I don’t know what it is, but I almost hate anarchist and other “libertarian socialists” more than I hate liberals and conservatives. They have a completely useless dead-end ideology. At least supporters of capitalism have the fact that it’s propped itself up for so long and is the dominant mode of production now as their victory, and obviously us Marxist-Leninist have the Soviet Union and other Marxist-Leninist states as our victories, but anarchist have absolutely nothing to show for over 200 years of their ideology existing. They’ve never seized power anywhere for more than a couple months. They’ve never been a powerful force in politics. They’ve never had a revolution of their own. And worst of all is that they’re all steeped in that classic western anti-communism. I swear to god most anarchist would rather every historic or current Socialist country be destroyed by the west and turned into some capitalist liberal democracy than to let the “authoritarians” or “tankies” or whatever stupid term they’re using now have power. Anarchist don’t even do fucking praxis anymore like they did in the 1800s and early 1900s, they just whine online and do electoralism. I feel like the only two reasons someone would even be an anarchist at this point is because either
A. They’re a hyper individualist to the same degree as right-wing libertarians but just like left-wing rhetoric.
or
B. They never kicked the heavy amount of bullshit propaganda people are fed about communism, but still like the idea, so they’ve settled for an idealistic version which has never existed and will never exist.
Clearly this isn’t an intelligent or thorough analysis of anarchism, and I’m not saying anything new in the slightest, but I just need to get my hatred for them out of my system somehow.
anarchism is a handy tool for radicalization. lots of people get attracted to the cool aesthetics of anarchism and that feeling of intellectual superiority you get when you can recite some obscure untested and unfounded political theory
so it’s ineffective outside of the individual’s ego but it does position them firmly against capital and modern statehood. if you sit in that long enough you start to build genuine hatred for the status quo. genuine hatred leads to genuine curiosity which leads to actually reading theory and uncovering the utterly absurd idealism of anarchist theory
this isn’t like a codified pipeline and anarchist theory still poisons the well of a lot of western leftist discussion, but most commies I know in real life had personal brushes with anarchism in their past. and if all else fails they’re still useful idiots when things get spicy. that whole ‘you’re alright now, it’s after the revolution we’ll have problems’ meme.
I agree as a former anarchist. It’s always worth engaging with the ones that seem smart but misguided or uninformed.
Not every anarchist is an idiot, although I definitely met many, but if you can have a meaningful conversation with someone and recommend some literature to discuss then you might soon have a ML Comrade.
The hardest part, for me, has always been convincing someone to read State and Revolution. That’s the book that turned me from an anarchist to ML, and I’ve got a couple others with it.
Don’t be too hard on yourself.
If you’re talking with anarchists and you can convince them by example to be like you and wash their anus then you’re already ahead.
You see, the first step in any proletarian revolution is to get in the shower, soap up your loofah, and just go to town on your ass crack. Just wash all those accumulated farts and toilet paper bits off.
The hardest part for me has always been convincing any of them to read at all tbh