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Step 1: Revolution
Step 2: Prop up Interim State to Dismantle the State
Step 3: Interim State becomes permanent and corrupted
I would argue only that currently liberalism is failing, fascism is rising and all leftist movements are too weak to beat fascism alone.
I think we can fight together in the same fight against fascism, and work together against the ever worsening climate disaster.
There will be time to fight eachother when we’re not beset by right wing enemies destroying civilization and the earth on all sides.
I’m worried that not fighting together when our goals are reasonably aligned means we’ll simply get defeated by fascism.
Malcom Harris in his recent book “What’s Left” lays out a great strategy to work together without giving up our socialist, communist, or anarchist essence and goals.
The fascist threat is from both black and red. Rather than work with our enemies to fight our enemies, anarchists should focus on doing what they do and build our power independently from fascism.
And its always interesting, you never see people pressuring communists to work with liberals to help liberalism fight fascism but anarchists must always work with communists to do so.
And its always interesting, you never see people pressuring communists to work with liberals to help liberalism fight fascism but anarchists must always work with communists to do so.
Are you kidding? We see radicals of all kinds being pushed to vote for or support liberals, especially communists. This is very out of touch with reality.
I never see ML’s pushing other ML’s to support liberals.
I used to be part of a Trotskyist organisation a while ago and that’s pretty much exactly what we did. I believe it’s called entryism. Not only was it policy to vote Labour but to enter the party and try to push it further left.
I am sorry but you are just wrong here, and dangerously out of touch.
Entryism is not supporting, it’s subverting.
If you want anarchists to invade ML group, destabilise and flip them, I’m all for it, still not going to join in as a I think it’s futile, but I’ll support others doing it - but I highly suspect that’s not what they’re asking us to do.
While I understand what you are saying in practice it means voting for and backing up a liberal party even if it’s a means to an end. People push anarchists to work with MLs and with liberals for the same reasons. Mainly that it’s a form of harm reduction until an actual revolution can take place. The entryism into labour wasn’t done instead of a revolution. It was meant to get policies that support the working class in place until such a time as a real revolution could be enacted which obviously takes time.
Right now, most leftist groups are so small that even if they all worked together it wouldn’t be militarily significant. So even if we threw out all our values and worked together with genocidal assholes, we would still lose. You’re asking people to sell out their entire ethical framework for a couple thousand untrustworthy allies. That just doesn’t make sense.
As for liberalism, by your own admission it is failing, so why on god’s green earth should we tie ourselves to that sinking ship as it goes under?
Luckily, there is a way out: You forgot that ideologies are made of people, and that it is those people changing their minds that cause the power balance between ideologies to shift. Liberalism is sinking because it has lost all credibility, and fascism is growing because it helps rich liberals preserve their power as the liberal economy contracts and because it gives the western working class a clear narrative of preserving some privileges in spite of that contraction by more violently extracting wealth from the less privileged.
So what we need to do is to have a clear narrative of how leftism will improve people’s lives, ideally one that reflects reality. If we cooperate with genocidal parties, that muddies the narrative. If we cooperate with the liberals who set the world on fire, that muddies the narrative. It is great for the narrative to support diversity of tactics and diversity of ideology, but then we need to weave that into the narrative by explaining the limits of tolerated diversity and the process through which better tactics and ideologies are cultivated.
If we want to have any chance of winning, we can’t team up with genocide supporters. Nobody could trust our promise of solidarity if we do. We might sometimes benefit from giving them resources or coordinating strikes with them, but they are a different faction.
I mean, there is value in improving the material conditions of the working class.
But you know they are gonna put you against the wall eventually.
And we can improve those conditions through anarchism.
Just distract them by saying “Tibet.” They’ll be too busy falling over themselves explaining how you’re wrong that you can make a hasty escape.
Fill in the blank:
Deng Xiaoping is ______
Careful: Comparing a single person to a cartoon bear is racist.
Not like subjecting minorities to forced sterilization and reeducation. That’s not racist at all.
Don’t forget replacement of Tibets population.
That’s Xi Jinping.
Deng is the one who made China capitalist.
Let’s focus on getting a majority in power that believe billionaires shouldn’t exist, then we can start getting into economic details more specific than “tax the rich”
Never going to happen, the system will not allow such a party into power.
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” - Audre Lorde
Nah fuck that. Ill dream both big and small and try to make both happen. You miss 100% of the shots you dont take
Wasted energy and effort that could be applied elsewhere.
I think when Fascism is about to have a cultural and military victory the globe over some concessions are in order, until the wave is beaten back and then it gets complicated again. But I am just really terrified at how close we are to global surveilance and nation states owned by corps. I actually see that as our most likely future rn.
Switching autocratic fascism to autocratic fascism but red isn’t an answer. If you want to promote human flourishing that is.
Thats not at all what I am saying. Both groups are such a tiny fraction of humanity up against the biggest military on the planet with orders of magnitude more nukes than anyone else. Plus, why are you assuming communists would come out on top and not anarchists? China isn’t getting out of WW3 unscathed and anarchists dont even ascribe to the notion of nations, we have no center to strike.
Edit: and China is also far more capitalistic than it likes to admit so how communist can you consider it when compared to Cuba or the DPRK?
Assuming the capitalist hegemony doesn’t co-op or crush either, there’s something to be said about state management of sewers and drinking water.
Private wells and septic systems can go a long ways but once population density reaches the size of an apartment complex or an industrial process needs treatment, you’re going to want some form of governance over those systems.
You don’t need a government or state for complex frameworks to exist and operate.
It’s the opposite: anarchism will never be achieved without ML. Whatever method an “anarchist” society uses to defend against fascism and capitalism is by definition a state. Because any means of oppressing class interests (like capitalist class interests) is by definition a state. You can call it grassroots militias or community defense, but it’s still a state. Whatever we use to defend from reaction will only be needed until the threat is over.
A sufficiently advanced, socialist, ML state will then allow anarchist communes to grow and connect to facilitate the transition to full, stateless communism. Left unity is necessary not just before, but also after the revolution.
By your definition, practically everything is a state. Yours is a useless definition. Anarchists mean the current structures of states. I.e. Rigid, hierarchical authoritarian structures with monopoly of violence.
Well, I mean after all it’s not like Marxist Leninists, especially in Russia were particularly known for targeting and slaughtering anarchists or something. Oh wait, they were and they did.
All theory no praxis. Talk about lack of self awareness / willful ignorance.
The Marxist-Leninist state bureaucrat class has class interests that oppose those of the workers. Critical Theory naturally predicts the outcome we historically observe of this bureaucracy becoming a new oppressive class that subjugates workers, violently suppresses anarchism, and fights any sort of political activity that threatens the power of the centralized state.
A Marxist-Leninist state voluntarily becoming stateless is as absurd as a capitalist state voluntarily becoming communist.
Anarchism doesn’t oppress class interests, it unmakes classes so that the people who used to constituted them have interests that align with others. Within an anarchist commune, there are no capitalists to oppress others for their greed, and there are no socialist bureaucrats to oppress others for their paternalism.
Just anarchist violence is defensive, stopping people from oppressing others. If there is a state that oppresses capital owners, then it is unjust by virtue of the “oppression”. You don’t need to oppress a “capital owner” to take the stuff that is in the building that used to be called “their property”, but if they go and assault people who take it then those people may defend themselves or get help to defend themselves.
And sure, people that volunteer a lot to defend others could become a class that can attempt oppression (whether as a junta, or just as demanding privileges for their noble task). But the same risk holds for any profession, and anarchy always works to subvert it. Typically, tasks are rotated so that the ability to do them is redundant so nobody has leverage to exploit others with them, and lots of more bespoke solutions are applied too.
In the end, looking at the people hanging out in the fort at the border with the nearby state today and calling them “the state” makes as much sense as looking at the people making dinner today and calling them “the state”. Both are doing jobs which, if nobody else did them, could be used to hold the community hostage and build a state; but which, if done anarchistically, do not centralize power.
Critical Theory naturally predicts the outcome we historically observe of this bureaucracy becoming a new oppressive class
That’s not what a class is and Critical Theory as a historical ideological project always functioned to defang dissenting voices and produce “compatible leftists”. The Frankfurt school was funded by the CIA.
A Marxist-Leninist state voluntarily becoming stateless is as absurd as a capitalist state voluntarily becoming communist.
It’s not absurd, it’s just hard to imagine in the current historical moment where the strength of reactionary forces means, that it is far off, but necessary in the future.
Anarchism doesn’t oppress class interests, it unmakes classes so that the people who used to constituted them have interests that align with others. Within an anarchist commune, there are no capitalists to oppress others
No, but they are right outside the commune loading up their cannons to crush it like the Paris commune. If the defence is successful, it will have forced their will violently on the attackers, who constitute a different class (capitalists). Yes, only on defence, yes that is a legitimate form of organized violence. That’s the point.
And sure, people that volunteer a lot to defend others could become a class that can attempt oppression (whether as a junta, or just as demanding privileges for their noble task). But the same risk holds for any profession, and anarchy always works to subvert it.
Take that sentence and replace anarchy with Marxism. It doesn’t always work. There were historical failures and mistakes, as has happened in almost every anarchist project. For example the Spanish anarchists reversed their progress in woman’s liberation to appeal to liberals. It didn’t work. The kurdish anarchists sold out to the US empire and were betrayed by it again and again. Marxists did wrong too. But because of Marxisms principled stance based on material class analysis, it’s much less likely to dissolve, succumb to error or become a tool to reactionary forces.
Anarchocommunists do better material analysis of communist revolutions and states than Marxist-Leninists do. That’s why they’re anarchists. Your “bureaucrats are not a class” spiel means that your “material class analysis” has a massive blind spot for bureaucrats as a material force that begets tyranny.
Boy I wonder why a tyrannical communist state ran by the bureacratic elite would propagandize a branch of communism that excludes the bureaucratic elite from material analysis.
Oh well, if only we had a form of material analysis to process this behavior. Maybe some kind of… state-skeptical communism? Anarchomarxism? Communo-anarchism?
Oh well a girl can dream…
That’s the point.
No, your point was that anarchist militias necessarily engage in oppression and are a state, neither of which you have yet demonstrated.
Take that sentence and replace anarchy with Marxism.
Okay. “Marxism always seeks to subvert one profession gaining power over another, such as a state bureaucrat having power over a farmer”. Oh wow, if you define Marxism as anarchocommunism then Marxism is good! I love destroying the state apparatus with my Marxist friends!
Ah yes, the good ole “statelessness can only be achieved with a state, trust me bro” argument.
Did you get whiplash just now from contradicting yourself? Also, I just love the assertion that defending yourself needs a state. Every time I think communists can’t get any fucking stupider, you guys really go the extra mile to prove me wrong
No, that’s just a misunderstanding about the definition of a state. Anarchists often define it as a monopoly to violence in a territory. This definition has its flaws. Marxists define it differently as anything that can suppress a class.
Anarchism has real enemies. Marxists generally want to work together with Anarchists. Those enemies do not. Their interests are fundamentally opposed to anarchism and Marxism. They constitute a class, because they are defined by their control over exploitative production. Defending against them is suppressing their class interests. Many Marxists are open about an how this struggle is fought. Anarchists will have to fight it too and they will use their own strategies. Whatever those are, if they are effective, than they constitute a state in the eyes of marxists.
Every time I think communists can’t get any fucking stupider, you guys really go the extra mile to prove me wrong
Almost all real life Anarchists are communists too. Did you just insult basically all anarchists that aren’t terminally online?
You are one very confused communist.
Because I said most anarchists are communists? Anarchists want a stateless classless society. That’s the textbook definition of communism. Have you ever heard of the anarchists Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, Goldman, Makhno? None of them were marxists, but they were, all of them, communists. And they said so. You should try learning some basics about the movement you identify with.
Because I said most anarchists are communists?
nah, you’re confused because you’ve obviously read more theory than you actually understood.
“Helping MLs rise” is not the same as fighting evil warmongering fascist billionaires.
Honestly, though, if I were an anarchist, I would fully support Trump. Him and his cronies are doing more to destroy civilization than any anarchist could ever hope to accomplish.
Anarchism isn’t about destroying civilization.
Sorry, should I have substituted with “traditional hierarchical government and quasi-governmental institutions”?
Because that’s a mouthful…
Ah, yes, because Trump and his cronies are all about destroying hierarchy, that’s right. A true populist selflessly serving the common people!
