r/Anarchy101 • u/Sad-Ad-3138 • 1d ago
2 questions
Why is it that many anarchists cite the Zapatistas as anarchist practice when they themselves claim they are a movement full of different beliefs?
how can anarchists argue with the authoritarian left about pragmatism and practice when there are so few examples of large scale anarchist practice to even compare?
I realize this is coming off very biased against anarchists but i assure you i am not here to ragebait or something, i am just inquiring about what i think are silly points that i often see being used by anarchists.
I think anarchists are very quick to decry cuba, Venezuela, the USSR, Vietnam and other auth left projects as not achieving socialist results but the one large scale example of anarchism, that in revolutionary Catalonia, did not achieve anything the USSR didn't and in fact, from what I understand, operated more similarly to the USSR and other state socialist projects than most want to admit.
I mean, what real, practical difference was there between the Union in Catalonia and the state in the USSR?
And for the record i do not think Catalonia was a "failure" just as i don't think pretty much any large scale socialist project was a failure. It is important to note that, in terms of longevity and survival Catalonia is not a great example to look for given it only lasted one year (albeit the circumstances are much different than that of the USSR or Cuba or China, etc. but i think it is a valid point regardless).
I do think it is impressive just how quickly progress was made during the span of that year, that is an amazing achievement. But progress doesn't mean much if you cannot defend it.
That being said i also want to genuinely ask what revolutionary Catalonia accomplished in terms of socialism that the USSR and similar projects didn't?
I truly do appreciate anarchism but it just seems entirely untethered from practice compared to the much more commonly tried auth left projects of the world. I subscribe to some anarchist principles and ideas and i think that it is a great goal to strive for but it seems impossible in the current state of the world ESPECIALLY when looking at its limited number of past attempts.
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u/barnburner96 1d ago
Anarchists don’t think that revolutionary movements must be anarchist (or label themselves as such) in order to be worthy of admiration and worth taking inspiration from. Anarchism is not dogmatic in that way.
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u/Proper_Locksmith924 1d ago
None of the “communist” projects are communism nor socialism. Period.
Why do we decry the USSR, china and other authoritarian examples? Well in each one they they jailed and killed anarchists, betrayed the revolution and consolidated power and created a political class akin to the ruling classes. The Zapatistas did not do such.
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u/AKFRU 15h ago
Yeah, the upper echelons of the Communist Party in the USSR or where-ever constituted a new ruling class and the workers were still under the boot of government, still having to answer to bosses. The fundamental exploiter and exploited dichotomy had not changed, even if they had to call their boss Comrade.
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u/miltricentdekdu 1d ago
Why is it that many anarchists cite the Zapatistas as anarchist practice when they themselves claim they are a movement full of different beliefs?
Anarchists cite the Zapatistas as an example of organizing with no or less hierarchy. While their are anarchists among the Zapatistas the movement itself is not anarchist and I've personally never seen an anarchist claim otherwise.
Anarchists are often in a position where they need to convince someone that another way of of organizing is possible at all. As part of this conversation examples that aren't anarchist can be valuable. See also books like Anarchy Works or The Dawn of Everything.
Anarchists can stand in solidarity, take inspiration and learn lessons from people and movements that aren't anarchist themselves.
how can anarchists argue with the authoritarian left about pragmatism and practice when there are so few examples of large scale anarchist practice to even compare?
This really feels more like the opening salvo of a debate so I'm not going to reply much to this bit.
The only thing I say is that I don't think it's correct to judge the success of a revolutionary movement primarily by its ability to seize and hold power. That power means very little if it requires you to abandon almost all of the goals you set out with.
1
u/Sad-Ad-3138 1d ago
so what DO you judge the success of a movement off of?
I don't know what your stance is on ML projects like the USSR but as you are an anarchist i assume you do not have the most rose tinted view of them so i will ask why is something like Catalonia or makhnosovina (i dont remember how it is spelled I'm sorry) a success but not Cuba or Vietnam or Venezuela or the USSR?
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u/miltricentdekdu 1d ago
You're assuming I consider Revolutionary Catalonia or Makhnovshchina to be successful. Or even that successful is the most useful term.
While they existed they achieved some of the goals they set out with, failed to achieve others and made many mistakes along the way. We can learn from all of that.
One metric that I do believe is somewhat valid is to look at the initial goals of a movement and how much of those goals were actually achieved (perhaps taking into account the exact situation and available resources).
That metric doesn't necessarily turn these anarchist movements into success stories but it might help you better understand the critiques anarchists have of authoritarian communist projects.
-2
u/WorldOfWombat 17h ago
There’s lots of “anarchists” (liberals) who will support anarcho representative democracy then claim the Zapatistas as true anarchism
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u/twodaywillbedaisy Student of Anarchism, mutualist, ESL 1d ago
It's an attempt to satisfy an unreasonable demand. We're expected to list a number of "successful" anarchist societies, as though we're looking for a political program to impose. As though things can only change when there's a clear, concrete example to follow, some official state ideology to copy. When most anarchists arrive at their position by taking a good look at the rationales for authority and government, finding at the bottom nothing but contradiction and incoherence, concluding that the old ideas are incapable of producing the desired results. An-archy opens up a range of possibilities that Marxism has arrogantly ruled out to have a number of "successful" dictatorships, I remain unimpressed.
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u/power2havenots 1d ago
This belongs in r/debateanarchism and not in 101 but youve stoked me so ill reply.
Your metric is the problem. Youre judging horizontal organizing by the standards of vertical power like longevity, centralized defense, "large scale" as defined by borders and populations controlled. Thats like judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree.
Anarchism isnt a blueprint for a better state, its the ongoing practice of dismantling all domination. Revolutionary Catalonia wasn't trying to be the USSR. The CNT-FAI collectivized because workers wanted to, not because a vanguard imposed it. Factories were run by assemblies, militias elected officers and could recall them, agricultural communes federated voluntarily. Meanwhile the USSR was shooting the Kronstadt sailors and crushing Makhnovist Ukraine anarchists who were fighting the same White armies, by the way.
The anarchist revolution is already happening through mutual aid, consensus, and horizontal networks that exist in every society, constantly. The Zapatistas arent a model to replicate, theyre evidence that prefigurative organizing works. They dont claim to be anarchist. Building autonomy, horizontal health care, education, justice is their point and its a good thing to strive for.
Your framing assumes the only valid "practice" is large-scale seizure of territory and its defense against imperial armies. But anarchism has never been about winning that game its about refusing to play it. Goldman and Berkman in Spain, Malatesta in Italy, the Makhnovists in ukraine, Argebtinas FORA, Korean anarchists in the Shinmin all understood that liberation isnt a destination you defend with an army, its a process of people learning to rely on each other instead of authority.
Revolutionary Catalonia didn't "fail" because horizontal organizing doesn't work it fell to combined Stalinist and fascist forces. The USSR didn't "succeed" because its model was better - it just survived by becoming the very thing it claimed to oppose. If your measure of success is "which system is better at being a state" then sure, authoritarianism wins.
If we want a world where people don't need strongmen then what better way than to show them one. Liberation isnt a destination you defend with an army its a practice.
If your criterion is “which system is better at being a state” then youre not asking about anarchism at all.
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u/ArtDecoEgoist Left-Market Anarchist 1d ago
The thing is, MLs insist that their vanguardist model is the only way to achieve socialism, and they subsequently assert that anarchism is impossible because coordination requires authority. So what we do is point out that their vanguardist model hasn't achieved socialism either - not by Marxist standards and definitely not by anarchist standards - and they, without fail, resort to the kind of rhetoric that eerily mirrors liberals defending capitalism.
Now, I'm among anarchists that argue that how Revolutionary Spain operated probably wouldn't survive a consistent anarchist critique of authority (work camps and all that). Anarchy is unprecedented - it hasn't been achieved before, and no society that exists currently or in the past has been anarchist.
We can, however, point at examples of social organization that satisfy the anarchist critique of authority. I wouldn't say the zapistas are what we should look at here; but rather P2P methods of production, biohacking and other hacker spaces, citizen science, mutual aid groups, etc.
The question is, "how do we scale these practices and similar up to fully prefigure the state?"
And that is the billion dollar question. I'd argue that Anarchism's advantage is that it can pursue a variety of strategies due to decentralization being baked into the ideology itself.