This is mostly a serious question. Also, not for the tankies/MLs. I already know what your answer to that question is. I may not always agree with you on everything, but you do have an answer that if the conditions became right, could actually work.
No, this is for the type of anarchist completely against the wall, gulags, seemingly any amount of getting hands dirty. What is the solution to those types of people? There are so many of them in the US, a lot of which are heavily armed, that they could easily topple a socialist system, and even if they didn't do that, their existence would be incompatible with any marginalized group living their lives, since they love to harass them at best, outright murder them at worse. So what's the solution? Anarchists often seem to avoid this, seemingly believing that if there was a socialist or communist society, they would just say "aw shucks, guess I was wrong about that. Guess I'll no longer be racist or xenophobic!"
So am I missing something, what's the answer?
Quelling counterrevolution is vague so you think it lines with anarchist principles. In reality it means expropriating uncooperative farmers and small businesses. It means having a hierarchically organized military force strong enough to protect yourself. It means having to use force to enforce the rule of law. It means having a counterintelligence force(secret police) which is essential in the 21st century.
Like tell me in practical terms, how will anarchists deal with tens of millions of right wingers who want to destroy your revolution.
I think that this debate would be more useful in the context of an actual revolution, since the anarchist vs Leninist argument is a practical argument, not a matter of philosophical difference. I just asked these questions because I want anarchists to think more about the practical problems involved in revolution, and I think that most of their solutions would be compatible with Leninist ones.
Oops, accidentally deleted my effortpost.
If you deleted it from the site, you can undelete them by pressing the trash can again
I’m not an an anarchist but I challenge the premise of the question, I think it’s pretty clear there have been plenty of anarchist groups throughout history “willing to get their hands dirty”. Anarchists aren’t hippies lol.
So now the question becomes, why is it OK for anarchists to use authoritarian methods to deal with reactionaries? Why was it OK for the Catalonian anarchists to execute priests, implement discipline in the factories etc? I don't disagree with what the Catalonian anarchists did, but it strikes strange that no one sees it as example of authoritarianism. Whenever anarchists were in messy situations, they used violence and subjugation as much as MLs do.
look, clearly what needs to happen is we just all use black flags and everything is good and ok
Ehh, I’m kinda partial to the “our flag is red for the blood of our martyred comrades” thing
"authoritarianism" isnt a real thing to begin with, thats where your question fails
Well, actually that's the point of my question. I wanted to show anarchists that authoritarianism implies some kind of moral judgement where some actions are authoritarian and some aren't. And since morals are inherently subjective, that means authoritarianism itself is a subjective term.
As it is already been said in this thread self defence is not authoritarian
The anti clerical violence in anarchistic Catalonia for example is not generally considered authoritarian because they were spontaneous acts undertaken on the agency of the perpetrators rather than being systematically carried out by a hierarchical organisation like with comparable ML 'terrors'
As it is already been said in this thread self defence is not authoritarian.
Glad you agree that the gulaging of kulaks or the extermination of landlords is not authoritarian.
anti clerical violence in anarchistic Catalonia for example is not generally considered authoritarian because they were spontaneous acts undertaken on the agency of the perpetrators rather than being systematically carried out by a hierarchical organisation
So your violence is good because its done in a supposedly spontaneous manner, but violence by MLs is bad because it is more organized? Murdering people without a trial, without following any pre-defined rules(a.k.a no rule of law) is not authoritarian. But executing people after a trial, in accordance with rule of law is authoritarian?
I think you're reading a few things into my comment that aren't there
'Glad you agree that the gulaging of kulaks or the extermination of landlords is not authoritarian' is quite a jump from what I said(make some pedantic argument about what constitutes self defence if you wish but I was clearly referring to immediate physical danger)
I didn't say 'my' violence was 'good', I explained why people don't consider the anti clerical violence authoritarian, as you asked
Who makes said rules? Who carries out the trial? Are they members of a hierarchical state with more power than the individual on trial? If so imo that is authoritarian
The kulaks posed immediate physical danger of starving the Soviet people from their lack of cooperation. The landlords were actively suppressing the peasants.
Who makes said rules?
The rules come from the constitution voted upon by the people.
Who carries out the trial? Are they members of a hierarchical state with more power than the individual on trial? If so imo that is authoritarian
Tell me how would an anarchist society enforce laws then? And how would an anarchist society ensure every individual would have equal power?
The rules come from the constitution voted upon by the people.
When? Which people? Who wrote it? Who carried out this election? Who decided the ballot?
Tell me how would an anarchist society enforce laws then? And how would an anarchist society ensure every individual would have equal power?
Free association and self defence, same as an end stage communist society
Anarchism(a philosophy that holds hierarchies to be undesirable) and anarchy (a society without hierarchies) are separate concepts, an anarchist society would have to be continually vigilant in identifying and abolishing hierarchy(ensuring each individual has equal power)
In USA anarchists are rebranded hippies. In Global South anarchists are usually pretty cool.
That's because in the us the only people claiming to be anarchists after the fall of the IWW were counter cultural people like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Ruben, then later primitivists like Zerzen. It was only really in the past 30 years that class struggle anarchism has come back significantly.
That said, I think this website tends to have a narrow view of who hippies were. They had a lot of names for themselves: flower children, beatniks, yippies, diggers, socialists, etc. The media painted them under a single brush; maybe a simple narrative has more propaganda value. You might say "SDS weren't hippies!" And you'd be right that they dont fit the category neatly, but newspapers at the time often referred to them as such.
If anarchists are rebrands hippies, it's only because hippies are rebranded anarchists.
It is pretty flawed to think about a solution to this with current conditions. We are nowhere near a revolutionary stage. If an Anachist revolution were to happen at some point, what would be done about reactionaries? If they wanted to impose their view on the by then majority of the people through force, they would meet violent resistance. That is in no way authoritarian. Shooting people that shoot at you is perfectly fine. But do you really think reactionary views could gain any support in an Anachist society through non violent means? I don't think a purge where we go around the streets with lists of names would be neccessary. Treat the chuds like the rest: Give them food, shelter and a job if possible, if they still turn violent, use violence. There is no system for them to usurp, no state to coup and it would be hard to persuade anyone about the evil immigrant or big conspiracies in a stateless and borderless society.
If a revolution were to occur, it would be a popular one. If its anachist in nature I would support Anachy, if the MLs are staging one I would support them. Both systems are better than the current one and the fall of the Soviet Union is, as tragic as it was, proof that socialist states can be dismantlt without a further violent uprising. That makes them far less authoritarian than a liberal democracy, even if the state does not wither by itself. But right now we are too far from either possibility for me to pick the most likely candidate to throw my full weight behind, both approaches have some merit in my eyes... Shit, does that make me a centrist?
Yeah, the levers of power need to be disassembled and until that point that can still be wielded by anytime with access. The biggest hurdle would be America's already existing multi-trillion dollar military that has more robust infrastructure than like 90% of the country. It still exists and still has commanders. Are they friendly to your revolution? Are they hostile? If they're friendly are they planning on disarming the troops? If they disarm the troops where does all that hardware/infrastructure go? How many of the troops are friendly and how many are going to funnel that hardware to militias? If that happens do you retool the sympathetic troops to counter? Or continue to not use state force?
Parenti Mix strikes again
There are flows of power behind the levers of power.
A trillion-dollar military cannot exist without taxation. Any breakdown in tax revenue, or any other part of its logistics, will result in it shrinking. You don't need to face the armed forces in open conflict, the same way you don't need to shoot down a plane to bring it down to earth, if it doesn't refuel it's going to have to land.
So your plan is to do revolution by having everyone stop paying taxes? Or are you just talking about a symmetrical warfare? Like destroying the means of collecting taxes or just destroying the armament factories directly? Getting that level of popular support would be amazing.
Asymmetrical warfare (really, "symmetrical warfare" has been the exception throughout human existence) is a large part of it. I'm not saying "refusing to pay your taxes is a revolutionary act" as much as "a country at war with itself will have a constantly diminishing tax base, and its military will be increasingly strained".
Most centralized party proponents have this constant retracing of 1917-1922. Things aren't going to be like that; we have blurred class relations, GPS in everyone's pocket, extensive consumer profiles just one polite request from government hands, drones that can kill without a trace, and MoP that are a day's truck drive away from consumers.
In the context of a breakdown of the state apparatus, it becomes less of a question of combat, and more of a question of survival. Militaries are not economies unto themselves; they must parasitize a national economy to exist. The polities (or persistent organizations) that survive a governmental collapse are going to be the ones that are the most efficient, and the ones that have less weakness in their supply chain.
With every lapse in order, it becomes harder to bring back the capitalist world order. The communal, non-commodified order has been lurking beneath the surface, and it will flourish again if it is given space to.
I'm not saying I have an answer for "what starts all the dominoes falling". I just think the situation won't necessarily be so confrontational and dire as MLs typically imagine.
The collapse of capitalism is inevitable, it's a wholly unsustainable mode of production. I guess the options become a reversion to some sort of less centralized feudal system or organized resistance to the preservation of that status quo on a smaller scale and the eventual development of socialism. The military will play a big role in the initial footing we have during that struggle, but you're right about it not having sticking power once conflict disrupts its tendrilous supply chains.
I just thought of a better, more concise way to express it.
MLs are constantly asking "how are you going to supply tank divisions when the White Army invades".
This is my counter: how does the neo-White Army re-establish control? How do they keep from getting bogged down in a costly and marginally beneficial guerrilla war? I don't need to defeat them, I just have make it prohibitively expensive to subjugate my area.
The reactionaries sustain their power by exploiting others. Liberate yourself (whether from debt, from housing and food insecurity, or from literal confinement), and then help others liberate themselves. That's the entire strategy, in brief. Self-sufficient populations won't take up arms in aggression against you, or your collective or your union or your co-op or your party or your commune.
Depends on the type of revolution. A syndicalist one would have new systems in place that take over completely indipendant of the old state. It would be increadibly hard to overtake democratic workers unions, especially without state support to crush their resistance. That approach requires strong unions though.
A more classical Ancom revolution spawns from a very chaotic situation were a lot of shit is happening really fast. A military response to it is much more likely in the early days and then (if it does not fully succeed) when the reaction kicks in. Still, people are reluctant to shoot their own. An anachist revolution in a third world country with American presence would be violently crushed by the US they barely hesitate when it comes to shooting their own as is.
The beauty of the Anachist approach is, that liberal democracies can not eadily justify a military intervention. They happen too fast for the maufacturing of consent to keep up and reframe it. And the Amerikkkans are good at organising coups, but you can not coup anachism.
non-revolutionary anarchists are libs, and anyone who thinks you can have a pacifist revolution is fooling themselves.
am anarchist
So you just kill all the reactionaries in one go? Or does the revolution continue on for many years to come... some kind of... revolutionary organization!
anarchists aren't against organization; they're against hierarchical systems.
Putting people in gulags and executing reactionaries sounds pretty hierarchical bruh
gulags sure, but executing reactionaries isn't that hierarchical.
lmao i mean sure i guess if the person is dead there cant be a hierarchy
i'm here to abolish hierarchy
cocks gun
you see, this situation is hierarchical now because of the gun, here's how we resolve it...
This tension has always been in anarchism. Bakunin wanted an "invisible dictatorship" that directed the masses to revolt.
Malatesta's "anarchism and violence" is a good place to start if you're curious about what anarchists who've seriously addressed this question have to say about it.
Ok. Not an Anarchist but feel the need to defend the Anarchist toolkit.
Anarchists aren't against Hierarchy, they're against unjustified, un-democratic, un-provisional Heirachy.
Temporary, democratically supported commanders in combat situations are absolutely justified and have been proven effective in combat over 100s of years.
In other situations the same applies, anarchists are happy for collaborative workplace discipline and administative control, but not at the expense of free association or democratic control .
In many ways anarchist methods are different from ML by degree and how provisional the control is, that's all.
Well actually I wanted practical answers to those questions, not general answers. I think you would find that virtually everyone in the world would be against unjustified hierarchy. The problem is that "unjustified" is based on moralism rather than materialism. We already live in a democracy, so anarchists should have no problem with our current political system. Also
Temporary, democratically supported commanders in combat situations are absolutely justified and have been proven effective in combat over 100s of years.
Can you give me some examples of such armies. Also, you still have commanders who exert their authority even if they are democratically elected. You get shot if you disobey your commander. Isn't that a coercive form of hierarchy?
In many ways anarchist methods are different from ML by degree and how provisional the control is, that’s all.
You need to explain what anarchist methods are in a very concrete way. Once you do so, you will find that in most cases, you will have to implement some form of authority, and most MLs would actually agree with your methods.
You get shot if you disobey your commander.
That's a bit of a reach. You get reprimanded and possibly dismissed if you disobey your commanding officer.
I know I told myself years ago I'd stop playing this infantile game of debating the best way for things to work in an idealized Revolutionary future... but I feel like the concept of "we shouldn't have a class of people who have permanent, structural, and total power over other classes of people" should not be controversial to any socialist. Ex.: You are elected to a military tactical command post; you are subject to recall by those you command; your authority does not extend outside of combat engagements, you are not particularly valued more than the doctor you go to see.
I'm not going to go into worldbuilding and paint it all out for you, there will inevitably be a wide variety of forms, some of which are more worth adhering to than others.
are we seriously gonna have this sectarian shitflinging fest again? like can we not?
Criticism is not sectarianism. Sectarianism applies in real life, where people and parties refuse to work with each other over petty differences even though they have the same main goal.
I just wanna have a discussion with anarchists because I was once an anarchist and I was asked these questions. I didn't have any answers.
idk if its sectarian, if they called you an anarkiddie or an idiot or something that would be sectarian, right
total bullshit that this reply got removed. overzealous mods are fucking lame. fucking isn't even mentioned in the modlog.
you know, i bet you there are dengist style anarchists out there. saying that we need to develop productive forces until hierarchy can be abolished :deng-smile:
Voluntary mutual defense organizations. Militaries and community defense groups do not need to be state-run.
I don't think community militias could have enough scale to effectively field tanks and aircraft. It require much more logistics than they could afford.
I agree that community militias probably can't (and arguable shouldn't) be able to field that kind of equipment. However, if community militias confederate with other community militias to form a unified military - which I think is feasible - that may be more possible.
Also, OP seemed to mostly be talking fascists and qultists, sort of small-scale reactionary threeper militia kind of folks. Armoured cavalry and drones would definitely help against those kinds of forces, but it doesn't seem to be necessary. A well-organized community defense force may be sufficient. The state forces backing the boomers up are another story, but I don't think that's what is at issue here.
A last thought, kind of unrelated to your point, but something that just struck me thinking about how to get the materials together to build tanks and planes. It's hard to think about products that are as enmeshed in the global capitalist system as military products. Building and operating a military machine requires tapping resource lines rooted in colonial power or other forms of exploitation. Tanks and guns need oil, metals, chemicals, and other materials that may not be available at all domestically or, if they are, only in qualities insufficient to support an army. The Glorious People's Army of the Soviet American States would likely be manufactured and maintained with the blood of oppressed peoples. That needs to be part of the discussion when leftists talk about militarization.
If revolution in USA is victorious than you would have half of the world trying to crush it, and I really doubt that capitalists inside would give up without a fight. You will really need strong army to survive. Bolsheviks tried initially to get by just with voluntary militias, and it failed catastrophically, because enemies have military education, military experience, pre-existing organisation, a lot of modern weapons, willingness to use them, and, most importantly, support from significant part of the population, and you could not win just by militias.
The main downside of militias is that they are extremely susceptible to particularism, when community defense group defend just their community, and that makes them vulnerable to defeat in detail. Plus, you would probably need draft in first years to be able to muster enough forces to survive.
US has pretty much whole range of needed resources, and that is your advantage.
If the conditions were in place to have a new american revolution, global capital would have collapsed to the point of impotence already. I mean the global economy headed by the US which keeps most of the world as either vassal or farm is weakening even now. We can't keep a Bolivian coup alive. Imagine the world when we h ave a revolution, most of the resource mine nations would have either been rebelling or are starting rebellion and even states like France and the UK would see themselves weakened by right or leftwing movements.
Well, after WW1 imperialist states were extremely weakened, and yet they managed to defeat revolutions in Europe and almost defeated Bolsheviks.
True but capital wasn't nearly as global as it is now. A current capital collapse would see the world imperial powers realize that relying on 1 countries military doesn't work when the country dies.
They would invade, because a socialist America is a grave threat to capital, and globalization will actually make them more unified than they were in 1918.
Agree with this, combined with mutual aid and de radicalization programs you can very effectively counter fascist organizing.
I hope this thread doesn't get taken down for sectarianism, because I genuinely have the same questions.
This definitely isn't sectarianism though, it's just a respectful question
eightmatebasedballkoolio isprobablyreading every comment right now just itching to remove something
misread qultists as quiltists and I was very confused about what was wrong with making quilts
you just split them up, put them in places where they wouldn’t have the tools/power to organize the forces of reaction, etc.
Looks like some old-fashioned gulags.
Who would be the one putting the reactionaries in these gulags? Who would be administering them?
🤔
I'll drive the bus and do maintenance on the housing units if you give the speeches, and we'll find a third person to be the guard. Deal?
Do you wanna build a gulag?
A man who will be dead any month now once said, with marked frustration, "The conventional army loses if it does not win; the guerrilla wins if he does not lose."
