Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 12 2003 @ 11:18 PM CST

I find it funny how Platformist anarchism and reactions to it in north american anarchist circles have identical roots

(I mean, hell, read the WSM intro to Makhno\'s Platform of the Libertarian Communists)

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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 12 2003 @ 11:41 PM CST

I find it interesting how the same accusations are made continually, on under a different title. This time, Jarach is saying that the anarchist conception of \"dual power\" is a marxist-leninist one [indeed, even a trotskyist one] through ontological presentation, rathen than the actual usage of the word. In short, when anarchists speak of dual power, we don\'t mean the same thing Lenin did, we are talking about our conception of it.

The charge that platformists seek to \"out-bolshevize\" the bolsheviks for obvious reasons doesn\'t make any sense. Probably because it sounds better than stating what we really want, namely to out-organise the marxists. That\'s right, we want to organise even better, using egalitarian methodology, so we can defeat them in a revolutionary situation. It\'s easy for \"post-leftists\" like Jarach to criticise this when their own ideology doesn\'t concretely deal with the whole \"revolution\" thing.

Interesting is Jarach\'s decision to compare a synthesist federation, the Spanish FAI [which desipte his criticisms was still infinitely more succesful than any post-leftist group or action has been or ever will be] with NEFAC, a platformist federation on a different continent with a different membership that\'s not tied to an anarcho-syndicalist union [the FAI was closely inter-related with the CNT in Spain, was slightly more seperate from the trade unions in Portugal].
The continual implication that NEFAC is a mass organisation seems ridiculous considering they have consistently stated they are NOT a mass organisation.

I would challenge post-leftists to actually give examples of how platformists have copied \"lenino-maoist\" organising - I see this charge as being hollow [further, historically, leninists and maoists have copied anarchist organising techniquse to be more succesful]. Jarach doesn\'t even understand platformist organising, as he thinks that the typical platformist structure is that of collectives joining a federation.

And by the way, FNAC believes in \"collective responsibliity and strategic and tactical unity\" as well. Huh. Wonder when FRAC-GLR and FNAC will start getting trashed by the post-leftists. Or how about what\'s left of the IWW? Maybe a few shots the IWA/AIT\'s way? And whil they\'re at it, im sure the hacks in the Anarchy:AJODA sandbox would love to trash the anarchist movement abroad, starting with those horrible platformists struggling in Argentina!

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 12:19 AM CST

I think a qoute from the Organizational Platform of Libertarian Commuminists is apt for this article, magazine and a lot of the \'discussion\' about platformism vs. post-leftism on this website. I guess a whole lot hasn\'t changed in 76 years.

\"We foresee that several representatives of self-styled individualism and chaotic anarchism will attack us, foaming at the mouth, and accuse us of breaking anarchist principles. However, we know that the individualist and chaotic elements understand by the title \'anarchist principles\' political indifference, negligence and absence of all responsibility, which have caused in our movement almost incurable splits, and against which we are struggling with all our energy and passion. This is why we can calmly ignore the attacks from this camp.\"

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 12:37 AM CST

It a travesty! No I mean an innovation!! An innovative travesty!!!

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 12:58 AM CST

Here we go again.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 02:18 AM CST

where is the quote from?

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 02:25 AM CST

That after I just got past two threads that explain the excellant organizational strategy by NEFAC, and ESPECIALLY Green Mountain, I find some whiny fucker complaining about the internal structure of the organization and how it\'s similar to some authoritarian structures, when they haven\'t a shred of evidence to explain exactly HOW!?!?! Dual power is not explicitly authoritarian. It\'s like saying that apples MUST be fundamentally yellow, because GEEZ - they\'re fruits JUST LIKE bananas! NEFAC has NEVER been authoritarian in practice or theory, no matter how close some terms sound similar. The closest they came to being somewhat questionable in activity was when they freely disassociated themselves with a couple of folks who they decided they weren\'t comfortable working with. OH MY! what\'s this? \"free association\"....Oh yeah that\'s one of those incredibly important principles of anarchism. The idea that people can build organizations and decide amongst themselves that they don\'t want to work with people they don\'t feel like. It\'s not like they suddenly convicted someone amd sent them into prison. I hope that they don\'t freely associate themselves into being authoritarians, especially since the whole foundation of the organization is based on what? anarchism!

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 02:28 AM CST

It\'s from \"the platform\" that platformism draws ideas from. The organizational platform of libertarian communists.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 09:27 AM CST

Infoshop publishes a range of news and opinion from the anarchist press.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 04:56 AM CST

You will find the full text of \'The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists\' aka \'the platform\' at http://struggle.ws/platform/plat_preface.html

The continutation of the quote above is quite relevant, IE \" ... calmly ignore the attacks from this camp.

We base our hope on other militants: on those who remain faithful to anarchism, having experienced and suffered the tragedy of the anarchist movement, and are painfully searching for a solution.\"

At to the article above, it simply repeats the method of all the similar articls in this issue of AJODA, throw mud and hope it sticks. With the anti-organisations frothing at the mouth in this manner is should be quite clear to anyone intersted in moving beyond the current disorganistion of the movement that the platform is worth reading and considering as a starting point.

[ps Apart from anything else most of the groups mentioned in this article (including Love and Rage) did/do not describe themselves as platformists!]

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 08:54 AM CST

This is so incredibly stupid. Anarcho-communists fought and died against the Bolsheviks.

Disagreeing with anarchist communists is one thing but calling them \"authoritarian\" is just bullshit. I like the NEFAC.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 09:05 AM CST

first of all, i\'m surprised that AJODA is worried
about NEFAC\'s supposed vanguardism, but praises the FAI as an example of a \"real\" anarchist organization. We have lots to learn from the FAI, and the degree of repression they faced had a lot to do with the organizational structure they chose... but they were certainly a lot closer to vanguardism than any of the North American platformist organizations. To maintain the direction of the CNT they captured secretary positions and control of the arms\' committee, and called a general strike irresponsibly in \'33(?) without the participation of the rank and file, which resulted in the slaughter at Casas Viejas.

Also, who cares who first used the words \"dual power?\" The problem with capitalism is that it doesn\'t meet the needs of our communities, so we need to meet those needs ourselves through self-organization. That self-organization means survival in the here and now, as well as training us to interact in new, libertarian ways. That\'s my understanding of dual power, and i don\'t understand what the problem with that strategy is...

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 09:16 AM CST

Besides saying that the word \"duel power\" has statist roots, what does this article show? Here I\'ll nefac for you, instead of a tatic of duel power, lets just call it revolution through redundancy. No more evidence nefac is statist, happy now?

Why is this garbage being printed in infoshop, you delete stupid comments, you should delete this article it adds nothing.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 09:31 AM CST

I have several requests as one of the Infoshop moderators:

1) Please keep the discussion civil here. So far it\'s been OK, but some of you get carried away and these discussions turn into flame wars, with the result of making this website and anarchists look bad.
2) Andrew, Makhno, et al: If you have an older article that you want to cite in one of your comments, please link to it, or send it to me to post on Infoshop. Older articles that are submitted as \"news\" with the intention of being a response to an ongoing discussion, will not be approved. The primary goal of Infoshop News is to share news--it was not set up to be a general discussion board. That is what Infoshop forums is for.

Thank you!

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 10:10 AM CST

It\'s funny that Jarach probably quoted more Lenin & Trotsky in that article than I ever heard from a NEFAC member.

It\'s also funny to see how he\'s the one using the tactics used by most Trotskyists, that is inferring secret guilt through overanalyzing the semantics of a few phrases from a statement of organisational principles, to paint NEFAC as neo-bolsheviks.

And finally, I find it funny that this was printed in Anarchy mag., a magazine which I thought had one of the best editorial ever when it called for an end to the kind of mud-throwing going on in anarchist circles, and a raising of the level of debate.

I guess the reports of the death of irony have been greatly exagerated.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 10:11 AM CST

I actually have ambivalent feelings about this article.

On the one hand, its account of Love and Rage is an amalgam of lies, gossip and speculation. The suggestion, for example, that I wrote for Love and Rage under multiple pseudonyms, is a lie. The anecdote about someone at our founding conference suggesting that we name the newspaper The Torch is disingenuous, since the \"someone\" was actually a member of Makhno\'s non-group, Some Chicago Anarchists who came to the conference only to disrupt it. The claim that we began to lose members shortly after our founding is also not true. The organization grew slowly but steadily from its founding in 1989 until it split in 1993. Its hard to put numbers on it since we had no formal membership up to that point (one of the matters that contributed to the split). After the split Love and Rage experienced a surge of membership and steady growth until 1996 when the issues that eventually brought down the organization began to fester. If memory serves, in 1996 we had close to 150 members.

On the other hand, I think the article actually raises some important points -- even if it does so in a nasty and sectarian manner.

Jarach Lawrence rightly notes the orignis of the concept of dual power in the writings of Lenin, and also correctly stresses that it is not so much a strategy as a description of a transitional situation. Lawrence is also correct in noting that Love and Rage had something to do with popularizingthe idea of dual power. The person primarily responsible for this was Noel Ignatiev of Race Traitor. Ignatiev was a former member of the Sojourner Truth Organization (STO) who joined Love and Rage for about a year. The outlook of STO was an amalgam of Leninism, autonomist marxism, and anti-imperialism. It was Ignatiev who advanced the idea that dual power should be at the center of any revolutionary strategy. He used the term in a distinct manner to describe pretty much anything that could be regarded as prefigurative of the new society. He offered the sit-in movement for civil rights at the beginning of the 1960s as an example of dual power. This certainly stretched the definition beyond anything that Lenin would have recognized as dual power. It is Ignatiev\'s sense that caught on with some in Love and Rage and beyond, and that has informed BTR\'s take on the question.

My view is that this makes a muddle of a very important and powerful concept. But that muddle should not surprize us. I would argue that it is inherent in anarchism.

Dual power is a term used to describe a phenomena in real world revolutionary situations -- namely the moment when the oppressed classes have constructed organs of self-governance that are contending with the power of the old state. Appropriating the term is a way for anarchists to talk more coherently about the revolutionary process up to the moment before the old state is decisively smashed. In my view this is a good thing because revolutionaries need a way to talk about this stuff, and the Marxist terminology is the richest and most precise.

But situations of dual power are inherently unstable. Sooner or later one of the two powers, the old or the new, must triumph and smash the other. Often enough of course it is the old power. But for a revolutionary situation to become a successful revolution it is the new power that must destroy the old. \"So far so good\" most anarchists would say. But then what?

This is where the anarchist radio goes silent. Because once the new power has decisively smashed the old we enter into another sort of transitional period. The old state may have been smashed, but many of the social conditions that compelled people to make revolution in the first place are still around. And while the old state machinery has been broken into pieces, those pieces are still lying around and there are people very much interested in putting them back together and restoring the old order. Suddenly the organs of self-governance developed by the revolutionary sections of the oppressed have a whole new set of responsibilities. They are responsible for reorganizing production and getting it going so that people can eat and survive. They are responsible for settling disputes not just those within their own ranks, but all the disputes that had previously been taken to the state. They are responsible for ensuring public safety. They are responsible for defending the revolution against organized counter-revolution and/or foreign invasion.

In theory the organs of popular power (soviets, assemblies, etc...) are perfectly democratic expressions of the peoples will in which all voices are heard. In reality however they bear the marks of the society that birthed them. All the inequalities that exist within the oppressed classes themselves will be manifest in the organs they create -- hopefully in lesser degrees of course, but manifest nonetheless. And we know from historical experience that the opportunity to smash the old state has consistently presented itself before the organs of popular power have had an opportunity to draw in the entirety of the oppressed and to perfect their functioning. They are instead flawed human creations involving an energetic fraction of the oppressed -- hopefully a majority, but usually not.

These are the instruments that the oppressed have in their hands to remake the world the day after the successful overthrow of the old state. What they have before them is not the new world itself but an opportunity to embark on its construction, a process that history suggests is not accomplished either quickly or easily.

So what is the character of the popular organs in this period after the smashing of the old state? Lenin argued, I believe correctly, that it constituted a new kind of state. This isn\'t because some nefarious statists or authoritarians impose this outcome. Rather it is because of the logic inherent in the situation. Even if anarchists constituted a solid and controlling majority of the organs of popular power they would constitute a state.

The organs of popular power become a state because there are still social antagonisms that alienate the instruments of governancce from a section of the population. Ideally this section should be as small as possible, consisting exclusively of the old ruling class. Unfortunately in the real world the forces arrayed against the revolution are not limited to the old ruling class, but also usually include a large fraction of the intermediate strata and many people from the ranks of the oppressed classes themselves who are deluded, decieved, corrupted or whatever. And of course the organs of popular power are, no matter how democratic they are, capable of making mistakes that antagonize sections of the opporessed who would otherwise be supportive. Social antagonisms within the working class, along ethnic, religious or job lines, don\'t just evaporate the day after a successful insurrection. Perfectly just and sound policies may nonetheless alienate the more backwards members of the oppressed classes from the organs of popular power.

Anarchism pretends that all of these difficulties can be avoided by good intentions, just by being incorruptible anti-authoritarians. In constrast, Marxists know better. We understand that even under ideal conditions the instruments of self-governance constructed in a period of dual power would constitute a new kind of state in th eperiod following the overthrow of the old state in so far as they represented the interests of one section of society (even if it is a majority ) against another (even if it is a tiny minority). But we also understand that history never hands things over to us in such a tidy fashion. In the real world revolutions are at best made by a plurality of ordinary people with all the contradictions this society loads us all down with and never by a majority of saints.

The anarchist delusion that the period of dual power can be followed immediately by a stateless society is just that, a delusion. As a fantasy it is harmless, but in a revolutionary situation this delusion can serve to disarm the most revolutionary minded among the oppressed and obscure the tasks before them -- namely of building a revolutionary state that is both as genuinely democratic as possible and strong enough to resist and defeat the forces of counter-revolution that will attack it.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 10:30 AM CST

Chris Day-

How do your comments hold up if we view revolutionary struggle as a constant process, and not the traditional marxist view of revolutionary struggle as a straight line that ends in a utopia that is eerily similar to heaven in the Christian cultural tradition that Marxism comes from?

Also, if the dual power strategy means creating alternative institutions that both make life livable right now and socialize us in new ways, these institutions would secure the allegiance of most people simply because it is the only place their needs are met. In contrast to a post-\"revolutionary\" state they would be decentralized, so it would be much more difficult for the counterrevolutionary types to gain control of. If a state was still around, it would be a relatively simple thing for the old elite (or a new one) to gain control of and use the centralized powers of the state to control the rest of the population. Even if counterrevolutionaries gained control of some dual-power institutions, they wouldn\'t have the same leverage over the rest of the population as they would if they had the mechanism of a state at their disposal.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 10:47 AM CST

\"Dual Power\" hasn\'t actually made it into any collective NEFAC document yet. The above quote that was in Barricada is from one NEFAC member, not the Federation as a whole. The commitee that was drafting some revisions to the Aims & Principles is evenly split over whether to include a section on dual power or not.

\"Revolutionary Dual Power: Mass protests and social struggles lack revolutionary potential if we are not actively creating bases of power in our communities and working places which have the ability to create ruptures within the capitalist social order. Revolutionary dual power is a strategy of developing counter-institutions (including workplace committees, community organizations, and popular councils) and radical social alternatives that are antagonistic to both capitalism and the state, and reinforced by a mass working class culture of resistance. A strategy of revolutionary dual power is a temporary situation and one which can only reach fruition within the context of an massive revolutionary crisis within capitalism and which has the ultimate aim of superseding the dominant power structure entirely.\"

Anyway, NEFAC seems to be divided over the issue, and it\'ll probably come up to a vote. I imagine this section will just be cut from the document.

Wayne Price questions What, If Anything, Is A Dual Power Strategy? (Northeastern Anarchist #5) Quite frankly, I think he addresses the issue better than Larwence Jarach does. He concludes \"Whether or not this oppositional approach is called a dual power strategy is not important. I do not see any advantage to calling it dual power. There is no point in tying our hands with rigid definitions of what sort of struggles may or may not be supported.\"

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 10:51 AM CST

The question of the relationship of the concept of \"dual power\" as it is currently used by some anarchists to the \"dual power\" notion developed by Lenin & Trotsky is, I believe, an extremely important one for anarchists to discuss. Some might take the naive position that there is no relationship other than the use of the same words to describe two radically different ideas. Others might see some historical and theoretical continuity in the usage of the dual power concept, but insist that over time, and in the context of current anarchist practice, it has acquired a significance that it did not originally have.

As Jarach points out, it is quite normal for anarchists to use some Marxist terms in their own discourse, so the mere fact that some anarchists are today using a phrase originally coined by Bolsheviks is not, in itself, evidence of their lack of sincerity or confusion about anarchist principles. It is clear from the quotations that Lawrence provided at the beginning of this article that groups like Love & Rage, Bring The Ruckus, and NEFAC see dual power as a dynamic revolutionary strategy, rather than a description of an existing state of affairs, in the sense that Lenin and Trotsky used the term. I agree with this \"strategy\" insofar as it is just an attempt to create, as this essay puts it, \"... self-organized projects...for providing mutual aid and support to various communities around the world\", or \"...alternative infrastructures for taking care of the needs of antiauthoritarians trying to eke out some kind of decent living\". However, the advocates of anarchist dual power seem to define the concept in a more explicitly political way, as an attempt to create an alternative power structure, and this is precisely where the idea becomes problematic. This article ends with a stark challenge:

Unless the partisans of dual power have worked out a radically different understanding of what power is, where its legitimacy comes from, how it is maintained, and - more importantly - how anarchists can possible exercise it within a framework that is historically statist, the discussion of \"anarchist dual power\" is a mockery of the anarchist principle of being against government.

It is certainly no accident that the same groups advocating an anarchist dual power strategy are those which call for more tactical and theoretical unity in the anarchist movement, and promote platformist organizational structures for anarchist groups; the quote from Barricada at the beginning of this essay makes that connection explicit. Bring The Ruckus also makes no secret of its quasi-leninist affinities, as the following quote from their Statement shows:

A revolutionary organization for the 21st century needs to forge a path between the Leninist vanguard party favored by traditional Marxist parties and the loose \"network\" model of organizing favored by many anarchists and activists today.

This statement from the Organizational Section of the Platform shows how indebted its authors were to Bolshevik methods of organization:

The idea of the General Union of Anarchists poses the problem of the co-ordination and concurrence of the activities of all the forces of the anarchist movement.

Every organisation adhering to the Union represents a vital cell of the common organism. Every cell should have its secretariat, executing and guiding theoretically the political and technical work of the organisation.

I am certain that the majority of activists in organizations like NEFAC, Bring The Ruckus, etc., are committed anarchists with the best intentions, but I must agree with Lawrence Jarach that their ideological adherence to ideas like dual power and platformism represents deep theoretical confusion, and may lead to results, or lack of results, that were neither foreseen or desired.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 10:54 AM CST

First off, and this is not an ad-honeum, its worth noting that Chris who is from one end of the \'post-anarchist\' spectrum is the first to see something positive in this written as it is by someone from the other end. More on this at the end.

I want to tackle Chris\'s comment that \"Even if anarchists constituted a solid and controlling majority of the organs of popular power they would constitute a state.\" This is pretty interesting because it suggest he either never got or has forgotten one of the basic principles of anarchism. That is we don\'t achieve a free society by being in power \'controlling majority of the organs of popular power\' but by getting the idea of a libertarian society to by the majority goal of these organisations. The distinction is pretty important as one of the major internal flaws of Leninism is that these two things are one and the same. Or rather a semi mystical idea that IF the party can have the majority at some stage in these organs it wins/earns the right to impose its will from that point on.

This is an important question. Chris rightly points out the problem of counter-revolution and the \'transition\' period before a new society is created. Neither of these ideas is terribly controversal for anarchists (again something Chris has \'forgotten\'). The controversy is the solution proposed.

The anarchist solution is indeed a tricky one. Chris is right to point out that the problems what exist in this society in terms of division within the proletariat will exist on day +1 of the revolution. That is where the US working class today is often deeply divided by racism at least some of this will carry over into a new society. So, on day 2 of the revolution, Chris worries that with the removal of the liberal states strong hand in areas with a majority \'white\' population minorities could find themselves in a worst situation.

I think denying the risk is stupid. But I also believe that, at least in the short term, revolutionary upsurges in which all the proleteriat fights together tend to greatly reduce, if not eliminate such frictions. I\'m also inclined to believe that a movement that has not already made great steps in that direction BEFORE the revolution will almost certainly fail to overthrow capital due to the manipulations of such internal divisions.

However it would be stupid to deny any such risk exists. So is there an alternative?

The only alternative seems to be the one that Chris advocates. That is that in the course of the revolution a mass party is built of the vanguard and that -as in Russia and China - the moment of revolution is also taken to be the moment at which that party earns the right to rule from that point on. As he is following the Chinese rather then the Russian model I presume he is willing to allow considerable faction struggles within the party which sometimes even spill over into attempts to mobilise larger sections of society behind specific programs.

I\'ll presume Chris has not forgotten the \'predictive\' anarchist critiques of such arrangements - ie the warnings of Bakunin and others that such an arrangement would lead to a dictatorship of scientists. Yet the problems would seem to be that in the comparison with other forms of revolution, from the limited anarchist experiment in Spain to the various anti-colonial revolts this \'party dictatorship\' methodology seems to come out worst of all.

That is, unless you are willing to limit yourself to official pig-iron statistics it seems that not only did these methods fail in their eventual goal they also created dictatorships that were so bloody that they are only rivalled by fascism. This led them to an end point, already witnessed in Russia, pretty obvious in China and widespread elsewhere where the new elite that grew out of this party form reintroduces \'market capital\' in a brutal fashion. Thus not only did you end up with a similar economic form to the purely nationalist post-colonial revolts of the same period (Ireland or India being two examples) but you do so in the context that the very idea of \'socialism\' has been totally discredited amongst the working class in general. Thus today in the Czech republic for instance, marching around with a red flag emblazoned with a hammer a sickle is about as popular as doing so with a swastika (perhaps less so).

There was a famous exchange sometime around 1920 between Trotsky and the anarchist Voline after Voline had complained to him about the authoratarian course of the revolution. Trotsky had replied to such criticisms by observing that \'you can\'t make an omlette without breaking eggs\'. Voline retorted \'OK, I can see the broken eggs, now show me this omlette you are talking of\'.

The standard reply tends to be that the \'wrong guys\' in the party got into power. Even accepting this we now have a risk equation to make, which strategy seems risker to you

1. The possible tyranny of a majority of prejudiced workers who can trap an oppressed layer of the working class.
2. The creation of an authoritarian party in which the \'wrong guy\' ends up on top.

Anarchists pretty much go for the first risk, post anarchists worry about it to the extent that some of them end up seeing revolution as impossible while others end up going for option 2.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 11:38 AM CST

When you are trashing NEFAC can you at least quote official NEFAC documents (easyly accessible on our web site).

For exemple, the author leave the reader with the impression that NEFAC use the concept of the \"platformist tradition\" when in fact it is the WSM who does this (NEFAC talk about \"the communist tradition within anarchism\" wich obviously include platformism but is not limited to it). Furthermore, it give the distinct impression that NEFAC formaly identify as \'platformist\' and everything it stand\'s for while nowhere in the official documents of the organisation is the word \"platformist\" or \"platformism\" used. The thing is we are influenced by the platform but we do not make an ideology out of a short pamphlet. Also, you get the impression reading this that NEFAC is structured around local\'s while this is not true, we only reconise collectives and affinity groups. There\'s a couple other stupidity but I\'ll stop at that.

(BTW Like Flint said, dual power is not yet an accepted concept in NEFAC. I, for one, oppose the current use of the idea. I also agree that the term is best used in the original \'leninist\' meaning as a short revolutionnary moment. The way today anarchists use the term is more in line with the old anarcho-syndicalist concept of \'building the new society in the shell of the old\'. I think if we want to stick to the idea of \'power\' a better term to describe what anarchist who use the term mean is \'counter-power\' and \'counter-institution\'. Some will argue that the very use of the term \'power\' is antithetical with anarchism but I disagree. I think the important thing to know is who have the power.)

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 11:43 AM CST

\"it is not by bread alone that man survives\". Marxism lacks the critical psycho-sociological basis to contrast its materialism [anarchism also strongly relies on the \"conquest of bread\" analysis] that anarchism so willingly adopts.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 11:53 AM CST

I agree with Stirner that in order to understand NEFAC\'s views on organization, we should look at official NEFAC documents, such as their Constitution, which would have made the authors of the Platform proud. Stirner\'s views on power are a little unclear to me, however. Why would an anarchist want any person or group to exercise power? If we are speaking only of control over one\'s own life, then use of the word \"power\" is superfluous; in the context of an organization or community reaching decisions by majority rule, the concept of power takes on a rather different meaning.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 12:21 PM CST

Makhno wrote: \"Why would an anarchist want any person or group to exercise power?\"

Just like Makhno pointed out, there\'s the issue of the power of the individual over it\'s own life and the power various groups of people must have over their own activity. To me freedom and liberty are all about power: the \"power to\".

I think anarchism is about power to the people or rather people\'s power.

Get it?

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 12:28 PM CST

When one discusses power in the context of a group, this implies that decisions are being made that affect the group as a whole. If all individuals in the group agreed about all issues all of the time, this would be no problem; since this is obviously not going to be the case, what you have is a political conflict, a power struggle. Some members of the group will favor one course of action, others will wish to pursue a different one. One person or faction must prevail, hence they are exercising power over those members of the group who disagreed with them.

Get it?

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 01:11 PM CST

So is everyone saying that anarchism is just stateless fascism?

Too bad.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 01:16 PM CST

from the original article:

\"The anarcho-communism of the Platformists is eerily similar to the authoritarian
communism of various Leninist gangs.\"

Which is nonsense. Since when did Leninists argue for self-management?
Abolition of the state? Where has a Platformist group argued for the seizure
of state power by a vanguard?

\"From a cursory examination of their published rhetoric, it is difficult not to
conclude that they have taken the \"successful\" aspects of a Leninist program,
a Leninist vision, and Lenino-Maoist organizing, and more or less removed or
modified the vocabulary of the more obviously statist parts.\"

Again, rubbish. Its clear that Platformists have no such similar \"vision\" as Leninism
nor do they support Leninist organising. And no Leninist group favours the ideas of
liberty, self-management, federalism and so on? Nevermind try and apply them?

Makhno writes:

\"The question of the relationship of the concept of \"dual power\" as it is
currently used by some anarchists to the \"dual power\" notion developed by
Lenin & Trotsky is, I believe, an extremely important one for anarchists to
discuss.\"

Surely this is a bit like the right-wing argument that \"Lenin called himself a
communist. as did Kropotkin. therefore anarchists are simply Leninists\"?

Just to state the obvious, Lenin called himself a communist. So did Kropotkin.
They meant different things by the term. Concentrate on what is being argued,
not what it is called.

I\'m not a Platformist, but I know enough about it and current Platformist influenced
groups to know that they are *not* secret Leninists or influenced by Leninism. They
seek to learn from history, not to repeat it. We should be encouraging this, not
labelling it \"anarcho-Bolshevik\"

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 12:39 PM CST

You\'re getting sucked in Stirner. Debates with Makhno lead nowhere but to increasingly levels of abstract thought divorced from reality. Don\'t waste your time. Learn from my mistakes!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 12:47 PM CST

Come on, Flint, don\'t be a sore loser. Just because you can\'t successfully defend your positions doesn\'t mean nobody else should try.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 12:52 PM CST

Ha!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 02:01 PM CST

I say fuck a \"counter-institution\" and fuck all institutions for that matter.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 02:03 PM CST

Yeah, down with infoshops everywhere!
*sigh* Do you all really believe this stuff?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 02:08 PM CST

Smartest thing you\'ve ever said to Makhno, Flint. \"Ha!\" Man I\'m glad you read so many books.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 03:32 PM CST

Our anonymous poster from Monday January 13 2003 @ 11:16AM PST doesn\'t seem too well-informed on the issues that are being discussed here. For one thing, Lawrence Jarach spelled out exactly how the Love & Rage Federation was not only influenced by Leninism, but actually founded by ex-members of a Trotskyist sect, as well as one notorious \"anarchist\" who later openly proclaimed his allegiance to Maoism (by the way, for anyone who\'s curious, the individual at L&R\'s founding conference who suggested that they call their newspaper The Torch was Jon Bekken, an anarcho-syndicalist). Also, let me re-print the following quote from Bring The Ruckus\' Statement:

A revolutionary organization for the 21st century needs to forge a path between the Leninist vanguard party favored by traditional Marxist parties and the loose \"network\" model of organizing favored by many anarchists and activists today.

Official documents for groups like NEFAC and Workers\' Solidarity make no overt references to Leninism, and do explicitly reject vanguardism; however, they do insist on the importance of theoretical and tactical unity, as well as that vague concept, the \"leadership of ideas\", and are structured on a basis of strict political formalism. Their revolutionary theory shares the Leninist emphasis on the importance of class struggle, as well as the practical goal of operating as a separate political entity within the working class in order to \"steer\" or \"guide\" workers\' struggles in a more radical direction.

The Platform itself was written in response to a crushing defeat of an anarchist movement by the Bolsheviks, so how could one say that it was not influenced by Leninism? Was the Platform a complete and total rejection of Leninist principles? Hardly. Again, a quote from the Organizational Section:

The idea of the General Union of Anarchists poses the problem of the co-ordination and concurrence of the activities of all the forces of the anarchist movement.

Every organisation adhering to the Union represents a vital cell of the common organism. Every cell should have its secretariat, executing and guiding theoretically the political and technical work of the organisation.

The specter of Bolshevism looms large over this document.

As I said before, I am not arguing that the majority of members of contemporary platformist and platform-inspired groups are not serious anarchists, but rather, that their theory and organizational structure have been influenced, albeit unconsciously, by Leninism to the point where many other anarchists find their approach rather distasteful.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 03:46 PM CST

In my personal opinion, I\'d say that if NEFAC is indeed \"influenced\" by just enough Leninism to make anarchists like yourself, Bob Black, Jason McQuinn, or Lawrence Jarach find our approach \"distasteful\" and not want anything to do with us, well, I would say that Lenin has made at least one useful contribution to the anarchist movement!

Ha, ha, ha...

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 03:48 PM CST

\"So what is the character of the popular organs in this period after the
smashing of the old state? Lenin argued, I believe correctly, that it constituted
a new kind of state. This isn\'t because some nefarious statists or
authoritarians impose this outcome.\"

Given that lenin constantly equated \"workers power\" with \"party power\" and
constantly stressed that the Bolshevik party would take power, the conclusion
that he was an authoritarian is pretty much correct. As such , his vision was
statist as it was based on hierarchical power -- the masses elect a few party
leaders who have the real power.

\"The organs of popular power become a state because there are still social
antagonisms that alienate the instruments of governancce from a section of
the population.\"

But as the state is based on *delegated power* then the \"instruments of
governance\" are, by definition, alienated from the population under the
so-called workers state. In so far as the population manage their own
fates then its not a state. In so far as power is centralised in the hands of
a few party leaders, it is a state.

\"Unfortunately in the real world the forces
arrayed against the revolution are not limited to the old ruling class, but also
usually include a large fraction of the intermediate strata and many people
from the ranks of the oppressed classes themselves who are deluded,
decieved, corrupted or whatever.\"

So the \"dictatorship of the proletariat\" is required to dictate to the proletariat?
And lets not forget that once the Bolsheviks were in power the \"ranks\" of the
\"deluded, deceived, corrupted or whatever\" became, in fact, the whole of the
proletariat! Hence the Bolshevik truism of the \"dictatorship of the party,\" for
the party monopoly of power to protect the working class from itself.

For more on this visit:

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secH3.html#sech38

I wish more Leninists were as honest as this! Yes, lets hear for the
\"dictatorship of the proletariat\" which exists to make sure that the
proles do what the party thinks is best!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 03:54 PM CST

Well, Mark,

As Kruschev said - \"We will bury you.\"

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 04:03 PM CST

I forgot to add my details in my first post, sorry. Anyways...

\"Their revolutionary theory shares the Leninist
emphasis on the importance of class struggle\"

That obviously means that Bakunin was a Leninist, as
was Kropotkin, Malatesta, Goldman and Berkman! I\'m
amazed that an anarchist could claim that anarchism
does not emphasis the importance of class struggle! I
expect that sort of nonsense from the likes of the SWP
(ISO). And I\'m sorry to be rude, but a claim like that is
just an insult to the intelligence!

\"as well as the practical goal of
operating as a separate political entity within the working class in order to
\"steer\" or \"guide\" workers\' struggles in a more radical direction.\"

As Malatesta, Bakunin, Voline and so on also argued for! That is a
common anarchist position -- and one the anti-platformists like Voline
did *not* disagree with. The question was *how* anarchists do that,
not whether they did or not.

And, of course, why have papers, webpages, meetings, and so on if we
are not trying to influence (\"push\") struggles in a more radical direction?

\"The Platform itself was written in response to a crushing defeat of an
anarchist movement by the Bolsheviks, so how could one say that it was not
influenced by Leninism?\"

So if someone, say, like Vernon Richards writes a book in response to the
crushing defeat of the anarchist movement by fascism, does that mean he
was \"influenced by fascism\"?

Personnally, I agree with Malatesta\'s critique of the Platform. But at least his
debate on the matter was based on respect and an attempt to understand
where it was coming from. As it was, he agreed with the need for anarchists
to organise as anarchists to influence the class struggle. As such, the Platform
is a basis for debate and discussion and a text that needs to be critiqued
positively and this *not* done by labelling those who support it crypto-Leninists!

And as for being not being \"too well-informed on the issues that are being
discussed here\" all I can say is that I\'ve read the Platform, the replies by
Voline and Maximov, the Malatesta-Makhno exchange, the documents of
various Platformist influenced groups and by non-Platformists. I\'m also well
aware of the ideas of Bakunin, Malatesta, etc as well as the basic ideas of
anarchist.

Why not read my summary of anarchist organisation, including the Platform, at:

http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secJ3.html

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 04:06 PM CST

Oh, oh... Look... Makhno is quoting Kruschev! Using the AJODA \"guilt by vague association\" logic, this clearly points to his revisionist-Stalinist politics. I knew it! I knew it!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 05:12 PM CST

Bah, tough talk from the \"Post-Left Gang of Four\".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 05:21 PM CST

We \"Friends of Ironchef\" have our eyes on the \"Boston Trientista\".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 05:24 PM CST

My anarchist study group will bury all of you! We\'re a force to be reckoned with.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 05:41 PM CST

The Iron Chef Column will never be defeated!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 05:52 PM CST

Or atleast retreat across the frontier in formation with all of our gear intact. Though we\'ll probably be short on ammo.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 06:02 PM CST

Maybe short on ammo, but our side-burns will remain intact.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 07:26 PM CST

What the fuck are you talking about??Shut up if you dont have anything intelligent to say!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 07:40 PM CST

One of the first things that turned me onto anarchism was the fact that it was totally voluntary. Noone is exercising power over anyone else. To go along with majority is still the choice of the minority.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 08:39 PM CST

I took your advice and checked out your section on Anarchist Organization in the FAQ. At one point you said the following:

The Platform\'s basic assumption is that there is a link between coherency and efficiency. By increasing the coherency of the organisation by making collective decisions and applying them, the Platform argues that this will increase the influence of anarchist ideas. Without this, they argue, better organised groups (such as Leninist ones) would be in a better position to have their arguments heard and listened to than anarchists would.

Here the authors of the Platform, by your interpretation, admit that they consider Leninist groups to be \"better organized\", and thus, more \"efficient\" than their anarchist counterparts. Given this attitude, it is only natural that these anarchists would wish to emulate at least some aspects of Leninist organization. It is this goal, taken along with their determination to provide the \"leadership of ideas\" to the working class, that gives the Platform a distinctly Leninist tone.

There is no question that class analysis is fundamental to anarchist theory and history, and the Platform\'s emphasis on class certainly does not, by itself, provide grounds for accusing its authors of being influenced by Leninism. However, if one looks at the development of the Platform in a historical context, as a response to a Bolshevik victory, and as an attempt to bring about greater \"coherence\" and \"efficiency\" in anarchist organizations in an effort to provide the \"leadership of ideas\" to the working class, I think the accusation is well-justified.

How much of the original Platform modern Platformist or platform-friendly groups have actually adopted in practice or theory is debatable, and seems to vary from one organization to another. On the one hand, you have a group like Bring The Ruckus, which explicitly states that they are guided, in part, by Leninist principles of organization. On the other hand, you have a group like NEFAC, which, while composed of collectives and affinity groups, also advocates tactical and theoretical \"coherence\" and the \"leadership of ideas\", and organizes its federation on an explicitly political, non-organic basis.

All of these groups are pretty small, and will remain so, except for the ones that simply fold, so I don\'t believe they will ever have a significant impact on society at large; they do, however, have the potential to divert some conscientious anarchists from pursuing more productive and imaginative projects. Before I end this long post, I can\'t resist pointing out another trend in anarchist thought that sees the issue of class struggle a little differently, so here is a quote from Murray Bookchin\'s pamphlet, Listen, Marxist!:

The worker becomes a revolutionary not by becoming more of a worker but by undoing his \"workerness.\" And in this he is not alone; the same applies to the farmer, the student, the clerk, the soldier, the bureaucrat, the professional--and the Marxist. The worker is no less a \"bourgeois\" than the farmer, student, clerk, soldier, bureaucrat, professional--and Marxist. His \"workerness\" is the disease he is suffering from, the social affliction telescoped to individual dimensions. Lenin understood this in What Is to Be Done? but he smuggled in the old hierarchy under a red flag and some revolutionary verbiage. The worker begins to become a revolutionary when he undoes his \"workerness\".

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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 08:53 PM CST

haha, that was so great.

you know i love you.
i, need you.
even when i\'m with my boo
you know i\'m crazy over you.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 09:13 PM CST

you know what.... i just don\'t care anymore. these pointless arguements about organization and post-leftism have gone absolutely nowhere since they started about ten years before i even heard the word \"anarchy.\"

i can understand why people don\'t want government and in turn, why there\'s a need for another way of doing things. but this is just ridiculous- the fact that this article was written in the first place, and the people who spend so much time argueing for and against this, publishing it, editing it, monitoring it.... this is just a waste.

for organization? against organization? who cares? i\'ll worry about it when we have an effective revolutionary movement. in the mean time, i just don\'t want to hear about it.

one more point: i\'ll agree with the primitivists that technology is alienating. i wish you all could have seen me jumping up and down, pulling my hair out, and screaming \"woo hoo, woo hoo\" like daffy duck when i stumbled upon this article.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 09:20 PM CST

hey, the Durruti Column served as a rearguard for the retreating republican army.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 13 2003 @ 10:09 PM CST

Anybody want to hear my idea for an anarchist-themed Iron Chef episode?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 04:59 AM CST

More dishoensty from the post-anarchists when fake \'Makhno\' writes \"Official documents for groups like NEFAC and Workers\' Solidarity make no overt references to Leninism\"

There are quite a few for instance
\"We have to be capable of combating false ideas such as Social democracy and Leninism.\" from \'The role of the Anarchist Organisation\'.
http://struggle.ws/ppapers/role.html

Or later on
\"20. This is not to deny the need for efficient co-ordination and decision making in all spheres of life. The point is that the ultimate authority will be the democratic, mass organs of the class. Let there be no talk of the state co-existing with the workers councils....the councils would be co-existed out of existence! Instead of the state there will be the federation of workers councils .

21. It is on this issue that our fundamental difference with Leninism is made clear. We agree with Lenin that authority can only be defeated by authority, that the authority of the bosses will be destroyed by the authority of the workers. We agree on the need for a lead to be given within the class. but while our leadership is one of persuasion and education, the Leninist party goes way beyond this and tries to grab power through control of the state. It seeks to exercise the authority of the party over the workers. In doing this it prepares the way for the growth of a new oppressive ruling class .\"

Incidentally 20 also deal with the \'duel power\' nonsense in the original article.

And of course \'State Capitlaism in the Soviet Union\' at \'http://struggle.ws/ppapers/statecap.html is somewhat relevant here as well.

So fake \'Makhno\' its not simply the case that what is lacking are postive words about Lenin (which might imply - as you seek to do - a neutrality). Containg in these documents are several negative critiques of Leninism that show your claims, and those of the article to be no more then a crude and lying slander campaign. Just the sort of thing Lenin excelled in, next time your looking for closet Leninists I suggest you start by looking in your mirror!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 05:14 AM CST

In tackling the resolution of the matter of the revolution\'s defense, anarchists must unceasingly look to the social character of libertarian communism. Faced with a mass revolutionary movement, we have to acknowledge the need to organize that and endow it with means worthy of it, then throw ourselves into it whole-heartedly. Otherwise, if we appear to be dreamers and utopians, then we must not hamper the toilers\' struggle, in particular those who follow the state socialists. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, anarchism is and remains a revolutionary social movement and that is why I am and always will be an advocate of its having a well articulated organization and support the establishment, come the revolution, of battalions, regiments, brigades and divisions designed to amalgamate, at certain times, into one common army, under a single regional command in the shape of supervisory organizational Staffs. The task of the latter will be, according to the requirements and conditions of the struggle, to draw up a federative operational plan, co-ordinating the actions of regional armies, so as to bring to a successful conclusion the fighting conducted on all fronts against the armed counter-revolution.

The matter of the defence of the revolution is no easy matter: it may require very great organisational commitment from the revolutionary masses. Anarchists must realise that and stand by to assist them in that undertaking.


http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/makhno/sp001781/chap3.html

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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 05:37 AM CST

I take revolutionary discipline to mean the self-discipline of the individual, set in the context of a strictly prescribed collective activity equally incumbent upon all.

This should be the responsible policy line of the members of that collective, leading to strict congruence between its practice and its theory.

Without discipline inside the organization, there is no way of undertaking any consequential revolutionary activity at all. In the absence of discipline, the revolutionary vanguard cannot exist, for in that case it would find itself in utter disarray in its practice and would be incapable of identifying the tasks of the moment or of living up to the initiator role that the masses expect of it.

That is why I am speaking about a libertarian organization that rests upon the principle of fraternal discipline. Such an organization would lead to the crucial understanding between all of the living forces of revolutionary anarchism and would assist it in taking its rightful place in the struggle of Labor against Capital.

In this fashion, libertarian ideas can only gain a mass following, and not be impoverished. Only empty-headed, irresponsible chatter-boxes could balk at such an organizational set-up.

http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/makhno/sp001781/chap15.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 05:41 AM CST

The final and utter liquidation of the State can only come to pass when the struggle of the toilers is oriented along the most libertarian lines possible, when the toilers will themselves determine the structures of their social action. These structures should assume the form of organs of social and economic self-direction, the form of free \"anti-authoritarian\" soviets. The revolutionary workers and their vanguard - the anarchists - must analyze the nature and structure of these soviets and specify their revolutionary functions in advance. It is upon that, chiefly, that the positive evolution and development of anarchist ideas in the ranks of those who will accomplish the liquidation of the State on their own account in order to build a free society, will be dependent.

http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/makhno/sp001781/chap11.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 05:44 AM CST

Andrew from Workers\' Solidarity has really outdone himself with his last post from Tuesday January 14 2003 @ 02:59AM PST; the deceptiveness and venomously personal nature of his attacks is worthy of any of the most hard-line Stalinist or Trotskyist groups. One has to wonder if that approach is typical for members of his organization.

The pint of truth in his lake of poison is that I stated in my post from Monday January 13 2003 @ 01:32PM PST that there were no overt references to Lenin or Leninism in the literature of WSM or NEFAC. Since I did not feel it necessary to make it clear that I meant positive references, I suddenly stand accused by Andrew of engaging in a \"crude and lying slander campaign\". Here is the entire paragraph to which he refers:

Official documents for groups like NEFAC and Workers\' Solidarity make no overt references to Leninism, and do explicitly reject vanguardism; however, they do insist on the importance of theoretical and tactical unity, as well as that vague concept, the \"leadership of ideas\", and are structured on a basis of strict political formalism. Their revolutionary theory shares the Leninist emphasis on the importance of class struggle, as well as the practical goal of operating as a separate political entity within the working class in order to \"steer\" or \"guide\" workers\' struggles in a more radical direction.

Note that Andrew did not even attempt to address the real thrust of my argument in that paragraph. I see nothing in the Workers\' Solidarity document he referred to that would contradict my general critique of platformist organizations; in fact, the authors speak quite explicitly of the need for leadership of the working class, albeit one based on \"education and persuasion\".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 09:02 AM CST

Never has so much been written about so little...

I always wondered why there is so much in-fighting between various tendencies within the anarchist movement (similar to what happens within the authoritarian Left).

My guess is that the reason why we\'re wasting so much ink, paper and electrons on such futile debates is that those forums are a segregated area where almost only anarchists dwell. Since we are all basically agreed on our opinions on reformists, fascists or authoritarian communists, there\'s not much to be said on that front.

\"Nazis are bad, aren\'t they?\"
\"Why, yes they are.\"

So even though the basic differences between green anarchists, primitivists, post-leftists, anarcho-commies, etc... are in fact very minor compared to our differences with pretty much all political tendencies outside of anarchism, we waste more time here debating around those differences than anything else.

Thus the average Jo or Jane Internet, stumbling upon this site, might reasonably conclude from the relative volume of writings on different subjects that anarchists care more about taking down other anarchists than, say, fascists.

As for myself, I\'m pretty much tired of such crap, and thus I take my leave from the entire debate.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 09:11 AM CST

The secret ingredient is... TOFU! Now make 6 course meal to feed a 1,000 with what you can scavenge from surrounding dumpsters!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 09:26 AM CST

Makhno you have delibretly misrepresented documents and posts on a number of occasions in these threads, one is an accident, twice is co-incidence but third time out it is a methodology. Frankly there is NO other way to deal with such methods other then by pointing them out. Don\'t expect me to answer serious points mixed in with lies as they will merely appear to legtimate the lies. If you think I\'m being hard on you have a look at the treatment we gave a leninist who tried similar tricks at http://flag.blackened.net/wwwthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=revoltnew&Number=14702&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=2&vc=1

Of course when called on it you try and present the lie as some minor slip up or oversight. It\'s not. You were seeking to label us leninists so not \'noticing\' the denunciations of Leninism that are mixed into the very documents you are citing is being delibretly misleading.

BTW calling an anarchist a leninist, given our history, is about the nastiest insult you could give. Accusing you of lies and slander in return is really in the ha\'penny place in comparison!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 09:36 AM CST

The Platform should be read.http://struggle.ws/platform/plat_preface.html Form your own opinion, no help from Lawrence Jarach required there.

About dual power. Society now is not anarchist. Society will not become anarchist overnight. Between here and anarchy (if it ever happens) there will inevitably be various shades of dual power. That is, power of anti-authoritarians trying to control their own lives, struggling with power of the state and statists. Anarchists want to push this struggle in one direction. From the current state&capitalism power situation, dual power is in that direction.

Dual power can be both a description and a strategy. As a strategy, it is seeking a situation fitting the description. (So it\'s not really a specificc, that\'s what the anarchist movement is always doing: pushing towards anarchy, inevitably via dual power) This strategy/description distinction is a non issue.

Alternative institution like the ones Jarach lists do not constitute dual power now, (and no-one claims that), but they would if they grew. The existence of these instituions, small and marginalised as they are, is a positive step: they\'re something to build on. When there are more roles taken by co-operatives, and more people involved, a whole section of society drifts out of the state locus. Power is shifted, or dissolved, depending how you define it. The state is left with the choice of explicitly using force (sending the police in to enforce its rules), or explicitly not enforcing, and losing credibility. It gets to the point where the state can\'t always politicaly afford to confront a genuinely popular movement with force. On the other hand, the revolutionaries can\'t yet smash the state (and may not see the need to), and some people still recognise that state. This is dual power.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 09:36 AM CST

That I agree with, oh wait... that\'s the real Makhno, not the post-leftist who posts under that handle.

And I agree with that quote from Bookchin in \"Listen, Marxist\". The basis of class struggle, is often workers withdrawing their labor; that is--not working!

I do wonder if projects like NEFAC are so small and insignificant, why you spend so much time attacking them... rather than attacking with your keyboard, capitalism and the state. I mean, should you be engaged in some kind of productive and imaginative project? I know I am. I know you have been thinking about doing something interesting... but have you actually done it yet? Funny thing is, I find many hands makes light work, which is why I like working with my affinity group--and like it when my affinity group works with other affinity groups on a common project.

That stuff about the platformism being Leninism I disagree with. Whatever argument you thought you were making is totally discredited by hyperbole, bad jacketing, strawmen, and shadowboxing.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 09:54 AM CST

NEFAC also have a few reference to leninism in it\'s official document. For exemple:

\"We reject the vision of the

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 10:24 AM CST

You know, I have little patience for those people who complain about these threads. Nobody is forcing you to read them, in fact, some people just read the news and skip the comments. But if some people want to get involved in a debate here, that\'s ok. If they post a lot of comments, that doesn\'t mean that they aren\'t activists or they \"need to get a life.\" Most, if not all, the people who post here are involved in activist projects and \"have a life.\" You can\'t do activism 24-7, so what\'s wrong with spending a half hour posting comments here?

Personally, this debate on platformism bores me to tears, which is why I\'ve chosen to stay out of it and have opted instead to post yesterday in threads about the anti-war movement.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 11:38 AM CST

Dice the onions, mince the garlic, smash the state!




The Iron Chef Column will never be defeated! We have formed an undefeatable alliance with the Flint-borg Column, and the Thugarchist Column (who are ready to unleash their secret weapon... the Vermin Supreme)!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 11:45 AM CST

Andrew, you\'re pretty thick, so I\'ll make this nice and simple. I am not calling any of the platformist groups, even Workers\' Solidarity, Leninist; what I am doing is supporting Lawrence Jarach\'s position that platformism is heavily influenced by Leninism in theory and practice, despite the platformists\' anti-Leninist rhetoric. By the way, the quotes from Nestor Makhno that someone posted here on Tuesday January 14 2003 @ 03:37AM PST and Tuesday January 14 2003 @ 03:41AM PST makes the resemblance to Leninism perfectly clear - note the emphasis on organizational discipline and anarchists as a revolutionary vanguard.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 11:49 AM CST

No!

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Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 11:53 AM CST

\"Makhno\": your arguments are silly. Of course the Situationists had a tightly organized, disciplined group and aspired to a vanguard role in social movements. Anarchy Magazine is highly influenced by the Situationists and thus, according to your argument, the same issues apply to Anarchy Magazine.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 14 2003 @ 11:54 AM CST

Hey, Flint,

Have you read the whole text of Listen, Marxist!? If you had, you might not be so enthusiastic about it. Let me provide another quote from that essay:

To reinforce this class structure by babbling about the \"role of the working class,\" to reinforce the traditional class struggle by imputing a \"revolutionary\" content to it, to infect the new revolutionary movement of our time with \"workeritis\" is reactionary to the core. How often do the Marxian doctrinaires have to be reminded that the history of the class struggle is the history of a disease, of the wounds opened by the famous \"social question,\" of man\'s one-sided development in trying to gain control over nature by dominating his fellow man? If the byproduct of this disease has been technological advance, the main products have been repression, a horrible shedding of human blood and a terrifying distortion of the human psyche.

As the disease approaches its end, as the wound begins to heal in their deepest recesses, the process now unfolds toward wholeness; the revolutionary implications of the traditional class struggle lose their meaning as theoretical constructs and as social reality. The process of decomposition embraces not only the traditional class structure but also the patriarchal family, authoritarian modes of upbringing, the influence of religion, the institutions of the state, and the mores built around toil, renunciation, guilt and repressed sexuality. The process of disintegration in shirt, now becomes generalized and cuts across virtually all the traditional classes, values and institutions. It creates entirely new issues, modes of struggle and forms of organization and calls for an entirely new approach to theory and praxis.

Furthermore, if you have any evidence to back up your claims about my alleged \"hyperbole, bad jacketing, strawmen, and shadowboxing\" in this discussion, then put up or shut up.