Russian Mennonite - Tumblr Posts

My ethnic community, Russian Mennonites, has stories of these actions by anarchists from our time in Ukraine. The communists didn't treat them much better, but it does mean that, even though my political tenancy is socialist, we are naturally inclined against anarchists and communists because of that direct history.

also and this i think is specific to anarchists i find it profoundly worth emphasizing the point that one of the reasons the communists in both the russian and chinese civil wars were able to gain mass support is because unlike the other side they didn't rampantly rape and steal from the people with impunity--something which could only be enforced through extremely strict discipline in which a hierarchy (!) of command established authority(!) over the actions of soldiers. & you know any cursory examination of military history will in fact show you that 'raping and looting and mass murdering civilians with impunity' has in fact for centuries been the universal norm for any military without strict discipline and a clear and ironclad chain of command.

which is ofc not to say that such organization is some kind of inherent safeguard against atrocities, plenty of well-organized militaries have committed brutal atrocities simply because the people at the top of the chain of command wanted those atrocities to happen--but that it is a prerequisite for any such safeguard to be established!