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Title: My Disillusionment with Marxist-Leninism Author: GusselSprouts Date: August 2, 2013 Language: en Topics: authoritarian socialism, Leninism, Maoism, criticism and critique Source: Retrieved on 9th December 2021 from https://theexpropriationist.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/my-disillusionment-with-marxist-leninism/
I will start by clarifying I have never been a Leninist. I am happy to
say I am one of those Anarchists who has given the ideas and theories a
chance. I would say gratitude is even fair, as I feel I’ve picked up
useful tactical and theoretical insights all the way down the
ideological line from Lenin. So first, let me flatter my Leninist
comrades, by pointing out the concepts troublesome yet useful to
Anarchist theory:
From Lenin, primarily State and Revolution:
yet Bourgeois-State, should be accepted irrefutably by Anarchists. Lenin
gives a perfect outline of why American and First World global policy is
the way they it is today.
class oppresses the other” is actually very useful for Anarchists, who
lack good and widely-accepted definitions for “state”.
classes” is demonstrative and complimentary of Anarchist theory which
told us that the state is the result of the downfall of feudalism, and
the property theory which allowed us to see the institutions in constant
symbiotic relationships with the state. Anarchists have long known that
the only way to overthrow the state is through class struggle.
Much of the Marxist-Leninist critique of Anarchism rests firmly within
Lenin’s theories of Imperialism, the nature in which parliamentary
capitalist states carry out a policy to exert the totality of
capitalism. This leaves young socialist societies open to attack by
Imperialist Bourgeois states, both from within and outside. Anarchists
need to accept the need for an extended strategic social war if we are
to win, and we need to have our own answers to these very legitimate
questions posed by Marxist-Leninists. I could elaborate much, but I feel
the concepts are actually expressed in a manner more appealing to
Anarchists by Mao Zedong than that of Vladimir Lenin.
From Mao, primarily Quotations from Chairman Mao (known in the West
commonly as the “Little Red Book”) and also On Contradictions and On the
Correct handling of Contradictions Amongst the People:
of the platformist (organizationalist) praxis and those of the
insurrectionists (anti-organizationist) praxis. Ideological unity and
class-consciousness should precede any need for consensus. Consensus
should be pre-conceived amongst Anarchists, yet all too often we are
not. This level of organization will come under greatest demand during
our inevitable militarization (if you can even say that’s possibly for
Anarchists, historically it certainly is)
“revolutionary cadres”, once the political line is determined, is
crucial to Anarchist organization at a certain stage. However, this
concept can still be compatible with the decentralized insurrections
espoused by some Anarchists. It’s also is fairly compatible with
Anarchist platformist organizations, who seek and desire ideological
unity above all else. It is along these lines that I believe we can win.
Some speculate Mao may have been influenced by the techniques developed
by Chinese Anarchists. It would be more than prudent to employ this very
well developed form of attack complimented to both our insurrectionist
and syndicalist/platformist strategies.
materialist method is not just universally applicable to revolutionary
socialists, but to the entire field of philosophy, especially those that
claim any sort of Hegelian influence.
The parallels of Marxist-Leninism as developed by Mao, and that of
classical Anarchist Communism are honestly endless, and more
cross-studies are out there. Mao-spontex (or “spontaneous Maoism”) took
note of this, and developed a movement combining Anarchist and Maoist
traditions, in Western Europe in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, while
the Cultural Revolution was still underway in China. Mao’s unique social
warfare, regarding attack and agitation are, very similar to the
Anarchist praxis. Some of those who reject Mao, believe his ideological
deviations begin with his idealism. I would be lying if I didn’t believe
that idealism is one of the things that appeals to Anarchists. From
Mao’s policy in Revolutionary China, despite his persecution of
ultra-leftists (which includes Anarchists) during his time as Chairman
of the CPC. It can be almost assumed his idea of the state “withering
away” differed from Lenin and Engels, that the state (and all
oppression) must be agitated away, that was my understanding behind the
Cultural Revolution and Hundred Flowers Campaign, which demonstrated
Mao’s commitment to open agitation, criticism and forward development of
revolutionary culture.
It is of utmost importance, even given the occasional calls for
revolutionary left unity (which I will always answer), to acknowledge
and remember that the schism between Marxists and Anarchists runs deep.
I would dare to say that it doesn’t simply begin with the Anarchist
rejection of democratic centralism (as proposed by Lenin) or even the
analysis of the state. The schism lies in the development of dialectical
materialism in and of itself. I would say Anarchists (likely
unconsciously) have analysis similar to the more mystical sides of
Hegel. I don’t think there is anything wrong with this, obviously. I
believe Marx spent entirely too much effort to abandon things about
Marxism that in practice, were unavoidable. I think these issues were
actually realized by no one better than Mao, and his attempts to
reconcile them dialectically through the correct handling of
contradictions, paint quite an idealist and humanizing image to some
Anarchists.
Perhaps Marx was wrong in that Hegel’s Dialectics must be “turned on the
their head”, or perhaps the Anarchist position is better suited for a
dialectical materialist methodology closer to the that of Hegel’s
original (which I would be more prepared to defend). I am not a
dialectician and make no attempt to be such at this point, but I’ve
developed a deep appreciation for them at this point. Anarchists have
never had an affinity for the academy as Marxists have, but I definitely
will be behind any promotion that Anarchism should become more
scientific in our revolutionary praxis, without sacrificing the ideals
and principles at the core of Anarchist theory.
I am not calling for a dialectical “synthesis” of Anarchism and Marxism.
I believe that Anarchists should employ our own understanding of Hegel’s
very useful dialectics, and develop that. We shouldn’t make an attempt
to discard Marx’s materialism, we should realize our own. Despite our
hostility to the academy, Anarchism is not anti-scientific. We have
refined our praxis (of which I believe most people follow one of two, or
both), our ideals and our “culture” (Marxists will reject this as
irrelevant to the proletariat of the third world, and I will agree with
that, but it is not irrelevant to Anarchism in general). We must now
begin to develop the Anarchist science that will give us a mechanism to
apply to various revolutionary contexts.
David Graeber, himself an Anarchist academic, gives a very fair and
insightful reasoning behind why the academy and Anarchists don’t tend to
get along in The Twilight of Vanguardism:
“It’s not just that anarchism does not lend itself to high theory. It’s
that it is primarily an ethics of practice; and it insists, before
anything else, that one’s means most be consonant with one’s ends; one
cannot create freedom through authoritarian means; that as much as
possible, one must embody the society one wishes to create.”
I am tempted to agree with any Marxists who believe this to be the core
of Anarchist “lifestylism” and our inherent idealism. The idea that if
you are not directly attacking the system or building communism, what
you are doing is not under the banner of Anarchism. We carry a
direct-action “do something now” approach to things, and I too believe
in that. I do not however believe that we cannot further develop our
theory to make those actions more meaningful.
The Anarchist position against democratic centralism is not that we
reject the idea of a “revolutionary minority”, insurrectionist Anarchist
Communists have understood this for a long time. Along with the
responsibility to agitate and attack the ruling classes, the
insurrectionist knows they are in the minority. Despite this, the
Insurrectionist doesn’t believe that worker’s should be mobilized by
organizations during this attack. Platformists believe in the horizontal
power built by the vanguard parties, and believe in the ideological
unity proposed by vanguardists, yet inevitably find difficulty
mobilizing the masses to attack. and make the cross over to the praxis
of insurrectionists. This is a serious problem, Anarchists struggle to
both build power horizontally and mobilize for attack.
Knowing full well the issues with the common Anarchist mode of
organizing, under formal or informal consensus, bears many issues. Most
Anarchist organizations lack the ideological unity proposed by
Platformists like Mahkno (post-Russian Revolution). To handle
contradictions, we are inevitably in need of some sort of empirical
method to resolve problems according to Anarchist ideals. Back to the
academy we go, I say, but we will not have an academic anarchism
developed by a single person. No school of Anarchism has thus far been
developed in this manner, and I say that as one of the few people
describing themselves today as explicitly Kropotkinist. My revolutionary
ideals are unequivocally attributable to Kropotkin’s theories of
mutual-aid and evolution, and that is the science unique to Anarchism
which makes the difference to me.
So, given both my praises for the analysis and strategy of
Marxist-Leninists, and the weakness of the Anarchist movement, it is
come due-time to address why I still stand for Anarchism. That means I
must obviously defend my assertion that stateless mechanisms are ideal
for both overthrowing the capitalist state and building full-communism,
as well as my rejection of “democratic centralism”.
Using Lenin’s understanding of the state as “the mechanism in which one
class oppresses another”, Anarchists do not desire to use the tools of
the bourgeois state in overthrowing capitalism. We feel systems based of
exploitation can only further the cause of exploitation. We seem them as
unfit and ineffective. The idea that we should mobilize revolutionaries
into “one true revolution” is certainly a nice ideal I can get behind,
but I believe when intellectuals harness the tools of the ruling class,
we replicate their bourgeois notions no matter how hard we try not to.
When we harness the tools of bourgeois exploitation, we fall upon
paternalism in practice, which is a trait of the bourgeois state. Even
in understanding Lenin’s theoretical “stages of Communism”, I find
little hope in using the mechanism built by an “irreconcilably and
perpetually antagonistic” class as that of our own.
I think the state is as much a means of production, as it is the
mechanism in which one class oppresses another. When your relationship
to the state changes (I am not saying we should abandon solidarity those
working in certain exceptional segments of the state apparatus) to that
of the “oppressor of the working class”, you have committed a
petit-bourgeois form of class traitorship. With all the bourgeois
characteristics and privilege adopted by the revolutionary leaders of
last century, the Anarchist position can be summed up quite simply: the
state corrupts, and the state will always be bourgeois.
We also believe the state to not be unique in it’s cultural subversion,
the same way capitalism is. Yes, the state is intrinsically tied to
capital, this is known from its emergence from the feudalist system.
We’ve come under a social hegemony in the bourgeois state, where the
state is viewed much like capitalism, life without it seems rather
impossible, perhaps more impossible. It’s also seen by many as the only
path to social change. Capitalism has created a statist phenomenon where
property and capital can also be the sources of violence, resulting in a
redefining of violence in and of itself. Those who commit violence in
defense of property are seen as heroic. Much like capitalist
exploitation is covered up with legislative band-aids, the exploitation
of the state (such as imperialist wars, military hegemony in foreign
affairs, police brutality and austerity measures) is treated with more
legislation (if at all). This is not simply capitalism we are talking
about, we are living under a cultural statism in addition to that of a
cultural capitalism.
Even under the historical-materialist analysis of class struggle, I fear
using the tools of the bourgeois state to be a barrier to building final
Communism. I do believe in socialism as a transitory stage, but
Anarchists have our own transitory socialist systems. I am fundamentally
Communist, but the systems of Kevin Carson and Proudhonian Mutualism are
viable mechanisms to build communism when organized under syndicalism.
All in all, we wish for both our attack and building to be organic,
something unable to be attributed to a ruler, but that of the people. We
are not opposed to organic leadership, we distrust some leaders, but we
unequivocally opposed to rulers in our revolution. No one needs to tell
us to overthrow capitalism, we know we must, and solidarity means
attack, and that revolution means building. The common Marxist
derailment of “it’s naïve to call for the immediate abolition of the
state!” usually confuses me and I find this to be a huge failure in
understanding Anarchism. We believe in stateless mechanisms of the
abolition of capitalism, and there lies a distinction from their
understanding. Many of us are incrementalists in theory. We feel the
state “withers away” while we abolish capitalism using stateless
revolutions, not simply after we switch the mode of production to that
of a socialist system.
So in my critique I make an appeal to the Anarchist idealism and ethics,
which may bore Marxists. Not only because this is the same critique
given by most Anarchists, but the core of our differences. I believe the
loose-ends of Anarchism are parallel to the dead-ends of
Marxist-Leninism. Our commitment to remain decentralized, egalitarian,
and direct-action oriented needs to be harnessed as our strength,
instead of being used as our weakness.