the propagation of anticommunism in anarchism HAS to be an op. I have a huge interest in anarchism but this level of malicious interpretation of the ussr is always mindnumbing. it’s especially infuriating in the ways that the author gets it - the failures of anarchism, the looming socialism vs barbarism over the environment, the ways in which revolution is coopted into reaction.
“Unfortunately, however, we do not think that a retread of what libertarian socialists have already accomplished will suffice to help us meet the true challenges of this new century of ours. Indeed, what we lack is very nearly as important as what we have. We have no theory of economic planning; we have no military theory; we have only the rudiments of a science of self-management and organization; our theories of the state are fragmentary and confused; our understanding of recent advances in the natural and social sciences is tenuous at best; and as a result our practical debates on questions of great urgency to the movement – whether and how to revolt, how to build dual power, international disputes, questions of imperialism and decolonization, economic reconstruction, the green transition – go round and round in unhelpful theological circles, all while our enemies outmaneuver and prepare to crush us.”
like this is great analysis of the failures of anarchism which I can’t believe is in the same essay as
“An honest socialist appraisal of why Soviet planning failed would at a minimum cite its fetish of centralization, its concentration of decision-making power in so few hands, its lack of information flows allowing for proper action, the inability to debate policy frankly due to a near total lack of serious political pluralism, the subsequent decoupling of theory from practice and ideas from facts, and the system’s devastating overreliance on coercion as opposed to persuasion or compromise or positive incentives.22 Yet to critique these things is invariably to critique Leninism itself; when you’ve gone through the checklist, very little remains of the static dogma. Malm has made the Leninists a model for planning, yet the simple truth is that they weren’t very good at it. The bluntest way to put it is that if we actually did implement so-called Climate Leninism, the eponymous Leninists in charge would fuck up, prevent anybody from saying so, then lie to cover their asses until everything dies.” :jesse-wtf:
idk if this is a good place to bring it up but this trend in anarchism reminds me of tucker carlson reciting the communist manifesto and then placing the blame on anarcho-bidenism, but a further left version.
also that anarchists need to read mao and lenin please everything anarchist theory is missing is right there.
