in the left except for the very rare mention of her underrated documentary The Take because the left is much more radical now than she is.

There was a time where the compatible left was the left and it didn't have to go around proclaiming that Marxism-Leninism is a "dead ideology" which, if you look at it from the perspective of Implicature or you're a bit Hegelian about it, it's pretty obvious that if Marxism-Leninism really was dead then nobody would need to proclaim this fact because:

a) It would be self-evident; nobody needs to proclaim that Manichaeism is dead because it's already true

b) It would be irrelevant to say as much since it is already dead; I'd venture that most people haven't got a clue what Manichaeism even is because Manichaeism truly is dead

The opposite is true for Marxism-Leninism.

Nowadays there's a couple of major splits within the radical and circa-radical left, as I see it:

1. There's the essentially silent movement where people log off, touch grass, and are dedicated to organising in their communities. This isn't really seen unless you're embedded in an org or an online circle where you know people in it and you see them check out of their online presence in favour of on the ground work. But it's certainly happening although because this shift is predicated upon not announcing it online and not constantly touting it on social media it is largely invisible.

2. There's the radical left vs the compatible left split. This is where you see one side sheepdogging everyone to vote for the Dems and denouncing tankies as "ruining the left for everyone else" etc. vs the people who are capable of critiquing the progressive left and doing self-crit on the actual left who engage in materialist analysis and serve as the spectre haunting the internet because they are more organised, generally much better informed and more well-versed in theory etc.

The fact that Marxism-Leninism is on the rise is no accident. People have seen the failures of movements like Occupy and the CHAZ and they've learned from them. The material conditions have rapidly changed over the past two decades and I'd argue that this has a significant impact on people's ideological positions. Your political development arc mirrors that of a lot of people who are now communist too.

If you take PatSocs, as an example, this was essentially a line struggle that developed in the broader western left. I'd say that it's pretty much dead in the water now, thankfully. But there was a split in the ideological positions and the western left hashed out its position on regressive nationalism extremely rapidly. This is characteristic of a vital movement that is thriving and honing itself and that alone is worth celebrating because it means that not only is there enough people in a movement to cause a split(!!) but the movement is developing and it will continue to do so with future splits too.

To go from "Oh no, we must be conscious consumers and stop supporting sweatshops with our hard earned cash!!" to "Let's set up camp outside Wall Street and... idk but we'll figure out the rest later lol" to "We are going to read Marx and Lenin and we're going to seize the state by force" is a very promising development arc.

When your ideology is primarily individualist and largely aesthetic, you end up with a ton of people who treat their political orientation as a fashion statement.

Speaking as an ex-anarchist, there's a massive trend in anarchism to not be focused on the ideological distinctions between the plethora of anarchist subtypes but instead to align oneself to a flavour of anarchism which is most appealing.

In communist thought you have very clear distinctions which are based on theoretical and practical disagreements (practical in the sense of socialism being put into practice); you have leftcoms and Trotskyists and council communists and MLs and MLMs etc. All of whom you can trace out their positions and their ideological stances from.

In anarchism it's much more about what the individual is most attracted to as a cause than this. Sure there are platformists, DeLeonists, and egoists, for example, which fit what I've mentioned above about disagreements on theory and practice but you're more likely to find an anarcha-feminist or an eco-anarchist than you will a DeLeonist or a platformist imo.

With that in mind it should come as no surprise that so much of anarchism is focused on fashion.

Go on then, tell me which leftist leaders you think should be upheld.

The past tense is in reference to the historical event, it doesn't refer to the present state of Finland's economy.

If someone had a post titled: "How Trump caused a rift within liberalism in the US" the past tense would not imply that Trump no longer exists or that he is no longer a politician, it would simply be referring to the political rift as a historical event.

It's like I'd color my face blue and someone calls me a racist, discriminating penguins.

It's strange that this concern for context only ever goes in one direction. Symbolism, like words, develop meaning through their usage.

If I were to say that I ejaculated during intercourse with your wife last night, would you take that to be an insult or would you be dying on that same context hill that the verb to ejaculate used to refer to suddenly making a statement and that intercourse used to refer to having a discussion with someone?

Probably not.

Would you say that the swastika isn't a Nazi symbol because it originated in Indo-European religious and cultural symbology?

Maybe. I can't speak for you.

The origin of something doesn't determine its usage.

Can I offer you some Belgian chocolate [CW: disfigurement, discussions of racism] in these trying times?

I challenged this notion with a lib the other day.

The watermelon originated in Africa. That doesn't mean that the vile caricaturised depictions of black people eating watermelons is somehow not inherently racist.

You can also look to the origin and continuing usage of the swastika, especially in Asian cultures, as another example here - you aren't going to tell me that the right-angled unicode swastika being used by westerners on the internet isn't done in service of fascism 99% of the time.

And on that matter, don't let erm-ackshually dorks tell you that the 90 degree swastika wasn't used by Nazis and isn't representative of them. One of the most famous depictions of the Nazi swastika is a right angled one:

https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1214749781387436032/pu/vid/450x360/o0Nxlts0lffM8lUv.mp4

a tactic they would repeat with catalonia btw

Fine, you're going to go there. What's your source for the USSR attempting to strong-arm the CNT-FAI into not being anarchist?

Whataboutism (and a bunch of propaganda).

You're literally engaging in genocide denialism right now.

Pointing out the rank hypocrisy of expecting peaceful coexistence from the Bolsheviks towards the Makhnovists when the Makhnovists neither extended this to the Bolsheviks nor to the Mennonites is whataboutism? I'm asking you to account for why your concern for this only ever goes one way. I never said "but the Makhnovists attacked other people!!" in defense of the actions of the Bolsheviks. That's what whataboutism is. Asking you to reconcile the inconsistencies in your own position is not whataboutism, unless that's an implicit admission on your behalf of the fact that you think that this is somehow irrelevant.

This is exactly where these discussions with anarchists always go to. Now it's a pity that you didn't go all-in and accuse me of spreading Bolshevik propaganda but that's just how it is.

So I take it that eyewitness testimony from Volin counts as "propaganda" in your eyes?

The only one trying to push a narrative here is you. By your own admission that was the aim of your entire post.

The genocide denier who is justifying the extrajudicial execution of Black Army officers for holding Bolshevik sympathies and who is handwaving genocide as "propaganda" is claiming that they aren't pushing a narrative. Right. Sure thing.

This really isn't painting yourself in the light that you think it is.

What exactly is hypocritical about not arguing with someone who... agrees with me? You spare me the propaganda too, please.

You're really doubling down on these whole propaganda accusations, aren't you?

By "someone who agrees with me" I take it that you agree with people who supports Makhno's penchant for gang rape and what is at the least his turning a blind eye towards genocide?

I've yet to meet a Lenin PFP that treats me with basic respect, you being no exception

I'm responding to you in the tone that you're taking with me. I get that you think that you've got the moral high ground and that you're justified in what you do but to call foul on me when you go sticking words in my mouth and I don't respond to that with a charitable attitude that you clearly couldn't manage to extend to me.

You completely ignored the points that I made in my post and went straight ahead reasserting a claim without directly addressing why I refuted that point. You're not going to get a patient response out of me if you don't bother reading the post you respond to.

What the fuck are you talking about? Are you just trying to carve in as many "owns" as possible into your post?

No. It's not an "own". You're putting words in my mouth and you're speaking from a place of ignorance.

If you want to explain to me how your low-key gaslighting and your attempts to speak for my opinions is somehow in line with your principles then go right ahead.

This hostility that you're bringing to bear and this readiness to abandon your own principles because you're speaking with someone who you've decided is your enemy is one of the reasons that I don't bring up when I tell people what made me stop being an anarchist but believe me when I say that it's very familiar to me.

You can't have a basic conversation with another person, you must always be disrespectful, mocking, smug, belittling and angry.

Look at exactly where the conversation took a turn. You decided to bring the heat and then I responded in kind and now you're calling foul.

Are you really going to make the that anarchists are aware of what Makhno wrote in The Road to Freedom?

Are you seriously going to disregard Volin's work as propaganda?

Don't piss on my boots and tell me that it's raining.

I know this dance. The next reply is going to be you demanding sources for every little point I've made, which is fine—I have them all and I'm going to provide them for you if you ask—but you are going to ignore where I've called you to account for your own sources.

Then I'm going to ignore your next reply and state that you haven't provided me with any sources which I have sparingly requested (it's one direct and about two indirect requests) where I have asked for them and that if you're going to make me go to the effort of quoting a series of sources and you want a reply from me then you can start with providing me with the sources I requested from you multiple comments ago.

Then the conversation takes on its end phase.

This is where people bail from the exchange because they can't be bothered to find a bare couple of sources, they provide some tertiary source blogpost or opinion piece that would make a first year uni student blush, or they skim something to come up with a refutation for a couple of sources that I've provided to try and debunk my sources (at which point I bring my knowledge to bear and lay it down really hard because it's easy to tell when someone is cherry-picking from a source they aren't familiar with and I have no patience for that sort of point-scoring nonsense.)

I could be wrong though. Who knows? The world is full of surprises.

That's so much more important to you than an actual argument, that you always end up showing a complete and utter lack of understanding of even the most basic principles of what anarchism even stands for or wants, while claiming you know it better than us. I don't know if this mentality just stuck to you after reading so much Lenin or if it's a genuine tactic, but every single one of you I've met has always done the exact same thing, no matter if I approach respectfully or not.

You're speaking for me again. This is a consistent pattern in your replies and it's wearing very thin.

This is an absolutely pitiful strawman.

You're denouncing me for a lack of familiarity with anarchism, you claim that I'm speaking about anarchism from a place of ignorance, and all in order to win an argument.

What seems to be lost on you is the bitter irony that you are assuming my level of knowledge of anarchism, you are speaking from a place of ignorance about my knowledge thereof, and you doing this all to win an argument yourself.

If you had done a little research on me, you would have realised that I have recently commented stating that I was a long-term anarchist and that my politics only changed recently. You would have noticed that I was an anarchist long enough to have outlived at least one anarchist comrade, that I was embedded enough in the Reddit anarchist scene that I recognised this user by their distinctive writing style across multiple accounts, that I noticed this user stopped posting around the same time that word got around through my networks of an anarchist in Portland dying a violent death.

You would be able to quickly find that this comrades' account was active at least ten years ago, often in slapfights with Denny_Craine, although that account has been deleted. If you do some quick math, assuming that they went through multiple accounts and that I had been a part of the anarchist community long enough to build up a familiarity with their posting style and to build up networks to receive news through, that this would put me somewhere in the vicinity of being an anarchist for longer than some anarchists have been on this earth for.

If you want more receipts, instead of obfuscating some of the details like I tend to for the sake of plausible deniability, another of Kealiher's more recent accounts was u/AllThePostLeftists. There's a post out there on reddit stating that the user of this account was sentenced to 15 days in prison. There are details that can be found at Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office in Portland where Sean Kealiher was also in custody for 15 days. (Sean was still a kid back then so there's very few details about this however.)

So tell me, have you been an anarchist long enough to be embedded in the anarchist community? Long enough to recognise users by their writing style that if their account was deleted and they sprang up with a new one and didn't announce their name or reach out to you to identify themselves you'd still be able to recognise them? Have you been an anarchist long enough that you've had comrades pass away?

On what basis do you dare to speak for my knowledge of anarchism if you haven't even bothered to familiarise yourself with some recent comments of mine?

There's a little quote from Mao that MLs take seriously and that anarchists would benefit from doing the same:

No investigation, no right to speak

Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn't that too harsh? Not in the least.

When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense.

Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?

It won' t do!
It won't do!

You must investigate!
You must not talk nonsense!

I have literally never disputed this. I've never met an anarchist that did. You keep bringing it up as if its a super own that changes everything, it really doesn't.

I made a clear statement in response to yours and you asked why I would even bring it up. I explained exactly why I brought it up and how it's relevant to the discussion and now you're saying that you never disputed this.

I'm not saying "you disputed this", I'm simply answering a question you asked. And I brought the fact up that the USSR resupplied the Black Army once so far so I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that I keep on bringing it up but whatever.

It seems to me like you made up an angry baby anarchist in your head to be mad about instead of going against anything real people believe.

It seems to me that you yourself were claiming that it was an alliance just a comment ago, that you haven't spent nearly as much time in discussions with anarchists about Makhnovia than I have, and that you're once again assuming a position of authority over my own experiences. That's more than a little condescending.

To just pretend that the anarchists persecuted and purged the poor little innocent bolsheviks out of nowhere and for no reason other than ideology is just as idiotic and ignorant of what was really happening. Once again, we are all supposed to excuse and understand and give the benefit of the doubt to and even support bolsheivk attrocities no matter how repressive, bloody and absurd, but anything bad an anarchist does is "those evil anarkiddies!!!" with no other context or reason.

This is just concern-trolling. You haven't actually given a direct response to what I am missing from this particular event, you're just handwaving and making vague allusions and implying that what they did was just without actually stating as much. And it's pretty damning that you'd use a term like "purge" to minimise the extrajudicial executions that happened by Makhno's command. People get purged out of parties not out of existence.

So then enlighten me as to what Makhno's motivations were exactly.

Do you even know of the event that I'm referring to? Or are you just running defence reflexively because you're treating this like it's some sort of team sport?

There was a very serious distrust that the bolsheviks were just taking advantage of them and treating them like useful idiots, giving basically scraps as "aid" with increasingly pressuring terms and conditions that they would not even get that if they didn't immediately stop being anarchists (a tactic they would repeat with catalonia btw). It is completely understandable that they thought the very openly anti-anarchist bolsheviks that were helping out were going to backstab them when they had the chance to. What would you have done in that situation, smartass?

What exactly do you refer to when you say that there was increasing pressure on them to stop being anarchists from the Bolsheviks by way of forcing conditions and terms?

And what would you have done with a military force that was suppressing your political movement domestically on part of your territory which was openly hostile towards you and would go so far as to establish terror cells within your own country?

It seems like your political beliefs have blinded you to the reality of the situation. The Makhnovists were openly hostile to the Bolsheviks and they attacked them, which totally is fine and completely justified, but the Bolsheviks attacking the Makhnovists is not okay because they should have simply extended a sort of grace to the Makhnovists which was entirely unreciprocated out of a sense of goodwill to those who consider themselves the mortal enemies of the Bolsheviks.

Seriously, what's the point of insisting on this?

You made the point that the Black Army was critical to the war effort. I made the point that the USSR was also critical to the Black Army's war effort.

The relevance to the discussion should be apparent. I'm not sure how much clearer I need to be.

what they did in the end is still deplorable.

If we're helping each other survive, and once you can survive on your own (in a big part thanks to me), you shoot me in the back of the head, it doesn't stop being something shitty to do just because I expected it, or because you had helped me too before you decided to shoot me.

Right. So you're obviously operating under this notion that the Makhnovists were intending on a path of peaceful coexistence with the Bolsheviks.

This doesn't square with historical facts.

Makhno ordered some of his most effective military leaders who were Bolshevik sympathisers to be summarily executed by his secret police, the Kontrrazvedka, which was in violation of what ostensibly was the democratic structure of Makhnovia by ignoring the authority of the Military Revolutionary Council.

So talking about "shooting someone in the back of the head" is especially pertinent to this discussion.

The Kontrrazvedka set up terror cells within the USSR. That doesn't bode well for an idyllic notion of peaceful coexistence imo.

Makhno also ordered the execution of journalists and the destruction of their printing houses because they were disseminating material which was too sympathetic towards the bolsheviks. It was only the fact that cooler heads in his leadership prevailed over this and convinced him against getting these orders carried out.

There's a very clear pattern of outright antagonism towards the Bolsheviks across Makhno's reign. This "UwU I'm just a smol anarchist bean who wants to be free to do my own thing, why not just leave me be?" routine doesn't hold water.

Makhno knew that certain cities that the Black Army had gained control over were more sympathetic towards the Bolsheviks and I fail to see that he would extend this demand for peaceful coexistence to that cohort of the population.

In fact, while we're talking about it, it's funny that you'd demand such a thing for a group which did not extend the same idea to the Mennonites and the German settlers. Strange how you'd demand this for one group and yet apparently have no concern about extending it to others - is it that you simply feel that Makhnovia had a special entitlement to being left alone to practise their society because they align with your own political beliefs?

Can't wait for another Lenin PFP to say the sabotage didn't happen, and if it did it was minor, and if it wasn't it was their fault, and if it wasn't they should have expected it, and if they did they deserved it anyway, and if they didn't anarchists were sabotaging too, and if they weren't well they still couldn't endure it so clearly anarchism doesn't work.

Can't wait for another reply from you which relies on vibes and convenient narratives to summarily dismiss historical facts which go against your beliefs.

Can't wait for more handwringing over a *gasp!* Lenin pfp. (I bet you don't do this for the gang-raping and ethnociding Makhno when you see his pfp, do you? Spare me your feigned outrage and your hypocrisy.)

Can't wait for an anarchist to assume a position of unjust hierarchy over my own opinions on the matter.

Also... why do you stick to anarchism? What I'm talking about happened with statists too. Hungary, Yugoslavia? The fucking Sino-Soviet split?

...I've made one effortpost. I've written it on some factors in Makhnovia.

Are you planning to sign up to my Patreon or something? If not, by what right do you demand that I write on topics that you feel are the most important for me to research and write about?

This topic has been an area of interest for me for longer than I've been an ML. I write from a place of knowledge on the topic. I don't know enough and I haven't researched enough to provide a developed, in-depth opinion on the Sino-Soviet Split, for example. And there is precious little that is written about Makhnovia/the war in the Ukraine in the interwar period and the Spanish Civil War that isn't from a liberal or someone that views anarchism with rose-tinted glasses. That would be my other reason.

You are more than welcome to make your own posts on such matters if this sense of importance that you place on them is something that you sincerely hold rather than being little more than cheap concern-trolling.

Permanently Deleted

You state it was an alliance. Clearly you don't know much about this historical event and you didn't manage to read four sentences into what I wrote.

and I've never met any anarchist who thought the alliance was not temporary or even that it could last.

I've come across plenty.

The facts still are that anarchists helped the USSR survive

And the USSR provided critical materiel to the Makhnovists at a time when they had dwindling supplies so, in turn, the USSR helped the Makhnovists survive but yet again, historical facts escape the convenient narrative it seems.

Especially because they had that same behaviour throughout their entire lifespan - of crushing or abandoning any socialist movement that weren't 100% aligned with theirs.

Stick around for my effort posts on Revolutionary Catalonia and, eventually, the Kronstadt Rebellion I guess. There's plenty more to learn from history.

It helps because it signals to the DNC that they will not simply automatically win by default with their shittiest, most rightwing nominees because the other option is slightly worse on a couple of fronts.

It shows that people do not see them as a viable alternative to the GOP unless they actually become an alternative to the GOP.

There's a reason why Trump won last time and it's this attitude of entitlement that you've embodied which is at the core of this.

If you're so set upon preventing another Trump presidency then recent history is a lesson for you, or at least it should have been, and attempting to browbeat people into voting for detestable DNC nominees is a failed strategy when you should be pushing the DNC for compromise with people further to the left of you rather than demanding that people further to the left of you capitulate simply because you feel that they ought to because you have a false sense of moral righteousness.

You want my vote for the democratic nominee? Then uphold the values of bourgeois electoralism and earn it.

Damn. Does Calibre do OCR these days or do you do it manually?

Not voting for Biden means that Biden is one vote further away from being president.

Now it's your turn.