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Am I the only anarchist that has read Marxist and Leninist theory? I'm an anarchist because of the abuse of power structures and "reforms" post revolution in my country (South Africa).
I'm an anarchist. I've read Marx and Lenin. I've even read some Mao and Stalin.
Both in argument, in practice, and in analyzing history I find anarchist ideas more compelling.
I am confused as to how people will be able to desolve the state under caputalism without first using the state to end capitalism.
The capitalists will just continue to be the state.
I agree that we should continuously exami e hierarchies and aboloshing them as they are unjust or no longer needed. But going straight from wgere we are into abolishing the state, won't keep the state away.
It's the same end goal, just different means to get there, and I do not see how we acheive that goal without a proletariat state.
What am I missing?
I mean ML projects can definitely work, I mean look at Burkina Faso and Thomas Sankara for example. My problem is who will be in charge of the state/ the party that is the dictatorship of the proletariat while using the state to end capitalism. If it's a party that has the values of or elects a leader like Thomas Sankara, Lenin or even Nelson Mandela then I think it can work. The problem is if the dictatorship of the proletariat is led by someone that's corrupt or irrational and they only get voted in "because there is no better alternative" I don't see it working. For example in my own country I don't trust that the EFF, the largest "leftist" party, to be able to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, even if they win an election or participate in a revolution, as their leadership is extremely corrupt and money hungry. And people vote for this leadership, so it's not as if they're tyrannical dictators of the party. I believe they would endlessly exploit their position in power if they were to get it.
Yeah it's all about the material conditions present at the current location and time for me. I've said in previous comments that I've voted and supported ML parties in the past, and will probably do so in future, but my general distrust for authority and personal experience with government corruption and incompetence is why I'm an AnCom personally
Literally almost non existent. The South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) are all aligned with the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), which has massively improved the lives of millions of people, is extremely corrupt and can be downright incompetent at times (2 ex presidents were some form of HIV/AIDS denialists). The National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA) tried to form their own ML party, which I voted for in the last election, but they got too little votes to be part of parliament. The largest "leftist" party would be the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which aim to be some form of ML party but their retoric approaches nazbol territory at times. They are the 3rd biggest political party in parliament. Also the EFF meet the definition of champagne socialists, their leader, Julius Malema, who apparently believes strongly in black liberation, lives in a mansion in a security estate and sends his black kids to an Afrikaans school "for the discipline". Also known for doxxing journalists he disagrees with and wearing a Bertling watch with his "workers overalls". The only good organisation seems to be Abahlali baseMjondolo which do actuall paraxis and are not lead by money hungry hipocractes http://abahlali.org/node/17029/
Do the SACP and COSATU have real influence? What’s their approach going forward?
No, not really. The ANC will sometimes appoint their leaders to positions, which led to the terrible irony of a SACP official who was the head of education at the time arguing against free university during the fees must fall protests. They may speak out sometimes, but they always cave to the will of the ANC eventually, especially considering the current leader of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa, was a CEO involved in the Marikana massacre of mineworkers.
So they aligned with the national bourgeoisie for national liberation, and now are stuck playing electoral politics with them.
What about the NUMSA? What’s their approach?
As I said NUMSA has split from them and has formed their own Marxist Leninist political party, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party. Unfortunately it was a massive failure because they have 0 seats in parliament on a national and provincial level (despite me voting for them :-( )
Specifically I used to call myself an ancom, but after being kicked out of the only group of anarchists i was in (which had anprims) I finally read my first theory. Best leftist decision I made.
I’ve never meet anprims in real life. I just thought it was a meme
Anti-civ is sort of like a more mature version of an-prim. I've found that most folks you might imagine as being an-prim are actually anti-civ. If you're interested in anti-civ theory, this theory list from the sidebar of c/anarchism has some decent introductory anti-civ writings.
I'd add Sever's essays, James Scott's Against the Grain, Network of Domination and My Mind Below This Beautiful Country to the anti civ list.
Also, wtf is braiding sweetgrass doing under nihilism? It's got a strong positive program. It should be replaced with Blessed is the Flame.
Nihilism isn't solely negative, especially nihilist-anarchism.
Ever heard of hardline SxE? Anprims been around for decades.
lmao there's 45 volumes of lenin's works on Marxists.org no way any of us have read "all of Lenin"
Convert me. I got into anarchism because I wanted a critique of power structures that was more broad than something that only focused on work and government. Principles I learned from reading anarchist literature taught me to be suspect of all power structures, authorities and hierarchies, even those that may be beneficial like you might find in communism. But with that said, left unity, etc. I'd still be proud to call you a comrade.
Anarchist ideas on the organization of society and power sturctures are valid, and would probably work if allowed to build themselves naturally. However, the problem comes in during implementation. Anarchism’s decentralized structure makes it ill-suited to defending itself against hostile state powers. The reality is that we will never be given the opportunity to build socialism without also having to defend it against organized, hostile foreign powers that seek to destroy it. This is the reason that anarchist socialist experiments on a nation-scale don’t last very long, and end up crumbling. There are other reasons, of course, but their capitalist encirclement makes it extremely difficult for them to survive without state power.
Marxism-Leninism understands that we’ll never be able to build socialism naturally without major disruption or intervention by foreign powers. The anarchist solution of “everybody will own guns and work together to fight off the invaders” falls apart quickly when faced with a highly organized capitalist army, and decentralization really doesn’t work in their favor (the famous military battle tactic of defeat in detail would be extremely effective against anarchist societies).
The truth is that as much as we don’t like the state, we need to use the state apparatus to oppress the bourgeoisie in order to achieve successful proletarian revolution. Once the bourgeoise is dissolved, there will no longer be a need for a state apparatus and it will begin to wither away. MLs don’t particularly like the state either, but it is a necessary evil until the powers that seek to harm the revolution no longer exist.
Lenin himself said “'While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State.”
A large amount of MLs were anarchists before their ideology evolved. Hell, I used to be an anarchist. Anarchist ideas are compelling, but they won’t be able to sustain a revolution into communism in the presence of existing capitalist powers.
welcome, comrade.
Engel's Socialism: Scientific and Utopian is a great next read after state and rev. The only problem with becoming a marxist-leninist is that the list of theory you want to read gets longer and longer, but your time is still finite
Ahh i gotta read that, I havent read theory in a few weeks. I've read:
- State and Revolution
- Mutual Aid
- Das Kapital Vol. 1
- Imperialism The Highest Stage of Capitalism
This is very common. Lenin is really easy to read and he's very sharp and succinct. I think I called myself an anarchist for awhile and then I actually read some theory, starting with Conquest of the Bread and I got kind of annoyed at the really saccharine, preachy tone. Then I read S&R and Lenin just laid it all out and it sounded really practical so I was like alright, damn I'm an ML. But then I read some more anarchist theory and actually read Marx and then I read a bunch of post-modern bullshit, had a Nick Land phase, and then I listened to La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura by Luigi Nono on acid. And now I'm just a pretentious asshole with anarcho-deleuzian-cottage-core-posadist tendencies.
Was a lib, then read The Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Scientific and Utopian, and State and Revolution. Now, I’m considering joining the PSL. Still keeping :iww: membership though. Gotta get through Capital Volume 1, What is to be Done, Dialectics of Nature, and then side reading of John Reed’s Ten Days that Shook the World and Smedley Butler’s War is Hell.
PSL does not allow dual carding as far as I know. I'd reexamine your beliefs or read more theory if you don't see the reason they've historically opposed each other. Also, skip dialectics of nature, it sucks.
David Harvey has a very nice "Reading Capital"class on his YT channel that's really helping me get through it.
Proudly admitting you don't read and then putting down a whole tendency is not exactly a good look. Although I agree with broadly calling ourselves Communists for a different reason.
I was a ML until I read more of Marx’s works and letters beyond the minimal recommendations of “oh lol hey mate just read The Manifesto, Wage Lab & Cap, and his work on the french revo, not Kapital, it’s too hard! Afterwards, move onto Lenin because LOL there’s nothing to or beyond Marxism than just those works” Nowadays any “M”L who recommends Lenin after those works will peeve me to no ends, crucial works like the 1844 manuscripts are ignored because of that reductive view of Marx as only those works, if you’re a disillusioned anarchist, I would recommend going deep into Marx and not just stay on the surface.
so you're recommending the 1844 manuscripts directly? or just recommending to read capital
I’m recommending to read a ton of Marx and not just go with little Marx and then move onto Lenin or someone else, that’s my entire point here, I think that if you don’t have a substantial foundation of Marx before going to others, you’re gonna miss alot.
I haven't read much yet so for now I refer to myself as a good boy
read all the books. read theory from other tendencies. odds are there’s deeper, more radical, and more practical places to go with theoretical study than the revelations you get from the first few. it’s all like that. read more and more (of course while you continue to do praxis)
while you read theory, please consider the historical era, culture of the people involved, and mistakes they made, and where systems failed and why, and where did the tendencies “revolutionaries” succeed and fail. have no heroes. remember that most of these people were still assholes irl. life before the Internet was full of dumb shit and bad ideas.
also, always keep in mind the reality that a lot of what you’re reading (considering most of it was written as propaganda let’s be real) has deep translation errors as it moves through time and space, but still is essentially correct
philosophy will help you get over a lot of liberalism if you still have it. what is violence? turns out a lot of things are violence. can we use violence? yes. getting to this unlocks different takes and your own willingness to read new theory.
history will take you to a lot of different places: what is the revolutionary history of Latin America? How did the Zapatistas do it, what were they like as people?
anyway
the point of reading theory isn’t to become narcissistic and quarrelsome with comrades for no good reason, the point of theory is to become a better informed theoretical leftist, and build up your confidence to the point where you’re willing to go and find irl comrades
also read cross-culturally: read Indian, Latin American, Middle Eastern, Asian and African and (and so on) and experiences of revolution and communism, as there definitely is a eurocentrism trap in the left that leads well-meaning posters to naive lib takes that will become painful memories as time goes on
edit: banned books are fucking cool. always rebel lol. also yes theory does in fact allow you to dunk on other comrades but you should be honest and upright when you do so because again there’s real people reading all of this
To add to that, reading theory gives you a responsibility in the sense that you now have the power and duty to explain and educate your comrades. To quote Sankara
“As revolutionaries, we don’t have the right to say we are tired of explaining. We must never stop explaining. We know that when the people understand, they cannot help but follow us."
And teaching is learning, and learning is teaching, in the sense that the pupil will force you to go past your blind spots, to consider new aspects of things, etc, so win win.
And furthermore, reading more theory gives you more leftist perspectives on various issues, which then allows you to shape your own beliefs instead of parroting whatever single book you happened to read and nothing else. It also allows you to be more flexible and practicable, instead of dogmatic and bullheaded, because you know there's more than one way to overthrow capitalism.
Did you read any anarchist writing? Lamdstreicher's Networks of Domination and Sever's Essays are good places to start.
If you want the sparknotes version, To Change Everything is quite good.
I read mutual aid by kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread ill probably read soon
