Question for Authoritarian Marxists

[Magón]

Lately, and I'm not sure why, that's why I'm asking this, but where I live some of the people I know and speak with who are Authoritarian Marxists of all kinds, have recently been using the word "fear", when referring to Anarchist's view on the State, and why we're so anti-State. I've heard it on here a few times as well, but never understand why it's used so much.

They often say that the reason Anarchists are Anarchists, is because they have a "fear" of the State, and all that it brings. Most of the time when I hear this, and the guy/woman sounds reasonable to speak with on the subject, I'll tell them that it's not a fear of the State that makes us oppose it, and makes us Anarchists, but an understanding of history and the various state's throughout history, and their actions during their times, that make us oppose them. Whether during feudal times, or not, in an Anarchist's eyes, States have always been trouble for the people, but we don't fear them and intern that's why we oppose them.

But for some reason, Authoritarian Marxists, and of course the Center/Right Wing of the world, always in some form or another, say we Anarchists are "fearful" and "afraid" of the State. Now for an Anarchist, this can be tiresome, trying to correct it all the time, so we don't correct them every time they say it, but I'm just curious why Authoritarian Marxists and the rest, still continue to think or at least say, Anarchists are fearful and afraid of the State, when it's been said a billion times over the years, that we're not.

So for you out there that think and say this, what makes you still say it, even though we've corrected it time and time again.

Anarchists feel free to say your views on the matter too.

[red cat]

I've heard it on here a few times as well, but never understand why it's used so much.



To troll you. :D


But for some reason, Authoritarian Marxists, and of course the Center/Right Wing of the world, always in some form or another, say we Anarchists are "fearful" and "afraid" of the State. Now for an Anarchist, this can be tiresome, trying to correct it all the time, so we don't correct them every time they say it, but I'm just curious why Authoritarian Marxists and the rest, still continue to think or at least say, Anarchists are fearful and afraid of the State, when it's been said a billion times over the years, that we're not.

So for you out there that think and say this, what makes you still say it, even though we've corrected it time and time again.:lol:

[Magón]

To troll you. :D
:lol:

Yeah, maybe sometimes in public, but I'm pretty sure that even in your own little circles and outside RevLeft, Authoritarian Marxists still say it and genuinely think/mean it.

[red cat]

Yeah, maybe sometimes in public, but I'm pretty sure that even in your own little circles and outside RevLeft, Authoritarian Marxists still say it and genuinely think/mean it.

Serious "authoritarian" Marxists have more important things to do than to engage in silly conversations among themselves about others.

[Imposter Marxist]

Cause anarchists are afraid of the state. its under their BED

[Leftsolidarity]

I am a Marxist that comes from an anarchist background and I've noticed that before too. Whether one wants to admit it or not, the opposition to the state does somewhat come out of fear, the fear of oppression. I am neither authoritarian nor anarchist so I feel that I can look at this as unbiasedly as possible.

I won't say how I feel about most authoritarian socialists but they usually will use word play to be-little a different tendency even if it's not exactly true. It all just stems from the difference in beliefs about what is the deciding factor in society, anarchists think the state while Marxists think means of production.

But lets all stick together for the children okay?;)

[red_rich]

anarchists are opposed to the state not out of fear, they see it as illegitimate in every form. Marxists believe it also to be fundimentally illegitimate, but a necessary evil in the road to communism.

[Q]

Serious "authoritarian" Marxists have more important things to do than to engage in silly conversations among themselves about others.

Like trolling on Revleft?


Marxists believe it also to be fundimentally illegitimate, but a necessary evil in the road to communism.

Marxists understand the state as an apparatus reflecting class rule. Working class hegemony will feature its own form of state. This form of state is all about bringing the vast majority to power, as opposed to the rule of a tiny minority controlling the vast majority (which is the capitalist state). So we cannot really address this apparatus anymore as a "state" in the way we understand it today, with its army, police and vast bureaucracy. As it expresses the hegemony of the working class, it will also be negated when there is no longer a differential of classes. In other words, the workers state ceases when there is a classless, communist society.

So we do not see it as a "necessary evil", the capitalist state has to be smashed and replaced by our collective rule.

[GPDP]

Excuse me if this sounds mean, but what the hell is an "authoritarian" Marxist? There's no such self-described tendency that I know of, and those Marxists (usually Leninists) that call themselves such do so in a joking manner, usually to mock anarchists who throw that word around, as well as the whole "libertarian Marxism" thing that has sprouted up as of late in supposed response to the "authoritarians."

Also, as I understand the situation, Marxists don't critique anarchists as being "afraid" of a state so much as they find opposition to a workers' state to be utopian, or based on semantics at best. What some Marxists advocate and call a workers' state an anarchist may look at and say it's not a state at all.

[hatzel]

Whether one wants to admit it or not, the opposition to the state does somewhat come out of fear, the fear of oppression.Through sheer coincidence, I was just (and I mean just, about 10 seconds before I came here) reading the essay 'Freedom' by Albert Libertad on the distinction between anarchism and libertarianism (in the original French sense, not that weird American thing). I'll cite it here for reference, if anybody's interested:

Many think that it is a simple dispute over words that makes some declare themselves libertarians and others anarchist. I have an entirely different opinion.

I am an anarchist and I hold to the label not for the sake of a vain garnishing of words, but because it means a philosophy, a different method than that of the libertarian.

The libertarian, as the word indicates, is an adorer of liberty. For him, it is the beginning and end of all things. To become a cult of liberty, to write its name on all the walls, to erect statues illuminating the world, to talk about it in season and out, to declare oneself free of hereditary determinism when its atavistic and encompassing movements make you a slave...this is the achievement of the libertarian.

The anarchist, referring simply to etymology, is against authority. That’s exact. He doesn’t make liberty the causality but rather the finality of the evolution of his Self. He doesn’t say, even when it concerns merest of his acts. “I am free.” but “I want to be free”. For him, freedom is not an entity, a quality, something that one has or doesn’t have, but is a result that he obtains to the degree that he obtains power.

He doesn’t make freedom into a right that existed before him, before human beings but a science that he acquires, that humans acquire, day after day, to free themselves of ignorance, abolishing the shackles of tyranny and property.

Man is not free to act or not to act, by his will alone. He learns to do or not to do when he has exercised his judgement, enlightened his ignorance, or destroyed the obstacles that stand in his way. So if we take the position of a libertarian, without musical knowledge in the front of his piano, is he free to play? NO! He won’t have this freedom until he has learned music and to play the instrument. This is what the anarchists say. He also struggles against the authority that prevents him from developing his musical aptitudes — when he has them — or he who withholds the pianos. To have the freedom to play, he has to have the power to know and the power to have a piano at his disposition. Freedom is a force that one must know how to develop within the individual; no one can grant it.

When the Republic takes its famous slogan: “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite”, does it make us free, equal or brothers? She tells us “You are free” these are vain words since we do not have the power to be free. And why don’t we have this power? Principally because we do not know how to acquire the proper knowledge. We take the mirage for reality.

We always await the freedom of a State, of a Redeemer, of a Revolution, we never work to develop it within each individual. What is the magic wand that transforms the current generation born of centuries of servitude and resignation into a generation of human beings deserving of freedom, because they are strong enough to conquer it?

This transformation will come from the awareness that men will have of not having freedom of consciousness, that freedom is not in them, that they don’t have the right to be free, that they are not all born free and equal...and that it is nevertheless impossible to have happiness without freedom. The day that they have this consciousness they will stop at nothing to obtain freedom. This is why anarchists struggle with such strength against the libertarian current that makes one take the shadow for substance.

To obtain this power, it is necessary for us to struggle against two currents that threaten the conquest of our liberty: it is necessary to defend it against others and against oneself, against external and internal forces.

To go towards freedom, it becomes necessary to develop our individuality. When I say: to go towards freedom, I mean for each of us to go toward the most complete development of our Self. We are not therefore free to take any which road, it is necessary to force ourselves to take the correct path. We are not free to yield to excessive and lawless desires, we are obliged to satisfy them. We are not free to put ourselves in a state of inebriation making our personality lose the use of its will, placing us at the mercy of anything; let’s say rather that we endure the tyranny of a passion that misery of luxury has given us. True freedom would consist of an act of authority upon this habit, to liberate oneself from its tyranny and its corollaries.

I said, an act of authority, because I don’t have the passion of liberty considered a priori. I am not a libertarian. If I want to acquire liberty, I don’t adore it. I don’t amuse myself refusing the act of authority that will make me overcome the adversary that attacks me, nor do I refuse the act of authority that will make me attack the adversary. I know that every act of force is an act of authority. I would like to never have to use force, authority against other men, but I live in the 20th century and I am not free of from the direction of my movements to acquire liberty.

So, I consider the Revolution as an act of authority of some against others, individual revolt as an act of authority of some against others. And therefore I find these means logical, but I want to exactly determine the intention. I find them logical and I am ready to cooperate, if these acts of temporary authority have the removing of a stable authority and giving more freedom as their goal; I find them illogical and I thwart them if their goal isn’t removing an authority. By these acts, authority gains power: she hasn’t done anything but change name, even that which one has chosen for the occasion of its modification.

Libertarians make a dogma of liberty; anarchists make it an end. Libertarians think that man is born free and that society makes him a slave. Anarchists realize that man is born into the most complete of subordinations, the greatest of servitudes and that civilization leads him to the path of liberty.

That which the anarchists reproach is the association of men-society — which is obstructing the road after having guided our first steps. Society delivers hunger, malignant fever, ferocious beasts — evidently not in all cases, but generally — but she makes humanity prey to misery, overwork, and governments. She puts humanity between a rock and a hard place. She makes the child forget the authority of nature to place him under the authority of men.

The anarchist intervenes. He does not ask for liberty as a good that one has taken from him, but as a good that one prevents him from acquiring. He observes the present society and he declares that it is a bad instrument, a bad way to call individuals to their complete development.

The anarchist sees society surround men with a lattice of laws, a net of rules, and an atmosphere of morality and prejudices without doing anything to bring them out of the night of ignorance. He doesn’t have the libertarian religion, liberal one could say but more and more he wants liberty for himself like he wants pure air for his lungs. He decides then to work by all means to tear apart the threads of the lattice, the stitches of the net and endeavors to open up free thought.

The anarchist’s desire is to be able to exercise his faculties with the greatest possible intensity. the more he improves himself, the more experience he takes in, the more he destroys obstacles, as much intellectual and moral as material, the more he takes an open field, the more he allows his individuality to expand, the more he becomes free to evolve and the more he proceeds towards the realization of his desire.

But I won't allow myself to get carried away and I’ll return more precisely to the subject.

The libertarian who doesn’t have the power to carry through an explanation, a critique which he recognizes as well founded or that he doesn’t even want to discuss, he responds “I am free to act like this.” The anarchist says: “ I think that I am right to act like this but come on.” And if the critique made is about a passion which he doesn’t have the strength to free himself from, he will add: “ I am under the slavery of this atavism and this habit.” This simple declaration won’t be without cost. It will carry its own force, maybe for the individual attacked, but surely for the individual that made it, and for those who are less attacked by the passion in question.

The anarchist is not mistaken about the domain gained. He does not say “I am free to marry my daughter if that pleases me — I have the right to wear a high style hat if it suits me” because he knows that this liberty, this right are a tribute paid to the morality of the milieu, to the conventions of the world; they are imposed by the outside against all desires, against all internal determinism of the individual.

The anarchist acts thus not due to modesty, or the spirit of contradiction, but because he holds a conception which is completely different from that of the libertarian. He doesn’t believe in innate liberty, but in liberty that is acquired. And because he knows that he doesn’t possess all liberties, he has a greater will to acquire the power of liberty.

Words do not have a power in themselves. They have a meaning that one must know well, to state precisely in order to allow oneself to be taken by their magic. The great Revolution has made a fool of us with its slogan: “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite” the liberals have sung us above all the tune of their “laisser-faire” with the refrain of the freedom of work; Libertarians delude themselves with a belief in a pre-established liberty and they make critiques in its honor...Anarchists should not want the word but the thing. They are against authority, government, economic religious and moral power, knowing the more authority is diminished the more liberty is increased.

It is a relation between the power of the group and the power of the individual. The more the first term of this relation is diminished, the more authority is diminished, the more liberty is increased.

What does the anarchist want? To reach a state in which these two powers are balanced, where the individual has real freedom of movement without ever hindering the liberty of movement of another. The anarchist does not want to reverse the relation so that his freedom is made of the slavery of others, because he knows that authority is bad in itself, as much for he who submits to it as for he who gives it.

To truly know freedom, one must develop the human being until one makes sure that no authority has the possibility of existing.

I'm pretty sure he'd put the opinion you've outlined under the title of 'libertarianism', that is to say, the ideology of somebody who believes that their inherent and pre-existing liberty is being curtailed by the state, as opposed to 'anarchism', for those who consider the state an obstacle to their attaining liberty in the first place. I think that fearing the state is reliant on holding liberty up as one's goal, and statelessness as the means with which to achieve it, as opposed to finding authority illegitimate, with liberty little but a side-effect of the absence of authority and coercion. It is only the libertarian who could truly fear the state, as the anarchist merely detests its inherent authority, knowing that he is above having to fear such an abstract entity...

[Leftsolidarity]

What some Marxists advocate and call a workers' state an anarchist may look at and say it's not a state at all.

I completely agree.

But there are definitely authoritarian or anti-authoritarian tendencies to some Marxists groups.

[Magón]

Excuse me if this sounds mean, but what the hell is an "authoritarian" Marxist? There's no such self-described tendency that I know of, and those Marxists (usually Leninists) that call themselves such do so in a joking manner, usually to mock anarchists who throw that word around, as well as the whole "libertarian Marxism" thing that has sprouted up as of late in supposed response to the "authoritarians."

It was directed at MLs, Trots, MLMs, etc.


Also, as I understand the situation, Marxists don't critique anarchists as being "afraid" of a state so much as they find opposition to a workers' state to be utopian, or based on semantics at best.

It's not necessarily critiquing Anarchist theory, it's just some Marxists flat out saying Anarchists are "afraid" of the state, and that's why we oppose it so much.


What some Marxists advocate and call a workers' state an anarchist may look at and say it's not a state at all.

I don't think there's ever been a case in history, where such an example was true. Even in a place like Spain '36, an Anarchist has to be pretty blind to not see it as a State in someway when looking at the Popular Front.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Who isn't somewhat fearful of the state? They have every right to stomp on your face and get away with it, tap your phone if they want to, lock you in a cage, etc, if you haven't been a little fearful while staring at a line of police with riot gear walking towards you then maybe you should get that checked out. Being brave is to be able to understand that you're fearful of repercussions but that you will still do what you're going to do. It's like asking a girl out, you're a little fearful that you'll get rejected but you do it anyways. When looking at the State you've got to be fearful with the knowledge that they can kill and torture you if they want to, but we've got to be brave and face them anyways.

I mean I no fear, me big strong man, me no reason to fear nothing :tt2:

[L.A.P.]

I am not an "Authoritarian" Marxist, fuck you.

[hatzel]

I am not an "Authoritarian" Marxist, fuck you.Well, it does say Marxist-Leninist-Maoist under you name, so...if the shoe fits, as they say :)

[Hexen]

There is no such thing as "Authoritarian Marxism" because Marxism is simply a political science. "Stalinism", "Trotskism" "Leninism" "Maoism", etc are not Marxist at all but their just nothing more than perverted and twisted versions of capitalism or basically "Communism in Name Only" because True Socialism/Communism has never been attempted.

[Bright Banana Beard]

I am not an "Authoritarian" Marxist, fuck you.

Yes you are. stop lying!!

[Dumb]

"Authoritarian Marxist"? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

[Leftsolidarity]

There is no such thing as "Authoritarian Marxism" because Marxism is simply a political science. "Stalinism", "Trotskism" "Leninism" "Maoism", etc are not Marxist at all but their just nothing more than perverted and twisted versions of capitalism or basically "Communism in Name Only" because True Socialism/Communism has never been attempted.

You are not correct. They are all expansions on Marxism in their own ways built from the ground work that Marx laid out(even though I might not agree with all of them). Please explain why you say that they are twisted versions of capitalism because I don't see any evidence of that in any of them. Also, please explain what you mean by "True Socialism/Communism". I have the feeling that you are in the same Utopian phase that I was in about a year ago.

[Leftsolidarity]

"Authoritarian Marxist"? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

I don't see how it is. I would say it is not something I would want to be but I don't see it as a contradiction.

[Dumb]

I don't see how it is. I would say it is not something I would want to be but I don't see it as a contradiction.

The existence of an authority implies a hierarchical class society.

[Leftsolidarity]

Yes, but remember there are still classes in a socialist society that is why there is still a state. Socialism is working to get rid of classes to move on to communism.

[Dumb]

Oh, so the authoritarian component is more a matter of means than ends?

[RNL]

The existence of an authority implies a hierarchical class society.
Eh?

What about the authority of a parent over their child, or the authority of a community over its motorists?

I'm yet to be convinced that 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' aren't just rhetorical buzzwords. It's a false dichotomy - 'liberty' and 'authority' are not simple opposites. No one is a defender of all liberties or all authorities, that would be impossible. The struggle for certain liberties presupposes certain authorities. Simply defending the liberty of people to walk down the street without being attacked presupposes a denial of other people's liberty to attack people in the street, and protection of the former liberty requires some kind of authority over those who would otherwise enjoy the latter liberty.

[Gorilla]

Excuse me if this sounds mean, but what the hell is an "authoritarian" Marxist?

Well maybe it would be easier to illustrate with an example, like e.g. Andreu Nin i Perez. Authoritarian Marxists like Comrade Nin are committed to the conquest of state power by the working class.

[Leftsolidarity]

Oh, so the authoritarian component is more a matter of means than ends?

Somewhat, if you put it that way all Marxists are "authoritarians" because all Marxists believe in the use of state power by the working class but it is not "authoritarian" in the sense talked about in this thread. By authoritarian it is meant totalitarian.

[Leftsolidarity]

Eh?

What about the authority of a parent over their child, or the authority of a community over its motorists?

I'm yet to be convinced that 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' aren't just rhetorical buzzwords. It's a false dichotomy - 'liberty' and 'authority' are not simple opposites. No one is a defender of all liberties or all authorities, that would be impossible. The struggle for certain liberties presupposes certain authorities. Simply defending the liberty of people to walk down the street without being attacked presupposes a denial of other people's liberty to attack people in the street, and protection of the former liberty requires some kind of authority over those who would otherwise enjoy the latter liberty.

They are just stupid buzzwords but I think they are just being used right now to differentiate between tendencies.

[Hexen]

I have the feeling that you are in the same Utopian phase that I was in about a year ago.

What you are now and what exactly do you mean? Then what's the point of this struggle against capitalism if we can't achieve our utopian goal (or do we need to abandon the "Utopia/Dystopia dichotomy)? What are trying to accomplish here then? So what is this is "phase" you speak of?

Well I don't know about you though...

[WeAreReborn]

What you are now and what exactly do you mean? Then what's the point of this struggle against capitalism if we can't achieve our utopian goal? What are trying to accomplish here then? So what is this is "phase" you speak of?

Well I don't know about you though...
Our goal as Anarchists and Communists isn't utopian. We are not seeking a perfect, and therefore, unachievable society. Communism will still have flaws, yet they will be insignificant when compared to the flaws of Capitalism.

Edit: To be more specific we as revolutionary leftists are seeking to establish a society in which workers gain full control of society and their work place while having a completely democratic process. In doing so, it will eliminate poverty, racism, sexism and other social constructs that Capitalism holds so dear.

[Leftsolidarity]

What you are now and what exactly do you mean? Then what's the point of this struggle against capitalism if we can't achieve our utopian goal (or do we need to abandon the "Utopia/Dystopia dichotomy)? What are trying to accomplish here then? So what is this is "phase" you speak of?

Well I don't know about you though...

I mean the distancing of all other attempts that have even been made because they weren't perfect. No attempt will ever be perfect but we must stand with our past and present comrades who at least made an effort. Socialism nor communism will be perfect because there is still the human element. The point is just to improve society and struggle against the injustices that oppose the interests of the people. The phase I'm speaking of is the Utopian phase, most people go through it. It is expecting humans to stop being humans.

[L.A.P.]

Well, it does say Marxist-Leninist-Maoist under you name, so...if the shoe fits, as they say :)

I know you think Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were evil dictators but understand I simply don't share this viewpoint.

[hatzel]

I know you think Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were evil dictators but understand I simply don't share this viewpoint.Irrelevant. When anarchists call Marxists 'authoritarian', it's got nothing to do with Lenin, Stalin, Mao or any other leader. It predates their rise to power. It's based on the fundamentally authoritarian nature of the ideology itself. Just so you know.

[28350]

Yeah, "authoritarian marxism" is just a label made to mirror "libertarian marxism" which is already a bullshit one. marxism doesn't really find liberty and authority as absolute concepts that factor into history, but rather as stemming from classes

[Aurora]

As has been pointed out 'authoritarian' is a nonsense term for marxists, what matters for marxists is who is using authority not its abstract existence.

I don't think there's ever been a case in history, where such an example was true. Even in a place like Spain '36, an Anarchist has to be pretty blind to not see it as a State in someway when looking at the Popular Front.
If im not mistaken the Paris Commune was looked at favorably by both anarchists and communists and Marx considered that to have been a state.

[Jose Gracchus]

I don't think there's ever been a case in history, where such an example was true. Even in a place like Spain '36, an Anarchist has to be pretty blind to not see it as a State in someway when looking at the Popular Front.

I think the CNT's program to overthrow the capitalist state and replace with a workers' militia led by workers' defense councils responsible to workers' congresses that are directly elected from the base is in principle, almost totally identical to a system of federated soviets [anarchists and Maximalists, both groups of libertarian socialists, joined the Left Mensheviks, Menshevik Internationalists, and Left SRs in the far left bloc that included the Bolsheviks opposed to the Provisional Government, for social revolution and soviet power, in late 1917, as it happens]. I think it could have worked, and I suspect that Marxists would have called it a "dictatorship of the proletariat" while the anarcho-syndicalists would not.

[L.A.P.]

Irrelevant. When anarchists call Marxists 'authoritarian', it's got nothing to do with Lenin, Stalin, Mao or any other leader. It predates their rise to power. It's based on the fundamentally authoritarian nature of the ideology itself. Just so you know.

Oh, this presumption is even more ridiculous than I thought it was now that you have elaborated on it.

[$lim_$weezy]

Look, by "authoritarian" I think it is meant those ideologies that invest too much power (in my opinion. I guess I mean relatively more power. Like has been said, it's relative) in the state over the individual, FOR EXAMPLE a single communist leader acting with unchecked power controlling the state during the socialist phase. The final end, the communist phase, is the by-definition non-authoritarian part.

For example, I think the power that Stalin had qualifies as authoritarian, whether you believe he was good for his people or not. In short, he could make decisions independent of and against democratic process.

I believe that this power is what "scares" anarchists. Replace capitalism with yet another authoritarian system, possibly with less liberty and even less popular participation in government? It is scary to me, though that does not mean that good could not come out of it under the right conditions.

Edit: clarity

[ckaihatsu]

Marxists understand the state as an apparatus reflecting class rule. Working class hegemony will feature its own form of state. This form of state is all about bringing the vast majority to power, as opposed to the rule of a tiny minority controlling the vast majority (which is the capitalist state). So we cannot really address this apparatus anymore as a "state" in the way we understand it today, with its army, police and vast bureaucracy. As it expresses the hegemony of the working class, it will also be negated when there is no longer a differential of classes. In other words, the workers state ceases when there is a classless, communist society.

So we do not see it as a "necessary evil", the capitalist state has to be smashed and replaced by our collective rule.





What about the authority of a parent over their child, or the authority of a community over its motorists?

I'm yet to be convinced that 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' aren't just rhetorical buzzwords. It's a false dichotomy - 'liberty' and 'authority' are not simple opposites. No one is a defender of all liberties or all authorities, that would be impossible. The struggle for certain liberties presupposes certain authorities. Simply defending the liberty of people to walk down the street without being attacked presupposes a denial of other people's liberty to attack people in the street, and protection of the former liberty requires some kind of authority over those who would otherwise enjoy the latter liberty.


The convenient, appropriate term I think of here is 'civil society' -- certainly there would be some basic social *norms*, and even guidelines and -- (shudder) -- *rules* in a post-capitalist Marxist / anarchist world, along with some official (workers-government) means for enforcing them.

Here's its usage at another, current thread:








We can't really predict how a communistic society would be in detail.





Politics has to do with the *administration* of society's implements and is only *tangentially* related to its social policies, at most (or should be).

We can't predict what *civil society* -- and its pleasures -- will be like in detail, given a communistic *administration* -- as over its industry and industrial production.





Our goal as Anarchists and Communists isn't utopian. We are not seeking a perfect, and therefore, unachievable society. Communism will still have flaws, yet they will be insignificant when compared to the flaws of Capitalism.

[Book O'Dead]

Please define more precisely what you mean by "authoritarian Marxist"?

[Tim Finnegan]

Irrelevant. When anarchists call Marxists 'authoritarian', it's got nothing to do with Lenin, Stalin, Mao or any other leader. It predates their rise to power. It's based on the fundamentally authoritarian nature of the ideology itself. Just so you know.
Well, 50% that, and 50% Bakunin's hysterical, frequently anti-Semitic ramblings. A lot of anarchists never quite seemed to get over all that "red bureaucracy" bullshit, and the coincidental emergence of a bureaucratic ruling class in the Soviet Union seemed to cement it for a lot of them.


I think the CNT's program to overthrow the capitalist state and replace with a workers' militia led by workers' defense councils responsible to workers' congresses that are directly elected from the base is in principle, almost totally identical to a system of federated soviets [anarchists and Maximalists, both groups of libertarian socialists, joined the Left Mensheviks, Menshevik Internationalists, and Left SRs in the far left bloc that included the Bolsheviks opposed to the Provisional Government, for social revolution and soviet power, in late 1917, as it happens]. I think it could have worked, and I suspect that Marxists would have called it a "dictatorship of the proletariat" while the anarcho-syndicalists would not.
This is a very strong point. The Spanish experience strongly suggests that non-Stalinist Marxists and Anarcho-Syndicalists seek very similar ends, whatever their theoretical understanding of those ends. What the POUM saw as the potential for the destruction of the bourgeois state and the construction of a workers' state, the CNT-FIA saw as the potential for the destruction of the state full stop, and while they may have had slightly different understandings of the eventual outcome, they were both witnessing very much the same revolutionary process .

[bezdomni]

Marxists are "authoritarian" in the sense that they uphold the authority of the proletariat to dismantle capitalist society.

Revolution is an intrinsically authoritarian act, since the use of violence is necessary to topple the existing structure of political power and establish/secure the new structure.

The difference is that the new structure, socialist society, is designed for the purpose of liberation and not to perpetuate the dominance of one class over others.

Throwing a molotov at police is authoritarian. The use of firearms is authoritarian. Arresting counterrevolutionary forces is authoritarian. Street fighting is authoritarian. Taking over a military base is authoritarian. (In the sense that the goal is to establish a new mechanism of political power for the people by asserting a revolutionary authority to overthrow the ruling class).

Anarchists are authoritarian also, since they use they engage in street fighting and throw molotovs etc.

The difference is that anarchist groups typically lack a well-defined (accountable) hierarchy (as opposed to a communist organization, which elects members to the central committee). What ends up happening though, as I have experienced, is a de-facto hierarchy emerges where the loudest/smartest/oldest (whatever) anarchists are effectively "leaders" but since there is no systematic organized hierarchy, there is no internal accountability within the organization.

This is one of the reasons why historically anarchism has not been as successful as communism as a revolutionary movement which actually achieves the goal of toppling the existing order and establishing a new one.

On the other hand, this is also the reason why historically communism has quite quickly "turned sour" after the new society is established.

I think the question of authoritarianism was more or less resolved by Engels over a century ago, although it seems this is not widely understood on revleft.

The real issue you are probably thinking about is hierarchy and how anarchist groups and communist groups are structured differently, and consequently how their strategies and tactics for revolution vary. This is a deep question and anybody who claims to give you an easy answer does not know what they are talking about.

Historically anarchism and communism have had great successes in some areas and enormous failures in other areas. We should learn from one another, because obviously both have serious problems.

[Joe Payne]

lol, I love Maoists! Claiming that anarchist organizations have no elected delegates who are recallable or accountable to the wider membership is absolute nonsense. You're critique is regards to informalists in small groups that have been used as a neat strawman by red fascists such as yourself.

A delegate council is not a hierarchy that has power over and above the membership, either. Just so ya know.

Ya know, like a central committee. Which is NOT recallable, not truly accountable, and dictates the line and direction of the entire membership. Oh man, you're right, that's so much better!

Well no. From what I've read of the Situationists (who called themselves Libertarians and were avowed Marxists) it seems Authoritarian means essentially state-centric forms of Marxism and Libertarian refers to non state centric forms of Marxism and of course the anarchists.

I don't know where Marxism has a better track record in regards to revolutionary movements. Most were just nationalists using Marxist rhetoric, like Mao, Stalin, and according to Fredy Pearlman, Lenin as well! Hell, any so-called Marxist revolution post 1919 Germany were just nationalist rebellions using Marxist terms to justify brutal, anti-working class rule.

However, I'd also give a nod to Hungary, May 68 and a few others, but even they were not fully dominated by the more libertarian forms of Marxism, it was a mix of libertarians. Hell, even the Russian rev included a hogdepodge of people.

Quite frankly, in regards to genuine revolutionary movements and the theories that dominated their discourse, I would argue anarchism and Marxism on the whole are probably equal in their achievements. Cause, ya know, it isn't a particular theory that makes a revolution BUT THE PROLETARIAT and they have, on the whole, seemed pretty averse to any of the denominations of so-called Authoritarian Marxism.

[ckaihatsu]

The real issue you are probably thinking about is hierarchy and how anarchist groups and communist groups are structured differently, and consequently how their strategies and tactics for revolution vary.




This is a deep question and anybody who claims to give you an easy answer does not know what they are talking about.


This is flirting with a fatalistic tone.

More to the point, I think, is about addressing *what scale* of anti-bourgeois struggle to engage in, and how to solidify that struggle with firmer local bases and broader, more-generalized areas "above".


Centralization-Abstraction Diagram of Political Forms

http://postimage.org/image/35ru6ztic/


[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

http://postimage.org/image/34mjeutk4/

[Leftsolidarity]

lol, I love Maoists! Claiming that anarchist organizations have no elected delegates who are recallable or accountable to the wider membership is absolute nonsense. You're critique is regards to informalists in small groups that have been used as a neat strawman by red fascists such as yourself.

A delegate council is not a hierarchy that has power over and above the membership, either. Just so ya know.

Ya know, like a central committee. Which is NOT recallable, not truly accountable, and dictates the line and direction of the entire membership. Oh man, you're right, that's so much better!


Don't be an ass

[hatzel]

Don't be an assYeah, Joe Payne! Telling the truth to rebuke a totally bullshit claim is suuuuuch ass-like behaviour :cursing:

(Yo yo yo I'm being sarcastic, bro!)

[Gorilla]

Claiming that anarchist organizations have no elected delegates who are recallable or accountable to the wider membership is absolute nonsense.

When an anarchist revolution goes off successfully (I think it will happen some day) I will be interested to see how often the right of recall is actually exercised. I'm curious because the right to recall delegates exists in many trade unions but is seldom invoked and has not prevented bureaucratization, corruptionism etc.

[Leftsolidarity]

Yeah, Joe Payne! Telling the truth to rebuke a totally bullshit claim is suuuuuch ass-like behaviour :cursing:

(Yo yo yo I'm being sarcastic, bro!)

He was simply attacking him and calling names that didn't help anything. People can say the truth while respecting each other. We are all comrades here.

[gorillafuck]

Anarchists use authoritarianism, unless they are anarcho-pacifists. which none of you are.

[Summerspeaker]

I'm an anarcho-pacifist in the sense that I don't believe in shooting people. I'm also afraid of the state. Fear exists for a reason; it's valuable information. :lol:

[Sword and Shield]

I'm an anarcho-pacifist in the sense that I don't believe in shooting people.

How do you defend yourself? Stab them instead?

[Summerspeaker]

How do you defend yourself? Stab them instead?

In practice I seem to freeze in potential self-defense situations (i.e. when somebody is threatening me with a weapon). They've all been jokes or misunderstandings, so this has served me well so far. I don't hold any moral opposition to direct self-defense - with guns or whatever - but I decline to base my politics around violence. I'm skeptical of guerrilla warfare because it so often becomes a nasty game of shoot the informant.

[ckaihatsu]

When an anarchist revolution goes off successfully (I think it will happen some day) I will be interested to see how often the right of recall is actually exercised. I'm curious because the right to recall delegates exists in many trade unions but is seldom invoked and has not prevented bureaucratization, corruptionism etc.


Private property has the effect of "externalizing" people -- outside of their own "organic" best personal interests. Anyone, including trade union officials with positions and privileges, may find themselves tending more to the maintenance of their position, power, and property than to looking out for the interests of those they "represent". This is to be expected, though, and is in the present-day interests of those with official positions -- if they are to hang onto those positions, that is.

Once the institution of private property is done away with, the ground could be more level than we've ever seen before, with "delegation" of tasks flowing fluidly depending on moment-to-moment circumstances and whoever would best be able to "step up" to it. That said, though, I think we *already* have (had) the means to eliminate *all* kinds of formal delegation for the sake of policy, *altogether*:





4. Ends -- Flat, all-inclusive mode of participation at all levels without delegated representatives




[In] this day and age of fluid digital-based communications, we may want to dispense with formalized representative personages altogether and just conceptualize a productive entity within a supply chain network as having 'external business' or 'external matters' to include in its regular routine of entity-collective co-administration among its participants.




Given that people make *points* on any of a number of *issues*, which may comprise some larger *topics* -- and these fall into some general *themes*, or *categories* -- wouldn't this very discussion-board format of RevLeft be altogether suitable for a massively parallel (ground-level) political participation among all those concerned, particularly workers, for *all scales* of political implementation -- ?

I think there's conventionally been a kind of lingering anxiety over the political "workload" that would confront any regular person who would work *and* wish to have active, impacting participation in real-world policy, along the lines of the examples you've provided for this thread's discussion.

But I'll note that, for any given concrete issue, not everyone would *necessarily* find the material need to individually weigh in with a distinct proposal of their own -- as I think we've seen here from our own regular participation at RevLeft, it's often the case that a simple press of the 'Thanks' button is all that's needed in many cases where a comrade has *already* put forth the words that we would have said ourselves, thereby relieving us from the task of writing that sentiment ourselves.

Would concrete issues at higher, more-generalized levels be so different, so inaccessible to the regular, affected person on the ground? Wouldn't the information gathered within such an appropriate thread of discussion "clue everyone in" as the overall situation at that level -- say, from the participants of several different countries -- ?

I'll ask if delegated representatives *are* really required anymore when our current political vehicle, the Internet-based discussion board, can facilitate massively participatory, though orderly and topic-specific conversations, across all ranges of geography and scales of populations.

tinyurl.com/concise-communism-model

[red_rich]

Like trolling on Revleft?



Marxists understand the state as an apparatus reflecting class rule. Working class hegemony will feature its own form of state. This form of state is all about bringing the vast majority to power, as opposed to the rule of a tiny minority controlling the vast majority (which is the capitalist state). So we cannot really address this apparatus anymore as a "state" in the way we understand it today, with its army, police and vast bureaucracy. As it expresses the hegemony of the working class, it will also be negated when there is no longer a differential of classes. In other words, the workers state ceases when there is a classless, communist society.

So we do not see it as a "necessary evil", the capitalist state has to be smashed and replaced by our collective rule.

I understand a post revolutionary state would differ from the capitalist state. However if marxists strive to create a stateless classless society, then we should still view the 'workers state' as a necessary evil. Otherwise why not get rid of the state straight away? isnt that the main difference between marxists and left-anarchists?