Doug wrote:
>Ok, say there was an anarchist revolution in Russia in 1917. What
>would you have done surrounded by hostile capitalist states that put
>you under economic blockade and send in armed counterrevolutionaries?
>At the same time you're facing a capital strike by your own local
>business class. How would you keep basic production and distribution
>mechanisms going?
Charles wrote:
>However, I think even a more democratic state would have had to have a
state >apparatus, with a military to defend against the attacks during the
Civil War >and WWII from the Nazis. I don't see how anarchists would have
built a state >sufficient to defend against these.
Why the assumption that an outside threat can only be successfully dealt with by imposing some kind of permanent hierarchy? Why can't an egalitarian society defend itself as effectively as an authoritarian one? The only historical example I know of where anarchists had a strong influence, the Spanish Civil War, does not explicitly support either the assumption that anarchists can't fight effectively or that anarchist economies are susceptible to breakdown.
Either way you'd have to fight for the revolution in the face of great difficulties. You guys might be correct that some form or permanent hierarchy is more likely to prevail in such a situation. But what reason, other than intuition, do you have for your beliefs?
Besides, if you dismantle democratic institutions and replace them with coercive ones, doesn't that undermine the revolution to the point that you lose even if you win?
Brett