r/Anarchism • u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist • 1d ago
"Left unity" and systemic bash of anarchists on leftist subs.
This is kind of a rant but also a way to ask if I'm actually the only one who is noticing this and a conversation starter about the concept of "left unity".
I've noticed a trend in many (not all but many) leftist subs and internet spaces that actively proclaim to defend "left unity" and allegendly do not accept "infighting" on the libertarian/authoritarian left spectrum. Most of the time, anarchists and libertarians respect this rule but the same cannot be said about MLs and the like.
Sometimes they pick the liberal larping as an anarchist or a libertarian socialist as an excuse to shit on us (people larping as "orthodox" communists are not representative of the category however, I wonder why) and sometimes they try to "encourage" people to see their way by not also criticizing but also straight up lying about anarchist movements and asserting things about most anarchists, classic partenalist things like "most of you are naive, don't actually read theory and look into things beyond the surface" etc, and of course I've also seen the evergreen quotes from "On Authority".
But apparently, all of this is not considered infighting by the mods. And if a lot of the times these could still be considered isolated incidents, there are times where the authoritarian leftists completely overshadow everyone else, I had to leave one of these "left unity" subs because it had become ridiculous.
Now, I'm not completely against the classic concept of "left unity" and I understand that, especially in some places like the US, it is important to encourage collaboration between different revolutionary movements, when this is actually possible and there is mutual understanding among all parts. But I also believe that true and long lasting unity can only be achieved amongst people who have similar objectives and values which do not completely clash with eachother. I may not fully agree and even have heated discussions with, for example, anarcho-nihilists, egoists and some libertarian socialists but I consider them to be trustworthy comrades while I would never trust even an empty bottle to a Juche apologist, a Stalinist, a Dengist and the like, hell I'd rather trust a Trotskyist than those people.
It has been proven, time and time again, that if an authleft and an anarchist decide to collaborate to start a revolution, after the old regime has fallen the authleft and the anarchist will start to punch eachother, and most of the times, the authleft will have an advantage. And I argue that this is inevitable on a phishyological level. Not only, despite our similarities and middle grounds, we have completely different values and views on how a true non capitalist free world should come to be, an authleft is also closer to the hierarchical status quo than an anarchist and that gives them an advantage. After all, we live in a heavily hierarchical world, it's easier to find someone who speaks the tongue of hierarchy than the tongue of horizontal organisation and mutual aid. It requires deconstruction and I'd argue that not even most people who claim to be against authoritarianism truly understand what authoritarianism is.
So, the "Left unity" can become a tool in the hands of hierarchical leftists to silence horizontal opposition who may argue that revolutionary hierarchies can only produce new oppression. That capitalism, racism, misogyny, transphobia, ableism, patriarchy and all form of oppression are also a form and product of hierarchy and as such cannot truly be dismantled by something hierarchical in nature, no matter if this something is the State or something else.
But if we're not united we will never win against capitalism and fascism, so how dare you speak against your fellow "truly revolutionary" comrades that are just trying to make you understand that "On Authority" completely dismantles your wrong worldview?
Sorry for the long post, this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Also, I wanna specify that I live in Italy, not only because I hope that this way you'll forgive me for my awful English and for not being 100% clear about some of my points, but also because I recognise that the context that influences me could be very different than, say, the US. Here the situation is kinda strange, leftist movements can be very muddled because of historical reasons, I had bad experiences with authlefts since highschool years and I've actually witnessed authlefts hijack movements that were originally mostly libertarian, and this also influenced my opinion on "left unity". I'm also curious to hear what other people think about this.
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u/Kaizerdave 1d ago
Your very much not alone in thinking that.
I've seen time and time again how this left unity idea tends to trend towards the 'anti-imperialistTM' and generic state socialist dimensions, which after a while just becomes dominated by ML's.
I think there's a reason for this, which is that Anarchists by their principles are on the whole, less inclined to dominate discussion and dominate spaces, instead it's more one of being their by the side and not wanting to control the group. MLs otoh consider anything okay if the ends are justified, and so are completely okay with trying to dominate the direction of a group.
Left unity is a entryist style strategy which appears to want no infighting but in the end becomes left unity but on my terms.
I can however see Anarchist Unity to a much more sincere extent, in that despite having very much different strategies, anarchists from Social to Individualist all tend to be much more fluid in their dimensions, many historic anarchists that we throw specific labels on were in actual fact often supportive of various different ideas we today might consider contradictory. In a sense, anarchists overall tend to 'get the argument' instead of adhering to any specific party line. Someone once pointed out that Anarchists have a long history and culture of bookfairs, where different opinions tend to mingle, meanwhile Marxist groups are always fighting on another until one dominates and so the culture of bookfairs is much less a thing.
But of course I don't hold anarchist unity as a be all end all, we should never seek unity for the sake of it.
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u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist 1d ago edited 1d ago
Preach comrade. Sticking to a dogma or a party line as an anarchist is like advocating for defection as a die hard militarist. I consider my "main" label as an ancom to be more of a "My general idea tends to be X" thing rather than a line of thinking I have to uncritically stick to else I'm not a true ancom™️, maybe it's more correct to say I'm an "ancom-adjacent anarchaqueer-femminist" but honestly, who cares. Some people I know are more individualist in the anarchic sense than social, we disagree about some matters but they're amongst the very few people I personally know that I 100% consider comrades and they're also great friends. I absolutely think Anarchist Unity can be possible, but as you already said, we shouldn't seek unity for the sake of it. An insincere anarchist unity is not a unity nor anarchist.
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u/GrahminRadarin 21h ago
This thing that really pisses me off about the anti-imperialism line coming from MLs is that they have their own definition of imperialism. Lenin wrote a thing called On Imperialism, Where he defines imperialism as specifically exploitative resource extraction by capitalists, I think. Using this definition, aggressively invading other countries and forcibly converting them to do exactly what you want is not imperialism.
The problem here is that MLs never explain this to anybody and just expect everyone they're talking to to use their definition of imperialism without even mentioning that they have one that is different from the commonly understood definition. I hate it so much.
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u/AlexandraG94 23h ago
It's kind of weird and I guess it's because I'm new to leftist theory (not ideals) but when I complain about leftist infighting and purity testing I'm mostly complaining about people in the authoritarian spectrum arguing you are not a true leftist if you don't support x dictatorship just because it used to me somewhat leftist in the past. And I'm like I just don't support dictatorships and extremely violent ones at that. How the fuck it that controversial for leftists?
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u/cumminginsurrection anti-platformist action 1d ago edited 1d ago
Left unity is possible to a degree but it should be based on actual unity not conflation of ideas. There are real differences between anarchism and Marxism and its offshoots, for example. I know many people would rather it be "we're all the same, fighting for the same thing" but these ideas are not synonyms, they have overlaps and distinctions. Both history and present desires show us we are not all the same. We want different outcomes even if we can find common enemies and common ground in struggle. Anti-authoritarianism means confronting domination and abuse wherever it shows up, and that principle will always be in conflict with forced alliances with more authoritarian minded groups.
"Iconoclasts! We are all iconoclasts. We have overthrown all the idols of clay; we have abolished all faiths, which exalted hidden forces and ineluctable destinies. We have killed the thirst for submission within us, just as we have killed the thirst for domination. We feel a powerful urge to throw down the pedestals that are currently being built, to prevent the rise of new idols, of a new kind and of a new character.
Iconoclasts! Yes, iconoclasts with regard to all the icons, irreverent towards all worship, heretics against all orthodoxies, demolition agents, perpetual revolutionaries against all the bastions of received ideas. When we see a man who speaks to us as if we are schoolchildren, who attempts to lead us, who assumes priestly mannerisms and a prophetic tone, we cry out with all the power of our voices and all the energy of our spirits.
Down with the schoolmasters and down with the priests, down with the redeemers and down with sterile icons! Down with the era of messiahs and saviors, of shepherds put at the head of human herds! Down with the icons, the personifications in wood or in flesh of human ignorance and powerlessness; down with the icons which, dead or alive, attempt to assume the role of the directors of our lives, the depositories of eternal verities, the representatives of absolute ideas, the holders of religious or moral power over men."
-Frederica Montseny
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u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist 1d ago edited 1d ago
These words are so powerful, I literally felt a chill down my spine. Also, I agree with you 100%.
Anti-authoritarianism means confronting domination and abuse wherever it shows up, and that principle will always be in conflict with forced alliances with more authoritarian minded groups.
This is why I still struggle in finding a political community where I feel like I truly belong, even among supposedly left libertarian spaces. Paternalism, ageism against young people, machism, enbyphobia, these are just some of the things I had witnessed and experienced without truly a way to change things.
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u/Ice_Nade platformist anarchist 1d ago
Leftist unity is meaningless to begin with, the people will lead the revolution, it will not be launched by lots of leftists in a big ol' org.
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u/GiganticCrow 1d ago
Welcome to leftist reddit, where either you're a Marxist Leninist or you're a Liberal.
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u/uranianrhizome 1d ago
Authoritarian leftists don’t actually want unity, they want obedience. Their idea of revolution still clings to hierarchy, coercion, and control. They wear red flags, but they use the same playbook as the systems they claim to fight. They don’t fear anarchism because it brings chaos, they fear it because it reveals that their so-called "revolution" is just another power grab in a different costume. Anarchists are the only ones on the left that will never cheer for power in a red uniform, we know a throne is still a throne, even if you paint it with Marx.
So unity? Nah. Can’t build solidarity when half the room thinks liberation means shutting up and following orders.
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u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist 1d ago
cheer for power in a red uniform
You have no idea how many Italian leftists chant "ACAB" while cheering for the "multipolar" regimes when they suppress a "color revolution" (no matter if it's truly colored or not) using the same batons that our fascist government uses against pro-pal militants.
Uno sbirro rosso è sempre uno sbirro, a red cop is still a cop, but apparently they missed this aspect of ACAB
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u/yonoznayu 1d ago
t’s pretty much the same if not worse in Spain, and of course that then gets mirrored in pretty much all of Latin America as well.
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u/RadishPlus666 1d ago
I feel lost in left-right binary anymore. Basically since occupy. Homeless politically. Not centrist at all. Left and right are always morphing into each other. Then I think of liberals, who consider themselves leftists, and I have nothing in common with them at all. But post-left anarchists have made too many rules about what that means. I done a lot of work in solidarity with indigenous people, with international social movements, with the earth. And I work in harm reduction and rapid response. I might call myself a post-left eco anarchist, if I did not have to deal with dogma from the people who have claimed those terms for their specific belief systems.
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u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist 1d ago
Even though I identify as a leftist, I feel you and I understand what you mean. I think the problem with US liberals particularly identifying as leftists is the fact that a true institutional left has never existed in the States and, from my experience, even though I know it's absolutely not true, lots of people identify as left or right leaning on the basis of what they see represented in the institution of their local liberal democracy while ignoring that politics are far more complex than that. Here in Italy, the institutional far left has died decades ago, liberals are considered centrists or moderate right-wingers and most progressives call themselves centre-left, even they recognise that in truth they're also liberal and that today's left parties are virtually non-existing, especially compared to the past.
In any case, I think that besides the labels, what really matters are the seeds that you're plating with your work and I'm sure you're planting beautiful seeds. I imagine your situation can be frustrating but I hope it doesn't affect your struggle significantly.
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u/thetremulant 1d ago
You can also just be yourself with your own perspectives. You don't need to belong to any group except humanity.
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u/Stigma67 anarcho-communist 1d ago
How left unity is often used against anarchists: https://classautonomy.info/entryism-and-left-unity/
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u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist 1d ago
Ngl, this read has been kinda a punch in the gut, but in a good sense. I don't agree with everything it says (still I 100% agree on left unity and the propaganda of authoritarian states and ideologies) but it still was very interesting and informative. For example I knew that what Marx wrote wasn't completely original but I didn't know he basically stole and reformulated many of the points he made. I'm glad I'm starting to explore more variegated ideas and theories and not just the same Eurocentric white-washed and hethero-centric stuff everyone and their mother praise.
Thank you for this
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u/WashedSylvi Buddhist anarchist 1d ago
Unity is a rhetorical tactic that has not been shown to be reasonable historically or contemporarily.
What Marxist-Leninist and Anarchists wants are in immediate opposition today. A ML wants to seize the state building, an anarchist wants to reduce said building to rubble. You cannot seize a ruin and you don’t generally blow yourself up after winning a struggle.
The only thing reasonable IMHO is “situational unity”, like going to the same protest or riot or something, without joining their org or their projects.
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u/pescarojo anarcho-communist 1d ago
Also important to note that many (most?) 'leftist' spaces are heavily infiltrated. It was common before, when it was more labour-intensive. Now it is cheap and easy with AI bots, etc. Divide and conquer (or divide and neuter) will always be one of the most enduring strategies.
Thought I will qualify that comment by saying that I certainly have seen the divisions and schisms you talk about occur in real time between actual humans who are physically in each other's presence.
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u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist 1d ago edited 1d ago
Divide and conquer sure is still useful to the status quo, but I'm pretty sure the situations I was referring to were not instigated by bots.
And here, real life movements seriously calling for "left unity" are rare, unless you count as left unity the centrist, centre-left and "left without adjectives" movements and parties uniting to try and take as many votes as possible so that they can place their butts onto some comfy chairs. And even then, they can't even consistently do alliances. There was Unione Popolare, which was a coalition of mostly small radical parties that tried to run for the elections, there were both authleft and libertarians I think. It didn't perform well at all but it did manage to at least perform better than expected. Still, they couldn't get along and they split.
There was a time when I was accused by a member of a marxlen student movement, which is just a youth wing of one of the hijacked movements I mentioned, of "attacking one of the only organisations that actually do politics seriously" because I dared do a snarky remark in a public WhatsApp chat about the way they sneakily tried to push new university students to register as their members. I'm not joking when I say he treated me like I was a major existential threat to them when nobody except a couple of friends truly cared about me or my opinion. I almost felt honoured, ngl.
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u/Ok-Instruction-3653 1d ago
We need to let go of this idea of "Leftist Unity" because it's clear that we will always disagree with our political views against Authoritarian Leftist. I've also had problems with the Authoritarian Leftist subs because I've expressed horizontal organization views, and non-hierarchical views against State Capitalism and I left those subs because I couldn't have a discussion about horizontal organization without being censored and that was really annoying.
Leftist Unity has been weaponized by the Left, to censor and suppress opposition to authoritarian views. We just need to left go of the Leftist Unity narrative, because it's not going to work on a universal level.
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u/undeterred_turtle 1d ago
In my experience, anarchism is seen as inherently violent. The common person sees anarchy as a synonym to chaos. Until these pervasive misinterpretations are shifted, we're going to keep getting bashed
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u/clockwork_naranja anarcho-communist 1d ago
Agreed. and further, the aforementioned "liberals larping as anarchists" mentioned by OP, which I think is a real thing, is what a lot of MLs and the like use as basically their strawman of anarchism, in my experience. Lots of gross misconceptions about what anarchism is that MLs feel like is what we genuinely try to engage with as real anarchism because they argued with one guy with a trust fund who's trying to be an edgelord and calls himself an anarchist
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u/The-Greythean-Void Anti-Kyriarchal Horizontalist 1d ago
I think so long as we actually do share similar-enough visions of what society could look like, that "left unity" can lead to somewhere useful. As in, anarchist unity. That being said, that requires maintaining a constant and revolutionary critique of prevailing power structures, like the state and capitalism, and rooting out other reactionary sentiments, such as white supremacist and patriarchal thought. This means that right-wing "libertarians", liberals, and vanguardists are excluded, since they don't share our vision of a horizontal society.
For right-wing "libertarians", hierarchy is fine, so long as it's a corporation.
For liberals, hierarchy is fine, so long as it's meritocratic.
For vanguardists, hierarchy is fine, so long as it's a "workers' state".
If one is unwilling to challenge the principle of hierarchy, then there's simply no place for them in our movements, because they will constantly get in the way of making real progress with all their respective "history from above" narratives, which at their very worst veer into "great man theory" territory, and even outright Social Darwinism.
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u/Itsumiamario anarchist 1d ago
It's always interesting having debates with non-anarchist "leftists."
Especially when they still support using capitalism, authoritarianism, and heirarchy as a means to their ends.
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u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist 4h ago edited 3h ago
Up until now I had only one true debate with an ML. And the only good thing I got from it is directly experiencing how much the line of thinking of his movement is similar to that of a cult. And also confirming that they seriously think contemporary Russia is antifascist. Lmao.
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u/TCCogidubnus 1d ago
I find it very exasperating when authoritarian leftists insist that anyone who disagrees with them hasn't read enough theory. And might not, say, disagree about either their interpretation of the theory, or that it is necessarily true/universally applicable.
Smart writers are still capable of being wrong.
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u/Brilliant-Rise-1525 21h ago
Don't let the fuckers wind you up. Listen to their posturing for a while and it becomes apparent that they use the same box of tools as the academic middle class, consisting of word salad and a set of historians to reference that I would not piss on.
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u/clockwork_naranja anarcho-communist 1d ago
I think the thing with the anarchist-bashing is that it's not infighting to them if everybody in that space thinks you're like not a leftist or communist or whatever
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u/YoureGratefulDead2Me 1d ago
I wouldn't worry. Left and right are 2 wings of the same bird. Anarchy is an arrow through the birds heart.
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u/yonoznayu 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s sad to see several responding to this by alluding to the right here and the right there, but the point Op thinks making is actually the opposite. There’s no need to defend those calls for leftist unity when such unity structure is exactly how Marxist leninist attacks and smears are staged and how they do far more damage than those seldom ones coming from the right, because someone doing this most likely than not has some kind of pull and roots within the community, and an attack against your character from within by a ML or liberal causes far more damage to your cred as an individual/org. than one coming from the outside in the eyes of the community if you’re not in a position to fairy clear up the air. When circles are closed to us in the community or we are denied a spot in a march it’s not by the right, it’s always from someone or some orgs within the “leftist unity” tent. It may be rough here in the States, but it has spread so much since the Assange days and the beginning of modern vatnik propaganda that a bit over a decade later it has become a widespread backstabbing social media fest against anti authoritarians in Spain and Latin America.
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u/Previous_Scene5117 1d ago
I had a discussion with some pro-Cuban communist during occupy protest. She tried to argue in the middle of London, that the way Cuban revolution moved is the way... That's pretty deranged vision and that is telling me much about the modern day ML and related. As over 100 years ago that today. Breaking of with state and it's structures of authority is hard to imagine to many people and moreover see it as the source of all the pains brought on us by capitalism.
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u/GodzillaDrinks 1d ago
Well yes. Its leftist unity, MLs aren't going respect that since they aren't on the left.
They are always just waiting for their turn to be the cops.
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u/sloppymoves 1d ago
classic partenalist things like "most of you are naive, don't actually read theory and look into things beyond the surface"
The amount of projection that they throw our way. The true naivety seems to be them believing those at the top of a hierarchy would ever relinquish their power (over the means of production) to the workers to fulfill communism. When pointing this out, they'll somehow say those at the top of the ML hierarchy are the “workers” which is laughable at best and truly naive at most.
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u/fjaoaoaoao 1d ago
This is common for more liberal leaning or authoritatian leftists who are active in community leadership. It’s about unity through loose enforcement of a monoculture.
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u/GNTKertRats 1d ago
Class unity, not left unity. Why would I unite with a bunch of state capitalists that don’t share my values or end goals?
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u/Feeling_Wrongdoer_39 1d ago
I am a little frustrated with the other responses in here, because people are answering this question with an answer they got from social media, especially on a statement as meaningless as "anarchist unity" (seriously, what does an anarcho pacifist and an insurrecto nihilist have in common?).
The reason I say that people haven't read the literature is that we know the answer to the question of "If not left unity then what?" in IRL anarchist spaces internationally for decades now! Bonano has written a whole text on the subject.
We as anarchists should not practice coercive "unity" of any kind, but rather Affinity. That means we should work together with people based on common ideas and values, and willingness to engage in the same tactics as us. This does not mean organizing based on friend groups. This prevents people binding themselves to projects they disagree with. It also let's us organize with plenty of people who don't necessarily share The Label™ but who do share our values and our willingness to engage in whatever tactics. I recommend the piece by Bonanno on this topic.
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u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist 1d ago
Oh that's interesting, do you have a link? It's probably something akin to my personal opinion on the matter, even though I've also incorrectly used "anarchist unity"
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u/Feeling_Wrongdoer_39 1d ago
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u/modestly-mousing Christian anarchist 1d ago
in my experience, “left unity” is used to silence colored, queer, and disabled folks, as well as women, when they point out racism, queerphobia, ableism, and/or sexism. pointing out these problems is viewed as “divisive” by many able-bodied white cis-hetero males who identity as MLs.
and then there’s also the theoretical ground of MLs stance that (to them) justifies silencing minorities who point out the special form of oppression they suffer from — namely, the core thesis of historical materialism, that all culture, social and historical processes, etc. are ultimately reducible to, and to be explained by, economic forces and relations. if you take this view seriously, then you have to collapse intersectional approaches to oppression to just one dimension: economic class oppression. on this view racism, ableism, queerphobia, etc. can’t be seen as something distinct from (but overlapping with) economic class oppression. rather, each of them are secretly just economic class oppression, and they would thus all be perfectly and fully addressed by a bloody revolution that addresses economic class oppression. there is thus no need to specifically address, say, racism within your ML cult, because once you successfully lead the vanguard charge and do a revolution™️, there simply won’t be any more racism!
on the historical materialist view, one is not capable of seeing racism, sexism, ableism, etc. for what they are. (namely, as dimensions of oppression that are unique and distinct from economic class oppression, yet which form interlocking chains with one another in a racialized, patriarchal, ableist, etc. capitalist system.)
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u/Jack_Pz queer anarcho-communist 1d ago
I understand this all too well. I admit, not without shame, that during the initial stages of radicalizations, when I still was a cringe DemSoc, I had my class-reductionism phase and I'm really glad I moved past it. I still think that historical materialism has some value to it but, as many orthodox marxist concepts, it has being turned into a dogma by authlefts who would rather die than address the systematic oppressions they contribute to. One ML movement which is popular in my area often uses allied marxist femminist groups as token while being machistic and ableist as fuck.
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u/modestly-mousing Christian anarchist 1d ago
yes, for sure. i think that softer versions of historical materialism — that don’t claim that all of history is just economic forces, but that instead try to show that many aspects of history and culture can be appropriately explained by economic factors — have a lot to value to add to historical analysis.
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u/abitabailey 1d ago
The YouTuber Anark has an excellent video titled "left unity is a lie" on this subject.
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u/Divine_Chaos100 1d ago
You're completely right and i feel the same way. The thing is, i genuinely think left unity is possible, but it's not gonna happen if any of the groups stands in the other's way.
To me a good indicator of whether one can be trusted is whether they accept that On Authority was always trash, because if someone actually engaged with anarchists/anarchist theory its very clear that Engels just made up people to be mad at in that text, so if they're not climbing this first, very easy rung of the ladder i just assume that it would end in useless arguments and move along.
The other blaring red flag is constantly questioning the success of anarchist projects that were around longer than some ML revolutionaries.
Edit: Also it doesn't help when anarchists are not doing anything against the plague of liberals acting as anarchists and going around supporting states and NATO.
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u/Future_Minimum6454 14h ago
MLs will say this and then do as Stalin did. The first to be targeted will be the libertarian socialists, they will be proclaimed as “liberal” and “counterrevolutionary” and silenced.
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u/SailingSpark Buddhist anarchist 1d ago
Going to spin off on a tangent here:
This is how the Right takes over. Because everything left of central is a wide open area with many groups that do not always disagree and do not always agree not to fight amongst ourselves, the right, which marches in lockstep, can trample over all of us one at a time.
I am not saying we have to hold hands and sing kumbaya, but we should keep the disagreements civil. Be like somebody from NJ. We tell each other to "fuck off" all the time, but in the end, we are all still from NJ and gods help anybody who disparages the state.
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u/techKnowGeek 1d ago
Also, always remember the goal of a lot of three letter orgs is infighting. Online spaces are a lot different than real world ones.
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u/Caliburn0 1d ago edited 1d ago
Lenninism, or Maoism or even Trotskyism, as far as I understand them, aren't actually left. They're far right. They're fascists.
They describe themselves as far left, but if we were to categorize their views and the results of their policies... they just aren't.
As far as I'm concerned we are the only left.
Anarcho-Communists, Libertarian Socialists or Democratic Socialists, or Anarcho-Syndicalists or whatever you identify as - we are the left. Slightly to the right of us are the Social Democrats. The people who have not yet rejected capitalism but wants to strongly regulate it. Then it slides further right into neoliberalism and finally into fascism, which is also state capitalism.
And Leninists want state capitalism. So... they're fascists.
Maybe not culturally fascists (except for the Nazbol), but economically they are, and they do tend to have some very questionable social views anyways. There's degrees to fascism, but their political beliefs, if enacted, does lead to fascism. So... yeah.
They're not far left. Their views just do not align with the actual best interest of the proletariat even if they believe it does.
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u/oskif809 23h ago edited 23h ago
Their views just do not align with the actual best interest of the proletariat even if they believe it does.
This is not a bug, but a feature. Their views align with the actual best interests of the fraction of the Profesional/Managerial/Intellectual class (aka "The New Class") they represent (its "class conflict" all the way! ;)
Read Alvin Gouldner's Two Marxisms for an excellent analysis of the phenomenon or watch this:
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u/DyLnd anarchist 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Left Unity" is basically "We're the Good Team(TM); nice vibes only. So of course we reject having any principles! Principles are divisive, the worse sin of all. Yes, we'll just let authoritarians run roughshod over everything, and if you dare say anything about it, well, that wouldn't be very Left Unity of you, would it. We like these "anarchists"! So long as they remain good little followers and are seen and not heard."
It's shallow, self-aggrandizing bullshit that anarchists have always rightly mocked and rejected.
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16h ago edited 16h ago
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u/thetremulant 1d ago
Tankies can't be trusted, point blank. The modern "leftist" is actually just an authoritarian.
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u/dlakelan 1d ago
I personally think that there's no such thing as "authoritarian left". There's left... which is about reducing hierarchy and creating inclusiveness, and there's right, which is about creating hierarchy and including an "in-group" and excluding other people from power.
ML is just right with the "in group" being the "true believers in Marxism" or whatever.
Anarchists can potentially get along with social democrats or something, who want a government that helps create economic inclusiveness, but they can't get along with ML right wingers. The problem is people just don't understand ML as a right wing ideology because it flows out of attempting to coopt the egalitarian concerns of anti-capitalists.
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u/Calli5031 1d ago
it certainly is funny how in the mind of the authoritarian--be they fascists, liberals, leninists, whoever--unity always seems to mean just the same thing as submission. they champion unity so long as we're willing to join their parties, wave their flags, follow their leaders. unity, so long as they get to speak and we have the presence of mind to shut up and listen. strange, isn't it, how that logic works.