Is Anarchism realy LEFT?

[Nikom16]

I was looking on the political spectrum and i was wondering, if far left includes total government (communism, dictatorship, etc.) and the far right shows no government control ( anarchy) why is anarchy considered to be left?


I hate communism and anarchism

[cynicles]

huh? ... don't know if troll...still gunna respond...

The entire way you're framing politics is wrong. Anarchists and Marxist are both trying to achieve socialism and communism, the difference is in tactics. The further to the right you go the further into capitalist politics you dive. This may include so-called 'free market' economic prescription but could also include a whole host of other things including racism, sexism, theocracy and fascism. The further to the left the deeper into radical socialist politics. Basically the further right, the more class collaborationist, the further left the more class antagonistic. It has nothing to do with government(whatever that means and for what system) or dictatorship(whom dictating what?).

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Really, super not sure if trolling. But you do have a profile picture, which is a step up from most possible trolls, so we'll see.

[Ostrinski]

I know this is a characteristic of a lot of anarchists and not many other communist groups, but I kind of question the left-right spectrum myself in relation to communist politics.

Increasingly do I see it as only being useful for understanding the spectrum of bourgeois politics as it emerged during the bourgeois French Revolution as a way to differentiate between the different political clubs and their respective ideologies. I know that there were socialist groups in the French Revolution but still.

I think recognizing us as communists on this spectrum isn't necessarily, but can be, a slippery slope into reformism or even worse, coalitionism.

[Igor]

what this forum needs to learn that not everyone who doesn't have a sophisticated - or even crude - idea of far left politics is a troll

[cynicles]

But just recognizing ourselves as such is a slippery slope? That sounds like pomo talk.

'If we just recognize the problem it will fix itself!'
or

'If we acknowledge or identify it, it must be true!'

I think the issue of reformism and coalitionism are probably rooted somewhere else.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Anarchists who extended their beliefs into discussions revolving around political economy (ie discussions about communism) could definitely be classified as being on the political left, I think. Like I've said before on this site, even American anarchists who were further to the right than their European counterparts (such as Joseph Labadie, for example) classified themselves as "socialists".

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

what this forum needs to learn that not everyone who doesn't have a sophisticated - or even crude - idea of far left politics is a troll

I only meant he might be a troll becaouse he said communism and dictatorship are on the same side. I agree though.

[Blake's Baby]

I was looking on the political spectrum and i was wondering, if far left includes total government (communism, dictatorship, etc.) and the far right shows no government control ( anarchy) why is anarchy considered to be left?


I am a communist and I am not against anarchy at all, F*** Right wing pigs!

I think Ostrinski makes a very good point about 'the right' and 'the left' ('ultra-leftists' tend to regard most of 'the left' as 'the left wing of capital', as in the saying 'left and right wings of the same capitalist bird').

But in terms of what you're talking about - there is no 'marxist/communist state'. Total government? Total bullshit. Marxism doesn't even posit using the state: in 'the Civil War in France' Marx makes it clear that the working class cannot take over the state but must smash it.

On the other hand, the far right loves government control. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, Salazar... how can you have fascism without a state? The state itself is the embodyment of the 'people' (the 'right sort' of people). What the right objects to about bourgeois-democratic states is their role as social mediators. They'd rather power was more nakedly displayed. The only role of the state is to protect national capital. In 'liberal' democracies, that protection includes a certain level of keeping the social peace. The liberal bourgeoisie is that section of the bourgeoisie that believes that a certain level of taxation and social welfare is a necessary condition for the success of capital, welfare programmes are a useful way of keeping the population happy (or at least happier). But even Hitler followed a fairly Keynesian approach to economics. The whole point was to strengthen the German state.

So; state = left, no state = right, is as completely wrong as can be, for any given definition of 'right and left'.

[Ostrinski]

I think the issue of reformism and coalitionism are probably rooted somewhere else.Perhaps strategically, for sure. But I think positing ourselves as "leftists" definitely makes us more prone to lesser-of-two-evilsism.

[Rafiq]

This is why Leftists (how ironic) have something of a disdain for the political spectrum. All ideology is class based. It has absolutely nothing to do with the quantity of "Government control" existent (which is generally always going to be the same). But if you're asking, yes, Anarchists are generally referred to as Leftists, real anarchists, are not Liberals or Conservativists, but radicals.

[Sea]

The entire way you're framing politics is wrong.
I wouldn't quite go that far.

Idiocy is indeed to blame for that post but it is not Nikom16's fault.

Rather, it is the idiocy of left-right analysis.

[Grenzer]

Except as we've seen, this can lead to some particularly pig headed political views, especially from the so-called "Left Communists". It's true that thee left-right distinction itself has a lot of flaws, but this can lead to the erroneous and idiotic view that a fascist is the same as a liberal, and that a Stalinist is no better than a neo-liberal. This isn't true at all. While Stalinists may be the "left ball sack of an old man's nether regions" or whatever childish phrase they want to use, they're still sympathetic to the cause of getting rid of capitalism and it is nothing short of pig headed stupidity to regard them as being the same as say fascists. You need to construct a strategy around recognizing that certain demographics are going to be more conductive to being won over to socialism than other. The childish arrogance of the Left Communists result in politics that lead to self-isolation, sectarianism, and ultimately, impotence. They are the politics of defeat and the surrender of the working class movement to bourgeois ideology.

A fine example of this is Sylvia Pankhurt's extreme opportunism in trying to sabotage and destroy the Communist Party of Great Britain before it was even created. It would of course be foolish to blame the left communists as being the cause of this. Never has a more irrelevant and powerless tendency existed after all, but it is symptomatic of a greater problem that needs to be confronted. This kind of thinking is a cancer that needs to be excised from the movement. We need to hammer out our differences in an atmosphere of genuinely open discussion and debate. Anything else leads to small, irrelevant, and impotent bureaucratic sects.

[Red Commissar]

I think part of the problem with the OP is a political idea that gets tossed around in the US a lot with little rebuttal. Some right-wingers have pushed the idea that they're all for "small government" while the left wants a "big government" nanny state nonsense- and some even defend the latter pointing to say, Somalia as why "small government" would be problematic. It's annoying this persists and I think is rather misplaced too, because honestly the same people crying about "small government" would probably have some firm views on crime enforcement, immigration, gay marriage, etc. which require the state to control people's lives in some way. All they really are doing is railing against bureaucracy and welfare, but somehow conflate that with big government, a step away from dictatorship.

There could be a discussion here too how insufficient the "left right" paradigm is, seemingly acting as a sliding scale depending on what positions you have. It oversimplifies things and it's really interesting how it's such a prominent feature of any political discussion and news coverage. Much less how society at large decides on what constitutes "left" or "right".

Modern Anarchists- and I don't mean the lazy hypocritical Anarcho-Capitalists or types like Randroids and lolbertarians- has its roots in the socialist movement of the 1800s.

[o well this is ok I guess]

He's in a group for seinfeld enthusiasts?

[Sea]

He's in a group for seinfeld enthusiasts?He's in a what for who?

[cynicles]

Extreme opportunism? Is that like extreme skateboarding?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

When anarchists advocate class struggle and the smashing of capitalism, those are leftist positions.

[Blake's Baby]

Except as we've seen, this can lead to some particularly pig headed political views, especially from the so-called "Left Communists". It's true that thee left-right distinction itself has a lot of flaws, but this can lead to the erroneous and idiotic view that a fascist is the same as a liberal, and that a Stalinist is no better than a neo-liberal. This isn't true at all. While Stalinists may be the "left ball sack of an old man's nether regions" or whatever childish phrase they want to use, they're still sympathetic to the cause of getting rid of capitalism and it is nothing short of pig headed stupidity to regard them as being the same as say fascists...

Yeah, when I'm living in a prison-state I want the flag to be a red one, after all, that's all that counts.

Let's sing hymns to the Glorious People's Tractor Factory as the Glorious People's Army smashes our faces with the butts of honest proletarian rifles! Praise our Workers' and Peasants government of oppressors, and at least console ourselves with the thought that our murderers are 'leftists'.

Fucking idiot.

So, to the OP, you can see that the question is not 'is anarchism part of "the Left"?' (in general yes it is) but 'is Stalinism part of "the Left"?' and the answer is, no it isn't, it's a vicious reactionary ideology built on the corpses of the Russian workering class, and anyone who supports it is an enemy of the working class.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Get your spectrum fixed / replaced, someone sold you a dud.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Communists and Anarchists are both against governments, nations, borders, etc. The differences are in the way in which they believe we should go about doing this.

The whole "communism = big government" is nothing but petite-bourgeois nonsense spouted by Tea Party nut jobs, An-caps, and other such reactionaries.

I'd like to see OPs response to the points brought up in this thread.

[Thirsty Crow]

Except as we've seen, this can lead to some particularly pig headed political views, especially from the so-called "Left Communists"....
Never has a more irrelevant and powerless tendency existed after all, but it is symptomatic of a greater problem that needs to be confronted. This kind of thinking is a cancer that needs to be excised from the movement. We need to hammer out our differences in an atmosphere of genuinely open discussion and debate. Anything else leads to small, irrelevant, and impotent bureaucratic sects.The problem with this is that by "pig headed" you actually imply the weight of the principles in revolutionary politics and the organizational practices which are results of it.

For instance, you have also claimed, if I remember correctly, that Stalinism is a (negative) result of the counter-revolution. By extension, it can only be counter-revolutionary. Yet you claim that at least here is some common ground in the form of the verbal opposition to capitalism. Let me remind you here of what I wrote in another thread (I think you didn't respond) where you argued the same:

How would that work exactly? Do you really think that it is possible at one and the same time to:

1) conclude that Stalinism is a counter-revolutionary ideology which has severely damaged the workers movement

2) advocate common work with contemporary Stalinist organizations all the while

3) arguing for an effective break up of said organizations through propaganda and persuasion

Is this viable? Do you really think that a handful of "converts" is worth the political and organizational mess such a stunt would entail?

So to try and conclude, is it not that either you do retain the notion of the character of Stalinism as outlined above AND enagage in an "honest and open debate" which would be so easirly seen for what it is - dishonest (beacuse all the while you insist on openess and honesty and yourself harbour views which can be interpreted as "sectarianism" but then sectarianism would amount to any harsher criticism of the existing ideologies which label themselves as communist) and an attempt at breaking up said organizations, OR you actually withdraw this assessment and try to start from scratch, disregarding historical practice and lessons that can be derived from it, in favour of the broadest unity on a vague and abstract opposition to capitalism which would, somehow, be necessary for workers to even enagage in struggle.

And don't get me wrong. I'm all for open and honest debate, but I won't try to coat my views on Stalinism in rhetoric of the necessity for greater unity.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

Modern Anarchists- and I don't mean the lazy hypocritical Anarcho-Capitalists or types like Randroids and lolbertarians- has its roots in the socialist movement of the 1800s.

Not that this topic isn't totally interesting or anything...

How are Anarcho-communists lazy?
Is it because we do not force people to work?
Are you afraid that AC's lay back and just enjoy the ride?
So...why?

[Sea]

Not that this topic isn't totally interesting or anything...

How are Anarcho-communists lazy?
Is it because we do not force people to work?
Are you afraid that AC's lay back and just enjoy the ride?
So...why?It's the anarcho-capitalists who he called lazy.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

Oh...oops...sorry!

Ehmm...is there any way to delete?:blushing:

[L.A.P.]

Really, super not sure if trolling. But you do have a profile picture, which is a step up from most possible trolls, so we'll see.


what this forum needs to learn that not everyone who doesn't have a sophisticated - or even crude - idea of far left politics is a troll

I just would like to point out that the user's profile picture is of (I think) the Soviet Union Olympic hockey team. So my best guess is that they're either a troll, a massive tool, or 12.

[Yuppie Grinder]

The left-right spectrum is a different thing from the libertarian-authoritarian spectrum, and the latter is pretty much meaningless from a Marxist perspective. Left means inclusive and egalitarian, while Right means exclusive and hierarchical.

From Wikipedia:

The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville explained, "We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp." However the Right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but should not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms "left" and "right" to refer to the opposing sides.[10]
When the National Assembly was replaced in 1791 by a Legislative Assembly composed of entirely new members the divisions continued. "Innovators" sat on the left, "moderates" gathered in the centre, while the "conscientious defenders of the constitution" found themselves sitting on the right, where the defenders of the Ancien Régime had previously gathered. When the succeeding National Convention met in 1792, the seating arrangement continued, but following the coup d'état of June 2, 1793, and the arrest of the Girondins, the right side of the assembly was deserted, and any remaining members who had sat there moved to the centre. However following the Thermidorian Reaction of 1794 the members of the far left were excluded and the method of seating was abolished. The new constitution included rules for the assembly that would "break up the party groups."[11]
However following the Restoration in 1814-1815 political clubs were again formed. The majority ultraroyalists chose to sit on the right. The "constitutionals" sat in the centre while independents sat on the left. The terms extreme right and extreme left, as well as centre-right and centre-left, came to be used to describe the nuances of ideology of different sections of the assembly.

[Ele'ill]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-left_anarchy

[Marxaveli]

To the OP,

the left-right paradigm, as it is commonly represented, is quite inaccurate.

Communism and radical leftist ideology in general is not about bigger government, but in fact the complete opposite. We want to eliminate the State, not make it bigger. Marxists and Anarchists have different views of how this should be done, but our end goals are pretty much the same: a classless, stateless international society where everyone has self-determination.

The far right hollers all the time about how they want less government, but this is basically bullshit. They want MORE government, whether its telling you who you can marry, what women can do with their bodies, military expansion, and so forth. So whenever you hear a lolbertarian or some GOP nutcase scream about how they want to downsize government, just correct them and say "you mean smaller government for the plutocrats, bigger government for everyone else". Their role is nothing else but to protect the interests of private capital, and that requires big government, regardless of what they say.

[Igor]

I just would like to point out that the user's profile picture is of (I think) the Soviet Union Olympic hockey team. So my best guess is that they're either a troll, a massive tool, or 12.

wtf that has to do with anything. soviet union hockey team doesn't seem like your average red alert tankie avatar anyways. also soviet union hockey team was fucking ace

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

As an Anarchist I can say I am proudly ultra-left-dogmatic-infantile-disorder-having-extremist scum.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Yeah, when I'm living in a prison-state I want the flag to be a red one, after all, that's all that counts.


Yeah, fuck those prisons!, eh?


You just repeat the stupid bourgeois propaganda of a "police state" in real existing socialist societies. Which is of course a lie since the USSR had 1.3% of its population incarcerated in 1940, while the US officially has 1% of its population incarcerated. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/prison-population-usa-t174270/index.html?t=174270)

[Blake's Baby]

'The Soviet Union - it only locked up 0.3% more of its population than the USA, which we all acknowledge is currently by far the most repressive country on earth, in terms of the number incarcerated'. What a ringing endorselment of the 'soviet' system comrade.

There is of course the other major difference though, that in the USA the border-guards are there to stop you getting in.

[Drosophila]

^You do realize that there are no "Stalinists" in the real world that reflect anything seen here on RevLeft, right? There are parties that organize under "Stalinist" lines (in fact most Trot parties) and generally reflect "Stalinist" positions, but they don't go around planning gulags or carrying Stalin posters. The only people that do that are obscure minority parties that will never have any influence among anyone other than Russian/fSU nationalists.


You and everyone else needs to realize that the party isn't going to consist entirely of people who agree with you. There are going to be serious disagreements at first. This is inevitable. These disagreements can't just be responded to by just throwing people out and letting them form their own group. That is the very reason why today's "left" is such an impotent train wreck.

[Thirsty Crow]

^You do realize that there are no "Stalinists" in the real world that reflect anything seen here on RevLeft, right? There are parties that organize under "Stalinist" lines (in fact most Trot parties) and generally reflect "Stalinist" positions, but they don't go around planning gulags or carrying Stalin posters. The only people that do that are obscure minority parties that will never have any influence among anyone other than Russian/fSU nationalists.

That is beside the point. Of course that I, though I can't speak for BB, do not think that a caricature derived from particular posts on the internet represents actually existing Stalinists.

On the other hand, though I'm certainly not a freak for monolithism and the lack of disagreement by all means, I think that a class line needs to be drawn, particularly given the historical experience, and would not think that repudiation of internationalism that is called socialism in one country can withold serious scrutiny in this sense.

[Blake's Baby]

^You do realize that there are no "Stalinists" in the real world that reflect anything seen here on RevLeft, right? There are parties that organize under "Stalinist" lines (in fact most Trot parties) and generally reflect "Stalinist" positions, but they don't go around planning gulags or carrying Stalin posters. The only people that do that are obscure minority parties that will never have any influence among anyone other than Russian/fSU nationalists...

This isn't true, of course. In the UK, there is the CPB (Communist Party of Britain), which produces the Morning Star ('Britain's only Left Wing Daily Paper' AKA 'the Voice of the Left') which is a Stalinist party; there is the SLP (Socialist Labour Party), which at least in the 1990s was one of the most successful left-of-Labour parties garnering tens of thousands of votes between about 1996-2006 (though I'm not sure what has happened to them since); there is the CPGB-ML (Communist Party of Great Britain, Marxist-Leninist) which is a Maoist split from the SLP; and even the SSP (Scottish Socialist Party) implicitly supports socialism in one country with its support for the regime in Cuba. Most of these parties have more support than the Trotskyists (the Socialist workers' Party 2000 paper members notwithstanding, most aren't active), Left Comms and anarchists combined. 'Carrying Stalin pictures' really isn't the point. Support for socialism in one country is the point. That's what makes you a Stalinist, not whether you think Stalin had a nice moustache.


...
You and everyone else needs to realize that the party isn't going to consist entirely of people who agree with you. There are going to be serious disagreements at first. This is inevitable. These disagreements can't just be responded to by just throwing people out and letting them form their own group. That is the very reason why today's "left" is such an impotent train wreck.

No, the reasons that today's left is an 'impotent train wreck' are 1-that there is a very low level of actual class struggle in the capitalist metropoles; 2-most of 'the left' as was abandoned class struggle in the early 1900s and concentrated on finding a niche inside national capitalism; 3-the shipwreck of the revolution of 1917-27 destroyed the 'organic link' between the working class and the remaining revolutionary groups; 4-the Communist International became an adjunct to Russian imperialist policy, poisoning the CPs that submitteed to its directives; 5-the groups that survived the counter-revolution have been bad at assimilating the lessons of the last 80 years; 6-the 'end of communism' from 1989 has disorientated the working class and allowed a certain amount of propaganda against the very notion of revolution.

That's a short summing up of some aspects of the problem. It's a bit more complex than 'Leftes unite >>> revolution'. Though I agree in one way, that those surviving revolutionary organisations need to find ways of working with each other. That doesn't mean getting into bed with people that support the counter-revolution. Kinda defeats the point of being a revolutionary.


EDIT: This thread is supposed to be about Anarchism, not whether Left Comm groups (or anyone else) needs to unite, nor whether Stalinists are counter-revolutionary. I shall say no more about it on this thread.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

The left-right spectrum is a different thing from the libertarian-authoritarian spectrum, and the latter is pretty much meaningless from a Marxist perspective. Left means inclusive and egalitarian, while Right means exclusive and hierarchical.

How is libertarian/authoritarian useless from a marxist prespective?
It is usefull for classifying systems, and distinguishing ideologies from each other.
How would you distinguish fascism from right-wing libertarianism, and anarchism from marxism only using left-wing/right-wing spectrum?

Many marxists just don't like to admit that they are authoritarian, and say things like "authoritarian/libertarian does not apply to marxism", it sounds to me like excusse. To use a state (for opression, since that is all states do)is always authoritarian, no matter the objective. To even think a state is necessary to liberate the working class is like thinking the best place to find water is the sahara desert. Not to mention every time a revoltionary state was put in power it never led to a workers state.


As an Anarchist I can say I am proudly ultra-left-dogmatic-infantile-disorder-having-extremist scum.

Don't forget bourgeois-liberal-idealist!

[Blake's Baby]

How is libertarian/authoritarian useless from a marxist prespective?...

Because the working class overthrowing capitalism and the state, and liberating humanity, will necessitate the economic, political, and almost certainly military, suppression of the ruling class. That is in itself 'authoritarian', even though it is a necessary part of the process of human liberation.

Furthermore, all libertarians (both of the American pro-capitalist variety, and the historic 'libertarian communist' variety) believe in 'authoritarian' actions. The American 'Libertarians' believe that people should be subordinated to property (that those us of us who are not pro-capitalist regard as authoritarian, in that it imposes an economic hierachy, ie a class system) and the Libertarian Communists believe in the necessity of revolution including military action against the bourgoisie.

If being 'libertarian' itself is authoritarian, what use is the concept 'libertarian'?

Haven't I had this discussion with you before? I'm sure I have.


...
It is usefull for classifying systems, and distinguishing ideologies from each other.
How would you distinguish fascism from right-wing libertarianism, and anarchism from marxism only using left-wing/right-wing spectrum?...

By the factors that make them different. The difference between Marxism and Anarchism isn't 'authoritarianism' or 'libertarianism' (where then the 'Libertarian Marxists'?). The differences are in the analysis of class society, historical method, and revolutionary tactics.


...Many marxists just don't like to admit that they are authoritarian, and say things like "authoritarian/libertarian does not apply to marxism", it sounds to me like excusse. To use a state (for opression, since that is all states do)is always authoritarian, no matter the objective. To even think a state is necessary to liberate the working class is like thinking the best place to find water is the sahara desert...

Doesn't follow. States will continue to exist while classes exist. Classes exist while property exists. Until the world civil war is won, property, classes and therefore states, will continue to exist whether you want them to or not. Being 'libertarian' does not change the nature of reality. To think that the state will cease to exist by wishing is like thinking that it doesn't matter if you're in the Sahara Desert, if you say 'I'm a Libertarian' three times the water will appear.



... Not to mention every time a revoltionary state was put in power it never led to a workers state...

Every previous revolution has failed. What's your point?

[Art Vandelay]

How is libertarian/authoritarian useless from a marxist prespective?
It is usefull for classifying systems, and distinguishing ideologies from each other.
How would you distinguish fascism from right-wing libertarianism, and anarchism from marxism only using left-wing/right-wing spectrum?

Many marxists just don't like to admit that they are authoritarian, and say things like "authoritarian/libertarian does not apply to marxism", it sounds to me like excusse. To use a state (for opression, since that is all states do)is always authoritarian, no matter the objective. To even think a state is necessary to liberate the working class is like thinking the best place to find water is the sahara desert. Not to mention every time a revoltionary state was put in power it never led to a workers state.



Don't forget bourgeois-liberal-idealist!

Dear god not you again; I was going to write something up for this but BB already did a good job, all I wanted to add is that your analysis is not class based, you're nothing but a liberal waving a black flag.

[helot]

By the factors that make them different. The difference between Marxism and Anarchism isn't 'authoritarianism' or 'libertarianism' (where then the 'Libertarian Marxists'?). The differences are in the analysis of class society, historical method, and revolutionary tactics. Differences in the analysis of class society? Could you go into this for me as i'm not sure what you're getting at.




Doesn't follow. States will continue to exist while classes exist. Classes exist while property exists. Until the world civil war is won, property, classes and therefore states, will continue to exist whether you want them to or not. Being 'libertarian' does not change the nature of reality. To think that the state will cease to exist by wishing is like thinking that it doesn't matter if you're in the Sahara Desert, if you say 'I'm a Libertarian' three times the water will appear.

That's a bit of a strawman i'm afraid. Anarchists don't think that the state will magically disappear overnight instead for states to cease to exist it would necessitate the abolition of classes. The difference is that anarchists reject the notion that the state can ever be used in the interests of the proletariat and instead it can only serve to defend privilege and exploitation. As such, in the run up to and during the global civil war the state will act against the rebelling masses and must be destroyed at the same time as the system it defends.

[Blake's Baby]

Differences in the analysis of class society? Could you go into this for me as i'm not sure what you're getting at...

Many anarchists don't use a Marxist analyisis of classes. 'Order-givers and order-takers' and the 'co-ordinator class' both fall outside of a Marxist class analysis.



...
That's a bit of a strawman i'm afraid. Anarchists don't think that the state will magically disappear overnight instead for states to cease to exist it would necessitate the abolition of classes. The difference is that anarchists reject the notion that the state can ever be used in the interests of the proletariat and instead it can only serve to defend privilege and exploitation. As such, in the run up to and during the global civil war the state will act against the rebelling masses and must be destroyed at the same time as the system it defends.

And after the state has been 'destroyed'? Will there still be a working class? Will the working class organise to defend the revolution? If it doesn't, the revolution will die. If it does, it has to organise itself as a state (some kind of army, 'taxation' - even if in kind - and direction of production). Until the revolution is successful everywhere, the state must continue to exist, because you can't abolish it if the conditions don't exist.

[Thirsty Crow]

To use a state (for opression, since that is all states do)is always authoritarian, no matter the objective.
Yep, I argue for oppression of the bourgeois class who, in all probability, will not relinquish their power and position in society in a fit of enlightened insight into the essentially just demands of the working class.


The difference is that anarchists reject the notion that the state can ever be used in the interests of the proletariat and instead it can only serve to defend privilege and exploitation.Obviously the point is that the proletariat organized as a ruling class implies a significant difference with respect to the kind of state - and by state I mean the political organization of society, subordinated to that same society and not standing apart and above it as an alien force - we're talking about here.

[helot]

Many anarchists don't use a Marxist analyisis of classes. 'Order-givers and order-takers' and the 'co-ordinator class' both fall outside of a Marxist class analysis.

I've only really heard advocates of Parecon mentioning stuff like that. Platformists and anarcho-syndicalists (the two dominant forms of contemporary anarchism) tend to have a Marxist class analysis.




And after the state has been 'destroyed'? Will there still be a working class?

Like i said the state "must be destroyed at the same time as the system it defends."



Will the working class organise to defend the revolution? If it doesn't, the revolution will die. If it does, it has to organise itself as a state (some kind of army, 'taxation' - even if in kind - and direction of production).

Of course the working class will have to organise itself, it has to in order to even start the revolutionary period let alone emancipate themselves. Whether it would require the forming of a new type of state that would depend entirely on what significance you give to the word 'state'. Personally, i don't hold to the basic Marxist definition (i.e. oppression of classes) as while being true the state more accurately oversees and even organises the exploitation of classes. If the overseeing and organising of exploitation is fundamental to a state then no the working class can't organise itself into a state and work to end exploitation.

Plus it also depends on which definition within Marxism one's to use as iirc Marx and Engels did come up with a few.





Until the revolution is successful everywhere, the state must continue to exist, because you can't abolish it if the conditions don't exist.

Until the revolution is successful everywhere states will continue to exist. It goes without saying. The question at hand is whether or not states can act in the interest of the proletariat.




Obviously the point is that the proletariat organized as a ruling class implies a significant difference with respect to the kind of state - and by state I mean the political organization of society, subordinated to that same society and not standing apart and above it as an alien force - we're talking about here.

I don't think you could really call that a state.. Hell, i'm not sure that Engels would have considered that a state.



But in order that these antagonisms, classes with conflicting economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has become necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of “order”; and this power, arisen out of society, but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state.

In contrast to the old gentile organization, the state is distinguished firstly by the grouping of its members on a territorial basis... The second distinguishing characteristic is the institution of a public force which is no longer immediately identical with the people’s own organization of themselves as an armed power

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Because the working class overthrowing capitalism and the state, and liberating humanity, will necessitate the economic, political, and almost certainly military, suppression of the ruling class. That is in itself 'authoritarian', even though it is a necessary part of the process of human liberation.

It is libertarian to liberate. To opress a ruling class is libertarian, since you are making sure they can no longer opress you and many others.
Libertarianism is about majorities, if a majority is opressed then it is authoritarian, if majority is not opressed then it is libertarian.


Furthermore, all libertarians (both of the American pro-capitalist variety, and the historic 'libertarian communist' variety) believe in 'authoritarian' actions. The American 'Libertarians' believe that people should be subordinated to property (that those us of us who are not pro-capitalist regard as authoritarian, in that it imposes an economic hierachy, ie a class system) and the Libertarian Communists believe in the necessity of revolution including military action against the bourgoisie.

I am a libertarian communist, and I believe revolution is the most libertarian act possible.



Haven't I had this discussion with you before? I'm sure I have.

I think so, yet you chose to do it again.


By the factors that make them different. The difference between Marxism and Anarchism isn't 'authoritarianism' or 'libertarianism' (where then the 'Libertarian Marxists'?). The differences are in the analysis of class society, historical method, and revolutionary tactics.

What does that have to do with libertarian/authoritarian question? I was asking how can you distinguish anarchism from marxism using only the left-wing/right-wing spectrum. The answer is you cannot, you need something more.


Doesn't follow. States will continue to exist while classes exist. Classes exist while property exists. Until the world civil war is won, property, classes and therefore states, will continue to exist whether you want them to or not.

And that is why there must be revolution.


Being 'libertarian' does not change the nature of reality. To think that the state will cease to exist by wishing is like thinking that it doesn't matter if you're in the Sahara Desert, if you say 'I'm a Libertarian' three times the water will appear.

What the hell are you talking about? It sounds like you are implying that I am not a revolutionary.
It also sounds like you are saying that without a state revolution is impossible, and that even if there was a revolution the people would stand still until either the old system comes back, or a revolutionary state appears and puts them to work on building the revolution.
If you do not destroy the state, the state destroys you.


Every previous revolution has failed. What's your point?

My point is every revolution that involved a revolutionary state has degenerated, and never turned into actual communism. You should start to see a pattern. The state cannot be used as a weapon, it has its own will. It is like picking up a poisonous snake with your unprotected arms and try to use it to kill you enemies, the snake will always bite you.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Dear god not you again; I was going to write something up for this but BB already did a good job, all I wanted to add is that your analysis is not class based, you're nothing but a liberal waving a black flag.

You have no idea how funny that sounded. It sounded like you were one of those communists that calls other communists with slightly diferent ideas, revisionists, traitors of the revolution. That is one of the things that puts people off communism.

if by analysis you mean the small thing I wrote about the use of state for communism makes no sence, or the small thing I wrote about why authoritarian/libertarian applies to marxism, those are not analysis. If I wanted to do a real analysis it would be a much bigger text.

I could argue that class analysis fails to recognise that there are individuals inside those classes, and that each individual has diferent interest. Instead of studying classes you should start studying individuals.

And about your accusation about me being a liberal with a black flag: Liberalism is a right-wing ideology, I am left-wing. In fact I consider myself more revolutionary than you, just because I do not make class analysis on everything I write does not mean I am not a leftist. The fact that communists are so dogmatic about these things puts people off communism, but to me what put me off was your use of state.
I am libertarian because I beleive state is harmfull, and I want to create a stateless society where all will be equal, no matter gender, color, etc. I want to create a world where there is no discrimination, and all have the possibilities of becoming what they want to be, without being bound to money or other things. I know people who want to become doctors, but in fact being a doctor is not what they trully want, they just want the money that comes with it. This is something I want to end.

As you can see, my motives are much more noble than yours, and if that makes me a liberal, then my only answer to you is: Go fuck yourself, you authoritarian asshole.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Many anarchists don't use a Marxist analyisis of classes. 'Order-givers and order-takers' and the 'co-ordinator class' both fall outside of a Marxist class analysis.

That is because anarchists are not marxists.


And after the state has been 'destroyed'? Will there still be a working class? Will the working class organise to defend the revolution? If it doesn't, the revolution will die. If it does, it has to organise itself as a state (some kind of army, 'taxation' - even if in kind - and direction of production).

Not necessarily, the people can organise without a state, in the end the state just gets in the way. People can organise without having a state. With a state you now have an authoritarian institution limiting your actions and giving you orders. I think it is more effective to organise without a state, and today with advanced telecommunications network, it is even easier.


Until the revolution is successful everywhere, the state must continue to exist, because you can't abolish it if the conditions don't exist.

Fuck yeah I can! Colective force can do anything. With enough people behind me I could destroy the state, and create a stateless society in one day.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Yep, I argue for oppression of the bourgeois class who, in all probability, will not relinquish their power and position in society in a fit of enlightened insight into the essentially just demands of the working class.

But the state cannot be used as a weapon, it can only opress the working class, that is how it works. It does not matter who is on power, the state will behave the same way, we have historic evidence that points this out.
Setting up a state to end the capitalist state is like creating a monster to kill another monster, even if your monster manages to kill the other, you will still have a monster in the end. It is the working class that must kill the monster, not another monster they created.


Obviously the point is that the proletariat organized as a ruling class implies a significant difference with respect to the kind of state - and by state I mean the political organization of society, subordinated to that same society and not standing apart and above it as an alien force - we're talking about here.

State is always state. You give it power, and in return it offers opression. The state will always opress the working class, that is why it must be destroyed.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Yeah, fuck those prisons!, eh?


You just repeat the stupid bourgeois propaganda of a "police state" in real existing socialist societies. Which is of course a lie since the USSR had 1.3% of its population incarcerated in 1940, while the US officially has 1% of its population incarcerated. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/prison-population-usa-t174270/index.html?t=174270)



'The Soviet Union - it only locked up 0.3% more of its population than the USA, which we all acknowledge is currently by far the most repressive country on earth, in terms of the number incarcerated'. What a ringing endorselment of the 'soviet' system comrade.

There is of course the other major difference though, that in the USA the border-guards are there to stop you getting in.

Even still, the incarceration percentage is too damn high!

http://media.syracuse.com/news/photo/8979789-large.jpg

[l'Enfermé]

Jesus, enough with this stereotypical Anarchist anti-state hysterics. The main opponent for scientific socialists is the the capitalist mode of production and its standard bearer, the bourgousie, the capitalist class. The capitalist state is merely a by-product of capitalism, it's only one of the organs the bourgeoisie uses to maintain its rule. The capitalist state is not our prime enemy, as you imply.

The state is a very malleable institution. It has ably served the patricians of Rome in antiquity, the nobility of the Middle Ages in Europe and the bourgeoisie of capitalist society. It can be adapted and reformed. It can easily serve the proletariat, if the proletariat catapults itself into becoming the ruling class, like it has during March and May of 1871 in Paris and in October 1917 in Russia.

The state is probably the most powerful tool the proletariat can use to enforce its hegemony. To rob it of this tool is an unforgivable crime.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Jesus, enough with this stereotypical Anarchist anti-state hysterics. The main opponent for scientific socialists is the the capitalist mode of production and its standard bearer, the bourgousie, the capitalist class. The capitalist state is merely a by-product of capitalism, it's only one of the organs the bourgeoisie uses to maintain its rule. The capitalist state is not our prime enemy, as you imply.

I can also say: enough with the marxist pro-state hysterics.
We can agree that our main enemy is not the capitalist state, but it is a pretty important enemy nontheless.


The state is a very malleable institution. It has ably served the patricians of Rome in antiquity, the nobility of the Middle Ages in Europe and the bourgeoisie of capitalist society. It can be adapted and reformed.

The funny part of that is how it always seved minorities.


It can easily serve the proletariat, if the proletariat catapults itself into becoming the ruling class, like it has during March and May of 1871 in Paris and in October 1917 in Russia.

Yeah because those really ended well...


The state is probably the most powerful tool the proletariat can use to enforce its hegemony. To rob it of this tool is an unforgivable crime.

I have said this before: the state is not a weapon, it has its own will, and can only ally to minorities.

[Marxaveli]

I would argue that the Paris Commune falling short had nothing to do with the Proletarian acting as its own state for its own interests, and that it was due to it not being aggressive enough toward the reactionaries, who in turn crushed the revolution.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Jesus, enough with this stereotypical Anarchist anti-state hysterics. The main opponent for scientific socialists is the the capitalist mode of production and its standard bearer, the bourgousie, the capitalist class. The capitalist state is merely a by-product of capitalism, it's only one of the organs the bourgeoisie uses to maintain its rule. The capitalist state is not our prime enemy, as you imply.

The state is a very malleable institution. It has ably served the patricians of Rome in antiquity, the nobility of the Middle Ages in Europe and the bourgeoisie of capitalist society. It can be adapted and reformed. It can easily serve the proletariat, if the proletariat catapults itself into becoming the ruling class, like it has during March and May of 1871 in Paris and in October 1917 in Russia.

The state is probably the most powerful tool the proletariat can use to enforce its hegemony. To rob it of this tool is an unforgivable crime.

TRA23 raises a lot of good points, further, I'm wondering if you realize my post was a jab at the entire concept of incarceration and prison systems in general and not to so much the state or not.

[Os Cangaceiros]

This thread really got derailed.

[Art Vandelay]

I could argue that class analysis fails to recognise that there are individuals inside those classes, and that each individual has diferent interest. Instead of studying classes you should start studying individuals.

At least you don't pretend to be anything other than you are; advocating the abandoning of class based analysis, yeesh. :rolleyes:


I am libertarian because I beleive state is harmfull,

Can you give one example, in all of history, where a state has done anything but its primary purpose?


and I want to create a stateless society where all will be equal, no matter gender, color, etc. I want to create a world where there is no discrimination, and all have the possibilities of becoming what they want to be, without being bound to money or other things.

We all do...


As you can see, my motives are much more noble than yours, and if that makes me a liberal, then my only answer to you is: Go fuck yourself, you authoritarian asshole.

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.

-Engels; On Authority, 1872.


Edit: I missed this gem:


Fuck yeah I can! Colective force can do anything. With enough people behind me I could destroy the state, and create a stateless society in one day.

Bahaha you confused idealist. :laugh:

[helot]

The state is probably the most powerful tool the proletariat can use to enforce its hegemony. To rob it of this tool is an unforgivable crime.

I fail to see any evidence that the proletariat can actually use the state to emancipate itself. It's no neutral arbiter, it's not like a shotgun lying on the ground. It developed to serve a definite purpose in society, namely the protection of a system of exploitation. Even its very form is that which is most conducive in the particular setting to protect the system of exploitation and its standard-bearer. I fear you'll have more luck seeing with your tongue than using the state to destroy that which it exists to protect.





Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.

-Engels; On Authority, 1872.


I always thought that Engels' On Authority would be more aptly named Creating Strawmen. It's probably one of the dumbest things written by Engels which is a shame as Origins of the Family in contrast is brilliant.

The claim that "the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed" is a lie.

[Art Vandelay]

The claim that "the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed" is a lie.

Care to elaborate? This should be entertaining...

[Althusser]

The whole "Glenn Beck" political spectrum model is ridiculous. In a better world, his show would have a laugh track.

[helot]

Care to elaborate? This should be entertaining...

You know the whole "this should be entertaining..." is actually quite appalling behaviour. You should grow up and listen to what people have to say instead of automatically dismissing them. If this is the general way that people on here interact with others and if this is characteristic of the revolutionary left in general we're all fucked as that's definitely not how you win people over it's how you get them to decide you're a dick.


Anyway, i'll quote myself from earlier in this thread...



the state will act against the rebelling masses and must be destroyed at the same time as the system it defends.

[Art Vandelay]

You know the whole "this should be entertaining..." is actually quite appalling behaviour. You should grow up and listen to what people have to say instead of automatically dismissing them. If this is the general way that people on here interact with others and if this is characteristic of the revolutionary left in general we're all fucked as that's definitely not how you win people over it's how you get them to decide you're a dick.


Anyway, i'll quote myself from earlier in this thread...

Perhaps if you could put together a coherent class based analysis, then I would take you seriously and quite frankly, the way we interact with each other on here has no barring on the real world (thank god). I have a low tolerance level for nonsense.

A state is a by product of class society, it is the institution through which one class exerts its hegemony; so unless you think that classes can be abolished overnight, the need and necessity, for a state persists.

[helot]

Perhaps if you could put together a coherent class based analysis, then I would take you seriously and quite frankly, the way we interact with each other on here has no barring on the real world (thank god). I have a low tolerance level for nonsense. You have a low tolerance for other people don't you mean?

Anyway, nice strawman. How about pointing out my lack of a "coherent class based analysis"? Oh wait i forgot it was a baseless attack.




A state is a by product of class society, it is the institution through which one class exerts its hegemony; so unless you think that classes can be abolished overnight, the need and necessity, for a state persists.

Necessary for the protection of capitalism, yes. How does this refute the claim that the fight against capitalism must also be the fight against the state? You imply that it's neutral to exploitation but it's obviously not. How about your class based analysis?

The state definitely is a by product of class society and as such it also oversees and organises the exploitation of classes. The existence of a state presupposes the exploitation of one class by another, its purpose being its defense. How about we talk about the grand plans to turn the state against that which it exists to protect? It's the very definition of absurdity.

[Art Vandelay]

You have a low tolerance for other people don't you mean?

Yes that is true.


Anyway, nice strawman. How about pointing out my lack of a "coherent class based analysis"? Oh wait i forgot it was a baseless attack.


How was that in anyway a strawman? Your analysis doesn't lie in a class based one, but is rooted in classical liberalism.



Necessary for the protection of capitalism, yes.

So the state's purpose is for the "protection of capitalism." What an absurd claim.


How does this refute the claim that the fight against capitalism must also be the fight against the state? You imply that it's neutral to exploitation but it's obviously not. How about your class based analysis?

As long as classes exist, hegemony and suppression will exist.


The state definitely is a by product of class society and as such it also oversees and organises the exploitation of classes. The existence of a state presupposes the exploitation of one class by another, its purpose being its defense.

Indeed, which is the Dictatorship of the Proletariat; the suppression of the bourgeoisie is non debatable.


How about we talk about the grand plans to turn the state against that which it exists to protect? It's the very definition of absurdity.

Once classes cease to exist, so will the state; simply as that, the only absurdity lies in the idea that the state will cease to exist any earlier.

[helot]

Yes that is true.



How was that in anyway a strawman? Your analysis doesn't lie in a class based one, but is rooted in classical liberalism. You going to back that up then? It was an invitation to.





So the state's purpose is for the "protection of capitalism." What an absurd claim. I know, it would be more accurate to use 'system of exploitation' instead considering states aren't unique to capitalism but to societies based on one class exploiting another and always springing up for the defense of the exploiter.

Or is it that the state is just a neutral institution for the suppression of one class by another that through chance just so happens to be under the control of the bourgeoisie?




As long as classes exist, hegemony and suppression will exist.



Indeed, which is the Dictatorship of the Proletariat; the suppression of the bourgeoisie is non debatable.
I don't think anyone's debating the necessity for the proletariat to suppress the bourgeoisie and abolish classes.




Once classes cease to exist, so will the state; simply as that, the only absurdity lies in the idea that the state will cease to exist any earlier.
I never said otherwise.

[Let's Get Free]

A state is a by product of class society, it is the institution through which one class exerts its hegemony; so unless you think that classes can be abolished overnight, the need and necessity, for a state persists.

If there are still classes, then by the very definition of socialism, you have not had a socialist revolution. Why would the workers, who had just seized state power, allow themselves to be continued to be exploited by the capitalist class they had just overthrown? Because that is what is meant by working class. It is class category that signifies the exploited class in capitalism.

[Marxaveli]

If there are still classes, then by the very definition of socialism, you have not had a socialist revolution. Why would the workers, who had just seized state power, allow themselves to be continued to be exploited by the capitalist class they had just overthrown? Because that is what is meant by working class. It is class category that signifies the exploited class in capitalism.

It is my understanding that in Socialist society, there are still reactionary elements, and the revolution isn't finished yet. This is the stage where the proletarian has successfully taken control of the State and is now using it to preserve our class interests against reactionary movements. This is the whole point of Marxism, as opposed to Anarchism, which believes upon a successful revolution we can just transfer straight into a communist society. But of course, the capitalists will try to launch their own counter revolution to restore the old order, so a 'dictatorship of the proletarian' will be necessary until such conditions are no longer materially possible, and only then does the State disappear. And it does so gradually, as reactionary elements are gradually destroyed and weeded out. Technically there are still classes and a state (if a relatively unstable one) in socialism, because it isn't the final stage of historical development, it is communism that is classless and stateless, and the final stage of human society.

[Ostrinski]

One of the main differences between Marxist and anarchist theoretical doctrine seems to be the sociological perspective on the function of the state in society. The Marxist narrative is that the state is a very relative organ of social purpose. Relative in the sense that it only exists under the very defined conditions that necessitate its existence, i.e. the existence of objectively irreconcilable economic classes and the necessity of having some sort of social procedure for mediating the organic conflict between these classes, as well as the essentiality of preserving the hegemony of the dominant class in the form of ideology but also in the form of very direct means (censorshp, police subversion, ostracization, etc.).

The anarchist interpretation differs, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, in that they hold that the state can take on a life of its own. That one of its purposes is self preservation and self empowerment. That maybe the state aligns itself with the dominant class in a politically cynical move to legitimize itself. My observation is that the anarchists view the state as a fundamental evil to be struggled against equally as ferociously as against the existent dominant economic class. Rather than viewing the state as an extension of ruling class power, they might see it as a product of it, but not as a fundamentally related feature. This seems to me to be the premise on which they say they would struggle against a worker's state equally as much as a capitalist state, because by their standards a worker's state cannot exist as it would be a paradoxical characterization.

Regardless of whether or not my depiction of the anarchist view of the role of the state was accurate, the characterization of the state seems to be a, if not the, fundamental divide here. Given that Marxists and anarchists have different interpretations on the issue, it is only natural that they would have different respective positions.

[Let's Get Free]

It is my understanding that in Socialist society, there are still reactionary elements, and the revolution isn't finished yet. This is the stage where the proletarian has successfully taken control of the State and is now using it to preserve our class interests against reactionary movements. This is the whole point of Marxism, as opposed to Anarchism, which believes upon a successful revolution we can just transfer straight into a communist society. But of course, the capitalists will try to launch their own counter revolution to restore the old order, so a 'dictatorship of the proletarian' will be necessary until such conditions are no longer materially possible, and only then does the State disappear. And it does so gradually, as reactionary elements are gradually destroyed and weeded out. Technically there are still classes and a state (if a relatively unstable one) in socialism, because it isn't the final stage of historical development, it is communism that is classless and stateless, and the final stage of human society.

I know many Leninists claim that a "proletarian dictatorship" is necessary in order to crush any bourgeois counterrevolutions led by the former capitalists or right-wing reactionaries. But I feel that this itself is part of the Stalinist school of falsification. A centralized apparatus, such as a state, is a much easier target for opponents of the revolution that an array of decentralized communes. And these communes would remain armed and prepared to defend the revolution against anyone who moves militarily against it. The key is to mobilize people into defense guards, militias, and other military units.

[Ostrinski]

It is my understanding that in Socialist society, there are still reactionary elements, and the revolution isn't finished yet. This is the stage where the proletarian has successfully taken control of the State and is now using it to preserve our class interests against reactionary movements. This is the whole point of Marxism, as opposed to Anarchism, which believes upon a successful revolution we can just transfer straight into a communist society. But of course, the capitalists will try to launch their own counter revolution to restore the old order, so a 'dictatorship of the proletarian' will be necessary until such conditions are no longer possible, and only then does the State disappear. And it does so gradually, as reactionary elements are gradually destroyed and weeded out. Technically there are still classes and a state in socialism, because it isn't the final stage of development, it is communism that is classless and stateless.I think the conflation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in which the proletariat use their own collective means to maintain and advance the drive toward a society of free producers, and a socialist society in which production is democratically and unrestrictedly managed by free producers, is a mistake and I think it was one of Lenin's great mistakes as a Marxist theoretician and political strategist. One maybe (or maybe not) of semantics at the time of its inception, but one that would become much more than that the next few decades and one that would certainly have problematic implications counterposed to traditional socialist goals.

The problem with talking of communism and socialism as entirely separate modes of production is that we are not struggling for two different things. We are communists, and we are socialists. We are communists and socialists in the sense that these two terms have always been for us as radicals substitutable, not in the sense that we have the gall to claim that we are going to create one very distinct and identifiable society but only in the name of and in sight of creating an entirely fundamentally different society. That is absurd and simplistic and doesn't provide us with any insight into where we are going or what we are fighting for.

Instead I think it is more helpful for us to view the dictatorship of the proletariat as radicals traditionally have: as a strictly political condition. Political meaning that the working class has seized control of all of society's political outlets. But we must also acknowledge that the dictatorship of the proletariat retains vestiges of the capitalist mode of production for the simple sake of honesty. A productive arrangement run by free producers can only realized in a post-scarcity economy. Until we can build that, we have to acknowledge that characteristics of the old capitalist order will still prevail: the use of money as a universal equivalent, work for pay, production of commodities to be exchanged for money, etc.

Once the workers have won the world or at least a hefty portion of it (which is necessary for abundance/post-scarcity), then we can finally talk about building a socialist society without antagonistic classes, without masters, without political authority.

[Marxaveli]

I think the conflation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in which the proletariat use their own collective means to maintain and advance the drive toward a society of free producers, and a socialist society in which production is democratically and unrestrictedly managed by free producers, is a mistake and I think it was one of Lenin's great mistakes as a Marxist theoretician and political strategist. One maybe (or maybe not) of semantics at the time of its inception, but one that would become much more than that the next few decades and one that would certainly have problematic implications counterposed to traditional socialist goals.

The problem with talking of communism and socialism as entirely separate modes of production is that we are not struggling for two different things. We are communists, and we are socialists. We are communists and socialists in the sense that these two terms have always been for us as radicals substitutable, not in the sense that we have the gall to claim that we are going to create one very distinct and identifiable society but only in the name of and in sight of creating an entirely fundamentally different society. That is absurd and simplistic and doesn't provide us with any insight into where we are going or what we are fighting for.

Instead I think it is more helpful for us to view the dictatorship of the proletariat as radicals traditionally have: as a strictly political condition. Political meaning that the working class has seized control of all of society's political outlets. But we must also acknowledge that the dictatorship of the proletariat retains vestiges of the capitalist mode of production for the simple sake of honesty. A productive arrangement run by free producers can only realized in a post-scarcity economy. Until we can build that, we have to acknowledge that characteristics of the old capitalist order will still prevail: the use of money as a universal equivalent, work for pay, production of commodities to be exchanged for money, etc.

Once the workers have won the world or at least a hefty portion of it (which is necessary for abundance/post-scarcity), then we can finally talk about building a socialist society without antagonistic classes, without masters, without political authority.

Gotcha, I always thought the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and socialism were the same thing or same stage, guess I was wrong this whole time - thanks for clearing that up comrade.

[Let's Get Free]

Ask 10 different Marxists about the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and you'll get 10 different answers. What the proletarian state should look like is not an area of much agreement amongst marxist tendencies. Everything from flat out party dictatorship with leadership cults to basically parliamentary democracy to federations of worker's councils have been advocated by the different kind of Marxists. How the prolatariat excercises its dictatorship is not central to the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Also, it's worth noting that back when Marx was writing the term dictatorship didn't have the harsh connotations it does today. If some Marxists weren't so inordinately attached to their jargon they would have dropped it.

[Art Vandelay]

One of the main differences between Marxist and anarchist theoretical doctrine seems to be the sociological perspective on the function of the state in society. The Marxist narrative is that the state is a very relative organ of social purpose. Relative in the sense that it only exists under the very defined conditions that necessitate its existence, i.e. the existence of objectively irreconcilable economic classes and the necessity of having some sort of social procedure for mediating the organic conflict between these classes, as well as the essentiality of preserving the hegemony of the dominant class in the form of ideology but also in the form of very direct means (censorshp, police subversion, ostracization, etc.).

The anarchist interpretation differs, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, in that they hold that the state can take on a life of its own. That one of its purposes is self preservation and self empowerment. That maybe the state aligns itself with the dominant class in a politically cynical move to legitimize itself. My observation is that the anarchists view the state as a fundamental evil to be struggled against equally as ferociously as against the existent dominant economic class. Rather than viewing the state as an extension of ruling class power, they might see it as a product of it, but not as a fundamentally related feature. This seems to me to be the premise on which they say they would struggle against a worker's state equally as much as a capitalist state, because by their standards a worker's state cannot exist as it would be a paradoxical characterization.

Regardless of whether or not my depiction of the anarchist view of the role of the state was accurate, the characterization of the state seems to be a, if not the, fundamental divide here. Given that Marxists and anarchists have different interpretations on the issue, it is only natural that they would have different respective positions.

I wish I could continually like this post. This is exactly the issue at hand, and frankly the issue which I feel like our anarchist comrades need to deal with; the abolishment of the state (which is a by product of class society) is only possible within the material conditions which would make such a possibility, reality.

[Ostrinski]

Ask 10 different Marxists about the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and you'll get 10 different answers. What the proletarian state should look like is not an area of much agreement amongst marxist tendencies. Everything from flat out party dictatorship with leadership cults to basically parliamentary democracy to federations of worker's councils have been advocated by the different kind of Marxists. How the prolatariat excercises its dictatorship is not central to the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat.Most agree on a central premise though, being the expression of toiler's power pending international revolution. I've never seen anyone seriously argue for a personality cult but that is profundly bizarre and imo shouldn't be compared with those that are critically dealing with the question of worker power.

However, you are right innoting that there are differences between us regarding how it is to be expressed. In fairness the Leninists pay lip service to at least some degree of democracy even if historically it doesn't add up. I think most serious Marxists though do adhere to a standard of struggling for proletarian democratic dominance as the general form of a dotp government.

It should also be noted that I've even seen anarchists here sympathize with Marx's conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat, so I don't think it's much of a controversial issue.


Also, it's worth noting that back when Marx was writing the term dictatorship didn't have the harsh connotations it does today. If some Marxists weren't so inordinately attached to their jargon they would have dropped it.To some extent I sympathize with this, but we can't just let the enemy define the terms of the discourse. We can't just make up a new word every time part of our terminology is misrepresented by hostile forces. The words socialist, communist, anarchist, and many other terms that radicals use have been dragged through the mud.

Also, in my experience adressing the misconception of class vs. political dictatorship is one of the more easier tasks in relation to debunking some of the other common myths and misconceptions about radical politics.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

At least you don't pretend to be anything other than you are; advocating the abandoning of class based analysis, yeesh. :rolleyes:

It is not abandoning class analysis. I was saying you only care about class analysis, and don't care to study individual behavior. I beleive in classes, but the importance some put into class analysis can only be described as extremely dogmatic.


Can you give one example, in all of history, where a state has done anything but its primary purpose?No, and that is why using a state is not going to work. A state has always been used to opress majorities. You want to create a diferent state, one that serves the interest of the working class, then you must not give it any power over the working class.



All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolutionYeah, because that really happened in all historical revolutions. We can excuse Engels for never having lived to see all socialist revolutions fail.


that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society.You don't need a state for that, has Engels never heard of workers self-management?


But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority.Well, yeah. If you abolish the conditions that gave birth to the state before destroying the state you will still end up with a state.


Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian meansThis explains why every marxist thinks revolution is authoritarian.


Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?I can now call Engels an idiot for having said such tremendous nonsense. In the spanish revolution people organised themselves and created free communities without the help of a state. The fact is a state is not required. To think a state is required is to think human being require a state to do any complicated action that requires coordination of more than 2 groups.


Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don't know what they're talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.And they talk about uniting the left....
The authoritarians are the ones who betray the movement of the proletariat by creating a state. Anarchists are more progressive than marxists, you are the reaction.
How can someone as inteligent as Engels say something so incredibly wrong.


Bahaha you confused idealist. :laugh:It was a hyperbole, but you are authorised to put that in the "Dumb shit revlefters say" thread.


One of the main differences between Marxist and anarchist theoretical doctrine seems to be the sociological perspective on the function of the state in society. The Marxist narrative is that the state is a very relative organ of social purpose. Relative in the sense that it only exists under the very defined conditions that necessitate its existence, i.e. the existence of objectively irreconcilable economic classes and the necessity of having some sort of social procedure for mediating the organic conflict between these classes, as well as the essentiality of preserving the hegemony of the dominant class in the form of ideology but also in the form of very direct means (censorshp, police subversion, ostracization, etc.).

The anarchist interpretation differs, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, in that they hold that the state can take on a life of its own. That one of its purposes is self preservation and self empowerment. That maybe the state aligns itself with the dominant class in a politically cynical move to legitimize itself. My observation is that the anarchists view the state as a fundamental evil to be struggled against equally as ferociously as against the existent dominant economic class. Rather than viewing the state as an extension of ruling class power, they might see it as a product of it, but not as a fundamentally related feature. This seems to me to be the premise on which they say they would struggle against a worker's state equally as much as a capitalist state, because by their standards a worker's state cannot exist as it would be a paradoxical characterization.

Regardless of whether or not my depiction of the anarchist view of the role of the state was accurate, the characterization of the state seems to be a, if not the, fundamental divide here. Given that Marxists and anarchists have different interpretations on the issue, it is only natural that they would have different respective positions.

This was the most inteligent post so far. You have managed to explain the fundamental diferences between the way anarchists view the state and the way marxists view the state.
We should disscuss more on this to see if we can get to a nice conclusion.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

I wish I could continually like this post. This is exactly the issue at hand, and frankly the issue which I feel like our anarchist comrades need to deal with; the abolishment of the state (which is a by product of class society) is only possible within the material conditions which would make such a possibility, reality.

What are the material conditions that need to be ended so that we can end the state?

[Blake's Baby]

...
Well, yeah. If you abolish the conditions that gave birth to the state before destroying the state you will still end up with a state...


What are the material conditions that need to be ended so that we can end the state?

The first quote expresses the problem, in that you see the problem completely backwards. You have to destroy the state at its root, which is property (property > classes > state), not treat the symptom (the state), because if you don't abolish property and therefore classes, you can declare the state abolished every morning, and it will grow again from the conditions you have failed to abolish. If you abolish the conditions (property and classes) that create the state, the state dies ('withers away'). If you abolish the state without abolishing property and classes, a new state replaces it inevitably, because the conditions haven't been done away with. You have to dig up the state by its roots, that is classes and property, not just trim its leaves or even hack away at the trunk. If you do not abolish the conditions that give birth to the state, they'll give birth to the state. that seems pretty simple. If you do not abolish the conditions that norish the state, they'll nourish the state. If you abolish them, no new state can come emerge, and the existing state will 'wither away', deprived of its socio-economic foundation.

Your belief expressed earlier that you and the armed population could 'abolish the state', for which you were called an idealist, is I think even worse. You would not 'abolish' the state you would become the state. A state is in the last analysis 'men armed in defence of property relations'. You are the armed men, defending property relations (collectivised or self-managed property I presume in this case), so you are the state that you want to abolish.

This is why the revolution needs to be political as well as social; the working class cannot 'destroy the state' as long as it is the working class; because as long as classes exist property must exist (because all classes are is a difference in property relations) so as long as there is a working class there must be property relations underlying the existence of different classes; and if there are classes there is a state because the state is the expression of classes. The state can only be abolished when the working class abolishes itself, and it can only do that when there are no property relations underpinning the existence of classes. So, states cannot be abolished without the abolition of property, and property cannot be abolished on a whim, without a revolution. So the revolution must take place in the context of existing property relations and class relations, which must seek to abolish the ultimate basis for the state, that is property relations.

[helot]

The anarchist interpretation differs, and someone can correct me if I am wrong, in that they hold that the state can take on a life of its own.

So did Engels


Exceptional periods, however, occur when the warring classes are so nearly equal in forces that the state power, as apparent mediator, acquires for the moment a certain independence in relation to both

[l'Enfermé]

I can also say: enough with the marxist pro-state hysterics.
We can agree that our main enemy is not the capitalist state, but it is a pretty important enemy nontheless.



The funny part of that is how it always seved minorities.

The proletariat makes up around 30-40 percent of the world's population, so it's also a minority.



I have said this before: the state is not a weapon, it has its own will, and can only ally to minorities.
The state doesn't have its will it's a fucking institution not a living organism. The state does whatever the ruling class makes it do. If the ruling class is the proletariat the state is an organ of proletarian class-rule, if it's the bourgeoisie, the state is an organ of bourgeoisie class-rule.


I fail to see any evidence that the proletariat can actually use the state to emancipate itself. It's no neutral arbiter, it's not like a shotgun lying on the ground. It developed to serve a definite purpose in society, namely the protection of a system of exploitation. Even its very form is that which is most conducive in the particular setting to protect the system of exploitation and its standard-bearer. I fear you'll have more luck seeing with your tongue than using the state to destroy that which it exists to protect.
The proletariat doesn't use the state to emancipate itself. It emancipates itself in the process of conquering state power and ending bourgeoisie supremacy. The state is then used to crush its enemies.






I always thought that Engels' On Authority would be more aptly named Creating Strawmen. It's probably one of the dumbest things written by Engels which is a shame as Origins of the Family in contrast is brilliant.

The claim that "the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed" is a lie.
"Engels exposes our idiocy re. "authoritarianism" so he's dumb". No, that claim isn't a lie. Your fellow "anti-authoritarianians" have been saying the same thing in this thread. What Engels said still holds true 140 years after he wrote it.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

I have carefully read everything you wrote.


The first quote expresses the problem, in that you see the problem completely backwards. You have to destroy the state at its root, which is property (property > classes > state), not treat the symptom (the state), because if you don't abolish property and therefore classes, you can declare the state abolished every morning, and it will grow again from the conditions you have failed to abolish.

We can agree that as long as property exsists the state will exist too. I think that if you maintain a state, the state will be in control of certain services (property), and will create laws that devide people into classes. So I think we cannot abolish property and classes if we don't abolish the state.
I think we must abolish all of those at the same time. We abolish the state, we organise our economy into the the socialist mode of production, and after this there will be no classes.
You night think anarchists focus too much on the state and don't see the need for abolishing classes and property, but we do. We just think all those must be abolished at the same time.


If you abolish the conditions (property and classes) that create the state, the state dies ('withers away'). If you abolish the state without abolishing property and classes, a new state replaces it inevitably, because the conditions haven't been done away with.

I would agree with you were it not for the "state dies" part. The state has power, and it can use this power to maintain the system. I think that is why the state would not just wither away, it can use its power to maintain the system. I think the only way to abolish the old system is to abolish all 3 things that maintain it.


If you abolish them, no new state can come emerge, and the existing state will 'wither away', deprived of its socio-economic foundation.

There is a problem with this logic, and that is that the state will not allow you to destroy the things that make its existance possible. You are seeing the state as a tree, you want to take a chainsaw and cut it down, the problem is the state is not a tree, it is a monster. It has its own will, and wants to prolong its existance for as long as possible, so it will make sure neither classes nor property get abolished.


Your belief expressed earlier that you and the armed population could 'abolish the state', for which you were called an idealist, is I think even worse.

That just served to demonstrate how easy it is to depose a government, the hard part is changing the system.


You would not 'abolish' the state you would become the state. A state is in the last analysis 'men armed in defence of property relations'. You are the armed men, defending property relations (collectivised or self-managed property I presume in this case), so you are the state that you want to abolish.

This shows how different our ideas of state are. Let's say me and my armed populace depose the government and begin working on colectivisation, we will not necessarily become the state, we have become something like an anti-state. We go arround spreading the word of the revolution and colectivising all property. In the end we are not a state, because we are not dependant on property or classes to function, we are the revolutionaries that are showing the people the way to the new system (that sounded leninist). The main diference between a state and my group of people is that the state will try to coordinate everything, it will create laws, it will create coin, it will create police, and my group will do nothing of the sort, we will only spread the revolution, we won't become an authoritarian institution built for opressing.


So, states cannot be abolished without the abolition of property, and property cannot be abolished on a whim, without a revolution. So the revolution must take place in the context of existing property relations and class relations, which must seek to abolish the ultimate basis for the state, that is property relations.

This is all good, the problem I have is using a state to acomplish this.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

The proletariat makes up around 30-40 percent of the world's population, so it's also a minority.

Yet it is a minority with interests of abolishing property and classes, which are things a state needs to survive.


The state doesn't have its will it's a fucking institution not a living organism.

It is an institution made up of living organisms. Saying a state will allow itslef to be destroyed is like saying a corporation will just allow itself to be destroyed. Both will not allow their destruction, both will use whatever means necessary to survive. The corporation only wants to make profit, and we all know it does everything it can to achieve this goal, and does everything it can to make sure it does not lose profit. The state is like that. Both are institutions made of living organisms, and both have a will.


The state does whatever the ruling class makes it do. If the ruling class is the proletariat the state is an organ of proletarian class-rule, if it's the bourgeoisie, the state is an organ of bourgeoisie class-rule.

The state does not serve the bourgeosie, it is allied with them. They maintain a relation of mutualism, they serve each other mutualy for mutual gain. To try to make the proletariat occupy the place of the bourgeosie is not good, becuase the state has a good deal with the bourgeosie, and it will see that it looses benifits if it allies with the proletariat.


The proletariat doesn't use the state to emancipate itself. It emancipates itself in the process of conquering state power and ending bourgeoisie supremacy. The state is then used to crush its enemies.


It emancipates itself by creating a state to emancipate itself?

"
Engels exposes our idiocy re. "authoritarianism" so he's dumb". No, that claim isn't a lie. Your fellow "anti-authoritarianians" have been saying the same thing in this thread. What Engels said still holds true 140 years after he wrote it.

You are the one who is lying, anti-authoritarians want to abolish classes and property as well as the state. The diference is we want to abolish everything at the same time, because we see that as the only way it will work.

[Zealot]

Let me sum up this thread so far:

- Anarchism is on the left
- Political spectrums, however, aren't exactly useful or appropriate
- Stalin single-handedly led a counter-revolutionary movement that survived intact after his death and thus single-handedly ruined the international workers' movement.

[helot]

The proletariat doesn't use the state to emancipate itself. It emancipates itself in the process of conquering state power and ending bourgeoisie supremacy. The state is then used to crush its enemies. So the proletariat's emancipation is seizing state power and then destroying its enemies? All you've done is reword a sentence with the same implication.




"Engels exposes our idiocy re. "authoritarianism" so he's dumb". No, that claim isn't a lie. Your fellow "anti-authoritarianians" have been saying the same thing in this thread. What Engels said still holds true 140 years after he wrote it.

Do you really enjoy misrepresenting what others have said? I said that the claim that anti-authoritarians wish to abolish the state before the social conditions that gave birth to it is a lie... as it is. Sure, you could probably find people claiming that you can just like you can find supposed Marxists claiming North Korea is socialist but that's beside the point.

[l'Enfermé]

Immediate abolition of the state has been an integral part of anarchist utopianism since Bakunin. And no, you would never find a single Marxist claiming North Korea is socialist.

[helot]

Immediate abolition of the state has been an integral part of anarchist utopianism since Bakunin. And no, you would never find a single Marxist claiming North Korea is socialist.

Immediate abolition of the state has never meant its abolition before that of capitalism.


The CPGB-ML would regard themselves as Marxist and they have also regarded North Korea as socialist including in their Report from Korea. Whether you'd regard them as Marxist is another matter hence the descriptor in my previous post: "supposed"

[Blake's Baby]

...

We can agree that as long as property exsists the state will exist too. I think that if you maintain a state, the state will be in control of certain services (property), and will create laws that devide people into classes. So I think we cannot abolish property and classes if we don't abolish the state.
I think we must abolish all of those at the same time. We abolish the state, we organise our economy into the the socialist mode of production, and after this there will be no classes...

'Maintain'?

We do not 'maintain' a state. We recognise that we can't abolish the state if we don't change the conditions that give rise to the state. As long as there is a working class there will be a state because a state is an organ that owes its existence to the existence of classes. We cannot do away with the state while classes exist, and classes still exist while property exists. You



...

You night think anarchists focus too much on the state and don't see the need for abolishing classes and property, but we do. We just think all those must be abolished at the same time.



I would agree with you were it not for the "state dies" part. The state has power, and it can use this power to maintain the system. I think that is why the state would not just wither away, it can use its power to maintain the system. I think the only way to abolish the old system is to abolish all 3 things that maintain it...

Does the working class suppress the capitalists?

If it does, it does it through a state. If it does not, what is to stop the capitalists taking back their former property?

The state has no 'power' that is not derived from classes and property. If you remove classes and property, then the state cannot exist, let alone 'use its power to maintain the system'.

But how do you abolish classes and property? Through the application of power, in this case the revolutionary power of the working class.



...
There is a problem with this logic, and that is that the state will not allow you to destroy the things that make its existance possible. You are seeing the state as a tree, you want to take a chainsaw and cut it down, the problem is the state is not a tree, it is a monster. It has its own will, and wants to prolong its existance for as long as possible, so it will make sure neither classes nor property get abolished...

Of course, the capitalist state fights against the revolution. Did you think I thought it didn't? You want to fight the monster by cutting off its heads, but, Hydras being what they are, you'll find they sprout another. You have to burn it out at the root - property. Can't do that without the working class first gaining political control.



...
That just served to demonstrate how easy it is to depose a government, the hard part is changing the system.



This shows how different our ideas of state are. Let's say me and my armed populace depose the government and begin working on colectivisation, we will not necessarily become the state, we have become something like an anti-state. We go arround spreading the word of the revolution and colectivising all property. In the end we are not a state, because we are not dependant on property or classes to function, we are the revolutionaries that are showing the people the way to the new system (that sounded leninist). The main diference between a state and my group of people is that the state will try to coordinate everything, it will create laws, it will create coin, it will create police, and my group will do nothing of the sort, we will only spread the revolution, we won't become an authoritarian institution built for opressing...

Yes. You don't understand what a state is.

You oppress the bourgeoisie; you defend collectivised property; you use force to attain these ends. You are a new state, a state very much in the vein of the Bolsheviks' state after the suppression of the soviets. Not even the good bit of the revolution, when the working class could actually be said to be in charge.



...
This is all good, the problem I have is using a state to acomplish this.

Why do you say 'using'? The state is there whether we use it or not. If we don't control it, the bourgeoisie controls it. Why do you want the bourgeoisie to control it?

Without destroying property relations, there is a state. No matter how many red and black flags it flies, it's a state while there is a working class fighting a bourgeoisie.

Without political control of society, the working class cannot abolish property. That's why the state continues whether you like it or not.


Immediate abolition of the state has never meant its abolition before that of capitalism...

Right.

For Marxists, we've never claimed that we'd extend the existence of the state in any way after that of capitalism.

So we're agreed, I take it?

[LiberationTheologist]

I have 3 points

1. the simple left to right political spectrum is not a very good model at explaining political reality and other models do exist. If people could post some links to other explanations of political models that would be helpful

2. This all or nothing proposition as far as getting rid of the state post seizing power is very unhelpful thinking and leads to endless clashes over a simple A or B paradigm. Is there no in between? Smash the state but you better have an army, police, disaster relief and some kind of schools other wise you will not last long and the old regime will be back in power in no time. In essence this whole idea of totally being rid of the state is just a fantasy and a nightmare for a lot of people who would experience such a such a thing.

[sarcasm]How about creating a spectrum between all state on the left and no state on the right to futher divide the revolutionary communists and anarchists?[/sarcams]

3 I think recalcitrant anarchists who believe you can simply totally do away with the state after seizing power should consider the fact that communists and capitalist/fascist supporters are not going anywhere post revolution. So without Anarchist centralization of power you get the old regime back. I know that anarchists will argue the state is not needed but I ask, who will you hand the state's guns out to? Please read or reread the "Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists" by Mahkno and company.

[Let's Get Free]

Immediate abolition of the state has been an integral part of anarchist utopianism since Bakunin.

If there is a state, there is a ruling class, and if there is a ruling class, there is a class system. If there is still a class system, then you have not had a socialist revolution. Also, how does this "Proletarian state" "whither away"? Considering having a state implies a ruling class and a ruling class implies a class system that arises from material factors, do these material factors simply "whither away"? What is the method in which this happens?

[l'Enfermé]

If there is a state, there is a ruling class, and if there is a ruling class, there is a class system. If there is still a class system, then you have not had a socialist revolution. Also, how does this "Proletarian state" "whither away"? Considering having a state implies a ruling class and a ruling class implies a class system that arises from material factors, do these material factors simply "whither away"? What is the method in which this happens?
Yes. The ruling class is the proletariat. The proletariat becomes the ruling class after a socialist revolution, the bourgeoisie becomes the ruling class after a bourgeois revolution. No more than 30-40 percent of the world is composed of proletarians. The rest is peasants, petty-bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, lumpen-proletarians, etc. These billions of people won't simply disappear in a few days or years after a socialist revolution. They can't be absorbed into the proletariat in a short period of time. So, the proletariat must exercise its dictatorship over them until they are absorbed. This process will take decades. Until then the state, as the organ of the proletariat's dictatorship, isn't going anywhere.

Unless you propose we kill billions of people on the day after the socialist revolution. Then we can move on to classlessness and statelessness immediately.

[Tim Cornelis]

Yes. The ruling class is the proletariat. The proletariat becomes the ruling class after a socialist revolution, the bourgeoisie becomes the ruling class after a bourgeois revolution. No more than 30-40 percent of the world is composed of proletarians. The rest is peasants, petty-bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, lumpen-proletarians, etc. These billions of people won't simply disappear in a few days or years after a socialist revolution. They can't be absorbed into the proletariat in a short period of time. So, the proletariat must exercise its dictatorship over them [peasants, petty-bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, lumpen-proletarians] until they are absorbed. This process will take decades. Until then the state, as the organ of the proletariat's dictatorship, isn't going anywhere.

Unless you propose we kill billions of people on the day after the socialist revolution. Then we can move on to classlessness and statelessness immediately.

The dictatorship of the proletariat oppresses peasants for being peasants. Perhaps the Soviet Union was the accurate application of scientific socialism after all.

It is ridiculous, I might add, to put the number of proletarians in the world at no more than 30-40%, which is closer to Africa's average.

This whole so-called "scientific" analysis is based on non-existing "objective class interests." Which is ironic given the constant whining about "morality is subjective." If morality is subjective, then so are interests, and therefore you can't exclude "peasants" or even the "petite-bourgeoisie" from participation in a socialist revolution since it's not in their "class interests."

[TheRedAnarchist23]

'Maintain'?

We do not 'maintain' a state. We recognise that we can't abolish the state if we don't change the conditions that give rise to the state. As long as there is a working class there will be a state because a state is an organ that owes its existence to the existence of classes. We cannot do away with the state while classes exist, and classes still exist while property exists. You

Then it makes no sense not to abolish state, classes, and property at the same time. You will abolish classes and property, but you will overlook the state and hope it withers away. My knowledge of state tells me it does not wither away, it must be brought down.



Does the working class suppress the capitalists?

It can if it organises


If it does, it does it through a state.

Lies, it can do so without a state.


The state has no 'power' that is not derived from classes and property. If you remove classes and property, then the state cannot exist, let alone 'use its power to maintain the system'.

Exactly, and the state knows of this, and it will not let you abolish classes nor property. You completely misread what I wrote, I was saying the state will use its power, before you abolish class and property, to stop you from doing so. And the worst part is you will allow it to stop you, because you think it is a revolutionary state and that you should be loyal to it if you want victory. You must see that the state will not allow you to change the system.


But how do you abolish classes and property? Through the application of power, in this case the revolutionary power of the working class.

Right, but it does not take a state to do this. According to anarchist theory the people can organise through non-authoritarian means, and can work together, without interference of a state, to end the capitalist system, and begin a new system.


Of course, the capitalist state fights against the revolution. Did you think I thought it didn't?

Of course not. The thing I don't think you understand is that a revolutionary state and the state we have today works exactly the same way.


You want to fight the monster by cutting off its heads, but, Hydras being what they are, you'll find they sprout another. You have to burn it out at the root - property. Can't do that without the working class first gaining political control.

Yes, but creating a state will take away power from the working class. Without a state, after the revolution, the people have colective power to create any system they want, but with a state they are left without power, and are forced to work for the state.


Yes. You don't understand what a state is.

No, you don't understand what a state is.


You oppress the bourgeoisie; you defend collectivised property; you use force to attain these ends. You are a new state, a state very much in the vein of the Bolsheviks' state after the suppression of the soviets. Not even the good bit of the revolution, when the working class could actually be said to be in charge.

I am not a state because I am not using my powers, which come from colective strength, to opress, I am using them to liberate.


Why do you say 'using'? The state is there whether we use it or not. If we don't control it, the bourgeoisie controls it. Why do you want the bourgeoisie to control it?

We can abolish the state. It has been done before, we can create free territory where the state has no power. We cannot fully abolish state in all the world, but we can create free territory. In free territory there is no state, no property, and no classes. We can abolish all 3 at the same time, there is no need to leave one standing, especialy if it is the state.
Even if the capitalists control the state we can still have free territory. In the end it does not matter who controlls the state, it will always behave the same way, it will never let you destroy it.


Without destroying property relations, there is a state. No matter how many red and black flags it flies, it's a state while there is a working class fighting a bourgeoisie.

Then I would rather the bourgeosie have the state, for all its worth.


Without political control of society, the working class cannot abolish property. That's why the state continues whether you like it or not.

But political control of society can be achieved by diferent methods. It can be achieved through colective will, and colective force. It is through these that the revolution will occur, and it is through these that capitalism must be ended.

[Marxaveli]

The dictatorship of the proletariat oppresses peasants for being peasants. Perhaps the Soviet Union was the accurate application of scientific socialism after all.

It is ridiculous, I might add, to put the number of proletarians in the world at no more than 30-40%, which is closer to Africa's average.

This whole so-called "scientific" analysis is based on non-existing "objective class interests." Which is ironic given the constant whining about "morality is subjective." If morality is subjective, then so are interests, and therefore you can't exclude "peasants" or even the "petite-bourgeoisie" from participation in a socialist revolution since it's not in their "class interests."

No...morality is indeed subjective, because what is moral to one person is not to another - you may be against sex outside of marriage, I may not give a damn - it is subjective. However, class relationships are NOT subjective, they are in fact observable and objective as material forces in society. Capitalism is the expressed objective interest of the bourgeois, socialism is the expressed objective class interests of the proletarian. Peasants may or may not be included in the revolution - that depends on the existing conditions of said revolution, but the driving force of the revolution is the working class. The petite-bourgeoise should not be a factor in the revolution, because socialism is not in their class interests and they will only serve to hinder or even obstruct the revolution.

[Tim Cornelis]

No...morality is indeed subjective, because what is moral to one person is not to another - you may be against sex outside of marriage, I may not give a damn - it is subjective. However, class relationships are NOT subjective, they are in fact observable and objective as material forces in society.


Capitalism is the expressed objective interest of the bourgeois, socialism is the expressed objective class interests of the proletarian.

You state this as self-evident truth but offer no justification. I think socialism is in the interest of the petite-bourgeois, you think it's not. What is in whose interests is thus subjective.


Peasants may or may not be included in the revolution - that depends on the existing conditions of said revolution, but the driving force of the revolution is the working class. The petite-bourgeoise should not be a factor in the revolution, because socialism is not in their class interests and they will only serve to hinder or even obstruct the revolution.

You are again begging the question. Why? You simply omit this fundamental question! (Which is rather common for those adhering to "scientific" analysis). Why is socialism not in the interest of the petite-bourgeoisie? Simply stating it is not, as Marxists tend to do, is not an argument.

[Marxaveli]

The petite-bourgeois generally consists of what are called 'small business owners' in mainstream language. My dad would be an example of a petite-bourgeois, he owns his own audio rental company and has had employees that he pays an hourly wage to. In short, the petit-bourgeois control the means to production, and therefore they make all the rules on what is produced, how the business is ran, when they work, what they are paid, etc etc. They function essentially the same as the regular bourgeois do, just on a substantially smaller scale, but capitalism is generally in their class interests, socialism is NOT. Period. Now, you might have some petite-bourgeois individuals here and there that have been effected by the recent economic woes, but in the long run, capitalism is in their interests still. In socialism, they lose their privileged status as property owners.

[Tim Cornelis]

I take from this you have no actual scientific argument (that is, only subjective reasons for) explaining why capitalism is in the interest of the petite-bourgeoisie. It seems many "scientific socialists" repeat Marxist rhetoric because it sounds like an accurate hypothesis--because it certainly does! But it is a hypothesis, not a theory. I could reply with almost the exact same words used above since you are again begging the question.


The petite-bourgeois generally consists of what are called 'small business owners' in mainstream language. My dad would be an example of a petite-bourgeois, he owns his own audio rental company and has had employees that he pays an hourly wage to. In short, the petit-bourgeois control the means to production, and therefore they make all the rules on what is produced, how the business is ran, when they work, what they are paid, etc etc. They function essentially the same as the regular bourgeois do, just on a substantially smaller scale, but capitalism is generally in their class interests, socialism is NOT. Period.

You state this as self-evident truth but offer no justification. I think socialism is in the interest of the petite-bourgeois, you think it's not. What is in whose interests is thus subjective.

Simply ending debate with "period" while offering no justification is a poor attempt to hide the lack of arguments.


Now, you might have some petite-bourgeois individuals here and there that have been effected by the recent economic woes, but in the long run, capitalism is in their interests still. In socialism, they lose their privileged status as property owners.

You are again begging the question. Why? You simply omit this fundamental question! (Which is rather common for those adhering to "scientific" analysis). Why is socialism not in the interest of the petite-bourgeoisie? Simply stating it is not, as Marxists tend to do, is not an argument. Additionally, stating that they will lose their privileged status and that this is a bad thing is a value-judgement, not science. You think it's bad they will lose this status and privilege, this is not objective, and therefore by extension not scientific.

Under capitalism the petite-bourgeoisie often works hard, they take a lot of risk and their livelihood is threatened by competition constantly. Compare this with their future situation under socialism: they will have to work less and have an immense (social) security, there is no threat of losing their livelihood. In my humble and subjective opinion, their lives will improve under socialism and thus it is in their interest to support socialism.

Value-judgements (which are always subjective) are unscientific, because science studies objective phenomena. Therefore words and phrases expressive of value-judgements, such as 'bad,' 'good,' 'it is in their interest,' and so forth is unscientific.

[Mettalian]

He's in a group for seinfeld enthusiasts?

Oh my god, that`s classic

[Marxaveli]

I take from this you have no actual scientific argument (that is, only subjective reasons for) explaining why capitalism is in the interest of the petite-bourgeoisie. It seems many "scientific socialists" repeat Marxist rhetoric because it sounds like an accurate hypothesis--because it certainly does! But it is a hypothesis, not a theory. I could reply with almost the exact same words used above since you are again begging the question.



You state this as self-evident truth but offer no justification. I think socialism is in the interest of the petite-bourgeois, you think it's not. What is in whose interests is thus subjective.

Simply ending debate with "period" while offering no justification is a poor attempt to hide the lack of arguments.



You are again begging the question. Why? You simply omit this fundamental question! (Which is rather common for those adhering to "scientific" analysis). Why is socialism not in the interest of the petite-bourgeoisie? Simply stating it is not, as Marxists tend to do, is not an argument. Additionally, stating that they will lose their privileged status and that this is a bad thing is a value-judgement, not science. You think it's bad they will lose this status and privilege, this is not objective, and therefore by extension not scientific.

Under capitalism the petite-bourgeoisie often works hard, they take a lot of risk and their livelihood is threatened by competition constantly. Compare this with their future situation under socialism: they will have to work less and have an immense (social) security, there is no threat of losing their livelihood. In my humble and subjective opinion, their lives will improve under socialism and thus it is in their interest to support socialism.

Value-judgements (which are always subjective) are unscientific, because science studies objective phenomena. Therefore words and phrases expressive of value-judgements, such as 'bad,' 'good,' 'it is in their interest,' and so forth is unscientific.

The problem with this argument is that you think the petite-bourgeois values or puts emphasis on economic security over their privileged status - I think they have made it very clear that it is the reverse. By using this argument, you could make the same case for the regular bourgeois, which of course, would be absurd. It isn't about economic security or having to work less hard; it is, for them, about maintaining traditionally held power they use to exert on others by means of property relationships, so that they have a privileged status all protected and legitimized by a rule of law system. They don't see socialism as protecting these interests, and indeed, they are right not to - because socialism is NOT in their class interests, even if they would have more economic and social security. It is not about that for them, it is about POWER and status and privilege, and they don't want to give that up. If it were in their class interests, we wouldn't need a revolution, and socialist society would have formed a long time ago comrade.

[Blake's Baby]

...

Lies, it can do so without a state...

Lies, this is a state. You want a state that isn't called a state. At least we're honest, and say the state can't be abolished immediately, you want to claim that the big bad bogeyman is gone, while you become that which you claim to want to destroy.



...
Exactly, and the state knows of this, and it will not let you abolish classes nor property. You completely misread what I wrote, I was saying the state will use its power, before you abolish class and property, to stop you from doing so. And the worst part is you will allow it to stop you, because you think it is a revolutionary state and that you should be loyal to it if you want victory. You must see that the state will not allow you to change the system...

You do realise that the state 'knows' nothing don't you?

The state is based on property. You cannot abolish the state without abolishing property. How does the proletariat abolish property? By assuming political control of society. How does it do that? Through revolution, which establishes proletarian power. Proletarian power is itself a state, one for the suppression of capitalism. The dictatorship of the proletariat preceeds the suppression of capitalism. You can't suppress capitalism by force of will. Go on, try, see if you can do it.



...
Right, but it does not take a state to do this. According to anarchist theory the people can organise through non-authoritarian means, and can work together, without interference of a state, to end the capitalist system, and begin a new system...

So why haven't you done it? You must be happy with what we've got if you think that all we have to do is wish it away.



...
Of course not. The thing I don't think you understand is that a revolutionary state and the state we have today works exactly the same way...

Not really. All previous states have been organisations for the oppression of the majority by the minority. The revolutionary state will be for the suppression of the minority by majority - for suppressing the capitalist class. That's an absolutely massive difference. If you don't thank that's a state, that's fine, Marxists aren't in favour of a state 'by your definition'.



...
Yes, but creating a state will take away power from the working class. Without a state, after the revolution, the people have colective power to create any system they want, but with a state they are left without power, and are forced to work for the state...

It's not about 'creating a state' it's about 'being unable to end the state while the conditions for ending it don't exist'. While there is a working class, there will be a state, there has to be, because states are eminations of a class system. We don't 'create' it it's inherent in class society. even if we spend our whole time with our eyes closed ever so tight and our fingers crossed wishing 'please no state', we cannot will it away until all property (worldwide) is collectivised and the capitalsts defeated. This will mark the end of 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' (because there will no longer be a working class) and the end of the state. Trying to abolish the state while there are still classes and property is futile.



...
No, you don't understand what a state is...

You haven't set out what you think it is. You've just said it's 'authoritarian'. So, enlighten us, what do you think a state is?



...
I am not a state because I am not using my powers, which come from colective strength, to opress, I am using them to liberate...

Great, so the 'revolutionary state' that Marxists want to 'establish' is also 'not a state' by your definition. Except, yours is based on armed bandit gangs and ours is based on the organised power of the working class.



...
We can abolish the state. It has been done before, we can create free territory where the state has no power. We cannot fully abolish state in all the world, but we can create free territory. In free territory there is no state, no property, and no classes. We can abolish all 3 at the same time, there is no need to leave one standing, especialy if it is the state.
Even if the capitalists control the state we can still have free territory. In the end it does not matter who controlls the state, it will always behave the same way, it will never let you destroy it...

No you can't, no state has ever been 'abolished' without re-asserting itself. The state will always re-assert itself while there are classes and property.



...
Then I would rather the bourgeosie have the state, for all its worth.



But political control of society can be achieved by diferent methods. It can be achieved through colective will, and colective force. It is through these that the revolution will occur, and it is through these that capitalism must be ended.

And that collective excercise of political, military and social power in defence of collectivised property is a state, to Marxists. I don't really care if you define it differently, but if you do, you cannot complain that Marxists are statists, because the 'state' you accuse us of wanting to establish is not a state by your definition.

[Art Vandelay]

Then it makes no sense not to abolish state, classes, and property at the same time. You will abolish classes and property, but you will overlook the state and hope it withers away. My knowledge of state tells me it does not wither away, it must be brought down.

Are you literally that fucking dense? BB is patiently explaining to you (much more patiently than I ever could), the material conditions which produce a state and you just can't seem to get it. The state isn't something that can just be abolished; you proposing something so absurd just illustrates your lack of knowledge on what constitutes a state.


It can if it organises

Let's try to go through this one more time for you, the state is a by product of class society (the institution one class uses to exert it's hegemony) so if the need to suppress capitalists exists (and therefor classes still exist, then a state will exist; no if's, and's or but's.


Lies, it can do so without a state.

Dear god you're an idiot; the proletariat organizing itself (be it through workers councils or whatever organization you prefer) to suppress the bourgeoisie, constitutes a state.


Exactly, and the state knows of this, and it will not let you abolish classes nor property.

Bahahaha so now the state is some mythical entity which has consciousness and the power to stop the proletariat from completing its historical duties? You're a disgrace to anarchists.


You completely misread what I wrote, I was saying the state will use its power, before you abolish class and property, to stop you from doing so. And the worst part is you will allow it to stop you, because you think it is a revolutionary state and that you should be loyal to it if you want victory. You must see that the state will not allow you to change the system.

You need to stop posting for a while, and perhaps pick up a history book; study some past revolutions for christ sakes.


Right, but it does not take a state to do this. According to anarchist theory the people can organise through non-authoritarian means, and can work together, without interference of a state, to end the capitalist system, and begin a new system.

As long as classes exist, so will the state; this is not a matter of opinion, but an objective fact.


Of course not. The thing I don't think you understand is that a revolutionary state and the state we have today works exactly the same way.


So state's act the same regardless of their class character? :rolleyes:


Yes, but creating a state will take away power from the working class.

You will look back at these posts one day and cringe, at least for your sake I really hope you do. A state isn't something that you create, nor abolish; certain material conditions give rise to it. The fact that you use the term "working class" proves that classes will still exist.


Without a state, after the revolution, the people have colective power to create any system they want, but with a state they are left without power, and are forced to work for the state.

It's like talking to a Ron Paul supporter or something.


No, you don't understand what a state is.

I can't even believe you have the gull to make such an assertion; you're simply embarrassing yourself here.


I am not a state because I am not using my powers, which come from colective strength, to opress, I am using them to liberate.

:laugh:


Then I would rather the bourgeosie have the state, for all its worth.

Then you're a traitor to the proletarian cause.


But political control of society can be achieved by diferent methods. It can be achieved through colective will, and colective force. It is through these that the revolution will occur, and it is through these that capitalism must be ended.

To think that a revolution could occur and put in place a revolutionary state and all of this could of happened without collective will and force is absurd. Your anti-statism is of farcical proportions and you make other competent anti-statists look bad.

[Tim Cornelis]

The problem with this argument is that you think the petite-bourgeois values or puts emphasis on economic security over their privileged status - I think they have made it very clear that it is the reverse. By using this argument, you could make the same case for the regular bourgeois, which of course, would be absurd. It isn't about economic security or having to work less hard; it is, for them, about maintaining traditionally held power they use to exert on others by means of property relationships, so that they have a privileged status all protected and legitimized by a rule of law system. They don't see socialism as protecting these interests, and indeed, they are right not to - because socialism is NOT in their class interests, even if they would have more economic and social security. It is not about that for them, it is about POWER and status and privilege, and they don't want to give that up.

You are essentially saying "the petite-bourgeoisie doesn't want socialism, they do not consider it in their interest, and this is accurate because it is not in their class interest." But you never explain why it isn't in their class interests! You merely assess that the petite-bourgeoisie doesn't consider it to be in their interest, that is, it's their opinion (which is subjective) that conveys it is not in their interest, but objectivity never enters into your equation.

How is it in the objective class interest of the petite-bourgeoisie for capitalism to survive? Any answer that pertains to the notion that "it's their opinion" or "they will lose their privilege [which I or they think is bad]" is not an objective reason.


Dear god you're an idiot; the proletariat organizing itself (be it through workers councils or whatever organization you prefer) to suppress the bourgeoisie, constitutes a state.

By what definition of the state? Is one workers' council in Argentina defending itself against 'de-expropriation' by police a state? Are two?

[Art Vandelay]

By what definition of the state?

The state is a by product of class society; very specific material conditions give rise to it's existence. It is the institution through which the dominant class in society exerts its hegemony.


Is one workers' council in Argentina defending itself against 'de-expropriation' by police a state? Are two?

Given that there is still a police force attempting to "de-expropriate" it sounds as if the state is still intact and in the possession of the bourgeoisie.

[Art Vandelay]

How is it in the objective class interest of the petite-bourgeoisie for capitalism to survive? Any answer that pertains to the notion that "it's their opinion" or "they will lose their privilege [which I or they think is bad]" is not an objective reason.

Are you even trying to argue that it isn't? The reason why it is in the interests of the petite-bourgeoisie, for capitalism to continue, is because their class has a monopoly on private property and the means of production. Unless it is in their class interests to simply hand over their privilege and means of extracting surplus value off of the backs of their workers, which I think we can agree it is not, then this conversation is a silly one.

[Ostrinski]

I think elements of the petite-bourgeoisie can potentially be won over to the socialist cause if it can be communicated that they will never join the ranks of the haute-bourgeoisie in spite of the incessant rhetoric of the bourgeois ideologues insisting otherwise.

Disillusioning them with ambitions toward bourgeois status is the first step toward convincing them to throw in their lot with the proletariat.

[Marxaveli]

You are essentially saying "the petite-bourgeoisie doesn't want socialism, they do not consider it in their interest, and this is accurate because it is not in their class interest." But you never explain why it isn't in their class interests! You merely assess that the petite-bourgeoisie doesn't consider it to be in their interest, that is, it's their opinion (which is subjective) that conveys it is not in their interest, but objectivity never enters into your equation.

How is it in the objective class interest of the petite-bourgeoisie for capitalism to survive? Any answer that pertains to the notion that "it's their opinion" or "they will lose their privilege [which I or they think is bad]" is not an objective reason.

Dude, I explained why in my last post. The existence of capitalism is the expression of their class interests - under capitalism their power and privilege continues to exist, by means of objective property relations. Under socialism, it does not! How is this not objective? The whole point of socialism is to eliminate private property, and for the working class to expropriate the means of production for itself. This would result in a loss of privilege, power and status for the petite bourgeois and international bourgeois that they have long held - not sure what is so difficult to understand about this comrade.

[Art Vandelay]

I think elements of the petite-bourgeoisie can potentially be won over to the socialist cause if it can be communicated that they will never join the ranks of the haute-bourgeoisie in spite of the incessant rhetoric of the bourgeois ideologues insisting otherwise.

Disillusioning them with ambitions toward bourgeois status is the first step toward convincing them to throw in their lot with the proletariat.

Indeed sections of the petite-bourgeoisie, as well as a small minority of the bourgeoisie, will throw their lot in with that of the proletariat during a social upheaval; but to suggest that this will be the norm, or that socialism will be in the interests of the petite-bourgeoisie (not that you were making such a claim, but Tim was), is ridiculous.

[helot]

Dear god you're an idiot; the proletariat organizing itself (be it through workers councils or whatever organization you prefer) to suppress the bourgeoisie, constitutes a state.

Except if we use the characteristics of the state Engels set out in Origin of the Family... a system of federated workers councils doesn't constitute a state if the public force is immediately identical with the people's own organisation of themselves as an armed power. The workers councils of course do not recognise the bourgeoisie as members and as such the people's own organisation is composed solely of the exploited class. It does not place itself above society nor would it increasingly be alienated from it. The class and the workers councils become identical, the workers councils being nothing more than the class organised to take over all of social life.


It all comes down to definition of which within Marxism there are a few but one thing's for sure, while the oft claimed institution for the oppression of one class by another is good for propaganda it is not sufficient. It's more of a slogan than an analysis.

[Tim Cornelis]

Are you even trying to argue that it isn't? The reason why it is in the interests of the petite-bourgeoisie, for capitalism to continue, is because their class has a monopoly on private property and the means of production.

Correct. And apparently you think that them losing this privilege is a bad thing, i.e. it's a value-judgement and not objective.


Unless it is in their class interests to simply hand over their privilege and means of extracting surplus value off of the backs of their workers, which I think we can agree it is not, then this conversation is a silly one.

If losing their privilege as petite-bourgeoisie means gaining the privilege of living under communism, then I assess that the privilege of communism outweighs the privilege of being petite-bourgeois.

Again, all this is subjective: what is in whose interest. I could even make some vague philosophical, moralistic, or Christian argument why the haute-bourgeoisie would be better off under communism: they lose their material wealth but they gain spiritual and/or social wealth. In my opinion, the spiritual and social wealth outweighs material wealth.

Similarly, I could make a Calvinistic argument that working hard is positive, and therefore abolishing capitalism in favour of communism is not in the interest of the working class.


Indeed sections of the petite-bourgeoisie, as well as a small minority of the bourgeoisie, will throw their lot in with that of the proletariat during a social upheaval; but to suggest that this will be the norm, or that socialism will be in the interests of the petite-bourgeoisie (not that you were making such a claim, but Tim was), is ridiculous.

Why would the petite-bourgeois go against their own objective interests?


Dude, I explained why in my last post.

And I already explained why it's wrong:


How is it in the objective class interest of the petite-bourgeoisie for capitalism to survive? Any answer that pertains to the notion that "it's their opinion" or "they will lose their privilege [which I or they think is bad]" is not an objective reason.


The existence of capitalism is the expression of their class interests - under capitalism their power and privilege continues to exist, by means of objective property relations. Under socialism, it does not! How is this not objective?

Class relations =/= class interests. You imply as if since property and class relations are objective, therefore interests are as well.


The whole point of socialism is to eliminate private property, and for the working class to expropriate the means of production for itself. This would result in a loss of privilege, power and status for the petite bourgeois and international bourgeois that they have long held - not sure what is so difficult to understand about this comrade.

It's difficult to understand since you never explain why it's objectively bad. Why is the loss of power, privilege, and status a bad thing objectively? You have yet to answer. All you insist on is that "they will lose their privilege," from which I understand you (and they) think this is a bad thing, but this is not objectively true. In my opinion what the petite-bourgeoisie will gain from communism is far more positive than that which they gain from being petite-bourgeois.


The state is a by product of class society; very specific material conditions give rise to it's existence. It is the institution through which the dominant class in society exerts its hegemony.

The dominant/ruling class exerts hegemony through buying private security. Is this private security the state or part of it?

Also, was Somalia stateless, at least for some time?


Given that there is still a police force attempting to "de-expropriate" it sounds as if the state is still intact and in the possession of the bourgeoisie.

First you presume the two can't co-exist. Second, the police could be seen as counter-revolutionary forces that fight against the proletarian state: the workers' council.

EDIT:

In the following hypothetical society no state exists (using the definition you gave): there is common ownership of the means of production, workers' councils based on equal participation, and a non-monetary planned economy. No social classes exist. Additionally there is an unelected parliament for different nations that makes decisions on collective infrastructure. This parliament is centralised, top-down organ. These nations ruled by parliaments are not states, since there are no social classes and therefore perform no repressive function. It seems that your definition, therefore, lacks some defining features.

[Ostrinski]

You'd be surprised at what some good ol' politicking can achieve. Class interests innately exist, sure. But not everyone is always sure what those are. I'd say socialist consciousness has always drawn a lot of its cumulative strength from petite-bourgeois sections of the population. The proletariat is the revolutionary class because it has the most to gain and the least to lose, but the people that have something to gain from a socialistic transformation of society are not limited strictly to wage workers.

Many petite-bourgeois have less than optimal existences, and there is no reason why a society where they can more easily acquire the articles of necessity and pleasure would not look good to them.

In short, the concept of class interest, though an objectively existing affair, doesn't mean shit outside of sociological academic discussions without class consciousness. Why is it that so many class conscious people are petite-bourgeois? Because socialism isn't conceived as a hellish dystopia to many petite-bourgeois folks.

[#FF0000]

OP posted one thing on this entire forum -- this thread -- and it got to six pages

y'all get trolled easy

[helot]

OP posted one thing on this entire forum -- this thread -- and it got to six pages

y'all get trolled easy

There was an OP? :confused:

[ennio82]

Anarchism is/the individual, freed from 'left'/'right' old dichotomy. I am not a communist and personally, as an individualist I would suggest that 'one day' probably my first 'war' will be against a communist.
I mean that 'the enemy of my enemy IS my enemy"
It'll be nonsense to mention the countless mass murder communist committed at the expense of anarchists, Spanish Civil War does ring a bell? Are we incensing Stalin?
Actually, might be one of them around.. :rolleyes:
Ciao:)

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Lies, this is a state. You want a state that isn't called a state. At least we're honest, and say the state can't be abolished immediately, you want to claim that the big bad bogeyman is gone, while you become that which you claim to want to destroy.

A group of people defending a society is not a state.


You do realise that the state 'knows' nothing don't you?

The state is made from humans, correct. Humans know things, and understand when something does, or not, benefit them. If the state is made up of humans, then it knows what is good for it and what isn't.
Take the example of a corporation, it is an institution with its own will, since it is made up of people. A state and a corporation have much in common.


The state is based on property. You cannot abolish the state without abolishing property. How does the proletariat abolish property? By assuming political control of society. How does it do that? Through revolution, which establishes proletarian power. Proletarian power is itself a state, one for the suppression of capitalism. The dictatorship of the proletariat preceeds the suppression of capitalism. You can't suppress capitalism by force of will. Go on, try, see if you can do it.

So why not council communism? Council communism wants a dictatorship of the proletariat, so why not?
You realise that you cannot put the entire working class in power by using a state, that is paradoxical. You are making a state that serves the working class, while state can only opress the working class.


So why haven't you done it? You must be happy with what we've got if you think that all we have to do is wish it away.

This does not even make sense. You are saying that non-authoritarian organisation is impossible. Therefore you must also think in every organisation, no matter how informal, there must be hierarchy.
I am not even going to bother writing a proper response to this, it doesn't even make sense.


Not really. All previous states have been organisations for the oppression of the majority by the minority. The revolutionary state will be for the suppression of the minority by majority - for suppressing the capitalist class. That's an absolutely massive difference. If you don't thank that's a state, that's fine, Marxists aren't in favour of a state 'by your definition'.

Then what you need isn't a state in the classical sense, like the revolutionary states of Soviet Union and other socialist revolutions. You can have non-authoritarian organisation that is more effective than the state.


It's not about 'creating a state' it's about 'being unable to end the state while the conditions for ending it don't exist'.

What?
That sounds like the worst excusse for not doing something you should have done in the first place. If you abolish property and classes, why are you keeping the state alive? You don't need the state, the state needs you. If the people rise up against the state, and stop it from opressing them, the state will try to find ways to get its power back, so it will ally with the counter-revolution. So now the state is still in the side of the capitalists. So now you decide that, according to your marxist theory you need to create another state, because being stateless (which you were, since the state allied to the capitalists) was not possible (even though it is), and you are going to use it to opress the bourgeosie. The problem is now you have a country divided, one side are the revolutionaries, and the other are the reaction. The state is on the side of the reaction and will work against you. You are now in a stateless society, you can do anything, because the state does not control the land you have taken from it, you must defend this free land, not create a state and make it someone's land once again.
It is not even logical to want to create a state if it is in your interests not to have a state. Unless you are talking about a non-authoritarian institution that ocupies the position of defending the revolution from the reaction, but in that case you are not talking about a state, you are talking about a platform (read platformism). Platform is anarchist equivalent of state, but it is non-authoritarian. Instead of using a state in the classical sense, like it was done in all socialist revolutions before, you could instead use a platform. The platform can do what your marxist theory demands in a non-authoritarian way.
Using a state in the classical sense and turn it into a workers state will not change the fact that it is still a state, and it does not serve the working class, since it requires the working class to survive. It needs the working class to serve it so that it can survive.


While there is a working class, there will be a state, there has to be, because states are eminations of a class system.

Then we abolish classes with the revolution. We can abolish classes and property with the revolution in an area, so the state cannot function there while there are no classes and property. So the state will try to take back those lands we have liberated.


We don't 'create' it it's inherent in class society.

That is, by far, the stupidest thing I have ever heard from a marxist.
If you have read my threads I sometimes post on philosiphy sub-forum you will know what I think a society is.
A society is nothing but a huge group of humans who have created complex realtions with each other that now force everyone to behave according to set laws and principles that allow the society to work most efficiently.
It is nothing more than humans playing, except this one was taken too far.
There is nothing more than humans, no state, no institution, no currency, no laws, etc It is all humans playing a game. One that rewards you if you play right, and brings you the most deadly of outcomes if you don't. Society is an invention upheld by complex relations between individuals, it is not real. Everything is possible, because society is not real, only people are real. Classes do not exist, what exists are the relations that maintain them, if we destroy the relations we destroy classes.


even if we spend our whole time with our eyes closed ever so tight and our fingers crossed wishing 'please no state', we cannot will it away until all property (worldwide) is collectivised and the capitalsts defeated.

That is not feaseble unless you wait for centuries. What you can do is create free territory, where neither state, nor classes, nor property exists. Where the game I refered before is ended, and people are no longer bound by complex social relations. If you want to maintain a state until the entire world become communist you are an idiot.


This will mark the end of 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' (because there will no longer be a working class) and the end of the state. Trying to abolish the state while there are still classes and property is futile.

But what if on another planet there is a similar species that has created class relations and property and state. Shouldn't we now bring state back, since it needs to exist when class relations continue to exist?


You haven't set out what you think it is. You've just said it's 'authoritarian'. So, enlighten us, what do you think a state is?

It is the institution that makes the laws and controls the institutions that uphold them.


Except, yours is based on armed bandit gangs and ours is based on the organised power of the working class.

Armed bandit gangs often have more egalitarian systems than capitalism.


No you can't, no state has ever been 'abolished' without re-asserting itself. The state will always re-assert itself while there are classes and property.

From where? If my armed gangs have liberated a certain area from its control, and now guard it to defend the freedom of those within, how can a state rise within my free territory, where both classes, property, and state have been abolished?


And that collective excercise of political, military and social power in defence of collectivised property is a state, to Marxists.

Then you should stop using classical states to for this.


I don't really care if you define it differently, but if you do, you cannot complain that Marxists are statists, because the 'state' you accuse us of wanting to establish is not a state by your definition.

In practice it always is a state by my definition.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Are you literally that fucking dense?

Funny how insults often work both ways.


BB is patiently explaining to you (much more patiently than I ever could), the material conditions which produce a state and you just can't seem to get it.

Classes and property, right?


The state isn't something that can just be abolished;

You can abolish it in an area and create a free territory.


Let's try to go through this one more time for you, the state is a by product of class society (the institution one class uses to exert it's hegemony) so if the need to suppress capitalists exists (and therefor classes still exist, then a state will exist; no if's, and's or but's.

Then if you are oposed to it, and need to destroy classes and property to destroy it, why the fuck are you using it to destroy itslef!?


Dear god you're an idiot; the proletariat organizing itself (be it through workers councils or whatever organization you prefer) to suppress the bourgeoisie, constitutes a state.

You are the idiot here, you are the one who does not seem to understand that the state is not a weapon.
Then by your definition a state can be non-authoritarian. Then why the fuck are supporting the use of an authoritarian state!?


Bahahaha so now the state is some mythical entity which has consciousness

As much as a corporation has consciousness of when it loses profit and how it must do to gain more profit. If corporations are conscious, why aren't states?


and the power to stop the proletariat from completing its historical duties?

Historical duties?
So now you are a profet?


You need to stop posting for a while, and perhaps pick up a history book; study some past revolutions for christ sakes.

And understand that the state used in those revolutions was not a state as defined by you and the other marxists? The state used by the revolutionaries in those revolutions was a state in my sense.


As long as classes exist, so will the state; this is not a matter of opinion, but an objective fact.

Stop throwing that line around, it only makes you sound more dogmatic.
Furthermore you can abolish state, classes, and property at the same time.


So state's act the same regardless of their class character? :rolleyes:

What?
A state is always a state, it does not matter wether you prefer to call it workers state or not. As long as it is an authoritarian institution it will always be the same.


You will look back at these posts one day and cringe, at least for your sake I really hope you do. A state isn't something that you create, nor abolish;

So you want a state to continue? No, the state will continue as long as classes continue to exist! Then why the fuck don't you just abolish classes in a territory and get rid of the state?


certain material conditions give rise to it.

Like when creepers spawn when it is dark? So you want to maintain the creeper, and try to use it to light up the darkness? The only thing you are going to accomplish is getting yourself exploded.


The fact that you use the term "working class" proves that classes will still exist.

What!? That is like me saying that if you say "royalty" the royalty will exist as a class.


It's like talking to a Ron Paul supporter or something.

Once again it works both ways.


I can't even believe you have the gull to make such an assertion; you're simply embarrassing yourself here.

It has been proven by all those failed revolutions that marxists don't know what a state is.


Then you're a traitor to the proletarian cause.

So wanting to liberate the proletariat from state opression is betraying the proletariat? Explain that to me again.
You are right when you say you cannot simply abolish state, but you have not taken into account that we can create a free territory where state has no power, and there are no classes, nor property for it to work.
And what if in a revolution anarchists have the opportunity to abolish state and create free territory, will you come and kill us to claim our free territory for the state, since free territory cannot exists? I want an answer to this.


To think that a revolution could occur and put in place a revolutionary state and all of this could of happened without collective will and force is absurd.

:confused: People missinterpreting my posts is a problem I often have here on revleft. Is it because I am portuguese?


Your anti-statism is of farcical proportions and you make other competent anti-statists look bad.

I would respond if I knew what farcical meant, but unfortunately english is not my main laguage, it is not even my second language, it is my foreign language.

[Blake's Baby]

Sorry, DP

[Blake's Baby]

A group of people defending a society is not a state...

Funny, it totally is.





...
Then we abolish classes with the revolution. We can abolish classes and property with the revolution in an area, so the state cannot function there while there are no classes and property. So the state will try to take back those lands we have liberated...

Oh right, I didn't realise you believed in socialism in one country. I should have guessed.

Man, Stalinists pretending to be Anarchists really piss me off. 'No, no, we're not a state, we're just men armed in defence of property relations, we're just an organ for the suppression of the capitalists, we just exist in a class society and organise production and the military fight against external enemies whilest we 'protect' our population, but really we're not a state'.

I'll be organising against your anarchic state, you do realise that, you fucking statist?


...
That is not feaseble unless you wait for centuries. What you can do is create free territory, where neither state, nor classes, nor property exists. Where the game I refered before is ended, and people are no longer bound by complex social relations. If you want to maintain a state until the entire world become communist you are an idiot...

And you're a Stalinist, a statist, and a liar.

I don't 'want' to 'maintain' a state, any more than I 'want' to drown if I fall in water. I just recognise that unless you remove the conditions that create the state, you can't remove the state.


...

From where? If my armed gangs have liberated a certain area from its control, and now guard it to defend the freedom of those within, how can a state rise within my free territory, where both classes, property, and state have been abolished?
...

Classes, property and states exist; you haven't abolished them. There is no socialism in one country, Stalinist. You and your armed territorial defence and production-arrngement gang are the state.

Man, you're so fucking authoritarian it sickens me.

[Art Vandelay]

Except if we use the characteristics of the state Engels set out in Origin of the Family... a system of federated workers councils doesn't constitute a state if the public force is immediately identical with the people's own organisation of themselves as an armed power. The workers councils of course do not recognise the bourgeoisie as members and as such the people's own organisation is composed solely of the exploited class. It does not place itself above society nor would it increasingly be alienated from it. The class and the workers councils become identical, the workers councils being nothing more than the class organised to take over all of social life.

The issue with worker's councils is their ability to allow non-proletarians, or proletarians with reactionary view points into influential and decision making positions.


It all comes down to definition of which within Marxism there are a few but one thing's for sure, while the oft claimed institution for the oppression of one class by another is good for propaganda it is not sufficient. It's more of a slogan than an analysis.

Well were just going to disagree there.

[Art Vandelay]

Correct. And apparently you think that them losing this privilege is a bad thing, i.e. it's a value-judgement and not objective.

Based on their class interests, yes it is a bad thing; but in your utopian anarchist fantasy, the petite-bourgeoisie will fall over themselves to hand over their privilege.


If losing their privilege as petite-bourgeoisie means gaining the privilege of living under communism, then I assess that the privilege of communism outweighs the privilege of being petite-bourgeois.

Cool, but your opinion has no bearing on reality or the objective material conditions which will exist come time for revolution.


Again, all this is subjective: what is in whose interest. I could even make some vague philosophical, moralistic, or Christian argument why the haute-bourgeoisie would be better off under communism: they lose their material wealth but they gain spiritual and/or social wealth. In my opinion, the spiritual and social wealth outweighs material wealth.

Show me one example, in all of human history, where the majority of a class has readily and happily given up their privilege. Until then, I'll look upon this "argument" as a petty attempt at dragging the conversation away from the points which are inconvenient for you.


Similarly, I could make a Calvinistic argument that working hard is positive, and therefore abolishing capitalism in favour of communism is not in the interest of the working class.

Cool, it would also be nonsense.


Why would the petite-bourgeois go against their own objective interests?

They won't; that's my position.


The dominant/ruling class exerts hegemony through buying private security. Is this private security the state or part of it?

That is not the only way it exerts hegemony but indeed part of it and the private security is merely an aspect of the state.


Also, was Somalia stateless, at least for some time?

No clue, I literally have no idea about the current events going on in that country.


First you presume the two can't co-exist. Second, the police could be seen as counter-revolutionary forces that fight against the proletarian state: the workers' council.

Then it sounds like some sort of tiny pocket has been created which has "dropped out" of the global capitalist system; probably similar to the EZLN, or something.

[Blake's Baby]

The issue with worker's councils is their ability to allow non-proletarians, or proletarians with reactionary view points into influential and decision making positions...

Errm, do you understand what you've written here?

There are no non-workers in the workers' councils, the clue is in the name.


The issue with worker's councils is their ability to allow non-proletarians, or proletarians with reactionary view points into influential and decision making positions...

Unless you believe that the Party should rule us, this will be a problem whatever system you want to have.

If you do believe the Party should rule us, how do you stop the Party members having reactionary views?

[helot]

The issue with worker's councils is their ability to allow non-proletarians, or proletarians with reactionary view points into influential and decision making positions.



Well were just going to disagree there.

You should read people's posts before commenting on them. I did say that workers councils don't recognise the bourgeoisie as members.

So agency must be denied to the proletariat under all circumstances, whether we're looking at now, the revolution or afterwards?

[Art Vandelay]

You should read people's posts before commenting on them. I did say that workers councils don't recognise the bourgeoisie as members.

My apologies for not being more specific, but I was more referring to members of the bourgeoisie and other sub-classes which will attempt to assimilate themselves into the proletariat.


So agency must be denied to the proletariat under all circumstances, whether we're looking at now, the revolution or afterwards?

I'm not sure, what exactly you're asking here.

[Art Vandelay]

Errm, do you understand what you've written here?

There are no non-workers in the workers' councils, the clue is in the name.

So do you expect their to be no members of the bourgeoisie, who attempt to lay low after the revolution and wait till a period of counter-revolution is possible?


Unless you believe that the Party should rule us, this will be a problem whatever system you want to have.

For one, the Party will be a mass party, consisting of the class acting on its own behalf (hardly the party "ruling us"), but yes I am a supporter of a one-party state.


If you do believe the Party should rule us, how do you stop the Party members having reactionary views?

There will be certain regulations on party membership.

[l'Enfermé]

Mhmm, in advanced capitalist society the working class-for-itself exists only when it manifests itself in a mass party-movement, though, it must be noted. I.e without a mass party-movement, for most intents and purposes, there is no proletariat. Thus a stable Dictatorship of the Proletariat can only be a one-party state(and not a "no-party" state à la the Soviet Union after the 1920s - the Bolsheviks fucked up even before that though, with the ban on factions and all of the consequences that followed it, which I doubt they foresaw).

Anyway I'm a bit off topic, apologies comrades.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Oh right, I didn't realise you believed in socialism in one country. I should have guessed.

No, anarchy in one community!:D
Seriously now, you need to keep the state alive until you can get rid of the conditions that make it stay alive, right? If you create an area where you have abolished classes and property through colectivisation, the state cannot survive there, right? You create free territory where these conditions can be found, so that you don't have to keep the state alive until you have managed to rid the world of every tiny trace of property. This can sound like stalinism, but it has the same logic as creating an anarchist community, except in this case you create an area for many communities.


Man, Stalinists pretending to be Anarchists really piss me off. 'No, no, we're not a state, we're just men armed in defence of property relations, we're just an organ for the suppression of the capitalists, we just exist in a class society and organise production and the military fight against external enemies whilest we 'protect' our population, but really we're not a state'.It is not a state in the classical sense. If you remember we have diferent ideas of what a state is.


I'll be organising against your anarchic state, you do realise that, you fucking statist?I guess this explains why the bolsheviks destroyed the free territory of the Ukraine.


I don't 'want' to 'maintain' a state, any more than I 'want' to drown if I fall in water. I just recognise that unless you remove the conditions that create the state, you can't remove the state.So let's analyse the situation: The revolution occurs, an area is freed by the people. In another area the counter-revolution organises with the purpose of getting the old state back in power. At this time there is one state, and it is on the side of the counter-revolution. You decide it would be fun to create another state to serve the working class. Now you have 2 states.
I heard either you or 9mm using the excusse that since you cannot abolish state, you use the state in your favor so that it does not fall in the hands of the bourgeoisie. The problem with this is that by having a workers state you are now creating a second state.


Classes, property and states exist; you haven't abolished them. There is no socialism in one country, Stalinist. You and your armed territorial defence and production-arrngement gang are the state.In that case we are a libertarian state, because we do not have power over the people, we are the people.
Why can't there be socialism in one country? In that case can there be socialism in one planet? Must we maintain the state until the intire universe and beyond is socialist?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Mhmm, in advanced capitalist society the working class-for-itself exists only when it manifests itself in a mass party-movement, though, it must be noted. I.e without a mass party-movement, for most intents and purposes, there is no proletariat. Thus a stable Dictatorship of the Proletariat can only be a one-party state

So there cannot be socialism in one country, but there can be socialism in one party?

And they call me a statist.

[Bakunin Knight]

The left-right dichotomy is itself a means to trap the populace in the establishment's paradigm, and to divide them both against eachother and into parties that do not pose a threat to the status quo, and in fact strengthen it. Thus I don't see the need for such statist labels that constrain both thought and action. Anarchy is the absence of the state, authority, and privilege, so the labels created by those things needn't apply.

[l'Enfermé]

TRA23 that is not what I said at all.

[Let's Get Free]

I think the one-party state is antithetical to the development of socialism and prone to corruption.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

TRA23 that is not what I said at all.

Explain, please.

[Blake's Baby]

No, anarchy in one community!:D
Seriously now, you need to keep the state alive until you can get rid of the conditions that make it stay alive, right? If you create an area where you have abolished classes and property through colectivisation, the state cannot survive there, right? You create free territory where these conditions can be found, so that you don't have to keep the state alive until you have managed to rid the world of every tiny trace of property. This can sound like stalinism, but it has the same logic as creating an anarchist community, except in this case you create an area for many communities...

If you create an area where you have abolished classes and property through collectivisation, the fact that you have not abolished classes and property everyewhere means you have not abolished classes and property. Classes and property still exist, what you have created is a new state. It's not about 'keeping the state alive'. The state is alive and well, in the organisation that defends the revolutionary territory and organises production there. That's what a state is.


...It is not a state in the classical sense. If you remember we have diferent ideas of what a state is...

You've never explained what you think a state is. So, no, I think you have no idea what a state is, not a different idea. you seem to think that any state that has a black flag isn't a state.


...I guess this explains why the bolsheviks destroyed the free territory of the Ukraine...

I don't think it does. The Bolsheviks were happy enough to organise their party-state and didn't want the competition from Anarchist Ukraine. They were in my opinion obviously wrong to attack the Makhnovists, and the lies told by the Bolsheviks (especially Trotsky) were shameful - nearly as shameful as the lies told about Kronstadt. But don't get the idea that the Makhnovists (the armed wing of the Nabat Confederation?) weren't a state.


...So let's analyse the situation: The revolution occurs, an area is freed by the people. In another area the counter-revolution organises with the purpose of getting the old state back in power. At this time there is one state, and it is on the side of the counter-revolution...

No, there are two states, one with a red/black flag an no bourgeoisie, one with a blue/white flag and the bourgeoisie in control.


... You decide it would be fun to create another state to serve the working class. Now you have 2 states...

No, you decide it would be fun to tell people your red/black state is not a state. There were two states from the time that you seperated your state from their state.



...I heard either you or 9mm using the excusse that since you cannot abolish state, you use the state in your favor so that it does not fall in the hands of the bourgeoisie. The problem with this is that by having a workers state you are now creating a second state...

No, the state pre-existed the revolution. You don't 'create' any new states (except in so far that small areas broken off previously existing states might be considered 'new' states, but they are areas where the state power of the Bourgeois Republic of Capitalonia is succeeded by the micro-state power of Revolutionary Populostan).

Outside of Revolutionary Populostan, Capitalonia still exists; it is attempting to crush Populostan before the rest of the working class of Capitalonia revolts and joins Populostan. Populostan must organise, militarily, to defeat Capitalonia, it must organise production to feed and clothe and heat the people of Populostan, and it does this through the excercise of political power. The working class of Revolutionary Populostan organises itself as a state to resist the attacks of Capitalonia. It will continue to be a state as long as Capitalonia is a state, it can't be anything else. If revolutionary Populostan doesn't do this, Capitalonia will destroy it.


...In that case we are a libertarian state, because we do not have power over the people, we are the people...

Yes, you're a state, finally. A 'libertarian state', whatever that means. You're not supposed to have 'power over the people'. The revolutionary state is the people armed and organised to defend the revolution. It's not (contra l'Enferme etc) a 'one party dictatorship' it is the armed and organised working class. It isn't the job of the revolutionary organisation to take power, and if your black-flag-weilding anarchist militia attempts to do so, then that's exactly when I and I hope all the other revolutionaries will be organising against you, because you'll be doing exactly waht the Bolsheviks did - assuming state power to your group (or as we call it, 'party').



Why can't there be socialism in one country? ...

Oh good monkeys, just when I thought we were making progress.

What is socialism? Until you answer that I can't tell you why there can't be socialism in one country, because you might think 'socialism' means bananas, or haircuts, or socks, or a particular sort of dancing.


...In that case can there be socialism in one planet? Must we maintain the state until the intire universe and beyond is socialist?

Does the rest of the universe intereact with us socially, politically and/or economically? Does the class nature of the rest of the universe impact on us?

Do we have to ask the ants or the dolphins if they're happy about the revolution? No we don't, and they're here and we know they're real. Do we have to ask aliens that we don't even know exist? I would say not, I think it's a fucking ridiculous question, though I have no idea what relationship you might have with any extraterrestrials.

[mother]

If you create an area where you have abolished classes and property through collectivisation, the fact that you have not abolished classes and property everyewhere means you have not abolished classes and property. Classes and property still exist, what you have created is a new state. It's not about 'keeping the state alive'. The state is alive and well, in the organisation that defends the revolutionary territory and organises production there. That's what a state is.

No, you have created a new society not necessarily a state. They are not automatically mutually inclusive as is being presented.




You've never explained what you think a state is. So, no, I think you have no idea what a state is, not a different idea. you seem to think that any state that has a black flag isn't a state.

A state is a form of authoritarian hierarchy in which there is governance by a minority over a majority. Top down authoritarian structure. This is of course a gross generalization summarized int he interest of being as simple as possible. There is more at play.




I don't think it does. The Bolsheviks were happy enough to organise their party-state and didn't want the competition from Anarchist Ukraine. They were in my opinion obviously wrong to attack the Makhnovists, and the lies told by the Bolsheviks (especially Trotsky) were shameful - nearly as shameful as the lies told about Kronstadt. But don't get the idea that the Makhnovists (the armed wing of the Nabat Confederation?) weren't a state.

Why not?




No, you decide it would be fun to tell people your red/black state is not a state. There were two states from the time that you seperated your state from their state.

With all due respect... I dont think you really understand how Anarchism works.



Outside of Revolutionary Populostan, Capitalonia still exists; it is attempting to crush Populostan before the rest of the working class of Capitalonia revolts and joins Populostan. Populostan must organise, militarily, to defeat Capitalonia, it must organise production to feed and clothe and heat the people of Populostan, and it does this through the excercise of political power. The working class of Revolutionary Populostan organises itself as a state to resist the attacks of Capitalonia. It will continue to be a state as long as Capitalonia is a state, it can't be anything else. If revolutionary Populostan doesn't do this, Capitalonia will destroy it.

This is reductionist to a fault.


Yes, you're a state, finally. A 'libertarian state', whatever that means. You're not supposed to have 'power over the people'. The revolutionary state is the people armed and organised to defend the revolution. It's not (contra l'Enferme etc) a 'one party dictatorship' it is the armed and organised working class. It isn't the job of the revolutionary organisation to take power, and if your black-flag-weilding anarchist militia attempts to do so, then that's exactly when I and I hope all the other revolutionaries will be organising against you, because you'll be doing exactly waht the Bolsheviks did - assuming state power to your group (or as we call it, 'party').

I have to disagree. There is no state, you are making a fundamental and common error in your understanding of the philosophy and principles. The black flag wavers exert the liberty to have free association and lack of party or state. Anyone is free to exist or act in whatever manner they choose as long as it checks liberty. As such all top down authoritarian structure fails that check. So, if they bring force, they must be met with the collective force of those wishing liberty. Not to conquer, not to take over, but to exert liberty. Why state socialism is a "one party dictatorship" is because it seeks to eradicate class and state by using class and state as is evidenced by every attempt at it that has ever been made. This is largely done in principle and theory and arguably to survive being lone or rather outsiders to a largely capitalist world. We feel such a decision, such a compromise is too far. That doing so negates and makes impossible the very thing it hopes to create and thus we point to the past and history as examples.

[Blake's Baby]

No, you have created a new society not necessarily a state. They are not automatically mutually inclusive as is being presented...

You have a state.



...
A state is a form of authoritarian hierarchy in which there is governance by a minority over a majority. Top down authoritarian structure. This is of course a gross generalization summarized int he interest of being as simple as possible. There is more at play...

In which case the 'workers state' that you're arguing against is not a state is it? Why argue against it?



...


Why not?...

Because you'd be wrong.


...

With all due respect... I dont think you really understand how Anarchism works...

With all due respect, I was an anarchist for 20 years, I think I have a fair idea of the theory. Obviously, I don't know how it works in practice, because in practice, it doesn't work. Anarchist Andalusia and Catalonia, Anarchist Ukraine, these were states. They were armed organisations of the people in defence of property relations (generally but by no means always collectivised); they related to external areas as military or economic units; they controlled resources and production in their areas. In short, they were states.



...

This is reductionist to a fault...

No, it's just realistic. You don't make a revolution by wishing, you actually have to deal with the real situation that exists. You could declare yourself free tomorrow, by the end of the week capitalism will have parked a tank on you.



...
I have to disagree. There is no state, you are making a fundamental and common error in your understanding of the philosophy and principles. The black flag wavers exert the liberty to have free association and lack of party or state. Anyone is free to exist or act in whatever manner they choose as long as it checks liberty...

I presume you mean 'does not check liberty'. The black flag wavers are a party, and they have seized control of the state. They have done what the Bolsheviks did. As such, I will be resisting them.


...As such all top down authoritarian structure fails that check. So, if they bring force, they must be met with the collective force of those wishing liberty. Not to conquer, not to take over, but to exert liberty...

Which is why I will be resisting the 'anarcho-statist vanguard'.


... Why state socialism...

There is no state socialism, only state capitalism.


... Why state socialism is a "one party dictatorship" is because it seeks to eradicate class and state by using class and state as is evidenced by every attempt at it that has ever been made...

This is why gave up on Anarchism. The inability of reaching any reasonable historical explanation for anything at all. Berkman and Goldman and Maximoff were perfectly correct to criticise the Bolsheviks and the horrendous failures of Russia; but they criticised the wrong things because none of them understood history.

Why 'state socialism' as you call it is a 'one-party dictatorship' is because the Party substitutes itself for the class in a period of failure and retreat. The dictatorship of the Party (that party can have a red flag or a black one) can never bring about socialism. It is a dictatorship over the proletariat - not because it seeks to use the state and class to abolish the state and class, but because the state and class cannot be 'erradicated' by a party or anyone else while they and the conditions that give rise to them, still exist.

Collectivisation will produce the conditions for the end of all states. Abolishing the state in one place will not work, that 'non'-state's neighbours will merely defeat it militarily. It will just be a failed ex-state.



... This is largely done in principle and theory and arguably to survive being lone or rather outsiders to a largely capitalist world. We feel such a decision, such a compromise is too far. That doing so negates and makes impossible the very thing it hopes to create and thus we point to the past and history as examples.

This bit doesn't really make much sense either. I think what you're getting at is the point I made above, that dictatorial state-capitalist regimes rising on the back of dead revolutions justify themselves as 'holding on' in a capitalist world. Sure, I agree, but that's because the revolutions have failed. Surely, you aren't suggesting that without the Bolsheviks, Russia would have become a socialist paradise of Anarcho-syndicalist communes, still surrounded by a hostile capitalist world? All you're really saying here is, all revolutions before now have failed. I agree, but I completely disagree about why.

[mother]

You have a state.

Just saying that proves nothing. Make an argument.


In which case the 'workers state' that you're arguing against is not a state is it? Why argue against it?

Um, yes, it is. Formed of councils that give certain singular individuals and/or small groupings of individuals domain and power over many, setting it up for exactly the thing it claims to be against? One needs only look to history to see exactly how it was no different than thing it claimed to be against.


Because you'd be wrong.

Elucidate.




With all due respect, I was an anarchist for 20 years, I think I have a fair idea of the theory. Obviously, I don't know how it works in practice, because in practice, it doesn't work. Anarchist Andalusia and Catalonia, Anarchist Ukraine, these were states. They were armed organisations of the people in defence of property relations (generally but by no means always collectivised); they related to external areas as military or economic units; they controlled resources and production in their areas. In short, they were states.

That doesnt really mean anything. It's totally subjective so what you did in 20 years isnt a benchmark for anything. It doesnt prove you know what your talking about. What your claiming and the methods, means, and argument you are making, do. You could be a lifestylist for all I know. Hell, An-Caps call themselves anarchists. I can call a cat a potato, it doesnt mean it is.

Really? It doesnt work? And you were anarchist for 20 years? I'm sorry but your obviously either glossing over or otherwise losing fundamental concepts of the subject, and all that implies says far more than your claim to tenure. Let's not reverse ad homenim. Furthermore, your definition of the state, which from an Anarchist perspective is inadequate and your attempt to slap it on and keep it from being used on what you might think is and isnt a state is a glaring red flag.

I find Catalonia more successful and relevant than any state socialist attempt to date.


No, it's just realistic. You don't make a revolution by wishing, you actually have to deal with the real situation that exists. You could declare yourself free tomorrow, by the end of the week capitalism will have parked a tank on you.

Well, obviously you dont make rev by wishing.... Hyperbole much? Your realism lacks objectivity. Once you let your principles go you are no longer the thing you claim. Sorry, thats just how it is. It never ceases to amaze me the people who will sacrifice, and what they will sacrifice, to reach a goal, ignoring wholly the consequences that now make it impossible to reach said goal.


I presume you mean 'does not check liberty'.

No. " Anyone is free to exist or act in whatever manner they choose as long as it checks liberty..." is exactly what I meant, the point being that no one cares what you are, what you do, or how you choose to live, unless you start trying to force things on people, impose authoritarian hierarchy, or otherwise subjugate.


The black flag wavers are a party, and they have seized control of the state. They have done what the Bolsheviks did. As such, I will be resisting them.

I assume you intend to cite this referenced action? I'll just go ahead and call nonsense on this now. Resist all you want, no one is going to be forcing you to do anything but respect other peoples liberty. I have to ask you to make some reasoned realistic case for this ridiculous hypothesis.



I said:
...As such all top down authoritarian structure fails that check. So, if they bring force, they must be met with the collective force of those wishing liberty. Not to conquer, not to take over, but to exert liberty...

You Said:
Which is why I will be resisting the 'anarcho-statist vanguard'.

o_O
Is this an on purpose strawman, or do you really not understand how anarchism works? Look if you cant eek out the differences in authoritarian hierarchy and hierarchy, then i cant help you. I rather think you refuse to acknowledge it more than you do not understand it.




There is no state socialism, only state capitalism."

Distinction without difference.


This is why gave up on Anarchism. The inability of reaching any reasonable historical explanation for anything at all. Berkman and Goldman and Maximoff were perfectly correct to criticise the Bolsheviks and the horrendous failures of Russia; but they criticised the wrong things because none of them understood history.

Wha? That would be true, or i could convince myself it were true... but only if I ignored 90% of everything i had ever read on the subject including and most importantly the AnFAQ. You would need to elucidate so I might be able to address it, because this is vague and ambiguous. Generally though, this smells of the same old apologetics wherein everything that happened gets chalked up to peoples being forced to make tough decisions that just happened to completely destroy any hope of achieveing said principles and goal and I'm suppose to what? Appluad them, or understand. I dont. the real shakers in history towards real change did the hard thing and maintained dignity. If you cant do something without compeltely betraying it, then it isnt going to work.


Why 'state socialism' as you call it is a 'one-party dictatorship' is because the Party substitutes itself for the class in a period of failure and retreat. The dictatorship of the Party (that party can have a red flag or a black one) can never bring about socialism. It is a dictatorship over the proletariat - not because it seeks to use the state and class to abolish the state and class, but because the state and class cannot be 'erradicated' by a party or anyone else while they and the conditions that give rise to them, still exist.

I understand the concept of the theory. No it cant, there is no dictatorship of anything in anything anarchist, just because you try to assert there is. See my comment above, just because you cant sort out the semantics and details of why tow things are actually different does not make them the same.

Ah, here we are... the old "you want change over night baloney, mixed with apologetics, and that other old so and so, anarchism IS a state. Must I roll out perfectly well reasoned arguments for why this is all nonsense or will the classics, still unaddressed I might add, do?


Collectivisation will produce the conditions for the end of all states. Abolishing the state in one place will not work, that 'non'-state's neighbours will merely defeat it militarily. It will just be a failed ex-state.

not a state first of all... sigh... secondly... You do realize that Catalonia fell to the Soviets and Fascists alike right? The same entities and forces that took out all of europe? Democracy, anarchism, etc all alike? Fascism that, nearly destroyed the soviets as well? I dont exactly call being betrayed a good example of proof that this will always happen either. Betrayal at the hands of, oh gasp, said authoritarian hierarchy doing what they do, surprise. By this litmus test only a federalized representational republic qualifies. Your marching out a whole 2 examples and calling them the inevitable. This is hardly empirical, verifiable, or provable or anything to be considered evidence. States doing what states do is, because its not just Cuba, NK, USSR, China, etc its every state that was ever concieved. THAT is a compelling body of evidence.



This bit doesn't really make much sense either. I think what you're getting at is the point I made above, that dictatorial state-capitalist regimes rising on the back of dead revolutions justify themselves as 'holding on' in a capitalist world. Sure, I agree, but that's because the revolutions have failed. Surely, you aren't suggesting that without the Bolsheviks, Russia would have become a socialist paradise of Anarcho-syndicalist communes, still surrounded by a hostile capitalist world? All you're really saying here is, all revolutions before now have failed. I agree, but I completely disagree about why.

It makes perfect sense.

Having said that, no. I am suggesting that usage of a state and class system paved the way for and supported the eventual failure of the rev, the resulting phases of that state, and everything that inevitably followed, and I might add, was predicted.

OF COURSE YOU DO, your not going to agree to any of that. No SS ever does. I just saw you going on about some things i disagreed with in a trolly looking thread appropriately titled, "Is Anarchism really LEFT?" or some such garbage, and felt compelled to voice that disagreement.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

If you create an area where you have abolished classes and property through collectivisation, the fact that you have not abolished classes and property everyewhere means you have not abolished classes and property.

I have abolished them in an area, outside that area there is still class an property, but not inside. To wait for world revolution (which is extremely unlikely, since conditions in diferent parts of the world are very different) to implant socialism fully, and abolish classes, state, and property, does not sound like a smart thing, and does not sound like something the working class would be in favor of. Living in dicatatorship for many centuries until world revolution is not something I want for me, nor my descendants.


Classes and property still exist, what you have created is a new state. It's not about 'keeping the state alive'. The state is alive and well, in the organisation that defends the revolutionary territory and organises production there. That's what a state is.

You mean if I start imposing the capitalist system in my house I will become a state?


You've never explained what you think a state is. So, no, I think you have no idea what a state is, not a different idea. you seem to think that any state that has a black flag isn't a state.

An organisation that protects freedom, and functions is direct democracy, is not a state. That is like saying microsoft windows operating system becomes a state when it forces me (through virus-like tactics, including BSOD)to buy it. It is imposing the capitalists system on me! I just don't let myself get threatened and get a crack for it.


I don't think it does. The Bolsheviks were happy enough to organise their party-state and didn't want the competition from Anarchist Ukraine. They were in my opinion obviously wrong to attack the Makhnovists, and the lies told by the Bolsheviks (especially Trotsky) were shameful - nearly as shameful as the lies told about Kronstadt.

Thus justifying why many anarchists saw (and see) the bolsheviks as traitors of the revolution, and betrayers of their own ideals.
If you are going to have a state, make sure it does not have the kind of power the bolsheviks have.


But don't get the idea that the Makhnovists (the armed wing of the Nabat Confederation?) weren't a state.

I don't know exactly how they were like. My sources on this are mainly from Makhno. You cannot get a good source on this, you either get makhnovist propaganda or bolshevik propaganda. I do not know how they organised, but I read that they organised in the anarcho-syndicalist style, and that they used conscription.


No, there are two states, one with a red/black flag an no bourgeoisie, one with a blue/white flag and the bourgeoisie in control.

If you read more, you will see I wrote that there appears another state created by the socialist revolutionaries.


No, you decide it would be fun to tell people your red/black state is not a state. There were two states from the time that you seperated your state from their state.

No intermediat period of statelessness? One would expect that between the revolution, and creation of your workers state, there would be a short period of stalessness, even if short.


You don't 'create' any new states

Meaning any state you have will always be on the side of the bourgeosie?


Outside of Revolutionary Populostan, Capitalonia still exists; it is attempting to crush Populostan before the rest of the working class of Capitalonia revolts and joins Populostan. Populostan must organise, militarily, to defeat Capitalonia, it must organise production to feed and clothe and heat the people of Populostan, and it does this through the excercise of political power.

So far so good.


The working class of Revolutionary Populostan organises itself as a state to resist the attacks of Capitalonia. It will continue to be a state as long as Capitalonia is a state, it can't be anything else. If revolutionary Populostan doesn't do this, Capitalonia will destroy it.

What bothers me the most is how your definition of state can mean anything from a libertarian organisation to a totalitarian dictatorship of the party and of the great leader. The worst part is how you always pick the totalitarian dictatorship of the party and of the great leader.


Yes, you're a state, finally. A 'libertarian state', whatever that means. You're not supposed to have 'power over the people'. The revolutionary state is the people armed and organised to defend the revolution. It's not (contra l'Enferme etc) a 'one party dictatorship' it is the armed and organised working class. It isn't the job of the revolutionary organisation to take power, and if your black-flag-weilding anarchist militia attempts to do so, then that's exactly when I and I hope all the other revolutionaries will be organising against you, because you'll be doing exactly waht the Bolsheviks did - assuming state power to your group (or as we call it, 'party').

I think we are starting to better understand one another now.
Anarchists think a state is an authoritarian organisation, and a libertarian organisation is not a state, but if it occupies similar functions (in libertarian way) it is called a platform.
I am curious to see how you think your state will organise.


What is socialism?

I think it has something to do with workers controll of the means of production.


Do we have to ask the ants or the dolphins if they're happy about the revolution? No we don't, and they're here and we know they're real.

Animals don't care about the conflicts of Man! Although they are many times victims of them.


Do we have to ask aliens that we don't even know exist? I would say not, I think it's a fucking ridiculous question, though I have no idea what relationship you might have with any extraterrestrials.

So, world revolution has been achived and state, property, and classes are abolished. Many years later we discover a species of human-like aliens who are living in the capitalist system. What then? Do we need to create a state because there is still capitalism left?

[Blake's Baby]

...
It makes perfect sense...

Don't be a prick, you don't get to tell me that what you said makes perfect sense to me. Obviously it makes sense to you, or why would you have said it, but then again you could be a moron.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I won't try to coat my views on Stalinism in rhetoric of the necessity for greater unity.

Hence the sectarianism. The point is to win, everything else is secondary.

[Blake's Baby]

Just saying that proves nothing. Make an argument...

Apart from the argument that I've already made, that you have described something with the characteristics of a state, you mean? No, that is my argument, something that looks like a state and smells like a state and bites like a state... is a state.



...
Um, yes, it is. Formed of councils that give certain singular individuals and/or small groupings of individuals domain and power over many, setting it up for exactly the thing it claims to be against?...

Meh? Setting who up above what? Why has the working class given up power to this 'grouping of individuals' (the anarchist militia, AKA the state)? This is precisely my point, once you (or the neo-Bolsheviks) usurp the power of the councils I'll organise against you, along with the rest of the revolutionary working class.


... One needs only look to history to see exactly how it was no different than thing it claimed to be against...

Yeah, you do know about the CNT ministers do you?



...
Elucidate.


The Makhnovist Army was an armed gang that controlled a territory and dispensed justice in that territory, organised production in that area both directly through requisitioning/expropriation/pillage/tribute, and through its links with the NABAT confederation. Anarchist Ukraine was therefore a state, because it possessed all the characteristics of a state - in the end, 'men armed in defence of property relations'. How much more lucid do you want me to be?




...
That doesnt really mean anything. It's totally subjective so what you did in 20 years isnt a benchmark for anything. It doesnt prove you know what your talking about. What your claiming and the methods, means, and argument you are making, do. You could be a lifestylist for all I know. Hell, An-Caps call themselves anarchists. I can call a cat a potato, it doesnt mean it is...

Sure, you can call yourself an anarchist, doesn't mean you're not a black-flag waving statist in waiting.


...Really? It doesnt work? And you were anarchist for 20 years? I'm sorry but your obviously either glossing over or otherwise losing fundamental concepts of the subject, and all that implies says far more than your claim to tenure. Let's not reverse ad homenim. Furthermore, your definition of the state, which from an Anarchist perspective is inadequate and your attempt to slap it on and keep it from being used on what you might think is and isnt a state is a glaring red flag...

OK, an anarchist view of the state - an organ of suppression of the majority by the minority, for example - does not apply to the 'state' when the working class (the majority) excercises its power through the councils does it? Your 'co-thinker' redanarchist23 has already said this isn't a state as far as anarchists are concerned, and that suppression of the capitalists is a perfectly fine 'libertarian' thing to do, so why are you so hostile to it?


...I find Catalonia more successful and relevant than any state socialist attempt to date...

There is no state socialism, only state capitalism. Why do you insist that it has anything to do with socialism? Not my socialism it hasn't, though as I think your anarchism would also lead to a state-capitalist dictatorship, perhaps your views are closer to Stalinism than you realise.



...
Well, obviously you dont make rev by wishing.... Hyperbole much? Your realism lacks objectivity. Once you let your principles go you are no longer the thing you claim. Sorry, thats just how it is. It never ceases to amaze me the people who will sacrifice, and what they will sacrifice, to reach a goal, ignoring wholly the consequences that now make it impossible to reach said goal...

well, yes, exactly, creating a black-flag single-party micro-state, in the name of doing the opposite, for example.



...
No. " Anyone is free to exist or act in whatever manner they choose as long as it checks liberty..." is exactly what I meant, the point being that no one cares what you are, what you do, or how you choose to live, unless you start trying to force things on people, impose authoritarian hierarchy, or otherwise subjugate...

Do you know what these words mean? To 'check' something means to block it or prevent it, so 'check liberty' means to prevent liberty. Anyone is free to act in whatever manner they chose as long as it blocks liberty. Re-read what you have written, re-read my earlier objection, read a dictionary, re-read what you have written again, then come back and tell me what you actually meant.

Everyone is 'free' to... as in, everyone is 'permitted' to... by whom? (Clue: by the workers, organised in the workers' councils, not by your Anarchist militia).


...

I assume you intend to cite this referenced action? I'll just go ahead and call nonsense on this now. Resist all you want, no one is going to be forcing you to do anything but respect other peoples liberty. I have to ask you to make some reasoned realistic case for this ridiculous hypothesis...

you're supporting redanarchist23's Anarchist militia who've just seized the state, suppressed the capitalists by military force and begun the re-organisation of production in the area for the war effort. That's a state, because it fulfills the criteria of a state. The Anarchist militia you are supporting has usured the power of the workers' councils, just like the Bolsheviks did.



...
o_O
Is this an on purpose strawman, or do you really not understand how anarchism works? Look if you cant eek out the differences in authoritarian hierarchy and hierarchy, then i cant help you. I rather think you refuse to acknowledge it more than you do not understand it...

Oh, I understand how it's supposed to work. I also understand where it doesn't, and that's the inability of Anarchists to understand that will is not the main motivating force here. You may be ever so nice, but if you, and redanarchist23, and your AK47-wielding militia, abbrogate to yourselves the power that should be that of the workers' councils, then you've become a new party-state and need to watch out for your Kronstadt, when you turn your guns on the workers 'to protect the revolution'. I'll be on the side of Kronstadt, of course.





...
Distinction without difference.
...

There are important differences between capitalism and socialism. I'm aware that historically there is tendency to call Marxists 'state socialists' but really. Stop it. It's a term of abuse, and has no philosophical validity, and you're the one who thinks there should be a military dictatorship over the working class. Socialism cannot be brought about through the use of the state, I know that and you should know that, so there are no 'state socialists'. Anyone who advocates a 'socialist state' is talking about capitalism not socialism.



...
Wha? That would be true, or i could convince myself it were true... but only if I ignored 90% of everything i had ever read on the subject including and most importantly the AnFAQ. You would need to elucidate so I might be able to address it, because this is vague and ambiguous. Generally though, this smells of the same old apologetics wherein everything that happened gets chalked up to peoples being forced to make tough decisions that just happened to completely destroy any hope of achieveing said principles and goal and I'm suppose to what? Appluad them, or understand. I dont. the real shakers in history towards real change did the hard thing and maintained dignity. If you cant do something without compeltely betraying it, then it isnt going to work...

Everybody has failings. I really like Kropotkin. Except, he supported the French in WWI, betraying the international working class. Is 'class traitor' fair enough to describe someone who called on the workers of France to slaughter the workers of Germany in a sordid and disgusting imperialist war? Lenin, Trotsky and Luxemburg didn't do that. Do you think Lenin, Trotsky and Luxemburg were better revolutionaries than Kropotkin?

The Bolsheviks were absolutely wrong about many things. They were right about others. If you say that nothing that the Bolsheviks ever did was right you're as stupid as the Stalinists or the Trotskyists who think that everything they did was right. No, they were human beings who like most human beings were sometimes right and somethimes wrong.

The defeat of the revolution in Russia was not because the Bolsheviks were 'state socialists'. Even if the soviets had been dominated by 'libertarian communists' the revolution would still have been defeated in Russia. Berkman, Goldman and Maximoff (all of whom I think made many invaluable contributions to revolutionary theory and practice) never grasped that not everything was the fault of the Bolsheviks.



...
I understand the concept of the theory. No it cant, there is no dictatorship of anything in anything anarchist, just because you try to assert there is. See my comment above, just because you cant sort out the semantics and details of why tow things are actually different does not make them the same...

Oh, precisely, just because you can't see why your dictatorship is incompatible with anarchism, doesn't mean you actually are an anarchist.

The goal of anarchism is the liberation of humanity from oppression. And, if those who call themselves anarchists, are actually the ones doing the oppressing?



...
Ah, here we are... the old "you want change over night baloney, mixed with apologetics, and that other old so and so, anarchism IS a state. Must I roll out perfectly well reasoned arguments for why this is all nonsense or will the classics, still unaddressed I might add, do?...

The workers' council 'state' is not a state to an Anarchist, because it is not an organ for a minority to oppres a majority; so why oppose it?

Your Anarchist militia state usurps the authority of the workers' council, and subsitutes the 'organisation of revolutionary militants', or as we call it on this side, 'the Party'. So your Anarchist militia functions in exactly the same way the Bolsheviks did when they usurped the power of the workers' councils. That's why we'll need a 'third revolution' against your anarchist state.



...
not a state first of all... sigh... secondly... You do realize that Catalonia fell to the Soviets and Fascists alike right? The same entities and forces that took out all of europe? Democracy, anarchism, etc all alike? Fascism that, nearly destroyed the soviets as well? I dont exactly call being betrayed a good example of proof that this will always happen either. Betrayal at the hands of, oh gasp, said authoritarian hierarchy doing what they do, surprise. By this litmus test only a federalized representational republic qualifies. Your marching out a whole 2 examples and calling them the inevitable. This is hardly empirical, verifiable, or provable or anything to be considered evidence. States doing what states do is, because its not just Cuba, NK, USSR, China, etc its every state that was ever concieved. THAT is a compelling body of evidence...

Yes, states compete with their neighbours, that's what I'm saying. Your Anarchist state will compete with its neighbours, and it will be rapidly crushed by them, because it's a grim and tiny thing. If the revolution doesn't spread (and why would the working class want to spread a revolution that involved them giving up power to armed anarchist gangs?) then you have tin-pot black-flag dictatorship that lasts... how long do you think?



...Having said that, no. I am suggesting that usage of a state and class system paved the way for and supported the eventual failure of the rev, the resulting phases of that state, and everything that inevitably followed, and I might add, was predicted...

So, if the revolution in Russia had been conducted along libertarian communist lines, socialism in one country could have been established in the ex-Russian Empire (that would somehow *not* be a state)? So you believe, as redanarchist23 does, in socialism in one country?


...OF COURSE YOU DO, your not going to agree to any of that. No SS ever does. I just saw you going on about some things i disagreed with in a trolly looking thread appropriately titled, "Is Anarchism really LEFT?" or some such garbage, and felt compelled to voice that disagreement.

And you decided that as I've argued that Anarchism can be seen as part of 'the Left', you'd have a go? Or what? Still not totally sure what your beef is, except that i call out Anarchist militias that patrol territories suppressing the bourgeoisie and organising production for being 'a state'.


I have abolished them in an area, outside that area there is still class an property, but not inside. To wait for world revolution (which is extremely unlikely, since conditions in diferent parts of the world are very different) to implant socialism fully, and abolish classes, state, and property, does not sound like a smart thing, and does not sound like something the working class would be in favor of. Living in dicatatorship for many centuries until world revolution is not something I want for me, nor my descendants...

If you think there is some national/local high road to socialism while the rest of the world is still capitalist, then you believe in socialism in one country. You think that your little territory with its army (to fight the bad capitalist encirclers) and its control of production (for the war effort, and to feed your people) is not a state because the people are 'free'. So, that's no different to Stalinism.



...
You mean if I start imposing the capitalist system in my house I will become a state?...

Capitalism already exists both in and outsid your house. I doubt it exists outside of an actual state. You could declare it independent I suppose, and see what happens.



...
An organisation that protects freedom, and functions is direct democracy, is not a state. That is like saying microsoft windows operating system becomes a state when it forces me (through virus-like tactics, including BSOD)to buy it. It is imposing the capitalists system on me! I just don't let myself get threatened and get a crack for it...

The USA 'protects freedom' (they're famous for it), are they not a state either? An armed group that defends a territory and organises production is a state.



...
Thus justifying why many anarchists saw (and see) the bolsheviks as traitors of the revolution, and betrayers of their own ideals.
If you are going to have a state, make sure it does not have the kind of power the bolsheviks have...

If a state is, for a time, inevitable then the working class needs to protect it from any group that attempts to take it over, whether their flag is red or black.

Honestly, if your militia is under the authority of the workers' councils we have no quarrel.





...
I don't know exactly how they were like. My sources on this are mainly from Makhno. You cannot get a good source on this, you either get makhnovist propaganda or bolshevik propaganda. I do not know how they organised, but I read that they organised in the anarcho-syndicalist style, and that they used conscription.



If you read more, you will see I wrote that there appears another state created by the socialist revolutionaries.



No intermediat period of statelessness? One would expect that between the revolution, and creation of your workers state, there would be a short period of stalessness, even if short...

how? If you cut a slice from a loaf of bread, there is no period in which the bread doesn't exist. Just the loaf is a little smaller, and you have a small detatched bit. Same with your 'workers' state'. You've smashed a bit off the edge, levered it away, whatever metaphor you like. A bit of the old state is no longer under the control of the old state, it's under your control. You've taken it off them. When you're mugged for your watch, there isn't a period when the watch belongs to no-one. They don't post the revolutionary territory to you, expected delivery date 4-6 weeks.


...

Meaning any state you have will always be on the side of the bourgeosie?...

Doesn't logically follow from what I said, but the state as long as it exists will be a conservative force. The working class needs to be extremely careful. We saw what happened when the Bolsheviks took state power to themselves.



...
So far so good.



What bothers me the most is how your definition of state can mean anything from a libertarian organisation to a totalitarian dictatorship of the party and of the great leader. The worst part is how you always pick the totalitarian dictatorship of the party and of the great leader...

You already know that I reject the validity of a 'libertarian organisation' in a revolution. All I'm doing is pointing out the logic that, if you think the job of the 'libertarian organisation' (your anarchist militia) is to defend the territory, protect the population, administer justice, suppress the bourgeoisie, and organise production, then, your conception of the role of the 'libertarian organisation' is pretty much the same as the Bolsheviks' conception of the role of the revolutionary organisation. So the difference between your 'libertarian organisation' and the totalitarian dictaroship of the party is...?




I think we are starting to better understand one another now.
Anarchists think a state is an authoritarian organisation, and a libertarian organisation is not a state, but if it occupies similar functions (in libertarian way) it is called a platform.
I am curious to see how you think your state will organise...

I reject the notion of a 'libertarian organisation'. If you take on the functions of the state, you are the state. If you act as an 'authoritarian', you are an 'authoritarian'.

The working class will organise society using the workers' councils to co-ordinate production and distribution; defence of the revolutionary territory will likely be organised by factory militias at first.



...
I think it has something to do with workers controll of the means of production...

OK, but there's no geographical content there. Is a co-operative that exists in capitalism 'socialism'? I'd say not, you might say it is, I don't know. I'd say that all means of production must be in the hands of the workers. That means that capitalism must be overthrown everywhere before yo can have socialism. Until then it's just fighting the world civil war, and while the war with the capitalists is on, we can't build socialism, we need to be defending the revolutionary territory, organising production to feed everyone and produce materiel for the war, and spreading the revolution at the same time. We'll need some form of 'revolutionary state' to do that - organised, I'd argue, by the working class through the workers' councils.



...

Animals don't care about the conflicts of Man! Although they are many times victims of them...

They might if we're mustard gassing them.

They're real; they actually exist on Earth. You think we should ask aliens. If you want to consult non-humans, why not real non-humans?



...
So, world revolution has been achived and state, property, and classes are abolished. Many years later we discover a species of human-like aliens who are living in the capitalist system. What then? Do we need to create a state because there is still capitalism left?

This is a very reasonable question.

We can imagine, in 200 years or something, that we've acheived free-access communism (perhaps long ago). Knowledge of miltary technology is somewhat faded, though we do obviously know that wars were fought in the past, but no-one alive remebers being in them. And we discover an alien civilisation that is expansionist and militaristic. we try to befriend them and they make it absolutely clear that they're going to attack and annex and enslave us and take resources that they need. What would we do?

I would think that we'd discuss like crazy, and try to appoint a 'military committee' to oversee the effort to raise soldiers and build weapons, so we could protect ourselves.

... = men armed in defence of property relations; we don't let the aliens have 'our property' (= non-communist property relations) and the aliens don't let us have theirs (= borders, 'private property')...

Yes, at that point we're like two countries that have just discovered each other, even if we've got no previous interaction. We become 'the state of Earth' against 'the state of X'wGrhk', I think. Our relationship to them is not on the same basis as our relationship to each other, we're only 'communists' internally, we're competitors externally.

[mother]

Don't be a prick, you don't get to tell me that what you said makes perfect sense to me. Obviously it makes sense to you, or why would you have said it, but then again you could be a moron.

Oh wtf, like you havent been being a cock all over...

[Blake's Baby]

Hence the sectarianism. The point is to win, everything else is secondary.

The point is for the working class to overthrow capitalism. We wouldn't ask the monarchy to help, we wouldn't ask the Church, or Alcoholics Anonymous, because we don't think these groups have anything to add to the process of the working class freeing itself from capitalism. we don't think the Stalinists do either. Why should we try to include organisations we regard as being enemies of the working class? Individual Stalinists I'm sure will make contributions but this rather depends on them being working class militants first and Stalinists second. I really don't see how you can think that uniting with people you think are harmful, is going to help.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Am I missing something here from discussions by comrades and other posters, or has something like the Political Compass not been discussed here at all as a "better" basis for analysis and critique? :confused:

[Blake's Baby]

That's about 5 pages ago, this spun out of a discussion on the validity of the 'authoritarian/libertarian' axis I think.

[mother]

I put this up here cause it beared me explaining before the rest...


There are important differences between capitalism and socialism. I'm aware that historically there is tendency to call Marxists 'state socialists' but really. Stop it. It's a term of abuse, and has no philosophical validity, and you're the one who thinks there should be a military dictatorship over the working class. Socialism cannot be brought about through the use of the state, I know that and you should know that, so there are no 'state socialists'. Anyone who advocates a 'socialist state' is talking about capitalism not socialism.

Abuse, lol... sorry, but.... what? You think it has no philosophical validity, like you didnt understand my previous post, as you pointed out, thats not my opinion or thinking so... No no... you find it offensive, and for that, I am sorry. That doesnt mean I intend it. Or maybe its just cause I dont like it because I'm anarchist and that to you implies it is demeaning... thats a personal problem and has no bearing on reality. I find it to be the best term, makes the most sense, I find it a proper reasoned term as I stated above pasted here for reference: Socialism via a state, state socialism.

I think no such thing lol... wow, your just putting anything on me. I DO KNOW THAT... but you and I have a difference on the definition of a state. Also your putting crap into my philosophy that isnt there... councils and top down government and in the same breath talking about them yourself and acting like your stateless, or implying it. I dont agree... there are state socialist. AGAIN, they believe in socialism via a state. They dont intend for it to go all wrong, but it does... because States do what states do. Calling anarchism even when flawed the same as the SS of the past is crazy, they didnt even function or fail the same, its reductionist, and as a result you lose all the detail and semantics, which are everything, which are what is defining.


Apart from the argument that I've already made, that you have described something with the characteristics of a state, you mean? No, that is my argument, something that looks like a state and smells like a state and bites like a state... is a state.

Except that it isnt a system of authoritarian hierarchy and therefore cant be a state.


Meh? Setting who up above what? Why has the working class given up power to this 'grouping of individuals' (the anarchist militia, AKA the state)? This is precisely my point, once you (or the neo-Bolsheviks) usurp the power of the councils I'll organise against you, along with the rest of the revolutionary working class.

You should know quite well how this works. smh... First of all I'm not going to ursurp anything. I'll never be under them, it will never come to that. There will be a free area, mutualist, an-comms, etc. Very likely purposely apart and away from the state socialists. no lack of reason to mistrust them. Liberty will be upheld by defense if necessary. Whatever it is your on about, ursurping and bolshevik like nonsense and states, has no part, is not representative of the reality and will not happen. Absence of authoritarian hierarchy.



Yeah, you do know about the CNT ministers do you?

Yes, and the point being made remains. First of all, it would be disingenuous to suggest anything I believed was without issue or fault. Nothing is infallible, there is no perfect idea. So that is not what I am implying. i accept there was issues, I do not accept int he long run it is inevitable they would have resulted in a complete loss. We have no way of knowing. That said, that entire situation is hardly comparable to ANYTHING the common contemporary man refers to as communism and you know damn well why and what the differences are. This is hardly the case with those designated attempts. This is akin to the aforementioned lack of ability to distill the obvious differences in two things and then attempting to play them off as synonymous.


The Makhnovist Army was an armed gang that controlled a territory and dispensed justice in that territory, organised production in that area both directly through requisitioning/expropriation/pillage/tribute, and through its links with the NABAT confederation. Anarchist Ukraine was therefore a state, because it possessed all the characteristics of a state - in the end, 'men armed in defence of property relations'. How much more lucid do you want me to be?

Lucid? I never said lucid. To elucidate is to clarify. Why take offense to being asked? Yet your calling me out for being a prick? Something about pots and kettles being black. Hmm, I would be interested in more info from a reputable source. If this is so then no this is not anarchism. Are you attempting to suggest there cannot be Anarchism for the same reasons it is claimed there cannot be ISMs of the submarxist varieties and yet, imply there actually can be? I dont see the resemblance, thats again awfully reductionist and quite a leap. AND... I dont believe thats what you were saying, I think you were suggesting all Anarchism results in a state.


Sure, you can call yourself an anarchist, doesn't mean you're not a black-flag waving statist in waiting.

So lets not confuse people and ideas and stick to the ideas. I am curious what your issue is, why the hatred? Its not like it was us that got betrayed or anything...


OK, an anarchist view of the state - an organ of suppression of the majority by the minority, for example - does not apply to the 'state' when the working class (the majority) excercises its power through the councils does it? Your 'co-thinker' redanarchist23 has already said this isn't a state as far as anarchists are concerned, and that suppression of the capitalists is a perfectly fine 'libertarian' thing to do, so why are you so hostile to it?

have you read the anarchist FAQ? you should, it would answer these questions and clear up these weird concepts you have.

Sometimes top down authoritarian hierarchy, yes. Sometimes mob rule. Depends on the authority and the hierarchy, but to be reductionist, yes.

My "co-thinker" lol, ok.
He doesnt speak for me, nor do i speak for him. Lets not confuse people and ideas ok?

I dont agree. If you think thats how it works, your mistaken. Workers and councils, thats state socialism. Again, if you dont know the difference between the soviet system and horizontal association, your obviously not going to listen to me and thus I cant help you.

Suppression of capitalists? No. Not suppression, liberation from capitalism. Liberty. Everything hinges on liberty. On all we've talked about from all of these questions to the failed attempts, if you create liberty at the expense of itself, it ceases to be such. This is true for anyone.

Again, I disagree... A state is a form of authoritarian hierarchy. US federal government, State governments. A majority imposing its will on a minority, sometimes special interests (a minority) imposing its will on a majority in the guise of a majority imposing its will on a minority lol. It's all in the details, they matter, hell, they make all the difference.

Capitalism (the argument on whether capitalism automatically means a state is involved aside) is also a form of authoritarian hierarchy.

One is a state, one is an economic system, both are authoritarian hierarchy.


There is no state socialism, only state capitalism. Why do you insist that it has anything to do with socialism? Not my socialism it hasn't, though as I think your anarchism would also lead to a state-capitalist dictatorship, perhaps your views are closer to Stalinism than you realise.


Socialism via a state, state socialism. State capitalism indeed, but not right away. I am well aware of the history and the theory and what happened. I know full well it is not what was intended. It wasnt on purpose, at least not at first. All the arguments you have made, surely your kidding? You do see the irony of your arguing anarchism is a state and implying somehow what your implying is not?


well, yes, exactly, creating a black-flag single-party micro-state, in the name of doing the opposite, for example.

Theres no party, no need for one. You seem to think one is needed, inevitable, but your wrong. black flags... meh... no flags necessary, nothing more intended. It is no more secretly intended than it was in state socialism. Your implying intent. No leader. As compared to the communism of old... One leader, cult of personality, theres the intent, with time comes the opportunists as they would to any system that invites them to do what they do without reprisal or consequence, system of authority, ripe for corruption as it is a pyramid... top down. In that you have nation, national identity, the authority, the hierarchy, in it class and thus caste, incentive/motive, CAPITAL, and top heavy democracy/councils. Fat little party officials. This is all absent, as it should be. Theres a differentiation happening here, being displayed on purpose... its in the details. States do what states do.


Do you know what these words mean? To 'check' something means to block it or prevent it, so 'check liberty' means to prevent liberty. Anyone is free to act in whatever manner they chose as long as it blocks liberty. Re-read what you have written, re-read my earlier objection, read a dictionary, re-read what you have written again, then come back and tell me what you actually meant.

Are we arguing which dictionary we use now?
Come on fella... SMH
Sigh... now your bordering on trolling honestly...

check something against something - to find out whether information is accurate or useful : to investigate or verify : to see if something passes a condition (principle, rule, etc)

So to check liberty, to check against liberty, is to verify it passes, it meets the conditions of

to steal a line: Did I adequately address your condescending question?


Everyone is 'free' to... as in, everyone is 'permitted' to... by whom? (Clue: by the workers, organised in the workers' councils, not by your Anarchist militia).

No, by their right to liberty, by their own power, by the mutual aid, reciprocity, and all the principles. No council needed. Oh please, get over yourself, no militia needed for this either... 20 years my ass, or you would know better. You sound like an An-Cap your just selling a different economic concept with the same statist ideas... from what your vaguely implying... at the least minarchy.


you're supporting redanarchist23's Anarchist militia who've just seized the state, suppressed the capitalists by military force and begun the re-organisation of production in the area for the war effort. That's a state, because it fulfills the criteria of a state. The Anarchist militia you are supporting has usured the power of the workers' councils, just like the Bolsheviks did.

WHOA... dont sign me onto something I didnt put my name on...
I think we disagree on what a state is, I dont know what RED was claiming so thats irrelevant and not part of my reasoning or question.... So in the interest of clarification: Define state and its criteria.


Oh, I understand how it's supposed to work. I also understand where it doesn't, and that's the inability of Anarchists to understand that will is not the main motivating force here.

Do you? I am not convinced. I dont know where you got the idea will is the main motivating force, nevertheless... please... elucidate on this statement/claim and when you do, I implore you, be specific.


You may be ever so nice, but if you, and redanarchist23, and your AK47-wielding militia, abbrogate to yourselves the power that should be that of the workers' councils, then you've become a new party-state and need to watch out for your Kronstadt, when you turn your guns on the workers 'to protect the revolution'. I'll be on the side of Kronstadt, of course.

There you go again. Equating things as synonymous... reductionist.

Also, I dont know what your talking about. None of that is even remotely what I advocate, stand for, or is called for. No party, no state... again you say you know how it works, but then i see this... What it is, I rhink, is you dont believe in it, thats fine... but dont expect to convince me to forego principle... liberty for the state and councils, vanguards, and all that implies, all its baggage. They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Your right for you i guess, but I disagree. again, if you care to elucidate, we can discuss the principles, the concepts, and how that actually CAN play out AND work... shouldn't be any less believable than implying SS can work in any configuration given that body of evidence...



Everybody has failings. I really like Kropotkin. Except, he supported the French in WWI, betraying the international working class. Is 'class traitor' fair enough to describe someone who called on the workers of France to slaughter the workers of Germany in a sordid and disgusting imperialist war? Lenin, Trotsky and Luxemburg didn't do that. Do you think Lenin, Trotsky and Luxemburg were better revolutionaries than Kropotkin?

I try to never make the mistake of confusing people and ideas, people can have flawed ideas, and flawed people (all people) can have genius ideas. Ad homenim is not a valid reason.


The Bolsheviks were absolutely wrong about many things. They were right about others. If you say that nothing that the Bolsheviks ever did was right you're as stupid as the Stalinists or the Trotskyists who think that everything they did was right. No, they were human beings who like most human beings were sometimes right and somethimes wrong.

Ahem...
See above, also... i never said that. I do have a fundamental disagreement with them though.


The defeat of the revolution in Russia was not because the Bolsheviks were 'state socialists'. Even if the soviets had been dominated by 'libertarian communists' the revolution would still have been defeated in Russia. Berkman, Goldman and Maximoff (all of whom I think made many invaluable contributions to revolutionary theory and practice) never grasped that not everything was the fault of the Bolsheviks.

Hmmm... well i never said that, but... i find a primary reason for failure, due to compromise of principles amongst a vast list of other things, that they were state socialists, using a state, and states do what states do.


Oh, precisely, just because you can't see why your dictatorship is incompatible with anarchism, doesn't mean you actually are an anarchist.

The goal of anarchism is the liberation of humanity from oppression. And, if those who call themselves anarchists, are actually the ones doing the oppressing?

What dictatorship? I feel like Im taking crazy pills, oh thats just you putting things in my mouth... putting mt name on them. <insert jackie chan meme>

Really?

Well sure... everything has its nutbars. I can point you to 5 guys right now who call themselves anarchists that arent even close... hell, look at an-caps...

??


The workers' council 'state' is not a state to an Anarchist, because it is not an organ for a minority to oppres a majority; so why oppose it?

Oh, that depends.. it certainly has been in the past... soviets, and thats just one., depends on configuration.


Your Anarchist militia state usurps the authority of the workers' council, and subsitutes the 'organisation of revolutionary militants', or as we call it on this side, 'the Party'. So your Anarchist militia functions in exactly the same way the Bolsheviks did when they usurped the power of the workers' councils. That's why we'll need a 'third revolution' against your anarchist state.

OOh look... again... surprise...

what militia? nevermind... your just being disingenuous... like you have several times in this response. No idea what your talking about for the 900th time. maybe your talking to RED


Yes, states compete with their neighbours, that's what I'm saying. Your Anarchist state will compete with its neighbours, and it will be rapidly crushed by them, because it's a grim and tiny thing. If the revolution doesn't spread (and why would the working class want to spread a revolution that involved them giving up power to armed anarchist gangs?) then you have tin-pot black-flag dictatorship that lasts... how long do you think?

mmm... I dont call Nazi Germany your average competition, but no, why compete. unneccessary unless your secretly capitalist as it is a side effect of the market. So no, I dont think that will be the case, especially since said society, not state, is intelligently managed and planned by the people. Had there been no Nazis I dont think you could make that claim, that was extraordinary, it destroyed everything, this is not the norm. I can see you believe that... nothing i can do about that... *shrug*

jesus at this point your basically being intellectually dishonest, i mean fuck sake guy... this militia thing is out of control, are you high?


So, if the revolution in Russia had been conducted along libertarian communist lines, socialism in one country could have been established in the ex-Russian Empire (that would somehow *not* be a state)? So you believe, as redanarchist23 does, in socialism in one country?

Russia? There its a bit harder but not impossible. Its a question of resources and frankly technology. Wehn you say socialism are we talking full step communism? Abolishon of money and everything? Antyway... HArd, but possible. Less then, more possible today, but not impossible, narrow path, narrow margin for success, but possible, probable. Theres better locations if one region socialism is the goal... i wouldnt say country... obvious reasons... It hink ot can certainly hold out better and be more successful and thus better propaganda for furthering the turn of more areas...as a better chance of surviving corruption. It would be a synthesis probably of synidcalism/mutualism into comm comprised of several steps, one of which a pre step of change in certain things education being most paramount.


Oh, good, I'll look forward to pointing out that you're a statist on there as well.

No no, lol,,, thats this thread... haha oh nvm... sheesh.

Hey, you were being a bastard when i got here... if you can manage to back off it I'll meet you half way. But this right here, total bastardly nonsense.. statist... lol... Yu could do better, less.. irrational, I know guys I talk about these things with who do... but then they dont share all your... "interating" ideas of what anarchism is...

[mother]

"And you decided that as I've argued that Anarchism can be seen as part of 'the Left', you'd have a go? Or what? Still not totally sure what your beef is, except that i call out Anarchist militias that patrol territories suppressing the bourgeoisie and organising production for being 'a state'.

You were making some outraegeous claims about what anarchism is, this militia thing is definiltley one, your defintiion of state,and alot fo what we're arguing about... not a go, but come on, you see someone saying wacky nonsense, you feel compelled to say... whoa, wtf-over there little fella

[Thirsty Crow]

Hence the sectarianism. The point is to win, everything else is secondary.
I'm not sure that I understand what you're trying to say here.

Is it that you think that me having, more or less definite, opinions on Stalinism is the cause of "sectarianism"? If so, the term is bloated to such dimensions that it becomes useless. That in turn follows from what I stated about the general agreement on opposition to capitalism being a vague and non-satisfactory basis for common work.

Really, if that is your point, any disagreement would amount to sectarianism, any definite opinion and a corresponding practice would amount to sectarianism, and the notion of sectarianism if carried to its practical consequences would result in either total paralysis or in the insistence on consensus as the internal decision making mechanism (and the two are mutually connected in my opinion).

I'm also not sure how does the second sentence connect with the first. Is this the gist of sectarianism, that the point is to win in a presumed debate with a Stalinist/a person you disagree with?

[Blake's Baby]

I put this up here cause it beared me explaining before the rest...



Abuse, lol... sorry, but.... what? You think it has no philosophical validity, like you didnt understand my previous post, as you pointed out, thats not my opinion or thinking so... No no... you find it offensive, and for that, I am sorry. That doesnt mean I intend it. Or maybe its just cause I dont like it because I'm anarchist and that to you implies it is demeaning... thats a personal problem and has no bearing on reality. I find it to be the best term, makes the most sense, I find it a proper reasoned term as I stated above pasted here for reference: Socialism via a state, state socialism...

Can socialism can be created through the agency of the state?

1 - yes it can; therefore there is a such a thing as 'state socialism';
2 - no it can't; therefore there is no such thing as 'state socialism', there is only support for state capitalism;

feel free to chose one. Not because I 'permit' you to but because you are free to do so.


...I think no such thing lol... wow, your just putting anything on me. I DO KNOW THAT... but you and I have a difference on the definition of a state. Also your putting crap into my philosophy that isnt there... councils and top down government and in the same breath talking about them yourself and acting like your stateless, or implying it. I dont agree... there are state socialist. AGAIN, they believe in socialism via a state. They dont intend for it to go all wrong, but it does... because States do what states do. Calling anarchism even when flawed the same as the SS of the past is crazy, they didnt even function or fail the same, its reductionist, and as a result you lose all the detail and semantics, which are everything, which are what is defining...

Just because you and redanarchist23 and other anarchists don't call the organisation you create 'a state' it doesn't mean it doesn't function as a state. If it functions as a state it is a state, as it's the functions and ctions of a state that make it a state, not the name. On 'councils and top down government' - wasn't it that noted 'state socialist' Rudolf Rocker who said 'Everything for the councils or soviets! No power above them!'? Would you disagree with that? Presumably you would.




...

Except that it isnt a system of authoritarian hierarchy and therefore cant be a state...

This whole section of the debate springs from the inability of redanarchist23 to adequately define the terms 'authoritarian' and 'libertarian', so you using them doesn't add to the clairification just the noise. A state is a system of 'authoritarian hierarchy' but without defining what you think 'authoritarian hierarchy' entails it's kind moot.

Three definitions of a state have so far been proposed:
1-an organisation that militarily defends, and organises production in, an area;
2-an organisation that suppresses a majority on behalf of a minority;
3-an authoritarian hierarchy.

If you need explanations of any of the terms of the first two definitions you only need ask, but without defining what you think 'authoritarian hierarchy' actually means, as a definition it fails.


...

You should know quite well how this works. smh... First of all I'm not going to ursurp anything. I'll never be under them, it will never come to that. There will be a free area, mutualist, an-comms, etc. Very likely purposely apart and away from the state socialists. no lack of reason to mistrust them. Liberty will be upheld by defense if necessary. Whatever it is your on about, ursurping and bolshevik like nonsense and states, has no part, is not representative of the reality and will not happen. Absence of authoritarian hierarchy...

Yes, I know your 'no authoritarian hierarchy' mantra, but you were talking of supporting redanarchist23's militia, which as far as I can tell, will be above the power of the councils. Now, obviously, you don't have to follow Rocker, but you're not actually proposing anything else as far as I can see.

When the working class has seized control of a territory and is re-organising production, but there is still a war on with hostile encircling capitalists, how will the working class organise production and military defence? We know you think it will be with 'no authoritarian hierarchy' but what concrete shape will that organisation take, do you think?


...

Yes, and the point being made remains. First of all, it would be disingenuous to suggest anything I believed was without issue or fault. Nothing is infallible, there is no perfect idea. So that is not what I am implying. i accept there was issues, I do not accept int he long run it is inevitable they would have resulted in a complete loss. We have no way of knowing. That said, that entire situation is hardly comparable to ANYTHING the common contemporary man refers to as communism and you know damn well why and what the differences are. This is hardly the case with those designated attempts. This is akin to the aforementioned lack of ability to distill the obvious differences in two things and then attempting to play them off as synonymous...

The point was this:
'State socialists' will inevitably betray the revolution, you say, precisely because they are 'state socialists'.
The CNT ministers were not 'state socialists', and yet they betrayed the revolution.
Can you explain this?


...
Lucid? I never said lucid. To elucidate is to clarify. Why take offense to being asked? Yet your calling me out for being a prick? Something about pots and kettles being black. Hmm, I would be interested in more info from a reputable source. If this is so then no this is not anarchism. Are you attempting to suggest there cannot be Anarchism for the same reasons it is claimed there cannot be ISMs of the submarxist varieties and yet, imply there actually can be? I dont see the resemblance, thats again awfully reductionist and quite a leap. AND... I dont believe thats what you were saying, I think you were suggesting all Anarchism results in a state...

'Elucidate' means 'to clarify', especially of meanings or ideas, and is derived from 'lucid', which means 'clear' or 'comprehensible'. If I 'elucidate' something I am therefore 'lucid'.

I wasn't taking offence, I was asking if you needed any further clarification. Clear?

There is plenty of info about how the Makhnovist army was hardly a 'libertarian' organisation. How could it be? War necessitates actions and organisations that deprive people of freedom of action (killing them, for instance).



...
So lets not confuse people and ideas and stick to the ideas. I am curious what your issue is, why the hatred? Its not like it was us that got betrayed or anything...

Don't know what you mean by 'us' here, nor who is doing the betraying. Do you mean, 'hey, let's forgive Kropotkin, it was a long time ago'? In which case, I could say 'hey, why not forgive Lenin, it was a long time ago?', but I'd rather learn from the failures of past revolutions. Or do you mean 'why do you pick on Anarchists when it's the 'state socialists' who betray us'?

Sometimes those who are not 'state socialists' betray as well. Kropotkin and the CNT ministers are merely the most immediate examples at hand. But you haven't offered any explanation as to why or how they did.



...
have you read the anarchist FAQ? you should, it would answer these questions and clear up these weird concepts you have.

Sometimes top down authoritarian hierarchy, yes. Sometimes mob rule. Depends on the authority and the hierarchy, but to be reductionist, yes.

My "co-thinker" lol, ok.
He doesnt speak for me, nor do i speak for him. Lets not confuse people and ideas ok?

I dont agree. If you think thats how it works, your mistaken. Workers and councils, thats state socialism. Again, if you dont know the difference between the soviet system and horizontal association, your obviously not going to listen to me and thus I cant help you.

Suppression of capitalists? No. Not suppression, liberation from capitalism. Liberty. Everything hinges on liberty. On all we've talked about from all of these questions to the failed attempts, if you create liberty at the expense of itself, it ceases to be such. This is true for anyone.

Again, I disagree... A state is a form of authoritarian hierarchy. US federal government, State governments. A majority imposing its will on a minority, sometimes special interests (a minority) imposing its will on a majority in the guise of a majority imposing its will on a minority lol. It's all in the details, they matter, hell, they make all the difference.

Capitalism (the argument on whether capitalism automatically means a state is involved aside) is also a form of authoritarian hierarchy.

One is a state, one is an economic system, both are authoritarian hierarchy....

So you wouldn't support the suppression of capitalists. OK.

Would 'liberty' include the 'liberty' for the capitalists to organise against the revolution? Because I'm not sure there is any other choice than 'suppress the capitalists' and 'allow the capitalists to organise against the revolution'. But, if there is another choice, I'd be interested to hear what it is.




...
Socialism via a state, state socialism. State capitalism indeed, but not right away. I am well aware of the history and the theory and what happened. I know full well it is not what was intended. It wasnt on purpose, at least not at first. All the arguments you have made, surely your kidding? You do see the irony of your arguing anarchism is a state and implying somehow what your implying is not?...

No, I'm arguing that my 'council state' is a state, by a Marxist definition, and the 'libertarian organisation' (what I am calling the 'anarchist state') of redanarchist23 is a state, by a marxist definition; but that the 'council state' is not a state by the anarchist definition of a state as an organ for the minority to oppress the majority, but the 'libertarian organisation' is a state under the above definition, as in it, a minority (the militia) is actually superior to the majority (the working class organising itself in the councils).




...
Theres no party, no need for one. You seem to think one is needed, inevitable, but your wrong. black flags... meh... no flags necessary, nothing more intended. It is no more secretly intended than it was in state socialism. Your implying intent. No leader. As compared to the communism of old... One leader, cult of personality, theres the intent, with time comes the opportunists as they would to any system that invites them to do what they do without reprisal or consequence, system of authority, ripe for corruption as it is a pyramid... top down. In that you have nation, national identity, the authority, the hierarchy, in it class and thus caste, incentive/motive, CAPITAL, and top heavy democracy/councils. Fat little party officials. This is all absent, as it should be. Theres a differentiation happening here, being displayed on purpose... its in the details. States do what states do...

The 'party' is the organisation of revolutionaries. If they organise themselves, as redanarchist proposes, as a militia, they are as much 'a party' (group seperate from the whole) as any 'state socialist' party.




...
Are we arguing which dictionary we use now?
Come on fella... SMH
Sigh... now your bordering on trolling honestly...

check something against something - to find out whether information is accurate or useful : to investigate or verify : to see if something passes a condition (principle, rule, etc)

So to check liberty, to check against liberty, is to verify it passes, it meets the conditions of

to steal a line: Did I adequately address your condescending question?

Don't remember telling you which dictionary I thought you should use or anything like, maybe you could point out to me where I did.

So you think 'checks liberty' means something like 'checks passports'? I'm still not really sure what you're getting at. 'Everyone is free to act in whatever manner they chose as long as 'it' (the manner of acting?) 'checks liberty' (ascertains that liberty is in order?)' seems to be what you're saying. Quite how that's supposed to work in practice I'm not sure (if that is what you're saying).




...
No, by their right to liberty, by their own power, by the mutual aid, reciprocity, and all the principles. No council needed. Oh please, get over yourself, no militia needed for this either... 20 years my ass, or you would know better. You sound like an An-Cap your just selling a different economic concept with the same statist ideas... from what your vaguely implying... at the least minarchy...

Ah well, there was obviously a certain amount of theoretical confusion that I abandoned when I stopped calling myself an Anarchist. So, without a workers' council or similar phenomenon, how does the community decide? Even when I was an Anarchist (16 of theose 20 years an Anarchist-Communist, a sympathiser of the ACF/AF) I assumed that the basis of social organisation was going to be the workers' council, as did Rocker, as did Maximoff, as did Makhno and Arshinov; this isn't obviously an appeal to authority, because there's no reason you should accept that Rocker or Maximoff or anyone else were right, but I'm interested, what Anarchist theoreticians and practitioners do you think made a significant contribution to the development of Anarchism? What currents do you identify with? I can't really see where what your saying relates in the scheme of things.




...
WHOA... dont sign me onto something I didnt put my name on...
I think we disagree on what a state is, I dont know what RED was claiming so thats irrelevant and not part of my reasoning or question.... So in the interest of clarification: Define state and its criteria...

Done that about seven times already in previous posts, and have laid out different definitions in the beginning of this post, so I won't repeat myself again, but if you're sure you need me to (ie, if you say 'no really I still don't understand what theory of the state you have' I will try again to explain).

You jumped in on this thread in support of redanarchist23. That seemed to be your starting point. If you're not defending redanarchist23's ideas, then, I apologise for ascribing to you conceptions that I thought you were defending - for instance, the 'libertarian organisation' which assumes the form of a militia band not under the control of the working class.


...
Do you? I am not convinced. I dont know where you got the idea will is the main motivating force, nevertheless... please... elucidate on this statement/claim and when you do, I implore you, be specific...

Specifically, as the organisation that you and redanarchist23 have been extolling is in itself an authoritarian minority organisation (it substitutes the power of the independent militia for the power of the workers' councils, it is in the end a bandit gang preying on the population) it fails the 'check of liberty' and needs to be opposed, as the Bolsheviks needed to be opposed when they usurped the power of the councils. The power of the militia comes from its guns, not from the power of the organised producers (ie the working class in its councils).

If the revolution breaks out, in a particular place, and that people, particularly the working class, in that place throw off the the power of the state, abolish the police force and institute their own militia organisation, stop the capitalists and their supporters in that area from organising and mobilising against the revolution, expropriate the capitalists and run agriculture and industry for the benefit of the population as a whole, and fight the external capitalist powers who are trying to conquer the revolutionary territory, while trying to help the revolutionary workers in the areas still controlled by the capitalists, would you support it? Or would you support the creation of another militia form that would place itself above the workers' councils?



...
There you go again. Equating things as synonymous... reductionist.

Also, I dont know what your talking about. None of that is even remotely what I advocate, stand for, or is called for. No party, no state... again you say you know how it works, but then i see this... What it is, I rhink, is you dont believe in it, thats fine... but dont expect to convince me to forego principle... liberty for the state and councils, vanguards, and all that implies, all its baggage. They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Your right for you i guess, but I disagree. again, if you care to elucidate, we can discuss the principles, the concepts, and how that actually CAN play out AND work... shouldn't be any less believable than implying SS can work in any configuration given that body of evidence...

But you're the one who supports 'state socialism' because you think 1-socialism is possible in one country and 2-you think there should be minority power above the workers' councils. So you're no better than the Stalinists. Just because you don't think of your minority is a 'party' (even though it's a minority political organisation, ie it's a party) and you don't think the revolutionary territory is a 'state' (even though it is a territory that is militarily defended where production is organised, ie it's a state), that doesn't mean that you can re-define reality. A state is a state; a party is a party, and as far as I can see, you support both, as long as they pretend they're not.




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I try to never make the mistake of confusing people and ideas, people can have flawed ideas, and flawed people (all people) can have genius ideas. Ad homenim is not a valid reason.



Ahem...
See above, also... i never said that. I do have a fundamental disagreement with them though.



Hmmm... well i never said that, but... i find a primary reason for failure, due to compromise of principles amongst a vast list of other things, that they were state socialists, using a state, and states do what states do...

You don't think the reasons for the failure of the revolution in Russia were to be found in the failure of the revolution to spread? This is what I mean about socialism in one country. If you believe that there can be a happy-happy-joy-joy revolutionary territory that succeeds in implementing socialism, then you believe in socialism in one country. I don't; because a happy-happy-joy-joy revolutionary territory is a state, and there is no 'state socialism'.


...

What dictatorship? I feel like Im taking crazy pills, oh thats just you putting things in my mouth... putting mt name on them. <insert jackie chan meme>

Really?

Well sure... everything has its nutbars. I can point you to 5 guys right now who call themselves anarchists that arent even close... hell, look at an-caps...

The 'libertarian organisation' AKA Anarchist militia AKA bandit gang not under the control of the workers. The armed Anarchist Party that has taken control of production and military defence, that redanarchist23 advocated, and you intervened in this thread to defend.


...??...

You didn't answer the question. What if the 'libertarian organisation' is itself a vector of state (in this case, minority) power? Should it not be opposed?



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Oh, that depends.. it certainly has been in the past... soviets, and thats just one., depends on configuration...

Do you accept the class analysis of capitalism? Do you believe that the working class is the only revolutionary class, because of its role in production?

If you do, then how can the soviets be a method of 'minority' rule?

If you don't, that's another matter. Perehaps you'd like to explain who are the revolutionary subjects.



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OOh look... again... surprise...

what militia? nevermind... your just being disingenuous... like you have several times in this response. No idea what your talking about for the 900th time. maybe your talking to RED...

If you're not coming onto the thread to back up redanarchist23's conceptions, what is your take?



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mmm... I dont call Nazi Germany your average competition, but no, why compete. unneccessary unless your secretly capitalist as it is a side effect of the market. So no, I dont think that will be the case, especially since said society, not state, is intelligently managed and planned by the people. Had there been no Nazis I dont think you could make that claim, that was extraordinary, it destroyed everything, this is not the norm. I can see you believe that... nothing i can do about that... *shrug*

You advocate a revolution, that then will not defend its territory or the people in it? Is that really what you're saying? 'Why compete'? Because otherwise the majority of you will be dead inside 2 months. I'm not aware that the Nazis destroyed the Paris Commune, maybe they did, you tell me, I wasn't aware that the nazis had anything to do with the Paris Commune or the Russian revolution, and though they Nazis certainly supported Franco, I think that even without their support, the Republic, the USSR, the Spanish Stalinists and the CNT between them did a fair job of destroying the impetus to revolution in Spain.


... jesus at this point your basically being intellectually dishonest, i mean fuck sake guy... this militia thing is out of control, are you high?...

No, it's perhaps a misunderstanding. If you don't think that armed gangs of Anarchists organising production and defending the revolutionary terrotory is a viable 'libertarian' organisation, that's fine, but you haven't explained what is.



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Russia? There its a bit harder but not impossible. Its a question of resources and frankly technology. Wehn you say socialism are we talking full step communism? Abolishon of money and everything? Antyway... HArd, but possible. Less then, more possible today, but not impossible, narrow path, narrow margin for success, but possible, probable. Theres better locations if one region socialism is the goal... i wouldnt say country... obvious reasons... It hink ot can certainly hold out better and be more successful and thus better propaganda for furthering the turn of more areas...as a better chance of surviving corruption. It would be a synthesis probably of synidcalism/mutualism into comm comprised of several steps, one of which a pre step of change in certain things education being most paramount...

So, you believe in socialism in one country, and as that country is a state, you believe in 'state socialism', and not just believe it exists, but you support 'state socialism'. Well, I don't, and I'll be fighting you over it after the revolution.



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No no, lol,,, thats this thread... haha oh nvm... sheesh.

Hey, you were being a bastard when i got here... if you can manage to back off it I'll meet you half way. But this right here, total bastardly nonsense.. statist... lol... Yu could do better, less.. irrational, I know guys I talk about these things with who do... but then they dont share all your... "interating" ideas of what anarchism is...

Anarchism is a mishmash of whatever anyone wants to claim Anarchism is. My own take on Anarchist-Communism was influenced primarily by Berkman and Kropotkin, and of course the First International, though obviously I also read up on Bakunin, Proudhon and the American individualists; by the Anarchists more generally who supported the revolution in Russia but criticised its degeneration (Goldman, Makhno etc); and by Durruti; then later I started reading Anarcho-Syndicalists, primarily Maximoff and Rocker; also, some later stuff from the '60s, people like Delgoff. I don't think that's a particularly unusual list of 'sources', except in that I didn't really get to grips with Malatesta.

My problem with Anarchism isn't that there's a grab-bag of authors and theories out there (same can be said of Marxism obviously, and chump who mentions 'class struggle' can claim to be a Marxist). My problem was that anarchism as a (set of) theories and practices doesn't add up. all this 'anti-state' stuff that in the end just replicates the state.

The Makhnovist 'Free Territory' was a state; Anarchist Catalonia was a state, a state involved in an imperialist war at that; the Paris Commune was a (tiny, short-lived) state. Anarchism as a body of theory refuses to recognise these states and therefore theory doesn't conform to reality. Sadly, this means the theory is wrong.

It's wrong because it doesn't see the state as arising from material conditions, it sees it as a question of will -all through this discussion you and redanarchist23 have talked about 'creating' states. We don't 'create' states through an effort of will, because we're bad 'state socialists' - states are a reflection of specific material conditions, and in those same material conditions, you and redanarchist23 will also find that the 'free territory' really is a state.

If a theory is wrong, junk it; so I did. I began to take Marxism seriously as it explains the nature of the state more clearly than Anarchism does, it explains how the state is a product of certain material conditions and while those conditions exist it is not possible to 'abolish' the state, no matter what the will of the people involved is, no matter how many times they repeat they are 'free' and part of a 'libertarian organisation' not an 'authoritarian hierarchy'. It explains how that group (the militia, the Party) that sets itself above the power of the working class comes to rule the working class, and if you believe (as I do) that the working clas is the revolutionary class in capitalism because of its role in production, then anything that sets itself above the working clas sets itself against the revolution, no matter whether that's a Leninist Party or an anarchist 'libertarian organisation'.

[helot]

Is a system of workers' councils a state? In so far as it functions as an organisation for the suppression of the bourgeoisie it can be argued it is state-like. I'm sure we'd all accept that a state necessitates a class society and its reverse, a classless society, would necessarily be stateless as the material conditions that give rise to states would not exist. However, this creates a theoretical problem when workers' councils are regarded as an actual state. Their function as an organisation to suppress the bourgeoisie would cease to exist upon the success of the revolution yet the workers' councils in and of themselves would not wither away but instead form the organisational basis of a classless society. There lies the theoretical problem and it seems there's only 3 solutions... either workers' councils are not states, states can exist in classless societies or the definition of a state is limited solely to violent suppression without taking into considering any characteristics between social organs.

The only one that remains that doesn't result in a complete meaninglessness of the term 'state' is that workers' councils aren't states.

I don't think limiting what is and isn't a state to the suppression of one class by another (or its variants) is useful. Even further i'd maintain that even using the characteristics of the state that Engels mentioned in Origin of the Family... and which i've quoted in this very thread (post #43) we can conclude that workers' councils are not states as it does not act as a power above society and due to not recognising the bourgeoisie as members the 'public force' of the workers' councils is the people's own organisation of themselves as an armed power.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

You realise your posts are starting to become gigantic?


You think that your little territory with its army (to fight the bad capitalist encirclers) and its control of production (for the war effort, and to feed your people) is not a state because the people are 'free'. So, that's no different to Stalinism.

Stalinism has one-party dictatorship.


Capitalism already exists both in and outsid your house. I doubt it exists outside of an actual state. You could declare it independent I suppose, and see what happens.

What, declare the independance of my house? I don't have the means to sustain myself with only my house, if I did I could survive without the state or capitalism.


The USA 'protects freedom' (they're famous for it), are they not a state either?

They protect a diferent idea of freedom, and they do it through authoritarian state. Multi party dictatorship, or in the case of the united states, dual-party dictatorship, even though both parties are very similar.


An armed group that defends a territory and organises production is a state.

You mean if I grab a knife and organise the procuction in my house I am a state'


If a state is, for a time, inevitable then the working class needs to protect it from any group that attempts to take it over, whether their flag is red or black.

So what if others take over it? We no longer listen to the state, we are the revolution. Even if a small group of fascists takes over the state and decrees that all are to follow their command, why would we follw? We have ended the old government, we have reorganised production, we are now the true rulers of the lands we have freed, it does not matter who claims to be in charge, we will not listen to them.


Honestly, if your militia is under the authority of the workers' councils we have no quarrel.

I am an anarchist, what the hell did you think, that I wanted to have anarchist lands ruled by a one gang dictatorship?


how? If you cut a slice from a loaf of bread, there is no period in which the bread doesn't exist. Just the loaf is a little smaller, and you have a small detatched bit. Same with your 'workers' state'. You've smashed a bit off the edge, levered it away, whatever metaphor you like. A bit of the old state is no longer under the control of the old state, it's under your control. You've taken it off them. When you're mugged for your watch, there isn't a period when the watch belongs to no-one. They don't post the revolutionary territory to you, expected delivery date 4-6 weeks.

Great comparison. The thing is, the state was not ended by another state, in that case you would be absolutely right. Revolution was done by the colective efforts of the people, not a state. So the watch gets taken away from the person by the wind, and then gets picked up by the other person. Since persons are states, then the people are the wind.


Doesn't logically follow from what I said, but the state as long as it exists will be a conservative force. The working class needs to be extremely careful. We saw what happened when the Bolsheviks took state power to themselves.

Then we agree. The revolution cannot be controlled by a one party dictatorship like it was done in Russia.


You already know that I reject the validity of a 'libertarian organisation' in a revolution.

Yes, but you also think a revolution is authoritarian.


So the difference between your 'libertarian organisation' and the totalitarian dictaroship of the party is...?

The way the libertarian organisation works, how it operates. This is a horizontal organisation, it is made up of revolutionaries, and its members act directly. The members of this organisation are people who wanted to fight to defend the revolution. The libertarian organisation does not force the people into doing as they say, and it does not try to control the people, it defends the people from again being forced into becoming slaves of capital.


The working class will organise society using the workers' councils to co-ordinate production and distribution; defence of the revolutionary territory will likely be organised by factory militias at first.

So all this time you have been a libertarian communist. I consider that which you described as libertarian. Your ideas are not any diferent from mine, but we diferent meanings for things. It is like we are speaking 2 diferent languages where one does not understand the other.


Is a co-operative that exists in capitalism 'socialism'?

That's just a commune.


That means that capitalism must be overthrown everywhere before yo can have socialism.

I know what you are trying to say, and many marxists use this as excusse for the prolonged existance of the one-party dictatorship.


Until then it's just fighting the world civil war, and while the war with the capitalists is on, we can't build socialism, we need to be defending the revolutionary territory, organising production to feed everyone and produce materiel for the war, and spreading the revolution at the same time.

Indeed, it is not easy to change into socialism while at war, but you can still organise production to the socialist mode of production. You are going to have to ration materials and food, expropriate property, and trade away some useless expropriated property (that only had use in capitalist society) for weapons and other necessary things.


We'll need some form of 'revolutionary state' to do that - organised, I'd argue, by the working class through the workers' councils.


It is you definition of state that confuses me. By talking about revolutionary state when what you mean are workers councils you are going to end up having a discussion with anarchists, even though our methods and ideas are the same. Your marxist vocabulary conbined with anarchist aversion towards state, is what caused this discussion.


They're real; they actually exist on Earth. You think we should ask aliens. If you want to consult non-humans, why not real non-humans?


Because they do not understand the struggles of man.


Our relationship to them is not on the same basis as our relationship to each other, we're only 'communists' internally, we're competitors externally.

What do you mean with this?

[Blake's Baby]

Is a system of workers' councils a state? In so far as it functions as an organisation for the suppression of the bourgeoisie it can be argued it is state-like. I'm sure we'd all accept that a state necessitates a class society and its reverse, a classless society, would necessarily be stateless as the material conditions that give rise to states would not exist. However, this creates a theoretical problem when workers' councils are regarded as an actual state. Their function as an organisation to suppress the bourgeoisie would cease to exist upon the success of the revolution yet the workers' councils in and of themselves would not wither away but instead form the organisational basis of a classless society. There lies the theoretical problem and it seems there's only 3 solutions... either workers' councils are not states, states can exist in classless societies or the definition of a state is limited solely to violent suppression without taking into considering any characteristics between social organs.

The only one that remains that doesn't result in a complete meaninglessness of the term 'state' is that workers' councils aren't states.

I don't think limiting what is and isn't a state to the suppression of one class by another (or its variants) is useful. Even further i'd maintain that even using the characteristics of the state that Engels mentioned in Origin of the Family... and which i've quoted in this very thread (post #43) we can conclude that workers' councils are not states as it does not act as a power above society and due to not recognising the bourgeoisie as members the 'public force' of the workers' councils is the people's own organisation of themselves as an armed power.

No there's another possibility. Once there is no more working class (after the suppression of the capitalist class and the successful winning of the world civil war), the 'working class' cannot organise 'workers' councils' because it won't exist any more as a class. There will just be... meetings at a workplace. The former 'workers' councils' which are revolutionary organs of class power will cease to be so... the state will 'wither away' as its roots (property and classes) will have ceased to exist. The functions that the workers councils will have to take onto themselves in the revolutionary period will no longer be necessary (or possible, in some cases).

So, in transforming society, the working class also transforms itself, and the workers' councils.


You realise your posts are starting to become gigantic?



Stalinism has one-party dictatorship.



What, declare the independance of my house? I don't have the means to sustain myself with only my house, if I did I could survive without the state or capitalism...

And would your house be 'socialism'?





They protect a diferent idea of freedom, and they do it through authoritarian state. Multi party dictatorship, or in the case of the united states, dual-party dictatorship, even though both parties are very similar.



You mean if I grab a knife and organise the procuction in my house I am a state'

I presume you mean, 'if i grab a knife and stab any policemen who come to my house and organise production, and hold out against the country my house is in' then the only thing missing as far as I can see is class oppression and as long as someone else was there you could leach off, yeah, you'd be a state. If your house was autonomous and defended and productive, yes, that is a state.




...
So what if others take over it? We no longer listen to the state, we are the revolution. Even if a small group of fascists takes over the state and decrees that all are to follow their command, why would we follw? We have ended the old government, we have reorganised production, we are now the true rulers of the lands we have freed, it does not matter who claims to be in charge, we will not listen to them...

No, my point is you are in charge, you are the state. 'Claims' mean nothing; if you do not 'follow the fascists' then they have not 'taken over the state', they've just put out a press release.




...
I am an anarchist, what the hell did you think, that I wanted to have anarchist lands ruled by a one gang dictatorship?...

That's the idea that you appeared to be defending, the idea that mother was seemingly supporting.




...
Great comparison. The thing is, the state was not ended by another state, in that case you would be absolutely right. Revolution was done by the colective efforts of the people, not a state. So the watch gets taken away from the person by the wind, and then gets picked up by the other person. Since persons are states, then the people are the wind.



Then we agree. The revolution cannot be controlled by a one party dictatorship like it was done in Russia...

That's my opinion. The revolution = the working class organised in the councils. The workin class organised in the councils is an organ of state power, the power of the working class wresting political control of the territory from the ruling class. The councils themselves reconstitute the state. Not the state organised for the maintainance of bourgeois rule, but a state nonetheless.

'Persons' as 'states' so the people are the wind... no. Persons, as organised people, in my analogy. 'The collective effort of the people' (or, the organised working class) = the person doing the expropriation. The old ruling class = the person being expropriated. If you think people don't need to be organised, then the watch is taken from the original victim by some minced meat. Some angry minced meat.



...
Yes, but you also think a revolution is authoritarian...

I think the revolution will of necessity involve actions that are authoritarian. If you don't see the almost inevitable seizure of goods and, almost certainly, killing people as 'authoritarian' it just demonstrates, yet again, why it's a ridiculous term that doesn't mean anything.




...
The way the libertarian organisation works, how it operates. This is a horizontal organisation, it is made up of revolutionaries, and its members act directly. The members of this organisation are people who wanted to fight to defend the revolution. The libertarian organisation does not force the people into doing as they say, and it does not try to control the people, it defends the people from again being forced into becoming slaves of capital...

What if people want to be enslaved by capital? What if, after all, lots of people say 'you know what, this is too hard, let's just go back to being wage-slaves?' What if the 'revolutionaries' in the 'libertarian organisation' have a different conception to 'the people' of how the revolution should progress? What if there are two 'revolutionary organisations' that have different ideas? Is there anything above the 'revolutionary organisation'?



'...So all this time you have been a libertarian communist. I consider that which you described as libertarian. Your ideas are not any diferent from mine, but we diferent meanings for things. It is like we are speaking 2 diferent languages where one does not understand the other...

Fine. that's because you use words without defining what content you give them. 'Suppressing the bourgeoisie is libertarian!' you say. I disagree. I also disagree that I am a 'libertarian communist'. If you believe that the workers' councils should be the ultimate authority in the revolution, then I'd say you were a 'communist', neither 'libertarian' nor 'authoritarian', just a communist, because the revolution will be both liberatory and dictatorial.




...
That's just a commune.



I know what you are trying to say, and many marxists use this as excusse for the prolonged existance of the one-party dictatorship...

So? Have I said that the organisation of revolutionaries should take power? No; in fact I've that your organisation of revolutionaries (the 'Anarchist militia') best stay under the authority of the workers' councils.


...
Indeed, it is not easy to change into socialism while at war, but you can still organise production to the socialist mode of production. You are going to have to ration materials and food, expropriate property, and trade away some useless expropriated property (that only had use in capitalist society) for weapons and other necessary things...

Not sure who you're trading with here, but I agree that the proletarian power will have to ration goods including food, requisition goods, expropriate property and so on both for the continuance of the war effort and the feeding and clothing of the population. This is done by the revolutionary state. This state can either be under the control of the workers' councils (the organisations of the class as a whole, in which case the revolution is at least internally on track) or a clique, a party, an 'organisation', that usurps the power of the councils, in which case the revolution is heading for internal disaster. Whether that organisation calls itself Marxist or anarchist doesn't matter, if that organisation usurps the power of the councils, it becomes the new state power.




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It is you definition of state that confuses me. By talking about revolutionary state when what you mean are workers councils you are going to end up having a discussion with anarchists, even though our methods and ideas are the same. Your marxist vocabulary conbined with anarchist aversion towards state, is what caused this discussion...

An 'anarchist' aversion to the state... man. This discussion revolves around you and mother not realising that the workers councils, in the revolution, are a state. The state must continue (not 'should' continue, but must continue = cannot cease to be) until the conditions for its end have been met. These are not conditions that can be conjoured by will. They involve the complete expropriation of property by the working class and the complete defeat of capitalism. Once those conditions have been met, there will be no state, there can be no state, and no classes and no property either. It is only through an expropriation from the generality, by taking to onesself the things of society as a whole, that new property, new classes and new states might arise.




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Because they do not understand the struggles of man...

I doubt aliens who know nothing of us, as we know nothing of them, and who may not exist, understand the struggles of man either.




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What do you mean with this?

If militaristic aliens came to Earth seeking to enslave humans and take resources that we also need, we would not let them, even if we were a communist world before that. We would organise to fight them, and to protect 'our' property. so it would be no different to two tribes in ancient times - they may both (or one at least may be) a communist tribe, but faced with an external enemy, we would not act as communists to them. If they came and tried to take slaves and resources we need, we would not say 'to each according to their need' and give them what they wanted. We would organise to fight them, defend ourselves, requisition things to help the war effort, take emergency measures that curtailed freedoms for us in order to more succeessfully win the war. We would become like a state again, in the emergency, as a communist tribe would if it encountered some other group intent on taking its lands and enslving people. So, we might be 'internally communists' (our society is communist among its members) but 'externally competitors' (our communist society is competing militarily with their class-based military society).

[helot]

No there's another possibility. Once there is no more working class (after the suppression of the capitalist class and the successful winning of the world civil war), the 'working class' cannot organise 'workers' councils' because it won't exist any more as a class. There will just be... meetings at a workplace. The former 'workers' councils' which are revolutionary organs of class power will cease to be so... the state will 'wither away' as its roots (property and classes) will have ceased to exist. The functions that the workers councils will have to take onto themselves in the revolutionary period will no longer be necessary (or possible, in some cases).

So, in transforming society, the working class also transforms itself, and the workers' councils.

Of course the working class can't organise anything after the revolution as it wouldn't exist.

Only a small amount of the functions of these councils will cease to exist and those are the functions related to engaging in a revolutionary war. The majority of its functions, those directly related to production, will continue. It will probably take a formal structure that will culminate into a global federation of councils. Whether you want to have the descriptor 'worker' before or not doesn't matter the continuity of these councils during the revolutionary period and after is obvious. It is the same organisational body.

[Blake's Baby]

Of course the working class can't organise anything after the revolution as it wouldn't exist.

Only a small amount of the functions of these councils will cease to exist and those are the functions related to engaging in a revolutionary war. The majority of its functions, those directly related to production, will continue. It will probably take a formal structure that will culminate into a global federation of councils. Whether you want to have the descriptor 'worker' before or not doesn't matter the continuity of these councils during the revolutionary period and after is obvious. It is the same organisational body.

It might have the same place of meeting and maybe even the same name and the same personel, but is it 'the same organisational body'? Is the church today the same church that existed in AD400? No, even though there's organisational continuity.

The organisations that exist after the revolution will not be the same as the organisations tht exist during the revolution, surely you can see that? Any organisation that fundamentally changes its class character can't really be called the same organisation. During the revolution the workers' councils will be the centres of working class power. After the revolution they will not have that 'class power'. That makes them fundamentally different organisations.

[helot]

It might have the same place of meeting and maybe even the same name and the same personel, but is it 'the same organisational body'? Is the church today the same church that existed in AD400? No, even though there's organisational continuity.

The organisations that exist after the revolution will not be the same as the organisations tht exist during the revolution, surely you can see that? Any organisation that fundamentally changes its class character can't really be called the same organisation. During the revolution the workers' councils will be the centres of working class power. After the revolution they will not have that 'class power'. That makes them fundamentally different organisations.

You make some very good points here, I'd have to conceed. You are right, the class character would fundamentally change and render the organisation different regardless of the continuity.

[LordAcheron]

The Makhnovist 'Free Territory' was a state; Anarchist Catalonia was a state, a state involved in an imperialist war at that; the Paris Commune was a (tiny, short-lived) state. Anarchism as a body of theory refuses to recognise these states and therefore theory doesn't conform to reality. Sadly, this means the theory is wrong.

That's just semantic bickering. Whether or not a non-hierarchical organizational system should be considered a "state" or not is completely irrelevant. What matters is the theory BEHIND it, that being the true lack of class and hierarchical structure.

Ditching an entire field of leftist thought because of semantics is pretty illogical.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I am very late to this discussion and I apologize for being redundant. Anarchism is a tendency on the left. Anarchist's goals are similar to those of communists, but they have a utopian view of how to get there. The comments of some of the comrades are quite correct, historically, when Anarchist parties have been major players, i.e., Spain in the 1930s, they have supported certain governments and did have some kind of hierarchy. I think the biggest issue for Anarchists is the confusion of the ends with the means.

[Blake's Baby]

That's just semantic bickering. Whether or not a non-hierarchical organizational system should be considered a "state" or not is completely irrelevant. What matters is the theory BEHIND it, that being the true lack of class and hierarchical structure.

Ditching an entire field of leftist thought because of semantics is pretty illogical.

No really it's not just a question of semantics.

1 - the example proposed - the 'Anarchist militia' that is not subject to the workers' councils - is not a 'non-hierarchical structure', it stands in a particular relationship to the workers' councils, in this case, over them;
2 - the contra-example, of the militia subordinate to the workers' councils is not a 'non-hierarchical structure' either, as the superior/subordinate relationship shows;
3 - it is not a 'semantic' argument that one can abolish classes in a small area - you can't, because you can't abolish property in a small area, and classes can't be abolished if property isn't abolished, and the state can't be abolished if classes aren't abolished... these aren't semantic arguments, unless you redefine the words.

Anarchists play the semantic game every time they criticise 'state socialists' because there is not state socialism. If you want to criticise the Stalinists and the Trotskyists and other state capitalists for not being socialists, be my guest, you won't get much argument from me. But don't criticise Marxists for being something they're not. At present, redanarchist23 and myself seem to be in agreement that the form the revolutionary society needs to take is one in which the working class holds political power and weilds it through the workers' councils, to which other organisations (eg the militias) need to be subordinate. Is this 'state socialism' in your estimation? If so, as we're both expressing the same thing, is it just me who's a 'state socialist', or is redanarchist23 one too?

[LordAcheron]

No really it's not just a question of semantics.

1 - the example proposed - the 'Anarchist militia' that is not subject to the workers' councils - is not a 'non-hierarchical structure', it stands in a particular relationship to the workers' councils, in this case, over them;
2 - the contra-example, of the militia subordinate to the workers' councils is not a 'non-hierarchical structure' either, as the superior/subordinate relationship shows;
3 - it is not a 'semantic' argument that one can abolish classes in a small area - you can't, because you can't abolish property in a small area, and classes can't be abolished if property isn't abolished, and the state can't be abolished if classes aren't abolished... these aren't semantic arguments, unless you redefine the words.

if you really fail to see the gaping holes in your "logic" I'm afraid you are beyond help.

and not only in the area I quoted. Other members involved in this convesation (with much help from you) have made an ass out of you.

[Blake's Baby]

if you really fail to see the gaping holes in your "logic" I'm afraid you are beyond help.

and not only in the area I quoted. Other members involved in this convesation (with much help from you) have made an ass out of you.

Yeah, if you like, but it's just a semantic argument, as 'made an ass of you' is what I call 'demonstrating the holes in their own theory'.

Anyway, redanarchist23 agrees with me, is he an 'ass' too? We're bashing our way through to understanding that we both have the same perspective that authority resides in the workers' councils, and incidently we agree with Rudolf 'state socialist and ass' Rocker. Are you so sure about what you're talking about?