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'What are the grievances between anarchists and marxists?'
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Grievances between Anarchists and Communists
I have never understood this. In a number of revolutions and conflicts, Anarchists and Communists have clashed violently with each other. It happened in the Ukraine during the Russian revolution, and again in Spain, during the Civil War and Revolution.
The reason I ask is because I spend my spare time weighing the advanteges and disadvanteges of each, and since I can never come to a conclusion, I want to understand the primary differences (and thus conflict) between each.
What is the question you want answered here?
'What are the grievances between anarchists and marxists?'
I'm pretty sure you mean Anarchists and Marxists.
The best way to "balance" your opinion is to not worry too much about who is/was better and focus on what we can do now for the future
We've got your war!
We're at the gates!
We're at your door!
We've got the guillotine...
There's no essential difference between anarchism and Marxism. In the Spanish Civil War, the difference was that the anarchists were communist.
The common answer to this question is usually that they both share the same goal but differ how to get there, Marxists want to utilize the state to and anarchists don't etc..
But in reality, if you really examine the 2 tendencies you'll notice very little differences and plenty of breeding ground for synthesis. Non leninist Marxism and schools of marxism that negate the need for "A group of professional revolutionaries" or "A bureaucracy over the proles" during and after the revolution can be unified I believe if both sides drop the inconsistent definitions of the state. There is NO difference between a "Marxist workers state built from the bottom up, with its worst sides lopped off(acountable police, arming of the people etc)" and a "Confederation of Communes built from the bottom up" but again, the definition of the state is different for both groups so it is kind of hard t acutely see it, what the anarchists call a state is not what marxists call the state. And remember that many anarchists were happy to hear and read Lenin's "State and revolution" and many actually joined the Bolsheviks because of it. Besides the vanguard idea, anarchists and Leninists are also overlapping tendencies. Now if Lenin actually acted on what he wrote in "State and Revolution" is debatable..
Here is a qoute from the book
Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History
"I am a person who believes that Marxism and anarchism each has
indispensable strengths and dramatic weaknesses. I think the
future of the Left literally depends on synthesizing these two
traditions. I do not believe one should be privileged over
the other. Nor do I consider it helpful to contrive terms
such as “Anarcho-Marxist.” It is much simpler than that. A
century and a half ago, for reasons that have more to do with
personalities than anything else, these two viewpoints were
made to seem mutually exclusive alternatives. They are not.
They are Hegelian moments that need to be synthesized."
Remember that when the Paris commune was established both Anarchists AND Marxists claimed that the commune "Was the blueprint of the communist goal" and celebrated it until its defeat.
I probably didn't do to good of an answer but behind the inconsistent definitions, terms, and dogmatism of both sides we see that they are both one in the same.
[FONT="Times New Roman"]“Our doctrine is not a dogma but a guide to action”
-Friedrich Engels
Total Human liberation.
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How can there be no essential difference between anarchism and marxism?
political spectrum, from a Marxist
political spectrum, from a Marxist
I recently did up a diagram that lays out various major political orientations on a schematic spectrum. Feel free to take a look and comment....
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-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --
The "grievances" in that conflict was not a uniform "anarchist vs marxists" thing.
The POUM was supportive of the CNT/FAI and as far as I know never tried to crush them as the more USSR-influenced (and thus Stalinist considering the times) communist factions did.
Whats interesting to noticed is that in the 3 examples you outline the anarchists were eager, to a degree, to work with the Leninists/Marxists. The question becomes/should be, which side started the hostilities and why?
I also think that many anarchists, due to the history of these 3 revolutions/etc, are now more suspicious and cautious of the idea of working with Leninists.
"My heart sings for you both. Imagine it singing. la la la la."- Hannah Kay
"if you keep calling average working people idiots i am sure they will be more apt to listen to what you have to say. "-bcbm
"Sometimes false consciousness can be more destructive than apathy, just like how sometimes, doing nothing is actually better than doing the wrong thing."- Robocommie
"The ruling class would tremble, and the revolution would be all but assured." -Explosive Situation, on the Revleft Merry Prankster bus
You can be an Anarchist and still believe most (if not all) of Marx's main ideas. The main thing that Anarchists oppose is Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, etc. Most of Marx's ideas on class struggle, property, historical materialism, revolution, economics are very easily combined with anarchism.
Anarchists don't necessarily have a grievance with Marx. It is more to do with Leninism and the idea of a vanguard party.
"Direct Action is a notion of such clarity, of such self-evident transparency, that merely to speak the words defines and explains them. It means that the working class, in constant rebellion against the existing state of affairs, expects nothing from outside people, powers or forces, but rather creates its own conditions of struggle and looks to itself for its means of action. It means that, against the existing society which recognises only the citizen, rises the producer. And that that producer, having grasped that any social grouping models itself upon its system of production, intends to attack directly the capitalist mode of production in order to transform it, by eliminating the employer and thereby achieving sovereignty in the workshop – the essential condition for the enjoyment of real freedom.” Emile Pouget
Many anarchists do however criticize some aspects of Marx's theories.
Namely how he (especially earlier in his career) insisted that the centralized, industrialized proletariat in the most materially developed regions of the capitalist world would have the most revolutionary potential - going so far as to accuse certain segments of the proletariat (prostitutes, panhandlers, mutinying soldiers, petty thieves) of being "lumpen" and thus disloyal to the proletariat, and, along with Engels, justify not only the U.S. invasion of Mexico, the French occupation of Algeria, and the British colonization of India, but a hypothetical German conquest of East Europe, as politically progressive in the sense of developing capitalist society the point necessary to create the conditions of communism.
Similarly, as Italian Marxist intellectual Silvia Federici pointed out, Marx's assumption that the primitive accumulation of capitalism was progressive and improved the material existence of the human race, that fuedalism needs to develop into capitalism and should be celebrated when it does, etc. fundamentally ignores the experiences of women in drawing that conclusion.
These are ideological problems Marx began to correct later in life. Marx was truly an anarchist by the time of his death
Anarchists object to centralised political authority as being antithetical to the creation of a free workers movement and society, rejecting hierarchy on that basis.
Our objection with Leninism is not just the "idea" of a vanguard party, but its actual existence and its centralisation of political authority into a state.
Why is this Q posted here,ffs?
The enraging thing is when you hear anarchists/marxist calling the other tendency as 'reactionary','traitors' etc, when eventually they both cling to a perspective of the best way to a communist society.
I don't quite understand what you mean? I agree on the pointless sectarian arguments though.
"Direct Action is a notion of such clarity, of such self-evident transparency, that merely to speak the words defines and explains them. It means that the working class, in constant rebellion against the existing state of affairs, expects nothing from outside people, powers or forces, but rather creates its own conditions of struggle and looks to itself for its means of action. It means that, against the existing society which recognises only the citizen, rises the producer. And that that producer, having grasped that any social grouping models itself upon its system of production, intends to attack directly the capitalist mode of production in order to transform it, by eliminating the employer and thereby achieving sovereignty in the workshop – the essential condition for the enjoyment of real freedom.” Emile Pouget
Moved & cleaned it from the diversions.
OMONOIA
ANARCHO
COMMUNISM
You're never over
Marxism is more like a tool to analysie things and a specific theory by a specific person "Karl Marx". Anarchism is a broad set of principles, based on simple concepts.
Its like asking whats the difference between "good sportsmanship" and the official NFL rules (not a very good illustratio but you get the point).
Now in practice:
Many who call themselves marxists model themselves after the bolsheviks. The bolsheviks and the people that model themselves after them tend to think that they must Take State Power, in other words thats their goal, which clearly puts them at odds with Anarchists. They also consider themselves to be the leaders of the revolution, which means tha revolutionaries, should follow a "united action" (which means listen to the bolshevik types).
Its not just a matter of 2 roads to the same place, it has to do with one trying to eliminate power, the other trying to take power in order to eventually eliminate it. But to the one trying to take power, the one trying to eliminate it is in the way of their goals. So, the clash.
This is nonsense. Marxists believe that all class struggle is ultimately political struggle. This anarchists deny.
B/c anarchism isn't ground in a scientific worldview it is incompatible w/ the goal of communism. Anarchism is not so much a political philosophy as a peculiar accomodation to bourgeois society.
Eppur si muove -- Galileo Galilei
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Says who?
Like I said before, Anarchism and marxism are 2 different types of things
As for your second point all I have to say is you have not the slightest idea what your talking about. You seam like someone who reads sentances but does'nt understand the paragraph. Your what I would call a "philisophically inclined dumbass".
I've always loved this aphorism, taken from Twilight of the Idols.
For Nietzsche the symptom of weakness and decadence is the revolutionary spirit because it initial stimulus is that of being reactionary- it says "no" to what is outside itself, what threatens itself, while the strong "affirming" spirit, as Nietzsche calls it, does not resent but invites, challenges, wants to overthrown out of an instinct to dominate rather than to be compensated for one's own failure.
Now it is no argument that capitalism is an expression of cultural decadence as well, of squandering and excess to the point of gluttony. That much is certain. But this does not justify the origins of the revolutionary spirit- the revolutionary does not first conceive of the need to abolish capitalism for such reasons. He does so because he feels cheated. And why does he feel cheated? Because he is powerless and poor, not because capitalism should not be. Honestly, ask yourself "what should be"? Nothing "should" be, and if one conceives of what he thinks "should" be, if he is a revolutionary, his stimulus is reactionary rather than affirmative.
Politics will always only be the expression of strong wills conspiring together for power. They are never justified on moral grounds, on teleological grounds, or epistemological grounds. One must realize that politics do not become because they are "rational".
What does "rational" mean? What is "the truth" about anything. Is such a thing possible? Certainly not. There is only perspective, no "facts".
Against positivism, that last epistemological stage where the intellect is exhausted- "there is nothing but change", "where is pure reason", "the world is only an appearance", ad nauseam.
Then one reasons "the senses lie.....let's trust science." But then isn't science only the testimony of the senses? A scientific truth is true only in so far as the senses interpret the world. Now we accept what is "convenient", not what might be "true".
And we talk about "truth" and use our signs and symbols to represent it in language and mathematics....but again we have only posited a "subject" as a real, enduring representative of reality. We are psychologistic- the degree to which we call something "true" is the degree to which our sense have the capacity to be in error. Man is only the sum of his errors. There is no "subject". We have invented this concept, a necessary illusory thing, so that we can make the world calculable. Without this will to control and dominate the world...there would be no need need for such convenient lies.
Where now does the revolutionary stand? Do you not realize that there are no moral or rational grounds on which politics are founded?
I don't want to stop a revolution....I only want the revolutionaries conscience to bite him once and for all. Nobody and nothing owes you anything.
Why are you a revolutionary? Do you have the courage to look behind yourself to answer this question?
We are a revolutionary because its better to be free and equal then ruled over and poor ... We don't need Nitche to tell us why. No one owes us anything your right. Capitalism, keeps one class wealthy and in control, and us, out of control and poor ... soooo, we get rid of it.
