A combination of Anarcho communism with some aspects of Trotskyism.

Submitted by RigntfulEmperor on July 31, 2017

Recently I have been researching on the theory of Trotskyism. I find the idea of a continuous, international, revolution much more appealing than just focusing on one area. I am also a fan of the way anarcho communism presents how society should be organized. Would you think there is a chance you could combine those two theories( Trotskyism and anarcho communism) ? Please reply on your opinion, and if by any chance, this theory already exists, apologies for having you deal with my lack of research. Recommended articles are welcome!

Thanks,

syndicalist

7 years 3 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on August 1, 2017

Ask members of the former Revolutionary Socialist League, I suspect they have a unique take..... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Socialist_League_(U.S.)

redsdisease

7 years 3 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by redsdisease on August 1, 2017

I don't think that any anarchist communist worth paying attention to thinks that revolution can be successful unless it is international.

As for the the continuous part, I suspect you're referring to Trotsky's concept permanent revolution? What about that theory do you find useful in our period in which capitalism is the dominant mode of production globally?

RigntfulEmperor

7 years 3 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by RigntfulEmperor on August 1, 2017

Thank you for replying, I just thought that if there was an effort by an area already adopting ancom to expand the ideology to other areas of the world, more of an impact would be made. It would also improve the society of the ancom area, giving them an ally that would have similar opinions, also in which they could engage in activities with less cautiously.

RigntfulEmperor

7 years 3 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by RigntfulEmperor on August 1, 2017

Im also not saying that any revolution, unless completely international would succeed. I believe that a larger effort would need to be made to spread the ideology, when one area adopts it.

Spikymike

7 years 3 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on August 1, 2017

Well most present day 'Trotskyist' groups take on international revolution is barely 'continuous' being more a case of a very gradual take-over of the state apparatus, nation by nation towards some kind of federation of 'socialist' (more correctly 'state capitalist') states. Some of that approach is unfortunately still present, if only by default, in some versions of Left communism which do not fully take account of the integrated global nature of modern day capitalism and the potential of the equally modern day global working class. Some of the 'Communisation' tendencies have got a better grasp on what a genuinely 'continuous' revolutionary process might entail in theory at least, but the limited experience of failed revolutions mostly only tells us what to avoid rather than offering any fail-safe programme.

Mike Harman

7 years 3 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Mike Harman on August 1, 2017

There are specific thinkers and groups historically that broke with Trotskyism and moved to a position closer to anarcho-communism (along with council communism and anarcho-syndicalism).

A good example is CLR James, who was involved in Trotskyist and Pan-Africanist groups, was in the Johnson-Forest tendency with Raya Dunayevska, then went on to form Facing Reality with Grace Lee Boggs, then the Correspondence Publishing Committee with Marty Glaberman et al.

CLR James is best known for Black Jacobins, his study of the Haitian Revolution which he wrote relatively early on in the thirties.

Facing Reality explains how they changed is conception of how revolution would happen after seeing the post-war changes in the class struggle, especially the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

https://libcom.org/library/facing-reality-clr-james-grace-lee-boggs-pierre-chaulieu

This might not be exactly what you're looking for, but I think it's probably more fruitful to look at those tendencies than take 'Trotskysim' and 'anarcho-communism' as raw ideologies and try to combine them.

One of the great things about CLR James is that while his politics changed several times over his lifetime, he tried to explain the reasons for those changes, and always based positions on what was actually happening at the time and/or on historical analysis.

ajjohnstone

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by ajjohnstone on August 31, 2017

A good example is CLR James,

Could be because he was a reader of the Socialist Standard :)

Battlescarred

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Battlescarred on September 1, 2017

Or maybe not.

Battlescarred

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Battlescarred on September 1, 2017

About as daft as saying James moved in the direction he did because of various meetings with Guy Aldred, Vernon Richards and F.A. Ridley

Serge Forward

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Serge Forward on September 1, 2017

It'll only end badly. We used to have that awful anarcho-trot sect over here called the Anarchist Workers' Group - which predictably ended up merging with an actual trot sect, the moribund RCP, later Living Marxism, LM and whatever they're called now. Oh yeah, Sp!ked. Edit: actually the latest incarnation is probably not at all predictable.

Oh, and ajjohnstone... it really is like listening to Tales of the Name-drop Kid. Keep it up though, as a Socialist Standard reader myself, I'm often interested in the company I keep ;)

ajjohnstone

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by ajjohnstone on September 1, 2017

Happy to oblige, Serge

But it should be noted that Marx and Engels and Lenin did use the words Socialism and Communism interchangeably, at other times making a distinction between Communism as the highest stage of Socialism. For an able study on the use of the words at different times by Marx, Engels and Lenin see The Socialist Standard, August, 1936.

CLR James, World Revolution 1917-1936, chapter 5, footnote 4, 1937.

Battlescarred, it was a tongue-in-cheek comment....You know, don't you, CLR James would never have passed our membership test....we all hate cricket so he would be bowled out

But more trivia

As for Aldred, he applied to join the SPGB and later tried to deny it...but our archives i believe has a record of it.

FA Ridley, Socialism and Religion " The SPGB formerly had a pamphlet which was a work of undoubted merit, though too prone, in my opinion at least, to adhere to the peculiar theories of Herbert Spencer on the origins of religion"

Red Marriott

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Red Marriott on September 1, 2017

OK thanks, enough for now from the SPGB propaganda commissar.

Joseph Kay

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Joseph Kay on September 2, 2017

CLR James is a good shout. Even when he criticises Trotsky directly (e.g. in State Capitalism and World Revolution), he does so via - imho a very generous - reading of Lenin as a radical, 'all power to the soviets' democrat. James' reading of Lenin is almost anarchist, in that 'the workers' state' is the armed working class organised into councils.

Another interesting figure is Ngo Van, a Vietnamese Trotskyist who had to flee colonial and Stalinist repression, went to France, and encountered anarchism and more radical Marxisms. He ended up an independent radical close to council communism.

I don't think either of them achieved a synthesis between anarchism and Trotskyism, or if such a thing is possible, but for both the tension between their libertarian impulses and Trotskyism created some original and important Marxist thought and practice.