• Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Please ignore the history of Anarchists fighting the Communists, it simply must have been the dirty Marxists betraying the noble Anarchists.

    • Dragon@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Are you referring to instances in which Anarchist groups in the Spanish Civil War took actions to hurt Communist groups? I won’t claim it didn’t happen, but I don’t know of examples.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        I’m referring to the general distrust of Anarchists by the Communists. They fought against the Anarchists of Russia during the Russian Civil War, yet still supplied the Spanish Anarchists with weapons and vehicles. The general fact that Anarchists struggle with organization and Communists generally don’t to nearly the same degree compounded this.

        By what manner do you say the Communists betrayed the Anarchists?

        • Dragon@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          USSR-aligned groups, where they had power in Spain, in many instances used that power to imprison, smear, and seize weapons from, and attack non-USSR-aligned groups. You can look up José Cazorla’s anti-subversion measures in Madrid, or PSUC’s attacks on POUM during the Barcelona May Days.

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            Yes, and the anti-USSR groups used their power to imprison, smear, seize weapons from, and attack USSR-aligned groups.

            It wasn’t a “betrayal,” it was a conflict in how the war should be fought. The Anarchists tried to stick to decentralization even within the context of war, and lost. Had the Anarchists adopted a more Marxist line, they may have succeeded.

            • Dragon@lemmy.ml
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              2 months ago

              I’m not sure they did, at least not preemptively. Do you have examples?

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                2 months ago

                What’s your understanding of the entire situation? Are you suggesting that it was going well until the Communists backstabbed the Anarchists? Taking a real, materialist analysis of the situation is necessary. Historically, Communists and Anarchists have had uneasy alliances until differences in organizational theory lead to friction and then conflict.

                • Dragon@lemmy.ml
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                  2 months ago

                  I don’t know how the war would have gone if those events hadn’t taken place, but it seems to have undermined the strength of the popular front. And from what I’ve read the anarchists were sufficiently organized. The type of Anarchism popular amongst the Spanish was a syndicalist strain very different from the hyper-individualism people expect from anarchists today.