File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_1999/anarchy-list.9912, message 232


Date: Mon, 06 Dec 1999 12:38:24 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Anarchist bashing from a big Marxist


Forwarded from one of the Marxism lists. Is this Proyect guy in denial
or what?

BTW, all of you should be prepared for an influx of new faces and new
interest in your anarchist groups/projects. I've already seen a good
increase in new subscribers on my regional anarchist lists, especially
the one for the southern U.S.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Comrade Proyect on Anarchism
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1999 11:54:27 -0500


Lou's first post:

>Look, this discussion about anarchism has an awfully abstract quality. We
>are not talking about philosophy. We are talking about a movement that died
>long ago. The IWW was a great organization, whose anarcho-syndicalism was
>completely appropriate given the state of the working class movement at the
>turn of the century. It was raw, spontaneous and easily combustible. But it
>could not lead to long-term gains such as an industrial union because it
>was trying to combine two contradictory aspects, the need for economic
>defense and the need to transform society along socialist lines.
>
>When the Russian Revolution took place, the two tasks were separated.
>Organizing drives to build industrial unions were led by Communists and
>Trotskyists, many of whom, like SWP founder James P. Cannon, had been IWW
>leaders.
>
>There is no anarchist movement today. There are rather small circles of
>people in major cities who socialize and put out pamphlets and leaflets on
>an occasional basis. Most of them consist of aging radicals who never
>hooked up with a Marxist group in the 1960s. But, except for haphazard
>flings with squatters' fights, these small groups have never--I repeat,
>never--have been involved with the major class battles of the past 50
>years. The civil rights movement, the antiwar movement (both Vietnam and
>Central America), the fight to democratize the unions, the gay movement,
>the woman's movement have in nearly instance been led by organized Marxist
>groups or independent Marxists working with non-ideological progressives.
>
>What you have instead is a very broad tendency for young people new to
>radical politics to dub themselves "anarchists" because they are alienated
>by capitalism but who have never really thought in a systematic way about
>the cause of their alienation and how to bring it to an end. I used to run
>into them all the time at peace demonstrations selling my stupid Militant
>newspaper. "What's that?" "This is a socialist newspaper with excellent
>coverage of national and international struggles". "Naw, man. I'm an
>anarchist. All systems suck." This was usually from a 21 year old man in a
>tie-dyed t-shirt, sucking on a reefer. Five years later this "anarchist"
>would be at a law firm most likely.
>
>The more serious problem that anarchism poses today in this highly
>problematic anti-WTO type protests is that they don't seem interested in
>democratic decision making. It doesn't fucking matter what people in
>Greenpeace or Rainforest Action Network or a steelworkers local voted on at
>a coalition meeting. It doesn't matter that the greens and the labor
>movement have been raising funds, phonecalling and leafleting for a year
>straight. These anarchists make their own rules. If the majority doesn't
>approve, that's too bad. That's a big problem for a movement that aspires
>to change society, for without democratic decision making socialism is not
>possible.

(Lou's second posting on the topic, prompted by Doug's intervention)

>>Lots of the people in Seattle were anarchists, or sympathetic to
>>anarchism. Lots of squatters on the Lower East Side are anarchists.
>>Lots of young American radicals are anarchists of some sort or other.
>>There's nothing abstract about it. I think they're worth talking to.
>>The last thing they'll listen to is patronizing lectures from
>>"Marxists."
>>
>>Doug
>
>Let me repeat myself. Anarchists do not organize anything on a national
>scale. They never played a role in organizing the demonstrations against
>contra funding. There were no anarchist woman organizing protests for the
>right to a safe and legal abortion. There are no anarchists in the
>Teamsters for a Democratic Union leadership. There are no black anarchists
>to speak of. The Black Radical Congress is made up of Marxists or
>revolutionary black nationalists. I did point out that the anarchists were
>into squatters' and other local issues, but to transform American society,
>the socialist movement has to fight on many fronts, not just those that
>reverberate with one's personal agenda. Finally, the organized anarchist
>movement--as opposed to unaffiliated young people into a life-style--are
>hard core anticommunists. My experience on the Internet is that they are
>impossible to have a discussion with, much worse than libertarians. They
>have an enormous chip on their shoulder when it comes to Karl Marx. They
>have heavy investments in painting Marx as a racist, for example. Since the
>debate between anarchists and Marxists is nearly 150 years old, there is
>very little new information that can be summoned up to change each other's
>minds. I can only say that it is progress that anarchism has so little
>appeal in modern times. Now if "Marxism-Leninism" can also move to the
>sidelines as well, it would give us an opportunity to construct a genuine
>Marxist movement.
>
((ed. comment: 'genuine Marxist movement' = Proyectism))
>
>Louis Proyect
>
>(The Marxism mailing list: http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
>

   

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