An Attempted Marxist-Anarchist Dialogue

by Wayne Price

A Review of Michael Lowy & Oliver Besancenot, Revolutionary Affinities: Toward a Marxist-Anarchist Solidarity

Michael Lowy and Oliver Besancenot, two Marxists from the Trotskyist tradition, have made an effort to discuss possible convergences and interactions between Marxism and anarchism. (The little book has been well translated from the French by David Campbell, an anarchist who did most of the work while in jail in New York City.)

At first it might seem absurd to seek overlaps between these two schools of socialism. Anarchism stands for freedom and self-management, but in spite of some achievements its movement has failed to successfully create anarchism in any country. Meanwhile whatever Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels originally intended, Marxism became the ideology of repressive, mass-murdering, state-capitalisms (that is, Stalinism). Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, authoritarian Marxist governments persist in North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and especially in the great nation of China. Marxism and anarchism would seem to have little in common. Yet we live in the looming catastrophes of industrial capitalism. People are drawn to its radical alternatives. In this context, it is the failures of each which has drawn some anarchists and Marxists to dialogue, to learn the strengths of the alternate trend. (Although, for all their failures, anarchists never murdered tens of millions of workers, peasants, and others.)

Along with anarchism’s vision of freedom, there is a rising interest in Marxism, particularly in its analysis of how capitalism works and what might be done to end it. Some radicals focus on the humanistic, working class, and ecological aspects of Marx’s Marxism, rather than its statist, centralist, and determinist aspects. This looks to libertarian-democratic and “ultra-left” trends in Marxism, such as William Morris, the council communists, Luxemburgists, autonomists, the Johnson-Forrest Tendency, Socialisme ou Barbarie, and unorthodox and dissident Trotskyists. Unlike Stalinism, these trends in Marxism might be partners in a dialogue with revolutionary anarchists. (See Price 2017.)

Che

The authors claim to be libertarian Marxists, in opposition to both Stalinism and to social democracy (reformist “democratic socialism”). They want to see what they can learn from anarchism—and what revolutionary anarchism can learn from their view of Marxism. I am all for a Marxist-anarchist dialogue and have written some material seeking to advance it (e.g., Price 2022).

A lot depends on what one means by “Marxism” (as well as “anarchism”). The authors are admirers of Che Guevara. They have written books about him and his “revolutionary legacy” (Lowy 2007; Besancenot & Lowy 2009). In the text, they claim that the struggle of the Mexican Zapatistas show “traces of the revolutionary ethic that lead directly back to Che.” (p. 76) They do not note that the founders of the Zapatistas had abandoned the elitist guerrilla strategy of Che. They further declare that “Marx’s writings…form the political basis of the revolutionary humanism of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.” (p. 124)

Actually Che Guevara was an admirer of Joseph Stalin. Che played a major role in turning the Cuban revolution into a one-party, one-man, dictatorship, with a state-capitalist economy, allied with Soviet Russian imperialism. Within the upper circles of the Castroite regime, Che was a strong proponent of increasing centralization and of repression of the workers. He sincerely sought to spread the revolution (as he understood the revolution), but his efforts were failures both in Africa and in Bolivia. While he wrote some high-falutin’ philosophical language about socialism, his actual conception was of a totalitarian society. (See Price 2016.)

It may seem unfair to point to the authors’ admiration of Guevara, which is only briefly referred to twice in the text. Yet it is difficult to integrate anarchism with advocacy of a Stalinist-type dictatorship, however well-meaning you might be. (Of course, many of the Trotskyist groupings have been admirers of Fidel Castro and Che; but these don’t advocate “solidarity” with anarchism.) Besancenot and Lowy may misinterpret Che as a “revolutionary humanist,” but how can they ignore his support of the Cuban dictatorship? And then seek a dialogue with anarchism?

Positive Aspects of the Book

And yet, despite this confusing contradiction, some of this book is worthwhile. Besancenot and Lowy are concerned to show “another side of history…that of the alliances and active solidarity between anarchists and Marxists.” (p. 1)

They have brief sections on events in revolutionary history when anarchists and Marxists worked together. This includes the First International, in which anarchists cooperated with Marx for years—until Marx organized the expulsion of Michael Bakunin and forced a split with the anarchists. They cover the U.S. Haymarket Martyrs of 1886. These were anarchists who came out of a Marxist background and who still used the Marxist analysis of capitalism.

They briefly cover the development of anarcho-syndicalism, which shared a revolutionary working class orientation with Marxism. They discuss the Spanish Revolution of the thirties. That revolution was betrayed by most of the Marxist and anarchist leaders, both of which joined the capitalist government together with liberal parties. Their partner, the Communist Party, tried to set up a totalitarian state. A minority of revolutionary anarchists and Marxists did try to advance the revolution, but were overwhelmed. There are brief sections (they can hardly be called “chapters”) on the May-June ’68 almost-revolution in France, on the international demonstrations against “globalization,” and on the Occupy movement.

The little book also has nine brief biographical sections on significant revolutionaries. This includes the Marxist Rosa Luxemburg. She had little use for anarchism, but her vision of revolutionary socialist democracy-from-below was compatible with anarchism. Similarly, they discuss Buenaventura Durruti. As an anarchist, he played an important role in the Spanish Revolution. He had little use for Marxism but has been respected by Marxists. The same may be said of the famous anarchist Emma Goldman. In Russia, she originally supported the Revolution and was willing to work with the Leninists—until their authoritarianism drove her into opposition.

Their little biographies include “A Few Libertarian Marxist Thinkers.” Of the three they cite, the most interesting may be Daniel Guerin. His books on anarchism are widely read. In France during World War II, he cooperated with the Trotskyist underground. Working with syndicalists, anarchists, and Trotskyists, he was a prominent opponent of French imperialism in Algeria and an early Gay liberationist. Admiring J.P. Proudhon and Bakunin, but also Luxemburg, he sought a “synthesis” of revolutionary anarchism and libertarian Marxism. (See Guerin 2017)

The Russian Revolution

The part covering the 1917 Russian Revolution is titled, “Points of Conflict,” including a section, “The Split Between Red and Black.” This is where the book’s difficulties show most clearly.

“Initially, there was a convergence between many anarchists—not only Russian but also from around the world—and the Marxist revolutionaries. Soon after, the convergence had become a dramatic clash between the two.…” (p. 80)

The “October” (Soviet) Revolution was organized by the Communists in alliance with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (peasant-populists) and with anarchists. The initial government was a coalition of the Communists and Left SRs, generally supported by anarchists in the soviets. (“Soviet” means “council.” It originally referred to the popularly elected councils which were rooted in factory committees, village assemblies, and military units.)

But by 1920, the Leninists had banned all alternate parties, including those which had fought on their side in the Russian Civil War. These included the Left SRs and the Left Mensheviks. Anarchists were arrested, jailed, and shot. Not long after, even opposition caucuses in the one legal party were outlawed.

Essentially, the writers favor the rule of the soviets, supported by the revolutionary parties including the Communists—but criticize what happened instead: the rule of the Communist Party, with supposed support by the soviets. This went together with economic changes, “prioritizing centralized nationalization over the local collectivization of the means of production….” (p. 87) They mildly comment, “This choice, like so many others, is questionable.” (same) This is quite the understatement.

Despite this (soft) criticism of the Leninists, Besancenot and Lowy insist that the problem does not lie with Marx. “It is pointless, however, to seek a manufacturing defect in Marxism…on the question of whether to abolish the state immediately or not.” (p. 87) Similarly, they oppose “…drawing a connection between the Lenin years and the Stalin years.” (p. 89) Granted that Marx would have been horrified by what Stalin made out of Marxism—and that V.I. Lenin was no Stalin. Lenin did not aim for a totalitarian state, nor want one. This was unlike Mao Tse-tung, say, who already had Stalinist Russia as a model and goal—as did Che and Fidel.

Yet it is a bit much to deny that Marx’s strategy of working through the state was not a cause of Lenin’s building a party-state, one which laid the basis for Stalinist state-capitalism. And, like Marx, Lenin believed that he and his party knew the truth better than anyone else. This justified the one-party party-state. Believing that his party—and only his party—knew the full truth—and since only his party spoke for the proletariat—Lenin felt justified in suppressing all other points of view, including the anarchists.

In 1921, the sailors at the Kronstadt naval base rebelled. The Kronstadt fortress overlooked the capitol at Petrograd. Influenced by anarchists, the rebels demanded an end to the political monopoly of the Communists, recognition of other left political tendencies, and free elections to the soviets, as well as economic reforms. Emma Goldman urged negotiation with the rebels. Instead, the Communists crushed them militarily, and then shot the captured sailors in batches. To anarchists this was a counterrevolutionary crime. It was comparable to the 1956 crushing of the Hungarian revolution.

The two authors regard this opinion as “one-sided.” “In our view, the conflict between Kronstadt and the Bolshevik government was…a tragic and fraternal confrontation between two revolutionary currents. The responsibility for this tragedy is shared, but falls primarily on those who held power.” (p. 95) “The crushing of the sailors of Kronstadt was not a ‘tragic necessity,’ but an error and a wrong.” (p. 97)

In other words, the anarchist-influenced rebel sailors are partially to blame (they dared to demand socialist democracy) even if the “primary” fault lies with the Communist regime (which chose to massacre the sailors). This choice was a bad mistake, not a counterrevolutionary crime (no one is perfect). Still, both sides were “revolutionary currents.”

It has been argued that the Russian Communists dared not permit several political tendencies to compete in free elections. Given the poverty and destruction which followed World War I and the Civil War, the workers and peasants were unhappy with the Communists. They would likely have voted them out, supposedly with disastrous consequences. The authors quote the Trotskyist (and ex-anarchist) Victor Serge: “If the Bolshevik dictatorship fell, it was only a short step to chaos, and through chaos to a peasant uprising, the massacre of the Communists…and, in the end…another dictatorship, this time anti-proletarian.” (p. 97) They agree with this view. “A Bolshevik defeat would have opened the path to counterrevolution.” (same)

Whether this is true or not, the Bolshevik victory opened the path to (internal) counterrevolution. The one-party Communist dictatorship (assuming it ever was a “proletarian dictatorship”) led to the “anti-proletarian” dictatorship of Stalin and the Stalinist bureaucracy. Along with the super-exploitation of the workers and peasants, it engaged in “the massacre of the Communists” in the purge trials of the ‘thirties—not to mention the massacre of millions of workers and peasants. Somewhat contradicting themselves, Lowy and Besancenot agree. For “the apparatchiks in the Kremlin…the crushing of the marines at Kronstadt was a service…to their ascension to power, a power that from then on could not be contested.” (p. 100) A somewhat similar view is given of the Ukrainian independent revolutionary army organized by the anarchist Nestor Makhno—allied with, and then betrayed by, the Communists.

Policy Issues

The final part of the book is titled “Policy Issues.” It covers more theoretical, strategic, and programmatic topics. Its first section is on the “Individual and [the] Collective.” The authors declare, “the anarchist movement has held the flag of individual emancipation much higher than the Marxist family.” (p. 122)

They then go on to criticize the anarchists for being too much individualistic. They cite Max Stirner, the early-19th century German philosopher of extreme egoist-individualism. Actually Stirner had no influence in the development of anarchist theory or movement, so citing him is irrelevant. Even so, the authors admit, “he foresaw the threat that the specter of the state could potentially hang over the project of individual rights in Germany.” (p. 123) They note that Guerin referred positively to Stirner. As a gay man, Guerin liked Stirner’s opposition to moralism and puritanism, without accepting his extreme individualism.

Similarly, the writers claim that “the old tenets of anarchism [are] poorly suited to such a level of overarching political organization” as was needed in the Ukraine during the Russian Revolution. (p. 103) Actually the anarchist-led Makhnovist movement did a good job of organizing in the Ukraine, in the brief time allowed it. This was despite the need to fight off the Austrian, Polish, Ukrainian nationalist, White counterrevolutionary, and Russian Communist armies.

In any case, Michael Bakunin, among the first revolutionary anarchist-socialists, had a view of liberated individuality as social, productive, and interactive. (So did Marx, especially expressed in his earliest writings.) They summarize, “If it is essential to ‘re-individualize’ the communist project, it is just as necessary to ‘collectivize’ anarchist ideas.” (p. 125) They believe “a revolutionary humanist path remains open,” which they think (bizarrely) is exemplified by “Che Guevara”! (same)

Besancenot and Lowy have a section titled “Making Revolution without Taking Power?” In effect they argue that it is wrong for a revolution to establish a new state (to take state power) but necessary to establish the self-organization of the workers and oppressed (to empower the people). Their examples are the 1871 Paris Commune and the early soviets. They call the Commune “a new form of power that was no longer a state, in the conventional sense, but was nonetheless a government, democratically elected….” (p. 131) Without quibbling over terms (Kropotkin sometimes made the same distinction between “state” and “government”), anarchists can mostly agree, I think.

In a section on “Autonomy and Federalism,” the writers say that their vision of “Communism…intends to entrust as many powers as possible to the base and foster local initiatives.” (p. 132) This is the anarchist conception of decentralized federalism. “From the idea of federalism developed by the anarchists, we can retain the focus on power to the base and voluntary solidarity between collectives.” (p. 135)

There is a section on “Democratic Economic Planning and Self-Management.” Their proposal ”does not correspond in the least to what is often described as ‘central economic planning,’ for the economic and social decisions are not made by any kind of ‘center,’ but determined democratically by the populations concerned.” (p. 139) Like Michael Albert’s “participatory economy” or “Parecon,” their “democratic socialist economic planning…[includes] opposition to the capitalist market and to bureaucratic economic planning, confidence in workers’ self-organization, and anti-authoritarianism.” (p. 140) However, they have some valid criticisms of the Parecon program. They also give credit to Anton Pannekoek of the “council communists”/ libertarian Marxists “for opting for the socialization of the means of production under the control of the producers themselves, rather than for their nationalization from above.” (p. 150)

The theme of decentralist federalism is continued in “Direct and Representative Democracy.” In this section, the authors recognize that anarchists and Marxists have had important differences on these topics. But they claim that “some significant convergences can still be found. For example, both are favorable to forms of direct democracy in social struggles: general assemblies, self-organized strikes and pickets, etc.” (p. 142)

This may be true. But it covers-over an important difference. Anarchists can accept election of delegates to higher federal councils, but they insist that the base assemblies must have face-to-face direct democracy. Marx and Engels, even in their most radically democratic writings (for example, on the Paris Commune) advocated an extremely democratic form of representative democracy. They had no conception of basing this in face-to-face direct democracy. This is the anarchist tradition.

There is also a very brief discussion of whether revolutionary socialists should run and/or vote in bourgeois elections. They accept the view of both traditions that socialism cannot be achieved through elections. However, they still believe that it may be useful to run and vote, for various reasons. “Our point of view in this debate is closer to the Marxist tradition” than to the anarchist tradition of anti-electoralism. (p. 143) They do not mention that council communists and other “ultra-left” libertarian Marxists have been opposed to participation in elections. Anarchists would argue that history has demonstrated the failures of an electoralist/parliamentary strategy.

In “Union and Party,” Besancenot and Lowy summarize the lessons of the Russian Revolution and other revolutions and near-revolutions. They argue that the struggle needs radical parties and organizations (including anarchist federations) as well as mass organizations, such as labor unions and also popular councils. Parties are formed on agreements about particular programs. They are necessary to fight for a revolutionary program against reformists, liberals, conservatives, and fascists (for these will certainly have their parties). There is a historical tendency among anarchists of revolutionary federations. This includes Bakunin’s “Brotherhoods,” Makhno and others’ advocacy of the “Platform,” the Spanish FAI, and the current especifismo of Latin Americans.

The mass organizations provide “the framework of regular and sovereign general assemblies, open to all workers who want to mobilize…[in] the natural organ of the struggle….They can also…elect delegates, also dismissible, to participate in a coordination where the delegates from different assemblies meet to unify their activities….The power to make decisions belongs to the base…. This democratic option for organization prefigures today the way society could function tomorrow.” (p. 151)

A number of important topics are not covered in this book. These include feminism and the dominance of straight males. Also issues of white supremacy and racism, colonialism, imperialism, and national self-determination. Economic developments of world capitalism are not discussed. The writers themselves mention that they have not covered education of children, nor the vital issue of opposing fascism.

But there is consideration of the very important topic of environmentalism. This is in the section, “Ecosocialism and Anarchist Ecology.” The authors base much of their ecosocialism on the anarchist writings of Murray Bookchin, although they note that Bookchin also used concepts from Marx. Bookchin analyzed capitalist commodification, competition, and, above all, its drive to accumulate, as destroying the ecology. Bookchin wrote about the need for a new, noncapitalist, society, decentralized and directly democratic, with a liberatory transformation of technology. “…We can only admire Murray Bookchin’s coherence and clear-sightedness.” (p. 154)

They make some criticisms of Bookchin. They deny his view that there is a “post-scarcity” world. While agreeing with Bookchin on the need for economic, technological, and political decentralization, they insist on federalist coordination and planning on regional, continental, and world levels. Considering their proletarian perspective, it is odd that they do not express disagreement with Bookchin’s rejection of the major role of the working class in a revolution. Also, surprisingly, there is no reference to research about ecological themes in Marx’s works by ecological Marxist theorists. This includes John Bellamy Foster and others. (See Foster 2009.)

Revolutionary Conclusion

Besancenot and Lowy conclude with “Toward a Libertarian Marxism.” They state that “Our point of departure…is Marxism.” (p. 158) That is where they come from. They do not believe that there can be a final definition of “libertarian Marxism.” They do believe that “Marxists have much to learn from…the anarchists.” (p. 158)

Their aim, they declare, is not to create a better Marxism, with tips from anarchism. (Similarly, my goal is not to replace anarchism with a nicer version of Marxism.) Instead, “The future emancipatory battles of our century will also see this convergence, in both action and thought, of the two great revolutionary currents of the past, of the present, and of the future—Marxism and anarchism, the red flag and the black flag.” (p. 159)

The basis of this convergence is that both revolutionary class-struggle anarchism and libertarian (autonomist) Marxism share a goal. This is an international revolution by the working class and its allies among all oppressed—to overthrow the state, capitalism, and all oppressions, and to replace them with the self-organization of the workers and oppressed.

The issue is not an immediate merger of anarchism and Marxism. This is especially true when there is so much variation within each school. As I pointed out in the beginning, Lowy and Besancenot and many others see an authoritarian such as Che Guevara as within their “libertarian” version of Marxism. They may find the Communist suppression of the Kronstadt rebels as justifiable, or perhaps a tragic if understandable error. Such views must limit their dialogue with anarchism. As a revolutionary anarchist, I still find matters of interest in this book. But its limitations are also real.

References

Besancenot, Oliver, & Lowy, Michael (2009). Che Guevara: His Revolutionary Legacy. NY: Monthly Review Press.

Foster, John Bellamy (2009). The Ecological Revolution; Making Peace with the Planet. NY: Monthly Review Press.

Guerin, Daniel (2017). For a Libertarian Communism. (Ed.: David Berry; Trans.: Mitchell Abidor) Oakland CA: PM Press.

Lowy, Michael (2007). The Marxism of Che Guevara: Philosophy, Economics, Revolutionary Warfare. Rowman and Littlefield.

Lowy, Michael, & Besancenot, Oliver (2023; originally in French, 2014). Revolutionary Affinities: Toward a Marxist-Anarchist Solidarity. (Trans.: David Campbell). Oakland CA: PM Press.

Price, Wayne (2016). “The Authoritarian Vision of Che Guevara; Review of Samuel Farber, The Politics of Che Guevara”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/29795
search_text=Wayne+Price

Price, Wayne (2017). “What is Libertarian Socialism? An Anarchist-Marxist Dialogue; Review of A. Prichard, R. Kinna, S. Pinta, & D. Berry (Eds.). Libertarian Socialism; Politics in Black and Red”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30411?search_text=Wayne

Price, Wayne (2022). “An Anarchist Guide to The Communist Manifesto of Marx & Engels.”
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/32578?search_text=Wayne

*written for www.Anarkismo.net

There are 51 Comments

Yes, but if it's the ersatz Marxism of the counter-revolution in Russia, and what gets called anarchism in the US, then why should anyone who isn't wearing a propeller-topped beanie give a shit about it?

Anarchism stands for freedom and self-management...and, at the moment of its greatest historical significance, as a junior partner in a capitalist state threatened by an ongoing mass revolutionary upheaval.

"an ongoing mass revolutionary upheaval."

When who what where?

Aaah, you meant Facebook/Telegram users!

Well arkchewallee the Egyptian Spring Rev was largely fueled and organized through Facebook and other social networking sites, but yeah, reformative stuff, not rEal rEvolUtion, but then,,,,,

> Egyptian Spring Rev

Then what happened?

Aaaaah, yeah.... A minority Islamic fascist regime was put in place for a year. Then overthrown by a military regime. Ooo-kay!

> Rev

*scratching head*

>Rev + scratching head + reformative stuff + Thermidorian phenomena = fascist regime.
* :-l *

Rev + minority fascist regime × military regime + Thermidor + popular fascist regime = inflation

Hipster trendies = inflation

Source: the 2010s.

Hipster trendies + social media = neo-Marxist woke blah blah.

"authoritarian Marxist governments persist in North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, and especially in the great nation of China." They are no more Marxist than you are, Wayne.

Always has been clear on back to it's erroneous base/surface separation and the idea that groups at the scale of classes, genders and 'races' have projectual agency among other things.

"Men change the world but not as they wish" lol That sums up the incoherence.

as if feudalism or its derpy offshoot, capitalism, are any better? that shit makes sense to you?

you didn't answer the question and you pretended i'm advocating marxism. i'm not.

A couple of responses deny that the authoritarian state-Marxism of the Bolsheviks or the Chinese Communist Party is not really Marxism. They are "ersatz Marxism" and "no more Marxist than you are." When I was, for a time, an unorthodox Trotskyist I used this argument. Versions of Stalinism (and orthodox Trotskyism) were not really "Marxist" because they supported revolutions made without the workers and supported states without democratic rule by the working class or even the peasants. These ideas contradicted Marx's vision of socialism.

While I still think that, I have come to believe that these Stalinoid movements and states ALSO fulfill different aspects of Marx's Marxism. Namely, relying on the state and taking state power, centralization, determinism, and an implication of one-party rule. So Lenin and Che are legitimate Marxists.

As quoted, one poster denies that I am a Marxist, another claims that I am "promoting an anarcho-Marxist union...you ooze Marxism out of every pore." (Although this may be directed at Lumpy; hard to tell for sure). As anyone who read my article above knows, I do not claim to be a Marxist.

The raising of feudalism and capitalism is puzzling. Of course revolutionary anarchist-socialists advocate libertarian socialism.

I won't go into other issues, such as whether Marxism is "coherent." As compared to liberalism? to anarchism?

Ah, the name-calling and red-baiting begins.

Obviously my article is *entirely* consistent with Trotskyism! (Snicker) Actually it is not the least consistent with Trotskyism, as any fool can tell. (Also my comments.) See what it says about Marxism.

Phooey.

Somehow, by some strange power that can only be explained by the very nature of dreams, my mind rocked with the implications of what my astonished eyes were seeing: Wayne Price and Lumpy were insane and had descended to the level of predatory beasts---driven by a mad lust to kill...and vote!

VOTE?! how dare you!

...

... VOTE?! srsly, fuck you.

"When I was, for a time, an unorthodox Trotskyist..."

You are very much still an unorthodox Trotskyist, you just have less self-awareness about it now. Your perspective in support of nationalism and by extension the capitalist class in Ukraine is consistent with this.

You (Anon "When I was....") write, "You are very much still an unorthodox Trotskyist,... Your perspective in support of nationalism and by extension the capitalist class in Ukraine is consistent with this."

But my support for national self-determination for oppressed peoples (the ONLY evidence you cite) does not make me (or anyone) a Trotskyist, just because it was also raised by Trotsky. As I have repeatedly demonstrated, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta, and many other anarchists also supported national liberation wars, while being revolutionary internationalists. Except for Kropotkin, they distinguished between supporting an oppressed country against imperialism and opposing both sides in a war between imperialist powers.

Nor were anarchists the only ones who supported rebelling exploited nations. Nationalists who were not socialists also supported them. Woodrow Wilson (hypocritically) raised national self-determination in WWI. It was common among liberals and social-democrats.

BTW, as I have repeatedly stated, I do not support nationalism (in the Ukraine or elsewhere), which is an ideology advocating an independent state and capitalist class. I do support a people's freedom to decide for themselves how they should be organized, politically and economically.

democratic rule is what we endure under the dictatorship of capital. An alternative to this isn't "real" democracy -- it's the abolition of wage labor and market relations by a mass revolutionary movement that will be very un-democratic with the most malignant malefactors of the former regime.

The fealty to a dubious concept like democracy by a defrocked Trotskyist here or there isn't going to add up to a hill of haricot verts.

These are upstream socioecultural values that are not prone to abolition(a legal construct) There's that Marxist-Communist incoherence again. As Gustav Landhauer said, you contract different relations.

You are correct that democracy sucks, but your DICPRO marxoid commie crap ain't the way.

Yup, every individual has a free will/choice to whatever agreement are negotiated with other free entities to both parties mutual satisfaction. This IS NOT exploitation, this is freedom of association as a means to a satisfactory end.

This proves that SE is a sockpuppet of a no-life moderator. The signs have been blaring over the years but this confirms it. Disgusting.

A neutral observer here from afar, I don't see the proof, lumpy is the most likely sockpuppet of thecollective here and I've been visiting this site since 2008, and if you don't believe me there were folk back then such as Lord Rambler, Wombat, Alberto the Penguin, Duffy, the late Eyedea, Post-Nihilist and a couple of others.

And what the fuck happened to Eyedea? I liked that kid.

RIP Eyedea. One day a friend of his, on behalf of his mother, passed on the news that he had succumbed to an illness. I remember he was a musician and anarchist orator and performed at local gigs. It was a real shock because he was only in his 20s :( That's all we knew at @news and all the regulars respected his mom's wish for privacy.

You (Anon "Democratic Rule...") write, "Democratic rule is what we endure under the dictatorship of capital."

OK, if it makes you feel better, write that what we want, as an alternative to capitalism (wage labor, market relations, the law of value) is collective self-management by working people and the formerly oppressed. The only alternative to the market is the self-management of "economic" processes by the people (having taken them away from the capitalists). I would call this socialist democracy, participatory democracy, or radical, direct, democracy--but I don't care if you prefer some term such as collective self-management or whatever..

In a society where everyone is involved in governing (managing, organizing) then there is no government--and certainly no state separate from and over everyone. Anarchism.

Ah, the name-calling and red-baiting begins.

More like pale pink-baiting. Your politics are really just a form of nebulous liberalism. None of what you're about is really antagonistic to capital, to capitalist social relations.

Anews replies so hard to thread! How do it work?!?!?

Cause I did not name call you(not yet anyway) nor have I red-baited(even though I reject red ideology). You antagonism to capital essentially comes down to imputation fallacies in regards to what think workers are down to do. Capital and capitalism simply IS for many people. If you want a root base way of going after it it essentially comes down to rejecting the game structure and living more minimally and personally. That does not come about from antagonistic class war(lol) Again, there are no such things as unified projectual agency based classes. Classes are already determined by power. Individuals and dunbar collectives make conscious changes, not reified narrative constructed classes, or genders or any other silly revolutionary subject that Marxism magically thinks into existence.

The thing to hammer home against Marx and Marxism is really how that man framed his foundational affair. Like Proudhon and Stirner he went after an abstraction but the former 2 went after things much more foundational. P went after God and Religion(similar to Fuerbach but without the Hegelian rubbish), S went after reified ideas as a whole. Marx decided to go after exchange and commodity fetishism. I mean, talk about a particular branching(not root) problem. He made a mountain out of a mole hill of that foundation. He wrote 3 verbose volumes of Capital that aren't even nearly as good as what Proudhon wrote in 'System of Economic Contradictions'.

The man is a fucking mess of a thinker and it comes from faulty foundations and quite frankly being a rip-off writer of P&S's ideas. He took P's political-economic ideas and made them worse, and he tried to modify S's amorality and post-humanism but but maintain his societarian form based structure and obviously made that worse to. As mutualist sociology says on twitter, he became the tapeworm of socialism and much of the radicalism that followed.

Forget Karl Marx.

In this review, when Wayne tries to tangle with the intricacies of 20th century revolutionary history, Wayne appears to be completely in over his head. Among other things he can't get what Lenin himself conceded, that the early so-called Soviet Union was not communist but "a capitalist state without capitalists."

That's what you get when you conflate Marxism and skim milk Trotskyism, don't get that the revolutionary project is all about abolishing wage labor, and can't grasp that nationalism is always a form of capitalist false consciousness, for example in the massacre raging right now between two capitalist plutocracies in Ukraine.

Ahhh Marxism. This thick brains here still doesn’t get that the term abolition doesn’t work like that.

i've always been an anarchist, but i recognize that destroying capitalism means destroying/abolishing its defining characteristics, which are: wage labor, private property, a state-enforced medium of exchange, commodity production, and the value form. as far as i'm concerned, any anarchist vision that doesn't include the definitive destruction of capitalism isn't worth entertaining, much less embracing.

Capital and state are manifestations of complication that come from human complexity. Much of those things you mentioned essentially require simplification and dissociation in terms of being dealt with. I would emphasize that eliminating work(in a non-automated, human personal way) cuts further to the bone then trying to go after wage labour and private property which are outgrowths of the logic of work. Exchange does not purely come from state origins, it's multivariate in how it came about and the end of the value form will be connected to how it started which was not by a fiat act.

The end of capitalism and statism will not be destruction but dissociation and rejection on a contextual historic basis not a pan-historic grand narrative level. There's of course all those wheels in the head, bats in the belfry. The end of those phantoms will happen at different levels, intensities, periods and contexts. There probably will always be some exchange somewhere due to the fact that human desires are complex and complicated, and material replication machines are star trek commie fantasies.

The problem with Marx was not what he was against. It was always his order of operations and problems and, quite frankly, what he wasn't against.

"eliminating work(in a non-automated, human personal way) cuts further to the bone then trying to go after wage labour and private property which are outgrowths of the logic of work."
Well said, wage labor and private property are best replaced with an equitable distribution of goods amongst a non-wage voluntary association who share a common goal. Others may wish to abandon the entire community and go wild and detached. This is anarch freedom of choice, there is no "us and them" no "worker and boss" no seething ressentiment that yearns for violent revolution, just a bunch of anarchs enjoying life and distributing their creative autonomy.

No Marxism for me,
With my oceanic eye,
i flipper around.

There will always be people with a surplus of potatoes, meat, currency who desire some work on their property who will advertise for a skilled artisan to do the work "in exchange for" potatoes, or meat, or currency. -- IN EXCHANGE FOR --. This is individual capitalism. SooOoo Marx is gonna wipe the slate clean, kill a whole lotta people, have the State sieze ALL property for themselves, AND STILL have workers on equal low wages doing unequal labor and STILL seething with ressentiment, lol. This has never will never work.

You (Anon "I've Always..."; Kevin?) declare "destroying capitalism means destroying/abolishing its defining characteristics, which are: wage labor, private property, a state-enforced medium of exchange, commodity production, and the value form." Yeah, I think so too. This, after all, is the program of Kropotkin's communist-anarchism, which I support. Also ending nationalism. Right. Nor is this a matter of individuals changing relationships, but of a revolution by the working class and all oppressed against the resistance of the imperialist capitalist class. ("All oppressed", allies of the working class, includes the workers and peasants and poor of oppressed nations.)

As for the above remark that I do not appreciate Lenin's description of the early Soviet Union as "capitalist without a capitalist class," I have always regarded the Soviet Union as state capitalist--without the stock-holding traditional bourgeoisie but with the collective state bureaucracy as the capitalist class (the agent of capital accumulation).

Wayne dude, what about the little individual capitalist >Ma and Pa< stores in little towns all over the known universe providing service with a smile and compassionate credit to remote townfolk. You gonna close down their small private business, confiscate they meagre stock, execute/brainwash them and replace it with a State owned monopoly run by cold-hearted bureaucrats in a bunker with posters of Marx and Lenin on the wall. FAIL!
Come out of the cold brah, I beg of you, for your own mental health, pleeeEeease! ;)

You (Anon ""Wayne dude...") have hit the nail on the head! This is exactly my program! True, my article says I reject Marx's statism and centralism. True,, it condemns the authors of the text I am reviewing for their support of Che Guevara, a supporter of dictatorship. True, my article condemns the Bolsheviks for carrying out "counterrevolutionary crimes" against the Kronstadt rebels and Makhno's partisans. But what of that?! You brilliantly see through these statements (actually you probably never read the article) and see that I am for executing small business owners and creating a State owned bureaucratic monopoly, based on nothing I wrote. I bow to your insight.

Doesn't show up in my list of Modern-era revolutionaries from before WW2 (...which didn't happen btw as it's just a LIE by Zionist imperialists).

Oh, okay then, you won't execute small business capitalists. After your revolution, everyone will take advantage of unlimited freedoms and deregulation to setup small anarchist businesses and franchises, manufacturing goods and commodities etc. Some folk will become bankers and create a currency so that small anarchist businesses can protect their profits from roving bands of armed nihilists. A security force called the Anarchist Police and Prison Regiment will be formed against the growing hordes of nihilists and havenots seething with ressentiment. A strongman leader will take command and start a civil war with the various nihilist warlords inhabiting the region. Prisons and concentration camps will have to be built to keep them away from the anarchist business owners. This brave new anarchist society will prosper and,,,,,,hang-on,,,,wtf,,,,nOthing hAs chAnged bEcause pEoples vAlues aNd mInds hAven't reAlly chAnged,,,,,,

Satire in the hands of all too many anarchists is like an AK-47 in the hands of a toddler.

"Well as long as it's a Democracy, it's fiiiine." - Pwayne Rice, Anyday of 2023 and beyond.

What really amuses me (teeheehee [lol] ) is when you mention history's oldest exchange market, namely sex exchange (sex work [organic exchange]) to Marxists. They deny the validity of this in their new society, as if people can be mentally neutered into a pious puritan existence. This anthropocentric arrogance is bound to fail.

BAN it, and that will make it go away.

Add new comment