Mahknovists

i dont think i've heard that, outside of claims made by bolsheviks. but my memory is hazy, unfortunately. now, of course, makhnovists, or associated political organizations which they and makhno were involved in certainly would have done some detective work when trying to figure things out (for instance, to discover former undercover police spies from before the revolution), but this is hardly a secret police, and i gather it was conducted rather informally by individuals, rather than being a function of a specific organization. but i wonder if perhaps certain bolsheviks are over-extending a concept, so that they can consider such actions as evidence of a secret police (akin to how certain bolsheviks will, when arguing with an Anarchist who tells them about the necessity for organization and goes into it a little bit, that the Anarchist is just building a "State" too).

anyway, hopefully someone more knowledgable than i can chime in...

They had counter-intelligence service, but not any sort of secret police.

MI5 is a counter-intelligence service, not a secret police.

Exactly. I largely agreed with your earlier comment incidentally.

Both the Cheka and the Makhnovist equivalent were counter-intelligence / secret police organisations. Similar organisations will almost certainly be required after a future revolution unless the remnant of the bourgeoisie gracefully decides to give in and wish the new proletarian power the best of luck.

We can't avoid the necessity of these organs. Instead we need to think about ways of ensuring they're controlled by the working class instead of being in control.

I am very interested in your literature on Makhno. He's possibly the most important figure in Anarchism during the 20th century.

this is great to know - the first volume of the memoirs were gripping, i cant believe they've never been translated until now!

hey, does black cat press have a website or somesuch? i cant seem to find anything.

oh, dont be jealous, you're a close second.

Regardless of the formal simularities between the Bolshevik Cheka and the Makhnovist secret police, it does illustrate the need for a policing force for a worker's state to defend itself from counter-revolution. Now, as the Bolsheviks consildated their concept of socialism as being capitalism run under the auspices of the state, they then had to defend themselves from the working class. Within the next revolution, we'll have to figure out how to best organize a method for defending the gains of the revolution against counter revolution while simultaneousely not oppressing the working class.

Don't ask me exactly how that's going to get done, as that's what direct democracy/democratic centralism is for. I just find it intriguing that part of the revolutionary organization is going to have to have a policing force, but not a police force. There is a major difference.

I agree with this, and I am leery of anything "professional" in regards to a person holding a gun. If violence is necessary, it should always be borne out of the sheer power of numbers, as well as with a clear indication of openness and identification. Otherwise you create an opening for Italian styled "tension" attacks, or COINTELPRO paranoia. The base form, the lack of appointed or non-revocable "leaders", and federations as opposed to a central governing body, keep informants and rightist hacks from leveraging power within revolutionary organizations.

While its true that the bourgeoisie won't give anything up, I'm not exactly sure the suburbs are going to all of a sudden become the White Army either, or stock-brokers are going to become Green Berets. I don't think its possible to militarily beat most of the developed worlds army's anyways, unless someone is secretly building large aircraft carriers and an air force as we speak.

I agree with wangwei that a policing force and a Red Army of some description will be needed during the insurrection and post-revolutionary period. I'm not against centralisation though. An army that has to fight the kind of the war the Red Army fought in Russia can only do so on the basis of a centralised strategy.

I think the question is the form of centralisation. We can certainly learn negative lessons from both Bolshevik and Makhnovist experiences about the importance of preserving proletarian control over and within these organs. And certainly we can also learn lessons about the way these organs were used by both sides as a weapon to clear out opposing political views within the soviets and councils. The "police" and red guard / army should be instruments of the soviet councils, not for settling disputes within them.