Need a New Tendency

[JPSartre12]

Perhaps this should be in the theory section, but I wasn't sure, so I placed it here.

I think I've hit a sort of dead-end with democratic socialism. It served as a nice introduction into left-wing theory and brought me here to revleft, but it has only provided more answers than questions. More often than not, I'm finding myself unable to defend my chosen tendency against some of the more serious critiques proposed by others. I'm still very much an existential Marxist, but I'm not sure if I'm a democratic socialist anymore.

What tendency(s) do you think would be good for me to "evolve" to? I've done some reading on Luxemburg, Trotsky, and de Leon that have rung strongly with me, but I'm not sure where I should go from this point. I find myself flirting with anarchism and libertarian socialism (mostly Daniel Guérin), and at the same time disliking the ideas of Marxist-Leninism (mostly due to things such as "socialism in one country", because I'm very much an internationalist).

What would you recommend I do at this point?

[GoddessCleoLover]

Luxemburgism is my tendency and I highly recommend for you and anyone else who is interested. Luxemburgism is revolutionary to its core, Rosa was no reformist and always stood for revolution. OTOH she understood the dangers inherent in the Bolshevik model with its single party dictatorship and denial of basic freedom such as freedom of speech and press. Take your time. Don't be hasty, but please don't overlook Luxemburgism.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Read "Society Of The Spectacle". Drop acid.

[Ostrinski]

You do not need a tendency. Identifying with any tendency will only impede your learning process, force you to adopt a pre manufactured set of political views and historical stances, and draw you into the tribalistic nature of tendency conflict on revleft.

[GoddessCleoLover]

You do not need a tendency. Identifying with any tendency will only impede your learning process, force you to adopt a pre manufactured set of political views and historical stances, and draw you into the tribalistic nature of tendency conflict on revleft.

I agree with Ostrinski that picking a tendency at the beginning of the learning process would be premature and counter-productive. In the course of your reading please familiarize yourself with the theories of Rosa Luxemburg and Antonio Gramsci.

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

Although I don't have any problem with identifying as a part of a certain tendency -- I consider myself a part of one -- that should come after significant study. I've learned from my own experience that identifying with a tendency before engaging in study often leads a person to ignore or underplay any information that might deviate from the orthodox ideas of that tendency. Sectarianism is one thing the Left does not need more of.

[JPSartre12]

Take your time. Don't be hasty, but please don't overlook Luxemburgism.

It's certainly one that I've been looking into. What would you say makes it unique from the other tendencies? What are (in terms of its theory) its relative strengths and weaknesses?

[GoddessCleoLover]

It's certainly one that I've been looking into. What would you say makes it unique from the other tendencies? What are (in terms of its theory) its relative strengths and weaknesses?

Weaknesses first. Rosa made her share of mistakes, the PDKiL thing was definitely a blemish. She also failed to appreciate the power of nationalism in the 20th century. With respect to the former we all fuck up in our lives from time to time. With respect to the latter I believe that Rosa was ahead of her time and Luxemburgist internationalism is well-suited to the 21st century.

The greatest strength of Luxemburgism is that it retains the revolutionary essence of Marxism and at the same time is unsparingly critical of the dictatorial excesses of the 20th century Bolshevik-inspired revolutions that degenerated into one-party dictatorship. Luxembergism strikes the proper balance, it avoids reformism and it also avoids dictatorship.

[Ostrinski]

Spontaneity was a huge blunder on Rosa's part, in my opinion.

[blake 3:17]

She was awful on the national question.

Anyways... Usually tendencies are formed around concrete political questions.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Spontaneity was a huge blunder on Rosa's part, in my opinion.

True that, but in the broader scheme of things her critique of bureaucratism. whether of the SPD or of the RCP (b) is so profound that IMO we can forgive her attachment to spontaneity. One has to weigh these things in the balance, and IMO Rosa understood that any revolutionary movement had to be class-based. Whatever Rosa's shortcomings, she had a better understanding of the issue than did other theorists.

[GoddessCleoLover]

She was awful on the national question.

Anyways... Usually tendencies are formed around concrete political questions.

Rosa had a deficient theoretical grasp of the national question. OTOH in practice the Soviet Union failed to deal with the National question as well. The National question is vexatious, and Stalin and his successors failed the test on a grand scale.

[jookyle]

Just read a bunch of stuff from everything. Don't worry about picking anything. What you hold as your personal tendency isn't going to make socialism happen any quicker.

[black magick hustla]

She was awful on the national question.

Anyways... Usually tendencies are formed around concrete political questions.

But that is where she shone the best! Even after the really bloody natlib movements in the 20th century, the "liberated" countries are still shackled as the ghettoes and slums of world capitalism.

[hetz]

Why would you need a "tendency" anyway?

[Ostrinski]

I tend to agree with her on national liberation, actually, and it is an issue that I've gone back and forth on in the past.

I think as bmh points out the history of the 20th century has shown Luxemburg to be correct on the national question and Lenin to be wrong. Luxemburg argued that instead of weakening global capitalism, it could provide new platforms and adjuncts for inter imperialist wars. I think if the history of the 20th century can teach us anything it is this.

Of course, it should also be noted that it was impossible for there to be a conclusive resolution to the question in either of their cases as they both died before history had proved either one of them right or wrong. So there is a difference between Lenin's view on the national question and the view of today's Leninists on the national question, the latter having the gift of hindsight.

[Manic Impressive]

I think I've hit a sort of dead-end with democratic socialism.
What is democratic socialism? It's like saying wet water or invisible oxygen, socialism must always be democratic. Do you mean social democracy? :confused:


It served as a nice introduction into left-wing theory and brought me here to revleft, but it has only provided more answers than questions. More often than not, I'm finding myself unable to defend my chosen tendency against some of the more serious critiques proposed by others.
Revleft is not a good place to learn, you may be impressed by some here but you'll learn more by asking for where to find the answers to your questions than you will by asking for the answers. You really need to find out for yourself rather than relying on others interpretations, which have often become so deviated that they barely hold any relevance to reality.


What would you recommend I do at this point?
Read more Marx and Engels, rely on yourself not on others opinions, study capitalism.

[Blake's Baby]

She was awful on the national question.

Anyways... Usually tendencies are formed around concrete political questions.

Some of us think her work on the national question is what sets her head and shoulders above Stalin, who wrote the Bolsheviks' position paper 'On the National Question' in 1913. The Bolsheviks never escaped the Second International mindset that said that the task of socialists was to tail liberal nationalism. Her position on the national question and her work on economics were exactly the reason I called myself a Luxemburgist for 4 years when breaking from Anarchism towards Marxism.

Then I came to the conclusion that everything worthwhile in Luxemburgism (ie everything except her vacillations towards democratism) was encompased in Left Communism anyway.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

comrade Rosa's life was cut too short to provide a meaningful basis for a potential "Luxemburgism". likely what passes itself off as Luxemburgism will be someone's preferred interpretation.

poking around Leninism and its surrounding debates is a good idea, regardless of how you feel about that particular strand of Marxism. like it or not, it has been the dominant strand throughout the years in its various forms. confronting the question of Leninism head-on will help you shape your own beliefs.

I don't share the opinion that considering yourself within one tendency or another is necessary an impediment to learning; looking into tendencies helped me to understand different sides of complicated debates. one must keep in mind that each tendency will have its own version of events and its own version of what Marxism really is, or what Leninism really is.

[Comrade #138672]

You do not need a tendency. Identifying with any tendency will only impede your learning process, force you to adopt a pre manufactured set of political views and historical stances, and draw you into the tribalistic nature of tendency conflict on revleft.Pan-Leftism ftw.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

What tendency(s) do you think would be good for me to "evolve" to? I've done some reading on Luxemburg, Trotsky, and de Leon that have rung strongly with me, but I'm not sure where I should go from this point. I find myself flirting with anarchism and libertarian socialism (mostly Daniel Guérin)
Luxemburg and Guérin are good places to start, even if they had very different perspectives.


What would you recommend I do at this point?
Do you need to have a tendency? A tendency can be a useful shorthand label, but it's not strictly necessary.

[Comrade #138672]

Luxemburg and Guérin are good places to start, even if they had very different perspectives.


Do you need to have a tendency? A tendency can be a useful shorthand label, but it's not strictly necessary.Perhaps he feels that he needs to focus on a 'new' tendency, because he wants to let the dialectics of conflicting tendencies guide his development process.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The OP is a former democratic socialist interested in the Revolutionary Left. The first thing I would recommend for a theoretical understanding of revolutionary theory is to read the ABCs of Communism by NIkolai Bukharin and Evgen Preobrazhensky. IMO Liu Shaoqi's How to be a Good Communist is not bad, but excessively simplified. Stalin's writings on Leninism are also too simplified and have the flavor of religious dogma.

I didn't articulate myself very well on Rosa and the National question and want to thank subsequent posters for defending Rosa. I still believe that Rosa's grasp of the National question was impractical for application when it was written almost a hundred years ago. That was then this is now. For the 21st century and forward we ought to move beyond quasi-Third World-ism and follow Rosa's theory. That means focusing on the working class and proletarian revolution. The era of progressive nationalism is over, to steal a paraphrased line from Bill Clinton.

[Blake's Baby]

The era of progressive nationalism was over more than a century ago comrade, that's why Rosa was right and Stalin (and Lenin and Trotsky and the others who followed Stalin) were wrong in 1913. The First World War was surely the sign that capitalism had already become an obsolete system that had no progressive content left, as currents like the SPGB were already arguing from the beginning of the 20th century.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

How come nobody has mentioned anarchism yet?

[Sheepy]

Counter-Productive.

The more we argue about which form of socialism is the best and divide ourselves, we'll be on the same level as the capitalists, rather than above them like we should. Also why devote yourself with a strict code of beliefs? There's no need for any additional prefixes, adjectives, and whatnot for you to be who you are. We're all supposed to be comrades here, we can kill each other after capitalism is overthrown.

[Tjis]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Most of the tendencies that Revleftians identify with correspond with actual tendencies in the historical labor movement. They weren't thought up in a void, they were connected with an ongoing struggle, and developed out of actual decisions various segments of the labor movement made.
But now, the labor movement is largely gone, and all that is left are books upon books filled with outdated ideology. It makes no sense trying to continue what has already been abandoned. No new labor movement can be constructed from 'Luxemburgism' or any similar tendency, because movements are not built out of ideas, ideas originate out of movements.

Rather than adopting a tendency, work towards re-organizing the labor movement, then form your tendency out of your experiences.

[subcp]

Bordiga, Luxemburg, Gorter and Pannekoek can introduce you to eclectic theories and positions in contrast to the official line of the Communist International, if you're becoming familiar with Lenin and Trotsky. All have left legacies full of dynamic and always developing thought- they all made mistakes, but never wavered in their commitment to the socialist potential of the working-class.

A lot of tendencies exist, some are still around organizationally today. A lot of people have recommended you do more reading and discussing before claiming to be exclusively for one or another line of thought or legacy. If you're interested in Lenin and De Leon, the German and Dutch socialists (who would split and go on to become Communists) may suit your predisposition better.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The era of progressive nationalism was over more than a century ago comrade, that's why Rosa was right and Stalin (and Lenin and Trotsky and the others who followed Stalin) were wrong in 1913. The First World War was surely the sign that capitalism had already become an obsolete system that had no progressive content left, as currents like the SPGB were already arguing from the beginning of the 20th century.

I don't think it follows that, from being a system that isn't progressive, that capitalism is 'obsolete'. Capitalism was once revolutionary and since then, capital has survived on its ability to:

a) oppress the proletariat, but also
b) provide the proletariat with some benefits, however small.

The second point is key. We have seen from various revolutions that if the proletariat, as a conscious class, really is fed up it can start a revolution with the flick of a match (Tunisia, for example).

Capitalism is clearly, in 2012, a totally non-progressive system and in many respects degenerating into chaos and collapsing in on itself, if we look at financial/imperial capitalism in the west. But yet it still provides, in these financial capitalist nations, its workers with a (relatively) comfortable standard of living, compared to anything before. Thus i'm not sure we can qualify capitalism, currently, as obsolete. Just my two cents.

[JPSartre12]

What is democratic socialism? It's like saying wet water or invisible oxygen, socialism must always be democratic. Do you mean social democracy? :confused:

While it's never good to over-simplify a tendency, democratic socialism is a trend that social democracy took around the time of the Russian revolution. It's based around the idea of having a socialist-labor party take control of the state apparatus and use it for the sake of the working class, while at the same time coordinating with revolutionaries.

I'm growing increasingly skeptical of any attempt to use a bourgeois legislature to do anything.


Wecandobetter: Perhaps he feels that he needs to focus on a 'new' tendency, because he wants to let the dialectics of conflicting tendencies guide his development process.

Yes, more or less. I have a great number of conflicting opinions and ideas, and I need to find a way to work them out.

[Blake's Baby]

I don't think it follows that, from being a system that isn't progressive, that capitalism is 'obsolete'. Capitalism was once revolutionary and since then, capital has survived on its ability to:

a) oppress the proletariat, but also
b) provide the proletariat with some benefits, however small.

The second point is key. We have seen from various revolutions that if the proletariat, as a conscious class, really is fed up it can start a revolution with the flick of a match (Tunisia, for example).

Capitalism is clearly, in 2012, a totally non-progressive system and in many respects degenerating into chaos and collapsing in on itself, if we look at financial/imperial capitalism in the west. But yet it still provides, in these financial capitalist nations, its workers with a (relatively) comfortable standard of living, compared to anything before. Thus i'm not sure we can qualify capitalism, currently, as obsolete. Just my two cents.

Capitalism's a global system. Is it working so well in sub-Saharan Africa, most of central and South America, most of South and South-East Asia, and parts of Eastern Europe? Is China a shiny new paradise for workers, or is it a fucking hell-hole that oppresses its workers?

It's obsolete. It's outlived its usefulness, long since. The fact that a relatively few of us get slightly bigger crumbs falling from the table isn't really so significant.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

How come nobody has mentioned anarchism yet?

Because it's shit...

[Q]

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/32207467.jpg

But seriously: I can only reiterate the point of not choosing a tendency if you're rethinking your previous positions. An open mind is much more valuable than tendency-shopping and just internalising what someone else thought for you. The latter just makes you a tool, not an asset for the class-movement.

[JPSartre12]

Because it's shit...

What makes you think that anarchism is shit?

I'm not familiar enough with it to make an legitimate judgement.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Attaching yourself to a tendency boils down to shackling yourself to the equivalent of revolutionary gossip. It's intellectual masturbation at best and 90% time comes nowhere near that high point. One delusional and inconsequential tendency bickers with the others and they call it revolutionary action. Meanwhile capitalism continues doing whatever the hell it was going to do anyway.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Because it's shit...

You dogmatic marxist ignorant!

You want to turn this into tendency war thread? Don't you know this site is for all the left, not just marxist-leninists!?

Anarchism isn't shit, what the hell are you talking about!? Marxist-Leninists would have their freedom and the freedom of all others taken away just so that some party can take power and turn the country into a dictatorship. And don't you come here and say "it is dictatorship of the proletariat", because I know your dictatorships of the proletariat always end in 1 party dicatatorial regimes, and never reach a point that can even be described as the lower stage of communism.
Anarchists fight for freedom, and a true anarchist will not sacrifice freedom for victory. It does not even make sense, if you are fighting for freedom and give away your freedom in order to win you are going to end up with out any freedom, because you decided to sacrifice it earlier, so now you won, but your goal was to have freedom. You marxist-leninist revolutions may have had more victories than anarchist revolutions, but it is not a victory if you loose your goals to achieve it.
I sometimes think marxist-leninists don't even care about freedom, "they don't fight for freedom, they fight for a change of government", and I have been proven right many times. If I am right this means marxist-leninists are not actualy communists, since they do not care about reaching communism, they only care about having a communist party in charge.
It is like the fascists, they want a fascist party in charge, and when they do get in charge, the fascist realise their mistake.

[Let's Get Free]

Just invent your own tendency.

[Ostrinski]

You dogmatic marxist ignorant!

You want to turn this into tendency war thread? Don't you know this site is for all the left, not just marxist-leninists!?

Anarchism isn't shit, what the hell are you talking about!? Marxist-Leninists would have their freedom and the freedom of all others taken away just so that some party can take power and turn the country into a dictatorship. And don't you come here and say "it is dictatorship of the proletariat", because I know your dictatorships of the proletariat always end in 1 party dicatatorial regimes, and never reach a point that can even be described as the lower stage of communism.
Anarchists fight for freedom, and a true anarchist will not sacrifice freedom for victory. It does not even make sense, if you are fighting for freedom and give away your freedom in order to win you are going to end up with out any freedom, because you decided to sacrifice it earlier, so now you won, but your goal was to have freedom. You marxist-leninist revolutions may have had more victories than anarchist revolutions, but it is not a victory if you loose your goals to achieve it.
I sometimes think marxist-leninists don't even care about freedom, "they don't fight for freedom, they fight for a change of government", and I have been proven right many times. If I am right this means marxist-leninists are not actualy communists, since they do not care about reaching communism, they only care about having a communist party in charge.
It is like the fascists, they want a fascist party in charge, and when they do get in charge, the fascist realise their mistake.Relax, comrade.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

What makes you think that anarchism is shit?

I'm not familiar enough with it to make an legitimate judgement.


So you don't know much about anarchism, right?

http://www.infoshop.org/AnAnarchistFAQ
The anarchist FAQ does a good job at answering just about any question you might ever ask.

Anarchism is not like other leftist political theories, since anarchists are libertarian leftists. Anarchists want to end all opression and discrimination, and to do this we see that we must abolish the state and capitalism. The state is the main source of opression and limits individual freedom, and capitalism is a big source of (economic) discriminatinon, and also a big source of opression. The anarchist sees that the capitalist mode of production must be replaced with the communist mode of production, since the communist mode of production is the most equal. Anarchists do not speak of workers, or of proletariat, we speak of all individuals, not just those of some class. Anarchist see that all humans should be free, not just some, all of humanity must be liberated. Anarchists do not support any party, since anarchists see that parties only want to assume control of the nation, they never change anything, but some anarchists align with syndicates, which is the origin of anarcho-syndicalism.
I think I have said enough, if you want to know more either click that link, or ask me questions.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Relax, comrade.

It was a response to a vulgarity and frankly his characterization of Marxism-Leninism as practiced in the Soviet Union and similar states rings true to me.

[Ostrinski]

I think Negative Creep meant it in a tongue in cheek kind of way, though.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

How come nobody has mentioned anarchism yet?
Guérin's been mentioned twice.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Anarchists do not speak of workers, or of proletariat, we speak of all individuals, not just those of some class.

This is somewhat wrong. While you are right, and there are some "post-left" anarchists that think class analysis is flawed, most anarchists do "speak" of the proletariat and it's exploitation by the bourgeoisie. Bakunin did, Kropotkin did, etc.


Anarchist see that all humans should be free, not just some, all of humanity must be liberated.

You didn't say it outright, but it seems you are implying that Marxists are against the "liberation" of all of humanity, which again is flawed. Viewing things in terms of class, we believe that the proletariat must liberate itself first from bourgeois exploitation and then free humanity from capitalism and its societal basis (money, classes, the state, wage labor, the law of value, etc.), now useless and in its decadent phase.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

This is somewhat wrong. While you are right, and there are some "post-left" anarchists that think class analysis is flawed, most anarchists do "speak" of the proletariat and it's exploitation by the bourgeoisie. Bakunin did, Kropotkin did, etc.

You misunderstand, I am refering to the marxists fixation with the working class and I am saying that anarchism is a broader movement


You didn't say it outright, but it seems you are implying that Marxists are against the "liberation" of all of humanity, which again is flawed. Viewing things in terms of class, we believe that the proletariat must liberate itself first from bourgeois exploitation and then free humanity from capitalism and its societal basis (money, classes, the state, wage labor, the law of value, etc.), now useless and in its decadent phase.

Thats what I mean, marxist fixation with proletariat.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Thats what I mean, marxist fixation with proletariat.
How is it a fixation? Under capitalism, there are two primary classes, workers and owners, and the former is oppressed for the benefit of the latter.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

You misunderstand, I am refering to the marxists fixation with the working class and I am saying that anarchism is a broader movement



Thats what I mean, marxist fixation with proletariat.

What do you find problematic about a class analysis of society?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

What do you find problematic about a class analysis of society?

The dogmatism of people who associate with it.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

The dogmatism of people who assciate with it.

Can you give me some arguments instead of one liners dodging the question?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

The dogmatism of people who assciate with it.
I know a lot of class struggle anarchists. The idea that class struggle and anarchism are separate is an odd one.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

I know a lot of class struggle anarchists. The idea that class struggle and anarchism are separate is an odd one.

They are not separate, but marxists have a much bigger fixation with it.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

They are not separate, but marxists have a much bigger fixation with it.

Please expand on your argument.

EDIT: Most anarchists have absolutely no problem with a class analysis of society, and in fact embrace it as much as Marxists. I would like you to explain what you believe to be the flaws of a class analysis of society.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I believe that class analysis is the best basis upon which to understand history, economics, society etcetera despite that sad failures of the 20th century revolutions. Actually, to my mind the nexus of those failures was the substitution of the party in place of the class. In other words, the errors stemmed not from class analysis but from ignoring class analysis, from a fetishization of the cadres and the party as a whole.

[JPSartre12]

This is interesting to note - there are anarchists that subscribe to a class analysis of society, but classism seems to be less of a major philosophical tenant for anarchists than for Marxists.

Is there a sort of "grey area" between anarchism and Marxism, where the ideas of the two meet? Say, a form of "libertarian" Marxism?

[Red Enemy]

You don't need a tendency. A tendency is just one way of describing your beliefs once you have reached them.

Some good Marxists to check out would be Dunayevskaya and Lukacs.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

This is interesting to note - there are anarchists that subscribe to a class analysis of society, but classism seems to be less of a major philosophical tenant for anarchists than for Marxists.

Is there a sort of "grey area" between anarchism and Marxism, where the ideas of the two meet? Say, a form of "libertarian" Marxism?

1. Most anarchists generally put as much emphasis on class and class struggle as Marxists.

2. It could be argued that Council Communism is anarchism with more Marxist rhetoric. Again, you could say libertarian Marxism if you agree with the libertarian/authoritarian dichotomy (which I believe is flawed, but that is becoming an annoying and reoccurring topic on revleft and is being discussed in another thread that I think you started actually).

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Is there a sort of "grey area" between anarchism and Marxism, where the ideas of the two meet? Say, a form of "libertarian" Marxism?
Most Marxists and anarchists will say no, but Guérin believed there could be, and I have no problem describing myself as such.

[La Guaneña]

Cheap shot from the ML, frankly. Guess the thread could have lived without it.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

What would you recommend I do at this point?

Read more Bakunin (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/index.htm).

join or die (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrectionary_anarchism)

[JPSartre12]

Most Marxists and anarchists will say no

Why is that?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Why is that?
Marxists vs. anarchists is the longest running leftist tendency war.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Two of Guérin's relevant texts:

Libertarian Marxism? (http://libcom.org/library/libertarian-marxism)

Towards a Libertarian Communism (http://libcom.org/library/towards-libertarian-communism-daniel-guerin)

[JPSartre12]

Marxists vs. anarchists is the longest running leftist tendency war.

Why?


Two of Guérin's relevant texts:

Thanks. I'll read them as soon as possible.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Why?

Because Bakunin and Marx hated each other.

[Geiseric]

Because Bakunin wanted to form a conspiracy group centered around himself. This is old news though.

Read The Transitional Program, it has a perspective we can apply to today's political situation, which I found invaluable. Also read Left Communism: An Infantile Disorder by Lenin, it pretty much debunks anything Left Communists have to say about parliamentarism.

[Prometeo liberado]

A new tendency? No, what you need is a new Holiday card available only at the non-political thread.:ohmy:

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Paul Mattick has some very interesting and, I believe, relevant writing and recently he's been my main theoretical influence. In my opinion he's well worth checking out if only for his excellent deconstruction of Keynes and his understanding of Crisis.

[Blake's Baby]

Why?
...

Because we're authoritarian (=Marx spoiled Bakunin's intrigues) and they're petty-bourgeois (=Proudhon was a watchmaker). Or something.

More heat than light I think. In practice, most anarchist organisations accept a class analysis of society, there has been constant traffic of miltants from Anarchism to Marxism and vice versa, many organisations have been founded over the years that have taken from both currents, anarchists and Marxists have worked together in revolutionary organisations and situations (not least the early stages of the revolution in Russia), etc.

But for most Marxists I think, 'Libertarian Marxism' generally means 'Marxists that Anarchists are prepared to tolerate' (which in turn generally means 'Marxists who are critical of the Bolsheviks').

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Why?

Because anarchism is libertarian and marxism is authoritarian.

Also, I will clarify what I think of class analysis. I accept class analysis, but I do not use it very often because I feel that there is on such a thing as a class interest, and to say that socialism is in the interests of the proletariat as a class seems to me like speculation. I have seen, for example, Tim Cornelis here on revleft, defend that socialism was also in the interests of the petty bourgeosie, and most replies he had were of marxists saying "Oh, but Marx said it was not in the interests of the bourgeosie!".

[Blake's Baby]

It's in the interests of the petty bourgeoisie in the same way that it's in the interests of the big bourgeoisie or the aristocracy. It's in the interests of every human being to live in a society without war, economic competition etc.

It's not specifically in the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie, a class whose main 'interest' is being able to pursue profit with as little governmental interference as possible.

[Art Vandelay]

Because anarchism is libertarian and marxism is authoritarian.

Also, I will clarify what I think of class analysis. I accept class analysis, but I do not use it very often because I feel that there is on such a thing as a class interest, and to say that socialism is in the interests of the proletariat as a class seems to me like speculation. I have seen, for example, Tim Cornelis here on revleft, defend that socialism was also in the interests of the petty bourgeosie, and most replies he had were of marxists saying "Oh, but Marx said it was not in the interests of the bourgeosie!".

OP, step #1 to gaining a better understanding of Marxism or anarchism (whichever you choose), is to not listen to this guy.

In all honesty, the people giving the best advice in this thread, are those who are telling you to not focus on studying a particular tendency or theorist. You can get alright summary's on revleft, depending on who you are talking to, but it is not a substitute for reading first hand texts. Some authors I'd look into to begin with as far as Marxism, economics, or Materialism goes would be: Lenin (state and revolution), Marx: (wage labor and capital), Trotsky (their morals and Ours), Plekhanov (essays on the theory of materialism). As for Anarchism I'd suggest looking into a guy called Max Stirner, even though I'm a Marxist, I still love Stirner and he helps me alot in my life. Other than him, maybe check out the ABC's of anarchism.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Stirner's great, but not for someone looking for anarchist politics.
Malatesta summarized the anarchism of his day quite simply in his book "At the Cafe". It's in dialogue form, and it's pretty entertaining.

[Blake's Baby]

I like Berkman. And Kropotkin (pre-1914 at least). And Goldman. And Maximov. And occasionally, Makhno and Arshinov.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Stirner? :blink:

[Manic Impressive]

I'd suggest looking into a guy called Max Stirner, even though I'm a Marxist, I still love Stirner and he helps me alot in my life.
That explains a lot....

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Just be a non-tendency, I've yet to find a single school of thought that I feel has all the answers, I think you can change your position on any given subject or area based on your personal experiences and observations.
The only constant, I suppose, is that you be against the capitalist system; how it is defeated / replaced or what have you is always up for debate on some level.

That's my 2 cents, for what it's worth (..about 1.5 cents in Euros :D)

[Zealot]

and at the same time disliking the ideas of Marxist-Leninism (mostly due to things such as "socialism in one country", because I'm very much an internationalist).

What would you recommend I do at this point?

Marxism-Leninism is internationalist.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

OP, step #1 to gaining a better understanding of Marxism or anarchism (whichever you choose), is to not listen to this guy.

As if listening to you would give the guy some better understanding of the world arround him.
I think a good way of understanding society is through reflection, through philosophy. Science has you make experiments to prove hypothesis and see if they are true, but science has a bad habit of not questioning itself. In the end what you need is a nice mix of philosophy and science.


In all honesty, the people giving the best advice in this thread, are those who are telling you to not focus on studying a particular tendency or theorist.

And then:


Some authors I'd look into to begin with as far as Marxism, economics, or Materialism goes would be: Lenin (state and revolution), Marx: (wage labor and capital), Trotsky (their morals and Ours), Plekhanov (essays on the theory of materialism). As for Anarchism I'd suggest looking into a guy called Max Stirner, even though I'm a Marxist, I still love Stirner and he helps me alot in my life. Other than him, maybe check out the ABC's of anarchism.

So you first say it is better to tell him to not accept any tendency, and then you tell him to read up on certain tendencies.
Contradiction?

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Why?



Thanks. I'll read them as soon as possible.

I personally think the anarchist views on authority, like theRedAnarchist23 has, and the state is ridiculous.
The anti-authoritarians constantly use false dichotomies like democracy vs authority. They forget that there should be asked "Democracy for what class?" and "Authority against what class?"
Authority against the bourgeoisie and authority against proletarians are not the same things, but the anti-authorians don't get that because they use class-analysis as a method. It therefore does not surprise me that TRA23 said that he doesn't use class-analysis very often at all. If he'd actually accepted class-analysis, he'd know that the whole of our society should be given a class-analysis.
Marxists see the state as a tool of class-oppression. Marxists end goal is the abolition of the state, but we admit that this can only happen when classes don't exist anymore. The anarchists on the other hand have the goal of destroying all forms of the state immediately after revolution, this is an extremely idealist view. The bourgeoisie still exists and therefore should be oppressed by the proletariat, using the state. The proletarian state will look entirely different from the bureaucratic bourgeois state, even though the anti-authoritarians will have you believe that they're the same thing thus again disregarding class-analysis.
The differences between anarchism and marxism have been greatly explained by Lenin in his work state and revolution. He says that: "The distinction between Marxists and the anarchists is this: (1) The former, while aiming at the complete abolition of the state, recognize that this aim can only be achieved after classes have been abolished by the socialist revolution, as the result of the establishment of socialism, which leads to the withering away of the state. The latter want to abolish he state completely overnight, not understanding the conditions under which the state can be abolished. (2) The former recognize that after the proletariat has won political power it must completely destroy the old state machine and replace it by a new one consisting of an organization of the armed workers, after the type of the Commune. The latter, while insisting on the destruction of the state machine, have a very vague idea of what the proletariat will put in its place and how it will use its revolutionary power. The anarchists even deny that the revolutionary proletariat should use the state power, they reject its revolutionary dictatorship. (3) The former demand that the proletariat be trained for revolution by utilizing the present state. The anarchists reject this."(V.I. Lenin, the State and Revolution)

The greatest critique, although it has been overused, of anti-authoritarians has been given by Friedrich Engels in this small text: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

I have to admit that TRA23 is probably the worst anarchist on this place and that he should not be seen as the standard anarchists, there are anarchists who, unlike TRA23, are able to say things that aren't complete non-sense.
However, I still see anarchism as just another form of liberalism.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

So you first say it is better to tell him to not accept any tendency, and then you tell him to read up on certain tendencies.
Contradiction?

Ummm.....how exactly is it a contradiction to read from a variety of different thinkers and not accept a tendency?

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Also, I will clarify what I think of class analysis. I accept class analysis, but I do not use it very often because I feel that there is on such a thing as a class interest

You don't think there is something as class interest? So, you don't believe that the bourgeoisie have their own agenda to maintain their power and suppress and exploit the proletariat? Why is it so hard to believe that a group of individuals, standing in the same relationship to production, will have their own interests that they will defend?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Its the thrid time I try to post this, and every time I am about to finish my cat decides to put her little paw on top of the off button of my computer, which causes all the things I wrote to disapear.


The anti-authoritarians constantly use false dichotomies like democracy vs authority. They forget that there should be asked "Democracy for what class?" and "Authority against what class?"

If you had been paying attention you would realise that I never used authority/democracy dichotomy, I use authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy. Democracy is usualy associated with parlaimentary republic.


Authority against the bourgeoisie and authority against proletarians are not the same things, but the anti-authorians don't get that because they use class-analysis as a method.


It therefore does not surprise me that TRA23 said that he doesn't use class-analysis very often at all. If he'd actually accepted class-analysis, he'd know that the whole of our society should be given a class-analysis.

This is what makes marxist theory so boring, you always say the same things with complicated words and big text. See this: http://www.pcp.pt/programa-do-pcp , it was the program of the portuguese communist party for last year's elections, and as you can see it is big an difficult to read.
I have already explained my problems with class analysis earlier, so if you want go check that.


Marxists see the state as a tool of class-oppression.

The state is made up of many humans minds working together for a common goal, and so it has a will of its own, like a corporation.
You say that the relation between the state and the ruling class is like the relation between a builder and a hammer. I see that the relation between the state and the ruling class is symbiosis, not servitude. Without the state the ruling class cannot exist, and without the ruling class the state cannot exist, symbiosis.


Marxists end goal is the abolition of the state, but we admit that this can only happen when classes don't exist anymore.

So you support my idea of symbiosis. The interesting thing is that symbiosis only occurs between living beings, which supports my idea that the state has a will of its own. So your marxist ideas actualy add to mine.


The anarchists on the other hand have the goal of destroying all forms of the state immediately after revolution, this is an extremely idealist view.

True anarchist do not betray freedom for victory.
We see that the removal of the state is the first step in liberation, and is the first thing that is done in revolutions, after that comes the more complicated process of colectivisation and expropriation. We see that maintaining the state alive is sacrificing freedom, because if you do not end the state it will not let you reach your goals.


The bourgeoisie still exists and therefore should be oppressed by the proletariat, using the state.

If you think colectivisation is opression you are not using the authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy, because colectivisation is libertarian, but like to use class analysis.
It does not take a state to colectivise, since the state does not do anything but opress and tell its servants to work for it, it takes people to collectivise, not a state. It is the people who must colectivise (notice that in my language people "pessoas" does not have anything to do with class and means the ordinary man) property, not the state, because the state is powerless without the people.


The proletarian state will look entirely different from the bureaucratic bourgeois state, even though the anti-authoritarians will have you believe that they're the same thing thus again disregarding class-analysis.

Like it was in the USSR? And like it was in every other marxist-leninst revolution?


The differences between anarchism and marxism have been greatly explained by Lenin in his work state and revolution. He says that: "The distinction between Marxists and the anarchists is this: (1) The former, while aiming at the complete abolition of the state, recognize that this aim can only be achieved after classes have been abolished by the socialist revolution, as the result of the establishment of socialism, which leads to the withering away of the state. The latter want to abolish he state completely overnight, not understanding the conditions under which the state can be abolished. (2) The former recognize that after the proletariat has won political power it must completely destroy the old state machine and replace it by a new one consisting of an organization of the armed workers, after the type of the Commune. The latter, while insisting on the destruction of the state machine, have a very vague idea of what the proletariat will put in its place and how it will use its revolutionary power. The anarchists even deny that the revolutionary proletariat should use the state power, they reject its revolutionary dictatorship. (3) The former demand that the proletariat be trained for revolution by utilizing the present state. The anarchists reject this."(V.I. Lenin, the State and Revolution)

Lenin was a politician who completely betrayed for political power. The USSR is the best example of how the state cannot be used as a weapon, even though there are many more examples of this.


The greatest critique, although it has been overused, of anti-authoritarians has been given by Friedrich Engels in this small text: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm




I have to admit that TRA23 is probably the worst anarchist on this place and that he should not be seen as the standard anarchists, there are anarchists who, unlike TRA23, are able to say things that aren't complete non-sense.

Just because I am the only anarchist who is not afraid of saying what he believes in, even if the others would think bad of him.


However, I still see anarchism as just another form of liberalism.

Liberalism? You mean libertarianism! Liberalism is right-wing, but libertarianism is neither, it is the oposite of authoritarianism.
You marxists do not care for individual liberty, and that is one of the main things that separates the anarchists from the marxists.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Ummm.....how exactly is it a contradiction to read from a variety of different thinkers and not accept a tendency?

It seems I misunderstood 9mm's intentions.


You don't think there is something as class interest? So, you don't believe that the bourgeoisie have their own agenda to maintain their power and suppress and exploit the proletariat? Why is it so hard to believe that a group of individuals, standing in the same relationship to production, will have their own interests that they will defend?

There is class interest, but it is not as strict as the marxists make it out to be.
The bourgeoisie is a big class, and many of the bourgeosie don't have much influence over the state. Today the middle class is disapearing because of the crisis. The state does give the most importance to the interests of the capitalists, or higher bourgeosie, but the lower bourgeosie gets hurt by it.
What I mean is, you say that communism is in the interests of the working class, yet some of the working class dislike communism, and some of the lower bourgeosie like communism, strange because it is not within their class interests.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

It seems I misunderstood 9mm's intentions.

Gotcha, that happens to me all the time when I get on here baked as shit, lol.


There is class interest, but it is not as strict as the marxists make it out to be.

I would like you to expand on this, not because I necessarily disagree (I do as of right now), but because this could be an interesting discussion for another thread or something apart of this thread.


The bourgeoisie is a big class, and many of the bourgeosie don't have much influence over the state.

I completely disagree with this. The bourgeoisie is a small class, they are a significant minority of the population. I think they have great influence over the state. Their state has always defended their class rule, and will continue to do so as long as it exists. This is something, I am pretty sure, the majority of anarchists agree with.


The state does give the most importance to the interests of the capitalists, or higher bourgeosie, but the lower bourgeosie gets hurt by it.

The "lower" bourgeoisie may be put behind, so to speak, the "higher" bourgeoisie interests, but they are not "hurt" by it at all, the still benefit greatly.


What I mean is, you say that communism is in the interests of the working class, yet some of the working class dislike communism, and some of the lower bourgeosie like communism, strange because it is not within their class interests.

I disagree with this greatly as well. I am from the working class and embrace revolutionary communism, and the only other leftists I know (one an anarchist, two Impossibilists, and another left communist) are all from working class backgrounds. No left tendency is a majority among the working class.

[La Guaneña]

Its the thrid time I try to post this, and every time I am about to finish my cat decides to put her little paw on top of the off button of my computer, which causes all the things I wrote to disapear.



If you had been paying attention you would realise that I never used authority/democracy dichotomy, I use authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy. Democracy is usualy associated with parlaimentary republic.


Yet, this libertarian/authoritarian is still based on a moralist view that authority in always "bad". This is where your neglect to apply a class analysis starts to affect your theories. Authority should be in the hands of the workers, therefore being a liberating force.



This is what makes marxist theory so boring, you always say the same things with complicated words and big text. See this: http://www.pcp.pt/programa-do-pcp , it was the program of the portuguese communist party for last year's elections, and as you can see it is big an difficult to read.
I have already explained my problems with class analysis earlier, so if you want go check that.

So, what did you expect? Cute infographs and animations, along with a video with a bunch of people repeating the final words in motivating phrases? I agree that many times some organizations go over the top with complication, but some amount of technical language and previous reading are necessary.


The state is made up of many humans minds working together for a common goal, and so it has a will of its own, like a corporation.
You say that the relation between the state and the ruling class is like the relation between a builder and a hammer. I see that the relation between the state and the ruling class is symbiosis, not servitude. Without the state the ruling class cannot exist, and without the ruling class the state cannot exist, symbiosis.

And by some sort of weird coincidence, "the will of it's own" that the State has was always holding up the interests of it's ruling class. The State has always been some sort of tool for one class to impose it's interests on another. The slave states held up the interests of the slave masters, the feudal states of the aristocracy, and the bourgeois states hold up who's interests?


So you support my idea of symbiosis. The interesting thing is that symbiosis only occurs between living beings, which supports my idea that the state has a will of its own. So your marxist ideas actualy add to mine.


I though only hardcore liberals applied biological concepts to social ones...


True anarchist do not betray freedom for victory.
We see that the removal of the state is the first step in liberation, and is the first thing that is done in revolutions, after that comes the more complicated process of colectivisation and expropriation. We see that maintaining the state alive is sacrificing freedom, because if you do not end the state it will not let you reach your goals.

When we talk about some workers state, it's something really different from a bourgeois one. I think reading the big texts might do some good.



If you think colectivisation is opression you are not using the authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy, because colectivisation is libertarian, but like to use class analysis.
It does not take a state to colectivise, since the state does not do anything but opress and tell its servants to work for it, it takes people to collectivise, not a state. It is the people who must colectivise (notice that in my language people "pessoas" does not have anything to do with class and means the ordinary man) property, not the state, because the state is powerless without the people.

Collectivisation is the opression of the interests of the classes opposed to it. It is an authoritarian act commited by the proletariat and peasants against the bourgeoise. It is a liberating act for us, but opressive to the rich land owners.



Like it was in the USSR? And like it was in every other marxist-leninst revolution?



Lenin was a politician who completely betrayed for political power. The USSR is the best example of how the state cannot be used as a weapon, even though there are many more examples of this.

How did Lenin betray who for political power? And the revolution was victorious in Russia, it's defeat came in other places.







Just because I am the only anarchist who is not afraid of saying what he believes in, even if the others would think bad of him.



Liberalism? You mean libertarianism! Liberalism is right-wing, but libertarianism is neither, it is the oposite of authoritarianism.
You marxists do not care for individual liberty, and that is one of the main things that separates the anarchists from the marxists.


The reason why many marxists call some anarchists liberals is because of the fetichization of democracy, liberty and other values associated with liberalism, along with many doses of lack of class analysis.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Its the thrid time I try to post this, and every time I am about to finish my cat decides to put her little paw on top of the off button of my computer, which causes all the things I wrote to disappear.

Maybe your cat wants to stop you from posting such rubbish, can't say I blame him.


If you had been paying attention you would realise that I never used authority/democracy dichotomy, I use authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy. Democracy is usualy associated with parlaimentary republic.

Which is still a false dichotomy for the reasons I gave in my previous post, it forgets the class-part of the argument.


This is what makes marxist theory so boring, you always say the same things with complicated words and big text. See this: http://www.pcp.pt/programa-do-pcp , it was the program of the portuguese communist party for last year's elections, and as you can see it is big an difficult to read.

Well, I can't say I care for the program of some obscure party.
It is clear that you are unable to critique and use the argument that Marxist theory is boring as an excuse. In your mind marxists theory is completely discredited because the Portugese Communist Party has a program that is too boring for your taste. If your critique of marxism is only based on it being boring, please stop wasting my time.


I have already explained my problems with class analysis earlier, so if you want go check that.

If you'd actually read my post you would've seen that I have checked your problems with it and you'd understand that I think your argument is bollocks.


The state is made up of many humans minds working together for a common goal, and so it has a will of its own, like a corporation.
What?

You say that the relation between the state and the ruling class is like the relation between a builder and a hammer.
Where do I say that?


I see that the relation between the state and the ruling class is symbiosis, not servitude. Without the state the ruling class cannot exist, and without the ruling class the state cannot exist, symbiosis.

I'm not opposed to the Proletariat as ruling class. But when the Proletariat rules with a state they destroy the Bourgeois class and themselves as a class.


So you support my idea of symbiosis. The interesting thing is that symbiosis only occurs between living beings, which supports my idea that the state has a will of its own. So your marxist ideas actualy add to mine.

Not really, your idiotic "theory" that a state has its own mind (ha!) is idealist non-sense. My marxist ideas do not add up with your idiotic ideas at all.


True anarchist do not betray freedom for victory.

Victory for the proletariat is the first step towards "freedom". So saying you do not betray freedom (Which is freedom for the bourgeoisie, because the proletariat has now freedom in capitalist society) is just betrayal of the revolution and the proletariat.


We see that the removal of the state is the first step in liberation, and is the first thing that is done in revolutions, after that comes the more complicated process of colectivisation and expropriation. We see that maintaining the state alive is sacrificing freedom, because if you do not end the state it will not let you reach your goals.

Sacrificing the freedom of what class? I see the state ruled by the Proletariat as a needed means of destroying bourgeois freedom and bourgeois democracy and achieving freedom for the Proletariat. If you talk about sacrificing freedom you talk about sacrificing bourgeois freedom, which is not a freedom that means anything to my class.


If you think colectivisation is opression you are not using the authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy, because colectivisation is libertarian, but like to use class analysis.

No collectivization is an authoritarian action, done by the proletariat. I do think collectivization is oppression of the ruling classes.


It does not take a state to colectivise, since the state does not do anything but opress and tell its servants to work for it, it takes people to collectivise, not a state. It is the people who must colectivise (notice that in my language people "pessoas" does not have anything to do with class and means the ordinary man) property, not the state, because the state is powerless without the people.

Remember how I said that the proletarian state has nothing in common with the bourgeois state? Yet you are comparing the two. You don't even try to listen.


Like it was in the USSR? And like it was in every other marxist-leninst revolution?

I don't think I've recently claimed anything like that.


Lenin was a politician who completely betrayed for political power. The USSR is the best example of how the state cannot be used as a weapon, even though there are many more examples of this.

Well, if you say so....


Just because I am the only anarchist who is not afraid of saying what he believes in, even if the others would think bad of him.

You should be more afraid of what you say, maybe think first for starters.


Liberalism? You mean libertarianism! Liberalism is right-wing, but libertarianism is neither, it is the oposite of authoritarianism.
You marxists do not care for individual liberty, and that is one of the main things that separates the anarchists from the marxists.

Who says I don't see you as a right winger? Since you like bourgeois freedom so much, I don't see anything that would indicate you're left wing. You are nothing different from the liberals who are against the state but who keep screaming about individual liberty. So I did mean liberalism.
You are again using the false liberty/authority dichotomy.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Gotcha, that happens to me all the time when I get on here baked as shit, lol.

So that's why you never seem to understand what I say.


I would like you to expand on this, not because I necessarily disagree (I do as of right now), but because this could be an interesting discussion for another thread or something apart of this thread.

The people in a certain class do not necessarily behave according to their class interests.


I completely disagree with this. The bourgeoisie is a small class, they are a significant minority of the population. I think they have great influence over the state. Their state has always defended their class rule, and will continue to do so as long as it exists. This is something, I am pretty sure, the majority of anarchists agree with.

It is smaller than the working class, but that is not my point. What I am trying to say is that the bourgeosie is composed of people with very different ammounts of money. So what I mean is that the lower bourgeosie might have interests similar to the working class, since both have a similar influence over the state. The state only cares about the big capitalists.


The "lower" bourgeoisie may be put behind, so to speak, the "higher" bourgeoisie interests, but they are not "hurt" by it at all, the still benefit greatly.

I think you are ignoring the crisis. In this crisis the banks take all the money from the working class, and the lower bourgeosie. The crisis makes the pety bourgeois turn into proletarian.


I disagree with this greatly as well. I am from the working class and embrace revolutionary communism, and the only other leftists I know (one an anarchist, two Impossibilists, and another left communist) are all from working class backgrounds. No left tendency is a majority among the working class.

Well said. I am a student, but my parents are working class, and I will probably never find a job when I finish school (because of the crisis), and I am anarchist, even though some marxists love to say anarchism is pety bourgeois.

[GoddessCleoLover]

[QUOTE=


Well said. I am a student, but my parents are working class, and I will probably never find a job when I finish school (because of the crisis), and I am anarchist, even though some marxists love to say anarchism is pety bourgeois.[/QUOTE]

IMO anarchism has a strong appeal among petit-bourgeois youth, but I have two words for anyone who calls himself a Marxist who categorically condemns anarchism as petit-bourgeois; Buenaventura Durruti.

[blake 3:17]

Dudes -- I was a USFIer in a Luxemburgist group for years.

I think she and Trotsky were Greater German and Greater Russian chauvinists.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Yet, this libertarian/authoritarian is still based on a moralist view that authority in always "bad". This is where your neglect to apply a class analysis starts to affect your theories. Authority should be in the hands of the workers, therefore being a liberating force.

This is a problem between anarchists and marxists, it is like we are talking different languages. The authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy is not based on classes, so saying that putting authority in the hands of the workers in order for them to liberate themselves makes no sense if you use this dichotomy. What you can say is that workers emancipation is libertarian since its goal is the liberation of the workers from wage slavery.


So, what did you expect? Cute infographs and animations, along with a video with a bunch of people repeating the final words in motivating phrases?

The PCTP-MRPP, our maoist party, did that, but they had the internationale playing on the background.


I agree that many times some organizations go over the top with complication, but some amount of technical language and previous reading are necessary.

You are forcing the people who do not have enough money to feed their families to go get a book and read it so that they can understand that you want to take them out of misery?


And by some sort of weird coincidence, "the will of it's own" that the State has was always holding up the interests of it's ruling class.

And is it not a wierd conincidence that the working class always works to maintain the state?


The State has always been some sort of tool for one class to impose it's interests on another. The slave states held up the interests of the slave masters, the feudal states of the aristocracy, and the bourgeois states hold up who's interests?

Seems to me that the slave masters, the aristocracy, and the bourgeosie are all the same, all of them are exploiters. To try to make the state work for the proletariat does not work because that is not how states work. Its like trying to have a lion cooperate with the gazele.


I though only hardcore liberals applied biological concepts to social ones...

And only an idiot would ignore the fact that there is symbiosis between the state and the ruling class, it even says so in marxist theory.

Aqui temos um caso de fanatismo do partido, ou neste caso apenas fanatismo marxista.


When we talk about some workers state, it's something really different from a bourgeois one. I think reading the big texts might do some good.

Soviet Union, that is all.


Collectivisation is the opression of the interests of the classes opposed to it. It is an authoritarian act commited by the proletariat and peasants against the bourgeoise. It is a liberating act for us, but opressive to the rich land owners.

You clearly do not know how to use the libertarian/authoritarian dichotomy. If you knew you would see that colectivisation is a libertarian act, and maintaining a system based on opression is authoritarian. You can say that colectivisation opresses a class, but you must see that it liberates so many more.


How did Lenin betray who for political power?

His ideals. I forgot to write that because of cat.


And the revolution was victorious in Russia, it's defeat came in other places.

So you think that having a party opress all of the working class under the pretext that it is a revolutionary state, is a step forward towards liberation?


The reason why many marxists call some anarchists liberals is because of the fetichization of democracy, liberty and other values associated with liberalism, along with many doses of lack of class analysis.

Honestly, the expression class analysis is becoming really anoying now.
I can start to call all marxist-leninists: left-wing totalitarian supporters of one-party dictatorship over the working class, because that would perfectly describe you.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Maybe your cat wants to stop you from posting such rubbish, can't say I blame him.

Again you pay no attention. If you had payed attention you would see that I wrote "her", so the cat is a female.


Which is still a false dichotomy for the reasons I gave in my previous post, it forgets the class-part of the argument.

This just tells me how fanatic you are, you would even go as far as saying that anything that Marx did not say is completely false.
Marxist-leninist fanatism.


Well, I can't say I care for the program of some obscure party.
It is clear that you are unable to critique and use the argument that Marxist theory is boring as an excuse. In your mind marxists theory is completely discredited because the Portugese Communist Party has a program that is too boring for your taste. If your critique of marxism is only based on it being boring, please stop wasting my time.

Now you misunderstand. I used the program of the portuguese communist party as an example of how you fanatism makes people turn away from marxism.


If you'd actually read my post you would've seen that I have checked your problems with it and you'd understand that I think your argument is bollocks.

Well, I also think your argument is completely bollocks, so I guess we are even.


What?

You do not understand how organisations composed of many people have minds of their own because of the people in them?


Where do I say that?

Its implicit.


I'm not opposed to the Proletariat as ruling class. But when the Proletariat rules with a state they destroy the Bourgeois class and themselves as a class.

You forget that the state cannot be used like that, as it has been proven many times by all marxist-leninist revolutions.


Not really, your idiotic "theory" that a state has its own mind (ha!) is idealist non-sense. My marxist ideas do not add up with your idiotic ideas at all.

Maybe you are just too dogmatic to even analyse an idea that has bases on your own ideas.


Victory for the proletariat is the first step towards "freedom". So saying you do not betray freedom (Which is freedom for the bourgeoisie, because the proletariat has now freedom in capitalist society) is just betrayal of the revolution and the proletariat.

What? That I was not able to understand.
I think what you are trying to say is that anarchists don't want to use a state and therefore are enemies of the working class, but that does not make sense.
What I meant when I said that is that marxist-leninist want to sacrifice the freedom the working class gained after the revolution with abolishing the state (which is what always happens in any revolution)by having another state replace the one that was overthrown, under the impression that it will do your will and not turn against you and make you work for it for the benefit of a new ruling class. You theory ignores the fact that all ruling classes are exploiters, they have never been the exploited, because the state can only opress, and its need help to opress, so it will get help from a class that also wants to opress for its own interests, and so symbiosis happens.


Sacrificing the freedom of what class?

The freedom that the working class gain after taking down government with the revolution, you would see it all taken away.


state ruled by the Proletariat

Again, the proletariat are not exploiters, they are the exploited, so allying the exploited to the main organ of opression does not work, since the state can only opress if it has someone to do its bidding (the exploited).
So your state comes to power, and what then? The state needs someone to execute its command, so who will do this? If the workers are doing this then they are being controled by the state. And even if the proletariat take control and a state miraculously acts as if it is a hammer, wouldn't that make the bourgeosie the exploited? And if that would make the bourgeosie as the exploited would that not make the workers the new exploiters?
In the end what happens is only a switch of places.


as a needed means of destroying bourgeois freedom and bourgeois democracy and achieving freedom for the Proletariat. If you talk about sacrificing freedom you talk about sacrificing bourgeois freedom, which is not a freedom that means anything to my class.

If you understood libertarian/authoritarian dichotomy, and remembered that I use it, you would realise that I beleive freedom for the bourgeosie is authoritarian, because it means slavery for the workers. Liberation for the working class and taking away the priviledges of the bourgeosie is libertarian, because no class is enslaved by another, they are just made equals.


No collectivization is an authoritarian action, done by the proletariat. I do think collectivization is oppression of the ruling classes.

Colectivisation is a libertarian act since it is the distributing of property through all the people who need, not just the people inside a class who need it. No person is enslaved in colectivisation, they are just made equal, and equality is libertarian.


Remember how I said that the proletarian state has nothing in common with the bourgeois state? Yet you are comparing the two. You don't even try to listen.

I listened, and maybe if you had explained what you think a proletarian state is I would have listened better.


I don't think I've recently claimed anything like that.

You have yet to explain what you think a proletarian state is.


You should be more afraid of what you say, maybe think first for starters.

I give every word I say much thought before I write it, but you seem to think I don't. Probably your dogmatism prevents you from seeing that there are things that Marx did not say and yet those things are true.


You are again using the false liberty/authority dichotomy.

Why is it false? Did Marx say so?

[Art Vandelay]

That explains a lot....

Yawn, Ratty trying to make some unfounded jab at a 'Leninist' for being elitist or some other of his nonsense.

[Art Vandelay]

As if listening to you would give the guy some better understanding of the world arround him.

When my advice is to read from a variety of differing and opposing perspectives, yes it would.


I think a good way of understanding society is through reflection, through philosophy.

Philosophy is to the real world, what masturbation is to sex. - Marx.

Philosophy has it's place, but don't overstate it.


Science has you make experiments to prove hypothesis and see if they are true, but science has a bad habit of not questioning itself. In the end what you need is a nice mix of philosophy and science.

Marxism is scientific paradigm.


So you first say it is better to tell him to not accept any tendency, and then you tell him to read up on certain tendencies.
Contradiction?

Umm, no?

[GoddessCleoLover]

Dudes -- I was a USFIer in a Luxemburgist group for years.

I think she and Trotsky were Greater German and Greater Russian chauvinists.

Rosa Luxemburg made her share of mistakes but when it counted she was on the right side of the barricades. She was right about Karl Kautsky, she predicted years in advance that he would renege on the Revolution. She was right to oppose the war when all of the German SPD party bosses supported the German war effort, not just Kautsky the whole damned bunch. Her critique of the Russian Revolution, which she wrote while in prison still today is an excellent analysis.

Frankly, she was right to express misgivings about the specifics of the Spartacist uprising. Karl Liebknecht's heart was in the right place but organizationally he was far inferior to Lenin. Perhaps her most courageous act was to lead this uprising that she believed was poorly organized and stood little chance of success despite her misgivings because the Revolution need someone of her stature to lead for it to have any chance of success. To cut to the chase, she was intelligent and experienced enough to know that the odds were good that she would be killed and stood with the Revolution anyway. This is why I am proud to support her great legacy.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Most of the tendencies that Revleftians identify with correspond with actual tendencies in the historical labor movement. They weren't thought up in a void, they were connected with an ongoing struggle, and developed out of actual decisions various segments of the labor movement made.
But now, the labor movement is largely gone, and all that is left are books upon books filled with outdated ideology. It makes no sense trying to continue what has already been abandoned. No new labor movement can be constructed from 'Luxemburgism' or any similar tendency, because movements are not built out of ideas, ideas originate out of movements.

Rather than adopting a tendency, work towards re-organizing the labor movement, then form your tendency out of your experiences.
This, although it doesn't hurt to look at the history of the past movements to find out whether or not there is anything to be of use.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Tjis makes his point well, but I agree with Choler that the themes and issues of today and the future are different in specifics from the labor movement but similar in terms of general principles.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

So, when thinking about tendencies, it's probably worth reading The Invisible Committee's L'Appel (The Call en anglais). Their ideas about the party are, if not novel, an interesting re-imagining of autonomist ideas about organizing. Its influence among certain segments of North American anarchists is pretty significant.

Also, vis- this "Marxism/Anarchism Tendency War" bullshit, having been a Marxist among anarchists for many years, I can pretty much reassure you that it exists primarily in the minds of its partisans. Look, for example, to the collaboration between anarchists and the PCR in Montreal's Convergence des Luttes Anticapitalistes (CLAC-Montréal). That shit is real.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Because Bakunin wanted to form a conspiracy group centered around himself. This is old news though.

:rolleyes:

Yes, Bakunin was the Chairman Bob of 19th century Europe; what a silly notion.


Also read Left Communism: An Infantile Disorder by Lenin, it pretty much debunks anything Left Communists have to say about parliamentarism.

Not really.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

However, I still see anarchism as just another form of liberalism.
I'll tell all the class struggle anarchists I know that they're "liberals." Nothing says "liberal" quite like a class struggle to abolish capitalism. :rolleyes:

[Manic Impressive]

Yawn, Ratty trying to make some unfounded jab at a 'Leninist' for being elitist or some other of his nonsense.
How do you get from Stirner to Lenin? :confused:

[Brosa Luxemburg]

So that's why you never seem to understand what I say.

No, don't have that same problem with your posts.


The people in a certain class do not necessarily behave according to their class interests.

I never remember any Marxist claiming a member of the bourgeoisie couldn't be opposed to surplus-value production, the exploitation of the proletariat, and fight for a wageless, stateless, and classless society. A class is a collectivity. Individuals can work within this collectivity, but when we speak of class we are not talking about individuals. The bourgeoisie, as a class, will work to preserve their rule and domination through their dictatorship against the proletariat, while the individual member of the bourgeoisie may be opposed to this domination. We aren't absolutists.


It is smaller than the working class, but that is not my point. What I am trying to say is that the bourgeosie is composed of people with very different ammounts of money. So what I mean is that the lower bourgeosie might have interests similar to the working class, since both have a similar influence over the state.

Different amounts of money, while a quantitative difference, isn't that much of a qualitative difference. Again, the interests of the "big" bourgeoisie will have a great since of urgency than those of the "small" bourgeoisie, but the "small bourgeoisie still gain unless they conflict with the interests of the "big" bourgeoisie. Either way, I completely disagree that the "lower bourgeoisie" have similar interests to that of the working class. While, again, individual members of this group may agree with communist theory, the class as a collectivity of various individuals, has many different interests than that of the proletariat. They do not, at all, have a similar influence over the state.


I think you are ignoring the crisis. In this crisis the banks take all the money from the working class, and the lower bourgeosie. The crisis makes the pety bourgeois turn into proletarian.

Even if this is correct, and I am not saying you are, it doesn't matter. If the petty bourgeoisie join the proletarian, as a class, then their class interests are that of the proletarian.

[Os Cangaceiros]

:rolleyes:

Yes, Bakunin was the Chairman Bob of 19th century Europe; what a silly notion.

It's not the first time Broody has come up with that bullshit, nor is it the first time it's been refuted on this board. I do not consider myself to be an anarchist anymore but I've refuted it personally to him. But I guess ignorance is bliss or something.


Well, I can't say I care for the program of some obscure party.

The Portuguese Communist Party is actually probably the most significant communist party in Europe at the moment, with the possible exception of the KKE.

While that might not be saying much, it's hardly "obscure".

Also: Max Stirner was a pretty cool guy. :sleep:

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

It's not the first time Broody has come up with that bullshit, nor is it the first time it's been refuted on this board. I do not consider myself to be an anarchist anymore but I've refuted it personally to him. But I guess ignorance is bliss or something.



The Portuguese Communist Party is actually probably the most significant communist party in Europe at the moment, with the possible exception of the KKE.

While that might not be saying much, it's hardly "obscure".

Also: Max Stirner was a pretty cool guy. :sleep:

Well, that makes the point he is trying to make fall apart. He said that people aren't interested in big boring Marxist texts, he also did in another thread about that being the reason people go to anarchism, which is really just false if this is the biggest Communist party in Europe.

[La Guaneña]

This is a problem between anarchists and marxists, it is like we are talking different languages. The authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy is not based on classes, so saying that putting authority in the hands of the workers in order for them to liberate themselves makes no sense if you use this dichotomy. What you can say is that workers emancipation is libertarian since its goal is the liberation of the workers from wage slavery.

That was what I was trying to say the whole time. Being against authority is damn stupid, because what marxists mean about authority is that it should be used by the proletariat, for it's own liberation. Authority ain't inherently bad.



The PCTP-MRPP, our maoist party, did that, but they had the internationale playing on the background. You are forcing the people who do not have enough money to feed their families to go get a book and read it so that they can understand that you want to take them out of misery?

It's ok for them to do that in a way to convey information in an easy way. But you can't hope to set a whole party or movement on those flashy posters, inphographs and motivational videos. Not even the fucking Libertarians, who aim at 15 year old lazy rich kids do this.

A party, movement or organization must have a solid theoretical foundation, this is serious shit that we are dealing with.

And I'm not a fucking philantrope, I'm not taking shit out of misery. I want the workers to organize and do it themselves.



And is it not a wierd conincidence that the working class always works to maintain the state?
Seems to me that the slave masters, the aristocracy, and the bourgeosie are all the same, all of them are exploiters. To try to make the state work for the proletariat does not work because that is not how states work. Its like trying to have a lion cooperate with the gazele.

The working class works to produce value. The working class works for the bourgeois, and it's organs, including the state. A state is not a living being with wills of it's own. As you have agreed, the state always serves the interest of it's ruling class.

When the proletariat organizes it's forms of violence to imposte it's class interests over another class, I call it a state. Call it whatever you like.




And only an idiot would ignore the fact that there is symbiosis between the state and the ruling class, it even says so in marxist theory.

Aqui temos um caso de fanatismo do partido, ou neste caso apenas fanatismo marxista.

Yes, and the simbiosis is only with the ruling class. So it's not a coincidence. The State is a tool of the ruling class.



Soviet Union, that is all.

Yeah, read up about the start of the revolutionary period. Than read about the civil war, the 12 foreign countries invading Russia, the faliure of the German Revolution, about how 75% of the population were peasants and not proletarians and how everything actually went better than expected.

Soviet Union, that really is all.



You clearly do not know how to use the libertarian/authoritarian dichotomy. If you knew you would see that colectivisation is a libertarian act, and maintaining a system based on opression is authoritarian. You can say that colectivisation opresses a class, but you must see that it liberates so many more.

That is excactly what I was trying to say the whole time, comrade. It's useless to scream "AUTHORITARIAN" at me. I'm totally for authority, opression and violence, when it comes from the working class and is used to put forward our interests.

Colectivisation is still an authoritarian act to the bourgeois, no matter how liberating it is to workers and peasants. That was my whole point.


His ideals. I forgot to write that because of cat.

Rub it's tummy for me, I love cats.



So you think that having a party opress all of the working class under the pretext that it is a revolutionary state, is a step forward towards liberation?

Nope, the party should be an organ of the working class. It should be it's main weapon.


Honestly, the expression class analysis is becoming really anoying now.
I can start to call all marxist-leninists: left-wing totalitarian supporters of one-party dictatorship over the working class, because that would perfectly describe you.

Class analysis, in this case simply means that it's useless to tax something as libertarian or authoritarian. What matters is what class holds the authority. As long as it's us, I'm fine with that.

Camarada, nunca te chamei de liberal, e nem tenho tal intenção. Grande parte dos meus contatos da minha cidade são de movimentos anarquistas ou auto-gestionários, e sei o quão valiosos são seus esforços. Simplesmente quero amistosamente esclarecer algumas interpretações equivocadas do que são as teorias marxistas da sua parte.

Saudações de um camarada do Brasil.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

Again you pay no attention. If you had payed attention you would see that I wrote "her", so the cat is a female.
Ok.


This just tells me how fanatic you are, you would even go as far as saying that anything that Marx did not say is completely false.
Marxist-leninist fanatism.

Well that's not true, I've attacked homophobic and racist comments by Marx and Engels in the past. Marxism isn't just accepting everything Marx said.


Now you misunderstand. I used the program of the portuguese communist party as an example of how you fanatism makes people turn away from marxism.

Which is funny because it turns out they're the largest organization in Europe calling itself communist. I think that a communist party should have a good theoretical understanding.



Well, I also think your argument is completely bollocks, so I guess we are even.

Well, as an authoritarian this means I'll have to send you to a camp to chop wood. :rolleyes:



You do not understand how organisations composed of many people have minds of their own because of the people in them?

No, because an organization is not a separate being with it's own will and thoughts.


Its implicit.

No, it's just not true.


You forget that the state cannot be used like that, as it has been proven many times by all marxist-leninist revolutions.

So an anarchist organization has never succeeded either. I think it is too easy to judge them on that.


Maybe you are just too dogmatic to even analyse an idea that has bases on your own ideas.

I analyzed it and saw it wasn't based on my ideas.


What? That I was not able to understand.
I think what you are trying to say is that anarchists don't want to use a state and therefore are enemies of the working class, but that does not make sense.
What I meant when I said that is that marxist-leninist want to sacrifice the freedom the working class gained after the revolution with abolishing the state (which is what always happens in any revolution)by having another state replace the one that was overthrown, under the impression that it will do your will and not turn against you and make you work for it for the benefit of a new ruling class. You theory ignores the fact that all ruling classes are exploiters, they have never been the exploited, because the state can only opress, and its need help to opress, so it will get help from a class that also wants to opress for its own interests, and so symbiosis happens.

Well for starters the working class is the own who uses the state. The working class wants to oppress the bourgeoisie because that is a tool for their liberation.



Again, the proletariat are not exploiters, they are the exploited, so allying the exploited to the main organ of opression does not work, since the state can only opress if it has someone to do its bidding (the exploited).
In capitalist society they are indeed exploited. But after the revolution they do not ally with the main organ of oppression, they destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a new state that has nothing in common with the former state and as Engels said can't even be called a state in the former sense of the word. The exploitation, if you want to call it that, is really different from capitalist exploitation of workers.


So your state comes to power, and what then? The state needs someone to execute its command, so who will do this? If the workers are doing this then they are being controled by the state. And even if the proletariat take control and a state miraculously acts as if it is a hammer, wouldn't that make the bourgeosie the exploited? And if that would make the bourgeosie as the exploited would that not make the workers the new exploiters?
In the end what happens is only a switch of places.

So workers who control the state are being controlled by the state?
I don't see how bourgeois rule and proletarian rule is the same.


If you understood libertarian/authoritarian dichotomy, and remembered that I use it, you would realise that I beleive freedom for the bourgeosie is authoritarian, because it means slavery for the workers. Liberation for the working class and taking away the priviledges of the bourgeosie is libertarian, because no class is enslaved by another, they are just made equals.

This is exactly why it is a false dichotomy. Because freedom for the bourgeoisie is something different than freedom for the proletariat. Good! You are finally able to understand that freedom for one class is something different to another class, thus if the proletariat uses authoritarian measures it is "libertarian" for themselves and thus the dichotomy is false.


Colectivisation is a libertarian act since it is the distributing of property through all the people who need, not just the people inside a class who need it. No person is enslaved in colectivisation, they are just made equal, and equality is libertarian.

It is a libertarian act for the proletariat, but a bourgeois sees it as authoritarian because "his" stuff is taken away. Again freedom for one class is authoritarian for another.


I listened, and maybe if you had explained what you think a proletarian state is I would have listened better.

A proletarian state is a means to oppress the bourgeoisie who will fight against the revolution, thus force is needed. This force is done with a state, which is different from the bureaucratic bourgeois state because it is not only the bureaucratic talking club but also a working body. "Representative institutions remain, but there is no parliamentarism here as a special system, as the division of labor between the legislative and the executive, as a privileged position for the deputies." (Lenin) but the representatives have get the same as an average workers, so no privilege, and "All officials, without exception, elected and subject to recall at any time" (Lenin).


I give every word I say much thought before I write it, but you seem to think I don't. Probably your dogmatism prevents you from seeing that there are things that Marx did not say and yet those things are true.

I do think that there are things that Marx didn't address and that we should figure out, because Marxism is not a dogma. I just don't think you're the one that says those things that are true. If you can't deal with critique of the things you say and have to call them dogmatic you might want to reconsider who's being dogmatic.


Why is it false? Did Marx say so?

I don't recall a thing where Marx had anything to say about whether or not your post contains a false dichotomy or not. It is kind of hard for him to say whether it does, being dead and all.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

That was what I was trying to say the whole time. Being against authority is damn stupid, because what marxists mean about authority is that it should be used by the proletariat, for it's own liberation. Authority ain't inherently bad.

We are using different names for things. I think the authority you speak of is the one the workers use in their emanciapation, in that case it is not the same authority I am talking about. I have no problems with workers emancipation and colectivisation, but I do have problems with the use of a state.


A party, movement or organization must have a solid theoretical foundation, this is serious shit that we are dealing with.

Most parties are not revolutionary, for example only 1 of our 3 communist parties claims to be revolutionary, but they only get 1% of votes during elections. The people in my country are tired of governments, they want change not another government, this was proven in the last elections when over 40% of the population did not vote.


And I'm not a fucking philantrope, I'm not taking shit out of misery. I want the workers to organize and do it themselves.

I am in favor of that as well, but I see that a state must not be used for that.


The working class works to produce value. The working class works for the bourgeois, and it's organs, including the state. A state is not a living being with wills of it's own. As you have agreed, the state always serves the interest of it's ruling class.

Doesn't the ruling class protect the state in return?
Even if the state does not have a will of its own, which would only happen if the state was a computer, the state only works with a class of exploiters.


When the proletariat organizes it's forms of violence to imposte it's class interests over another class, I call it a state. Call it whatever you like.

That's not a state, that's just workers emancipation. I see the state as an organ of opression, one which is made up a small group of people who have authority over a large group of people. What you are talking about is not what anarchists call state.
I think that as long as you do not ally to a party and organise the workers without an authoritarian state, then it is alright.


Yes, and the simbiosis is only with the ruling class. So it's not a coincidence. The State is a tool of the ruling class.

Even if the state is a tool, which I do not think it is because it is made up of several minds, the working class can never be the ruling class.


Yeah, read up about the start of the revolutionary period. Than read about the civil war, the 12 foreign countries invading Russia, the faliure of the German Revolution, about how 75% of the population were peasants and not proletarians and how everything actually went better than expected.

Soviet Union, that really is all.

What happened in the USSR was not a success, it was the destruction of the revolution and the emancipation of the working class by the state. The state did not allow the workers to emancipate themselves.


That is excactly what I was trying to say the whole time, comrade. It's useless to scream "AUTHORITARIAN" at me. I'm totally for authority, opression and violence, when it comes from the working class and is used to put forward our interests.

Colectivisation is still an authoritarian act to the bourgeois, no matter how liberating it is to workers and peasants. That was my whole point.

I see an action as libertarian when the goal is liberation or equality, but not when liberation or equality are used as excusses for the actions, the direct consequence of the action must be liberation or equality. I see an action as authoritarian when the goal opression or repression, the direct consequence of those actions must be opression or repression.
That might be confusing when classifying workers emanciaption, because the direct consequences are opression, equality, repression, and liberation, at the same time, so when that happens we must see the end goal, and, because the end goal is liberation and equality, that action is libertarian.
Complicated, right?


Rub it's tummy for me, I love cats.

I have 2 cats, and they don't like it when I touch their tummy, but if I cath them asleep I will do that.
A good way to see if someone is a good person is asking them "Do you like cats?", because someone who does not like cats is obviously not a good person.


Nope, the party should be an organ of the working class. It should be it's main weapon.

Isn't the state an authoritarian organ of centralized administration? If so how can the state be a weapon? The state is only an organ of opression, because in the end everything is done by the working classes.


Class analysis, in this case simply means that it's useless to tax something as libertarian or authoritarian. What matters is what class holds the authority. As long as it's us, I'm fine with that.

It bothers me when a system like anarchism is described as authoritarian because it wants to opress the bourgeosie for workers emancipation, because if we go that way every system that exists is authoritarian.


Camarada, nunca te chamei de liberal, e nem tenho tal intenção. Grande parte dos meus contatos da minha cidade são de movimentos anarquistas ou auto-gestionários, e sei o quão valiosos são seus esforços. Simplesmente quero amistosamente esclarecer algumas interpretações equivocadas do que são as teorias marxistas da sua parte.

Saudações de um camarada do Brasil.

Sem problemas, camarada! É muito provável que toda esta discussão seja apenas um mal-entendido.

[Proukunin]

This is why 'pan-leftism' doesn't work and will probably never, ever work.

Tendency wars, Marxism vs. anarchism, libertarian vs. authoritarian. I'd say don't worry about a tendency. If you know that you are a Communist, then just build your ideas from Communist literature. You don't have to follow one tendency to be a Communist. I, for one, am anarchist, but you don't see me claiming to be a Bakunist-Proudhonist-Goldmanist-Bonannoist-Insurrectionist. Even though I take a lot of my theory and ideas from them.

Just read and then read more and find what you don't like and do like and maybe even try to build your own theories and ideas.

Anarchists are sexier, though..:laugh::laugh::laugh::D

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Well that's not true, I've attacked homophobic and racist comments by Marx and Engels in the past. Marxism isn't just accepting everything Marx said.

We have to question our own ideas many times, if not we become fanatics.


Which is funny because it turns out they're the largest organization in Europe calling itself communist. I think that a communist party should have a good theoretical understanding.

That is actualy not true. The PCP has only 7% of votes, of a population where 40% did not even vote. They are not nearly as big as Os Cangaceiros said.



Well, as an authoritarian this means I'll have to send you to a camp to chop wood. :rolleyes:

Wait what?


No, because an organization is not a separate being with it's own will and thoughts.

An organization is not a separate being, it is made up of many minds, and it is those minds who make the will of the organization.


So an anarchist organization has never succeeded either. I think it is too easy to judge them on that.

Yeah, anarchist organizations have never succeeded, but it was mostly because of enemies who had bigger numbers. Marxist revolutions did not succeed because of the state which stopped the workers from emancipating themselves.


I analyzed it and saw it wasn't based on my ideas.

Yes it is. You beleive the state works for the ruling class, right? You see that the ruling class also works to maintain the state, right?


Well for starters the working class is the own who uses the state. The working class wants to oppress the bourgeoisie because that is a tool for their liberation.

The problem here is not that the workers want to liberate themselves using force against the bourgeosie, the problem is the use of state. A state cannot be used, the state uses the working classes to do its bidding, and the bidding of the ruling class. If the working class becomes the ruling class the state is still going to need someone to do its bidding, and it most be the working class.


In capitalist society they are indeed exploited. But after the revolution they do not ally with the main organ of oppression, they destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a new state that has nothing in common with the former state and as Engels said can't even be called a state in the former sense of the word.

What is this "workers state" like?


The exploitation, if you want to call it that, is really different from capitalist exploitation of workers.

But what we need is not exploitation, what we need is organization.


So workers who control the state are being controlled by the state?

Yeah, strange right?
I have no idea how that works, but it seems to me that it is what you are discribing.


This is exactly why it is a false dichotomy. Because freedom for the bourgeoisie is something different than freedom for the proletariat. Good! You are finally able to understand that freedom for one class is something different to another class, thus if the proletariat uses authoritarian measures it is "libertarian" for themselves and thus the dichotomy is false.



It is a libertarian act for the proletariat, but a bourgeois sees it as authoritarian because "his" stuff is taken away. Again freedom for one class is authoritarian for another.

You know I am still going to use that, right?


A proletarian state is a means to oppress the bourgeoisie who will fight against the revolution, thus force is needed. This force is done with a state, which is different from the bureaucratic bourgeois state because it is not only the bureaucratic talking club but also a working body. "Representative institutions remain, but there is no parliamentarism here as a special system, as the division of labor between the legislative and the executive, as a privileged position for the deputies." (Lenin) but the representatives have get the same as an average workers, so no privilege, and "All officials, without exception, elected and subject to recall at any time" (Lenin).

Explain better.


I do think that there are things that Marx didn't address and that we should figure out, because Marxism is not a dogma. I just don't think you're the one that says those things that are true. If you can't deal with critique of the things you say and have to call them dogmatic you might want to reconsider who's being dogmatic.

You were being dogmatic when you were not able to see that symbiosis is based on marxist ideas, and I am discussing your use of state without understanding what you think a state is.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

We have to question our own ideas many times, if not we become fanatics.

I agree, but I think dogmatic is a better word,


That is actualy not true. The PCP has only 7% of votes, of a population where 40% did not even vote. They are not nearly as big as Os Cangaceiros said.

That doesn't really say much about whether or not they are the biggest party calling itself communist in Europe though.


Wait what?

I was joking...


An organization is not a separate being, it is made up of many minds, and it is those minds who make the will of the organization.

What's wrong about that?


Yeah, anarchist organizations have never succeeded, but it was mostly because of enemies who had bigger numbers. Marxist revolutions did not succeed because of the state which stopped the workers from emancipating themselves.

I disagree that it was just the state that was the reason for their failure.


Yes it is. You beleive the state works for the ruling class, right? You see that the ruling class also works to maintain the state, right?

I see the state as a means of class-oppression, when classes don't exist anymore the state will be useless and whither away.


The problem here is not that the workers want to liberate themselves using force against the bourgeosie, the problem is the use of state. A state cannot be used, the state uses the working classes to do its bidding, and the bidding of the ruling class. If the working class becomes the ruling class the state is still going to need someone to do its bidding, and it most be the working class.

Again, the state is not a separate being, by itself it can't use anyone.



But what we need is not exploitation, what we need is organization.
I should have noted that I think the word exploitation doesn't work, since the proletariat wouldn't really exploit the labour of the bourgeoisie, oppression is a better term.



Yeah, strange right?
I have no idea how that works, but it seems to me that it is what you are describing.

I'm not.


You know I am still going to use that, right?

Well, I'll still criticize it. then


You were being dogmatic when you were not able to see that symbiosis is based on marxist ideas, and I am discussing your use of state without understanding what you think a state is.

I have said many times that I see the state as a tool of class-oppression.
I think we can better just stop this debate, we've kind of derailed the thread and both aren't really going to change our position. If you have any specific question you can PM me so we don't have endless discussions in this thread.

[Yazman]

This discussion has been fine so far, but just remember guys - if you get frustrated or aggravated, instead of dropping flames & bombs take a break, chill out, and come back later.

[Geiseric]

It's not the first time Broody has come up with that bullshit, nor is it the first time it's been refuted on this board. I do not consider myself to be an anarchist anymore but I've refuted it personally to him. But I guess ignorance is bliss or something.



The Portuguese Communist Party is actually probably the most significant communist party in Europe at the moment, with the possible exception of the KKE.

While that might not be saying much, it's hardly "obscure".

Also: Max Stirner was a pretty cool guy. :sleep:

I honestly don't remember being refuted about bakunin.

[La Guaneña]

We are using different names for things. I think the authority you speak of is the one the workers use in their emanciapation, in that case it is not the same authority I am talking about. I have no problems with workers emancipation and colectivisation, but I do have problems with the use of a state.

Why do you have problems with the use of a state?




Most parties are not revolutionary, for example only 1 of our 3 communist parties claims to be revolutionary, but they only get 1% of votes during elections. The people in my country are tired of governments, they want change not another government, this was proven in the last elections when over 40% of the population did not vote.

The workers are tired of being governed. What we intend is a government of the workers.



I am in favor of that as well, but I see that a state must not be used for that.

Again, why not?


Doesn't the ruling class protect the state in return?
Even if the state does not have a will of its own, which would only happen if the state was a computer, the state only works with a class of exploiters.

No, the state works in the interest of the ruling class. The interest of the proletariat is to end exploitation, by eliminating private property. The state will serve that cause under proletarian rule.





That's not a state, that's just workers emancipation. I see the state as an organ of opression, one which is made up a small group of people who have authority over a large group of people. What you are talking about is not what anarchists call state.
I think that as long as you do not ally to a party and organise the workers without an authoritarian state, then it is alright.

For us, marxists, a state is an organ of class rule. If you don't want to call the dictatorship of the proletariat a state, fine with me. For me, it's just a matter of consistency. The DOTP is not a small group of people doing anything. It's a dictatorship of the whole class, expressed through it's organs.




Even if the state is a tool, which I do not think it is because it is made up of several minds, the working class can never be the ruling class.

It can't be the ruling class forever, since it's interests are to eliminate private property, and therefore classes. But eliminating property relations is not an easy task at all.




What happened in the USSR was not a success, it was the destruction of the revolution and the emancipation of the working class by the state. The state did not allow the workers to emancipate themselves.

This is a limited view on the subject. Why was is the proletarian state's fault?

Do you think the isolation of the revolution in a country with semi-feudal relations had nothing with it? Do you believe the imperialist agression following the bolsheviks taking power was a small thing?

If anything, the form of organization of the revolution made it more resistant to these factors, looking at the damage taken.


I see an action as libertarian when the goal is liberation or equality, but not when liberation or equality are used as excusses for the actions, the direct consequence of the action must be liberation or equality. I see an action as authoritarian when the goal opression or repression, the direct consequence of those actions must be opression or repression.
That might be confusing when classifying workers emanciaption, because the direct consequences are opression, equality, repression, and liberation, at the same time, so when that happens we must see the end goal, and, because the end goal is liberation and equality, that action is libertarian.
Complicated, right?

I believe in the organization and emancipation of the workers as a class.


I have 2 cats, and they don't like it when I touch their tummy, but if I cath them asleep I will do that.
A good way to see if someone is a good person is asking them "Do you like cats?", because someone who does not like cats is obviously not a good person.

Cats and dogs are awesome.


Isn't the state an authoritarian organ of centralized administration? If so how can the state be a weapon? The state is only an organ of opression, because in the end everything is done by the working classes.

It opresses a class to favour the interests of the ruling class. That's why the workers must organize and impose proletarian rule over the burguesia.


It bothers me when a system like anarchism is described as authoritarian because it wants to opress the bourgeosie for workers emancipation, because if we go that way every system that exists is authoritarian.

That is my main point. Authority is not bad. What sucks is when it comes from the Bourgeoise.


Sem problemas, camarada! É muito provável que toda esta discussão seja apenas um mal-entendido.

[sixdollarchampagne]

I know a lot of class struggle anarchists. The idea that class struggle and anarchism are separate is an odd one.

I would agree with the opinion above, that anarchism is most definitely a working-class phenomenon; the last organization I was affiliated with was the IWW, and the Wobs are nothing, if not proletarians and anarchists.

The only problem I see with anarchism is found in its history: During the civil war in Spain (ca. 1936), one country where the anarchists enjoyed massive support from workers, as far as I can tell, those same anarchists still entered a bourgeois government, supplying ministers for the Spanish Republic, and that government then proceeded to break strikes, which is one reason I am a Trotskyist.

[red magic]

As several other people said in this thread, I don't really think it is necessary to have a tendency. It does not really help you in anyway aside from being able to say your in a certain tendency. I myself would identify with the left communist tendency, but its not that really necessary to do so. Its more just personal preference.

[Ostrinski]

The only problem I see with anarchism is found in its history: During the civil war in Spain (ca. 1936), one country where the anarchists enjoyed massive support from workers, as far as I can tell, those same anarchists still entered a bourgeois government, supplying ministers for the Spanish Republic, and that government then proceeded to break strikes, which is one reason I am a Trotskyist.Not all anarchists uphold the CNT-FAI or look to the historical experience of anarcho-syndicalism for political influence at all. Some do, but just as many others if not more would share your misgivings in this regard.

[YugoslavSocialist]

What would you recommend I do at this point?

I may be able to help you

1) What economic system do you support?

2) Are you against authoritarianism?

3) Do you believe a vanguard party should lead the revolution?

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Why do you have problems with the use of a state?

Because the state cannot be used like that. If the state is allowed to control the actions of the revolutionaries, like it did in USSR, it is not going to end well. Let's also take the example of the spanish civil war: in the republican side the government was too weak to hold back the left revolutionaries, and so the republican area became devided between several revolutionary factions: the CNT-FAI, POUM, PCE, etc. The place where anarchy was best implanted was Spain at that time, but it was limited to small areas, and it did not last for long. The factions began to compete for power within the state, while the true revolutionaries fought and died for freedom. The CNT-FAI and POUM remained loyal to their principles, and for that they were outlawed and destroyed, for those who, before, called them comrades. Who was to blame for the failure of the spanish revolution? The revolutionaries? The people? The material situation?
It could not have been the revolutionaries, because the militants of the CNT and POUM stayed loyal to their principles to the death. It could not have been the people, because, as anarchists like to say to each other, production increased 50% because of the colectivisation, so the people were not angry, they supported the revolution. For the people, revolution was the only way. It could not have been the material situation, because you never hear of hunger during the spanish civil war, and both sides had weapons, even though Stalin only sent the good ones to stalinist groups.
I beleive the ones guilty for the failure of the revolution were the state and the stalinists. The stalinists because they supported the state, and the state because it turned against the true revolutionaries, and put stop to the revolution.
This is why the state has to be abolished, if it is not we are doomed to fail.


The workers are tired of being governed. What we intend is a government of the workers.

Let us now use the example of Portugal in this very day. The crisis has made many people unemployed, and those still employed have minimum salary, or below minimum, and it is only going to get worse. The PSD and CDS coalition government has signed another deal with the troika, according to which minimum wage is going to be lowered to half, that is 200€. All workers are sensing the impact of the crisis, and soon all students will feel it too, when their parents will have no money to afford anything, maybe not even basic needs. The IMF says Portugal will not end up like Greece, but everyone knows they are lying, the portuguese know this, for they have been lied to for many years. The people blame the government for the crisis, but not many are turning into left-wing revolutinoaries. In fact many of those who were once stalinists are turning into social-democrats. Stalinism is in decline, anarchism is rising. Ammong the students an idea begins to become popular, an idea of freedom, an idea of equality, an idea that will destroy the government guilty for the crisis, and will make the people free. Anarchism is this idea. With the crisis becoming worse, more will find anarchism.
Why has anarchism become popular, but not stalinism?
Anarchism adresses the problems we face, stalinism gives us something we do not want. The ones who turn anarchist, see that only through the abolition of government will the crisis end, only through revolution. We see that no government, no matter the ideology, will solve this. We see that stalinism is not the solution, for it would only lead to an even bigger crisis, with more deaths.


No, the state works in the interest of the ruling class. The interest of the proletariat is to end exploitation, by eliminating private property. The state will serve that cause under proletarian rule.

The state cannot provide you with what you want. The party will rule you, you will not rule the party. If you want the workers to rule themselves you must not let them be ruled by a state. For the workers not to be ruled, the state must be abolished, and it must be replaced with communities that work democraticaly. Only through the abolition of state will the proletariat ever be able to rule itself.


For us, marxists, a state is an organ of class rule. If you don't want to call the dictatorship of the proletariat a state, fine with me. For me, it's just a matter of consistency. The DOTP is not a small group of people doing anything. It's a dictatorship of the whole class, expressed through it's organs.

Please explain.


It can't be the ruling class forever, since it's interests are to eliminate private property, and therefore classes. But eliminating property relations is not an easy task at all.

Eliminating property relations starts in the first days of the revolution. colectivisation is a task that requires a big ammount of people, but that is easy to get after the revolution. Volunteers and militiamen who will go out and tell the people about colectivisation, they will occupy the factories, they will occupy the fields, and they will kick out the land owners. Houses will be occupied by those who did not have them, food will be rationed to make sure it lasts until sustainability is reached, etc.
It is not a process that requires a state, this has been proven by the spanish revolution of 1936.


This is a limited view on the subject. Why was is the proletarian state's fault?

Do you think the isolation of the revolution in a country with semi-feudal relations had nothing with it? Do you believe the imperialist agression following the bolsheviks taking power was a small thing?

If anything, the form of organization of the revolution made it more resistant to these factors, looking at the damage taken.

The creation of a state allowed for the USSR to gain independance, but at the cost of the revolution. For you to use a state you must first let it take away all the progress you have made during the first days of the revolution, namely the colectivisation, and turn it back into what it was before. Anarchists will always be against the state, not matter what state it is.


I believe in the organization and emancipation of the workers as a class.

Seems legit, but how will the workers be able to emancipate when there is a state telling them what to do?


Cats and dogs are awesome.

Yes, they are.


It opresses a class to favour the interests of the ruling class. That's why the workers must organize and impose proletarian rule over the burguesia.

Through a state?


That is my main point. Authority is not bad. What sucks is when it comes from the Bourgeoise.

All true anarchists stand against all forms of forced authority.