To be honest I don’t care if the communists are Soviet or Spain. The arms that the USSR was sending didn’t reach the anarchists. That was the only claim I was refuting.
Reiterating for the sake of clarity.
That the Communists withheld arms from the Aragon front seems established beyond question, and it can hardly be doubted that the motivation was political. See, for example, D.T. Cattell, Communism and the Spanish Civil War (1955; reprinted New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), p. 110.
The fact that the footnote ends with Orwell’s own quote is just a nice tie back to the discussion.
Regarding the rest of the comment I’m not interested in reenacting “anarchist vs ML: spanish civil war” online theater. I just wanted to push back on the claim that the USSR supplied anarchists.
The USSR did supply (provide any weapons to) anarchists in Spain.
However the Communists¹ didn’t supply (provide as many weapons as they could have to) anarchists in Spain.
¹: because as you pointed out the fault wasn’t just the USSR but Spanish as well.
I was hoping that the context made the distinction clear but clearly that is not the case.
Everything we know about Orwell disagrees, from his review of Mein Kampf to his comments about Jews and Homosexuals. He opposed fighting the literal German Nazis until war actually broke out. The civil was was a few years and a single book, and hardly representative of his entire life.
The guy fought Nazi supplied Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War. This take is nuts, he almost died for the CNT-FAI. He’s not a Nazi sympathizer.
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The USSR didn’t supply the anarchists.
TheyThe Communists actively refused to give them arms and worked against them. That was the cause of Orwell’s disdain towards them. source: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/noam-chomsky-on-anarchism#fn70Edit: Correcting sentencing after being corrected in a reply.
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The May Days is not some unknown event.
I can walk down the street here see the bullet holes.
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You don’t need Orwell to know that the anarchists and Stalinists fell into opposition.
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To be honest I don’t care if the communists are Soviet or Spain. The arms that the USSR was sending didn’t reach the anarchists. That was the only claim I was refuting.
Reiterating for the sake of clarity.
The fact that the footnote ends with Orwell’s own quote is just a nice tie back to the discussion.
Regarding the rest of the comment I’m not interested in reenacting “anarchist vs ML: spanish civil war” online theater. I just wanted to push back on the claim that the USSR supplied anarchists.
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Ok. You wanna dance? Let’s dance.
The USSR did supply (provide any weapons to) anarchists in Spain.
However the Communists¹ didn’t supply (provide as many weapons as they could have to) anarchists in Spain.
¹: because as you pointed out the fault wasn’t just the USSR but Spanish as well.
I was hoping that the context made the distinction clear but clearly that is not the case.
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That is my source. It’s good enough for me. The fact that Chomsky (a well respected academic*) published that is good enough for me.
*: There are ties to Epstein, but for me that doesn’t invalidate his academic opinion.
Being anti communism is the same as being pro Nazi now?
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Everything we know about Orwell disagrees, from his review of Mein Kampf to his comments about Jews and Homosexuals. He opposed fighting the literal German Nazis until war actually broke out. The civil was was a few years and a single book, and hardly representative of his entire life.