marxist-leninists

So I'm a libertarian communist, and a lot of my comrades don't get along with Marxist-Leninists. Personally I do, however, and I'd like to explain why.

Yes, if we look at the Spanish and Russian civil wars, there's certainly some bad blood between us. Undoubtedly. But there are quite a few things to remember. For instance, in South and Central America we see a presence of both Marxist-Leninists and Anarchists, who are rather capable of coexisting. Right now in Rojava, there are leftists of all stripes joining the international brigade. This sectarianism within leftism I believe stemmed from the Russian civil war, and it carried over to the Spanish civil war. As tensions cool down I find it very easy to trust most tankies, as I still call them affectionately.

Of course, there are NatBols, Ultraleftists and not to mention Trotskyists, along similar segments that I would never trust. But a Sandinista? Or perhaps a South African Communist Party Activist? An African Maoist in Harlem? Or even a Chinese Maoist? Or an Indian Naxalite? Why not? Their struggle is very far removed from that in the west, and they never strike me as practising anything other than legitimate leftism. Vanguardism beyond the west has grown into something more than the experimentations of Lenin's state capitalism. It is a way to sustain a nationality when surrounded by enemy nations. To rapidly industrialise and militarise in a part of the world that is in a perpetual state of war.

Personally I am more inclined towards communalism, but would I turn down the opportunity to leave capitalism behind and live in a Marxist Venezuela or El Salvador, liberated from US foreign policy? To see the Chile that was envisioned by Oscar Romero? Of course not! It would be far better than my reality, if perhaps not the same as my ideal.


I won't pretend as though the atrocities of the early USSR didn't happen. Most vanguardists around the world certainly doesn't. The few who make excuses for it are typically westerners who are part of CPUSA or CPGB, who gather in meetings and sing l'internationale whilst discussing Marxist literature as they lose more and more relevance with each passing day. These people aren't the lifeblood of the revolutionary movement at all. We see those people outside of capitalism, which is why so many Marxist-Leninists are quick to exhaust the libraries of Lenin and Engels and instead look outwardly to places where it's applicable.

To me, these comrades are not the fossils of the early Party Bolshevism that swept across Russia. With their nationalistic zeal, homophobic policy and worker elitism over the peasant. No, instead they have developed over the last century. Just like us anarchists have. They can teach us things, just like we can teach them things.

No ideology lasts forever, and once we live in a post-state, post-capitalist society. A vision we both have in common, the next step in human development will doubtlessly encompass a confluence of vanguardism and anarchism in ways we cannot possibly synthesise presently. If you need to take down an empire, then you ask a Marxist-Leninist how. And when you need to rebuild after the class war is over? That's when an anarchist will provide the answer.

But most importantly, the world is a very diverse place, and it does not strike me as strange at all, how in different regions, there are desires for different ideologies and societal structures.

This is why I don't mind most Marxist-Leninists. It's not my job to defend them, they can do that themselves. I'll gladly criticise them too, for that matter. But it doesn't change the fact that we both have knowledge that can help further leftism in a plethora of ways as we ultimately fight for the same goal, against the same enemy.