this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
1057 points (93.7% liked)
Political Memes
8906 readers
3580 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
So your argument here isn't about the actual application of anarchy, it's just that on meaninglessly theoretical version of political anarchy, it is technically not defined as disorder, right? If so, then yeah, sure I guess, but like I said that's quite meaningless since it doesn't reflect reality.
They're short lived because anarchy is flawed as an ideology and it always collapses in on itself. The world doesn't exist in a vacuum. The rest of the world is not going coddle some anarchist ideologues so they can play with their political anarchist fantasies in practice. We live in a world where people want stability and order, where states exist out of necessity for self defense, where resources are scarce and competition for them can get violent, where evil actors who pry on the weak do exist. This is our reality, any ideology that ignores it is not one to be taken seriously.
The critical difference is the source where all of these things are derived from. A normal state derives these things from society as collective while in anarchy they're derived from individuals. In a normal society, violence is monopolized, streamlined, and it's application is utilized to make sure society is stable and orderly enough to be functional. In an anarchist society, there is no such monopoly or centralization as there is no government. Thus, without a central authority things like crime, fairness, and safety are up to individuals to come up with and enforce. This will inevitably end up in bloodshed, disorder, and injustice as different people with different opinions are going to be acting on their own and competing with each other to enforce different standards. That's an incredibly stupid idea that will result in a lot of unnecessary violence and dysfunction. You can't leave things like justice in the hands of individuals, it never works.
Yes, that's the point. It's not radical because it's necessary for something essential and always has been. For something to be radical it has to be extreme and a drastic shift from the ordinary. Governance through monopolized violence is the norm. Simply labeling as radical anyway doesn't make it bad or any less necessary.
This is just false. The amount of violence is not the same because you never get stability or order at any point in an anarchist society. Self righteous individuals and bad actors will always be fighting each other and amongst themselves because they want to take advantage of the chaos and take matter into their own hands. There's a reason why through 10,000 years of human civilization, anarchy has never come out on top even once. Keep in mind, you're not arguing against tyranny here, you're arguing against the monopolization of violence as a means to govern in general. Well, as history shows us, anarchy is just as bad tyranny.
Anarchy isn't a better solution. It's one of the bad ways that we collectively moved past as a species. As it turns out, there IS something better than complete anarchy or complete tyranny, it's called liberal democracy. Checks and balances in the government, direct citizen participation in governance, establishing liberal values such as freedom of speech as rights, a society gets to enjoy both structure AND liberty.
Oh come on, don't be pedantic and argue semantics. You knew exactly what I meant. My statement was painfully obvious, true, and straightforward. If you're actually willing to sit here and tell me that humans as a collective lack pride as an emotion, then you're just engaging in bad faith.
This is anecdotal though. Humans feel pride in being a part of a greater collective, we're tribal creatures. Just because you have a negative view of patriotism as a label, that doesn't mean that you don't feel this emotion under a different one.
Well, how would you define patriotism if not taking pride in your nation? You're right that patriotism is vague and hard to verify because it's an inherently subjective concept. The only thing that's objective about is the underlying emotions. Things like a desire to see your group do better, pride in belonging to something greater, and a sense of responsibility to your people.
Not quite.
Can this even be considered an opinion? I see it as an observation of something objective in human history.
Let me ask you a simple question. If you're not up to replying to everything else, you can skip it all and just reply to this. I'll bold so you'll find it easier.
Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the US government has collapsed in favor anarchy. In this scenario, you have the country in it's current state but just without the US government (federal, state, and local) or any of the American state apparatus. So that means no military, no federal reserve, no public schools, no police, no FDA, no CDC, no NOAA, nothing. The state has completely collapsed.** How would an anarchist society take place and how would it function in practice in this situation? **
Walk me through your logic step by step. For example, what "solidarity means"? How a society can function without a government? How would justice be enforced? How would you deal with people who reject this idea and want to reestablish a central authority? How would the economy function (as in, how would people get their new smartphones)?
Of course we have different values, why else would be arguing? I'm not here to change your mind nor do I expect you to change mine. I'm having this discussion with you because I see value in talking to people who see things differently than I do. Challenging the views of others and having yours challenged is what makes to debates fun imo.
Hey there ! Thanks for your reply. Thanks also for making the discussion centered around a specific question, i indeed tried to reply quote by quote and found myself pointing out the same flaws over and over.
I'll first talk about these flaws, which i think can be summed up to one : you do not argue (at least not here). I think i'm right to say it's not an argument
because you use circular reasoning to say "There are only states, therefore they are necessary" and then "they are necessary, therefore there are only states". If you don't see the problem here, it will be hard to discuss, as it already has been.
you make an continuous use of the "general statement" argument that i talked about in my previous comment. You say something universal if taken as is, then claim it's hyperbole, and then say that examples i give are "anecdotal". This makes your argument pointless since no one can either prove it (it has no universal value), either disprove it (every counter example is discarded as anecdotal). I'm sorry if i sounded pedantic to you, but this is the way i debate, and i think the basis for every proper logical debate : we cannot just state vague facts about humanity as proof of our arguments, since their value comes from how common they are, and there is no way to prove this. We either have to take universal takes that enables proper counter-argument, either accept that the fact does not apply to a possibly large number of people.
because you jump from theory to practice and vice-versa. When talking about political theory, its "Then why don't we see anarchists societies". When it's about examples of anarchist societies, its "They failed because anarchy is flawed as an ideology". More generally, you do not answer directly to the passages you quote.
You choose on which axis to operate the distinction.: you did not explained why the legitimity of violence is not an abritrary choice, you explained why state is legitimate. You strawman my points : on pride, i didn't push that "humanity as a collective lack pride as an emotion" (= most people lack pride), i said some people lack it, most anarchists lack it, i lack it.You ignore historical facts.
you never get stability or order at any point in an anarchist societyis plain wrong, look at the examples i gave (we needed more than a century to get back some of the social advances of the Commune, factories were more productive in Spanish War anarchist territories, ukrainian anarchist communes were functional). The reason you give for their short duration is not the one given by history : it's not an expression when i say that each of them resulted in a massacre by a state, it is the actual case. You also contradicted yourself on this point : "[anarchy] always collapses on itself" cannot be true at the same time than "The rest of the world is not going to coddle some anarchists ideologues" : either it collapses on itself, either it is some external intervention (spoiler alert : it was the second option).About your question, i'll answer it in a more general fashion than just about the US, because 1) i don't know the US that well and 2) the case of a state and its branches suddenly disappearing is quite a fantasy.
Most anarchists and (left) libertarians base their theories on federalism. This idea, existing already in a weak shape in a lot of state-linked organization (including the states of US), is that entities can band and disband together. The idea is to create different groups on an individual basis (you can be part of multiple groups, such as the group of your neighbourhood, of your workingplace, of your political expression, etc.), and those groups can form greater groups (like the council of multiple neighbourhoods for a city, the association of multiple factories of the same sector, etc.). This network of groups is meant to replace the main advantage of state-like organization, which really is organization itself : communication and exchanges on great distances, optimization of knowledge, ressources, etc.
This can seem very complicated, but it's akin to what already exist : there are councils for my building, my neighbourhood, my city. My boss works in a cooperative, which regroups around 15 winemakers, and this cooperative is part of a broader network which includes around 15 cooperatives. This stratification already exists in a rich way, the only question is to make it go from bottom rather than from the top.
You can have people dedicated to help those organizations work. They can be viewed as administrative/representative, but there are some differences anarchists promotes : people are delegated tasks, they do not represent you. The difference is that they cannot take any decision, they have one or more task to complete but can't act outside. Yeah, but what if they do, you ask ? The other important part of anarchist delegation of tasks is immediate recall : mandate for people can be ended by a simple vote. What if people abuse this to prevent someone to be effectively mandated ? It's probably the sign that either this person is not the right one, either there is a profound fracture in the group, which should encourage the creation of a new group (which is a good thing under anarchist ideas, each groups having their rules means that more groups means more chances for you to find or create the right one).
Really, you should be quite familiar with federalism since we're having this discussion on the Fediverse, from different servers with different softwares.
One of the question you can have is : how to make sure everyone gets a house, food, clothes, etc? Well, there are workers and workplaces for those, and each group can produce and give according to people's needs. If you really need people to have an interest to believe this will work, it is mutual aid viewed in a negative way : if you don't give food to the carpenter, they won't build your house (the positive way is, you give food to whoever needs it, and the carpenter builds houses for whoever needs it). Note this is close to what we have in capitalist states : you got to work if you want food or house. The only thing is, in our current societies, money and state enables people to do nothing or stuff we don't need/want (banks, administration, mines, etc.).
There are two things here : the justice part, and the enforced part. The justice definition from a state perspective is easy, it's what says the law. Anarchist societies propose to see it from the individuals perspectives : the goal is not to find a victim and a culprit to punish, nor to get to the "state of balance" where the society was before the unjustice, it is to bring the society to a point which everyones agrees to, ideally to prevent the unjustice from happening again. Now comes the enforce part : once an agreement is reached, it is far easier to enforce since everyone agrees to it. For the situations where this does not apply (before the argument is concluded, if it is not respected), it either comes from the good faith of everyone included, either falls back to forms of violence/authority, ideally limited (such as imprisonment until argument is reached for dangerous persons, etc.).
This is quite a hard question. Since everyone is asked to participate in multiple groups, one part of the answer is people could recreate groups that federate in a more central way. The difference with what we have currently, is they could be able to leave them at any time to build something else.
The other part of the answer is for people that want to impose central authority to everyone (which is a common will through most states, and is to my eyes the cause of states hegemony : they need people to provide the services they promise, so they cannot accept people outside of them. In the worst form, you get imperialism, when state not only feed on their people, but try to feed on other states' peoples). I don't have a good answer for that, the movment is quite divided between accepting agreements with states and fighting against the imposition of central authority (this is the weapon/bombs part of anarchy)). Neither is satisfying to my eyes, probably both will have to be used anyway.
Thanks again for this final question which, i'm happy to admit, resets the debate and will, i hope, show that every flaw i listed were only relative to our previous discussion.
I'm going to split my response into two separate comments as I feel like we're having two conversations at the same time, and I don't want to mix them up. I'll reply to your criticisms in this reply, and then reply to your answers in another. I originally didn't want to respond to your criticisms at all as our previous conversation is no longer relevant, however, there's a lot that you said that doesn't sit right with me and I just want to set the record straight before I move on. You don't have to reply to this comment if you don't want to, it's just here to voice my disagreements with your criticisms. You can just read and move on to my other comment.
Anyway, my response:
You're conflating two separate statements. I said that if you look at the evolution of human history, you'll quickly find out that states have won out over their alternatives. I think we can both agree (hopefully) that this is an objective statement. My point here is that there have to be reasons why things turned out the way they did, perhaps it's best to understand those reasons instead of dismissing them. My second statement is that states are necessary because they are the most efficient answer we have to govern on a large scale. States provide an institutional framework that allow for stability, order, justice, and large scale organization. Our disagreement on the second statement is the root of our debate. However, as you can see, these two statements aren't used to justify each other, and thus combining the two and calling it circular reasoning is just a misunderstanding on your part.
I take big issue with this criticism specifically because you're being dishonest. My original statement was that "pride is a universal human emotion". That's an objectively true statement. People express pride differently, people are proud of different things, and different cultures have different ideas about it. However, all humans have it. You have it, I have it, we all do. It's like happiness, sadness, or anger. The entire reason why I said this in the first place is to make the point that patriotism is a reflection of a universal human emotion. Keep in mind, I am not saying that patriotism is a universal trait, just that it's a form in which an actual universal trait, pride, manifests itself.
If you disagreed with the notion that patriotism is a reflection of pride, then that's fine, we could have had a discussion about it. However, you chose to sideline my point in favor of taking up the position that pride is not a universal emotion, and specifically focusing on the literal meaning "universal". However, this focus was just the red herring fallacy. You were focusing on a minor detail to distract from the point being made. If you actually want to double down on the notion that pride is not a universal human emotion then we're moving past political opinions and entering the realm of science, and that means that you have to actually show me an academic study that counters the established science (example). It's why I pointed out that your anecdotes don't mean much in this case.
Now, I don't think it's that deep and I don't think you're going to double down on this position, but I do think our exchange about this specific point up until now has been particularly frustrating because it's unnecessary. I'm sure you understood what I meant from the beginning because it was a very simple point.
Also, I find it weird how you're accusing me of engaging in bad faith by saying I'm turning your arguments into strawmans, when the first example you gave is just you not following the chain of responses. You said that I didn't answer why the legitimacy of violence isn't an arbitrary choice. Well, let's find out why:
Original topic: whether or not someone supporting their country is radical.
Your response: someone supporting their country means supporting the monopoly of violence and that's radical
Me: monopoly of violence isn't inherently radical as it exists to regulate force which prevents chaos
You: all types of violence is radical and adding the distinction between regulated and unregulated force is arbitrary
Me: the distinction is the point, and the difference between regulated and unregulated violence is the difference between chaos and stability
You: distinctions in general are arbitrary in nature
Me: the distinction is critical as not all violence is equal, regulated violence by a society helps establish order which prevents unnecessary violence while unregulated violence by individuals does the opposite
And that was the last direct reply. Notice how the my responses directly respond to your responses? Notice how the conversation got specific but didn't go off topic? Notice how you never asked me why the legitimacy of violence is not an arbitrary choice nor was that ever brought up? That means I didn't misinterpret what you said, therefore I didn't strawman you. If you felt like you need to add clarification or nuance or ask that either of me then just do that, but don't call my direct responses to your points as strawman arguments when they're not.
Second, Makhnovshchina was not truly anarchist. They had an actual government that was backed by a military. So they had a full monopolization of violence and everything. The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine stayed as the de facto government for 5 years until the bolsheviks took over. That's the reason why they were more functional than their anarchist counterparts elsewhere, like in Spain for example.
Third, similar to the point I made earlier, the failures of anarchy are intertwined. Anarchy collapses on itself because it lacks the means to do what a functional government can, and that is to maintain order, organize the people to do large scale projects, and defend itself and it's people. Because of this, anarchy will always result in another, more centralized form of government from crushing it and taking its place. The only way anarchy can work in the real world is if everybody in the world magically agreed to leave the anarchists alone, if some major power decided to protect them for some reason, or if there's extreme levels of chaos and dysfunction in a society. Since none of these options are realistic or sustainable, anarchy is simply not capable of being a viable alternative to a state. I don't think that's a contradictory position.
Thanks for the splitted answer, it is a very nice choice. So here we go on the meta-discussion, cuz i think we still have disagreements on the nature of what we both said.
A - The circular reasoning
We indeed agree on the fact that human history shows that states have won out over their alternatives during the last 5 000 years, approximatively.
You seem to pretend that i dismiss the causes of this. As i said two comments ago in the summary, i simply hold a different explanation : you think states dominate because they're efficcient for stability, i think states dominate because they prey on other forms of organization. If you really think i dismiss this, i just give another explanation.
I maintain the circular reasoning part : to sum up how you turned it in your last answer, you say 1) states are the norm because states are necessary, and 2) states are necessary because they have advantages. But why do they have advantages that the other forms of governement do not have ? Your proof before that was "there is only states that succeed, the other forms disappear". So you just add one step, but in the end it's the same thing : on one hand, you explain the dominance of state by their necessity, on the other you explain their necessity by their advantages, which are prooved by their dominance. Either i misunderstand some part of your position, either it is circular.
B - The pride & the pride of being part of something greater
I owe you an apology here, as my last comment taken as is was indeed focusing on pure pride. I should have added that not only did i claim only some people lack it and not humanity as a collective, but more than that, i did not talk about pure pride, but "pride of being part of something greater", which we both agree is less common than pride itself. I don't know why i didnt, probably just skipped to another part. This makes my strawmaning complaint stronger though.
C - Practice and theory
I dont say that practice and theory are entirely separate categories. They are different level of debate though, and you cannot answer one with the other. You can support one with the other, but not answer one with the other. To explain better, in your example of anarchy being a failure, there should be an actual problem (misorganization, miscommunication, etc) that leads to anarchy failure, and this problem could be linked to theory. Exactly as you said in your islamists example, the actual problems of islamists systems can be linked to qoran theory.
Funnily enough, the point i criticize you for is exactly what you criticize islamists for : when you give an answer on the practical side, they jump to the theoric side, and vice-versa. It's strange that you can see that for them, but not for you.
D - Strawmaning
There is a misunderstanding here. My accusation of strawmaning is on the pride part, not on the arbitrary distinction of how to classify violence.
E - On historical matters
Thanks for acknowledging the historical examples. We indeed have a very different definition of stability and order (especially on political unstability, and internal fighting), but it's not the only explanation to our difference of explanation here.
One of them is the way you attribute the causes of events. When you say "Anarchists were crushed by Franco's fascist troops", it seems that you take it as a proof that anarchy leads to unstability. But to my eyes, the people responsible for unstability here are the state troops. I guess the first one is true on a broader sense, and the second one on this specific situation.
Another one is on the knowledge we have of it : i'm not sure what you mean by
A lot of people tried to enforce their own justice and take governance into their own hands and thousands of people died because of this.. If it's about war, yes, anarchist armies are as other armies, they cause a lot of useless death. If it's about something else, i'd be glad to learn about it !Last one is a bit of nuance, especially on the Ukrainian part : there was indeed a system of governement backed by an active military, and this leads to a form of monopolization of violence. But i would not call it a full monopolization of violence, as the military government did not take every decision, and let the regional committees take a lot of decisions, and the local soviets organize freely. Also, all of those systems (both military and governement) were organized along anarchist principles : direct election of delegates, immediate recall, autodiscipline (this one specific to army). To be clear, what i challenge precisely is : the extent of centralization of power (it existed, but it was quite diminished compared to actual state), the extent of monopolization of violence (it existed, but as there were fewer decision to enforce, the monopolization was less important), the non-anarchist aspect of the movement (it is clearly an anarchist movement using partially non-anarchist methods (but not only non-anarchist methods)).
Lastly, and i'm sorry to bring the language part again, but here you're giving good examples that the examples i gave were far from perfect. But the point you made before was that
you never get stability or order at any point. I claim that you did, during a few months in the Commune, a few years in some regions of Spain, and by short intermittences during the Ukrainian revolution. Sure, it's not much. And the reason why it's such little is another topic we discussed. But not much is not the same as nothing. This is, i think, the main explanation of our disagreement here, beyond slight adjustments (causes, knowledge, nuances). In the end, we are saying the same thing : i say "there is a little bit of stability and order", you say "there is not much stability and order".The argument in question doesn’t rely on circular reasoning because it presents two distinct claims that serve different purposes. First, it observes that states have historically outlasted alternative systems, suggesting this dominance may reflect functional advantages. Second, it asserts that states are necessary because they provide stability, order, and large scale governance. These aren’t self reinforcing statements; rather, they work together inductively: one offers historical evidence, the other draws a normative conclusion. Dismissing this framework as circular misunderstands the logic, it's not assuming what it sets out to prove but reasoning from historical prevalence to present utility.
If I said "states are necessary because they exist" then that would indeed be circular logic because the conclusion is essentially assumed in the premise, and you would be correct in your critique. However, that's not what I'm doing. I said "The historical dominance of states suggests they serve functional advantages, which is why they are necessary." That's not circular, that's inductive reasoning. I'm using historical evidence to support my claims.
I think we're mostly on the same page here, so I think we can just move on. I'm glad we're on the same page.
It seems we both agree that theory and practice are connected, but we might be framing that relationship differently. My aim wasn’t to suggest that practice alone answers theory, but that repeated failures in practice can point to deeper issues in the ideology itself, especially when those failures are consistent across different contexts. You're right that analyzing practical failure should involve identifying specific problems like disorganization or poor communication. That is exactly where theory becomes relevant. Many of these issues stem from key anarchist principles, such as a rejection of hierarchy or centralized coordination. In this case, I am not shifting between unrelated levels. I am showing how the theoretical framework can produce structural vulnerabilities. Similarly, in the example involving Islamism, pointing out widespread governance issues can reasonably lead to a closer inspection of the ideological foundations that might contribute to those outcomes.
It's interesting because I felt like a lot of your arguments were strawmans of my arguements. For example, when you summarized my positions, you gave me different stances from what I held. I thought it was intentional like I did with your pride arguments, however, I'm understanding now that it's not intentional. I feel like it's the same for me. I probably did mischaracterized a few of your arguments, so I am going to concede this point. However, I would like to point out that any misrepresentation comes from a point of misunderstanding rather than malice.
Franco - My point with the anarchist getting destroyed isn't about responsibility, the nationalists were clearly responsible for destroying the anarchist. We're in agreement on that part. My point is that anarchy lacks the means of self preservation because it fundamentally opposes the mechanisms that provide for common defense like a centralized organization and monopoly of violence. Because of this, anarchy is inherently prone to getting destroyed by external forces compared to other ideologies and systems.
Anarchy related deaths - I'm mostly referring to the Red Terror in Spain. I understand that the Anarchists were not the only groups in the Republican faction, however, they were still a significant part of it like the FAI and CNT for example. I also understand that there was a lot of infighting amongst the Republican faction between Stalinists, republicans, socialists, and anarchists. However, specifically in the the anarchist controlled portions of Spain, there was still a lot of violence caused by mobs and individuals carrying out their own justice, and that led to the deaths of thousands.
Ukraine - I mean what you're describing to me here sounds like a textbook de facto state. States exist in a spectrum where one extreme end is defined by totalitarian authoritarianism where the states controls every aspect of life and society and the other extreme end is anarchy where there is no state. Most states, operate somewhere between the two extremes. Ukraine at this time was a state that leaned closer to anarchy on the spectrum without actually being anarchy. We both agree that Ukraine at this time had state like attributes like a military, a system of governance, and common law. My point isn't that Ukraine under the RIAU wasn't influenced by anarchist principles, it clearly was, but I'm saying that using this an example of anarchy being functional isn't accurate because it wasn't actually anarchist and it's sustained functionality can be directly attributed to its state like apparatus.
Language - I mean that's a fair point actually, I'll concede this point because we are essentially arguing the same thing from different ends. I suppose a few years, months, or even weeks is still not nothing, and so I suppose you're right in this sense. However, I still stand by the notion that previous anarchist attempts in history have not demonstrated enough sustainability to be considered a viable alternative to the state.
It's probably the last point of disagreement we have, so it's quite sad to start with it. Anyway, though it was badly presented before, i think i'm still legitimate to maintain my circular reasoning claim, even or especially after your explanation.
I agree that throughout our discussion, you made those two separate points.
What's missing here, and that i have confused with Necessity of states (N) previously, is the People desire for stability (P), alognside with the assumption that what what people desire is necessary. Effectively, Stability does not imply necessity, it needs something else that says "X is necessary" and "X needs stability". I assume this X to be what the people desires, from the part
We live in a world where people want stability and order. This is the proposition that makes the thing circular : People desire for stability (P) both needs to imply Domination (D) (as inWe live in a world where people want stability and order.), and to be implied by D (as instability [...] is what humanity favors given our history). D->P gives the strength of D to P, but for that it needs P->S->D to show the Domination is linked with people desires and not just another variable.It is legitimate to make such a move, since there is a need to put a cause for domination of states, because if it was a bad one (like states are a predatory and self-perpetuating form of organization), then the consequences of it would inherit this bad foundation. My point is that the cause for domination that you can give are also deduced from this domination.
Not sure we actually are on the exact same page, but anyway we would be close enough. Thanks for expressing your content, it is shared.
To be fair, my point on practice/theory has been dismissed by your further comments, and only applies to what you said before. I should have pointed it out, my bad on this point too. Though i disagree with your linking of anarchists problems of coordination/communication and anarchist theory, i admit it is not unfounded and is a proper example of linking theory and practice properly. It was missing before, i think you'll convene of this. Therefore, i think we can also say we're on the same page now on this point too !
I agree with most of your paragraph, especially on the misunderstanding rather than malice. The bad faith accusation i have made were pointing out a (alleged) lack of will to understand properly rather than a will to misrepresent. I have made similar errors, like my summarization, though if i recall correctly, it was not that wrong (some errors were minor, bigger errors like "current states" instead of "states in general" were a formulation error that didn't matter much for argumentation). I apologize for this one along others : if it's something you'd like to do, i'd be glad to have a list of the points i strawmaned. I'll try to refrain myself for discussing if they are strwman or not, i'd just like to see what i misunderstood.
I also disagree on the association of actual problems in Spain with necessary flaws in theory, reporting them on the practical difficulties that were to face (urgency of the situation, lack of international support, chaos inherited from the failed coup d'état, etc.). That said, i concede that your deduction from the Spanish case of anarchist flaws remains legitimate and well-founded.
On the Red Terror, i thank you for bringing this to my knowledge, i did not know the detail of it. Your summary is very good, and i would just add that from what i just learned, it seems that those violences existed on the Nationalist side too, directed at reds, and that the Red Terror on the Republican side ultimately was turned against anarchist and non-stalinist themselves. We both agree that anarchists committed and failed to prevent atrocities.
I think we both agree that if Revolutionary Ukraine was a state, it would be the form of state closest to anarchy, and if it was anarchy, it would be the form of anarchy closest to state. The nitpicking would be about whether or not it crossed the line. I support that it did, and my arguments are that i do not have example of organizations defined as state with a military based on volunteering, election of officers and autodiscipline, and with a decision system based on federalism and immediate recall of mandatees. But in the end it really is nitpicking, and if we agree on the first part, it's more than okay i think.
Thanks for expressing the concession. I note and accept your stance that the low level of stability of anarchists experiments is not enough for you.