Marxism vs Anarchism

[Fourth Internationalist]

1) I'm reading about anarchism more and it's interesting and so being a non-anarchist I'm curious about your (anarchists') ideas of why it's better than Marxism.

2) In Marxism, there is a DotP that, if world revolution fails, could survive until the rest of the world follows. What would happen if this happens with an anarcho-communist revolution?

[tuwix]

1) I'm reading about anarchism more and it's interesting and so being a non-anarchist I'm curious about your (anarchists') ideas of why it's better than Marxism.


Words 'good' and 'bad' are referring to subjective point of view. Looking on those ideologies objectively those ideologies are slightly different. The main difference is attitude to state. Marxists want to dismantle capitalism first and then dismantle the state. My impression is that Marx thought that a state will dismantle by itself. Anarchists want to dismantle state first. I these terms, interesting is the argument between Bakunin and Marx. Bakunin was saying that leaving a state to dismantle by itself will cause a creation of the “red bureaucracy” who will occupy a place of bourgeoisie in capitalism. And that happened exactly in the Soviet Union, Poland, Cuba, North Korea, etc. Marx was saying that dismantling the state will cause a return of capitalism. We have never known is it true or not because Bakunin's mode of economy was never accomplished for a longer period of time.




2) In Marxism, there is a DotP that, if world revolution fails, could survive until the rest of the world follows. What would happen if this happens with an anarcho-communist revolution?

It actually happened. Anarcho-communist uprising of Nestor Makhno has been repressed by Lenin's bolshevicks. Anarcho-communist movement in Spain has been repressed by fascists and stalists.

Anarchistic society can't exist in the environment with states next to it.

[ellipsis]

its all about the praxis, anarchist tactics/direct action are/is just way better.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

its all about the praxis, anarchist tactics/direct action are/is just way better.
Lol seriously? Are there even tactics or actions that communist groups haven't tried that anarchists try? I mean I didn't realize Marxists(myself included) were against direct action for instance.

[Art Vandelay]

Anarchists are secret statists; either that or they actually think they can create 'statelessness' within the confines of borders and surrounded by hostile states, in which case they're just spewing nonsense.

[TheEmancipator]

Anarchists are secret statists; either that or they actually think they can create 'statelessness' within the confines of borders and surrounded by hostile states, in which case they're just spewing nonsense.

It really depends on the type of anarchists. That's a pretty one sided generalisation.

Back to the subject, anarcho-communism is more often than not revised Marxism that recognises that the dictatorship of the proletariat is unsustainable on a nation state level. Hence why they want to abolish the central planning system.

The idea that Anarchism and Marxism are somehow opposed is nonsense though. You are placing far too much importance on the dictatorship of the proletariat as if it was some sort of goal when in fact Marx uses it to achieve the same goal as Anarchists - abolition of the State.

[Captain Ahab]

"Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever again the Black and Red unite!"
-Otto Von Bismarck


Anarchists are secret statists; either that or they actually think they can create 'statelessness' within the confines of borders and surrounded by hostile states, in which case they're just spewing nonsense.
I'm pretty sure this is a strawman and does not apply to all anarchists. Perhaps you could quote the text you've read that gave you the idea that this is what anarchists believe.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Arguably, the difference at this point only interests people whose interests are primarily academic. Any number of the generalizations about Marxists in this thread may be shown to be utter hogwash when applied to a relatively large number of specific Marxist groups and theorists. Do Marxists defend the necessity of a state? Do Marxists conceptualize of the dictatorship of the proletariat as necessarily taking the form of a state? Some do, some don't. Increasingly, many don't.
Similarly, anarchists vary wildly as to what constitutes a state, what organizations are suitable for organizing in a current context, and suitable in the longer view.

To reply specifically to 9mm - stuff it with the played out rhetoric - I've seen you post better. Practically stateless regions have persisted through all of human history, even in this era when every corner of the map is filled up with colours. In any case, your same poorly thought out critique could be applied to any communist project - communism cannot survive surrounded by capitalism. This simply means that, to borrow from Rosa:


Either the revolution must advance at a rapid, stormy, resolute tempo, break down all barriers with an iron hand and place its goals ever farther ahead, or it is quite soon thrown backward behind its feeble point of departure and suppressed by counter-revolution.

Divorcing the state from this reality - conceptualizing it as an organ that has an ahistorical character without implicit content - is theoretically weak. Further, it doesn't actually address the OP's question, except to make Marxists look like Marxists who stopped theorizing sometime in the 20th century.

Please, let's not turn this into Bakunin vs Marx, Mahkno vs Trotsky, or RAF vs RZ. Thankfully, anticapitalist practice and theory have continued since all of the aforementioned.

[Art Vandelay]

To reply specifically to 9mm - stuff it with the played out rhetoric - I've seen you post better. Practically stateless regions have persisted through all of human history, even in this era when every corner of the map is filled up with colours. In any case, your same poorly thought out critique could be applied to any communist project - communism cannot survive surrounded by capitalism. This simply means that, to borrow from Rosa:

Divorcing the state from this reality - conceptualizing it as an organ that has an ahistorical character without implicit content - is theoretically weak. Further, it doesn't actually address the OP's question, except to make Marxists look like Marxists who stopped theorizing sometime in the 20th century.

Please, let's not turn this into Bakunin vs Marx, Mahkno vs Trotsky, or RAF vs RZ. Thankfully, anticapitalist practice and theory have continued since all of the aforementioned.

You know my positions on the state, we've had some great exchanges on the matter. But ultimately I think that while my post wasn't very fleshed out and probably should have been worded and presented differently, I think it touches on something which is entirely valid.

Anarchists, like yourself, propose that decentralization somehow makes an area stateless. I simply perceive this a nonsense however. I'm not someone who takes the tactics of decentralization or centralization and turns them into principles, however I see both my Marxist and anarchist comrades do as such. First off the insistence on decentralization or the insistence on centralization (without first assessing material conditions) is absolutely absurd and needs to be abandoned by the left.

On the one hand anarchists have this aversion to the 'state,' which they wrongly associate with centralization, and turn it into some mythical entity which has some sort of power as opposed to being merely the institution through which a class exerts its hegemony. Similarly many Marxists put the tactic of centralization up on a pedestal; what this fails to do, however, is to realize that in certain situations decentralization can be entirely more effective and is ultimately the end goal.

So no I'm not turning this into some Marx vs. Bakunin thing here and feel like the substance of what I am about to say should be addressed. 'Statelessness,' regardless of whether or not it is a grouping of federated soviets, is not possible within the confines of borders and surrounded by states (the fact this even needs to be argued is mind boggling to me). Also that Rosa quote was completely irrelevant. What I was arguing had nothing to do with the necessity of the revolution to spread (which is undoubtedly indeed a necessity) but simply with the idea that statelessness can exist on anything other the a global scale.

[Art Vandelay]

I'm pretty sure this is a strawman and does not apply to all anarchists. Perhaps you could quote the text you've read that gave you the idea that this is what anarchists believe.

It didn't come from one specific text, I was an anarchist for a few years and have a solid understanding of anarchist theory.

[Ele'ill]

Lol seriously? Are there even tactics or actions that communist groups haven't tried that anarchists try? I mean I didn't realize Marxists(myself included) were against direct action for instance.

Weren't you the one with the whole Mcdonalds scenario thing..

anyways I kind of agree with what you're saying here- that anarchists would probably be down with other tendencies that actually engaged in action instead of never ending movement building

[Dave B]

There are different kinds of anarchists, and I think that saying that some ‘Anarchists are secret statists’ or hypocritical statists has a validity.

Berkman and Goldman (on the Bolshevik state capitalist payroll), and Sylvia Pankhurst, supported the Anarcho-Bolshevik state capitalist experiment as a ‘historic necessity’ up until 1921.

Whilst the Marxists like the Mensheviks and Kautsky from 1918 condemned it as an anti democratic police state, dictatorship of one party, oppression.

Lenin JULY 31, 1919



When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party and, as you have heard, a united socialist front is proposed, we say, "Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won, in the course of decades, the position of vanguard of the entire factory and industrial proletariat.


http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/SWSC19.html

A month later


V. I. Lenin, Letter to Sylvia Pankhurst, 28 August, 1919




Very many anarchist workers are now becoming sincere supporters of Soviet power, ……..[ a dictatorship of one party] ….and that being so, it proves them to be our best comrades and friends, the best of revolutionaries, who have been enemies of Marxism only through misunderstanding,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/aug/28.htm


Hence it was not always straightforward at the time to tell the difference between an ‘anarchist’ and a Bolshevik;

From Berkmans own ‘Bolshevik Myth


The Secretary himself could give me little information about labor conditions in the city and province, as he had only recently assumed charge of his office.


"I am not a local man," he said; "I was sent from Moscow only a few weeks ago. You see, Comrade," he explained, evidently assuming my membership in the Communist Party,


"it became necessary to liquidate the whole management of the Soviet and of most of the unions. At their heads were Mensheviki. They conducted the organization on the principle of alleged protection of the workers' interests. Protection against whom?"



he raged.



"You understand how counter-revolutionary such a conception is! Just a Menshevik cloak to further their opposition to us. Under capitalism, the union is destructive of bourgeois interests; but with us, it is constructive. The labor bodies must work hand in hand with the government; in fact, they are the actual government, or one of its vital parts.



They must serve as schools of Communism and at the same time carry out in industry the will of the proletariat as expressed by the Soviet Government. This is our policy, and we shall eliminate every opposition."



http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/bmyth/bmch23.html

This was obviously a parrot of the contemporary Trot line of 1920 re the anarchist militarisation of labour that Berkman must have been familiar with thus;

Trotsky on ‘About the Organisation of Labour’;


Finally, the bourgeoisie learned how to take control even of trade unionism, that is, of the organisations of the working class itself, and made extensive use of them, especially in Britain, to discipline the workers.

Compare and contrast with Anarcho-Bolshevik state capitalism


……….for the socialist state which is being built needs trade unions not for a struggle for better conditions of labour – that is a task for the social and state organisation as a whole – but in order to organise the working class for production purposes, to educate, discipline, distribute, group and attach certain categories of workers and individual workers to their posts for certain periods of time: in short, to exercise their authority, hand in hand with the state, to bring the workers into the framework of a single economic plan.



In these circumstances, to defend ‘freedom’ of labour means to defend fruitless, helpless, absolutely unregulated striving for better conditions, unsystematic and chaotic movements from factory to factory,



http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/ch17.htm


.
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/ch17.htm)

[Captain Ahab]

It didn't come from one specific text, I was an anarchist for a few years and have a solid understanding of anarchist theory.
But I've never heard anything from the anarchist theory I've read of there being "anarchism in one country". You'd had to have picked up this from a specific text belonging to a specific Anarchist tendency that I don't know of.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Weren't you the one with the whole Mcdonalds scenario thing..

anyways I kind of agree with what you're saying here- that anarchists would probably be down with other tendencies that actually engaged in action instead of never ending movement building

I said I'm for direct action not the "let's do random property destruction that makes us look like immature teenagers" mentality that seems to permeate throughout the anarchist scene. Direct action doesn't always mean breaking a Starbucks window.

[Art Vandelay]

But I've never heard anything from the anarchist theory I've read of there being "anarchism in one country". You'd had to have picked up this from a specific text belonging to a specific Anarchist tendency that I don't know of.

I never stated anarchists posit that they can create anarchy within a country, what I stated was that anarchists posit that they can create statelessness within the confines of borders and surrounded by states.

[Captain Ahab]

I never stated anarchists posit that they can create anarchy within a country, what I stated was that anarchists posit that they can create statelessness within the confines of borders and surrounded by states.

And I have never seen any anarchist advocate this. Again, what text did you read this from? Where is this advocated for you to get this idea?

[A Revolutionary Tool]

And I have never seen any anarchist advocate this. Again, what text did you read this from? Where is this advocated for you to get this idea?

I'd think that'd be more of a factor that you'd have to consider into theory. Or are you naive enough to think all countries will just simultaneously collapse?

[Captain Ahab]

I'd think that'd be more of a factor that you'd have to consider into theory. Or are you naive enough to think all countries will just simultaneously collapse?

I might be misunderstanding his criticism. He actually might be referring to establishing statelessness on the moment of a revolution while encircled by several states.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I might be misunderstanding his criticism. He actually might be referring to establishing statelessness on the moment of a revolution while encircled by several states.

Yeah that's exactly what he's criticizing and what I'm reiterating.

[MarxSchmarx]

I never stated anarchists posit that they can create anarchy within a country, what I stated was that anarchists posit that they can create statelessness within the confines of borders and surrounded by states.

Even if this were the argument they were making, however, is this as absurd as it seems at first glance? For instance, Somalia outside of Mogadishu had been more or less stateless "within the confines of borders and surrounded by states" for several years until quite recently. I don't want to say Somalia is a great place to live, but it provides precedence that such a condition can be established. And granted, a stateless society cannot be sustained indefinitely in isolation, but then, neither could the Russian revolution.

[Art Vandelay]

Even if this were the argument they were making, however, is this as absurd as it seems at first glance? For instance, Somalia outside of Mogadishu had been more or less stateless "within the confines of borders and surrounded by states" for several years until quite recently. I don't want to say Somalia is a great place to live, but it provides precedence that such a condition can be established. And granted, a stateless society cannot be sustained indefinitely in isolation, but then, neither could the Russian revolution.

I don't think this would qualify in the proper sense of the term. Classes still exist and therefor some manifestation of a state exists; even if it is just personal security forces which act upon behalf of the bourgeois.

[Captain Ahab]

The Somalian state still exists and the government is in a state of conflict with petty warlords vying for power. Somalia isn't a good example of statelessness unless you're one of those nutters from Mises.org.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

So, now that things having been fleshed out a bit . . .

Aa lot of debate, within and between Marxists and Anarchists, is implicitly (though rarely explicitly, to the detriment of radical discourse), about what constitutes* a state. Is it simply any organ(s) of class rule? Further, what is ruling? Does rule simply imply a monopoly of force? Is it a question of hegemony?

The answers to these questions, theoretically, tend to fall apart in practice, since relationships of force are always in flux, since hegemony is always relative, since the class content of a given organ exists in a reciprocal relationship with that organ.

My own personal feelings - these feelings are still far from clear, and probably nearly as far as either the seizure/destruction of state power by communists/communization - as regards the state is that it is mostly useful to identify it with the liberal state, whose appearance on the scene runs parallel to the emergence of capitalism and industrialization, and whose "perfection" is in the emergence of post-industrial liberal democracy. Though not by design, and by a different method (materialist in my case, with the dialectic as a useful descriptive tool; by crass sociology and quasi-utilitarian philosophy in theirs) I find myself in the company of the ideologues of liberal capitalist states in this regard - but then again, they are attached to the technical and political functioning of the state, so in some senses, they know it well.

Given the particularity of this "actually existing" state, I wonder whether or not it is apt to describe even many explicitly statest Marxist conceptions of the proletarian dictatorship as states. On the other hand, there are obviously exceptions - certain Marxists (and most of the official European left) absolutely want to maintain the bourgeois liberal state, and simply substitute ostensibly "proletarian" technocrats for the current set of petit-bourgeois hangers-on. Similarly, there are anarchists who, as 9mm rightly points out, simply aim to decentralize the state, and hand the various technical/(post-)industrial apparati over to decentralized local democratic bodies (a tendency that already exists, and is playing out with disastrous consequences in terms of the possibilities for proletarian autonomy).

As such, the division between Marxists and Anarchists is often, again, as 9mm pointed out, one between centralization (an increasingly irrelevant paradigm) and decentralization (increasingly the character of the capitalist totality, and by no means "revolutionary").

The question we ought to be collectively embarking on, therefore, concerns not "the state" but the constitution and/or (if you prefer) production of organs of proletarian power that suit a communist mode of production. What types of organization are suitable for forms of life without wage labour, without a "general equivalent", without prison and military industrial complexes, and so on? How do those organizations in the interim (in the course of struggle within capitalism) and "after" or during "the revolution", the insurrectionary moment, etc.

*Constitutes - constitution, get it? I actually litter my posts with weird wordplay like this all the time, but probably nobody knows or cares. Latter when I'm the next Thomas Pynchon, critics will all over this shit, though.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The Somalian state still exists and the government is in a state of conflict with petty warlords vying for power. Somalia isn't a good example of statelessness unless you're one of those nutters from Mises.org.

Case in point, the Somalian state is the sort of neither/nor that problematizes discussing the state at this juncture. It obviously doesn't point to answers, but does point to some of the questions I raised above.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The Somalian state still exists and the government is in a state of conflict with petty warlords vying for power. Somalia isn't a good example of statelessness unless you're one of those nutters from Mises.org.

The Somali state, for most of the past 20 years, has really existed in name only. Not saying that Somalia is an example of "anarchy" as leftists understand it, certainly not as rival factions like the Somali warlords, the Islamic Courts Union, and al-Shabaab have all took turns controlling Mogadishu and areas surrounding it, but "Somalia" as a state is a joke and wouldn't even be able to survive without external backing.

Somaliland in the north, on the other hand, has been relatively peaceful, but I guess the UN refuses to recognize it as a state.

[Captain Ahab]

The Somali state, for most of the past 20 years, has really existed in name only. Not saying that Somalia is an example of "anarchy" as leftists understand it, certainly not as rival factions like the Somali warlords, the Islamic Courts Union, and al-Shabaab have all took turns controlling Mogadishu and areas surrounding it, but "Somalia" as a state is a joke and wouldn't even be able to survive without external backing.

Somaliland in the north, on the other hand, has been relatively peaceful, but I guess the UN refuses to recognize it as a state.
It's a state on the brink of death yes, but it is still alive in the end and kept on life support.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Anarchists, like yourself, propose that decentralization somehow makes an area stateless.

The way you say that makes it look like anarchists are reformists. Only the abolition of state makes an area stateless. State is a centralized form of administration that uses coersion and violence in order to enforce its illegitimate authority over individuals. The only legitimate authority is the one between consenting individuals, and there is never consensus between many individuals and a state.


I simply perceive this a nonsense however.

I precieve it as nonsense too, because it has nothing to do with anarchist ideals.


I'm not someone who takes the tactics of decentralization or centralization and turns them into principles, however I see both my Marxist and anarchist comrades do as such. First off the insistence on decentralization or the insistence on centralization (without first assessing material conditions) is absolutely absurd and needs to be abandoned by the left.

So you are basicaly saying anarchists and marxists should just sit down first and do marxist analysis so assess the material conditions of a certain area, so that in the end they will agree on what level of centralization there should be? Unfortunately things don't work like that, because while you are doing that there are people fighting too feed their family. They are looking for a solution, and while you are busy doing marxist analysis and offering solutions that will not imediately fix the problem, the fascists have arrived saying the problem is the immigrants, and they are offering imediate solutions.
We must not forget that we are not doing this for ourselves, we are doing this for humanity.


On the one hand anarchists have this aversion to the 'state,' which they wrongly associate with centralization, and turn it into some mythical entity which has some sort of power as opposed to being merely the institution through which a class exerts its hegemony.

I am actualy studying state right now, and almost all definitions I have found say it is centralized, only the marxist definition differs from this.

It is more than logical that anarchists have an aversion of the state. We have taken anarchy as our ideal society, we have sworn to uphold its principles, as you have sworn to uphold yours. Our principles crealy say that the state is unnecessary and harmfull, and therefore it must be abolished if we are to get to our utopia.
You claim you were once an anarchist, yet you do not seem to be able to understand what drives the anarchist forward, what creates the aversion of state.
Simply put, it is the state that upholds the system we live in today, therefore it must be abolished so that a new system, one based on mutual-aid and voluntary cooperation, can be created.
You might want to wait until the material conditions are just right, but I will not stop. I don't care if the material conditions are wrong, I don't care if the fight is hopeless, I don't care if death is ceartain if I try. I have sworn by anarchism, so it is a matter of anarchy or death.
You might think of me a liar for saying "anarchy or death", but from my point of view, we all die eventualy, the question is how. I would rather die for humanity, because material conditions were not right, than to die old because the right material conditions never came.
As serious revolutionaries each of us should have sworn to gladly give our lives away for our ideals if we know it might lead to their realization.


Similarly many Marxists put the tactic of centralization up on a pedestal; what this fails to do, however, is to realize that in certain situations decentralization can be entirely more effective and is ultimately the end goal.

So now the authoritarians also have to wait for the material conditions to be right?
That idea completely ignores the existance of ideologies and fanaticism for said ideas.


'Statelessness,' regardless of whether or not it is a grouping of federated soviets, is not possible within the confines of borders and surrounded by states (the fact this even needs to be argued is mind boggling to me).

If a revolution happened in some country in the middle of europe surrounded by hostile capitalist countries, and you lived there, would you not fight for it anyway?
To me what seems ilogical is how one would not fight for his ideals just because he knows the odds of their realization are almost impossible. Have you not sworn by your ideology? Then you must be willing to throw you life away for it. The goal of your life is no longer some selfish desire to live, it is now the realization of your ideals. You lose your life so that someone else can have the life you wished you could have had. You now live for others, no longer for youself. It is for them you fight, do not forget.

[Art Vandelay]

It's a state on the brink of death yes, but it is still alive in the end and kept on life support.

I don't think Os was claiming Somalia was stateless, just that the country known as "Somalia" can not be considered a singular state, as it is by most. It is made up competing factions and differing areas are under control of different factions, so therefor it would best be understood as multiple states. At least that is what I got from his post, but I might have just misunderstood him.

[Art Vandelay]

The way you say that makes it look like anarchists are reformists. Only the abolition of state makes an area stateless. State is a centralized form of administration that uses coersion and violence in order to enforce its illegitimate authority over individuals. The only legitimate authority is the one between consenting individuals, and there is never consensus between many individuals and a state.



I precieve it as nonsense too, because it has nothing to do with anarchist ideals.



So you are basicaly saying anarchists and marxists should just sit down first and do marxist analysis so assess the material conditions of a certain area, so that in the end they will agree on what level of centralization there should be? Unfortunately things don't work like that, because while you are doing that there are people fighting too feed their family. They are looking for a solution, and while you are busy doing marxist analysis and offering solutions that will not imediately fix the problem, the fascists have arrived saying the problem is the immigrants, and they are offering imediate solutions.
We must not forget that we are not doing this for ourselves, we are doing this for humanity.



I am actualy studying state right now, and almost all definitions I have found say it is centralized, only the marxist definition differs from this.

It is more than logical that anarchists have an aversion of the state. We have taken anarchy as our ideal society, we have sworn to uphold its principles, as you have sworn to uphold yours. Our principles crealy say that the state is unnecessary and harmfull, and therefore it must be abolished if we are to get to our utopia.
You claim you were once an anarchist, yet you do not seem to be able to understand what drives the anarchist forward, what creates the aversion of state.
Simply put, it is the state that upholds the system we live in today, therefore it must be abolished so that a new system, one based on mutual-aid and voluntary cooperation, can be created.
You might want to wait until the material conditions are just right, but I will not stop. I don't care if the material conditions are wrong, I don't care if the fight is hopeless, I don't care if death is ceartain if I try. I have sworn by anarchism, so it is a matter of anarchy or death.
You might think of me a liar for saying "anarchy or death", but from my point of view, we all die eventualy, the question is how. I would rather die for humanity, because material conditions were not right, than to die old because the right material conditions never came.
As serious revolutionaries each of us should have sworn to gladly give our lives away for our ideals if we know it might lead to their realization.



So now the authoritarians also have to wait for the material conditions to be right?
That idea completely ignores the existance of ideologies and fanaticism for said ideas.



If a revolution happened in some country in the middle of europe surrounded by hostile capitalist countries, and you lived there, would you not fight for it anyway?
To me what seems ilogical is how one would not fight for his ideals just because he knows the odds of their realization are almost impossible. Have you not sworn by your ideology? Then you must be willing to throw you life away for it. The goal of your life is no longer some selfish desire to live, it is now the realization of your ideals. You lose your life so that someone else can have the life you wished you could have had. You now live for others, no longer for youself. It is for them you fight, do not forget.

First off from your post its quite clear that you didn't really comprehend anything that I was saying, but that is fine. I'm going to have to respectfully decline to engage in any more polemics with you TRA, simply because as we have seen in the past (they never lead to fruitful conversations, but merely me losing my temper, something unfit for a mod to do). I'm sorry that you typed up that long reply and this is the only response you get, but perhaps someone else will jump in and respond to your post.

[Art Vandelay]

So, now that things having been fleshed out a bit . . .

Aa lot of debate, within and between Marxists and Anarchists, is implicitly (though rarely explicitly, to the detriment of radical discourse), about what constitutes* a state. Is it simply any organ(s) of class rule? Further, what is ruling? Does rule simply imply a monopoly of force? Is it a question of hegemony?

This actually hits the nail on the head comrade. Far, far, too often discourses between Marxists and anarchists end up with simple platitudes being exchanged and alot of this, in my opinion, is because a common definition of the state is never agreed upon (perhaps it is impossible for Marxists and anarchists to agree on a definition, but frankly I doubt it and never even see it being attempted).


The answers to these questions, theoretically, tend to fall apart in practice, since relationships of force are always in flux, since hegemony is always relative, since the class content of a given organ exists in a reciprocal relationship with that organ.

Given this, I feel it is then necessary to be able to identify when a quantitative change has taken place.


My own personal feelings - these feelings are still far from clear, and probably nearly as far as either the seizure/destruction of state power by communists/communization - as regards the state is that it is mostly useful to identify it with the liberal state, whose appearance on the scene runs parallel to the emergence of capitalism and industrialization, and whose "perfection" is in the emergence of post-industrial liberal democracy. Though not by design, and by a different method (materialist in my case, with the dialectic as a useful descriptive tool; by crass sociology and quasi-utilitarian philosophy in theirs) I find myself in the company of the ideologues of liberal capitalist states in this regard - but then again, they are attached to the technical and political functioning of the state, so in some senses, they know it well.

But do you really think it is impossible for the bourgeois state (modern liberal state, as you put it) to be smashed by the proletariat and replaced with its own state (one which does not resemble or carry out the functions of the bourgeois liberal state)?


Given the particularity of this "actually existing" state, I wonder whether or not it is apt to describe even many explicitly statest Marxist conceptions of the proletarian dictatorship as states.

In my opinion, this is why Engels described the dictatorship of the proletariat as being a 'semi-state.'


As such, the division between Marxists and Anarchists is often, again, as 9mm pointed out, one between centralization (an increasingly irrelevant paradigm) and decentralization (increasingly the character of the capitalist totality, and by no means "revolutionary").

I wouldn't agree with the idea that thinking centralization can be useful or perhaps even a necessity in certain material conditions, for the proletariat to successfully complete its historic goal of abolishing itself, as being an 'increasingly irrelevant paradigm'; however I think we can both agree that there is a certain dogmatism on both ends of the spectrum.


The question we ought to be collectively embarking on, therefore, concerns not "the state" but the constitution and/or (if you prefer) production of organs of proletarian power that suit a communist mode of production. What types of organization are suitable for forms of life without wage labour, without a "general equivalent", without prison and military industrial complexes, and so on?

One distinction that I feel I must add here, is that the type of organs of proletarian power, which best suit a communist mode of production, may not be those which are most useful during the course of revolution, dotp, etc.


How do those organizations in the interim (in the course of struggle within capitalism) and "after" or during "the revolution", the insurrectionary moment, etc.

This really is the question.


*Constitutes - constitution, get it? I actually litter my posts with weird wordplay like this all the time, but probably nobody knows or cares. Latter when I'm the next Thomas Pynchon, critics will all over this shit, though.

This went over my head.

[MP5]

Well i think it says alot that the only true stateless and classless society that ever existed was in the short time during the Spanish civil war that was essentially a blend of Anarcho-Communism and Anarcho-Syndicalism. Of course it was crushed by both the fascists and the Stalinists but it still stands that it was the closest the world ever came to true Communism.

I believe in stateless non authoritarian Communism but i am a pragmatist first. There is nothing within Anarchist Communist thought that says that there cannot be organization and still call it Anarchism as long as the organization is voluntary and does not have a hierarchy. I think what went wrong with so many Marxist revolutions was that they failed to meet the needs of the people first. If you have a starving population they are going to support whoever can give them food and provide for them. Centralized bureaucratic government is useless at meeting the needs of the people and this was the main failure of the Russian revolution and most of the ones after it. Also the revolution turned counter revolutionary after Lenin's death when Stalin consolidated power. By then it might as well have been a carbon copy of the Canadian government for all intensive purposes as it was about as revolutionary as a rock.

I believe that abolishing the state and with it Capitalism would be the ideal conditions. I am anti-statist but if say some variation of a state was still standing i would think Communism could be achieved instead of having the whole thing turn into a bureaucratic nightmare. But this could only happen through decentralized, voluntary, non hierarchical community councils. It does not take a genius to figure out that people who live in the community could run it much more efficiently then some centralized government who of course knows what's better for us then us poor peasants do. Also as long as the power is not centralized everyone would have a equal say in how things are run and how the wealth is distributed.

In a situation such as this the only purpose a "state" would serve is for the workers councils to get together and to decide on things such as making sure that every citizen get's a equal share of the wealth of the nations resources, what to do with any surplus left over after looking after the needs of the citizens, how to deal with foreign matters such as relations with other countries, helping to spread the revolution elsewhere and of course making sure that the citizens army is well equipped to deal with any foreign threats.

For this to follow the Anarchist line everyone would have a equal vote in how things are run and no man would have more power then the other. We already know that representative government is a total failure so direct democracy must take it's place . It's absolutely useless just to knock out the leaders at the top, call the representative government something else and to just make up a new flag. This is essentially what happened in so many of the revolutions of the past and it is exactly why they failed. The purge of the bourgeois class must start from the bottom and the building blocks that created bourgeois Capitalist society can only be knocked out from the bottom. Otherwise the power structure still stands and all you achieve is swapping one ruling class for another. This is why i think violent revolution is preferable to non violent revolution. It achieves 2 things destroying the bourgeois and their society and it also empowers the proletarians.

Of course all tendencies of Anarchism and Marxism have their good points and drawbacks. I don't believe in sticking rigidly to one tendency as that is just orthodoxy. Instead i believe in going with what works best to try and minimize problems with democracy and distribution of wealth as much as possible. There is no such thing as a perfect society with a perfect democracy and it would be utopian to think that such a society could exist. But we can learn from history so that we do not repeat the mistakes of the failed revolutions of the past.

[ellipsis]

Lol seriously? Are there even tactics or actions that communist groups haven't tried that anarchists try? I mean I didn't realize Marxists(myself included) were against direct action for instance.

At least in the us at this time, I don't see any Marxists groups engaged in direct action. Marxists individually sure, but not at the organization level.

[Art Vandelay]

At least in the us at this time, I don't see any Marxists groups engaged in direct action. Marxists individually sure, but not at the organization level.

Well perhaps it is simply the tactics of Marxist organizations that 'direct action' as well as more illegal activity, shouldn't be embarked upon, until the material conditions are correct.

Trust me, as a former insurrectionist, I can understand the allure of a constant attack (capital has institutions and symbols that we can attack on a daily basis, regardless) however if you are truly interested in building a movement which has the actual ability to accomplish the proletariat's historical goal of abolishing itself, then I would suggest better tactics. The time will come for insurrection, however it is not time now. Insurrectionists, to me (although it took me so long to understand this) are the equivalent of a military commander whose only command is: CHARGE!

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Well perhaps it is simply the tactics of Marxist organizations that 'direct action' as well as more illegal activity, shouldn't be embarked upon, until the material conditions are correct.

Trust me, as a former insurrectionist, I can understand the allure of a constant attack (capital has institutions and symbols that we can attack on a daily basis, regardless) however if you are truly interested in building a movement which has the actual ability to accomplish the proletariat's historical goal of abolishing itself, then I would suggest better tactics. The time will come for insurrection, however it is not time now. Insurrectionists, to me (although it took me so long to understand this) are the equivalent of a military commander whose only command is: CHARGE!

Direct action - probably one of the most misused terms in the contemporary North American radical milieu. Arguably, it seems to me that neither anarchists nor Marxist organizations tend to practice much direct action, and it's often the purview of community organizations that include both anarchists and Marxists, but lack a specific political line.

Frustratingly, I think the first word of "direct action" often gets forgotten, so that lobbying with bricks or petitioning with sticks gets called "direct action" when it's actually pretty mediated. Now, I'm not saying those things are never direct action - because if you're, say, defending an occupation, or attacking the logging equipment that's about to chop down an old growth forest, then it is direct. You've got a problem, and you're confronting it directly. A bank's window on the other hand? That's probably symbolic. I'm not dissing symbolic action - we just need to differentiate if we're going to strategize effectively.

As for illegal activity, I think it is fair to criticize many Marxist organizations (though by no means all, and formal anarchist orgs are not exempt either) for clinging to bourgeois legalism. While obviously it would be stoopid to carry out an illegal action, and then claim it in the name of your above ground legal organization (at least, usually), above ground groups should aim to expound upon and defend (albeit, not uncritically) the activity of comrades engaged in illegal action. It's only through a reciprocal relationship between the two that the necessary capacities for both can expand.

Anyway, going back a few posts . . .


But do you really think it is impossible for the bourgeois state (modern liberal state, as you put it) to be smashed by the proletariat and replaced with its own state (one which does not resemble or carry out the functions of the bourgeois liberal state)?

In a word, yes. I don't believe that anything which I would consider a state could, at this juncture, could be constructed on an authentically proletarian basis. I think that the recomposition of the class-for-itself either advances in lockstep with the decomposition of the state (which I see as defined by its bureaucracies, its police forces, its spy networks, its prisons, its currency, etc.), and the emergence of communes, or the class does not reorganize itself along communist lines, but instead reproduces the state and, in doing so, reproduces itself as the working class. The latter of these is precisely what became of the union struggles and ostensibly communist revolutions in the first part of the 20th century.
Of course, to some degree, this brings us back around to the earlier question, though in more explicit terms: Is the armed commune a state? Probably it's not worth quibbling over.

[novartis]

Anarchism cannot coincide with the basic tenets that most of the so called anarchists of today believe.

For example, most anarchists recognize as anarchy only what leads to a socialist society. Imagine two persons, recognizing themselves as anarchists, and fighting all day long about the most trivial of things, decentralization, whether Marx meant this or that, Nestor Machno, Spain, who will build the roads, democracy or not democracy, etc.

And now ask them "do you believe that anarchocapitalists are anarchists?" They'll both reply "nooo capitalism is bad, is evil".

What I'm trying to say is that if you exclude from the people that call themselves anarchists the anarchocapitalists and some mutualists, all what is left has at least one thing in common, they are all socialists.

The basic tenet of socialism is equality. Some say equality of result and others equality of opportunity. Does not matter. Both these things require non voluntary institutions, like the state, to function. You cannot, in any voluntary way, guarantee that a disabled person will have food, if you do not coerce people to give him food.

Every anti-capitalist anarchist detests philanthropy. They see it as a "power structure" and they are so openly anti-philantropy because philanthropy does not guarantee equality, because it's voluntary. Only something non voluntary can guarantee what a socialist anarchist has in mind.

That's the reason all socialist anarchists cannot be taken seriously and will not find a way to apply their "ideals" in the real world. Rebellions and unsustainable communes by themselves are neither socialism nor anarchism.

[ellipsis]

Well perhaps it is simply the tactics of Marxist organizations that 'direct action' as well as more illegal activity, shouldn't be embarked upon, until the material conditions are correct.

Trust me, as a former insurrectionist, I can understand the allure of a constant attack (capital has institutions and symbols that we can attack on a daily basis, regardless) however if you are truly interested in building a movement which has the actual ability to accomplish the proletariat's historical goal of abolishing itself, then I would suggest better tactics. The time will come for insurrection, however it is not time now. Insurrectionists, to me (although it took me so long to understand this) are the equivalent of a military commander whose only command is: CHARGE!

I'm not talking about insurrection or even necessarily illegal action. Food not bombs, although not exclusively anarchist in composition but more so in terms of organizational model is a good example. Show me an American Marxist org that is feeding people and creating community in any capacity, let alone daily and nation wide.

[Art Vandelay]

I'm not talking about insurrection or even necessarily illegal action. Food not bombs, although not exclusively anarchist in composition but more so in terms of organizational model is a good example. Show me an American Marxist org that is feeding people and creating community in any capacity, let alone daily and nation wide.

Ahh okay, I definitely took the term 'direct action' in a fairly limited manner, which isn't very accurate in all honesty. If you want to criticize various Marxists groups, I will probably have the alot of the same criticisms as you do; I even have certain disagreements with the orientation my own party takes at times. I would definitely agree that Marxists organizations need to partake in much more of that kind of activity. I really like the theory of 'alternative culture' in this regard. We need to build our future society in the shell of this current one.

[Art Vandelay]

As for illegal activity, I think it is fair to criticize many Marxist organizations (though by no means all, and formal anarchist orgs are not exempt either) for clinging to bourgeois legalism. While obviously it would be stoopid to carry out an illegal action, and then claim it in the name of your above ground legal organization (at least, usually), above ground groups should aim to expound upon and defend (albeit, not uncritically) the activity of comrades engaged in illegal action. It's only through a reciprocal relationship between the two that the necessary capacities for both can expand.

Agreed.


In a word, yes. I don't believe that anything which I would consider a state could, at this juncture, could be constructed on an authentically proletarian basis. I think that the recomposition of the class-for-itself either advances in lockstep with the decomposition of the state (which I see as defined by its bureaucracies, its police forces, its spy networks, its prisons, its currency, etc.), and the emergence of communes, or the class does not reorganize itself along communist lines, but instead reproduces the state and, in doing so, reproduces itself as the working class. The latter of these is precisely what became of the union struggles and ostensibly communist revolutions in the first part of the 20th century.

But this is entirely what the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is comrade; this is why Engels made the distinction of the 'semi-state.'


Of course, to some degree, this brings us back around to the earlier question, though in more explicit terms: Is the armed commune a state? Probably it's not worth quibbling over.

Yes it is! This is what I am talking about when I say that anarchists don`t have a very good grasp on what constitutes a `state.` Also, with all due respect as I consider you a valuable member of the board (as you already know) and enjoy our exchanges, you have one of the most limited, narrow and odd definitions of the state that I have ever seen.

[MarxArchist]

My username indicates my position (generically). Many anarchists will point to history as an indication that future interactions between Marxists and anarchists will be negative but I think material conditions in modern western nations are different than Russia/Spain etc. Speaking of materialism, Marx implied some anarchist views were idealistic and utopian (Poverty Of Philosophy- Proudhon) which I agree with to a certain extent as some anarchists almost make a complete break with Marx's materialism. This isn't to say I think Marxists are determinists and anarchists are solely concerned with the likelihood of ideas alone changing the world it's just been my personal experience that many anarchists tip the scale towards idealism. I think materialism with focus on praxis is key.

The question of the state is where I give the anarchist position the most credit. I think Marxists would be better off, we'd all be better off if we critically examine the nature of centralized institutional hierarchy. The likelihood of the state naturally dissolving post global revolution seems nil to me. It's long been my opinion that unless the dictatorship of the proletariat is extremely democratic with workers actually being in control of production/distribution it will manifest as the continuation of class antagonisms and would probably warrant another revolution to overthrow or abolish those dynamics. Again, I think material conditions in advanced western nations are different from 1917 Russia so what anarchists perceive as the Leninist dictatorship, most likely, wouldn't be repeated in a modern situation in say, France, Germany, Spain, Italy or Britain. Quite simply put my Marxism holds both a mass movement and huge amounts of democracy as key ingredients to building socialism but at the same time I realize what sort of problems capitalist counterrevolution gives rise to. We could or probably should apply a sort of Hegelian dialectic to the Marxist/anarchist positions concerning the state and formulate a new understanding of what needs to be done to abolish capital.

[Ele'ill]

I'm not talking about insurrection or even necessarily illegal action. Food not bombs, although not exclusively anarchist in composition but more so in terms of organizational model is a good example. Show me an American Marxist org that is feeding people and creating community in any capacity, let alone daily and nation wide.

are you familiar with the anarchist criticism of food not bombs existing as a charity and how it's not genuinely direct action, where direct action would be arming people with the knowledge on how to expropriate food and set up their own kitchens, etc..

[ellipsis]

are you familiar with the anarchist criticism of food not bombs existing as a charity and how it's not genuinely direct action, where direct action would be arming people with the knowledge on how to expropriate food and set up their own kitchens, etc..

Which some chapters do a lot better than others. But yes I'm aware.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Yes it is! This is what I am talking about when I say that anarchists don`t have a very good grasp on what constitutes a `state.` Also, with all due respect as I consider you a valuable member of the board (as you already know) and enjoy our exchanges, you have one of the most limited, narrow and odd definitions of the state that I have ever seen.

See, I think the state needs to be understood very particularly as something that didn't spring fully formed from the ether, but has evolved in a particular way. I don't think it's particularly useful to talk about the state, generally, simply as "class rule" when it has evolved particular forms (armies, police, prisons, bureaucracies). I think that's akin to talking about capitalism the way that American libertarians do - as the ahistorical "free market". Surely, the so-called "free market" is inseparable from capitalism, but it's the historic specificities that make the real deal. Similarly, there is a definite relation between class rule and the state, but they are not synonymous insofar as the state has a specific history and character.

Just as capitalist relations didn't immediately overtake the whole of society, the judiciary, military, prison industrial complex, etc. did not come in to being all at once and fully formed. None the less, at this juncture, no state exists without them. We an still understand them as definitive characteristics of the state, just as we understand the proletariat as a definitive characteristic of capitalism though capitalist relations began prior to the formation of the proletariat as such.

For point of contrast, I feel like the armed commune is the historic form of "non-states"; notably, of various "primitive communist" societies (which, of course, Karl would agree are stateless, despite having particular modes of decision making, capacity for making war, etc.).