File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9712, message 597


Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 12:28:25 -0800
From: DSU <jwalker-AT-fs1.li.man.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Rape & Punishment & Anarchy


Otto,

In rgard to your question -

Medin Otto wrote:
> A related topic:
> 
> I think I am right in assuming that you dislike the idea of
> Anarchy as much as I do - though perhaps not for exactly
> the same reasons - but what is it that makes it so
> appealing to so many other people who call themselves
> Marxists?

As a marxist who it very attracted to anarchism perhaps I could suggest 
why I find it appealing.

Clearly its radicalism and activism appeal to those who would prefer to 
act rather than to merely talk about it. But on the more political level 
it opposition to Opportunist political parties such as the British Labour 
Party and European Socialist Parties as well its syndicalist position in 
relation to Trade unions appeal to those who want to break from the dead 
hand of Opportunism and the Parties of the labour aristocracy.

The main point is that in a pre-revolutionary situation the aims and 
practice of Marxists & Anarchist are very similar - both want to actively 
bring about the over throw of the present economic and political 
organisation of the state. I know from work on prisons, anti-immigration 
campaigns and on the Poll Tax that it is was the anarchists who found 
campaigning the hardest and in the interests of the oppressed and the 
Marxists who were absent or only there to recruit.

It has to be remembered that one of the fist people to travel to Russia 
and personally to congratulate Lenin and the Bolshevics on their 
Great Revolution was the leading American Anarchist Emma Goldmann.

I do admit that in a post-revolutionary situation then their paths 
greatly diverge and they tend to be in direct opposition, but then so are 
some 'Marxists'. They are basically Liberals in the strict sense of the 
word rather than Socialists and so their political philosophy is also at 
odds. And perhaps that is why more middle-class or just utopian 
Marxist's (such as Alexander Kollontai & William Morris) are more 
attracted to the decent anarchist that to the rest of the Left when it 
come to active political work.

In the end though one has to choose between individualist dreaming of the 
ideal world (and a idea means to get there) and the hard political 
realities of politics.

regards

John Walker
Marxist-Leninist (with anarchist sympathies - tightly repressed)


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