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?

  • urmums401k [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    5 hours ago

    I’m saying if you can’t see their fuckups, if you buy all the cope, you aren’t really learning much from their successes either, and this is just masturbating to an idealized past.

    There are socialist regimes, even centralized ones close to your ideology, that have not failed, that still exist, that have a better record of being on the right side of history. I dont have a ton of interest arguing the minutiae of a shitty dead empire that could have been really really fucking cool. Why the fuck do any of you never talk about them?

    • vovchik_ilich [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 hours ago

      Please excuse me, which socialist country has a better record of being on the right side of history than the Soviet Union?!

      if you can’t see their fuckups

      I’ll try and make you a list of the bigger ones IMO later or tomorrow. Again, I don’t expect many people to know more about such issues than Marxist-Leninists, who are famously obsessed with the USSR.

      • urmums401k [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        4 hours ago

        I don’t actually care, its just an exercise to see if youre delusional by checking roughly how many. Do it, but for yourself. Remember the people you love might be great, but they also suck. Remembering one without the other is not respecting their memory.

        Cuba in particular, as far as nation States, tends to be on the right side of things earlier than most. I’m not interested in discussing it at present.

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 hour ago

          Cuba

          would not exist as a socialist state without the USSR and (though this may only be historical contingency) Krushchev, doing the only other correct thing he did besides rolling tanks on Hungary

        • Tomorrow_Farewell [any, they/them]@hexbear.net
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          4 hours ago

          I’m going to note that you are very reluctant to actually elaborate on many of your points, including which socialist projects have a better record of being on the right side of history. Seriously, how many can you name other than Cuba and East Germany?