anarchists who joined the SWP

[october_lost]

I think to begin with the SWP is not a monolith, they arent a cadre organisation, and political education isnt the best, so I think there are some inconsistent anarcho elements within it, along with reformism and some aspects of liberalism. Outside of that organisation many of there politics would be one of pure confusion. But it as to be repeated I think of all political groupings Marxists have the worst understanding of Anarchism, and this is clear with regards to the SWP 'criticisms'.

Ive only personally ever heard of a few going from liberatarian to authoritarian (joining the SWP) and its always I suspect because the SWP offers a clear defined and accessible product, albiet politically monotonous, this is a polite way of saying immature I guess. But Im sure those of us who are libertarian need to criticise ourselves at some point because certain aspects of our politics dont translate well beyond small activist enclaves.

But the numbers I have heard who have left the SWP to join the libertarians is startling, the SWP are our best recruitment policy by far, its just sad that after being in that organisation that so many disembark from politics all together, and to find that SWPers dismiss this as 'politics isnt for everyone' is laughable if it wasnt so serious.

The SWP is the revolving door of British politics

 

[butchersapron]

Ive only personally ever heard of a few going from liberatarian to authoritarian (joining the SWP) and its always I suspect because the SWP offers a clear defined and accessible product, albiet politically monotonous, this is a polite way of saying immature I guess. But Im sure those of us who are libertarian need to criticise ourselves at some point because certain aspects of our politics dont translate well beyond small activist enclaves.

When you've played chess you don't easily go back to draughts!

 

[Herbert Read]

When you've played chess you don't easily go back to draughts!

 

[bolshiebhoy]

When you've played chess you don't easily go back to draughts!

I was more of an anarchist en passant.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

Pocket billiards in your case Herbert. I believe that a number of packets of biscuits are still missing from the Spar shop in Scotland.

 

[TremulousTetra]

My politics have developed at a breakneck pace since leaving the swp in 2003, and although I am not yet in the position of describing myself as an anarchist I must take issue with mattkidd who is of the opinion that there is a dicotomy between being a marxist and being an anarchist- It is my opinion that the twoare not mutually hostile, Marxism is a tool for action in changing society, anarchism is a political movement for the changing of society. Where the confusion comes in is the all too common, by both leninists and anarchists, mixing up of leninism with marxism.

I can't claim to be an anarchist either. I came on here a couple years ago with no more I have to admit than a open-minded interest in what made "anarchist tick". However one thing I have come across that no one has been able to clear up yet, despite many questions, is that there does seem to be a difference between the anarchists topdog & catch etc tool anarchism and Marxism . Or at least an unexplainable contradiction in the anarchist tools.

Both topdog and catch said that they would not support the a workers state if it still had commodities and exchange as it did in Russia. I can't remember the exact words but they seem to imply that any state that had commodities and exchange in it would automatically regress to some form of class society. And yet Karl Marx supported the Paris Commune which still had commodities and exchange in it. what is even more strange about anarchism's tools as applied by these anarchists is that they said they both supported the Paris commune.

Fraternal greetings ResistanceMP3.

 

[TremulousTetra]

Dunno about that. Before I came across the irish Cliffites as a late teen the only people I read other than Marx were the anarchists. I made my way through Bakunin, Proudhon, Kropotkin, Malatesta and even the weird little one Max Stirner of "The Ego and it's Own". I liked their emphasis on politics from below but agreed with Marx's criticisms of their class analysis or lack of it and their general lack of a serious historical theory. And then I found Cliffite Trotskyism which seemed to offer the best of both worlds. As far as I can see it still does.

Not sure how it works these days though. A major part of the attraction was the theory of state cap and the fact that here you had a group that were worked out marxists but totally rejected any defence of 'actualy existing socialism'. That appealed to my anarchist leanings. Obviously these days that's not such a central part of the SWP's politics as Stalinism has imploded. Don't know if that makes anarcho-inclined people looking for a political home less likely to join the SWP but I guess it might.

there was a meeting at Marxism 2005 by Mike Haynes entitled "the role of the state in contemporary capitalism"which argued you really could not understand contemporary capitalism from our Marxist economics perspective without an understanding of state capitalism. He went on to cite the fact I'm sure you're aware of, that despite the announcement from Reagan and Thatcher, the state in contemporary capitalism has not been rolled back. The state is still a major economic player in the global scheme of things.

fraternal greetings ResistanceMP3.

 

[roger rosewall]

I can't claim to be an anarchist either. I came on here a couple years ago with no more I have to admit than a open-minded interest in what made "anarchist tick". However one thing I have come across that no one has been able to clear up yet, despite many questions, is that there does seem to be a difference between the anarchists topdog & catch etc tool anarchism and Marxism . Or at least an unexplainable contradiction in the anarchist tools.

Both topdog and catch said that they would not support the a workers state if it still had commodities and exchange as it did in Russia. I can't remember the exact words but they seem to imply that any state that had commodities and exchange in it would automatically regress to some form of class society. And yet Karl Marx supported the Paris Commune which still had commodities and exchange in it. what is even more strange about anarchism's tools as applied by these anarchists is that they said they both supported the Paris commune.

Fraternal greetings ResistanceMP3.

The contradiction is not between anarchism and Marxism but anarchism and reality. It is a central belief of all anarchist tendencies that there can be no transitional stage (workers state) between the overthrow of capitalism and communism. This a perfectly legitimate belief rooted in an idealist philosophical system with as equal a grasp on material reality as the Christian belief in immaculate conception.

On the other hand Marxism argues that a transitional period will be needed after the overthrow of capitalism. Initially because a state will still be needed to suppress the efforts of the counter revolution both internally and externally. But in the longer term because the law of value and commodity production cannot be abolished overnight but only after a period during which a planned economy can be developed that will enable the conscious development of socialised production.

But all this is very basic Marxism that even a relatively cursory reading of Marx or the better introductions to his thought explain. I can only speculate that neither darrenredparty or ResistanceMP3 have never actually read any Marx?

 

[rednblack]

i was an anarchist before i joined the swp - though i'd only really read a few things on the internet - i joined them and the socialist alliance because they were the only things around in southampton at the time - the swp organiser who recruited me said it didnt matter if i was an anarchist i would still be able to join - i stopped being active 6 months later and stopped paying subs about 3 months after that

 

[Groucho]

The contradiction is not between anarchism and Marxism but anarchism and reality. It is a central belief of all anarchist tendencies that there can be no transitional stage (workers state) between the overthrow of capitalism and communism. This a perfectly legitimate belief rooted in an idealist philosophical system with as equal a grasp on material reality as the Christian belief in immaculate conception.

On the other hand Marxism argues that a transitional period will be needed after the overthrow of capitalism. Initially because a state will still be needed to suppress the efforts of the counter revolution both internally and externally. But in the longer term because the law of value and commodity production cannot be abolished overnight but only after a period during which a planned economy can be developed that will enable the conscious development of socialised production.

But all this is very basic Marxism that even a relatively cursory reading of Marx or the better introductions to his thought explain. I can only speculate that neither darrenredparty or ResistanceMP3 have never actually read any Marx?

Roger Rosewall eh?

Are you familiar with the text from Engels where he refers to the Workers State a la Paris Commune and says that in many ways this is not a state at all, certainly not in the repressive sense asfar as the mass of peopleare concerned (it is their body).

You must also be familiar with the notion of the Workers' state withering away? The purpose being not to strengthen itself but to create the conditions of its own demise.

Anarchists who accept class struggle as the central motor for change, who accept collective responsibility and who accept the need to organise e.g. democratic workers' militias in defence of the revolution are not very far off the Marxist position. It is the experience of the decline and degeneration of the Russian revolution that leads Anarchists to reject collective democracy in any centralised party structure, and to assert that the Marxist view of the workers' state is not as described above or by Marx/Engels but is instead the foundations of an authoritarian state a la Soviet Union.

You say: "But in the longer term because the law of value and commodity production cannot be abolished overnight but only after a period during which a planned economy can be developed that will enable the conscious development of socialised production." This could easily be interpreted as an apology for Stalinism. Longer term? The aim is the shorter the better. "Planned economy"? - sure, a necessity but democratic planning from below through elected recallable delegates, not planning from above ala Soviet Union post Lenin. The "conscious development of socialised production." Yes, directly out of the experience of workers themselves and again democratically from below not planned/blue printed by party aparachiks.

Roger Rosewell? I know that name from somewhere. Isn't there a former 'Marxist' knocking about by that name?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Infamous Daily Vile writer and lieutenant to Lady Tesco. Previously IS Industrial Organiser.

 

[Sorry.]

The contradiction is not between anarchism and Marxism but anarchism and reality. It is a central belief of all anarchist tendencies that there can be no transitional stage ("workers'" state) between the overthrow of capitalism and communism. This a perfectly legitimate belief rooted in an idealist philosophical system with as equal a grasp on material reality as the Christian belief in immaculate conception.

On the other hand Marxism argues that a transitional period will be needed after the overthrow of capitalism. Initially because a state will still be needed to suppress the efforts of the counter revolution both internally and externally. But in the longer term because the law of value and commodity production cannot be abolished overnight but only after a period during which a planned economy can be developed that will enable the conscious development of socialised production.

But all this is very basic Marxism that even a relatively cursory reading of Marx or the better introductions to his thought explain. I can only speculate that neither darrenredparty or ResistanceMP3 have never actually read any Marx?

You are mistaken.

I certainly do not believe in the immaculate conception of a classless society. Rather that the means will always define the ends and that a "workers'" state will always produce a "workers'" bourgeoisie because of the nature of the state. We should fight capitalism with the exact tools with which we intend to build communism.

 

[Groucho]

Roger Rosewall

Now, why would you name yourself after such a shady right-wing character and probable former spook?

From Hansard - discussion on Dame Porter's illegality, and her odd friends.

"City hall was infiltrated by a whole dramatis personae of shady right-wing characters advising Lady Porter. One became known throughout city hall as "the man with no name" and "the thing in the goods lift", because of his habit of sneaking in by the tradesman's entrance. We now know that he was Roger Rosewall, erstwhile Socialist Workers party activist, now Porter apologist and Daily Mail leader writer.

Property speculator Richard Loftus was also part of the clandestine city hall plot. While he paid for the Tories' poll tax campaign, he was also seeking permission for highly controversial developments in the west end, involving the partial demolition of some of the finest Georgian buildings in central London. He gained those permissions, leading to the destruction of a large part of London's architectural heritage. We believe that those permissions were obtained only because of his Tory party connections.

Not only was political campaigning conducted on the rates, but, from other sources, donations were illegally channelled through a bogus charity, the Foundation for Business Responsibility, which was run by Michael Ivens, a right-wing extremist and husband of Tory councillor Katy Ivens. There was a panoply of espionage, with Porter telling her associates to..."

 

[catch]

Both topdog and catch said that they would not support the a workers state if it still had commodities and exchange as it did in Russia. I can't remember the exact words but they seem to imply that any state that had commodities and exchange in it would automatically regress to some form of class society.

If the "workers' state" (an oxymoron) means a political system which defends commodity production and exchange with organised violence then yes I think it would revert to (or develop into a new form of) class society. I want to get rid of capitalist relationships, not manage them a bit differently.

 

[TremulousTetra]

The contradiction is not between anarchism and Marxism but anarchism and reality. It is a central belief of all anarchist tendencies that there can be no transitional stage (workers state) between the overthrow of capitalism and communism. This a perfectly legitimate belief rooted in an idealist philosophical system with as equal a grasp on material reality as the Christian belief in immaculate conception.

On the other hand Marxism argues that a transitional period will be needed after the overthrow of capitalism. Initially because a state will still be needed to suppress the efforts of the counter revolution both internally and externally. But in the longer term because the law of value and commodity production cannot be abolished overnight but only after a period during which a planned economy can be developed that will enable the conscious development of socialised production.

But all this is very basic Marxism that even a relatively cursory reading of Marx or the better introductions to his thought explain. I can only speculate that neither darrenredparty or ResistanceMP3 have never actually read any Marx?

Couldn't agree with you more. This is exactly what I was trying to explain to the anarchists.

They are always claiming they are the real Marxist, they are the only ones who have really read all the books, but top dog in particular couldn't grasp that marx described a dialectical relationship between the economic base and the superstructure. Top dog was guilty of the crudest reductionism, the likes of which I've only really seen with bourgeois interpretations of Marx's philosophy at university, suggesting that any economic base which still had exchange and commodities would determine a return to a class structure. [ I can remember the exact wording, but it was something like that.]

But at least at last I get an acknowledgement that top dog was wrong;

If the "workers' state" (an oxymoron) means a political system which defends commodity production and exchange with organised violence then yes I think it would revert to (or develop into a new form of) class society. I want to get rid of capitalist relationships, not manage them a bit differently.

well I note the sideways swipe, but at least now we have a recognition of the dialectical relationship between the economic base, the class relationships to the mode of production, and the superstructure, the institutions and organs of political discourse [ie workers councils, ideology etc]. It is just a shame that top dog had to flounce away before we could achieve this enlightenment.

Fraternal greetings, ResistanceMP3.

PS. You seems to be really hung up on this word State. Perhaps you can define what a state is in your opinion, then I may understand what you get so worked up.

 

[TremulousTetra]

i was an anarchist before i joined the swp - though i'd only really read a few things on the internet - i joined them and the socialist alliance because they were the only things around in southampton at the time - the swp organiser who recruited me said it didnt matter if i was an anarchist i would still be able to join - i stopped being active 6 months later and stopped paying subs about 3 months after that

that's right, it wouldn't matter if you were an anarchist and wanted to join the SWP. We have observed that ideas change in struggle and with the discourse that flows from such struggle. Unfortunately for you, I note from past comments, you was neither involved in struggle or discourse, and hence your subsequent regression.

Frats Rmp3

 

[TremulousTetra]

Not so in fact the analysis of the SWP was that the riots were a response by urban youth to racism and unemployment. The point was made however that a riot can explode and be all over leaving nothing behind it in twenty-four hours. This was contrasted to the solidity of the trade union movement. It was suggested that those youth who fought the police needed to become a part of the workers movement if society was to be revolutionised. It was fuirther suggested that the unions needed such revolting youth so to speak.

Today of course the SWP might suggest that the problem is Islamophobia and the asnwer lies in electing councilors and MPs. Times change and so do organisations. Not always for the better.

most of the people I met, and knew, at Marxism2005 had been in the party for between 15 and 30 years, like myself. How do you guess they square what to you seems such an obvious contradiction between what the party's analysis was then, and what the parties analysis would be now? [considering you seem somewhat knowledgeable of what the party's analysis was then, and possibly in agreement with it.]

fraternal greetings ResistanceMP3

 

[rednblack]

you was neither involved in struggle or discourse, and hence your subsequent regression.

Frats Rmp3

i certainly was involved in struggle in my workplace and community against bosses, bailiffs, the local council and fascists - unfortunately due to the fact that my workmates and neighbours were mostly white, working class, and not public sector workers the swp werent interested in our struggles

keep on lying though...

 

[TremulousTetra]

i certainly was involved in struggle in my workplace and community against bosses, bailiffs, the local council and fascists - unfortunately due to the fact that my workmates and neighbours were mostly white, working class, and not public sector workers the swp werent interested in our struggles

keep on lying though...

I stand corrected. I was wrong! as I said I've got the impression from earlier post's that in the six months you were involved in the SWP, you weren't involved in struggle or a proper discourse with the SWP members. just went on "one or two papersales". If you are now telling me you were involved in all that in six months, and the SWP wasn't interested in any of it I don't blame you for leaving. It certainly wouldn't have been the case if you have been in my branch. Were the branch you were in fucking comatosed? Did you tell them what you was up to?

Rmp3

PS. I never lie to the class.

 

[rednblack]

I
PS. I never lie to the class.

fair enough

yeah they knew what i was involved in, but werent interested - they basically said i shouldnt bother - that i should help sell papers outside the local sorting office and go on anti war stuff

which is fine - i don't hate the branch members for that, it just helped me realise they are not interested in working class struggles, i've got mates who are tories i wouldnt expect them to get involved either...

 

[TremulousTetra]

fair enough

yeah they knew what i was involved in, but werent interested - they basically said i shouldnt bother - that i should help sell papers outside the local sorting office and go on anti war stuff

which is fine - i don't hate the branch members for that, it just helped me realise they are not interested in working class struggles, i've got mates who are tories i wouldnt expect them to get involved either...

I see, I get a bit more of the picture now.

Sometimes in democratic centralism you agree to prioritise. It is impossible for revolutionaries to do everything, a sad fact my partner and family will attest to, so you pick the most important current issues. What determines what is the priority is the working class. I truly wish that there was a mass antifascist activity, mass (anti-boss) industrial action,mass community action, but in reality the one area at the moment where the working class, mostly white, has chose to move into mass activity is the anti-war movement. In my opinion it is right to prioritise the anti-war movement, but that's just my opinion. You are entitled to disagree, and choose and different method of organisation. Diversity in approach for the social justice movement is not a bad thing.

fraternal greetings comrade, ResistanceMP3 (who is very interested in working class struggles )

(edited to add)in honesty, I should take on board some of that criticism. Chuck Wilson is correct to some extent, that though in principle the leadership have argued and the membership have agreed, some branches have still not got the hang of smashing the old downturn methods of working, and looking outwards properly. So fair cop guv.

 

[roger rosewall]

Now, why would you name yourself after such a shady right-wing character and probable former spook?

Because Roger Warszawski, my real name, is too obscure.

 

[roger rosewall]

Roger Rosewall eh?

Are you familiar with the text from Engels where he refers to the Workers State a la Paris Commune and says that in many ways this is not a state at all, certainly not in the repressive sense asfar as the mass of peopleare concerned (it is their body).

You must also be familiar with the notion of the Workers' state withering away? The purpose being not to strengthen itself but to create the conditions of its own demise.

Anarchists who accept class struggle as the central motor for change, who accept collective responsibility and who accept the need to organise e.g. democratic workers' militias in defence of the revolution are not very far off the Marxist position. It is the experience of the decline and degeneration of the Russian revolution that leads Anarchists to reject collective democracy in any centralised party structure, and to assert that the Marxist view of the workers' state is not as described above or by Marx/Engels but is instead the foundations of an authoritarian state a la Soviet Union.

You say: "But in the longer term because the law of value and commodity production cannot be abolished overnight but only after a period during which a planned economy can be developed that will enable the conscious development of socialised production." This could easily be interpreted as an apology for Stalinism. Longer term? The aim is the shorter the better. "Planned economy"? - sure, a necessity but democratic planning from below through elected recallable delegates, not planning from above ala Soviet Union post Lenin. The "conscious development of socialised production." Yes, directly out of the experience of workers themselves and again democratically from below not planned/blue printed by party aparachiks.QUOTE]

Hi Groucho,

Sure I'm familiar with Engels writings as should be obvious from my previous comments. Come to that I'm also aware of Lenins comment that a workers state is a bourgeois state without a bourgeoisie. There is of course a contradiction at the heart of the concept of a workes state and that is the central problem that anarchists with their banal idea of anti--authoritarianism cannot understand.

Given the above I agree with you that anarchists who accept the idea of class struggle and act upon it by defending the collectively made decisions made in the course of that struggle are close to Marxism. But in order to do this they de facto cease to be anarchists. Which is why a Marxist organisation can accept self declared anarchist youth into its ranks as by accepting the collective discipline of the revolutionary organisation the anarchist is already far down the road of breaking from anarchism.

However you are incorrect in saying that it is the experience of the degeneration of the October Revolution that leads anarchists to reject the concept of a workers state. The anarchist rejection of proletarian democracy is rooted in the basic anarchist conception of anti-authoriatrianism itself. That is the rejection of any authority external to the individual or small affinity groups. Thus anarchists celebrate federalism in an ae that has long gone beyond the autonomy of small collectivities in the sphere of productive relations. In this anarchism is, as marx and Lenin argued, a petty bourgeois tendency which can only understand centralism as compulsion and therefore stands in oppoisition to capitalism and looks to utopian solutions to problems rooted in the sphere of production (political economy).

Finally I agree that planning must democratically arise from the needs of the workers ourselves and must express our collective will. Fear of any succesful ovetrthrow of the boss class leading to a state bureaucratic capitalist tyranny as in Russia is quite legimate but something of a chimera in the developed countries. By reason that in the advanced imperialist states there is a vast highly educated population which is well able to govern itself and carry out all the functions proper to a ruling class. Russia in 1920 at the end of the Civil War and Wars of Intervention was not so lucky hence the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

 

[roger rosewall]

most of the people I met, and knew, at Marxism2005 had been in the party for between 15 and 30 years, like myself. How do you guess they square what to you seems such an obvious contradiction between what the party's analysis was then, and what the parties analysis would be now? [considering you seem somewhat knowledgeable of what the party's analysis was then, and possibly in agreement with it.]

fraternal greetings ResistanceMP3

Comrade,

In my opinion the SWP is a rapidly degenerating organisation. How good revolutionaries reconcile your support for Respect is not something I can even attempt to hazard a guess at. The answer lying more in the realm of psychology than politics I suspect and that is not a field of great interest. If the SWP saw fit to actualy provide some kind of theorisation of the respect turn it would be far easier for us to discuss this question but for reasons i consider obvious it has not done so.

As for your thought that I have in the past been in agreement with the SWP that is t some degree correct. Correct in the sense that I continue to critically identify with the IS Tradition and base my political practice on that tradition. And yes while a member of the SWP I did agree with the groups analysis although today I would be far more critical of the organisations course from 1975 onwards than i once was.

Frankly I believe the SWP is set on a liquidationist course that may leave a structure that continues to use the name and lay claim to the IS Tradition but will in fact revise the fundamnetal bases of Marxism in favour of a populist practice. Any further discussion of the IS tradition belongs in a new thread though.

Fraternally

Roger

 

[Groucho]

Hi Groucho,

Sure I'm familiar with Engels writings as should be obvious from my previous comments. Come to that I'm also aware of Lenins comment that a workers state is a bourgeois state without a bourgeoisie. There is of course a contradiction at the heart of the concept of a workes state and that is the central problem that anarchists with their banal idea of anti--authoritarianism cannot understand.

Given the above I agree with you that anarchists who accept the idea of class struggle and act upon it by defending the collectively made decisions made in the course of that struggle are close to Marxism. But in order to do this they de facto cease to be anarchists. Which is why a Marxist organisation can accept self declared anarchist youth into its ranks as by accepting the collective discipline of the revolutionary organisation the anarchist is already far down the road of breaking from anarchism.

However you are incorrect in saying that it is the experience of the degeneration of the October Revolution that leads anarchists to reject the concept of a workers state. The anarchist rejection of proletarian democracy is rooted in the basic anarchist conception of anti-authoriatrianism itself. That is the rejection of any authority external to the individual or small affinity groups. Thus anarchists celebrate federalism in an ae that has long gone beyond the autonomy of small collectivities in the sphere of productive relations. In this anarchism is, as marx and Lenin argued, a petty bourgeois tendency which can only understand centralism as compulsion and therefore stands in oppoisition to capitalism and looks to utopian solutions to problems rooted in the sphere of production (political economy).

Finally I agree that planning must democratically arise from the needs of the workers ourselves and must express our collective will. Fear of any succesful ovetrthrow of the boss class leading to a state bureaucratic capitalist tyranny as in Russia is quite legimate but something of a chimera in the developed countries. By reason that in the advanced imperialist states there is a vast highly educated population which is well able to govern itself and carry out all the functions proper to a ruling class. Russia in 1920 at the end of the Civil War and Wars of Intervention was not so lucky hence the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

Sure Anarchism arose as a petit bourgeois ideology. Whether Proudhon's concerns for social justice, individualism and idealisation of the peasantry or Russian Anarchists again looking chiefly towards the peasantry. As you say: "The anarchist rejection of proletarian democracy* is rooted in the basic anarchist conception of anti-authoriatrianism itself." Sure, but why are people attracted to the concept? My point is that individuals who become Anarchists today do so because their impulse is anti-authoritarian. The Marxist tradition has been saddled with the Stalinist overturning of the fundamental principles of Marxism and Social Democracy's betrayal of socialism.

I agree that Russia in 1920, in it's isolated position, was far from able to build a just democracy or socialist economy. Capital is more international today, communications are easier, the working class is a majority across the World (someone calculated that the w/c became a majority of the World's population in 1988!) and the workforce everywhere is of necessity largely educated and literate compared to Russia in 1920. Any defence of desperate measures taken by the Bolsheviks should not make a virtue out of necessity (Krondstat? Yeah, sure they were right, and we'll do it again too you bastards!! is not the impression we would want to give) The point being that socialist democracy should be easier to construct in the advanced capitalist World and so desperate measures of self defence will not be as necessary. This surely is an argument for a rapidly withering workers state.

Those coming in to the broad movement today are well aware of the authoritarian communist tradition and the notion that socialism = state control. The anti-authority ideas of a vague kind of anarchism are thus both attractive and popular for much the same reasons that Che Geuvera is a popular icon: Che never presided over any form of authoritarian Government.

There are no serious Anarchist organisations or currents in the UK, and nothing of real note throughout Europe today. So Anarchist ideas rarely get tested beyond the small bickering groups of would be participants in DA.

I am sure many SWP members at one point were attracted to a vague notion of Anarchism or Autonomism. (There is, of course, a serious autonomist movement in Mexico that is quite inspirational.)

* Your statement that Anarchists reject proletarian democracy will be a controversial one on these boards! In the context of the Russian revolution it can be ably demonstrated that very many Anarchists did indeed reject workers' democracy. Many former Anarchists joined the Bolsheviks and varous Communist Parties in France and elsewhere. British Syndicalists became Communists (e.g. Tom Mann). Class Struggle @'s today would assert that workers' democracy is precisely what they are fighting for, as I suspect would the Spanish CNT back in the 30's would have.

Your real name is better than your assumed one.

 

[chilango]

(There is, of course, a serious autonomist movement in Mexico that is quite inspirational.)

Not wanting to interupt...but who is this movement you refer to?

 

[gurrier]

Sorry to interrupt the circle jerk fellas, but an anarchist might as well introduce a bit of reality into your spiralling fantasies about anarchism.

Both topdog and catch said that they would not support the a workers state if it still had commodities and exchange as it did in Russia. I can't remember the exact words but they seem to imply that any state that had commodities and exchange in it would automatically regress to some form of class society. And yet Karl Marx supported the Paris Commune which still had commodities and exchange in it. what is even more strange about anarchism's tools as applied by these anarchists is that they said they both supported the Paris commune.

Anarchists think that minorities who exercise decision making power (which requires force of course) tend to become entrenched. Hence, anything that calls itself a worker's state is likely to become a state over the workers rather than a state of the workers (unless you introdue a hitherto unkown definition of "the state"). No contradiction, no need to mention commodity production, just a basic and universal anarchist insight which is backed up by the entirety of human history and is fairly obvious to anybody who applies any serious thought to the question (ie not including robotrots).

The contradiction is not between anarchism and Marxism but anarchism and reality. It is a central belief of all anarchist tendencies that there can be no transitional stage (workers state) between the overthrow of capitalism and communism. This a perfectly legitimate belief rooted in an idealist philosophical system with as equal a grasp on material reality as the Christian belief in immaculate conception.

This is a fairly common misunderstanding of anarchist theory and history. Anarchists generally see 'the revolution' as a long process of 'building the seeds of the new world in the shell of the old'. So, rather than being a spectacular day out where a new vanguard takes over the reins of power, anarchists think that "the revolution" happens by the working class building its own institutions according to anarchist models. The idea being that, whenever the ruling class realises that the game is up and attempts to crush the revolution, the institutions and mechanisms for running society along libertarian communist lines will already be in place. Thus "the revolution" is envisaged as a process of building alternative institutions rather than the finall confrontation which trots tend to concentrate on. The Revolution _is_ the transitional stage. This is one of the big reasons why anarchists place such an emphasis on the means rather than just the ends. For us, the means are the ends. The institutions that we aim to build in the here and now are potentially the same institutions which will one day run society and thus any shortcuts that we might be tempted to take will come back to haunt us.

The revolutions in Russia and especially Spain are good examples of this principle of practice. In Spain, large swathes of the peasantry and the catalonian working class were able, from day 1, to take over the running of society in their areas - they had spent 60 years building the necessary consciousness and institutions which were capable of doing so. Even in Russis, the revolution happened largely through the dynamic of autonomous actions on behalf of the working class. In both cases, the drive to create a 'workers' state' under a leninist leadership _after the revolution had already defeated the ruling class_ was a massively counter-revolutionary and reactionary step which involved a rolling back of all of the stated aims of the bolsheviks themselves and predictably quickly culminated in a prison state.

 

[Groucho]

Not wanting to interupt...but who is this movement you refer to?

The Zapatistas (EZLN) in Chiapas.

 

[rednblack]

(There is, of course, a serious autonomist movement in Mexico that is quite inspirational.)

eh?

 

[rednblack]

The Zapatistas (EZLN) in Chiapas.

eh?