Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:03:50 +0200
From: Ilan Shalif <gshalif-AT-netvision.net.il>
Subject: Re: AUT: (en) A call for anarchists and other left 


Hi People.

Peter van Heusden wrote:

> On Sat, 15 Jul 2000, Ilan Shalif wrote:
>
> > Salud comrades
> > The upsurge of left libertarian revolutionary ideas and activities
> > in the struggle against Globalization and Neoliberalism is drawing
> > to us strange "partners". They try to sneak into our e-mail lists
> > and organizational activities.
>
> Oh, come on. Lenin and Trotsky and Makhno and Kropotkin and and and ...
> have been dead for nearly twice the time that I've been alive.

Some of the anarchists in Castro jails are still alive.
And so is the libertarian revolution oriented people

> To now state, as some anarchists in London apparently did prior to
> May Day 2000, that Trotskyists should be expelled from discussions
> because "they'll shoot us like partridges" in a revolutionary situation is
> to ignore the fact that no one - not the anarchists, not the Trots, not
> the left-anarcho-situationist-post-syndicalist-revolutionary-collective,
> is anywhere near shooting anyone else.

Some people - like the elephants... have good memory and persistence.
The assessment that a revolutionary situation in the near future is
out of question put forward is more revealing the author tactics than
the future.

> (by the way, I started off my political life as a Green, and then migrated
> into a group whose politics were a democratised, less-dogmatic type of
> UK SWP Trotskyism, and now consider myself broadly to be a 'modern-style
> communist' who looks to the autonomous Marxist tradition for ideas, while
> realising we're just as unlikely to see another France '68 as we are to
> see a Russia '17 - just setting down the facts, so that I can classified
> and criticised by the book)

History never repeat it self... but improvisations are many.
The assessment of probabilities in conditions of high
uncertainty, is in the domains of gamblers, speculators... and
psychological projective tests.

> I don't have a problem with taking a position that some people shouldn't
> post to some mailing lists (e.g. recently the Anarchism-Africa people
> decided that the Australian Green Left Weekly updates shouldn't be posted
> to their list - which is fine, since GLW had nothing to do with
> Anarchism-Africa). On a list like aut-op-sy, which has damn little
> traffic, I'm not so worried, since I just delete posts I don't think are
> interesting.

Though I may be mistaken, but I got the impression that the list is
about left libertarian approach to some specific subjects.

I got the impression that Autonomous marxists, council communists
and other labels I used since 1967, are not significantly different
from libertarian communists who use other labels.

The discussion about the role of authoritarian vanguardists-elitists
of "the left" regarding the said subjects, seemed to me to be in this line.

> But looking suspiciously at "strange partners", and waving around the
> corpse of Nestor Makhno (and his comrades), is letting ideology rule
> supreme over common sense.

No. It called to recruit common sense in the effort to discern between
the Brown fascists, black fascists and red facists.


> I fully expect that many people with a
> background in Leninism and Trotskyism will start investigating autonomist
> ideas at the moment.

For sure. I my self was orthodox Leninist for a while.

> After all, Trotskyism is where many, many people
> started off in revolutionary politics

For sure many people start to get of the main stream by
drifting first to what is sensed by them to be on the left
but still within the same system.

I hesitated to regard the Lenino-Trots as the left wing
of capitalism (the populist brown fascists are not really on the
left wing of capitalism) as one of the list defined them.
However, I agree with him they are not really anti capitalists -
thus easier to follow for beginner rebels.

> (there are still no autonomist
> groups in South Africa, and only a handful of syndicalists, who are mostly
> centred in two cities - historically the wide range of Trotskyist groups
> - some of which used to have membership in the hundreds - have been much
> more visible).

Even Mao said that the left revolutionaries are always a minority
(even after the revolution).

> Many people with a Trotskyist background are investigating
> ideas outside of the Trotskyist stream of though - I know this because I
> am in contact with a number of such people.

Sure they are, but the left libertarian revolutionaries boycotting of
the Trotskist will contribute to opening their eyes more than
any thing.

One of the most important tasks of the left libertarian revolutionaries
is to help people discern between the left libertarian road and the
vanguardist-elitist authoritarian road.

Boycotting and criticizing and delegitimizing the Trotskists and their like is the best
tactic to use in order to achieve it.

> They might subscribe to Aut-Op-Sy. They might post. They might even still
> hold on to a lot of their Trotskyist heritage. (Hell, I'm not even sure
> which of my ideas come from where - if anyone here has a brain organised
> in the form of a political programme, I'd be very surprised) Hopefully the
> result of this will be discussion.

It seems the author is refusing to learn from history
so why bother ?

The reason is to open the discussion about the relevance
of Negri and other to this struggle.

> Frankly, I don't understand why you don't want this discussion to happen.

Will you stand in public with a known Nazi to discuss any thing?

If s/he phoned you or send you a letter about hir doubting hir
Nazism, the response may differ.
Ilan
EMAC (East Mediterranean Anarchist Collective in construction)
http://www.shalif.com/psychology/
http://www.shalif.com/anarchy/
Tel-Aviv 61132 ISRAEL (Occupied Palestain)




     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---