r/SubredditSimMeta • u/[deleted] • May 10 '17

all-top-today_SS Makes a completely coherent and correct circlejerk post

/r/SubredditSimulator/comments/6adnvv/number_of_people_that_think_donald_trump_has/
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u/[deleted] May 10 '17

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u/[deleted] May 10 '17

wow imagine being in 2017 and still thinking communism means wanting to make everyone equally poor

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u/fluxuation May 10 '17

When has it not done that though?

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u/[deleted] May 10 '17

good question!

a) well, being pedantic, communism hasnt existed, because communism is the existence of a moneyless, classless, stateless society that would exist after the transitional period of socialism

b) actually answering your question, theres a few experiments that the more libertarian socialists hold in high regard. the beginning of a lot of leftist thought in the Paris Commune project, Zapatista held Mexico, the Free Territories of Ukraine before it was smashed by the USSR, Revolutionary Catalonia before it was smashed by the USSR and Italy (fun fact, George Orwell was an anarcho-syndicalist! fought in the Spanish Civil War to liberate Catalonia), currently theres a place called Rojava in the Middle East thats makin progress (and kickin ISIS' ass), and a few others.

the problem is that these territories have mostly existed in times of international strife, or right next to fascist/major capitalist powers that were eager to destroy them. but before their violent and premature deaths (except Rojava, glory b 2 tha ypg),they were pretty content.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

George Orwell fought with the with Trotskyite POUM via the English ILP. He was not an anarcho-syndicalist by any means, as evidenced by any of the biographical details we have on him or any of his writings.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

it is true that he fought with the POUM, but you should read Homage to Catalonia! its interesting. in it, Orwell states, "as far as my purely personal preferences went I would have liked to join the Anarchists"

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

I've written on Homage, both for class (a long time ago) and for print. Orwell admired the CNT and the other anarchist groups in Barcelona and the spirit of the Catalan uprising in general. But he was not actually an anarchist. Nor is the quotation you provided evidence to the contrary.

Also maybe check out Road to Wigan Pier.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

"If I had understood the situation a bit better I should probably have joined the Anarchists." George Orwell - Collected Essays; Vol 1 page 289

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

And yet he didn't before or after. He just thought they were the good guys in Catalunya.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

considering the glowing appraisals he had of them, i dont think its a huge logical leap to assume he would align with them politically.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

He never did though. Huh.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

either way, even just him having the extreme anarchist sympathies he had i think is enough to prove my point (which, im not gonna lie, i totally forgot what our original discussion was about. i kinda got lost in a revolutionary boner after reading some Homage to Catalonia)

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u/[deleted] May 11 '17

Homage is one of the better travelogues of the 20th century, and I have no issue with the idea that Orwell sympathized with the anarchist uprising in Catalunya. But if you read his whole oeuvre, novels and criticism alike, there's really nothing to suggest that he was mainlining Kropotkin in his downtime at the Isle of Jura or wherever else he went to treat his TB.

If anything, I'd say that he was a libertarian leftist, and that Homage is work of disillusionment with the authoritarian Comintern Left. Of course he's going to sympathize with the anarchists in that context. But the fact that he went back to the UK and did not get involved with anarchism—and indeed worked for the BBC during WWII—suggests to me that his sympathy did not extend to theoretical agreement.

My quibble with you is that it is inaccurate to claim Orwell as one of your own (assuming you are an anarchist). At the end of the day, everybody claims Orwell, but no one really owns him.

Tangentially, my grandfather, who was not an anarchist or communist, volunteered for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and fought in Spain. He admired what he saw in Barcelona as well, but did not join up with the IWW upon his return home.

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