If you're a leftist who finds inspiration in the stories of the anarchist and communist revolutions, you also need to find wisdom in its excesses, it's cruelty and it's vulnerability to corruption. If you find pride in the history of the resistance movements against nazism, you also need to find introspection in the fact that many resistance members ended up raping the wives and abusing the youngest children of nazis the moment the power was reversed.
I don't trust people who only explore the pretty parts of leftist history. It doesn't lead to a realistic understanding of our past movements and it doesn't make us prepared to see the flawed, vulnerable and ugly in our current movements. Will you recognize and confront the rapist in your local group? How can you, if you won't even recognize and confront him across 80 years of distance?
Criticism should be an act of mutual respect, love, and genuine belief. If you want socialism / anarchism / leftism to improve and become stronger, you must critically engage with it in full.
any movement without accountability and self-criticism is doomed from the start
