It wasn’t a hostile discussion or anything, i didn’t even go full “the kulaks deserved it” (although the mod that single-handedly banned me did go full “the kulaks did not deserve it”). I just laid out plainly and calmly that revolutions are inherently authoritarian, that Luxemburg said “the revolution will be as violent as the ruling class makes it necessary” and that there’s one Trotzki quote i 100% agree with: “If the October Revolution hadn’t succeeded, the world would have known a Russian word for fascism 10 years before Mussolini’s March on Rome”. Basically the whole “Jakarta Method” train of thought laid out clearly and without calling anybody names.
Note that this was on an explicitly left-leaning server that does not allow cops and troops to join. Also after several days of another poster starting destructive, aggressive bad faith arguments in the politics channel until a number of users went “disengage” on her and the channel had to be frozen until recently, when she immediately started being hostile and arguing in bad faith again, which got her not one, but two warnings from the same mod without further consequences. Meanwhile, when i defend AES without attacking anybody, that’s apparently too much for her to handle. No advance warning, no “sis, you’re talking to me as a mod here”, not even a notification that i got banned.
The best part is that according to screenshots a friend just sent me, she’s now completely going off about “authoritarians”. The nerve some people have.
Sorry for posting pointless internet drama here, i just needed to vent.
I don’t have the time or energy to argue for/against a state at the moment but I’d like to leave some stuff for anyone interested in an actual anarchist analysis of the state over idle speculation from people who have a clear bias against left-libertarian politics. Plenty of anarchists read statist material to gain an understanding of the statist perspective. I’ve personally read enough of Lenin (including the state and revolution), Trotsky and all that to know it isn’t my jam. Not to mention, Marx and Engles were against the state as a revolutionary apparatus (it’s included in the link, don’t @ me).
The State is Counterrevolutionary
And for an anarchist analysis on revolution, complex systems analysis, etc. The Revolution Series
A Modern Anarchism
Marx Against the State (article)
I’m only linking the one channel because it’s relevant. Anarchism, as an inherently decentralized ideology and movement has a wide variety of theorists, analysis and opinions. Anarks material is well imformed and comprehensive. I’m not looking to convince anyone to “switch teams” but if we’re going to criticize one another it would help to know what we all actually believe and stand for
I’ve literally read all of these before.
Nothing I said is a critique of anarchism.
No. This is definitely nonsense, I don’t want to get into sectarian bollocks but you deserve correcting. Marx is completely explicit about it here: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm
But again. Nothing I fucking said was a criticism of anarchism. This isn’t about anarchism this is about something explicitly different to it, anti-authoritarianism is not the same thing as anarchism, anarchists are not universally anti-authority.
Stop trying to turn this into sectarianism. Nothing I said was about anarchism. Fuck off. Wrecker somewhere else.
I would like to link to this article, it goes deeper into the anarchist conception of authority. TL;DR: These are pointless definition wars. All anarchists are fundamentally against the same thing, it’s just that some prefer to not describe it as “authority”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/london-anarchist-federation-the-problems-with-on-authority
Did you actually read the article on Marx? It misrepresents Stalin tremendously and slightly misrepresents Lenin (who was at first the biggest proponent of a “state capitalist” DotP), but it clearly and explicitly defends the notion of the DotP as a socialist state preceding stateless communism, as all Marxist-Leninists do. It would have been better to include more of the writing Lenin quotes in his own work about the paradox of the “free state”, maybe even Lenin’s own thoughts, but we can only expect so much from a Trot rag like this.
You aren’t making a good case for your “informed criticism” plea, as though it had a chance when you call Leninists “statists”. Just say “tankie” if you refuse to say ML, it is unironically less irritating.
What is one supposed to call leftists who advocate for a state if not statists?
It’s a distortion to say that they “advocate for a state”. They, including Marx in the very article that was linked, say that a transitional state is necessary in order for there to be a successful stateless society subsequently. No ML advocates for the permanent existence of a state or even the existence of a state that is not designed to fundamentally tend toward the destruction of all states.
Again, just say ML (or “Marxist” if you want to include the older figures like Marx, early Kautsky, Luxemburg, etc.)
So they want a state??
Also, my problem with just saying “ML” or “Marxist” is that there are plently of libertarian socialist that reject basically all Leninism, yet what they propose instead is a state too. Vastly different from ML states, but a state nonetheless. Therefore “statist leftists” is a better catch all term than “leftists who advocate for a transitional state” because that’s just a mouthful.
They believe statehood cannot merely be abolished but must be destroyed in a more gradual and thorough manner. Any attempt to merely declare the state abolished will, at best, create a vacuum that neighboring state powers will rush into with the same violence as the physics analogy. The destruction of the state is necessary, but it cannot be done so easily.
Are we talking about appeasing r/polcompmemes and HoI4 modding forums or actual political movements? Because Marxists have a real historical presence and regarding what few real demsoc-like countries actually exist (such as Bolivia and to a lesser extent Venezuela), even calling them “statist” seems to be missing the plot of what their ideologies actually are. It’s like when Trots call real anti-imperialists “campists,” it’s just a name you made up to flatter yourself that doesn’t reflect the living and practiced ideologies that far overshadow yours.
This is also, again, completely sidestepping the point that Marx is on my side here, not just Lenin.
This feels like definition wars. I am aware marxists believe in the destruction of the state in the end, but it doesn’t change that they advocate for a revolution that takes control of the state and keeps using it. That to me is statism, the strategy. I don’t really use it to mean “the belief in a state” because the only ideology against the state is anarchism, so I just say not-anarchists or archists.
They are political movements, they’re just very niche and small. I don’t see why I have to pretend they don’t exist just because of that though.
Never claimed he wasn’t. I’m saying there are people who follow marxism and want socialism with methods and endgoals that have nothing to do with Lenin so calling any leftist who believes in a transitional state ML or tankie is just a lazy generalization that I don’t see why I should use when statist is a perfectly fine word to me, you disagree with my use of it but you understand what I mean when I do so either way, no?
This is beside your point, but Lenin is pretty clear about smashing the state machinery and replacing it. You said you read State and Rev, right?
Because coloring your language over niche issues out of ideological convenience is annoying. Who gives a shit about those niches in general conversation? If you want to talk about them, talk about them, but when discussing the Soviets and CPC and their supporters, there is no need to hedge our language to include the idiosyncratic theorizing of a five-member book club/gaming club in a run-down coffee shop in exurban Milwaukee.
Pretending that classical Marxists still exist and matter, I did volunteer that you simply say “Marxist” and you ignored that too
Yes, I feel like I’m just being terrible at expressing myself, I’m sorry.
I just don’t agree. I don’t think we should discard or ignore ideals simply because they aren’t very popular. It’s not like it’s a massive effort to do so, you just have to say a word instead of another.
Marxist could probably work, but when we’re talking about revolutionary strategy, as I’ve said before, there are massive differences between kinds of marxists. “Statist” the way I use it describes the specific part about the strategy I mean so I’m not excluding or generalizing anything.
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