That’s technically correct. However, you seem to imply that repression against « communists » is not repression against « anarchists ». It definitely is. One could argue there’s repression against anarchists without repression against communists (though i would say that’s wrong because many of the deported/executed « leftists » under Lenin were not anarchists) but i’ve never heard a single make the opposite argument.

There’s certainly elements of both in the zapatista movement. But « claiming » people from one’s computer would be a weird, colonial state of mind.

Most anarchists are not online, or at least not active online. There’s an inherent defiance in anarchist circles against imperial / extractive technologies like computers, which is less common in leninist circles where cybernetics has been assimilated (eg. under Allende, or in science fiction like Asimov). To be fair, i have met quite a few leninists who were profoundly techno-critical and did not wander on online forums.

So there’s already this biased sample explaining things a little. But “non existing anarchist forces” in the 3rd world is a stretch due to your information bubbles. Can’t say they’re exactly thriving and on the verge of destroying the State, but there’s strong anarchist communities in Sudan, Chile, Syria, Chiapas, Indonesia…

I’m not demonizing anyone. China is in many regards not worse than France. You’re idolizing, though, claiming it’s somehow better because the marketing for their social war is different than here in the Global North. Today is may 1st, we’re commemorating the anarchist martyrs of the 8 hour workday, and here you are promoting a State-capitalist nation where 996 is commonplace. Don’t be a puppet, fight with the people against oppression whatever its forms and colors!

Tell that to the peasants and working class of Xiancun evicted to make way for gentrification. A State is a State. The interest of the States are rarely aligned with that of the people.

Yeah, sure. Just like Port-au-Prince is a french city, Grozny is a russian city, Standing Rock is USA land, Kobane is a syrian city, and Jerusalem is an Israeli city, right. You’re just defending colonial empires. That’s sickening.

The question is not what the carrot is. It’s what the stick looks like if you refuse. Here in France the government is also very happy to provide you with a nice apartment when they kick you out to destroy a neighborhood. That doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be a violent eviction if you refuse, after many years (though not every time).

You would be surprised to learn that many people don’t want to leave their house, even if on paper a newly constructed building looks better. Is it okay for the government to decide for you? In my opinion, no. And neither China nor the West is any good on that point.

OK and if you refuse to move because that place is your place, what happens? Violence happens. That’s not a racist trope, that’s how expropriation works in the western world, too. Does that make it OK to evict people to gentrify neighborhoods? In my opinion, no.

Yeah right, that is if you don’t count Hong Kong special operations (i.e. invasion), for example. By that standard, France is not at war in its colonies like Kanaky, Russia is not at war with Ukraine, the USA is not at war with Iran, and Israel is not at war with Lebanon.

That’s very limited view of the world and its social/political conflicts you have here. Social war is everywhere if you understand what low-intensity warfare means.

It’s hard to formulate a coherent opinion because reality is complex and multifaceted. And on the one hand, “purity” is an impossible goal in politics and can lead to various forms of sectarianism and moral judgement (as you can see in much of the liberal left who’s much more interested about optics and PR than about direct action and building collective power).

I mean, from some perspectives, calling China or USSR “socialist” is already picking a side. Neither really abolished private property, both have/had very wealthy ruling classes, and both came hard on the critiques from the left who were building popular power via the soviets (see Emma Goldman / Volin for early critique of bolsheviks killing communists and dismembering the soviets). In marxist views, the dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to be the ugly/necessary phase on the road to communism (abolition of State and private property); a critique of those “socialist” States is that they are not working toward these goals but merely reinforcing themselves for their own sakes.

I mean, was the USSR good or evil? Both? Neither? From a geopolitical perspective (be careful with those analysis, the tools of the enemy usually produce the worst thoughts), the USSR provided balance to prevent total US domination. In a more local perspective, they supported many revolutionary movements throughout the world, but also destroyed some revolutionary movements around the world when it did not fit their interests (eg. Spain 1936). In the case of Ukraine/Russia 1917-1921, they crushed millions of people in the name of their so-called revolution and tried to bribe figures of the movement (such as Kropotkin, who died in poverty refusing privileges that were not given to the masses, or Emma Goldman, who at first fell for it before realizing). Later, under Stalin, they committed a bunch of actual genocides.

I personally don’t think we can say things are better or worse in China today than in the West. In some regards, they are much better (education/healthcare), and in some regards they’re much worth (pollution/slavery). A comparison can only be applied if very strongly situated (studying a specific aspect, from the perspective of a certain social group) otherwise it will be meaningless. There are strong social movements both in Europe and in China; as an anarchist, i believe my comrades are those who struggle all over the world, and my enemies are the States on both sides crushing the people.

Although i would object to saying the USSR was not imperialist, or that China isn’t imperialist today. From a very strict definition of Lenin they are not, but as i talked earlier about Ukraine/Chechnya, the USSR had colonial blood on its hands, a very clear process of “otherisation” and deprivation which is characteristic of colonialism. Just like today, it’s hard to look at military occupation in Tibet, the mosque destructions and muslim reeducation camps in Xinjiang, and not draw a parallel to (being a french person) French imperialism and colonial practice.

Nothing is binary and in communist/anarchist praxis, self-criticism is very important. While not exactly an anarchist/communist revolution, you may be interested to read about the Kurdish liberation movement and Rojava’s democratic confederalism. They practice tekmil weekly and that’s a very important part of life especially in the collectives / public administration. My personal rule of thumb is if a specific power/person is not capable to hear criticism from their left and below, they are not working in the interests of a global socialist revolution and in the interests of the peoples ; under that standard, both China and the USSR would fail the test.

Oh i forgot to link to a zapatista perspective about not being anarchist/communist.

Before delving into the topic, let’s be very clear about one thing: anarchism in most forms is communism, and vice-versa. There was not really a distinction when the socialist movement was born. Many anarchists consider themselves “anarcho-communists”, and many marxists are in fact libertarian and don’t defend a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. There is not really an opposition between anarchists and communists, but there is a strong historical opposition between free-thinkers and a marxist-leninist vanguard eliminating everyone who disagrees with it including many marxists. I’ll assume in the rest of this comment that’s what you meant with “relationship between anarchism and communism”.

From an anarchist perspective, i can attest to books others have recommended. Classic anarchist books give very good historical examples and arguments against the tyranny of a well-meaning vanguard ; i was lately reading Bakunin making that very argument about a scientist-run government, which i think is quite relevant today with Andreas Malm arguing for what we could call a green dictatorship of the proletariat.

More historically, [Bloodstained: one hundred years of leninist counterrevolution](Bloodstained: One Hundred Years of Leninist Counterrevolution) was a good read. So were some books about the Spanish revolution, but i don’t remember the names (except Homage to Catalonia, which someone mentioned). Emma Goldman, in Trotsky protests too much (1938) made a powerful historical account of how Trotsky and Lenin rewrote history after massacring the Kronstadt soviet, and i remember reading some french translation of Volin, a great revolutionary from the russian/ukrainian revolution (but i don’t remember which text precisely).

For a case where “anarchism” and “communism” work fine together, you can read about the zapatistas. I personally would say there’s two interesting features making it work:

• the zapatista movement refuses identification with marxism or anarchism, saying their political orientation has much deeper roots, from much before the europeans divided themselves along those lines
• the zapatistas have a strong separation of powers: the militias (which tend to be more marxist and hierarchic) don’t have any political powers because they have the military power, and leave 100% of the political power to the communes (which tend to be more anti-authoritarian farmers)

All in all, the zapatistas have elements of authoritarian culture (especially in the people’s army, where discipline and security management is important) and anti-authoritarian culture as they have no State, police or prisons as we know them. Unfortunately, apart from oral history recounted by comrades, i don’t know of good sources for these specific questions/divisions/perspectives.

There are well known research in gender studies / psychology about for example the cliché that girls are less good for math than boys which is of course complete bullshit.

You don’t need to wait 25 years to study that.

Sort of like Brave browser’s model but for search

Yes, that’s precisely the problem. This is a traditional evil startup doing open-washing/p2p-washing. A blockchain is in 99.9% of cases the wrong approach to the right problem. And even when a blockchain is an acceptable solution, advertising remains utterly unacceptable (buying into people’s minds and opinion is the opposite of democracy) and a single for-profit entity having power over what’s considered a public utility (a blockchain) can only lead to bad outcomes.

Brave Browser has had many shady practices over the years, and is owned by the ad industry. They have repeatedly shown their commitment to dubious, user-hostile practices for their benefit. See for example a few examples listed on their wikipedia page (among others).