I mean as I stated...Anarchists in Catalonia straight up executed suspected fascists. Instead of imprisoning them and finding out the facts Anarchists aversion to prisons led them to....
Lining up people merely suspected of being fascists.
I gotta tell you...I think shooting people merely for being suspected fascists is pretty more authoritarian than "harassing, locking up" or even "torturing" people
"There had been a long-running debate in anarchist circles about whether fighting capitalism as a system necessitated attacking specific individuals in power, apart from situations of self-defense. The fact that those in power, when shown mercy, turned right around and gave names to the firing squads to punish the rebels and discourage future uprisings underscored the argument that elites are not just innocently playing a role within an impersonal system, but that they specifically involve themselves in waging war against the oppressed. Thus, the killings carried out by the Spanish anarchists and peasants were not signs of an authoritarianism inherent in revolutionary struggle so much as an intentional strategy within a dangerous conflict. The contemporaneous behavior of the Stalinists, who established a secret police force to torture and execute their erstwhile comrades, demonstrates how low people can sink when they think they’re fighting for a just cause; but the contrasting example offered by anarchists and other socialists proves that such behavior is not inevitable.
A demonstration of the absence of authoritarianism among the anarchists can be seen in the fact that those same peasants who liberated themselves violently did not force individualistic peasants to collectivize their lands along with the rest of the community. In most of the villages surveyed in anarchist areas, collectives and individual holdings existed side by side. In the worst scenario, where an anti-collective peasant held territory dividing peasants who did want to join their lands, the majority sometimes asked the individualist peasant to trade his land for land elsewhere, so the other peasants could pool their efforts to form a collective. In one documented example, the collectivizing peasants offered the individual landholder land of better quality in order to ensure a consensual resolution.
In the cities and within the structures of the CNT, the anarchist labor union with over a million members, the situation was more complicated. After defense groups prepared by the CNT and FAI (the Iberian Anarchist Federation) defeated the fascist uprising in Catalunya and seized weapons from the armory, the CNT rank and file spontaneously organized factory councils, neighborhood assemblies, and other organizations capable of coordinating economic life; what’s more, they did so in a nonpartisan way, working with other workers of all political persuasions. Even though the anarchists were the strongest force in Catalunya, they demonstrated little desire to repress other groups — in stark contrast to the Communist Party, the Trotskyists, and the Catalan nationalists. The problem came from the CNT delegates. The union had failed to structure itself in a way that prevented its becoming institutionalized. Delegates to the Regional and National Committees could not be recalled if they failed to perform as desired, there was no custom to prevent the same people from maintaining constant positions on these higher committees, and negotiations or decisions made by higher committees did not always have to be ratified by the entire membership. Furthermore, principled anarchist militants consistently refused the top positions in the Confederation, while intellectuals focused on abstract theories and economic planning gravitated to these central committees. Thus, at the time of the revolution in July, 1936, the CNT had an established leadership, and this leadership was isolated from the actual movement.
Anarchists such as Stuart Christie and veterans of the libertarian youth group that went on to participate in the guerrilla struggle against the fascists during the following decades have argued that these dynamics separated the de facto leadership of the CNT from the rank and file, and brought them closer to the professional politicians. Thus, in Catalunya, when they were invited to participate in an antifascist Popular Front along with the authoritarian socialist and republican parties, they obliged. To them, this was a gesture of pluralism and solidarity, as well as a means of self-defense against the threat posed by fascism.
Their estrangement from the base prevented them from realizing that the power was no longer in the government buildings; it was already in the street and wherever workers were spontaneously taking over their factories. Ignorant of this, they actually impeded social revolution, discouraging the armed masses from pursuing the full realization of anarchist communism for fear of upsetting their new allies.[99] In any case, anarchists in this period faced extremely difficult decisions. The representatives were caught between advancing fascism and treacherous allies, while those in the streets had to choose between accepting the dubious decisions of a self-appointed leadership or splitting the movement by being overly critical.
But despite the sudden power gained by the CNT — they were the dominant organized political force in Catalunya and a major force in other provinces — both the leadership and the base acted in a cooperative rather than a power-hungry manner. For example, in the antifascist committees proposed by the Catalan government, they allowed themselves to be put on an equal footing with the comparatively weak socialist labor union and the Catalan nationalist party. One of the chief reasons the CNT leadership gave for collaborating with the authoritarian parties was that abolishing the government in Catalunya would be tantamount to imposing an anarchist dictatorship. But their assumption that getting rid of the government — or, more accurately, allowing a spontaneous popular movement to do so — meant replacing it with the CNT showed their own blinding self-importance. They failed to grasp that the working class was developing new organizational forms, such as factory councils, that might flourish best by transcending pre-existing institutions — whether the CNT or the government — rather than being absorbed into them. The CNT leadership “failed to realise how powerful the popular movement was and that their role as union spokesmen was now inimical to the course of the revolution.”[100]
Rather than painting a rosy picture of history, we should recognize that these examples show that navigating the tension between effectiveness and authoritarianism is not easy, but it is possible."
Thus, the killings carried out by the Spanish anarchists and peasants were not signs of an authoritarianism inherent in revolutionary struggle so much as an intentional strategy within a dangerous conflict.
So at what point has any existing socialist state passed the era of "dangerous conflict"? Can you point to me at which year or period the USSR/Cuba/DPRK/Vietnam/China should've laid down their arms whilst US was arming for a nuclear war against Soviet Union then a cold war and supporting fascist governments all over Latin America, Indonesia, Africa etc.
At what point should those nations have passed from the "pure" and "acceptable" revolutionary violence that this anarchist writer approves of and differentiates from say DPRK who have been at war with the collaborationist dogs of South Korea and US for 70 years. Every year US and South Korea practice invading them every year in military drills but what year should they lay down the dictatorship of the proletariat and press the "classless/stateless button"?
Or the Soviet Union that was immediately invaded in 1918 by the 14 most powerful capitalist countries then blockaded for the next 2 decades during the rise of fascism and world war 2? Then cold war, Korea war, Vietnam war, fascists all over S.America then funding of Jihadis in Afghanistan in 80s.. Nicaragua?
Even though the anarchists were the strongest force in Catalunya, they demonstrated little desire to repress other groups
Lmao this guy does paint a rosey picture of Anarchists in Catalonia. Let's have another perspective
The work camps were considered an integral part of the“constructive work of the Spanish Revolution,” and many anarcho syndicalists took pride in the“progressive” character of the reforms by the CNT Minister of Justice. The CNT recruited guards for the “concentration camps,” as they were also called, from within its own ranks. Certain militants feared that the CNT’s resignation from the government after May 1937 might delay this “very important project” of labor camps.
To a great degree, the labor camps were an extreme, but logical, expression of Spanishan archosyndicalism. It was in the labor camps that the CNT’s “society of the producers” encountered Fábregas’s “exaltation of work.”
Understandable resentment against a bourgeoisie, a clergy, and a military whom workers considered unproductive and parasitic crystallized into a demand to reform these groups through productive labor. Anarcho syndicalists endowed work with great moral value; the bourgeoisie, the military, and the clergy were immoral precisely because they did not produce. Thus penal reform meant forcing these classes to labor, to rid them of their sins through work. The Spanish Revolution was, in part, a crusade to convert, by force if necessary, both enemies and friends to the values of work and development.
So if you disagreed with anarchists you were thrown into a work camp for your opinion.
And from the mouth of Garcia Oliver, Anarcho-syndaclist justice of minister
The weeds must be torn out by their roots. There cannot be and must not be pity for the enemies of the people, but . . . their rehabilitation through work and that is precisely what the new ministerial order creating “work camps” seeks. In Spain great irrigation canals, roads, and public works must be built immediately. The trains must be electrified, and all these things should be accomplished by those who conceive of work as a derisive activity or a crime, by those who have never worked. . . . The prisons and penitentiaries will be replaced by beehives of labor, and offenders against the people will have the chance to dignify themselves with tools in hand, and they will see that a pick and a shovel will be much more valuable in the future society than the placid, parasitic life of idleness that had no other aim than toperpetuate the irritating inequality of classes.
(ibid)
That shit sounds like Lenin or Stalin (and is rad). Enemies of the revolution need to be torn out by their roots and rehabilitated through work until the Proletarian State has consolidated itself strongly enough and ideologically enough to take criticism in a way that China now can and even Cuba can
in stark contrast to the Communist Party, the Trotskyists, and the Catalan nationalists.
Alright lets see if that's true
Supporters of the rising were dragged in front of these revolutionary tribunals when they were not shot out of hand. The names and addresses of those belonging to groups involved in the rising were taken from official departments or the respective party headquarters, if their records had not been destroyed in time. Evidently some victims were denounced by servants, debtors and enemies. With the intense atmosphere of suspicion and the speed of events, many mistakes were undoubtedly made.
This pretence of justice happened mainly in cities and large towns where the socialists and communists were dominant. Fake Falange membership cards, said to belong to the defendant, were often produced so as to ensure that the proceedings were rapid. When declared guilty, prisoners were taken away to be shot. Their bodies were then often left in prominent positions with placards stating that the victims were fascists.6 Anarchists tended to despise this farce of legality and simply got on with the shooting. Believing in the individual’s responsibility for his actions, they rejected any form of corporate ‘statism’ for officials to hide behind. The other reason for immediate execution was their genuine horror of putting anyone in a prison, the most symbolic of all state institutions.
both the leadership and the base acted in a cooperative rather than a power-hungry manner.
Yeah screaming about tearing out the weeds of society, throwing loads of people into concentration camps and "getting on with the shooting" of people suspected of fascism because of your aversion to prisons is definitely not power hungry
So at what point has any existing socialist state passed the era of “dangerous conflict”? Can you point to me at which year or period the USSR/Cuba/DPRK/Vietnam/China should’ve laid down their arms whilst US was arming for a nuclear war against Soviet Union then a cold war and supporting fascist governments all over Latin America, Indonesia, Africa etc.
At what point should those nations have passed from the “pure” and “acceptable” revolutionary violence that this anarchist writer approves of and differentiates from say DPRK who have been at war with the collaborationist dogs of South Korea and US for 70 years. Every year US and South Korea practice invading them every year in military drills but what year should they lay down the dictatorship of the proletariat and press the “classless/stateless button”?
Or the Soviet Union that was immediately invaded in 1918 by the 14 most powerful capitalist countries then blockaded for the next 2 decades during the rise of fascism and world war 2? Then cold war, Korea war, Vietnam war, fascists all over S.America then funding of Jihadis in Afghanistan in 80s… Nicaragua?
The moment is when they are out of direct conflict of capitalist powers, but it's not about pressing the stateless button, it's about stopping hammering the "using the state to purge people over whatever real or perceived differences" button.
The USSR was in direct conflict with the whites after they got out of WWI and the whites came in twice and were beaten out with the help of absolutely no one. After that the next direct conflict was WWII, between the two there was no situation that demanded the level of repression that was used apart from of course, ideological purges that were of course going on simultaneously with the civil war too, but yeah, who cares about that.
Cuba's president is not actively tried to be murdered for a few decades, so there's no direct conflict there and there is no direct conflict between capitalists and Vietnam as well. There are embargoes that are effectively dealt with... on the ground level for example the permacultural food production in Havana. "Surprisingly" these states aren't even that criticised by anarchists (and i have nothing against them as well), which is definitely not because of the lack of ideological purges.
DPRK is in semi-direct conflict with South Korea and the US but news coming out of there are scarce and either coming from NYT or the state, so i'm not gonna form an opinion on them and i never have done so.
China is not in direct conflict with capitalist countries either but the economic warfare is hard on them. Despite that there are reports of them harrassing Marxist groups and even some MLs acknowledge that there might be better ways to handle the Uyghur situation. So they're def worse in that regard than Cuba or Vietnam, but not as bad as the USSR was at first.
Now about Catalonia
So if you disagreed with anarchists you were thrown into a work camp for your opinion.
That isn't even the conclusion of the work you cited. You're really trying hard to ignore the fact that the CNT leadership didn't have direct control over the movement, especially over it's main constituents, the rural areas. The passage i quoted was a critique of that leadership, so trying to counter that with what the leadership said is ummm.... curious.
But to have the full story, here's another quote from Seidman's book:
"Garc¡a Oliver's reforming zeal extended to the penal code and the prison system. Torture was forbidden and replaced by work: normal labor with weekly monetary bonuses and a day off per week when the prisoner's conduct merits it. If this is not enough to motivate him, his good conduct will be measured by vouchers. Fifty-two of these vouchers will mean a year of good conduct and thus a year of liberty. These years can be added up . . . and thus a sentence of thirty years can be reduced to eight, nine, or ten years"
Also Augustin Soucy wrote this about the labor camps:
"There is a concentration camp at Valmuel, in Alcaniz Township, Teruel Province. The country is a desert. There is not a single tree for many kilometres around. A number of buildings have been erected at the foot of a hill. Dormitories, inspection rooms, stables... Everything was built by the prisoners with the assistance of the guards. The FAI directs this camp. It is not a prison. It is not maintained like a garrison. There is no forced labour. Nothing is enclosed and there is no limitation of movement. The prisoners move about freely. Their guards share their life with them. They live the same as the prisoners. They sleep on similar cots in the primitive rooms. They address each other informally, as equals. Prisoners and guards are comrades. Neither wears a uniform. They cannot be distinguished by their external appearance.
A young man is standing in front of one of the dormitories. I question him without knowing whether he is a prisoner or a guard.
"I am a prisoner. My name is Benedicto Valles. I belonged to the Accion Popular (Popular Action, a fascist party). That is why I was arrested."
"How long have you been here?"
"Three months."
He was not working. He was not feeling well.
"Did the doctor give you permission not to work today?"
"There is no doctor. The comrade guard gave me permission not to work."
"Can you receive visitors?"
"Yes. My fiance comes to see me every Sunday."
"Can you speak to her alone?"
"Of course. Then we go for a walk together, in the fields.
"Without a guard?"
"Without a guard."
All the prisoners are permitted to receive visits from their families every Sunday. They are given passes for the camp and surrounding fields. There is no sexual torture that so many prisoners experience in other countries. This is an achievement not to be found anywhere else in the world. The anarchists of the FAI are the first to introduce this humane reform.
Why are there still concentration camps? Because the war against fascism is not yet over. The anarchists must protect themselves against the fascists.
There are chickens, pigs and rabbits in the barns. Cattle is to be seen in the fields. There is one scarcity: water. This vital liquid is not to be found in the entire area. It must be brought in by tank carts. Scarcity of water is a great problem here as in other parts of Spain. The soil must be irrigated. Prisoners and guards do this work. One hundred and eighty prisoners (180) work alongside one hundred and twenty-five workers (125) of the collective of Alcaniz to install irrigation. The work is the same for the free workers as for the prisoners. Fascists and antifascists work nine hours a day. They work for the fertility of the soil, to bring new life to the country. The canal must be finished in two years. The Municipal Council in Alcaniz has taken charge of the work. There is no support from the State or the provincial authorities. The work is being done without engineers. A young peasant who knows how to calculate what must be done to create a self flowing canal directs the work. The water must come from the Guadalope River. Some potato fields are already being irrigated.
This work was initiated by the CNT and the FAI in Alcaniz. Fascists and anti-fascists are working together for the cultivation of the Aragon desert.
There are concentration camps in the fascist countries, Italy and Germany. In the Hitler camp at Oranienberg, the spiritual German poet, Muehsam, was assassinated after being tortured and martyred for more than a year. Dozens of known political figures and people who love liberty languish in the concentration camps of national socialism. The democracies, faced with the alternative of choosing national socialism and fascism or anarchism, choose the first. They ought to visit the concentration camp in Germany, and then the FAI camp at Valmuel. There: barbarism; here: fighters for liberty."
Sounds just as inhumane as the bombing of Kronstadt.
People got into labor camps if they were funneling money to the fascists, if they were caught after a battle with fascists, etc. Not for their opinion and definitely not in size comparable to the USSR.
They still acted out of self defense and not out of an act of power grab.
The moment is when they are out of direct conflict of capitalist powers,
At literally no point in their history were they free from conflict with captialist powers or the class struggle as it intensified as socialism was constructed
but it’s not about pressing the stateless button, it’s about stopping hammering the “using the state to purge people over whatever real or perceived differences” button.
This is pure idealism. It is masturbation. If this were true then the 20th century would've provided in material reality (and not the pure socialism in our minds) a revolutionary theory capable of defending its revolution from the counter attack which is sure to come from within and without.
I say "any relaxation of the dictatorship of the proletariat ends with the French communards against the wall." And your response is that the state should be fine to relax the DOTP despite there being zero instances of a successful anarchist revolution of the 20th Century.
It is telling that anarchism in practice (and that's all I care aboue. The anarchism that has actually existed) has not changed since Marxs The Bakuninists At Work
As soon as they were faced with a serious revolutionary situation, the Bakuninists had to throw the whole of their old programme overboard. First they sacrificed their doctrine of absolute abstention from political, and especially electoral, activities. Then anarchy, the abolition of the State, shared the same fate. Instead of abolishing the State they tried, on the contrary, to set up a number of new, small states. They then dropped the principle that the workers must not take part in any revolution that did not have as its aim the immediate and complete emancipation of the proletariat, and they themselves took part in a movement that was notoriously bourgeois. Finally they went against the dogma they had only just proclaimed -- that the establishment of a revolutionary government is but another fraud another betrayal of the working class -- for they sat quite comfortably in the juntas of the various towns, and moreover almost everywhere as an impotent minority outvoted and politically exploited by the bourgeoisie.
After that the next direct conflict was WWII, between the two there was no situation that demanded the level of repression that was used apart from of course, ideological purges that were of course going on simultaneously with the civil war too, but yeah, who cares about that.
Wow comrade. So who killed Kirov and Maxim Gorky? Why was Tukhachevsky conspiring with the Germans? What was the famine of 1921 then the famine of 1933 which seriously de-stabilised the regime?
You’re really trying hard to ignore the fact that the CNT leadership didn’t have direct control over the movement, especially over it’s main constituents, the rural areas. The passage i quoted was a critique of that leadership, so trying to counter that with what the leadership said is ummm… curious.
It's ironic that I say the exact same thing about the Soviet leadership throughout its entire leadership. They were often relying on regional leaders or party members eager to please and the leadership acted more like a fire department responding to fires than a monolithic overseer anticommunists portray them as
People got into labor camps if they were funneling money to the fascists, if they were caught after a battle with fascists, etc. Not for their opinion and definitely not in size comparable to the USSR.
Only cos the revolution failed. The USSR was never even that bad. Even during the Ezhovschina the USSR imprisoned less people per capita than USA.
They still acted out of self defense and not out of an act of power grab.
This is cartoonish anticommunist propaganda. It is never explained by State dept Anarchists like Chomsky how the reds sought to "hunger for power" by siding with the weakest, most vulnerable and poorest sections of society in country after country often at great costs to themselves.
At literally no point in their history were they free from conflict with captialist powers or the class struggle as it intensified as socialism was constructed
I assume you are leaving the "direct" part out deliberately, because that's what makes the difference.
"This is pure idealism. It is masturbation. If this were true then the 20th century would’ve provided in material reality (and not the pure socialism in our minds) a revolutionary theory capable of defending its revolution from the counter attack which is sure to come from within and without.
I say “any relaxation of the dictatorship of the proletariat ends with the French communards against the wall.” And your response is that the state should be fine to relax the DOTP despite there being zero instances of a successful anarchist revolution of the 20th Century.
Doesn't the relaxation of the DOTP in Cuba or Vietnam and their consequent survival prove that the relaxation doesn't end with the communards against the wall? Because it looks like it doesn't to me.
"It is telling that anarchism in practice (and that’s all I care aboue. The anarchism that has actually existed) has not changed since Marxs The Bakuninists At Work
As soon as they were faced with a serious revolutionary situation, the Bakuninists had to throw the whole of their old programme overboard. First they sacrificed their doctrine of absolute abstention from political, and especially electoral, activities. Then anarchy, the abolition of the State, shared the same fate. Instead of abolishing the State they tried, on the contrary, to set up a number of new, small states. They then dropped the principle that the workers must not take part in any revolution that did not have as its aim the immediate and complete emancipation of the proletariat, and they themselves took part in a movement that was notoriously bourgeois. Finally they went against the dogma they had only just proclaimed – that the establishment of a revolutionary government is but another fraud another betrayal of the working class – for they sat quite comfortably in the juntas of the various towns, and moreover almost everywhere as an impotent minority outvoted and politically exploited by the bourgeoisie."
I'm astonished that you think this is true to any anarchist project ever, but you do you.
"It’s ironic that I say the exact same thing about the Soviet leadership throughout its entire leadership. They were often relying on regional leaders or party members eager to please and the leadership acted more like a fire department responding to fires than a monolithic overseer anticommunists portray them as"
Okay so then how come that when the soviets started electing Menshevik or leftcom reps they just pretended the elections didn't count and put party members in their place? Like okay, we're defending a revolution ova'here but clearly they had more leverage through the party over local councils than the CNT had over the rank and file.
"Only cos the revolution failed. The USSR was never even that bad. Even during the Ezhovschina the USSR imprisoned less people per capita than USA."
We're not comparing the US to the USSR. We're comparing Catalonia to the USSR.
"This is cartoonish anticommunist propaganda. It is never explained by State dept Anarchists like Chomsky how the reds sought to “hunger for power” by siding with the weakest, most vulnerable and poorest sections of society in country after country often at great costs to themselves."
Was Lenin at any point recallable during his tenure?
Doesn’t the relaxation of the DOTP in Cuba or Vietnam and their consequent survival prove that the relaxation doesn’t end with the communards against the wall?
Comrade Cuba and Vietnam did not relax their Dotp. Its form changed over time (as it would be expected) as socialist ideology became hegemonic. Further would you have been one of those whining about the human rights of executed mafioso and US collaborators when the Cubans were shooting dissenters in the 70s when their dotp was neither hegemonic nor consolidated?
Cuba has an intelligence agency that has been running rings around US intelligence particularly since 19. The dotp consolidated and strengthened itself in the form of State power to the point they can laugh at the turncoats and and cia paid traitors that wave banners saying "down with socialism!" Whenever a US delegate visits. In the 60s or 70s those people would probably be in a basement with a bag on their head.
But Cuba has ideoligcal hegemony and support for the proletarian state and Cuban intelligence good enough to leak their finances linking them to Cia. The population laughs and understands they're traitors etc.
Dictatorships of the bourgeoisie can allow a relatively high amount of individual freedom and freedom of expression - because you or me in the town square screaming about overthrowing capitalism does not threaten the bourgeois State
However if you become effective like Malcolm X or Fred Hampton they'll execute you in a no knock raid. California still has a law not allowing communists to run for election etc.
Further as heroic as the Cuban and Vietnamese struggles were they largely were helped by the fact the nationalists expressed their nationalism through the communists in the struggle for national liberation. They were also not put through the trial of two world wars. The nationalists/white guardists/embittered kulaks/monarchists and conservatives in Russia expressed their nationalism as a fight against Bolshevism which inevitably led to them collaborating with Nazis in ww2.
The vietnamese did not have to deal with entire regions of the Soviet union who were susceptible to nazi ideology as the entirety of Eastern europe and some russians were
The dotp of Russia was, by the historical and material conditions of the period from 1917-1945, by necessity much more brutal than Cuba and Vietnam.
We’re not comparing the US to the USSR. We’re comparing Catalonia to the USSR.
Theres not much to compare and its better to compare two superpowers than one city in Spain. Catalonia was a disaster. The end result of catalonia was socialists, communists, trotskyites and anarchists seeking refugee status in France while a 4 decade long fascist dictatorship ruled in Spain
Was Lenin at any point recallable during his tenure?
Yes by the central committee
This cartoonish display that reds hunger for power needs to go in the bin.
The biggest purveyor of this is Chomsky. Now Lenin was a brilliant figure and one of the smartest people in Russia. If power was all he wanted why would he find a revolutionary path for the poorest in Russia which ended with him being shot by an anarchist followed by a stroke
If Lenin just wanted power he could've occupied an academic position (like Chomsky) then advocated change but not too much. Sought a position in the Tsars government advocating for bourgeois parliamentary democracy
He'd have been a Prime Minister of Russia no problem. He'd have got power without the difficulty of revolution, being shot or the difficulty of going into hiding from the Tsarist police
He could have sat in some academic tower like Chomsky did and grew to a ripe old age
Comrade Cuba and Vietnam did not relax their Dotp. Its form changed over time (as it would be expected) as socialist ideology became hegemonic.
Uhm, i think we're thinking about the same thing.
Further would you have been one of those whining about the human rights of executed mafioso and US collaborators when the Cubans were shooting dissenters in the 70s when their dotp was neither hegemonic nor consolidated?
No. But i think that was clear until now too.
Cuba has an intelligence agency that has been running rings around US intelligence particularly since 19. The dotp consolidated and strengthened itself in the form of State power to the point they can laugh at the turncoats and and cia paid traitors that wave banners saying “down with >socialism!” Whenever a US delegate visits. In the 60s or 70s those people would probably be in a basement with a bag on their head.
But Cuba has ideoligcal hegemony and support for the proletarian state and Cuban intelligence good enough to leak their finances linking them to Cia. The population laughs and understands they’re traitors etc.
That's great news, so the anarchists who were chased away from Cuba can go back and the ones currently imprisoned can be released, as they're not a threat to the state, right?
Further as heroic as the Cuban and Vietnamese struggles were they largely were helped by the fact the nationalists expressed their nationalism through the communists in the struggle for national liberation. They were also not put through the trial of two world wars. The >nationalists/white guardists/embittered kulaks/monarchists and conservatives in Russia expressed their nationalism as a fight against Bolshevism which inevitably led to them collaborating with Nazis in ww2.
The vietnamese did not have to deal with entire regions of the Soviet union who were susceptible to nazi ideology as the entirety of Eastern europe and some russians were
The dotp of Russia was, by the historical and material conditions of the period from 1917-1945, by necessity much more brutal than Cuba and Vietnam.
That's understandable, but the problem is still not brutality in itself, it's excess, unnecessary brutality against people who were a, not a threat to the communist hegemony and b, were also among the poorest of Russia.
And if that's what is needed in order to a socialist revolution to succeed (i don't think so and reading Lenin hasn't convinced me that there's only one way) it spells really bleak for any first world country where anticommunism is rampant.
Yes by the central committee
This cartoonish display that reds hunger for power needs to go in the bin.
The display is not that reds hunger for power and i'm not basing my arguments on Chomsky, so this flew right by me.
The display is that the poor are in every country of the world the biggest pool of power. And if they get in the wrong hands and there's a state apparatus they can get ahold of you'll get Mussolini, you'll get Hitler you'll get Trump or you'll get Orbán. There are two ways to counter that, you try to hijack the state and if you succeed there's almost always a civil war brewing or you build a bottom-up movement that won't go away even if the people "finding the revolutionary way for them" are gone. Much like it's happening in Bolivia for example.
Glad we agree comrade
Harassing and locking up and torturing people for voicing their opininon though...
I mean as I stated...Anarchists in Catalonia straight up executed suspected fascists. Instead of imprisoning them and finding out the facts Anarchists aversion to prisons led them to....
Lining up people merely suspected of being fascists.
I gotta tell you...I think shooting people merely for being suspected fascists is pretty more authoritarian than "harassing, locking up" or even "torturing" people
lol i'm mostly with you but the quotes around "torturing" give off weird dick cheney vibes
"There had been a long-running debate in anarchist circles about whether fighting capitalism as a system necessitated attacking specific individuals in power, apart from situations of self-defense. The fact that those in power, when shown mercy, turned right around and gave names to the firing squads to punish the rebels and discourage future uprisings underscored the argument that elites are not just innocently playing a role within an impersonal system, but that they specifically involve themselves in waging war against the oppressed. Thus, the killings carried out by the Spanish anarchists and peasants were not signs of an authoritarianism inherent in revolutionary struggle so much as an intentional strategy within a dangerous conflict. The contemporaneous behavior of the Stalinists, who established a secret police force to torture and execute their erstwhile comrades, demonstrates how low people can sink when they think they’re fighting for a just cause; but the contrasting example offered by anarchists and other socialists proves that such behavior is not inevitable.
A demonstration of the absence of authoritarianism among the anarchists can be seen in the fact that those same peasants who liberated themselves violently did not force individualistic peasants to collectivize their lands along with the rest of the community. In most of the villages surveyed in anarchist areas, collectives and individual holdings existed side by side. In the worst scenario, where an anti-collective peasant held territory dividing peasants who did want to join their lands, the majority sometimes asked the individualist peasant to trade his land for land elsewhere, so the other peasants could pool their efforts to form a collective. In one documented example, the collectivizing peasants offered the individual landholder land of better quality in order to ensure a consensual resolution.
In the cities and within the structures of the CNT, the anarchist labor union with over a million members, the situation was more complicated. After defense groups prepared by the CNT and FAI (the Iberian Anarchist Federation) defeated the fascist uprising in Catalunya and seized weapons from the armory, the CNT rank and file spontaneously organized factory councils, neighborhood assemblies, and other organizations capable of coordinating economic life; what’s more, they did so in a nonpartisan way, working with other workers of all political persuasions. Even though the anarchists were the strongest force in Catalunya, they demonstrated little desire to repress other groups — in stark contrast to the Communist Party, the Trotskyists, and the Catalan nationalists. The problem came from the CNT delegates. The union had failed to structure itself in a way that prevented its becoming institutionalized. Delegates to the Regional and National Committees could not be recalled if they failed to perform as desired, there was no custom to prevent the same people from maintaining constant positions on these higher committees, and negotiations or decisions made by higher committees did not always have to be ratified by the entire membership. Furthermore, principled anarchist militants consistently refused the top positions in the Confederation, while intellectuals focused on abstract theories and economic planning gravitated to these central committees. Thus, at the time of the revolution in July, 1936, the CNT had an established leadership, and this leadership was isolated from the actual movement.
Anarchists such as Stuart Christie and veterans of the libertarian youth group that went on to participate in the guerrilla struggle against the fascists during the following decades have argued that these dynamics separated the de facto leadership of the CNT from the rank and file, and brought them closer to the professional politicians. Thus, in Catalunya, when they were invited to participate in an antifascist Popular Front along with the authoritarian socialist and republican parties, they obliged. To them, this was a gesture of pluralism and solidarity, as well as a means of self-defense against the threat posed by fascism.
Their estrangement from the base prevented them from realizing that the power was no longer in the government buildings; it was already in the street and wherever workers were spontaneously taking over their factories. Ignorant of this, they actually impeded social revolution, discouraging the armed masses from pursuing the full realization of anarchist communism for fear of upsetting their new allies.[99] In any case, anarchists in this period faced extremely difficult decisions. The representatives were caught between advancing fascism and treacherous allies, while those in the streets had to choose between accepting the dubious decisions of a self-appointed leadership or splitting the movement by being overly critical.
But despite the sudden power gained by the CNT — they were the dominant organized political force in Catalunya and a major force in other provinces — both the leadership and the base acted in a cooperative rather than a power-hungry manner. For example, in the antifascist committees proposed by the Catalan government, they allowed themselves to be put on an equal footing with the comparatively weak socialist labor union and the Catalan nationalist party. One of the chief reasons the CNT leadership gave for collaborating with the authoritarian parties was that abolishing the government in Catalunya would be tantamount to imposing an anarchist dictatorship. But their assumption that getting rid of the government — or, more accurately, allowing a spontaneous popular movement to do so — meant replacing it with the CNT showed their own blinding self-importance. They failed to grasp that the working class was developing new organizational forms, such as factory councils, that might flourish best by transcending pre-existing institutions — whether the CNT or the government — rather than being absorbed into them. The CNT leadership “failed to realise how powerful the popular movement was and that their role as union spokesmen was now inimical to the course of the revolution.”[100]
Rather than painting a rosy picture of history, we should recognize that these examples show that navigating the tension between effectiveness and authoritarianism is not easy, but it is possible."
So at what point has any existing socialist state passed the era of "dangerous conflict"? Can you point to me at which year or period the USSR/Cuba/DPRK/Vietnam/China should've laid down their arms whilst US was arming for a nuclear war against Soviet Union then a cold war and supporting fascist governments all over Latin America, Indonesia, Africa etc.
At what point should those nations have passed from the "pure" and "acceptable" revolutionary violence that this anarchist writer approves of and differentiates from say DPRK who have been at war with the collaborationist dogs of South Korea and US for 70 years. Every year US and South Korea practice invading them every year in military drills but what year should they lay down the dictatorship of the proletariat and press the "classless/stateless button"?
Or the Soviet Union that was immediately invaded in 1918 by the 14 most powerful capitalist countries then blockaded for the next 2 decades during the rise of fascism and world war 2? Then cold war, Korea war, Vietnam war, fascists all over S.America then funding of Jihadis in Afghanistan in 80s.. Nicaragua?
Lmao this guy does paint a rosey picture of Anarchists in Catalonia. Let's have another perspective
So if you disagreed with anarchists you were thrown into a work camp for your opinion.
And from the mouth of Garcia Oliver, Anarcho-syndaclist justice of minister
(ibid)
That shit sounds like Lenin or Stalin (and is rad). Enemies of the revolution need to be torn out by their roots and rehabilitated through work until the Proletarian State has consolidated itself strongly enough and ideologically enough to take criticism in a way that China now can and even Cuba can
Alright lets see if that's true
-Anthony Beevor, The Spanish Civil War, p.132
As to the
Yeah screaming about tearing out the weeds of society, throwing loads of people into concentration camps and "getting on with the shooting" of people suspected of fascism because of your aversion to prisons is definitely not power hungry
The moment is when they are out of direct conflict of capitalist powers, but it's not about pressing the stateless button, it's about stopping hammering the "using the state to purge people over whatever real or perceived differences" button.
The USSR was in direct conflict with the whites after they got out of WWI and the whites came in twice and were beaten out with the help of absolutely no one. After that the next direct conflict was WWII, between the two there was no situation that demanded the level of repression that was used apart from of course, ideological purges that were of course going on simultaneously with the civil war too, but yeah, who cares about that.
Cuba's president is not actively tried to be murdered for a few decades, so there's no direct conflict there and there is no direct conflict between capitalists and Vietnam as well. There are embargoes that are effectively dealt with... on the ground level for example the permacultural food production in Havana. "Surprisingly" these states aren't even that criticised by anarchists (and i have nothing against them as well), which is definitely not because of the lack of ideological purges.
DPRK is in semi-direct conflict with South Korea and the US but news coming out of there are scarce and either coming from NYT or the state, so i'm not gonna form an opinion on them and i never have done so.
China is not in direct conflict with capitalist countries either but the economic warfare is hard on them. Despite that there are reports of them harrassing Marxist groups and even some MLs acknowledge that there might be better ways to handle the Uyghur situation. So they're def worse in that regard than Cuba or Vietnam, but not as bad as the USSR was at first.
Now about Catalonia
That isn't even the conclusion of the work you cited. You're really trying hard to ignore the fact that the CNT leadership didn't have direct control over the movement, especially over it's main constituents, the rural areas. The passage i quoted was a critique of that leadership, so trying to counter that with what the leadership said is ummm.... curious.
But to have the full story, here's another quote from Seidman's book:
"Garc¡a Oliver's reforming zeal extended to the penal code and the prison system. Torture was forbidden and replaced by work: normal labor with weekly monetary bonuses and a day off per week when the prisoner's conduct merits it. If this is not enough to motivate him, his good conduct will be measured by vouchers. Fifty-two of these vouchers will mean a year of good conduct and thus a year of liberty. These years can be added up . . . and thus a sentence of thirty years can be reduced to eight, nine, or ten years"
Also Augustin Soucy wrote this about the labor camps:
"There is a concentration camp at Valmuel, in Alcaniz Township, Teruel Province. The country is a desert. There is not a single tree for many kilometres around. A number of buildings have been erected at the foot of a hill. Dormitories, inspection rooms, stables... Everything was built by the prisoners with the assistance of the guards. The FAI directs this camp. It is not a prison. It is not maintained like a garrison. There is no forced labour. Nothing is enclosed and there is no limitation of movement. The prisoners move about freely. Their guards share their life with them. They live the same as the prisoners. They sleep on similar cots in the primitive rooms. They address each other informally, as equals. Prisoners and guards are comrades. Neither wears a uniform. They cannot be distinguished by their external appearance.
A young man is standing in front of one of the dormitories. I question him without knowing whether he is a prisoner or a guard.
"I am a prisoner. My name is Benedicto Valles. I belonged to the Accion Popular (Popular Action, a fascist party). That is why I was arrested."
"How long have you been here?"
"Three months."
He was not working. He was not feeling well.
"Did the doctor give you permission not to work today?"
"There is no doctor. The comrade guard gave me permission not to work."
"Can you receive visitors?"
"Yes. My fiance comes to see me every Sunday."
"Can you speak to her alone?"
"Of course. Then we go for a walk together, in the fields.
"Without a guard?"
"Without a guard."
All the prisoners are permitted to receive visits from their families every Sunday. They are given passes for the camp and surrounding fields. There is no sexual torture that so many prisoners experience in other countries. This is an achievement not to be found anywhere else in the world. The anarchists of the FAI are the first to introduce this humane reform.
Why are there still concentration camps? Because the war against fascism is not yet over. The anarchists must protect themselves against the fascists.
There are chickens, pigs and rabbits in the barns. Cattle is to be seen in the fields. There is one scarcity: water. This vital liquid is not to be found in the entire area. It must be brought in by tank carts. Scarcity of water is a great problem here as in other parts of Spain. The soil must be irrigated. Prisoners and guards do this work. One hundred and eighty prisoners (180) work alongside one hundred and twenty-five workers (125) of the collective of Alcaniz to install irrigation. The work is the same for the free workers as for the prisoners. Fascists and antifascists work nine hours a day. They work for the fertility of the soil, to bring new life to the country. The canal must be finished in two years. The Municipal Council in Alcaniz has taken charge of the work. There is no support from the State or the provincial authorities. The work is being done without engineers. A young peasant who knows how to calculate what must be done to create a self flowing canal directs the work. The water must come from the Guadalope River. Some potato fields are already being irrigated.
This work was initiated by the CNT and the FAI in Alcaniz. Fascists and anti-fascists are working together for the cultivation of the Aragon desert.
There are concentration camps in the fascist countries, Italy and Germany. In the Hitler camp at Oranienberg, the spiritual German poet, Muehsam, was assassinated after being tortured and martyred for more than a year. Dozens of known political figures and people who love liberty languish in the concentration camps of national socialism. The democracies, faced with the alternative of choosing national socialism and fascism or anarchism, choose the first. They ought to visit the concentration camp in Germany, and then the FAI camp at Valmuel. There: barbarism; here: fighters for liberty."
Sounds just as inhumane as the bombing of Kronstadt.
People got into labor camps if they were funneling money to the fascists, if they were caught after a battle with fascists, etc. Not for their opinion and definitely not in size comparable to the USSR.
They still acted out of self defense and not out of an act of power grab.
At literally no point in their history were they free from conflict with captialist powers or the class struggle as it intensified as socialism was constructed
This is pure idealism. It is masturbation. If this were true then the 20th century would've provided in material reality (and not the pure socialism in our minds) a revolutionary theory capable of defending its revolution from the counter attack which is sure to come from within and without.
I say "any relaxation of the dictatorship of the proletariat ends with the French communards against the wall." And your response is that the state should be fine to relax the DOTP despite there being zero instances of a successful anarchist revolution of the 20th Century.
It is telling that anarchism in practice (and that's all I care aboue. The anarchism that has actually existed) has not changed since Marxs The Bakuninists At Work
-Marx, The Bakuninists at Work
Wow comrade. So who killed Kirov and Maxim Gorky? Why was Tukhachevsky conspiring with the Germans? What was the famine of 1921 then the famine of 1933 which seriously de-stabilised the regime?
It's ironic that I say the exact same thing about the Soviet leadership throughout its entire leadership. They were often relying on regional leaders or party members eager to please and the leadership acted more like a fire department responding to fires than a monolithic overseer anticommunists portray them as
Only cos the revolution failed. The USSR was never even that bad. Even during the Ezhovschina the USSR imprisoned less people per capita than USA.
This is cartoonish anticommunist propaganda. It is never explained by State dept Anarchists like Chomsky how the reds sought to "hunger for power" by siding with the weakest, most vulnerable and poorest sections of society in country after country often at great costs to themselves.
I assume you are leaving the "direct" part out deliberately, because that's what makes the difference.
"This is pure idealism. It is masturbation. If this were true then the 20th century would’ve provided in material reality (and not the pure socialism in our minds) a revolutionary theory capable of defending its revolution from the counter attack which is sure to come from within and without.
I say “any relaxation of the dictatorship of the proletariat ends with the French communards against the wall.” And your response is that the state should be fine to relax the DOTP despite there being zero instances of a successful anarchist revolution of the 20th Century.
Doesn't the relaxation of the DOTP in Cuba or Vietnam and their consequent survival prove that the relaxation doesn't end with the communards against the wall? Because it looks like it doesn't to me.
"It is telling that anarchism in practice (and that’s all I care aboue. The anarchism that has actually existed) has not changed since Marxs The Bakuninists At Work
As soon as they were faced with a serious revolutionary situation, the Bakuninists had to throw the whole of their old programme overboard. First they sacrificed their doctrine of absolute abstention from political, and especially electoral, activities. Then anarchy, the abolition of the State, shared the same fate. Instead of abolishing the State they tried, on the contrary, to set up a number of new, small states. They then dropped the principle that the workers must not take part in any revolution that did not have as its aim the immediate and complete emancipation of the proletariat, and they themselves took part in a movement that was notoriously bourgeois. Finally they went against the dogma they had only just proclaimed – that the establishment of a revolutionary government is but another fraud another betrayal of the working class – for they sat quite comfortably in the juntas of the various towns, and moreover almost everywhere as an impotent minority outvoted and politically exploited by the bourgeoisie."
I'm astonished that you think this is true to any anarchist project ever, but you do you.
"It’s ironic that I say the exact same thing about the Soviet leadership throughout its entire leadership. They were often relying on regional leaders or party members eager to please and the leadership acted more like a fire department responding to fires than a monolithic overseer anticommunists portray them as"
Okay so then how come that when the soviets started electing Menshevik or leftcom reps they just pretended the elections didn't count and put party members in their place? Like okay, we're defending a revolution ova'here but clearly they had more leverage through the party over local councils than the CNT had over the rank and file.
"Only cos the revolution failed. The USSR was never even that bad. Even during the Ezhovschina the USSR imprisoned less people per capita than USA."
We're not comparing the US to the USSR. We're comparing Catalonia to the USSR.
"This is cartoonish anticommunist propaganda. It is never explained by State dept Anarchists like Chomsky how the reds sought to “hunger for power” by siding with the weakest, most vulnerable and poorest sections of society in country after country often at great costs to themselves."
Was Lenin at any point recallable during his tenure?
Comrade Cuba and Vietnam did not relax their Dotp. Its form changed over time (as it would be expected) as socialist ideology became hegemonic. Further would you have been one of those whining about the human rights of executed mafioso and US collaborators when the Cubans were shooting dissenters in the 70s when their dotp was neither hegemonic nor consolidated?
Cuba has an intelligence agency that has been running rings around US intelligence particularly since 19. The dotp consolidated and strengthened itself in the form of State power to the point they can laugh at the turncoats and and cia paid traitors that wave banners saying "down with socialism!" Whenever a US delegate visits. In the 60s or 70s those people would probably be in a basement with a bag on their head.
But Cuba has ideoligcal hegemony and support for the proletarian state and Cuban intelligence good enough to leak their finances linking them to Cia. The population laughs and understands they're traitors etc.
Dictatorships of the bourgeoisie can allow a relatively high amount of individual freedom and freedom of expression - because you or me in the town square screaming about overthrowing capitalism does not threaten the bourgeois State
However if you become effective like Malcolm X or Fred Hampton they'll execute you in a no knock raid. California still has a law not allowing communists to run for election etc.
Further as heroic as the Cuban and Vietnamese struggles were they largely were helped by the fact the nationalists expressed their nationalism through the communists in the struggle for national liberation. They were also not put through the trial of two world wars. The nationalists/white guardists/embittered kulaks/monarchists and conservatives in Russia expressed their nationalism as a fight against Bolshevism which inevitably led to them collaborating with Nazis in ww2.
The vietnamese did not have to deal with entire regions of the Soviet union who were susceptible to nazi ideology as the entirety of Eastern europe and some russians were
The dotp of Russia was, by the historical and material conditions of the period from 1917-1945, by necessity much more brutal than Cuba and Vietnam.
Theres not much to compare and its better to compare two superpowers than one city in Spain. Catalonia was a disaster. The end result of catalonia was socialists, communists, trotskyites and anarchists seeking refugee status in France while a 4 decade long fascist dictatorship ruled in Spain
Yes by the central committee
This cartoonish display that reds hunger for power needs to go in the bin.
The biggest purveyor of this is Chomsky. Now Lenin was a brilliant figure and one of the smartest people in Russia. If power was all he wanted why would he find a revolutionary path for the poorest in Russia which ended with him being shot by an anarchist followed by a stroke
If Lenin just wanted power he could've occupied an academic position (like Chomsky) then advocated change but not too much. Sought a position in the Tsars government advocating for bourgeois parliamentary democracy
He'd have been a Prime Minister of Russia no problem. He'd have got power without the difficulty of revolution, being shot or the difficulty of going into hiding from the Tsarist police
He could have sat in some academic tower like Chomsky did and grew to a ripe old age
Uhm, i think we're thinking about the same thing.
No. But i think that was clear until now too.
That's great news, so the anarchists who were chased away from Cuba can go back and the ones currently imprisoned can be released, as they're not a threat to the state, right?
That's understandable, but the problem is still not brutality in itself, it's excess, unnecessary brutality against people who were a, not a threat to the communist hegemony and b, were also among the poorest of Russia.
And if that's what is needed in order to a socialist revolution to succeed (i don't think so and reading Lenin hasn't convinced me that there's only one way) it spells really bleak for any first world country where anticommunism is rampant.
The display is not that reds hunger for power and i'm not basing my arguments on Chomsky, so this flew right by me.
The display is that the poor are in every country of the world the biggest pool of power. And if they get in the wrong hands and there's a state apparatus they can get ahold of you'll get Mussolini, you'll get Hitler you'll get Trump or you'll get Orbán. There are two ways to counter that, you try to hijack the state and if you succeed there's almost always a civil war brewing or you build a bottom-up movement that won't go away even if the people "finding the revolutionary way for them" are gone. Much like it's happening in Bolivia for example.
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https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-anarchy-works
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