anarchists that don't call yourself communist [Archive]

bricolage

22nd March 2011, 22:21

Some here are collectivists(as in they don't support gift-economies) so I don't see why they would call themselves communists.
How does collectivism differ from communism?

I also doubt the individualists and egoists would be too keen to call themselves communists. I'm not sure if there are any out-and-out individualist anarchists knocking about here on RevLeft, but they get around elsewhere...
Ah yeah I get this but I refer to anarchists of 'the left'. For example some will say they are socialists but not communists. To me this is just word play and based around the misguided assumption that communism can only ever be what the entities that usurped its name throughout the 20th Century, for example;

Because I do not consider state socialism a viable option and will always lead to forming a political upper class to replace the burgeoisie.

Rafiq

22nd March 2011, 22:30

I'm sure they are all for communism, but prefer calling themselves anarchists, a bit like how many people here call themselves just Socialists, and not communists.

It's just names though.

NoOneIsIllegal

22nd March 2011, 22:30

I thought people who believed in (anarchist) collectivization died out in the 1870-1880s. Or so I was given that assumption when I read stuff by Malatesta, Kropotkin, etc. They seemed to give me the impression (along with those who followed them) that anarcho-communism was preferable and collectivization died alongside Bakunin.

bricolage

22nd March 2011, 22:36

I'm sure they are all for communism, but prefer calling themselves anarchists, a bit like how many people here call themselves just Socialists, and not communists.
Well I meant comments like this;

Most Anarchists (At least.) are not Communists. All Anarchists are Socialists.
What does this actually mean?

Os Cangaceiros

22nd March 2011, 22:45

Well I meant comments like this;

What does this actually mean?

Perhaps he meant that self-described anarchists/socialists like Benjamin Tucker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker) and Joseph Labadie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Labadie) did not identify with the "communist" label?

EDIT: But actually I don't agree at all with the first sentence. The vast majority of self-described anarchists are communists.

gorillafuck

22nd March 2011, 22:47

Benjamin Tucker a socialist, that's pretty laughable....

NoOneIsIllegal

22nd March 2011, 22:49

Well I meant comments like this;

What does this actually mean?
Well, it's NGNM, so... yeah, anyways.... Most anarchists are both socialists and communists. We seek to take control over the means of production (socialism), and to achieve a stateless, classless society (communism). I don't know what kind of anarchist wants to take over industry, but still have classes and a state... :lol:

bricolage

22nd March 2011, 22:49

Perhaps he means that self-described anarchists/socialists like Benjamin Tucker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker) and Joseph Labadie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Labadie) did not identify with the "communist" label?
Bakunin wrote things like this;

It is at this point that a fundamental division arises between the socialists and revolutionary collectivists on the one hand and the authoritarian communists who support the absolute power of the State on the other. Their ultimate aim is identical. Both equally desire to create a new social order based first on the organization of collective labor, inevitably imposed upon each and all by the natural force of events, under conditions equal for all, and second, upon the collective ownership of the tools of production.
The difference is only that the communists imagine they can attain their goal by the development and organization of the political power of the working classes, and chiefly of the proletariat of the cities, aided by bourgeois radicalism. The revolutionary socialists, on the other hand, believe they can succeed only through the development and organization of the nonpolitical or antipolitical social power of the working classes in city and country, including all men of goodwill from the upper classes who break with their past and wish openly to join them and accept their revolutionary program in full.

Os Cangaceiros

22nd March 2011, 22:55

Benjamin Tucker a socialist, that's pretty laughable....

Well, he did self-describe as one, even though he criticized Marx. (Although he spoke positively of Marx upon his death.)

Os Cangaceiros

22nd March 2011, 22:57

Bakunin wrote things like this;

Not sure where you're going with this...

bricolage

22nd March 2011, 23:00

Not sure where you're going with this...
Ah right sorry. He talks about 'socialists and revolutionary collectivists' (good) as opposed to 'authoritarian communists' (bad). It was just another example of an anarchist calling themselves as a socialist as counterposed to communists.

Rafiq

22nd March 2011, 23:03

Well I meant comments like this;

What does this actually mean?

It means we have to toughen up on the Liberals here.

Os Cangaceiros

22nd March 2011, 23:07

Ah right sorry. He talks about 'socialists and revolutionary collectivists' (good) as opposed to 'authoritarian communists' (bad). It was just another example of an anarchist calling themselves as a socialist as counterposed to communists.

Yes, well, he did have an affinity for the "collectivist" title. But I think that there are very few (if any) anarchists who would say today that "no, I'm not a communist, I'm a collectivist." I think that any self-described anarchist today who doesn't identify with the communist label are either mutualists/anarcho-capitalists/neo-utopian socialists or Stirnerian egoists/philosophical anarchists.

PhoenixAsh

22nd March 2011, 23:10

Ah right sorry. He talks about 'socialists and revolutionary collectivists' (good) as opposed to 'authoritarian communists' (bad). It was just another example of an anarchist calling themselves as a socialist as counterposed to communists.

Yes...because communism was defined by Marxism at that time. And Marx advocated state socialism (oa. dictatorship of the proletariat).

There are offcourse other differences.

gorillafuck

22nd March 2011, 23:17

Well, he did self-describe as one, even though he criticized Marx. (Although he spoke positively of Marx upon his death.)Benjamin Tucker was a laissez-faire capitalist.

NoOneIsIllegal

22nd March 2011, 23:39

Ah right sorry. He talks about 'socialists and revolutionary collectivists' (good) as opposed to 'authoritarian communists' (bad). It was just another example of an anarchist calling themselves as a socialist as counterposed to communists.
Once Bakunin died, that all died. The Italian socialist scene (which was completely anarchist in the 19th century until the 1890s) began to redefine itself. Characters like Malatesta, Cafiero, and Costa (later defected) began to embrace and shape early definitions of Anarchist-Communism, years before Kropotkin. I think the Italians were some of the first to realize "communism" wasn't necessarily authoritarian dictatorship that they (along with Bakunin) had thought it was. They knew anarchists and Marxists had the same goal in mind, just different tactics, strategy, etc. They ditched anarchist-collectivization back in the 1870s or 1880s.

Os Cangaceiros

23rd March 2011, 00:49

Benjamin Tucker was a laissez-faire capitalist.

Dude, I know all about Benjamin Tucker and the "American individualist" school. They were the first anarchists that I was really familiar with, actually. You don't have to tell me what they were or believed, because I already know. :I

The point was that he self-described as a socialist.

black magick hustla

23rd March 2011, 00:50

i always thought anarchists afraid of the word communists were either american boneheaded vegan weirdos that post in anarchistnews.org that are unable to use their brains or like right wing libertarians.

black magick hustla

23rd March 2011, 00:59

i didnt say all vegans are weirdos btw.

NGNM85

23rd March 2011, 03:23

Well I meant comments like this;

What does this actually mean?

Well, it means what it says. All Anarchists and Communists are Socialists, however, most Anarchists, myself included, are not Communists.

NGNM85

23rd March 2011, 03:25

Well, it's NGNM, so...

What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

RadioRaheem84

23rd March 2011, 04:16

Well, it means what it says. All Anarchists and Communists are Socialists, however, most Anarchists, myself included, are not Communists.

How can you not be a communist? Communism is a state-less society.

Do you even know what you're talking about?

What do you think communism means?

The Man

23rd March 2011, 04:19

Well, it means what it says. All Anarchists and Communists are Socialists, however, most Anarchists, myself included, are not Communists.

Your an Anarcho-Collectivist or something?

Agent Ducky

23rd March 2011, 04:20

Maybe the anarchists who don't call themselves communist are more focused on the stateless part than the classless part? I'm not really sure O_o. I don't understand sectarianism.

The Garbage Disposal Unit

23rd March 2011, 04:27

All anarchists are communists. Any anarchist that calls themselves a socialist is probably a Chomsky-reading liberal poser who is in love with enlightenment liberal ideals, the shitty pseudo-anarchism of the 90s, and . . . isn't an anarchist in any useful way.

YEAH, I'M PICKING THIS FIGHT.

Summerspeaker

23rd March 2011, 04:33

While I happily call myself a communist, Voltairine de Cleyre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltairine_de_Cleyre) stands out as an example of an anarchist who eschewed the term.

dernier combat

23rd March 2011, 04:39

Well, it means what it says. All Anarchists and Communists are Socialists, however, most Anarchists, myself included, are not Communists.
Then what is a communist, in your words? I don't suppose it could be anything other than anyone who advocates for a stateless, classless society. That is, not unless you're going to be a technical knobhead about the "big C".

Agnapostate

23rd March 2011, 04:44

IIRC, syndicat has written somewhere that "anarcho-collectivism/collectivist anarchism" is essentially nonexistent or nonsensical. Participatory economics seems completely compatible with "anarchist collectivism" to me, though.

Benjamin Tucker was a laissez-faire capitalist.

There are no "laissez-faire capitalists." Since laissez-faire capitalism has never existed, neither have laissez-faire capitalists. Benjamin Tucker may have been a capitalist, but being a capitalist does not actually restrict an individual from being a socialist (and he was a market socialist), since "capitalist" is a class/labor status and "socialist" is a political affiliation. Anyone above a petty-bourgeois capitalist, however, as in someone who is living it up on exorbitant wealth while employing wage labor, is a hypocrite if identifying as a "socialist."

syndicat

23rd March 2011, 07:22

communism is certainly older than Marx, going back to people like Babeuf (an authoritarian state communist) and Cabet.

part of the problem with the question is that both "anarchism" and "communism" are not well defined.

I have two problems with the word "communism":

1. the contemporary meaning of a word depends on its mass usage. you don't get to run your own language. and in the USA, at any rate, "communism" refers to what existed in the USSR and the other "Communist" countries and the politics of the Communist Parties and their various offshoots, that is, Marxist-Leninist politices. if you run around trying to use the c-word in the older 19th century sense you're just asking to be misunderstood.

trying to revive the older 19th century meaning strikes me as hopeless and has a cultish quality about it. why can't you describe what you're for without using that word?

2. I don't think "anarchist-communism" has a clear meaning. what is it exactly?

I could try to answer my own question. It seems to clearly presuppose certain things:

a. The system of social production is not based on domination and exploitation of the immediate producers, that is, the working class. There is no division into separate classes.

b. The means of production are owned in common by the entire society. But this requires further clarification to be meaningful. What, after all, does "ownership" mean here?

c. An essential feature of any form of libertarian socialism is self-management, that is, control over the decisions that affect you. In particular, workers having the complete power to self-manage the workplaces and industries where they work. (BUT i think there have been some anarcho-communists who didn't agree with this, such as Bookchin.)

d. But workers don't manage the workplaces as if they were their private property. They don't make things to sell them in markets and then try to accrue an excess of revenue over expenses, that is, a profit. To put this another way, the remuneration, or means of attaining consumption, isn't based on market value of their work.

e. But part of what it means for the instruments of production to be social property is that the workers have to be accontable in some way to the rest of society in what they do with the socially owned means of production.

f. There is at least a significant sphere of social production, larger than under capitalism, where social production provides things thru systems of social provision where the access isn't dependent on your work, but are free provision of public goods, such as health care, education, and other things as determined by the society.

g. the system of social governance is based on social self-management, that is, there isn't a state hierarchy, but some system of direct common governance rooted in direct democracy, just as workers self-management of the workplaces is also rooted in direct democracy. this is presupposed by point f. since social provision of collective goods presupposes a way for the community to discuss and plan what it wants to have produced for its collective consumption.

To summarize, then, i would define a minimal version of libertarian communism as including these things:

1. land and means of production owned in common by everyone

2. worker self-management and self-management general throughout society, and elimination of the class system, that is, the immediate producers are no longer a subordinated and exploited class

3. elimination of the state, a hierarchical apparatus separated from popular control, and its replacement by a system of direct social governance rooted in direct democracy

4. roughly equal access to the means to develop ones potential, eliminating structural inequalities along such lines as gender and ethnicity

5. production for use or direct benefit, not for sale on markets

6. a generous system of social provision of needs, such as health care, child care, housing, education, where the scope of this free provision of public or social goods might vary in scope between regions. those who advocate "free sharing" in regard to all products are taking this to its fullest extent but this is not part of the definition of MINIMAL libertarian communism.

Savage

23rd March 2011, 07:34

And Marx advocated state socialism (oa. dictatorship of the proletariat).
No he didn't. The later precedes the former (which is stateless) in Marx's theory.

Amphictyonis

23rd March 2011, 12:49

Well I meant comments like this;

What does this actually mean?

It meas NGNM should be banished to the den of iniquity so she/he can figure out the difference between up and down. Anarchism has always been a reaction to Marxism. A reaction to the use of the state to achieve collectivization of industry. The 'individualists' can be considered anarchists so long as they don't advocate private property, wage slavery, rent and interest. The thing is, the so called "anarcho" capitalists have used the individualists in such a way as to excuse private ownership of the means of production, rent, wage slavery and interest...it's all bunkum. They don't understand Tucker, Spooner or Strirner but try to claim them non the less. The individualists are a small almost meaningless footnote to the overall anarchist ideology. They might be considered socialists only in the sense that they (at one time at least) were against private property.

Real actual anarchism arose between the conflict between Marx and Bakunin. The term had been thrown about beforehand by Proudhon and such but I would argue Proudhon wasn't even an anarchist. In my opinion the proper 'liniage' statrs with Bakunin and must be centered around collective ownership of industry. This isn't to say actual 'individualist' anarchists couldn't exist in an advanced anarchist/communist society- they would have to survive by their own two hands in accordance with nature without exploiting wage slaves,without trying to facilitate rent and without trying to claim vast amounts of land/resources as their own.

PhoenixAsh

23rd March 2011, 13:33

No he didn't. The later precedes the former (which is stateless) in Marx's theory.

Yes he did. Are you arguing he advocated the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transition phase?

welll....thats what anarchists are primarilly opposed to. The fact that you need a dictatorship always leads to the creation of a new upper class.

THat it is supposed to be a transition phase is irrelevant...because it will never evolve beyond the transition phase. History has at least shown that and vindicated this position.

PhoenixAsh

23rd March 2011, 13:40

It meas NGNM should be banished to the den of iniquity so she/he can figure out the difference between up and down. Anarchism has always been a reaction to Marxism.

I do not see any reason why this essentially differs from wehat MGM stated.

And anarchism most definately is NOT a reaction to Marxism. It is INFLUENCED by Marxism.

A reaction to the use of the state to achieve collectivization of industry. The 'individualists' can be considered anarchists so long as they don't advocate private property, wage slavery, rent and interest. The thing is, the so called "anarcho" capitalists have used the individualists in such a way as to excuse private ownership of the means of production, rent, wage slavery and interest...it's all bunkum. They don't understand Tucker, Spooner or Strirner but try to claim them non the less. The individualists are a small almost meaningless footnote to the overall anarchist ideology. They might be considered socialists only in the sense that they (at one time at least) were against private property.

Real actual anarchism arose between the conflict between Marx and Bakunin. The term had been thrown about beforehand by Proudhon and such but I would argue Proudhon wasn't even an anarchist. In my opinion the proper 'liniage' statrs with Bakunin and must be centered around collective ownership of industry. This isn't to say actual 'individualist' anarchists couldn't exist in an advanced anarchist/communist society- they would have to survive by their own two hands in accordance with nature without exploiting wage slaves,without trying to facilitate rent and without trying to claim vast amounts of land/resources as their own.

Yeah....the conlfict between Marx and Bakunin arose around the essential differences of opinion they had. Not vice versa. You are effectively arguing that personal dislike changed both their theories....

human strike

23rd March 2011, 13:50

I'm all for abandoning this word 'socialism' btw, I think it's pretty shit. Anybody with me?

RadioRaheem84

23rd March 2011, 15:41

Yes he did. Are you arguing he advocated the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transition phase?

welll....thats what anarchists are primarilly opposed to. The fact that you need a dictatorship always leads to the creation of a new upper class.

It doesn't mean a real dictatorship. Dictatorship, in this sense, means the guidance of the proletariat, the direction of the proletariat, a state ruled by the people instead of the bourgeoisie. This is in contrast to the former state which was a capitalist state under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

I do not see any reason why this essentially differs from wehat MGM stated.

NGNs notion of what Marxism entails is very, very poor. He once called the United States a corporate communist country. My guess is his he thinks of "communism" as simply meaning totalitarian.

And anarchism most definately is NOT a reaction to Marxism. It is INFLUENCED by Marxism.

Of course it is, but NGN thinks that Marxism is this super authoritarian ideology that had no bearing on Anarchism what so ever, and that the crux of Anarchist thought comes straight or all from classical liberal thinkers.

If anything I would say that Anarchism was also a reaction to classical liberalism as well as being influenced by Marxism.

The Douche

23rd March 2011, 15:49

Amphictyonis

23rd March 2011, 15:52

And anarchism most definately is NOT a reaction to Marxism. It is INFLUENCED by Marxism.

I meant reaction to Marxism so far as the use of the state. If it weren't for Marxism Anarchism as we know it wouldn't exist. It would look more like Proudhon's Mutualism. Anarchism arose as a reaction to Marxism in that sense. The theory is basically the same but the conflict or 'reaction' was concerning the pathway to communism.

Os Cangaceiros

23rd March 2011, 16:02

RadioRaheem84

23rd March 2011, 16:08

I don't think that anarchism is a reaction to Marxism. I think that over time it began to define itself largely through it's criticism of Marxism, though.

It's kind of like the gadfly of the far left.

Is it really all that critical of all aspects of Marxism, though?

Both tendencies tend to agree on the critique of capitalism. I remember one Anarchist telling me that he thought Marx's Critique of capitalism to be great.

The split falls with implementing socialism, i.e. the transition period.

Amphictyonis

23rd March 2011, 16:09

define itself largely through it's criticism of Marxism, though.

This is what I'm saying but the criticisms are largely only concerning the path to communism not the general critique of capitalism. Anarchists who say they aren't communists are silly and a fringe minority.

Os Cangaceiros

23rd March 2011, 16:15

Is it really all that critical of all aspects of Marxism, though?

Both tendencies tend to agree on the critique of capitalism. I remember one Anarchist telling me that he thought Marx's Critique of capitalism to be great.

The split falls with implementing socialism, i.e. the transition period.

Anarchists have certainly heavily criticized Marxism in the past. Whether those critiques were of any real substantial nature when looked at in relation to what historically anarchism manifested itself as praxis, both in small examples such as anarchist endorsements of class terror and large examples such as anarchist conduct during the Spanish Civil War, is another story.

Is anarchism critical of ALL aspects of Marxism? No, of course not. Bakunin admired Capital a great deal, after all.

Dimmu

23rd March 2011, 16:19

IMHO most Anarchists are socialists AND communists.

Communism has gotten a different meaning over the years as result of Soviet Union misusing this term and US who exploited this to give communism a bad name.

A question to the anarchists. Are you against stateless and classless society? Because thats communism.

jbaez

23rd March 2011, 16:37

I am an anarchist as well as a communist, because I am against a stateless and classless society, as Dimmu pointed out above. My interpretation of Marx follows that there is no need for the use of the "state" in it's modern sense.

Savage

23rd March 2011, 22:03

Yes he did. Are you arguing he advocated the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transition phase?

welll....thats what anarchists are primarilly opposed to. The fact that you need a dictatorship always leads to the creation of a new upper class.

THat it is supposed to be a transition phase is irrelevant...because it will never evolve beyond the transition phase. History has at least shown that and vindicated this position.
There has to be a transition phase not because society won't be ready for communism yet or some bullshit like that, but because to 'abolish' capital instantly is ludicrously impossible. In order to do this, the proletariat, who have been alienated from and subjugated to capital must in turn subjugate it to their own rule over society. Through Marxist analysis, any class society is a dictatorship, indeed, an anarchistic, self-management situation would most likely be a proletarian dictatorship (I say most likely because it's possible it would still be a bourgeois dictatorship). History has not refuted the dicatorship of the proletariat because the dictatorship of the proletariat has only ever existed sporadically, If you think that the DOTP was Russia post 1919, Maoist China, Cuba, North Korea or any of these other bourgeois regimes then you need to read more.

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 01:50

RadioRaheem84

24th March 2011, 02:10

Bakunins analysis was that the Marx proposal for this transitional phase would be to maintain the sate indefinately.

Wait, do you mean that the Marxist proposal for a transitional phase would lead to the maintenance of an indefinite state or that Marxists actually advocate for a permanent state?
I think your beef is largely with the Marxist-Leninist approach to the vanguard and dealing with the realities of imperial onslaught and counter revolution. Something that many Marxists already have a problem with and even MLs care to revise.

It doesn't have much to do with communism; the stateless society Marxists hope to achieve.

...the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transitional phase and the way its expressed.

Again, the dictatorship of the proletariat isn't actually a dictatorship. How do you keep missing this? It just means that the state will be guided by the working class to eventually dissolve capitalism and the state. Again, your beef is with the transitional phase and it's implementation and method, not the dictatorship of the proles.

An anarchist collective could be seen as running under the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.

Savage

24th March 2011, 03:42

We are not debating viability here. We are debating why anarchists do not call themselves communists.

The origins of the conflict is, for a large part, the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transitional phase and the way its expressed. The Marxian view was a transitional STATE...Anarchists do not do states. Bakunins analysis was that the Marx proposal for this transitional phase would be to maintain the sate indefinately. And as such he has been proven right.
The Marxian concept of the state applies to the practical application of workers control in a revolutionary society, in our eyes, 'Anarchists do states'. Bakunins presumption about the DOTP would only be valid if post 1919 Russia conformed to the Marxian concept of the DOTP; it did not. Anyway, my main point is this, there is much less of a dichotomy between Marxism (I am speaking from a left communist position) and Anarchism than what you and a lot of others think. Most differences are theoretical, such as the concept of the state, class and capitalism, but these do not cause large practical barriers to solidarity.

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 04:49

Wait, do you mean that the Marxist proposal for a transitional phase would lead to the maintenance of an indefinite state or that Marxists actually advocate for a permanent state?
I think your beef is largely with the Marxist-Leninist approach to the vanguard and dealing with the realities of imperial onslaught and counter revolution. Something that many Marxists already have a problem with and even MLs care to revise.

It doesn't have much to do with communism; the stateless society Marxists hope to achieve.

It leads to it. Marx advocates a coercive apparatus for the proletariat (which he limited to the workers.) to defend the revolution. This creates a state to govern the transition phase. In order to govern it needs something to govern. Creating another submissive class and dominant class. The dominant class will not relinguish its power....never happens, never going to happen.

Again, the dictatorship of the proletariat isn't actually a dictatorship. How do you keep missing this? It just means that the state will be guided by the working class to eventually dissolve capitalism and the state. Again, your beef is with the transitional phase and it's implementation and method, not the dictatorship of the proles.

An anarchist collective could be seen as running under the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.

yeah...that is exactly what I said before. There is not going to be a transition. You seem to be under the impression that if anybody has a beef with the DOTP it must be because misunderstanding of terminology. But its the fact that it requires a state which is the problem.

There is not going to be a dissolving of the state. Power accumulated has a tendency to keep accumulating and will in fact gain its own momentum. we have seen this in every socialist or communist revolution.

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 04:52

The Marxian concept of the state applies to the practical application of workers control in a revolutionary society, in our eyes, 'Anarchists do states'. Bakunins presumption about the DOTP would only be valid if post 1919 Russia conformed to the Marxian concept of the DOTP; it did not. Anyway, my main point is this, there is much less of a dichotomy between Marxism (I am speaking from a left communist position) and Anarchism than what you and a lot of others think. Most differences are theoretical, such as the concept of the state, class and capitalism, but these do not cause large practical barriers to solidarity.

No...there may not be practical barriers in theory. Unfortunately in practice mostly the anarchists get murdered during a transition phase.

Tim Finnegan

24th March 2011, 05:00

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 05:03

So you're suggesting that the workers are incapable of constructing and managing this apparatus independently and democratically? :confused: It doesn't sound like you have a very optimistic outlook on the capabilities of the working class.

O...I am quite sure the workers can manage perfectly fine...its the peasants, lumpen and other groups Marx did not see as proletariat within the purpose of the revolution....nor the revolutionary petit-burgeoisie....for that matter....I worry about.

Tim Finnegan

24th March 2011, 05:11

O...I am quite sure the workers can manage perfectly fine...its the peasants, lumpen and other groups Marx did not see as proletariat within the purpose of the revolution....nor the revolutionary petit-burgeoisie....for that matter....I worry about.
Those classes are defined by their role within capitalism, roles which no longer exist. They would, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, become proletarians simply by default. Only if they actively choose to engage in counter-revolution, that is to say, insist on attempting to retain private property would they set themselves apart from the proletariat, and, if that is the case, then why would anarchists concern themselves any more with their than Marxists?

(And when I say "retain private property", I mean as an institution, not necessarily as a given physical quantity.)

RadioRaheem84

24th March 2011, 05:17

It leads to it. Marx advocates a coercive apparatus for the proletariat (which he limited to the workers.) to defend the revolution. This creates a state to govern the transition phase. In order to govern it needs something to govern. Creating another submissive class and dominant class. The dominant class will not relinguish its power....never happens, never going to happen.

You many have your opinions of Marxism, but again, your beef is with the transitional stage that Marxist-Leninists chose really. Marx and Engels did not go too deep into the whole DOTP and simply used the Paris Commune as an example of a transitional stage to Communism.

You're too fixated on the ML states. Have you ever read anything about the DOTP from Marx and Engels themselves?

yeah...that is exactly what I said before. There is not going to be a transition. You seem to be under the impression that if anybody has a beef with the DOTP it must be because misunderstanding of terminology. But its the fact that it requires a state which is the problem.

Again, are we talking about what Marx actually advocated or what Marxist Leninists advocated?

There is not going to be a dissolving of the state. Power accumulated has a tendency to keep accumulating and will in fact gain its own momentum. we have seen this in every socialist or communist revolution.

Not a very materialist thing to say. The whole concept of power corrupts absolutely is absurd. There is no intoxicating power aroma that people seep into their lungs that somehow compels them to maintain in office indefinitely. There are real material conditions that keep people in power.

“Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”; to avoid bourgeois political corruption, “the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts — administrative, judicial, and educational — by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And, in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates [and] to representative bodies, which were also added in profusion”; moreover noting that the State is “at best, an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the State on the scrap-heap”

- Frederick Engels, The Civil War in France

The Commune was formed of the municipal councilors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible, and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally workers, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive, and legislative at the same time.

Karl Marx

Savage

24th March 2011, 05:19

[/I]It leads to it. Marx advocates a coercive apparatus for the proletariat (which he limited to the workers.) to defend the revolution. This creates a state to govern the transition phase. In order to govern it needs something to govern. Creating another submissive class and dominant class. The dominant class will not relinguish its power....never happens, never going to happen.
A Marxist class analysis of capitalism realizes that only two things are possible, a reactionary bourgeois dictatorship or a proletarian dictatorship which leads to the dismantling of capital on a world scale. A Marxist analysis of the state is that any class society is a state, therefore from a Marxist perspective, workers exercising their control over society is a dictatorship as well as obviously being a state, but the point is that Anarchists support this as well.

You seem to be under the impression that if anybody has a beef with the DOTP it must be because misunderstanding of terminology. But its the fact that it requires a state which is the problem.As does workers self management, something that is only applicable to capitalism which is only applicable to a state society.

There is not going to be a dissolving of the state. Power accumulated has a tendency to keep accumulating and will in fact gain its own momentum. we have seen this in every socialist or communist revolution.There has only really been one revolutionary situation in the history of capitalism, and it didn't fail because of the DOTP.

No...there may not be practical barriers in theory. Unfortunately in practice mostly the anarchists get murdered during a transition phase.
You obviously don't understand what Left Communism is, an inherent set back of this is that you don't realize that Anarchism and Left Communism are not mutually anti-thetical have a history of solidarity. Start with Wikipedia then ask for help if you need any.

O...I am quite sure the workers can manage perfectly fine...its the peasants, lumpen and other groups Marx did not see as proletariat within the purpose of the revolution....nor the revolutionary petit-burgeoisie....for that matter....I worry about.
Marxism-Leninism (which is the real thing you're criticizing) advocates class collaboration with all of these groups, but I really have no idea why you worry about this, feudalism doesn't exist any more bro.

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 05:20

Those classes are defined by their role within capitalism, roles which no longer exist. They would, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, become proletarians simply by default. Only if they actively choose to engage in counter-revolution, that is to say, insist on attempting to retain private property would they set themselves apart from the proletariat, and, if that is the case, then why would anarchists concern themselves any more with their than Marxists?

(And when I say "retain private property", I mean as an institution, not necessarily as a given physical quantity.)

Because thet is not the case. Marx saw only the proletariat as the true spearheads and executors of the revolution and hence the DOTP. Peasants and Lumpen and most definately revolutionary petit-burgeoisie....did not feature into his idea of the transition and the revolution other than disappearing.

RadioRaheem84

24th March 2011, 05:24

Because thet is not the case. Marx saw only the proletariat as the true spearheads and executors of the revolution and hence the DOTP. Peasants and Lumpen and most definately revolutionary petit-burgeoisie....did not feature into his idea of the transition and the revolution other than disappearing.

Could you please quote Marx because you seem to be putting a lot of words into his mouth?

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 05:28

Could you please quote Marx because you seem to be putting a lot of words into his mouth?

You mean you are not famikliar with Marxes view on the proletariat and the Lumpen and peasants?

RadioRaheem84

24th March 2011, 05:29

You mean you are not famikliar with Marxes view on the proletariat and the Lumpen and peasants?

I meant your view about DOTP and the transition phase.

Tim Finnegan

24th March 2011, 05:30

Because thet is not the case. Marx saw only the proletariat as the true spearheads and executors of the revolution and hence the DOTP. Peasants and Lumpen and most definately revolutionary petit-burgeoisie....did not feature into his idea of the transition and the revolution other than disappearing.
Yes, disappearing as classes, not as individuals. Why, do anarchists have a different plan? Or are you going to retain just enough of capitalism to avoid knocking those classes out of their rhythm? :confused:

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 05:32

Yes, disappearing as classes, not as individuals. Why, do anarchists have a different plan? Or are you going to retain just enough of capitalism to avoid knocking those classes out of their rhythm? :confused:

And not participating in the dotr. Mostly there is the problem right there.

Because do not think these groups will maintain capitalism.

Savage

24th March 2011, 05:37

And not participating in the dotr. Mostly there is the problem right there.

Because do not think these groups will maintain capitalism.
I gave you a lengthy reply before>I'm still waiting :rolleyes:

Tim Finnegan

24th March 2011, 05:51

And not participating in the dotr. Mostly there is the problem right there.
Why wouldn't they participate in the DotP? If they become proletarians, what's to stop them? And if they refuse to, then why would you care what they want? :confused:

dernier combat

24th March 2011, 06:49

The split falls with implementing socialism, i.e. the transition period.
Though, upon reading cmoney's post, it should be evident that all anarchists worth their salt are supporters of the DoTP.

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 11:53

You many have your opinions of Marxism, but again, your beef is with the transitional stage that Marxist-Leninists chose really. Marx and Engels did not go too deep into the whole DOTP and simply used the Paris Commune as an example of a transitional stage to Communism.

The difference of opinion on the transitionary state is the main reason for the distinction. Nobody is denying that communists do not have the same ultimate goal as Anarchists....but the methods which are proposed to get passed this state differ and how the DOTP should be established.

The methods proposed by Marxists in the eyes of many Anarchists, and most notably Bakunin, will lead to centralization, conscription and repression by creating a revolutionaty upper class. It is in fact the criticism by Marx of the Paris Commune which leads to that logical conclusion.

Lenin took the next logical step...and that was exactly what Bakunin was arguing against.

Now...that dispute is the reason why anarchists don't call themselves communists. Others may have other reasons. Now that does not argue against cooperation...it argues that there are differences which are distinct enough to seperate terminology.

You're too fixated on the ML states. Have you ever read anything about the DOTP from Marx and Engels themselves? Again, are we talking about what Marx actually advocated or what Marxist Leninists advocated?

Not a very materialist thing to say. The whole concept of power corrupts absolutely is absurd. There is no intoxicating power aroma that people seep into their lungs that somehow compels them to maintain in office indefinitely. There are real material conditions that keep people in power.

Yes...and that is another point of difference between Anarchists and Marxists...or at least...a point of disagreement between Bakunin and Marx: the role of nature and human behaviour.

However in no way does what you say negate what I just said. Power accumulates and that also means in a materialist sense.

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 12:06

A Marxist class analysis of capitalism realizes that only two things are possible, a reactionary bourgeois dictatorship or a proletarian dictatorship which leads to the dismantling of capital on a world scale. A Marxist analysis of the state is that any class society is a state, therefore from a Marxist perspective, workers exercising their control over society is a dictatorship as well as obviously being a state, but the point is that Anarchists support this as well.

Bakunin argued, and I partially agree, that the states creates the classes. destroying the state solves the problem.

As does workers self management, something that is only applicable to capitalism which is only applicable to a state society.

There has only really been one revolutionary situation in the history of capitalism, and it didn't fail because of the DOTP.

Really? One...revolutionary situation?

You obviously don't understand what Left Communism is, an inherent set back of this is that you don't realize that Anarchism and Left Communism are not mutually anti-thetical have a history of solidarity. Start with Wikipedia then ask for help if you need any.

I pretty much realize what left-communism is....have you realized that left-communists do not call theselves communists either...but seem to want and feel the need to use a prefix??? Somehow distinguishing themselves form communism in general?

Now...why don't you guys call yourself Anarchists?

Marxism-Leninism (which is the real thing you're criticizing) advocates class collaboration with all of these groups, but I really have no idea why you worry about this, feudalism doesn't exist any more bro.

Savage

24th March 2011, 12:52

Bakunin argued, and I partially agree, that the states creates the classes. destroying the state solves the problem.
To abolish classes we must abolish capital, not exactly an easy thing to do.

Really? One...revolutionary situation?
By which I specifically meant a situation in which the international, worldwide victory of labor over capital was beginning to be realized.

I pretty much realize what left-communism is....have you realized that left-communists do not call theselves communists either...but seem to want and feel the need to use a prefix???
First of all, I identify as a Left-Communist, and we most certainly do call ourselves Communist, you are getting confused between 'leftist' and 'communist'. By the way, in the context that you're expressing, the word 'communist' is a suffix.

Somehow distinguishing themselves form communism in general?
We distinguish ourselves from Bourgeois, pseudo-communist parties and factions.

Now...why don't you guys call yourself Anarchists?
Because we are Marxists.

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 19:45

To abolish classes we must abolish capital, not exactly an easy thing to do.

Bakunin's idea was that class is caused by state...

By which I specifically meant a situation in which the international, worldwide victory of labor over capital was beginning to be realized.

aha...in that case I do not think there has been one

First of all, I identify as a Left-Communist, and we most certainly do call ourselves Communist, you are getting confused between 'leftist' and 'communist'. By the way, in the context that you're expressing, the word 'communist' is a suffix. We distinguish ourselves from Bourgeois, pseudo-communist parties and factions.

Yes...you do not distinguish yourself as a communist. You distinguish yourself as a left (=prefix) communist. And stating that the word communist is encompassing a whole range of true and pseudo groups who have adopted the name from which you clearly want to distinguish yourselves.

Because we are Marxists.

Yes...and not all Anarchists are Marxists...but value Marx for his opinion. Hence we do not identify as communists. Though some say they are Anarcho-Communists (of which I am one...on occasion...more or less)...that still means they are Anarchists first Communist second and feel a need to distinguish themselves from something they do not totally agree with.

bricolage

24th March 2011, 20:01

Anarchists first Communist second and feel a need to distinguish themselves from something they do not totally agree with.
I think it's more the other way around, anarchism as a praxis to attain communism. Hence communist first anarchist second.

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 20:05

I think it's more the other way around, anarchism as a praxis to attain communism. Hence communist first anarchist second.

Commie-anarchist?? :D

Ok...I think we can safely assume there is an incredibly amount of overlap between left-communists and most anarchists.

The Douche

24th March 2011, 20:09

Bakunin's idea was that class is caused by state...

I don't remember this, but then again, I never cared much for Bakunin, mostly because he was extremely authoritarian, far more than Marx. Either way, this is clearly wrong, the state exists to protect classes, it doesn't create them, maybe with an exception of a "beauracratic class", but they would also be "petite-bourgeoisie".

Apoi_Viitor

24th March 2011, 20:12

Either way, this is clearly wrong, the state exists to protect classes, it doesn't create them, maybe with an exception of a "beauracratic class", but they would also be "petite-bourgeoisie".

Bureaucrats have different class interests than the petite-bourgeios.

nuisance

24th March 2011, 20:19

Shit word innit.

The Douche

24th March 2011, 21:02

Bureaucrats have different class interests than the petite-bourgeios.

The petit-bouegeoisie usually includes "professionals" and bereacrats. But yeah, I would say that a small business owner and a cabinet member have different class interests, but the idea of a bureaucratic class is kind of a grey area, I mean, a government minister has different class interests from an auditor in the IRS, you know what I mean? But they're both bureaucrats.

Savage

24th March 2011, 23:36

Ok...I think we can safely assume there is an incredibly amount of overlap between left-communists and most anarchists.
This was my main point all along.

Dimmu

24th March 2011, 23:44

PhoenixAsh

24th March 2011, 23:51

I don't remember this, but then again, I never cared much for Bakunin, mostly because he was extremely authoritarian, far more than Marx. Either way, this is clearly wrong, the state exists to protect classes, it doesn't create them, maybe with an exception of a "beauracratic class", but they would also be "petite-bourgeoisie".

Its one of his underlying arguements which he uses to argue in favor of bypassing the transition phase and moving to a stateless and classless society.

I have read up on it and essentially the dispute between Marx and Bakunin is expressed through arguments which are based on a fundamental misinterpretation of their respective specific terms used and not so much on factual equal arguments and counter arguments.

There are some other factors besides the role of the state and the DOTP. but basically both were arguing past each other.

This was my main point all along.
To be fair: the question was why do anarchists not call themselves communists. Not...why do anarchists not call themselves left-communists.

Left-communists seem to want to use a prefix. They do this to distinguish themselves from other communists.

syndicat

24th March 2011, 23:54

Those classes are defined by their role within capitalism, roles which no longer exist. They would, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, become proletarians simply by default.

this statement is self-inconsistent. if all the classes are "defined by their role in capitalism" then the proletarian class also ceases to exist as such when capitalism ceases.

Marx used "dictatorship" to refer to states. a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is thus a state. some Marxists say this is a temporary, emergency situation of direct party power. that would be very likely to lead to a continuous hierarchy of power, that is, to a state.

a state is a hierarchical power structure, separate from the directly democratic decision-making power of the masses, and not really controllable by them.

now, if libertarian socialists propose some form of popular power, such as a workers congress of delegates from the worker mass assemblies and its elected defense committee, a democratic militia controlled by these worker bodies, then no doubt some Marxists will say "this is a dictatorship of the proletariat" or "workers state" (which means the same thing).

but anarchists/libertarian socialists should not accept this. that's because the DOTP/"workers state" formula has too much baggage, and is too often interpreted to allow for a hierarchcal, top-down type of structure. for example, to those Marxists who say there is no real difference, I will ask, Was the Council of People's Commissars and its apparatus in Russia in 1918 a "dictatorship of the proletariat"? If you say "Yes" right there you have a problem because that structure is not acceptable to libertarian socialists/anarchists. that was a structure which the workers of Russia had no way to control.

another aspect of this is that Marxists who talk about a "dictatorship of the proletariat" also talk about continued existence of class divisions, they talk about "workers not being ready" to take over management of industry, and so on. for them this is part of their idea of the "transition." but that's an idea of the transition that will almost inevitably lead to a new bureaucratic boss class being in control.

part of the problem here is that Marxists most often interpret "worker power" in a very Orwellian way, to mean power of a single party that is supposed to be a "workers party." but that's not actual power in the hands of the masses.

Savage

25th March 2011, 00:17

this statement is self-inconsistent. if all the classes are "defined by their role in capitalism" then the proletarian class also ceases to exist as such when capitalism ceases.
Yes, but capitalism does not cease to exist under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Marx used "dictatorship" to refer to states. a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is thus a state. some Marxists say this is a temporary, emergency situation of direct party power. that would be very likely to lead to a continuous hierarchy of power, that is, to a state.The DOTP is a state because any class society is a state, any society, even one where workers self-management is evident, is a state (from a Marxist perspective) as long as class continues to exist.

"this is a dictatorship of the proletariat" or "workers state" (which means the same thing). This is not the same thing, Marx never used 'socialism' as a label for a society in which capital continues to exist.

As long as the proletariat influences it's control over society (which is obviously still capitalist), the DOTP exists. You should not distance yourselves from communists (such as myself) who realize class interest in Anarchism and wish to be in solidarity. If you don't wish to use the term 'DOTP' then don't, but also make sure petty terminology doesn't stand in the way of productive action with communists who's practical approach to revolution and revolutionary society is not much difference from yours. After all, If popular usage of terminology really does have such a despotic control over your actions you could hardly call yourself an anarchist, for this would mean someone with a fetish for explosives, advocating general disruption of society.

Tim Finnegan

25th March 2011, 00:19

this statement is self-inconsistent. if all the classes are "defined by their role in capitalism" then the proletarian class also ceases to exist as such when capitalism ceases.
I explained myself poorly; the difference between the proletariat and the other non-bourgeois classes are that, while they are all defined by their role within capitalism, only the proletariat can be sustained as a class under socialism. "Peasant" and the "petty bourgeois" are meaningless categories in the absence of private property, while "proletariat" is a category which still makes sense within a collectivist framework; the former two are defined by their access to private property, through rent or ownership, while the latter is defined by its lack of access to private property.

Marx used "dictatorship" to refer to states. a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is thus a state. some Marxists say this is a temporary, emergency situation of direct party power. that would be very likely to lead to a continuous hierarchy of power, that is, to a state.

a state is a hierarchical power structure, separate from the directly democratic decision-making power of the masses, and not really controllable by them.You're imposing the anarchist concept of the state onto Marxist theory which is, I would argue, intellectually dishonest. For Marxists, the state is an organ of class rule, not a particular organisational form, so to assume another school's definition of state is no more reasonable than assuming that every time Marx says "communism", he means some McCarthyite caricature.

now, if libertarian socialists propose some form of popular power, such as a workers congress of delegates from the worker mass assemblies and its elected defense committee, a democratic militia controlled by these worker bodies, then no doubt some Marxists will say "this is a dictatorship of the proletariat" or "workers state" (which means the same thing).

but anarchists/libertarian socialists should not accept this. that's because the DOTP/"workers state" formula has too much baggage, and is too often interpreted to allow for a hierarchcal, top-down type of structure. for example, to those Marxists who say there is no real difference, I will ask, Was the Council of People's Commissars and its apparatus in Russia in 1918 a "dictatorship of the proletariat"? If you say "Yes" right there you have a problem because that structure is not acceptable to libertarian socialists/anarchists. that was a structure which the workers of Russia had no way to control.

another aspect of this is that Marxists who talk about a "dictatorship of the proletariat" also talk about continued existence of class divisions, they talk about "workers not being ready" to take over management of industry, and so on. for them this is part of their idea of the "transition." but that's an idea of the transition that will almost inevitably lead to a new bureaucratic boss class being in control.

part of the problem here is that Marxists most often interpret "worker power" in a very Orwellian way, to mean power of a single party that is supposed to be a "workers party." but that's not actual power in the hands of the masses....And this is all in reference to some Marxism-Leninism that has nothing to do with any Marxism to which I would lay claim, so I'll leave that for somebody more bureaucratically-inclined to answer.

RadioRaheem84

25th March 2011, 01:30

Have any of these offended Anarchists read Marx or Engels and their concept of the DOTP? They advocated that the Paris Commune was the best example of the DOTP. They considered it a "state".

All the above posts against the DOTP seem to be critcisms of Marxist-Leninism.

And all of this still doesn't explain why Anarchists would fail to call themselves communists?

Agnapostate

25th March 2011, 01:36

Anarchists would avoid the term "communist" because of its association with an authoritarian ideology that has been opposed by anarchists ever since its emergence, even when Marx and Engels themselves leaned towards "proto-Leninist" tendencies and were attacked by Bakunin and others. Even if it's a misnomer, it still has utterly Orwellian repercussions...

RadioRaheem84

25th March 2011, 01:50

But I am assuming that this much is known by Anarchists. So why would self proclaimed Anarchists like NGN say that Anarchists, including himself, are not communists?

Tim Finnegan

25th March 2011, 02:07

Anarchists would avoid the term "communist" because of its association with an authoritarian ideology...
Doesn't bother the Council and Left Communists. What makes you folk so touchy about it?

hatzel

25th March 2011, 02:13

Doesn't bother the Council and Left Communists. What makes you folk so touchy about it?

Don't ask me. I generally refer to myself as a socialist, to be honest, but I have no issues with bringing out the C-bomb. Though I'd usually prefer to say 'anarcho-communist' or something like that, just to be more specific. 'Socialist' to those who aren't in the know about the nuances between the different ideologies on the left, and any number of weird little names for those who do know. But I have no idea why anarchists would claim not to be communists. Not even in some compound word. But maybe the fact that 'anarcho-communism' exists as a distinct idea suggests that there is something specifically communist about this tendency, whilst others aren't communist...hmm!

In summary: you're communists, get over it! :lol:

Summerspeaker

25th March 2011, 02:31

Lots of Americans fear using the word. The PSL folks here in town stress that they're socialists and not communists.

hatzel

25th March 2011, 02:34

Lots of Americans fear using the word. The PSL folks here in town stress that they're socialists and not communists.

I think it's strange when people start thinking 'oh, communism's a dirty word, I can't use that, so...ah...I'm an anarchist, yeah. Frigging love anarchy, me!' :lol:

Still, that's one of the reasons why I generally refer to myself as a socialist, to avoid negative connotations of other terms...

Savage

25th March 2011, 03:03

Misnomers are no reason to abandon correct terminology, I wouldn't stop using the term 'Anarchist' just because it's used by Misenians and glue-sniffing pyromaniacs.

nuisance

25th March 2011, 03:19

Savage

25th March 2011, 03:34

Anyway not all anarchists support the abolition of private property and some also do not want to get rid of all forms of money/exchange, thus making them not communists.
There are some idiots that self identify as communists who don't support that either.

jbaez

25th March 2011, 03:41

Who cares about using the 'correct teminology?
Anyway not all anarchists support the abolition of private property and some also do not want to get rid of all forms of money/exchange, thus making them not communists.

But then again, some would argue that these "anarchists" are not even "anarchists."

A lot of this thread has to do with semantics, which are fun to argue about for a little, but really have no measurable significance in the liberation of the working class. Action does.

Tim Finnegan

25th March 2011, 03:54

Who cares about using the 'correct teminology?
Adults.

Blackscare

25th March 2011, 03:54

I'm all for abandoning this word 'socialism' btw, I think it's pretty shit. Anybody with me?
no

Black Sheep

25th March 2011, 04:12

Some here are collectivists(as in they don't support gift-economies) so I don't see why they would call themselves communists.

Are you implying that communists support gift economies?
The hell?

I'd say that the view non-communist Anarchists, are the ones that support gift economies.Mutualism.
A recipe which i think fails.

nuisance

25th March 2011, 04:27

Adults.
Sure thing....

Ele'ill

25th March 2011, 04:28

Me, I'm just an anarchist- you can tell me by the way I walk.

(I don't understand what the lyrics mean but it seemed to fit)

nuisance

25th March 2011, 04:31

There are some idiots that self identify as communists who don't support that either.
If someone doesn't desire to bring about a classless,Stateless and moneyless society with communal property then they are not communists, since they do not want communism, whether as ends or immediately.

nuisance

25th March 2011, 04:32

But then again, some would argue that these "anarchists" are not even "anarchists."
And they would be wrong.

The Douche

25th March 2011, 04:32

Bakunin authoritarian? I dont really think so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_dictatorship

Prior to 1866 Bakunin advocated dictatorial control over revolutions, revolutionary areas, and revolutionary organizations through the use of secret societies, which he controlled. Though he "abandoned" this in 1866, he was still trying to gain control of the first international from Marx through the influence of his secret societies.

Also, the anarchists who are complaining about Marx's use of the word "dictatorship", and yet claim to support Bakunin, they should also note that Bakunin used the term to describe his view of government, he advocated (even after publically abandoning the "invisible dictatorship") the "collective dictatorship".

NoOneIsIllegal

25th March 2011, 05:24

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_dictatorship

Prior to 1866 Bakunin advocated dictatorial control over revolutions, revolutionary areas, and revolutionary organizations through the use of secret societies, which he controlled. Though he "abandoned" this in 1866, he was still trying to gain control of the first international from Marx through the influence of his secret societies.
Hence why even as an anarchist, I don't like Bakunin that much. He focused more on religion and the state (which is understandable if you're accquinted with 19th century Russia). But even when he talked about capitalism, anarchism, and revolution, he has this weird fascinating with invisible dictatorships and small groups of men controlling the revolution. He couldn't get over paper organizations, secret societies, and all that jazz. That makes me uncomfortable, and I prefer having anarchism truly starting off with Mr Awesome Beard i.e. Kropotkin :cool:

Also, the anarchists who are complaining about Marx's use of the word "dictatorship", and yet claim to support Bakunin, they should also note that Bakunin used the term to describe his view of government, he advocated (even after publically abandoning the "invisible dictatorship") the "collective dictatorship".
Yeah. I posted on page two that after Bakunin died, it was pretty much agreed upon, starting in Italy with Malatesta, Cafiero, Costa, Merlino, and lesser knowns to drop collectivism and focus on communism.

The Douche

25th March 2011, 05:33

Savage

25th March 2011, 05:51

In regards to Bakunin, I never got over the whole Jewish conspiracy thing (seemingly his main problem with Marx), It also seems he had a lot of nationalistic tendencies.

NoOneIsIllegal

25th March 2011, 06:28

Yeah I haven't been a fan of Bakunin since shortly after I got involved in anarchism. It just seemed that many of the people attacking Marxism for its supposed inherent authoritarianism were unaware of Bakunin's actual authoritarianism, and were citing his arguements with Marx as their basis.
Exactly. I really wish Kropotkin and Marx had encounters. That would be some heavy stuff! :drool: The Bakunin vs Marx arguments are ridiculous sometimes. While I can appreciate aspects of Bakunin, it just makes me cringe how he made so many attacks on Marx which he essentially agreed with.

In regards to Bakunin, I never got over the whole Jewish conspiracy thing (seemingly his main problem with Marx), It also seems he had a lot of nationalistic tendencies.
I can't comment on the first part, but I think Bakunin had a bias towards the Slavic and Russian populations because he literally thought revolution was around the corner for that section of the world. IIRC, he grew up during a time when there were a lot of uprisings in Slavic regions (fuzzy memory, not entirely sure on that)

dernier combat

25th March 2011, 09:02

Are you implying that communists support gift economies?
The hell?
Yeah, a moneyless economy. What's your point? Under mutualism, everyone might own private property, whereas, under communism the means of production are owned by no-one but utilized by members of society for the betterment and advancement of society as a whole. They're totally different things.

syndicat

25th March 2011, 17:33

You're imposing the anarchist concept of the state onto Marxisttheory which is, I would argue, intellectually dishonest.

I'm expressing my own opinion. By definition, this can't be "dishonest."

For Marxists, the state is an organ of class rule, not a particular organisational form, so to assume another school's definition of state is no more reasonable than assuming that every time Marx says "communism", he means some McCarthyite caricature.

what "school" might that be?

neither Marxism nor anarchism have any very clear "definition" of the state. so your assumption here is false.

the state is an actual social institution. now, there are various "theories" about the nature of the state. in "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", Engels says that the state came to be separated off from the direct control of the mass of the population in order to serve the interests of a dominating, exploiting class. Now, I happen to agree with that, and what I said is quite consistent with that.

When the state becomes separated from the populace, and acquires an armed power that is "no longer a self-acting armed organization of the populace" (as Engels put it), how is this "separation" effected? It is effected by creating an institutional structure where decision-making is concentrated in the few at the top...in the contemporary state in hierarchies of managers, professionals, and professional politicians.

If there is some other way for the state to be separated off from control of the mass of the people other than thru a hierarchical institutional structure, let's hear about it.

Now, the emphasis of Engels on separation of control over the state by the masses isn't emphasized by Marxists of the Leninist type...because they also advocate a hierarchical concentration of decision-making authority in a state. And the analysis by Engels assumes that this type of structure reflects an institution fit to serve the interests of dominating, exploiting classes.

So, this is where Marxism is internally inconsistent. I draw this out by noting how states are always hierarchically structured affairs, and that the explanation for this is to make it an institution "fit" to work for the interests of a dominating, exploiting class. Under M-L regimes this was the bureaucratic class.

Die Rote Fahne

25th March 2011, 17:53

cuz commies hate freedom.

"and we're freedom lovers"

syndicat

25th March 2011, 19:46

Yes, but capitalism does not cease to exist under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

if workers don't have assemblies in the workplaces, and control the places where they work, how is the working class in power? as Marx once said, workers can't be politically free while they're socially enslaved.

The DOTP is a state because any class society is a state
a state is a set of institutions. no society is a state.

any society, even one where workers self-management is evident, is a state (from a Marxist perspective) as long as class continues to exist.
but the purpose of the proletarian revolution is to eliminate the class system, that is, the system of domination and exploitation of the working class. this is what the "self-emancipation of the working class" consists in.
me:

"this is a dictatorship of the proletariat" or "workers state" (which means the same thing).
you:

This is not the same thing, Marx never used 'socialism' as a label for a society in which capital continues to exist.

no class system is consistent with authentic socialism. thus a bureaucratic statist regime, in which an administrative elite of managers and professionals and party leaders presides over the working class is also not socialism.

and you've not shown that "workers state" and "dictatorship of the proletariat" are not the same thing. For Marx every state is a "dictatorship" because the function of the state is to serve the interests of the dominant class.

but classes are dominant in relation to their economic role. if capitalism still exists, the capitalists are still the dominant class. so how can the state serve the interests of the working class?

Marxists often seem to assume that it's possible for the working class to wield the state thru a political party gaining control of the state and then implementing its program topdown thru the hierarchies of the state. but that kind of hierarchical administrative structure is inconsistent with direct working class control over society.

As long as the proletariat influences it's control over society (which is obviously still capitalist), the DOTP exists.

this is very confused. what does it mean to "influence" one's "control"?

is the "dicatorship of the proletariat" supposed to be a permanent or temporary state of affairs? by your definition here it would seem to be permanent.

You should not distance yourselves from communists (such as myself) who realize class interest in Anarchism and wish to be in solidarity. If you don't wish to use the term 'DOTP' then don't, but also make sure petty terminology doesn't stand in the way of productive action with communists who's practical approach to revolution and revolutionary society is not much difference from yours. After all, If popular usage of terminology really does have such a despotic control over your actions you could hardly call yourself an anarchist, for this would mean someone with a fetish for explosives, advocating general disruption of society.

your last sentence is absurd. anarchism isn't about "a fetish for explosives"...that's the sort of thing one expects the FBI or some other big lie-monger to say.

if you think the working class can wield a hierarchical state apparatus by putting party leaders into control of it, then your "practical approach" is inconsistent with mine.

Summerspeaker

25th March 2011, 23:13

Dimmu

25th March 2011, 23:22

Every historical thinker has problematic aspects. While I agree with the critique here, I wouldn't dismiss the valuable parts of Bakunin's philosophy. Eir complaints against Marx at least prefigure the horrors of Stalinism with chilling clarity.

Exactly, its like a bad strawman. I like Bakunin's work, but i dont follow or belive everything that he writes, i like to think for myself.

Savage

26th March 2011, 01:53

if workers don't have assemblies in the workplaces, and control the places where they work, how is the working class in power? as Marx once said, workers can't be politically free while they're socially enslaved.
They're not, this is not the dictatorship of the proletariat.

a state is a set of institutions. no society is a state.
For us Marxists, a class society, a state is inherently existant, not get too caught up in terminology.

no class system is consistent with authentic socialism. thus a bureaucratic statist regime, in which an administrative elite of managers and professionals and party leaders presides over the working class is also not socialism.
That's exactly why Marx's definition of socialism was the same as communism, and as a Left Communist, I don't advocate the bullshit in your secound sentence.

and you've not shown that "workers state" and "dictatorship of the proletariat" are not the same thing. For Marx every state is a "dictatorship" because the function of the state is to serve the interests of the dominant class.
A 'Workers State' is a 'Socialist State', something the Communist Left considers to be an oxy-moron, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat exists under capitalism, socialism is stateless. As for the secound sentence, that's why we believe that Anarchists advocate the DOTP.

but classes are dominant in relation to their economic role. if capitalism still exists, the capitalists are still the dominant class. so how can the state serve the interests of the working class?
The world's society cannot be socialised overnight, even when the Proletariat has political and economic command, capital is still only in the process of subjugation, the means of production are still constant capital, and commodities continue to exist, as the process is not instant.

Marxists often seem to assume that it's possible for the working class to wield the state thru a political party gaining control of the state and then implementing its program topdown thru the hierarchies of the state. but that kind of hierarchical administrative structure is inconsistent with direct working class control over society.
Your barking up the wrong tree. Left Communists reject all forms of parliamentarianism and electoralism, we also reject nationalization.

http://libcom.org/library/paresh-chattopadhyay-marxian-concept-capital-soviet-experience This is definately worth your while.

is the "dicatorship of the proletariat" supposed to be a permanent or temporary state of affairs? by your definition here it would seem to be permanent.

http://en.internationalism.org/node/2733

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/1_problems_mc.htm

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/1_prolrevn.htm

your last sentence is absurd. anarchism isn't about "a fetish for explosives"...that's the sort of thing one expects the FBI or some other big lie-monger to say.
Fuck man, that was the point, don't let misnomers control your usage of words.

if you think the working class can wield a hierarchical state apparatus by putting party leaders into control of it, then your "practical approach" is inconsistent with mine.
That is not my practical approach. Read up on Left Communism, don't reject people who's theories are not at all anti-thetical to yours.

syndicat

26th March 2011, 02:26

The world's society cannot be socialised overnight, even when the Proletariat has political and economic command, capital is still only in the process of subjugation, the means of production are still constant capital, and commodities continue to exist, as the process is not instant.

this is as clear as mud. a worker revolution typically begins in a particular country or region. when we talk about the institutions of rule in a revolutionary period of working class gaining power, we're talking about that particular region. from the fact that there are other regions where capitalism still exists, it doesn't follow that the workers direct governance of society in the revolutionary region is perforce a "state."

none of the rest of what you refer to has any bearing on the question of the state. the state is an institution for overall social governance, for social defense, for making and enforcing the basic rules, dealing with disputes and conflicts that may occur, dealing with forms of criminality that take place.

the state is a particular historical form of governance in this sense, it is the form that governance takes in class divided societies where the immediate producers are dominated and exploited.

Tim Finnegan

26th March 2011, 02:28

I'm expressing my own opinion. By definition, this can't be "dishonest."
So if I say "chicken", and you say "ah, you mean a large, quadrupedal bovine" and you know full well that I do not, that is dishonest.

The rest, I honestly do think, is really just semantics.

Every historical thinker has problematic aspects. While I agree with the critique here, I wouldn't dismiss the valuable parts of Bakunin's philosophy. Eir complaints against Marx at least prefigure the horrors of Stalinism with chilling clarity.
Only by accident. Bakunin's waffle about a "red bureaucracy" really had no basis on anything which Marx himself wrote, so any similarity to the Stalinist bureaucracy can only be said to have emerged later, as a product of some departure from Marx. Same way that Trotsky's claim that the USSR was a "degenerated workers' state" that would either fall back into capitalism or progress to socialism really has nothing at all to do with the events of 1989-91, whatever some of his more orthodox adherents claim. It's "Nostrodamus was right" stuff.

peke

26th March 2011, 02:33

How does collectivism

Savage

26th March 2011, 02:44

this is as clear as mud. a worker revolution typically begins in a particular country or region. when we talk about the institutions of rule in a revolutionary period of working class gaining power, we're talking about that particular region. from the fact that there are other regions where capitalism still exists, it doesn't follow that the workers direct governance of society in the revolutionary region is perforce a "state."

none of the rest of what you refer to has any bearing on the question of the state. the state is an institution for overall social governance, for social defense, for making and enforcing the basic rules, dealing with disputes and conflicts that may occur, dealing with forms of criminality that take place.

the state is a particular historical form of governance in this sense, it is the form that governance takes in class divided societies where the immediate producers are dominated and exploited.

This is not the Marxist understanding of the state, or at least the Marxist understanding of the state is not limited to this. However, this is absolutely no reason for Anarchists and Left Communists not to be in solidarity. I very much advocate you reading this: http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/karl-marx-the-state.html
Also, I wasn't speaking about capital existing in other places, I meant that capital, even when in a state of subjugation, is not yet abolished. But then again, if this workers' revolution does not spread from it's region or country then it is hardly a workers' revolution.

The rest of my last post may have had little to do with the state because I was defending myself from your allegations that I support reactionary, bourgeois, pseudo-marxist politics. If you understand the politics of the Communist Left you will realise there is absolutely no reason why we can't work together, right now I belive the ICC is working with the Anarcho-Syndicalists in Germany as well as elsewhere around the world, and historically we have also worked together, even in revolutionary circumstances such as in the Bavarian Soviet Republic.

727Goon

26th March 2011, 03:13

Left Communists and anarchists shouldnt be in solidarity because yall are a bunch of college white kids who think racism doesnt exist.

Savage

26th March 2011, 03:22

Left Communists and anarchists shouldnt be in solidarity because yall are a bunch of college white kids who think racism doesnt exist.
I'm assuming this is a joke

727Goon

26th March 2011, 03:32

I'm just being the devils advocate here.

NoOneIsIllegal

26th March 2011, 03:35

Left Communists and anarchists shouldnt be in solidarity because yall are a bunch of college white kids who think racism doesnt exist.
wat

I'm just being the devils advocate here.
There's a difference between that and trolling.

Summerspeaker

26th March 2011, 03:54

Only by accident. Bakunin's waffle about a "red bureaucracy" really had no basis on anything which Marx himself wrote, so any similarity to the Stalinist bureaucracy can only be said to have emerged later, as a product of some departure from Marx.

While I haven't studied this specific history in depth, that strikes me as far too convenient. I suspect the repeated use of Marxism by dictators and totalitarian states in roughly the fashion Bakunin warned against reflects a meaningful aspect the ideology. Regardless of Marx's intentions, the record shows Marxism works well for authoritarian purposes.

Savage

26th March 2011, 04:07

While I haven't studied this specific history in depth, that strikes me as far too convenient. I suspect the repeated use of Marxism by dictators and totalitarian states in roughly the fashion Bakunin warned against reflects a meaningful aspect the ideology. Regardless of Marx's intentions, the record shows Marxism works well for authoritarian purposes.
The misuse of a theory does not warrant hostility towards the correct theory or those who uphold it. Saying that 'Marxism works well for authoritarian purposes' is as ludicrous as saying 'Anarchism works well for free market purposes' (refering to 'Anarchist' somalia). You should read the specific history in depth because you will realise that Bakunin's argument against Marx was a stawman. It would appear that if an anarchist society was constructed in a fashion advocated by Bakunin it would be quite despotic indeed, and as we have practical proof of the type of transitional society advocated by Marx (the Paris Commune), the 'Red Bureaucracy' myth is refuted completely.

Tim Finnegan

26th March 2011, 04:30

While I haven't studied this specific history in depth, that strikes me as far too convenient. I suspect the repeated use of Marxism by dictators and totalitarian states in roughly the fashion Bakunin warned against reflects a meaningful aspect the ideology. Regardless of Marx's intentions, the record shows Marxism works well for authoritarian purposes.
You're conflating Marxism with Marxism-Leninism. To suggest that Marxism, in it's most general form, inevitably results in bureaucratic authoritarianism simply because one particular current within it did is only a step ahead of the popular declaration that socialism in it's most general form produces such results. (And, yes, I know that anarchists have their traditional "but we hate the state" response, but, outside of left-wing circles, that doesn't make people think that you're any better, just less realistic.)

syndicat

26th March 2011, 04:32

So if I say "chicken", and you say "ah, you mean a large, quadrupedal bovine" and you know full well that I do not, that is dishonest.

That wasn't my method. I didn't engage in any stipulative definition. we know what states are. they are actually existing institutions. There are different theories of the nature of this institution. There are also different views about the kind of governance structure to be created in a revolution. And there are different views about strategy such as use of the existing states. These differences are not "merely semantics." And it's absurd to suppose that it's all about some stipulative definition.

Tim Finnegan

26th March 2011, 04:51

That wasn't my method. I didn't engage in any stipulative definition. we know what states are. they are actually existing institutions. There are different theories of the nature of this institution. There are also different views about the kind of governance structure to be created in a revolution. And there are different views about strategy such as use of the existing states. These differences are not "merely semantics." And it's absurd to suppose that it's all about some stipulative definition.
My point was that you attempt to attack Marx's concept of the workers' state using an entirely different theory of state, one which would exclude the workers' state as described by Marx, based on- as far as I can see- nothing more than the fact that he makes reference to the term "state". You assume hierarchy where Marx and Engels offer subsidiarity, bureaucracy where they offers democracy, and the centralised nation-state where they offers the commune. That is, I will say again, intellectually dishonest.

Summerspeaker

26th March 2011, 05:51

To suggest that Marxism, in it's most general form, inevitably results in bureaucratic authoritarianism simply because one particular current within it did is only a step ahead of the popular declaration that socialism in it's most general form produces such results.

I wasn't making any such suggestion of inevitability, only affinity (and even that might be too strong a word). I'm no anti-Marxist (perish the thought!) and cheerfully identify as a communist - as mentioned earlier. I view Bakunin's critique as identifying pitfalls to avoid on the road to our worthy ideal and consider it valuable in that respect. I'm aware he mischaracterized Marx to a lesser or greater extent; I have complaints against both of their organizational strategies as played out in practice.

Gorilla

26th March 2011, 06:55

NoOneIsIllegal

26th March 2011, 08:20

I think a lot of anarcho-syndicalists believe in "the workers control the means of production" but not "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Am I wrong about that? It would be a good reason not to call yourself a communist.
While Marxism and Anarchist-Communism stress that quote ("from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"), that doesn't mean I wouldn't consider myself a communist. I believe in achieving a classless, stateless society, which is communism. However, if you want to talk about certain principles to have in communism, that may be different. I don't think a lot of us (A-Syn's) go around shouting "we're communists!" but it's really no big deal.

Rafiq

26th March 2011, 17:39

Anarchists would avoid the term "communist" because of its association with an authoritarian ideology that has been opposed by onanarchists ever since its emergence, even when Marx and Engels themselves leaned towards "proto-Leninist" tendencies and were attacked by Bakunin and others. Even if it's a misnomer, it still has utterly Orwellian repercussions...

And I say bullshit.

The term'anarchism' has just as much a shitty reputation with the word ' communism'.

Don't be an anarchist because its CHAAOOOSS according to you're logic.

syndicat

26th March 2011, 19:13

My point was that you attempt to attack Marx's concept of the workers' state using an entirely different theory of state, one which would exclude the workers' state as described by Marx, based on- as far as I can see- nothing more than the fact that he makes reference to the term "state".

I don't think there is a clearly worked out and uniform "Marxist theory of the state." Different Marxists historically have had different views. Marx didn't write much about the nature of the state. Moreover, as I pointed out, I agree with what Engels says about the state in "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State." That book contains a more worked out view of the state than anything Marx wrote.

But some of Engels' formulation in that book was ambiguous. Especially when he gets to the topic of the transition, and uses the phrase he and Marx liked to use...about the working class "winning the battle of democracy" and "gaining political power."

In practice Marxist political organizations have interpreted that to mean the advocacy of building socalled "workers political parties" to gain control of a state. Now, I'm not here objecting merely to the word "state." I'm objecting to two strategic points:

1. I believe it is entirely implausible to suppose that the working class can exercise economic and political power through a political party.

2. When Marx & Engels talk about concentrating all property and means of production in the hands of the state, it's not just about the fact they call it a "state." It's about the kind of governance institution that historically Marxist political organizations have backed as the instrument of alleged worker power.

During the era prior to the Russian revolution, the dominant view among Marxist organizations was that the "worker parties" would contest in elections for positions in existing parliaments. This was advocated by Marx and Engels at the time of the first international and was the main source of the split between the libertarian socialists and the Marxists in that international. The libertarian socialists believed in an international of mass worker organizations, unions, and saw these organizations as potentially the vehicle of revolution, not "worker parties."

After the Russian revolution, the Leninist view came to predominate. But this also advocated a top-down, hierarchical structure of governance. This is in fact what the Bolsheviks created in Russia and the M-L movement justified and gloried this.

You assume hierarchy where Marx and Engels offer subsidiarity,

where do they offer "subsidiarity"? can you provide quotes? or are you engaging in mind-reading?

bureaucracy where they offers democracy, and the centralised nation-state where they offers the commune. That is, I will say again, intellectually dishonest.

"democracy" has various possible meanings. it is an essentially contested concept. the American capitalists & their paid hacks also say we have "democracy."

when Marx & Engels talk about the workers forming parties to "win the battle of democracy", what did they mean by that? how did the various socialist parties of the late 1900s and early 2000s come to be? was this at odds with Marxism?

the Russian revolution is the pre-eminent case of Marxist party practice. as Sam Farber says in "Before Stalinism", neither the Menshevik or Bolshevik parties were concerned with promoting the direct participation in decision making concerning their daily lives in workplaces or neighborhoods, but were fixated on the question of control over the state.

And by "state", I'm talking about the actual set of instiutions built by the Bolsheviks....Council of People's Commissars, hierarchical red army, Cheka controlled by the party central committee, one-man management in the factories, the Supreme Council of National Economy -- the statist central planning body...created topdown by the Bolsheviks with a mandate to do economic planning....from above.

so, when i talk about being opposed to the idea of a "workers state" or "dictatorship of the proletariat," it is this very historical and concrete practice that I have in mind.

nothing in your palaver ever gets down to actual concrete details. you conduct your discussion all at the level of vague and ambiguous terms.

Gorilla

26th March 2011, 20:10

It's about the kind of governance institution that historically Marxist political organizations have backed as the instrument of alleged worker power...

nothing in your palaver ever gets down to actual concrete details. you conduct your discussion all at the level of vague and ambiguous terms.

One of the great failures of Marxist theory - and this is one of the rare failures that is shared by Marx himself just as much as Marxists - is a complete indifference to the structure of governing institutions.

I guess the assumption has been that since class relations primarily determine what the state does anyway, niceties like bicameralism vs. unicameralism - or which form of federalism if any is appropriate - are unimportant. But even if the general course of state policy is determined by the interests of the ruling class, constitutional structures make important differences at the margins in ways that add up over time, and are magnified during crises.

To take a concrete example, the French bourgeoisie in 1958 would not have swapped swapped out the parliamentary Third republic for the presidential Fourth if it was a simple matter of class interests.

So it's a real problem that neither Marx nor Lenin nor any important Marxist thereafter has theorized this in any adequate way. Both Marx and Lenin pretty much took over the idea of federated councils from the Paris Commune and Bakunin. (Lenin goes to some pretty hilarious lengths to "prove" that the Soviets' structure is not a rip of Bakunin, and fails epically.)

All the governments of actually-existing socialism have just taken models from elsewhere (anarchist plans, parliamentary regimes) with no real confidence in them and placed the terrible superintendence of The Party over it all to make sure things "work" properly. Party dictatorship is a colossal admission of failure at constitutional theory.

I mean, how sad is it that fucking anarchists have better thought-out models for state structure than "authoritarian" Marxists? Fail.

Savage

27th March 2011, 00:31

so, when i talk about being opposed to the idea of a "workers state" or "dictatorship of the proletariat," it is this very historical and concrete practice that I have in mind.
To reiterate, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is the control and transformation of society via the Proletariat as a whole. The DOTP existed, for a time during the Russian Revolution, this is undeniable, and I remember you in another thread corroborating this (by saying workers control existed).
The Proletarian Dictatorship in Russia can be considered to have been more or less dead by mid 1918, by then the war had consumed most of the workers, and due to the isolation of the revolution (amongst other things), the proletariat was once again alienated from the conditions of production.

The DOTP did also however exist for a time in the German Revolution, with Anarchists working together with people that could more or less be considered Councilist or Left Communist. The point is, workers' councils are the primary, if not the only organ of class rule, without the control of the Proletariat the dictatorship does not exist.
(By the way, I have a post left un-answered by you, perhaps I'm not worth your time though)

Gorilla

27th March 2011, 01:23

The DOTP did also however exist for a time in the German Revolution, with Anarchists working together with people that could more or less be considered Councilist or Left Communist. The point is, workers' councils are the primary, if not the only organ of class rule, without the control of the Proletariat the dictatorship does not exist.
(By the way, I have a post left un-answered by you, perhaps I'm not worth your time though)

Which German revolution? Do you have a link I could take a look at?

Savage

27th March 2011, 01:28

Which German revolution? Do you have a link I could take a look at?

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=iagWb0Pc2PgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+german+revolution&hl=en&ei=H4SOTajJBsvBccTP2YUK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=qQg4AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+german+revolution&hl=en&ei=H4SOTajJBsvBccTP2YUK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

I think those books are generally considered the best sources on it, the Wikipedia article isn't too bad to get a general idea.

Jose Gracchus

27th March 2011, 01:28

I think there is a failure of terminology. The Marxists have tended to smear anarchists with their opposition to the "workers' state" by implying they think it is simply a matter of CRAZY STRIKE BLACK FLAGS and the next day, Communism. Naturally anarchists do think the Revolution will entail some sort of transitional phase by necessity where the old structure of society is torn down and the progressive features of socialism are thoroughly and successively constructed. It does not help that despite Marx and Engels' frequent allusions to the fact they had a fundamentally different, anti-bureaucratic, directly democratic polity in mind as the "dictatorship of the proletariat" (which is really an excessively grandiose term for "workers' power"), which differs fundamentally from capitalist and other previously existing minoritarian ruling class-based states.

Viewed in this fashion, the distinction between Marxism and anarchism diminishes considerably. Especially where social anarchist adopts much of the Marxian critique of political economy and class analysis. Especially 'libertarian' variants of Marxism which heavily emphasized the failings of traditional political parties and even traditional unions, such as some left communists, Luxembourgists, and in particular, Pannekoekian council communists.

I do think the debate is much more fruitful if one discusses specific elements of transitional society and structural form, and also, the vehicle of both mass and activist/militant organization, and the means of accomplishing the revolution. I tend, personally, to be highly skeptical of Marxism-Leninism, and of Kautskyite Second International Marxism more generally, with its extremely statist and alienated character of the party from the masses. For me the sine qua non of the transitional revolutionary society is participant control. The empirical working class needs to be dramatically and wholly brought into active and mass participation in the functions and decision of society, and building the new community.

Savage

27th March 2011, 01:35

Viewed in this fashion, the distinction between Marxism and anarchism diminishes considerably. Especially where social anarchist adopts much of the Marxian critique of political economy and class analysis. Especially 'libertarian' variants of Marxism which heavily emphasized the failings of traditional political parties and even traditional unions, such as some left communists, Luxembourgists, and in particular, Pannekoekian council communists.

You're absolutely correct. A lot Anarchists understand that there are Marxists in advocacy of revolutionary practice very similar to those of their own, this thread has shown that there are still people oblivious to this. The main barrier between Anarchists and Left/Council Communists is chauvinism on one or both sides, we just need to embrace solidarity.

Paulappaul

27th March 2011, 01:38

To reiterate, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is the control and transformation of society via the Proletariat as a whole. The DOTP existed, for a time during the Russian Revolution, this is undeniable, and I remember you in another thread corroborating this (by saying workers control existed).The Workers never took control or transformed society in Russia. This was the main criticism of the Johnson - Forester Tendency. While the character of the Russian Revolution had no doubt, proletarian elements (like any revolution revolution really) the workers never took control of the government or their workplace. The revolution due to the failure of the workers to take control, counter revolution, isolation and the material conditions which left Russia far behind Western Capitalism became completely Bourgeois in its outcomes.

The DOTP did also however exist for a time in the German Revolution, with Anarchists working together with people that could more or less be considered Councilist or Left Communist.Now it sounds like you're denying Internationalism as a requirement for the DOTP. The Proletariat can't control their lives when their lives when the world isn't liberated, much less the nation. In Germany, much of the Workers' Councils became organs of the SPD, then were disassembled by them. And the Workers' Councils weren't everywhere, and where they were only the largest actually took control. The Nation wasn't liberated and the World wasn't. There was not DOTP.

You're absolutely correct. A lot Anarchists understand that there are Marxists in advocacy of revolutionary practice very similar to those of their own, this thread has shown that there are still people oblivious to this. The main barrier between Anarchists and Left/Council Communists is chauvinism on one or both sides, we just need to embrace solidarity.

Defiantly. Already Council Communists are working alongside the Anarchist in large part through the IWW and Anarchist Communist federations.

Jose Gracchus

27th March 2011, 01:49

The REAL dispute is on issues of organization (especially on parties) and the nature of the political rule of the working class (as syndicat put it, via what institutions and by what mechanisms).

Savage

27th March 2011, 01:49

The Workers never took control or transformed society in Russia. This was the main criticism of the Johnson - Forester Tendency. While the character of the Russian Revolution had no doubt, proletarian elements (like any revolution revolution really) the workers never took control of the government or their workplace. The revolution due to the failure of the workers to take control, counter revolution, isolation and the material conditions which left Russia far behind Western Capitalism became completely Bourgeois in its outcomes.
Based on what I've read, for at least some time, the soviets legitimately held power, If they didn't then it wasn't the foundations of a Proletarian Dictatorship.

Now it sounds like you're denying Internationalism as a requirement for the DOTP. The Proletariat can't control their lives when their lives when the world isn't liberated, much less the nation. In Germany, much of the Workers' Councils became organs of the SPD, then were disassembled by them. And the Workers' Councils weren't everywhere, and where they were only the largest actually took control. The Nation wasn't liberated and the World wasn't. There was not DOTP.
Please don't think that I'm denying internationalism, all that our lot do is go on about it :cool:. I agree, it's probably incorrect to talk about the existing workers control at this time as the DOTP, rather, what I should have said was this was the foundation for the socialization of society which would have (and did) degenerated into extinction were it not to overcome international capital and the bourgeois states that uphold it. My whole point in this thread is just to convince Syndicat that his lot and our lot are not mutually anti-thetical.

Gorilla

27th March 2011, 01:51

the "dictatorship of the proletariat" (which is really an excessively grandiose term for "workers' power"),

Marx's use of the word 'Dictatura' hearkens back to some debates in German constitutional theory (e.g. Carl Schmitt's 'On Dictatorship' for a late example of it) in which context it means something slightly different than English 'dictatorship'. But yeah, the phrase has become sort of shite.

Tim Finnegan

27th March 2011, 01:55

I wasn't making any such suggestion of inevitability, only affinity (and even that might be too strong a word). I'm no anti-Marxist (perish the thought!) and cheerfully identify as a communist - as mentioned earlier. I view Bakunin's critique as identifying pitfalls to avoid on the road to our worthy ideal and consider it valuable in that respect. I'm aware he mischaracterized Marx to a lesser or greater extent; I have complaints against both of their organizational strategies as played out in practice.
There's far better critiques of left-wing bureaucratism coming from later anarchists and Left Marxists than anything Bakunin wrote. His critique was based on incomprehension of theory, while theirs is actually based on deformations evident within existing regimes.

Paulappaul

27th March 2011, 02:09

Based on what I've read, for at least some time, the soviets legitimately held power, If they didn't then it wasn't the foundations of a Proletarian Dictatorship.

If you conflate the Bolsheviks with Proletarian Dictatorship yes I suppose. The organisation of the Soviets wasn't really solidified until the conditions in Russia became stable. Petrograd Soviet if I recall correctly was highly bureaucratic and was really a forum for the Unions and Parties, not the working class. And then there were those Soviets and Communes which consisted of Peasants, which had different interests then the Proletariat. But if the working class can't take control over the means of production, then it doesn't seem like they can take control over the "political" aspect of their life.

what I should have said was this was the foundation for the socialization of society which would have (and did) degenerated into extinction were it not to overcome international capital and the bourgeois states that uphold it. My whole point in this thread is just to convince Syndicat that his lot and our lot are not mutually anti-thetical.

Oh yes, then I would defiantly agree. It's hard to reconcile classical anarchist - syndicalism with Left Communism though. I wrote about this in theory, in the topic about the Anarchist - Syndicalist Transitional Program. There are some definite points of Solidarity though, which I hope Syndicat Recognises i.e. Internationalism, the Stress on Workers' Control, anti - party and anti - trade union.

Savage

27th March 2011, 03:44

It's hard to reconcile classical anarchist - syndicalism with Left Communism though. I wrote about this in theory, in the topic about the Anarchist - Syndicalist Transitional Program. There are some definite points of Solidarity though, which I hope Syndicat Recognises i.e. Internationalism, the Stress on Workers' Control, anti - party and anti - trade union.
I think this argument may even be less than that, the question is basically whether the DOTP as upheld by Marx/Engels and as continued by councilists, left communists etc, is anti-thetical to anarchism; I really don't think there's much of a dichotomy between councilism and anarchism, but then again there's not much, if any antagonism between left communism and councilism.

Paulappaul

27th March 2011, 07:34

I really don't think there's much of a dichotomy between councilism and anarchism, but then again there's not much, if any antagonism between left communism and councilism.

Councilism and Anarchism are not to far apart. As early as the KAPD this was recognized. There is a greater difference between Bordigaism and Councilism.

Savage

27th March 2011, 08:04

Councilism and Anarchism are not to far apart. As early as the KAPD this was recognized. There is a greater difference between Bordigaism and Councilism.
Yes, but even so, Bordigism hardly epitomizes the communist left; whilst we are pro-party, we are not 'ultra-partyist': '' Its (the party) role is neither to ‘organise the working class’ nor to ‘take power’ in its name, but to participate actively in the movement towards the unification of struggles, towards workers taking control of them for themselves, and at the same time to draw out the revolutionary political goals of the proletariat’s combat.''

Even if the DOTP was established in a Bordigist manner, I doubt it would be a despotic 'Red Bureaucracy', the fact that he placed monumental importance on the party doesn't detract from the fact that he advocated legitimate working class power through councils.

Jose Gracchus

27th March 2011, 08:06

Marx's use of the word 'Dictatura' hearkens back to some debates in German constitutional theory (e.g. Carl Schmitt's 'On Dictatorship' for a late example of it) in which context it means something slightly different than English 'dictatorship'. But yeah, the phrase has become sort of shite.

Oh I know. I think maybe we should move away from it since Stalinists have re-appropriated it as some kind of glazed-eyes drone-repeated shaman-word to ward off the bad spirits of inconvenient history.

BankHeist

27th March 2011, 08:11

If you don't understand that anarchists functionally implement the DotP everytime they get the opportunity throughout history than you either don't know the historical successes of anarchism (I'm sure you do know these) or you don't understand what the Dictatorship of the Proletariat actually is (I think this is pretty likely, since most anarchists do not understand the theory).

Success? I'm pretty sure every instance of anarchism and communism have been dismal failures.

You can fetishize Russia or Spain all you want; sure a handful of new, useful ideas came from them, but at the end of the day, they were dismal failures that never even partially achieved their goals.

Don't prop up failed revolutions as some proof of "success of dictatorship".

The Douche

27th March 2011, 16:34

BankHeist

27th March 2011, 21:52

Just because some ceases to exist does not mean it "failed", given a long enough timeline, everything will end, does that mean everything fails? No.

Those success demonstrate the viability and usefullness of the concepts of communism. They put theory into action and validated it. Success.

Sure, Spain and Russia put a few useful concepts put into practice; but these are simply the methods to achieve an ends. Don't confuse the means for the ends... To be clear, neither ever accomplished their end goals of liberating the working class. At best (and even much this is debatable); they improved some of the conditions that workers were forced to toil under.

To reverse your analogy, and use your own broken logic; given a small enough amount of time, I guess anything is revolutionary. I took a 15 minute nap earlier, and my consciousness and labor was totally removed from capitalism during that time. Success!

Don't get me wrong, you're right to suggest that revolution is a continual process; but thats just it -- its continual. When that continuity is interrupted indefinitely by the totality of capitalism; it ceases to be a revolution, and becomes a historical hiccup; a moment in time when capitalism was diverted or weakened or relabelled.

The Douche

28th March 2011, 05:48

Sure, Spain and Russia put a few useful concepts put into practice; but these are simply the methods to achieve an ends. Don't confuse the means for the ends... To be clear, neither ever accomplished their end goals of liberating the working class. At best (and even much this is debatable); they improved some of the conditions that workers were forced to toil under.

To reverse your analogy, and use your own broken logic; given a small enough amount of time, I guess anything is revolutionary. I took a 15 minute nap earlier, and my consciousness and labor was totally removed from capitalism during that time. Success!

Don't get me wrong, you're right to suggest that revolution is a continual process; but thats just it -- its continual. When that continuity is interrupted indefinitely by the totality of capitalism; it ceases to be a revolution, and becomes a historical hiccup; a moment in time when capitalism was diverted or weakened or relabelled.

I don't think you understood what I said in the first place? I never said that anyone, ever, anywhere conducted a successful communist revolution. I said that anarchists, when able to play a leading role in revolution, implement the "dictatoship of the proletariat".

Agnapostate

29th March 2011, 04:04

But I am assuming that this much is known by Anarchists. So why would self proclaimed Anarchists like NGN say that Anarchists, including himself, are not communists?

A number of anarchists are not communists. All legitimate anarchists are socialists (though some may avoid that word); however, a number of anarchists are "collectivists" as distinguished from "communists" (I would classify participatory economics as "libertarian collectivism"), and a number are market socialists along the lines of Proudhon and Tucker.

Doesn't bother the Council and Left Communists. What makes you folk so touchy about it?

And I say bullshit.

The term'anarchism' has just as much a shitty reputation with the word ' communism'.

Don't be an anarchist because its CHAAOOOSS according to you're logic.

I don't recall saying that I adhered to that habit myself. It is a fact that labels confuse people, however. I participated on "mainstream" political discussion boards for a while. The large majority of people had no knowledge of these little exercises in rhetorical nitpicking that members of this board engage in, and these are people sufficiently interested in politics to debate on the Internet, not members of the average apathetic or partisan population. I'd recommend avoiding labels and just describing some of your proposals and ideas to people; so many have inclinations towards self-management but aversion to words like "anarchist" and "communist."

syndicat

29th March 2011, 05:14

I would classify participatory economics as "libertarian collectivism"),

except that there is no such thing as "libertarian collectivism." It's not a well-defined economic alternative.

Kropotkin stipulatively defined "collectivism" in a highly sectarian fashion, to refer to any proposal where people would earn remuneration through their work effort. thus Marx isn't a "communist" by Kropotkin's ridiculous definition.

the Spanish economic think-tank ICEA, founded in 1931, and a part of the CNT, regards participatory economics as a form of libertarian communism. And it satisfies the definition I gave of "minimal libertarian communism".

besides, Kropotkin is inconsistent. he says that free sharing is only to apply to things that would satisfy basic needs. he recognizes that there is a vast actual and potential range of human wants. this is why he fudges by talking about worker groups producing things for each other "by free agreement." Except that "free agreement" isn't well-defined. this could be a market economy for example. if workers earn things from others by producing things to exchane with them "by free agreement" then in fact people will be remunerated for their work effort. so Kropotkin is inconsistent.

Agnapostate

29th March 2011, 05:25

except that there is no such thing as "libertarian collectivism." It's not a well-defined economic alternative.

Yes, I've seen you say that. I don't know the answer.

hatzel

29th March 2011, 14:47

Kropotkin stipulatively defined "collectivism" in a highly sectarian fashion, to refer to any proposal where people would earn remuneration through their work effort. thus Marx isn't a "communist" by Kropotkin's ridiculous definition.

Does this perhaps give some insight into the issue here? Presumably if an anarchist advocates a proposal where 'people would earn remuneration through their work effort', then he's fair to claim that he's not a communist, if he defines communism as Kropotkin. We could understand why anarchists might equate communism with either Marxian communism or anarcho-communism, and if they adhere to neither of these ideologies, they could be justified in claiming that they're not communists. I guess it depends on how they define communism.

It could also come down to talk of economics. Presumably, if somebody's an anarchist without adjectives, to the extent that they don't advocate any economic system, or even express any real preference, then they could claim that they are not a communist economically speaking. If one defines communism as an economic system (which many anarchists might), then one would have to support that economic system to call oneself a communist...

thriller

29th March 2011, 14:57

They don't call themselves communists because they believe in the working class, but are to lazy to actually become a member of the working class.

ttttttrrrrrrrooooolllllll

hatzel

29th March 2011, 16:47

Thanks for the insight, !thriller!

You know writing in your post that it's trolling doesn't necessarily make it any less pathetic...

Luc

27th July 2011, 04:20

Ontopic:

(As said before) Some anarchists don't advocate the creation of a Classless and stateless society based of Common ownership of the mean of production and distribution and the abolishon of private property; Communism. I.e. anarcho-capitalists, Individualists and primitivists etc.

Also the whole "Evil Commies kill millions:cursing:" thing gets pretty annoying so some would distance themselves from that.
I call myself a Communist to people who actually understand what Communism is and to others, an Anarchist.

Offtopic:
I agree with Hal Draper in:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1966/twosouls/index.htm

Basically the only true divide in the Socialist movement is SfB and SfA. I imagine SfB would include:

Anarchist Communism
Anarchist Syndicalism
Left Communism
Council Communism
Marxism
Anything that doesn't have a "state" but a federation of Communes (or Gemeinwesen;))

I should probably admit that I don't know anything about Council Communism just remember it sounding pretty good but got side tracked with Anarchism...

As for the whole Marxist state I think Engels was right when he said:

"The free people's state has been transferred into the free state. Taken in its grammatical sense, a free state is one where the state is free in relation to its citizens, hence a state with a despotic government. The whole talk about the state should be dropped, especially since the Commune, which was no longer a state in the proper sense of the word. The 'people's state' has been thrown in our faces by the anarchists to the point of disgust, although already Marx's book against Proudhon and later the Communist Manifesto say plainly that with the introduction of the socialist order of society the state dissolves of itself [sich auflost] and disappears. As the state is only a transitional institution which is used in the struggle, in the revolution, to hold down one's adversaries by force, it is sheer nonsense to talk of a 'free people's state'; so long as the proletariat still needs the state, it does not need it in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist. We would therefore propose replacing the state everywhere by Gemeinwesen, a good old German word which can very well take the place of the French word commune."
-http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch04.htm
-http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_03_18.htm#staterev