Thoughts on Marxism and Anarchism

[AutomaticMan]

So, I'm kinda dabbling between Marxism and anarchism right now, reading a lot about both and formulating my opinions on them. Having come from a punk background, I've always been attracted to anarchism but never really knew enough about it to argue for it (and, therefore, in my mind, to believe in it with integrity). My main issues with anarchism are practical, and with Marxism are philosophical. So I guess I'm looking for links, book recommendations and personal opinions on:

A) Authoritarianism in Marxism, how to justify it, limits on it etc. I guess it's just how I am, but I'm instantly turned off from something that's authoritarian in nature. How do other leftists reconcile that? Is it seen as a problem? How can it operate without ultimately oppressing people?

B) Practicality of an anarchist revolution. How it would work before, during and after (and I'm aware not everyone believes in 'blueprints' for revolution, but it's disingenuous, in my opinion anyway, to believe it'll just work itself out and there's no need to think about how) And also anything on authority and hierarchy from an anarchist perspective, that kinda interests me too.

Also, as an extra, I'd appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on how anarcho-communism works, because it seems to be an oxymoron to me. And what I've read doesn't tend to make much sense.

Thanks in advance. And yes, this is in the learning section, and I am learning, so I'd appreciate it if all comments were constructive and the 'Ohh Emm Gee ur such a n00b!' opinions kept to those that harbour them. But, you know, whatever.

[GPDP]

I'll let a Marxist address your thoughts on Marxism, but from my experience, Marxists are not as bad and authoritarian as many people seem to think they are.


B) Practicality of an anarchist revolution. How it would work before, during and after (and I'm aware not everyone believes in 'blueprints' for revolution, but it's disingenuous, in my opinion anyway, to believe it'll just work itself out and there's no need to think about how) And also anything on authority and hierarchy from an anarchist perspective, that kinda interests me too.

This seems almost cliche, but you should look to the Spanish Revolution for some practical examples of an anarchist society at work. It's not perfect, but the guist of it is that worker's councils, I believe, have the ability to form a transitional period to get us from capitalism to communism post-revolution.

As for authority, anarchists are opposed to illegitimate authority, but indeed, not all authority is illegitimate. Are we to dismiss the authority of a doctor's knowledge in his reccomendations for the average person? So long as this authority is enforced without coercion (you can choose to take the doctor's advice or not, regardless of how much of an authority he is in the subject), there is no problem, I'd say.


Also, as an extra, I'd appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on how anarcho-communism works, because it seems to be an oxymoron to me. And what I've read doesn't tend to make much sense.

It is not at all an oxymoron. Communism is a stateless, classless society by definition. And that is exactly what anarcho-communists strive for: statelessness and classlessness. I'd say the only reason we even have anarchists identify as communists is because of other strands of anarchism that do not seek communism, such as individualist anarchism, which albeit still being socialist in nature, seeks a free market, and anarcho-capitalism, which is not anarchist at all, since it glorifies capitalism. And of course, there's also the lifestylist anarchism that we all love to hate.


Thanks in advance. And yes, this is in the learning section, and I am learning, so I'd appreciate it if all comments were constructive and the 'Ohh Emm Gee ur such a n00b!' opinions kept to those that harbour them. But, you know, whatever.

From what I've seen, rarely will anyone actually condescend you in such a matter here, unless you exhibit obvious reactionary leanings and overall thick-headedness.

[Post-Something]

A) Authoritarianism in Marxism, how to justify it, limits on it etc. I guess it's just how I am, but I'm instantly turned off from suffering that's authoritarian in nature. How do other leftists reconcile that? Is it seen as a problem? How can it operate without ultimately oppressing people?

Communists believe that you can't simply jump over to a classless and stateless society. It takes years to roll out the Bourgeois elements of society so that the revolution doesn't all go to waste. People quite simply aren't prepared for such a radical change. As a result, communists propose that we have a "transitional period" of "socialism". This is when workers are in control of the means of production and start to learn a more communist attitude. Other than that, communists want to see the same kind of society an anarchist does in the end. But we see it as a distant aim. The immediate goal is socialism.

Authoritarianism isn't really part of the whole package, and it's most certainly not "authoritarian in nature"; but it's justification is that you don't want to keep any "counter revolutionary" elements in the society you live in. This is because you want to make sure the revolution is not hijacked by the Bourgeoisie. This is some of the reasoning for Stalin assassinating some of the members in the party for example. Other than that, you need propaganda to get people to believe in what is to be done. A revolution requires people to have great faith in communism and it's goals since we'll all be working together, we can't just be dragged along, we need to know, understand and appreciate the changes that are happening in the society during a situation like that. And since not everyone will have a great understanding of Marxism, it's up to the vanguard to lead them and teach them.

As for limits on it, hopefully the revolution will be democratic. The vanguard party will have broad democratic checks and you could even have a constitution if you wanted. Like I said, communism is not authoritarian by nature, it's democratic. You just have to understand that criticism has mainly been done in the party in the past.

[trivas7]

My main issues with anarchism are practical, and with Marxism are philosophical.
How odd. Mine are just the opposite: viz., my main issues with anarchism are theoretical, and with Marxism practical.

YouTube vids on Kapitalism 101 (http://www.youtube.com/user/brendanmcooney)

[#FF0000]

A) Authoritarianism in Marxism, how to justify it, limits on it etc. I guess it's just how I am, but I'm instantly turned off from suffering that's authoritarian in nature. How do other leftists reconcile that? Is it seen as a problem? How can it operate without ultimately oppressing people?

B) Practicality of an anarchist revolution. How it would work before, during and after (and I'm aware not everyone believes in 'blueprints' for revolution, but it's disingenuous, in my opinion anyway, to believe it'll just work itself out and there's no need to think about how) And also anything on authority and hierarchy from an anarchist perspective, that kinda interests me too.

Also, as an extra, I'd appreciate it if anyone could shed some light on how anarcho-communism works, because it seems to be an oxymoron to me. And what I've read doesn't tend to make much sense.

I'll just re-paste the explanation I always give people who want a simple definition and explanation of anarchism:

Anarchism is a society with no definite hierarchy. That means getting rid of the capitalist class structure so one person can't have economic power over another. It also means getting rid of political hierarchy, so no one has political power over another.

That means all property is owned by the public, as with socialism. It also means that decisions are made by the workers and common people, not by the politicians and elected "representatives".

Instead of "government" as we know it, an anarchist society has a federation of autonomous communes, in which the people who live in each commune make the decisions democratically.

Anarchists are against authority, except for rational authority, which is authority that one isn't bound to listen to, and authority that is backed up by experience or knowledge, rather than by status or class. For example, when talking about what material to make a good pair of shoes out of, you would refer to the authority of a shoemaker, yeah?

And as for the "anarchist-communist" thing, your confusion is stemming from semantics. You confuse "socialist" and "communist". Socialism has a state and is not always completely classless. In Marxism, it's the transition stage between capitalism and communism, which is a completely stateless and classless society.

And while on the topic, Socialists who approve of some authoritarian methods do so because a socialist economy in any nation, especially a bigger one, is a threat to the power of capitalists elsewhere in the world. Because of this, capitalist nations will be more hostile to socialist nations, and will try to coerce them to change their system. The state and the means it employs are meant to protect the revolution and the workers from counterrevolutionaries, basically.

I accidentally touched on all of your questions there. Whoops.

[trivas7]

Anarchism is a society with no definite hierarchy. That means getting rid of the capitalist class structure so one person can't have economic power over another. It also means getting rid of political hierarchy, so no one has political power over another.

I haven't a clue what you mean by any of this. What's "a society with no definite hierarchy" mean, why do societies have or not have them? What's "political power over another"? Does any of this have any cognitive content, or are you just mouthing slogans?

[AutomaticMan]

Thank for all for your replies. :)

[Schrödinger's Cat]

A) Authoritarianism in Marxism, how to justify it, limits on it etc. I guess it's just how I am, but I'm instantly turned off from something that's authoritarian in nature. How do other leftists reconcile that? Is it seen as a problem? How can it operate without ultimately oppressing people?

Marxism isn't authoritarian.

When talking about the Marxist view of progression (and not the rest), one should remember the dictatorship of the proletariat correlates to the struggle of the working class over dominating and subverting production. Marx was stressing democracy above republicanism. When Marx addressed the state, he was talking about a state that operates how people want it to - with the proper "mechanics" of democratic institutions like demarchy, workers' councils, delegations, limited representation.

[#FF0000]

I haven't a clue what you mean by any of this. What's "a society with no definite hierarchy" mean, why do societies have or not have them? What's "political power over another"? Does any of this have any cognitive content, or are you just mouthing slogans?

Of course not! Those would make awful slogans :/

I say "a society with no definite hierarchy" so Marxists can't come in and point to things like teachers and experienced workers and say "but hierarchy exists in this and so anarchism is dumb".

Now, I've been working a lot this week and haven't had time to really reply, so I'll try and make a coherent example to help people understand exactly what I mean, as I fight through my haze.

Now, As for "A Society with No Definite Hierarchies", I basically mean that there are no institutionalized hierarchies. In anarchism, nobody can claim authority over an individual. The individual is free to work and spend their leisure time as they wish, pursuing any interest one might have, however one wants, so long as the individual does not hurt anyone else and deprive them of their ability to do the same.

Now, hierarchies of some kind can spring up, temporarily out of free agreement. For example, a person who wants to learn to cook can work out an agreement with another, more accomplished chef, to teach them. They'd work some sort of contract out. Something like, the student will do some chore for the teacher in exchange for the teacher teaching him or her. (This sort of thing is what we call mutual aid, in which two parties agree to help each other for their mutual benefit).

Now, the point is, this teacher-student relationship is an example of a temporary hierarchy in anarchism. It is not institutionalized, and is based on rational authority. The student is not bound to listen to the teacher, as the teacher has no authority over the student. The student only listens because it is beneficial to him or her, and can simply end the contract with the teacher whenever the student wants.

A real-life example of this is seen in the Spanish civil war, like every other real-life example of anarchism in action is. The anarchist militias all had officers, who were democratically elected by the soldiers. They assumed all the responsibilities of military officers, and gave orders, and soldiers followed them, as they felt it was in their best interest to listen to the guy they voted most capable for the job, though if they felt otherwise, they didn't have to listen, or could simply leave.

I'll edit the rest of the post later, and add a bit on the political power comment. Thanks for grilling me on those phrases, thought, Trivas7. I think your criticism there is going to help greatly in articulating what anarchism is for other new learners in the future.

Note: It's 3:30 AM, so hopefully this is coherent enough to help you guys out.

[manic expression]

I'll skip the theoretical talk and go to the example.


A real-life example of this is seen in the Spanish civil war, like every other real-life example of anarchism in action is. The anarchist militias all had officers, who were democratically elected by the soldiers. They assumed all the responsibilities of military officers, and gave orders, and soldiers followed them, as they felt it was in their best interest to listen to the guy they voted most capable for the job, though if they felt otherwise, they didn't have to listen, or could simply leave.

And, in real-life, the Spanish anarchist militias were abysmally incompetent. They were legendary for their wastefulness and lack of efficiency, both on the battlefield and off. Not surprisingly, the anarchist communes that produced them were similarly futile; they fell apart at the first sign of trouble (the May Days, IIRC).

Case in point: war, like class war, takes discipline and hierarchy. Anarchists fail at both because they neglect these essential components of every working class movement.

The rhetoric of "the individual" is completely misled and irrelevant in much the same way. The individual isn't an island unto itself, and so we must look at the relationship between each person. Those relationships are defined primarily by class dynamics, by production, by things external. That is why working class liberation, which goes hand-in-hand with the suppression of the bourgeoisie, is the only way to liberate each and every human being on this planet.

The anarchist obsession with such a simplistic conception of the individual ignores the individual itself: presently part of a class, part of a community.

[nuisance]

Case in point: war, like class war, takes discipline and hierarchy. Anarchists fail at both because they neglect these essential components of every working class movement.
No, definite hierarchy cannot produce a successful revolution and infact is the reason of the failure. To secure a successful revolution, producing a stateless, classless society, then the working class must be the administraters and executers of the act, not any centralised hierarchy headed of by petit-bourgeois intelluctuals whom overlook the necessity of class spontaniety for a succesful working class revolution, thus taking the working class somewhere that they aren't ready to go yet.
"the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes"- pamphlet Rules of the International Working Men’s Association.


The rhetoric of "the individual" is completely misled and irrelevant in much the same way. The individual isn't an island unto itself, and so we must look at the relationship between each person. Those relationships are defined primarily by class dynamics, by production, by things external. That is why working class liberation, which goes hand-in-hand with the suppression of the bourgeoisie, is the only way to liberate each and every human being on this planet.
Rhetoric of the individual? What are you actually talking about?
Also, Malatesta- "Let there be no hatred, though, because love and justice cannot arise from hatred. Hatred brings about revenge, desire to be over the enemy, need to consolidate one’s superiority. Hatred can only be the foundation of new governments, if one wins, but it cannot be the foundation of anarchy."


The anarchist obsession with such a simplistic conception of the individual ignores the individual itself: presently part of a class, part of a community.
What anarchists, social anarchists, reject class analysis?

[manic expression]

No, definite hierarchy cannot produce a successful revolution and infact is the reason of the failure. To secure a successful revolution, producing a stateless, classless society, then the working class must be the administraters and executers of the act, not any centralised hierarchy headed of by petit-bourgeois intelluctuals whom overlook the necessity of class spontaniety for a succesful working class revolution, thus taking the working class somewhere that they aren't ready to go yet.
"the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes"- pamphlet Rules of the International Working Men’s Association.

Definite hierarchy is what a revolution IS and will always be. Revolution, by definition, is replacing one hierarchy with a new one. It is suppression of the old and liberation of the new. Hierarchy itself is integral to revolution, and any cursory glance at any such event would support this.

Moreover, a classless, stateless society doesn't just happen when you click you heels three times, it happens after the conditions which necessitate a state disappear. Until then, state power is necessary for the workers to maintain socialism.

Most importantly, "hierarchy" is the very thing that allows the workers to take state power, which is the measure of a successful revolution. What you fail to recognize is that the workers will be administrating this state through democratic means. If you read my earlier posts, you would have seen how the Soviet system was set up for this very purpose.


Rhetoric of the individual? What are you actually talking about?

I was responding to Rorschach:

In anarchism, nobody can claim authority over an individual.


Also, Malatesta- "Let there be no hatred, though, because love and justice cannot arise from hatred. Hatred brings about revenge, desire to be over the enemy, need to consolidate one’s superiority. Hatred can only be the foundation of new governments, if one wins, but it cannot be the foundation of anarchy."

When did I even say the word "hatred"? This doesn't seem to have a shred of relevance here.


What anarchists, social anarchists, reject class analysis?

Whatever they do, they fail to come to the correct conclusions of class analysis. If they analyzed class correctly, they would promote state power for the working class; anarchists do not. Why? For the state is erroneously seen as the problem, when it is in fact the solution.

[nuisance]

Definite hierarchy is what a revolution IS and will always be. Revolution, by definition, is replacing one hierarchy with a new one. It is suppression of the old and liberation of the new. Hierarchy itself is integral to revolution, and any cursory glance at any such event would support this.
No, revolution is not the replacement of one hierarchy with a new one, it is merely the removal and replacement of the old system. This does not inherently imply hierarchy, just a different type of social organisation.


Moreover, a classless, stateless society doesn't just happen when you click you heels three times, it happens after the conditions which necessitate a state disappear. Until then, state power is necessary for the workers to maintain socialism.
Who said it happened by clicking heels? It will happen by through expropriation of the means of production and the abolition of hierarchy, which includes the State, which only exists to perpetuate the status quo. From this, the radicalised working class will seek to feed, clothe and house the people, not waiting for governmental say-so. Communities will produce councils and be involved in direct democracy to decide how society best be organised in concern to themselves. Mandated delegates will meet and express the views of each community and see how it goes from there. This is socialism from below, the basis of a anarchist society.
The state perpetuates itself and will thus not be abolished without revolution from the working class to destory it. The state won't simply 'disappear' when some socialist leader says so, it needs to be destoryed by the class.


Most importantly, "hierarchy" is the very thing that allows the workers to take state power, which is the measure of a successful revolution.
I would disagree and say that the absence of hierarchy is the measure of a successful revolution, not by transfering power to another centralised group, which will just lead the same conditions and need another revolution to overthrow the new leadership.


What you fail to recognize is that the workers will be administrating this state through democratic means. If you read my earlier posts, you would have seen how the Soviet system was set up for this very purpose.
Are you speaking of the free soviets prior to their dissvolement? Because if so, that's not to far away from anarchism.
Also, I really don't think the USSR can really be looked at as an ideal anything as it wasn't really democratic was it now? And it also lead to the abolition of the free soviets and quashed the anarchist movement for free soviets in the Urkaine.



Whatever they do, they fail to come to the correct conclusions of class analysis. If they analyzed class correctly, they would promote state power for the working class; anarchists do not. Why? For the state is erroneously seen as the problem, when it is in fact the solution.
That is just a horrible way of trying to explain anything. There is no coherent reasoning in this to substaniate your point. Why would the working class replace one state for another and not believe it will act in the same way? What you are saying strikes me as you don't have any confidence in the class to rule itself.
The correct class analysis shows us that we, the working class, already have the skills to run society and that this is done best horizontally with collective ownership.

[#FF0000]

And, in real-life, the Spanish anarchist militias were abysmally incompetent. They were legendary for their wastefulness and lack of efficiency, both on the battlefield and off.

Well, yes. They were militias. There are exceptions, of course, to your generalization. The Durruti Column, for instance, was a rather effective group, as was the Iron Column. Also, if you look outside of Spain, there are several effective libertarian socialist armies/units. Examples include the Makhnovists and Zapata's Liberation Army of the South.



Not surprisingly, the anarchist communes that produced them were similarly futile; they fell apart at the first sign of trouble (the May Days, IIRC).

You mean the May Days when the Soviets rolled into Barcelona and tried to make the workers give up their telephone building, and the anarchists defended themselves? I don't see how and unprovoked grab for a worker-run telephone building shows that the anarchist communes were prone to falling apart. Not to say that the communes were 100% efficient. They weren't, I'll give you that, but they were much more efficient than they were before the revolution.



The rhetoric of "the individual" is completely misled and irrelevant in much the same way. The individual isn't an island unto itself, and so we must look at the relationship between each person. Those relationships are defined primarily by class dynamics, by production, by things external. That is why working class liberation, which goes hand-in-hand with the suppression of the bourgeoisie, is the only way to liberate each and every human being on this planet.

The anarchist obsession with such a simplistic conception of the individual ignores the individual itself: presently part of a class, part of a community.

Where the hell did you get all of that? Certainly not from anything I've ever written or read.

EDIT: Oh christ I was late.

[manic expression]

No, revolution is not the replacement of one hierarchy with a new one, it is merely the removal and replacement of the old system. This does not inherently imply hierarchy, just a different type of social organisation.

Yes, it is. You cannot forcefully overthrow one class and expect it to be scattered to the five winds. That class, the former ruling class, is necessarily suppressed for the liberation of another class. That's how it works, from the Bastille to the Winter Palace and beyond. If you don't take state power, the revolution will never materialize because state power must be used to ensure the survival of the new social organization.


Who said it happened by clicking heels? It will happen by through expropriation of the means of production and the abolition of hierarchy, which includes the State, which only exists to perpetuate the status quo.
The state perpetuates itselfs and with thus not be abolished without revolution from the working class to destory it. The state won't simply 'disappear' when some socialist leader says so.

Anarchists imply that class itself can be eradicated just by eradicating it. It's not so simple, as is often the case. Hierarchy is inherent in class society, and until class conflict ends, class society will continue; this does not change after the bourgeoisie is initially overthrown.

Each state tries to perpetuate its own status quo, and that is exactly why the workers must utilize a worker state to perpetuate socialism.

However, when a state is no longer necessary, it will no longer have any importance. It's not the decision of one leader, it's the relationship between the workers to the bourgeoisie and counterrevolutionaries.


I would disagree and say that the absence of hierarchy is the measure of a successful revolution, not by transfering power to another centralised group, which will just lead the same conditions and need another revolution to overthrow the new leadership.

Absence of hierarchy is not the definition of a successful revolution because if you overthrow one class, you're just creating a new hierarchy OVER that class.

To what centralized group did the October Revolution transfer power to? It was transferred to the Congress of the Soviets, that's where.


Are you speaking of the free soviets prior to their dissvolement? Because if so, that's not to far away from anarchism.

No, I mean the Soviet system itself, which was administered by the working class. What else would the Congress of the Soviets be?

Another example:

http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html

http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html

Democratic governance of the worker state is essential, and has always been among the top concerns of Marxism-Leninism.


Also, I really don't think the USSR can really be looked at as an ideal anything as it wasn't really democratic was it now? And it also lead to the abolition of the free soviets and quashed the anarchist movement for free soviets in the Urkaine.

It was for some years, before isolation and the obliteration of its economy took its toll. I've already spoken on what the causes of the USSR's later problems were, why it wasn't inevitable and why it was a product of its time and place.

The "anarchist movement" in the Ukraine was a glorified host of cossacks. To suggest that Makhno and his gang presented any modicum of revolutionary potential is laughable for too many reasons to count. "A Century of Ambivalence" by Zvi Y. Gitelman documents cases of anti-Semitic pogroms, a real indicator of Makhno's true colors.


That is just a horrible way of trying to explain anything. There is no coherent reasoning in this to substaniate your point. Why would the working class replace one state for another and not believe it will act in the same way? What you are saying strikes me as you don't have any confidence in the class to rule itself.

I touched upon points that I've already discussed, so I naturally didn't provide too many supporting arguments.

The working class replaces one state for another because they are replacing the rule of one class with the rule of another. A worker state operates under completely different principles than a capitalist state for the obvious reasons: a different class controls it, private property is abolished, etc. To expect such a state to act the same is absurd given those key differences.

You don't want the workers to rule themselves, because without a state they cannot feasibly do so. Of course I would have no confidence in a revolution without the workers taking state power, for it is the only way they can exercise control of society and maintain socialism.


The correct class analysis shows us that we, the working class, already have the skills to run society and that this is done best horizontally with collective ownership.

History has shown us that anarchists cannot do this, for the reasons I have given. It's not about having "the skills", it's about setting up the necessary system. We also have the skills to run a worker state, which is not only historically far more successful, but theoretically sound.

[manic expression]

Well, yes. They were militias. There are exceptions, of course, to your generalization. The Durruti Column, for instance, was a rather effective group, as was the Iron Column. Also, if you look outside of Spain, there are several effective libertarian socialist armies/units. Examples include the Makhnovists and Zapata's Liberation Army of the South.

The point is that the anarchists wanted militias because of their rejection of discipline. And since they were militias, they were ultimately useless. Contrast that with the Red Army and you see the difference that having discipline makes.

The Durruti Column fell apart after their leader was killed in battle, and in any event it was an exception. Armies cannot win on the grace of their exceptions, they must operate on the assumption that they are as weak as their weakest link. Discipline and organization makes the weakest link as strong as the would-be exceptions. This holds true in class warfare as well.


You mean the May Days when the Soviets rolled into Barcelona and tried to make the workers give up their telephone building, and the anarchists defended themselves? I don't see how and unprovoked grab for a worker-run telephone building shows that the anarchist communes were prone to falling apart. Not to say that the communes were 100% efficient. They weren't, I'll give you that, but they were much more efficient than they were before the revolution.

First of all, nothing can be 100% efficient, it's a physical impossibility and it certainly is not any way to measure production.

Catalunya never got invaded by the Soviets (that would be quite another thing!), the May Days were the culmination of tension between different groups. The Republicans and the anarchists weren't able to cooperate further, and so that happened. My point is that although the May Days weren't even too much of an obstacle for the communes to face, they ultimately undid almost a century of the anarchist project in Spain. If a group grabs a telephone building and your system implodes because of it, you need to change your system.


Where the hell did you get all of that? Certainly not from anything I've ever written or read.

EDIT: Oh christ I was late.

As I said, I got that from your line about the individual (check the italics above). It was a bit tangential, but I didn't make it up.

[nuisance]

Yes, it is. You cannot forcefully overthrow one class and expect it to be scattered to the five winds. That class, the former ruling class, is necessarily suppressed for the liberation of another class. That's how it works, from the Bastille to the Winter Palace and beyond. If you don't take state power, the revolution will never materialize because state power must be used to ensure the survival of the new social organization.

Suppression of counter-revolutionaries will of course happen through revolutionary war, that doesn’t mean hierarchy. Especially when the motive is to destroy hierarchy, as anarchists aim to do.
Still you have not provided a reason why a state is needed, you instead hide behind rhetoric- “If you don't take state power, the revolution will never materialize because state power must be used to ensure the survival of the new social organization.”


Anarchists imply that class itself can be eradicated just by eradicating it. It's not so simple, as is often the case. Hierarchy is inherent in class society, and until class conflict ends, class society will continue; this does not change after the bourgeoisie is initially overthrown.

Fucking duh! That’s what anarchists also say. We don’t propose that all inequalities will be deemed obsolete straight after the state falls.


Each state tries to perpetuate its own status quo, and that is exactly why the workers must utilize a worker state to perpetuate socialism.

Sufficient workers’ control cannot be done from a central point, as this very method of centralisation takes away the autonomy of the workers. Each workplace should be able to apply what methods that them and the people effective deem best. Not for authority to be held in a central place at which society is controlled.


However, when a state is no longer necessary, it will no longer have any importance. It's not the decision of one leader, it's the relationship between the workers to the bourgeoisie and counterrevolutionaries.

So you believe that the class can’t maintain society. OK.


Absence of hierarchy is not the definition of a successful revolution because if you overthrow one class, you're just creating a new hierarchy OVER that class.

That’s complete nonsense. Fighting for political and economic equality is not fighting to express hierarchy over another class, it is to get rid of hierarchy.


To what centralized group did the October Revolution transfer power to? It was transferred to the Congress of the Soviets, that's where.

Funny that, as shortly after the October revolution the Soviets power was transferred to that of the centralised Bolshevik government, to which the Soviets were supposed to delegate power to, turning the Congress of the Soviets to the Council of People's Commissars.


No, I mean the Soviet system itself, which was administered by the working class. What else would the Congress of the Soviets be?
Oh! You mean the one that elected the Council of People's Commissars! So much for all power to the Soviets.


It was for some years, before isolation and the obliteration of its economy took its toll. I've already spoken on what the causes of the USSR's later problems were, why it wasn't inevitable and why it was a product of its time and place.

Don’t you mean for a matter of, at most, months, until the Bolsheviks centralised the power of the Soviets?


The "anarchist movement" in the Ukraine was a glorified host of cossacks. To suggest that Makhno and his gang presented any modicum of revolutionary potential is laughable for too many reasons to count. "A Century of Ambivalence" by Zvi Y. Gitelman documents cases of anti-Semitic pogroms, a real indicator of Makhno's true colors.

Makhno was a Cossack, so? What relevance to anything is that? Also no, the Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine was no entirely made up of Cossacks. What a ridiculous thing to say.
What are these reasons? Because the things you have spoke about Makhno so far has all been false.
Anti-Semitic pogromists? Simply, no as any reading of Makhno or Arshinov, a close friend of Makhno aswell as being a Jewish anarchist Makhnovist, will tell you. Also here’s some names of Jewish Makhnovists whom played a large role in the movement- Kogan, L. Zin'kovsky (Zadov), Iosif Emigrant (Gotman) and so on.
In fact just read this-
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/append46.html#app9


I touched upon points that I've already discussed, so I naturally didn't provide too many supporting arguments.
That’s the point though, you haven’t.


The working class replaces one state for another because they are replacing the rule of one class with the rule of another. A worker state operates under completely different principles than a capitalist state for the obvious reasons: a different class controls it, private property is abolished, etc. To expect such a state to act the same is absurd given those key differences.
Anarchists and Marxists have a different definition of the state. Irrelevant of who is in control of the state, it will act in the same way- having a monopoly on force, this monopoly on force being classed as ‘professional’ and being centralised and hierarchical.


You don't want the workers to rule themselves, because without a state they cannot feasibly do so. Of course I would have no confidence in a revolution without the workers taking state power, for it is the only way they can exercise control of society and maintain socialism.
So you are saying that communities could not run themselves from the bottom up? The only way socialism can work is if it is implemented at home by the working class, not with some overbearing state forcing people do as they say.
Also the state’s assets are slowly being diminished through privatisation, therefore by saying that society needs a state to operate all areas of society is abit strange.


History has shown us that anarchists cannot do this, for the reasons I have given. It's not about having "the skills", it's about setting up the necessary system. We also have the skills to run a worker state, which is not only historically far more successful, but theoretically sound.
There has never been a Marxist revolution that hasn’t lead to a one party dictatorship and thus has caused socialism to be inherently seen as such, but hey with ‘victories‘ like these, who needs failures? This is not bourgeois propaganda but the reality of authoritarian revolution.
Popular anarchist movements and revolutions, though unsuccessful, largely due to State and Communist surpression, have existed, and I’d say, the practice of which anarchism was implemented in these instances far surpass any ‘successful’ Marxist revolution.

[Hit The North]

Anarchists and Marxists have a different definition of the state. Irrelevant of who is in control of the state, it will act in the same way- having a monopoly on force, this monopoly on force being classed as ‘professional’ and being centralised and hierarchical. This is a perfectly accurate picture of how I understand anarchist understanding of the 'State'. It is a view of the State abstracted from its location within a mode of production and its development in history. It also posits the problem of society not as one of class conflict, but as a result of the hierarchical and repressive state structure. The task then becomes not simply the removal of capitalist economic power but of the abolition of political state power - not because the existing state is the instrument of the capitalist but because it is, in its own right and with its own force, an oppressor. It must be slain like a dragon. But what will this mean for the new workers democracy?

What is the role of a political state, anyway? It has two main functions: to oppress and repress subordinate classes who have no access to state power; [ii] to administer the common affairs of the class which holds state power. The state therefore is both bodies of armed men [I]and armies of bureaucrats.

The working class will have to act in an extremely authoritarian manner with the bourgeoisie; denying them their property, their wealth, even their liberty. In order to do this it will require organs of repression (workers councils, militias, guards, prisons).

In the aftermath of a revolution the working class will need to administer the new society. Unless the mode of production is left to decline into a series of relatively isolated, autonomous local communes, then the working class will require administrative organs which can administer across the series of communes and maintain large infrastructure, generalise technological development, etc.

In other words, the working class will need a state of some kind. The absolutely most important fact of this, which unites Marxists and Anarchists, is that this state must be under the direct democratic control of the workers. I'd personally add, "as far as possible"; but I think most anarchists would see this as a fatal cop-out. But then I think most anarchists are hopeless romantics.:)

[Hit The North]

There has never been a Marxist revolution that hasn’t lead to a one party dictatorship and thus has caused socialism to be inherently seen as such, but hey with ‘victories‘ like these, who needs failures? This is not bourgeois propaganda but the reality of authoritarian revolution. But none of these "Marxist revolutions" have been carried out by a mature proletariat within the advantageous climes of a highly developed capitalism. It's my contention that rather than fetishising some essential sin of authoritarian organisation, the real problem has been the balance of class forces - namely the ability of the working class as a class for itself to wrest power from the bourgeoisie and sustain its democratic structures from encroachment by substitutionalist forces like 'the Party' or the remnants of the old order.

[nuisance]

In the aftermath of a revolution the working class will need to administer the new society. Unless the mode of production is left to decline into a series of relatively isolated, autonomous local communes, then the working class will require administrative organs which can administer across the series of communes and maintain large infrastructure, generalise technological development, etc.

In other words, the working class will need a state of some kind.

As an anarchist-communist I advocate a syndicated economy. There are very few, if any, industries that are self-sufficient therefore various syndicates would join together through free agreement for mutual benefit. This would happen because we are motivated by well-being, well-being being the fulifilment of needs, be it esstenial, artistic, scientific and so on. Whether that is individual well-being or collective well-being, is irrelevant as they both reach the same conclusion in a anarchist-communist organised society- the better the collective works together, the more beneficial it is for each individual.

[revolution inaction]

In other words, the working class will need a state of some kind. The absolutely most important fact of this, which unites Marxists and Anarchists, is that this state must be under the direct democratic control of the workers.


You seem to think that any system for organising society should be called a state?
I would not call something that was under the direct democratic control of the workers a state, because I define a state as something which is separate from the general population and is structured to enable and maintain the rule of a minority, over the majority.



The working class will have to act in an extremely authoritarian manner with the bourgeoisie; denying them their property, their wealth, even their liberty. In order to do this it will require organs of repression (workers councils, militias, guards, prisons).

Workers councils and militias are not instruments of repression, workers councils are a method of co-ordination society and production and militias are organisations for defending it.

[manic expression]

Suppression of counter-revolutionaries will of course happen through revolutionary war, that doesn’t mean hierarchy. Especially when the motive is to destroy hierarchy, as anarchists aim to do.
Still you have not provided a reason why a state is needed, you instead hide behind rhetoric- “If you don't take state power, the revolution will never materialize because state power must be used to ensure the survival of the new social organization.”

Yes, suppression of any kind means a hierarchy. You are, effectively, telling someone what they can and can't do, what society they can and can't live in. Simple as that. If you actually think you can make a revolution without active suppression of one class, which is most certainly hierarchical, you are misled.

I've explained why a state is needed before many times. State power allows the workers to suppress the bourgeoisie, to create and maintain socialism (for instance, without an army or a police force it's a bit difficult, and what is a state other than an organization of armed people?) and to control the means of production. Without a state, the would-be revolution is as brittle as a twig, and the failure of the anarchist communes only supports this.


Fucking duh! That’s what anarchists also say. We don’t propose that all inequalities will be deemed obsolete straight after the state falls.

Without a worker state, you don't get to the point where class can be rendered obsolete. I stated why above.


Sufficient workers’ control cannot be done from a central point, as this very method of centralisation takes away the autonomy of the workers. Each workplace should be able to apply what methods that them and the people effective deem best. Not for authority to be held in a central place at which society is controlled.

That's simply wishful thinking. Centralized control is the only way to manage an industrial and modern economy, one capable of producing more than enough for everyone. Furthermore, it doesn't necessarily take any autonomy away from anyone, as a worker state is inherently driven by the workers in a fully democratic fashion. Lastly, you can have a "centralized" system along with local decisions. Cuba has done very well on this point: issues from local areas are discussed and solutions are implemented.


So you believe that the class can’t maintain society. OK.

Don't be thick, please try to comprehend what I write.

What I said was that the working class MUST maintain society, and the establishment of a state in its own interests is the only practical way to do this.


That’s complete nonsense. Fighting for political and economic equality is not fighting to express hierarchy over another class, it is to get rid of hierarchy.

If you overthrow the present ruling class, you are very much expressing hierarchy over that class. How could it not be so? When you talk of "equality", you are speaking of socialism, no? That doesn't come without such a suppression of the ruling class.

You're trying to run from the reality of revolution itself.


Funny that, as shortly after the October revolution the Soviets power was transferred to that of the centralised Bolshevik government, to which the Soviets were supposed to delegate power to, turning the Congress of the Soviets to the Council of People's Commissars.

No, it wasn't, because Lenin was elected by the Congress of the Soviets. The emergency measures made during the horrifyingly destructive Civil War were more than understandable and necessary, this is what preserved the gains made by the October Revolution.

The government only became fully dominated by the Bolsheviks after the SRs imploded and lost their support within the working classes.


Oh! You mean the one that elected the Council of People's Commissars! So much for all power to the Soviets.

Yes, precisely that. The Congress of the Soviets elected ministers to deal with the administration of the state, but the Congress of the Soviets held the final authority. To say that this was an ultimate transfer of power is dishonest and anti-historical.


Don’t you mean for a matter of, at most, months, until the Bolsheviks centralised the power of the Soviets?

That's flatly untrue. Wartime authority became centralized, and later Stalin gutted all democratic organs within the Soviet state, but the events leading up to both were not dictatorial decrees but the policy laid out by the worker councils themselves. Lenin was elected democratically, since the workers supported him. You seem to ignore this.


Makhno was a Cossack, so? What relevance to anything is that? Also no, the Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine was no entirely made up of Cossacks. What a ridiculous thing to say.

Makhno and his band were cossacks, and it is important because cossacks are nothing to look up to. They were Tsar-era border guards, essentially, but to an anarchist, they're revolutionary! It's really quite ridiculous.

The army may not have been made up entirely of cossacks, but they acted like the Zaparozhian Host, because that's basically what they were: a bunch of bandits.


What are these reasons? Because the things you have spoke about Makhno so far has all been false.
Anti-Semitic pogromists? Simply, no as any reading of Makhno or Arshinov, a close friend of Makhno aswell as being a Jewish anarchist Makhnovist, will tell you. Also here’s some names of Jewish Makhnovists whom played a large role in the movement- Kogan, L. Zin'kovsky (Zadov), Iosif Emigrant (Gotman) and so on.
In fact just read this-
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/append46.html#app9

Infoshop? Please. Try some actual scholarship:

[the Jewish masses] were driven reluctantly into the hands of the Bolsheviks by the pogroms mounted by just about every other armed group in the country: the White armies...., and others; the anarchists under Nestor Makhno...

That's from "A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present" by Zvi Gitelman.

Sorry, the facts stand for themselves.


That’s the point though, you haven’t.

If you read my previous posts, especially on the other thread, you'd see that I have. I'm not expecting you to, I'm just explaining why I was so brief.


Anarchists and Marxists have a different definition of the state. Irrelevant of who is in control of the state, it will act in the same way- having a monopoly on force, this monopoly on force being classed as ‘professional’ and being centralised and hierarchical.

This is silly. Early feudalism was about as centralized as an ultimate frisbee league. States act completely differently, and for different interests, depending on the class which controls them.

As I said before, to the anarchist, Bourbon is no different than Jacobin, they both had states! This is clearly nonsense.


So you are saying that communities could not run themselves from the bottom up? The only way socialism can work is if it is implemented at home by the working class, not with some overbearing state forcing people do as they say.

You're taking a simplistic view of things. Communities can run themselves, but it is impractical, idealistic and hopelessly romantic to think that communities could, in the forseeable future, just "run themselves from the bottom up" with no concern for state power. Socialism only works when a state is run democratically by the working class; that IS socialism. Without the state, however, you have no socialism, and the anarchists in Spain proved this quite thoroughly.


Also the state’s assets are slowly being diminished through privatisation, therefore by saying that society needs a state to operate all areas of society is abit strange.

That is a complete misjudgment on your part. Are you talking about capitalist states? They are definitely privitizing more and more, but what they are continuing is their forceful suppression of the workers; that is the constant. They could (but won't) go back to the Lassaiz-Faire of the 19th Century, it would only change the degree to which the ruling class deems it necessary to involve their state in business. Nothing less and nothing more.


There has never been a Marxist revolution that hasn’t lead to a one party dictatorship and thus has caused socialism to be inherently seen as such, but hey with ‘victories‘ like these, who needs failures? This is not bourgeois propaganda but the reality of authoritarian revolution.

It may not be bourgeois propaganda, but it sounds a lot like it!

At any rate, your assertion flies in the face of history. Cuba is most assuredly not a "one party dictatorship", and so your claim is wrong off the bat. Secondly, when you ignore the gains of many working class revolutions, you further your own simplistic circular logic. Like I've said countless times, anyone who doubts the progressive character of the Soviet Union should ask a Russian or a Ukrainian or a South African or a Cuban if they would have prefered life without the USSR. Have fun convincing a Russian worker that life then was exactly the same as it is today with hog-trough capitalism.


Popular anarchist movements and revolutions, though unsuccessful, largely due to State and Communist surpression, have existed, and I’d say, the practice of which anarchism was implemented in these instances far surpass any ‘successful’ Marxist revolution.

The Catalunyan communes didn't fall because of the communists, they fell because of the incompetence of their own system. A few people took control of a radio station and that was that: the anarchists couldn't overcome the smallest of challenges; its fall was, at that point, a formality. And beyond Catalunya, what do you have? A bunch of cossacks riding around Ukraine? A rapidly shrinking revolt in southern Mexico? History speaks for itself.

[QUOTE]

[nuisance]

Yes, suppression of any kind means a hierarchy. You are, effectively, telling someone what they can and can't do, what society they can and can't live in. Simple as that. If you actually think you can make a revolution without active suppression of one class, which is most certainly hierarchical, you are misled.
Well I said that the bourgeoisie would be suppressed through revolutionary war. No it does not mean hierarchy if you don’t desire to impose your own hierarchy. Which anarchists don’t. We desire to suppress the hierarchical elements of society, thus creating equality, not hierarchy. Besides, that point hardly matters.



I've explained why a state is needed before many times. State power allows the workers to suppress the bourgeoisie, to create and maintain socialism (for instance, without an army or a police force it's a bit difficult, and what is a state other than an organization of armed people?) and to control the means of production. Without a state, the would-be revolution is as brittle as a twig, and the failure of the anarchist communes only supports this.
The failure of the anarchist communes had a great deal to do with the Stalinist stab in the back, but of course you already know this and are just playing dumb. The means of production is best expropriated by the workers and society, opposed to some hierarchal entity that is believed to be needed due to the influence of bourgeois politics. Police and army units can be filled by volunteers creating militias through voluntary agreement and elect people whom have military knowledge, as was done in Spain and Ukraine. These weren’t bad methods, as a simple reading of ‘Anarchy’s Cossack’- A. Skirda, will tell you.
The revolution will be brittle as a twig with a hierarchical system leading the working class to establish a new form of tyranny.



Without a worker state, you don't get to the point where class can be rendered obsolete. I stated why above.

If you mean worker state as in working class controlling the means of production, then yes. However a state is not needed for this, but instead a syndicated economy controlled by society. No central organism needed to give orders and the syndicates organises themselves independently.



That's simply wishful thinking. Centralized control is the only way to manage an industrial and modern economy, one capable of producing more than enough for everyone. Furthermore, it doesn't necessarily take any autonomy away from anyone, as a worker state is inherently driven by the workers in a fully democratic fashion. Lastly, you can have a "centralized" system along with local decisions. Cuba has done very well on this point: issues from local areas are discussed and solutions are implemented.
I’d opt for a confederation of syndicates, in which syndicates freely associate with each other to coordinate production, through delegate meetings and the like to produce more efficiently. That said no regulations with be forced and only adopted if the workplace agrees. This is full democratic economic organisation free from a state, such as how the old canal routes were/are organised throughout Europe.


If you overthrow the present ruling class, you are very much expressing hierarchy over that class. How could it not be so? When you talk of "equality", you are speaking of socialism, no? That doesn't come without such a suppression of the ruling class.

You're trying to run from the reality of revolution itself.


No this is not expressing hierarchy but class conflict. We don’t want to make the bourgeoisie lower than ourselves but equal, this hindering a chance of hierarchy. But as said before the meaning of this doesn’t matter in the great scheme of things.


No, it wasn't, because Lenin was elected by the Congress of the Soviets. The emergency measures made during the horrifyingly destructive Civil War were more than understandable and necessary, this is what preserved the gains made by the October Revolution.

I disagree, it was not needed and was all part of the Bolsheviks leaders aim to centralise society and only adopted the phrase- All Power to the Soviets- as a cheap ploy, as still the Bolsheviks didn’t believe that the Soviets were able to govern themselves, as was the case during the 1905 Russian revolution. Also from Lenin himself in an essay just prior to the Russian Revolution- Russia "was ruled by 130,000 landowners . . . and they tell us that Russia will not be able to be governed by the 240,000 members of the Bolshevik Party -- governing in the interest of the poor and against the rich." - ‘Will the Bolsheviks maintain state power?’
Lenin states governing in the ‘interest’, not all power to the Soviets.


Yes, precisely that. The Congress of the Soviets elected ministers to deal with the administration of the state, but the Congress of the Soviets held the final authority. To say that this was an ultimate transfer of power is dishonest and anti-historical.


A few days after seizing control the CPC- "unilaterally arrogated to itself legislative power simply by promulgating a decree to this effect. This was, effectively, a Bolshevik coup d'etat that made clear the government's (and party's) pre-eminence over the soviets and their executive organ. Increasingly, the Bolsheviks relied upon the appointment from above of commissars with plenipotentiary powers, and they split up and reconstituted fractious Soviets and intimidated political opponents." - Neil Harding, Leninism.
Also in the first year of 68 out 480 decrees given by the CPC were even submitted to the Congress and the Congress, through the height of the civil war, 1918-1919, never met once in full session.


That's flatly untrue. Wartime authority became centralized, and later Stalin gutted all democratic organs within the Soviet state, but the events leading up to both were not dictatorial decrees but the policy laid out by the worker councils themselves. Lenin was elected democratically, since the workers supported him. You seem to ignore this.

As I said above “Also in the first year of 68 out 480 decrees given by the CPC were even submitted to the Congress and the Congress, through the height of the civil war, 1918-1919, never met once in full session.”


Makhno and his band were cossacks, and it is important because cossacks are nothing to look up to. They were Tsar-era border guards, essentially, but to an anarchist, they're revolutionary! It's really quite ridiculous.

You evidently have no knowledge of Cossack people as they aren’t generalisable by each group. Yes, the Don Cossacks served the Tsar and the Dniepr Cossacks served the Polish King in their time. However Makhno was a descendent of the Zaporog Cossacks whom fiercely fought for their independence and set up collective based society.


The army may not have been made up entirely of cossacks, but they acted like the Zaparozhian Host, because that's basically what they were: a bunch of bandits.


Do you actually know anything about the Zaporogs?
How the Makhnovists a bunch of bandits? In no way did the Makhnovists enter a place to simply rape and plunder towns.

[nuisance]

Infoshop? Please. Try some actual scholarship:
Infoshop merely hosts the text, not produce it.

[the Jewish masses] were driven reluctantly into the hands of the Bolsheviks by the pogroms mounted by just about every other armed group in the country: the White armies...., and others; the anarchists under Nestor Makhno...
That's from "A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present" by Zvi Gitelman.
Sorry, the facts stand for themselves.
Yes, the facts do speak for themselves:
M. Tcherikover- not an anarchist but a historian of Jewish history in Europe- "1. It is undeniable that, of all these armies, including the Red Army, the Makhnovists behaved best with regard the civil population in general and the Jewish population in particular. I have numerous testimonies to this. The proportion of justified complaints against the Makhnovist army, in comparison with the others, is negligible.
"2. Do not speak of pogroms alleged to have been organised by Makhno himself. That is a slander or an error. Nothing of the sort occurred. As for the Makhnovist Army, I have had hints and precise denunciations on this subject. But, up to the present, every time I have tried to check the facts, I have been obliged to declare that on the day in question no Makhnovist unit could have been at the place indicated, the whole army being far away from there. Upon examining the evidence closely, I established this fact, every time, with absolute certainty, at the place and on the date of the pogrom, no Makhnovist unit was operating or even located in the vicinity. Not once have I been able to prove the existence of a Makhnovist unit at the place a pogrom against the Jews took place. Consequently, the pogroms in question could not have been the work of the Makhnovists."
Arshinov- “Following certain anti-Semitic incidents which occurred in the region in February, 1919, Makhno proposed to all the Jewish colonies that they organise their self-defence and he furnished the necessary guns and ammunition to all these colonies. At the same time Makhno organised a series of meetings in the region where he appealed to the masses to struggle against anti-Semitism.”

This is silly. Early feudalism was about as centralized as an ultimate frisbee league. States act completely differently, and for different interests, depending on the class which controls them.
As I said before, to the anarchist, Bourbon is no different than Jacobin, they both had states! This is clearly nonsense.
Do they not consist of the three points that I stated? Thought so, but lets not get bogged down in semantics.

You're taking a simplistic view of things. Communities can run themselves, but it is impractical, idealistic and hopelessly romantic to think that communities could, in the forseeable future, just "run themselves from the bottom up" with no concern for state power. Socialism only works when a state is run democratically by the working class; that IS socialism. Without the state, however, you have no socialism, and the anarchists in Spain proved this quite thoroughly.
No, the social revolution will take place when the working class is conscious of itself. It is not ‘romantic’ way at looking at things but a look at society seeing people coming together in common aims without the need for coercion- free agreement.
Also in Spain the CNT did take part in forming a new state.

At any rate, your assertion flies in the face of history. Cuba is most assuredly not a "one party dictatorship", and so your claim is wrong off the bat. Secondly, when you ignore the gains of many working class revolutions, you further your own simplistic circular logic. Like I've said countless times, anyone who doubts the progressive character of the Soviet Union should ask a Russian or a Ukrainian or a South African or a Cuban if they would have prefered life without the USSR. Have fun convincing a Russian worker that life then was exactly the same as it is today with hog-trough capitalism.
Wow, living in a place with a lot of Eastern European immigrants I have got into that conversation many a time and surprisingly, no, the majority appear to prefer life now.
How isn’t Cuba a one party dictatorship!?! “No political party is permitted to nominate candidates or campaign on the island, though the Communist Party of Cuba has held five party congress meetings since 1975.”- wiki.

The Catalunyan communes didn't fall because of the communists, they fell because of the incompetence of their own system. A few people took control of a radio station and that was that: the anarchists couldn't overcome the smallest of challenges; its fall was, at that point, a formality. And beyond Catalunya, what do you have? A bunch of cossacks riding around Ukraine? A rapidly shrinking revolt in southern Mexico? History speaks for itself.
No it was because the Communists and Francos’ troops had access to better weapons aswell as the CNTs participation in the new government lead to the downfall of the revolution.
You also have no knowledge of Makhnovists if you think they did nothing.


Jeez I hate long drawn out debates over the internet so can we try and not keep this to long.

[trivas7]

Now, As for "A Society with No Definite Hierarchies", I basically mean that there are no institutionalized hierarchies. In anarchism, nobody can claim authority over an individual. The individual is free to work and spend their leisure time as they wish, pursuing any interest one might have, however one wants, so long as the individual does not hurt anyone else and deprive them of their ability to do the same.

Thanks for the nice reply. :thumbup1:

I take your point that all hierarchies would be temporary, but how does this differ from capitalism? In capitalism is not the individual "free to work and spend their leisure time (what little is left of it) as they wish, pursuing any interest one might have, etc." Where I'm coming from is that I believe that all authorities are hierarchical, as are all institutions. Get some rest.

[Hit The North]

You seem to think that any system for organising society should be called a state?
I admit, I call it a state out of convenience. What do you call it? But also, I note that not all states are the same.


I would not call something that was under the direct democratic control of the workers a state, because I define a state as something which is separate from the general population and is structured to enable and maintain the rule of a minority, over the majority.
But states have had those qualities because they reflect the minority position of the ruling classes which create them. For the first time in history, the workers state will represent the majority against the minority. Should we not expect it to differ from these elitist states in its organisation and operation, in its very character?

[revolution inaction]

I admit, I call it a state out of convenience. What do you call it? But also, I note that not all states are the same.

A federation? A network? A syndicalist union? A council?
I don't know but the word state is unsuitable



But states have had those qualities because they reflect the minority position of the ruling classes which create them. For the first time in history, the workers state will represent the majority against the minority. Should we not expect it to differ from these elitist states in its organisation and operation, in its very character?


I think to use the word state to describe some thing total unlike any pre-existing state is illogical and likely to lead to confusion.
If we know that society needs to be organised and we know how this should be done, how does calling the mechanisms of organisation a state help?
I thing calling the organisation of society a state gives the impression of something separate from society, and not as simply the way society operates. The organisation of society needs to be part of our every day life not some thing handled by an separate institution now matter how well regulated.

[manic expression]

Infoshop merely hosts the text, not produce it.

Yes, the facts do speak for themselves:
M. Tcherikover- not an anarchist but a historian of Jewish history in Europe- "1. It is undeniable that, of all these armies, including the Red Army, the Makhnovists behaved best with regard the civil population in general and the Jewish population in particular. I have numerous testimonies to this. The proportion of justified complaints against the Makhnovist army, in comparison with the others, is negligible.
"2. Do not speak of pogroms alleged to have been organised by Makhno himself. That is a slander or an error. Nothing of the sort occurred. As for the Makhnovist Army, I have had hints and precise denunciations on this subject. But, up to the present, every time I have tried to check the facts, I have been obliged to declare that on the day in question no Makhnovist unit could have been at the place indicated, the whole army being far away from there. Upon examining the evidence closely, I established this fact, every time, with absolute certainty, at the place and on the date of the pogrom, no Makhnovist unit was operating or even located in the vicinity. Not once have I been able to prove the existence of a Makhnovist unit at the place a pogrom against the Jews took place. Consequently, the pogroms in question could not have been the work of the Makhnovists."
Arshinov- “Following certain anti-Semitic incidents which occurred in the region in February, 1919, Makhno proposed to all the Jewish colonies that they organise their self-defence and he furnished the necessary guns and ammunition to all these colonies. At the same time Makhno organised a series of meetings in the region where he appealed to the masses to struggle against anti-Semitism.”

I can't find anything on M Tcherikover, please show me his credentials. As a matter of fact, the ONLY thing I can find on him comes directly from anarchist sites, which makes me very suspicious. Zvi Gitelman is a very reputable source, and you should deal with his conclusions directly instead of citing something else. Your response is very insufficient.


Do they not consist of the three points that I stated? Thought so, but lets not get bogged down in semantics.

There's nothing semantic about it, and it's ridiculous to claim as much. Did the state change between 1788 and 1790? Just about EVERYTHING changed. The asinine position that all states are virtually the same is simply wrong, and anyone who's studied the slightest bit of history knows this. You're trying to dance around history, and it's pretty apparent you can't.


No, the social revolution will take place when the working class is conscious of itself. It is not ‘romantic’ way at looking at things but a look at society seeing people coming together in common aims without the need for coercion- free agreement.

The entire working class will not come to consciousness, we must rely on a vanguard of the workers. Every revolution has a vanguard, from the Paris Commune to the American Revolution (a bourgeois revolution) and beyond, it's just a fact you have to deal with. It is certainly romantic to expect "people" to "come together in common aims" with no discipline or organization or democratic centralism or the like.


Also in Spain the CNT did take part in forming a new state.

They also took part in being at odds with the Republic. The May Days was a result of this.


Wow, living in a place with a lot of Eastern European immigrants I have got into that conversation many a time and surprisingly, no, the majority appear to prefer life now.

Well, I WAS talking about the Soviet Union, which is incredibly different than the EU, NATO-joining Eastern European nations, but I'll even work with this. First, immigrants are usually of the right-wing sort, but that's a general rule. Secondly, even the most anti-communist Eastern Europeans will concede that socialism had its advantages, and that is quite telling IMO. Have you talked to a Russian or Ukrainian about the issue, or a South African for that matter?


How isn’t Cuba a one party dictatorship!?! “No political party is permitted to nominate candidates or campaign on the island, though the Communist Party of Cuba has held five party congress meetings since 1975.”- wiki

That's nice. Here's how Cuba's political system actually works:

http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html

Don't be so quick to swallow the rhetoric of the gusano reactionaries and their imperialist masters.


No it was because the Communists and Francos’ troops had access to better weapons aswell as the CNTs participation in the new government lead to the downfall of the revolution.

That's not the reason at all, the anarchists had many opportunities to use artillery and the like, but they were too undisciplined to utilize the equipment. Further, it's not like the Republicans had phazers, they were using the same weaponry as the anarchist militias, maybe a bit better but not much. Stop making excuses for a wholly futile experiment.


You also have no knowledge of Makhnovists if you think they did nothing.

The Makhnovists did stuff, but none of it was revolutionary and none of it was helpful, which makes the anarchist obsession with his cossack host all the more absurd. And I wouldn't say such a thing when you're the one denying their outright aggression against Jews.

[revolution inaction]

It is certainly romantic to expect "people" to "come together in common aims" with no discipline or organization or democratic centralism or the like.
All really anarchists are in favour of organisation, and its extremely naive to believe the solution is to find the correct leaders and give them total control.



Further, it's not like the Republicans had phazers, they were using the same weaponry as the anarchist militias, maybe a bit better but not much. Stop making excuses for a wholly futile experiment.

This is not true, at the start of the war the militias where badly armed, and the government and the Communist refused to send adequate weapons, instead sending them to Communist units or keeping them for the new army which was then used against the militias.



The Makhnovists did stuff, but none of it was revolutionary and none of it was helpful, which makes the anarchist obsession with his cossack host all the more absurd.

They fought a guerilla war against the white armies when the Bolshevik abandoned the Ukraine and the revolution there.



And I wouldn't say such a thing when you're the one denying their outright aggression against Jews.
The Bolsheviks made up lots of things about the Makhnovists. In reality they shot people who carried out pogroms, even potential allies.

[AutomaticMan]

Heh, boy, my thread took off.

I'm wondering, are there any writings by Marxists that deal with the legitimacy of authority/hierarchy, other than just critiques of anarchism? I'd be very interested in reading those.

[Niccolò Rossi]

I'm wondering, are there any writings by Marxists that deal with the legitimacy of authority/hierarchy, other than just critiques of anarchism? I'd be very interested in reading those.

Not sure if you've read it but me thinks Engels' On Authority (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm) might be right up your alley. However, as always, I would advise you to take anything written by Engels with a grain of salt.

[manic expression]

All really anarchists are in favour of organisation, and its extremely naive to believe the solution is to find the correct leaders and give them total control.

The anarchist "organization" is inefficient and inadequate, even the platformists. Only an organization built upon the principle of democratic centralism is equipped to handle the pressures of imperialism. The anarchist rejection of discipline, which is based on nothing but idealism, is key here.

"Total control" is not Marxist-Leninist at all, democratic centralism is just that: democratic discussion of issues and disciplined adherence to the party's (democratic) decisions. When the Bolsheviks were elected to the Duma, their two leading parliamentarians were actually Tsarist agents (IIRC). They weren't able, however, to do much of anything, because whenever they tried to use their infiltration and deviate from the line in public, the leadership would tell them not to. Marxist-Leninist parties, in this way, are able to withstand tremendous pressure, whereas anarchist organizations are not.


This is not true, at the start of the war the militias where badly armed, and the government and the Communist refused to send adequate weapons, instead sending them to Communist units or keeping them for the new army which was then used against the militias.

What isn't true? That the anarchists wasted opportunities to use artillery? That's a documented fact, sorry. The entire Republican army was vasty under-equipped, and so it is ridiculous to expect them to send much-needed equipment to the anarchists, who weren't even fully behind the government in the first place!

You need to deal with the history of the thing, not the glorified anarchist version.


They fought a guerilla war against the white armies when the Bolshevik abandoned the Ukraine and the revolution there.

They also attacked Jews, and it was the Reds who decisively defeated the Whites on just about every front. The Makhnovist cossacks had no viability, for they had no base in the cities or the workers; their defeat was a matter of time.


The Bolsheviks made up lots of things about the Makhnovists. In reality they shot people who carried out pogroms, even potential allies.

Zvi Gitelman, the author of the book below, didn't make up anything about Makhno and his cossack host. The book below is where I got that source, and it is factual and true and not so flattering to Makhno and his followers.

http://www.amazon.com/Century-Ambivalence-Russia-Soviet-Present/dp/0253214181

[manic expression]

Well I said that the bourgeoisie would be suppressed through revolutionary war. No it does not mean hierarchy if you don’t desire to impose your own hierarchy. Which anarchists don’t. We desire to suppress the hierarchical elements of society, thus creating equality, not hierarchy. Besides, that point hardly matters.

The bourgeoisie can exist beyond initial revolution. Thus, it is necessary to continue the suppression of the former ruling class to prevent counterrevolution.

Suppression, in itself, is a hierarchy. You are telling someone what society they can and can't live in. Let me ask you, how is the overthrow and suppression of one class by another NOT hierarchy?


The failure of the anarchist communes had a great deal to do with the Stalinist stab in the back, but of course you already know this and are just playing dumb. The means of production is best expropriated by the workers and society, opposed to some hierarchal entity that is believed to be needed due to the influence of bourgeois politics. Police and army units can be filled by volunteers creating militias through voluntary agreement and elect people whom have military knowledge, as was done in Spain and Ukraine. These weren’t bad methods, as a simple reading of ‘Anarchy’s Cossack’- A. Skirda, will tell you.

Stop making anti-historical excuses when the facts say otherwise. The "Stalinists" (by which you must mean the Republicans) took control of a radio station and that was that. The anarchist communes, the product of almost 100 years of organization and agitation, fell just like that. Blaming the commies doesn't take into account the gross inability of the anarchists to oppose the lightest of resistance. The communes had no chance, and the Republicans knew this.

The anarchist militias in Spain were beyond terrible, they had no discipline and no organization. Only an anarchist could look up to such a failure.


The revolution will be brittle as a twig with a hierarchical system leading the working class to establish a new form of tyranny.

Um, nice poem? Look, what you call "a new form of tyranny" is nothing but the workers conquering state power. What is wrong with this? States change depending upon who rules them. Were the Jacobins not different from the Bourbons? Answer that question and you'll know why the dictatorship of the proletariat is both necessary and liberating.


If you mean worker state as in working class controlling the means of production, then yes. However a state is not needed for this, but instead a syndicated economy controlled by society. No central organism needed to give orders and the syndicates organises themselves independently.

Of course a state is needed, because you need to maintain it against the bourgeoisie. A confederation of independent communes is impractical for the reasons I gave. In fact, the dramatic fall of the Catalunyan communes PROVES how impractical it is.

You mention old canal systems in Europe, which shows how impractical the idea really is. An industrial society with heavy and light industry cannot be run like a series of waterways. Your oversimplification of modern society is astonishing.


No this is not expressing hierarchy but class conflict.

And what is the logical conclusion of class conflict? Either equality - mutual destruction, or suppression of one by the other. That, worker over bourgeois, is hierarchy.

Which brings us back to the question I posed above.


I disagree, it was not needed and was all part of the Bolsheviks leaders aim to centralise society and only adopted the phrase- All Power to the Soviets- as a cheap ploy, as still the Bolsheviks didn’t believe that the Soviets were able to govern themselves, as was the case during the 1905 Russian revolution. Also from Lenin himself in an essay just prior to the Russian Revolution- Russia "was ruled by 130,000 landowners . . . and they tell us that Russia will not be able to be governed by the 240,000 members of the Bolshevik Party -- governing in the interest of the poor and against the rich." - ‘Will the Bolsheviks maintain state power?’
Lenin states governing in the ‘interest’, not all power to the Soviets.

I've seen figures for the dead of the Civil War as high as 15,000,000. Think about that. How is that not a crisis that demands emergency measures? Anarchists are wont to insulate their ideas from the realities of the outside world, and this is a good example. You can't defend an isolated revolution from dozens (literally, dozens) of enemies without those sorts of measures.

I don't know the context of that Lenin quote, because that would change the meaning very much. However, what he's basically saying is that the vanguard of the workers, the Bolsheviks, would be able to create and develop socialism. That is what they did, and the workers supported them, aided them and helped them in that cause.


A few days after seizing control the CPC- "unilaterally arrogated to itself legislative power simply by promulgating a decree to this effect. This was, effectively, a Bolshevik coup d'etat that made clear the government's (and party's) pre-eminence over the soviets and their executive organ. Increasingly, the Bolsheviks relied upon the appointment from above of commissars with plenipotentiary powers, and they split up and reconstituted fractious Soviets and intimidated political opponents." - Neil Harding, Leninism.
Also in the first year of 68 out 480 decrees given by the CPC were even submitted to the Congress and the Congress, through the height of the civil war, 1918-1919, never met once in full session.

That's because the Civil War started just after the revolution. See previous response on this matter.


You evidently have no knowledge of Cossack people as they aren’t generalisable by each group. Yes, the Don Cossacks served the Tsar and the Dniepr Cossacks served the Polish King in their time. However Makhno was a descendent of the Zaporog Cossacks whom fiercely fought for their independence and set up collective based society.

I actually compared him to the Zaparozhian Host, which was fiercely independent from the Russian crown. At the same time, their indpendence gradually eroded, and it is because the cossack lifestyle, while romantic to some sentimentalists (including the anarchists, apparently), is basically backwards in modern society. The Makhnovist cossacks and the Zaparozhian cossacks were both independent bands of bandits, nothing more.


How the Makhnovists a bunch of bandits? In no way did the Makhnovists enter a place to simply rape and plunder towns.

They sure did to attack Jews, and that is why the Jews supported the Reds.

[nuisance]

I can't find anything on M Tcherikover, please show me his credentials. As a matter of fact, the ONLY thing I can find on him comes directly from anarchist sites, which makes me very suspicious. Zvi Gitelman is a very reputable source, and you should deal with his conclusions directly instead of citing something else. Your response is very insufficient.

How is it insufficient? I have given far more evidence that completely destroys your stance and also from non-biased sources, but yet you still dwell in your own ignorance.
Perhaps you should read this thread- http://libcom.org/forums/history/m-tcherikover (http://libcom.org/forums/history/m-tcherikover)
And also read this http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/jewishcitizens.htm (http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/jewishcitizens.htm)

There's nothing semantic about it, and it's ridiculous to claim as much. Did the state change between 1788 and 1790? Just about EVERYTHING changed. The asinine position that all states are virtually the same is simply wrong, and anyone who's studied the slightest bit of history knows this. You're trying to dance around history, and it's pretty apparent you can't.
No it did not 'change' the State was still the state, and still performed the three characteristics that define a State. No one is saying that they both would take exactly the same decisions and such, that is not the point. The point is that they are both States. So when anarchists say 'a State a State', it thus implies that they still consist of the those characteristics. So no dancing around history. I suggest you read Kropotkin’s- The State: Its historical role.

The entire working class will not come to consciousness, we must rely on a vanguard of the workers. Every revolution has a vanguard, from the Paris Commune to the American Revolution (a bourgeois revolution) and beyond, it's just a fact you have to deal with. It is certainly romantic to expect "people" to "come together in common aims" with no discipline or organization or democratic centralism or the like.
No one said that the entire working class would become conscious before revolution, and it is utopian to think as such, but a large percentage would have to be conscious/influence the consciousness of others as what happened in the Italian Factory Occupations 1918-1921.
What is this fetishising of discipline? Fact is revolutions have been fought without these democratic centralised parties. People have come together in common aims CNT-FAI had a great influence in Spain and the Makhnovists free territory in the Ukraine- Makhnovschina.

They also took part in being at odds with the Republic. The May Days was a result of this.
Please elaborate.

Well, I WAS talking about the Soviet Union, which is incredibly different than the EU, NATO-joining Eastern European nations, but I'll even work with this. First, immigrants are usually of the right-wing sort, but that's a general rule. Secondly, even the most anti-communist Eastern Europeans will concede that socialism had its advantages, and that is quite telling IMO. Have you talked to a Russian or Ukrainian about the issue, or a South African for that matter?.
Yes, I know you were talking on the Soviet Union, what has this got to do with the EU and other organisations you mentioned?
Yes, I have spoke to Russians on the issue, as I initially implied. Also, no they aren't all politicos, so they are not anti-communist ideologically. Yes some have spoke of the advantages- food etc yet no one I've spoke to, whom had lived their seems have the same idealism of the Soviet Union as you appear to.

That's nice. Here's how Cuba's political system actually works:
http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html (http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ.html)
Don't be so quick to swallow the rhetoric of the gusano reactionaries and their imperialist masters.
Is that why there's a question on there actually called "What real choice is there in Cubas one-party system?

That's not the reason at all, the anarchists had many opportunities to use artillery and the like, but they were too undisciplined to utilize the equipment. Further, it's not like the Republicans had phazers, they were using the same weaponry as the anarchist militias, maybe a bit better but not much. Stop making excuses for a wholly futile experiment.
Maybe the militias could have been more coherent? What of it? Now we know better for next time to watch out for the treacherous left. Futile? No, the workplaces and society ran brilliantly according to anarchist principles.
Also to say that the weaponry was on mildly superior is ridiculous, have you not read Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’ or watched the film adaptation titled ‘Land and Freedom’?
Part of a letter from a US member of Durruti International Shock Battalion and also of the IWW- It was only through sabotage that the government succeeded in disbanding the International Battalion of Anarchists. Four of our bunch died of starvation in one day. Our arms were rotten, even though the Valencia government has plenty of arms and planes. They know enough not to give arms to the thousands of anarchists on the Aragon front. We could have driven the fascists out of Huesca and Saragossa had we had the aid of the aviation. But the Anarchists form collectives where ever they advance, and these comrades would rather let Franco have those cities that the CNT-FAI.

The Makhnovists did stuff, but none of it was revolutionary and none of it was helpful, which makes the anarchist obsession with his Cossack host all the more absurd. And I wouldn't say such a thing when you're the one denying their outright aggression against Jews.
Cossack host again, what ignorant slander. Also no anti-Semitism was advocate by the Makhnovists, but much the opposite, which I have already proved.
Not revolutionary? They fought against all sides of in the revolution to secure the free soviets that had initially established themselves during the revolution. Makhno the anarchist group of Hulyai Pole formed the Peasant Union in 1917 at Hulyai Pole which then formed a Soviet and then organized a brigade that seized the estates of the gentry.

[manic expression]

How is it insufficient? I have given far more evidence that completely destroys your stance and also from non-biased sources, but yet you still dwell in your own ignorance.
Perhaps you should read this thread- http://libcom.org/forums/history/m-tcherikover (http://libcom.org/forums/history/m-tcherikover)
And also read this http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/jewishcitizens.htm (http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/jewishcitizens.htm)

It's insufficient because I have no way of confirming whether or not M Tcherikover is in any way a reliable source. You certainly did not, because your links did very little in this regard (as if Makhno's words, ten years after the fact, changed his actions). Zvi Gitelman, on the other hand, is very reliable, very valid and something you haven't been able to account for.


No it did not 'change' the State was still the state, and still performed the three characteristics that define a State. No one is saying that they both would take exactly the same decisions and such, that is not the point. The point is that they are both States. So when anarchists say 'a State a State', it thus implies that they still consist of the those characteristics. So no dancing around history. I suggest you read Kropotkin’s- The State: Its historical role.

But here is the heart of the matter. They are both states, but what interests did they serve? What objectives did they have? They were different, were they not? Since their interests and objectives WERE vastly different and since they gave rise to completely different morals and ideas and social structures, we can see that the class which dominates the state gives that state its character. The French bourgeoisie's state differed drastically from that of the Bourbons. So, a proletarian state, as history has shown, will differ drastically from that of the capitalists, in that it will serve the interests of the workers.

As I've said, the anarchist view of history is hopelessly simplistic in that it sees no difference between Bourbon and Jacobin.


No one said that the entire working class would become conscious before revolution, and it is utopian to think as such, but a large percentage would have to be conscious/influence the consciousness of others as what happened in the Italian Factory Occupations 1918-1921.

And what did those same occupations come to? Without a disciplined, organized vanguard of the workers, revolutions have very little chance against imperialism. That is why Marxism-Leninism has been at the forefront of successful revolutions in many different situations.


What is this fetishising of discipline? Fact is revolutions have been fought without these democratic centralised parties. People have come together in common aims CNT-FAI had a great influence in Spain and the Makhnovists free territory in the Ukraine- Makhnovschina.

All wars are won by discipline. Class war is no different. See my above comment on the Bolsheviks' ability to withstand infiltration for a specific example.

The Catalunyan collectives fell after the lightest resistance and proved inefficient at best, while the Makhnovists were a (reactionary) cossack host. Those examples are neither revolutionary nor worthwhile.


Please elaborate.

The May Days didn't happen for no reason, they happened because the anarchists were hot-and-cold on supporting the Republic. The Republican forces had enough of the anarchists' pensiveness and acted. That is why what happened happened, and that is why the communes fell so quickly.


Yes, I know you were talking on the Soviet Union, what has this got to do with the EU and other organisations you mentioned?

There is a great difference between the USSR and the so-called satellite states. I was talking about the former.


Yes, I have spoke to Russians on the issue, as I initially implied. Also, no they aren't all politicos, so they are not anti-communist ideologically. Yes some have spoke of the advantages- food etc yet no one I've spoke to, whom had lived their seems have the same idealism of the Soviet Union as you appear to.

Just about every Russian I've talked to who lived during the USSR said life is far more difficult now. I think the statistics on homelessness, unemployment, alchoholism, the collapse of all public services, the cost of living and other factors are evidence of this conclusion.


Is that why there's a question on there actually called "What real choice is there in Cubas one-party system?

Maybe you could've taken the small effort to read and comprehend what it actually said instead of resorting to a typical knee-jerk reaction.

From that very page:

In Cuba, every citizen, regardless of their economic circumstances, has the equal right and opportunity to win public office. Candidates are nominated not by any political party or elite political action committees, but by the people themselves in open public meetings in each neighbourhood, or by their democratically elected representatives who themselves were nominated in this way. And it costs nothing to win public office, even at the highest level.

You see, the claim that Cuba is a "one party system" is flawed on many levels. First, as the link said, no party, not even the PCC, has the ability to nominate candidates for office; that is done locally. As a matter of fact, a large number of the recently-elected officials in Cuba don't belong to the PCC (it's around one-third IIRC). Second, there is opposition in Cuba, it is just very unpopular and known to be funded and supported by American imperialism.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4569981.stm

As you can see, the opposition is permitted to exist and be active, it's just that the Cuban people don't seem to like them very much.


Maybe the militias could have been more coherent? What of it? Now we know better for next time to watch out for the treacherous left. Futile? No, the workplaces and society ran brilliantly according to anarchist principles.

The anarchist militias performed so poorly because they were MILITIAS. The term itself never bodes well in any conflict, to say nothing of how they were actually organized. Your attempt to blame the incompetence of the anarchists on the communists is patently laughable, the communists had no part in training or organizing them.

Having workplaces run "brilliantly according to anarchist principles" is about as subjective as you get. In fact, I'd be inclined to agree, they ran according to anarchist principles because they fell so quickly.


It was only through sabotage that the government succeeded in disbanding the International Battalion of Anarchists. Four of our bunch died of starvation in one day. Our arms were rotten, even though the Valencia government has plenty of arms and planes. They know enough not to give arms to the thousands of anarchists on the Aragon front. We could have driven the fascists out of Huesca and Saragossa had we had the aid of the aviation. But the Anarchists form collectives where ever they advance, and these comrades would rather let Franco have those cities that the CNT-FAI.[/I]

The anarchists weren't even fully cooperating with the Republic, why should they be given arms when the Republicans needed everything they could get? The failure to take Huesca and Zaragoza was certainly not the fault of the Republicans, and I suspect the writer was quite bitter about something because that's an incoherent position.


Cossack host again, what ignorant slander. Also no anti-Semitism was advocate by the Makhnovists, but much the opposite, which I have already proved.

The only thing you've proven is the anarchists' favorite "historian" has practically no documented credibility, whereas Zvi Gitelman (a scholar I basically chose at random, as the book happened to be lying around my room that day) does. Zvi Gitelman, for his part, is quite clear on the anti-Semitic actions of the Makhnovist cossacks, as I've shown.


Not revolutionary? They fought against all sides of in the revolution to secure the free soviets that had initially established themselves during the revolution. Makhno the anarchist group of Hulyai Pole formed the Peasant Union in 1917 at Hulyai Pole which then formed a Soviet and then organized a brigade that seized the estates of the gentry.

They were as revolutionary as the Zaparozhian Host (read: they weren't). The Soviets supported the Bolsheviks in 1917 and kept up that support throughout the Civil War. Makhno, on the other hand, rode around with his followers in the power vacuum that was Ukraine before he was finally finished off by the Reds. That's about all he accomplished, probably because that's mostly what he set out to do.

[nuisance]

The bourgeoisie can exist beyond initial revolution. Thus, it is necessary to continue the suppression of the former ruling class to prevent counterrevolution.

Suppression, in itself, is a hierarchy. You are telling someone what society they can and can't live in. Let me ask you, how is the overthrow and suppression of one class by another NOT hierarchy?

Because the fight is for a better society, not declaring that you are higher than anyone else.


Stop making anti-historical excuses when the facts say otherwise. The "Stalinists" (by which you must mean the Republicans) took control of a radio station and that was that. The anarchist communes, the product of almost 100 years of organization and agitation, fell just like that. Blaming the commies doesn't take into account the gross inability of the anarchists to oppose the lightest of resistance. The communes had no chance, and the Republicans knew this.
The lightest resistance? They managed to build an anarchist society while fighting a civil war, that’s hardly light resistance.
Salas, whom agitated the CNT for months prior to break the united anti-fascist front that had been established, broke into the telephone building with a 200 hundred strong police force and the workers refused to work under police presence. You making the May day situation far far to over simplistic. Here’s a conclusive account of prior and during May day if you care to learn, The Tragic Week in May (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/souchy_may.html) by Augustin Souchy.

The anarchist militias in Spain were beyond terrible, they had no discipline and no organization. Only an anarchist could look up to such a failure.
Vice versa

Um, nice poem? Look, what you call "a new form of tyranny" is nothing but the workers conquering state power. What is wrong with this? States change depending upon who rules them. Were the Jacobins not different from the Bourbons? Answer that question and you'll know why the dictatorship of the proletariat is both necessary and liberating.
They were both States and essentially acted in the same way- monopoly over violence, legitimating their own right to violence from a centralised hierarchical position.

Of course a state is needed, because you need to maintain it against the bourgeoisie. A confederation of independent communes is impractical for the reasons I gave. In fact, the dramatic fall of the Catalunyan communes PROVES how impractical it is.

You mention old canal systems in Europe, which shows how impractical the idea really is. An industrial society with heavy and light industry cannot be run like a series of waterways. Your oversimplification of modern society is astonishing.
NO IT DOES NOT PROVE THE FAILURE OF COMMUNUES! The Soviet Union was an absolute humanitarian disaster, therefore going by your logic it is always doomed, which it is.
Over simplication? Not at all, you merely underestimated the motivation towards well-being that humans have. How is people freely associating to further their cause oversimplified? It is not and is actually a evident realisation of how humans associate without coercion.

I've seen figures for the dead of the Civil War as high as 15,000,000. Think about that. How is that not a crisis that demands emergency measures? Anarchists are wont to insulate their ideas from the realities of the outside world, and this is a good example. You can't defend an isolated revolution from dozens (literally, dozens) of enemies without those sorts of measures.
So therefore a some grouping of intellectuals have the right to play with others lives, as it is a ‘emergency’? You may fault the CNT-FAI, however their organisation of the free communes involved those from conflicting groups and never dissolved the democratic organs of the organisation.

I don't know the context of that Lenin quote, because that would change the meaning very much. However, what he's basically saying is that the vanguard of the workers, the Bolsheviks, would be able to create and develop socialism. That is what they did, and the workers supported them, aided them and helped them in that cause.
How would it change the context? Lenin specifically speaks of Bolshevik rule in the interests of the poor, that doesn’t pose any from of democracy.
So if the workers supported them then why did they need to govern in their interest? An arrogant task to take upon oneself.

That's because the Civil War started just after the revolution. See previous response on this matter.
What? The class started the revolution, not the Bolsheviks. Yes, the Bolsheviks where the largest working class party at the time, but they did not instigate it, as it also took them by surprise with various heads of the party infact being aboard during the ignition of the revolution.

I actually compared him to the Zaparozhian Host, which was fiercely independent from the Russian crown. At the same time, their indpendence gradually eroded, and it is because the cossack lifestyle, while romantic to some sentimentalists (including the anarchists, apparently), is basically backwards in modern society. The Makhnovist cossacks and the Zaparozhian cossacks were both independent bands of bandits, nothing more.
How where they bandits? You still haven’t answered this? In each settlement taken by the Makhnovists they set up the democratic organs to maintain society equally. This by no means are the actions of bandits.

They sure did to attack Jews, and that is why the Jews supported the Reds.
What a stupid thing to say. No, not all Jews supported the Reds, as I have already shown a vast amount of Jews were in the Makhnovists forces. Also Jewish anarchists such as Berkman and Goldman supported Makhno.
And the Historian Christopher Reed states- "Makhno actively opposed anti-Semitism . . . Not surprisingly, many Jews held prominent positions in the Insurgent movement and Jewish farmers and villagers staunchly supported Makhno in the face of the unrestrained anti-Semitism of Ukrainian nationalists like Grigoriev and of the Great Russian chauvinists like the Whites”.
Arthur E. Adams in his book ‘Bolsheviks in the Ukraine- "Makhno protected Jews and in fact had many serving on his own staff”.

[manic expression]

Because the fight is for a better society, not declaring that you are higher than anyone else.

The fight is for a better society for us, not for them. They don't like the changes we want to make, and so someone has to lose out. That means they have to be suppressed, and that necessarily means a hierarchy.


The lightest resistance? They managed to build an anarchist society while fighting a civil war, that’s hardly light resistance.
Salas, whom agitated the CNT for months prior to break the united anti-fascist front that had been established, broke into the telephone building with a 200 hundred strong police force and the workers refused to work under police presence. You making the May day situation far far to over simplistic. Here’s a conclusive account of prior and during May day if you care to learn, The Tragic Week in May (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/souchy_may.html) by Augustin Souchy.

No, I said that the Republicans provided light resistance, and the anarchists couldn't hold up to it, which is true. That's the point.


Vice versa

Not when Marxists look to the examples of potent and successful revolutions. The Bolshevik model established and defended socialism, whereas anarchists have done nothing of the sort.


They were both States and essentially acted in the same way- monopoly over violence, legitimating their own right to violence from a centralised hierarchical position.

They acted in THAT way, but they didn't act in the same way. To say as much is to be willfully ignorant of all the conditions they operated under. Having a state defend private property and having a state abolish private property are two very different things.


NO IT DOES NOT PROVE THE FAILURE OF COMMUNUES! The Soviet Union was an absolute humanitarian disaster, therefore going by your logic it is always doomed, which it is.

The Soviet Union improved every measure of standard of living for its citizens and maintained it for six decades against all odds. The Soviet Union was consistently progressive, even in its darkest days, and fought against fascism and imperialism when no one else was willing to. The Soviet Union liberated the working class from capitalist exploitation.

If you want to call that a disaster, so be it, but I guess to romaticists like yourself, nothing's changed between Tsar Peter to Kerensky to Lenin to Stalin to Putin...they all ran states! They're all the same! That is your central fallacy.


Over simplication? Not at all, you merely underestimated the motivation towards well-being that humans have. How is people freely associating to further their cause oversimplified? It is not and is actually a evident realisation of how humans associate without coercion.

What I mean is your wanton and nebulous use of terms like "their cause" and "well-being". Those are completely subjective and useless terms (at least in that context). The above is nothing but oversimplification.

Revolution isn't people just "freely associating", it's establishing the control of society by the majority. To assign it flowery words is sentimentalist at best. Furthermore, so-called "free association", in practice, has been shown to be impractical and unsuccessful.


So therefore a some grouping of intellectuals have the right to play with others lives, as it is a ‘emergency’? You may fault the CNT-FAI, however their organisation of the free communes involved those from conflicting groups and never dissolved the democratic organs of the organisation.

They're not a group of intellectuals, they're the vanguard of the workers, the leaders of the revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks had the support of the Soviets, which shows they were truly the vanguard. And the Bolsheviks saved lives through their decisive action. The anarchists wasted lives and saw their entire project fall apart before their very eyes.


How would it change the context? Lenin specifically speaks of Bolshevik rule in the interests of the poor, that doesn’t pose any from of democracy.

It depends on what he's responding to, but fair enough: Lenin and the Bolsheviks did rule in the interests of the poor, and acted in those interests, because their interests were exactly the same.


So if the workers supported them then why did they need to govern in their interest? An arrogant task to take upon oneself.

Because the Soviets elected him to govern in their interests. Simple.


What? The class started the revolution, not the Bolsheviks. Yes, the Bolsheviks where the largest working class party at the time, but they did not instigate it, as it also took them by surprise with various heads of the party infact being aboard during the ignition of the revolution.

The Bolsheviks were the politically advanced section of the working class, so you're right, "the class" did start the revolution.


How where they bandits? You still haven’t answered this? In each settlement taken by the Makhnovists they set up the democratic organs to maintain society equally. This by no means are the actions of bandits.

They comitted pogroms, for one.


What a stupid thing to say. No, not all Jews supported the Reds, as I have already shown a vast amount of Jews were in the Makhnovists forces. Also Jewish anarchists such as Berkman and Goldman supported Makhno.

I didn't say all, I said that in general terms, which is historically accurate.

Goldman was about as Jewish as (insert joke here). Please, she was motivated by political sympathy, not by religious kinship or anything like that. To think of Goldman as concerned with Judaism! That's rich.


And the Historian Christopher Reed states- "Makhno actively opposed anti-Semitism . . . Not surprisingly, many Jews held prominent positions in the Insurgent movement and Jewish farmers and villagers staunchly supported Makhno in the face of the unrestrained anti-Semitism of Ukrainian nationalists like Grigoriev and of the Great Russian chauvinists like the Whites”.
Arthur E. Adams in his book ‘Bolsheviks in the Ukraine- "Makhno protected Jews and in fact had many serving on his own staff”.

The only things I can find on this Christopher Reed is from (you guessed it) anarchist sources, while unfortunately I don't have access to Adams' JSTOR articles. However, that quote is terribly selective. Why? One can count Jewish people among friends and still be against the Jewish community, this held especially true in this case. Makhno had followers who were Jewish, but that acceptance of support does not equal an acceptance of the Ukrainian Jewish communities, who were seen as isolationist and usurious. The two are most definitely not the same, and for that reason I didn't doubt Jews in the Makhnovist ranks. So no, I don't think that cuts it in the matter of pogroms.

Oh, and before I forget, you still haven't dealt with Gitelman's findings, which indicate that the Makhnovist cossacks were very anti-Semitic and went about it in a very violent way. I doubt you will, because I suspect you can't.

[nuisance]

It's insufficient because I have no way of confirming whether or not M Tcherikover is in any way a reliable source. You certainly did not, because your links did very little in this regard (as if Makhno's words, ten years after the fact, changed his actions). Zvi Gitelman, on the other hand, is very reliable, very valid and something you haven't been able to account for.

I have also posted other quotes from other sources. You speak of Makhnos words been unreliable, well what about the ones I have posted that where taken from the time these supposed pogroms lead by the Makhnovists took place? Also I have gain an account of leading figures in the Makhnovists organisation whom were actually Jews themselves.




But here is the heart of the matter. They are both states, but what interests did they serve? What objectives did they have? They were different, were they not? Since their interests and objectives WERE vastly different and since they gave rise to completely different morals and ideas and social structures, we can see that the class which dominates the state gives that state its character. The French bourgeoisie's state differed drastically from that of the Bourbons. So, a proletarian state, as history has shown, will differ drastically from that of the capitalists, in that it will serve the interests of the workers.

As I've said, the anarchist view of history is hopelessly simplistic in that it sees no difference between Bourbon and Jacobin.


No anarchists don’t say that the state doesn’t change, so you are trying to prove a non-point wrong. Quotes from the Conquest of Bread- "[e]very economic phase has a political phase corresponding to it, and it would be impossible to touch private property unless a new mode of political life be found at the same time." "A society founded on serfdom," Kropotkin explained, "is in keeping with absolute monarchy; a society based on the wage system, and the exploitation of the masses by the capitalists finds it political expression in parliamentarianism." As such, the state form changes and evolves, but its basic function (defender of minority rule) and structure (delegated power into the hands of a few) remains. Which means that "a free society regaining possession of the common inheritance must seek, in free groups and free federations of groups, a new organisation, in harmony with the new economic phase of history."
A state is only necessary when the minority want to consolidate their power above the majority of society. Whereas as an anarchist I believe that the working class can produce their own structures from the bottom upwards.


And what did those same occupations come to? Without a disciplined, organized vanguard of the workers, revolutions have very little chance against imperialism. That is why Marxism-Leninism has been at the forefront of successful revolutions in many different situations.
What successful revolutions?

All wars are won by discipline. Class war is no different. See my above comment on the Bolsheviks' ability to withstand infiltration for a specific example.

The Catalunyan collectives fell after the lightest resistance and proved inefficient at best, while the Makhnovists were a (reactionary) cossack host. Those examples are neither revolutionary nor worthwhile.


This really isn’t worthwhile refuting. Please stop citing the Makhnovists as a ’Cossack host’ as that is really a laughable notion, as well as been false. The Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution perfectly portrays why the State needs to be abolished immediately.


The May Days didn't happen for no reason, they happened because the anarchists were hot-and-cold on supporting the Republic. The Republican forces had enough of the anarchists' pensiveness and acted. That is why what happened happened, and that is why the communes fell so quickly.

This a complete distortion of the facts. The seizure of the telephone station wasn’t a popular move, as shown in a link I provided earlier.


Just about every Russian I've talked to who lived during the USSR said life is far more difficult now. I think the statistics on homelessness, unemployment, alchoholism, the collapse of all public services, the cost of living and other factors are evidence of this conclusion.
I don’t think you can compare the two. Both are neither anything to aspire to.

The anarchist militias performed so poorly because they were MILITIAS. The term itself never bodes well in any conflict, to say nothing of how they were actually organized. Your attempt to blame the incompetence of the anarchists on the communists is patently laughable, the communists had no part in training or organizing them.
Well the anarchist militias made great gains in the revolution with militias, but I have no doubt that you will attempt to refute that. It wasn’t the organization of the militias that failed, but insufficient arms. As Franco was supported by the Italian fascists and Nazi Germany this hardly surprising.


Having workplaces run "brilliantly according to anarchist principles" is about as subjective as you get. In fact, I'd be inclined to agree, they ran according to anarchist principles because they fell so quickly.

On the contrary, it is amazing that the revolution lasted so long with Franco funded by powers such as Italy and Germany while the others by Russia. The odds were vastly stacked against the anarchist because of international relations.


The anarchists weren't even fully cooperating with the Republic, why should they be given arms when the Republicans needed everything they could get? The failure to take Huesca and Zaragoza was certainly not the fault of the Republicans, and I suspect the writer was quite bitter about something because that's an incoherent position.

Erm they formed a government with the Republic and other groups based on an anti-fascist front, of which they were the ‘ministers of state’. It is this that opened the doors to defeat for the revolution, coming to the May day that you speak of. The republicans had more than enough weapons coming in and even restorted to stockpiling them. Again you disregard credible quotes!


The only thing you've proven is the anarchists' favorite "historian" has practically no documented credibility, whereas Zvi Gitelman (a scholar I basically chose at random, as the book happened to be lying around my room that day) does. Zvi Gitelman, for his part, is quite clear on the anti-Semitic actions of the Makhnovist cossacks, as I've shown.
Multiple historian and personal accounts, aswell as reports by Makhno himself and by Jewish comrades present at the time.


They were as revolutionary as the Zaparozhian Host (read: they weren't). The Soviets supported the Bolsheviks in 1917 and kept up that support throughout the Civil War. Makhno, on the other hand, rode around with his followers in the power vacuum that was Ukraine before he was finally finished off by the Reds. That's about all he accomplished, probably because that's mostly what he set out to do.

Is that why the Reds requested the assistance of Makhno in 1917 and Lenin, upon meeting Makhno, in 1917, described him as “a man with a grasp of realities and the necessities of our age”.
“Beginning with only a handful of men, Makhno built a powerful army that resisted the German invaders who entered the Ukraine after Trotsky signed a peace agreement with Germany. Makhno’s twenty-five thousand man army was the only force fighting for the Russian revolution in the region from then until the Germans’ defeat in November 1918. After the German invaders were crushed, the Bolsheviks sent the Red army into the Ukraine and feigned a deal with Makhno agreeing to respect the anti-authoritarian structure of the soviets in the area. However, neither Trotsky nor Lenin would tolerate this anarchist experiment, especially when its successes sharply accentuated the arbitrariness and despotism of Bolshevik rule in Russia.”- Durruti: The Spanish Revolution by Abel Paz.

[nuisance]

The fight is for a better society for us, not for them. They don't like the changes we want to make, and so someone has to lose out. That means they have to be suppressed, and that necessarily means a hierarchy.
I disagree.


No, I said that the Republicans provided light resistance, and the anarchists couldn't hold up to it, which is true. That's the point.
It wasn’t though, was it. The pressure the anarchists faced was anything but light. How can you honestly think such a thing!?


Not when Marxists look to the examples of potent and successful revolutions. The Bolshevik model established and defended socialism, whereas anarchists have done nothing of the sort.
The Soviet Union is far from what I would classify as socialism.


They acted in THAT way, but they didn't act in the same way. To say as much is to be willfully ignorant of all the conditions they operated under. Having a state defend private property and having a state abolish private property are two very different things.
Who said that states act in the same way?


If you want to call that a disaster, so be it, but I guess to romaticists like yourself, nothing's changed between Tsar Peter to Kerensky to Lenin to Stalin to Putin...they all ran states! They're all the same! That is your central fallacy.
Wait ago at missing the whole description of the state. No one said that they all act the same.



What I mean is your wanton and nebulous use of terms like "their cause" and "well-being". Those are completely subjective and useless terms (at least in that context). The above is nothing but oversimplification.

That’s rich coming from a person whose whole ideology is based upon not what the State is but what it could be. You seem to not beable to differentiate between a state and popular organisation. A state is not popular organisation and it can’t be as it is maintained to secure the places of the minority, as shown by the Soviet Union.

Revolution isn't people just "freely associating", it's establishing the control of society by the majority. To assign it flowery words is sentimentalist at best. Furthermore, so-called "free association", in practice, has been shown to be impractical and unsuccessful.
Who said it was people freely associating? Because I didn’t.
Free association impractical? Afraid not.


They're not a group of intellectuals, they're the vanguard of the workers, the leaders of the revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks had the support of the Soviets, which shows they were truly the vanguard. And the Bolsheviks saved lives through their decisive action. The anarchists wasted lives and saw their entire project fall apart before their very eyes.

Not true, the Bolsheviks seized power. They were the self-appointed revolutionary organisation whom controlled the State and the party, therefore exercising the State in their own interests, not that of the class. Also the Soviets were forced to give their power to the central government as illustrated previously.
The anarchists fell due to the USSR destroying all competition due to their own insecurity.


It depends on what he's responding to, but fair enough: Lenin and the Bolsheviks did rule in the interests of the poor, and acted in those interests, because their interests were exactly the same.
I would disagree.


Because the Soviets elected him to govern in their interests. Simple.
There was no choice given to the Soviets to free.


The Bolsheviks were the politically advanced section of the working class, so you're right, "the class" did start the revolution.
The Bolsheviks didn’t commit the revolution.


They comitted pogroms, for one.



Bolshevik slander.

Goldman was about as Jewish as (insert joke here). Please, she was motivated by political sympathy, not by religious kinship or anything like that. To think of Goldman as concerned with Judaism! That's rich.
Oh so you can only try and refute one of the numerous Jewish Makhnovists, what a surprise.


The only things I can find on this Christopher Reed is from (you guessed it) anarchist sources, while unfortunately I don't have access to Adams' JSTOR articles. However, that quote is terribly selective. Why? One can count Jewish people among friends and still be against the Jewish community, this held especially true in this case. Makhno had followers who were Jewish, but that acceptance of support does not equal an acceptance of the Ukrainian Jewish communities, who were seen as isolationist and usurious. The two are most definitely not the same, and for that reason I didn't doubt Jews in the Makhnovist ranks. So no, I don't think that cuts it in the matter of pogroms.
Well then, as there was a lot of Jews in the Makhnovists, you think that they would willingly stand by and watch other Jews be persecuted and then after deny it? Ridiculous.

Oh, and before I forget, you still haven't dealt with Gitelman's findings, which indicate that the Makhnovist cossacks were very anti-Semitic and went about it in a very violent way. I doubt you will, because I suspect you can't.
I have dealt with it, whether you agree or not, sufficient evidence has been given as it is evident that your mind has already been made up.

[manic expression]

I have also posted other quotes from other sources. You speak of Makhnos words been unreliable, well what about the ones I have posted that where taken from the time these supposed pogroms lead by the Makhnovists took place? Also I have gain an account of leading figures in the Makhnovists organisation whom were actually Jews themselves.

And I dealt with the holes in your other sources, as well. I addressed your last concern before, as it is basically irrelevant to whether or not the Makhnovist cossacks engaged in pogroms.


No anarchists don’t say that the state doesn’t change, so you are trying to prove a non-point wrong. Quotes from the Conquest of Bread-
"[e]very economic phase has a political phase corresponding to it, and it would be impossible to touch private property unless a new mode of political life be found at the same time." "A society founded on serfdom," Kropotkin explained, "is in keeping with absolute monarchy; a society based on the wage system, and the exploitation of the masses by the capitalists finds it political expression in parliamentarianism." As such, the state form changes and evolves, but its basic function (defender of minority rule) and structure (delegated power into the hands of a few) remains. Which means that "a free society regaining possession of the common inheritance must seek, in free groups and free federations of groups, a new organisation, in harmony with the new economic phase of history."
A state is only necessary when the minority want to consolidate their power above the majority of society. Whereas as an anarchist I believe that the working class can produce their own structures from the bottom upwards.

Now you're backtracking. Your entire position on this issue has been that states act "essentially" in the same way. Kropotkin is saying the same thing you are, only with nicer words. The real point is that the state, while acting in a similar manner, adapts to each ruling class' interests and goals. Why, then, would you believe it different for the working class? There is no reason to think this, for a state is the product of any sort of class conflict, not just that of the minority oppressing a majority.


What successful revolutions?
Russia, Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, etc. There were problems with some for different reasons, but they did successfully overturn capitalist rule and establish socialist relations. That is quite an achievement and more than any other movement can say for itself.


This really isn’t worthwhile refuting. Please stop citing the Makhnovists as a ’Cossack host’ as that is really a laughable notion, as well as been false. The Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution perfectly portrays why the State needs to be abolished immediately.
And why weren't the Makhnovists acting practically like cossacks? I call them a cossack host because they behaved in much the same way, and had about as much revolutionary potential.


This a complete distortion of the facts. The seizure of the telephone station wasn’t a popular move, as shown in a link I provided earlier.
It wasn't popular for the anarchists working there, that's for sure, which is what made it so important after all. However, the Republican government was in support of that move, and that government had the support of the Spanish workers.


I don’t think you can compare the two. Both are neither anything to aspire to.Yes, you really can, and most of the people who did compare their experiences prefer the socialist one, in spite of its problems. The USSR was a progressive society which opposed imperialism and maintained socialist relations. Interestingly enough, workers around the world have continued to aspire to that very model.


Well the anarchist militias made great gains in the revolution with militias, but I have no doubt that you will attempt to refute that. It wasn’t the organization of the militias that failed, but insufficient arms. As Franco was supported by the Italian fascists and Nazi Germany this hardly surprising.
What gains? The gain of wasting lives and material through lack of discipline? I've read many accounts of the Spanish Civil War, and the most glaringly obvious fact about the anarchist militias was their complete disorganization and inability to constitute a potent fighting force. You need discipline to win all wars, class war or otherwise.

Franco was supplied by Mussolini and Hitler, but that is no excuse for the abysmal performance of the anarchist militias.


On the contrary, it is amazing that the revolution lasted so long with Franco funded by powers such as Italy and Germany while the others by Russia. The odds were vastly stacked against the anarchist because of international relations.
The anarchist communes you mean? That "revolution" lasted until the May Days when it was essentially neutralized. Franco's fascists were still sitting in Zaragoza at that point IIRC, they had nothing to do with the fall of the communes. Secondly, the weakness of the anarchists was the fault of anarchist theory, which spurned efficiency and state power.


Erm they formed a government with the Republic and other groups based on an anti-fascist front, of which they were the ‘ministers of state’. It is this that opened the doors to defeat for the revolution, coming to the May day that you speak of. The republicans had more than enough weapons coming in and even restorted to stockpiling them. Again you disregard credible quotes!
The anarchist support of the Republican government was far from consistent and never reliable, that's why there was so much friction between the two camps.

The Republicans did run very short on ammunition during the war, and so I think it's ridiculous to claim they were swimming in war material. Gerald Howson talks a lot about the weapon shortages on the Republican side in "Arms for Spain".


Multiple historian and personal accounts, aswell as reports by Makhno himself and by Jewish comrades present at the time.
Like...?


Is that why the Reds requested the assistance of Makhno in 1917 and Lenin, upon meeting Makhno, in 1917, described him as “a man with a grasp of realities and the necessities of our age”.Those realities, we can assume, meant not being a White, which is in itself something to recognize. However, the Reds later did just about everything to wipe the Makhnovists off the map, precisely because they had no place in a socialist (or modern) society.


“Beginning with only a handful of men, Makhno built a powerful army that resisted the German invaders who entered the Ukraine after Trotsky signed a peace agreement with Germany. Makhno’s twenty-five thousand man army was the only force fighting for the Russian revolution in the region from then until the Germans’ defeat in November 1918. After the German invaders were crushed, the Bolsheviks sent the Red army into the Ukraine and feigned a deal with Makhno agreeing to respect the anti-authoritarian structure of the soviets in the area. However, neither Trotsky nor Lenin would tolerate this anarchist experiment, especially when its successes sharply accentuated the arbitrariness and despotism of Bolshevik rule in Russia.”- Durruti: The Spanish Revolution by Abel Paz.
This sort of stuff is really mind-boggling. The Germans left the Eastern Front because they got the peace they wanted and had no more reason to be there - there were much bigger fish to fry in the west. To think that Makhno had any chance of fighting off the Germans when they were already threatening Petrograd itself is baseless. Next, the Makhnovists weren't fighting for the Russian Revolution, they were fighting for their cossack-like independence in a power vacuum. Once the Reds fought off the Whites, they dealt with the Makhnovists as they should have. That's what consolidated Soviet power in the Ukraine.

Oh, and the line, "[The Makhnovists'] successes sharply accentuated the arbitrariness and despotism of Bolshevik rule in Russia." exposes that source as completely biased and irreputable. You might as well ask yourself what you thought of Makhno and call it "historical", just 'cause you put it in quotes. Truly ridiculous that you would use this and expect me to think of it as even remotely valid.

[manic expression]

I disagree.

If you disagree with that, then you don't support the overthrow of the capitalist ruling class. If we win, they lose; if they win, we lose. How can any revolutionary NOT agree with that?


It wasn’t though, was it. The pressure the anarchists faced was anything but light. How can you honestly think such a thing!?

The May Days did not constitute a serious offensive by any stretch of the imagination, it was a relatively small effort.


The Soviet Union is far from what I would classify as socialism.

Socialism is working class state power and all the changes that come with it. You don't fight for the former, so why would you defend the latter?


Who said that states act in the same way?

You did, on the subject of Bourbon vs. Jacobin:

They were both States and essentially acted in the same way- monopoly over violence, legitimating their own right to violence from a centralised hierarchical position.



That’s rich coming from a person whose whole ideology is based upon not what the State is but what it could be. You seem to not beable to differentiate between a state and popular organisation. A state is not popular organisation and it can’t be as it is maintained to secure the places of the minority, as shown by the Soviet Union.

No, Marxism is based on the class dynamics of society. Change the ruling class, change the state. It's the most basic of historical laws.

As Engels said, anarchists think they can change the nature of something by changing the terms! A "popular organization" that suppresses the bourgeoisie is nothing but a state under different words.

Furthermore, the Soviet Union became dominated by bureaucrats not because it was a state, but because the revolution was isolated, because Russian industry was completely destroyed and because the working class had been depleted. The Stalinist takeover in 1928 was never inevitable, but it was attributable to many problems with the USSR that were surely not the doing of Marxism or Leninism or the Bolsheviks.

On the other hand, Cuba is not dominated by bureaucrats because it was able to sustain worker democracy. Simple as that.


Who said it was people freely associating? Because I didn’t.
Free association impractical? Afraid not.

What else do you mean by: ...people freely associating to further their cause?

Anyway, it is impractical because it expects capitalism to disappear without ensuring its suppression. You cannot suppress a former ruling class without a state, for a state's whole purpose is just that.


Not true, the Bolsheviks seized power. They were the self-appointed revolutionary organisation whom controlled the State and the party, therefore exercising the State in their own interests, not that of the class. Also the Soviets were forced to give their power to the central government as illustrated previously. The anarchists fell due to the USSR destroying all competition due to their own insecurity.

The Bolsheviks smashed the capitalist Kerensky-led government, and Lenin was duly elected by the Congress of the Soviets. So no, it wasn't a coup, it was a revolution.

The Congress of the Soviets was the entire basis of the Soviet system, it WAS the central government; barring the Civil War, it was in practice until the late 1920's, and that exception was made because, well, you need to win the war.

And the anarchists fell because they had no support within the workers, none at all.


I would disagree.

Why?


There was no choice given to the Soviets to free.

What? Lenin actually didn't win by that much, IIRC. The Bolsheviks were, at that point, part of a coalition government with the Left SRs.


The Bolsheviks didn’t commit the revolution.

Yes, they did, they siezed the Winter Palace, absolved the capitalist government and turned all power to the Soviets. All this was with the full support of the workers.


Bolshevik slander.

Tell that to Zvi Gitelman!


Oh so you can only try and refute one of the numerous Jewish Makhnovists, what a surprise.

What Jewish Makhnovists have you posted? At any rate, you haven't refuted a reputable scholar in Eastern European Jewish history, which tells us a lot.


Well then, as there was a lot of Jews in the Makhnovists, you think that they would willingly stand by and watch other Jews be persecuted and then after deny it? Ridiculous.

I wouldn't say "a lot" until you can get a source for that. And is it so reasonable to think that Jews in the Makhnovists wouldn't be too sympathetic to something they had no choice over? I was baptized in a protestant church, does that mean I feel sympathy towards Christians having their Bibles taken away in China? Of course not, it's like expecting Emma Goldman to have some inner love toward Judaism.


I have dealt with it, whether you agree or not, sufficient evidence has been given as it is evident that your mind has already been made up.


You haven't given any evidence from anything I can verify, just the usual anarchist half-truths. I've posted a reputable scholar on the subject, and you've posted...stuff from infoshop, mostly by "historians" I can't find a single qualification from. That's evidence in and of itself.

[nuisance]

And I dealt with the holes in your other sources, as well. I addressed your last concern before, as it is basically irrelevant to whether or not the Makhnovist cossacks engaged in pogroms.
No you have not poked holes in my quotes, you merely chose not to accept the facts given, which I can't say it is surprising.

Now you're backtracking. Your entire position on this issue has been that states act "essentially" in the same way. Kropotkin is saying the same thing you are, only with nicer words. The real point is that the state, while acting in a similar manner, adapts to each ruling class' interests and goals. Why, then, would you believe it different for the working class? There is no reason to think this, for a state is the product of any sort of class conflict, not just that of the minority oppressing a majority.
No I'm not backtracking as the only point I have maintained is that they consist of three pivitol points.
Your conception truly transcends the historical role of the State. As from history we can see that it has always operated in a way that the minority surpresses the majority, yet you argue that it can do the opposite and pave the way to a communist society.

Russia, Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, etc. There were problems with some for different reasons, but they did successfully overturn capitalist rule and establish socialist relations. That is quite an achievement and more than any other movement can say for itself.
And how are these going now? Did they make it to a communist society as is believed? No.

And why weren't the Makhnovists acting practically like cossacks? I call them a cossack host because they behaved in much the same way, and had about as much revolutionary potential.
They organised interlinking free soviets after ridding the gentry of their property through collectivisation. That is revolutionary.

It wasn't popular for the anarchists working there, that's for sure, which is what made it so important after all. However, the Republican government was in support of that move, and that government had the support of the Spanish workers.
Here it might to be important to add the CNT was part of this government. In fact, as I stated before, being the Minister of State. So what you claim doesn't make to much sense.

What gains? The gain of wasting lives and material through lack of discipline? I've read many accounts of the Spanish Civil War, and the most glaringly obvious fact about the anarchist militias was their complete disorganization and inability to constitute a potent fighting force. You need discipline to win all wars, class war or otherwise.
From reading Soviet propaganda I bet. No the running of the workplaces and establishment of the anarchist communes was a great feat, particularly against all the odds they were facing.

Franco was supplied by Mussolini and Hitler, but that is no excuse for the abysmal performance of the anarchist militias.
So two powerful countries aiding Franco, whom already had 2/3 of the Spanish army was going to be an easy fight against workers, many of whom had no prior military experience, that were then outlawed by the Soviets and were thus stripped of their arms by them.

The anarchist communes you mean? That "revolution" lasted until the May Days when it was essentially neutralized. Franco's fascists were still sitting in Zaragoza at that point IIRC, they had nothing to do with the fall of the communes. Secondly, the weakness of the anarchists was the fault of anarchist theory, which spurned efficiency and state power.
The CNT only joined forces with the state because if they did not do otherwise they would have been immediately fighting the republicans as well as Franco, therefore they deducted that this would only aid Franco’s coup and joined the state to create the anti-fascist front, and to leave administrating libertarian communism until after Franco had been defeated. Nothing in anarchist theory speaks of this, nor described the conditions that took place leading to this decision as meaning this as the answer. The CNT-FAI’s decision to collaborate with the State says nothing about anarchist theory. In fact this is the very opposite to anarchist theory, and is the reason why the anarchists were, and are, very split on whether this was the right thing to do. Fact is that the CNT-FAI took the decision to fight the war before starting the revolution and thus infact strayed from anarchist theory as the most militant anarchists were fighting on the frontline. Yes they made mistakes, but that had nothing to do with anarchist theory. In fact Kropotkin fiercely attacked the CNTs official decision, Kropotkin- "Make sure of victory! As if there were any way of transforming society into a free commune without laying hands upon property! As if there were any way of defeating the enemy so long as the great mass of the people is not directly interested in the triumph of the revolution, in witnessing the arrival it of material, moral and intellectual well-being for all! They sought to consolidate the Commune first of all while postponing the social revolution for later on, while the only effective way of proceeding was to consolidate the Commune by the social revolution!”
Infact, the theory of Kropotkin and Bakunin both proved true as the collaboration with the State proved to be the end of the CNT-FAI, thus meaning anarchist theory was proved right. The only thing it proved is that anarchists, like everyone else, can make rash decisions in hard circumstances, not anything wrong with theory, as it weren’t followed to a T.
“Contention that there is something wrong with Anarchism . . . because the leading comrades in Spain failed Anarchism seems to be very faulty reasoning . . . the failure of one or several individuals can never take away from the depth and truth of an ideal."- Emma Goldman.




The anarchist support of the Republican government was far from consistent and never reliable, that's why there was so much friction between the two camps.
The anarchists were part of the government formed.

The Republicans did run very short on ammunition during the war, and so I think it's ridiculous to claim they were swimming in war material. Gerald Howson talks a lot about the weapon
shortages on the Republican side in "Arms for Spain".
I'll have to browse that. However the non-supply and seizure of anarchist weapons by the Soviet Union also didn't help the anti-fascist struggle in Spain, let alone that of the anarchists.

Like...?
Arshinov, Makhno, Reed, Voilne and so on.

Those realities, we can assume, meant not being a White, which is in itself something to recognize. However, the Reds later did just about everything to wipe the Makhnovists off the map, precisely because they had no place in a socialist (or modern) society
No it is because Lenin was a megalomaniac, as is evidently the case in his choice to do much the oppose of what he proposed in 'the state and revolution'.

This sort of stuff is really mind-boggling. The Germans left the Eastern Front because they got the peace they wanted and had no more reason to be there - there were much bigger fish to fry in the west. To think that Makhno had any chance of fighting off the Germans when they were already threatening Petrograd itself is baseless. Next, the Makhnovists weren't fighting for the Russian Revolution, they were fighting for their cossack-like independence in a power vacuum. Once the Reds fought off the Whites, they dealt with the Makhnovists as they should have. That's what consolidated Soviet power in the Ukraine.
I'm more inclined to believe what I have read and cross examined from various sources thanks.

Oh, and the line, "[The Makhnovists'] successes sharply accentuated the arbitrariness and despotism of Bolshevik rule in Russia." exposes that source as completely biased and irreputable. You might as well ask yourself what you thought of Makhno and call it "historical", just 'cause you put it in quotes. Truly ridiculous that you would use this and expect me to think of it as even remotely valid.
Well that is the way anarchists view the Soviet Union, so is it any surprise that it is stated as such here?

[nuisance]

If you disagree with that, then you don't support the overthrow of the capitalist ruling class. If we win, they lose; if they win, we lose. How can any revolutionary NOT agree with that?
We both know that this not true. It is not my fault that you can’t get out of the blinkered bourgeois mentality that there is only two ways of thinking about things of this nature.


The May Days did not constitute a serious offensive by any stretch of the imagination, it was a relatively small effort.

Your obession with the May days still continues after link to an actual account of the events which doesn’t prove what you say.


Socialism is working class state power and all the changes that come with it. You don't fight for the former, so why would you defend the latter?
No, that is the State socialist perception of the State, which, unfortunately for you, has not monopolised the meaning of socialism.
“SOCIALISM: a social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods.”


You did, on the subject of Bourbon vs. Jacobin:

They were both States and essentially acted in the same way- monopoly over violence, legitimating their own right to violence from a centralised hierarchical position.

“monopoly over violence, legitimating their own right to violence from a centralised hierarchical position.”
They did act in that way, which is the same. I did say that the actions talk because of those three points were the same.


No, Marxism is based on the class dynamics of society. Change the ruling class, change the state. It's the most basic of historical laws.
Historical laws show that it has always served the minority to oppress the majority, that is the historical basis of the state. The very structure of the State shows us that it is there to defend the minority, as when the Bolsheviks lost the election shortly after seizing the State with the SR’s gaining 38% to the Bolsheviks 24%.



As Engels said, anarchists think they can change the nature of something by changing the terms! A "popular organization" that suppresses the bourgeoisie is nothing but a state under different words.
No, popular organisation doesn’t need hierarchal centralisation or a monopoly over violence, therefore it does not constitute a State because it doesn’t have the structure that is a State.


Furthermore, the Soviet Union became dominated by bureaucrats not because it was a state, but because the revolution was isolated, because Russian industry was completely destroyed and because the working class had been depleted. The Stalinist takeover in 1928 was never inevitable, but it was attributable to many problems with the USSR that were surely not the doing of Marxism or Leninism or the Bolsheviks.

Yet you accuse the failings of the CNT-FAI being rooted in anarchist theory when what they did had nothing to do with theory and was the exact opposite?
The bureaucracy started a lot further on than that with the initial centralising of State power from the Soviets, which has already been touched on. This is the fault of a State because this is how it is designed, to do exactly that.


On the other hand, Cuba is not dominated by bureaucrats because it was able to sustain worker democracy. Simple as that.

Insinuating that Cuba is a workers’ paradise is laughable, especially as it increasingly seeps back into capitalism. However if you want to discuss this I suggest making a thread for it.


What else do you mean by: ...people freely associating to further their cause?

This is the organisation that will naturally arise from the revolution.



Anyway, it is impractical because it expects capitalism to disappear without ensuring its suppression. You cannot suppress a former ruling class without a state, for a state's whole purpose is just that.
You can through expropriation and reorganising society along egalitarian lines. A state is not needed if the workers expel and fight the bourgeoisie in their localities and nationally and internationally. Yes, communication will be needed through the supression, but a State is not needed so that a party claiming to express the will of workers can act out their will through the State. The only way to secure the will of workers is if they organise themselves.


The Bolsheviks smashed the capitalist Kerensky-led government, and Lenin was duly elected by the Congress of the Soviets. So no, it wasn't a coup, it was a revolution.
After seizing the state for the interests of their party. You also disregard the election that the Bolsheviks were forced to have, in which they lost.



The Congress of the Soviets was the entire basis of the Soviet system, it WAS the central government; barring the Civil War, it was in practice until the late 1920's, and that exception was made because, well, you need to win the war.

You must love representative democracy then. Judging by their eradication of all political opponents, it is of no surprise that the vat majority of the members were Bolsheviks.



And the anarchists fell because they had no support within the workers, none at all.

If they had no support then why did they have to be suppressed have their publications illegalised? Your assertion is terribly naïve, aswell has completely disregard the entire social revolution happening in the Ukraine at the time.


What? Lenin actually didn't win by that much, IIRC. The Bolsheviks were, at that point, part of a coalition government with the Left SRs.

You prove my point. In voting for a government, the soviets ceased to be free.


Yes, they did, they siezed the Winter Palace, absolved the capitalist government and turned all power to the Soviets. All this was with the full support of the workers.
No that is when the Bolsheviks declared the revolution.
“The revolution found us, the party members fast asleep….there were no authoritative leaders on the spot in any of the parties”- Sergei Mstislavsky, one of the SR leaders, whom also gained the highest percentage of votes from the election after the Bolsheviks seized the State.


Tell that to Zvi Gitelman!
Happily.


What Jewish Makhnovists have you posted? At any rate, you haven't refuted a reputable scholar in Eastern European Jewish history, which tells us a lot.

Have you not read any of what I have been posting!? Arshinov is the mot influential after writing extensively on the Makhnovist movement.
Also what I have already posted/linked to:
"Kogan -- vice-president of the central organ of the movement, the Regional Revolutionary Military Council of Hulyai Pole. Kogan was a worker who, for reasons of principle, had left his factory well before the revolution of 1917, and had gone to do agricultural work in a poor Jewish agricultural colony. Wounded at the battle of Peregonovka, near Uman, against the Denikinists, he was seized by them at the hospital at Uman where he was being treated, and, according to witnesses, the Denikinists killed him with sabres.
"L. Zin'kovsky (Zadov) -- head of the army's counter espionage section, and later commander of a special cavalry regiment. A worker who before the 1917 revolution was condemned to ten years of forced labour for political activities. One of the most active militants of the revolutionary insurrection.
"Elena Keller -- secretary of the army's cultural and educational section. A worker who took part in the syndicalist movement in America. One of the organisers of the 'Nabat' Confederation.
"Iosif Emigrant (Gotman) -- Member of the army's cultural and educational section. A worker who took an active part in the Ukrainian anarchist movement. One of the organisers of the 'Nabat' Confederation, and later a member of its secretariat.
"Ya. Alyi (Sukhovol'sky) -- worker, and member of the army's cultural and educational section. In the Tsarist period he was condemned to forced labor for political activity. One of the organisers of the 'Nabat' Confederation and a member of its secretariat.
"We could add many more names to the long list of Jewish revolutionaries who took part in different areas of the Makhnovist movement, but we will not do this, because it would endanger their security.


I wouldn't say "a lot" until you can get a source for that. And is it so reasonable to think that Jews in the Makhnovists wouldn't be too sympathetic to something they had no choice over? I was baptized in a protestant church, does that mean I feel sympathy towards Christians having their Bibles taken away in China? Of course not, it's like expecting Emma Goldman to have some inner love toward Judaism.
I have provided evidence and sources, it is not my fault that you are to lazy to read it.


You haven't given any evidence from anything I can verify, just the usual anarchist half-truths. I've posted a reputable scholar on the subject, and you've posted...stuff from infoshop, mostly by "historians" I can't find a single qualification from. That's evidence in and of itself.
Infoshop only hosts the document I quoted from.
Here’s more (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/russia/makhno_antisem.html).

[manic expression]

No you have not poked holes in my quotes, you merely chose not to accept the facts given, which I can't say it is surprising.

Well, that's kind of true, because I didn't have to poke holes in anything, they're far from reliable.


No I'm not backtracking as the only point I have maintained is that they consist of three pivitol points.

Your conception truly transcends the historical role of the State. As from history we can see that it has always operated in a way that the minority surpresses the majority, yet you argue that it can do the opposite and pave the way to a communist society.

First, you have tried to do so, since your most recent arguments directly contradict your previous ones. More to the point, the state has always changed its character and interests depending upon what class controls that state. Why, then, would this be any different for the workers? Until you answer that, you are dodging the point.


And how are these going now? Did they make it to a communist society as is believed? No.

No, they didn't, but they created a socialist society on multiple occasions, which is more progress than the anarchists have ever gotten close to doing. The Marxist-Leninist model has proven more successful.


They organised interlinking free soviets after ridding the gentry of their property through collectivisation. That is revolutionary.

Romanticized nonsense. The Makhnovists had no place in an industrialized, modern, forward-looking economy (and they had no support among the urban working class), they only had a place in the Ukrainian power vacuum, just as other cossacks before them did. That is not revolutionary, it is backwards and contrary to the will of the Soviets, as they supported the Bolsheviks.


Here it might to be important to add the CNT was part of this government. In fact, as I stated before, being the Minister of State. So what you claim doesn't make to much sense.

So you're claiming that the anarchists always acted in complete cooperation with the Republican government? If that was so, why did the Republicans resort to acting the way they did?


From reading Soviet propaganda I bet. No the running of the workplaces and establishment of the anarchist communes was a great feat, particularly against all the odds they were facing.

Nice try, but no. Every serious historian remarks on the incompetence of the anarchist militas, and the oft-repeated anarchist claims of their economic efficiency is backed up by...wait for it...nothing. Unsupported fallacy is the only veil defending the futile communes.


So two powerful countries aiding Franco, whom already had 2/3 of the Spanish army was going to be an easy fight against workers, many of whom had no prior military experience, that were then outlawed by the Soviets and were thus stripped of their arms by them.

Of course it wasn't, don't put words in my mouth and stop being disingenuous. Franco controlled the Army of Africa, which was far better trained, equipped and organized than the Republicans' force. However, the anarchists were unable to mount any challenge to the May Days and their fighting forces were utterly useless. That has nothing to do with Franco and everything to do with the weakness of anarchism itself.


The CNT only joined forces with the state because if they did not do otherwise they would have been immediately fighting the republicans as well as Franco, therefore they deducted that this would only aid Franco’s coup and joined the state to create the anti-fascist front, and to leave administrating libertarian communism until after Franco had been defeated. Nothing in anarchist theory speaks of this, nor described the conditions that took place leading to this decision as meaning this as the answer. The CNT-FAI’s decision to collaborate with the State says nothing about anarchist theory. In fact this is the very opposite to anarchist theory, and is the reason why the anarchists were, and are, very split on whether this was the right thing to do. Fact is that the CNT-FAI took the decision to fight the war before starting the revolution and thus infact strayed from anarchist theory as the most militant anarchists were fighting on the frontline. Yes they made mistakes, but that had nothing to do with anarchist theory. In fact Kropotkin fiercely attacked the CNTs official decision, Kropotkin- "Make sure of victory! As if there were any way of transforming society into a free commune without laying hands upon property! As if there were any way of defeating the enemy so long as the great mass of the people is not directly interested in the triumph of the revolution, in witnessing the arrival it of material, moral and intellectual well-being for all! They sought to consolidate the Commune first of all while postponing the social revolution for later on, while the only effective way of proceeding was to consolidate the Commune by the social revolution!”
Infact, the theory of Kropotkin and Bakunin both proved true as the collaboration with the State proved to be the end of the CNT-FAI, thus meaning anarchist theory was proved right. The only thing it proved is that anarchists, like everyone else, can make rash decisions in hard circumstances, not anything wrong with theory, as it weren’t followed to a T.
“Contention that there is something wrong with Anarchism . . . because the leading comrades in Spain failed Anarchism seems to be very faulty reasoning . . . the failure of one or several individuals can never take away from the depth and truth of an ideal."- Emma Goldman.

More vague excuses. You're trying to get around the fact that the communes fell like dominos precisely because their architects ignored the realities of class conflict.


I'll have to browse that. However the non-supply and seizure of anarchist weapons by the Soviet Union also didn't help the anti-fascist struggle in Spain, let alone that of the anarchists.

The Soviet Union wasn't the cause, I'd put that to the Republic, as they were also against what the anarchists were doing.


Arshinov, Makhno, Reed, Voilne and so on.

Post some.


No it is because Lenin was a megalomaniac, as is evidently the case in his choice to do much the oppose of what he proposed in 'the state and revolution'.

The Bolsheviks adapted to different material conditions, just as any competent group would do. However, Lenin did not depart from "The State and Revolution" at all, and you'll need to support that with textual evidence if you want me to take that seriously.


I'm more inclined to believe what I have read and cross examined from various sources thanks.

The only sources you've brought up are hopelessly unreliable.


Well that is the way anarchists view the Soviet Union, so is it any surprise that it is stated as such here?

It is only a surprise because such a line would never be found in a reliable source. I know that's what anarchists think, and that is why I questioned the usefulness of something that blindly parroted that same viewpoint. One of the reasons I keep citing Zvi Gitelman is because he actually isn't sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, which makes his conclusions on the matter all the more convincing. You would do well to do the same.

[nuisance]

Well, that's kind of true, because I didn't have to poke holes in anything, they're far from reliable.
“They’re”? You’ve only given one source.


First, you have tried to do so, since your most recent arguments directly contradict your previous ones. More to the point, the state has always changed its character and interests depending upon what class controls that state. Why, then, would this be any different for the workers? Until you answer that, you are dodging the point.
No they haven’t contradicted anything. The State has always been for minority rule. Therefore the majority can’t take control of the State without producing a minority rule- which what happened when the Bolshevik party took control of the State.


No, they didn't, but they created a socialist society on multiple occasions, which is more progress than the anarchists have ever gotten close to doing. The Marxist-Leninist model has proven more successful.
It hasn’t been proved successful because the State never withered away, therefore it didn’t fulfil what it was supposed to have done.


Romanticized nonsense. The Makhnovists had no place in an industrialized, modern, forward-looking economy (and they had no support among the urban working class), they only had a place in the Ukrainian power vacuum, just as other cossacks before them did. That is not revolutionary, it is backwards and contrary to the will of the Soviets, as they supported the Bolsheviks.

Not romanticised but fact. Of course the Makhnovists weren’t in industrialised, they were from the Ukraine, which economy was run by agriculture, so that is hardly a surprise. That said the Makhnovists did try and include the urban working class in the struggle.


So you're claiming that the anarchists always acted in complete cooperation with the Republican government? If that was so, why did the Republicans resort to acting the way they did?
Of course the anarchists didn’t, well until:“as is well know, in September 1936 the C.N.T joined the Catalan government, followed by the central government in November. This followed on from the decision made on July the 21st to not speak of Libertarian Communism until after Franco had been defeated. In other words, to collaborate with other anti-fascist parties and unions in a common front against fascism.”
That was the act of Salas, not the anti-fascist government, that then imploded because of the actions. If you read the source I linked to you wouldn’t keep making these rash assertions.

Nice try, but no. Every serious historian remarks on the incompetence of the anarchist militas, and the oft-repeated anarchist claims of their economic efficiency is backed up by...wait for it...nothing. Unsupported fallacy is the only veil defending the futile communes.
What absurd rubbish! Infact the evidence points to much the opposite. I’d advise you to watch the many documentaries on youtube.
You can also read this. (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/talks/spain_feb99.html)

Of course it wasn't, don't put words in my mouth and stop being disingenuous. Franco controlled the Army of Africa, which was far better trained, equipped and organized than the Republicans' force. However, the anarchists were unable to mount any challenge to the May Days and their fighting forces were utterly useless. That has nothing to do with Franco and everything to do with the weakness of anarchism itself.
Yet another unfounded statement, as the collaboration with the State goes against anarchist theory, also at this point the anarchists had, as has been pointed out repeatably, stopped the revolution until after Franco was defeated.


More vague excuses. You're trying to get around the fact that the communes fell like dominos precisely because their architects ignored the realities of class conflict.
You call that a vague excuse? No that has nothing to do with anything and to say so after the facts have been given is truly laughable. An anarchist structure hadn’t been fully established as it was halted, and thus doing that going against anarchist theory, which is what that ‘vague excuse’ extensively proves beyond doubt.


The Soviet Union wasn't the cause, I'd put that to the Republic, as they were also against what the anarchists were doing.

What the anarchists were doing? I’ve already pointed out that the anarchists had teamed up with the republic and others at this time putting the social revolution on hold until after Franco was defeated. That was what they were doing, fighting Franco, not fighting for Libertarian communism at that time.


Post some.
What? I have, plenty of times in this thread already, even in my last post, go back and read them.


The Bolsheviks adapted to different material conditions, just as any competent group would do. However, Lenin did not depart from "The State and Revolution" at all, and you'll need to support that with textual evidence if you want me to take that seriously.
Samuel Farber- "the very fact that a Sovnarkom had been created as a separate body from the CEC [Central Executive Committee] of the soviets clearly indicates that, Lenin's State and Revolution notwithstanding, the separation of at least the top bodies of the executive and the legislative wings of the government remained in effect in the new Soviet system." This suggests "that State and Revolution did not play a decisive role as a source of policy guidelines for 'Leninism in power.'" After all, "immediately after the Revolution the Bolsheviks established an executive power . . . as a clearly separate body from the leading body of the legislature. . . Therefore, some sections of the contemporary Left appear to have greatly overestimated the importance that State and Revolution had for Lenin's government. I would suggest that this document . . . can be better understood as a distant, although doubtless sincere [!], socio-political vision . . . as opposed to its having been a programmatic political statement, let alone a guide to action, for the period immediately after the successful seizure of power."


The only sources you've brought up are hopelessly unreliable.
No.


It is only a surprise because such a line would never be found in a reliable source. I know that's what anarchists think, and that is why I questioned the usefulness of something that blindly parroted that same viewpoint. One of the reasons I keep citing Zvi Gitelman is because he actually isn't sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, which makes his conclusions on the matter all the more convincing. You would do well to do the same.
I have but you disregarded them as also allegedly being ‘unreliable’ but I’m not surprised. And also I have posted links to Makhnovist publications from the time speaking against anti-Semitism and accounts of how people were create committing anti-Semitic acts were actually executed.

[manic expression]

We both know that this not true. It is not my fault that you can’t get out of the blinkered bourgeois mentality that there is only two ways of thinking about things of this nature.

In your logic, being opposed to the bourgeoisie is bourgeois? I claimed that whenever the workers win, the bourgeoisie loses; that is an iron law of history that you will never get around, that is what class struggle is based on.


Your obession with the May days still continues after link to an actual account of the events which doesn’t prove what you say.

You failed to illustrate why my "obsession" is unfounded, and it's because it is especially pertinent to the anarchist failure in Spain. Their inability to deal with the smallest obstacle underlined their ideology's weakness.


No, that is the State socialist perception of the State, which, unfortunately for you, has not monopolised the meaning of socialism.
“SOCIALISM: a social system in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods.”

Where'd you get that definition? At any rate, socialism is clearly working-class state power because wherever socialism has been established and defended, working-class state power was key. They go hand-in-hand; without state power the bourgeoisie is free to reestablish capitalism.


“monopoly over violence, legitimating their own right to violence from a centralised hierarchical position.”
They did act in that way, which is the same. I did say that the actions talk because of those three points were the same.

So all states, then, followed the same class interests? Yes or no.


Historical laws show that it has always served the minority to oppress the majority, that is the historical basis of the state. The very structure of the State shows us that it is there to defend the minority, as when the Bolsheviks lost the election shortly after seizing the State with the SR’s gaining 38% to the Bolsheviks 24%.

No, history has shown us that each state is fundamentally tied to whatever class controls it. THAT is the law you need to look at, for it would tell you that the workers can and should utilize the state for their own ends. You ignore working-class state power in socialist societies, as in Russia and Cuba and elsewhere, because it renders your arguments null and void.

That election was for the bourgeois Duma, and represented the interests of the pro-war chauvinists. The Bolsheviks were right to dissolve that government, for it was railroading workers to their deaths in an imperialist war that should have never happened. Good on you for defending it, though.

By the way, the Soviets supported the actions of the Bolsheviks and elected Lenin to the most important position in the new worker state.


No, popular organisation doesn’t need hierarchal centralisation or a monopoly over violence, therefore it does not constitute a State because it doesn’t have the structure that is a State.

So anyone can form a militia if they want to? Capitalists? Fascists?

If your answer to any of those questions was "no", then you are completely contradicting your own theories.


Yet you accuse the failings of the CNT-FAI being rooted in anarchist theory when what they did had nothing to do with theory and was the exact opposite?

I'm not the one who carries around the Catalunyan communes like an anarchist standard, anarchists do. I simply point out how futile they were.

You say they didn't follow anarchist theory, and all the better for me. Why? Logically, using your own words, anarchism has never actually been put into practice, making it even more irrelevant.


The bureaucracy started a lot further on than that with the initial centralising of State power from the Soviets, which has already been touched on. This is the fault of a State because this is how it is designed, to do exactly that.

Stop making things up. The nomenklatura was consolidated and granted its power by Stalin, not by Lenin. One-man management (1921) may have laid the groundwork for what LATER became the nomenklatura, but as I've said, that development did not come from Marxism but against it (and the murder of most Marxists in the party seem to suggest that there is some truth to that).


Insinuating that Cuba is a workers’ paradise is laughable, especially as it increasingly seeps back into capitalism. However if you want to discuss this I suggest making a thread for it.

I didn't say "paradise", Marxists don't use such utopian terms, I said it's socialism, and it is. The workers control the means of production through the worker state, as I have shown. The recent economic reforms are simply the act of increasing production on luxury items that should be produced more in Cuba.

Your rhetoric is beginning to intersect more and more with imperialist viewpoints. Cuba is a one-party dictatorship! That's a true "workers' paradise" for you! I'm not insinuating anything about your sympathies, but it is quite a curious similarity.


This is the organisation that will naturally arise from the revolution.

Then perhaps you'd be so kind as to define it.



You can through expropriation and reorganising society along egalitarian lines. A state is not needed if the workers expel and fight the bourgeoisie in their localities and nationally and internationally. Yes, communication will be needed through the supression, but a State is not needed so that a party claiming to express the will of workers can act out their will through the State. The only way to secure the will of workers is if they organise themselves.

This is completely confused writing, probably because it's completely confused theory. You are using nothing concrete, just high-sounding terms that seem to fit your morals.

Egalitarianism is a hallmark of socialism, but that does not exclude suppression of the bourgeoisie. And you say that the bourgeoisie will be suppressed, but you neglect to recognize that any apparatus that carries out suppression, no matter how minimal, is a state. Socialism and state power share an inescapable connection, and not even your poetry can avoid it.


After seizing the state for the interests of their party. You also disregard the election that the Bolsheviks were forced to have, in which they lost.

Yes, for the interests of the party were the interests of the workers; the party was made up of workers and supported by practically the entire urban working-class population by 1917.

The Duma elections were no more valid and no less valid than the American elections happening today, and yet you try to enshrine them as some ideal expression of the working class' will. The Soviets voted in favor of the October Revolution, and those are the interests the Bolsheviks fought for.


You must love representative democracy then. Judging by their eradication of all political opponents, it is of no surprise that the vat majority of the members were Bolsheviks.

By political opponents, you mean counterrevolutionaries, I presume? Yes, any revolutionary would support that, especially in wartime. The Bolsheviks only got an absolute majority after the Left SRs destroyed themselves, and blaming the Bolsheviks for that is absurd. The Cheka at this time was charged with counterintelligence, and their success against imperialist agents (and that's not perjorative) secured the safety of the revolution.


If they had no support then why did they have to be suppressed have their publications illegalised? Your assertion is terribly naïve, aswell has completely disregard the entire social revolution happening in the Ukraine at the time.

They had no support among the workers, but the Russian working class actually wasn't that big at the time (in comparison to the peasantry), so the Makhnovists still represented a reactionary danger to progress. The Makhnovists had no social revolution, they represented an outdated rebellion that was easy to romanticize.


You prove my point. In voting for a government, the soviets ceased to be free.

That's a good one. By exercising working-class democracy, the Soviets lost their freedom. It's enough to make someone's head explode with absurdity.


No that is when the Bolsheviks declared the revolution.
“The revolution found us, the party members fast asleep….there were no authoritative leaders on the spot in any of the parties”- Sergei Mstislavsky, one of the SR leaders, whom also gained the highest percentage of votes from the election after the Bolsheviks seized the State.

In a certain sense, he was right. Lenin had to pull the entire socialist movement into a revolutionary position, once when he returned in April, and once again when he returned in October (IIRC). The socialists were content with creating bourgeois-capitalism and then waiting 50 years to start the working-class revolution; Lenin wanted a revolution then and then only. The same was true in October: a lot of Bolshevik leaders didn't want to strike Kerensky, but Lenin knew the workers were calling for Land, Peace and Bread and the Bolsheviks thankfully gave that to them.


Happily.

I doubt you will, but nice of you to say that anyway. He represents a reputable scholar, whereas your "historians" have no credentials available or are quoted out of context. Quite the evidence you have.


Have you not read any of what I have been posting!? Arshinov is the mot influential after writing extensively on the Makhnovist movement.
Also what I have already posted/linked to:

Yes, and you have consequently not read my responses. Concluding that Makhno was tolerant of Jews in general because there were Jews in his ranks is like saying Islamic armies in India were tolerant of Hindus because some Hindus (the Rajputs most notably) served in the Mughal armies (curiously enough, the most anti-Hindu Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, relied upon the Rajputs for some of his most important campaigns). Jewish anarchists cannot and should not be construed as representatives of the Ukrainian Jewish community, and an anarchist should be able to understand that fact. It would be stupid to say that Emma Goldman had sympathy for Judaism just because she was born into it, so why do you say the same for the Makhnovists?


I have provided evidence and sources, it is not my fault that you are to lazy to read it.

Infoshop only hosts the document I quoted from.
[SIZE=2]Here’s more (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/russia/makhno_antisem.html).

I've read it for the most part, and that's why I've been able to see the flaws and shortcomings of what you've posted. Infoshop is not only selective about what it hosts, it hasn't hosted anything reliable or verifiably reputable. That's the crux of the issue.

[manic expression]

“They’re”? You’ve only given one source.

I was talking about your sources, not mine.


No they haven’t contradicted anything. The State has always been for minority rule. Therefore the majority can’t take control of the State without producing a minority rule- which what happened when the Bolshevik party took control of the State.

You keep repeating this as though it made it true, it doesn't. A state serves whatever interests control it.

Was the Bourbon state the same as the Jacobin state? Answer that question directly, because you've dodged it ever since this debate started.


It hasn’t been proved successful because the State never withered away, therefore it didn’t fulfil what it was supposed to have done.

The establishment of socialism was the initial objective of the revolution; it succeeded in that. That's more than anarchism could ever hope to accomplish.


Not romanticised but fact. Of course the Makhnovists weren’t in industrialised, they were from the Ukraine, which economy was run by agriculture, so that is hardly a surprise. That said the Makhnovists did try and include the urban working class in the struggle.

And so it's hardly a surprise that the Makhnovist cossacks just happened to be in the Ukraine - a mostly un-industrial power vacuum. Cause and effect, the Makhnovists did not constitute a movement of the workers, and so they only held sway where there weren't any workers.


Of course the anarchists didn’t, well until:“as is well know, in September 1936 the C.N.T joined the Catalan government, followed by the central government in November. This followed on from the decision made on July the 21st to not speak of Libertarian Communism until after Franco had been defeated. In other words, to collaborate with other anti-fascist parties and unions in a common front against fascism.”
That was the act of Salas, not the anti-fascist government, that then imploded because of the actions. If you read the source I linked to you wouldn’t keep making these rash assertions.

Why do you keep ignoring what is actually well known? The anarchists and the Republicans were at odds over all kinds of issues: the anarchists formed social organizations that the Republicans didn't want them to. Is that cooperation to you?


What absurd rubbish! Infact the evidence points to much the opposite. I’d advise you to watch the many documentaries on youtube.
You can also read this. (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/talks/spain_feb99.html)

Another piece of "evidence" from an anarchist website! Do you know there's a world outside of infoshop, black flag and the like? Even the books he cites come from anarchist presses. Again, nothing of real substance here.

And are you really trying to say the anarchist militias were effective? They weren't, and every historian knows as much.


Yet another unfounded statement, as the collaboration with the State goes against anarchist theory, also at this point the anarchists had, as has been pointed out repeatably, stopped the revolution until after Franco was defeated.

So the anarchists didn't establish anarchist communes? If they did, were they not following theory?

How about this: do you think a Falangist government would have been the same as a Republican government? They're both states, so remember that when you're trying to ignore the differences between them.


You call that a vague excuse? No that has nothing to do with anything and to say so after the facts have been given is truly laughable. An anarchist structure hadn’t been fully established as it was halted, and thus doing that going against anarchist theory, which is what that ‘vague excuse’ extensively proves beyond doubt.

Again, did they or did they not establish communes?


What? I have, plenty of times in this thread already, even in my last post, go back and read them.

I want them in context.


Samuel Farber- "the very fact that a Sovnarkom had been created as a separate body from the CEC [Central Executive Committee] of the soviets clearly indicates that, Lenin's State and Revolution notwithstanding, the separation of at least the top bodies of the executive and the legislative wings of the government remained in effect in the new Soviet system." This suggests "that State and Revolution did not play a decisive role as a source of policy guidelines for 'Leninism in power.'" After all, "immediately after the Revolution the Bolsheviks established an executive power . . . as a clearly separate body from the leading body of the legislature. . . Therefore, some sections of the contemporary Left appear to have greatly overestimated the importance that State and Revolution had for Lenin's government. I would suggest that this document . . . can be better understood as a distant, although doubtless sincere [!], socio-political vision . . . as opposed to its having been a programmatic political statement, let alone a guide to action, for the period immediately after the successful seizure of power."

As I said, they adapted to different conditions. Russia at that time was a shadow of what it was before the Civil War, and even then Russia wasn't very industrialized. To expect the Bolsheviks to NOT make adaptations and changes to their program when faced with such a situation is ludicrous.

Lenin, as a matter of fact, halted his writing of "The State and Revolution" when the revolution in Russia broke out. He said, and he was right, that writing a treatise pales in comparison to creating it in practice. That is one of the many reasons why Lenin needs to be studied and understood and put into application today.


No.

Because...?


I have but you disregarded them as also allegedly being ‘unreliable’ but I’m not surprised. And also I have posted links to Makhnovist publications from the time speaking against anti-Semitism and accounts of how people were create committing anti-Semitic acts were actually executed.

I did, as you should remember, give many reasons for why they were unreliable, and I do see that you haven't been able to question them directly.

[nuisance]

Basically I am bored of this thread and can't be bothered replying anymore because it is a waste of time, as it is evident that neither of us will backdown.
Evidently I could reply, but where would that get us? I previously stated that I dislike long posts so that is why it has lead to this decision on my part, as well as being influenced your blatent disregard for sources, many of which you claimed didn't take place because you didn't actually read them. This has resulted in circles being argued that I no longer have the patience for as I don't come on Revleft to get agitated.
So don't take this as a 'victory', as it is not, unless your aim is to bore your opponent with the same refuted arguement. I don't mean to come across aggressive, if I do, but I don't want to get bogged down in internet arguements.
That said one interesting thing has arose from this debate, that of the role of the State, including its historical role. Of which, if you are interested in the subject, could make a new thread on the subject that I'd happily take part in.

[manic expression]

No big deal, we both said what we needed to say. Honestly, thanks for taking the time and effort to make genuine responses, that's the kind of thing that makes this forum worthwhile. And yeah, if you want to start a new thread on the state that'd be great, although I do think we already said quite a bit on it. I might later, but we'll see.

[nuisance]

That' a really kind refreshing response,especially for the internet! Thankyou.