Anarchism & World Revolution

[Nox]

How do Anarchists plan to achieve world revolution?

[ZeroNowhere]

I don't think that there's any monolithic answer to this. In addition, it could be useful to specify what exactly you meant by 'plan'; do you mean how the working class is to get into a position where they revolt, how they are to revolt, how they are to do so in the name of anarchist principles, or...?

[Nox]

I don't think that there's any monolithic answer to this. In addition, it could be useful to specify what exactly you meant by 'plan'; do you mean how the working class is to get into a position where they revolt, how they are to revolt, how they are to do so in the name of anarchist principles, or...?

I mean how they will achieve world revolution once they get into power.

E.g. if there is an anarchist revolution in the USA, how will they achieve world revolution from that?

[ZeroNowhere]

That assumes that they wish to get into power, though, or see this as a prerequisite of revolution, quite apart from the rather nebulous nature of 'power' in this context. I'm a communist, and I don't believe that world revolution will be begun by 'us' getting into power.

[Nox]

That assumes that they wish to get into power, though, or see this as a prerequisite of revolution, quite apart from the rather nebulous nature of 'power' in this context. I'm a communist, and I don't believe that world revolution will be begun by 'us' getting into power.


How will world revolution be achieved then? Without using the state

[Tim Cornelis]

How would you propose the world revolution spread? From what you are saying it seems like you're proposing exportation of the revolution, i.e. "progressive imperialism". If the Communists take power in the US do you propose they export it to Europe by force?

I always assumed anarchists and Marxists had the same idea on world revolution. It would start somewhere and "simply" spread. The protests of OccupyWallstreet are an example of world wide protests following the Arab Spring. That's how it should spread.

[Magón]

Smoke weed 'erry 'erryday, dawg.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Firstly, might this be moved into learning?

To the OP: I don't think (i'm not an anarchist, so I might be wrong) there is a 'blueprint' for revolution, per se. Rather, anarchism believes in firstly the absolute self-emancipation of the working class (by the working class, for the working class, and NOT on behalf of the workign class) during a period of intense revolutionary class struggle.

Anarchists obviously don't believe in a transitional period between Capitalism and communism, so i'd imagine that anarchism truly is an ideology that relies upon world revolution, in the sense that to form an autonomous anarchic bloc, revolution would have to occur in a particular area of countries that was large enough and had the right economic development/natural resources to make the anarchic revolutionary bloc autarkic (that is, assuming literal world revolution at one time is somewhat utopian).

If this thread were moved to learning, I would also like to ask any comrades with a better understanding of anarchism than me, how the almost instant move from Capitalism to a stateless, classless and moneyless society would be achieved, in practical, literal terms. I'm quite interested to know how this can occur without some sort of transitional period.

[Tablo]

Anarchists obviously don't believe in a transitional period between Capitalism and communism, so i'd imagine that anarchism truly is an ideology that relies upon world revolution, in the sense that to form an autonomous anarchic bloc, revolution would have to occur in a particular area of countries that was large enough and had the right economic development/natural resources to make the anarchic revolutionary bloc autarkic (that is, assuming literal world revolution at one time is somewhat utopian).

Anarchists believe in transition. Immediately jumping into communism isn't feasible at all. We would have socialist transition just like the Marxists, but it won't be enforced through a 'state'.

[Magón]

To the OP: I don't think (i'm not an anarchist, so I might be wrong) there is a 'blueprint' for revolution, per se. Rather, anarchism believes in firstly the absolute self-emancipation of the working class (by the working class, for the working class, and NOT on behalf of the workign class) during a period of intense revolutionary class struggle.

Correct.


Anarchists obviously don't believe in a transitional period between Capitalism and communism, so i'd imagine that anarchism truly is an ideology that relies upon world revolution, in the sense that to form an autonomous anarchic bloc, revolution would have to occur in a particular area of countries that was large enough and had the right economic development/natural resources to make the anarchic revolutionary bloc autarkic (that is, assuming literal world revolution at one time is somewhat utopian).

Anarchists rely just as much as Marxists, on revolution being world wide (obviously), but just without a state to intervene or be created, during a Socialist transition from Capitalism to Communism. Obviously not all Marxists believe as some do, in Socialism in One Country theory, etc., so when some Marxists speak, it can actually sound like Anarchism, or vise versa, which I've personally experienced myself at rallies and marches when a Marxist or Anarchist speak.


If this thread were moved to learning, I would also like to ask any comrades with a better understanding of anarchism than me, how the almost instant move from Capitalism to a stateless, classless and moneyless society would be achieved, in practical, literal terms. I'm quite interested to know how this can occur without some sort of transitional period.

As you said, Anarchists don't have a blueprint, just like most Marxists don't, of how to achieve the goal of Communism in the end, but from personal opinion, I think that it's important for those who may not or cannot, assist in revolution through use of fighting, work hard to bring to the area where there is fighting, the alternative. So simply put, while some fight and battle on at the front somewhere, others who chose not to pick up a gun or whatever, could still be of vital importance, by educating and planting the seeds so to speak, of an alternative society that we can all come to.

Sort of like how the Spanish Anarchists worked in Catalonia, where they did basically what I stated above.

[Искра]

I won't quote people, but I'll try to refer to all posts here. I was anarchists for a really long time and I wrote few articles on various subjects regarding anarchism and its views on organisation, revolution and “transition”. I have to say that a lot of posts here are inaccurate or confusing, so I’ll try to be as clear as much as possible. Even I’m narcissistic bastard I appreciate all corrections and comments.

Also, one personal note to OP. Since you decided not to be Marxist-Leninist any more I would advise you to read more about anarchism instead of just saying that you are one now. Personally I would suggest you to read book by van der Walt and Schmidt called “Black Flame” (http://www.akpress.org/2007/items/blackflameakpress), because in my opinion its the best work on anarchism concerning its history and ideology.

Also, before I start it’s important for me to note that when I’m writing about anarchism I’m only referring to what we call class struggle anarchism, or anarcho-communism/libertarian communism. I’m not talking about individualist, pacifist, Christian, mutualist or capitalist anarchism, since that is not anarchism in my opinion (or at least it’s not the same or similar with class struggle anarchism). So, I follow van der Walt and Schmidt on that question.

When we are talking about anarchist theory of world revolution it’s important to emphasise that anarchists reject transitional period. They believe that we should start to build new society from the first day of a revolution and they oppose concept of “proletarian dictatorship”. Many anarchists have distorted view on Marx’s concept of “proletarian dictatorship” as they believe that Marx was advocating repressive state organisation in a Bolshevik style. This distorted belief is rooted in Marx vs. Bakunin episode in First Internationale where Bakunin predicted SSSR. In reality Marx never advocated such system and if you read Engel’s foreword to Marx’s article “Civil War in France” (I think it’s that one) you could find the sentence which is claiming that if you want to know how does proletarian dictatorship looks like you should look at Paris Commune. Same commune that was praised by anarchist champion Bakunin.

Too cut it short I’ll recommend you to read two articles which I posted recently here on Marx-Bakunin conflict and on Marx and state, because they kind of destroy few anarchist myths on transitional period:
http://thecommune.co.uk/2010/09/14/marx-bakunin-and-the-question-of-authoritarianism/#more-5850
http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/karl-marx-the-state.html

I would also recommend you to read Lenin’s “State and Revolution” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/). It’s an interesting read on this subject and it’s (ideologically) quite different from most of his works.

But, to be honest, anarchist don not actually have consensus regarding transitional period. In a book called “Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century” by V. Damier I have read that there were whole magazines who were only concerned with anarchist version of transitional period. Importunely, most of them are in Russian and almost impossible to get. I hope that one day I’ll get that opportunity, because I’m really interested in what would that be. Also, few anarchists, after the failure of Russian Revolution tried to “revise” anarchism and to input concept of proletarian dictatorship. Also, they were Russians and wrote in magazines which are hard to get.

On what do anarchists think should happen after revolution there’s interesting book by Argentinean born anarchist (and member of FORA) Diego Abad de Santillan, who later emigrated to Spain and was one of leading theoretic of Spanish CNT, called “After the Revolution”. (http://membres.multimania.fr/anarchives/site/syndic/aftertherevolution.htm)
(http://membres.multimania.fr/anarchives/site/syndic/aftertherevolution.htm)

(http://membres.multimania.fr/anarchives/site/syndic/aftertherevolution.htm)
The question of world revolution to anarchists is quite simple. The only way to achieve revolution is trough world revolution. But since anarchist experiments in Ukraine and Spain this theory is quite questioned, because those were situations where some kind of anarchist revolution was possible, but there was no chance in turning it into a world revolution. There were certain questions asked of how should function society of libertarian communism just in Spain... There are interesting articles about that, but can’t remember any of them right now.

Someone mentioned “power”. Goal of anarchism is to destroy power as political force, or in words of someone (I forgot who it was): goal of anarchism is to “dissolve” political power within society to the point where every individual have same amount of it. So, anarchists do not want to win state power, but to destroy it. In Spanish revolution they did quite different and that was a major failure (even trough, in reality there was no other option).

Anarchists do not have “blue print”, like comrades mentioned, to achieve revolution. There are certain “strategies” or “beliefs” to achieve that and actually that is a basis on which anarchists (again only class struggle ones) divide themselves. So you have, for instance, insurrectionists (Originally insurrectionists were class anarchists! Today most of them tend to be individualist or “post-anarchists”.) believe that they’ll spark a fire of revolution by well planned terrorist actions of a small revolutionary vanguard. Anarcho-syndicalists believe that they should work with masses, turn them to anarchism and then start a great general strike which will lead them to a revolution. Various anarcho-communists, like “platformists” or “synthesists”, believe that they should educate masses and win them to anarchism but they are not so keen on a syndicate thing, because they consider it necessary reformist. They differ on a way they organise.

I can’t give you good text about insurrectionism but it’s really good covered in “Black flame”. Regarding anarcho-syndicalism, you should check “Black flame”, but also some “classic” writings such as Rudolf Rocker’s “Anarcho-syndicalism” (http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/rocker/sp001495/rocker_as1.html). On, “platform” (http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/org_plat.htm) you should read whole document itself.



You can also check the Anarchist FAQ, even it's full of mistakes,and read stuff you are interested about.


I hope my post was helpful.