this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2025
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Apart from the other suggestions offered here, I think that a large portion of the loathing comes from exposure solely to snapshots like these, whereas mundane conversations and actual research go ignored. When I was little I was clueless about communism. I remember repeatedly seeing German Fascism paired with communism, so I expected the CPUSA to be a hate group, but when I went to its Wikipedia page I was surprised at how progressive it looked (although I later learned that the CPUSA is a joke, albeit for unrelated reasons). Eventually I found the RevLeft forum and I was impressed with how chill the regulars were there, too.
Compulsory education failed to quench my natural sense of curiosity, so I spent a while lurking RevLeft and eventually Feddit’s socialist subcommunities. I checked out books like Is the Red Flag Flying?, Human Rights in the Soviet Union, and Inventing Reality. My politics shifted from a vulgar state-socialist, to anarchist against state socialism, and finally to anarchist who respects state socialism; I stopped condescendingly assuming that state-socialists were just confused and approved of the people’s republics out of sheer principle. It took a good deal of studying and some maturity on my part to reach the point where I am at now.
So I think that a large portion of the loathing comes not only from limited exposure but also from a reluctance to do more research, either because they lack the time, lack the curiosity, or both, which ultimately originate in how capitalism diminishes nearly everybody’s free time and damages our sense of curiosity.
Why is that list of links sorted by the length of the descriptive text?? arghhhh
Interesting snapshot. I recommend people click on it and look through it, practice what you'd say to convince a lib in your life who showed up with this evidence. The evidence they found is pretty pathetic. Probably the worst one is supposedly justifying Pol Pot but they didn't link to the context or user so I can't even tell nor could I find the post in their post history so I'm guessing it got deleted?
lol, some of them actually thought the ”make 9/11 Pescatarian Pride Day” post was serious.
Obviously, I didn't click on every link, but so many of them are extremely dishonest. For example, the link titled ”Telling Jews to return to gulags” is about a Yogthos thread linking this article, and I don't understand how it has anything to do with Jews. All I think of is that maybe the author (Gary M. Galles) is Jewish, but I couldn't find that info. Even if that's true, ”telling Jews to return to gulags” is massive stretch.
All I'm saying is Frasier Crane Day is worth celebrating. Although, Eddie Day would be better.
Could you elaborate on this position more? It's obviously pretty uncommon among self-described anarchists. Or maybe if you have a piece you can reference that lays out a decent approximation of your view.
Sure. Given the numerous benefits that the people’s republics have offered the working masses, it logically follows that showing them violent resistance or hostility would only alienate others from anarchism. In this respect, I am anarcho-pacifist: violence against a bourgeois state is probably inevitable, but it would be very counterproductive against a people’s republic (or a similar phenomenon like the BRV). Therefore, decentralisation and the disuse of state institutions are phenomena that other communities are going to have to be persuaded to adopt through example, if we can demonstrate a good enough example.
Many anarchists refer to the Red Army’s suppression of the Makhnovshchina as evidence that state socialism naturally excludes anarchists. Now, I have mixed feelings on the Makhnovshchina: it had some good accomplishments like redistributing land to poor peasants, but it was also too willing to collaborate with the rural petty bourgeoisie, so it is not my favourite example of anarchism. That aside, if the Makhnovshchina had been more cooperative with the Bolsheviki then I think that it is at least plausible that the Free Territory would have survived longer. After all, the Bolsheviki never hunted down Apollon Karelin, and Freetown Christiania is surviving despite its uneasy relationship with the bourgeois state, so I am reluctant to believe that the violence between anarchists and state-socialists all came down to fatalism or structural defects. Per Paul Avrich:
To keep it succinct, though, I am anarcho-pacifist towards the people’s republics.
If they could put up with it, I think anarchists could play a really important role in a DOTP. As long as they're willing to accept broad direction from the state, they could be the leading edge of communization.
For example, a DOTP in the US would immediately nationalize all agricultural land held by owners over a certain scale. A big chunk of that would remain heavily mechanized but centrally managed, to ensure continued mass production of low-cost food. But large pieces of that land would be designated for the establishment of agricultural communes, and I think anarchists could take a central role in those communes given their propensity for commune building an prefiguration. Receive state support and capital to get started, innovate new social and agroecological techniques, and eother directly handle the distribution of surplus food to adjacent communities or turn surplus over to the state for centralized distribution. The rate of communization is going to be almost entirely dependent on how many people want to do that, and so prefiguration through anarchist communes becomes an incredibly powerful tool encouraged and supported by the state rather than a longshot struggle against a hostile state and economic system. If the anarchists can go out and make effective, healthy, collective communities, the state can promote that model for more people to adopt.
This is just one example of how I think a DOTP and anarchists can productively collaborate, there are definitely others.
ML in denile for aesthetics.
I joke but they're close.