Part 2:

Secondly, studying the successes of anarchist Catalonia (or Makhnovist Ukraine, or the Paris Commune, or whatever failed libertarian socialist project you might want to mention) is a dead-end as far as theory goes. Political theory that is built on past successes are next to useless… theory that is built on a sober (and granular) appreciation of failure is not.

Modern Anarchist thought does take those failures into account, and does not aim to replicate them 1-to-1. But those same failures also brought with it some great successes, such as showing us that our theories on how an Anarchist society is actually run, like giving the working class ownership and control of their workplaces to self manage really does work. Some areas even abolished money, and that also seemed to work.

Proving that those things do work is a massive step in convincing others that this isn't just a bunch of pie in the sky ideas, and it's why I still point to that event.

The socialist experiments in Rojava and Chiappas proves this - both owe their existence to tankies who went back to the drawing board, critically reviewed the very Marxist-Leninist fuckups they had committed, and dumped Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy overboard (the fact that tankies dislike talking about these two projects proves as much). Should anarchists, perhaps, do the same?

Rojava is the main focus at the end of the 'Accidental Anarchist' documentary I linked to in my first source, which it praises and points out as a success of Anarchist ideas in practice. The PKK's leader did toss out marxist-leninism, but only after reading Murray Bookchin's books while in prison. Murray Bookchin is an Anarchist, and virtually all of the changes Abdullah Öcalan made to their political theory was to adopt many Anarchist positions.

However, Rojava is unfortunately now suffering from the same issues that the Spanish Anarchists did.

With the US no longer offering it logistical support, it has struggled to defend itself against the multi-pronged assaults from the new, more unified Syrian government, as well as larger assaults from Turkey. It has lost a significant amount of territory, and is slowly being forced to integrate into the new Syrian government, giving up much of their autonomy.

The main issue that Libertarian socialism/Anarchism has faced historically, is Anarchist revolutions have not occurred in areas that could support themselves logistically without outside help (Except Russia, where had Makhno been able to defeat the Marxists, they may have been able to survive long term).

Left Libertarian states are seen as enemies by all other ideologies and economic systems, as they threaten the established hierarchies in both Authoritarian Marxist-Leninist countries, as well as Capitalist power in liberal democracies.

What stopped people from “joining in” during the sixties? The seventies? The eighties?

Extreme suppression of Anarchists by state governments in most areas, as well as economic reforms making people complacent. As an example, the Red Scare in the US resulted in the Anarchist movement being set back decades as anarchist union members (the IWW), and regular anarchist were rounded up and imprisoned or deported to Russia.

The US in particular was on the verge of a socialist revolution during the great depression, which was only avoided by FDR's economic reforms and worker protections, which allowed non-radical unions to gain significant bargaining power and better economic conditions, resulting in the 'golden age' of the US, and thus most became content with the status quo.

Unfortunately, as our current situation shows, those liberal reforms are always temporary, since it appears inevitable that capitalism auto-corrupts liberal democracies until they are once again brought back to a point where people are desperate enough to try an alternative. We're seeing fascism rear its ugly head once again as one of those alternatives which promises a better life, just as Hitler and Mussolini once did.

The lack of this framework is on display literally in the very first source you posted - any self-described “libertarian socialist” that frames the concept of democracy as some kind of “problem” that requires solving will (justifiably) raise a lot of red flags with the working class.

What source mentioned that? I didn't see that in the Accidental Anarchist documentary (the first source, unless you mean Anark?)

It seems that “killing the liberal inside your own head” is something that a lot of anarchists preach… but do not necessarily practice.

Could you elaborate what you mean by that?

Sounds absolutely grand. But how did it fail?

There's a really fantastic 6-part documentary that goes over the conflict in great detail, but to give the short version:

It failed for a multitude of reasons, but when I did my own deep dive on this, I didn't find Anarchism itself as one of those reasons. I found that the specific time it took place, as well as the previous industrial capacity of Spain itself, were likely two of the biggest contributors.

The civil war occurred during a period when there were powerful states on the world stage, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, who were ready and willing to supply needed logistics and manpower to other right-wing states. It also happened when both of those states were not yet embroiled in their own world war, giving them the opportunity to send more resources and aid than they would've have been able to justify a handful of years later.

On the other hand, the Anarchists (and Liberals) of Spain had no allies on the world stage willing to help them besides some meager aid from Mexico (who lacked the ability to send airplanes or tanks), and a few secret shipments of aid from France.

The only other nation willing to get stuck in was the USSR, and they obviously only wanted to supply the marxist-leninist faction in Spain to ensure they would have control at the end of the war.

So if you consider the scenario from the Anarchist perspective, what could be done? They were fully aware that the Lenininsts would likely betray them due to what happened in the Russian Revolution, but they were also the only faction that could convince the USSR to ship desperately needed tanks, planes, artillery, firearms, medical supplies, etc, in the numbers needed.

So they had to decide; Do we attack the Leninists at the start of the war before they are equipped? That would cut off all future logistical aid and create a second front in all of the cities, probably ceasing production of the supplies they can build, supplies which are already needed to sustain the conflict with the fascists, and it would probably get the liberal government to denounce the Anarchists as well, resulting in them vs. literally everyone. It would be speed-running defeat.

Instead, they went the path they did, likely hoping for a future opportunity to come out on-top after the fascists had been defeated, instead of guaranteed defeat immediately.

The Anarchists knew this was an uneasy alliance, they knew they would be betrayed at some point, and they saw the liberal government shuffling its feet whenever they asked it for help. There was even discussion among the Anarchists on robbing the gold reserves of the Spanish national bank and buying supplies themselves, instead of relying on the liberal government to do so, but they ultimately decided not to to avoid more internal conflict after the liberal gov seemed to be following through on buying some weapons for the Anarchists. That unfortunately backfired when the government shortly after went back on their word, and instead gave all the gold to the USSR.

Even knowing that the Marxists would betray them, I don't think they expected that to happen while the fascists were nowhere close to being defeated, as starting internal conflict would only ensure their collective defeat, but... The Marxists did it anyway, which was unexpected, and it did hasten their defeat.

The other issue was that Spain simply hadn't developed enough military industrial capacity before the war to avoid being so reliant on foreign logistics. As General Pershing supposedly once said, "Infantry win battles, logistics win wars." That's ultimately why the allies were able to defeat the Axis in WWII as well, since the combined industrial and logistical capacity of the allies (especially with the introduction of the US's industrial capacity), simply become overwhelming.

Any system or ideology in the same circumstances as the Anarchists in Spain is not going to have good odds of succeeding.

In comparison, the Russian Revolution happened when the neighboring countries who could've stepped in to take advantage of the conflict were already militarily depleted from WWI, so the right-wing White army was pretty much on their own, which made it much easier for the combined Anarchist/Marxist armies to defeat them. The Anarchists at that time were pretty blind-sided by the betrayal of the Leninists, since leftist back-stabbing was fairly unprecedented at that time.

Continuing in another comment.