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"Anti-Leninist" Revolutions
I was watching some of "LibertarianSocialistRants"'s videos a while back, and he briefly touched on this, but I'm wondering if anyone can recommend some solid sources with data on the economy of Catalonia, or of, for instance, the Free Territory of Ukraine, especially in comparison to Marxist-Leninist states.
Also, I know there's been a fair bit written about why the 1917 revolution didn't spread further, but how do supporters of libertarian socialist movements explain the apparent relative ease with which such movements were crushed (as opposed to the Leninist explanation that either something else was lacking, or the lack of a vanguard party made them vulnerable)?
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." - Antonio Gramsci
"If he did advocate revolutionary change, such advocacy could not, of course, receive constitutional protection, since it would be by definition anti-constitutional."
- J.A. MacGuigan in Roach v. Canada, 1994
The fact that those movements were not able to encourage other revolutions in other regions of the world. Along with the greater political context of the period.
There's a quote liberals like to tote around, "Dictatorship is infinitely more efficient than democracy, but that's the price we pay" or worse "Dictatorship is infinitely more efficient than democracy, and that's why we should be consolidating."
When a movement is in its infancy, it is prone to learning troubles and blunders. And we have often stated that the proletariat is still not conscious. So these movements, if they truly are of conscious proles, were of a minority of people. Unconscious proles have shown a vulnerability to populist rhetoric, especially when it is directed immediately against them, and this is shown even today when they side with movements that are truly against them but sound "nice" ala Trump. So a movement in opposition to an established movement that also has origins in the left begins preaching against the establishment, while the majority of the proletariat is still unconscious, offers little actual theory to the public, hasn't fleshed out its organization and resistance methods, and does not have a mass appeal, is almost certainly doomed to fail.
But of course, all 'communist' revolutions that occur before they are able to succeed (ie, unconscious proles, undeveloped industry, worldwide revolt, etc.) are doomed to either collapse or regress. The class is not of the party; the party, if there even is one, must be of the class.
"If you consider an outcry against Stalinist mass murder and its justification a "dramatic moralist outcry" then how about an undramatic, unmoral outcry: "Fuck you!""-Red Dave
The Spanish Republican side was pretty much doomed from the start, I don't think it mattered too much whether it was led by Anarchists or Leninists. Most of the military sided decisively with the nationalists and they received a substantial amount in artillery pieces and aircraft from the Italians. I remember reading a military account of the Spanish Civil War and the historian who wrote it said that without the influx of Soviet tanks in late 36, the nationalists probably would have taken Madrid and the rest of the Republican side in quick fashion. Which I think is more or less true. The Republican side fell not because of any grave errors in anarchist tactics but because it was completely out-manned and outgunned by the nationalists.
Formerly Illuminate and Apoi_Viitor
I think the Spanish Republicans could have held their own if the Soviets weren't the only ones running guns and supplies. The Neutrality Acts in the U.S. pretty much limited the amount of aid shipped to the Republican side (alongside the obvious transportation issues involving Soviet trade), whereas virtually none of the major democracies (France, Great Britain, etc) were willing to fight against fascism (at least not yet), even though France was controlled by the Popular Front. Had the U.S. and the other global powers intervened with guns and troops, the Nationalists could have been repelled and fascism stymied (at least temporarily).
However, foreign intervention could have easily manipulated and/or crushed the Revolution. Indeed, the anarchists in Catalonia were already dealing with Stalinist purges; I doubt any of the capitalist armies would let a bunch of socialists and anarchists govern for long.
An injury to one is an injury to all -Industrial Workers of the World
The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all -Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels
While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free -Eugene V. Debs
That is true, so the question becomes how to build class consciousness in a way that counters or at least limits the effectiveness of populist rhetoric. It's ironic that such movements would be of a minority, though...considering that their whole raison d'être was the need for a movement "by the workers themselves", as opposed to a vanguard party, to seize the means of production.
If Spanish revolutionaries failed to appeal to "unconscious proles", even with the imminent threat of fascism, because said workers found fascist populism appealing rather than alarming, that seems like a bad omen even for modern conditions.
Sure, the success of movements like the one in Spain seems to be predicated on all of those things. Did they not have theory and mass appeal, at least relative to fascism? Of course, as Cliff Paul and others seem to be suggesting, that's a moot point. If coordinated military opposition is enough to crush a movement with popular support, theory, and a clear strategy (or, as above, if they didn't have popular support even with the looming threat of fascism), then where does that leave us? There’s no suggestion nowadays that a military in a capitalist state could stop being a barrier to socialist revolution, or (as far as I’m aware) that they should even be appealed to as potential allies in such a revolution.
Well, it seems clear that industrialization alone hasn't built class-consciouness to a revolutionary boiling point. Nor, for that matter, have substantial (though cyclic) economic crises.
It can't simply be a matter of waiting around for the right conditions for class-consciousness to spring up on its own. If it's simply a matter of building class consciousness through propaganda, agitation, or whatever you want to call it, there's a steep hill for the left to climb which is made even steeper by tools of cultural hegemony in the hands of capitalists and the marginalization of socialists...and of course the populist appeal of far-right movements as well as their impact insofar as thy can freely organize.
If the lesson from past autonomous socialist movements, some of which even seized on the rhetoric of authoritarians (regarding acknowledgement of capitalist class society, empowerment of workers, etc.) isn't that we're completely screwed, then what is it? That we need to figure out how to try again now that there's more extensive industrialization and modern technology? Certainly, reactionaries haven't disappeared, nor will they anytime soon, as a barrier to building class-consciousness.
I suppose the Stalinists also outnumbered and outgunned the anarchists (and, perhaps, were somehow better organized?), and there was no appealing to those sent to do the purging.Originally Posted by ComradeAllende
Maybe such actions by authoritarians ostensibly on the left won’t be a problem for future revolutionaries, but then again, maybe they will.
I realize that historical circumstances account for the failure of such revolutions, but I'm hoping there's something to learn from them about what not to repeat in terms of organization, strategy, and approach to building class-consciousness out of an "unconscious" proletariat.
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." - Antonio Gramsci
"If he did advocate revolutionary change, such advocacy could not, of course, receive constitutional protection, since it would be by definition anti-constitutional."
- J.A. MacGuigan in Roach v. Canada, 1994
I think if there is anything to be learned from the Spanish experience it's the failure of the "no revolution now, but in the future" tactic of the PCE. I understand why they did it, since the USSR at the time was trying to appeal to Western democracies to support an anti-fascist bloc, but it failed on both levels. The USSR didn't get the anti-fascist bloc they were looking for and the failure to carry out a social revolution in Republican Spain was really the final nail in the revolution's coffin.
The atmosphere in most of Republican Spain after '37 was akin to that of NEP era USSR. The bourgeoisie was terribly paranoid at the threat of looming expropriation, while the proletariat and the bolshevik cadre were frustrated by the lack of progress. In Spain, the appeal the PCE made to shop + business owners was literally "we won't expropriate you now but we will in the future", and unsurprisingly, this failed to truly win them over the Republican side. At the same time the failure to carry out a revolution contributed to the collapse of moral on the Republican side. Many peasants and workers who took up arms in favor of revolution were dismayed at the lack of progress. I remember reading one account from a citizen of Madrid in the book Blood of Spain who said that after 3 years of more-or-less the status quo prevailing in Madrid, many workers in the city changed from being fiercely loyal to generally apathetic towards resisting the nationalists.
Formerly Illuminate and Apoi_Viitor
'Libertarian socialist revolutions' that failed never had a majority of socialists in the population behind them, nor did the Leninists, but they had no qualms about imposing their dictatorship with bullets on 'unconscious masses'. More fool them.
A quick thought -
I wonder if there's a tendency to understand revolutions in a framework that essentially holds up bourgeois revolutions as the gold standard. So, for example, the Bolsheviks are seen as successful for having seized state power, whereas the Zapatistas are not, despite having carved out a space that is relatively autonomous and modeling New forms of social organization, if in a necessarily limited fashion.
The life we have conferred upon these objects confronts us as something hostile and alien.
Formerly Virgin Molotov Cocktail (11/10/2004 - 21/08/2013)
Eh...maybe. That's an interesting point. Socialist revolutions are necessarily of a different character than bourgeois revolutions. I suppose it depends on whether one takes realism, which would tend to measure the success of revolutions in such a way (i.e. "monopoly on the legitimate use of force"), as necessarily bourgeois. I don't think we can plausibly deny the "success" of bourgeois revolutions in terms of overthrowing the old feudal ruling classes by any reasonable measurement. There are remnants of feudalism, but they've been pretty well adapted into global capitalism.
In terms of a holistic change to large-scale social organization (structurally and superstructurally), though, I wouldn't call the Zapatistas successful, though judging them a failure would, I think, be premature.
The Bolsheviks certainly seem to have failed their (ostensible or actual) aim of molding the Soviet proletariat into a class-for-itself, but was it a greater failure than anywhere else by that measure?
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." - Antonio Gramsci
"If he did advocate revolutionary change, such advocacy could not, of course, receive constitutional protection, since it would be by definition anti-constitutional."
- J.A. MacGuigan in Roach v. Canada, 1994
