It doesn’t have much to do with anarchism though. Most of them just sound like “progressive” liberals with run of the mill racist and orientalist perceptions of Russia, China and the rest of the third world that Westerners have.
I think it kind of does have something to do with anarchists being unprincipled, and then easily swayed.
If someone’s an online anarchist, with no real community, no clear political line, and no interest in reading theory, then they’re going to be easily influenced.
I think you’re mistaken and reasoning backwards from the assumption that these are anarchists who re-adopted neoliberalism rather than liberalism who found anarchism to be the most appealing consumer-identity without really challenging most of their existing ideology or assumptions.
Like all things, there is variance. We know it is unfair to conflate all MLs with “patsoc” or red/brown types. Even if we still disagree with them, let’s have a little bit of charity for the good faith anarchists.
Good faith anarchists shot Lenin. They’re not on our side, and will side with liberals against us.
That’s not to say that they can’t be worked with on limited, real-life, praxis. They’re just not ideological allies.
edited to add: “We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies.”.
It doesn’t have much to do with anarchism though. Most of them just sound like “progressive” liberals with run of the mill racist and orientalist perceptions of Russia, China and the rest of the third world that Westerners have.
I think it kind of does have something to do with anarchists being unprincipled, and then easily swayed.
If someone’s an online anarchist, with no real community, no clear political line, and no interest in reading theory, then they’re going to be easily influenced.
I think you’re mistaken and reasoning backwards from the assumption that these are anarchists who re-adopted neoliberalism rather than liberalism who found anarchism to be the most appealing consumer-identity without really challenging most of their existing ideology or assumptions.
I think you’re mistaken in drawing a distinction between anarchists and liberals.
Like all things, there is variance. We know it is unfair to conflate all MLs with “patsoc” or red/brown types. Even if we still disagree with them, let’s have a little bit of charity for the good faith anarchists.
Good faith anarchists shot Lenin. They’re not on our side, and will side with liberals against us.
That’s not to say that they can’t be worked with on limited, real-life, praxis. They’re just not ideological allies.
edited to add: “We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies.”.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/12/x01.htm