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) --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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