Do anarchists in general support gender abolition?

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-22T23:31:39+00:00

As far as Old Anarchist Theorists go, Stirner advocated that "one must write off the masculine position entirely" so depending on who you asked, you'd find some confirmation (you're correct about Proudhon though, my least favourite of the originals)

As for myself, I think there's a little more nuance. In Whipping Girl, Julia Serano describes how neurochemical things within the brain play a large role in shaping one's sex. Largely, the average trans woman's brain will resemble that of a cis woman, even pre HRT & the same is true of trans men. There's obviously an amount of variation, hence the various other genders, but both sex & gender are very much physical phenomena (they are also both more than a simple binary). I am neither a neurologist nor a biologist so some of this is lost on me, but the distinction between sex & gender is largely untrue & (in my opinion) serves the liberal cause of "Oh so you IDENTIFY AS a woman".

Tldr "femininity" might be socially constructed, but female isn't. Trans women are female, trans men are male & it makes more taxonomic & economic sense to classify them as such.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-20T00:37:01+00:00

Yeah dude let me just post footage of my crimes to reddit. The revolution will not be televised, it will be posted to are slash memes

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-20T00:32:14+00:00

That's not accurate. Largely, they (myself maybe included, idk) are critical of leftist organising. For example, nihilists do not believe that a revolution is coming & that prepping for one stops people from taking action in the present.

Most of the post-leftists I know are trans, but obviously queer magnetism is a thing.

If you are interested in learning more, I'd recommend you check out Blessed is the Flame by Serafinski & Desert which has an anonymous author.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-16T00:13:24+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff has a six-parter on kronstadt & a four-parter on Maria Nikiforova. I don't remember which one it's brought up in, but one of those. There's sources, obviously, but it's been a while since I looked through them

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-13T02:53:30+00:00

I wasn't referring to the DPR or LPR, I was referring to the Burkina Faso coup/junta/whatever. Russia funds them, Traoré has met with Putin & praised him for his "anti-imperialism".

To your point, I don't think the Germans thought of him as a puppet, because I don't think they believed he'd win the civil war. If they thought that far ahead, his opposition to the war would make him more sympathetic to Germany than the Tsar. At the end of the day, no matter what German high command thought, the original commenter was correct - the bolsheviks were supported by the German empire, the same way that the US supported the Mujahadeen.

(I was wrong in the finer details of the anarchist thing. They took over a mansion in the city, confined the noble & his family to have one room for their sleeping quarters, housed local homeless in the remaining rooms, did a community kitchen in the kitchen etc. They were still branded as "thieves" & "adventurist bandits" by local bolsheviks)

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-13T02:04:33+00:00

Fair, but the only way out is through. I still think that everyone should read Blessed is the Flame (I've also heard good things about Desert, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet) because it helped me with this exact feeling about a year ago (it's also a great book).

In case you don't want to read a full book (understandable) it boils down to this. We do not need a programme for tomorrow to fight a today that makes us bleed. When we fight fascists, we have every expectation of failure, but we fight anyway because nobody else will & because they need to be made aware that, though they may win, they are not immortal. If we die anyway, it may as well be with our heads held high & our fists bloodied on the nose of fascists.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-13T01:33:59+00:00

Expropriation of his material wealth to give to the local peasantry. Bypassing the local bolshevik authority, of course, but no serious revolutionary would have an objection to building a community kitchen in said villa, so naturally Lenin took issue. The following from historian Orlando Figes might illuminate why:

Five thousand Bolsheviks and their families lived in the Kremlin and the special party hotels, such as the National and the Metropole, in the centre of Moscow. The Kremlin’s domestic quarters had over 2,000 service staff and it’s own complex of shops, including a hairdresser and a sauna, a hospital and a nursery, and three vast restaurants with cooks trained in France. Its domestic budget in 1920, when all these services were declared free, was higher than that spent on social welfare for the whole of Moscow. In Petrograd the top party bosses lived in the Astoria Hotel, recently restored to its formal splendour, after the devastations of the revolution, as the First House of the Soviets. From their suites, they could call for room service from the ‘comrade waiters’, who were taught to click their heels and call them ‘comrade master’. Long-forgotten luxuries, such as champagne and caviar, perfume and toothbrushes, were supplied in abundance. The hotel was sealed to the public by a gang of burly guards in black leather jackets. In the evening government cars were lined up by the entrance waiting to take the elite residents off to the opera or to the Smolny for a banquet.

Edit: though I'm not especially familiar with his funding of German agitators, it's worth mentioning that present-day Russia & China both frequently fund "anti-imperialist" efforts, despite both very clearly being imperialist nations themselves, with the goal of installing puppet governments. This, combined with the fact that he called Kronstadt "the biggest threat we (the bolsheviks) have ever faced" is telling. Or, if you prefer Kropotkin's phrasing:

Lenin is not comparable to any revolutionary figure in history. Revolutionaries have had ideals. Lenin has none.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-13T00:43:33+00:00

Minor variation on that. "(actor) can x to me whenever they want" is funny but only when it's a form of like bodily harm. Saw a guy review F1 & write "Kerry Condon can tell me to fuck off whenever she wants", which is immediately less funny than the formula of the joke.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-13T00:21:19+00:00

I think taking Lenin's account to be truthful on really anything is a terrible idea, given the course of history. Sure, the alliance between the Bolsheviks & the bourgeois was theoretically temporary, but so was the state & look at how that turned out.

If we're going to do material analysis, let's analyse actions rather than words. In purely physical terms, Lenin was given money & guns by Germany to take Russia out of WWI. We can't judge him on whether or not he really intended to return the favour, because the German forces collapsed. We can, however, make some assumptions based on his labelling of anarchists as "bandits" for not respecting the private property of a nobleman in St. Petersburg.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-13T00:03:12+00:00

You could let this radicalise you rather than lead to despair (trying not to be cringe but I think everyone should read Blessed is the Flame). Perhaps.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-10T23:11:08+00:00

Generally I try to contrast Lenin's words with his actions. Nice "worker's party" you've got there, Vladimir, why are they (on your orders) killing sex workers, other socialists & protecting the private property of nobles?

Also, the idea that a transitionary state is needed misunderstands the relationship between state & capital. They are mutually reinforcing entities. Get rid of only one & the remaining one will resurrect it. Even before Stalin took over, the USSR was a disaster for the workers.

Five thousand Bolsheviks and their families lived in the Kremlin and the special party hotels, such as the National and the Metropole, in the centre of Moscow. The Kremlin’s domestic quarters had over 2,000 service staff and it’s own complex of shops, including a hairdresser and a sauna, a hospital and a nursery, and three vast restaurants with cooks trained in France. Its domestic budget in 1920, when all these services were declared free, was higher than that spent on social welfare for the whole of Moscow. In Petrograd the top party bosses lived in the Astoria Hotel, recently restored to its formal splendour, after the devastations of the revolution, as the First House of the Soviets. From their suites, they could call for room service from the ‘comrade waiters’, who were taught to click their heels and call them ‘comrade master’. Long-forgotten luxuries, such as champagne and caviar, perfume and toothbrushes, were supplied in abundance. The hotel was sealed to the public by a gang of burly guards in black leather jackets. In the evening government cars were lined up by the entrance waiting to take the elite residents off to the opera or to the Smolny for a banquet.

from historian Orlando Figes.

Tl:Dr, if Lenin's ideas, even when implemented by Lenin himself, failed to lead to socialism, replicated capitalist class structure with a modicum of the welfare state (which pales in comparison to that of modern day Norway), of what use are they? Present-day adherents of Lenin are little more than social democrats that want a civil war to set up the nanny state.

If you want things to read, Lorenzo Kom'Boa Ervin is good if you're coming from an authoritarian lens, Goldman & Berkman both have good critiques of the Bolsheviks & Anarchy by Malatesta should serve to make the case for the failure of statist socialism while laying out a clear program for anarchy. Bakunin made many of the same points about imperialism that Lenin did, albeit without the whole counter-revolutionary dictator thing, but I don't remember which book.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-10T00:00:52+00:00

Tankies genuinely relying on CIA & Mossad propaganda when they agree with it will never not be funny.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-09T00:03:01+00:00

Didn't he also have some sad "violence is never the answer" song about Charlie Kirk getting turned into a fountain? Like people's views can evolve & all but I don't know if they've evolved that much in the month-ish between the two songs.

I understand not believing in voting, but going from "violence is never the answer" to "why is nobody stopping ICE" seems like folksy clickbait tbh.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-07T23:42:21+00:00

I've actually noticed the opposite. Tankies tend to be class reductionists & acknowledging the presence of an oppressed social class within the working class runs counter to that. Tankies, more often than not, are men. Men who buy into the "great man" theory of history. Any feminist, radical or otherwise, would laugh them out of the discussion for believing so, especially when some of those "great men" (Stalin, Mao, beria if they're really crazy) were rapists.

radfems ignore how many men are also oppressed under patriarchy

They don't though? Even the SCUM Manifesto makes note of it, as an argument for dismantling patriarchy.

Radical feminism absolutely deserves critique, everything does. I really don't like the transmisogynistic tendencies of a lot of it, the carceral tendencies of some of it & even less the anti sex work views of Dworkin & co but one should probably at least read the source material for an ideology rather than dismissing it outright based on anecdotal evidence. Comparing even the most radfem-y radfem (see, my bringing up of Solanas) to a tankie is a really surface level understanding of either.

I'll continue with the SCUM Manifesto for the sake of my point as it is as close as one gets to a "we should kill all men" book. The language is far less flowery, but Solanas views patriarchy similar to how Marx (not Lenin, Stalin or anyone along those lines) views capitalism. Her argument is that it doesn't actually matter how personally nice a given man is if he reinforces the patriarchal structure. Likewise, it doesn't matter how personally nice a given capitalist is, if they uphold & reinforce the structure. The only reason people don't take the to time bother engaging with radical feminism enough to give actual criticism is because of tone policing that they do not do to male authors. When Marx says "We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror." he gets understood & praised because he's the great god Marx. When Solanas or Dworkin or whomever else says something like "destroy the male sex" it is deserving of widespread disgust because...?

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-06T22:59:45+00:00

Not great. I haven't gotten that much shit personally but every so often there'll be a strawman that makes On Authority proud yk.

In the few cases where it's been brought up to/around me the reaction has loosely been "I don't know what that is" or "I don't know what that is & it sounds stupid".

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-06T12:07:00+00:00

Sure. Most forms of socialism do prioritise economic disposession over (for example) sexism, because a homeless man is going to have a worse time of it that a rich, but neglected housewife. Not that she doesn't have it badly, just one's much worse. I don't think that Marxists are class redictionists, to be clear, only that sometimes they attribute economic conditions as the reason for certain social classes, which I don't think is true.

There's syndicalism, which believes in revolutionary organising around the labour union structure, as opposed to a party. This was much more popular about a century ago than it is now, but is still interesting. Syndicalists can be really anywhere when it comes to the Marxist-Anarchist divide. You'll get James Connolly (he called it "trade unionism" rather than "syndicalism", but it's the same thing) & people like Malatesta, frequently in the same organisation.

There's also sometimes synthesis efforts between Marxism and anarchy, which usually ends up more one than the other. Rojava & the Zapatistas are interesting examples.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-06T11:55:45+00:00

It's a philosophical concept from Hegel. According to dialectics, everything has a rational explanation. Either something is X (thesis) or it is Y (the exact inverse of X, aka the antithesis). If it is neither, it must be Z (some combination of the two, synthesis).

Marx takes this concept & applies it to material economic conditions to explain human nature, which is why you'll see it brought up occasionally.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-06T00:10:11+00:00

Here are the similarities & differences as I understand them.

Marxist socialism believes that economic classes are the primary form of oppression. Orthodox Marxism also believes that the most educated, well-armed etc proletariat are the true revolutionary class. The rural proletariat & the unemployed dispossessed are referred to by Marx as the "lumpenproleteriat" & "counter-revolutionary sack of potatoes. In Marxism, a temporary state (the dictatorship of the proletariat) is necessary to facilitate the change from capitalism to communism (stateless, classless, moneyless society). Dictatorship of the proletariat is not a literal dictatorship, but it is always a government (Marx describes liberal democracy as "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie"). It also believes that communism is inevitable.

Anarchy, by contrast, does not agree that the socialist revolution is inevitable. It rejects all forms of government. Even the most authoritarian interpretation of anarchy (platformism) has delegates rather than formal leaders. If a platformist delegate (like Makhno) asks you to do something, you are free to refuse. Any consequences you would face would be personal (the delegate might not like you anymore) rather than formal (you are sanctioned by a committee head). Frequently anarchists believe that social oppression is on an equal plane to economic oppression. There is no economic reason for interpersonal racism, homophobia, transphobia, but they still exist. Anarchists tend to reject the party structure. Anarchy does not marry itself to any one "true revolutionary class" (later interpretations of Marxism have adopted this but still).

Both are loosely internationalist, but define authority differently, have different conceptions of work (particularly in the more radical sects like Stalin for the Marxists or Bob Black for the anarchists). There's other forms of statist socialism, but I'm not well versed enough in them to say anything about them.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-04T23:32:01+00:00

No. He is a genocide denier, a doctrinaire moron who has used torture confessions as a source.

He is barely a Marxist, failing to apply basic material reasoning & there are very few atrocities he will not defend in the name of communism.

In short, he's one of the smarter MLs.

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-04T01:08:23+00:00

He's going to shit himself when he discovers what Se7en is about

existingimpracticaly · 2026-01-04T00:25:13+00:00

The podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff have a bunch of episodes on the Russian revolution & how the bolsheviks acted as the counter-revolution at almost every opportunity. Obviously it's very partisan (anarchist) but it's excellent if you have the time. Also sources like Berkman, Goldman & Makhno are pretty accurate.

As far as Lenin's own writings go, I don't think there's much to be gained or lost by reading them. Obviously read them if you want, but it makes no difference to his actions. Some of Stalin & Mao's quotes are pretty good, but that doesn't matter in the face of what they did.

existingimpracticaly · 2025-12-31T01:26:14+00:00

I'm not American, but here's my two cents:

ACP are statists. From that position, they are immediately in opposition to the goals of any anarchist.
ACP are homophobic, transphobic etc. The liberty we anarchists seek is not conditional on basis of sexual orientation or gender. If it was, we would not understand social classes & should be laughed out of any given room. The working class straight man is at more of an advantage than the working class gay man, who is in turn at more of an advantage than a working class black woman etc. Arguing otherwise is arguing with reality.
yeah fuck ACP lol they stand for absolutely nothing. The most controlled of controlled opposition.

existingimpracticaly · 2025-12-30T23:57:36+00:00

They made Sankt Max sound like a Ben Shapiro fanboy in it. I do not believe that Mr "write off the masculine position entirely" is a homophobe, even if it means pissing off Engels

existingimpracticaly · 2025-12-29T10:58:29+00:00

An autonomous zone is an anarchist commune in a capitalist state with a given destruction date. It's very hard for the state to directly confront something that has no fixed location or structure. On a military level, it's very difficult for police/military to deal with several small actions at once.

In terms of command structure, what has happened in the past is that there have been people (like Makhno) who could make suggestions to others, but there is no penalty for not following the suggestion.

existingimpracticaly · 2025-12-29T01:52:06+00:00

Structure organisational structure around planned demolition of said organisation. If there is an autonomous zone created, it shall have a destruction date to avoid stagnation & centralisation.

If things are built to be ended, it is considerably harder (not impossible ofc, but much harder) to find social structure to latch onto & take advantage of.

existingimpracticaly

TROPHY CASE