question concerning revleft

[spinglot]

Isn't it a little contradicting to have communists and anarchists on the same forum. They do both fall under the radical left umbrella of ideology, but with their concerns involving "the state" doesn't that make commies and anarchos almost enemies? Just a thought, I'm not prescribing to that thought process just curious to know what veteran posters think about that situation...

[Forward Union]

Isn't it a little contradicting to have communists and anarchists on the same forum. They do both fall under the radical left umbrella of ideology, but with their concerns involving "the state" doesn't that make commies and anarchos almost enemies? Just a thought, I'm not prescribing to that thought process just curious to know what veteran posters think about that situation...

Anarchists are predominantly Communists. So no. All communists one day wish to dismantle the state, a working definition of communism is loosely "A classless, stateless society organised "from each according their abilities to each according their needs" Anarchists believe this should be done immedietly, as states perpetuate class rule and will betray the revolution. This was the popular view of communists pre-Marx and Engels. But even Engels said "The state belongs on the Museum shelf next to the bronze axe and the wheel"

"Authorotarian" Communists (including Leninists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, Maoists) believe that the state should be seized by the most conciouss section of the working class, and used to facilitate the creation and defence of Socialism (a precurser for communism), gradually becoming irrelivent as workers reorganise society, until such a time when communism will exist and the state will dissapear.

The ideas that communism equates to giant state run capitalism with hitleresque dictators and secret police, and that Anarchism refers to bomb throwing terrorists who have a pshychotic determination to ruin society are characatures useful to the ruling class. It's an attempt at Reductio ad absurdum. In reality both ideas are similar.

[Q]

Authorotarian communists (including Leninists, Trotskyists, Stalinists) believe that the state should be seized and will facilitate the creation and defence of Socialism, gradually becoming irrelivent as workers reorganise society, until such a time when communism will exist and the state will simply dissapear.

Slight correction: we strive to smash the capitalist state and replace it with a workers state. I.e. We strive for working class dominance over the bourgeoisie. Needles to say that with 90% of the population in power a workers state is far more democratic and less oppressive than a capitalist state.

Anyway, seizing and smashing are two different things.

[Forward Union]

Slight correction: we strive to smash the capitalist state and replace it with a workers state. I.e. We strive for working class dominance over the bourgeoisie. Needles to say that with 90% of the population in power a workers state is far more democratic and less oppressive than a capitalist state.

Anyway, seizing and smashing are two different things.

Ok, I was trying to be objective.

[Q]

Ok, I was trying to be objective.

I'm just saying the seizing (= taking over the capitalist state) and smashing (= abolishing the capitalist state) are two different things. This doesn't really relate to being objective or not.

[Tower of Bebel]

In a way marxists and anarchists have similar views. Under the most preferable conditions many anarchists and marxists could work together, even during the transitional period of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Because Engels pointed out correctly that a workers state is not a state as in the real/current sense of the word.


"Authorotarian" Communists (including Leninists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, Maoists) believe that the state should be seized by the most conciouss section of the working class, and used to facilitate the creation and defence of Socialism (a precurser for communism), gradually becoming irrelivent as workers reorganise society, until such a time when communism will exist and the state will dissapear.It's important to mention what kind of state is meant when we talk about marxist tactics ... the idea that the state should be seized, without referring to what kind of state is actually meant, had dramatic repercussions for the international workers movement around Word War One.

Reformism champions reaching socialism through the existing, capitalist state. So when many marxists ignored the question of the state, or were unable to draw the necessary and revolutionary conclusions from the question of the state, they allowed reformism and opportunism to develop within the Second International as a legitimate current. It made the takeover of the workers movement by the right wing relatively easy, because many marxists didn't see the necessity to organize themselves against the threat of capital within their own parties (which tries to seize the workers movement through reformism). In this context Lenin's "Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism" and his "State and Revolution" were the manifestos, the theoretical justification, of revolutionary marxists who saw the practical necessity of a conscious break with reformism.

The dramatic consequences of not seeing this were the deaths of revolutionary working class leaders like Luxemburg and Liebknecht and thousands of workers and farmers who died in Russia because the German Revolution failed; but also the split within the workers movement whereby the revolutionaries never got the chance to win back the majority of it is an important repercussion.