Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 19:35:01 +0000
From: Iain McKay <iain.mckay-AT-zetnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: FAQ a post-left document?


hello all

Finally, some "evidence". Let's see if it stands up...

"Aragorn!" wrote:
> p.72 "The syndicalists clearly fell heir to some of the antistatism of
> the Italian anarchist tradition, but they were neither proindividualist
> nor antiauthoritarian... Panunzio, for example, longed for something
> more solid and structured than the simple, transitory groups of isolated
> indviduals which he found in the anarchist vision"

So the syndicalists were not "antiauthoritarian"? So they were 
"authoritarian" anarchists? I doubt it, given that Roberts also
states the "syndicalists genuinely desired -- and tried -- to work 
within the Marxist tradition." p. 79 

Opps. Looks like Aragon!'s "Italian anarcho-syndicalists" were not, in 
fact, anarcho-syndicalists at all...

> p 77 "For Italian syndicalism, the reverse would be true: the new
> morality would be the source of the proletariat's will to a new
> order...We have seen that the syndicalists from the beginning had wanted
> to transcend anarchist conceptions of revolution"

so they "transcend" anarchism, so that means there were *not*
anarchists.
Again, another quote which indicates there were not, in fact, anarchists
and so not anarcho-syndicalists.
 
> p 315 "Though heir to certain anarchist and populist perspectives, the
> syndacalists still had participated in the vogue of Marxism in Italy...
> In part, then,the left fascist revolt was a challenge to the dominant
> position in the tradition of leftist opposition to the bourgeois order
> which Marxism had managed to achieve.. In its quest for alternative
> solutions the left fascist current resurrected a number of Marx's
> apparently vanquished rivals--populist, "petty bourgeois" antiliberal
> leftists like Mazzinie, Proudhon, and Sismondi...Sorel and Bernstein."

which shows, yet again, that the so-called "Italian
anarcho-syndicalists" 
were, in fact, marxist-syndicalists.
 
Here are a few more quotes from Roberts:

"In Italy, the syndicalist doctrine was more clearly the product of 
a group of intellectuals, operating within the Socialist party and 
seeking an alternative to reformism."  p. 66

Anarchists in the Socialist Party? I doubt it. So our 
"anarcho-syndicalists" were not anarchists.

They "explicitly denounced anarchism" p. 72

And so were not, by definition, anarcho-syndicalists. Strange that 
Aragon! failed to quote that from p. 72!

The syndicalists "insisted on a variety of Marxist orthodoxy" p. 57

Pretty clear that Aragon!'s "anarcho-syndicalists" were, in fact,
not anarchists but, in fact, marxists.

Or how about this:

"The vast majority of the organised workers failed to respond to the
syndicalists' appeals and continued to oppose [Italian] intervention 
[in the First World War], shunning what seemed to be a futile capitalist 
war. The syndicalists failed to convince even a majority within the USI 
. . . the majority opted for the neutralism of Armando Borghi, leader 
of the anarchists within the USI. Schism followed as De Ambris led the
interventionist minority out of the confederation." p. 113

So Aragon! has just provided "evidence" that a few marxist-syndicalists
became fascists after failing to convince the majority in the USI to
support their position. The USI instead follow the anarchists and an
actual anarcho-syndicalist Borghi. Which, of course, is radically 
different from what he claimed in Anarchy.

Now, after showing that Aragon! has made a claim which is obviously
untrue from the source he has claimed to have read, perhaps we can
expect him to write a letter to Anarchy saying so? After all, the
source of his claim says the exact opposite of what Aragon! states
so I can only assume he will inform the readers of Anarchy his pretty 
serious mistake?

Also, Aragon! had not explained why anarchists believing "only" in 
"fact and science" caused a few Marxist-syndicalists to become
fascists. That should be an interesting a read...

Iain