Marxism and Anarchism
Apr 4 2008 15:39
#32
Quote:
Unlike, of course, saying it is "by definition a centralised organ"! And if it is a central body which "represents" a group of assemblies, then it had power over those assemblies. In other words, it is a government of the few over the many. In the anarchist system, the council is made up of mandated delegates and decisions flow from the bottom-up.
The problem with Marxism is not it cannot tell the difference between bottom-up and top-down, so ensuring the creation of a centralised state structure which excludes the mass of the population from decision making.
I think what Devrim is saying, and what any coherent Marxist would say (I do not think Devrim considers himself a Marxist), is that the council is "centralized" because the mandated delegates participate in a council that draws from many local assemblies, instead of the local assemblies all functioning autonomously. He nowhere implied that the delegates function as representatives in a parliamentary sense, yet you are quick to use the word "represents," as if this was some sort of evidence of his devious intentions! I think his meaning would have been clearer if he had defined "centralized," but you go on to play the semantic game with the word "represents."
And what is Marxism? If you are using Rubel's definition of Marxism as an ideology created after Marx's death that is incompatible with his theories, I would say you have a point, but it seems that you are not. Marx and many who have identified as Marxists can most certainly tell the difference between "bottom-up and top-down," if by this you mean the difference between decision-making power lying with the mass of workers or in the hands of a small elite. I would consider it a sectarian argument to go on and on about what "anarchism" does not understand when there are anarchists on this thread who most certainly understand these things (though they may use different terms), just as I consider it a sectarian argument to act as if Marxism=Marxism-Leninism when this thread features zero Marxist-Leninists.
Apr 4 2008 16:37
#33
I think history has shown that Marxism and particularly Marxist-Leninism is just a type of fascism.
Apr 4 2008 16:39
#34
dave c wrote:
I think what Devrim is saying, and what any coherent Marxist would say (I do not think Devrim considers himself a Marxist), is that the council is "centralized" because the mandated delegates participate in a council that draws from many local assemblies, instead of the local assemblies all functioning autonomously. He nowhere implied that the delegates function as representatives in a parliamentary sense, yet you are quick to use the word "represents," as if this was some sort of evidence of his devious intentions! I think his meaning would have been clearer if he had defined "centralized," but you go on to play the semantic game with the word "represents."
Yes,
Devrim
Apr 4 2008 17:16
#35
The Marxist conception of society and how to fundamentally change it is based on dialectical materialism. This is a materialist philosophy in which every phenomena in the universe can be explained by 'material' processes.
Dialectical materialism views all nature as being composed of processes; nature is constantly changing from one thing in to another; the dialectical conception of development. From a materialist point of view all ideas and notions of self are a derivative of material interaction; consciousness is a product of material processes.
The development of the means of existence, in human society, has given rise to a state of affairs in which objectively identifiable groups of people, economic categories, compete for control of society’s resources. The most advanced societal state measured on technical development, presently, is capitalism. This is Historical Materialism. From it a theory of society past, present can be formulated; and possibly how to change it.
The class divisions in society are an expression of real material differentials. Marxists believe that all philosophy or systems of believe are an expression of class interests-material differential- and that the ruling ideas of an age are that of the ruling class. Thus in present day society the dominant 'world out look' is that of the ruling class. If the working class is elevated to the position of ruling class its ideas will dominate.
All Marxists and most 'class struggle' Anarchists accept historical materialism in one form or another. The difference is how to apply theory into a feasible practice. This in my opinion is what separates some Marxists (most notably Leninists) and 'class struggle' Anarchists. In particular the Leninist belief that the working class on its own will only ever develop a 'trade unionist' consciousness and so must be assisted by a special vanguard of 'workers'; the revolutionary cadre. The vanguard organised in the revolutionary hierarchical party will achieve the highest form of class consciousness. The revolutionary party is then the vital ingredient for societal transformation. The party can only lead the workers in a highly centralised state. With the exception of the revolutionary party, all other workers have a 'bourgeois' consciousness at most times. This includes Anarchists who are supposedly bourgeois individualists.
The collapse of state capitalism has exposed many flaws in party ideology and thus how to change society. Previous revolutions have demonstrated that workers, alone, can transcend the ruling passions. Revolution has to be libertarian!
Apr 4 2008 19:00
#36
The problem with this kind of definition of marxism is that it doesn't apply a historical and class based analysis to currents which call themselves marxist. It's though their practice that you judge that certain of these have, despite their formal adherence to elements of marxism, gone over to the bourgeoisie (Stalinism, Trotskyism) while others have remained basically loyal to its proletarian and revolutionary method and principles, such as the various branches of the communist left.. The defining characteristic here is not some abstract conception of class consciousness, but real relations to actual bourgeois states - either integration, in the case of Stalinism and Trotskyism, or intransigent opposition.
Apr 4 2008 19:17
#37
Alf, wasn't Trotzky, the one of Kronstadt, a "leninist"?
If trotzkism has gone over to the bourgeoisie (and it has), it's because leninism is a bourgeois ideology, as the history shows.
i can't speak english well, so i just post this link....and i'll do it over and over again.. 
http://libcom.org/library/renegade-kautsky-disciple-lenin-dauve
at least, leninists should admit that their ideology is very different from Marx's though....
Apr 4 2008 19:41
#38
I'm not a Marx scholar but I'd say Marxist theories of alienation are inherently libertarian. Which is why it was controversial for Lukács to take it up in the Eastern Bloc.
Apr 5 2008 12:33
#39
Alf, its not my intension to judge the full spectrum of the Marxist mileu based on their historical practice. I wanted to point out, in some way, why they organise in a fashion most workers consider oppressive. And it is based on an abstact conception of class conciousness.
Apr 5 2008 14:32
#40
Anarcho wrote:
In other words, he thought that the ruling class, the capitalists, would remain in charge of the means of life? So the proletariat would have political power (i.e., an elected socialist government) but the capitalists would have economic power?
WRONG! "dictatorship of the proletariat" DOES mean "defend the revolution against counter-revolution by the ex-ruling class" the point being that a revolution is a process not an instantaneous event.
And wasn't it Marx who was the first person to say "I am not a Marxist"?
Apr 5 2008 21:53
#41
Django wrote:
I'm not a Marx scholar but I'd say Marxist theories of alienation are inherently libertarian. Which is why it was controversial for Lukács to take it up in the Eastern Bloc.
I think pretty much everything Marx wrote is inherently "libertarian" (perhaps not in the same sense that anarchists mean the word). But, I don't think the libertarianism of Lukács is what really got him in trouble. He was no libertarian at the time of the publication of History and Class Consciousness. Much of his writing reads as mystical Hegelian justification for the Party. What got him in trouble, I think, was his very small and insignificant criticism of Engels' dialectic of nature. (Or at least this is the impression I get from the portions of the criticisms of Lukács reprinted in the introduction to Lukács' "Tailism and the Dialectic".) That Lukács' book was considered so scandalous says more about what limited level of debate the Third International was able to have than anything about Lukács theories themselves.
Apr 5 2008 21:58
#42
darren poynton wrote:
Anarcho wrote:
In other words, he thought that the ruling class, the capitalists, would remain in charge of the means of life? So the proletariat would have political power (i.e., an elected socialist government) but the capitalists would have economic power?
WRONG! "dictatorship of the proletariat" DOES mean "defend the revolution against counter-revolution by the ex-ruling class" the point being that a revolution is a process not an instantaneous event.
Yes, I think that is what Marx meant, as well as that the proletariat would rule by decree (for expropriation, socialization of the means of production, and all that good stuff).
And to Anarcho, yes, the working class can to some extent hold political power while the capitalist class holds economic power, given that revolution does not happen instantaneously. Naturally the political power of the working class would be very limited in such a situation, but that doesn't change the fact that the proletariat would wield political power. Think of the Paris Commune, for example. It certainly never became a communist society, but the working class did wield political power.
Apr 8 2008 08:45
#43
darren poynton wrote:
Anarcho wrote:
In other words, he thought that the ruling class, the capitalists, would remain in charge of the means of life? So the proletariat would have political power (i.e., an elected socialist government) but the capitalists would have economic power?
WRONG! "dictatorship of the proletariat" DOES mean "defend the revolution against counter-revolution by the ex-ruling class" the point being that a revolution is a process not an instantaneous event.
Wrong! If it were, then anarchists like Bakunin would hardly have disagreed! And revolution is a process, Bakunin did not think it would happen overnight. For a discussion of Bakunin's critique of Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" see here:
H.1.1 What was Bakunin's critique of Marxism?
As for the notion that anarchist rejection of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" means rejecting defending a revolution see here:
H.2.1 Do anarchists reject defending a revolution?
darren poynton wrote:
And wasn't it Marx who was the first person to say "I am not a Marxist"?
Given how his ideas have been ignored and twisted by self-proclaimed Marxists, I can see why!
Apr 8 2008 08:58
#44
dave c wrote:
I think what Devrim is saying, and what any coherent Marxist would say
A coherent Marxist? Where?
dave c wrote:
I think his meaning would have been clearer if he had defined "centralized," but you go on to play the semantic game with the word "represents."
Yes, the "semantic game" -- which means that Marxists get to define the meanings of words but when anarchists object they are accused of "playing with words"....
dave c wrote:
And what is Marxism? If you are using Rubel's definition of Marxism as an ideology created after Marx's death that is incompatible with his theories, I would say you have a point, but it seems that you are not.
Given that I've just had a debate with many Marxists who systematically ignored the many quotes by Marx and Engels I provided AND proclaimed both of them as contradictory, I would say that Marxism as an ideology is the predominant form of it!
dave c wrote:
Marx and many who have identified as Marxists can most certainly tell the difference between "bottom-up and top-down," if by this you mean the difference between decision-making power lying with the mass of workers or in the hands of a small elite.
That explains his dismissal of Bakunin's vision of "the free organisation of the worker masses from bottom to top" as "nonsense."
Then there is his comments from 1850, when he argued that the workers must "not only strive for a single and indivisible German republic, but also within this republic for the most determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority." This was because "the path of revolutionary activity" can "proceed only from the centre." This meant that the workers must be opposed to the "federative republic" planned by the democrats and "must not allow themselves to be misguided by the democratic talk of freedom for the communities, of self-government, etc." This centralisation of power was essential to overcome local autonomy, which would allow "every village, every town and every province" to put "a new obstacle in the path" the revolution due to "local and provincial obstinacy."
This implies a vision of revolution in which the centre (indeed, "the state authority") forces its will on the population, which (by necessity) means that the centre power is "superimposed upon society" rather than "subordinate" to it. Given his dismissal of the idea of organisation from bottom to top, we cannot argue that by this he meant simply the co-ordination of local initiatives. Rather, we are struck by the "top-down" picture of revolution Marx presents. Indeed, his argument from 1850 suggests that Marx favoured centralism not only in order to prevent the masses from creating obstacles to the revolutionary activity of the "centre," but also to prevent them from interfering with their own liberation.
Of course, this central power would be elected but Marx fails to show how this state authority can be more than the sum of its parts... And, of course, there are more libertarian aspects in Marx's work so it is a mixed bag from which Leninists and autonomists can draw...
dave c wrote:
I would consider it a sectarian argument to go on and on about what "anarchism" does not understand when there are anarchists on this thread who most certainly understand these things (though they may use different terms), just as I consider it a sectarian argument to act as if Marxism=Marxism-Leninism when this thread features zero Marxist-Leninists.
Leninism draws certain things from Marx, while ignoring others. Just as libertarian Marxism draws upon elements which the Leninists at best pay lip-service to. Shows the problems of calling your ideology after a person, I guess!
Apr 8 2008 09:11
#45
mikus wrote:
Yes, I think that is what Marx meant, as well as that the proletariat would rule by decree (for expropriation, socialization of the means of production, and all that good stuff).
Ah, so the proletariat would remain the proletariat after the "revolution"? Nice to know. And how does "the proletariat" rule by decree? A socialist government rules by decree, a people does not.
Looking at Engels, we discover him writing that "[a]s soon as our Party is in possession of political power it has simply to expropriate the big landed proprietors just like the manufacturers in industry . . . thus restored to the community [they] are to be turned over by us to the rural workers who are already cultivating them and are to be organised into co-operatives." He even states that this expropriation may "be compensated," depending on "the circumstances which we obtain power, and particularly by the attitude adopted by these gentry." Thus we have the party taking power, then expropriating the means of life for the workers and, lastly, "turning over" these to them. While this fits into the general scheme of the Communist Manifesto, it cannot be said to be "socialism from below" which can only signify the direct expropriation of the means of production by the workers themselves, organising themselves into free producer associations to do so.
Which suggests a political revolution comes first, then an economic one. I doubt that the bosses would sit around and would use economic means to combat the new regime. Which happened under Lenin, forcing the Bolsheviks to implement state capitalism.
mikus wrote:
And to Anarcho, yes, the working class can to some extent hold political power while the capitalist class holds economic power, given that revolution does not happen instantaneously.
Anarchists are well aware that revolutions are a process, the state becomes paralysed and the organisations of the masses increase. This takes the form of expropriation, socialisation and so on -- until such time as the state can be destroyed. So the politcal and social revolutions happen at the same time, with the erosion of economic and political power building to their destruction. To think that political change comes before economic one is wrong and doomed to failure.
mikus wrote:
Naturally the political power of the working class would be very limited in such a situation, but that doesn't change the fact that the proletariat would wield political power. Think of the Paris Commune, for example. It certainly never became a communist society, but the working class did wield political power.
Actually, the municipal government held power -- and could not handle the flow of information that the clubs and societies provided it. As Anarchists argued, the municipal council was not up to the task. Even worse, the council decided to form a committee of public safety, which the libertarians of the Paris International rightly attacked as a form of dictatorship.
So the anarchist critique of the commune is that the masses did not hold power, the "revolutionary government" did, and it was not up to the task. Moreover, it did not pursue social transformation quickly enough -- in part, because it was swamped by the tasks given it.
Yes, think of the Paris Commune -- and its limitations. It is really not a good example to bolster your argument!
Apr 9 2008 05:22
#46
I am not sure what Anarcho is trying to prove with his quotes from the 1850 Address. Even a cursory glance at the context of these lines reveals that Marx is talking first of all about a bourgeois-democratic revolution. Anarcho rips the lines out of context (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm)
to make it seem as though Marx was against worker's self-government or autonomy. Here is what he leaves out:
Quote:
In a country like Germany, where so many remnants of the Middle Ages are still to be abolished, where so much local and provincial obstinacy has to be broken down, it cannot under any circumstances be tolerated that each village, each town and each province may put up new obstacles in the way of revolutionary activity, which can only be developed with full efficiency from a central point. (my bold)
Whatever one may think of Marx’s positions, he is rather clear that he does not think the workers were, at the time he wrote, able to exercise political power:
Quote:
As in the past, so in the coming struggle also, the petty bourgeoisie, to a man, will hesitate as long as possible and remain fearful, irresolute and inactive; but when victory is certain it will claim it for itself and will call upon the workers to behave in an orderly fashion, to return to work and to prevent so-called excesses, and it will exclude the proletariat from the fruits of victory. It does not lie within the power of the workers to prevent the petty-bourgeois democrats from doing this; but it does lie within their power to make it as difficult as possible for the petty bourgeoisie to use its power against the armed proletariat, and to dictate such conditions to them that the rule of the bourgeois democrats, from the very first, will carry within it the seeds of its own destruction, and its subsequent displacement by the proletariat will be made considerably easier. (my bold)
Marx is arguing for workers to organize autonomously from bourgeois factions, while pressuring the bourgeoisie to implement certain policies:
Quote:
If the workers are to be able to forcibly oppose the democratic petty bourgeois it is essential above all for them to be independently organized and centralized in clubs.
That said, Marx was not opposed to using such unholy words as "centralization," or even "nationalization," but his meaning, when he is talking about the transition out of capitalism, is most certainly compatible with workers' self-government. He is rather explicit about this:
Quote:
National centralization of the means of production will become the natural basis of a society composed of associations of free and equal producers, carrying on the social business on a common and rational plan. (MECW v. 23, 136, Italics in original)
Marx's second draft of The Civil War in France explains his vision quite clearly:
Quote:
It is one of the absurdities to say that the Central functions, not of governmental authority over the people, but necessitated by the general and common wants of the country, would become impossible. These functions would exist, but the functionaries themselves could not, as in the old governmental machinery, raise themselves over real society, because the functions were to be executed by Communal agents, and, therefore, always under real control. (Draper, Writings on the Paris Commune, 200) (italics in original)
For Marx, "centralization" did not equal hierarchical, minority power. This is actually what I meant by my comment about "any coherent Marxist." I meant anyone who calls themselves a Marxist and is consistent with Marx's theory on this point.
Regarding Marx's dismissal of Bakunin's vision of "the free organisation of the worker masses from bottom to top" as "nonsense,” it would have been nice if Anarcho had provided everyone with the context of this one word in which Marx reveals his secret authoritarianism. It comes from Marx’s "Notes on Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy" (MECW v. 24, 521), and it is a one word interjection in the midst of a quotation from Bakunin. For anyone familiar with Marx’s views on Bakunin, it is sot a surprising comment, nor very revealing. Marx considered Bakunin’s conception of such “free organization” to be an abstract ideal, empty phraseology. Marx says something similar here:
Quote:
[The rank and file of the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy (Bakunin's organization)] are told of nothing but pure anarchy, of anti-authoritarianism, of a free federation of autonomous groups, and other equally harmless things: a mere jumble of words. (MECW v. 23, 525).
Even Nechayev in “The Revolutionary Catechism” claims: “. . . the Society has no intention of imposing on the people any kind of organization from above.” For Marx, a solid basis for communist practice is not provided by Bakunin, so he considers the phrases empty. That he is serious about working class self-government and self-emancipation is very clear form his "Notes." To Bakunin's comment:
Quote:
The Germans number around forty million. Will for example all forty million be member of the government?
Marx replies:
Quote:
Certainly! Since the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune.
Top-down, bottom-up, which is it Marx? So much confusion, or Anarcho's willfully confused reading of Marx? Speaking of little interjections, Marx has another one that is of interest. Here is Bakunin:
Quote:
This dilemma is simply solved in the Marxists' theory. By people's government they understand (i.e. Bakunin) the government of the people by means of a small number of leaders, chosen (elected) by the people.
That "i.e. Bakunin" is Marx saying that Bakunin "understands" Marx as supporting a government by a small number of leaders, but Marx himself has no such conception.
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm)
Marx is quite clear about the reasons for his "dismissal" of Bakunin. Marx quotes an "Alliance" document:
Quote:
The national committees ‘shall have the task of organizing the Alliance in their countries so that it shall always be dominated and represented at the Congresses by members of the Permanent Central Committee’. This is what is known in the language of the Alliance as organizing from the bottom to the top.” (MECW, v. 23, 465) (Marx's italics, my bold)
Marx quotes from the same document:
Quote:
But ‘as it is urgent that the Central Bureau should always consist of members of the Permanent Central Committee, this latter, through the organ of its National Committees, will take care to organize and direct all the local groups in such a way that they will delegate to this assembly only members of the Permanent Central Committee or, failing them, men absolutely devoted to the leadership of their respective National Committees, so that the Permanent Central Committee should always have the upper hand in the entire organization of the Alliance’. These instructions were not given by a Bonapartist minister or prefect on the eve of the elections, but, in order to ensure his permanence, by the anti-authoritarian, quintessential, immense anarchist, the archpriest of the organization from bottom to top, the Bayard of the autonomy of the sections and the free federation of autonomous groups—Saint-Michael Bakunin. (MECW, v. 23, 465-466) (Marx's italics, my bold)
Marx is very clearly emphasizing (italics) things he dissaproves of, hence the implicit comparison of Bakunin to a "Bonapartist minister." If Bakunin is (for Marx) an "arch-priest", Marx sees himself as a theorist of working class self-emancipation. And you don't have to agree with his perception of Bakunin or his theories to see that Marx clearly understands the difference between power lying at the top in the hands of a few, and "self-government" by the many.
In other words, he thought that the ruling class, the capitalists, would remain in charge of the means of life? So the proletariat would have political power (i.e., an elected socialist government) but the capitalists would have economic power?
If he said "defend the revolution against counter-revolution by the ex-ruling class" then that would make sense, and be the same as the anarchist position (as expounded by Bakunin who assumed expropriation of capital at the same time as the destruction of the state). But he obviously did not, with the ruling class still in position of economic power and subjected to the political rule by the proletariat...
As Lenin's Russia showed, this simply did not work -- and this forced the Bolsheviks to replace state regulated capitalism with state capitalism. The workers, however, were trying to expropriate the capitalists directly -- and stopped by the Bolsheviks in favour of nationalisation.
Ultimately, the whole notion of "the dictatorship of the proletariat" is confused. If capital is expropriated, then "the proletariat" does not exist. If not, then the proletariat exists and so capital remains and so the ruling class has economic power and so "political power" is limited...