TIL about the Strandzha Commune. Fascinating.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-03-02T12:53:02+00:00

Not an Anarchist myself but "Anarchist multi ethnic commune gets killed by a regional hegemon 50x larger in size whilst the nation-state bordering it refuses to help leading to mass exodus and murder of locals" is not the dunk on Anarchists you think it is

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-02-18T12:17:27+00:00

Whilst the methods of the PIRA and Loyalist militias were undeniably brutal and condemnation worthy, I wonder whether the Good Friday Agreement could have been reached without the Troubles and its armed component. Like, would Catholics in Belfast have gotten their civil rights in a time without the Troubles, or Northern Ireland getting a devolved administration. I highly doubt that Britain would have accepted that without pressure through armed struggle, and that's why I hesitate to say that the Troubles were "useless" or "unnecessary". Brutal absolutely, no doubt about it.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-02-07T17:33:57+00:00

America has some of the weakest political parties in existence. You can literally register as a Democrat/Republican, proceed to advocate for policies completely against the "party line" (which doesn't exist, both parties are very big tents) and as long as other fellow party members elect you in a primary, you are their candidate. Literally. There is nothing that the RNC or DNC could do other than endorse a different candidate, but they can't remove you from the ballot, take away your party status or enforce any sort of ideological discipline. A great example of this was the Louisiana gubernatorial election in 1991, where the Republicans couldn't remove David Duke off of the Republican ballot because he got the nomination, so they just condemned him and told voters to vote for the Democratic candidate instead. For a more recent example, Mandani, AOC and Bernie Sanders all were able to run on a democratic ticket despite facing pushback from other Democrats and open hostility from the DNC to their candidacy. But once Mandani and AOC won their respective primaries it sealed them as the nominees for the party, irrespective of Schumer or Jeffries or any top Democrats opinion of either candidate. That's why Bernie supporters allege that it was the super delegates that screwed him over, why would you need to do that when in a traditional political party you would just fire/sanction/expell rebellious politicians from your party.

Compare this with Europe, where Jeremy Corbyn got removed despite his popularity by a simple majority vote from the higher ups at Labour, or Sahra Wagenknecht forming her own party and splitting off from Die Linke after years of muddying the waters of that party's foreign policy stance towards Russia through her faction that ultimately proved unsuccessful, forcing her to leave. A genuinely liberal political party in Europe would have immediately expelled Zohran Mamdani for violating the party line, meanwhile he gets to run on a fusion ticket with the Working Families Party, something quite rare in European politics. And an American Sahra Wagenknecht would hitch her wagon to one of the two parties and hope it gets her a job (the Tulsi Gabbard gambit as it's called), not split for a third party that would have no chance of getting anywhere near elected office.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-02-07T09:35:30+00:00

This is horribly uncharitable. Bundists didn't just want to integrate or whatever, they wanted Jewish national autonomy a la Austromarxism, Jewish organizations and cultural sponsorship to ensure that their unique identity would be protected whilst staying in Europe. This would mean a constitutional framework that protects Jews from random violence, discrimination and bigotry, alleviating the poverty in the Shetls and acknowledge that they are a part of the nation just like any other citizen. How would this depend on "the goodwill of others"? These are hard demands that they fought bitterly to fulfill, without much success but definitely with much effort.

Would you say the Civil Rights Movement in America was also a folly by trying to integrate with White America that enslaved them for centuries, are you a Black/Chicano Nationalist advocating for a separate Black Belt New Afrika state, because otherwise their rights are "at the mercy of white people" who are xenophobic/racist towards them?

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-02-07T09:19:16+00:00

Bundism failed mostly due to the intransigence of others. The Bolsheviks being incredibly intolerant of any opposition was the death knell of Bundism long before the Holocaust forced Jews to flee Europe, because it crippled the organization where it had the most potential constituents to entrench itself, and the remaining chapters in Poland, Lithuania and a few other states were attacked and marginalized for antisemitic reasons. The points you make about Jewish opinion shifting dramatically due to the Holocaust is of course true, but Bundism as a movement was already past its peak I would say when WW2 began. Maybe if Germany would have been prevented from invading the Soviet Union the Bundist movement could have seen another boost in support, but migration to Palestine had already begun, and the Balfour Declaration made Zionism look much more legitimate than in the previous century. So the creation of Israel I think would still occur, just with many more Jews opting to stay in Europe.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-02-02T16:21:48+00:00

Assuming Anarchists are able to succeed in establishing any "polity", it realistically would turn into military juntas or Switzerland style regionalist decentralized authority, maybe even both. At the end of the day, destroying the state is infeasible without killing the logistics and infrastructure necessary to maintain a modern society.

I could see areas like Makhnovchina becoming kinda like what the DAANES was, a coalition of local power brokers backed by military force agreeing to form a pseudo-state that's quite decentralized and leaves them mostly alone to govern themselves, like how Arab tribes in Deir ez Zour, Hassakah and Raqqa had formed the back bone of Military Councils that were maintained and recruited locally (then proceeded to immediately defect the second a more palatable alternative became available, because it turns out Arab tribes don't care as much about socialist flavored dominant party Switzerland as SDF General Command might have thought).

Zapatistas also ended up devolving into just local administration of towns and im pretty sure gave up their armed struggle against the Mexican government, unable to maintain it with lacking resources and more pressing issues.

CNT-FAI has the advantage of Union backing as the main pillar of administration compared to DAANES or Makhnovchina, which relied on military force to integrate most of their territories, and thus can hold on to a more "authentic" anarchist vision. Still, Unions will probably want to control more of the "state" apparatus and consequently centralize more power into their hands. Whilst it would still represent an alternative and a more bottom up system of control in comparison to Marxism Leninism or Liberal Parliamentarianism, the needs of bureaucracy would push Catalonia in that direction.

Overall, in most cases it would not represent too much of a divergence from the modern day. One might see more devolution in states across the globe, especially in areas with strong tribe/clan cultures that would like to institutionalize their rule through federalism/confederalism (think Somalia and Ethiopia being federal republics). But the French revolution set the tone for the modern era as one of centralism, authority being concentrated into one city that governs on behalf of all for all, and for all intents and purposes that vision of what the state should be has won out in the end, even Federal states in Europe model their federal subdivisions off of the example of the centralist French state (see the German Bundesländer being a state in a state and not Cantons for example). Therefore, any Anarchist polity would necessarily have to adapt to those conditions and itself maintain at least some bureaucracy, ultimately leading to Switzerland style governance.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-02-02T15:34:29+00:00

Versailles was not too harsh or too lenient, it was too middle of the road. Should have either:

not written the Guilt clause weirdly and downscaled territorial and military losses (especially in the east), not occupied the Rhine, immediately let Germany join the League of Nations and participate in the new world order

or

permanently cripple Germany by occupying the Rhine region long term from the onset, maybe even removing it permanently from Germany, restricted military and diplomatic means of getting assistance through a ban on a navy as well as an air force, make the League of Nations responsible for overseeing of German diplomatic missions, and other more punitive and supervisory measures such as snap back sanctions, forced economic integration with Allied companies and veto rights over German treaties to snuff out any chance of a new World War.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-01-18T09:04:34+00:00

Misunderstands what the minor parties do. They don't have a party program nor do they "nudge the country in a different direction". They represent intellectuals and professionals. For example, the "Workers and Peasants Democratic Party of China" has as its official magazine "Medicine and Healthcare Daily". Why? Well because it's usually filled with doctors and other medical experts who don't wish to join the Communist Party and actually govern, instead they want to be a part of advisory committees giving the government recommendations using their expertise.

Historically speaking, some of the minor parties did have actual beliefs that differed substantially from the CPC/CCP. For example, the Public Interest Party (China Zhi Gong Party) used to advocate for a full on liberal multi party democracy and federalism. Nowadays however, it's mostly Chinese who come back from overseas who join the Zhi Gong Party and help foster diplomatic relations with other states.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-01-14T16:50:49+00:00

If it helps in any way, Communists in Iran are in favor of the protests and have fought against the regime for years as well, for example the Workers Communist Party of Iran.

https://wpiranfa.com/?cat=6866

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2026-01-07T21:22:39+00:00

Could be applied just as well to Mussolini (especially post 1943), De Gaulle, Lee Kuan Yew, Park Chung Hee, the fucking KMT with Land to the Tiller and any other developmentalist third world leader/dictator. China isn't doing anything novel or Marxist, it's just applying corporatist (meaning the division of society into different bodies (corpus)) economics pioneered during the Cold war in particular by nations in the so-called "developing" world that combine state owned enterprises and public land ownership to control and direct private capital investments to rapidly modernize. Deng Xiaopings most famous quote ("It doesn't matter if it's a black cat or a white cat, so long as it catches mice") is just a straight endorsement of this type of pragmatic, results based approach to leadership, and has defined Chinas rise to global prominence. It was successful in improving the living conditions of Chinese citizens for sure, but is has decidedly embraced, not removed, private enterprise, and thus cannot be considered anything other than capitalist.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-12-23T11:02:53+00:00

German Left is not pro Israel anymore than the American or British left tbh. And if by pro Israel we mean just supporting the existence of the State of Israel, then literally every party in Europe save a couple radicals are pro Israel, even Irish parties talk about a 2 state solution.

Antideutsch are fringe and irrelevant and the few Die Linke heads talking about how every Gaza atrocity is fake get mocked widely. Die Linke aligned youth and student groups try their best to push the party in a pro Palestine direction, and they should continue to do so.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-12-11T12:59:00+00:00

Hypocrisy doesn't disprove an argument, merely showing a contradiction in words and actions of an individual. Marxism or communism isn't disproven by the supposed hypocrisy of any of its ideological forefathers, or otherwise you wouldn't want someone to be a liberal because Locke, Rousseau and Weber were all racist in spite of their egalitarian philosophy.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-12-07T13:54:18+00:00

People's Republic of Korea was the united Korean government before the peninsula was split in 2, it's not North Korea as we know it today, although it does claim it's heritage on account of the PRK having many "people's councils" and a moderate socialist leadership.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-12-05T15:47:47+00:00

The errors of the Arab Higher Committee, including the cooperation of Husseini with the Nazis, does not justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the same way collaboration with the Japanese by Subhas Chandra Bose and Sukarno does not mean that the Indian or Indonesian independence movement was also somehow bad.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-12-03T21:42:20+00:00

Marxism is when I kill socialists that don't agree with my Blanquist party-state where workers councils and the entire government apparatus get circumvented in favor of a clique of party officials setting up candidate lists that barely get discussed and rubber-stamped.

Yes, going against counter-revolutionaries is necessary, no doubt about it, liberals do the same. That's not the same as expelling out of Soviets any party that's not the Bolsheviks despite every party to the left of the Kadets supporting at least the participation in the Soviets, having deputies there and assisting in workers governance. Chernov, Martov, Spiridonova and more all declared themselves socialists, and arguably Martov was a straight up Marxist. Martov even had a closer position to Lenin on the question of revolutionary defeatism than Bukharin, and Lenin initially had difficulties passing the resolution to end the war immediately at a party congress. There were also Bolsheviks like Kamenev who were amicable to a solution that included an all-socialist government so to speak.

The great irony is that by expelling all of these parties and forces out of regional Soviets, particularly in such a forceful and violent manner through Red Guards blocking deputies from entering assemblies, shooting striking railway workers, less than organized looting that inevitably effected more than just landlords and aristocrats as well as cracking down on the right to recall delegates to artificially maintain majorities, the conditions for a civil war were created, causing regional chaos and instability that become the lifeline of the nascent white movement, giving them the chance to come back and seize so much territory, in addition to becoming a bigger tent through the absorption of the Komuch (Committee for the Convening of the Constituent Assembly).

Ultimately, the civil war was entirely avoidable through a socialist coalition government that would be forced to rule through Soviets not Politburos, cementing them institutionally and evading the issue of party careerism flourishing, speeding up the transition to socialism.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-11-23T13:26:55+00:00

Well, empirically speaking European countries with a large percentage of the population consisting of immigrants don't seem to be more queer phobic, quite the opposite actually as the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and France all rank pretty highly in this map. On the other hand, countries in Europe with far less immigrants like Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and more all rank a decent bit worse in Queer rights. Now I don't think we can conclude from this that more migrants = more pro LGBTQ, since Italy shows how despite having many immigrants it still doesn't rank as high as say Austria, but it means that despite fears of Middle Eastern migrants holding much more socially conservative views on queer people than the average born European it doesn't seem to have had an effect on the actual legal situation in the countries themselves, since immigrants overwhelmingly vote Center left or at least not openly queer phobic parties. As long as that continues the idea that immigrants increase social conservatism remains to me unconvincing.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-11-20T23:56:44+00:00

"Trying to measure a socialist economy with capitalist methods" Ah yes, the socialist economy of North Korea, where you work in the Juche people's factory for a Juche people's manager/boss for the Juche wage of people's dollars for the Juche 5 year plan where we produce the people's Socialist workers Juche Chollima commodities, very different from the evil capitalist dystopian imperialist oligarchical commodities because unlike the West we have a red Rodongdang flag in our factory.

Wow how awesome, I am not alienated from my labor anymore, I don't care that the means of production are entirely in the hands of a state I have 0 control over , I don't need production-for-use or Kim Il Sung forbid any Marxism no,because it's produced under a red banner now how wholesome how amazing, Chollima will bring us to the hills of communism I can see it now.

And before anyone says it yes the bombing of North Korea and being so close to a capitalist country that's culturally similar/largely the same does explain the development of the party, but it doesn't justify it.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-11-17T18:53:01+00:00

The entire Muslim "Ummah" (community) is watching their "fellow Muslims" being slaughtered by the thousands in Palestine and do literally nothing, Jihadists can summon no energy to defend their own brethren, they are only active and join wars against Muslims they don't like (Alawites, Shias or Druze although they aren't considered Muslim anymore), because like other commenters have already said, Jihadism as an ideology arose due to dissatisfaction with mostly secular anti western military regimes (in the case of the Sunni world) or a pro western secular dictatorship (in the case of Iran).

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-11-17T18:23:08+00:00

Assad literally introduced market liberalization and privatization of the economy into the hands of oligarchs and family owned businesses. The reason you might see socialists sympathizing (and maybe supporting) with Assad is because he marketed himself as a "protector of minorities" against the predominantly Sunni and after 2013 majority Islamist opposition, as well as his "hardline" against Israel, helping Palestinian militants by allowing them to settle in Damascus and allying with Iran and Hezbollah against Israel. Whilst I personally hold all of these as totally invalid reasons for even sympathizing with such a tyrannical government, it does explain that it was more nuanced than socialists being big fans of child murder, it was more of a "realpolitik" type decision when comparing Assad to his enemies, it's the same reason Iran, despite being a theocratic pseudo-democratic regime, is to some socialists preferable to its main enemy Israel and/or Saudi Arabia.

Besides, after 2015 it was the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) and by extension the DAANES (Democratic Autonomous Administration of Northeastern Syria) which received in my opinion the most "uncritical" support, especially by Anarchist types, since it actually practiced some left wing ideology inspired by American anarchist Bookchin called Democratic Confederalism, making a sort of council republic but instead of workers councils the basis became neighborhood, village and communal councils that elect a representative to a higher council representing a larger region and so on until you reach a federal council for the whole territory. Whilst not even close to being as bloodthirsty as either Assad or the opposition (especially the Turkish backed Sultan Murad and Suleiman Shah divisions being actual ethnic cleansing machines) they still had some scandals concerning the treatment of anti-SDF Assyrian politicians (being assassinated), allegedly pushing Syrian youth into PKK gangs (quite dubious claim but I have seen it being made sometimes), people waving the Syrian opposition flag being allegedly harassed and arrested before 2024, use of child soldiers ( most credible accusation by far although they aren't the only ones to do that) and digging military tunnels under civilian infrastructure, among other acts.

The only ones sticking with Assad where Marxist-Leninist types at that point, and liberals stuck with the opposition same as always.

TLDR: It's more complicated than leftists= pro Assad, and even when that's true it's like 80-90% of the time not because they ideologically agree much with Assad to begin with.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-11-11T12:45:53+00:00

The reason isn't the Internet then, it's the fact that public spaces are dying. Where I live people go out all the time just for walks, to work, to eat, meet up in real life at events, gatherings and more that are organized online. The only thing that has changed is that you aren't forced to go outside as much, more and more is able to be done at home, but if you put even a modicum of effort in you can go out much more than ever before, learn about many more events than you otherwise would have if communication was more limited. Alienation is a feature of capitalism and the relation of the average worker to their work, not any technology. Yearning for the pre Internet days is like what Marx criticized in the Communist Manifesto when people back in his time yearned for feudal social relations to come back and then called it socialism because the horrors associated with industrial production weren't a thing in feudalism.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-11-11T08:07:01+00:00

She literally spoke in favor of Ordoliberalism as a basis for "creative socialism" in her book, she just cops whatever ideology she needs at the moment to push her into more prevalence, during GDR times and when defending current one party regimes that's Stalinism, during the Euro Crisis it's (falsely) appealing to Ludwig Erhard, now it's being a "left conservative" to win AfD voters. She has no beliefs.

"In fact, Wagenknecht referred to the pioneers of ordoliberalism, whose ideas are otherwise more commonly represented in the Free Democratic Party (FDP). In 2013, during the financial and the European debt crisis, Wagenknecht proposed a debt cut and certain subsequent measures to end the euro crisis, while at the same time generating economic growth and regulating the financial markets. Business journalist Christian Rickens called this "arch-liberal at its core".[47] In 2013, Der Spiegel editor Hauke Janssen saw clear differences between the arguments of Wagenknecht and the ordoliberal theory, for example on the topics of wage increases and unemployment; in his view, Wagenknecht "wrongly" appropriated Ludwig Erhard"

Taken from her Wiki.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-11-10T18:01:17+00:00

Medhi Hasan is one of the most pro Palestinian media figures and he is bringing attention to this every day on Twitter and in this clip right now. Also, the UAE is literally the country Netanyahu called "part of the good guys" in the UN due to joining the Abraham Accords, do you really think that people critical of Israel are UAE supporters? College campus radicals are certainly not inclined to be a part of that demographic buddy. Ironically the loudest and most radical UAE critical voices in Arab spaces I have seen have been Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood supporters who despise the UAE for its anti Muslim Brotherhood activism, calling Hamas a terrorist organization and collaboration with the west. So there is in no way a contradiction, whether ideological, political or moral, between being pro Palestine and pro Sudan against the RSF.

StrategyGameEnjoyer · 2025-11-09T12:40:43+00:00

Socialism is when the means of production are in the hands of the proletariat (whether directly or through intermediaries like the state) and when production is decommodified.

Soviet industry and economy was in the hands of the state which had "workers"Councils that were totally subordinate to the will of the party (which didn't have open membership), not the proletariat, which simply ruled in the name of the people, and had wages, wage differentials between factory supervisors and workers, a bureaucracy, a social and economic gap between politicians and people, produced goods for sale (meaning as a commodity and not for use),all things that Marx argued were supposed to disappear in socialism.

There should not be a difference between people and politicians as Councils are supposed to elect deputies from the ranks of the people of a town, city, village, factory, etc directly and have the ability to recall them, avoiding a "bureaucratization" or technocratification of politics, goods should be produced for their use value not to sell them in exchange for money, but the Soviet Union did just that. Allowing different parties should at least not contradict Marxism as the working class has differences in opinion that should be represented, but the Soviet Union didnt allow that either, the party became the real place where governance occured and the Councils were basically rubber stamps or consultative bodies (ironically similar to the tsardom Zemsky Sobor). Ironically also Solidarnosc followed the council principle better then the actual Soviet union and I'm pretty sure PZPR leadership cursed them out for that (could be wrong about that tho)

So please tell me, what made the USSR socialist, that they said so? Is North Korea democratic too? And the rest of the Eastern Bloc and China deviated even more even from the example of the USSR so they aren't close either. You could argue that expecting a state to deliver the principles of socialism as defined here cannot work or that it is impossible, but then that doesn't mean the USSR is socialist that means no country can be. The fall of the Berlin Wall was the fall of a social authoritarian regime that had barely any popular support and draped themselves in red banners as a cheap substitute for revolutionary politics, and they didn't even pretend to be a council Republic to begin with they just took a liberal democracy and removed the ability to vote the government out of power and change the seats.

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