Convince Me From Anarchism

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File: 1430458870642.jpg (116.87 KB, 1024x534, 512:267, bakunin-Marx.jpg)

Convince Me From Anarchism Comrade 05/01/15 (Fri) 05:41:09 No.2465

Hello, /marx/. I am here today because I have been thinking, and now I want your guys' opinion. I have considered myself an anarchist-communist for a long time, but I have began to reconsider it, and considered the Marxist ideology too.

I have now been wanting to ask the question of the necessity of a state. As an anarchist, I obviously disagreed to the need of such to go from capitalism to communism. However, alongside my reconsiderations, I have also thought about the state and the DotP in general.

Thus, I have come here to see if you could try and turn me away from my anarchism. Give me your best shot.

Comrade 05/01/15 (Fri) 05:52:52 No.2466

Before anyone starts, we should start with why you, at least at this point in time, why you believe anarchist communism over marxist communism.

Comrade 05/01/15 (Fri) 07:34:03 No.2467

>>2466

One of the reasons is that it's the closest we've gotten to acheiving actual communism. While the Makhnovist Insurgency or Anarchist Catalonia lasted very shortly, they actually implemented communism. On the contrary, the Soviet Union and other similar countries didn't even have at the very least worker's control(aside from Yugoslavia). Because of this, to me, anarchist-communism seems to be the best method of getting to communism.

Ismail 05/01/15 (Fri) 08:17:00 No.2468

File: 1430468220233.jpg (309.81 KB, 599x658, 599:658, Hoxha Kongressi.jpg)

>>2467

>While the Makhnovist Insurgency or Anarchist Catalonia lasted very shortly, they actually implemented communism.

No they didn't. Makhno was a peasant warlord who distrusted the workers. See: http://www.isreview.org/issues/53/makhno.shtml (a Trot source, but still useful)

As for Catalonia see PDF pages 314-323 of: https://espressostalinist.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/espana.pdf

At best the Catalonian experiments were akin to those of the Owenites and other utopian socialists: noble goals, but no chance of realizing them. At worst, they were a disguised form of private ownership.

>the Soviet Union and other similar countries didn't even have at the very least worker's control(aside from Yugoslavia).

"Workers' control" in Yugoslavia was capitalism, which is why the Soviet revisionists and their allies praised Tito and rehabilitated him. In Hungary and Poland similar "workers' control" schemes were enacted after 1956, while anti-Marxist "socialists" like Ben Bella and Gaddafi likewise saw much to admire in the Titoite system.

Yugoslavia itself disintegrated into civil wars and genocides in large part because of its economic system, which fostered regional inequality and anti-social attitudes, in which each "worker-controlled" enterprise was motivated by profit and by seeking foreign investments. This same system also produced high levels of unemployment (unheard of anywhere else in Eastern Europe) and compelled many workers to seek jobs in the West so that they could sustain their families at home. Hardly the signs of a "socialist" system.

Comrade 05/01/15 (Fri) 10:08:32 No.2472

File: 1430474912467.jpg (149.69 KB, 567x518, 81:74, 1407546999003.jpg)

>they actually implemented communism

Comrade 05/01/15 (Fri) 10:22:22 No.2473

The state is but a tool for class power. We don't like it either.

Comrade 05/02/15 (Sat) 08:36:57 No.2475

>>2473

Yes, I know that. However, why use the state to achieve statelessness? How would that even be possible? Isn't that contradictory and if left unchecked could lead to a repeat of the Soviet Union?

Comrade 05/02/15 (Sat) 09:58:24 No.2476

>>2475

The withering away of the state is not simply the state being abolished. The state as a political form cannot be abolished over night. Anarchist attempts at doing so simply reproduce a state in everything but name. Rather, the state, defined by being the alienated repressive and administrative apparatuses, with wither away in the sense that it will lose its political dimensions and exist primarily for economic purposes. The bureacracy will be replaced by workers' democratic association under a common plan, and the standing army by an armed people.

Comrade 05/02/15 (Sat) 10:59:40 No.2477

>>2476

>The bureacracy will be replaced by workers' democratic association under a common plan

What if that bureacracy doesn't want to be replaced?

Ismail 05/02/15 (Sat) 12:18:37 No.2478

File: 1430569117062.jpg (28.76 KB, 200x436, 50:109, hoxha_enver.jpg)

>>2477

Then it will be overthrown. The rise of Soviet revisionism was a new phenomenon at the time it occurred. Previously revisionism had manifested itself as an outgrowth of bureaucracy and parliamentary cretinism in the trade unions and reformist leaderships of social-democratic parties. Communists today have quite a bit of experience in this question compared to those living 50+ years ago.

That being said, for all the talk about the subject, "It will take decades to overcome the evils of bureaucracy. It is a very difficult struggle, and anyone who says we can rid ourselves of bureaucratic practices overnight by adopting anti-bureaucratic platforms is nothing but a quack with a bent for fine words." (Lenin)

Comrade 05/04/15 (Mon) 20:09:09 No.2484

File: 1430770149288-0.pdf (5.05 MB, The Makhnovshchina, 1917-1….pdf)

File: 1430770149288-1.png (217.58 KB, 757x597, 757:597, 1.png)

File: 1430770149288-2.png (136.16 KB, 617x432, 617:432, 2.png)

>>2467

>Makhnovist Insurgency actually implemented communism.

>>2476

>>2477

These highlights (by me) are from p. 385-386 of this history book on Makhno. The anarchists did have a bureaucracy, they had official propaganda, policing, spying apparatuses and direct control over the economy. Not calling it a state, however, is an anarchist specialty.