Principally, I would say that I’m more convinced by the argument that a state is necessary to engage in class warfare, and that therefore a proletarian state is a necessary precondition to the creation of socialism, than I am by the idea that the abolition of the state outright is capable of accomplishing anything besides creating a power vacuum.

Historically, anarchist and communist movements look very similar when they actually get their hands on power, because the reality of doing things at scale in an industrialized society overrides whatever perfect theory the revolutionaries had in their minds when they started.

It makes total sense to have a strong moral aversion to the state because it’s inherently an oppressive institution that operates as a protection racket and an instrument of class power. There’s more to the Marxist critique of the state than that, not just a moral opposition but a functional one that identifies the ways the contradictions inherent to the state, much like capitalism’s contradictions, will bring about its sublation.

But the question I’ve always had for anarchists is that, hey, it’s definitely true that the state is a tool for the ruling class to oppress the other classes and all that; but if we’re locked into a global struggle to end capitalism, a historical process that develops unevenly, isn’t it completely necessary for the proletariat – in the nation-states where it succeeds in overthrowing the capitalists – to wield that power if it’s going to win? Wouldn’t anything else require that every arena of class struggle around the world just spontaneously defeat the capitalist state at once, so that no remaining states can colonize one another?

Let me put it this way: if socialism/communism/anarchism/whatever is going to win, it has to defeat a lot of state militaries that actively seek it out and destroy it when given the opportunity. Think NATO. Russia is fighting NATO indirectly in Ukraine right now. Russia, with the full power of the state to draft conscripts against their will, an enormous military-industrial complex, advanced drone technology, and air superiority (-ish) only advances some few meters into Ukraine every day. And that’s with NATO being unable to deploy their troops directly. So the revolutionary forces on our side have to fight the same enemy, right? Except in the case of a revolutionary war, capital is in an existential struggle that it will do anything to win, including another Holocaust. So how does a non-state militia fight that? Even in the case where you’re not fighting them directly because you’re a revolutionary outside of North America and Europe, what are you gonna do to defend your revolution when American and Western European billionaires go after your resources because they’re no longer guarded by a comprador bourgeoisie?

And I don’t mean this as a general criticism, I mean it as a very specific assessment of why (even as much as I might align with some of the morals) I can’t really see eye to eye with an anarchist strategically. Obviously you can ask me why this matters when no flavor of the left has any kind of military presence in the West, so it’s not like the MLs have a huge advantage in this particular arena. But I think that for me to take some revolutionary ideology seriously, it at least has to be possible. Otherwise I would just say I believed in anarchism but simply vote for liberals when no one is looking (i.e. what every single anarchist online who shamed other leftists for not voting for Biden or Kamala was doing).

In my estimation, socialist revolutions and national liberation movements will continue to happen in countries in the global south as the Western IMF/NATO/World Bank system loses its hegemony and climate crises break out in the next couple of decades. In all likelihood, those revolutions won’t get rid of the state. They’ll have neighbors that will still be in the neoliberal system with guns and US bases pointed at them, so they’ll probably build more state. I think that the international capitalist class could only possibly be defeated with state actors like this stretching empire thin. I don’t think there’s any way in hell I could be convinced that those people should do the opposite and try organizing without a monopoly on violence.