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?
Read what I actually wrote about the USSR though.
I don’t know what makes you think I didn’t. I saw a bunch of vague moral pronouncements and then you refusing to clearly answer questions. For that reason along with the fact that I really want to waste less of my time in internet arguments, I have no interest in the broader discussion here.
I just felt it would be helpful perspective that every existing socialist state (well, idk about Laos) and some of the historical ones owe(d) their existence to the victory of the Bolsheviks. I think that the subsequent progress made by states like Cuba should be understood as part of a historical progression that the USSR was a positive forbear in.
They owe their existence to the victory over the czar, which was a coalition of many many left groups. The Bolsheviks were there, but they were one small group among many during the revolution.
Do you mean the victory over the provisional government? Anyway, whatever. The answer regardless is no, not in a sense more direct than that we should accredit it to the invention of the wheel because that too is an earlier part of the causal chain. The Bolsheviks – yes, because they ran out their opposition – were the ones left standing and it was this political entity as it developed (and devolved) over time that was concretely the one responsible for helping the various other states. We don’t know what the other left factions would have done or if they even would have survived long enough to do something productive. You really can’t escape giving the Bolsheviks credit here.
But any of the comrades they betrayed would gave done it better. Or are you arguing that betraying their comrades is a plus, somehow?
Zero substantiation
I think a one-party system makes sense and we don’t need to add weird moralistic flourishes, pretending parties are people and dissolving other parties is an act of murder. It’s not like they just round up and shot everyone when they seized power, they just deemed central organization a necessity, but even those who opposed this were treated with kid gloves until things got graver in the following decade.