Leninism in the Wake of Occupy

[Le Socialiste]

I don't usually post absurdly long articles (partly because they're so off-putting to those who don't have the time or energy to dissect them), but I saw this article and it reminded me a little of what some comrades have been discussing and debating on this site. In that particular vein, I think it's worth pasting here - hopefully it'll spark further discussion on Leninism, our historical traditions, and the contemporary conditions of a world gripped by crises.


Leninism in the wake of Occupy

March 21, 2013

IF WE hope to change the world, as more than one Marxist has emphasized, we must see the present as history, learn from our current and recent experiences, generalize what we learn, and connect this with the historical generalizations that are already a part of the revolutionary Marxist tradition. The purpose of this interactive flow is to help orient us as we try to map out what we will do next.

Joaquín Bustelo's continuation of our discussion ("Lenin's idea of party-building") sparked by the essay "Leninism is Unfinished" has the virtue of trying to move back and forth in this way for the purpose of contributing to a more effective revolutionary activism. What he now says reveals a convergence with some of what I wrote in that essay, while leaving some points around which we can continue our comradely argument. I too will shuttle between the contemporary "now" and the historical "then"--starting with what is happening in the present.

Our discussion on Leninism is actually part of an intensive global process taking place among layers or radical activists around the classic questions of where we go from here and what is to be done. One of the flashpoints of this global discussion has been the terrible internal crisis currently devastating the British SWP, but more profoundly has it been generated by the broader political "moment" that we find ourselves in.

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The challenge of the post-Occupy moment

A multi-faceted capitalist crisis (involving a deep and long-lasting recession and instability, coupled with a decades' long assault on the quality of life of the global working class, matched by the growing enrichment of the global capitalist elite) has generated a mass radicalization and series of insurgencies throughout the world. This has shaken but by no means overturned the system which continues to oppress us--new mechanisms and strategies being devised to keep us in our place and to keep enriching a tiny and powerful minority at the expense of our planet and its peoples.

Paul Mason, in his invaluable Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions (Verso, 2013) has emphasized the centrality of the internet as a revolutionary tool in the upsurges--and it remains a revolutionary tool for those thrashing out and seeking to comprehend the meaning of our recent experiences and current situation. My language limitations restrict me to what activists throughout such English-speaking areas as the U.S., Britain, Canada, and Australia are saying to each other, but I know this is happening everywhere.

There are also valuable new books, not only Mason's, but also one by two British activists associated with the Anti-Capitalist Initiative in Britain, Luke Cooper and Simon Hardy, Beyond Capitalism?: The Future of Capitalist Politics (Zero Books 2012). These two comrades seem to have been intimately involved, as some of us were here, in recent mass struggles, and they celebrate and defend the Occupy movement for all the right reasons, hitting the nail on the head with this comment:

By focusing attention on the super-rich it provided a startling opportunity to open a debate about class interests in American politics. Of course, Occupy as a conception was always necessarily limited; its tactic of choice--the city centre camp--was unsustainable in the long-term. All such movements that involve frequent and intense forms of direct action, from occupations to other forms of civil disobedience, will generate a burst of activity fuelled by the adrenalin of participants, which then has to give way to a period of contemplation and recovery.

I know that this is quite definitely what happened with Occupy Pittsburgh, with a significant layer of Occupy activists regrouping in structures engaged in community-labor struggles for economic justice, but also continuing to wrestle with questions of what we must do in order to advance the revolutionary vision that had animated so many of us in late 2011 and early 2012.

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Leninism for our time

It is worth following Cooper and Hardy as they seek to draw theoretical elements from the history of revolutionary Marxism to help with the present-day problem that they have identified:

The moment of mass mobilization cannot endure forever at which point the masses will fall back on their existing institutions. The political lesson lies in what Antonio Gramsci called "the war of position," of trying to build, over the long-term, durable political organizations that have deep roots in society, so that when the moment of crisis and mass mobilization emerges, they are in a position to make what once appeared to be the politically impossible become the politically inevitable.

This valuable insight is worth unpacking. We need to build "existing institutions" which can help us in the struggles for genuine gains for workers and the oppressed in their here-and-now, but also "durable organizations" deeply-rooted in the struggles of working-class and oppressed communities which, as the same time, can help lead the way--"when the moment of crisis and mass struggle emerges"--to revolutionary transformation. For Antonio Gramsci, a founder and leader of the Italian Communist Party and a leading figure in the Communist International, such a durable organization was a revolutionary party (adapted to Italian conditions) that drew from the Russian current of revolutionary Marxism represented by Lenin.

In a recent contribution on the Anti-Capitalist Initiative website, Simon Hardy, focusing on "forgotten legacies" of the left, urges "taking into account the actual evolutionary process that rendered Bolshevism successful as a living oppositional force within the workers movement." He suggests this can help us "replicate the kind of organic development of a working-class party which was so essential to what became known as Leninism."

Critical of how the Leninist tradition played out in the post-Second World War era (with the mutual intolerance of small-group polemical slug-fests), Hardy sees much in the example of Lenin and his comrades that can help "lay the basis for a united, revolutionary organization in Britain, one that will inevitably combine different already existing tendencies and individuals, whilst broadening itself out to people who have never been in an organization before."

This is consistent with the understanding of genuine Leninism that Comrade Bustelo assures us he himself embraces. This understanding is rooted in the excellent quotations which he draws from the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and from Marx's correspondence about the sectarian tendencies that needed to be overcome in the socialist movement--emphasizing that communists, revolutionary socialists, are and must be inseparable from the real struggles of the working class.

It is also consistent with something expressed by two U.S. working-class revolutionaries of the past. Vincent Raymond Dunne, in describing what he and other Trotskyists were doing when they led the victorious Minneapolis general strike of 1934, commented: "Our policy was to organize and build strong unions, so workers could have something to say and assist in changing the present order into a socialist society." We find similar sensibilities in a letter written to Dunne two decades later by James P. Cannon (reflecting on letters by Frederick Engels):

The conscious socialists should act as a 'leaven' in the instinctive and spontaneous movement of the working class...The leaven can help the dough to rise and eventually become a loaf of bread, but can never be a loaf of bread itself...Every tendency, direct or indirect, of a small revolutionary party to construct a world of its own, outside and apart from the real movement of the workers in the class struggle, is sectarian.

Yet Comrade Bustelo points precisely to Cannon as representing the wrong kind of "Leninism," and it is worth following him to the source of this interpretation (which in my opinion is flawed) to sort through remaining differences.

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Comprehending the Leninist contribution

As Bustelo tells us, Cannon was "the central founding leader of the Trotskyist movement in the United States. At the time of his break with Stalinism (1928), he was a mature political cadre, 38 years old, and one of the central leaders of the CPUSA. He had been a delegate to the Fourth and Sixth Comintern Congresses, a delegate to the Executive Committee of the Communist International and a member of its Presidium." For an excellent account of this remarkable working-class activist, and of the early U.S. Communist movement, one should consult Bryan Palmer's fine study, James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928 (University of Illinois Press, 2007). Here is the 1967 quotation from Cannon that Bustelo dislikes:

The greatest contribution to the arsenal of Marxism since the death of Engels in 1895 was Lenin's conception of the vanguard party as the organizer and director of the proletarian revolution. That celebrated theory of organization was not, as some contend, simply a product of the special Russian conditions of his time and restricted to them. It is deep-rooted in two of the weightiest realities of the 20th century: the actuality of the workers' struggle for the conquest of power, and the necessity of creating a leadership capable of carrying it through to the end.

Why does this represent the kind of "Leninism" that Bustelo rejects? Because, he says, "what Lenin really believed [was] plain old Marxism with no hyphen after it"--that is, not "Marxism-Leninism." This was in contrast to "what Cannon and his entire generation of working-class leaders that joined or came up in the groups affiliated with the Comintern and its descendants believed." They were wrong, apparently, to believe "that Lenin made a huge contribution that took Marxism to a higher level, and specifically on the organization question." One can argue (and a number of people have argued) that Karl Kautsky and also Lenin's Russian Menshevik adversaries were also believers in "plain old Marxism," and that--contrary to Cannon--there is nothing at all distinctive in Lenin's views on the question of revolutionary organization.

But this misses the historical reality. Lenin and the Bolsheviks--unlike their Menshevik comrades and ultimately unlike Kautsky--were prepared to follow the implications of the revolutionary Marxist orientation through to the end. Kautsky and the Mensheviks became compromised. Their "plain old Marxism" turned out to be different form Lenin's, and this had organizational implications.

The Mensheviks adhered to the dogma that Russia must first go through a democratic-capitalist transformation, that a working class socialist revolution would not be on the agenda until many years later. Based on this, they became committed to a worker-capitalist alliance to overthrow the tsarist monarchy, which naturally created pressures to compromise the class-struggle elements of Marxism. This increasingly impacted on the kind of organizational structures they favored--many being inclined to back away from (and "liquidate") structures pulling workers in a revolutionary direction. Even those Mensheviks not agreeing with the "liquidators" shied away from making common cause with the intransigent revolutionaries of Bolshevism.

For Kautsky, by 1910, it became clear that he would become marginalized within the increasingly bureaucratic-conservative German Social Democratic movement unless he subtly but increasingly diluted his seemingly unequivocal and eloquent commitment to revolutionary Marxism. This meant an adaptation to organizational structures adapted toward reformist rather than revolutionary policies, with labor bureaucracies in the trade unions and the party fostering passive and obedient (non-revolutionary) memberships. By 1914, when the German Social Democracy supported the imperialist war policies of the Kaiser's government, and in 1917, in the face of the Bolshevik Revolution, Kautsky became utterly compromised.

Lenin's Marxism was different from what passed for "plain old Marxism" among a majority of the world's socialists by 1919, when the Communist International was formed. What is distinctive about Lenin's Bolsheviks is that they did not compromise, they doggedly followed through to the end the implications of the revolutionary Marxist orientation as expressed in What Is To Be Done?, The State and Revolution, "Left-Wing" Communism, and elsewhere in Lenin's writings.

This suggests that there was something to Cannon's assertion after all--that there was a decisive element of difference, when all was said and done, between the kind of party that Kautsky was a member of in Germany and the kind of party that Lenin and his comrades were actually building in Russia. At the same time, Lenin's thought can most fruitfully be understood not as a break from, but in continuity with that of Marx. This is the fruitful element in Bustelo's point (and both Lenin and Cannon would have agreed with that).

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Diversity among revolutionaries

One of the troubling if unintended consequences of the approach we find in Bustelo and others of like mind, however, is that it tends to present Lenin not as one among a diverse collection of capable comrades, but as the authoritative representative of True Marxism. His comrades in Russia and globally are dismissed--they got it wrong, they misunderstood, they failed to remain true to the "plain old Marxism" of their would-be mentor.

A now-common accusation leveled at the early Communist International is that it was (and therefore James P. Cannon was) under the malignant influence of Gregory Zinoviev, who headed this world federation of Communist Parties from 1919 to 1926. This is why the 1921 theses on organization were targeted by Bustelo. While Comrade Bustelo now seems to back away from his earlier critique of the 1921 organizational resolution of the Communist International, he continues to contrast Lenin with the Comintern as such--embracing what he terms "real, non-zinovievist 'Leninism' which is simply Marxism." This is problematical in more than one way.

One problem, already noted, is the genuinely divergent political trends claiming to represent what is "simply Marxism." There can be more than one way of interpreting and utilizing Marx's ideas. But more than this, reality certainly changed dramatically between the year of Marx's death in 1883 and 1918 (or 2013). No Marxism can be worth much unless it creatively develops in order to deal with the changing realities. Why dissolve Lenin's contributions into "simply Marxism"?

Yet another problem is the dismissal with the presumably perfidious "Zinovievist" tag of the Communist International, which contained a rich diversity of revolutionaries. This is not to deny that sometimes Zinoviev played a problematical, undemocratic, opportunistic, manipulative role within the Comintern--as indicated, for example, in reminiscences of some who worked with him (Alfred Rosmer, Victor Serge, Angelica Balabanoff and others). But this should not be used to dismiss all the work of Lenin's comrades, and of Lenin himself, in this remarkable global collective of revolutionaries. Nor should it be used to dismiss all the work, including sometimes outstanding contributions, of Zinoviev himself.

A primary authority often cited by the critics of Zinovievist "Leninism" is Lars Lih, whose recent biography of Lenin and massive study Lenin Rediscovered are powerful additions to Lenin historiography. Whether one fully agrees with him or not, it is always worth considering what this outstanding scholar has to say. A contribution helping to provide a more rounded consideration of Zinoviev is his essay "Zinoviev: Populist Leninist" (reprinted in a book he co-edited with Ben Lewis, Zinoviev and Martov: Head to Head in Halle). While hardly uncritical, Lih writes:

Two comments by [prominent Bolshevik Anatoly] Lunacharsky seem to me to hit the right note: he called Zinoviev "a person who had a profound understanding of the essence of Bolshevism" and one who was "romantically" devoted to the party. I will present Zinoviev as someone who was under the spell of the Leninist drama of hegemony, but with a decidedly populist bent.

Lih tells us that in the Soviet Republic in the early 1920s Zinoviev was insisting that "there should be a party reorganization to get cells closer to the factory floor. Party democracy--especially in the sense of free discussion--should be intensified as the basic means of party education." He adds (based on a critical examination of Zinoviev's writings): "My impression is that Zinoviev was genuinely concerned about the problems faced by ordinary people." Regarding his influence in the Comintern, Lih writes:

Zinoviev's emphasis on the concept of hegemony makes one think of Antonio Gramsci. As a foreign communist, Gramsci would have dealt more with Zinoviev than with any other Bolshevik leader and must have been influenced by his particular understanding of Leninism. Certainly it would have been satisfyingly ironic if the despised Zinoviev turned out ultimately to have more enduring intellectual influence (via his talented pupil Gramsci) than any other top Bolshevik.

I would argue that enduring intellectual influence can more rightly be credited to Lenin himself, and also to Leon Trotsky. But Lih's emphasis on the need to take Zinoviev seriously as a revolutionary seems to me well placed, nonetheless. Another pillar of Bolshevism in the years leading up to the 1917 revolution was Zinoviev's sometime ally, Lev Kamenev, whom Lih highlights in "The Ironic Triumph of Old Bolshevism: The Debates of April 1917 in Context" (Russian History, 38, 2011). Here he challenges the standard account of Lenin reorienting the Bolshevik party in preparation for the October Revolution, writing that "Kamenev seems to think he won the debate with Lenin in April 1917," and Lih suggests that Kamenev was right. Even if one disagrees with that, it is still possible to appreciate this information:

In 1922, Kamenev published a 700-page collection of his articles written between the 1905 revolution and the outbreak of war in 1914. He introduced these articles by claiming with great pride that the revolution of 1917 had vindicated the analyses of Russian society made by prewar Bolshevism. "The literal realization of a whole series of arguments and predictions in the Bolshevik literature about the role and the tactics in the revolution of social groups, classes, parties and even specific leaders and parties is a brilliant proof of this."

The point of all this, it seems to me, is that the tradition associated with Lenin is more complex and far richer, and more useful, if we do not abstract Lenin from the context of his revolutionary comrades, Russian and international. If we tear him from the context of his comrades, we cannot fully understand his Marxism and what Simon Hardy refers to as the "organic development of a working-class party which was so essential to what became known as Leninism."

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Returning to the struggles of "now"

The point is not merely to interpret history in various ways but to change it, and to utilize a closer and closer approximation to what happened in history in order to help us bring the change we are seeking. My friend Joaquín is very much on-target in wanting to help young activists avoid a stilted understanding of what actually happened in the history of the revolutionary Marxist movement, and therefore to avoid illusory models, false examples, dead-ends.

It seems to me, however, that the conception of "Zinovievism" has all-too-often become an impediment to looking at what actually happened. It sometimes blocks an actual engagement with the ideas and examples of revolutionaries tainted by this artificial "-ism" (from Zinoviev himself to the entire Communist International of 1919-1925 to substantial swathes of the Trotskyist movement). This is said not to shield any of these from criticism, but to push in the direction of serious examination rather than simplistic dismissal.

The Marxism we need is neither "plain" nor "old" but rather--as Luke Cooper and Simon Hardy have put it so well--"a collective process involving many practitioners," a process which "is always contested, and always involving competing claims of truth and falsity" that can be tested in practice, in struggle, but requires "a plurality of diverse and different viewpoints" necessary for "avoiding the trap of an ossified Marxism." Each in their own way, this describes the revolutionary collectivities that were the early Communist International and the Bolshevik party.

Neither of these can, of course, be replicated in the here-and-now. But each of them, properly understood, can provide resources for the work that we can do today and tomorrow. This involves--in the wake of Occupy, and in the midst of continuing ferment and insurgency--laying the groundwork, developing the preconditions necessary for the next steps. Such "next steps" will include building durable political organizations, deeply rooted in the workplaces and communities and struggles of our diverse working-class majority. If these are built well, when moments of crisis and mass mobilization come, they will be "in a position to make what once appeared to be the politically impossible become the politically inevitable."

http://socialistworker.org/2013/03/21/leninism-after-occupy

[The Idler]

Are the ISO flirting with Lars Lih, have they dropped the "party of a new type" designation?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

A multi-faceted capitalist crisis (involving a deep and long-lasting recession and instability, coupled with a decades' long assault on the quality of life of the global working class, matched by the growing enrichment of the global capitalist elite)

The brutalization and increased exploitation of Labor the last 40 years is not "matched" by enrichment of the Bourgeoisie, it is the outcome and goal of it.


Every tendency, direct or indirect, of a small revolutionary party to construct a world of its own, outside and apart from the real movement of the workers in the class struggle, is sectarian.


To what extent do these comrades see today's Unions as 'Class-Strugglist'?


The greatest contribution to the arsenal of Marxism since the death of Engels in 1895 was Lenin's conception of the vanguard party as the organizer and director of the proletarian revolution.

. . . and the necessity of creating a leadership capable of carrying it through to the end.

Lenin hardly had any different conception of the Proletarian Party than Kautsky or the German Social-Democrats, in fact, he tried to establish a Marxist party like the SPD as much as possible in Russian dictatorial conditions.

That last part is simply revisionism to Marxism and Leninism. The leadership should be rather irrelevant in a truly democratic Proletarian party, the creation of an educated worker party base should be the goal.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

It's extremely telling when people talk about Marx(ism) and Lenin(ism) with great verbosity while hardly being bothered to mention communism.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Are the ISO flirting with Lars Lih, have they dropped the "party of a new type" designation?We disagree with parts of his analysis, but I think most of our districts have had study groups on his book and LeBlanc's in order to look at and discuss some of the new scholarship and debates about Lenin and the early Bolsheviks.

In the last decade we've changed the way we see our organization in relation to building a revolutionary party and changed some of the way we organize, but there hasn't been any sort of fundamental shift from the goal of trying to be part of building a revolutionary action-oriented and coordinated party made up of revolutionaries in all areas of class struggle, if that's what you mean.


To what extent do these comrades see today's Unions as 'Class-Strugglist'?Well first, that was a quote by Cannon and I'm not sure what the context was, but he was around for some class struggle unionism.

At any rate, what about now? The union beurocracy? It's business-unionism as usual. The rank and file? Mostly passive at the moment. Is that some fundamental or qualatitive change in the nature of unions from the past? No, I don't think so. Class struggle goes in waves and in down-times unions usually tend to become more controlled by negotiators from above while workers become more passive and less confident. It will probably take rank and file fights against the union leaders for workers to revive some class-struggle orientation in unions, but that's generally been the case... from the San Francisco general strike to what have you.

But unions fundamentally are organizations of the defense of workers in class struggle. Doesn't mean it can't be co-opted or weighed-down or ineffective at that defense. But where rank and file workers are in unions and trying to struggle, radicals should try and be involved and help that struggle by arguing for class struggle strategies and ultimately revolutionary politics and tactics.

[subcp]

I'm troubled by the idea that:


The moment of mass mobilization cannot endure forever at which point the masses will fall back on their existing institutions.

I see crisis activity leading to the advanced minority of the working-class turning to communist positions and principles, who then seek to act in the heat of the next crisis in the effort to turn a capitalist crisis into a revolutionary crisis. The idea of a 'workers hegemony' developing after crisis (as a result of the small groups of communists), especially in the central capitalist nations, is antiquated.

[Q]

I'm troubled by the idea that:



I see crisis activity leading to the advanced minority of the working-class turning to communist positions and principles, who then seek to act in the heat of the next crisis in the effort to turn a capitalist crisis into a revolutionary crisis. The idea of a 'workers hegemony' developing after crisis (as a result of the small groups of communists), especially in the central capitalist nations, is antiquated.

It is not only antiquated, it never worked in the first place.

The article rightly mentions institutions that exert authority in one way or another.

I commented earlier (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=6618) on this important question. I'll post it again for easy reference:


While I agree that striking in itself is no solution or strategy towards anything, I disagree that we therefore need to go even further and adopt a slogan like "all out, stay out" (like the SWP in the UK does for example). This amounts to nothing more than revolutionary phrase-mongering.

The underlying point here is that the strength of the working class lies in its position of running society and that therefore withholding our work strengthens our position. On the contrary, the strength of the working class lies in its alienation from the means of production and the necessary collective action that flows from this position in relation to our society. Said differently, we have to form ourselves as a class before we can pose positive alternatives on society and a strike can help in this process.

Secondly, an actual indefinite general strike is wholly unacceptable as society would cease to function meaning no emergency services, no food in the supermarkets, no water from the tap. So what will actually happen is that a general strike committee must be formed which takes over the tasks of coordinating basic social functions. Of course this point is well understood by the "general strikist" left and it is in fact their intention to reach such strike committees. So, say after three months of a general strike, with social power firmly under control of the general strike committee, the left can go around to the working class and say: "oh by the way, we took over power from the capitalists, long live the revolution!". Or that is the plan in a nutshell.

This however has a major problem: It doesn't work this way. In any historical situation of a prolonged general strike situation or a situation of political melt down of the old order, the working class movement won't just spontaniously conclude to seize power for themselves, but instead will look to alternative but already established authorities. The social-democrats in Portugal in 1974 come to mind as a clear example of this. At another level the Iranian revolution of 1979 is another example. We cannot trick the working class into power.

The strategy then is to build our own alternative authority: that of a self-conscious working class wanting to take power as a class. This is why I think a partyist strategy is needed: A mass politicised working class movement that patiently works to educate, agitate and organise the working class independently and in its own interests on a radical democratic and global level. The left can be a positive triggering point for such a party-movement by uniting on this basis and for a Marxist programme.

Within this framework then a general strike is one available tactic in building our class.

[Malesori]

Is it true that the ISO has abandoned, or at least minimized, the concept of Permanent Revolution?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Is it true that the ISO has abandoned, or at least minimized, the concept of Permanent Revolution?No, but there've been debates over the relevance of certain aspects of the concept in recent years - views of induvidual members range but even the critics support many of the main aspects of the theory, they just don't think it's as relevenat in total. The critical view isn't widespread or homogenous and so I don't know if I could represent their arguments very well. But essentially I think the aspects dealing with "bourgois revolution" are questioned by some since capitalist relations are much more widespread and dominant even in "underdeveloped" economies.

[subcp]

It is not only antiquated, it never worked in the first place.I think there is a distinction between being subjectively wrong at the time and being outside of the ballpark; at that time, it may have been a plausible part of the discussion- it was during the heyday of the mass organizations of the working-class, when class belonging could be physically demonstrated and was a real dynamic in the class struggle. Those conditions have changed considerably since the failure of the revolutionary wave, and especially since the restructuring of capital since the late 1960's: which does place such thinking, today, outside the realm.

I don't agree with your quoted piece- strike activity is one of the direct means for developing the experience, confidence and consciousness necessary for the class struggle to advance beyond recidivism; this was noted at the time of the first revolutionary wave by the RCP(b)- even though every strike is not a revolution, there are the seeds of revolution in every strike (the class consciousness and combativity of the working-class meeting the wall of capital's inability to provide even meager reforms and gains).

Your response and the article in the original post put forward class belonging as an end result that is desirable and necessary for the future communist revolution. I don't think that's a foreseeable outcome in the era we live in.


But essentially I think the aspects dealing with "bourgois revolution" are questioned by some since capitalist relations are much more widespread and dominant even in "underdeveloped" economies.Exactly; it seems very odd to argue for a theory that argues to push the bourgeois democratic revolution onto socialist rails in an era where the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie has transformed nearly all of the underdeveloped regions politically and economically.

[The Feral Underclass]

It's extremely telling when people talk about Marx(ism) and Lenin(ism) with great verbosity while hardly being bothered to mention communism.

Or anything of substance, really.

And in conclusion: Let's carry on doing exactly what we've been doing for 100 years.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Or anything of substance, really.

And in conclusion: Let's carry on doing exactly what we've been doing for 100 years.


Or anything of substance, really.

Do you not see the irony oozing out of what you just wrote?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm troubled by the idea that:


The moment of mass mobilization cannot endure forever at which point the masses will fall back on their existing institutions.

I see crisis activity leading to the advanced minority of the working-class turning to communist positions and principles, who then seek to act in the heat of the next crisis in the effort to turn a capitalist crisis into a revolutionary crisis. The idea of a 'workers hegemony' developing after crisis (as a result of the small groups of communists), especially in the central capitalist nations, is antiquated.

I don't think the quote was implying what you say at all. It's really a recognition of the dynamics of revolutions. The largest numbers of people will be willing to fight (when they wern't before) if they feel like a spontanious revolt will actually win or at least make major gains. This generally can only last for a time before the daily realities of capitalism begin to take a toll - people have to start figuring out rent and getting groceries again and dealing with the day-to-day. So if the movement hasn't broken through, people will likely be more willing to settle, more willing to let the trade union leadership fight for them, rather than going through enduring hardships of militant strikes and wildcats if they don't think it will get them anywhere qualitativly better.

This doesn't mean that there can't also be a high degree of class consiousness among this population. German workers had high class (and at the end of WWI, revolutionary) consiousness but people were still demoralized or confused by defeats and couldn't revolt endlessly at the same level.

The second part of what you were saying, about crisis and struggle producing "vanguard" workers, I agree with and I think that's the point of trying to build revolutionary parties or unions - for those people to consolidate and coordinate their efforts when the spontanious part of struggle receedes. And then to prepare for the next class-wide upsurge when tons more workers who might be on the fense or underconfident or not yet convinced will be drawn into struggle.

[The Feral Underclass]

Do you not see the irony oozing out of what you just wrote?

Well, I suppose I could have written three pages of prolixity, drawing on obscure and redundant history and making vapid platitudes, without any sense of self-awareness, but unlike Leninists I am able to articulate myself without droning on.

Those five words were all the words I needed to get my point across, thanks.

[Jimmie Higgins]

but unlike Leninists I am able to articulate myself without droning on.

Those five words were all the words I needed to get my point across, thanks. If tendancy flaming is what you wish to articulate, then 5 words is not concise - it's 5 words too many.

[The Feral Underclass]

It's not a flame. It's a perfectly valid criticism, whether you like the criticism or not.

Leninists have a tendency to be completely out of touch with the class. How does this article speak to the everyday struggles of working class people? I'm in no way anti-intellectual, but pieces like this really challenge the idea of what intellectuals should be doing. Does this article serve any function, really? Other than to be self-masturbatory? Is this really the arena in which intellectual pursuits should be situated?

For a start the article doesn't even address the fundamental issues of class composition, the changing nature of class dynamics and areas of resistance against capital, nor does it really address the failings of democratic centralism and the party model. Of course, it would be a surprise if a Leninist actually admitted to those things, but nevertheless. (Though some British Leninists are trying to re-situate themselves, which I find very admirable).

[subcp]

I don't think the quote was implying what you say at all. It's really a recognition of the dynamics of revolutions. The largest numbers of people will be willing to fight (when they wern't before) if they feel like a spontanious revolt will actually win or at least make major gains. This generally can only last for a time before the daily realities of capitalism begin to take a toll - people have to start figuring out rent and getting groceries again and dealing with the day-to-day. So if the movement hasn't broken through, people will likely be more willing to settle, more willing to let the trade union leadership fight for them, rather than going through enduring hardships of militant strikes and wildcats if they don't think it will get them anywhere qualitativly better.I partly agree; guess this is where the conception of the role of communists is important; if we are to provide revolutionary solutions to a substantial crisis, it'd be through coordinated engagement when the inertia of the rest of the working-class peaks and ends up at that historic moment of 'take power or take the factory?' (the former is pushing the movement forward, the latter recuperation), the party is there to defend the communist programme before the revolutionary momentum becomes recidivist- rather than trying to build mass-based organizations to absorb the residue of a receding struggle, we ought to have a minority organization to agitate for it to go further. Either way, if the situation ends up where the revolutionary movement runs out of steam and begins to significantly recede, the path to communism gets closed off.


This doesn't mean that there can't also be a high degree of class consiousness among this population. German workers had high class (and at the end of WWI, revolutionary) consiousness but people were still demoralized or confused by defeats and couldn't revolt endlessly at the same level.I agree. But in that case specifically, even on its upward trajectory in 1917-1918, the mass organizations radicalized their slogans, tactics and orientation (temporarily), absorbed the social inertia toward proletarian revolution and acted as a buffer; despite the level of class consciousness and the momentum of the revolution, workers still trusted in 'their' organizations- the mass parties and the trade unions. I think a similar approach will have similar results, though the levels of unionization and the size of the former mass parties suggests that the classical worker's movement, with or without communist support, won't be able to have the level of influence it did in the 20th century, and that we ought to be doing what only communists can do- defend the communist positions-principles when the rest of our class starts its movement.

But the kinds of regroupments called for in all of these groups and initiatives seem like pleas for a lowest common denominator agreement, which would surely hamper the ability of its members (or whatever kind of organization is born from it) from doing even that effectively.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It's not a flame. It's a perfectly valid criticism, whether you like the criticism or not.No, it was a flame. What you added in the edit to your last post, an argument, is a criticism irregardless of validity or anyone agreeing with it or not.

[The Feral Underclass]

Who am I flaming? Is the person who wrote that article participating in this thread? How is saying that an article is not substantial a flame? You're being ridiculous. If you can't handle people giving pointed criticism, then I suggest you get out of politics.

[Lucretia]

I think this passage from the article bears repeating: "This suggests that there was something to Cannon's assertion after all--that there was a decisive element of difference, when all was said and done, between the kind of party that Kautsky was a member of in Germany and the kind of party that Lenin and his comrades were actually building in Russia. At the same time, Lenin's thought can most fruitfully be understood not as a break from, but in continuity with that of Marx. This is the fruitful element in Bustelo's point (and both Lenin and Cannon would have agreed with that)."

Decisive element of difference: one lined up with the workers during WWI, and the other with its national bourgeoisie.

[Orange Juche]

I tend to see Occupy as the embryonic stage of change in the social winds, the beginning stage where people begin to realize something is truly off. But if there's one thing I could gather from it, I really highly doubt Leninism would be appealing to the mass of people involved in Occupy and if a socialist alternative programme were to come out of it, it certainly wouldn't be Leninist.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Who am I flaming? Is the person who wrote that article participating in this thread? How is saying that an article is not substantial a flame? You're being ridiculous. If you can't handle people giving pointed criticism, then I suggest you get out of politics."Pointed"? No it wasn't, that's the point and you tacitly acknowledged so yourself by retroactivly providing an explaination in an edit to your post.

"Leninists are boring" and "nothing of substance, same old same old" is not an argument, much less a "pointed one". Maybe "Flaming" isn't the right term, maybe "trolling" is more appropriate. If you had posted the argument first, then this would be a non-issue. However, since people have been concerned about lack of depth in "Theory" discussions, I don't think such dismissive tendency-flaming/trolling helps us reach any fuller level of discussion.

Most of all, there is no need for whining. If you want to make an argument about the OP article or what people said, make an argument. Other than disagreeing with your later argument, I have no problem in the abstract with that argument. There is a problem with people saying "Leninists are boring" or "Anarchists are all liberals" in a dismissive way with no actual argument. I did not give you any warning or infraction since I thought that a "reminder" would be enough.

[The Feral Underclass]

"Leninists are boring" and "nothing of substance, same old same old" is not an argument, much less a "pointed one".

So basically what has occurred is, I made a statement, from which you've inferred something and then accused me of flaming based upon it. I'm not making the point that Leninists are boring, am I?

It is an argument, however, as I substantiated, that this article, billed as a post-occupy reflection, doesn't actually do that. In fact, it lacks any substance on that basis. I am entitled to say that in five words if I choose to do so.


Maybe "Flaming" isn't the right term, maybe "trolling" is more appropriate. If you had posted the argument first, then this would be a non-issue. However, since people have been concerned about lack of depth in "Theory" discussions, I don't think such dismissive tendency-flaming/trolling helps us reach any fuller level of discussion.

This isn't about "tendency flaming." My more substantial point could quite easily be considered "tendency flaming" or "trolling," since it makes exactly the same criticisms as my five worded response.

What you have got all prissy about is the style in which I have said what I am saying. Well, that's not really my problem. It's yours. If you don't like the conversational style by which I sometimes might make a point, then that's just tough.


Most of all, there is no need for whining. If you want to make an argument about the OP article or what people said, make an argument.

I did. I said it lacked substance. That is an argument. If you want to disagree with it, then disagree with it, don't get all petty and start accusing me of flaming.


Other than disagreeing with your later argument, I have no problem in the abstract with that argument. There is a problem with people saying "Leninists are boring" or "Anarchists are all liberals" in a dismissive way with no actual argument. I did not give you any warning or infraction since I thought that a "reminder" would be enough.

Nowhere did I say Leninists were boring. What I said was: "Or anything of substance, really."

Perhaps you could explain exactly what is "flaming" and "troll-like" about that? I notice that you didn't call Jam like a Jacobin out for his contribution, where he essentially mimics my point by telling me that my post is not of substance. Why is "Do you not see the irony oozing out of what you just wrote?" less of a flame or troll than "Or anything of substance, really."

What you don't like is that fact that an anarchist has come and criticised an article written by a Leninist for Leninists, and oh, shock horror, you're a Leninist too. How convenient.

This whole conversation is pathetic and demeans both of us.

[The Feral Underclass]

For a more indepth analysis of the UK Occupy movement, you can read this article. The link is here: Obituary for a movement yet to be: Occupy UK one year on (http://libcom.org/blog/obituary-movement-yet-be-occupy-uk-one-year-19102012)

---

Obituary for a movement yet to be: Occupy UK one year on

Introduction

The global Occupy movement (often referred to as #Occupy) has been popularly presented as the beginnings of an organised, popular resistance to austerity. Although all but dissolved in organisational terms in the UK, the rhetoric of the “99%” still retains strong resonance within both corporate and social media as representative of the conditions of proletarianised workers, students and sections of the middle strata faced with the increasingly brutal logics of capitalist accumulation and the social disparity between themselves and the “1%” (more controversially largely represented as the CEOs and big financial firms continuing to benefit from the crisis). While for our counterparts in the US, Occupy still appears to have some mobilising potential, in spite of continuing contradictions of the organisational model (at least that is our perception as outsiders), in the UK Occupy it was a largely geographically and temporally fixed phenomenon – being largely represented in a few cities over a time-scale of approximately late 2011 to early 2012.

In spite of this, the experience of Occupy UK illustrates a number of critical concerns for British anti-capitalists. Strategic conclusions can be drawn from analysis of the camps themselves, there are questions left open by the general lack of a sustained anarchist presence (and the subsequent drift of already quite politically plural camps into wholly liberal reformist positions) or whether it is possible to “camp” popular opposition to austerity (all of which are address below). Occupy UK, or to put it more concretely the failure to actualise the popular anti-austerity movement that Occupy UK was premised upon, also raises a broader concern for us – what, if any, will the shape of popular resistance to capitalism take in the UK in the 21st Century? Occupy UK indicates a two-fold failure in this respect – failure to mobilise a popular movement around anti-austerity positions (and win a broader public debate concerning austerity) by Occupy itself and a failure of anti-capitalist intervention to expunge anti-austerity positions of the illusions of liberal reformism, or to offer meaningful analysis and orientation of the barriers experienced in building that movement (in terms of a class-based approach to social change).

We should be honest about this balance sheet. There has been a tendency within the wider anarchist movement, and we were witness to this at the recent international gathering at St. Imier, to champion Occupy as a demonstration of the “victory” for anarchist ideas. Not only does this show a misunderstanding of the content and composition of Occupy itself, as well as being misplaced in terms of the general absence of clear anarchist involvement and influence, but shows an unwillingness to really take stock of the genuine position of disorientation that many libertarians find themselves in the current context. The state is determined to plunge the working class into ever deeper conditions of poverty and insecurity, and this is a situation replicated across Europe. In the face of this escalating onslaught resistance does not appear to be forthcoming. In the wake of the burning passion and creativity of the student occupation movement we have been offered only the disorientating and muted action of the Occupy camps on the one hand, and the disconnected and tired politics of (trade union led) anti-cuts coalitions on the other. More importantly the ultimate ineffectiveness of Occupy UK is not something we should wish to claim as a mantle for our tradition. Such a position only bolsters the arguments of the authoritarian Left who locate the weaknesses of the movement in its commitments to autonomy and self-organisation and the absence of a centralised leadership – elements that we ultimately celebrate.

The questions to which we turn in this article and the analysis developed from them are the product of collective and self-critical discussions between Collective Action militants as well as drawn from our own experiences of the camps as participants in this movement.

Occupy UK: origins and aims

On October 15th 2011, the first incarnation of the then international “Occupy movement” established itself in the UK when a coalition of activists and organisers occupied the forecourt of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The original intention, following the Occupy Wall Street model, was to create a visible presence of anti-capitalist activity within the economic heart of the capital; in the case of London, the Stock Exchange and the “Square Mile” where the majority of international financial and banking services are based. Like its American cousin in Zuccotti park, Occupy the London Stock Exchange (“Occupy LSX”), initially fell short of “reclaiming space” directly from financial institutions (attempts to occupy Paternoster Square were quickly thwarted by the police) and was instead based at St. Paul’s Cathedral nearby.

This was a decision, perhaps unforeseen at the time, which was to later cause a great deal of difficulty in terms of clarifying the message of the camp with a particularly zealous campaign by the right-wing press to “clear the cathedral” and the majority of the initial negotiation for the space taking place in relation to the Canon of St. Paul’s. That is not to say that action against religious institutions is necessarily an exercise detached from campaigns for social justice – in Sheffield it was joked that the Occupy camp closing the cathedral may have been the only perceivable victory the camp there could claim – but in terms of building an explicit anti-austerity message it certainly contributed to the camp failing to make substantial gains as the debates it sought to provoke were often overshadowed by arguments about the camp’s location and disruption to the cathedral. It also immediately threw up some difficult issues for organisers to grapple with in terms of religious tolerance and co-operation with the church.

In spite of this, Occupy LSX did coalesce around a specific set of aims, to be followed in the months after by camps set up across the UK. On October 16th, a gathering of over 500 Occupy London protesters collectively agreed upon and issued the following 'Initial Statement':


1. The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.
2. We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.

3. We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.

4. We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.

5. We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.

6. We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.

7. We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.

8. The present economic system pollutes land, sea and air, is causing massive loss of natural species and environments, and is accelerating humanity towards irreversible climate change. We call for a positive, sustainable economic system that benefits present and future generations.

9. We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.

This was later synthesised by Occupy LSX to:


Reclaiming space in the face of the financial system and using it to voice ideas for how we can work towards a better future. A future free from austerity, growing inequality, unemployment, tax injustice and a political elite that ignores its citizens, and work towards concrete demands to be met.

It is fair to say that a great deal of what Occupy claims, or claimed, to be about lies in its processes – movement-building, participation, direct democracy, collective living, etc – and as a result it is perhaps unfair to judge it on the basis of its objectives alone. It was also very clear that many participants considered objectives to be secondary to a far more inclusive process of uniting progressives under the banner of anti-austerity (a commitment which will be discussed in more detail later). Nonetheless, in spite of this the camps clearly did, initially at least, have a driving rationale, and however embryonic in practice this may have been after a little over a year since the occupations, media coverage and public attention, it is necessary to reflect on these aims, their viability as means of struggle and whether future incarnations can be successful. It should also be emphasised that even in an embryonic state the content of these initial aims had immediate practical effects in terms of the processes themselves. Many, for example, cite the errors of a failure to include a more concrete “safer spaces” policy (a commitment to create spaces free from discrimination and prejudice) within the Occupy platform as a contributing factor to the incidents of sexism and rape reported at certain camps.

Occupy UK: a balance sheet

As already stated the actions of the police, along with the fact that Paternoster Square is private property and, therefore, was easily granted a High Court injunction, meant that Occupy LSX was not able to follow its initial plans of a camp in the centre of the financial district. This was later, at least partially, rectified by the “public repossession” of disused offices owned by UBS and their conversion into the “Bank of Ideas,” which hosted teach-ins, seminars, film screenings and, probably most widely covered by the media, a free gig from the bands Radiohead and Massive Attack (the site was evicted January 30th 2012). The picture across the UK, however, was much the same as the London camp with Birmingham, Brighton, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester, Sheffield and many more cities and towns failing to occupy a financial space and being based in public squares and parks instead. Following the religious building trend, Occupy Sheffield squatted the “Citadel of Hope”, an empty Salvation Army Citadel, for the Occupy National Conference, but this ceased to be operational after the event and is now only used by a circus training group.

Of course many pointed to the successes of Tahrir Square as a precedent for public occupations that did not rely on such a direct, physical confrontation with the “spaces” of power. However, sentiments to “Take the Square” - aiming to recreate the scenes in Egypt - marginalised the significance of wider social mobilisations present in these events, for example the April 6th Youth Movement which supported striking workers. More profound ideological changes such as the newly found solidarity and confidence within the Egyptian working class was absent from spectacular media coverage and this led to the emphasis on the form, as opposed to the content, being reproduced in many of the copycat protests that followed.

Confrontation with financial and political institutions, leaving aside the role of the church, actually largely occurred on a terrain in which activists were weakest – through the courts. This was where the City of London Corporation was able to secure a forcible eviction of occupiers in a move that was replicated by councils and local authorities across the country. It also forced Occupy into a position in which it had to adopt bourgeois legalism – freedom to assemble, freedom of speech – to justify its activity.

What then of the politics?

In many ways it is difficult to judge the goals of Occupy here even on its own terms. Certain positions are barely distinguishable, particularly in terms of the call for “a positive, sustainable economic system that benefits present and future generations”, from the language of Westminster (this may have been appropriate given the presence of MPs such as Caroline Lucas and John McDonnell within the London camp) and, therefore, makes it difficult to gauge what objectives are actually being proposed here. It would be fair to say that Occupy did not necessarily talk about “an” alternative but of the need for alternatives. So to what extent was it successful at building and mobilising others towards a political spectrum of progressive currents against austerity?

It is impossible to create a complete picture of every camp across the UK here but it is our aggregate experience, particularly outside London, that praxis was largely limited to creating a camp site and creating a community within it. These are the immediate practical tasks which arise from forming an ad-hoc community with very loose over-arching values, in often quite adverse conditions (exacerbated by poor weather and anti-social elements). In all cases the priorities of refining and developing political positions were secondary to the cohesiveness (or lack thereof) of the camp as a whole – the lowest common denominator being a liberal pluralist position of hoping to keep everyone happy at the expense of following any specific initiative in a sustained way. The camp environment also threw up other issues in this respect. The longevity of the camp site is unclear, making long-term plans uncertain. Such an environment may be familiar territory for activists but may alienate other members of the working class. Many camps did hold public assemblies as a means of opening up the processes and forming a more inclusive space for those unable to camp, but when the principle agenda items are the practicalities arising from camp life it would be easy to question what relevance such a gathering has to the wider public. In light of this it is necessary to reflect on whether camping is compatible with the original Occupy aim of mobilising alternatives to austerity (if alternatives can be said to exist in the Occupy platform).

In this respect the British Occupy movement could perhaps learn from aspects of the North American Occupy. Under strong influence from revolutionaries in organisations such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) the movement has made tangible links to the working class and local communities. For example, they joined in on the struggle against the foreclosure of homes, made common cause with labour struggles, while in Oakland they shut down the docks there. Like Occupy in the UK these were ultimately limited in both duration and scale, although less so, but they were important added dynamics in two senses. First that it showed the potential of Occupy as a tool for broadening social struggle in terms of using the model to build and solidify links within and between otherwise stratified or partially stratified sections of the class. Secondly, it set the course for moving the occupation tactic away from spectacular assemblies and public protest to occupation in the true sense - seizures and appropriations. These are tactics that are not only more economically disruptive in practical terms (and therefore a stronger and more sensible basis for promoting the use of Occupy as a means of fighting austerity) but also orientate strategy towards the true location of social power – collective struggle driven by class unity.

It is hard to say as outsiders what the key to Occupy US’s increased size and radicalism was. It could be speculated that a) the US camps contained more united elements than the UK’s loosely networked and multiple anti-cuts groups, b) that there existed a degree of self-reflection and criticism lacking in the UK, c) that Occupy US was more successful in reaching out beyond the physical camps; or a combination of all these things. Perhaps the experience of Occupy UK simply stands as an indictment against the willingness of British anti-capitalists to fight for their ideas in a comparable way to their US counter-parts. Whatever the weaknesses of the camp model, elements within the North American occupiers have at least acknowledged that to be effective anti-capitalists you have to disrupt the flow of capital. Hence the moves towards the “General Strike” as the principle demand there. In the UK no such connection has been made on any organisational level. Occupy can barely be described as anti-capitalist in most UK incarnations with many campers displaying open hostility to anti-capitalist ideas and practices. In the case of Glasgow, for example, statements were issued on behalf of the camp that argued for more “ethical” capitalism.

Likewise no direct, explicit link was made to the student movement, even at a time when student militancy was reaching escalating levels and the state was employing massive repression against them. In London, Occupy also failed to make any strong connection in the sparks’ struggle, as electricians shook off the inadequacy of union bureaucrats to take workplace grievances into their own hands – an ample opportunity for Occupy to provide support and assistance. More importantly Occupy didn’t really offer anything substantial to these struggles in terms of their ability to escalate resistance or offer alternative means of widening or broadening methods of struggle, other than just a wider constituency of potential supporters. In spite of the diversity of the camps the actual repertoires of action offered by Occupy was surprisingly limited – camping and the occasional squatting of buildings – a poor record to even the “Climate Camps” and summit camps of recent history, which although also limited in different ways were at least geared towards facilitating action and interventions beyond the gathering of activists.

Occupy: critical reflections

As the practice of a tactic Occupy is unusual in that traditionally occupations are an advanced organisational expression of the escalating resistance of social movements. While the more immediate public memory of occupations is of Tahrir Square and the (seemingly) spontaneous mobilisations of the Arab Spring, it would be more consistent to think to the actions of the striking teachers of Oaxaca in 2006 and the APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) as well as the occupations of town halls and municipal buildings during the 2008 Greek riots as better contemporary representations of the practice. In both cases occupations were not a starting point but emerged both out of concrete necessity of the struggle and as a practical consequence of the solidification of communities in resistance. In Greece, occupations provided a base for activity that replaced the spontaneous communities of insurgents in the streets, as well as reflecting the ideological evolution of the struggle, e.g. the occupation of trade union offices against the class collaborationist position of the trade unions. In Oaxaca the public square occupation was a hub for solidarity with striking teachers bringing together all manner of social movements against the state’s governor, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. Barricades in this sense were indications of the emergence of community bonds and networks of solidarity through the struggle while acting as a very practical defence of the violence of the state against militants. In both cases, although ultimately facing some limitations, occupations posed a direct threat to the resumption of social order on both an economic and political level.

By contrast, occupy camps in the UK emerged as a mild and not very disruptive social or economic force. Neither did they emerge from a specific struggle but rather a more general ideological climate of pro-austerity ideas and policies. This is not to say that there have not been material struggles arising from cuts to public services and declining living standards, it is just that these particularities are unrelated to the formation of Occupy camps. The reality is that camps have acted more as "publicity bureaus" or public forums for anti-austerity organising – where this practice has been successful. This is not necessarily a negative thing in itself, but the limitation of the form, political maturity and the lack of self-awareness have meant a failure to capitalise on this as a specific tactic. Tailoring Occupy more concretely to the need to build anti-austerity alternatives could shed new light on the tactics that are used, e.g. is camping the most effective tactic which can be used? Are there other means of intervention/outreach that can be explored? Could Occupy be transformed, for example, to form something along the lines of the Zapatista Consulta, e.g. radicals doing outreach within and amongst communities?

Material struggles carry within them a potential trajectory for a) generalisation and b) systemic critique (anti-capitalism) by virtue of the terrain in which they are situated (confrontation within capital along class lines) and, more importantly, the social location of their participants – their class. While it is almost always the case that class struggle finds some form of accommodation within the system, e.g. a pay rise, more welfare, or is simply defeated, it also carries within it at least the potential for supersession in respect to the conflict between capital and the class. There is a logic contained within class struggles that ultimately leads to the constitution of class as a negation of capital. Occupy was based more on the need for "alternatives" as a reaction to the pervasiveness of the all-consuming austerity narrative. It is of no surprise in this sense that unity often devolved to the very practical tasks of maintaining camps (and in the worst cases an insider vs. outsider mentality amongst some campers). With the absence of a material condition that brought campers together, e.g. as students fighting cuts or workers on strike, and the absence of a clear political programme; being an occupier represented anything from an anti-capitalist anarchist to a reformist liberal or conspira-loon. This absence of basic shared values meant huge obstacles for the next step of a radicalising process - assigning the means and methods by which we collectively tackle the austerity narrative. As opposed to representing a spectrum of radical ideas, this pluralism simply delivered the base assumptions of the camps – that campers are against austerity – while delivering no practical means to actually act on these assumptions.

Occupy is far more continuous in respect to existing protest activity than is often acknowledged. It expressed a model of militancy essentially voluntaristic in character, not especially distinct from the existing composition and practices of Leftist groups. Crucially, Occupy offered no sustained or integrated way of introducing anti-austerity activity into working life. Camping is simply not a viable practice for the majority of workers, so what to do when you cannot camp? Occupy was largely built and mobilised by the unemployed, students, the homeless and those off work. This did not necessarily have to be a point of weakness. If Occupy was to give rise to a movement of the jobless sections of our class this would be a positive achievement. But a lack of self-criticism and particularly the need to be seen to be being “representative” of a wider constituency - under the rubric of representing the "99%" - meant missing opportunities to develop the strategy and tactics of camps into a definitive programme suited to the needs of those involved.

The problem with the 99%

As popular and as useful as the slogan of the “99%” may have been in propagandistic terms, from a communist perspective a number of issues arise from the analysis associated with this slogan. Many of these criticisms have been covered extensively elsewhere, and some raised in the context of the movement itself, so here we believe it is sufficient to only provide a summary of key issues as an extension of our critique of Occupy’s inability to mobilise or extend resistance against austerity. As anarchist communists it is our position that austerity is only one facet of the management of capitalism and that it should be understood as a particular manifestation of systemic structures rooted in the existence of social classes. As a result we argue that the only means of creating a society based on social justice is through challenging these fundamental structures via revolutionary confrontation with the state and the capitalist class. The slogan of the “99%” is therefore problematic to us for a number of reasons.

The “99%” overlooks important stratifications that exist within and between members of our class. Those who are, for example, not millionaires and city bankers but still benefit from capitalism or play a part in its administration, e.g. the managerial strata, the police, bailiffs, border agency staff. The confusions associated with this analysis led some Occupiers to claim the police, the likes of the English Defence League and other reactionary elements as part of the “99%”. Technically they are correct, but this exposes exactly the problem with this analysis. Inequality is not simply about ownership and wealth but relations of power. Class relations often manifest themselves in and between communities in spite of a very similar economic context, e.g. racism, sexism, homophobia. In fact these stratifications are exactly the divisions that capitalists periodically stoke up to ensure that workers are competing against each other and perceive each other as a threat rather than the power of the bosses. Likewise with the adoption of liberal policies, the capitalist class has found that providing a little privilege and power to certain sections of workers, effectively stratifying the class and providing the illusion of ‘social mobility’, allows capitalists to stabilise social order through the creation of a strata of middle-managers who do not appear so removed from the workers themselves. The police and the border agencies similarly play critical roles in maintaining class relations and carrying out the institutional violence that keeps workers in their place. These forces will inevitably come into conflict with movements that attempt to challenge the social structures that underpin our society. Confusion on these issues creates obvious organisational problems some of which were clearly apparent in the camps, e.g. co-operation with the police, lack of a safe-spaces policy and incidents of sexual violence against women.

The 99% analysis represents the problem of austerity as an issue of unconstrained finance. Finance, however, is only a part of the circuit of capital whose influence is, in contemporary terms, predicated by a number of more fundamental structural changes in the management of capitalism, including the declining profitability of the “real” economy. It is impossible to provide a comprehensive analysis of this here but this does include the increasing internationalisation of capital, the move away from Fordism (and with it social democratic corporatism) into neoliberalism and increasing reliance on debt to maintain standards of living. A more complete criticism should be tied to the organisation of capitalism as a whole and how finance is simply one aspect of class control that is exercised by the capitalist class. Critics may point to the way that finance has played a particularly prominent role in undermining (bourgeois) democratic values and subverting state accountability. Our critiques of capitalism are, however, far more fundamental than this. Even a “democratised” capitalism (should this ever be possible) would be reprehensible to us given the coercive nature of the system itself – a system whereby workers are forced to work to survive and where the full product of our labour is stolen from us through our work. What is required is not a levelling of the system, raising up the 99%, but a humanisation of the values which structure the economy away from the motivation to accumulate profit to one based on human need, where products are fundamentally social in character (and not present as spectacular commodities) and where time away from necessary labour is maximised.

The extent to which the “99%” slogan has seeped into public discourse is impressive and an indication of how well it speaks to a common feeling of injustice, but as the above indicates, it also very comfortably lends itself to reformist ideology – injustices are seen to need to be rectified. The mobilisation of the Greek movement “We Won’t Pay” might be an interesting comparative example here in terms of a popular movement organised in response to austerity. “We Won’t Pay”, as its title suggests, is an organisation that uses direct action to disrupt what it considers to be unfair or exploitative levies on public services. This has included raising barriers on the toll booths on private roads, encouraging mass rides of public transport, sabotaging of ticket booths, sharing the skills to allow people access to free electricity as well as community-based work that organises the distribution of free food and clothing to those who need it. Like the “99%”, the “We Won’t Pay” slogan is expressed as a statement of outrage and injustice – we won’t pay for a crisis we claim no responsibility for! It is also, more importantly, a discourse of expropriation, of seizure of those necessities that communities depend upon, all of which is facilitated by direct action. “We Won’t Pay” gives a clearer sense of the immediate confrontations that are involved in social struggle, e.g. security staff who protect toll booths, fascists thugs who roam public transport, while also sowing no illusions in the state’s ability to mediate the injustices visited upon working people. It provides a more forthright assertion of the strength and objectives of collective action as well as a positive vision of the autonomy of communities in struggle, i.e. “these things are necessary to my continued existence and I am entitled to them without your (the state/the boss/the security guard) interference”.

Wot, no resistance? Broader questions

A basic reality that we must face here in the UK, and the experience of Occupy broadens this perspective, is the collapse of mass-based challenges to capitalism. That is either in the form of popular, militant trade unionism or as mass workers’ parties, however inadequate these may have actually been in superseding the conditions imposed by capital. If we are to look to the role (or the absence, as was actually the case) of anarchists in respect to Occupy this is a perspective that needs to be adopted. Occupy was treading new ground in many ways in that fundamentally, as inadequate as its answers ultimately were, we do not know what concrete shape popular resistance to austerity will, if it indeed does, take in the current context. There have been ongoing localised struggles of both workplaces and communities against specific cuts and state policies. Both the student occupation movement of 2010 and the August riots of 2011, without drawing too strong an equivalence between the two, suggested at least the emergence of a new resistant subject against the austerity regime – the newly proletarianised youth. This was only to be subsumed by parliamentarism and state repression, in the case of the former, and the absence of any basis for coalescence and the criminality in the case of the latter. The sparks likewise showed the propensity for the British organised working class to re-activate resistance, but this seemed to express more the resilience of a long-standing tradition of struggle, conditioned by black-listing and other cultures unique to the industry, as opposed to anything emerging against austerity per se. Since then the only general mobilisations have been in the form of the TUC (Trades Union Congress) “days of action”, themselves an exercise in the defeatism of the trade union bureaucracy and their wholesale retreat from workplace action. These have only served to reinforce the existing schisms evident during the riots, resulting from the 26th March 2011“March for the Alternative” when thousands marched to listen to Ed Miliband’s (leader of the opposing Labour Party for international readers) address in Hyde Park while just a few hundred radicalised youth rioted through the heart of the city.

In respect to Occupy in particular it was necessary to recognise the continuities, in the form of cross-class umbrella organising, something very familiar within the context of the workers' movement, and discontinuities – the dimensions of Occupy that were "demand-less", sought to transfer consensus on austerity into an attack on private space and debt and build popular opposition to austerity – present within the embryonic movement. This required an awareness of the underlying structural problems the Occupy project highlighted (at this point we really don't know the current social basis for any fight back against austerity, if indeed there is one), while also arguing those positions on which we, as anti-capitalists, are certain of: resistance has to be rooted in working class unity and emerging from the politics of everyday life. The management system of capitalism may have changed but its essential logic - and the transformative role of the proletariat - remains the same.

This is where anarchists perhaps squandered an opportunity to use the, albeit often quite limited and even politically hostile, space that Occupy opened to argue for this orientation and really investigate what mass resistance can and cannot look like in the current context. As it stands we really didn't learn anything other than those self-fulfilling prophecies with which we were already aware - that a cross-class movement with no root in material struggles and premised on a manufactured community of resistance was likely to collapse into reformism, peter out or get crushed by the state (or often all three simultaneously). This is while, ironically, many anarchists were claiming the mantle of Occupy as a vindication of anarchist methods and ideas. Undoubtedly there was a lot of resistance to genuine anti-capitalist positions among campers, and we experienced these ourselves, but this was compounded by the failure of anarchists to effectively intervene. Both factors together allowed the anti-capitalist position to be easily characterised as extremist, when the intention was actually the opposite in terms of bringing Occupy as a meaningful thing to the class, and allowed pacifistic and activist methods to dominate. In London, the camp descended into in-fighting after some campers erected a “Capitalism is Crisis” banner, with liberal and pacifistic campers arguing that ‘capitalism isn’t the enemy, greed is’.

Anarchists advocate mass movements against the capitalist system. In the present condition, these are clearly lacking. The so-called ‘labour movement’ doesn’t do much ‘moving’ at all and the UK is as devoid of militant unions now as it has ever been. Anarchists uphold that mass movements have to be organic in order to create transformative social change. Why then did so many uphold Occupy as a vindication of anarchist ideas? Could it be that without any existing mass movements, and without any modern ideas of what form mass movements today should take, we were simply blinded by a romanticism that something was kicking off?

Conclusions

While it is possible to muse over whether the downfall of Occupy UK came from its failure to claim Paternoster Square, or to adopt a more anti-capitalist stance; it should be clear that even if Occupy had successfully taken the Square, and even if it had outright advocated ‘camping for communism’, substantive change cannot come about through camping. Yes we should welcome that libertarian modes of organising based on direct democracy are becoming more popular, however, as previously stated, we should also critique Occupy to the grounds of what it claims to be ‘about’. In this sense, Occupy failed to increase participation in anti-austerity struggles, and also failed to make links with ongoing struggles, such as the student movement, the sparks’ struggle and striking public sector workers. Beyond this, Occupy UK also failed to reflect on this and seek to remedy it. Here lies one area where anarchists could have intervened and attempted to take the well-meaning organisational sentiments of Occupy to ongoing and organic struggles in actual communities such as workplaces, neighbourhoods and educational institutions.

Occupy was successful in terms of its ability to express a commonly felt sense of injustice and outrage towards further shifts of wealth away from the class - e.g. cuts in public services and to benefits, erosions in living standards, declining wages - and into private hands. The speed and spread of the mobilisations, something that cannot be explained by the new role of social media alone, was a strong demonstration of this. However it lacked purpose and was plagued by many of the issues which continue to alienate activist cultures from wider communities. Occupy needed to provide more concrete answers, practical solutions and, most importantly, a more thorough critique of the social system. It needed to engage more strongly on the issues of practical necessity that are being thrown up by austerity politics showing how social solidarity is a viable and sensible alternative to the alienating and hope-less politics of Westminster. It could have done more to catalyse existing groups in struggle and speak to those groups at the harsher end of the austerity drive, embracing specificity over the woolly narrative of the “99 percenters”. It could also have spoken more about itself, both in terms of the discourse that emerged out of the camps but also the need to address how composition and experience relates to the kind of actions a movement can take.

This analysis can be situated in a wider social and political context; a context which helps to explain the immediate appeal of Occupy (and some of its failures). Principally, we find ourselves amidst a de-politicised political culture in which organised anti-capitalism is not a viable alternative to a more pervasive radicalised liberalism, such as that propounded by Occupy, where class identity has been dislocated by an onslaught of capitalist realism and where activists, where they are present, often lack the skills and experience to act as organisers mobilising and strengthening communities in struggle. Almost a year since the first camp it seems unlikely that Occupy will re-emerge as a continuing tool for anti-austerity struggle. What we should take from it, however, is the desire for an alternative to the present system. The only way to achieve this is through the self-organisation of the class in the communities of everyday life, and if we want libertarian communism to be that alternative, this is where we have to start.

[Old Bolshie]

I think this passage from the article bears repeating: "This suggests that there was something to Cannon's assertion after all--that there was a decisive element of difference, when all was said and done, between the kind of party that Kautsky was a member of in Germany and the kind of party that Lenin and his comrades were actually building in Russia. At the same time, Lenin's thought can most fruitfully be understood not as a break from, but in continuity with that of Marx. This is the fruitful element in Bustelo's point (and both Lenin and Cannon would have agreed with that)."

Decisive element of difference: one lined up with the workers during WWI, and the other with its national bourgeoisie.

I would add that the Russian Party which in fact followed the SPD model and were supported by Kautsky himself - the Mensheviks - also lined up with its national bourgeoisie.

This difference is fundamental to understand the importance of Lenin and the Bolsheviks during this critical time as they represented a break from social-democracy which was dominant in the II International.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

But this misses the historical reality. Lenin and the Bolsheviks--unlike their Menshevik comrades and ultimately unlike Kautsky--were prepared to follow the implications of the revolutionary Marxist orientation through to the end. Kautsky and the Mensheviks became compromised. Their "plain old Marxism" turned out to be different form Lenin's, and this had organizational implications.

The Mensheviks adhered to the dogma that Russia must first go through a democratic-capitalist transformation, that a working class socialist revolution would not be on the agenda until many years later. Based on this, they became committed to a worker-capitalist alliance to overthrow the tsarist monarchy, which naturally created pressures to compromise the class-struggle elements of Marxism. This increasingly impacted on the kind of organizational structures they favored--many being inclined to back away from (and "liquidate") structures pulling workers in a revolutionary direction. Even those Mensheviks not agreeing with the "liquidators" shied away from making common cause with the intransigent revolutionaries of Bolshevism.

For Kautsky, by 1910, it became clear that he would become marginalized within the increasingly bureaucratic-conservative German Social Democratic movement unless he subtly but increasingly diluted his seemingly unequivocal and eloquent commitment to revolutionary Marxism. This meant an adaptation to organizational structures adapted toward reformist rather than revolutionary policies, with labor bureaucracies in the trade unions and the party fostering passive and obedient (non-revolutionary) memberships. By 1914, when the German Social Democracy supported the imperialist war policies of the Kaiser's government, and in 1917, in the face of the Bolshevik Revolution, Kautsky became utterly compromised.
Kautsky was utterly compromised long before 1917. August 1914 represented, perhaps, the most significant and shattering betrayal of the working class in history. He was responsible for that, as much as any individual could have been.

The majority of Mensheviks went over to counterrevolution very quickly in the USSR, so deep was their "Marxism."

One can argue the extent of Lenin's theoretical contribution to Marxism, I suppose. That is you could argue that he was simply a consistent Marxist where others failed. But on the organizational question he was very important. And please, let's not have any of the Kautskyite nonsense about democratic centralism and permanent revolution issuing from Kautsky -- You may see in PRACTICE the kind of organization he built -- one that torpedoed the revolution rather than fostering it. Lars Lih's book on Kautsky is an apologia for a man that has already been COMPLETELY discredited on the revolutionary left. Why exhume his rotting corpse?

As for Zinoviev, he is a very contradictory figure (unlike Kautsky, who was much more consistent in his reformism in deed). Zinoviev did a lot of good things as a leader of the Bolsheviks. However, his role in 1917 was not so great -- and the idea that Kamenev was so critical during that year is also kind of absurd. Both Z and K broke ranks over the actual seizure of power -- going public with their dissent. After the revolution Kamenev was ready to accept a brokered deal with the Left SRs that would exclude Lenin and other Bolsheviks from the central leadership. Both of them, of course, participated in the Triumvirate that waged war on Trotsky and Party Democracy. While they clearly lived to regret it (unlike Kautsky), these were betrayals of the revolution.

For those interested here is an excellent article on the rise of neo-kautskyism
http://icl-fi.org/english/esp/63/neo-kautskyites.html

[Lucretia]

Kautsky was utterly compromised long before 1917. August 1914 represented, perhaps, the most significant and shattering betrayal of the working class in history. He was responsible for that, as much as any individual could have been.

The majority of Mensheviks went over to counterrevolution very quickly in the USSR, so deep was their "Marxism."

One can argue the extent of Lenin's theoretical contribution to Marxism, I suppose. That is you could argue that he was simply a consistent Marxist where others failed. But on the organizational question he was very important. And please, let's not have any of the Kautskyite nonsense about democratic centralism and permanent revolution issuing from Kautsky -- You may see in PRACTICE the kind of organization he built -- one that torpedoed the revolution rather than fostering it. Lars Lih's book on Kautsky is an apologia for a man that has already been COMPLETELY discredited on the revolutionary left. Why exhume his rotting corpse?

As for Zinoviev, he is a very contradictory figure (unlike Kautsky, who was much more consistent in his reformism in deed). Zinoviev did a lot of good things as a leader of the Bolsheviks. However, his role in 1917 was not so great -- and the idea that Kamenev was so critical during that year is also kind of absurd. Both Z and K broke ranks over the actual seizure of power -- going public with their dissent. After the revolution Kamenev was ready to accept a brokered deal with the Left SRs that would exclude Lenin and other Bolsheviks from the central leadership. Both of them, of course, participated in the Triumvirate that waged war on Trotsky and Party Democracy. While they clearly lived to regret it (unlike Kautsky), these were betrayals of the revolution.

For those interested here is an excellent article on the rise of neo-kautskyism
http://icl-fi.org/english/esp/63/neo-kautskyites.html

The biggest problem with Lih as a historian is his overly empiricist methodology (the same error, by the way, that leads Ortho-Trots to dismiss the possibility that Stalinist Russia was capitalist). "X uses the term 'democratic centralism' to describe his position in a political debate, and so does Y. So clearly, they were both democratic centralists!" What is missing, of course, is the texture of X's or Y's ideas of democratic centralism, which might be very different, but which can only be considered in relation to the rest of their politics, as a totality--considered, in other words, in relation to how those ideas were put into practice and incorporated with other aspects of their "thought," rather than remaining empty abstractions on a political platform or in a letter. It's kind of shocking that a historian claiming to be a Marxist would not understand this but then again, we are talking about a historian whose sole professional purpose at this point to revive the image of Kautsky. So I guess it isn't too surprising.

That's a good article, btw.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

Well to the extent that theory generates program, it is not hard to infer what Lih's program is, reformism with an orthodox marxist veneer. It kind of blows my mind, given what happened to the SPD that anyone would have much to say about Kautsky that is positive -- the historical balance sheet is very one-sided and very damning. Maybe it is because I cut my political teeth considering some of these issues -- grappling with Lenin and democratic centralism and reading about WWI and German Social Democracy that I can't believe anyone take Kautsky's empty verbiage as good coin. But you are exactly right -- if you just look at the words on the page, I suppose you can make some kind of argument for Kautsky. But it is not like this is ancient history and we have no knowledge of what actually happened. The SPD in the first part of the 20th century is the powerful inverse argument for Leninism.

Maybe it is that these "scholars" are primarily out to discredit Lenin? Lenin remains a big thorn in the side of "scholarly marxists." Mainly I think, because he actually led a proletarian revolution. He was uncompromising in his attitude toward refomists and centrists.

The Sparts, generally, are usually good on historical and theoretical issues, it is how I first became interested in them. Also, they were the only group on the left with a decent line on the Shah, Khomeini and Iran in the late 70s when I first became active. In that same issue there is also a good review of Rabinowich's book, The Bolsheviks in Power.

[Lucretia]

Well to the extent that theory generates program, it is not hard to infer what Lih's program is, reformism with an orthodox marxist veneer. It kind of blows my mind, given what happened to the SPD that anyone would have much to say about Kautsky that is positive -- the historical balance sheet is very one-sided and very damning. Maybe it is because I cut my political teeth considering some of these issues -- grappling with Lenin and democratic centralism and reading about WWI and German Social Democracy that I can't believe anyone take Kautsky's empty verbiage as good coin. But you are exactly right -- if you just look at the words on the page, I suppose you can make some kind of argument for Kautsky. But it is not like this is ancient history and we have no knowledge of what actually happened. The SPD in the first part of the 20th century is the powerful inverse argument for Leninism.

Maybe it is that these "scholars" are primarily out to discredit Lenin? Lenin remains a big thorn in the side of "scholarly marxists." Mainly I think, because he actually led a proletarian revolution. He was uncompromising in his attitude toward refomists and centrists.

The Sparts, generally, are usually good on historical and theoretical issues, it is how I first became interested in them. Also, they were the only group on the left with a decent line on the Shah, Khomeini and Iran in the late 70s when I first became active. In that same issue there is also a good review of Rabinowich's book, The Bolsheviks in Power.

You know my argument about all of this: the Kauts are the stodgier, less fashionable reverse to the anarchists' observe on the coin of pseudo-revolutionary politics. And like you, I am still amazed at the number that have crystallized into a kind of quasi-tendency on revleft. But then I go back to point one above, and remember that both the anarchists and the Kauts - along with the Occupy movement - cling to certain abstract bourgeois understandings of democracy and democratic functioning that hamstring their ability to progress, in terms of political practice, beyond localized and scattered struggles for small changes. Lenin is anathema to them because he managed to extract the proletarian kernel of democracy from its bourgeois shell by, at a practical level, incorporating it into a project for proletarian hegemony. Because of his understanding of the party as an instrument of that strategic struggle for hegemony, as a reflection of what the working class was to become rather than what it was, his understanding of the organizational practice of "democratic centralism" was obviously very different than Kautsky's, whatever overlap a fastidious archive-scourer might be able to find on paper. This, of course, helps to explain the increasing deviation of Lenin's party practice from Kautsky's after 1912, regarding issues like freedom of criticism, in a ways that Lih and his acolytes can only shrug at - or worse, employ the anarchist meme about power corrupting Lenin. But that just takes us back to point one above.

[The Feral Underclass]

But then I go back to point one above, and remember that both the anarchists and the Kauts - along with the Occupy movement - cling to certain abstract bourgeois understandings of democracy and democratic functioning that hamstring their ability to progress, in terms of political practice, beyond localized and scattered struggles for small changes.

Which anarchists are these? I suggest you read the article I posted above.


the anarchist meme about power corrupting Lenin.

That's not an anarchist critique of Lenin.

[Lucretia]

Which anarchists are these? I suggest you read the article I posted above.



That's not an anarchist critique of Lenin.

The very organizational premise of Occupy was horizontalism, consensus-building and other principles developed by anarchists. To ask "which anarchists" demonstrates a profound ignorance either of Occupy or anarchism as a political tradition.

The bourgeois norms of democracy are, of course, abstract individualism. Each individual needs to be true to himself or herself, so god forbid that a person carry out an action he/she disagrees with in order to show political-organizational solidarity with the majority, or - heavens to betsy - not have the ability to shit publicly all over an action they disagree with.

Re: anarchist critiques of Lenin, it might not be your critique, but it's the once I've run up against the most in this forum. So forgive me for drawing off my experiences by calling it a meme.

[The Feral Underclass]

The very organizational premise of Occupy was horizontalism, consensus-building and other principles developed by anarchists.

Your rejection of horizontalism notwithstanding, consensus-building is not an anarchist principle, not in any traditional sense, and it's not a principle that all anarchists adhere to.

The liberalification of the anarchist movement has seen the adoption of such practices as consensus, but this is part of a wider issue of "prefigurative" and social welfare politics taking over contemporary anarchist modus operandi.


To ask "which anarchists" demonstrates a profound ignorance either of Occupy or anarchism as a political tradition.

No it doesn't, but nice try.

The "anarchists" involved in the Occupy movement were largely speaking not anarchists at all. Contemporary "anarchists" have tried hard to detach themselves from the class, but of course you cannot detach the principles of anarchism from the realities of class. Anarchist ideas and methods developed out of class struggle, and trying to unpack one from the other is to render the principles redundant.

In other words, the people you are talking about call themselves anarchist in name only because they embrace the principles of anti-state and anti-authority etc, without ever knowing or realising that these concepts are inextricably linked to the pursuit of communism, and not means or ends in and of themselves.


The bourgeois norms of democracy are, of course, abstract individualism. Each individual needs to be true to himself or herself, so god forbid that a person carry out an action he/she disagrees with in order to show political-organizational solidarity with the majority, or - heavens to betsy - not have the ability to shit publicly all over an action they disagree with.

Your experience of anarchism and of "anarchists" is obviously American-centric, which is unfortunate. Those involved with Occupy and calling themselves anarchists were, as I say, most likely not anarchists at all, but some kind of anti-authoritarian with no knowledge of or connection to the traditional or history of anarchism.

Murray Bookchin's experience with American anarchism inspired his book, Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism - An Unbridgeable Chasm. (http://libcom.org/library/social-anarchism--lifestyle-anarchism-murray-bookchin) Indeed, he became so dis-illuisioned with anarchism in America that in his later life he rejected the moniker altogether.


Re: anarchist critiques of Lenin, it might not be your critique, but it's the once I've run up against the most in this forum. So forgive me for drawing off my experiences by calling it a meme.

Well this is precisely the problem, isn't it? All you are doing is drawing from your experience, rather than the experience of anarchist tradition and history.

I refer you to the article I posted.

[Lucretia]

Your rejection of horizontalism notwithstanding, consensus-building is not an anarchist principle, not in any traditional sense, and it's not a principle that all anarchists adhere to.

The liberalification of the anarchist movement has seen the adoption of such practices as consensus, but this is part of a wider issue of "prefigurative" and social welfare politics taking over contemporary anarchist modus operandi.



No it doesn't, but nice try.

The "anarchists" involved in the Occupy movement were largely speaking not anarchists at all. Contemporary "anarchists" have tried hard to detach themselves from the class, but of course you cannot detach the principles of anarchism from the realities of class. Anarchist ideas and methods developed out of class struggle, and trying to unpack one from the other is to render the principles redundant.

In other words, the people you are talking about call themselves anarchist in name only because they embrace the principles of anti-state and anti-authority etc, without ever knowing or realising that these concepts are inextricably linked to the pursuit of communism, and not means or ends in and of themselves.



Your experience of anarchism and of "anarchists" is obviously American-centric, which is unfortunate. Those involved with Occupy and calling themselves anarchists were, as I say, most likely not anarchists at all, but some kind of anti-authoritarian with no knowledge of or connection to the traditional or history of anarchism.

Murray Bookchin's experience with American anarchism inspired his book, Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism - An Unbridgeable Chasm. (http://libcom.org/library/social-anarchism--lifestyle-anarchism-murray-bookchin) Indeed, he became so dis-illuisioned with anarchism in America that in his later life he rejected the moniker altogether.



Well this is precisely the problem, isn't it? All you are doing is drawing from your experience, rather than the experience of anarchist tradition and history.

I refer you to the article I posted.

So the vast majority of self-described anarchists in the United States aren't really, in your view, anarchists. Plausible. But not really useful if you don't explain the alternative models of "anarchist" organization you are using to try to discredit the one widely practiced in the United States -- and more importantly how it transcends liberal individualism, or can serve as an actual basis for a challenge to power that amounts to more than scattered and disconnected fits of activism, in the way that Leninist democratic centralism does. Which was really the thrust of my comments comparing anarchists to the SPD, though you want to skirt around this and snipe over details.

[The Feral Underclass]

So the vast majority of self-described anarchists in the United States aren't really, in your view, anarchists. Plausible.

Anarchism is a class based idea. As I said above: "Contemporary "anarchists" have tried hard to detach themselves from the class, but of course you cannot detach the principles of anarchism from the realities of class. Anarchist ideas and methods developed out of class struggle, and trying to unpack one from the other is to render the principles redundant.

In other words, the people you are talking about call themselves anarchist in name only because they embrace the principles of anti-state and anti-authority etc, without ever knowing or realising that these concepts are inextricably linked to the pursuit of communism, and not means or ends in and of themselves."

The anarchists you describe largely reject class and therefore are anarchists in name only.


But not really useful if you don't explain the alternative models of "anarchist" organization you are using to try to discredit the one widely practiced in the United States -- and more importantly how it transcends liberal individualism, or can serve as an actual basis for a challenge to power that amounts to more than scattered and disconnected fits of activism, in the way that Leninist democratic centralism does.

I'm not entirely sure that it's accurate to say that democratic centralism makes "challenge[s] to power." Democratic centralism is just an idea for organising groups of people. If what you mean is that these groups of people organised based upon democratic centralist principles can make effective challenges to power, then I would refer you to the last sixty years of Western revolutionary communist history.

In any case, your answer lies in this text, if you're prepared to read it: Specifism explained: the social and political level, organisational dualism and the anarchist organisation. (http://libcom.org/blog/specifism-explained-social-political-level-organisational-dualism-anarchist-organisation-09)


Which was really the thrust of my comments comparing anarchists to the SPD, though you want to skirt around this and snipe over details.
Your comparison is based on an ill-informed and prejudicial view of anarchism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I am surprised that several comrades have referred to the Mensheviks as the "orthodox" section of Russian social-democracy. I mean, Menshevik rhetoric might have been orthodox, but the positions they were associated with - liquidationism, economism, "the labour congress" and so on - were anything but.

Nor were Menshevik organisational methods consistent with those of the SPD, not while the latter served as a revolutionary force in any case. At several points, the Mensheviks wanted to liquidate the social-democratic party or to subordinate it to the Ka-Dets and the Progressists.

As for the rest of the article (the following comments are sort of all over the place, but so is the article), I think it does not take into account how the form of internet communication interacts with the content of the message - simplified, "dumbed-down" slogans, the lack of any substantial propaganda, endless sectarian sniping through short comments (you know, what I'm doing right now) and so on.

Of course, it would be ridiculous to not use the Internet. But it needs to be done on our terms; we should not bow down to internet convention so uncritically.

Furthermore, while it is true that Lenin was not the only one to oppose the cult of proletarian spontaneity and to stress the need for a vanguard party, he was by far the most consistent proponent of the vanguard party, and the lessons of the practical experience of the Bolshevik section of Russian social-democracy are immensely important. This is why one can speak of the Leninist conception of the vanguard party.

But that is not all; Lenin also addressed issues of party legitimacy, the relation of the party to the proletariat and to elements of the intelligentsia, the role of the control bodies, the role of the party in the dictatorship of the proletariat, etc. etc. Of course, some of his points were forceful restatements of the then-existing orthodox Marxist thought, but others were a creative development of the same.

I was not aware that "Zinovievism" was a prominent accusation in Marxist circles; I have never encountered it myself. I am familiar with only one thesis that could be called distinctively Zinovievist, despite being a member of the Trotskyist-Zinovievite terrorist block, the notion of the "neutralisation of the middle peasantry". The connection the article draws between Zinoviev and Gramsci is interesting, but at this point it seems mostly speculative.

Kamenev's actions before the October Revolution hardly seem like the actions of someone who was certain of his "victory" over Lenin in the April debates. That his brand of "Old Bolshevism" (I think this term has been run into the ground, quite frankly) had been defeated should be obvious from the fact that the Revolution took place; Kamenev belonged to the Bolshevik fraction that placed too much importance on an alliance with petite-bourgeois democrats (just as Mensheviks had relied on an alliance with the grande bourgeoisie) and thus sought an alliance with Mensheviks, Trudoviks and so on.

His comments about "old Bolshevism" (an old Bolshevism that includes neither Lenin nor other prominent members of the C. C.) triumphing were made in the context of an ideological battle against the Left Opposition.

I agree that democracy and pluralism are important in a revolutionary party, but some take this in the direction of denial of any party discipline. I think that, e.g., Kamenev arguing against Lenin at the level of the Central Committee was good for the Party, even if the arguments were not cogent, but Kamenev's subsequent betrayal of Party secrets to the bourgeois press was not.

There do exist grey areas, of course, concerning the recent fiasco of the SWP leadership for instance. But in that case, the SWP had already stopped acting as a democratic centralist organisation; I think that the membership had ever right to revolt against their leaders concerning the circumstances. Just as, e.g., the Bolshevik majority deposed the Central Committee led by the Second Congress minority and conciliatory members of the majority at the Third Congress.

Lastly, is the Occupy Movement really that important? As far as I can tell (and comrades that have more knowledge of these events than I do, meaning most of them, in all probability, are free to correct me, of course), it had been primarily a movement of the petite bourgeoisie and the middle strata against the ultra-wealthy. It did not have any truly proletarian demands or slogans. If anything, the failure of the Leninist section of the labour movement to forcefully assert itself, to carry out agitation and propaganda and to take a critical stand on such movements, shows that most of our blunders are the result, not of an ossified Leninism, but of not taking Leninism seriously enough.

[Jimmie Higgins]

So basically what has occurred is, I made a statement, from which you've inferred something and then accused me of flaming based upon it. I'm not making the point that Leninists are boring, am I?


Nowhere did I say Leninists were boring.

If you look back to my original post, you will see this (the part in bold)quoted:

Well, I suppose I could have written three pages of prolixity, drawing on obscure and redundant history and making vapid platitudes, without any sense of self-awareness, but unlike Leninists I am able to articulate myself without droning on.

Is there an alternative interpretation of the above that doesn't mean "boring"?

You are perfectly capable of actually making a point and have done so in subsequent posts. This is all I was originally hoping for. I would much rather just debate your points than have to "mod" and I would think that someone with a high post-count would be able to tell the difference between making an argument and making a flame that can not further discussion but would likely only provoke people.


What you don't like is that fact that an anarchist has come and criticised an article written by a Leninist for Leninists, and oh, shock horror, you're a Leninist too. How convenient.And now you're flaming an attempt to defend yourself as not-flaming people.

If there was any favoritism involved it was in thinking that an experienced member could take a hint and self-adjust rather than making a big deal and throwing accusations at everyone else. But it's an easily correctable mistake:

Verbal warning issued to The Anarchist Tension for tendency flaming:

unlike Leninists I am able to articulate myself without droning on.

What you don't like is that fact that an anarchist has come and criticised an article written by a Leninist for Leninists, and oh, shock horror, you're a Leninist too. How convenient.

If you feel this is unreasonable, please take this up with the other mods or in an appropriate part of the forum but do not continue to argue it in this thread.

[The Feral Underclass]

You're a petty minded, prissy dick. Go fuck yourself (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nwX8WbopOhY/T7He2Bzwc_I/AAAAAAAAAMc/S7WP7kuFFGw/s1600/Phelan_FuckYou_72dpi_20cm.jpg). How's that for flaming?

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I think because we are living in a period of fairly unmitigated reaction, left-leaning folks tend to grab on to any thing that looks progressive. Nothing new in that. Another way of saying it is that the greatest risks for revolutionaries in the the US is opportunism. The ISO comrades are always flirting with it, and they were positively drooling over Occupy. Now, there was no reason not to try to intervene in that movement, especially to try to forge links with unions. But it was based on the lowest common denominator -- antipathy towards the super rich. So there is not too much to work with. This is not the stuff of a revolutionary movement. Internationally, this is expressed as effusiveness around the "Arab Spring." I'm sorry if I don't get all excited about one wing of the Egyptian military seizing power from another.

In the US, the original Trotskyist party, the SWP survived with a revolutionary program, just barely, into the 1960s, but then hitched their wagon to Castro (an "unconscious Trotskyist"), then the liberal civil rights movement, and finally, the right-wing of the anti-Vietnam war movement. They were all burned-out from the dark decade of the 1950s. Today they are a strange sect around Jack Barnes, having purged everyone that had any attachment, however vague, to Trotskyism. They do still publish a bunch of his works so I guess they serve some purpose.

My point is this -- looking to forces outside the proletariat to make a socialist revolution has lead, over and over and over and over again, to complete failure. The bourgeoisie are resilient. They can co-opt, crush, or wait out these reformist movements, usually without much effort.

So, yeah, Occupy was interesting, but it was pretty easy to see from the beginning that it was an aimless, populist program -- with little proletarian involvement. There will be other movements like this, and they will be tailed by the majority of the US, and international left. In that way, we have not come very far since 1914.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think because we are living in a period of fairly unmitigated reaction, left-leaning folks tend to grab on to any thing that looks progressive. Nothing new in that. Another way of saying it is that the greatest risks for revolutionaries in the the US is opportunism. The ISO comrades are always flirting with it, and they were positively drooling over Occupy. Now, there was no reason not to try to intervene in that movement, especially to try to forge links with unions. But it was based on the lowest common denominator -- antipathy towards the super rich. So there is not too much to work with. This is not the stuff of a revolutionary movement. Internationally, this is expressed as effusiveness around the "Arab Spring." I'm sorry if I don't get all excited about one wing of the Egyptian military seizing power from another.

In the US, the original Trotskyist party, the SWP survived with a revolutionary program, just barely, into the 1960s, but then hitched their wagon to Castro (an "unconscious Trotskyist"), then the liberal civil rights movement, and finally, the right-wing of the anti-Vietnam war movement. They were all burned-out from the dark decade of the 1950s. Today they are a strange sect around Jack Barnes, having purged everyone that had any attachment, however vague, to Trotskyism. They do still publish a bunch of his works so I guess they serve some purpose.

My point is this -- looking to forces outside the proletariat to make a socialist revolution has lead, over and over and over and over again, to complete failure. The bourgeoisie are resilient. They can co-opt, crush, or wait out these reformist movements, usually without much effort.

So, yeah, Occupy was interesting, but it was pretty easy to see from the beginning that it was an aimless, populist program -- with little proletarian involvement. There will be other movements like this, and they will be tailed by the majority of the US, and international left. In that way, we have not come very far since 1914.

I don't think your chacterizations of occupy and some of its limitiations are that far off, but I do think the overall criticism is a bit abstract. For one thing, we are far from 1914 in the sense that those forces - both revolutionary are reformist - were relating to working class populations with a deegree of class consiousness and sometimes revolutionary consiousness that simply does not exist today. In that context, opportunism (that is reformism in the worker's movement) is a real issue since these are forces with a lot of sway in actual existing groups of workers. I think the problem you identify is less in "opportunism" in the historical sense of reformist socialist trends, but rather in adaptation to low and marginalized struggle. This produces the "anarchist reformism" of lifestyle politics, and all sorts of arguments about "being realistic" (we have to support Obama/this or that) or tendencies towards ultra-sectrainism (adapting to being small) or attaching to beurocratic positions. Some of the politics may be similar ultimately, but the context is much different.

What I tried to do in Occupy Oakland and what other Marxists and the class-oriented anarchists did was not "tail" but to actually try and use that spontanious (though broad and populist, as you said) identification and actually connected with labor struggles, black neighborhoods, and immigrant groups. Both these marxists and anarchists argued against other ideas in the movement and looking to groups like the so-called precariat to be the agenets of revolutionary change--counterposed to the whole ("bought-off") working class. I think anarchists and marxists who want to see class politics actually rooted in the working class should drool when these sorts of things come up, not for the rise and fall of the movement itself, but in the potential it represents in actually begining to organize people and allowing the opportunity for people to have their conceptions about the world challeneged. It's the potential of new layers of workers to learn how to struggle and lead and organize - and this is the context in which revolutionary ideas can become more relevant and more adopted IMO.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I don't think your chacterizations of occupy and some of its limitiations are that far off, but I do think the overall criticism is a bit abstract. For one thing, we are far from 1914 in the sense that those forces - both revolutionary are reformist - were relating to working class populations with a deegree of class consiousness and sometimes revolutionary consiousness that simply does not exist today. In that context, opportunism (that is reformism in the worker's movement) is a real issue since these are forces with a lot of sway in actual existing groups of workers. I think the problem you identify is less in "opportunism" in the historical sense of reformist socialist trends, but rather in adaptation to low and marginalized struggle. This produces the "anarchist reformism" of lifestyle politics, and all sorts of arguments about "being realistic" (we have to support Obama/this or that) or tendencies towards ultra-sectrainism (adapting to being small) or attaching to beurocratic positions. Some of the politics may be similar ultimately, but the context is much different.

What I tried to do in Occupy Oakland and what other Marxists and the class-oriented anarchists did was not "tail" but to actually try and use that spontanious (though broad and populist, as you said) identification and actually connected with labor struggles, black neighborhoods, and immigrant groups. Both these marxists and anarchists argued against other ideas in the movement and looking to groups like the so-called precariat to be the agenets of revolutionary change--counterposed to the whole ("bought-off") working class. I think anarchists and marxists who want to see class politics actually rooted in the working class should drool when these sorts of things come up, not for the rise and fall of the movement itself, but in the potential it represents in actually begining to organize people and allowing the opportunity for people to have their conceptions about the world challeneged. It's the potential of new layers of workers to learn how to struggle and lead and organize - and this is the context in which revolutionary ideas can become more relevant and more adopted IMO.
Comrade, my whole digression on the SWP US, was precisely to underscore that reformism thrives as an "adaptation to low and marginalized struggle." But you are right that the reformism of the salad days of the SPD was more about gaining material privilege without risk of revolution -- that is it was much more tied to the labor bureaucracy than phenomena such as the Occupy movement or the Anti-Vietnam War movement.

I'm afraid that I can't get up much of a drool for things like Occupy -- any org worth its salt would attempt to intersect these layers in motion, but France '68 this is not. Nor even Columbia U. in 1968. I think it is more demoralizing to raise expectations about these marginal movements than to analyze them clearly and call them by their right names. We are living in an extended period of world reaction, Jimmie. That does not mean you give up or that the tide will not turn. And please excuse my historical pessimism. I know that things can change quickly. But having watched class consciousness and the world movement decline since I became politically conscious 35 years ago, my revolutionary optimism is not what it might be sometimes.

[Lucretia]

Anarchism is a class based idea. As I said above: "Contemporary "anarchists" have tried hard to detach themselves from the class, but of course you cannot detach the principles of anarchism from the realities of class. Anarchist ideas and methods developed out of class struggle, and trying to unpack one from the other is to render the principles redundant.

In other words, the people you are talking about call themselves anarchist in name only because they embrace the principles of anti-state and anti-authority etc, without ever knowing or realising that these concepts are inextricably linked to the pursuit of communism, and not means or ends in and of themselves."

The anarchists you describe largely reject class and therefore are anarchists in name only.



I'm not entirely sure that it's accurate to say that democratic centralism makes "challenge[s] to power." Democratic centralism is just an idea for organising groups of people. If what you mean is that these groups of people organised based upon democratic centralist principles can make effective challenges to power, then I would refer you to the last sixty years of Western revolutionary communist history.

In any case, your answer lies in this text, if you're prepared to read it: Specifism explained: the social and political level, organisational dualism and the anarchist organisation. (http://libcom.org/blog/specifism-explained-social-political-level-organisational-dualism-anarchist-organisation-09)


Your comparison is based on an ill-informed and prejudicial view of anarchism.

I can't even begin to express how worthless your intervention into this thread has been. You challenged my comparison of anarchists with Kautskyites as revolutionary in name only, but reformist in practice, by claiming that I was over-generalizing. At the same time, you admit that the vast majority of anarchists, in the United States at least, are indeed reformist -- or as you call it "anarchists in name only." So apparently I am not unfairly generalizing after all.

But even if we were to transport ourselves magically into your dream world, and the vast majority of anarchists organized according to the principles laid out in his specifism pamphlet, it is still not entirely clear at all how the nuts and bolts of organizational decision-making differ from the horizontalism and consensus decision-making of what you call "anarchists in name only." The pamphlet you pointed me to just talked in vague terms about social and political levels, and how anarchists are to be organized at the political level while making interventions at the social level. Do the anarchists organized at the political level operate according to majority-vote? 2/3 majority vote? Consensus? Some modified form of consensus? What about once a decision has been made? Are anarchists organized at the political level allowed freedom of public criticism?

These are the questions you would have to answer before being able to claim I am over-generalizing, because these are where the bourgeois-individualist norms are burrowed deeply both within social democracy and every form of anarchist organizing of which I am aware. You seem to think that my accusation was directed at the idea that anarchists don't attempt to challenge political power directly in some way. Specifism is clearly designed to attempt to do so. But then again, the SPD's electoralist revolutionism is also clearly designed to do so. But what matters isn't the subjective design, it's how the design fits in with the way the world is actually structured and how it actually operates.

It does no good to say that I am "prejudicial" without demonstrating how.

[The Feral Underclass]

I can't even begin to express how worthless your intervention into this thread has been. You challenged my comparison of anarchists with Kautskyites as revolutionary in name only, but reformist in practice, by claiming that I was over-generalizing. At the same time, you admit that the vast majority of anarchists, in the United States at least, are indeed reformist -- or as you call it "anarchists in name only." So apparently I am not unfairly generalizing after all.

You're confused. What I actually did was explain that when you referred to anarchists in the occupy movement, you were talking about people who were not actually anarchists.

I don't disagree with your criticism of the people you are criticising, only that the people you are referring to aren't really anarchists, so it is unfair to label them as such, as it implicates real anarchists into your criticism.

My question, "which anarchists are those" was specifically designed to differentiate social anarchists from the "anarchists" you are talking about. If you had said "anarcho-syndicalists" or "anarcho-communists" then I would have been worried.


But even if we were to transport ourselves magically into your dream world, and the vast majority of anarchists organized according to the principles laid out in his specifism pamphlet, it is still not entirely clear at all how the nuts and bolts of organizational decision-making differ from the horizontalism and consensus decision-making of what you call "anarchists in name only."

I have never said that the vast majority of anarchists organise according to the principles of specifism...

You asked: "explain the alternative models of "anarchist" organization you are using to try to discredit the one widely practiced in the United States," which is what I thought I was doing, as explained below.


The pamphlet you pointed me to just talked in vague terms about social and political levels, and how anarchists are to be organized at the political level while making interventions at the social level. Do the anarchists organized at the political level operate according to majority-vote? 2/3 majority vote? Consensus? Some modified form of consensus? What about once a decision has been made? Are anarchists organized at the political level allowed freedom of public criticism?

I was under the impression that your questions related specifically to the criticism that anarchists had no ability to progress "in terms of political practice, beyond localized and scattered struggles for small changes."

When you asked me how it is that the anarchists I am referring to organise, I assumed you were referring to the more substantial question of method, rather than organisational practice.

To answer your questions, platformists tend to organise using majority voting (we certainly do). We advocate the establishment of a federated, cadre organisation that uses a recallable-delegates system. In terms of horizontalism, this is a practice designed to eliminate the centralisation of political power and would be implemented as and when it is necessary to do so.


These are the questions you would have to answer before being able to claim I am over-generalizing, because these are where the bourgeois-individualist norms are burrowed deeply both within social democracy and every form of anarchist organizing of which I am aware.

I never said you were over-generalising, merely that you were using the incorrect moniker to describe the kind of anti-authoritarians who were largely involved in the occupy movement.


You seem to think that my accusation was directed at the idea that anarchists don't attempt to challenge political power directly in some way.

No.


Specifism is clearly designed to attempt to do so. But then again, the SPD's electoralist revolutionism is also clearly designed to do so. But what matters isn't the subjective design, it's how the design fits in with the way the world is actually structured and how it actually operates.

I agree. I think perhaps our ideas of "fitting in" would probably be different.

For me, I think it's necessary for revolutionary communists to ensure that they are situating themselves in the day-to-day lives and communities of working class people. By that I mean fighting to make revolutionary communist ideas, methods and tactics relevant in the daily struggles of proletarian subjectivity, and seeking to build a genuine counter-power.

By "genuine", I mean a counter-power that moves combatively (away from representationalism and substitutionism) towards communising the products of our labour, I.e. reappropriation. It is only from the position of the proletariat reappropriating the products of our labour that we can then take the step towards the seizure of the means of production and abolish ourselves as proletarians.

In this respect, the way in which a specific political organisation organises itself is irrelevant. How cadres or revolutionaries seek to organise themselves as revolutionary communists is not germane to the organisation of the class -- we shouldn't be seeking to impose organisational forms onto the class or turning every worker into a revolutionary communist cadre, merely providing the tools in which the working class organise their struggles and transform society.

In other words, a specific political organisation's job is not to try and turn the working class into a mass political organisation, it is to ensure that class organisation maintains a revolutionary communist character, ensuring it is moving away from bourgeois ideology and the logic of capitalist realism and towards genuine counter-power, communisation and communism.

The way the class organises itself in class struggle must speak directly to the immediate and ongoing needs of the class -- to be formed, to be used and then to be abolished when it is no longer necessary. Whether that is to create organisation to educate, whether it is to create organisation to fight, or whether it is organisation to co-ordinate, it is always fluid, it is always dependent on those immediate and ongoing needs.

[Lucretia]

You're confused. What I actually did was explain that when you referred to anarchists in the occupy movement, you were talking about people who were not actually anarchists.

I don't disagree with your criticism of the people you are criticising, only that the people you are referring to aren't really anarchists, so it is unfair to label them as such, as it implicates real anarchists into your criticism.

My question, "which anarchists are those" was specifically designed to differentiate social anarchists from the "anarchists" you are talking about. If you had said "anarcho-syndicalists" or "anarcho-communists" then I would have been worried.

I am not confused in the least. I am very well aware of the game, often played by Christians, of pretending that only their small grouplet is actually Christian or Anarchist, while every other denomination or sect is not -- as a way of deflecting any criticism by projecting it onto the imposters. You need to face the reality that you don't get to define what anarchism is anymore than I get to define what Trotskyism is. Both are defined by their traditions that range wider than what you or I might like about them. Just as you think about anarchists, I think the majority of the Trotskyist movement have adopted some backward perspectives that hold the movement back. And I'm not afraid of telling those Trotskyists. Just ask people on this forum, including Jimmie Higgins himself. That doesn't mean, however, that I get to tell them that they aren't really Trotskyists, thereby setting up for myself this idealized model of what the Trotskyist movement currently is in reality. Your semantic quibbling reeks of philosophical idealism.

The essence of Trotskyism is a Leninist critique of Stalinism and other reformist leaders as reactionary forces holding back permanent and worldwide revolution. I might not like this group's theory of deformed workers' states, or that group's ideas on the united front, but it doesn't alter one iota the fact that they are Trotskyists. Anymore than the fact that this or that anarchist group's failure to adopt your inane platformism indicates that said group is not really anarchist -- the essence of which is a movement to overthrow class society through decentralized, non-hierarchical means as a way of avoiding having to take power.


I have never said that the vast majority of anarchists organise according to the principles of specifism...Now you are the one who seems confused. I never said that you said that the vast majority of anarchists were specifists. That's why I called it your "dream world." Though, ironically, you've come pretty damn close to arguing as much in your latest response to me, by disqualifying all people who don't adhere to your specific interpretation of anarchism as "not really anarchists."


I was under the impression that your questions related specifically to the criticism that anarchists had no ability to progress "in terms of political practice, beyond localized and scattered struggles for small changes."

When you asked me how it is that the anarchists I am referring to organise, I assumed you were referring to the more substantial question of method, rather than organisational practice.You cannot divorce method from practice, comrade. And the two mutually inform one another. Regardless of how theoretically beautiful your little abstractions about the "social" and the "political" are, you're not going to be able to muster the discipline or cohesion to keep large activist groups together for prolonged and intense struggles without robust organizational principles of the kind that democratic centralism enshrines. Instead, you'll end up with splintering, diffusion, and capitulation. Or, as I said in my previous post, "localized and scattered struggles." You yourself basically concede the point about localization in asserting:


To answer your questions, platformists tend to organise using majority voting (we certainly do). We advocate the establishment of a federated, cadre organisation that uses a recallable-delegates system. In terms of horizontalism, this is a practice designed to eliminate the centralisation of political power and would be implemented as and when it is necessary to do so.Majority voting by whom? Members of the organization? Are they organized in workplaces? Outside of workplaces? Both? Are majority decisions binding on all members of the organization? If there is no centralization of decision making at times of acute crisis or rapid development in the class struggle, how do the various groups in the "federation" act in coordinated, disciplined ways -- ways that are not just ad hoc and localized? Is there freedom of public criticism by people who disagree with a majority decision or not?

These are all key questions, answers to which any group aspiring to workers' revolution owe their fellow workers. They are not abstract, distant questions, but questions that pertain to the very heart of how to transform society from one dominated by class exploitation to one not dominated by it. And in my view, you're not going to be effective if the answers you provide are drawn up on the basis of highly abstract models that, as a rule, prioritize bourgeois ideas of "decentralization" (autonomy, abstract individualism) over actually waging the class struggle against the bourgeois state, or as your little document calls it "the political level." I'd also like to note that such fetishization of autonomy and decentralization has, as an unspoken premise, the idea that power corrupts. So as much you might try to disown, it's right there at the very core of your concerns.


I never said you were over-generalising, merely that you were using the incorrect moniker to describe the kind of anti-authoritarians who were largely involved in the occupy movement.Actually, you did. You said my problem was that I was making statements that overgeneralized from my own personal experiences and knowledge, and that such experiences lacked an awareness of your One, True Anarchism (tm).

[The Feral Underclass]

I am not confused in the least

Then why are you having difficulty understanding me?


I am very well aware of the game, often played by Christians, of pretending that only their small grouplet is actually Christian or Anarchist, while every other denomination or sect is not -- as a way of deflecting any criticism by projecting it onto the imposters.

No. If you study the anarchist tradition you can clearly see what I am talking about. I'm not presenting you with conjecture, I am drawing upon the ideas and history of anarchism as it developed. This isn't a question of interpretation, it's a question of facts.


You need to face the reality that you don't get to define what anarchism is anymore than I get to define what Trotskyism is.

Erm, I'm not defining it, those that developed the ideas and formulated the theory and praxis by participating in the advent of struggle against capital and the state defined it.


Both are defined by their traditions that range wider than what you or I might like about them.

But by the standards of that tradition, the people you are referring to are not anarchists...


Just as you think about anarchists, I think the majority of the Trotskyist movement have adopted some backward perspectives that hold the movement back. And I'm not afraid of telling those Trotskyists. Just ask people on this forum, including Jimmie Higgins himself. That doesn't mean, however, that I get to tell them that they aren't really Trotskyists, thereby setting up for myself this idealized model of what the Trotskyist movement currently is in reality. Your semantic quibbling reeks of philosophical idealism.

But there are standards by which a Trotskyist is a Trotskyist, right? There are fundamentals to what makes Trotskyism? For example, you can't just call yourself a Trotskyist because you liked Trotsky's beard or just because you don't like Stalin.

I'm not making semantic quibbles, I am telling you that there is a foundation to anarchism that forms its core theories, values and ideas, just like there are theories, values and ideas to Trotskyism that form its core.

Just calling yourself an anarchist because you don't like authority or you don't like the state, or because you want to organise non-hierarchically doesn't make you an anarchist.


The essence of Trotskyism is a Leninist critique of Stalinism and other reformist leaders as reactionary forces holding back permanent and worldwide revolution. I might not like this group's theory of deformed workers' states, or that group's ideas on the united front, but it doesn't alter one iota the fact that they are Trotskyists...

So there is an essence of Trotskyism then? Just like there is an essence of anarchism. I mean, what happens if those same people who called themselves Trotsky also rejected Lenin or class struggle?


...Anymore than the fact that this or that anarchist group's failure to adopt your inane platformism indicates that said group is not really anarchist -- the essence of which is a movement to overthrow class society through decentralized, non-hierarchical means as a way of avoiding having to take power.

I'll repeat what I have said to you, twice now: "Contemporary "anarchists" have tried hard to detach themselves from the class, but of course you cannot detach the principles of anarchism from the realities of class. Anarchist ideas and methods developed out of class struggle, and trying to unpack one from the other is to render the principles redundant.

In other words, the people you are talking about call themselves anarchist in name only because they embrace the principles of anti-state and anti-authority etc, without ever knowing or realising that these concepts are inextricably linked to the pursuit of communism, and not means or ends in and of themselves."

To put it simply: If you reject class struggle, you are not an anarchist. No more than you would be a Trotskyist if you rejected class struggle.

I also finding it telling that you call platformism "inane" when it seeks to address the very questions you are proposing. Am I to assume you've never read the The Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/org_plat.htm)? Perhaps it would be beneficial for you to do so.


Now you are the one who seems confused. I never said that you said that the vast majority of anarchists were specifists.That's why I called it your "dream world." Though, ironically, you've come pretty damn close to arguing as much in your latest response to me, by disqualifying all people who don't adhere to your specific interpretation of anarchism as "not really anarchists."

I am disqualifying those people who reject class as anarchists, and that's the argument I've been making throughout this thread...


You cannot divorce method from practice, comrade. And the two mutually inform one another. Regardless of how theoretically beautiful your little abstractions about the "social" and the "political" are, you're not going to be able to muster the discipline or cohesion to keep large activist groups together for prolonged and intense struggles without robust organizational principles of the kind that democratic centralism enshrines.

Firstly, we're not comrades, so don't ever refer to me as such. Secondly, I'll concede to your point about method and practice, but discipline and cohesion comes through theoretical and tactical unity, collective responsibility and the organisation of a cadre organisation. You don't need to institute the centralisation of power through a hierarchy to achieve that.


Instead, you'll end up with splintering, diffusion, and capitulation. Or, as I said in my previous post, "localized and scattered struggles." You yourself basically concede the point about localization in asserting.

I agree, those who do not organise themselves into a disciplined cadre with theoretical and tactical unity and collective responsibility will fail in that way. This has been the problem with the [social] anarchist movement and it is one that platformists have been trying to address.


voting by whom? Members of the organization?

Yes.


Are they organized in workplaces? Outside of workplaces? Both?

When I say "it's necessary for revolutionary communists to ensure that they are situating themselves in the day-to-day lives and communities of working class people," I mean in workplaces and outside of them.

I'm beginning to think you're not really reading my posts.


Are majority decisions binding on all members of the organization?

Yes.


If there is no centralization of decision making at times of acute crisis or rapid development in the class struggle, how do the various groups in the "federation" act in coordinated, disciplined ways -- ways that are not just ad hoc and localized?

Centralising a decision making process to make quick decisions is not the same as centralising political power.


You yourself basically concede the point about localization in asserting: "to eliminate the centralisation of political power"

Centralising political power means allowing a minority to make decisions for the majority.


These are all key questions, answers to which any group aspiring to workers' revolution owe their fellow workers. They are not abstract, distant questions, but questions that pertain to the very heart of how to transform society from one dominated by class exploitation to one not dominated by it.

I wholeheartedly agree.


And in my view, you're not going to be effective if the answers you provide are drawn up on the basis of highly abstract models that, as a rule, prioritize bourgeois ideas of "decentralization" (autonomy, abstract individualism)...

You misunderstand the nature of the anarchist advocacy of decentralisation. We are not against centralisation as a concept, we are against the centralisation of political power.


...over actually waging the class struggle against the bourgeois state, or as your little document calls it "the political level." I'd also like to note that such fetishization of autonomy and decentralization has, as an unspoken premise, the idea that power corrupts. So as much you might try to disown, it's right there at the very core of your concerns.

I notice that you have ignored the main points of my last post.

Anyway, if it's the case that anarchist fetishise decentralisation then it is also the case that Leninists fetishise the state. It is after all Leninism that has resulted in the continued failure in applying Marx's ideas into practice, so much so that it has resulted in deformed workers' states and a return to capitalism, only this time with an almost irrevocably disillusioned working class.

But let me try and explain something to you: The anarchist critique of centralising political power is not because we think that power corrupts, it's because we realise the transitional stage theory is flawed. The state is not a tool that can be used to transition society into communism. For a start this analysis ignores the fundamental nature of capitalist social relations and the role the state has in perpetuating them. The state isn't neutral.

The centralisation of political authority i.e. a state, requires subordination to it and to the "centre" (a central committee or central government for example), dominated by a political elite, whose role is to ensure the continued hegemony of the state’s control (centralised political authority). Leninists claim that the state’s purpose is to maintain a defence of the revolution at all costs. In order to maintain and operate this process a bureaucracy or civil service must emerge. Over a period of time, this bureaucratic minority becomes entrenched within its role, in the course of which, actual expressions of workers’ power are recuperated because they cannot exist simultaneously if the state is to maintain and defend itself. The bureaucracy cannot allow workers’ collectives organising areas of land and industry independently of their centralised political authority, or maintaining military militias separate to a centralised army, otherwise the state’s power is undermined. It is therefore not possible to have the emergence of workers’ councils in workplaces and the creation of workers’ militias that express their own political power if centralised political authority exists. The two will always come into conflict.


Actually, you did. You said my problem was that I was making statements that overgeneralized from my own personal experiences and knowledge, and that such experiences lacked an awareness of your One, True Anarchism (tm).

No I didn't. And it's not my true anarchism, it's just anarchism.

[Lucretia]

Then why are you having difficulty understanding me?



No. If you study the anarchist tradition you can clearly see what I am talking about. I'm not presenting you with conjecture, I am drawing upon the ideas and history of anarchism as it developed. This isn't a question of interpretation, it's a question of facts.



Erm, I'm not defining it, those that developed the ideas and formulated the theory and praxis by participating in the advent of struggle against capital and the state defined it.



But by the standards of that tradition, the people you are referring to are not anarchists...



But there are standards by which a Trotskyist is a Trotskyist, right? There are fundamentals to what makes Trotskyism? For example, you can't just call yourself a Trotskyist because you liked Trotsky's beard or just because you don't like Stalin.

I'm not making semantic quibbles, I am telling you that there is a foundation to anarchism that forms its core theories, values and ideas, just like there are theories, values and ideas to Trotskyism that form its core.

Just calling yourself an anarchist because you don't like authority or you don't like the state, or because you want to organise non-hierarchically doesn't make you an anarchist.



So there is an essence of Trotskyism then? Just like there is an essence of anarchism. I mean, what happens if those same people who called themselves Trotsky also rejected Lenin or class struggle?



I'll repeat what I have said to you, twice now: "Contemporary "anarchists" have tried hard to detach themselves from the class, but of course you cannot detach the principles of anarchism from the realities of class. Anarchist ideas and methods developed out of class struggle, and trying to unpack one from the other is to render the principles redundant.

In other words, the people you are talking about call themselves anarchist in name only because they embrace the principles of anti-state and anti-authority etc, without ever knowing or realising that these concepts are inextricably linked to the pursuit of communism, and not means or ends in and of themselves."

To put it simply: If you reject class struggle, you are not an anarchist. No more than you would be a Trotskyist if you rejected class struggle.

I also finding it telling that you call platformism "inane" when it seeks to address the very questions you are proposing. Am I to assume you've never read the The Organisational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists (http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/newplatform/org_plat.htm)? Perhaps it would be beneficial for you to do so.



I am disqualifying those people who reject class as anarchists, and that's the argument I've been making throughout this thread...



Firstly, we're not comrades, so don't ever refer to me as such. Secondly, I'll concede to your point about method and practice, but discipline and cohesion comes through theoretical and tactical unity, collective responsibility and the organisation of a cadre organisation. You don't need to institute the centralisation of power through a hierarchy to achieve that.



I agree, those who do not organise themselves into a disciplined cadre with theoretical and tactical unity and collective responsibility will fail in that way. This has been the problem with the [social] anarchist movement and it is one that platformists have been trying to address.



Yes.



When I say "it's necessary for revolutionary communists to ensure that they are situating themselves in the day-to-day lives and communities of working class people," I mean in workplaces and outside of them.

I'm beginning to think you're not really reading my posts.



Yes.



Centralising a decision making process to make quick decisions is not the same as centralising political power.



Centralising political power means allowing a minority to make decisions for the majority.



I wholeheartedly agree.



You misunderstand the nature of the anarchist advocacy of decentralisation. We are not against centralisation as a concept, we are against the centralisation of political power.



I notice that you have ignored the main points of my last post.

Anyway, if it's the case that anarchist fetishise decentralisation then it is also the case that Leninists fetishise the state. It is after all Leninism that has resulted in the continued failure in applying Marx's ideas into practice, so much so that it has resulted in deformed workers' states and a return to capitalism, only this time with an almost irrevocably disillusioned working class.

But let me try and explain something to you: The anarchist critique of centralising political power is not because we think that power corrupts, it's because we realise the transitional stage theory is flawed. The state is not a tool that can be used to transition society into communism. For a start this analysis ignores the fundamental nature of capitalist social relations and the role the state has in perpetuating them. The state isn't neutral.

The centralisation of political authority i.e. a state, requires subordination to it and to the "centre" (a central committee or central government for example), dominated by a political elite, whose role is to ensure the continued hegemony of the state’s control (centralised political authority). Leninists claim that the state’s purpose is to maintain a defence of the revolution at all costs. In order to maintain and operate this process a bureaucracy or civil service must emerge. Over a period of time, this bureaucratic minority becomes entrenched within its role, in the course of which, actual expressions of workers’ power are recuperated because they cannot exist simultaneously if the state is to maintain and defend itself. The bureaucracy cannot allow workers’ collectives organising areas of land and industry independently of their centralised political authority, or maintaining military militias separate to a centralised army, otherwise the state’s power is undermined. It is therefore not possible to have the emergence of workers’ councils in workplaces and the creation of workers’ militias that express their own political power if centralised political authority exists. The two will always come into conflict.



No I didn't. And it's not my true anarchism, it's just anarchism.

This conversation is going nowhere fast. You are debating me as if I am denying that there are core features to anarchism and Trotskyism, without which a group or movement shouldn't properly be called anarchist or Trotskyist. I have clearly stated that there are core features to both, and that if we judged groups on the basis of these core features, it would be just as idiotic of me to try to say that the Sparts aren't Trotskyist as it would be to say that anarchist groups that practice consensus-based horizontalist decision-making aren't anarchist. You are being rather sneaky about it, too, claiming that "contemporary anarchists have tried hard to detach themselves from the class, but of course you cannot detach the principles of anarchism from the realities of class."

No, they haven't "tried to detach themselves from the [working?] class," and you've provided no such proof that they have. I know of a multitude of anarchist groups that are very much Marxist in an abstract sense of subscribing to Marx's critique of capitalism and the need overthrow it. It's just that they have a different understanding of how to overthrow class society than what you or I have, just as Orthodox Trotskyist had disagreements with Third Camp Trotskyists regarding how to reinstate working class power in the Soviet Union. These are serious differences, no doubt, but it is is patently dishonest to claim that these difference constitute crossing a dividing line from anarchism into non-anarchism or Trotskyism into non-Trotskyism. Just as it is dishonest to claim that all anarchists who embrace horizontalism and consensus decision-making aren't Marxists.

Equally evasive is an actual answer, not some one-off yes or no, to the question I have posted twice now: under Specifism, are the decisions of the majority of the group binding on group members? Simply saying "yes" doesn't clarify matters. I mean BINDING, as in, there is no abstention option. And it's not permissible to go around criticizing the decision publicly. If these are indeed organizational principles you embrace, then your model is very close to democratic centralism. If not, you don't really have a group whose majority decisions are "binding" on anybody in any meaningful sense.

Moreover, your distinction between "Centralising a decision making process to make quick decisions" and "centralising political power" is completely artificial. When you have a group struggling to overthrow capitalist power, the decisions it makes are political decisions in a struggle over political power. When that decision-making is centralized, and binding on members (as you claim is the case with your "disciplined" organization), that is a centralization of political power. Not exploitative political power, but power used by one class to suppress another one -- in this case the suppression of capitalist by workers. That is Marx's and Engels' definition of "political," which takes place in the struggle for state power (of which the workers' form is a radically NEW kind). But I am sure you knew that, being what a True Class Struggle Warrior you are.

Finally, don't think I'm going to let you off the hook about the "power corrupts" meme. You've tried multiple times to disown it, yet have constantly issued statements that presuppose it. For example, you embrace the anarchist idea that "the centralisation of political authority i.e. a state, requires subordination to it and to the "centre" (a central committee or central government for example), dominated by a political elite, whose role is to ensure the continued hegemony of the state’s control."

I hope everything who is reading this thread pays attention to how you formulated your statement -- the very form of state power does things. It "requires" subordination to it. It compels the people at its helm to act in certain ways (to fight for the continuation of the state, etc.)

The first thing to note here is how dull-witted your characterization of the purpose of the bureaucracy under a workers' state is. The purpose of the Soviet state under Lenin was not to ensure "continued hegemony" ad infinitum, it was to ensure the continued hegemony of the working class until its enemies had been defeated. The purpose of the state was to transition to socialism so that, once the class enemies of the workers were defeated, the state would wither away.

We all know this didn't work out so well, but your explanation seems to be (and correct me if I a wrong) that the reason it didn't work out so well was that the top members of the state -- simply by being personnel of a state -- were automatically compelled to fulfill their "political roles" by trying to preserve their status as "elites" (as you call them). Notice here the logic built into your model: political elites in charges of states of any kind automatically have the role of preserving their status by maintaining the state in which it is rooted. Please tell me, because I am curious to know: how is this even marginally different the idea that power -- exercising a position of authority -- corrupts. Is it that you think only the exercise of power within a "state" corrupts, while exercising power within an organization following the same principles of organization does not corrupt?

About the only thing I think we can agree on is that, no, we are not comrades.

[The Feral Underclass]

You are debating me as if I am denying that there are core features to anarchism and Trotskyism, without which a group or movement shouldn't properly be called anarchist or Trotskyist.

No I'm not.


I have clearly stated that there are core features to both...

No you haven't.


...and that if we judged groups on the basis of these core features, it would be just as idiotic of me to try to say that the Sparts aren't Trotskyist as it would be to say that anarchist groups that practice consensus-based horizontalist decision-making aren't anarchist.

What I've said is anarchists who reject class aren't anarchists. I've said it four or fives times now. What is wrong with you?


You are being rather sneaky about it, too, claiming that "contemporary anarchists have tried hard to detach themselves from the class, but of course you cannot detach the principles of anarchism from the realities of class."

No, they haven't "tried to detach themselves from the [working?] class," and you've provided no such proof that they have. I know of a multitude of anarchist groups that are very much Marxist in an abstract sense of subscribing to Marx's critique of capitalism and the need overthrow it.

If you have been talking about class struggle anarchists this whole time, then of course they are anarchists. Why has it taken you four/five posts to make this distinction, despite me repeatedly talking about post-left anarchists...


It's just that they have a different understanding of how to overthrow class society than what you or I have

Which groups are you referring to, incidentally?


just as Orthodox Trotskyist had disagreements with Third Camp Trotskyists regarding how to reinstate working class power in the Soviet Union. These are serious differences, no doubt, but it is is patently dishonest to claim that these difference constitute crossing a dividing line from anarchism into non-anarchism or Trotskyism into non-Trotskyism. Just as it is dishonest to claim that all anarchists who embrace horizontalism and consensus decision-making aren't Marxists.

I think it's quite simple to see what my point was. I thought that you were referring to the post-left anti-authoritarians that made up part of the occupy movement, who are not anarchists, since they reject class. Now it turns out you are talking about completely different anarchists.

Why you didn't feel it germane to point that out is beyond me?


Equally evasive is an actual answer, not some one-off yes or no, to the question I have posted twice now: under Specifism, are the decisions of the majority of the group binding on group members? Simply saying "yes" doesn't clarify matters. I mean BINDING, as in, there is no abstention option. And it's not permissible to go around criticizing the decision publicly. If these are indeed organizational principles you embrace, then your model is very close to democratic centralism. If not, you don't really have a group whose majority decisions are "binding" on anybody in any meaningful sense.

What else would you mean by binding? To clarify, when a decision is made (and people are entitled to abstain), it is binding for all members and they cannot criticise it publicly.


Moreover, your distinction between "Centralising a decision making process to make quick decisions" and "centralising political power" is completely artificial. When you have a group struggling to overthrow capitalist power, the decisions it makes are political decisions in a struggle over political power. When that decision-making is centralized, and binding on members (as you claim is the case with your "disciplined" organization), that is a centralization of political power.

Not exploitative political power, but power used by one class to suppress another one -- in this case the suppression of capitalist by workers. That is Marx's and Engels' definition of "political," which takes place in the struggle for state power (of which the workers' form is a radically NEW kind).

Perhaps the word "power" is misleading then. I am using the word "power" and "authority" interchangeably. I suppose there is a concentration of political power, that's true, exercised by one class over the other.

What I am talking about, however, is who wields that political power and how is the authority derived from it exercised.

A decision making process for a mass of people can be centralised to a small group if their political authority is derived and controlled by that mass, mandated upwards to make a decision.

That is different to a small group of people centralising political power into their hands and then exercising its authority over the mass of people, mandating decisions downwards.


But I am sure you knew that, being what a True Class Struggle Warrior you are.

Are we not all true class struggle warriors?


Finally, don't think I'm going to let you off the hook about the "power corrupts" meme. You've tried multiple times to disown it, yet have constantly issued statements that presuppose it. For example, you embrace the anarchist idea that "the centralisation of political authority i.e. a state, requires subordination to it and to the "centre" (a central committee or central government for example), dominated by a political elite, whose role is to ensure the continued hegemony of the state’s control."

I hope everything who is reading this thread pays attention to how you formulated your statement -- the very form of state power does things. It "requires" subordination to it. It compels the people at its helm to act in certain ways (to fight for the continuation of the state, etc.)

Can you name one state in the history of humanity that has not done this?


The first thing to note here is how dull-witted your characterization of the purpose of the bureaucracy under a workers' state is. The purpose of the Soviet state under Lenin was not to ensure "continued hegemony" ad infinitum, it was to ensure the continued hegemony of the working class until its enemies had been defeated. The purpose of the state was to transition to socialism so that, once the class enemies of the workers were defeated, the state would wither away.

How does it wither away? I'm not being obstinate, I want to understand -- practically speaking -- how the state withers away?

This is a classic Leninist line: The state exists to continue the hegemony of the working class, but how does that happen? It does that by maintaining the hegemony of the state.


We all know this didn't work out so well, but your explanation seems to be (and correct me if I a wrong) that the reason it didn't work out so well was that the top members of the state -- simply by being personnel of a state -- were automatically compelled to fulfill their "political roles" by trying to preserve their status as "elites" (as you call them).

It's not a question of individuals attempting to preserve their status, it's about individuals being functionaries of the state whose job it is to maintain the institutions of the state. Their role becomes entrenched, simply by the nature of the role they are fulfilling, whether they want it or not.


Notice here the logic built into your model: political elites in charges of states of any kind automatically have the role of preserving their status by maintaining the state in which it is rooted. Please tell me, because I am curious to know: how is this even marginally different the idea that power -- exercising a position of authority -- corrupts. Is it that you think only the exercise of power within a "state" corrupts, while exercising power within an organization following the same principles of organization does not corrupt?

It's not "power" that's the problem. I'm not against political power. The problem is centralising that political power, i.e. the establishment of a state. The issue therefore is what the state is: A self-perpetuating structure. That is what it is designed to be. In the vision of Leninists, working class hegemony is best continued through the state, because the state s a very good way to maintain control.

Central government, armed forces, judiciary, the security apparatus, they are designed to exist and to maintain their existence in order that they defend working class hegemony, hegemony that is expressed through the dominance of the state.

More importantly the state has seized the means of production and maintains control over production and distribution. This is an important distinction to make, because it is not the workers that control the means of production (the revolutionary objective), it is the state. At what point then does the working class seize them?

It is not enough to say that when the enemies of the class are defeated then the structures of the state will simply disappear. How does an entrenched security apparatus disappear? Does it just burn all its records and then everyone goes home? How does the functions of the central government cease to be irrelevant? If a central government disappears how are things organised? How does the process of the working class taking direct control of the means of production begin? When does it begin? The defeat of the capitalist class both militarily and ideological doesn't make a state become unnecessary.

This biggest issue here: the political objectives of the class are to seize the means of production, take control of the political structures and abolish proletarian subjectivity, but the objectives of the state are to own and direct the means of production, control political structures and maintain proletarian subjectivity (the state needs workers to keep being workers). How are these conflicting objectives resolved?

The answer is that they aren't. In these material conditions they can't be. Any expression of power from the class against the control of the state will be met by force and the state will always win, because they have a monopoly on power.

What then of the proletariat?

[Lucretia]

No I'm not.



No you haven't.



What I've said is anarchists who reject class aren't anarchists. I've said it four or fives times now. What is wrong with you?

What's wrong with me is that saying something and proving it are two entirely different things. You claim that only in my last message did I claim there to be an essence to anarchism or Trotskyism, but if we look back two posts of mine ago, we see me saying: "Anymore than the fact that this or that anarchist group's failure to adopt your inane platformism indicates that said group is not really anarchist -- the essence of which is a movement to overthrow class society through decentralized, non-hierarchical means as a way of avoiding having to take power."

If you fail to see how this was my "clearly stating that there are core features to both," as I re-affirmed in my last post, then you clearly are just trolling or really are a dumbass unable to hold conversations.

You've also stated -- stated, NOT demonstrated -- repeatedly that the majority of Anarchists have rejected class struggle, then have become pissy with me because I haven't taken your word on religious faith. Primarily because I know of anarchist groups in the US that are (a) organized around horizontalism and consensus-building and (b) Marxist. Apparently you think the only anarcho-communists/anarcho-syndicalists who draw from the work of Marx are Platformists. It is simply not true. In fact, your lining up behind majority decision-making as a rule would land you in some pretty hot water with these groups, ironically enough for the same reason you want to take a shit all over Lenin's workers' state theory.


If you have been talking about class struggle anarchists this whole time, then of course they are anarchists. Why has it taken you four/five posts to make this distinction, despite me repeatedly talking about post-left anarchists... I think it's quite simple to see what my point was. I thought that you were referring to the post-left anti-authoritarians that made up part of the occupy movement, who are not anarchists, since they reject class. Now it turns out you are talking about completely different anarchists.You are hilarious. Throughout all of my posts, I have talked consistently about anarchists, how they are the flipside of social democrats, and how the dominant decision-making and organizational principles within anarchism inspired and were adopted by the Occupy movement (in fact, many anarchists participated in the Occupy movement). How this translates into me talking about "post-left anti-authoritarians" is a mystery that only you can solve and, quite frankly, not one I am going to spend much time wondering about. It's quite clear that you don't carefully read my posts, even as you blather on and on about how I don't carefully read yours.


What else would you mean by binding? To clarify, when a decision is made (and people are entitled to abstain), it is binding for all members and they cannot criticise it publicly.Ok, so this is close to democratic centralism, but still has a residue of individualist autonomy. Why would people need to abstain from a majority decision? Presumably the reason would be sharp political disagreement over an issue considered quite fundamental. But that just raises the question: if the very principles of organization protect abstention in a way that anticipates political disagreements so sharp, so fundamental in nature, then it is highly unlikely that this group will ever be united enough to help build a mass revolutionary movement. As I have said repeatedly in other threads, democratic centralism is not some loose assortment of options one can choose from ala carte. It is a unified set of principles (to which exceptions should be made from time to time) that prefigures post-revolutionary political unity, workers' power, in the way it operates and makes interventions in the class struggle. It reflects what the working class will become, not what it is.


Perhaps the word "power" is misleading then. I am using the word "power" and "authority" interchangeably. I suppose there is a concentration of political power, that's true, exercised by one class over the other.

What I am talking about, however, is who wields that political power and how is the authority derived from it exercised.

A decision making process for a mass of people can be centralised to a small group if their political authority is derived and controlled by that mass, mandated upwards to make a decision. .I am with you on the first part: it does little good talking about "power" in an undifferentiated way to refer to different types of authority. But then that just raises the issue: why use the term "state" in such an undifferentiated way? States, by definition, are armed bodies of individuals exercising public authority by one class against others. So why on Earth would you want to pretend that any revolutionary organization, certainly armed, coordinating its actions centrally through a democratically controlled body, is not a state? It is a state -- a workers' state.


That is different to a small group of people centralising political power into their hands and then exercising its authority over the mass of people, mandating decisions downwards.But wait -- earlier you said that there are situations where, for the sake of coordination and consistency, central decisions will have to be taken quickly and "mandated downward." Why are you contrasting this with the democratically elected workers' state I mentioned in my previous paragraph? Democratically elected leaders of a workers' state can, and should, have the power to mandate certain policies downward -- within limits, of course -- especially during periods of intense class conflict (i.e., civil war).

The attempt to counterpose these two things reveals once more the remnants of this liberal individualist mindset where "being mandated" is counterposed to "choosing." At the level of the individual who is mandated to do something he would otherwise not want to do, this makes sense. In the larger context of class interests and class struggle, where what one particular individual or even chunk of individuals might want should be subsumed to the expressed wishes and interests of the class as a whole, counterposing "mandated" with "choosing" is much, much more problematic -- especially if the people doing the mandating were democratically elected by a majority.



How does it wither away? I'm not being obstinate, I want to understand -- practically speaking -- how the state withers away?

This is a classic Leninist line: The state exists to continue the hegemony of the working class, but how does that happen? It does that by maintaining the hegemony of the state.The state withers away because its power resides in the consent and support of the working class, and is used for the purpose of eliminating alien class forces. Once that task is complete, there is no more reason for a state to exist. And in fact, there are no more class distinctions. So it wouldn't make sense to talking about "working class hegemony" at that point. How, at a concrete level, this withering away would take place is the winding down of the size of the military until it disappears, the increasing delegation to local levels the management of workplaces until full self-management is in place, the gradual shrinking of constabulary forces until such time that whatever anti-social behavior remains can be dealt with at a local level by groups of citizens convened specifically for that purpose, rather than by separate institutions designed to apply force or coercion.

But to you this withering away can't happen. Why? Because:


It's not a question of individuals attempting to preserve their status, it's about individuals being functionaries of the state whose job it is to maintain the institutions of the state. Their role becomes entrenched, simply by the nature of the role they are fulfilling, whether they want it or not.This is no different than what I said about your views in my previous post. In your understanding, the state (a kind of euphemism for that nebulous concept "power" or "concentrated political power") does things ("corrupts"). It makes people its functionaries, assigns them roles so that inexorably lead them to want to suppress the very workers who put them into power in the first place. There is not one single difference between your phrasing above, and the cliche "power corrupts." Not one.


It's not "power" that's the problem. I'm not against political power. The problem is centralising that political power, i.e. the establishment of a state. The issue therefore is what the state is: A self-perpetuating structure. That is what it is designed to be. In the vision of Leninists, working class hegemony is best continued through the state, because the state s a very good way to maintain control.Why are you against centralizing political power if political power is not the problem? This makes no sense. On the one hand, you keep exclaiming that you don't think power corrupts, and that political power per se isn't the problem, but if it's potentially capable of being put to benevolent use qualitatively, then why this fixation on quantity -- of how much there is. Is too much power being used for a good purpose bad? Having too powerful of a workers' militia under the command of a revolutionary and highly class-conscious leader is bad? Why? I see no other reason that you can provide besides the old anarchist fallback of "power corrupts," power once again having become this undifferentiated thing that is clumped together from a variety of different sources (e.g., workers' support, armed force, theft of property, etc.).


Central government, armed forces, judiciary, the security apparatus, they are designed to exist and to maintain their existence in order that they defend working class hegemony, hegemony that is expressed through the dominance of the state.Once more you are slipping assumptions into your line of reasoning here that are highly questionable and allow you to build your conclusions into your definitions. Your argument is that workers' states -- centralized power derived from working class support -- cannot wither away because, well, states by definition are designed to maintain their existence ad infinitum. Do you see how this is not a productive way to go about having a conversation?


More importantly the state has seized the means of production and maintains control over production and distribution. This is an important distinction to make, because it is not the workers that control the means of production (the revolutionary objective), it is the state. At what point then does the working class seize them?

It is not enough to say that when the enemies of the class are defeated then the structures of the state will simply disappear. How does an entrenched security apparatus disappear? Does it just burn all its records and then everyone goes home? How does the functions of the central government cease to be irrelevant? If a central government disappears how are things organised? How does the process of the working class taking direct control of the means of production begin? When does it begin? The defeat of the capitalist class both militarily and ideological doesn't make a state become unnecessary.

This biggest issue here: the political objectives of the class are to seize the means of production, take control of the political structures and abolish proletarian subjectivity, but the objectives of the state are to own and direct the means of production, control political structures and maintain proletarian subjectivity (the state needs workers to keep being workers). How are these conflicting objectives resolved?

The answer is that they aren't. In these material conditions they can't be. Any expression of power from the class against the control of the state will be met by force and the state will always win, because they have a monopoly on power.

What then of the proletariat?I think I've said enough so far that we have enough to proceed in a discussion. I will wait to discuss specifically the issue of workers' control/workers' management and the class nature of states after we've arrived at some kind of definitive conclusion of what we've bitten off right now.

[The Feral Underclass]

I am with you on the first part: it does little good talking about "power" in an undifferentiated way to refer to different types of authority. But then that just raises the issue: why use the term "state" in such an undifferentiated way? States, by definition, are armed bodies of individuals exercising public authority by one class against others. So why on Earth would you want to pretend that any revolutionary organization, certainly armed, coordinating its actions centrally through a democratically controlled body, is not a state? It is a state -- a workers' state.

In a very loose abstract way the state is an organised armed body, but the state is more than that: It is a historical tool of bourgeois oppression that has specific structures that ultimately maintain capitalist social relations. Your conception doesn't address this problematic.

If you want to argue that Lenin advocated decentralised, federated militias, economic plenums and political assemblies co-ordinated on a delegate system, and that this is a state, then that's fine with me.

Of course, that's not what the Leninist conception of the state is. Lenin's objective was to lay claim to the bourgeois state. He adds that it is the bourgeois state "without the bourgeoisie!" but what does that mean in practice?

The ideological difference is that those individuals who take hold of the bourgeois state wield the institutions of the state on behalf of the working class, or indeed in their interests. That's all fine and well as a slogan, but of course to do that "bourgeois law" is maintained, by a bourgeois state. That is not in the interest of the working class. It is entirely counter-intuitive.

The notion that this process is neutral is wildly undermined by the realities of Soviet Russia, Communist China et al. That notwithstanding, what we have is the workers organised into an armed body, yes, but done so within the confines of bourgeois law and the bourgeois state.

And what is the bourgeois state if not the collection of institutions designed to maintain capitalist social relations? What is bourgeois law if not a body of regulations designed to maintain capitalist social relations? Just saying that these bodies are fighting capitalists doesn't mean that those social relations are not being entrenched.

The real problem here is that bourgeois state, usually used to maintain private property, now controls the means of production directly, therefore negating the working class from fulfilling their objective to control the means of production directly.

So now what we are left with is bourgeois law, maintained by a bourgeois state that controls the means of production. It's called workers' state because all of this is done in the interests of the workers. But how is this in the interest of the workers? The interests of the workers should be communism. Nothing else.

The idea that the state is simply an organised armed body is just not what you mean. What you mean is an organised armed body that is designed to maintain the bourgeois rule of law using bourgeois institutions of control. And then claiming this is in the interest of the working class.


But wait -- earlier you said that there are situations where, for the sake of coordination and consistency, central decisions will have to be taken quickly and "mandated downward."

No I didn't.


Why are you contrasting this with the democratically elected workers' state I mentioned in my previous paragraph? Democratically elected leaders of a workers' state can, and should, have the power to mandate certain policies downward -- within limits, of course -- especially during periods of intense class conflict (i.e., civil war).

When a minority of people mandate from above and ultimately enforce those decisions using their monopoly on state violence, agency is removed from the majority. Just as with bourgeois representationalism, this state socialist representationalism denies the working class the agency to control society -- for themselves.

The objective of the class is to abolish themselves as proletarians through the seizure of the means of production and the direct organisation of society based on the principles of communism, outside of the confines of the state.

Having a minority, whether they are democratically elected or not (just as with bourgeois elections) hinders that process, and having anything that hinders that process is, by definition, counter-revolutionary.


The attempt to counterpose these two things reveals once more the remnants of this liberal individualist mindset where "being mandated" is counterposed to "choosing." At the level of the individual who is mandated to do something he would otherwise not want to do, this makes sense. In the larger context of class interests and class struggle, where what one particular individual or even chunk of individuals might want should be subsumed to the expressed wishes and interests of the class as a whole, counterposing "mandated" with "choosing" is much, much more problematic -- especially if the people doing the mandating were democratically elected by a majority.

If the interests of the class as a whole are anything other than the abolition of the state, the seizure of the means of production and the ultimate establishment of a communist society, then we are not in a revolution.


The state withers away because its power resides in the consent and support of the working class, and is used for the purpose of eliminating alien class forces.

Defence against class enemies is not the state's only task. The state is not just institutions of defence, it is also the means in which society is controlled and organised within the confines of bourgeois law: The rule of law if you will.

What happens if the working class object to laying claim to the bourgeois state and reject bourgeois law (I mean that's what they should be doing in any case)?

What happens if large areas decide to break away from this centralised control and begin organising the political and economic life of society? How does the state then differentiate between workers' power being expressed and "alien class forces"?

Historically speaking the response has been to crush those expressions severely and without compromise. Why? Because the state maintains a monopoly on the rule of law. In other words, it takes actions that maintain its existence.

What happens if those bodies, organised and armed, decide they do not want to fight? After all, it was Trotsky that pioneered the use of "barrier troops" in the Red Army (Cheka punitive detachments stationed behind regular units with orders to shoot if the troops ahead either deserted or retreated without permission).

The working class routinely expressed dissent against the bourgeois state of socialist Russia and routinely withdrew its support. The idea that the working class acted as this homogeneous entity or that it would do so in the future is absurd.

How then is the state, a bourgeois state, dealing with the ideological issues that the working class might have, or with their impatience for power over their labour? How does the state rectify the conflicts between state power and the desire for the proletariat to exert its control?

The answer is through suppression and to create that suppression the state must entrench itself as all states do in order to maintain its control. Even if the working class were a homogeneous entity and they all subjugated themselves willingly to minority rule (even if mandated through elections), the state still becomes entrenched since capitalist social relations have been maintained and the class have become dependent on the bourgeois rule of law. Or are we to believe that the state would promote ideological dissent against the existence of itself?


Once that task is complete, there is no more reason for a state to exist. And in fact, there are no more class distinctions. So it wouldn't make sense to talking about "working class hegemony" at that point. How, at a concrete level, this withering away would take place is the winding down of the size of the military until it disappears, the increasing delegation to local levels the management of workplaces until full self-management is in place, the gradual shrinking of constabulary forces until such time that whatever anti-social behavior remains can be dealt with at a local level by groups of citizens convened specifically for that purpose, rather than by separate institutions designed to apply force or coercion.

I want to address this point in a much better way than I did previously, but I have to go to a meeting now, so will come back to it.


This is no different than what I said about your views in my previous post. In your understanding, the state (a kind of euphemism for that nebulous concept "power" or "concentrated political power") does things ("corrupts"). It makes people its functionaries, assigns them roles so that inexorably lead them to want to suppress the very workers who put them into power in the first place. There is not one single difference between your phrasing above, and the cliche "power corrupts." Not one.

Corruption implies, firstly, a desire for something, and secondly a change from something "good" to something "bad" (excuse these basic terms).

I am asserting to you that the state is "bad" by virtue of it being a state. It's not a question of the state turning into something else, or the state making other people desire something "bad", it is that the state as a structure is inherently, already "bad," so whether its functionaries desire this "badness" or not, it is what will happen, since that is what the state does.


Why are you against centralizing political power if political power is not the problem? This makes no sense.

I think the working class should have political power and should wield that power over society, but that is only realisable if that political power is managed in a decentralised and federated way -- That is the only point in which the working class, as a heterogeneous entity, are able to wield power.

Viewing the working class as a homogeneous entity that can be directed and controlled from above is not the working class wielding political power. It is a minority of people wielding political power.


On the one hand, you keep exclaiming that you don't think power corrupts, and that political power per se isn't the problem, but if it's potentially capable of being put to benevolent use qualitatively, then why this fixation on quantity -- of how much there is.

I haven't said that power doesn't corrupt, actually. I don't know whether it does, maybe it does? Are there any scientific researches on the issue?

What I have said is that the anarchist critique of Lenin isn't based on the notion that anarchists think that "power corrupts." Whether we do or we don't is irrelevant, since that's not the basis of our critique of Lenin, which is what we are talking about. The issue here is how the working class are wielding political power over society.

In your conception, you view the class as homogeneous and want the bourgeois state, centralised into the hands of a minority to wield that power over society "in the interests" i.e. a minority determine what is in the interests of the working class and use a monopoly on state violence to enforce that.

My conception I see the class as heterogeneous, and that the process of revolution, being one specifically to abolish proletarian subjectivity by the class seizing the means of production and create communism for themselves, should wield political power directly.


Is too much power being used for a good purpose bad? Having too powerful of a workers' militia under the command of a revolutionary and highly class-conscious leader is bad? Why?

Because the workers' militia should be under the command of the workers. We want to create a society whereby the working class have taken control. We are not creating a society so that a highly class-consciousness leader can lead us.


I see no other reason that you can provide besides the old anarchist fallback of "power corrupts," power once again having become this undifferentiated thing that is clumped together from a variety of different sources (e.g., workers' support, armed force, theft of property, etc.).

The reason is that I want to create communism and to create communism the working class has to communise the products of our labour and fight to seize the means of production, whereby we can re-organise production and distribution and abolish ourselves as proletarians.

All of our activity should be focused on achieving that objective.


Once more you are slipping assumptions into your line of reasoning here that are highly questionable and allow you to build your conclusions into your definitions. Your argument is that workers' states -- centralized power derived from working class support -- cannot wither away because, well, states by definition are designed to maintain their existence ad infinitum. Do you see how this is not a productive way to go about having a conversation?

Well firstly I bring into question what working class support means and what actual relevance that has to the process of transition into communism. The Tories have working class support. So does the BNP.

So you have laid claim to the bourgeois state that and you have the "support" of the working class to do so. Now you are able to control society, own the means of production and enforce the bourgeois rule of law. You can even say it is in their interest.

Does this mean that the support the working class has given is in their interest? Does it mean that your ideological vision of what is in the interest of the working class actually what they are interested in?

We want to abolish the bourgeois rule of law. We want to abolish the bourgeois state. We want to seize the means of production and wield political power directly. That is how we create communism. That is the only interest that the working class need.

[The Feral Underclass]

I had hoped to be able to come back and finish the post above, but I just haven't had the time and I am now going away for the weekend. I will be happy to continue the discussion when I'm back.

[Lucretia]

In a very loose abstract way the state is an organised armed body, but the state is more than that: It is a historical tool of bourgeois oppression that has specific structures that ultimately maintain capitalist social relations. Your conception doesn't address this problematic.

If you want to argue that Lenin advocated decentralised, federated militias, economic plenums and political assemblies co-ordinated on a delegate system, and that this is a state, then that's fine with me.

Of course, that's not what the Leninist conception of the state is. Lenin's objective was to lay claim to the bourgeois state. He adds that it is the bourgeois state "without the bourgeoisie!" but what does that mean in practice?

The ideological difference is that those individuals who take hold of the bourgeois state wield the institutions of the state on behalf of the working class, or indeed in their interests. That's all fine and well as a slogan, but of course to do that "bourgeois law" is maintained, by a bourgeois state. That is not in the interest of the working class. It is entirely counter-intuitive.

The notion that this process is neutral is wildly undermined by the realities of Soviet Russia, Communist China et al. That notwithstanding, what we have is the workers organised into an armed body, yes, but done so within the confines of bourgeois law and the bourgeois state.

And what is the bourgeois state if not the collection of institutions designed to maintain capitalist social relations? What is bourgeois law if not a body of regulations designed to maintain capitalist social relations? Just saying that these bodies are fighting capitalists doesn't mean that those social relations are not being entrenched.

The real problem here is that bourgeois state, usually used to maintain private property, now controls the means of production directly, therefore negating the working class from fulfilling their objective to control the means of production directly.

So now what we are left with is bourgeois law, maintained by a bourgeois state that controls the means of production. It's called workers' state because all of this is done in the interests of the workers. But how is this in the interest of the workers? The interests of the workers should be communism. Nothing else.

The idea that the state is simply an organised armed body is just not what you mean. What you mean is an organised armed body that is designed to maintain the bourgeois rule of law using bourgeois institutions of control. And then claiming this is in the interest of the working class.

Your problem, the Anarchist Tension, is that you have a very flawed understanding of the state. You claim that the state is an armed body of men, but is also "a historical tool of bourgeois oppression that has specific structures that ultimately maintain capitalist social relations." Well, yes, a bourgeois state is a tool of bourgeois oppression -- not states in general. This was the whole purpose of the bourgeois revolutions, to establish states that were suitable for bourgeois oppression and to dismantle states that were suitable for feudal or tributary oppression and exploitation.

The point is that states are always a tool of some class to suppress alien class elements. You keep wanting to sneak into the definition a specific class content (in this case, that it must be a tool for the bourgeoisie) so that you can exclude prima facie the possibility that there could ever be a workers' state whose power resides not on exploitative social relations, but on combating exploitative social relations. In other words, this is just another example of you building your conclusions into your definitions.

You claim "If you want to argue that Lenin advocated decentralised, federated militias, economic plenums and political assemblies co-ordinated on a delegate system, and that this is a state, then that's fine with me. Of course, that's not what the Leninist conception of the state is. Lenin's objective was to lay claim to the bourgeois state. He adds that it is the bourgeois state "without the bourgeoisie!" but what does that mean in practice?"

But its obvious you have no idea what Lenin's conception of the workers' state is. Or you would know that it is to be organized on the basis of soviets operated in a democratic centralist fashion as much as the party was. Now you can make all sorts of claims about what a "Leninist" conception of the workers' state, but if this claim is that Marxist-Leninist states faithfully implemented Lenin's vision, then it is simply wrong. Every single one of the "socialist" dictatorships was bureaucratic centralist, not democratic centralist. They used jargon about "the leading role of the party" as veneer for conducting sham rubber-stamp elections that gave a warped content to the general democratic-centralist form of "election from the lower bodies to the higher," etc. So again, I invite you actually to study what Lenin had to say before passing all sorts of sweeping judgments on "Leninist definitions."


The ideological difference is that those individuals who take hold of the bourgeois state wield the institutions of the state on behalf of the working class, or indeed in their interests. That's all fine and well as a slogan, but of course to do that "bourgeois law" is maintained, by a bourgeois state. That is not in the interest of the working class. It is entirely counter-intuitive.No, The Anarchist Tension. It's obvious you have not the slightest understanding of Leninist theory, yet you insist on passing all sorts of sweeping judgments about Lenin's theory of the state. And that's pretty terrible. Lenin did not believe that workers "take hold of the bourgeois state." He clearly wrote in State and Revolution that workers smash the bourgeois state and replace it with a radically democratic and new form of state -- the workers' state. It was Kautsky who advocated assuming control over the bourgeois state, non-violently, through elections. But then that's why he was a counter-revolutionary.

You keep citing historical examples of "Leninist" states that morphed into dictatorships, but this is just more sloppy reasoning premised on faulty definitions. Lenin believed that only workers could establish a workers' state, so right away we can exclude any discussion of Cuba, China, and the Eastern Bloc countries as examples of "Leninist" states. Since those states were not established by workers, it makes no sense to talk about them as "workers' states," as much as Ortho-Trots might make the mistake of trying to conflate nationalized property forms with a state form established by workers' direct agency.

Then you have the one example of an actual workers' revolution consolidating control within a political territory through its state: the October Revolution of 1917 -- not ironically, the revolution that the Platformists use as a model for attempting to precipitate a revolution of their own. Now, we can have a discussion about how that state, up until the mid-1930s was something dramatically different than the state that came before it and after it.

And I would welcome such a discussion. But to write off the radical strides that workers made during that time frame in acquiring power on the shop floor, in indirectly shaping the economic decisions of the state as it struggled with its imperialist powers and the domestic bourgeoisie, and in sloughing off centuries of superstitious legal prohibitions, by lamenting the fact that workers did not immediately enjoy total and completely self-management of all enterprises is to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Socialism does not begin the day after workers smash the bourgeois state. There is a period of transition during which workers come to defeat decisively the bourgeoisie, as well as come increasingly to be the agent of economic planning at ever more localized levels. But again, to expect this day after the revolution, in a country as isolated, as under threat from bourgeois forces at home and abroad, and as dominated by the peasantry is even more ludicrously utopian.


When a minority of people mandate from above and ultimately enforce those decisions using their monopoly on state violence, agency is removed from the majority. Just as with bourgeois representationalism, this state socialist representationalism denies the working class the agency to control society -- for themselves.I've said this before in other threads, but I think it bears repeating:

How could somebody be "given a particular privilege or authority by a community, like the working-class community, with a particular objective in mind, yet ... in no way [be] accountable to that community"? Power is not some discrete material object that can be passed from person to person like a joint at a frat party.

If a community of some kind has power to bestow on an individual, then that person's power is and continues to be underpinned by the community who grants him or her that power, which means that the person can be held accountable if the community so chooses. The delegation of power doesn't magically create an independent source of power detached from themselves, which can then be turned back upon themselves by the delegate. For that kind of breaking away to occur, the individual would have to find another source of power that trumps the original source in strength. Which is precisely the process you see occurring in the fifteen to twenty years following the October Revolution, facilitated in large part by the decimation of the working-class that was originally wielding and delegating power in the first place.

A workers' state derives its authority from working-class power, and does not exist independently of it. Only when it begins to degenerate bureaucratically, and segments of the state begin to wield economic authority once delegated to it to lead a transition to socialism, does it make sense to talk about bureaucratic power against the workers. But that power doesn't just magically develop on its own, as a result of there being such a thing called a workers' state with concentrated power. The process of degeneration was not built into the logic of the workers' state -- it was the opposite, the thwarting of its purpose as the revolution failed to spread to Western Europe. Under those specific conditions, the state was left with the choice of either negating its own power and leaving the playing field open to imperialist-capitalist reconquest, or to behave more and more like a capitalist state by extracting surplus from workers to build up the forces of production in competition with those imperialist powers. So under the guise of protecting "workers' hegemony" the bureaucracy became the very thing it was fighting against. But make no mistake about it: this didn't happen magically. It happened by the bureaucrats defeating the working class violently, rolling back the majority of the gains of October, not by some Hegelian development of the state idea in the minds of the bureaucrats. Anarchists, for some unknown reason, want to leave out the specific conditions of degeneration and just want to posit it to the very logic of having a workers' state. But this is just another example of arguing abstractly from static definitions rather than treating the state as a historical process emerging from economic relationships.


What I have said is that the anarchist critique of Lenin isn't based on the notion that anarchists think that "power corrupts."And I think I've done a pretty damn good job demonstrating that your arguments about "state power" and what "state power does" -- which feed into your critique of Lenin's workers' state theory -- is very much premised on the unspoken but ubiquitous notion that power corrupts. Deny it all you want to, but it's there. And people reading the thread can clearly see it's there.


Well firstly I bring into question what working class support means and what actual relevance that has to the process of transition into communism. The Tories have working class support. So does the BNP.Congratulations. You've, inadvertently perhaps, stumbled upon a great truth. "Support" in the abstract is just as worthless an abstraction as "power" in the abstract or "state" in the abstract (or as Marx might say, "production" in the abstract). The fact that workers' voice "support" for a policy or a party does not make it progressive. Why? Because such political support could very well be constructed upon a material foundation of bourgeois hegemony. But this is precisely why it is sometimes, within definite boundaries and for definite purposes, in the interests of workers for bureaucratic-substitutionist measures to be taken against their expressed political will under a workers' state: because it undermines the material-social foundations, which continue to exist until socialism has been established, of bourgeois hegemony. And it is also why pointing to the fact that workers voted for this policy but not for that can, if taken to an extreme (as it tends to be with left-coms and anarchists) be an utterly useless guide for ascertaining the political content of a particular action. It is fetishizing individual autonomy and "choice" within the context of bourgeois social hegemony, in a way that protects that hegemony.

If you work with bourgeois assumptions -- assume bourgeois hegemony and bourgeois norms of individuality which underpin that hegemony, as all these anarchist and social dem critiques of Lenin do -- you are never going to defeat bourgeois social hegemony, regardless of what temporary and local political support for socialism is mustered in contradiction to that social hegemony.

[The Feral Underclass]

Your problem, the Anarchist Tension, is that you have a very flawed understanding of the state. You claim that the state is an armed body of men, but is also "a historical tool of bourgeois oppression that has specific structures that ultimately maintain capitalist social relations." Well, yes, a bourgeois state is a tool of bourgeois oppression -- not states in general. This was the whole purpose of the bourgeois revolutions, to establish states that were suitable for bourgeois oppression and to dismantle states that were suitable for feudal or tributary oppression and exploitation.

So you agree with me?


The point is that states are always a tool of some class to suppress alien class elements. You keep wanting to sneak into the definition a specific class content (in this case, that it must be a tool for the bourgeoisie) so that you can exclude prima facie the possibility that there could ever be a workers' state whose power resides not on exploitative social relations, but on combating exploitative social relations. In other words, this is just another example of you building your conclusions into your definitions.

Centralisation, hierarchy, substituonism, representationalism, parliamentarianism, these are capitalist social relations that do disempower. The fact that those who are at the top of the hierarchy, operating within a parliament, representing the workers or acting in their place, believe they are acting in the interests of the working class doesn't mean that they are, or that the structure they are maintaining does.

I take a materialist approach to understanding reality and simply "believing" or "saying" you are working in the interests of the working class does not mean that is the case when you compare that with the objective, material, structural realities of what you are doing in practice.

The ideas and the slogans may be different, you may even believe they are different, but the fundamental structure of the "Leninist" system of governance maintains social relations that disempower the proletariat and essentially negate the revolution


But its obvious you have no idea what Lenin's conception of the workers' state is.

Yet he talks explicitly about it in State and Revolution and we have witnessed precisely what his conception of the state was in practice. Trying to construct an argument based on the assumption that I haven't read or that I haven't become aware of Soviet Russia 1917-1924 is just weak.


Or you would know that it is to be organized on the basis of soviets operated in a democratic centralist fashion as much as the party was.

And democratic centralism essentially replicates the capitalist social relations inherent in the bourgeois state. Being able to elect people who call themselves communists to centralised bodies like Soviets, who do the work of government for you, and then have some alleged authority to recall that elected individual doesn't create workers' power. That isn't workers' power!

It is simply a version of the same substitutionism, representationalism and parliamentarianism of the bourgeois state. Only this time people "believe" in workers' power. Workers' power that is mandated to other people to implement.

Even if I was to agree that in this society where a socialist state exists, production is geared towards need rather than demand, and the workers were happy in their duty to make this happen, it doesn't mean that they are empowered.


Now you can make all sorts of claims about what a "Leninist" conception of the workers' state, but if this claim is that Marxist-Leninist states faithfully implemented Lenin's vision, then it is simply wrong. Every single one of the "socialist" dictatorships was bureaucratic centralist, not democratic centralist.

But this is precisely my point, which you keep either ignoring or not understanding: The "Leninist" state has no where else to go but bureaucratic centralism.


They used jargon about "the leading role of the party" as veneer for conducting sham rubber-stamp elections that gave a warped content to the general democratic-centralist form of "election from the lower bodies to the higher," etc. So again, I invite you actually to study what Lenin had to say before passing all sorts of sweeping judgments on "Leninist definitions."

But Lenin believed in centralism, he advocated minority rule, he embraced hierarchy, he purposefully believed in excluding the proletariat because they could only reach "trade union consciousness" in place of the class-conscious vanguard i.e. the party.

"And the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy." - State and Revolution


No, The Anarchist Tension. It's obvious you have not the slightest understanding of Leninist theory, yet you insist on passing all sorts of sweeping judgments about Lenin's theory of the state. And that's pretty terrible. Lenin did not believe that workers "take hold of the bourgeois state." He clearly wrote in State and Revolution that workers smash the bourgeois state and replace it with a radically democratic and new form of state -- the workers' state. It was Kautsky who advocated assuming control over the bourgeois state, non-violently, through elections. But then that's why he was a counter-revolutionary.

""In its first phase, or first stage, communism cannot as yet be fully mature economically and entirely free from traditions or vestiges of capitalism. Hence the interesting phenomenon that communism in its first phase retains "the narrow horizon of bourgeois law". Of course, bourgeois law in regard to the distribution of consumer goods inevitably presupposes the existence of the bourgeois state, for law is nothing without an apparatus capable of enforcing the observance of the rules of law. It follows that under communism there remains for a time not only bourgeois law, but even the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie!"


You keep citing historical examples of "Leninist" states that morphed into dictatorships, but this is just more sloppy reasoning premised on faulty definitions. Lenin believed that only workers could establish a workers' state, so right away we can exclude any discussion of Cuba, China, and the Eastern Bloc countries as examples of "Leninist" states.

They are states that, at their inception, advocated a Marxist transitional theory. Do you dispute this?


Since those states were not established by workers, it makes no sense to talk about them as "workers' states," as much as Ortho-Trots might make the mistake of trying to conflate nationalized property forms with a state form established by workers' direct agency.

This argument is simply a sectarian one between Leninists, of which I have absolutely no interest of getting involved with.

The facts are that both Castro and Mao were Marxists advocating the dictatorship of the proletariat and transitional socialism. The interpretations of their ideas and practice notwithstanding, they and their cadre organisations were undoubtedly supposed to be the vanguard of the workers, aiming to establish themselves as the ruling class, just as Lenin and the CPSU were.


Then you have the one example of an actual workers' revolution consolidating control within a political territory through its state: the October Revolution of 1917 -- not ironically, the revolution that the Platformists use as a model for attempting to precipitate a revolution of their own. Now, we can have a discussion about how that state, up until the mid-1930s was something dramatically different than the state that came before it and after it.

And I would welcome such a discussion. But to write off the radical strides that workers made during that time frame in acquiring power on the shop floor, in indirectly shaping the economic decisions of the state as it struggled with its imperialist powers and the domestic bourgeoisie, and in sloughing off centuries of superstitious legal prohibitions, by lamenting the fact that workers did not immediately enjoy total and completely self-management of all enterprises is to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Socialism does not begin the day after workers smash the bourgeois state. There is a period of transition during which workers come to defeat decisively the bourgeoisie, as well as come increasingly to be the agent of economic planning at ever more localized levels. But again, to expect this day after the revolution, in a country as isolated, as under threat from bourgeois forces at home and abroad, and as dominated by the peasantry is even more ludicrously utopian.

First of all your comments about Platformism are just bizarre, I'm not even going to respond to them. Secondly, I can only infer from the last sentence of the last paragraph that you assume I think that communism could exist in Russia immediately after revolution, which is not something I've ever claimed or alluded to.

Now, I am also not denying that gains were made during the Russian revolution. This argument is not and has never been about what concessions and reforms Lenin's government managed to achieve or how difficult it was achieving them.

I'm not going to go into each thing you've said and address whether it's correct or incorrect because this argument is about the fundamental contradiction that exists within the Marxist theory of transition advocated by Lenin...


A workers' state derives its authority from working-class power, and does not exist independently of it. Only when it begins to degenerate bureaucratically, and segments of the state begin to wield economic authority once delegated to it to lead a transition to socialism, does it make sense to talk about bureaucratic power against the workers.

The political and economic objectives of the working class is exclusively to begin a process of communisation, and by that I mean to re-expropriate the products of their labour so that an escalation can occur. This in turn leads to a seizure of the means of production as the logic of capitalism begins to disintegrate.

This is an autonomous process. It is the realisation of the proletariat that they are proletarians. This is done through struggle, education and empowerment. This inevitably requires organisation, but not organisation conceptualised by people who wish to "lead" the workers, but by the workers' needs

I will leave this quote here, as I think it's appropriate. It's from the Italian/German autonomous Marxist, Johannes Agnoli:

"The autonomy I mean is class autonomy...This form of autonomy has two meanings. First, it is a class movement, a movement of labour against capital, a movement of workers as subjects of production against workers as objects of valorisation. At the same time, autonomy goes beyond the workplace: it describes a mass movement against the capitalist reduction of everyone to consumer objects. In both cases, autonomy means an attempt to free oneself from the logic of capital...Autonomy does not mean to reject the principle of organisation. It means to reject a certain form of organisation: a form that prioritises the interest of organisation over the interests of the class."

What Leninists advocate is for this autonomy to be confined within structures that maintain the logic of capital, i.e. hierarchy, centralisation, substitutionism, parliamentarianism, representationalism.

These social relations are designed specifically to negate the autonomy of the working class to act. They are social relations designed to inhibit the independence of the proletariat.

That's not to bring into question your integrity, but that is why they exist in the bourgeois state and that is how they function when used. It is what they do.

These relations, far from being the object of destruction in and of themselves, in order for the working class to liberate themselves from political and economic subjugation, are maintained, at the beginning within a party structure and then within the structure of the bourgeois state, as it moves from just being a political organisation to an organisation of both political and economic control.

Instead of the working class creating independent organisations of self-emancipation, i.e. organisations of the class, they are confined within the maintenance of the bourgeois state by a political minority/elite. Lenin says, "this may sound like a paradox," and he is right, because it is a paradox.

The state isn't just a tool of economic control, it's a tool for political control also, and without economic and political control over the working class the workers' state cannot function, this is why it has to maintain capitalist social relations.

The degeneration of the workers' state begins when the workers are denied direct control over the means of production and over their political organisation, and denied the ability to form independent class organisations of self-emancipation.

The proxy nature of the Leninist conception of organisation, both politically and economically, negates the power of the working class. The workers' state derives power from the working class in so far as the working class put in to power their so-called political vanguard.

If your objective is to establish a socialist state, then fine, you will be successful, but our objective is to create communism, and you cannot begin that process by maintaining structures that perpetuate capitalist social relations.

The objective of the proletariat must be to overcome them.


But that power doesn't just magically develop on its own, as a result of there being such a thing called a workers' state with concentrated power.

In the hands of a political minority...


The process of degeneration was not built into the logic of the workers' state -- it was the opposite, the thwarting of its purpose as the revolution failed to spread to Western Europe. Under those specific conditions, the state was left with the choice of either negating its own power and leaving the playing field open to imperialist-capitalist reconquest, or to behave more and more like a capitalist state by extracting surplus from workers to build up the forces of production in competition with those imperialist powers. So under the guise of protecting "workers' hegemony" the bureaucracy became the very thing it was fighting against.

Trying to blame the political contradictions of Leninist-Marxism on the material conditions of Russia in 1917 is disingenuous and ignores the advances made in the Ukraine and in Spain, where society took on profound communist characteristics, under similar conditions.

The fact that the state had to resort to these methods were because it existed. If it did not exist it could not resort to them, and if it did not resort to them it could not exist. This is precisely the point: The state exists to maintain itself.


But make no mistake about it: this didn't happen magically. It happened by the bureaucrats defeating the working class violently, rolling back the majority of the gains of October, not by some Hegelian development of the state idea in the minds of the bureaucrats.

These references to "magic" is some effort to try and mystify my opinions and is a typical tactic, but it's not going to work. Bureaucrats emerged because they had to defeat the working class violently;they had to maintain the state.

It became dependent on capitalist social relations because the state cannot function properly without them, as you yourself have ostensibly explained. Fait accompli.


Anarchists, for some unknown reason, want to leave out the specific conditions of degeneration and just want to posit it to the very logic of having a workers' state.

The logic of the workers' state is degeneration.


And I think I've done a pretty damn good job demonstrating that your arguments about "state power" and what "state power does" -- which feed into your critique of Lenin's workers' state theory -- is very much premised on the unspoken but ubiquitous notion that power corrupts. Deny it all you want to, but it's there. And people reading the thread can clearly see it's there.

I'm beyond denying it. I have no real stake in whether you think my views are based on "power corrupts" or not. Perhaps power does corrupt? I have not seen a study or much investigation either way.

The fundamental basis of this argument is that the material conditions that the state, bourgeois in nature, establishes in its effort to advance a so-called workers' revolution will always degenerate, based on the bourgeois nature of a state, i.e. capitalist social relations.