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Title: Rocking the Boat Author: Oxyaena Date: October 13th, 2020 Language: en Topics: statism, centrism, the status quo, russian revolution, left unity, anarchism, radicalism Source: Myself. Notes: Credit goes to Oxyaena. Contact me at https://twitter.com/realoxyaena. My Discord ID is Oxyaena#2207.
There's a popular saying, to "not rock the boat too much," but what even
is the boat, and why can't I rock it? This saying reflects the mindset
of centrists everywhere
preserve the status quo, even if it's filled with injustices, if only to
not prevent something worse coming after. Well, why can't we make
something better than the
status quo? The centrist has no answer for that, or says to do it within
the system.
The system is inherently corrupt, you tell them, but they don't listen,
instead they insist on repeating their mindless mantra, "Don't rock the
boat." The system we
have now was not gained from holding steadfast to the previous system,
it was gained by violence and chaos, by overthrowing the previous system
of feudalism and
monarchism, because the privileges of the aristocracy had become too
much, at the expense of the middle class nascent bourgeoisie.
Liberalism, now conservative, was the
radicalist current back in the day.
The liberals didn't go far enough, however, and so the revolutionary
gains they made were gradually subverted, replaced, or co-opted to
benefit the oppressor over the
oppressed. Whenever you engage in violent revolution, and replace one
governing structure with another, you simply replace one privileged
class for another.
The revolution goes full circle, whether you want it to or not. The
French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the revolutionaries didn't go
far enough.
Opportunists arose that subverted genuinely revolutionary forces, and
then deemed the true revolutionaries as "reactionaries" or
"counterrevolutionaries," as the
Bolsheviks did to the Left-SRs and Makhnovist anarchists, not to mention
Krondstadt, and the soviets themselves. The Bolsheviks realized the
masses were becoming
too powerful, powerful enough to threaten even their rule, and so, as
with all other ruling classes, they had to shield themselves from the
effects of popular
revolution. They co-opted the state structure for themselves, and
instead of having the workers control the means of production, it was
now the party bureaucracy
who ruled in their stead.
To paraphrase Bakunin, "the people don't like being beat with a stick
even if it's labeled the 'people's stick.'" The only way to ensure a
permanent dissipation of
oppressive, hierarchical authority, is to reject the frameworks that
lead to hierarchy and coercive authority in the first place. Makhno was
right in this regard, as
were the Spanish anarchists in Catalonia, as were the Korean anarchists
in Manchuria, all of whom were betrayed by their allies because they
were a threat to their
power. Statist elements always seek to crush libertarian movements,
because by offering the people an alternative to the state, you subvert
the power of the state, you
make the state itself obsolete.
Say it with me: "No Gods, No Masters."