> Somebody on this list still willing to apologize for the Soviet
> Union and Communist China.
Apologize for? No. Understand and comprehend -- yes. Stalinism was the predictable response to the hideous trauma of Russia's defeat in WW I and the historical necessity to industrialize during the 1930s, the era of Fascism and the Great Depression. Maoism was the predictable response to the grisly violence of China's warlord era, plus the genocidal Japanese invasion of mainland China. Both regimes did appalling things; but they also built modern industrial societies where none existed previously.
The world-system puts real limits on what human beings can do at any given point in history. It's our job to think through that world-system -- what is it, how does it work, how can we change it. I think anarchism concentrates too much on the political structures of domination, and ignores the whole economic issue. You end up blaming everything on this mythical, fantasmic Bigness -- when in fact local structures of authority can be the most toxic of all.
-- DRR