Naokotani wrote on September 18, 2017 at 12:31 PM

Revolution was inevitable in Russia as it was in the rest of Europe. I doubt that if they had become a liberal democracy things would have gone any better, especially considering what people have stated here about the material conditions of Russia in the early 20th century.

I am sure many many revolutionaries tried and died to make an egalatiarian socialist Russia. Shall we belittle them for trying or shall we give credit where it is due, learn from the mistakes of the revolution and try to carry on with the work socialism?

An_Old_Big_Tree OP wrote on September 18, 2017 at 12:47 PM

Part of the predictive value of anarchist theory is exactly that it understands intermediary states to be problematic. Personally I think it's the major difference between anarchism and marxism. And Kronstadt is a fairly definitive example of the anarchist prediction playing out, against marxism.

Naokotani wrote on September 18, 2017 at 1:17 PM

Agreed, but now we have more evidence to strenghten our predictive models that we would not have if they had become a liberal democracy.

Also, what about the predictive value of Marxism to predict that anarchists will get crushed by imperialist capitalist, fascists and communists?

Both anarchist and marxist theory have a great deal to teach anyone who is willing to learn about socialism.

kestrel77 wrote on October 7, 2017 at 3:22 PM

anarchists haven't been crushed by communists historically. anarchists have been betrayed by the counter-revolution masquerading as communists in ukraine and spain and the other places.

kestrel77 wrote on October 7, 2017 at 3:20 PM

who said we wanted russia to be a liberal democracy?

we can recognize that our view of the soviet union is informed by propaganda while also condemning the people who ordered the political murder of anarchists.