cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/42620143

Their lives are blissful… free from the burden of self doubt.

Revolutionary Spain represents an example of extremely effective armed resistance to the rise of fascist forces backed by Hitler and Mussolini, surviving for years. By contrast, many established democracies collapsed relatively quickly when invaded.

For more information, you can check out an anarchist FAQ’s answer to the question, “Does revolutionary Spain show that libertarian socialism can work in practice?”. For a more current example of an anarchist society working in practice, you could also check out the Zapatista movement, an anarchist society which today consists of at least 300,000 people.

If you’re unfamiliar with anarchism, you probably have some misconceptions about it, so I encourage you to watch the Q&Anarchy video series by Thought Slime or have a look through an Anarchist FAQ, because it’s almost definitely nothing like what you think.

  • bearboiblake [he/him]OPEnglish
    102·
    21 hours ago

    They fought tooth and nail for three years against a regime which was supported by Hitler and Mussolini. Clearly they should have used anarchist magic to defeat a regime that completely dominated the continent.

    For a more current example of an anarchist society working in practice, you could also check out the Zapatista movement, an anarchist society which today consists of at least 300,000 people.

    • Samskara@sh.itjust.works
      21·
      8 hours ago

      The Zaptistas have their ideological base not purely in western anarchism and Marxism. Liberation theology and catholic religion plays a big role in practice. They also emphasize a mystical connection to the land (people of maize), so their ideology is adjacent to blood & soil nationalism in some ways. They also leverage lots of traditional power structures like family clans, tribal loyalties, and such.

      They have been successful in a way as they are still around and actually have local government structures in place that seem to work. However the EZLN hasn’t succeeded in providing stability and security to the region. Economically it’s still one of poorest regions in Mexico.

      The limited success of the Zapatistas is more a sign of the weakness and failures of the central government of Mexico. They have managed to build a somewhat functioning local government and militia providing security in a remote poor rural area.

      Similarly to the Machnov anarchists in Ukraine, Catalan anarcho-syndicalists, they leverage ethnic nationalism for cohesion.

      What the Zapatistas have achieved is admirable, but their model doesn’t transfer to highly developed multi ethnic multi cultural highly urbanized countries with disintegrating social bonds.

      Western contemporary anarchists are mostly fringe and usually not well connected with traditional structures like family, ethnicity, nation, religion.