this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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"radical" in what sense? As in "fuck over everyone who brought about the February revolution, do a coup in October and call it a revolution?"
...yep, Anarchists back then hadn't yet understood that there's no way around power getting to ML's heads. Maybe not individually but structurally it's going to happen one way or the other. I do acknowledge that Lenin said that under no circumstances must Stalin be allowed to be his successor -- he still became his successor. That's why centralisation of power is inherently counter-revolutionary. Power corrupts, and power attracts the already corrupted. What you're left with is a mess.
No, as in the ones pushing the revolution the hardest, and typically the ones with the strongest level of understanding of leftist organizational theory, be it Marxist or Anarchist or even whatever else.
You're free to make that critique, I would just hope that you can actually make concessions just like Marxists do when it comes to unifying theory and practice.
I already made that critique: If your means employ authoritarianism and domination, then your ends will never be a classless society, for you are fuelling the very beast of domination and oppression. Giving it another coat of paint or another justification does not change its character. It's like saying "but my anger is righteous!" instead of realising that anger is always blind, unproductive, irrational, self-destructive to the individual and society. You're much better off taking a step back, take breaths until you've collected yourself, and then start to strategise with a cool head.
It's why I gave (dunno if in this conversation but definitely in this thread) Council Communists the non-tankie pass. I think they're a bit uptight, just like Syndicalists, but whatever that I can deal with.
By your definition all states are authoritarian, it doesn't matter if I want a democratic state or not, that's authoritarian in the eyes of an Anarchist.
Council Communists get a pass because they are relegated purely to academia and never to praxis, seemingly.
The anarchist definition of state is a very different one from the Marxist and also from the dictionary one ("people, organisation, territory"). You can usually freely replace "state" in Anarchist texts with "hierarchical power". I myself don't like and don't use the anarchist definition as there's better terms it's just unnecessary confusion. Has its historical reasons, but we're usually not ones to pray to ashes instead of passing on the fire so why should we be doing it there.
And, sorry, but no, it isn't Anarchists who are couping liberal democracies. That'd be Bolsheviks.
Council communists would have a better track record if they realised that they are Syndicalists, which have plenty a track record. Until that happens, it'll continue to be methadone therapy for recovering MLs.