I wasn’t an anarchist per se but I was open to the idea, because I was exposed to it on reddit (subreddits like r/socialism, r/latestagecapitalism, and it was actually r/shitamericanssay that got me to read marx!). I thought, you know, if it’s a popular ideology and it’s close to marxism (which to me meant close to the USSR, Cuba, etc) then surely it’s legit and should be treated seriously? Like you can have ML revolutions and you can have anarchist revolutions, depends on the situation.
But then after I started reading enough ML theory to really understand what the leninist part of it was AND also talked to more anarchists I realized they had nothing of value to offer. My opinion radically changed when someone simply asked: where are the successes of anarchism? And I saw there were none, and I stopped entertaining the idea anarchism could ever get us anywhere or coexist with marxism-leninism.
Can confirm. I’m anarchist and I have nothing of value to offer.