I had a discussion with @[email protected] recently where they insisted that Anarchists on Hexbear accept Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism and therefore all support “Actual Existing Socialist” states such as Cuba, USSR and I guess North Korea as well.
In fact, they argued it’s the reason most anarchists of Hexbear don’t like to discuss anarchism away from hexbear, explicitly because outside anarchists do not support “AES”.
So I’m curious to see what your thoughts are on this. If you’re an anarchist who supports “AES” how do you square this support with the conflict these states have with anarchist theory on hierarchy?
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No. Broadly the way I’ve squared it is that I support specific policies and adopting of said policies, where even if they are not anarchist in principle properly benefit the working class or limit oppression in some capacity, if a state implements these I will support that decision, but not the existence of that state or more generally a state at all.
Oh.
Not Advanced Encryption Standard. Right.
No, I don’t support EAS in that context, because none of the states that they’re citing are anything other than deeply, profoundly authoritarian.
AES is a solid symmetric encryption standard. I support the use of it. However I think you might be referring to something else?
It’s also a power company
“Actually Existing Socialism”
If there’s anarchists on Hexbear and none of them speak against AES, it’s because they know not to mention it.
I guess I could see some anarchists support vague nonsense that sounds similar to an ML. Like having even less sympathy for an openly capitalist regime than ones that are or purport to be socialist. But they’re obviously not anarchists if they genuinely support some states.
From what I’ve gathered, Hexbear is just incredibly tankie driven. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are self-proclaimed “anarchists” on there that are just tankies painted black, du to social pressure.
As many have pointed out: anarchists usually don’t support “AES”. The spectrum I’ve seen ranges from “1917 was actually a bourgeois revolution” to “they tried but got corrupted in some way”.
There’s a ton of ways to be an anarchist and the diversity of ideas is something generally celebrated, but the one minimum requirement is that you aren’t supportive of states (and hierarchy of course, but I’m just talking about the literal meaning of anarchy here), especially authoritarian states…
What? Anarchism is generally anti-statist and socialists sure love to shoot anarchists. By the logic of AES, Anarchists should support Assad and not the YPG since one is “anti-imperialist” and the other exists due to US military support.
Hey I’m as confused as you are. Which is why I opened this thread.
definitely sounds like tankie shit. glad we’re on the same page.
That makes about as much sense as “anarcho-capitalism”. Of course it’s no fun to have your mental gymnastics questioned outside of Hexbear 😅
But ok, for the sake of argument, maybe a dysfunctional late-stage AES is a more suitable ground for building something in the shell of the old. At least people in these states know from first hand experience just how bad state control can get.
Edit: curious that you left out China in your list of AES.
I’m actually not up to date on what the ML analysis on China is lately. Do they still consider it “AES” or is it seen more capitalist nowadays? I can’t always keep up with the mental gymnastics on display :D
Hexbear doesn’t care about the answer to that question. They support modern-day Russia which doesn’t have any pretense of socialism. Their stance is first and foremost anti-American. Anything else is window dressing.
