It's not. The confusing thing is that Lenin contradicts himself depending on the text or even within the same text. Sometimes he sounds like an anarchist. Sometimes he sounds like an authoritarian conservative and you can see how Stalin was the next logical step.
I sympathize most with the council communists when it comes to historical Marxism. They're not anarchists necessarily but they overlap with anarchism and effectively are an example of direct worker's democracy in action. Too bad Lenin crushed them.
A certain amount of violence and hierarchy are necessary for a social formation to function. In order to negotiate with let alone contest European imperial powers you need an army. In order to have an army you need violence and compulsion. In order to form an army out of peasants, you need even more violence and compulsion.
States cannot function without violence and whether that is industrial Lenin violence or post Industrial social credit financial deplatforming is simply a question of social development.
It's easy to sit back and criticize Lenin after the fact. Kautsky certainly did as he binged himself on tasty pastries 🍰 in Austrian cafes.
But Lenin's Revolution worked precisely because it was built on George Sorell's Violence and learned from the disorganized mess of the French Commune which did not survive being bombarded into oblivion by Prussian canon.
I agree that states cannot function without violence. That is why I am a Communist - I reject the need for states, and believe that humanity is capable of hierarchy-less, forceless, voluntary co-operation and community, including decentralised community self-defence and mutual aid networks that don't rely on coercion.
I am not convinced that Lenin's revolution did work - at least not as far as achieving Communism. I would even argue that it set back the progress towards it. Perhaps Lenin did the best he knew how to, but fortunately we can now learn from his mistakes, just like we can those of the Paris commune.
I think that Revolutionary Catalonia and the Free Territory in Ukraine did a better job for the short while they lasted before Leninism and Stalinism played their part in destroying them, and I believe there has been positive progress made by the Zapatistas and Rojavans since.
But I fundamentally reject the notion that a centralized state or vanguard party is necessary for social transformation, as such concentrations of power inevitably lead to oppression and exploitation, regardless of the initial intentions, because the means used to achieve a goal shape the end result.
(There is a lot more I'd like to say about how technological and scientific progress can be organised without centralisation, and more details on responding cohesively to large scale threats without authoritarianism, because I do agree that when the power of capital is threatened - even if peacefully - that the capitalists wont hesitate to use violence to protect their power, but I plan to address these in a future article series.)
First of thank you so much for taking the time to write this deep thoughtful response.
> I think that Revolutionary Catalonia and the Free Territory in Ukraine did a better job for the short while they lasted.
See that's the problem. Regardless of social policy or how it's organized unless a certain threshold of violence can be produced. The social formation is inevitably consumed by social formations which can produce violence in subsequent quantity and quality.
>I do agree that when the power of capital is threatened - even if peacefully - that the capitalists wont hesitate to use violence to protect their power
I agree whole heartedly here.
Rather than dwelling on our differences I would like to pivot to a more positive direction.
Are you familiar with Freudo Marxism? Judging from your substack this is something I belive you would really enjoy.
Pirate this on LibGen like a true Anarcho-Communist 😊
Perhaps you are right, maybe I'm not willing to entertain a certain level of violence beyond what I consider a reasonable defensive threshold, because I think some human costs are too high, and their outcomes are too uncertain, too immoral, and too unlikely to produce the results I'd like to see. But it seems we both agree that violence will come from those who oppose their power being challenged either way.
I have a little awareness of Lacan (and Fanon, Fromm, and Žižek, who I've read and seemed to have some association with Freudo-Marxism.) I'll add that book to my reading list, but I'm afraid it may be a little while before I get to it.
I'll take the compliment, even if I'm not sure I deserve it. What are you looking to read and learn more about?
The fundamental philosophical underpinnings of Anarcho-Communism were well enough described in the Works of Kropotkin and Malatesta, although their use of language may seem a little dated.
I've read many Anarchist treatments and rebuttals of Marxist works, and especially Leninist ones from Bakunin to the present, but they still rely on beginning with fundamentally different assumptions. The Anarchist Library has many such examples.
As for the practical nature of Anarchism you could do worse than reading 'Anarchy Works' or 'Worshipping Power' by Peter Gelderoos (and his work in favour of Anarchist violence, 'How Nonviolence Protects the State'), 'Anarchy In Action' by Colin Ward, and 'The Dawn Of Everything' by David Graeber.
Hi! Thanks for both of your texts. I'm an ex anarchist myself and would love to talk to you about these topics. Afterall, lenin had deep respect for Kropotkin (specially his work on the french revolution) as did the anarchist for the bolshevik, per their encounter: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1917/a-meeting.html
Kropotkin was perhaps more inclined to suggest to Lenin that they had more in common than this candid opinion indicated because he wanted to wrench concessions from him; to ease the pressure on the local co-ops in his home town Dmitrov, which party officials were busily closing down. Certainly, the exchanges with Lenin turned on their predicament.
The meeting opened with a discussion about the composition of the co-ops. Did they provide sanctuary to would-be capitalists – kulaks, landowners, merchants and the like? The disagreement between them on this question revealed a deeper tension about socialist education, the nature of authority and the destruction of capitalism. None of these issues was tackled directly. Lenin led the exchanges throughout, determining the major themes and shaping the course of the discussion. But he did not dominate the debate because Kropotkin met his points obliquely.
To summarise: Kropotkin countered Lenin’s plan to deploy party workers in order to enlighten the masses with a warning about the poisonous effects of unenlightened authority and authoritarianism; he responded to Lenin’s appeal to pass on information about recalcitrant individuals in the co-ops with a promise to report bureaucratic power abuses; he followed Lenin’s blunt advocacy of civil war with a comment about the need to avoid the intoxications of power and the domination of workers by party non-workers.
Talking past Kropotkin in a similar way, Lenin greeted Kropotkin’s critique of authority with a reflection on the inevitability of errors or, as he put it, the impossibility wearing white gloves while waging revolution. He countered Kropotkin’s enthusiastic assessment of the revolutionary potential of west European co-operatives and industrial unions by rejecting syndicalism and relating the counter-power of the co-ops to the enormous armed might of capitalist states. Lenin responded to Kropotkin’s endorsement of struggle, ‘desperate struggle’ as an essential ingredient of revolutionary change by contrasting the uselessness of anarchist tactics – individual acts of violence - with the energy and power of ‘massive red terror’. Lenin’s reply to Kropotkin’s critique of party-workers in workers’ organisations was to reiterate the need to enlighten the illiterate, backward masses. This final return prompted Lenin’s offer to publish Kropotkin’s history of the French Revolution.
Overall, two different conceptions of revolution can be seen in this encounter. Each was informed by active engagement in struggle: Lenin’s was shaped by the demands to co-ordinate collective action against global capitalism while Kropotkin’s was informed by the desire to build alliances with grass roots institutions, self-organising for local sustainability in a period of revolutionary upheaval.
Hi Minze! I have been planning another article to cover what these first two did not. If you have any ideas of topics / points to cover let me know. Cheers!
Communism exists only in the idealistic minds of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Every national "leader" who identified as communist was a mass murderer. My conclusion is that human beings lack the capacity for equality and shared experience. Sooner or later any surplus that might accumulate will stimulate strong emotions like envy and jealousy leading to conflict. The state will never wither away.
As the someone who has written so much against Leninism, and criticised Marxism myself I think it is important to point out that Communism was around long before Marx - most of human history - he didn’t invent it. The problem I see is people abandoning Communist principles - if a system has a ruler it isn’t Communism, if there is a state it isn’t Communism, if people aren't free it isn't Communism.
As for ideals I believe that is how progress is made. We may see kindness fail, but it doesn't mean kindness is bad. We may see the times co-operation didn't succeed, but it doesn't mean co-operation is bad. There are times kindness and co-operation have succeeded and these good examples are worth emulating, and the principles are worth pursuing.
If we settle for dog-eat-dog and everyone for themselves that’s what we’ll keep getting, with all the murdering that goes with that. I have seen awful people do awful things, but still retain faith in the capacity of humanity to do good, as I believe its major problems come from a relatively small number of selfish people having too much power in a dysfunctional system. (Edited for clarity)
It's not. The confusing thing is that Lenin contradicts himself depending on the text or even within the same text. Sometimes he sounds like an anarchist. Sometimes he sounds like an authoritarian conservative and you can see how Stalin was the next logical step.
I sympathize most with the council communists when it comes to historical Marxism. They're not anarchists necessarily but they overlap with anarchism and effectively are an example of direct worker's democracy in action. Too bad Lenin crushed them.
A certain amount of violence and hierarchy are necessary for a social formation to function. In order to negotiate with let alone contest European imperial powers you need an army. In order to have an army you need violence and compulsion. In order to form an army out of peasants, you need even more violence and compulsion.
States cannot function without violence and whether that is industrial Lenin violence or post Industrial social credit financial deplatforming is simply a question of social development.
It's easy to sit back and criticize Lenin after the fact. Kautsky certainly did as he binged himself on tasty pastries 🍰 in Austrian cafes.
But Lenin's Revolution worked precisely because it was built on George Sorell's Violence and learned from the disorganized mess of the French Commune which did not survive being bombarded into oblivion by Prussian canon.
I agree that states cannot function without violence. That is why I am a Communist - I reject the need for states, and believe that humanity is capable of hierarchy-less, forceless, voluntary co-operation and community, including decentralised community self-defence and mutual aid networks that don't rely on coercion.
I am not convinced that Lenin's revolution did work - at least not as far as achieving Communism. I would even argue that it set back the progress towards it. Perhaps Lenin did the best he knew how to, but fortunately we can now learn from his mistakes, just like we can those of the Paris commune.
I think that Revolutionary Catalonia and the Free Territory in Ukraine did a better job for the short while they lasted before Leninism and Stalinism played their part in destroying them, and I believe there has been positive progress made by the Zapatistas and Rojavans since.
But I fundamentally reject the notion that a centralized state or vanguard party is necessary for social transformation, as such concentrations of power inevitably lead to oppression and exploitation, regardless of the initial intentions, because the means used to achieve a goal shape the end result.
(There is a lot more I'd like to say about how technological and scientific progress can be organised without centralisation, and more details on responding cohesively to large scale threats without authoritarianism, because I do agree that when the power of capital is threatened - even if peacefully - that the capitalists wont hesitate to use violence to protect their power, but I plan to address these in a future article series.)
First of thank you so much for taking the time to write this deep thoughtful response.
> I think that Revolutionary Catalonia and the Free Territory in Ukraine did a better job for the short while they lasted.
See that's the problem. Regardless of social policy or how it's organized unless a certain threshold of violence can be produced. The social formation is inevitably consumed by social formations which can produce violence in subsequent quantity and quality.
>I do agree that when the power of capital is threatened - even if peacefully - that the capitalists wont hesitate to use violence to protect their power
I agree whole heartedly here.
Rather than dwelling on our differences I would like to pivot to a more positive direction.
Are you familiar with Freudo Marxism? Judging from your substack this is something I belive you would really enjoy.
Pirate this on LibGen like a true Anarcho-Communist 😊
https://www.routledge.com/The-Marx-Through-Lacan-Vocabulary-A-Compass-for-Libidinal-and-Political-Economies/SotovanderPlas-MiguelJuarez-Salazar-GomezCamarena-Pavon-Cuellar/p/book/9781032079295?srsltid=AfmBOorjggtj4Z45CnnKY3hNCq_q5mUrI1iGIWRJ-xVIu5TubnIsSyBo
Perhaps you are right, maybe I'm not willing to entertain a certain level of violence beyond what I consider a reasonable defensive threshold, because I think some human costs are too high, and their outcomes are too uncertain, too immoral, and too unlikely to produce the results I'd like to see. But it seems we both agree that violence will come from those who oppose their power being challenged either way.
I have a little awareness of Lacan (and Fanon, Fromm, and Žižek, who I've read and seemed to have some association with Freudo-Marxism.) I'll add that book to my reading list, but I'm afraid it may be a little while before I get to it.
Since you are clearly incredibly intelligent which books would you recommend for me?
I'll take the compliment, even if I'm not sure I deserve it. What are you looking to read and learn more about?
The fundamental philosophical underpinnings of Anarcho-Communism were well enough described in the Works of Kropotkin and Malatesta, although their use of language may seem a little dated.
I've read many Anarchist treatments and rebuttals of Marxist works, and especially Leninist ones from Bakunin to the present, but they still rely on beginning with fundamentally different assumptions. The Anarchist Library has many such examples.
As for the practical nature of Anarchism you could do worse than reading 'Anarchy Works' or 'Worshipping Power' by Peter Gelderoos (and his work in favour of Anarchist violence, 'How Nonviolence Protects the State'), 'Anarchy In Action' by Colin Ward, and 'The Dawn Of Everything' by David Graeber.
Hi! Thanks for both of your texts. I'm an ex anarchist myself and would love to talk to you about these topics. Afterall, lenin had deep respect for Kropotkin (specially his work on the french revolution) as did the anarchist for the bolshevik, per their encounter: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/kropotkin-peter/1917/a-meeting.html
I've now read Lenin's account of the exchange between him and Kropotkin & Ruth Kinna's paper giving it some context. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ruth-kinna-when-kropotkin-met-lenin - This is perhaps the most relevant part -
Kropotkin was perhaps more inclined to suggest to Lenin that they had more in common than this candid opinion indicated because he wanted to wrench concessions from him; to ease the pressure on the local co-ops in his home town Dmitrov, which party officials were busily closing down. Certainly, the exchanges with Lenin turned on their predicament.
The meeting opened with a discussion about the composition of the co-ops. Did they provide sanctuary to would-be capitalists – kulaks, landowners, merchants and the like? The disagreement between them on this question revealed a deeper tension about socialist education, the nature of authority and the destruction of capitalism. None of these issues was tackled directly. Lenin led the exchanges throughout, determining the major themes and shaping the course of the discussion. But he did not dominate the debate because Kropotkin met his points obliquely.
To summarise: Kropotkin countered Lenin’s plan to deploy party workers in order to enlighten the masses with a warning about the poisonous effects of unenlightened authority and authoritarianism; he responded to Lenin’s appeal to pass on information about recalcitrant individuals in the co-ops with a promise to report bureaucratic power abuses; he followed Lenin’s blunt advocacy of civil war with a comment about the need to avoid the intoxications of power and the domination of workers by party non-workers.
Talking past Kropotkin in a similar way, Lenin greeted Kropotkin’s critique of authority with a reflection on the inevitability of errors or, as he put it, the impossibility wearing white gloves while waging revolution. He countered Kropotkin’s enthusiastic assessment of the revolutionary potential of west European co-operatives and industrial unions by rejecting syndicalism and relating the counter-power of the co-ops to the enormous armed might of capitalist states. Lenin responded to Kropotkin’s endorsement of struggle, ‘desperate struggle’ as an essential ingredient of revolutionary change by contrasting the uselessness of anarchist tactics – individual acts of violence - with the energy and power of ‘massive red terror’. Lenin’s reply to Kropotkin’s critique of party-workers in workers’ organisations was to reiterate the need to enlighten the illiterate, backward masses. This final return prompted Lenin’s offer to publish Kropotkin’s history of the French Revolution.
Overall, two different conceptions of revolution can be seen in this encounter. Each was informed by active engagement in struggle: Lenin’s was shaped by the demands to co-ordinate collective action against global capitalism while Kropotkin’s was informed by the desire to build alliances with grass roots institutions, self-organising for local sustainability in a period of revolutionary upheaval.
Hi Minze! I have been planning another article to cover what these first two did not. If you have any ideas of topics / points to cover let me know. Cheers!
Communism exists only in the idealistic minds of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Every national "leader" who identified as communist was a mass murderer. My conclusion is that human beings lack the capacity for equality and shared experience. Sooner or later any surplus that might accumulate will stimulate strong emotions like envy and jealousy leading to conflict. The state will never wither away.
As the someone who has written so much against Leninism, and criticised Marxism myself I think it is important to point out that Communism was around long before Marx - most of human history - he didn’t invent it. The problem I see is people abandoning Communist principles - if a system has a ruler it isn’t Communism, if there is a state it isn’t Communism, if people aren't free it isn't Communism.
As for ideals I believe that is how progress is made. We may see kindness fail, but it doesn't mean kindness is bad. We may see the times co-operation didn't succeed, but it doesn't mean co-operation is bad. There are times kindness and co-operation have succeeded and these good examples are worth emulating, and the principles are worth pursuing.
If we settle for dog-eat-dog and everyone for themselves that’s what we’ll keep getting, with all the murdering that goes with that. I have seen awful people do awful things, but still retain faith in the capacity of humanity to do good, as I believe its major problems come from a relatively small number of selfish people having too much power in a dysfunctional system. (Edited for clarity)
Yes