The Spanish anarchists massacred priests and nuns during the Spanish Civil War, burned churches, and tried to burn Gaudi's Sagrada Famiglia, which is fortunately made of concrete. Mankho's partisans carried out programs against the Jews in the Russian Civil War. They weren't as a group worse than other people, they just weren't better. The Bolsheviks and Stalinists were of course guilty of terrible crimes on a very grand scale. People in those times often act badly, sometimes out of a sense of necessity. The anarchists have always blamed Trotsky for putting down the Krondstadt rebellion, but he was unhappy to repress revolutionary workers and did it, he thought, to secure the revolution. Maybe he was wrong. It's time to bury this old debate. It's worth discussing whether one might hypothetically go from capitalist democracy to a stateless society in one jump, without states or statelike formations in between. It is worth discussing whether "temporary" state(-like) entities have a way of making themselves permanent. It is worth discussing with us liberals about whether the state is or an be a positive good, not even a necessary evil. It is not worth discussing whether anarchists are evil conspirators or Marxists all baby Stalins. Can we please bring this discussion into the 21st century? (Aside from acknowledging that Stalinism is dead as doornail and anarchism as a movement that might look like more than a source of activist demos has been gone for three generations?
--- Lenin's Tomb <leninstombblog at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 7/1/07, Chuck <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:
> > Anarchists don't support the idea of the
> "collective dictatorship of the
> > secret organisation."
> >
> > When you attack Bakunin, you aren't attacking
> anarchism. We are not
> > Bakuninists.
>
> Well, he is one of the leading lights of anarchism.
> But I thought I
> had already said that I wasn't trying to impugn
> anarchism as such -
> merely pointing out that if there are two souls of
> socialism, there
> are many souls of anarchism.
>
> > I'm sure that a few anarchists here and there have
> exhibited these
> > traits, but you seem to be one of those Marxists
> who think that the
> > anarchist critique of authoritarianism is about
> personal quirks. It's a
> > political critique. We don't care if individual
> Marxists are personally
> > authoritarian, we oppose their authoritarian
> political programs.
>
> You might, then, have misunderstood. I *do*
> appreciate that the
> anarchist critique of marxism entails that it is
> inherently
> authoritarian in its recommendations, specifically
> in the proposal for
> a proletarian dictatorship. I *do* appreciate that
> it is a political
> critique. What I *don't* appreciate is the risible
> moralising that
> goes along with this, and that is the reason why I
> pointed out that
> more than two can play that game (and the only
> winner, in general, is
> status quo liberalism). This is a political
> argument, or at least it
> should be, but the original contribution (and, I
> might add, your
> indignant follow-ups) have principally been about
> celebrating the
> pristine culture of anarchism in contrast to the
> impure alternatives.
>
> > Anarchists are not secretive and undemocratic.
> This is laughable.
>
> Back to the 'Beautiful Soul' politics again.
> Anarchists can never be,
> by definition, any of those horrid things (except
> when they are). But
> they can be, have been, and will be: if they're any
> good, they will
> be, anyway. Anyone who is not prepared for
> authoritarianism against
> some enemies and in some circumstances isn't
> prepared for the ordinary
> range of human experience.
> ___________________________________
>
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