Hundreds of potential reasons, they want to protect a specific town rather than contribute to a greater war effort, etc. From parenti:
Engels offers an apposite account of an uprising in Spain in 1872-73 in which anarchists seized power in municipalities across the country. At first, the situation looked promising. The king had abdicated and the bourgeois government could muster but a few thousand ill-trained troops. Yet this ragtag force prevailed because it faced a thoroughly parochialized rebellion. “Each town proclaimed itself as a sovereign canton and set up a revolutionary committee (junta),” Engels writes. “[E]ach town acted on its own, declaring that the important thing was not cooperation with other towns but separation from them, thus precluding any possibility of a combined attack [against bourgeois forces].” It was “the fragmentation and isolation of the revolutionary forces which enabled the government troops to smash one revolt after the other.”
Decentralized parochial autonomy is the graveyard of insurgency–which may be one reason why there has never been a successful anarcho-syndicalist revolution. Ideally, it would be a fine thing to have only local, self-directed, worker participation, with minimal bureaucracy, police, and military. This probably would be the development of socialism, were socialism ever allowed to develop unhindered by counterrevolutionary subversion and attack. One might recall how, in 1918-20, fourteen capitalist nations, including the United States, invaded Soviet Russia in a bloody but unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the revolutionary Bolshevik government. The years of foreign invasion and civil war did much to intensify the Bolsheviks’ siege psychology with its commitment to lockstep party unity and a repressive security apparatus. Thus, in May 1921, the same Lenin who had encouraged the practice of internal party democracy and struggled against Trotsky in order to give the trade unions a greater measure of autonomy, now called for an end to the Workers’ Opposition and other factional groups within the party. “The time has come,” he told an enthusiastically concurring Tenth Party Congress, “to put an end to opposition, to put a lid on it: we have had enough opposition.” Open disputes and conflicting tendencies within and without the party, the communists concluded, created an appearance of division and weakness that invited attack by formidable foes.
Only a month earlier, in April 1921, Lenin had called for more worker representation on the party’s Central Committee. In short, he had become not anti-worker but anti-opposition. Here was a social revolution–like every other–that was not allowed to develop its political and material life in an unhindered way.
OK So if I understand properly, you just think anarchism is too idealistic? (tell me if I misunderstand). How would corruption (and abusive centralization in general) be avoided in communism?
Marxism has many success stories, if you don’t have time to read blackshirts and reds, here’s a good article about the USSR’s successes. They went from a feudal economy at the same level of economic development and population as brazil in 1920, to a world superpower who saved the world from fascism and conquered space travel within 30 years.
China in the past 30 years has brought more people out of poverty than any country in history, lead by the communist party and its poverty alleviation and development campaigns. China is a much poorer country per capita than the US, yet has a higher life expectancy.
Cuba, mongolia, vietnam, burkina faso under sankara, maurice bishop in grenada, yugoslavia, all had incredible successes and learning about them should be necessary. Anti-communists use vague arguments about authoritarianism (bc they don’t consider capitalism / bourgeois democracy authoritarian, even despite its genocidal militarism), and deflect from looking at material conditions of people.
How war works without democratic centralism:
Command hierarchy to a federated anarchist militia: “We need you to get to this region asap to defend against an enemy advance.”
anarchist militia: “no”
Command hierarchy: “okay thanks.”
Loses war instantly
And why so? Why would they say no?
Hundreds of potential reasons, they want to protect a specific town rather than contribute to a greater war effort, etc. From parenti:
Engels offers an apposite account of an uprising in Spain in 1872-73 in which anarchists seized power in municipalities across the country. At first, the situation looked promising. The king had abdicated and the bourgeois government could muster but a few thousand ill-trained troops. Yet this ragtag force prevailed because it faced a thoroughly parochialized rebellion. “Each town proclaimed itself as a sovereign canton and set up a revolutionary committee (junta),” Engels writes. “[E]ach town acted on its own, declaring that the important thing was not cooperation with other towns but separation from them, thus precluding any possibility of a combined attack [against bourgeois forces].” It was “the fragmentation and isolation of the revolutionary forces which enabled the government troops to smash one revolt after the other.”
Decentralized parochial autonomy is the graveyard of insurgency–which may be one reason why there has never been a successful anarcho-syndicalist revolution. Ideally, it would be a fine thing to have only local, self-directed, worker participation, with minimal bureaucracy, police, and military. This probably would be the development of socialism, were socialism ever allowed to develop unhindered by counterrevolutionary subversion and attack. One might recall how, in 1918-20, fourteen capitalist nations, including the United States, invaded Soviet Russia in a bloody but unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the revolutionary Bolshevik government. The years of foreign invasion and civil war did much to intensify the Bolsheviks’ siege psychology with its commitment to lockstep party unity and a repressive security apparatus. Thus, in May 1921, the same Lenin who had encouraged the practice of internal party democracy and struggled against Trotsky in order to give the trade unions a greater measure of autonomy, now called for an end to the Workers’ Opposition and other factional groups within the party. “The time has come,” he told an enthusiastically concurring Tenth Party Congress, “to put an end to opposition, to put a lid on it: we have had enough opposition.” Open disputes and conflicting tendencies within and without the party, the communists concluded, created an appearance of division and weakness that invited attack by formidable foes.
Only a month earlier, in April 1921, Lenin had called for more worker representation on the party’s Central Committee. In short, he had become not anti-worker but anti-opposition. Here was a social revolution–like every other–that was not allowed to develop its political and material life in an unhindered way.
OK So if I understand properly, you just think anarchism is too idealistic? (tell me if I misunderstand). How would corruption (and abusive centralization in general) be avoided in communism?
There’s a good marxism study plane here if you’d like to get started with democratic centralism.
Sorry, I will read some of them, but I don’t have so much time now. What is the most successful example of marxism in your opinion?
BTW, Dessalines seems to have done an amazing job here!
Marxism has many success stories, if you don’t have time to read blackshirts and reds, here’s a good article about the USSR’s successes. They went from a feudal economy at the same level of economic development and population as brazil in 1920, to a world superpower who saved the world from fascism and conquered space travel within 30 years.
China in the past 30 years has brought more people out of poverty than any country in history, lead by the communist party and its poverty alleviation and development campaigns. China is a much poorer country per capita than the US, yet has a higher life expectancy.
Cuba, mongolia, vietnam, burkina faso under sankara, maurice bishop in grenada, yugoslavia, all had incredible successes and learning about them should be necessary. Anti-communists use vague arguments about authoritarianism (bc they don’t consider capitalism / bourgeois democracy authoritarian, even despite its genocidal militarism), and deflect from looking at material conditions of people.