An outline of the ZSP's activities during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. From the Eastern European journal Abolishing the Borders from Below, #31 (February 2008).
An outline of the ZSP's activities during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. From the Eastern European journal Abolishing the Borders from Below, #31 (February 2008).
Comments
A correction: neither ZSP nor
A correction: neither ZSP nor ZZZ were ever affiliates of the IWA. The Anarchist Federation of Poland was somehow affilliated as a propaganda group. Before the war, the ZZZ was interested in affiliated but it did not happen. The reason was the war.
So now there is a Libcom tag
So now there is a Libcom tag of ZSP which is used for both the historical organization and the current. What to do? Many add ZSP-IWA to the current?
Well, it's funny considering
Well, it's funny considering the old ZSP weren't even anarchists, they were pretty much left-wing nationalists (they called their ideology "Polish variety of syndicalism").
Well, it is sort of funny.
Well, it is sort of funny. There were some anarchists there, but yes, patriotic (as most of them were at the time). ZSP was much better than ZZZ though.
akai wrote: There were some
akai
Yeah, even the anarchist SOW (which also included many non-anarchists) which broke off from them was still very confused in that regard.
There is a long tradition of
There is a long tradition of nationalism and patriotism playing too big a role in Polish political history (and some other countries in E. Europe). This has infected all parts of the left and many parts of anarchism. In the 80s-90s, the reborn anarchist movement was too caught up in these ideas and even now you find people who defend it.
Yup, there was some Scots
Yup, there was some Scots anarchists who wanted people to vote for ‘independence’ in the recent referendum. Strange but true.
Well, given the history and
Well, given the history and the murderous nazi occupation, in those days these sentiments could be more understandable. But workers have no homeland.
If anarchists and internationalist communists won't fight against patriotism, who will?
akai wrote: A correction:
akai
There's mistake in translation. In polish original: "ZZZ...w 1938r. postanowił przyłączyć się do IWA, anarchosyndykalistycznej międzynarodówki"
"ZZZ..in 1938 decided to join IWA...anarcho-syndicalist international"
http://anarchizm.net.pl/historia/syndykalisci-w-powstaniu-warszawskim
In ABB: [ZSP] "became a member the international association of anarcho-syndicalist unions, the 'International Workers' Association' (IWA)."
As for anarchism, syndicalism patriotism etc, ZZZ originally was right-wing union supporting Pilsudski. Anarchists joined it and used entrism gradually turning it to the left & anarchism with declining membership though (from 120 000 to 40 000). This process wasn't finished when war started and ZZZ ceased to exist. So its not so bad as it sounds considering what ZZZ was initially.
ZZZ & ZSP supported what they called "libertarian socialism" It was mix of anarchism, marxism, "popular patriotism" (ie workers' patriotism without class collaboration). During nazi occupation an organisation without patriot component would have zero support
akai wrote: This has infected
akai
It's especially frustrating when it comes not from those weirdos who invented such things like "anarcho-Sarmatism", but from "trv working class anarchists", though this time under the cloak of anti-fascism. Like, last year on 1st September there was "March of Forgotten Heroes" in Katowice, to commemorate socialists, syndicalists and anarchists (and soldiers of PSL's Peasant Battalions... WTF?) who participated in WW2 resistance. A song by supposedly "anarchist" rapper protoming the March not only said that "anti-fascists also fought the invader", but also accused the far right of... "covering their Germanophilic gambits with national emblem" ("German" apparently being equal with "Nazi").
augustynww wrote: (ie
augustynww
:lol:
Have mercy you killer.
Program of the ZSP was
Program of the ZSP was basically generalised self-management within confines of the nation state (whose Western border would be on Oder and Eastern the same as pre-war one- this kinda stinks of Polish chauvinism to me). The very fact they didn't see their "revolution" as going beyond national borders is telling. Well, they called their ideology "Polish variety of syndicalism" ffs. Which sounds nasty considering that there was something called national syndicalism before, and it was a demo version of fascism ;). Anyway anarchists disagreed with the ZSP and founded SOW. However, it also lapsed into social patriotism. Or rather was on this road from beginning.
Gepetto
Gepetto
Anarchism in one Rzeczpospolita?
Entdinglichung
Entdinglichung
All power to the Sejm! (unless someone uses liberum veto... ;))
Mickiewicz, "Sir Thaddeus, or
Mickiewicz, "Sir Thaddeus, or the Last Lithuanian Foray"
Gepetto wrote: augustynww
Gepetto
only if you ask nicely :)
Gepetto
that's funny lol
Even ZZZ earlier supported "workers' struggle in Spain against fascist coup" not to mention ZSP
you should definitely read more on this, starting from here
https://drabina.wordpress.com/2010/07/28/krotka-historia-zzz-od-rezimowego-zwiazku-po-rewolucyjny-syndykat/
There you find antinationalist resolutions etc
As for the state, it was kind of half-anarchism mixed with state socialism (bottom up federation of communes & workers' associations with some central administration nonetheless).
Of course all of them were interested in revolution beyond national borders.
Gepetto
they supported kind of slavic commonwealth
In those cases you mention what you call "social patriotism" was simple statement that there are fascist nation states and working class should fight against them. As in this text by Drabina I linked: some of them (eg Pilarski) revised their views during war & revolution in Spain and other fascist victories in Europe
Thats why its funny what you're saying - that patriotism (which you link with some "demo version of fascism) was indeed based on antifascism.
Their views in this respect are similar to platformist national liberation struggle (with the difference that specifically against fascist states not only imperialism in general)
Entdinglichung
Entdinglichung
liberum veto, "polish anarchy" :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Liberty
One more thing Gepetto
One more thing
Gepetto
national syndicalism was created to win over workers to support right-wing agenda. "national syndicalists" supported class society and in fact capitalism in spite of anticapitalist rhetoric.
In this case it was other way around: anarchists were trying to win over right-wing union to support the left and anarchism specifically (classless society etc) and they partially succeeded
augustynww wrote: Even ZZZ
augustynww
I've read it before and I know that, but why is this revelant here?
BTW: "Szurig in the series of articles argued that inclusion of the ONR-Falanga into the governmental camp meant approving of the National Democratic, anti-libertarian, anti-patriotic and fascist conceptions" :D
And this one is also interesting:
"However, after the affair concerning archbishop Sapieha (he ordered to remove the remains of Piłsudski without agreement from the authorities), ZZZ and socialists launched an anti-clerical campaign(...)" Muh Marszałek!
augustynww
Oh really?
augustynww
Social patriotism means using socialist rhetoric when calling for defense of the fatherland. I think it fits what ZSP and other anti-fascists did, and what you're trying to defend here.
The only revolutionary and internationalist stance is that in case of the imperialist war, the main enemy of workers is at home, and that they should turn against their own governments, no matter of their or their enemies' political coloration, who's the aggressor and who's the defender etc. It is understandable that for the ZSP the main enemy were Nazis since they were operating during the German occupation, but there's a difference between fighting fascism on revolutionary terrain, and between fighting fascism effectively for democratically administered capitalism (despite all the delusions one might have), by allying with bourgeois nationalists.
augustynww
I know, it may sound silly. But you know how Mussolini begun? From openly voicing his support for WW1 as "democratic" and "revolutionary" "war of liberation" (for which he got expelled from PSI). Those who declared another L'union sacrée or Burgenfrieden with their own bourgeoisie during the next world war in order to stop the fascist monster were actually themselves good disciples of Mussolini in that regard :)
augustynww
Well, I was already aware of the reactionary role played by platformism within anarchism.
antifascists are fascists
antifascists are fascists aren't they? :D
Look who's talking about union sacree with bourgeoisie :) In Poland liberals attacking antifa with this argument
Gepetto
What you just quoted is critique of nationalism among other things ;) (National Democracy=polish nationalist formation in interwar period).
Its relevant as far as ZSP was continuation of ZZZ line ("polish syndicalism" etc)
Gepetto
You didn't quoted next part "(..) what government used as a pretext to accuse them of anti-state activity"
Gepetto
Yes, really. That's why they wanted to join IWA I suppose (which didn't happened because of war)
Gepetto
Actually what I was defending is if you want to get right-wing organisation turn to the libertarian left, anarchists in ZZZ and later did their best. You should read more carefully
Gepetto
This is full of contradictions ("main enemy is at home" but "main enemy were nazis" etc).
Your stance during WWII in Poland would be detachment from reality in single-person organisation at best. How revolutionary it is? Not much I think.
What you're saying doesn't mean anything in practice if you are referring to WWII specifically (because it wasn't WWI)
Gepetto
Mussolini was on british payroll during WWI it somehow nullify rational arguments here. All of this was only anti-left propaganda nothing more. There is no comparison And of course all of this is completely unimportant considering what was happening in Poland during WWII. Antifascism in Poland was question of survival not ideology. Simple as this. So saying that antifascists were Mussolini's disciples is just plain stupid.
augustynww
augustynww
I don't think that liberals oppose class collaboration and imperialist wars. I somehow expected that you will bring up this cliche, but really I don't know what led you to lump me with liberals who repeat that famed Churchill quote just because I dare to criticise anti-fascism. Liberal critique of anti-fascism usually centers arounds things like "no platform" etc., which is miles away from my perspective as I don't share any prejudices concerning some innate and eternal liberties and rights of individual that anti-fascists supposedly infringe on with regards to the fash.
augustynww
Didn't you notice that "anti-patriotic" bit bolded by me?
augustynww
But getting butthurt over Catholic Church because it didn't respect Piłsudski? Come on. Though pro-Piłsudski anarchists wouldn't even surprise me that much after I've read Great Leader Ciszewski excusing PPS's betrayal during the Kraków uprising of 1923 in one of his historical articles ;) (no wonder he has shitty opportunist politics)
Anyway even Drabina admits at the end of the article that ZZZ remained to the end under the influence of Piłsudskite tradition. And in 1939 they were warmongering and calling for the national unity. It seems that anarchist entryism didn't really go well ;)
augustynww
There are no contradictions. At the start of the war, the main enemies of the Polish proletariat were Mościcki and Rydz-Śmigły, not Hitler. But after the conquest of Poland, the ones who took charge of the capitalist system here were Nazis, so it was obvious that Polish workers had to struggle against them the same way German workers had to from the beginning.
augustynww
Well, when revolutionary socialists opposed the war in 1914, majority also thought of them as mad and divorced from reality.
augustynww
It wasn't WWI? What does it mean? If you put aside all demagoguery, the fundamental nature of the Second World War wasn't any different- it was still an inter-imperialist struggle for the world domination. Of course you will probably say: "Yes, Allies didn't really care about victims of fascism, but let's get real, something needed to be done to stop this monstrosity, and Allies weren't the same as Axis and proved to be quite succesful at destroying fascism, don't you know? To me, this is enough." Which is really cynical, because yes, Allies defeated fascist powers, but at what price? At price of gigantic piles of corpses of workers and peasants, and of lulling working class militancy for next two decades.
Capitalists really feared that this war will end like the last one. Why wasn't their fear (i.e. revolution) materialised?
augustynww
What was "anti-left propaganda"?
Gepetto wrote: augustynww
Gepetto
I suppose you expected as this is exactly how you trying to argue against antifascism by ZSP or others :D This is very poor argument as you see, and you answered yourself why - they fought against fascism for different reasons that bourgeoisie you mentioned earlier
Gepetto
I did, and...? Earlier you said they were polish chauvinists but in fact they were anti-nationalists and you quoted this yourself.
This patriotism was of anti-nationalist kind. They even said here that explicitly that nationalism is anti-patriotic (I don't know exactly why but this is what they thought)
Gepetto
Now this is just gibberish. Szurig wasn't anarchist (which is explained there)
Gepetto
Warmongering in 1939? You are joking right? I would rather say it worked pretty well if those your supposed "nationalists" or even "proto fascists" as you called them earlier , "warmonegered" against fascism :D
Gepetto
Its naive or stupid, I don't even know how to call it. First of all, not only polish because nazis brought to Poland Jews from whole Europe only to murder them and there was big jewish minority in Poland as well (most of them of course workers). Large part of polish anarchist movement consisted of Jews and you probably know this perfectly.
Secondly, what does it mean "like German workers"? How exactly German workers fought against nazis during WWII?
What are you talking about?
So no, polish and jewish workers couldn't fight and didn't fought nazis "in the same way as German workers".
You are just babbling like you never heard what WWII was and who was doing what and why.
Gepetto
I didn't said majority, as I've never heard about this kind of views in reality. Not majority but all. But maybe I'm wrong and you'll say now what revolutionary socialist organisation in Poland during WWII (but before nazis' victory) had similar stance to yours?
Secondly, what argument is this? Revolutionary socialists were right in the case of WWI but they would be wrong if they argue against fighting against nazis during WWII (Would be wrong, not were wrong)
Gepetto
Fascism was counterrevolution in itself, so no, fundamental nature of WWII wasn't the same as WWI.
Gepetto
this is pure bullshit. What you are trying to say? if allies would not defeated fascists states there will be no "gigantic piles of corpses of workers and peasants"? Implementation of fascist agenda in full would result in death like 400 millions people, if I remember correctly numbers I read somewhere (I'm not sure of this number though)
Gepetto
I don't know if they feared this or not. Not every war ends in revolution jeez and not wars are the same. You are just thinking in some weird, schematic and dogmatic way which really detach you from reality.
augustynww wrote: I suppose
augustynww
Bullshit. I would be grateful if you pointed me where I said something like that.
augustynww
I just said that their stance of what the borders of post-war Poland should be raised my eyebrow. Apart from the fact that they bothered with that question.
augustynww
They were just against National Democracy. Being against some manifestations of nationalism doesn't mean being against nationalism. And this whole "patriotic but not nationalist" shtick is just useless juggling with words, it's effectively the same shit.
augustynww
What Szurig had to do with this? Anyway he was on the left of ZZZ.
augustynww
So you'd be fine with German workers being killed by democratic bombs etc.? Wait, of course you would, that's what this discussion is essentially about.
augustynww
Did I have to list all nationalities that lived in Poland? Really, this is just nitpicking.
augustynww
Oh, so it seems that either you don't get what I'm saying to you, or you just resort to making lazy strawmen. I simply said that if on 1st September 1939 Hitler was the main enemy of German, not the Polish working class, then after German victory he was of the both as they both lived under his rule.
And well, contrary to the myths there was initially a working class resistance to Hitler, though limited.
augustynww
So perhaps the Western plutocracies and colonial empires were the revolution? Or that butcher of communists Stalin, who left the world proletariat alone in face of attacks against it, and defended private property in Spain because that was in Russian national interest? Speaking of which, do you think that Friends of Durruti were stupid, mad, or what? That CNT leaders were right in becoming ministers and telling workers in Barcelona in 1937 to go back to work? That Popular Front was right in repressing anarchists, POUMists etc. in the name of anti-fascist unity?
augustynww
Yes, there would be. But again, it's cynical to excuse Allied atrocities such as Dresden, Hiroshima, Bengal famine etc. because "well they killed less than fascists". The only solution acceptable to communists was to turn the imperialist war into civil war that would put an end to capitalist barbarism, no matter from which side it was coming.
augustynww
Oh, "dogmatism" is what you usually hear from all renegades when you have principles.
augustynww
augustynww
dot hey dress like that?
Entdinglichung, I see some
Entdinglichung,
I see some similarity ;) this guy in the center and
http://www.laznia.pl/aktualnosciart,686,2011_janusz_jany_waluszko.html
"Jany Waluszko called The Pope of Polish Anarchism (...) wrote a book "Treatise on Sarmatia" :D
Gepetto wrote: augustynww
Gepetto
in this point when you were trying to argue about "allying with bourgeois" against fascists
Gepetto
nope, you said it "stinks like polish chauvinism to you". Now you know they weren't polish chauvinists nor nationalists, they considered themselves "anti-nationalist patriots" (I'm not sayin its viable or not from rational point of view - just saying they weren't nationalists)
Gepetto
It depends what you are asking me about. Is it good if workers wanted to fight for fascism in Germany, Spain Italy Of course not. But If do if they should be allowed slaughter millions of people introducing fascism "because they are workers" - NO of course.
Good luck with anything if you think like that. This is so stupid stance, I can't believe that someone seriously think like that
Gepetto
If those nationalities would be so big and the case would concerning specifically extermination them by nazis than yes you should. Especially when you're trying to argue that Polish and Jewish workers, specifically anarchists (in situation large part of anarchists were Jews, as I said) who you criticize should fight against nazis in the same way German workers did - it only means you are completely deluded.
Read book by Lew Marek and how life in Warsaw Ghetto looked like before he managed to escape from there (after hiding for two days in the closet in hospital where SS was murdering Jewish children).
He should do some demonstration probably
Gepetto
Fascism as such was main enemy of working class in Europe since its advances.
And your "stance" isn't really a position good or bad. Its just babbling by someone sitting in the chair ~70 years later. It couldn't be implemented in any way in 1939. How? Do you even know how Poland looked like in september 1939 during German offensive? You have no clue obviously
Gepetto
Yes, there was antifascist resistance in Germany in 1930s. And Pilarski was among those antifascists when he was in FAUD and in Schwarze Scharen in Silesia. The same Pilarski you criticize here . After that he joined ZZZ.
Gepetto
:D WTF is this?
Do you even know that fascism appeared in Italy in revolutionary situation? Do you know that British government actually funded Mussolini's fascist propaganda at the beginning - this is how fascism was invented - to not allow for revolution in Italy. Only it grew beyond expectations
Stalin you mentioned accepted similar position to yours in 1938. Do you realize that?
Spanish anarchists were trying to lure european neutral countries in the war in 1936 but they didn't suceeded in this - european capitalist countries accepted similar stance to yours too i.e. not to fight against nazis, do not provoke them to war (when anarchists were "warmongering" against fascism). Stalin too wanted to limit the war to Spain.
Too bad because fascism grew later and immediately after fascist victory in Spain WWII started.
Gepetto
Oh I see. And as I understand - to return to commented situation ie Warsaw Uprising - when uprising started and SS begun massacre of civilian population anarchists or ZSP should do what exactly - attack AK insurgents or do some picketing against SS?
augustynww
Oh, "dogmatism" is what you usually hear from all renegades when you have principles.[/quote]
Nope, this is what you hear from normal people when they realize how completely and utterly deluded you are.
What you are saying is not even a stance/position. Its delusion by someone who just don't know or don't care how it looked like. That's why you can't even find one tiny group from the time with position like yours. No one was that mad
augustynww wrote: in this
augustynww
And in what way is that like liberal criticism of anti-fascism? Could you elaborate on that? Ironically, it is rather you who sound like a liberal. It is you who try to pass off liberal democracy as a lesser evil in comparison with fascism, instead of seeing them both as being in the same relation as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, like a communist would do.
As for the rest, keep hittin' that strawman you made yourself hard. I just wrote that this war should also have been opposed and somehow you concluded that I'm arguing for non-violence or some shit ("perhaps they should do some picketing"). Socialist opposition to war doesn't mean sterile and impotent pacifism, it means turning your gun against your own officers, sabotaging the war industry and whatnot. Nowhere I said that fascism shouldn't be opposed, but that it should be opposed just as much as any other capitalist form of government. Not opposed in the name of democracy, but in the name of anti-capitalism, because it was capitalism that was responsible for war, fascism, Holocaust. Fight the causes, not just symptoms.
Either I'm not expressing myself clearly, or you have a poor grasp of English, or are not the sharpest tool in the shed, or are intentionally misrepresenting my position.
And Allied imperialists understood "not allowing to slaughter millions of people"as firebombing German cities, especially factories and working class districts (on the other hand, they never bothered to bomb the railways to the concentration camps even though they knew their location). Or continuing to bomb Italian cities even after Italian workers started major strikes that brought down Mussolini in 1943. Or erasing Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the map with atomic bombs.
Have you heard of the genocide of Armenians perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during the WW1? Do you now think that revolutionaries were wrong about telling that both sides should go to hell, that they should have supported Entente, and especially Russia, because it would put an end to the massacres and the revolution was a far away possibility in Turkey?
I'm not saying that such conditions don't make the matters more difficult (to say the least), that it was the same in occupied Poland as in Britain- but since when revolutions are done without difficulties?
Would you support USA against North Korea, because their government does many bad things to the citizens, and since internal rebellion there seems impossible, dropping some democracy from the sky is a lesser evil and simply pragmatism? Oh wait, judging by your "analysis" of the Spanish Civil War, you're a David Graeber variety of "anarchist", who probably already clamors in favor of US miltiary intervention against ISIS.
Well the purpose of anti-fascism was also to prevent the revolution (by telling even the militant workers that they have interest in defending democracy at all costs) and mobilise workers for another great war between capitalists.
As for the question of "WTF is this", I meant- do you really think that Churchill and Roosevelt weren't counter-revolutionaries, contrary to Hitler and Mussolini?
What? Stalin just like you was in favor of workers becoming cannon fodder for the capitalists.
I thought for you anarchists the main point about the Spain in 1936 was that there was a social revolution (or potential for thereof) there that was curbed and destroyed by Republic that deceived workers, and that it was a big mistake of CNT to join the government instead of smashing it... It is generally for liberals that it was just about the great battle of democracy vs fascism.
You really can't notice similarity between you and Spanish Stalinists that argued "first victory against Franco, and only then revolution" (i.e. never, because communist Spain would be for Stalin as bad as fascist one, as it would likely drive Great Britain and France towards Germany, while the very reason Comintern had adopted the Popular Front policy was that USSR was seeking alliance with Western democracies), which was for them the reason to stop the collectivisation of industry and land, to disarm workers' militias, to slander their anarchists allies as Franco's fifth column etc.?
There were some- Trotskyists (well only with regards to a war between Axis powers and Western Allies; they called for defense of USSR as "degenerated workers' state", for defense of China as a semi-colonial nation against Japanese imperialism, and supported resistance movements in occupied countries- however just as well as resistance in Allied colonies), left communists, some anarchists who didn't go full Kropotkin. Some of them even ended up in concentration camps for that...
Gepetto wrote: It is you who
Gepetto
Well, yeah "liberal democracy" or rather liberal democrats not the system as such as it doesn' t existed whats more even polish nationalists were lesser evil for sure during Warsaw Uprising. And as I said it wasn't matter of ideology but survival.
I wonder if you even know how it looked like. When uprising started if people fought, it was in neighborhoods cut off one from another in units that were there. In this way Karolina Marek (Lew Marek's wife) who was Jewish ended up in nationalist unit of NZS, polish nationalists and antisemites
Nazis just went street after street home after home murdering all civilians.
This wasn't matter of ideological choice but life or death and you are talking like a kid playing video game.
But if you are talking about september 1939 you are deluded too - it was matter of like 2 weeks in country in total chaos with hundreds of thousands of people on roads trying to flee to the east and German offensive from 3 directions. And then USSR attacked from the east. It wouldn't have any practical meaning at all what you are saying.
ZZZ just ceased to exist when war started.
Gepetto
Yeah sure it means but German workers didn't do it as it was they who should act like this in the first place. So yes, it would be "sterile and impotent" and in practice it wouldn't be "opposition to the war" but facilitating nazis victory. Again one can see you are rather interested in making statements not practice - it is "sterile and impotent" as such too.
But if you are talking about september 1939 and this period between old polish authorities and new nazis autohorities there was no war industry working at all in Poland
Gepetto
Yes they did. This is how war looks like - destroying "war industry" of enemy as you called it. But alternative was worse and there is no doubt about it.
Gepetto
You are babbling again. My comment saying nationality matters when WWII and holocauts are concerned was answer for your statement that socialist/anarchist workers in Poland should fight against nazis in the same way as German workers did in 1930s.
But continuing your example from WWI - as I understand you are trying to say that Armeninas being slaughtered by Ottoman Empire instead of trying to defend yourself against Ottoman Empire should fight one another? Well the only practical result of those proposals of yours would be quicker and larger genocide (and maybe Ottoman Empire & nazis would save some bullets)
Gepetto
This is very stupid example in this context because North Korea didn't invaded USA, Canada and Mexico trying to murder 1/3 of its population (especially leftists) and make the rest into slaves having means to do it But if this would be the case than yes, I would probably support USA, Canada & Mexico if there was no other choice (ie some revolutionary movement able to act which I could support in the first place)
Gepetto
Purpose of anti-fascism was to defend working class from totalitarian form of capitalism, i.e. the form in which any revolutionary movement does not exist.
But the purpose of your "stance" in practice would be in fact helping fascists came to power hence destroying any real or possible revolutionary movement and demobilization of those "militant workers" who survived i(and it happened in Third Reich - that's why there was no meaningful opposition to war when it started)
Gepetto
Well you've read some very poor books about it as in your picture Franco, spanish fascists, Hitler and Mussolini are clearly missing :D
So no, this in not "main point". Main point was fascist coup d'état as reaction to socialist reforms. Coup d'état which provoked also the revolution which indeed was destroyed very quickly by stalinists & fascists together.
Gepetto
Nope, there is no similarity. But as far as WWII in Poland, occupation and holocaust is concerned my point is - first you must live, only then you can make a revolution. Simple thing which you clearly don't understand.
"We have seen how capitalism
"We have seen how capitalism condemned millions of men to death by ejecting them from production. We have seen how it massacred them while extracting the maximum surplus value possible. It remains for us to see how it exploits them after their very death.
It was the imperialists of the allied camp who first used them to justify their war and to justify after their victory the despicable treatment inflicted on the German people. How they threw themselves on the camps and the corpses, showing off the horrible photos and proclaiming: “Look at what bastards these krauts are! How right we were to fight them. How right we now are to give them a taste of their own medicine.” When we think of the countless crimes of imperialism; when we think, for example, that at the very moment (1945) when our Thorez sung of their victory over fascism, 45,000 Algerians (fascist provocateurs) fell under the blows of repression. When we think that it is international capitalism which is responsible for the massacres, the ignoble cynicism of this hypocritical satisfaction is enough to make you sick.
At that same time all our good democratic anti-fascists threw themselves on the corpses of the Jews. And since that time they wave them under the nose of the proletariat. In order to make them feel capitalism’s infamy? No, on the contrary. It’s to make it appreciate, in contrast, the true democracy, the true progress, the well being it enjoys in capitalist society. The horrors of capitalist death must make the proletariat forget the horrors of capitalist life and the fact that the two are indissolubly connected. The experiments of the SS doctors must make them forget that capitalism experiments on a large scale with carcinogenic products, on the effects of alcoholism on heredity, the radioactivity of “democratic” bombs. If they show lampshades made of human skin it’s to make us forget that capitalism transforms the living man into a lampshade. The mountains of hair, the teeth of gold, the bodies of men turned into merchandise must make us forget that capitalism made a merchandise of living man. It is labor, man’s very life, that capitalism has transformed into merchandise. This is the source of all evils. Using the corpses of the victims of capital to try to hide the reality, to have the corpses serve as protection for capital, is the most despicable way of using them to the ultimate degree."
augustynww wrote: Yes they
augustynww
Fuck it, I think I'm really done talking to you. Like, even mainstream historians point out that these things (Dresden, Hiroshima etc.) weren't necessary to win the war. And now you're trying to excuse that shit?
Bordiga’s “Auschwitz, or the
Bordiga’s “Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi”
Mitchell Abidor 2008
"If all there was to Bordiga’s “Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi” was its mechanistic reduction of Marxism, its denial of human agency in the most horrific of acts, its diminution of the person to a mere conduit for class interests, “Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi” would be merely another betrayal of the richness of Marx’s thought. When we add its callous and cold treatment of the Holocaust as a simple “ejection from the productive process” of millions of humans, its foreshadowing of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s dismissal of the event as a “point of detail” of the Second World War, it attains to odium. And finally, when we take into account its posterity, its use as a basis for the small current of the (primarily French) left that indulged in Holocaust denial, its true horror is laid bare.
This article has a slightly controversial history, having never been published under Bordiga’s name. It originally appeared, though, in 1960 in a French Bordigist journal, Programme Communiste, and Bordiga himself never spoke out against its theses. And so, echoing the ancients, we will call the author the pseudo-Bordiga.
The article was published as a pamphlet in 1970 by Pierre Guillaume, former member of Bordiga’s Parti Communist International and of the group around the ultra-left bookstore “La Vieille Taupe.” In a later incarnation La Vieille Taupe was to become the voice of left-wing holocaust denial, and it is in Guillaume’s early affection for this article – which appears on the web not only at marxists.org, but on revisionist websites – that we can see the germ of the movement.
Indeed, it is an easy step from “Auschwitz or the Great Alibi” to complete denial of the Holocaust.
The author places Nazis and anti-fascists on the same level, dismissing both for blaming “hatred of the Jews” as the cause for the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism was not the “a priori reason for the destruction” of the Jews; it was nothing but the “expression of [a] desire to limit and concentrate destruction on them.” Their choice as victims was due both to their place in capitalist society and their ease of “identification.” Anti-Semitism is thus nothing but a side issue, one incidental to the discussion. After all, they weren’t killed “because they were Jews, but because they were ejected from the production process.” Two decades of Hitlerite anti-Semitic rants meant nothing. “Der Sturmer” meant nothing. Kristallnacht meant nothing. All we had was capitalism looking for a way out of a crisis.
From there the author shifts to placing a part of the blame for the death of millions on the West, which didn’t take in the Jews, and his tone makes it clear that it is the greater part of the blame. Stating that “most remained [in Germany], despite themselves and despite the Nazis,” the Reich becomes just an ancillary figure in the drama. Not only did they want to send the Jews elsewhere and not be forced to kill them, it was the West that refused to save them. In one of “The Great Alibi’s” most outrageous enormities, it is the SS that “believed in Western ideals.” In pseudo-Bordiga’s treatment of the negotiations between Joel Brand and Eichmann for the trading of Jews for trucks, it is Eichman and the Germans who are allowed to appear concerned about the Jews, even putting down a “deposit” of Jews in Switzerland preparatory to the final swap.
And then the pseudo-Bordiga sets loose the final indignity: “German capitalism resigned itself with difficulty to murder pure and simple.” Its hand was apparently forced in the killing of six million Jewish men, women and children. One can almost hear Himmler sighing sadly through pseudo-Bordiga’s prose. And of course, in the Bordigist universe, it was “capitalism” that killed them, not the specific form, German Nazism, and their death wasn’t by Zyklon B or disease or firing squads; it was done by “ejecting them from production.”
The ignominy of this article never ends: the “imperialists” are guilty of using the deaths of the Jews to “justify...the despicable treatment inflicted on the German people.” In this pseudo-Bordiga is perfectly consistent. No German was responsible for any of the crimes perpetrated; capitalism alone, an abstract entity, was responsible for everything. And in any event, in the final paragraph we are informed that capitalist life is everywhere and in every way a hell. A precise equivalence exists between daily life under capitalism and the death camps, since if the “good democratic anti-fascists... show the lampshades made of human skin, it’s to make us forget that capitalism transforms the living man into a lampshade.” “Shame” seems to have been a word missing from the author’s vocabulary.
The death camps are rendered banal, the Germans are exculpated, the fate of the Jews demoted to mere happenstance. Denial of the very existence of the Shoah flows naturally from all of this."
The author of this hysterical
The author of this hysterical introduction writes as if he didn't read the text and wasn't even a communist. I recommend you read it yourself, nowhere the author (who wasn't actually Amadeo Bordiga but probably his comrade Martin Axelrod, a French Jew who himself was a Holocaust survivor) gets close to the denial of Holocaust, or anything. How braindead one can be to come up with such bullshit? Not too say there aren't problems with this analysis, but I can only agree with the fragment I quoted.
Gepetto wrote: augustynww
Gepetto
Poor Germans and Italians indeed, biggest victims of WWII and those genocidal democrats & anti-fascists...
I'm starting to wonder right now if there's something more to this blindeness of yours to everything fascism and nazism was and did. I mean in the case of Spain you missed again that there were some fascists involved in this
well, well, well What have we
well, well, well What have we here?
http://libcom.org/forums/theory/bordigism-anti-fascism-01032012
In fact the PSI had already attacked the Arditi in early July and then signed their famous pacification pact (patto di pacificazione) with the Fascisti in early August. The PSI's decision to impose organisational discipline to pull their members and affiliated trade unionists out of the Arditi was mirrored exactly by Bordiga.
Quote: Purpose of
You again conflate anti-fascism with opposition to fascism. It's not about whether to oppose fascism or not, but about retaining political independence as a class. Anti-fascism wanted to create an union of all those who felt threatened by fascists. It opposed fascism in the name of democratic state, no matter whether recognised as a "lesser evil" or as an ideal. It wanted workers to fight against fascism, but on a terrain alien to them, not for their own class demands. It's not really surprising, as in its desire of protecting democracic regime it threw all class analysis overboard. State is an instrument of oppression of one class by another, and government assumes forms that serves the interests of the ruling class best at a given time. Fascism wasn't conspiracy that came into effect through the will of some sinister individuals, material conditions made it a necessity for bourgeoisie in some countries. So, clinging to democracy that capital itself didn't want meant actually surrendering, as it was ready to commit the suicide or let in fascists through the back door, as in Italy or Germany.
In Spain, on 19 July 1936, workers responded to Franco's pronunciamiento on their own class terrain and even in spite of the Popular Front that refused to give them arms. Not only they temporarily halted back the coup with an armed revolt, but also diminished Francoist ranks by awakening the class instincts of the soldiers and set up their committees that were to took up functions of the collapsing state. They were striking actually at capitalism itself. But they didn't take this struggle onto the higher level and spared the state. So they soon found themselves dying at the front for the one faction of the bourgeoisie that used this opportunity to rebuilt its apparatus of domination. Anti-fascist government soon repressed every independent activity of the working class, justifying it by the need to make struggle against Franco more efficient. But it didn't led to victory, and already disarmed, demoralised and defeated workers were delivered to him.
augustynww wrote: Poor
augustynww
What blindness? I just wanted to say that: 1) no matter what imperialist camp wins, it is the proletarians who pay for the prize; 2) and that fascism didn't fell from the sky, that capitalism itself is inhuman and brutal, and displays destructive tendencies. Allied atrocities have killed less (and anyway, as story of Joel Brandt shows, democracy shares responsibility with Nazism for death of millions of Jews), yes, but both Hiroshima and Holocaust are different expressions of that tendency of the system that has long ago outlived its usefulness to humanity.
It is you who is blind, because like liberal moralists you see just cruelty and murder and fail to see why it happens (just like some people see greed and selfishness and condemn but think that these are just part of human nature, and can't see that capitalist competition produces and necessitates them), and to situate it in the bigger picture. It is democratic capitalism that breeds fascists, and fascists just take what our rulers do or say everyday and push it to the extreme. For example, racism that was present in all colonial empires- also in Great Britian and Frence, these champions of democracy of WW2.
blah blah blah or rather
blah blah blah :D
or rather your idol Bordiga was fucking idiot with shitty politics at best (not to mention those his comrades who actually joined fascists) who himself together with others like him in Italy using supposedly anti-capitalist rhetoric did exactly the same what stalinists did 10 years later.
Anti-fascism was born in Italy and was workers' movement. Arditi del Popolo were workers and they didn't "oppose fascism in the name of democratic state" - yet your idol betrayed them.
This two categories you make up here - "anti-fascism and opposition to fascism" are purely artificial. One can switch them easily and say that opposition to fascism is broader category here not anti-fascism.
Again meaningless assertions on your part
Gepetto
And none of this is true, what is clearly visible in Italian, German, Spanish, but also Polish case ZSP including.
And of course every comparison of Spain to German invasion in Poland are equally stupid as quotes from Bordiga. Well this would be your plan in in Warsaw Uprising - awakening class instincts of SS soldiers or their Russian/Ukrainian allies? For example In Wola, workers' district of Warsaw where they murdered 50-60 thousands of people in a week?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wola_massacre
Your delusions reached new level. I'm done here really
(to the non-Polish reader-
(to the non-Polish reader- inscription on the monument reads: "God, Honor, Fatherland")
"So: progress — association — moral law — freedom — equality — brotherhood — association — family, community, state — sanctity of property — credit — education — God and the people — Dio e popolo.(...) Summarized, this gospel teaches a social order in which God forms the apex and the people — or, as is said later, humanity — the base. That is, they believe in society as it exists, in which, as is well known, God is at the apex and the mob at the base." (Engels, Neue Rheinische Zeitung Revue, 1850)
:D
augustynww wrote: awakening
augustynww
Umm, no, because SS soldiers weren't conscripts? :wall: Though of course even then the reasonable thing would be to defend oneself, I never argued against that.
augustynww wrote: I'm done
augustynww
And nothing of value was lost that day. Apart from my time.
BTW augustynww spoke ill of
BTW augustynww spoke ill of Bordiga, while ironically the latter at least at once instance wrote sympathetically about Warsaw Uprising:
"Evidently the Polish democrat did not foresee the appearance in the conflict of a real industrial bourgeoisie and much less that of a powerful and glorious proletariat, which in 1905 held their own against the Czarist troops, and even rose up during the second world war in a desperate attempt to take power in the martyred capital against the German and Russian General Staffs, ending up just like the communards of Paris, who fell in the crossfire of their enemies."
http://libcom.org/library/part-3-2
;)
Gepetto wrote: augustynww
Gepetto
yeah right quoting Engels probably. Maybe they would keep you alive for fun. Equally useful as bordigism in Italy in 1920s "opposing fascism".
Its reminds me about polish "true communists" (whatever that means) lately, half of which trying to joining ant-fascists on demo in Warsaw only to critcize them and kicked off and second half joninig fascists from Falanga group in Cracow.
As for the difference between Wehrmacht soldiers and SS well, that's another thing you clearly don't understand. Informations about this what everyone knows in Poland at last are published in the West too
"Soldaten, drawing on secretly recorded conversations among SS and Wehrmacht prisoners of war, shows that ordinary Germans were more complicit in the liquidation of European Jewry than historians have previously supposed. "Soldiers traded rumours so furiously that we must assume that nearly all of them knew" that large numbers of Jews "were being murdered", say the authors. What's more, some soldiers killed Jews not simply because "orders were orders", but because they enjoyed killing. Killing Jews was "fun", as one PoW says; he killed without any feeling of corruption or moral failure. The extermination of all Jews meant even newborns, for they too were potential enemies of the Third Reich. In wartime Germany, murder was made into a civic virtue.
The cruelty shown by the German army to Jewish women and children is one of Soldaten's most harrowing themes. The Italian novelist Curzio Malaparte reckoned that Germans feared the "weak" and "defenceless" in a way they did not fear comparably powerful military opponents. ("That which drives the German to cruelty, to deeds most coldly methodical and scientifically cruel, is fear of the oppressed and the sick ... fear of the Jews.") Most soldiers tried to hide this mysterious "fear" from each other on the battlefield, but they were driven to talk about it in private when their guard was down. Away from their captors, PoWs were especially loquacious; they could never imagine that their utterances would one day be published........
Lieutenant Colonel August von der Heydte, for example, confesses to his fellow PoWs how an after-dinner execution of 30 Polish Jews was set up to resemble a pheasant shoot. "Each guest was given a shotgun; the Jews were driven past and everyone was allowed to have a potshot at a Jew." The mass killing of Jews was considered such entertainment that town mayors, police, Wehrmacht orderlies and other curious onlookers turned up at the death pits to take photographs and even jeer. "Execution tourism" seemed to have become such a problem by 1942 that the SS security service had to issue special orders curtailing it.
According to the authors, Nazi executioners were even, at one level, fearful of Jewish children. "They seized three-year-old children by the hair, held them up and shot them with a pistol and then threw them in," says Lieutenant General Heinrich Kittel in 1944 of events he had witnessed three years earlier in Russia. The division of labour at the killing fields of Babi Yar, where the Wehrmacht helped to murder 33,771 Jews in a single operation, made the contribution of any one person seem "unimportant". The soldiers felt no more responsible, personally, for killing the Jewish civilians than did servile Auschwitz functionaries. Typically, Wehrmacht personnel ensured that their concern was limited to their own special competence (the registration of Jewish prisoners, the punctual arrival of death squads). In this way, they were able to ignore the moral consequences of their work.
As these intelligence transcripts show, many soldiers thought nothing of executing Jewish women after having sex with them. In Hitler's war against "non-Aryan" peoples, soldiers were given the licence to abuse captive women; they became gloating and predatory. "There were some really attractive women there," says a Lieutenant Priebe of Jews captured in Russia, adding: "You could really have called them 'ladies'."
Some readers may flinch at the firsthand accounts of pleasure taken in rape and destruction ("Never in my life have I enjoyed anything more than the time when we smashed up the synagogues"). It was a rare German soldier who cared to distinguish between military and non-military targets (though other nationalities were also guilty of this). Soldaten raises unsettling questions about the fate of civilians in the firing line. It provides an essential documentary record; seldom has surveillance been put to such important use."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/25/soldaten-sonke-neitzel-harald-welzer
it would be very useful method of opposing fascism indeed those appeals of yours
Gepetto wrote: BTW augustynww
Gepetto
so, how its looks like in the context of yours previous comments repeated over and over , that it had no class content at all
But what he's talking about when he mention an "attempt to take power" is mystery to me. Another not really useful assertion
(or maybe he had in mind "left-wing nationalists" in union sacree with bourgeoosie as you called them, I can't see any other possible interpretation)
Sorry I have no time for this
Sorry I have no time for this discussion but just a note to Gepetto. I don't know the purpose of posting this ridiculous antifa photo in the thread is, but just to comment, the meme says, "God, Honor, Antifa" and members of the ZSP were probably the first to criticize this. The politics of the "antifa" march in Warsaw makes no sense and this is why ZSP does not co-organize it. I didn't even go. It is another much longer story, how antifa develops in strange ways, especially in parts of E. Europe and how there are issues of people cooperating with fascists in different ways trying to take part as "antifa", like in the Warsaw march. But unfortunately some are moving in the direction of Eastern antifa, with strange left patriotic elements, some toleration of fascist cooperation, etc. Also neo-liberal politicians were tolerated at the march. The evolution has been towards de-politicizing antifascism.
So, you came back...? Anyway,
So, you came back...?
Anyway, regarding Bordiga and policy of PCd'I in early 20s, didn't Arditi del Popolo call for alliance between all anti-fascist parties, even liberals (which was a harbinger of the Popular Fronts), and talked about bringing back "internal peace"? So, they were the opposite of what you said they were, and Italian left communists had good reasons to not like them. Defense of the "democratic order" was really counter-productive if the very forces of said democratic order (army, gendarmes, police) sided with fascists whenever they attacked workers. And it is really ironical that you compare Bordiga with Stalin because of that, as it was Arditi-supporting Gramsci who was later Stalin's man installed as a Party's first secretary to bring it in line with Moscow's directives, and that Arditi del Popolo were kind of precursor to the Stalinist policy of Popular Fronts in 30s. Perhaps you're referring to the "Third Period", a supposedly leftist turn in Stalin's policy, but actions of the official Communist Parties in these years were criticised by the Italian Communist Left in exile.
LOL. Lumping staunch internationalists with tankie neckbeards who want to LARP some united anti-imperialist front with fascists.
Nope, as far as internal
Nope, as far as internal peace is concerned it was rather Bordiga with his legalist position as opposed to militant anti-fascists ;)
Gepetto
nope again, they call for socialist (broadly speaking) alliance against right-wing reaction (including fascists but also liberal conservatives). It was working-class organisation. And it wasn't precursor of "stalinist policy of Popular fronts" It was bottom-up organisation with autonomy of local branches, indeed opposite of what was later called stalinism (and bordigism)
Much more stalinist in this regard was bordigism with its centralism, orthodoxy and of course pact signed with fascists. And what is ironic is similarity between stalinist communists parties and Bordiga's theory of communist party. Wasn't that Bordiga who said about Russian soviets that they're revolutionary only if Communist Party has majority in them?
Well stalinists probably thought the same about popular fronts - they are good only if controlled by Communist Party, revolution is revolution only if controlled by Communist Party etc
That's why Bordiga supported massacre of Kronstadt.
Bordiga was anti-democratic for the same reason Stalin was.
Gepetto wrote: LOL. Lumping
Gepetto
You're using the same arguments. Declared reason for this "front" is their anti-liberalism and anti-democratism
and of course anti-anti-fascism :D
PCD'I DIDN'T SIGN ANY PACT
PCD'I DIDN'T SIGN ANY PACT WITH FASCISTS. It was PSI that did so, and that was one of reasons they rejected alliance with them.
No, there's no similarity
No, there's no similarity between Stalinist and Bordiga's conception of the party. The problem with these Communist Parties was precisely that they ceased to be class parties. Of course after WW2 he went on to over-emphasize the role of the party which I think was wrong.
Yes. So what? Of course councils are revolutionary only if they adhere to a certain programme. Were Soviets revolutionary when they were controlled by Mensheviks and SRs?
As for the rest, that both Stalin and Bordiga were orthodox, anti-democratic, etc., it's just bullshit. Stalinists were/are revisionists and have abandoned the communist programme and principles for "elastic manouevres" that became the aim in themselves, and generally it is them who love to talk about "will of the masses" (even though they obviosuly don't care much about it), "peoples' democracy" and other shit. Even today you hear them saying "Assad has a majority support of his people!". For me even if it's true it doesn't matter in the slightest.
augustynww wrote: You're
augustynww
Oh really?
http://komsomol.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2042:dzie-niepodlegoci-dwie-stolice-dwa-scenariusze&catid=72:nasze-akcje&Itemid=63
Yeah obviously my criticism was that anti-fascist mislabel as fascists people who are just true patriots that want to throw off the yoke of Western imperialism and that they refuse to see anything "progressive" in them. Totes.
Of course towards the end they declare their opposition to liberalism, so what? You can criticise liberalism and democracy from many different viewpoints, most obvious being the reactionary one. However I don't care for these "critiques", they are not based on materialist understanding of history. Fuck, anarchists dislike liberalism too, don't they? Does it mean they're like fascists?
Man, what's the matter with you? First you accuse me of being like a liberal, then you say "look Falanga and KMP dislike liberalism and democracy just like you hurr hurr". This is like "Hitler was a socialist, checkmate, leftists!"
Also note that KMP put the word "anti-fascism" in inverted commas. For them Falanga aren't fascists (which is obviously a delusion), real fascist is for them for example Poroshenko, and they naturally support "anti-fascist fighters" in Eastern Ukraine, i.e. the world's youngest fascist statelets.
Listen, either you want a honest discussion or just stop. This thread is turning into "Anarchist critique of LTV" vol. II.
Gepetto wrote: PCD'I DIDN'T
Gepetto
Both of them undermined workers' anti-fascist struggle in Italy at the same time sabotaging Arditi I don't care for what reasons specifically but they did the same stalinists did later (declaring at the same time they are against fascism as stalinists did too of course). I would say it was one of the reasons fascists won in Italy then (and considering that italian fascists influenced fascism and later nazism in whole Europe ) it had grim consequences.
Gepetto wrote: No, there's no
Gepetto
Gepetto
"we cannot speak of a class in historical movement without the existence of a party which has a precise consciousness of this movement and its aims, and which places itself at the vanguard of this movement in the struggle."
May 31, 1921.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1921/classact.htm
"Now Bordiga was arguing that the Party “pursues the aim of re-establishing an always wider contact with the exploited masses, and it eliminates from its structure one of the starting errors of the Moscow International, by getting rid of democratic centralism and of any voting mechanism, as well as every last member eliminating from his ideology any concession to democratoid, pacifist, autonomist or libertarian trends. [Our emphasis]”
http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2010-03-17/centralised-party-yes-centralism-over-the-party-no
Stalinism was too democratic for Bordiga obviously. And no, soviets dominated and made meaningless by Communist Party for this reason weren't revolutionary. They were counter-revolutionary.
Bordigism is in fact one big contradiction , removing form an organisation everything what could possibly make it workers' organisation and criticising stalinism for the same. Democracy is what make them class organisation because only then workers' have control over it.
That's true stalinists love to talk about "people's democracy" and this is only real difference between stalinism and bordigism and ironically fascism on the other hand. Organisation is very similar in all 3 cases.
Gepetto wrote: Of course
Gepetto
Anarchists usually points out that capitalism is not democratic. So no, anarchists aren't like fascists because 1. are anti-capitalists 2. are for (direct or at least more directly controlled) democracy. And not for totalitarian state-capitalism as fascists/stalinists/bordigists.
And second this is you who from the beginning are lumping together liberals or the like and socialists for instance ZSP or Arditi because are/were against fascists (for different reasons but you don't care) So don't cry like a baby right now when I did the same ;) I have serious reasons for this contrary to you.
Quote: Both of them
The reason for fascism's victory in Italy was the defeat of the revolutionary wave, the fact that Biennio Rosso didn't go beyond factory occupations. What could Arditi accomplish if they didn't intend to make an armed insurrection against the state itself? Force bourgeoisie to act against its own class interests and not to change the form of its domination?
As for Bordiga and democracy, it seems you're still following that route of just googling shit ad hoc and seeing what fits. If you really knew what you're talking about, you would know that Bordiga's critique wasn't really about democracy as a form of decision-making. Damn, he himself explicitly said so:
"Therefore we do not propose to substitute for the democratic schema which we have been criticizing any other schema of a state apparatus which in itself will be exempt from defects and errors."
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm
Bordiga was opposed precisely to making a principle out of democracy. Communists don't base their politics on the belief in anybody's innate right to decide on anything that has to be upheld under any circumstances. The only thing they support uncoditionally is the real movement of the working class against capital. Sometimes it requires them to effectively defend democratic form of organisation, sometimes not, but no prejudices with regard to its superiority or inferiority to anything play a role in this. I've already explained it to you once- I'd support a strike even if majority of the society, or majority of the working class alone, wanted strikers to go back to work.
Stalinists may or may not prefer dictatorial methods in practice, but it doesn't change the fact that they adhere to the "democratic principle". In general, opportunist policies of Comintern were adopted to counter the ebb of the revolutionary wave by trying to "conquer the masses", to absorb non-communist workers by making programmatical concessions. So, this fetishism of numbers compromised revolutionary programme and theory, which needed to be preserved up until the conditions would become once again favorable for the proletariat to act in meaningful way as a class for itself. Popular Fronts finally succeeded in turning communism into social democracy on steroids. And really, whether Stalin had genuine majority behind his counter-revolutionary policies or not it wouldn't give them any more or less legitimacy- what matters is that interests of the working class weren't served. Well, actually this is how Stalinism fought opposition in 20s, by imposing democratic discipline on intransigent minorities. Vox Populi, vox Dei!
(And your quote about Bordiga wanting to get rid of "any voting mechanism" within party refers to the period post-WW2. One of the reasons that Damen's tendency broke with him then, while still agreeing with "20s Bordiga".)
Uh, so what? For Bordiga the party is not something standing above the working class, if this is what you're getting at. For him party already exists in material sense as most conscious workers that lead the others in their struggles, that don't necessarily belong to an organisation named "Communist Party".
Well, you can base your anti-fascism on the fact that you perceive fascism as an extreme form of a society that you already hate, but if you don't challenge all capitalist forms of government, then you will effectively defend the democratic one, though with the intention of not defending democracy per se but defending working class... while the said democracy prefers to give in to fascism than to give a single fuck about workers.
Oh, and I almost forgot this gem, this pinnacle of political analysis:
Bordigists being for state capitalism? You seem to be well equipped with relevant Bordiga quotes, come and enlighten me then (inb4 you quote something against fetishisation of self-management). Or is it perhaps just a knee-jerk reaction to something that sounded unpleasantly to you so that you don't have to consider it?
I don't know, I think that this discussion has outlived its usefulness since it is now just a tendency willy-waving. And it sucks at being even that when you seem to be not knowing much about what you're arguing against.
Gepetto wrote: Quote: Both
Gepetto
Arditi were self-defence "units" of the working class, part of revolutionary movement you mentioned. And what they would accomplish was defence of this movement of course - they were sabotaged effectively
Gepetto
Bordiga said many things, most of them doesn't make much sense and are contradictory.
As for my knowledge about him, well I'm no expert but I can safely say I know much more about Bordiga than you about anarchism, ZSP, polish syndicalism or Warsaw Uprising i.e what this thread is about
Gepetto
This of course is not true, in Russian case Bordiga "unconditionally supported" crushing of real movement of the working class.
But of course he wouldn't call it that because according to him "real movement of the working class" is some bolshevik party only :D
Therefore everything what this party do is "revolutionary" by definition (murdering revolutionaries en masse included) and what is done against it is counterrevolutionary (including revolution - like Lenin Trotsky - with Bordiga support - with Kronstadt or stalinists with Spanish Revolution)) This is stalinist thinking. Do you believe in this seriously?
I mean I could say that real movement of the working class is Anarchist Organisation X so you are counterevolutionary by definition no matter what you think and do. Are you happy now?
Gepetto wrote: Bordiga was
Gepetto
Depends what communists. "Real movement of the working class" defined as a party with bourgeois like Bordiga on the top of course, working class needs direction wouldn't you agree? ;)
So, authoritarian communists of various sorts think like that indeed
Gepetto
They don't of course. They think precisely like you do - sometimes they prefer democracy (i.e. when they have safe majority) and sometimes don't. Usually they don't
But I'm more interested in practice than in meaningless declarations like you. Someone may declare himself revolutionary and crush revolution in the same time - as bolshevik example in general shows.
Gepetto
And later stalinists "prefered" lack of democracy. Because it was in workers' interest, right? Do you see here some similarity to someone else views.
Gepetto
I don't see any diffrence. This is the same very clear line of thought which brought him there
Gepetto
Wasn't that Bordiga again who said that comunist party for working class is like a head for a body?
Anyway in this quote its somethinng which is identical with working class. It can't be more obvious
or this:
"It is necessary to have an organ which inspires, unites and heads it – in short which officers it;"
"In the only true revolutionary conception, the direction of class action is delegated to the party."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1921/party-class.htm
So of course it's above working class.
(very revolutionary conception BTW, only "true communists", social-democrats, liberals, conservatives, fascists etc etc etc think like that)
Gepetto
Fascism is extreme form of capitalism.
Gepetto
Well, and who's talking about strawman arguments. ZSP or other syndicalist organisations were anti-capitalist ones, the same goes for Arditi, so what the hell you're talking about again?
Gepetto
typical state capitalist nonsense by Bordiga ("proletarian state", obvious totalitarism etc):
https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/class-party.htm
Gepetto
As I said - who's talking :D
Gepetto wrote: I've already
Gepetto
And I've explained to you that this is matter of autonomy - the same autonomy which Bordiga wanted to get rid of. The party decide what must be supported according to you, right?
For you the problem is what would you do if the party "directing" workers would decide that workers must go back to work because its in interest of the working class. Or in some supposedly "proletarian state" (something like square circle ;) ) by Bordiga & co would suppress the strike.
You would be purged probably "in the interest of the working class" as counter-revolutionary autonomist if you wouldn't agree with bosses' orders. This is how leninism works.