Bob Avakian on Anarchism (a lil)

[prowl]

Here is a lil of what Bob wrote a few years back dissecting anarchism, and learning from it.

more can be found at
rwor.org/chair_e.htm#anarchism

From an Internationalist Point of View

Now, the anarchists actually argue not only that you shouldn't have a state in their vision of a new society, but that you shouldn't have an established, organized revolutionary leadership to carry out the overthrow of the existing order. If that line were followed, it would actually mean that you couldn't overthrow the existing order--because, in order to do that, you have to go up against and actually defeat the highly organized and very powerful military as well as political forces of the imperialists and their whole state apparatus.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that somehow you did overthrow the old system without any revolutionary leadership of an organized character and then, in accordance with the anarchist position, you tried to do without any kind of state. Well then, really, the way the society and the economy would have to be structured, to be consistent with this anarchist vision, is that every unit of production in society, or small groups of people that got together to carry out production and exchange, should enjoy the fruits and the benefits of what's produced through their labor. But among the many problems with this is the inescapable fact that, if you were to do this beginning on an economic foundation that resulted from the position of the old imperialist country in the overall international division of labor and accumulation process of the imperialist system, then you would be proceeding on the basis of reaping the fruits and "communizing" the plunder and exploitation that had been carried out by imperialism. And this would be true, even taking into account the unavoidable destruction and dislocation of technology and of the economy overall that would be involved in a revolutionary war to overthrow imperialism--even with all that, you would still be "inheriting" vast and highly developed technology and other productive forces that are, to a significant degree, the fruit of exploitation and plunder carried out over decades and centuries of imperialist domination and colonial conquest throughout the world.

So the question will be: are you going to have an approach of "communizing" those fruits, for the benefit only of the people in that (former) imperialist country, or are you going to utilize those productive forces first and above all to advance the world revolution toward the aim of overcoming all exploitative and unequal relations in the world, including the "great divide" between the imperialist and the colonial countries?
The Process of Doing Away with Classes

Another way of getting at this is to say that, so long as society is divided into classes--and so long as the economic-material basis exists for such class division--it is only through a socialist state that the highest interests of the proletariat and masses of people can be realized. And what goes along with that is that it is only through such a state that proletarian internationalism can be given its fullest and highest expression. This is the only way that the larger interests of the proletarian class, including its proletarian internationalism, can actually find expression--can actually be implemented and, yes, enforced, against the opposition of the overthrown exploiters and other reactionary forces.

In these conditions, where the basis for class divisions has not yet been overcome and uprooted, without such a proletarian state--without a unifying instrument to give concentrated expression and concentrated material force to the interests of the proletarian class as a whole--then "the best" you would be able to get (and this could only last for a brief period of time) would be small groups of people who were actually exercising a petit bourgeois way of life, operating in a petit bourgeois mode. And if the means of production were owned or controlled by small groups of people, with each owning a small portion of these means of production and organizing production in accordance with this, then by what means and through what mechanisms would economic relations among these different groups, and among the individuals within these groups, be regulated?

It will not be possible to do away with commodity relations and money right away--in fact for a considerable period of time--after the overthrow of the present capitalist system; and if you try to abolish them right away, you will have chaos and the result, politically as well as economically, will be anything but the idealized vision of the anarchists of a society without elites monopolizing authority and power. (This is a decisive point which I will return to later.) So, in fact, if such an anarchist program were implemented, the economic relations among different sectors of the economy, and between the people in society, could only end up being regulated according to the principles of commodity production and exchange--and, more than that, capitalist commodity production and exchange. The result would be re-polarization of society along capitalist lines, with the emergence of a bourgeoisie full-blown and a bourgeois society full-blown. And, along with that, the result would be the restoration of imperialist plunder and exploitation throughout the world.

[prowl]

The Problem of Being "Ben-and-Jerryized"

In other words, if you have not, in reality, uprooted the material conditions that give rise to and underlie the division of society into classes; if you have not overcome the division between mental and manual labor, the social division of labor that involves the oppression of women, and other major social contradictions; if you have not brought into being the conditions that make it possible to articulate the production and exchange of goods and services without commodity relations and money; if you have not accomplished all that--not only in one part of the world but in the world as a whole--and you try to just have small groups of people get together and produce things, you're going to find yourself forced to "fall back" on capitalist principles in regulating the economy.

First of all, you're not going to be able to avoid a certain division of labor in society. Individuals, or small groups of people, are not going to be able to produce everything they need by themselves. So there's going to have to be some form of exchange. And, again, this will have a worldwide dimension and cannot be limited to just one country or one part of the world. What form is this exchange going to take? How is this exchange--and the production that underlies it--going to be on a basis that contributes to overcoming these divisions and inequalities in the particular society, and also contributes to the world revolution and the transformations necessary for the elimination of classes and social inequality, worldwide?

In reality, these small groups, both in their relations of exchange with each other and within their units of production, would reproduce capitalist relations. They would be in a situation where, in society as a whole, there is no embodiment of interests and, yes, of authority, which is higher than these various different small groups and which can therefore unify the masses of people around those higher interests. And the fact is that, without such embodiment of higher interests and authority, there will be no means for uprooting social inequalities, for uprooting commodity production, for uprooting the material basis that gives rise to class distinctions. So these small units of production, in having to deal in the larger economic arena of both that country and of the world, in having to find their place within the overall accumulation process that exists in the world as a whole, would find themselves "Ben-and-Jerry-ized." Despite any intentions of doing things for the social good, they would not be able to avoid getting into a situation where some people are exploiting others within that society, and where, on a world scale, they are benefitting from the unequal division of labor and from the exploitative and lop-sided relations.

Unless, through the medium of the state, you move systematically to suppress the forces of capitalism and to realize the higher interests of the proletariat, capitalist forces will (as Lenin put it) be regenerated daily, hourly, continuously, spontaneously, and on a mass scale, out of these underlying economic and social contradictions that you've only begun to address. Without a state to provide a higher synthesis and unification of the interests of the people--of the proletariat and the broad masses of people--these different units of production having to exchange with each other are objectively going to be thrown into competition with each other. And this competition is going to lead to some advancing, while others are set back, it's going to lead to further polarization and inequality, both between different sectors of the economy and within those different sectors.

So in terms of proletarian internationalism and in terms of actually overcoming these inequalities and divisions which continually reproduce the bourgeoisie--which, even after the capitalist system has been overthrown, continually produce forces that strive toward the restoration of the bourgeois mode of production--you cannot do without the state right away. In fact, you cannot do without it for a long historical period, until you have completely eradicated the basis for class distinctions and all the social inequalities and antagonisms that are bound up with this. Until you reach that point, without the proletarian state you're going to find the forces of capitalism reinforced, and rather than being able to quickly abolish the state, you're going to find the bourgeois state, bourgeois dictatorship, exercising its oppressive rule over society, enforcing the bourgeois mode of production with all its exploitation and inequality, both within the country and internationally.

After the present capitalist system is overthrown, not only will old bourgeois forces try to regroup and sabotage and ultimately overthrow the new society, but new bourgeois forces are going to continually emerge, for a long time. These various bourgeois forces are going to seek each other out and form alliances, they're going to gather their forces, they're going to seek allies internationally, and they're going to move to restore capitalism. Without the proletarian state, there's going to be, frankly, nobody to stop them--no unified force, no leadership, to represent the proletariat as a whole in being able to combat this capitalist restoration.

[readpunk]

His critique doesn't appear to take into consideration any previous anarchist societies. Also, why on earth would someone who if there was a revolution could possibly end up in power be for anarchism? The point of anarchism is to arrive at what Marx, who established his idea's thanks to Prouhdon, wanted to see as the end result of communism. Stateless, powerless, non-hierarchical socialism.

A marxist argument against anarchism should be made by someone who is in absolutely no position to benefit from a future communist society and is clearly and independent thinker who doesn't just throw their support to the nearest power hungry politician/revolutionary.

[porol]

so your responce to this provocative peice is to say, "he has no right to speak"?

I think that there are some important points in this. a few beiung the way he explains that anarchism cannot maintain itself and will lead back to capitalism.

or how it is not really all the way internationalist.

and many more points.

I am frankly not all that surprised that a libertarian typed anarchist would wanna say someone doesn't have the right to speak. (not its not a typo)

[RosaRL]

His critique doesn't appear to take into consideration any previous anarchist societies. {/quote]

What anarchist societies?

I'm currious because it is my understanding that to date there has not been one successful anarchist revolution. Even those who claim that the paris commune was anarchist, cannot get into its shortcommings - why did it last only two months? was it simply overthrown from the outside, or was there more to it than that?

I'm also currious about your response to points raised in those quotes.

[readpunk]

Guest-porol said:

so your responce to this provocative peice is to say, "he has no right to speak"?

I think that there are some important points in this. a few beiung the way he explains that anarchism cannot maintain itself and will lead back to capitalism.

or how it is not really all the way internationalist.

and many more points.

I am frankly not all that surprised that a libertarian typed anarchist would wanna say someone doesn't have the right to speak. (not its not a typo)

Please, he has every right to speak and I have every right to criticize him. Amusingly enough, if there was a revolution here and Mr. Avakian was to be the head of the enormous state he would govern I would most likely be punished as a criminal for saying what I feel about State based socialism. But under Anarchism, Bobby could say whatever he feels. Funny how that works out isn't it? The right to dissent seems to always get lost somewhere in the red bureaucracy.

To argue that Anarchism would lead back to capitalism is to deny what Marx believed true communism to be. Which I presume makes Marx wrong correct? Besides that the idea that decentralized freely federated collectives are unable to organize and work together is ridiculous. A great study of this topic can be read in Kropotkin's work, "Mutual Aid". Darwin's own work is used to show the fallacy neo-con's make when using Darwin to explain how great capitalism is.

To be absolutely clear, in a revolutionary war I am prepared to die for Mr. Avakian's right to unhindered and completely free speech. I am quick to doubt he is prepared to do the same for I.

[readpunk]

RosaRL said:

His critique doesn't appear to take into consideration any previous anarchist societies. {/quote]

What anarchist societies?

I'm currious because it is my understanding that to date there has not been one successful anarchist revolution. Even those who claim that the paris commune was anarchist, cannot get into its shortcommings - why did it last only two months? was it simply overthrown from the outside, or was there more to it than that?

I'm also currious about your response to points raised in those quotes.

I'll leave the Paris Commune alone because it isn't a spectacular example. What really needs to be discussed to understand Authoritarian Communism Vs. Libertarian Communism is Spain from 1936-1939. Homage to Catalonia is a great start, by George Orwell. If you really have some time, look around the internet for Stalin's real role in that war and who he aided.

And if you have wwwaaayyy to much time on your hands read this fairly accurate portion (am I afraid to admit when something written which is trying to reflect my views isn't 100% accurate? Absolutely not!) of Daniel Guerin's excellent book, about the Russian Revolution.

www.zabalaza.net/texts/anarchism_guerin/russia.html

[Deleted]

Looks like something that's going to make be break out the old text-to-speech software ;D

[POROL]

people are anxiously awaiting a response to the actual political points raised by Bob Avakian. that is what is important, not your speculation on whether communists would have your back or not....
lets takle the unlikely scenario that narchists can llead a successful revolution.

Does anarchism have internationalist economics? if so how does it?

here is how the RCP answers this question..
2changetheworld.info/docs/part2-14-socialist-economy-p1-grpp-en.php#a14ier

Or this important issue:
can you setup a society (without leadership and administration) that will be able to prevent people from immediately returning to the work they were doing before (overall) and that they were trained in under capitalism? in essence this leads to the immediate return of capitalism. if so, how?

you get where I'm going.. I really would love to see you go through this article point by point. from your responces so far, it is very possible that you may not have even read the article. I say this because you have not responded to any of the points raised in the article.


truth is, IMO and my experience, anarchists are not able to really reply to these questions (among many). the reason being that there is no real understanding of these points in anarchist theory. anarchism is more about the individual (a libertarian stance), while communism is about the masses (an internationalist stance). Yes anarchists will give solidarity, but are they aiming for an internationalist society? No. They are aiming for a libertarian, 'whatever I want', society. And that is why communism is, and has always been, more revolutionary than anarchism.

Libertarianism is, by its nature, a petite bourgeois ideology, because it sets the individual wants over the international needs.

on the second question raised above, anarchism cannot reply because the framework of the anarchist ideal is shattered by this logic. that people will, in case of a lack of leadership, push up those who have experience playing these roles, despite their ideology, is not thought through in anarchism. it is not discussed and explored by anarchists primarily because it is an unsurmountable fatal flaw in the ideology.

in essence anarchists crave the 'right' to do whatever they want under anarchism, even the inevitable and immediate return to capitalism.

[RosaRL]

I think ist very hard to engage a whole article at once - or even more so a series!

maby it would help if you drew out certain points or questions that you would like to discuss with folks.

[Deleted]

Guest-POROL said:

Or this important issue:
can you setup a society (without leadership and administration) that will be able to prevent people from immediately returning to the work they were doing before (overall) and that they were trained in under capitalism? in essence this leads to the immediate return of capitalism. if so, how?

In all fairness, the Marxist-Leninist revolutions that have happened historically have always led back to capitalism as well and, unlike the Anarchist experiments which have failed, have led to oppressive betrayals of the causes they claimed to be fighting for. The usual response I hear to this fact is that "this doesn't mean it has to lead to capitalism again in the future" but it seems that the vanguardists do not apply this same standard to Anarchism.

Also, most of your arguments against Anarchism are very unfair is seem based more in misconceptions than actual substance (for example, your attempt to link Anarchism with the right-wing Libertarian movement). I encourage you to check out the Anarchy FAQ to help clear up these misconceptions.

Remember, I am saying this as someone who is not an Anarchist ;D.

[porol]

well one of the things I would like is to have a discussion, I do not mind being pointed to things to read, however to many times the only response to deep criticisms of anarchism (and that have no apparent weaknesses) come down to is 'check out the anarchy faq'

I have, lots of times

[Deleted]

Well, the reason I referred you to the Anarchy FAQ is because your criticisms frankly were not 'deep criticisms' free of "apparent weaknesses." Some of the things you said were just plain incorrect. You may have "checked out" the Anarchy FAQ, but I don't get the impression that you read it.

Again, I say this as someone who is not an Anarchist.

[roman]

I agree with SonofRage on this point. And I am not an anarchist either.

First, anarchism is not a single system or sinlge ideology. There are many kinds of anarchisms. Off hand, there is syndicalism, communitarian anarchy, primitivism, indivisualism, etc. There are probably other kinds that I am unaware of. All of these anarchists disagree among themselves on important points. And, there is a long history of anarchists developing various models and answering the kind of shallow objections that have been raised in this thread.

As they stand, alot of the objections raised here are about as informed as the anti-communist who says "well communism failed, the Soviet Union fell". This kind of anti-communist wants to keep the debate at a shallow level because he isn't interested in a real understanding. I see something similiar going on here.

I think as a general principle of intellectual honesty, when debating against a possition, we should try to argue against the BEST version of our opponent's position. This requires getting beyond the superficial level of "anarchy can't work, you need organization and authority". If you read anarchist literature, you find that most anarchists are very aware of this.

As far as the Boba article, I haven't read the full thing and probably won't. But, in the parts cited, he says alot of things that many anarchists would agree with. Boba thinks he is making a criticism of anarchism (also forms of market socialism) in the following passage:

"In reality, these small groups, both in their relations of exchange with each other and within their units of production, would reproduce capitalist relations. They would be in a situation where, in society as a whole, there is no embodiment of interests and, yes, of authority, which is higher than these various different small groups and which can therefore unify the masses of people around those higher interests. And the fact is that, without such embodiment of higher interests and authority, there will be no means for uprooting social inequalities, for uprooting commodity production, for uprooting the material basis that gives rise to class distinctions." (BOB AVAKIAN)

However, many (maybe most?)anarchists aren't against some form of "higher embodiment of interests and authority". Many anarchists are for federations or central councils embued with various levels of authority. On this they really agree with BobA, however, they just disagree with BobA on what it will look like. They disagree on how the authority will be organized. They tend to favor federations only one step removed from the "shop floor" or "commune", rather than many steps removed in a bureaucracy. They also tend to favor different ways on how to hold the governing level accountable, they tend to favor procedural methods, direct democracy, concensus, etc. BobA as a maoist, I *assume*, favors a combination of ideological training, procedural methods, purges, and mass movements (cultural revolutions) to hold the governing class accountable. In the exerpts posted - and it isn't Bob's full series - Bob has only knocked down a strawman.

Also, I think it would be useful if we reshaped the problem in this a more practical way. How do we keep keep those at the higher level from abusing their possitions? Cultural revolutions? How do we keep them on track? Maoists say Lin Piao mislead the cultural revolution/mass movement? So, how do we keep it on track? What about purges? phoney communists can and have used purges as effectively as real communists. Massive society wide ideology training? phoney communists can and do parrot communist ideology. What about procedures? How do we stop those at the higher level from maniputalting the procedural processes to their advantage like they do in bourgeois democracy.

I don't have the all the answers to these questions. I really don't think there is single convincing answer to the abuse of power question. I just think we are going to have to expirement with things and try to reproduce what works. I am just throwing these questions out there for consideration.

Again, I also want to be fair and point out that I only read what was posted. I didn't read BobA's whole series on this.

[redstar2000]

Now, the anarchists actually argue not only that you shouldn't have a state in their vision of a new society, but that you shouldn't have an established, organized revolutionary leadership to carry out the overthrow of the existing order. If that line were followed, it would actually mean that you couldn't overthrow the existing order--because, in order to do that, you have to go up against and actually defeat the highly organized and very powerful military as well as political forces of the imperialists and their whole state apparatus.

That contradicts the historical experience of real mass revolutions--though it is quite appropriate to Maoist peasant-based guerrilla campaigns.

As was shown most clearly in Petrograd in February 1917 (and other Russian cities), when the old order reaches a position of genuine crisis, all of its "highly organized and very powerful military" and its "state apparatus" actually crumbles away with surprising ease.

In a real crisis--of autocracy or of capitalism--the old ruling class becomes demoralized...nothing they do "seems to work". The military and political forces that they've "counted on" become restive and "unreliable". They become "afraid" to give "draconian orders" because they fear the consequences (for them) will be even worse.

They transfer liquid funds & their families abroad..."just in case".

What Avakian seems to be referring to is a Maoist "protracted peoples' war"...something that has no relevance to proletarian revolution in advanced capitalist countries.

You can make a decent argument that Mao's strategy "works" for peasant-based semi-feudal or colonialized countries.

"Protracted war" in an advanced capitalist country would be suicidal. Only a massive proletarian uprising has a chance of success...a very good chance, in my opinion.

And such an uprising cannot be "organized" in a Leninist sense--by a relatively small group. It can only take place spontaneously as a consequence of a massive crisis of the old order.

But among the many problems with this is the inescapable fact that, if you were to do this beginning on an economic foundation that resulted from the position of the old imperialist country in the overall international division of labor and accumulation process of the imperialist system, then you would be proceeding on the basis of reaping the fruits and "communizing" the plunder and exploitation that had been carried out by imperialism.

Yes, that is certainly true.

Avakian seems to hint that this would somehow be "immoral"--if that indeed is the right word.

The new society would cease to plunder and would undoubtedly offer assistance of some kind to the former victims--we are deep into the realm of speculation here.

No doubt some aid would be given to like-minded revolutionaries in countries that had not yet made a revolution.

What else?

So the question will be: are you going to have an approach of "communizing" those fruits, for the benefit only of the people in that (former) imperialist country, or are you going to utilize those productive forces first and above all to advance the world revolution toward the aim of overcoming all exploitative and unequal relations in the world, including the "great divide" between the imperialist and the colonial countries?

As noted, the exploitation will naturally end with the revolution. The inequality won't...it will just stop getting worse.

Avakian seems to think that what the new society in the former imperialist country should do is "forget about communism for decades or even centuries" until, by artificial transfer of gifts, the semi-feudal or primitive capitalist world can be "brought up to the level" of development of the former imperialist country.

Only when the entire world is materially developed enough for communism to work is the transition to communism allowed to begin.

If you want to know why Maoist parties can't get anywhere in the "first world"...there's a start, right there.

Another way of getting at this is to say that, so long as society is divided into classes--and so long as the economic-material basis exists for such class division--it is only through a socialist state that the highest interests of the proletariat and masses of people can be realized. And what goes along with that is that it is only through such a state that proletarian internationalism can be given its fullest and highest expression. This is the only way that the larger interests of the proletarian class, including its proletarian internationalism, can actually find expression--can actually be implemented and, yes, enforced...

In other words, the working class of a former imperialist country cannot be allowed to begin the transition to communism at once because it is against their "higher interests". Instead, they must be forced to endure an additional period of class society called "socialism"...a dictatorship that may impoverish and will certainly oppress them to make reparations to the former colonialized world.

It will not be possible to do away with commodity relations and money right away--in fact for a considerable period of time--after the overthrow of the present capitalist system; and if you try to abolish them right away, you will have chaos and the result, politically as well as economically, will be anything but the idealized vision of the anarchists of a society without elites monopolizing authority and power.

This is simply rhetorical assertion, of course. It's just a slightly different version of the boss that says "without constant supervision, the workers will screw up everything".

I think it's reasonable to expect that communist society in its early years will be "ragged"...often inefficient, occasionally chaotic, etc. It will take our class a while to learn how to run a complex technological society "smoothly". There will be many experiments and many failures...and we will learn from them.

Two years ago, I knew nothing about computers or the internet. I'm far from "expert" now...but I'm comfortable with both.

What is not known...can be learned.

The result would be re-polarization of society along capitalist lines, with the emergence of a bourgeoisie full-blown and a bourgeois society full-blown. And, along with that, the result would be the restoration of imperialist plunder and exploitation throughout the world.

I agree that any form of "market society"--no matter what "revolutionary" label it bears--contains within itself the seeds of the restoration of capitalism.

The obvious prophylactic is to push very hard for the rapid elimination of production for sale and its replacement by production for use.

No one knows how long that would take for full implementation...but to do it with regard to basic necessities should be both "quick" and "easy".

In other words, if you have not, in reality, uprooted the material conditions that give rise to and underlie the division of society into classes; if you have not overcome the division between mental and manual labor, the social division of labor that involves the oppression of women, and other major social contradictions; if you have not brought into being the conditions that make it possible to articulate the production and exchange of goods and services without commodity relations and money; if you have not accomplished all that--not only in one part of the world but in the world as a whole...

Makes it all sound a lot harder than it probably will be; and also makes it sound as if everything must be "done at once".

No sensible anarchist denies that there will be a period of transition to communism--the argument with Leninists concerns the shape of that transition and who should run it.

Avakian seems to envision a "Proudhonist" version of anarchism; a whole bunch of small producers competing in some kind of marketplace, learning gradually to exploit each other, etc.

I agree with him; that would be a mess and would restore capitalism within a generation.

That's why I don't think it will work like that...or that there will even be any Proudhonists around by the time of the next wave of proletarian revolutions.

But there are many other ways things could be organized without commodity exchange at all.

And without creating relationships that could lead to exploitation.

Without the proletarian state, there's going to be, frankly, nobody to stop them--no unified force, no leadership, to represent the proletariat as a whole in being able to combat this capitalist restoration.

In other words, we may be bad...but you better learn to put up with us or the "bogey-man" will "get you".

All of the so-called "proletarian states" did not stop the restoration of capitalism.

If that's really a danger in this century, we'd better "try something different".

Libertarianism is, by its nature, a petite bourgeois ideology, because it sets the individual wants over the international needs.

And if you have an ideology that reverses those priorities, what do you call it?

Charity?

Give until it hurts?

Why exactly should not the "wants" of the individual worker take priority over "international needs"?

And who gets to define that marvelous phrase "international needs" anyway?

What loathsome insects are crawling around in that glittery box?

In essence anarchists crave the 'right' to do whatever they want under anarchism, even the inevitable and immediate return to capitalism.

Some may, most don't. The effort to portray anarchists as "selfish petty-bourgeois individualists" is a distraction.

I would love to see you try that on with a Barcelona factory worker back in 1936.

Her response would not, I think, be to your liking.