Memes

keep telling yourself anarchists hate stalin because of his virtues and not because of his other characteristics.

To be clear, those weren't the folks I was referring to in my comment. But:

if I may ask you a question - if marxism and anarchism are fundamentally enemies, as stalin himself argued, why would any anarchist support the modern day ML penchant for rehabilitating stalin's reputation?

Absolutely welcome to ask, and I'll give it a shot nonetheless.

I would ask the anarchist (and the modern day ML too) if they agree with this part of Stalin's theory.

I don't, and would venture to say a modern day ML may also disagree with Stalin in this but even also have a penchant for his rehabilitation, for other reasons.

More tangentally I think anarchism and marxism are not fundamentally enemies, (so, in disagreement with Stalin here), and would suggest they primarily diverge on the role a state plays in mediating conflicts of private and public interests.

But if I were to try and find common ground with the bit from Stalin you're citing, just for argument's sake, it would be that this divergence is a fundamental relationship between the two, but I'd still maintain the differences are not incompatible or irreconcileable.

But again, for the record, I was being more snarky about people who pivot from talking about how Hitler could've won to how Stalin could've lost.