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Title: Liberation: An anarchist evaluation of the drive of Socialist revolutions
Author: Lavender Rose
Language: en
Topics: anarchism, anarcho-communism, revolution, authority
Source: Me

Lavender Rose

Liberation: An anarchist evaluation of the drive of Socialist

revolutions

Liberation.

In the grand scheme of things, throughout all of our history there has

been the struggle for the liberation of the working class and the fight

against authority and power. The problems we as socialists face, whether

you be authoritarian, libertarian, or anarchist, is getting distracted

by the minor differences in our ideologies. The marxists necessitate the

state, the leninists prioritize the vanguard party, and anarchists

advocate for total freedom. And as an anarchist I see the criticisms of

my ideology, I see and agree with some made to marxists and leninists,

however we all want the same thing, liberation. Socialists on every end

of the spectrum recognize the problem with capitalism and how we believe

it is the cause of the oppression we seek liberation from. Anarchists

believe the state is a tool of oppression used by the ruling class

against the ruled class. Communist anarchists like myself recognize how

the state is used by the capitalist class to oppress and exploit the

working people. We say that just how capitalism is designed to exploit

laborers the state is formed to aid in such exploitation as the state is

used for the control of the conditions of society, and that the two are

inseparable. The conditions of society form the interests of the average

citizen, and that the “human nature” oftentimes brought up to socialists

is simply a renaming of the interests forced by capitalism. To rely on

your employer due to his economic power over you, and for the end goal

to be to create profit for yourself, not to satisfy the needs of

society. And the reason this is the behavior we see in people under

capitalism is because your interest based on your surroundings outweigh

your nature in certain choices. There are more elaborated ideas written

by smarter men than me long before I was even born. What I am getting at

here is that the most natural thing for the average person is to be

liberated, to have freedom. And that all socialist ideologies agree that

we need to be liberated from capitalism and that the differences between

our ideologies are simply different actualizations of the common

aspiration for liberation. While I as an anarchist believe we need

liberation from the state and that I do my best to help others see my

points I recognize that we all fight for the same thing. The common goal

of the people is to be free. The people want liberation.

Now to make my point as to why we as anarchists seek liberation from the

state and authority, but how this should not be a point of fighting

among communists, let it be a recognized aspect of liberation, the thing

we are all seeking, the concept that drives revolution.

This is the perfect place for a transition, a transition into the

concept of authority. A large amount of Marxists and Leninists refer to

“On authority” by Engels, which as repetitive as it is to hear “read On

Authority” at any moment stating I am an anarchist, it is an important

reading to help you or I as anarchists to understand why these

authoritarians tend to shame the way we think. Engels implies that

anarchists cannot be real revolutionists if they think a revolution can

happen without being authoritarian, that “A revolution is certainly the

most authoritarian thing there is”. However this ignores the end goal of

a revolution, is not to gain authority, unless your goal is to be

authoritarian, but it is to gain liberty. To be liberated! By this fact

a revolution is driven by libertarion thought unless your goal is to

create authoritarianism. There is a reason these two concepts are

considered to be opposites, and that it’s because the end goal of an

authoritarian revolution is to gain the authority to be at the right end

of the stick to paraphrase Berkman, and that the goal of a libertarion

revolution is to liberate the revolutionists. Now I am not at all

implying that authoritarian socialists are not for the people rather

they are misguided in the steps to revolution and that their idea of the

end goal is skewed. In my opinion I believe that to no fault of their

own, like most citizens in capitalist societies, they have been

influenced by the interests forced by society. That this drive for

authority and the necessitation of it comes from the need for authority

in capitalist societies. The economic power, the political power, are

concepts bred into our thoughts through the interests of the

capitalists. Now I want to say that I see and understand the arguments

for the use of this tool to support the revolution but I believe, as an

abolitionist, that “the systems responsible for our oppression cannot be

the same systems responsible for our liberation”. A quote taken from

Derecka Purnell in her book “Becoming abolitionists”. There that word is

again. Liberation. We want freedom, we want liberty, and most

importantly we want justice, justice given to us by ourselves through

our means, not using the oppressors tactics against them. We cannot use

the master's tools because these tools are things we should be against

as anti-capitalists, exploitation, coercion, deceit, the revolution must

be driven by the people to achieve the peoples goal. Liberation.