sectarian ignorance
how long would anarchists tolerate MLs using a state to defend the revolution from fascists?
literally just a joke
About as long as the MLs could resist stabbing anarchists in the back so bad we all end up losing to the fascists.
Then we will die doing what we love.
Fighting other leftists.
The Korean anarchists had a perfectly good relationship with Mao until they got crushed by mutual enemies.
I think it would be perfectly fine for anarchists to do their thing next to the communist state. In a perfect world this relationship could theoretically be fine, the communist state wouldn't touch them as long as they're not a problem.
The issue that the anarchists will face however is that their stateless society will be used by capitalists as a weapon against the neighbouring communist state. Agitators and foreign wreckers would find it relatively easy to infiltrate them and stir shit.
And once things have been stirred they won't be reverseable. At that point the communist state would then be looking to resolve the situation, and things get messy.
I don't think there's an ideological problem between us until all the capitalists are gone, everywhere. But I do think there's a material problem in the scenario of an anarchist zone neighbouring a communist state. Both would have to work together VERY closely in order to prevent it and I'm not sure the anarchists would be that open to the kind of counter-revolutionary interventions needed to prevent that agitation. It's a very sticky problem.
Yeah this could work but I think you'd run into problems over what borders exist and what enforcement of those borders to the outside world (the capitalist one) would look like.
That would be really nice of the communist state. does this automous commune do anything for the communist state?
It seems like anarchist experiments can only exist when there is a superpower (USSR or mao) that backs them up and gives them room to grow. It wouldn't be a materially beneficial relationship, but it could help in the practical development of ideology
Then you're just doing socialism in one state but calling it anarchism.
I mean, yes. I'm wondering if there are any counter examples
if the state is as inherently oppressive as anarchists think that would amount to something like a native american reservation
I don’t think there’s an ideological problem between us until all the capitalists are gone, everywhere.
When capitalism is finished, one can seriously work towards full communism, including the withering away of that state. It's when differences between anarchists and communists become increasingly smaller, not bigger. The problems have historically always arisen when outside pressure made working together difficult.
Not immediately it's not. The communist withering of the state is on the scale of decades to hundreds of years. Any anarchist leaning people living within communist states will want that to move along significantly faster.
The only real world example I know of is China, where the revolution relied on a backbone of peasant anarchists and the CPC had a large number of anarchists all throughout its ranks as a result, and there they generally influenced a lot of the party's policies and bent to the same material pressures as the other Chinese communists, refining their theory to work with the conditions they could see and the material necessities they were faced with. I don't know what ultimately happened to them as a bloc, though it sounds like they mostly just assimilated into the broader CPC while shaping the characters of the its theory and praxis.
Ultimately I think the material realities of revolution can in some ways unify tendencies and synthesize a new one out of their concessions to the material situation they find themselves in, and it's the ideological purists who refuse to bend to the necessities of their circumstances, regardless of tendency, that end up on the chopping block for stirring shit up and undermining the unity that a revolution needs to survive in the face of the overwhelming opposition it inevitably finds itself struggling against.
The Paris workers were also ideologically anarchist when they created the first practical example of a DotP.
The paris communards were French nationalists and Republicans for the most part. The idea that they were anarchists is a weird thing that's just stuck.
I'd recommend reading "voices of the paris commune" for more of what the communards actually believed
I could have sworn either Lenin or Marx wrote something about how their ideological background was heavily based on Proudhon and some earlier utopian socialists.
The most important thing is that their ideology didn't really matter because they formed an entirely new thing that wasn't based on whatever ideology they subscribed to. Their primitive DotP was entirely a product of the circumstances of their revolution and its class character.
A fantastic example of left unity and the fact that ideological differences tend to fade away in revolutionary moments as the working class realizes its own liberation.
There's a few decent resources out there on Mao-Spontex thought. The ideas of the Mass line and Continuous revolution can be syncretized with anarchist ideals pretty easily.
In Catalonia, the debate was less over the state apparatus--all the parties agreed to maintain it--but whether the anarchists or soviet backed communists should hold power in it, and whether or not they should be socializing the MoP or forcing capitalists to produce for the war effort
Well, that and the structure of the Republican forces, which ended up being the actual straw that broke that alliance's back, iirc.
The "debate" was elsewhere. coommunist policy as laid down by Moscow, and embrace by most communist parties — was to establish a Popular Front — that is, political alliances with other progressive parties that would allow them to overcome right wing (particularly fascist) domestic opposition, and adopt an anti-fascist foreign policy that would allow for fascism to be effectively confronted and contained. This shift in policy was in reaction to events in Germany, where divisions on the left had fatally undermined efforts to prevent the Nazis coming to power. While the communists had hoped that Hitler was merely capitalism's last, desperate throw of the dice before collapsing, the swift and brutal consolidation of Nazi power dashed these hopes and made it clear that fascists could not be allowed to gain power. This new Popular Front approach meant seeking a common platform with more moderate, liberal and socialist parties, which meant the implicit abandonment of any short-term revolutionary aims. Spain in fact became the first country to see a Popular Front government in practice — the Spanish Popular Front had won the February 1936 elections, setting in motion the train of events that would lead to the July uprising. Its important to note that while the communists had played a role in this process, they were far from the most influential or numerous political grouping among the parties supporting the new government (they had only about 15 seats and no representation in the pre-civil war cabinet).
So, when the question of whether or not the Spanish Civil War was a revolutionary struggle came up, communist policy was shaped by their acceptance of the Popular Front as a strategy. This meant emphasising anti-fascist unity — which given that it involved allying with moderate socialists and liberal republicans as well as those on the far left such as anarchists, wasnt to be fought on specific revolutionary goals of one tendency. As such, the communists consistently advocated unity in the face of the 'fascist enemy, prioritising their defeat over any particular partisan programme, revolutionary or not. In other words, win the war first, worry about the revolution later. It's worth noting that despite mutual suspicion, the bulk of the Spanish anarchist movement (the world's largest) never split with the Republic, despite their own revolutionary beliefs. They, like others on the Republican side, accepted that the war effort came first, although they naturally disagreed with specific policies and decisions, and fought (politically) against the real and perceived encroachment of communist influence on the state, and, on the eventual defeat of the Republic, there were plenty of recriminations to go around.
Alongside domestic political unity, a key element of communist calculation was diplomatic. One of the Spanish Republic's weaknesses was its isolation, with few firm allies apart from the Soviet Union willing to supply aid or even sell it weapons, and it couldnt do much more given its inability to project power at the time and its critical state domesticaly. Much of the wariness of other Western democracies could be traced to the perceived revolutionary nature of the Republican Government, which eventually included communists and even anarchists. Shedding its revolutionary reputation was vital if the Republic was to gain meaningful diplomatic support, and provided strong impetus for most parties to shelve the more radical aspects of their agendas and present themselves as a liberal parliamentary democracy as far as possible.
how long would anarchists tolerate MLs using a state to defend the revolution[...]?
I'd be asking for a clear plan for when this state is going to be dismantled, almost from day one. Because the state will always find a way to justify itself, and it's important to make sure that it has to work for it, and that there's a critical eye towards it.
That doesn't mean every aspect of the state needs to be removed immediately, of course. "Can this piece of the state be removed sooner?" is always a valid question, but sometimes the answer really is "no."
(And of course, being a state, it will somehow find a way to put people in power who have convinced themselves that merely asking these questions is a threat to the revolution, so I'd expect this sort of agitation to get me in deep shit pretty quickly.)
defend the revolution from fascists?
While there's a great argument to be made for states protecting against other states (it is, by and large, why states are everywhere and are the way they are), I don't think there's one why a state is better at protecting against fascism internally. Fascism is a rhetorical strategy that gives an in-group control of the state apparatus by appealing to enmity against an out-group. It requires an apparatus that gives a small number of people power over a large number. That apparatus is the state itself.
As it turns out, snakes do not often eat their own tails.
The solution: a revolution for your revolution.
Unless the state is crafted to be dismantled over time by design. I think there was a srsly wrng episode about that?...
The withering away of a State created after the revolution and during the dictatorship of the proletariat in marxist theory isnt a willing choice to be made by individual people or by the communist party thats in charge of it. Its a passive change that reflects and happens proportionaly to the diminishing contradictions and changes in the material needs internaly and most importantly diminishing class strugle and imperialist contraidictions worldwide. When these things dont diminish and in most cases the communist party or state cant make them diminish (like the dominant in all historical examples external/imperialist aggression and global capitalist dominance and contradictions) then the state will not wither away. If you cant point to specific points in the existance of the USSR, Cuba , NK, Vietnam , China where in your opinion the state could have withered away to the benifit of the project and its existance but didnt then you saing " the state of an Communist project can never wither way" is ahistorical and based on nothing
If you dont wanna have it in the first place then point to the the points just after any historical revolution (cuban , russian , chinese, korean ,vietnamese,) or in general of communists coming out on top where the project absence of a state would have been benifitial and survivable for the project and its development
Frankly, North Korea is a generational monarchy. I like that they don't take shit from the US, but yeah.
What has led you to believe that the state will wither away at any point, especially in China? The Communist Party creates a class within itself that is self perpetuating. It led to the fall of the Soviet Union, it will happen again.
Rojava and the Zapatistas have both been taking territory without needing a formal state now that a giant Socialist state isn't sending in troops to quash dissent.
I mean your position on NK is irrellevant and asking what i personaly think about China or the USSR is irrellevant to the question and to the argument and explenation of the existance and withering away of the state as laid out by marxism. The question was
If you cant point to specific points in the existance of the USSR, Cuba , NK, Vietnam , China where in your opinion the state could have withered away to the benifit of the project and its existance but didnt then you saing " the state of an Communist project can never wither way" is ahistorical and based on nothing
Rojava and the Zapatistas have both been taking territory without needing a formal state now that a giant Socialist state isn’t sending in troops to quash dissent.
Rojava basicaly has a state. You would be hard pressed to find people in rojava, or leftists that have visited and fought there saying they dont have a state.Being more decentralized on some matters doesnt make you not a state. Maoist China for decades was extremely decentralized by "USSR" standards.Also even tho i support it, Rojava's existance as an "independent" project also was impossible without support and on the grounds presence by the greatest capitalist and imperialist superpower on earth and the momment they left they only avoided genocide and complete collapse by the turks because Assad and the Syrian state jumbed in, with which they had to now strike a deal. Also some of their "taking territory" included occupying and helping US occupy large part of syria's breadbasket and oil field and that still only happened because of the civil war and chaos western intervention brought to Syria
What zapatistas have done in their territory is amazing as far as the structure of their society goes but its no way comparable or scalable to any historical communist project .If the US or even Mexico really gave a shit about getting rid of the Zapatistas, they’d have done so. They only have like 10k people in poorly armed militias,occuppy less than 1/20th of mexico and it being mainly jungle, they have expanded barely to more than 10% of their original size in many decades and their combined population isn’t even half a million. They’re just a relatively small amount of people living in small villages in a jungle of little geopolitical importance not really caring about industrialization or any urban development. They don’t have a lot of infrastructure (that’s kind of the point behind their rebellion, they do not WANT a lot of industrial development because it goes contrary to their way of life), they have little modern equipment, little organization in their military, and they just rely on social cohesion and Mexico not being interested enough in a large organized suppression. They were mostly left to their own devices by Mexico cause they arent a threat to neither capital or that state and even their historical clashes put together have been minascule compared to the amount of warfare,undermining and agression on every front a state like Cuba had to face. The momment global capital or just the US diverted an iota of their attention to crush the Zapatistas they would have . That doesnt mean you shouldnt support them, it means its a local project posing little threat to domestic , let alone global capital, unscallable model to even a fraction of what was needed for actual socialist revolutions and countries to survive
How can you ask for a "timetable" of a state's dismantlement when its existance according to a marxist is an unavoidable outcome of the existance of domestic class contradictions and struggle and of geopolitical and international contradictions and aggression. What "plan of when the state will be dismantled" should Lenin have given in 1918 when a fascist genocidal war that the USSR obviously wouldnt have survived and prepared for with a decentralized and semi dismantled state (let alone a USSR that attempted to be "Stateless" in the 30s) was 20 years away without anyone , including Lenin, could have guessed. What "plan on when the state is gonna be dismantled" could Cuba or North Korea give you after their revolution when even more than half a century later they still find themselves under unimaginable aggression in every level by the world's superpower and entire western capital dominion that you cannot possibly theorize how to resist it and survive against it with diminished state power, let alone statelessness.
The withering away of the State created after the revolution and during the dictatorship of the proletariat in marxist theory isnt a choice to be made by a communist party thats in charge of it. Its a passive change that reflects and happens proportionaly to the diminishing contradictions and changes in the material needs internaly and most importantly diminishing class strugle and imperialist contraidictions worldwide. When these things dont diminish and in most cases the communist party or state cant make them diminish (like the dominant in all historical examples external/imperialist aggression and global capitalist dominance and contradictions) then the state will not wither away. How many aspects of the state and at what point in the existance of the USSR, Cuba , NK, Vietnam , China in your opinion could have withered away to the benifit of the project and its existance but didnt? If you cant come up with anything solid even with historical hindsight and Lenin answered you in 1918 a perfectly valid " idk depends, could be 20 could be 200 and we maybe wont even make it that far in order for that to happen" , would that mean that the theory of the state withering away is wrong in and of itself or that marxist lenninists just want excuses for the state to stay around
It is, actually - I'm just not sure the movie ever got an English release.
It's a German movie about a communist kangaroo - here's the trailer if you want to take a peek. The OP scene is at 1:23.
Haven't seen the movie, so I dunno if it's any good tbh. But the books this is based on may have gotten a translation, dunnolol.Edit: did a bit of research piracy; there are official English subtitles available, no dub though - from what I can tell.
this is the Känguru Chroniken a beloved German story , nothing to do with Australia .. (well i guess the Känguru)
oh fuck , sellout did it even in english here
Setting : Author is a Lib , Känguru is Marxist , they have to Hunt down the Penguin...
I know this is just a joke but I actually really, really hate this idea of "we'll just duke it out after the revolution". Miss me with that bullshit. That's not the attitude you have towards fellow comrades. It's viewing people who share the same end goals, values, and care for humanity as you down to a temporary transactional allyship similar to how we might think of centrist libs in a revolutionary situation. It assumes the other side has nothing to contribute.
You know what I want after the revolution? To work with my comrades from different tendencies to build something that gets us to a stateless, classless, moneyless society. Our anarchist comrades as well as other good tendencies have a lot to offer in this regard. Should we actually get to the day after a successful revolution, we're gonna have one chance to get it right. The forces of reaction will stop at nothing to fuck us all over - even if we have a simultaneous global revolution! I'm not gonna pretend that as a Marxist, I have all the answers. But we're really gonna be in terra incognita at that point, so we're gonna need to have some ideological flexibility to adapt to what will be a historically unique situation. Anarchists will help push us to that end goal we all want, and that's not just a good thing, that's a necessary thing.
And of course there will be contradictions that will have to be resolved! But this isn't automatically a negative thing. We can use that friction to figure out the best way forward. THAT, to me, is dialectical.
Anyway, as always, much love and respect to my anarchist comrades.
:ancom-heart:
I've had this movie on my computer forever. Should I finally watch it?
Last panel is exactly the face I'll make after the revolution
It gets difficult during an Anarchist revolution too when the USSR squashes many successful projects, but we're not allowed to talk about that.
I've gotten removed for being sectarian about this before by whoever.
Oh damn. That’s not right
Edit: all I could find in the modlog was this, which was a link to “Tankies Are People Too”
Is it sectarian to point out that the anarchists fought the Reds almost as much as they fought the Whites or are we supposed to pretend that didn't happen
