I was debating the merits of incorporating some anarchist ideology, since my professor has been introducing some things to us.
Anarchism, different types, has its appeal.
but I keep running into multiple positions that i can’t for the life of me understand. This one in particular. How do you have solidarity when you can’t support states or hierarchies?
Also the existence of states, and what it takes to abolish them is of great interest to me. Because it seems to be as simple as uh, implementing direct democracy? Or some form of democratic functions in all society. So all institutions and borders can exist, but if you’re democratic you’re good? Do all situations really have to involve everyone?
so is literally a few elections and renaming institutions enough to replace the nation state? Seems incredibly easy then, i dont know what the fuss is about. (Although i think democratic armies are stupid why should that be a thing.)
Also my professor has an annoying tendency to hate on former socialism whenever its brought up. Also the sort of stereotypical obsession with rojava (which explicitly enshrines the right of private property, but otherwise i support the fight of the kurdish population for liberation) and the Zapitistas (who denounce western anarchism and explicitly identify as a sort of their own ideological deviation from marxism. Libertarian socialism in reality. Not hating on the Zapitistas of course, they’re cool as fuck and i support their fight against discrimination of ethnic minorities and natives. Other anarchists have a liking of Makhnovshchina, which gets a lot of undeserved hate in marxist circles but was more a warlord state than anarchist. But i’d be fine with that because it was a rough time and they were doing what they had to, but explicit denial of this and upholding it is very strange to me.
But these are… states??? Why is it Marxist states that get flak?
wait its probably the purges… yeah i’d be mad about that too if it was me…
Anarchists i think get lots of undue hate towards them as well, with many criticisms brushing them aside being equally applicable to marxism.
Also i dont want to see any marxists give a joking or sectarian answer, or ill report them. Im interested in learning the responses of anarchists, and the best ones i can find are usually here. I can get kind of defensive, i dont like being wrong, but i do genuinely want to learn.
Very interesting, especially the leaderless part. a helmsman is good, but really only for the founder phase, like lenin and stalin. After that you’ll have people coming in and pulling it every which way. Thank you very much for your in depth answer!
IMO while this is natural and inevitable, this is also why the “vanguard party” (or something functioning as such) as championed by Lenin is necessary- the party, state, commune, whatever form it is that the revolution takes, has to maintain its revolutionary proletarian character (IMO).
Maintaining the revolution’s integrity- whether it is in some hypothetical commune, or in the state/party systems of AES or even many states born out of anti-imperialist struggle- is key to preventing the revolution’s slow undoing and eventual destruction (as seen in the Soviet dissolution). Discussions of what compromises, by the collective proletariat, should be made (like Dengism, which seeing its successes I’d probably say I most align with- yet which also undeniably introduced its own issues which I believe the CPC is largely working towards resolving) are possible, but retaining the proletarian character, the proletarian dictatorship, is infinitely important (once again IMO).
IMO the “helmsman” great man history image as is mainstream doesn’t paint a good picture of most communist states’ development (perhaps of all genuine communist states’ development). Stalin, Lenin, and Mao may loom large, but none of them were the “dictatorial” or sole commanding forces of the revolutionary parties and then states they ran- though they undeniably had immense influence as individuals all the same. A helmsman can be good (and is probably necessary for the founding phase as you put it) and a figurehead IMO is probably inevitable, but IMO to what extent there are helmsmen, they only become irrelevant when and if the party can maintain, or build upon or pragmatically modify their guidance and character (though I’d argue all aforementioned helmsmen’s greatest successes were in promoting and proving their own views in the broader party structure and society).
In regards to the “anarchist” bit where this comes in- well admittedly obviously I have a bias (as I don’t consider myself an anarchist and haven’t exactly bothered to look overly much into their ideology). Yet IMO I’d say- to maintain this specific revolutionary character and prevent its undermining- on some level, the structures of the state and/or party discipline would have to be established, and if I’m not wrong (not a scholar and wouldn’t know lol) I’ve heard that in what (extremely temporary) successful anarchist uprisings did exist so far they did essentially create just that (even while not necessarily calling it as such)
Figured rather than edit should add on-
Basically- I think it’s a good thing for people to pull it every which way, or to try to, and argue their case, anyways. IMO naturally (or ideally anyways) this would lead to the most pragmatic approach while building socialist, progressive society. It just should ideally be within a broader framework designed to internally- for lack of a better word, “self-police” itself for the sake of preserving the revolution in a manner akin to how capitalism by its nature preserves the interests of capital accumulation and maintenance (while avoiding the pitfalls of ultraism, which for capital I’d call neoliberalism/neoconservative hegemonism)
Do you mean a chief strategist to conceptualize things, or a chief taskmaster to get people to move, or a chief parliamentarian to make sure the discussions reach an agreement? Must all of these be the same person?