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Title: Revolutionary Class-Struggle Anarchism Author: Wayne Price Date: September 29, 2008 Language: en Topics: Revolutionary Anarchism, class struggle, class struggle anarchism Source: Retrieved on 2008-11-01 from https://web.archive.org/web/20081101163643/http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/18944
Anarchism is the end of all forms of domination, hierarchy, and
oppression. It opposes capitalism, white supremacy, male supremacy,
homophobia, imperialism, militarism, environmental destruction, and so
on. Anarchism is the most extreme form of democracy, freedom, and
self-management, applied throughout society. Time and again, revolutions
have resulted in popular assemblies, neighborhood gatherings, workplace
committees, etc. These have sent elected individuals to associated
councils, individuals who were immediately recallable and controllable
by the grassroots assemblies. These decentralized assemblies expressed
the need of human beings for face-to-face association, going back to the
small âtribesâ and villages in which humanity lived for most of its
existence. They appeared in the directly democratic eclessia of ancient
Athens, in the town councils of New England, in the 1871 Paris Commune,
in the original soviets of the Russian Revolution, in the workersâ
councils of Hungary 1956, in the Argentinian horizontalized neighborhood
gatherings and workplace occupations, and in many other revolutionary
situations.
In place of the capitalist economy, with its markets and centralized,
stratified, planning, anarchism would institute classless socialism.
Production would be collective and cooperative, not privatized or
competitive. Production would be for use, not for profit. It would be
coordinated by democratic planning-from-below. The âeconomyâ might be
thought of as a federation of producersâ cooperatives, consumersâ
cooperatives, and collectivized communes. The workplace and the
community would be self-managing through their assemblies and
coordinated through a decentralized federalism.
Regions and even communities would try to produce as much as possible of
what they need on a local level, but total self-sufficiency is
impossible and undesirable. Decentralization makes face-to-face
democracy possible, benefits ecological balance, and makes it easier to
have bottom-up democratic economic planning.
One of the first things the workers would do right after a revolution
would be to begin to transform the technology inherited from capitalism.
Technology would be revamped in order to create an ecologically
sustainable society. Technology, and production in general, would also
be reorganized to abolish the division between order-givers and
order-takers, bosses and bossed, those who use mental labor and those
who perform manual labor. This is essential if we are to avoid the
creation of a new, state capitalist, ruling class.
The state would be abolished, defining âstateâ to mean a specialized,
bureaucratized, socially-alienated, institution above the rest of
society. In its place would be the association of assemblies and
councils. When everyone is involved in governing, then there is no
(distinct) government. The layers of specialized police and military
would be replaced by the armed people, a popular militiaâso long as it
is still neededâunder the civilian control of the councils.
Right now it is only possible to draw up broad principles, and to
speculate how these would be applied by future generations. One thing we
may postulate is that a post-revolutionary society will be flexible,
regional, pluralistic, and above all, experimental (this was called the
âanarchist methodâ by Errico Malatesta and by Paul Goodman). So long as
there is no revival of capitalist exploitation, such pluralistic
experimentation should be expected, since there are distinct differences
in the history, geography, and cultures of the regions of North America,
not to say of the world. No one has all the answers about how a
postcapitalist society might work.
Different regions may experiment with various plans for democratic
economic planning, such as Parecon, or the ideas of Pat Devine or the
âInclusive Democracyâ of Takis Fotopoulos. Furthermore, one region may
chose to immediately try full communism, with people being given what
they need and working only for social motives. Another region might
insist on incentives, with workers being paid (in vouchers, say) for the
effort they put out. This may or may not be combined with a communist
sector of society (free health care, minimum food, clothing, and
shelter), which some regions may chose to expand over decades or
generations, until they have full communism (similar to Marxâs
approach).
Some regions may try to coordinate society through a federation of
workersâ councils, while others may try federations of community
assemblies. Within the limits of a democratic federalism, some regions
might be relatively more centralized and others relatively more
decentralized. Different local methods would be tried for settling
disputes or for protecting people from antisocial actors, so long as
they exist. Regions would learn from each other, rejecting failures and
copying successes.
While there would be as much decentralization as is practically possible
and advantageous, continental and international federations would also
be necessary, to deal with practical issues of trade and other matters.
For example, so long as there are some imperialist states, then the free
societies would have to be prepared to defend themselvesâwith mutual
coordination of militia-based armed forces.
Nonclass issues, such as gender, race, sexual orientation, and
nationality, would also be addressed using the same âanarchist methodâ
of decentralization, self-organization, and experimentation. Women would
be no longer dependent on men, economically or otherwise, even for
childcare, which would be a responsibility of society. Women will be
free to organize themselves separately or together with men, in order to
fight against male supremacy and to develop their full potentialities.
How would people develop romantic and sexual relationships? How will
people develop their sexual and other identities? How will society raise
children? Such things cannot be predicted, but only developed by the
people involved.
People of Color will also be able to organize themselves, separately or
together with white people, in various forms of association. There will
no longer be a capitalist system which benefits from racism, but that
does not mean that all racism will automatically disappear. People of
Color will be able to organize and fight for their interests. They can
decide whether to separate out or to assimilate with white people, or to
create whatever interracial relationship they find most
comfortableâthrough self-organization and experimentation.
Revolutionary anarchism is consistent in its means and its ends. It
advocates a movement which is built on self-organization and
self-determination, in order to achieve a society of self-organization
and self-determination. It supports struggles for reforms, for
improvements in the living conditions of the people: the formation of
unions, higher wages and shorter hours, antidiscrimination laws for
women and People of Color, universal health care, ending whatever
imperialist wars are going on at the time, defense of civil liberties
from the state and from fascists, defense of the ecology, etc. We must
support these demands because they are just, because people have the
right to choose what they will fight for, and because we are for
whatever gets people in motion against the rulers. Wherever possible, we
should seek to expand these issues by linking them with other issues, by
generalizing them into class-wide demands on the whole capitalist class
and its state, and by proposing the most militant methods of
mobilization.
But we must always tell the truth to the working people: this system
cannot achieve consistently decent standards of living or democratic
rights. Instead, it is presently attacking these standards, as it must,
due to its fundamental economic crisis. We must warn that the rulers
will not allow the working class and oppressed to gradually organize and
take over society. At some point, they will come down hard on us. When
they feel it necessary, they will jettison elections and civil
liberties, mobilize the military and police as well as fascist bands,
whip up racial and sexual hysteria, and establish totalitarianism. If
they can.
Working people will need to forestall this by winning over the ranks of
the military, and eventually smashing the state, dismantling capitalism
and all forms of oppression, and establishing a federation of popular
councilsâthat is, to take power (but not âtake state power,â not create
a new state). In other words, make a revolution. Today we are far from
the point of a clash between revolution and counterrevolution, yet, but
this needs to be a long term guiding strategy. Even now, reforms are
best won when the people are most militant, self-reliant, and
threatening to the ruling class, that is, when most nearly
revolutionary.
And even now revolutionaries should prepare the workers by advocating
mass strikes which are ready to defend themselves from scabs,
vigilantes, and illegal police actions. We need to organize people to
fight back against fascists in our neighborhoods. We should oppose âgun
controlâ laws.
Who will make the revolution? It will not be an elite vanguard party
acting for the people, which hopes to take state power by riding a
revolution, nor an elite electoral party which plans to get elected into
state power. It will be the big majority of people, all those who have
been oppressed and exploited. All forms of oppression overlap and
intertwine with each other, mutually maintaining all oppressions,
including that of women, of Queers, of People of Color, of the Disabled,
etc. It is these who will rise up, and are struggling even now, and will
eventually make the revolution.
Class struggle anarchists see a central role for the working class, blue
collar and white collarâand âpink collarââthe majority of the
population, which includes all other oppressed groups, as well as
non-waged members of the class such as the unemployed, workersâ
children, and homemakers. Workers are not more morally oppressed than
anyone else (such as the Deaf). But, strategically, workers have an
enormous potential power. With our hands on the means of production,
transportation, communication, and social services, our class could stop
society in its tracks. We could start it up again on a new and better
basis.
The most potentially revolutionary are in the overlapping sectors of the
oppressed and exploited. Black workers, women workers (or Black women
workers), and other such groupings, are among the most oppressed
sections of the working class, those without corrupting privileges,
those who have ânothing to lose but their chains.â Although a minority,
such groupings are likely to be in the very forefront of the struggle.
When they rise up, all of society is heaved into the air and all issues
become open.
Anarchists have played important roles in many revolutions, but have
invariably been defeated. One reason for this history of defeat is the
failure of the anarchist revolutionary minority to organize itself into
a distinct political organization. A democratic federation could develop
a coherent analysis and program, could coordinate the activities of
members, and could spread its ideas through its literature. It would not
include all anarchists, but only those who agreed with its program. It
would not be a âpartyâ, since it does not aim at ruling a state. This
approach has been called Platformism or especificismo.
The anarchist organization would work into broader mass organizations,
such as unions, community groups, and associations of specifically
oppressed groups. It would fight for these to rely on themselves and not
on bosses, always encouraging rank-and-file democracy and militancy. It
would fight against elitist organizations, such as liberals,
Marxist-Leninists, or fascists. But it would seek to cooperate with
other groupings wherever possible, on the grounds that no one
organization has all the good ideas or all the best militants. It would
not dissolve itself into broader popular organization, as opportunists
do, nor would it only look inward, seeking the perfect theory, as
sectarians do. Instead it would be part of a constant dialogue between
the most radicalized layer and the as yet more conservative majority,
whereby each learns from the other.
Building a revolutionary organization is not counterposed to the
self-organization of the working class and the oppressed. Rather it is
an integral part of that self-organization. There is never one moment
when all the oppressed suddenly see the light and become socialist
anarchists. Rather people come to political awareness by layers. In
conservative times, it is by ones and twos. In radicalizing periods,
clusters of people become radicals. These band together in order to win
over other people, Only in immediately revolutionary periods are large
majorities ready for a democratic uprising (which is what defines a
revolutionary period).
We are in a period of crisis. Since the end of the post-World War II
boom in the late 60s, there have been ups and downs, but the overall
direction of the economy has been downhill. In our deindustrialized
economy, with its shrunken unions, the workersâ incomes are plummeting.
As the economy worsens, big business has worked to lower the workersâ
standard of living, to cut social services for the poor, and cut taxes
on the rich, in order to raise their profits. Meanwhile people have
become aware of the threat posed by worldwide ecological catastrophe, as
well as the evils of international wars (including the spread of nuclear
bombs). Official politics has swung far to the right, with extreme
reactionaries taking over the Republicans, and the Democrats staying
just a bit to their left.
Working people and oppressed people are getting fed up. There is a
âdangerâ (for the capitalists) of an explosion. So the most farsighted
U.S. capitalists have once again, as they have many times before, set up
a (mildly) progressive Democratic candidate to channel discontent into
safer directions. The Democratic Party served as the death trap for the
Populists of the 19^(th) century, the labor unions of the 30s, the civil
rights and antiwar movements of the 60s. Now led by a charismatic Black
politician, it gets the support of those who are desperate for a change
from the disasters and incompetence of the vile George W. Bush. If
elected, Barak Obama will lead the way in forcing austerity on the
working population and reorganizing the U.S.âs imperialist wars, so as
to downplay Iraq and increase the invasion of Afghanistan. If he loses,
it will be used to demoralize his followers.
In this context, it is hard for a revolutionary minority to go against
the stream, to oppose the Democrats and to tell the truth about the
party and its candidates. We must explain, respectfully and patiently,
that unions and communities of the oppressed should break from the
Democratic Party and from the passivity of all electoralism. Instead we
need to talk up independent mass action: demonstrations, civil
disobedience, strikes, and especially the general strike.
Most union and oppressed activists are liberals or reform socialists;
they support capitalism or at least do not believe in revolution. So it
is understandable that they should support a capitalist party. It is
different with those who call themselves revolutionaries, socialists, or
anarchists. They should know better. Rather than capitulating to the
present-day liberal consciousness of the majority, we should be
preparing ourselves for the coming mass radicalization, when people get
fed up with both Republicans and Democrats.
Radicals should reject the often-made distinction between a utopian
vision and a scientific analysis and strategy. Both are needed,
together. Humanity is faced with the threats of economic collapse,
fascism, wars, and destruction through nuclear war or environmental
catastrophe. A socialist anarchist revolution is not only something
which would be good. It is necessary for the survival of humanity.