During the biggest crisis of capitalism of our generation, why is the UK anarcho-left not growing?

[Random]

Didn't Marx say, or at least speculate, that the Russian peasant communes could arrive at communism without passing through capitalism?

 

[TremulousTetra]

you're talking bollocks, though. just because one thing (eg intellect) justifies pessimism, it doesn't follow that there is no basis for optimism unless you're thick as fuck and think that 'justifies' is a synomym for 'leads to'.

CAN you read his serious valid point, and answer it?

 

[Pickman's model]

CAN you read his serious valid point, and answer it?

You think he needs you to fight his battles for him?

fuck off you dull cunt

 

[love detective]

Didn't Marx say, or at least speculate, that the Russian peasant communes could arrive at communism without passing through capitalism?

Not sure if he did say such a thing, although if he did I would think it would be something more nuanced/subtle than that, and in any case it wouldn't have been that they could have done that independently as an internally focussed and sealed off society, but as something substantially dependent on a capitalist produced (or more correctly aided & engendered) communist transformation in the west. Which brings it back to the same point that capitalism produces the conditions that makes (made?) communism possible

And I think Marx held this view in contrast to those in Russia who saw something innately communist about those peasant communes that would allow them to transform themselves directly to the 'higher' level of society

few quotes from Engels here (with the inference of Marx's support) that argue against the type of thing you mention above

The Russian commune has existed for hundreds of years without ever providing the impetus for the development of a higher form of common ownership out of itself; no more so than in the case of the German Mark system, the Celtic clans, the Indian and other communes with primitive, communistic institutions. In the course of time, under the influence of commodity production surrounding them, or arising in their own midst and gradually pervading them, and of the exchange between individual families and individual persons, they all lost more and more of their communistic character and dissolved into communities of mutually independent landowners. So if the question of whether the Russian commune will enjoy a different and better fate may be raised at all, then this is not through any fault of its own, but solely due to the fact that it has survived in a European country in a relatively vigorous form into an age when not only commodity production as such, but even its highest and ultimate form, capitalist production, has come into conflict in Western Europe with the productive forces it has created itself; when it is proving incapable of continuing to direct these forces; and when it is foundering on these innate contradictions and the class conflicts that go along with them. It is quite evident from this alone that the initiative for any possible transformation of the Russian commune along these lines cannot come from the commune itself, but only from the industrial proletarians of the West. The victory of the West European proletariat over the bourgeoisie, and, linked to this, the replacement of capitalist production by socially managed production — that is the necessary precondition for raising the Russian commune to the same level.

But the mere fact that alongside the Russian peasant commune capitalist production in Western Europe is simultaneously approaching the point where it breaks down and where it points itself to a new form of production in which the means of production are employed in a planned manner as social property — this mere fact cannot endow the Russian commune with the power to develop this new form of society out of itself. How could it appropriate the colossal productive forces of capitalist society as social property and a social tool even before capitalist society itself has accomplished this revolution; how could the Russian commune show the world how to run large-scale industry for the common benefit, when it has already forgotten how to till its land for the common benefit?

it is an historical impossibility that a lower stage of economic development should solve the enigmas and conflicts which did not arise, and could not arise, until a far higher stage. All forms of gentile community which arose before commodity production and individual exchange have one thing in common with the future socialist society: that certain things, means of production, are subject to the common ownership and the common use of certain groups. This one shared feature does not, however, enable the lower form of society to engender out of itself the future socialist society, this final and most intrinsic product of capitalism. Any given economic formation has its own problems to solve, problems arising out of itself; to seek to solve those of another, utterly alien formation would be absolutely absurd. And this applies to the Russian commune no less than to the South Slav zádruga, the Indian gentile economy or any other savage or barbaric form of society characterised by the common ownership of the means of production.

On the other hand, it is not only possible but certain that after the victory of the proletariat and the transfer of the means of production into common ownership among the West European peoples, the countries which have only just succumbed to capitalist production and have salvaged gentile institutions, or remnants thereof, have in these remnants of common ownership and in the corresponding popular customs a powerful means of appreciably shortening the process of development into a socialist society and of sparing themselves most of the suffering and struggles through which we in Western Europe must work our way. But the example and the active assistance of the hitherto capitalist West is an indispensable condition for this. Only when the capitalist economy has been relegated to the history books in its homeland and in the countries where it flourished, only when the backward countries see from this example “how it’s done”, how the productive forces of modern industry are placed in the service of all as social property — only then can they tackle this shortened process of development. But then success will be assured. And this is true of all countries in the pre-capitalist stage, not only Russia. It will be easiest — comparatively speaking — in Russia, however, because there a section of the indigenous population has already assimilated the intellectual results of capitalist development, thereby making it possible in revolutionary times to accomplish the social transformation more or less simultaneously with the West.

 

[butchersapron]

He did - in private correspondence (see replies to Zasulich) and his notes on other authors (anthropological notebooks) in the last decade of his life - say that it had been possible in the past and potentially for a few more years yet, for the mir or other pre-capitalist communal formations outside of western-europe (the reason given being the historically private property relations in western europe vs the communal property relations elsewhere) to pass directly to communism. But as noted above, this would only really be possible by skipping over the stages that other advanced now capitalist countries had to pass through (which is NOT to say that there are identical set stages all must pass through) by directly importing the advanced technology of those other countries at a point at which they (the capitalist countries) had gone beyond capitalism.

 

[TremulousTetra]

You think he needs you to fight his battles for him?

fuck off you dull cunt

Obviously you cant, never do, as i said.

 

[Pickman's model]

For your next trick you can tell us how a swappy marxist analysis becomes an imperialist analysis

Obviously you cant, never do, as i said.

 

[TremulousTetra]

I can just about see its appeal, but it's odd how popular that little slogan from Gramsci is. If evidence and reason ('intellect') justify pessimism, what is it to be optimistic? Unreasonable? A heroic act of will? A groundless (and unMarxist) voluntarism?

To have a movement that matters, you have to have some shared ideas about what the movement will achieve. For much of the 20th Century in many places, socialism (in many cases in the form of Communism, in others not) was important because many people believed there was a realistic socialist alternative. In the one place I know of where there was a serious anarchist movement, there had been several decades of successful propagation of the idea of an anarchist society. Many people believed deeply that they could bring that about.

Talking about more or better organisation in workplaces or 'communities' is all very well, but assemblies, committees and meetings will only form a radical movement if the people who compose those organisations share some radical programme.

I'm not trying to promote pessimism - though I am pretty pessimistic - I am just trying to point out that there is at the moment a striking failure among would-be revolutionaries to propagate any credible and attractive vision of a socialist future. Without that, all the activism and all the 'struggle' in the world will not have a socialist/anarchist/thingamabobby outcome.

Somebody came on here a long time ago basically saying, you all, you all define yourself by what you are against, not what you are for. And I think that's true. I think this is ONE of the problems of the left.

I remember years ago the SWP crowing about the fall of the Berlin Wall. The fall of Stalinism. But they also said there is a sting in the tail. We cannot really celebrate the death of the Communist Parties. With the death of the Communist parties, a whole swathe of British activists will be me demobilised. They obviously made the point that we, the SWP, need to fill that vacuum. But I don't think they appreciated how much the death of the USSR, Stalinism contributed to, no matter how much they ridiculed it at the time, an End of History [in the sense of the dynamism].

now, I don't think there will ever be an end of history. Only one thing is constant, change. However that change is dialectical, contradictory. Social revolution or common ruin of the contending classes, at this point in time look equally possible.

Pessimistic? Demobilising? I don't think so, I think it's realistic. HOWEVER, activism is the only answer, I know of, to that realism. From activism social revolution could come, from inactivity only common ruin can come.

If my personal circumstances allowed it, I would throw myself into activity of some kind tomorrow. In fact I still do what I can. But I'm not calling for people to just repeat what we have done in the past, or throw out the baby with the bathwater. Just because something is old, it doesn't mean it's usable. Just because something is usable, doesn't mean we shouldn't challenge it to the use of something better.

I do understand the arguments of why we can not define what communism will and will not be. But surely we could/should define what alternative/s we are for. People have to believe there is a reason for the activism, beyond activism itself. People need to know that the activism is not just about saving the ie hospital, school, etc. They need to know in a world where there is no opportunity, there is an opportunity for another world.

JHE. I'm not really arguing with you, or agreeing with you, just thought it was one of the best posts I've seen you write, and so wanted to say something.

 

[TremulousTetra]

For your next trick you can tell us how a swappy marxist analysis becomes an imperialist analysis

thank you for your 'contribution' to the thread.

 

[pengaleng]

Cus yer all fucking dicks.

 

[Cid]

Fair point though.

 

[JimW]

Obvious nonsense and with a gender bias; a good half of us are fucking cunts.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Didn't Marx say, or at least speculate, that the Russian peasant communes could arrive at communism without passing through capitalism?

There's Teodor Shanin's Late Marx and the Russian Road for what butchersapron was on about, re Vera Zasulich.

 

[Frances Lengel]

How do you know that I enjoy it*-and why would it be a problem if I did?


* I don't-it's a terrible burden fate has given me to shoulder. But I do it with good cheer and a sense of duty.

God-like, mate. Superb.

 

[TremulousTetra]

The trouble is, you can't "abolish power". The best you can do is mitigate the adverse effects of abuse of power.

okay I have rethunk this.

Originally what I meant was, abolish the power of the state, of the class relations. In a class sense, permanent antagonisms wouldn't exist.

However, you are right, I concede, there will still be relationships of power, which as you suggest need to be mitigated, but how?

 

[Casually Red]

Cus yer all fucking dicks.

word

 

[cesare]

okay I have rethunk this.

Originally what I meant was, abolish the power of the state, of the class relations. In a class sense, permanent antagonisms wouldn't exist.

However, you are right, I concede, there will still be relationships of power, which as you suggest need to be mitigated, but how?

There's no easy answer, but I suggest the starting point is awareness of the use of power and how it plays out often in subtle ways. Worth reading is The 48 Laws Of Power by Robert Greene ISBN 1 86197 278-4

 

[eoin_k]

Quick derail:

I've just been watching David Harvey's lecture on Marx's Chapter on the working day. Harvey mentions the bump in the fertility rate just after 1974- which can be seen in the graph I posted earlier. Apparently it is the legacy of the miner's strike, 3-Day week and power cuts getting in the way of people's television viewing.