this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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That the USSR managed to last long as long as it did despite being invaded by more developed nations multiple times during the aftermath of its revolution and eventually collapsed largely due to its own internal corruption does put paid to the idea that some authoritarian measures will help protect a socialist state from external attempts to destabilise it.
The problem seems to be one inherent within the structure of states. Any heirarchical structure like that is fit to be abused by someone sufficiently self interested that they'd put their own interests above the interests of the people gestures at Mikhail Gorbachev selling the USSR out to the Western core for his own enrichment.
Anarchism, being decentralised, might be able to withstand some of the issues that were present in the late USSR. But previous anarchist attempts have been crushed by outside actors much easier than socialist attempts.
I don't really know what there is to be done.
Absolutely but authoritarian states are at a even higher risk in that regard and you got enough powerful enemies as a socialist already. One of the biggest issue for Arnachism next to the absurd amount of very different interpretations is ironically Socialism/Communism, parts of many revolutions had Arnachist ideas and so did big parts of the historic worker movments (Black is the flag of the Arnachist and Red of the Socialist worker) but they never really managed to get any of them in to the new system even after a successful revolution. It's all a very tough question and I wish I had good answers but I fear the truth is none of us dose, at least we oppose fucking capitalism I guess, that's a start and history has shown it can spread to bigger parts of society in some cases.