One thing about anarchism is that it goes against having tight discipline and a unified group. When anarchists joined the Soviets, they tended to drop the anarchist label and just became Marxists. That’s why what remains are usually instances of conflict. Anarchists chose to be integrated into the Red Army, don’t take away their agency.
From the Marxist perspective, anarchists that genuinely wanted to overturn the socialist state and replace it with anarchism were working to restore capitalism, unintentionally of course but from this respect in such a turbulent period they chose not to take chances. Again, though, many anarchists joined not just the Soviets but the Bolsheviks, and later the CPSU.
My goal here is to highlight that people tend to highlight the real conflict while ignoring that this conflict was against the remaining anarchists, and not the anarchists that had joined the Red Army and even the Bolsheviks unless they continued to press for anarchism. This isn’t to say that these anarchists-turned-Bolsheviks were “fake” anarchists, they chose to join the socialists in establishing a socialist state and were helpful in doing so.
One thing about anarchism is that it goes against having tight discipline and a unified group. When anarchists joined the Soviets, they tended to drop the anarchist label and just became Marxists. That’s why what remains are usually instances of conflict. Anarchists chose to be integrated into the Red Army, don’t take away their agency.
From the Marxist perspective, anarchists that genuinely wanted to overturn the socialist state and replace it with anarchism were working to restore capitalism, unintentionally of course but from this respect in such a turbulent period they chose not to take chances. Again, though, many anarchists joined not just the Soviets but the Bolsheviks, and later the CPSU.
My goal here is to highlight that people tend to highlight the real conflict while ignoring that this conflict was against the remaining anarchists, and not the anarchists that had joined the Red Army and even the Bolsheviks unless they continued to press for anarchism. This isn’t to say that these anarchists-turned-Bolsheviks were “fake” anarchists, they chose to join the socialists in establishing a socialist state and were helpful in doing so.