Anarchist casualties to Marxism
Aug 10 2008 21:20
I was wondering if there existed a rough estimate of how many anarchists have been murdered by Marxists in Russia, Spain, China, etc. Somebody recently pointed out to me that Marxists had probably murdered more anarchists than even fascist regimes had.
I was thinking of writing a pamphlet or something commemorating working-class militants murdered by Marxism.
Cheers
Aug 10 2008 21:46
#2
Historical interest is part of it. Keeping the record straight another part. But making sure we remember past history and don't trust the snakes in the grass is the main reason.
I forgot Cuba for a second there. Cienfuegos Press was actually named after an anarchist victim of the Castroites.
Aug 10 2008 22:03
#3
Aug 10 2008 22:07
#4
Personalist wrote:
Historical interest is part of it. Keeping the record straight another part. But making sure we remember past history and don't trust the snakes in the grass is the main reason.
fair enough, although i'm generally wary of things styled as 'anarchist v marxist', as there are anarchists who've joined the state and marxists who've been solid militants, and many many revolutionary workers who identified as neither who have been fucked over by marxist regimes too. i'd argue the reactionary nature of marxist regimes comes not so much from their ideology as their class position, as seizing the state puts them in the position of ruling class over and against the class they claim to be emancipating, they become managers of the national capital rather than agents of its destruction.
Aug 10 2008 22:17
#5
And there are plenty of "marxists" who have no interest in seizing the bourgeois state, forming a national bourgeoisie, and plenty of "anarchists" who think nothing of cheerleading third-world nationalist gangsters.
This is to say nothing of how worthwhile re-enforcing "anarchist" and "marxist" as identities is.
Commemorating working class victims of state capitalism is worthwhile, but hardly a new project.
Aug 10 2008 23:49
#6
It's not clear to me why someone who believes that "90% of anarchism is rubbish" would spend two minutes at this site unless they had an ulterior motive.
Aug 11 2008 06:24
#7
LauritzTheAgitator wrote:
It's not clear to me why someone who believes that "90% of anarchism is rubbish" would spend two minutes at this site unless they had an ulterior motive.
because amongst all the crap anarchism contains some of the high points of working class struggle, from which there are valuable lessons to be drawn. i mean it's not an exact quantitative measure as i'm sure you're aware, but there's lots of reactionary crap included under the label 'anarchism.'
Aug 11 2008 06:26
#8
LauritzTheAgitator wrote:
It's not clear to me why someone who believes that "90% of anarchism is rubbish" would spend two minutes at this site unless they had an ulterior motive.
I thought this site was run by people who think that "90% of anarchism is rubbish" .
Devrim
Aug 11 2008 07:45
#9
Which is a ridiculous statement in the first place. Where other socialists have toddled along behind, anarchists have always been theoretically and practically ahead. The "amazing" theses of council communism were repeats of basic syndicalist ideas. I could go on...
Aug 11 2008 07:47
#10
Incidentally while "anarchism" may bring to mind punky weirdos, Crass and Chuck Munson, "communism" in the public mind means gulags, millions of deaths, the totalitarian state, and so on. Which has a bigger PR problem? 
Aug 11 2008 08:31
#11
Personalist wrote:
Which is a ridiculous statement in the first place. Where other socialists have toddled along behind, anarchists have always been theoretically and practically ahead. The "amazing" theses of council communism were repeats of basic syndicalist ideas. I could go on...
there is no unitary 'anarchism.' some anarchists were way ahead of some marxists in rejecting statist strategies, others were peddling crap about self-managed co-ops being revolutionary, and still are. likewise, marx's analysis of capital is still way ahead of anything any anarchist has offered. i just don't see the appeal of a pissing contest between 'anarchism' and 'marxism' when they're both plural traditions containing lots of shite, when we can just take those ideas and historical lessons relevant to working class emancipation regardless of the self-identification of their originators.
Personalist wrote:
Incidentally while "anarchism" may bring to mind punky weirdos, Crass and Chuck Munson, "communism" in the public mind means gulags, millions of deaths, the totalitarian state, and so on. Which has a bigger PR problem? ;)
well, 90% of both are crap
Aug 11 2008 08:42
#12
Are you saying "anarchism" has a good PR image? Amongst nearly everyone I've met who isnt a politico who has talked about it it is synonymous with chaos, looting, violence etc.
Plus those who know something about it are often put off by the antisemitism, sexism and nationalism of the thinkers of the "anarchist tradition".
But JK makes the most important point - there is no anarchist work that compares to the critique of political economy. Bakunin was well aware of this.
Aug 11 2008 09:00
#13
LauritzTheAgitator wrote:
It's not clear to me why someone who believes that "90% of anarchism is rubbish" would spend two minutes at this site unless they had an ulterior motive.
afaik, all of the ten people in the admin group and most of our regular contributors hold the same opinion.
Aug 11 2008 09:35
#14
LauritzTheAgitator wrote:
It's not clear to me why someone who believes that "90% of anarchism is rubbish" would spend two minutes at this site unless they had an ulterior motive.
Whats with people coming on and acting like they own the site all in their first ten posts? First personalist, then lauritz...
fucking annoying
Aug 11 2008 10:33
#15
Personalist wrote:
Which is a ridiculous statement in the first place. Where other socialists have toddled along behind, anarchists have always been theoretically and practically ahead.
Theoretically anarchism has always been much weaker than marxism. On a practical level we are also on the weaker footing. Anyone claiming otherwise is mental.
Aug 11 2008 12:19
#16
OliverTwister wrote:
LauritzTheAgitator wrote:
It's not clear to me why someone who believes that "90% of anarchism is rubbish" would spend two minutes at this site unless they had an ulterior motive.Whats with people coming on and acting like they own the site all in their first ten posts? First personalist, then lauritz...
fucking annoying
Who me? What did I do? 
Anyway, as bad as anarchisms PR may be (I don't actually call myself an anarchist because of it) it's not half as bad as Marxisms PR! Burning cars and pink mohawks don't compare with millions of dead.
We should also differentiate between Marx and Marxism. Didn't Marx say "I'm not a Marxist?" Marx's economics were kind of one step forward, two steps back. He abandoned Adam Smith's "toil and trouble" labour theory of value for a metaphysical replacement, not to mention to politically fueled love-hate relationship with the theory of primitive accumulation.
His philosophy was pretty shit, and his political inclinations were farcically wrong-headed. (In his day he rejected the possibility of unionism, cheered on parliamentary democracy, had a soft spot for dictatorship, but ended up founding social-democracy). Plus his sectarianism and personal power lust destroyed the First International... Blimey, what a legacy of ashes.
At best he simply popularised ideas others had gone into with more depth and perception.
Aug 11 2008 12:19
#17
OliverTwister wrote:
LauritzTheAgitator wrote:
It's not clear to me why someone who believes that "90% of anarchism is rubbish" would spend two minutes at this site unless they had an ulterior motive.Whats with people coming on and acting like they own the site all in their first ten posts? First personalist, then lauritz...
fucking annoying
Says the man calling for people who don't agree with him to be banned.
Aug 11 2008 12:25
#18
Weeler wrote:
Personalist wrote:
Which is a ridiculous statement in the first place. Where other socialists have toddled along behind, anarchists have always been theoretically and practically ahead.Theoretically anarchism has always been much weaker than marxism. On a practical level we are also on the weaker footing. Anyone claiming otherwise is mental.
Marxism has shit ideas about class and the state, it's metaphysics ("Historical materialism") is a load of total bollocks, and it's sum total practical contribution has been to crush the working-class physically when it got to power and spiritually when not in power! Anarchists have come out with plenty of crap but amidst the crap have basically been right about all the right issues, and has a fine history of practical effort in the cause of freedom and equality.
Aug 11 2008 12:32
#19
Personalist wrote:
At best he simply popularised ideas others had gone into with more depth and perception.
can you point me at an analysis of capitalist social relations with greater depth and perception than marx?
Aug 11 2008 12:35
#20
Personalist wrote:
Marxism has shit ideas about class and the state, it's metaphysics ("Historical materialism") is a load of total bollocks
Please provide an example of the phrases 'historical materialsm' or 'dialectical materialism' in any of Marx' works, thanks.
Quote:
, and it's sum total practical contribution has been to crush the working-class physically when it got to power and spiritually when not in power!
You include the KAPD in this?
Aug 11 2008 12:40
#21
Joseph K -- The Ricardian Socialists for starters, then Proudhon and his crew!
Aug 11 2008 12:37
#22
ya know, it might be worth pointing out bad things done in the name of marxism or anarchism at a high point of class struggle. but these ideas are hardly well known/represented at the moment, so it seems of little interest to anyone (and of litle interest to you, even, spending your time doing such a pointless documentation). the only people who'd take anything from such a piece would be anarchists who are already obsessed with moaning about people who call themselves marxists.
Aug 11 2008 12:41
#23
Catch -- Yes, I know Engels came up with the term. But his Hegelian view of history was awful.
And yes, I was being hyperbolic that all Marxism had produced was death and destruction -- I amend that to 90 percent of what it produced was death and destruction. I like the council-communists. They were like the slow friend of syndicalism!
Bob -- Like lefties going on about fascism and Hitler? What is the relative size difference between the SWP and the BNP?
Aug 11 2008 12:39
#24
Personalist wrote:
The Ricardian Socialists for starters, then Proudhon and his crew!
and this would appear to be where we differ. proudhon ffs.
Aug 11 2008 12:42
#25
Joseph -- Marx doffed his cap more than once to Proudhon, before viciously stabbing him in the back and trying to steal the credit for his theories...
Aug 11 2008 12:51
#26
Personalist wrote:
Joseph -- Marx doffed his cap more than once to Proudhon, before viciously stabbing him in the back and trying to steal the credit for his theories...
i'm not going to uncritically defend marx, he held all sorts of views throughout his political development. but from what i've read of each i can't see what marx could have 'stolen' except basic socialist platitudes, e.g. marx's analysis of the fundamental class nature of bourgeois property relations goes far beyond proudhon's 'property is freedom/theft' sloganeering, as does his recognition that a market without bosses is nothing inherently anticapitalist if capital is understood as an expanding movement of value subjugating human agents to its 'needs.'
Aug 11 2008 12:58
#27
Well I happen to agree with Proudhon that capitalist (usurious) property is theft and the property of the worker is freedom. Historically as well it is a simple description of reality: as Marx says in the last chapter of Capital, capitalism rests upon the expropriation of the means of production from independent and free workers such as Proudhon and his mates in the so-called craft industry.
With the new appreciation of the ecological imperative of appropriate-scale technics (Bookchin, Schumacher, etc.), Proudhon's economic vision seems increasingly pleasant.
But we're way off the subject!
Aug 11 2008 13:05
#28
Tell you what Personalist, you find decent articles about uprisings in the Soviet Union and other 'Marxist' states like http://libcom.org/history/1932-vichuga-uprising and we'll put them in history. How about that?
Aug 11 2008 13:09
#29
Personalist wrote:
Well I happen to agree with Proudhon that capitalist (usurious) property is theft and the property of the worker is freedom. Historically as well it is a simple description of reality: as Marx says in the last chapter of Capital, capitalism rests upon the expropriation of the means of production from independent and free workers such as Proudhon and his mates in the so-called craft industry.
well, you kinda have to ignore the rest of Capital to reduce capitalism to a simple legal matter of formal ownership (is this like an anarchist version of saying everything will be ok if we nationalise it?). and even if you agree with proudhon, it's hardly 'in depth' or 'perceptive', it's about the most superficial criticism of capitalism possible. but like you say, this is somewhat off-topic for this thread really, apart from my doubts over the point in an 'anarchist v marxist'. pissing contest
Aug 11 2008 13:23
#30
catch wrote:
Tell you what Personalist, you find decent articles about uprisings in the Soviet Union and other 'Marxist' states like http://libcom.org/history/1932-vichuga-uprising and we'll put them in history. How about that?
No wait, you're only interested in anarchists that were killed - I think there's maybe one person at Vichuga who was documented as either anarchist or ultra-left (it's not clear which), so probably that wouldn't interest you, nor East Germany '53, Hungary '56, Novocherkassk '62 or Czechoslovakia '68 - since none had high contingents of anarchists involved. Shame.
out of interest, what would be the purpose? since the demise of the USSR 'marxism' has hardly had much of its former profile, and 90% of both anarchism and marxism is rubbish, so why set up a false dichotomy between them rather than just taking the good stuff? i mean, you're probably right that marxist regimes have killed at least comparable numbers of anarchists as fascists have, cuba was another example, iirc there was a strong anarcho-syndicalist element in the revolution which was subsequently repressed, but what's the contemporary relevance?