anarchism etc (was Re: [Marxism] Chomsky profile/interview

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for this great contribution. A little comment...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lance Murdoch" <lancemurdoch@xxxxxxxxx>

> Even if they're anarchists who regard
> the state as totally illegitimate, as I do, they realize that it is
> necessary to protect the public arena, which means state power. The
> reason is, when you eliminate the public arena and the one
> institutional structure in which people can, to some extent,
> participate, namely the state, you're just handing over power to
> unaccountable private tyrannies that are much worse.

You see a lot of this in Latin America, and many of the anarchists I have
met in the USA hate that, "nationalists" and "statists" are the milder form
of insult to this brand of anarchism.

I actually see this anarchism as a form of marxism, mainly because many of
them are former anti-revisionists (maoist/hoxhaists) or because they try to
base their analysis in terms of concrete reality and not wishful thinking
about the state.

Even in Cuba, I know directly of active anarchists that form part of local
militias for the purpose of defending Cuba against imperialist agression.

I still think anarchism and council communism is an utopic form of politics,
but anarchists and council communists who in practice follow strategic and
tactical lines that pragmatically deal with the State are in my opinion the
best kinds of revolutionaries.

Buenaventura Durruti I admire much more than I do Stalin or Trotsky and way
up there with Lenin and Mao.

I think the Chomsky et al were wrong in seeing in Kerry as "better" in
terms of domestic policy, but they represent some of the clearest heads and
more uncompromisingly revolutionary presence in the academic left, precisely
because they go to were they feel reality is taking them and not to where
they want reality to go.

I admire that, I wished that many so-called Marxists had have the intengrity
they do.

In my organization there is a sizeable grouping, including the current
president of the largest union in PR, who are self-described anarchists or
libertarian socialists. And they beat with proverbial trouts over the head
any ML I have met, outside of a few countries were ML matters.

sks


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