TC
2nd February 2004, 23:45
Communism has a manifesto and a set of core texts, by philosopher/revolutionaries Marx and Engles and political scientist/revolutionary/head of state Lenin, which form the basis of the political ideology and theory of all Communists whether trotskyists, maoists, hoxhaites, juche, revolutionary marxists, or whatever.
Anarchy has an online frequently asked question's as its defacto core ideological text universially recognized by its proponents (tell me if this isn't true because this is the impression I've gathered, when an anarchist is asked about anarchy they say read the faqs). :-)
So, I have a question about part of your FAQs, specifically the introduction which addresses historical examples of anarchy. It gives seven examples, at least six of which where basically Communist events with minimual anarchist participation, or even no anarchist participation subject to anarchist historical revision after the fact (and this might actually be the case for all seven but I'm not well enough familier with one to be able to say if that is true). Regardless, my question is about what it proves about anarchy.
This is taken from Anarchist FAQ 9.10 passage A.5 (it can be found on infoshop or flagblackened or about 66,000 other anarchist sites according to google):
Quote:
Anarchism is about radically changing the world, not just making the present system less inhuman by encouraging the anarchistic tendencies within it to grow and develop. While no purely anarchist revolution has taken place yet, there have been numerous ones with a highly anarchist character and level of participation. And while these have all been destroyed, in each case it has been at the hands of outside force brought against them (backed either by Communists or Capitalists), not because of any internal problems in anarchism itself. These revolutions, despite their failure to survive in the face of overwhelming force, have been both an inspiration for anarchists and proof that anarchism is a viable social theory and can be practised on a large scale.
This makes a number of interesting claims:
"While no purely anarchist revolution has taken place yet, there have been numerous ones with a highly anarchist character and level of participation.":
No anarchist revolution has ever taken place, though Anarchists have occassionally attempted to hijack other revolutions, and failed to do so. In other words, Anarchy has never proven that it can even begin let alone complete a revolution without a Communist vanguard, but once a Communist revolution is underweigh Anarchists can get a few molotov cocktails in before someone restores order.
The real question a political ideology typically has to prove is "after the revolution, can the society survive attempts at counter-revolution, attempts at conquest." Anarchists have never even gotten far enough to ask that question, they have never proven that they can even overthrow a government (a question that is taken for granted by most ideologies, of course they have the potential to take power). When states of "anarchy" happen, it is normally because someone else made them happen, not anarchists themselves. I wont attempt to prove anything here because it is not central to the argument, but I'd suggest that the nature of anarchist organization is such that it cannot overthrow a government by itself, and historically it has never done so. There have been scores of completed liberal revolutions, scores of completed communist revolutions, several completed fascist revolutions and at least a couple completed islamist revolutions (and many more, maybe hundreds of serious attempts and failers of each of these four successful political ideologies of the 20th century, where as anarchists have only seriously participated in seven failed historical events not of their own making, only three or four of which where even attempts at revolution.) Even two Baathist completed revolutions, two Bolivarian revolutions, and many many nationalist revolutions with no clear ideology. All of these political trends have proven that they have the theoretical potential to overthrow a government because they have done so, Anarchy is almost alone among recognized ideologies and certaintly world ideologies in never having overthrown even one highly compromized government under its own banner.
"These revolutions, despite their failure to survive in the face of overwhelming force, have been both an inspiration for anarchists and proof that anarchism is a viable social theory and can be practised on a large scale."
All attempts at Anarchy have met in immediate, complete, and unequivocal defeat. All examples given have actually been practiced on a scale no larger than a city (Say Paris or Barcelona or Kronstadt) though more often in small parts of a city (Say the Latin Quarter Paris, or isolated Italian factories), and this is somehow evidence that Anarchy can be practiced on a large scale?
When we talk about liberalism being viable on a large scale we mean that today it represents virtually all of the industrialized or industrializing world besides the nine or ten communist/socialist states and the islamic states in the middle east, in other words more than half of the world. When we talk about socialism/communism's viability on a large scale, at socialism's hight almost half of the global population lived in a socialist society in the late seventies, though a sizeable minority of the world remains socialist. Fascism has had most of europe and seriously challanged the major liberal empires for supremacy. Even many regional ideologies like Baathism, Islamism and Bolivarianism have had success at multi-national levels, and dozens more have had succcess on a single-state level. Anarchy has been on a city level, at most, and never for more than a year. Thats not that impressive.
If this is what the anarchists call viability I wonder what they call inviability.
This sentince though is probably the most damning:
"And while these have all been destroyed, in each case it has been at the hands of outside force brought against them (backed either by Communists or Capitalists), not because of any internal problems in anarchism itself. "
This is percisely the problem with anarchy isn't it? Some outside force always fills the void of power left by anarchy. Now any competition between two political forces results in defeat, sometimes total defeat, of the weaker force, and it is a matter of which side has more power. For instance the Soviet Union totally defeated Nazi Germay, Nazi Germany did not collapse from the inside because Fascism is inherently instable it collapsed because the Red Army captured Berlin. Nazi Germany however had proven victories in destroying the French government, a powerful liberal state with many client states, so the fact that it could use force effectively, that it could be a competetive state and sometimes win was proven. Similarly the Soviet Union collapsed from outside pressure, but only after seventy years of representing a mortal and nearly equally powerful opponent of the United States, the liberal super-power. France, the Third Riech, and the Soviet Union where eventually defeated, but they where clearly and obviously capable of weilding power effectively, they had victories and they endured as viable stable social orders, they fought weaker political opponents and won and fought stronger political opponents and lost.
Now, Anarchy on the other hand, is always the weakest of all political forces in any situation. It is never able to stand against outside forces no matter where those outside forces come from. All of the great liberal empires of the west, the japanese empire, the Czar's supporters, and all of the regional boarder powers, invaded the Soviet Union and it repelled all of them during its first few years: it could fight off outside forces. Far weaker outside forces kill every "partially anarchist" revolution that ever occures, anarchists are never able to even begin to repel outside forces, they do not simply lose, they lose immediately. No "anarchist" society (even if you grant that the examples given in the faq where anarchist and not Communist) has been able to last a single full year. They fall at the first wave of outside intervention, it doesn't have to be overwhelming.
So, what this obviously suggests, and my question to Anarchists, is whether or not this historical fact might actually be indicative of an internal problem of anarchy. Anarchy has no centralized state power by which to repel those that have state power, so even very weak compromized states (like, the defeated village of Versailles) can brush aside anarchist resistence in a single offensive. This is because the only thing capable of resisting any mildly determined attack against a "liberated territory" from a state level organization, (that is, an organization capable of monopolizing open violence over a territory, a government commanding a centralized army), is anouther state-level organization that can wield organized violence in the same manner. Anarchists by definition have no state, so they have never and can never resist any attempt to take back any territory they have managed to liberate. How can anarchists ever hope to defeat centralized organized violence (armies) with decentralized disorganized violence (local militia)? How will you defy the history of your ideology where ever attempt to implement it has resulted at best in failure and at worst in the death of all of the participants?
Anarchy has an online frequently asked question's as its defacto core ideological text universially recognized by its proponents (tell me if this isn't true because this is the impression I've gathered, when an anarchist is asked about anarchy they say read the faqs). :-)
So, I have a question about part of your FAQs, specifically the introduction which addresses historical examples of anarchy. It gives seven examples, at least six of which where basically Communist events with minimual anarchist participation, or even no anarchist participation subject to anarchist historical revision after the fact (and this might actually be the case for all seven but I'm not well enough familier with one to be able to say if that is true). Regardless, my question is about what it proves about anarchy.
This is taken from Anarchist FAQ 9.10 passage A.5 (it can be found on infoshop or flagblackened or about 66,000 other anarchist sites according to google):
Quote:
Anarchism is about radically changing the world, not just making the present system less inhuman by encouraging the anarchistic tendencies within it to grow and develop. While no purely anarchist revolution has taken place yet, there have been numerous ones with a highly anarchist character and level of participation. And while these have all been destroyed, in each case it has been at the hands of outside force brought against them (backed either by Communists or Capitalists), not because of any internal problems in anarchism itself. These revolutions, despite their failure to survive in the face of overwhelming force, have been both an inspiration for anarchists and proof that anarchism is a viable social theory and can be practised on a large scale.
This makes a number of interesting claims:
"While no purely anarchist revolution has taken place yet, there have been numerous ones with a highly anarchist character and level of participation.":
No anarchist revolution has ever taken place, though Anarchists have occassionally attempted to hijack other revolutions, and failed to do so. In other words, Anarchy has never proven that it can even begin let alone complete a revolution without a Communist vanguard, but once a Communist revolution is underweigh Anarchists can get a few molotov cocktails in before someone restores order.
The real question a political ideology typically has to prove is "after the revolution, can the society survive attempts at counter-revolution, attempts at conquest." Anarchists have never even gotten far enough to ask that question, they have never proven that they can even overthrow a government (a question that is taken for granted by most ideologies, of course they have the potential to take power). When states of "anarchy" happen, it is normally because someone else made them happen, not anarchists themselves. I wont attempt to prove anything here because it is not central to the argument, but I'd suggest that the nature of anarchist organization is such that it cannot overthrow a government by itself, and historically it has never done so. There have been scores of completed liberal revolutions, scores of completed communist revolutions, several completed fascist revolutions and at least a couple completed islamist revolutions (and many more, maybe hundreds of serious attempts and failers of each of these four successful political ideologies of the 20th century, where as anarchists have only seriously participated in seven failed historical events not of their own making, only three or four of which where even attempts at revolution.) Even two Baathist completed revolutions, two Bolivarian revolutions, and many many nationalist revolutions with no clear ideology. All of these political trends have proven that they have the theoretical potential to overthrow a government because they have done so, Anarchy is almost alone among recognized ideologies and certaintly world ideologies in never having overthrown even one highly compromized government under its own banner.
"These revolutions, despite their failure to survive in the face of overwhelming force, have been both an inspiration for anarchists and proof that anarchism is a viable social theory and can be practised on a large scale."
All attempts at Anarchy have met in immediate, complete, and unequivocal defeat. All examples given have actually been practiced on a scale no larger than a city (Say Paris or Barcelona or Kronstadt) though more often in small parts of a city (Say the Latin Quarter Paris, or isolated Italian factories), and this is somehow evidence that Anarchy can be practiced on a large scale?
When we talk about liberalism being viable on a large scale we mean that today it represents virtually all of the industrialized or industrializing world besides the nine or ten communist/socialist states and the islamic states in the middle east, in other words more than half of the world. When we talk about socialism/communism's viability on a large scale, at socialism's hight almost half of the global population lived in a socialist society in the late seventies, though a sizeable minority of the world remains socialist. Fascism has had most of europe and seriously challanged the major liberal empires for supremacy. Even many regional ideologies like Baathism, Islamism and Bolivarianism have had success at multi-national levels, and dozens more have had succcess on a single-state level. Anarchy has been on a city level, at most, and never for more than a year. Thats not that impressive.
If this is what the anarchists call viability I wonder what they call inviability.
This sentince though is probably the most damning:
"And while these have all been destroyed, in each case it has been at the hands of outside force brought against them (backed either by Communists or Capitalists), not because of any internal problems in anarchism itself. "
This is percisely the problem with anarchy isn't it? Some outside force always fills the void of power left by anarchy. Now any competition between two political forces results in defeat, sometimes total defeat, of the weaker force, and it is a matter of which side has more power. For instance the Soviet Union totally defeated Nazi Germay, Nazi Germany did not collapse from the inside because Fascism is inherently instable it collapsed because the Red Army captured Berlin. Nazi Germany however had proven victories in destroying the French government, a powerful liberal state with many client states, so the fact that it could use force effectively, that it could be a competetive state and sometimes win was proven. Similarly the Soviet Union collapsed from outside pressure, but only after seventy years of representing a mortal and nearly equally powerful opponent of the United States, the liberal super-power. France, the Third Riech, and the Soviet Union where eventually defeated, but they where clearly and obviously capable of weilding power effectively, they had victories and they endured as viable stable social orders, they fought weaker political opponents and won and fought stronger political opponents and lost.
Now, Anarchy on the other hand, is always the weakest of all political forces in any situation. It is never able to stand against outside forces no matter where those outside forces come from. All of the great liberal empires of the west, the japanese empire, the Czar's supporters, and all of the regional boarder powers, invaded the Soviet Union and it repelled all of them during its first few years: it could fight off outside forces. Far weaker outside forces kill every "partially anarchist" revolution that ever occures, anarchists are never able to even begin to repel outside forces, they do not simply lose, they lose immediately. No "anarchist" society (even if you grant that the examples given in the faq where anarchist and not Communist) has been able to last a single full year. They fall at the first wave of outside intervention, it doesn't have to be overwhelming.
So, what this obviously suggests, and my question to Anarchists, is whether or not this historical fact might actually be indicative of an internal problem of anarchy. Anarchy has no centralized state power by which to repel those that have state power, so even very weak compromized states (like, the defeated village of Versailles) can brush aside anarchist resistence in a single offensive. This is because the only thing capable of resisting any mildly determined attack against a "liberated territory" from a state level organization, (that is, an organization capable of monopolizing open violence over a territory, a government commanding a centralized army), is anouther state-level organization that can wield organized violence in the same manner. Anarchists by definition have no state, so they have never and can never resist any attempt to take back any territory they have managed to liberate. How can anarchists ever hope to defeat centralized organized violence (armies) with decentralized disorganized violence (local militia)? How will you defy the history of your ideology where ever attempt to implement it has resulted at best in failure and at worst in the death of all of the participants?