Anarchism, strategy and morality.

[apathy maybe]

So, I can't remember where I first found this quote, but I saved it on my computer and I was wondering what others thought of it. (I didn't really know whether to put it here, or in history (has to do with the Spanish Civil War), or philosophy (under what conditions should the revolution succeed) or wherever. So, I don't mind if it gets moved.)


Originally posted by Gerald Brenan's The Spanish Labyrinth
...the outstanding success of the Anarchist movement in Spain lay in the moral influence it exercised among the workers. 'Whilst everywhere', wrote an English Socialist, 'the workers' movement is bent on attaining comfort and security, the Spanish Anarchist lives for liberty, virtue and dignity.' That is exact. If, unlike other revolutionary parties, Anarchists cared little for strategy, that was because they believed that revolution would come spontaneously as soon as the workers were morally prepared. Their main effort was therefore directed to this preparation: it was not sufficient for them to gain converts: every worker must endeavour to put into practice at once the anarchist conception of life. From this it followed that their leaders could not, like the Socialist bosses, occupy a comfortable flat in a middle-class quarter: they must remain at their jobs in shop or factory like ordinary workmen...No paid bureaucracy could be allowed to direct their huge trade union: the workers must manage their affairs themselves through their elected committees, even though this meant a sacrifice of revolutionary efficiency. Better that the revolution should fail than that it should be founded on a betrayal of principle.
Workers should manage their own affairs, and live their lives in an anarchistic manner (as much as is possible). Absolutely.
"Better that the revolution should fail than that it should be founded on a betrayal of principle." I find this an interesting idea, and while I don't know whether I agree with it, I think it is seriously worth thinking about.

[An archist]

Indeed, because if it is founded on a betrayal of principle, it will ultimately lead to a simple shift of power, not to the abolishment of it.

[LSD]

"Better that the revolution should fail than that it should be founded on a betrayal of principle." I find this an interesting idea, and while I don't know whether I agree with it, I think it is seriously worth thinking about.

it's a nice sentiment, but I don't know that it has much political depth.

I mean, it really depends on the nature of the revolution in question, and/or the nature of the betrayal in question and/or the nature of the principles in question. Because pragmatically speaking, some betrayals are worse than some failures, but some failures are worse than some betrayals.

It really does depend on specifics.

Because while it's not quite as glorious sounding as the quote in question, I think it's a lot more true to say that real flesh and blood workers lived better in the Russia of 1935 than in the Germany of that same year.

Not that they were living particularly well in either, of course, but it was better to live under Stalin than under Hitler; and yet Stalin was the Revolution betrayed, whereas Hitler was the Revolution crushed.

And so if you presented me with a choice between revolutionary failure and revolutionary betrayal, I would have to ask for specifics.

It doesn't make for good quotations, but it's living in the real world

[Sentinel]

As long as it would bring on at least some progress I would likely 'choose' to live through a betrayed (as in hijacked, like the Russian one was as I see it) revolution before a totally failed one. Workers in the Soviet bloc countries did after all have many material benefits, which were lost with the bourgeois counterrevolution in the nineties.

Of course, so much went wrong with the Russian revolution almost right from the start that it's difficult to speculate, but I'd argue that a libertarian-socialist popular uprising succeeding and gaining power was at times much more likely within it than in present day Russia.

And then there is the fact, that those who fight in a failed revolution -- one defeated by the counter-revolutionaries before it can consolidate it's victory -- usually by default get killed, put in concentration camps/prisons, driven in exile and other very uncool stuff.. :(

Simply put, I think I'd prefer to try and wrestle a revolution back into the hands of the proletariat from a clique or despot who hijacked it, than see it obliterated and have to start from the scratch. Because at least to begin with, any self-appointed 'glorious leader of the revolution' should be much less powerful and easier to defeat than the capitalist class with it's international connections.

[Bilan]

Originally posted by Sentinel[email protected] 09, 2007 09:41 am
As long as it would bring on at least some progress I would likely 'choose' to live through a betrayed (as in hijacked, like the Russian one was as I see it) revolution before a totally failed one. Workers in the Soviet bloc countries did after all have many material benefits, which were lost with the bourgeois counterrevolution in the nineties.

Of course, so much went wrong with the Russian revolution almost right from the start that it's difficult to speculate, but I'd argue that a libertarian-socialist popular uprising succeeding and gaining power was at times much more likely within it than in present day Russia.

And then there is the fact, that those who fight in a failed revolution -- one defeated by the counter-revolutionaries before it can consolidate it's victory -- usually by default get killed, put in concentration camps/prisons, driven in exile and other very uncool stuff.. :(

Simply put, I think I'd prefer to try and wrestle a revolution back into the hands of the proletariat from a clique or despot who hijacked it, than see it obliterated and have to start from the scratch. Because at least to begin with, any self-appointed 'glorious leader of the revolution' should be much less powerful and easier to defeat than the capitalist class with it's international connections.
Agreed.
However, I pose the question; if a "leader" did hijack the revolution, is their not the possibility that the people could turn on their comrades - much like what the Russian (red army) did to the Makhnovists, and the Ukraine proleteriat?

The possiblity of reclaiming the revolution from a "hijacking" isn't always possible (May 1968 vaguely went along the lines of a "hijacking")

[Tower of Bebel]

It's a though question to answer whether it's better for the revolution to fail or to be "hijacked". Both can have a devasting effect, and both can keep moral down. Both can also result in some type of reaction and also both can result in the liquidation of revolutionaries.
A revolution comes when time is ripe. And even if the previous revolution failed or got raped, when the time is ripe, when the need to is there, then there will be one.

[Enragé]

yea i read that book too and found that very interesting as well.

Although most are right here that failed revolutions are often worse than highjacked ones, what Brenan describes here is one of the reasons that the Anarchist movement had so much staying power. You could wipe it out time after time, but it would still come back. Interesting to note that, proving said point, was that the anarchist movement was only defeated after their own leaders joined the counter-revolution, joined the state, selling out on anarchist principles, which is what had helped the anarchist movement endure so much.


Simply put, I think I'd prefer to try and wrestle a revolution back into the hands of the proletariat from a clique or despot who hijacked it, than see it obliterated and have to start from the scratch. Because at least to begin with, any self-appointed 'glorious leader of the revolution' should be much less powerful and easier to defeat than the capitalist class with it's international connections.


Above all, such a failed revolution leads to disillusion amongst the working class. "We've fought so long and hard for a better world... and look now... this is it. I guess this is all that's possible.."
It takes alot for people to risk the little they have, and thats what happens in revolution. To ask them to do it twice... well..

[The Grey Blur]

It's entirely wrong though, the CNT had bureaucrats just like the UGT. It's just factually incorrect.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by Permanent [email protected] 23, 2007 01:40 pm
It's entirely wrong though, the CNT had bureaucrats just like the UGT. It's just factually incorrect.
Thank you for saying that. I'm glad someone finally pointed out the truth: anarchism in practice is impossible during a revolutionary period. I agree it could be achieved after classes are gone, but while they exist a bureaucracy that organises a central command and gives orders and armed forces (the most basic institution of the state) are needed to defend the revolution. In one first person account of the spanish anarchists that I read, the author claimed to have gone on a patrol as revolutionary police and raided homes. That's a kind of a state.

The fact is the anarchists had a bureaurcracy and central military command. They wouldn't've lasted a week without it.