Bookchin on the revolutionary subject

[Black Sheep]

In social & lifestyle anarchism : an unbridgeable gap, Bookchin after criticizing the trends of anarchism, he goes on congratulating the spanish anarchosyndicalists for mantaining and preserving the socialist core if classical anarchism, but criticizes them for an obsession to the working class as the revolutionary subject (the driving force of the revolution)

So,according to bookchin (or according to you) what other option is there?

[whore]

well, the traditional alternatives to the "proletariat" have always been either the peasentry (a hold over from feudalism) or the "lumpen-proletariat".

during the russian and chinese revolutions the peasentry was the driving force for the revolution. (indeed, i know many people will disagree with my assesment, particularly in regards to russia, but seriously the "proletariat" were too small to take over the entire country, and the revolution could not have occured without support from the peasentry).

personally, anyone who's oppressed by the ruling classes, and the present ruling system is a potential ally.

when it comse to the "lumpen", they also tend to have the least to loose. they don't have a nice house, and a nice stable job. they have a shit or non-existent job, they are treated like dirt by the authorities and police, etc. but they have a fuck load to gain!

[Black Sheep]

Anyone else? :bored:

[Kibbutznik]

I think Bookchin's point here, was that even if we recognize the central role of the working class in revolution, we have to still maintain an ecumenical view. This is all part of giving socialism a human face. You have to find ways to avoid alienating members of other parts of society that are caught in between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The educated professionals, the individual proprietors, small landowners, can all be allies in the revolution. But our actions can polarize them, and make them into reactionaries as well.

[FSL]

well, the traditional alternatives to the "proletariat" have always been either the peasentry (a hold over from feudalism) or the "lumpen-proletariat".

during the russian and chinese revolutions the peasentry was the driving force for the revolution. (indeed, i know many people will disagree with my assesment, particularly in regards to russia, but seriously the "proletariat" were too small to take over the entire country, and the revolution could not have occured without support from the peasentry).

personally, anyone who's oppressed by the ruling classes, and the present ruling system is a potential ally.

when it comse to the "lumpen", they also tend to have the least to loose. they don't have a nice house, and a nice stable job. they have a shit or non-existent job, they are treated like dirt by the authorities and police, etc. but they have a fuck load to gain!


Driving force has nothing to do with size. The driving force in russian revolution were the proletariat, and they managed to "drag" the backward peasantry with them exactly because they're the revolutionary class in modern society. To say anyone opressed is a potential ally is right but an ally, not a driving force.


Maybe Bookchin is criticizing some excesses and a narrow-mindedness on the part of the spanish anarchists? They did nationalize barber shops and proceed to collectivize property too fast in areas they controlled, sometimes without even the small peasants approval. That way they did alienate other parts of the population who could play their part in revolution.
But since he himself generally goes too far to the "other" side, his critisism can be taken with a pinch of salt.

[whore]

driving force...

russia was a mostly backwards, semi-feudal country at the time of the revolution. it was ripe for a revolution. but it wasn't ever going to be a proletariat revolution. see, i am not the biggest marx fan, but he was write about this. you can't get a proletariat revolution in a country like what russia was. what you get is a peasant revolution, where the bourgeois then take control. which is basically what happened.
sure, there was then a coup in the cities, and the provisional government got kicked out, but what happened next wasn't revolution, but simple civil war.

[La Comédie Noire]

The Lumpen Proletariat is probably going to play a larger role in future revolutions then anyone could have predicted in the 19th century. Look at the Wiemar Republic, the KPD was made up of mostly unemployed workers. Capitalist crises by their very nature generate large numbers of unemployed, who are more than ready to question the prevailing social order. Being laid off is a Socialist Education in itself.

Can't say I ever read anything by Bookchin, haven't really liked what I've heard of him, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Any reading suggestions?

[RED DAVE]

The Lumpen Proletariat is probably going to play a larger role in future revolutions then anyone could have predicted in the 19th century. Look at the Wiemar Republic, the KPD was made up of mostly unemployed workers. Capitalist crises by their very nature generate large numbers of unemployed, who are more than ready to question the prevailing social order. Being laid off is a Socialist Education in itself.Unemployed workers are not the same as the lumpen-proletariat. The lumpen-proletariat is that section of society who, essentially, does not work or works irregularly at best.


Can't say I ever read anything by Bookchin, haven't really liked what I've heard of him, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Any reading suggestions?I knew him personally. One of his tasks on earth seemed to be dissing Marxism whenever he could for its "obsession" with the working class.

RED DAVE

[ComradeOm]

russia was a mostly backwards, semi-feudal country at the time of the revolution. it was ripe for a revolution. but it wasn't ever going to be a proletariat revolution. see, i am not the biggest marx fan, but he was write about this. you can't get a proletariat revolution in a country like what russia was. what you get is a peasant revolution, where the bourgeois then take control. which is basically what happened.
sure, there was then a coup in the cities, and the provisional government got kicked out, but what happened next wasn't revolution, but simple civil war.You dismiss the soviets, factory committees, revolutionary unions, worker militias, and other almost exclusively urban activities as "a coup in the cities"? By what possible standard are you judging these?

The presence of a peasant class, no matter how large, does not negate the existence of a revolutionary proletariat. The same applies to any other class - while it is to be expected that the proletariat, in an industrialised nation, is to be the largest class, this is in no ways a prerequisite for revolution

[Wolf Larson]

[QUOTE=Comrade Floyd;1675518]The Lumpen Proletariat is probably going to play a larger role in future revolutions then anyone could have predicted in the 19th century. Look at the Wiemar Republic, the KPD was made up of mostly unemployed workers. Capitalist crises by their very nature generate large numbers of unemployed, who are more than ready to question the prevailing social order. Being laid off is a Socialist Education in itself.[/quoter\]Unemployed workers are not the same as the lumpen-proletariat. The lumpen-proletariat is that section of society who, essentially, does not work or works irregularly at best.

I knew him personally. One of his tasks on earth seemed to be dissing Marxism whenever he could for its "obsession" with the working class.

RED DAVE

Ya, Boockchin is divisive but I think he has a good point in regards to the US economy. Were no longer industrial workers it's a service economy and we mostly have no leverage. Marxism is more applicable in Asia- I think the US should look closer at his Libertarian municipalism. He, in my opinion, rightly focuses on hierarchy and the environment. Deconstructing the state apparatus. Is it possible to do without taking over the state apparatus as Marxists seek? Does centralized power corrupt even the most well intentioned people? Will they be willing to let that power go?

[Wolf Larson]

[QUOTE=RED DAVE;1675582]

Ya, Boockchin is divisive but I think he has a good point in regards to the US economy. Were no longer industrial workers it's a service economy and we mostly have no leverage. Marxism is more applicable in Asia- I think the US should look closer at his Libertarian municipalism. He, in my opinion, rightly focuses on hierarchy and the environment. Deconstructing the state apparatus. Is it possible to do without taking over the state apparatus as Marxists seek? Does centralized power corrupt even the most well intentioned people? Will they be willing to let that power go?

Also, capitalism does in fact need to be abolished globally and I don't think Bookchins ideas address that.

[Wolf Larson]

I'm on the fence right now between anarchism and Marxism. I like the vision anarchism paints as it's just about the same goal of communism but I'm not sure it can be a viable means of achieving that vision. Do we need transitional periods while using the state as Marxists believe or can we, as anarchists think, just get right to the end goal of socialism [freedom]? I tend to agree that hierarchy is the root of "evil".

[La Comédie Noire]

You dismiss the soviets, factory committees, revolutionary unions, worker militias, and other almost exclusively urban activities as "a coup in the cities"? By what possible standard are you judging these?

The presence of a peasant class, no matter how large, does not negate the existence of a revolutionary proletariat. The same applies to any other class - while it is to be expected that the proletariat, in an industrialised nation, is to be the largest class, this is in no ways a prerequisite for revolution

There is no doubt the working class in Russia was revolutionary, but the system of wage labor did not permeate all facets of society and as a result the revolutionary energy was just enough to over throw a King and install a competent intelligentsia (and don't get me wrong, out of all the groups competing for power, the Bolsheviks were the best choice.) The remainder was spent on dragging a backwards peasantry with them.

Now imagine all that self directed working class activity in a country made up of mostly proletarians. Forget about the fire cracker of 1917, think atom bomb.


Ya, Boockchin is divisive but I think he has a good point in regards to the US economy. Were no longer industrial workers it's a service economy and we mostly have no leverage. Marxism is more applicable in Asia- I think the US should look closer at his Libertarian municipalism. He, in my opinion, rightly focuses on hierarchy and the environment. Deconstructing the state apparatus. Is it possible to do without taking over the state apparatus as Marxists seek? Does centralized power corrupt even the most well intentioned people? Will they be willing to let that power go?

I think it's very possible to disassemble the state without first taking it over. We don't need an armed body of men and a host of expert bureaucrats to do highly specialized tasks anymore, people are beginning to be able to do them all on their own.


I knew him personally. One of his tasks on earth seemed to be dissing Marxism whenever he could for its "obsession" with the working class.

Woahh that's cool!

[x359594]

...Can't say I ever read anything by Bookchin, haven't really liked what I've heard of him, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Any reading suggestions?

In my view Bookchin's thinking devolved from his earlier theoretical accounts of anarchism expressed in such books as Post-Scarcity Anarchism and The Ecology of Freedom to the concluding volumes of his The Third Revolution where he contradicted his earlier assessment of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists. Especially in the last 5 years of his life he repudiated many of his earlier positions, and his introduction to the latest edition of Post-Scarcity Anarchism mars a classic book. So I would say the Bookchin of the 1960s to the 1980s is still of value, but after that, read with caution.

[Wolf Larson]

In my view Bookchin's thinking devolved from his earlier theoretical accounts of anarchism expressed in such books as Post-Scarcity Anarchism and The Ecology of Freedom to the concluding volumes of his The Third Revolution where he contradicted his earlier assessment of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists. Especially in the last 5 years of his life he repudiated many of his earlier positions, and his introduction to the latest edition of Post-Scarcity Anarchism mars a classic book. So I would say the Bookchin of the 1960s to the 1980s is still of value, but after that, read with caution.

True.

[Wolf Larson]

There is no doubt the working class in Russia was revolutionary, but the system of wage labor did not permeate all facets of society and as a result the revolutionary energy was just enough to over throw a King and install a competent intelligentsia (and don't get me wrong, out of all the groups competing for power, the Bolsheviks were the best choice.) The remainder was spent on dragging a backwards peasantry with them.

Now imagine all that self directed working class activity in a country made up of mostly proletarians. Forget about the fire cracker of 1917, think atom bomb.



I think it's very possible to disassemble the state without first taking it over. We don't need an armed body of men and a host of expert bureaucrats to do highly specialized tasks anymore, people are beginning to be able to do them all on their own.



Woahh that's cool!

I'm responding to -"I think it's very possible to disassemble the state without first taking it over. We don't need an armed body of men and a host of expert bureaucrats to do highly specialized tasks anymore, people are beginning to be able to do them all on their own." I agree it that may be possible BUT it will take a great deal of class consciousness, a desire for direct democracy/decentralization/localization and effort. Something Americans are lacking.

[Wolf Larson]

Have you seen "The End Of Suburbia"?

[syndicat]

Bookchin was reacting to the situation as it existed in the USA in the decades immediately after World War 2. The emergence of welfare states and concessions from the employers combined with the beginining of the Cold War, and the driving of the radicals out of the unions, had the effect of consolidating the hold of a conservative business union bureaucracy, so there was the disappearance of the radical working class mobilizations of the '30s that Bookchin had pinned his hopes on when he was a young Marxist.

Also, there was a tendency for a number of prominent anarchists in the post-World War 2 years to totally abandon a commitment to the class struggle as the process of social change. This was true also of Colin Ward and Paul Goodman, not just Bookchin. so then they went off in search of some other revolutionary agent...and never found it. Bookchin's proposal that "we should appeal to people as citizens" and try to get involved in local politics went nowhere. it ignores the class cleavages that separate the interests and orientation of different groups of "citizens."

so Bookchin and those other post-World War 2 anarchists were fitting into the tenor of their times. but that is not an argument for us to think that the working class is not an agent of revolution.

Any area where people are oppressed will give rise to struggle and movements, but if we look at, say, various oppressed groups such as gay people, women, black people, most of them are part of the working class. so a reasonable awareness of the multiplicity of oppression should give rise to a more nuanced conception of who the agent of revolution is, because it's not just a question of class oppression & exploitation, but would involve an alliance of oppressed groups who make up the working class. The fact that there are still serious problems of division between white, black and Latino/a workers in the USA should remind us that work is needed here.

So it could be said that an understanding of the nature of the class struggle needs to be more nuanced than it maybe was in the early 20th century, with an awareness of the heterogeneous nature of the class, and the fact that struggles against oppression occur in a variety of sites, against landlords, against government agencies, as well as in workplaces. but workplaces are still quite important because here is where workers have the potential power to shut things down...and restart them on a different basis.

[La Comédie Noire]

Any area where people are oppressed will give rise to struggle and movements, but if we look at, say, various oppressed groups such as gay people, women, black people, most of them are part of the working class. so a reasonable awareness of the multiplicity of oppression should give rise to a more nuanced conception of who the agent of revolution is, because it's not just a question of class oppression & exploitation, but would involve an alliance of oppressed groups who make up the working class. The fact that there are still serious problems of division between white, black and Latino/a workers in the USA should remind us that work is needed here.

I agree 100%. Revolutions are always overwhelmingly social attracting different people for different reasons. It won't just be some narrow, economic struggle.