The promotion of anarchism within capitalist media, coupled with the suppression of Marxist thought, is damning evidence against anarchism as viable opposition to capitalist hegemony. In fact, the two happen to be perfectly compatible. Meanwhile, history demonstrates time and again that revolutions require centralized authority to dismantle oppressive systems. Capitalism tolerates anarchism precisely because it poses no systemic threat, while revolutionary movements succeed only by embracing disciplined, organized force.
Capitalist media platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime glorify anarchist individualism with shows like Money Heist and The Umbrella Academy while demonizing Marxist collectivism. The narratives in the media fetishize lone rebels “fighting the system” through symbolic acts such as heists or sabotage that never threaten the core machinery of the system. By contrast, media vilifies Marxist movements as “authoritarian” as seen in The Hunger Games’ critique of collective resistance vs. glorification of individual heroism. Anarchism’s rejection of centralized power also neatly aligns with neoliberalism’s war on institutional solidarity. Capitalist elites amplify anarchism precisely because it atomizes dissent into spectacle, ensuring resistance remains fragmented and impotent. If anarchism actually threatened capital, it would be censored as fiercely as Marxism.
The reality of the situation is that every effective society of meaningful scale, be it capitalist or socialist, relies on centralized power. Capitalist states enforce property rights, monetary policy, and corporate monopolies through institutions like central banks, militaries, police, and courts. Amazon’'s logistics empire, the Federal Reserve’s control over currency, and NATO’s geopolitical dominance all depend on rigid hierarchies. On the other hand, anarchists refuse to acknowledge that dismantling capitalism requires confronting its centralized power structures with equal organizational force.
What anarchists fail to acknowledge is that revolutions are authoritarian by their very nature. To overthrow a ruling class, the oppressed must organize into a cohesive force capable of seizing and wielding power. The Bolsheviks built a vanguard party to crush counterrevolutionaries and nationalize industry in order to dismantle the Tsarist regime. Mao’s Red Army imposed discipline to expel bourgeoisie and landlords. Engels acknowledged this reality saying that a revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, and cannon.
Rejecting this authority ensures that a movement becomes irrelevant in the long run. The Spanish anarchists of 1936, despite initial successes, were crushed by fascists because they lacked centralized coordination. Modern “autonomous zones” such as CHAZ dissolve quickly, as they cannot defend against state violence or organize production.
Anarchism’s fatal flaw is its lack of a cohesive vision. It splinters into countless factions such as eco-anarchists, insurrectionists, anprims, mutualists, and so on. Each one prioritizes disparate goals of degrowth, anti-work, anti-civ, etc., that are often at odds with one another. Movements like Occupy with their “leaderless” structure are effortlessly dispersed by the state. By contrast, capitalist states execute power with singular purpose of ensuring profit accumulation in the hands of the oligarchs. Marxist movements, too, succeed through unified strategy as articulated by Lenin in What Is to Be Done? where he prioritized a centralized party precisely to avoid anarchist-style disarray. The capitalist ruling class understands perfectly well that it is easier to crush a hundred squabbling collectives than a single disciplined force. Hence why anarchism becomes a sanctioned form of dissent that never coalesces into material threat.
Meanwhile, revolutions demand the use of authority as a tool for the oppressed to defeat capitalism. Serious movements must embrace the discipline capitalists fear most. The kind of discipline that builds states, expropriates billionaires, and silences reactionaries.
No anarchist revolution has ever won
Good to see my left unity comrades ripping the mask off
Sorry, what’s the appropriate response to that high quality comment I was replying to? I made a very basic critique of anarchism after they made a direct accusation of being “traitors”.
That you took exception with the comment and not with the post is already a mask off moment
The post wasn’t made on Hexbear, I assume specifically for complying with the left unity rule. But it’s also a thoughtful critique of anarchism, or at least trying to be - that’s perfectly permissible within left unity. We can criticize each other.
It’s not thoughtful at all, it’s the same uninformed bs regurgitated by sectarian marxists who never ever engaged with anarchist literature at all lest they knew that On Authority is completely misrepresenting anarchist views of revolution, that has been debunked countless of times
It really is a litmus test on whether one is criticising anarchism in good faith whether they take a look at if there was an anarchist response to Engels at all or not (the other is whether one accepts that anarchist revolutions were actually successful on anarchist terms countless of times, just as marxist revolutions were successful on their terms countless of times), because most just assume that the argument ended then and there. I only included three links, but next time y’all are trying to “criticise” anarchists, take at least the minimum effort and write “on authority” in the searchbar of the anarchist library and engage what we are actually saying, not what Engels made up to be mad at.
I gave that first FAQ link a read. I don’t think any serious critique of anarchism as political theory rests on “anarchists want total individualism without any organization” (now, anarchist activists on the other hand do often have that issue). The critique is that the goal anarchists want to achieve - a truly non-hierarchical and voluntary society - can’t be reached in a single step, and hence coercive state mechanisms lead by working-class socialist democracy are a necessary intermediate stage. For example, pulling a Bakunin quote from the piece:
Here isnthe main issue: the moment of revolution itself creates the new world, the new order of absolute equality and abolition of all hierarchy. This is totally unrealistic - huge swathes of society will still be embedded in hierarchical mindsets. The physical infrastructure and supply lines will depend on uneven distribution of resources and knowledge that can’t be instantly turned over. The operation of industrial society is os so vast and complicated that it can’t simply ve rewritten in a single day - very few people and systems are prepared to so radically change without dramatic decreases in production and output.
The egalitarian society must be constructed through hard work across the whole of society with many opposing classes and groups who do not want to build socialism and will work actively to undermine it. How do you deal with the fascists and capitalists who will scheme to tear down the new society and restore their old exploitative privileges? How does the moment of revolution change them such that they cannot carry out those goals? You need capacity to repress those people.
And the ideas of the masses will still be influenced by the old capitalist order, so we must also do the hard work of convincing billions people to live in accordance with free and equal association, which takes a constant and improving demonstration that socialism is worth building and fighting for. What will you do if after the revolution, 40% of people just don’t want to live that way? Will you give up, because it would take the exertion of authority to advance society? I hope not, or the gains of the revolution are wasted.
And of course, what if the revolution doesn’t sweep the whole world all at once? How will you defend your revolution from the massive military machines of the imperialists, which wield their coercive and exploitative systems as an industrial holocaust against you?
I know these aren’t new questions to anarchists, so please direct me to the standing answers.
Ok, I’m genuinely not sure what you’re referring to here. Can you give some examples?
I suggest you give a thorough read to these links (especially the FAQ, though its fucking long), because most questions are answered. If you want something shorter, there’s Anarchy Works by Gelderloos.
I’m referring to the constant throwing shit at anarchists for “not being successful” when MLs refer to the USSR - which quite literally failed at what it set out to do aka achieving a classless, stateless society - or even Sankara’s Burkina Faso as successful, when even most squats have longer lives.
The jist of what i mean is that what communists look as “unsuccessful” revolutions in, lets say, Spain, was actually very much successful on anarchist terms. Was it defeated? Yes, much like most Marxist revolution was as well. But anarchists are adamant that a revolution that succeeds to create a bubble where the state’s logic is nonexistent is a more successful one than one that makes compromises in order to survive (and then is defeated as well). I’ve seen this downplayed as anarchists want “good martyrs” or whatever but there is vast anarchist literature about how and why a compromising revolution will not bring about a classless, stateless society (just for example ive read Lenin and other Marxist literature and have never seen one compelling argument about how the state, whose number one function is to perpetuate its existence, is supposed to wither away, but thats a whole other story).
So in short, theres a different standard for a successful revolution for anarchists and marxists. And i can respect that. I seldom criticise China or any AES states now myself. As long as the tendencies are not standing in each others way, its completely possible for them to coexist. Most of the problems arise and imo most of the shitstirring starts (and i am very well aware that anarchists are very guilty in this) where we start to measure marxist projects with anarchist standards and vice versa. Which is why i think the OP is more harmful to the lazy kneejerk comment made here.
Just responding to this segment here;
The basis for the withering of the state lies in the difference between Marxist and Anarchist views on what the state even is. To risk oversimplifying, the State for Marxists is a tool of class oppression, while for Anarchists its an instrument of hierarchy. When Marxists say the state whithers, we mean that as all property eventually gets developed into public property, classes disappear, and what remains is what Engels refers to as “The Administration of Things.”
This Administration will likely also shed its unnecessary components over a long period of time, each level of power distinction slowly being removed like a stone being polished by the river of time. In short, when class disappears, the forcible elements of class oppression cease to have a purpose. Lenin also speaks of much of these functions gradually being replaced by tradition and habit, further withering even this “non-State” Administration.
Anarchists will likely not find this a compelling answer, as it leaves us with a fully centralized yet democratized world economy that retains hierarchy to some degree, but this goes back to judging Marxists by Marxist standards, ie the logic for what Marxists want is sound, where the difference may lie is in if an Anarchist even wants such a formation of society, as Anarchism is far more about decentralization and avoiding such hierarchy to begin with.
unity with other Marxists. Unity with opportunists and ultras leads nowhere but the hole.
Yeah sure
Don’t worry, when anarchist revolution does win we’ll invite you over to snort Lenin’s ashes
The historical record shows that hell is more likely to freeze over so 💅
We can think of something sooner if you’re that eager to see my Pokémon plushies. Relax, friend
I’m sure y’all gonna have a successful revolution right after China’s economy collapses.
I would gladly switch to anarchism if your revolution manages to win instead of being crushed by capitalists.
I would gladly switch to communism if you wouldn’t threaten fellow workers with death. That’s what anarchists would get in the past for fighting alongside the reds. Do you plan to keep that odious tradition? When the time comes, will you drive your red State over the bodies of former comrades? Because, yes, anarchists do in fact fight. I would fight. OP claims anarchism is about passivity, but that’s just ignorance. The difference between us is that you plan to stop fighting when the capitalists are gone. Anarchists will keep fighting until all States are gone.
How, through anarchist mandatory conscription? And with what tanks, missiles, aircraft, drones, and intelligence-gathering satellites are you going to fight every capitalist/imperialist state until they’re swept away? Are they going to be built through voluntary collectivism?
Tanks are easy to get! First you have to befriend a tank manufacturer…
Your belligerence comforts me, actually. It tells me you’re not that far from the reactionaries I’m used to fight against everyday. I know good communists, nice communists. You’re not. You’re just a warmonger.
So you have no answers for how anarchists would deal with the realities of siege socialism[1][2], should you ever actually win?
Didn’t you just say that you wanted to fight until all states were gone? But now I’m the warmonger? Make up your mind.
Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds: Pure Socialism vs. Siege Socialism ↩︎
Understanding Siege Socialism w/ Gabriel Rockhill ↩︎
And to think that I always defend communists. And when one you comes around talking crap about anarchism, much like reactionaries lazily reduce all leftist movements to the same tired points, I’m supposed to stay put and not call you out for the history of your movement, right? No, I don’t have answers. I’m just a student. I just believe that capitalism is wrong and that States feed capitalism — I know because I’m a worker, and when you’re a worker you see that happening in real time. Anyway, I have realized I can’t talk to you on equal terms. I’m not smart, I don’t think fast enough and it takes me too much time to write in English. But I know bolsheviks killed innocent workers with artillery barrage in Kronstadt, and I keep thinking that one day something like that could happen to me, even as an anti-capitalist. If you’re really not a warmonger, would you kill partisans like that? Shell the crap out of them, never seeing their dying faces? Do you chose to perpetuate that legacy? You don’t need to answer, I’m not gonna read it. You’ve won, I’m leaving. There you go: dialectics.
The socialist state is a necessity to survive against capitalist onslaught, and wanting to dismantle it before capitalism is crushed is suicidal behaviour. How would anarchists deal with the Entente intervention or Nazi Germany or USA?
If history repeats itself, then I guess we’d have to survive being betrayed and executed by communists first, huh? Do you see what I’m trying to tell you? Sure, have it your way, build your shiny Soviet State. I will even support it (while you refrain from bashing proletariat heads in). And after the revolution triumphs and capitalism is over, do you swear your commissars and supreme leaders won’t find another boogeyman to rally their armies against? Marx himself wrote socialism is supposed to be temporary, a passage that would enable us to reach actual communism, a stateless society— or did I get that wrong too? ‘Cause if you think that can never happen, that all we can aspire to is the socialist state, then we’re wasting each other’s time and we cannot reconcile. I stand by what I said earlier: the difference between us seems to be that you will cease to fight when capitalism is over, and I won’t until power abuse goes on.
Yeah, communists don’t like it, when you attack socialist states, and will strike back.
And after capitalism is over - it will be time for getting rid of the state, and what will be needed for it, will be seen at the time. Maybe it will wither away voluntarily, maybe it will be smashed in an another revolution.
Ok that would be really cool, I hope we can skip straight to full communism. You get to work.
You bet 💃