Question for Anarchists

[TC]

Communism has a manifesto and a set of core texts, by philosopher/revolutionaries Marx and Engles and political scientist/revolutionary/head of state Lenin, which form the basis of the political ideology and theory of all Communists whether trotskyists, maoists, hoxhaites, juche, revolutionary marxists, or whatever.

Anarchy has an online frequently asked question's as its defacto core ideological text universially recognized by its proponents (tell me if this isn't true because this is the impression I've gathered, when an anarchist is asked about anarchy they say read the faqs). :-)



So, I have a question about part of your FAQs, specifically the introduction which addresses historical examples of anarchy. It gives seven examples, at least six of which where basically Communist events with minimual anarchist participation, or even no anarchist participation subject to anarchist historical revision after the fact (and this might actually be the case for all seven but I'm not well enough familier with one to be able to say if that is true). Regardless, my question is about what it proves about anarchy.


This is taken from Anarchist FAQ 9.10 passage A.5 (it can be found on infoshop or flagblackened or about 66,000 other anarchist sites according to google):

Quote:
Anarchism is about radically changing the world, not just making the present system less inhuman by encouraging the anarchistic tendencies within it to grow and develop. While no purely anarchist revolution has taken place yet, there have been numerous ones with a highly anarchist character and level of participation. And while these have all been destroyed, in each case it has been at the hands of outside force brought against them (backed either by Communists or Capitalists), not because of any internal problems in anarchism itself. These revolutions, despite their failure to survive in the face of overwhelming force, have been both an inspiration for anarchists and proof that anarchism is a viable social theory and can be practised on a large scale.


This makes a number of interesting claims:


"While no purely anarchist revolution has taken place yet, there have been numerous ones with a highly anarchist character and level of participation.":

No anarchist revolution has ever taken place, though Anarchists have occassionally attempted to hijack other revolutions, and failed to do so. In other words, Anarchy has never proven that it can even begin let alone complete a revolution without a Communist vanguard, but once a Communist revolution is underweigh Anarchists can get a few molotov cocktails in before someone restores order.

The real question a political ideology typically has to prove is "after the revolution, can the society survive attempts at counter-revolution, attempts at conquest." Anarchists have never even gotten far enough to ask that question, they have never proven that they can even overthrow a government (a question that is taken for granted by most ideologies, of course they have the potential to take power). When states of "anarchy" happen, it is normally because someone else made them happen, not anarchists themselves. I wont attempt to prove anything here because it is not central to the argument, but I'd suggest that the nature of anarchist organization is such that it cannot overthrow a government by itself, and historically it has never done so. There have been scores of completed liberal revolutions, scores of completed communist revolutions, several completed fascist revolutions and at least a couple completed islamist revolutions (and many more, maybe hundreds of serious attempts and failers of each of these four successful political ideologies of the 20th century, where as anarchists have only seriously participated in seven failed historical events not of their own making, only three or four of which where even attempts at revolution.) Even two Baathist completed revolutions, two Bolivarian revolutions, and many many nationalist revolutions with no clear ideology. All of these political trends have proven that they have the theoretical potential to overthrow a government because they have done so, Anarchy is almost alone among recognized ideologies and certaintly world ideologies in never having overthrown even one highly compromized government under its own banner.




"These revolutions, despite their failure to survive in the face of overwhelming force, have been both an inspiration for anarchists and proof that anarchism is a viable social theory and can be practised on a large scale."

All attempts at Anarchy have met in immediate, complete, and unequivocal defeat. All examples given have actually been practiced on a scale no larger than a city (Say Paris or Barcelona or Kronstadt) though more often in small parts of a city (Say the Latin Quarter Paris, or isolated Italian factories), and this is somehow evidence that Anarchy can be practiced on a large scale?

When we talk about liberalism being viable on a large scale we mean that today it represents virtually all of the industrialized or industrializing world besides the nine or ten communist/socialist states and the islamic states in the middle east, in other words more than half of the world. When we talk about socialism/communism's viability on a large scale, at socialism's hight almost half of the global population lived in a socialist society in the late seventies, though a sizeable minority of the world remains socialist. Fascism has had most of europe and seriously challanged the major liberal empires for supremacy. Even many regional ideologies like Baathism, Islamism and Bolivarianism have had success at multi-national levels, and dozens more have had succcess on a single-state level. Anarchy has been on a city level, at most, and never for more than a year. Thats not that impressive.

If this is what the anarchists call viability I wonder what they call inviability.

This sentince though is probably the most damning:

"And while these have all been destroyed, in each case it has been at the hands of outside force brought against them (backed either by Communists or Capitalists), not because of any internal problems in anarchism itself. "


This is percisely the problem with anarchy isn't it? Some outside force always fills the void of power left by anarchy. Now any competition between two political forces results in defeat, sometimes total defeat, of the weaker force, and it is a matter of which side has more power. For instance the Soviet Union totally defeated Nazi Germay, Nazi Germany did not collapse from the inside because Fascism is inherently instable it collapsed because the Red Army captured Berlin. Nazi Germany however had proven victories in destroying the French government, a powerful liberal state with many client states, so the fact that it could use force effectively, that it could be a competetive state and sometimes win was proven. Similarly the Soviet Union collapsed from outside pressure, but only after seventy years of representing a mortal and nearly equally powerful opponent of the United States, the liberal super-power. France, the Third Riech, and the Soviet Union where eventually defeated, but they where clearly and obviously capable of weilding power effectively, they had victories and they endured as viable stable social orders, they fought weaker political opponents and won and fought stronger political opponents and lost.

Now, Anarchy on the other hand, is always the weakest of all political forces in any situation. It is never able to stand against outside forces no matter where those outside forces come from. All of the great liberal empires of the west, the japanese empire, the Czar's supporters, and all of the regional boarder powers, invaded the Soviet Union and it repelled all of them during its first few years: it could fight off outside forces. Far weaker outside forces kill every "partially anarchist" revolution that ever occures, anarchists are never able to even begin to repel outside forces, they do not simply lose, they lose immediately. No "anarchist" society (even if you grant that the examples given in the faq where anarchist and not Communist) has been able to last a single full year. They fall at the first wave of outside intervention, it doesn't have to be overwhelming.




So, what this obviously suggests, and my question to Anarchists, is whether or not this historical fact might actually be indicative of an internal problem of anarchy. Anarchy has no centralized state power by which to repel those that have state power, so even very weak compromized states (like, the defeated village of Versailles) can brush aside anarchist resistence in a single offensive. This is because the only thing capable of resisting any mildly determined attack against a "liberated territory" from a state level organization, (that is, an organization capable of monopolizing open violence over a territory, a government commanding a centralized army), is anouther state-level organization that can wield organized violence in the same manner. Anarchists by definition have no state, so they have never and can never resist any attempt to take back any territory they have managed to liberate. How can anarchists ever hope to defeat centralized organized violence (armies) with decentralized disorganized violence (local militia)? How will you defy the history of your ideology where ever attempt to implement it has resulted at best in failure and at worst in the death of all of the participants?

[Urban Rubble]

Great post, I can't wait to see the Anarchists answer it. Though it shouldn't be in History.

[ItalianFist]

I dont think that there could really be a succesful anarchist revolution, at least not how we think a revolution should be. Anarchsim is just a tad too radical for the majority to accept right off the bat, so instead I think that the best way to reach an anarchist society would be to journey through socialism and communsim first. If there was a pure communist revolution and peoples minds were set free from thinking inside the spectre of capatalism, I think that society could continue to move forward until inevitably arriving at anarchism, its just the next logical step. Of course the trick would be to educate the majority so they realise that such a journey would be for the greater benifit of mankind.

[bombeverything]

Whoa this is a long post. It took me awhile to get through. Anyway as an anarchist I will try my best to answer your questions.

Communism has a manifesto and a set of core texts, by philosopher/revolutionaries Marx and Engles and political scientist/revolutionary/head of state Lenin, which form the basis of the political ideology and theory of all Communists whether trotskyists, maoists, hoxhaites, juche, revolutionary marxists, or whatever
Anarchy has an online frequently asked question's as its defacto core ideological text universially recognized by its proponents (tell me if this isn't true because this is the impression I've gathered, when an anarchist is asked about anarchy they say read the faqs). :-)

I will assume that when you say “communist” you mean Marxist. Yes I think you are right. Anarchists do not tend to have one set text that they must read, sure there are writers that are popular but generally they prefer to take there ideas from a wide range of authors instead of just one or two.

No anarchist revolution has ever taken place, though Anarchists have occassionally attempted to hijack other revolutions, and failed to do so. In other words, Anarchy has never proven that it can even begin let alone complete a revolution without a Communist vanguard, but once a Communist revolution is underweigh Anarchists can get a few molotov cocktails in before someone restores order.

Just because the anarchists may have shared the political goals of the centrists at one time does not mean that they tried to ‘hijack their revolution’. Generally, their ideologies seemed to be the same and anarchists and socialists worked together to seemingly the same end. They both wanted to see the end of the state and capitalism. Look at the Russian revolution for example. At first Lenin welcomed the anarchists. It was only when the anarchists realised that the socialists were attempting to centralise power that they broke away.

Anarchists have never even gotten far enough to ask that question, they have never proven that they can even overthrow a government (a question that is taken for granted by most ideologies, of course they have the potential to take power). When states of "anarchy" happen, it is normally because someone else made them happen, not anarchists themselves. I wont attempt to prove anything here because it is not central to the argument, but I'd suggest that the nature of anarchist organization is such that it cannot overthrow a government by itself, and historically it has never done so. There have been scores of completed liberal revolutions, scores of completed communist revolutions, several completed fascist revolutions and at least a couple completed islamist revolutions (and many more, maybe hundreds of serious attempts and failers of each of these four successful political ideologies of the 20th century, where as anarchists have only seriously participated in seven failed historical events not of their own making, only three or four of which where even attempts at revolution.) Even two Baathist completed revolutions, two Bolivarian revolutions, and many many nationalist revolutions with no clear ideology. All of these political trends have proven that they have the theoretical potential to overthrow a government because they have done so, Anarchy is almost alone among recognized ideologies and certaintly world ideologies in never having overthrown even one highly compromized government under its own banner.

There is no doubt that a well-organised anarchist movement could overthrow a government. Anarchists, however, want the people do to this, not some state in their name. No, your right, it has never happened. But this does not make it impossible, or undesirable.

All attempts at Anarchy have met in immediate, complete, and unequivocal defeat. All examples given have actually been practiced on a scale no larger than a city (Say Paris or Barcelona or Kronstadt) though more often in small parts of a city (Say the Latin Quarter Paris, or isolated Italian factories), and this is somehow evidence that Anarchy can be practiced on a large scale?

So? These examples prove that is possible to live in an anarchist society. By large scale they would be referring to a large number of self-governing/autonomous communities, not one large mass of people [or whatever you were thinking of]. These anarchist experiments simply proved that production and consumption could be organised along non-hierarchical lines.

So, what this obviously suggests, and my question to Anarchists, is whether or not this historical fact might actually be indicative of an internal problem of anarchy. Anarchy has no centralized state power by which to repel those that have state power, so even very weak compromized states (like, the defeated village of Versailles) can brush aside anarchist resistence in a single offensive. This is because the only thing capable of resisting any mildly determined attack against a "liberated territory" from a state level organization, (that is, an organization capable of monopolizing open violence over a territory, a government commanding a centralized army), is anouther state-level organization that can wield organized violence in the same manner. Anarchists by definition have no state, so they have never and can never resist any attempt to take back any territory they have managed to liberate. How can anarchists ever hope to defeat centralized organized violence (armies) with decentralized disorganized violence (local militia)? How will you defy the history of your ideology where ever attempt to implement it has resulted at best in failure and at worst in the death of all of the participants?

No I do not see any inherent flaws within anarchist thought in light of your argument. We will assume that you are right about defence [this could be debated but it is no strong point of mine. All I could argue would that a well-organised decentralised community would be harder to conquer than a centralised one]. If so, the problem here is not anarchism, but the brutality of the state. Most anarchists want to see the state abolished in all parts of the world. Idealistic or not, this is the anarchist ideal.

[TC]

Just because the anarchists may have shared the political goals of the centrists at one time does not mean that they tried to ‘hijack their revolution’. Generally, their ideologies seemed to be the same and anarchists and socialists worked together to seemingly the same end. They both wanted to see the end of the state and capitalism. Look at the Russian revolution for example. At first Lenin welcomed the anarchists. It was only when the anarchists realised that the socialists were attempting to centralise power that they broke away.

The point is not that they have tried to hijack revolutions as if that was a bad thing...when they see a chance to act for their cause it is their responsibility to do so, that is not a bad thing. What it does show however though is that Anarchists may not be able to start revolutions, they can only join them when they have begun, meaning that they can take advantage of power voids but they do not have the capacity to create them themselves.

There is no doubt that a well-organised anarchist movement could overthrow a government. Anarchists, however, want the people do to this, not some state in their name. No, your right, it has never happened. But this does not make it impossible, or undesirable.

Actually I have a lot of doubt in it, I"m wondering why it has never happened anywhere before. That fact casts some doubt on it. If a well organized anarchist movement could overthrow a government why hasn't it done it yet? What does it mean for "the people" to do anything, individual people organized as a group do everything, the "people" as a mystical concept are just something to appeal to. You cannot claim to be revolutionary and claim to have had the capability to launch a revolution but decided against it. The conclusion is that either the group is either not revolutionary or not capable of doing so, and I would give the anarchists some credit and guess the latter.

So? These examples prove that is possible to live in an anarchist society. By large scale they would be referring to a large number of self-governing/autonomous communities, not one large mass of people [or whatever you were thinking of]. These anarchist experiments simply proved that production and consumption could be organised along non-hierarchical lines.

No, no they don't prove that it is possible to live in an anarchist society. They failed. That is actually evidence against the possibility of a sustainable anarchist society. If an anarchist society has never last a full year, then many would actually assume that it is convincing evidence to suggest that anarchist societies don't work.

Concerning the fact that produciton and consumption can be organized along non-hierarchical lines, everyone already knew that. Communists believe that too. Hunter gatherers practice that. The Communist assumption has always been that the final stage of socialist development will be in such a fashion. The question is, can non-state (or non-hierarchical as you put it) organizations expropriate capitalist production and keep it, and the answer has historically been no, they cannot. It is not managing production that is the issue, it is taking it and keeping it away from the capitalists that is at issue. The capitalists don't care about your community garden, they care about their factory, and that is where anarchy has failed to show results.

No I do not see any inherent flaws within anarchist thought in light of your argument. We will assume that you are right about defence [this could be debated but it is no strong point of mine. All I could argue would that a well-organised decentralised community would be harder to conquer than a centralised one]. If so, the problem here is not anarchism, but the brutality of the state. Most anarchists want to see the state abolished in all parts of the world. Idealistic or not, this is the anarchist ideal.

Yes, that is percisely correct, the problem is the brutality of the state, and whether or not anarchy can resist it. The problem with the Paris Commune was not an internal one, it was that the French government was brutal, and the Paris Commune was incapable of stopping its brutality. In order to make anarchy viable, it would have to be able to stop the brutality of capitalist states, stop them from recapturing liberated territory. If it is not capable of doing that, then it is in fact, a problem for anarchy. The state makes itself a problem, its not pretty, thats why your an anarchist. But rejecting state-organization has not worked, creating a new state to resist has.

Communists also want to see the state abolished in all parts of the world, but we suggest that capitalism must be utterly destroyed everywhere first. The only guard against a state is anouther state, so to disband that guard against capitalist states, one has to defeat all capitalist states first, or else allow themselves to be reconquered.

Your position is idealistic. Ideals are fine, but they cannot take precidents over reality. Anarchists talk about the most perfect, beautiful, pleasing way to overthrow capitalism hopelessly being unable to implement it for more than moments before capitalism restores itself. Communists have already found a realistic way to stop the capitalists from taking back what they think is theres: the creation of a workers state to fight the capitalist states. It is not ideal, not perfect, but it works, and that is important in this world. Holding onto ideals that are impossible to implement are not worth suffering capitalism, and adhering to ideals that can only but be expected to fail in real life are not worth the blood of the working class.

[bombeverything]

The point is not that they have tried to hijack revolutions as if that was a bad thing...when they see a chance to act for their cause it is their responsibility to do so, that is not a bad thing. What it does show however though is that Anarchists may not be able to start revolutions, they can only join them when they have begun, meaning that they can take advantage of power voids but they do not have the capacity to create them themselves.

Not really. Many revolutions have been spontaneous and cannot be traced to one particular ideological group, although many would have participated. Just because the socialists would have made up the majority does not mean it is their revolution, or that they ‘started it’.

Actually I have a lot of doubt in it, I"m wondering why it has never happened anywhere before. That fact casts some doubt on it. If a well organized anarchist movement could overthrow a government why hasn't it done it yet? What does it mean for "the people" to do anything, individual people organized as a group do everything, the "people" as a mystical concept are just something to appeal to. You cannot claim to be revolutionary and claim to have had the capability to launch a revolution but decided against it. The conclusion is that either the group is either not revolutionary or not capable of doing so, and I would give the anarchists some credit and guess the latter.

It has happened before. The anarchists have been active in many revolutions. Sure they were a only a minority group, but this does not mean that they ‘started the revolution’ any less than the state socialists. As for ‘the people’, I was referring to the revolutionary potential of the working class. When ‘the people’ come together they can overthrow any government, as we have seen. That was all I was saying. Anyway, I guess that getting the movement together and raising awareness is harder. If people are unaware of their revolutionary potential, how are they supposed to carry it out? In this case, this would be the problem getting in the way of a mass uprising, not the idea of anarchism itself.

No, no they don't prove that it is possible to live in an anarchist society. They failed. That is actually evidence against the possibility of a sustainable anarchist society. If an anarchist society has never last a full year, then many would actually assume that it is convincing evidence to suggest that anarchist societies don't work.

These societies have been short lived, not because of any inherent flaw within the theory, but because of external difficulties. You say the same thing yourself later in the post. Sure, anarchist experiments have been short lived, but this hardly means that anarchism does not work. In fact they confirm the exact opposite - workers can manage their own affairs, e.g. the collectivisation of land by the UGT and the CNT in Spain, the success of Catalunya, or in Andalucia, where many village communities were set up before they was crushed by Franco’s troops. All these examples show that anarchist societies can work.

The capitalists don't care about your community garden, they care about their factory, and that is where anarchy has failed to show results.

Not really. Anarcho-syndicalism has been very successful in the past. The way forward is to work within the shell of the existing society by setting up institutions of self-management. In this way, when the revolution comes [through a general strike, quite clearly demonstrating the importance of the factory in the revolution] the workers will be set up to make the necessary social transformation. In this way, these syndicates are also a model for the future society. Such examples have had considerable results. I don’t know what you mean about it failing.

Yes, that is percisely correct, the problem is the brutality of the state, and whether or not anarchy can resist it. The problem with the Paris Commune was not an internal one, it was that the French government was brutal, and the Paris Commune was incapable of stopping its brutality. In order to make anarchy viable, it would have to be able to stop the brutality of capitalist states, stop them from recapturing liberated territory. If it is not capable of doing that, then it is in fact, a problem for anarchy. The state makes itself a problem, its not pretty, thats why your an anarchist. But rejecting state-organization has not worked, creating a new state to resist has.

Your right about the Paris Commune. I see your point, but replacing one state with another will not stop the brutality of the state either. This is just replacing one set of tyrants with another. Sure a socialist state can ‘protect’ a nation from a brutal capitalist state, but the way this new state will do this will be just as vicious as the very state they are trying to protect their citizens from.

Communists also want to see the state abolished in all parts of the world, but we suggest that capitalism must be utterly destroyed everywhere first. The only guard against a state is anouther state, so to disband that guard against capitalist states, one has to defeat all capitalist states first, or else allow themselves to be reconquered.

This is what I mean. I don’t see how we could get rid a state with a state. Relying on a vanguard communist party to ‘steer the revolution’ will never work and will only result in the strengthing of the state in the face of opposition. How else is a state going to protect itself after the revolution? With the same violence that the old state used, that’s how. State socialism can only result in a highly hierarchical authoritarian state controlled by an elitist party; the opposite of communism.

Your position is idealistic. Ideals are fine, but they cannot take precidents over reality. Anarchists talk about the most perfect, beautiful, pleasing way to overthrow capitalism hopelessly being unable to implement it for more than moments before capitalism restores itself. Communists have already found a realistic way to stop the capitalists from taking back what they think is theres: the creation of a workers state to fight the capitalist states. It is not ideal, not perfect, but it works, and that is important in this world. Holding onto ideals that are impossible to implement are not worth suffering capitalism, and adhering to ideals that can only but be expected to fail in real life are not worth the blood of the working class.

I said I was idealistic. I do not believe my views are unrealistic or unworkable. What is the point of a workers revolution if the power will never actually be with the workers? The only thing that is worth the blood of the working class is a revolt that will benefit the working class themselves.

[The Feral Underclass]

I would just like to correct something. The CNT and the FAI were the main proponets of the uprising in Catalonia, Spain 1936. Both were anarchist organizations. Neither of them were small and obscure and both managed to organize large areas including cities. It failed becasuse the Cominturn decided that the anarchists were a threat and instead of concentrating on fightng Franco, the Stalinists attack anarchist collectives, attacked Barcelona and murdered anarchists and marxists alike.

[DEPAVER]

No anarchist revolution has ever taken place, though Anarchists have occassionally attempted to hijack other revolutions, and failed to do so.

That all depends on how you define anarchy and revolution.
As far as I'm concerned there's growing anarchism all over the country, a peaceful revolution is occuring and hasn't been "defeated." You can't think of anarchism in terms of "overthrows" and singular events.

In other words, Anarchy has never proven that it can even begin let alone complete a revolution without a Communist vanguard, but once a Communist revolution is underweigh Anarchists can get a few molotov cocktails in before someone restores order.

No, it's already begun (even for those that refuse to recognize this is the case) and anarchism has nothing to do with molotov cocktails.

Molotov cocktails are thrown by stupid, immature criminals.

The real question a political ideology typically has to prove is "after the revolution, can the society survive attempts at counter-revolution, attempts at conquest."

No, it can't. Because of two reasons.

1. You can't topple the current hegemony with violence.
2. Violence only brings more violence and the cycle never ends.

All attempts at Anarchy have met in immediate, complete, and unequivocal defeat. All examples given have actually been practiced on a scale no larger than a city (Say Paris or Barcelona or Kronstadt) though more often in small parts of a city (Say the Latin Quarter Paris, or isolated Italian factories), and this is somehow evidence that Anarchy can be practiced on a large scale?

No, anarchist pockets of activity exist and are growing, but yes, there is no anarchism on a large scale.
But the again, why not just grow one city or one community at a time?

This is percisely the problem with anarchy isn't it? Some outside force always fills the void of power left by anarchy. Now any competition between two political forces results in defeat, sometimes total defeat, of the weaker force, and it is a matter of which side has more power.

The use of violence to counter the violence of the state has two results: it necessitates the concentration of power necessary to bring overwhelming coercive force against the state; and overthrowing the state
leaves the complex centralized state bureaucracy (the government) in place and functioning, providing an opportunity for those who seek positions of power to step into place and exercise coercive power over the winners of the revolution. Those who seek this power may or not be members of the anarchist society. (this is what happened to the Russian revolution).