Well lets face it...Bakunin and Makano were leaders...Much better to have an official leadership that is constrained by recognized structures than an unofficial one which isnt.
Results 1 to 20 of 92
Stalinism versus revolution from below
Written on the tombstone of every attempt to create an anarchist society.
Well lets face it...Bakunin and Makano were leaders...Much better to have an official leadership that is constrained by recognized structures than an unofficial one which isnt.
And what's written on the tombstone of the former Soviet Union? On the tombstone of Chinese "communism"? On the medical chart of declining Vietnamese "socialism"?
"Through unstinting sacrifice, their sacrifice, we led the workers forward to the restoration of capitalism."
As for you comments about "singing" being frivolous-- you simply don't know what you're talking about. Ever hear of "Amandla"?
The Bolsheviks did far more for the workers of the region, and for the world, than anarchists ever have, or ever will. When your allegedly superior alternative to capitalism can actually create a large-scale, self-sustaining society with a comparable standard of living to a developed capitalist country, the workers will consider anarchism.
Not just a leader in Makhno's case- a dictator really. But he was a GRASS ROOTS dictator!!
Yup, and all failure, just like anarchist methods of the past.
Yeah, silly me. Fuck the workers, anarchists know best.
Eh...what failure is there here? What we are seeing is these methods expanding throughout the social terrain, both more confrontational and frequent.
Yeah, cos that was implied, especially when the noted people using the methods are just anarchists...
Anyway anarchists aren't the ones who bring a libertarian society about but a self-organised working class, you fucking idiot.
Capitalism still going? Anarchists haven't been able to "smash" a single state? Looks like failure to me.
Yeah and most of that working class doesn't give a fuck about anarchism. So far your theories have a 100% failure rate and nothing to show for it other than some rather entertaining protests.
But you just keep thinking that your drum circles have the state shaking in its boots, and the working class ready to "self-organize."
This isn't an issue of Bolshevism vs. anarchism, although if I have to choose between your Bolshevism, the "Bolshevism" of a Stalin, Molotov, Vyshinsky, Yagoda, Brezhnev, Mikoyan, and the anarchists fighting the cops in London, I'm going with the anarchists simply because I know I'll actually be fighting the cops rather than supporting the cops as your "Bolsheviks" have done so many time.
This is a question of the struggle against austerity imposed by capitalism to drive wages below subsistence levels, to transfer wealth up the social ladder, to deprive any and all save the rich from access to education, information, health care.
You let your ideological requirements get in the way of your analysis, and the need or action, which shows how absolutely unMarxist your "Bolshevism" truly is.
The fact that you are using strawmen arguements instead addressing the points made highlight the inadequacies of your position.
Are you as naive as to think that social revolution will come about in the space of the recent student riots?
Anyway, as for historical examples the state and capitalism have been made redundant for periods of time, which is much more impressive than the examples you could raise where your ideology has managed to recuperate anti-state sentiments and establish your own state capitalist iniativites. Now that's pretty embarassing coming from an alledgely anti-capitalist position.
Who said they did? However, that's another one of positives about anarchism, not everyone has to beable to quote Malatesta or Bakunin to bring about an 'anarchist' society.
What have drum circles got to do with anything....
Your mocking of self-organisation among the class only highlights your abhorrent set of values which are inherently anti-worker.
Well a lot more than the worn out motions you lot want the working-class to go through, reformist syndicalism and parliamentism only support and strengthen the capitalist system you claim to fight.
Even if you want to go back to your glorious revolution (in an time and under conditions that resemble nothing like the current) the revolutionary tactics and strengths that matterd are quite anarchist. Spontaneity, insurrectionism, wildcat strikes. You can shove that centralism, authoritarianism and other bolshevic tactics that brought nothing other than the counterrevolution up your centralized arse.
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater?
Here at least We shall be free
Capitalism restored in the fSU? Never been a bigger failure in the history of working class struggle than that, has there? An actual proletarian revolution, with the conquering of power, reversed, undone, destroyed? Good work, senor "Bolshevik."
There are much bigger failures, failures which didn't contribute anything to the world at all. Makhno's "Free Territory" and Anarchist Catalonia come to mind.
What you are essentially "choosing" is capitalism.
good analogy, just like in those historical situations the left side of capital would gladly stab us in the back if the workers ever became an threat to the state. It's very clear where their priorities lie in the end.
statists their alliance lies with the state, not with the people
Last edited by Sasha; 12th December 2010 at 14:23.
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater?
Here at least We shall be free
Most of that working class doesn't give a fuck about Leninism. So far your theories have a 100% failure rate and noting to show for it other than some rather entertaining state capitalist dictatorships.
In fact your ideology has consistently degenerated into a bureaucratic state which has failed to emancipate the working class. Your comments show how devoid your ideas are from the working class.
"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
Incorrect. In most of the world, Leninist or Maoist parties, at least in the nominal sense, are far more popular than anarchist groups. Anarchist groups are far more prevalent in the West due to the uncritical acceptance of Cold War propaganda, which anarchists and Trots are forced to accept in order to mitigate their failure . That and people from privileged western countries love activism that is "fun" and "entertaining", and often have issues with their parents. Hence the appeal of anarchism.
Keep wiping away those tears. There are concrete, historical reasons why Leninist states "degenerated" at times into bureaucracy. On the other hand, your glorious society has never existed, and can't exist, so basically you're asking us to choose between improving on a system that at least was able to sustain itself and actually threaten capitalism, or some system that has never been able to sustain itself, supposedly spontaneously brought about by the workers themselves, who have never done such a thing in history(in fact no revolution has been brought about spontaneously). What this amounts to, is choosing capitalism.
That is why it is alright to shoot anarchists as agents for capitalism. Repeat their lies, offer an "alternative" that can't possibly exist nor threaten capitalism = working for capitalism.
I thought you were referring to the UK. I wasn't referring to Maoism, which isn't synonymous with Leninism even if both ideologies value centralised control of the political sphere by a small minority. Just because they're more popular doesn't mean they aren't on the whole rejected by our class.
That doesn't explain the fight for free soviets in Ukraine or Anarchist collectivisation in Spain. I don't uncritically accept cold war propaganda, I know Stalin didn't kill however many people the Capitalist media said he did and I know that the Soviet Union was a more economically equal society than any Capitalist society. It was still an abhorrent social order ran by a tiny minority.
What a load of bollocks third worldism. I guarantee to you the main bulk of the direct action, self-organisation, and rejection of the a-b march that has taken place at these demo's (may I remind you that these are tactics that Anarchists advocate) has been from working class youth who are NOT privileged and it is extremely fucking insulting for you to claim that.
At times? No, not at times. EVERY TIME. What are these concrete, historical reasons? Lenin was a big fan of bureaucracy, it's not as if you can blame it on the rise of a bad egg within the party like Stalin.
If yours has existed then I'm even more convinced of the bureaucratic, anti-working class nature of your ideology.
NO, state communism didn't SUSTAIN itself. It FAILED. It didn't emancipate the working class. We're not working in between terms, at least it was able to. As long as markets exist, as long as the working class as a whole isn't the governing body, as long as a whole class apart from the working class is making decisions then we CAN'T DESTROY CAPITALISM, never mind threaten it. We don't argue for spontaneous revolution, just a revolution that is organised from the bottom up, by our class as a whole rather than a small section of it.
Shoot Lenin for instigating the NEP then.
"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
By that logic the very idea of overthrowing capitalism is "rejected" by the working class and thus we should all stop complaining.
Total failures, both involved execution without trial, and authority.
But it is still "abhorrent", instead of a more realistic and less emotional "needed a lot of improvement."
They are privileged relative to workers in most of the world.
Please show me where Lenin shows his love of "bureaucracy", in his own words. Besides, the USSR accomplished far more than any of the anarchist societies you mentioned.
But it did more than anarchists have ever done, or will ever do. So whenever you talk about how much real-world socialism failed, understand that your side has not even accomplished that.
Neither has anarchism.
Nonsense. First off, Makhno apparently believed in markets when he told the railroad workers to see who wanted their services after they asked him who would pay them. This is known as the market.
Which cannot, and will not happen. Did the bourgeoisie do this? No. Do they do this now? No. In order to expand a revolution beyond one community, there must be some body which keeps the whole struggle coordinated. Workers cannot possibly run every aspect of their lives if they are deprived of the information necessary to make good decisions.
Which he explained was a temporary measure. Was it perfect, in hindsight? Certainly not. But the problem is that your all or nothing philosophy is precisely what hampers real revolution. The capitalists understands that he needs to make concessions some time, and he does- and he succeeds.
The reality is that while you can smash the state and take political power, you cannot immediately do away with all forms of market, with money, with commodities, or a dozen other things which happen to be features within capitalism. The second you claim that the very existence of one or a few of these things in a given society means that socialism is automatically negated, you have thus removed any motive to fight for socialism and improve upon it. If socialism has already disappeared, then we might as well go right back to capitalism, because there's no use fighting for something that doesn't exist.
Wow, I'm sure this warning would have been issued just as quickly were I an anarchist or Trot attacking the "evils" of "bureaucratic Stalinism."
It is not sectarian to say that people who serve capitalism and the status quo can be tried as agents of capitalism, regardless of whether or not they claim to be anti-capitalist. If the end result of their propaganda shows itself to be useful to preserving the status quo, then they should have to answer for this.
