MeanwhileOnGrad

You can say that Stalin was bad, right?

Bad on what grounds? His Soviet project certainly didn't last, I think that failure is bad. He had quite a few deaths under his leadership, that was pretty bad, too. But it'd be crazy to discuss Stalin's failures without acknowledging the post war reality: a depleted and war-torn Russia, former allies (who just dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to make a point) immediately resuming hostilities and sanctions against his fledgling national project, and the isolation that comes with being that cold-war black sheep that nobody wants to play with.

From that perspective it's suddenly not surprising that his project failed, even if you think he committed huge atrocities on the way down

But their hatred towards diversity and dissent is

Nah, they respect dissent if it's well founded. There is plenty of ground for disagreement so long as you don't make grandiose sweeping statements against AES projects or about minority groups, throw the baby out with the bathwater, that kind of thing. We all really want to see an AES project succeed, so it's important to acknowledge the failures where they happen, and see with clear eyes the systemic hurtles that ran them aground. If you think AES projects don't exist and never will, then you will lack the most important commonality they share and will almost certainly be booted out. I think most important to not fucking it up with them is knowing and acknowledging that liberation movements are always violent, even anarchist ones on occasion, and always have the deck stacked against them. Dominant power systems always have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, so overcoming one will always inevitably cross that line. There are few that have lasted, and even fewer that lasted without the slaughter of some dissenting group or another. Interesting too is how often revolutionary movements spawn counter-revolutionary movements, and that likelihood is a good reason to be an anarchist, if that's your jamb.

But even then, you can be an anarchist and get along with them fine. Just don't go in expecting them to listen to your anti-ML takes without getting the boot right quick. If you disagree with Stalin, you'd better be quick to acknowledge the systemic conditions that contributed to his failure before you get to blaming him for the holomodor lmao. Fair game if you think his leadership decisions were huge mistakes or weren't justified, though they'll probably disagree.

Most days the anarchists just sit there and wait for capitalism to collapse.