> Why don't you read Bakunin's letter to Albert Richard? Despite his
> wholesome 'anti-authoritarian' abuse of communists as elitist and
> authoritarian, he plotted an "invisible dictatorship", which his elite
> and secret organisation would run after the revolution. Say what you
> like about the Bolsheviks, but they never tried to make themselves
> invisible except to the Tsarist monarchy. Bakunin was deeply
> authoritarian: it doesn't get any conspiratorial and elitist than what
> he had in mind. In fact, there is a huge tradition of authoritarianism
> and elitism within anarchism, and it usually expresses itself in terms
> of a mania for secrecy, conspiracy, aversion to the masses, etc (cf
> Goldman's views about the ignorant masses and the need for intelligent
> minorities).
Oh brother! What a bunch of ignorant nonsense.
Bakunin never plotted some "invisible dictatorship". This myth was effectively debunked in Mark Leier's "Bakunin: The Creative Passion."
Authoritarianism and elitism within anarchism? More silly nonsense. I have yet to meet any anarchist who would fit the bill of being an authoritarian.
Secrecy and conspiracy? Nope. Perhaps when it comes around to planning protests which require some element of surprise against the police, but most anarchist groups and meetings are totally open. This really annoys authoritarian leftist groups like the ISO, who really do run groups using a secret conspiracy. See for example, the Campus Antiwar Network.
Sorry for responding to this trollbait.
Chuck