I’ve been called a tankie, and I understand completely what your vision of an ideal future is. A classless, moneyless, stateless society— aka communism. “Tankies” also want this future, we just disagree on how to get there.
I could also say that ML positions have to be broken down to their simplest terms for the libs and “anarkiddies”, but I don’t actually think that would convince most people. In the case of the libs, class consciousness is something that must be arrived at via lived experience. We can try to propagandize, but propaganda on its own is not effective. In the case of the anarchists, we just fundamentally have different views on how the world works and the ability of disparate anarchist communities to fight capitalist state power. I would be happy to be proven wrong if the transition to communism can happen without a worker’s state to repress capitalist reaction, but I find that possibility extremely unlikely.
Ultimately, I don’t think arguing these points is worthwhile when we are nowhere close to the class consciousness required for either an anarchist or ML strategy to achieve communism. And in the meantime, throwing slurs like tankie or anarkiddy only serves to divide us and empower the capitalists.
I’ve been called a tankie, and I understand completely what your vision of an ideal future is. A classless, moneyless, stateless society— aka communism. “Tankies” also want this future, we just disagree on how to get there.
I could also say that ML positions have to be broken down to their simplest terms for the libs and “anarkiddies”, but I don’t actually think that would convince most people. In the case of the libs, class consciousness is something that must be arrived at via lived experience. We can try to propagandize, but propaganda on its own is not effective. In the case of the anarchists, we just fundamentally have different views on how the world works and the ability of disparate anarchist communities to fight capitalist state power. I would be happy to be proven wrong if the transition to communism can happen without a worker’s state to repress capitalist reaction, but I find that possibility extremely unlikely.
Ultimately, I don’t think arguing these points is worthwhile when we are nowhere close to the class consciousness required for either an anarchist or ML strategy to achieve communism. And in the meantime, throwing slurs like tankie or anarkiddy only serves to divide us and empower the capitalists.