Anarchism can’t defend itself. That’s the point. Either it gets coopted and recuperated under capital, or it gets hijacked by reactionary forces for their own purposes.
While Marxism-Leninism gets hijacked by reactionary forces for their own purposes and gets recuperated under capital after that.
The USSR lost the Cold War, but there’s plenty of ML counties still around. I’m sure you’ll whine they aren’t paradises, but they’re all generally progressing and developing in a positive direction (when they aren’t being strangled to death like Cuba)
Not a lot of anarchist spaces by comparison. There’s the Zapatistas and they’re pretty cool, but like, the record is pretty clear.
And before the end of the cold war, USSR was a reactionary country governed by an elite for its own interests. It’s the same in China. The same in Vietnam, the same in Cuba (but at least there they have the excuse of the unjust US politics against them).