NATO leftists. They live in countries that are a part of NATO and want to feel like a revolutionary badass to their conservative families while still parroting pro-NATO propaganda. Japanese “leftists” that do the same shit are honorary members.

I’ve always found the fixation on the negative aspects of USSR really weird, and frankly dishonest. USSR was a product of its conditions, and it’s absurd to claim that such problems are somehow inherent in communism. If there is ever a successful communist project in the west, it’s necessarily going to be rooted in the culture and material conditions present at the time. Incidentally, this is precisely why China says that their system isn’t meant to be copied directly by other countries, it’s a product of conditions in China.

I don’t think you can fully or mostly blame world communist movements for being reliant on the USSR. The USSR and other communist movements always face an uphill battle against centuries of propaganda, imperialism, and oppression. It makes sense that the most theoretically and technologically advanced and well-supplied and financially well-off country to foot the bill in order to spread socialism, though I agree that in certain circumstances the USSR did constrain movements and leaders too tightly.

True to an extent.

I don’t know any M-Ls that won’t admit this when in discussion with other left tendencies (especially when it comes to Spain). I’d like to think Marxists have learned from past mistakes. It’d be nice if anarchists did the same so we could focus on the more immediate picture rather than on historical feuds between different factions a century ago.

Didn’t the live expectancy rise continually during its existence except during the wars and 1991?

Actually, that’s the one point that isn’t accurate. The life expectancy stagnated since the 1970s, in the USSR and in Warsaw Pact states.

However, countries like Cuba continued rising in life expectancy at a steady pace (except for 1991-1994 for some reason) famously to the point of beating the United States of America.

👍

Also in no reasonable sense can criticism of right wing anarchism be considered sectarianism, I think we will all agree there is a certain sect of ‘anarchist’ that can be more clearly defined as being concered primarly with anti-communism and maintaining liberal hegemony.

Not even CIA is stupid enough to fill it completely with CIA content. You expected their seal on the fist page or what? It’s precisely why CONITELPRO was so successful, they don’t agitate against minor things which can be stopped by the local pigs at any time if needed, they agitate against the real dangers.

Or alternatively, you might be correct, that would mean anarchists internalized that shit takes by themselves even without direct letters support - which is conicidentally also how COINTELPRO works.

Or, option 3, anarchists are like that without any letters influence. Wew, i hope not, though i seen enough to believe that too.

Is it because of their theoretical basis in idealism

Yes. It’s easy to be infiltrated when you believe that anyone can be a leader. However, a lot of militant ML/MLM groups fail or disband because they think small groups can bomb and shoot people to a socialist society with little outreach (though I’m thinking of activist/direct action groups and not political parties)

they have no actual theory or organisation to resist attempts to divide and conquer, and they generally havent rejected western propaganda.

Partly a negative answer for you: it’s not necessarily a lack of anything in anarchist theory so much as the presence of theory in ML orgs. Maybe that’s the same thing? I’ll explain my thinking. An ML group can’t generally start coming out with anti-communist shit because it would be an immediate red flag. It would be an obvious honeypot from a mile away.

ML groups that kept the line after Khrushchev’s secret speech might be infiltrated but it would stand out too much to try to get them to say they’ve now changed their minds – especially as MLs are confident that even more evidence is now available that shows they were right about the main points all along.

It’s kind of expected for anarchists to reject AES, so state department messaging blends right in. That’s not to say ML orgs don’t come out with outrageous shite, either, like transphobia, but it’s harder to publicly denounce the fundamental principles that MLs have long agreed on.

This is why I like Sakai’s talk on security. The main message is that one of the best defences is learning to spot bad politics. Technical security, etc, is important, but humans will ever be the weakest link. That weakness can be identified in bad politics, in those without consistent principles. Anarchists may have consistent principles but when one of those is ‘state authority is bad’ their orgs can naturally be used as a mouthpiece for criticising states the CIA doesn’t like.

Edit: Indeed, it seems that many non-MLs will say such things of their own accord, so some don’t even need to be infiltrated.

In the most ignorant way even, by then the USSR was food secure.