International Alliance of Socialist Democracy

[Zanthorus]

I'm interested in how Bakunin saw the Alliance as working and it's relations to the International Workingmen's Association. From what I gathered from some of Bakunin's stuff online he saw the IWMA as an alliance for purely economic struggle which would be able to pull in the masses of workers without regard to political differences while the IASD was to be a secret conspiratorial organisation consisting of only a few members that would exercise an "invisible dictatorship" within the IWMA and on the masses during the revolution helping to push it in the right direction behind the scenes.

How similar is this to the whole "dual organisationalism" concept, which from what I gather is pretty similar except without the whole conspiracy thing?

Is this similar to how the CNT-FAI operated?

Would it be correct to say that this is sort of a halfway house between economism and vanguardism?

And lastly are there any historians (Anarchist or otherwise) who dispute that the Alliance still existed when Bakunin and Guillaume were kicked out at the Hague Congress or is it generally accepted that the grounds for expelling them from the international were solid? (Not looking for any Bakunin-Marx debates here. Historical facts only please)

[Zanthorus]

bump

[syndicat]

Bakunin tended to florid and exaggerated language but it seems likely he didn't believe it would exercize any hierarchical, not to mention "dictatorial" control, but informal influence. Mark Leier discusses this in his biography of Bakunin.

the Alliance probably did still exist when Bakunin was thrown out of the IWA or at least the informal network. given that Marxists have advocated vanguard minority organizations, and Marx's comments about the "communists" in the Communist Manifesto is sometimes taken this way, they can't consistently object to the Alliance's role...

sometimes people have attributed to B. the conspiratorial ideas laid out in the "Catechism" but the evidence is this was written by Nachaev, not Bakunin, who repudiated Nechaev. i doubt that Bakunin had much influence on subsequent anarchists in regard to political organization.

among anarchists the role and nature of the political organization evolved slowly over many years. the idea of "dual organizationalism" seems to derive from the Italian anarchists of the World War 1 era, such as the efforts of the UA (Italian Anarchist Union) to toss out the pro-Mussolini leadership of the Italian Syndicalist Union after the leadership followed Mussolini in a nationalist position in 1915. they did this through rank and file organizing. or the role of the Turin Libertarian Group, working with the Italian Socialist Party, in developing the factory council movement in Turin in 1919-20. these are examples of organizing by anarchist political groups in organized mass contexts.

and then there were the Spanish anarachist federations after World War 1, leading to formation of the FAI in 1927.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Something just clicked in my head with regards to contemporary organizations and their own use of "invisible dictatorship."

Some left groups officially maintain a policy of dual organization, with one section carrying out all the legal work and the other carrying out all the extra-legal and illegal work. Would that count as an "invisible dictatorship"?

[Paulappaul]

Is this similar to how the CNT-FAI operated?

The FAI was the CNT's compass, sot speak. It was the theoretical and "vanguard" side of the CNT which was always pushing the latter towards a revolutionary path. You could say that was sort of an "Invisible dictatorship" that Bakunin advocated in that, the FAI was behind the scenes a major influence and leader of the CNT's activity.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'm interested in how Bakunin saw the Alliance as working and it's relations to the International Workingmen's Association. From what I gathered from some of Bakunin's stuff online he saw the IWMA as an alliance for purely economic struggle which would be able to pull in the masses of workers without regard to political differences while the IASD was to be a secret conspiratorial organisation consisting of only a few members that would exercise an "invisible dictatorship" within the IWMA and on the masses during the revolution helping to push it in the right direction behind the scenes.

How similar is this to the whole "dual organisationalism" concept, which from what I gather is pretty similar except without the whole conspiracy thing?

Is this similar to how the CNT-FAI operated?

I don't know if you're familiar with the book Black Flame, but the authors of that book basically say that there wasn't anything different about Bakunin's Alliance that made it any more "conspiratorial" than any Marxist "steering committee" (or vanguard or what have you), and that the FAI was basically the personification of what Bakunin had intended all along: an smaller organization working within a larger mass movement in order for the mass movement to keep on a more libertarian footing. George Woodcock has stated that the FAI was the only time in history when Bakunin's vision actually came to life (although the Black Flame authors dispute this, along with the claim made by some members of Bakunin's Alliance that it was nothing more than a glorified social club).

[syndicat]

in his history of the CNT, Jose Peirats claims the CNT controlled the FAI more than the other way around. The anarchist activists had to appeal to large assemblies to get their ideas & proposals across, and had to have the support of coworkers to be elected as delegates.

the FAI did have sufficient influence within the CNT to get the treintistas and the BOC (Leninists) expelled in 1932.

It would be a mistake, tho, to suppose that the FAI or dual organizationalist anarchists look back to Bakunin for guidance. they don't.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I don't know, it's pretty hard to self-describe as an anarchist and not look back to Bakunin, to some extent. I mean, he basically layed the foundations (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/the-revolutionary-ideas-of-bakunin) for anarchism as a political theory, even though he's not considered much of a "thinker" by much of the left. Black Flame also includes a litany of statements by famous anarchism crediting Bakunin for helping create the ideology of revolutionary syndicalism, from an anarchist standpoint (in the attempt to distance anarchism from Georges Sorel).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Bakunin was credited by Mike Macnair in his critique of syndicalism.

[syndicat]

more of your weird-ass shit. Bakunin was a syndicalist.

[Paulappaul]

what were some of Bakunin's syndicalist work?

[syndicat]

Bakunin was active within the IWMA which was a federation of labor organizations. his supporters in Spain organized the largest section of the IWMA, which was a union federation in Spain. Bakunin said that the working class coming to power would happen in the form of a federation of labor unions taking over control of society.

[Paulappaul]

hate to be a pest, but could you perhaps find a source to that last piece, or Bakunin's work relating to Syndicalism? I hear it alot, just I can never find proof of it.

[Os Cangaceiros]

hate to be a pest, but could you perhaps find a source to that last piece, or Bakunin's work relating to Syndicalism? I hear it alot, just I can never find proof of it.


Moreover, Bakunin stressed that the working class had "but a single path, that of emancipation through practical action which meant "workers' solidarity in their struggle against the bosses" by "trades-unions, organisation, and the federation of resistance funds" (The Basic Bakunin, p. 139 and p. 103)

That was just the result of me lazily typing "Bakunin syndicalism" into Google. There are other references to unions and revolutionairy organization in Bakunin's work, of course.

[Die Neue Zeit]

more of your weird-ass shit. Bakunin was a syndicalist.

Macnair wasn't referring to bomb-throwing insurrectionism at all in his critique. The founding of syndicalism, of One Big Strike, of the (illusory) notion of growing political struggles out of mere labour disputes (Sorel dumped political struggles altogether and had only syndicalism and mere labour disputes), etc. can be attributed to Bakunin.

Transmission:

Bakunin
Sorel
Krichevskii
Pannekoek
Luxemburg
Trotsky
Comintern

[Paulappaul]

The founding of syndicalism, of One Big Strike, of the (illusory) notion of growing political struggles out of mere labour disputes (Sorel dumped political struggles altogether and had only syndicalism and mere labour disputes), etc. can be attributed to Bakunin.You forget to attribute Karl Marx and Daniel De Leon to your list. After all it was those gentlemen, who said that it is the Trade Unions struggle that will give forth to the party of labor.

I don't deny that you can grow an economic struggle out of a political or vis versa. But Macnair's (and I am guessing yours?) thesis is defiantly not in any sense an idea of Classical Marxism (in fact I would guess it's the antithesis) or of the vast majority of Marxists.

But then again, Dogmatic Marxism is shitty.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The alternative to the critique Macnair posed is in line with Orthodox Marxism.


After all it was those gentlemen, who said that it is the Trade Unions struggle that will give forth to the party of labor.

Russian Social Democracy strove to emulate German Social Democracy. The RSDLP was not founded by "trade unions struggle," considering that a lot of union activity was banned by the czar. There was a two-stage debate:

1) In the 1890s against those who argued against the formation of the party and wanted to focus on growing the "trade unions struggle" (narrow economists a la Credo and Rabochaya Mysl)
2) In the early 1900s against those who were for the formation of the party in the earlier debate but who promoted agitation based on the labour stage-ist idea of growing political awareness and struggle out of mere labour disputes (broad economists a la Boris Krichevskii)

[Paulappaul]

Russian Social Democracy strove to emulate German Social Democracy. I wasn't talking about Russian Social Democracy or German Social Democracy, I was talking about Karl marx and Daniel De Leon, two very Classical Marxist thinkers who said quite frankly that the Political Struggle flows from the economic.


The RSDLP was not founded by "trade unions struggle," considering that a lot of union activity was banned by the czarI am interested in seeing RSDLP's members vs. the amount of workers in the 1905 revolution.


Orthodox Marxism.

Orthodox Marxism is the making of a coherent political theory out of Marx and Engels writting. It "irons" out the inconsistencies of classical Marxism and was combined with Second International (Social Democratic) thought.