Edit for clarity: I’m not asking why the Tankie/Anarchist grudge exist. I’m curious about what information sources - mentors, friends, books, TV, cultural osmosis, conveys that information to people. Where do individuals encounter this information and how does it become important to them. It’s an anthropology question about a contemporary culture rather than a question about the history of leftism.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit lately. Newly minted Anarchists have to learn to hate Lenin and Stalin and whoever else they have a grudge against. They have to encounter some materials or teacher who teaches them “Yeah these guys, you have to hate these guys and it has to be super-personal like they kicked your dog. You have to be extremely angry about it and treat anyone who doesn’t disavow them as though they’re literally going to kill you.”
Like there’s some process of enculturation there, of being brought in to the culture of anarchism, and there’s a process where anarchists learn this thing that all (most?) anarchists know and agree on.
Idk, just anthropology brain anthropologying. Cause like if someone or something didn’t teach you this why would you care so much?
This post is devoid of dialectics.
This isn’t a one-way “Anarchists learn to hate state communists” relationship, but state communists also learn to hate Anarchists. Their rivalry and history fuels the distrust in one-another.
History has more than enough examples of Anarchists being fucked up by state communists, and conversely many examples of Anarchists rebelling against state communists. In turn, both are distrusting and crack down on support for the other.
If you truly want to engage with anarchists in a constructive fashion, and appreciate the political history of anarchism properly, you have to drop this idea that one side “started it” or one side is “taught” to hate the other. It’s clear from this post that you’re already arguing from the perspective that one side is irrationally attacking the other, despite doing that yourself.
There is value and important knowledge from most if not all socialist ideologies, and if anything the synthesis of movements is exactly how history is moved forward and how we impose a new order of resistance against the capitalist class.
No this is specifically a question about how individual people learn the lore. I’m not asking about history, I’m asking, like, what book are people being recommended that lays out the backstory and gets them up to date? Or is there like a really popular podcast or twitch streamer or something? Do folks like do improv skits of the deep lore at affinity group meetings? Does someone do like 8 hour lore videos on Youtube?
This is an anthropology question. I want to know about the practices and lifeways of a specific cultural group. It’s not “Why do anarchists hate communists”, I know that. It’s “How do individual anarchists in the present day learn about all that?”
A few, animal farm and Homage to Catalonia does a lot of it, though the latter is an essential read once you’re a bit more read up on the SCW.
But mostly, they’ve been told by pretty much everyone that the USSR was evil.
Take a look at this thread.
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I understand the urge to do that, especially because the biggest anarchist social media spaces tend to be very hostile to communists - but I agree with your post. There are a good handful of other posts in here too that don’t immediately draw lines. Probably the best discussion I’ve seen here in a while on this topic. Glad someone with a functioning brain said it so I didn’t have to make a fool of myself.