>>> Brett Knowlton <brettk at unica-usa.com> 12/20/99 03:39PM >>>
Doug and Charles ask basically the same question:
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?
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Charles: These are very important questions you raise.
I assume what you ask because a military must be run based on a hierarchy and you need a military to defend against the capitalist counter revolutionary armies. There must be a military as long as there are capitalist militaries. When the workers in the remaining capitalist countries overthrow "their" capitalists, school is out for everybody.
A military based on a hierarchy will defeat a military based on rank and file democracy ,certainly in the field ( I suppose the officers might be elected; but even that demands some professionalism and expertise. Military science is a science. "Rank and file" is a military metaphor , by the way). In actual pitched battle, orders must be given and followed rapidly, and so group decisionmaking is at a disadvantage over individual decisionmaking. I guess we might say war is the antithesis of democracy.
The capitalists succeeded in imposing permanent war on actually existing socialism. The Soviet Union had to be continuously militarily ready throughout its entire existence.
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Why can't an egalitarian society defend itself as effectively as an authoritarian one?
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Charles: A good example of success in this is Cuba. It is about as egalitarian as you can get and still maintain an effective military. It is closest in current history to an armed organization of the population, as Lenin termed it in _The State and Revolution_.
The Viet Namese had perhaps the greatest historcial fullfillment of an armed organization of the population, in the peoples' successful war against U.S. imperialism. That was , of course, organized by Communists.
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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.
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CB: With great respect for the heroic fighters in Spain, I must say the war was lost. Sadly, winning or losing is the test of effective fighting in war.
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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?
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CB: See above on why a military requires a hierarchy.
Your second paragraph could stand as the great riddle of our era. Socialism needs democracy more than capitalism, so capitalism can forestall socialism by the use of war, fascism etc. Capitalism is at bottom dictatorship not democracy. It is a fake democracy , limited and corrupt democracy. The bourgeoisie have discovered that the most effective way to rule is with fake democracy and spot use of open dictatorship, rather than permanent and continuous open tyranny. This is a smart bourgeois innovation over previous ruling classes' methods of rule. So, capitalism can resort to its worst dictatorial form in its battle with socialism, forcing the latter to hierachy and dictatorship , and thwarting the revolution.
Perhaps Marx knew this , and this is what he meant when he said he had discovered ( his word) the dictatorship of the proletariat. Marx is not kidding when he says something is "necessary", an objective condition.
CB