Re: AUT: Anarchism & Marxism

[blissett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Fabian Tompsett)]

>On Fri, 10 Dec 1999, ROWAN WILSON wrote:
>
>> MARXISM and ANARCHISM
>> One of the ways in which I think the marxist tradition, in particular
>> in its autonomist strain, succeeds over the anarchist tradition (as a
>> theory) is in its attempt to grapple with the problem of authority (I
>> mean tradition here as theoretical legacy). There is a sense in
>> which marxists have recognised that revolutions have taken an
>> authoritarian turn is through problems with their theory and
>> organisation. In a sense, marxists have taken responsibility for
>> their tradition's failure - WE got it wrong, how do we alter
>> OURSELVES to get beyond it. With anarchists one feels that the
>> responsibility for failure is always someone elses - 'ah, those nasty
>> bolsheviks messed it up for us pure anarchist souls'. (This ties in
>> with what I was saying above about humanism.) Consequently
>> anarchists never theorise the problems of their own authority but
>> wish it away. (As Anton highlighted, this is why autonomists talk of
>> constituent power, the development of democratic power and
>> anarchists dispense with power, seeing it as purely repressive
>> rather than generative - again this ties in with the Focauldian
>> critique of humanism that Negri accepts). They are unable to see
>> how they can be just as leninist as the leninists.
>
>This is amazing falsehood and lies.  You cannot accept the fact that
>anarchism is more libertarian than autonomism, because it is not so
>obcessed with structure or the theories of one man.. marx.  So you have to
>slander it by claiming it is "like leninism".   The reality is that the
>anarchists have constantly criticized themselves.. The mistakes of the CNT
>in the spanish civil war... the mistakes of the situationists in May 1968,
>etc etc.  You are a liar or a fucking idiot, or both.
>
>Sorry, but being called a leninist pisses me off.
>
> - Jamal
>
As the Situationists were not anarchists, who can anarchists criticisng
situationists be an example of anarchists criticising themselves. In fact
what anarchists do is to criticise each other rather than themselves.

How helpful is it to denounce someone as an idiot or a liar when it is
clear you do not understand what is being said. i.e. you complain about
being called a leninist when no-one has called you such. What Rowan
suggested was that anarchists can be just as leninist as the leninists.
Surely when anarchists criticise the CNT (or even the FAI) this criticism
has included the suggestion of leninism.

The problem is that in these criticisims they too often revolve around a
defense of anarcho-authenticity, and other anarchists are criticised for
not being sufficiently authentic in their anarchism. As this question of
authenticity is tied in with a semi-conscious political identity with brand
@ @narchism the only way it is possible to understand how pissed off you
are with "being called a leninist" is precisely because you immersed within
this identification. Thus your emotive hackles rise precisely at the point
where any critical understanding and hence development of your politics
could begin. There is a short circuit which you experience as pain and it
produces a whelp of insults just as surely as a pavlovian dog. In this
sense @narchism can express an internalisation of control which can
precisely extol the virtues of freedom because it has already neutralised
any reflective process which could break out of a pre-structured
consciousness.

Leutha Blissett



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