Today's Topics:
1. Poland, rozbrat: Discussion about the 500+ program, part 1
Attack [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. Britain, afed: LEICESTER AF MEETING ON SPANISH REVOLUTION by
Nick (London) (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Greece, anarkismo.net: For forest fires - The state neither
can nor want by Anarchist Federation (gr) [machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. anarkismo.net: Comments on "The First International and the
Development of Anarchism and Marxism" by Wayne Price - by René
Berthier - Cercle d'études libertaires Gaston-Leval
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. awsm.nz: Democratic Rights and Tony Blair In A Dress
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
We present three articles about the 500+ program. Originally published in the magazine
A-Tak. ---- When the 500+ program was introduced, it was a fierce attack by the opposition
and people who were not its beneficiaries and thoughtless adoration from the authorities
and their media. How can you rate him today!? The assessment depends on what it would
serve. ---- If it is an elective sausage, it pays to the government (until it runs out of
money and the resulting crisis will deprive it not only of the points earned through the
program, but also of those that did not). ---- It would also be good to introduce other
XXX + programs by giving money, for example, being white, a woman or a man (not a woman or
a man, for example), being baptized or even without a reason, eg to anyone with a PESEL
number . The public would be happy, because anyone who is not happy that they give him
money "for free" (about the bill that will pay us all, few people think, he does not feel
it directly, and 500+ so).
The distribution program has its pluses and for the whole, oneOf them is the fact that the
poorest have a bit more, which they would not get eg for honest work (such a system). Some
will spend it with their head and others without (for example, they will drink a "good
change"), but one and the other spend the money spinning (generally weakening, especially
in the face of the inadequacy of the current EU milking team). On the other hand, more
money on the market is causing inflation - an increase in prices is motivating now that
people can afford to pay more than ever for the same as the profit of the 500+ beneficiary
actually reduces the price increase. How to judge this dimension?
From a political or ethical standpoint it followsSimply corrupting society by the
authorities, and the society is unreasonable not only because of the cost to pay for it,
but also ordinary selfishness. The star - in times when he was still "right" - said he
should "take and not chit", ie any concession or gift of power to use (in the end they do
not give of his, And what we used to do and what we normally used to be), but that is no
reason to change our evaluations and choices, because we support the power (and probably
40% of those who believe in elections , Supports the current government), then the power
has no reason to buy us and give you another bribe.
The 500+ looks like a part of the programPro-family, and especially the way to increase
the natural growth. For many people, the situation did not improve, for example they got
500+ and 750- (parallel to 500+ the reform of the 6-year-olds in schools was reversed,
turning the entire yearbook into a kindergarten, which left three-year-olds So the parents
had to
look for a place in private kindergartens - hence the 750 minus - or give up work, which
gives 1-2 thousand less, making the illusion more profitable). Would not it be more
sensible to build a sufficient number of public kindergartens, as a one-off action for the
same money would be spent over the years? In turn, from the point of view of natural growth
Paying for the second child does not make sense, because there would be more children need
to have first first, and for that 500+ is not entitled.
Maybe the authorities count on the ban on sexual education , contraception and abortion as
a source of motivation for having children? Experience has shown that today's main problem
is definitely having a baby at all, then most often joining the "subculture (!) Parents"
and does not stop at one (this is seen in every kindergarten where children come from
parents Older or younger siblings). However, more sense than paying for each child would
pay for being a mother (treating this role as a profession), whether it would be 1000+ or
whether you pay health insurance
And retirement in the amount of, let's say, like insurance paid from the average salary.
Motherhood would no longer be regarded as a time wasted from a professional point of view,
it would not reflect as much as today's present and future income (income or insurance
would be irrespective of whether one works or not). Meanwhile, turbulence behind schools,
lack of places in kindergartens and nurseries, etc. The opposite is true (authorities are
comforted by a slight increase in natural growth, but it is much lower than it should, and
it is not so much the policy of the authorities as the entry into the adult life of the
baby boomers of the Polish People's Republic.)
Equally negative is the wave of "hejtu" against familiesLarge, caused by the envy of 500+
people who do not have children, which rolled - after the program was launched - by some
media, especially social. It has been suggested that the pathological nature of such
families (addictions, social assistance, etc.), which - as the research showed - generally
proved
untrue. There is yet another paradox: the 500+ program was meant to support the idea of a
mother-child peering at a children's home, which in the absence of kindergartens seemed
very real, yet a cash injection from a conservative government allowed many women to send
their children to private kindergartens and self- For a career or personal development -
something that is not the ideal of real men, it favors the liberation of women in the same
way as the authorities' decision provoking a "black protest".
RS @ - Alternative Society Movement
http://www.rozbrat.org/publicystyka/kontrola-spoeczna/4556-dyskusja-na-temat-programu-500-cz-1
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Message: 2
What can we learn from the Spanish revolution? ---- 7.30pm on Wednesday 30th August ----
at the Regent Club ---- 102 Regent Road ---- Leicester LE1 7DA ---- Just over 70 years
ago, in May 1937, the Stalinist counter-revolution took place against the gains made by
the revolutionary workers of Spain and their organisations such as the anarcho-syndicalist
CNT-FAI and the leftist POUM. Ultimately, this led to the collapse of the revolution and
the loss of the civil war, ushering in years of fascist dictatorship. What was the role of
the anarchists in all this and what can be learnt from this important moment in
revolutionary working class history?
http://leicester.afed.org.uk
https://afed.org.uk/leicester-af-meeting-on-spanish-revolution/
------------------------------
Message: 3
Only with the creation of local patrols, organized and equipped with massive
participation, there can be prevention and early repression of fires. Only if we take back
the stolen public from the hands of the state and the market we can be the owners of our
lives. The environment can only be safe in the hands of those who live, sweat and rely on
it. But to do that, we have to make a decision that the role of the newscaster is
ultimately the surest arson. ---- Forest Fires: The state can not and never wants ---- the
same job every year. Wide forest areas, those in the capitalist world of "development" are
virtually useless (if not obstructed) to market plans are destroyed and with them lives,
property of people of our class are lost, lives of everyone are degraded. Each year, the
same poem by the media, the same gossips from the government and opposition, the same
wishes for prevention, for firefighting and staff shortages, the same festival for the
reunion of the NGOs and each CSDP.
Reality is rude. The natural environment is something completely indifferent to the holy
alliance of state and capital. Forests, water beaches have value only and as far as they
can bring profits to businesses, raise property values or become propaganda in the lips of
regime propaganda. Let's make it a decision, for power forests are useless. He does not
want, especially at the time of the crisis, to "squander" resources on equipment or
recruitment. If some resources are to be cut off, clean-ups in the spring, maintenance of
the PPC forest network, garbage collection and municipalities' black dumpsters will be the
first victims.
Only in the times of "prosperity", when supposedly and equipment existed and could be
maintained, when we recruited permanent and seasonal personnel in the fire-fighting, we
again had the same.
We will not enter into conspiracies about how they start and who benefits from today's
fires. We all know how the bourgeoisie (but also the "bravado") bourgeoisie built its
villas in the past, how the peri-urban real estate was made, how the inter-state conflicts
burned forests in the "sensitive" areas on both sides of the Aegean . In any case, the
possibility of forest fires will not leave us either due to natural conditions or
accidental incidents, or even due to the indifference of citizens on motorways, camps,
etc. The question is whether the state, which is supposed to work is to respond to this
kind of challenges wants and can do it. The answer is that neither wants nor can.
The state is not a protection mechanism, it is a parasite of social wealth, it is the
defender of the interests of capital. The only solution is direct social mobilization in
the threatened areas, with the help of the whole social base. Alongside exercising the
maximum possible pressure on state, regional and municipal authorities to secure the
necessary infrastructure, we must organize ourselves and protect the environment in which
we live.
Only with the creation of local patrols, organized and equipped with massive
participation, there may be prevention and early repression of fires. Only if we take back
the stolen public from the hands of the state and the market we can be the owners of our
lives. The environment can only be safe in the hands of those who live, sweat and rely on
it. But to do this, we have to make a decision that the role of the newscaster is
ultimately the surest arson.
Anarchist Federation
Related Link: http://anarchist-federation.gr/
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30464
------------------------------
Message: 4
This text is a commentary of the contribution of Wayne Price recently published on
anarkismo.net, «The First International and the Development of Anarchism and Marxism»
(http://www.anarkismo.net/article/30330) ---- Wayne made a review of my book (among
others): "Social Democracy and Anarchism in the International Workers' Association
1864-1877" (Trans. A.W. Zurbrug.) London: Anarres Editions. ---- WAYNE PRICE: Years after
the final split in the International, Errico Malatesta, a colleague of Bakunin's, stated
that both the anarchists and the Marxists "sought to make use of the International for our
own party aims....We, as anarchists, relied chiefly on propaganda...while the
Marxists...wanted to impose their ideas by majority strength-which was more or less
fictitious.... ---- The Italians belatedly joined the IWA as a federation (1872), even
though there were sections before. Their participation in the great debates before
Saint-Imier did not, it seems to me, leave an unforgettable memory.
When Malatesta speaks of "we anarchists" in the International, he alludes to the
"anti-authoritarian" International after St. Imier, whose working-class base had
disintegrated. By saying that "We, as anarchists, relied chiefly on propaganda", he
reveals the nature of the activity they were engaged in. Bakunin did not intend to engage
only in "propaganda", he advocated that workers should organize themselves into trade
unions ("sections of crafts"), local unions ("central sections"), etc.
(See René Berthier, "Bakounine: une thorie de l'organisation",
http://monde-nouveau.net/spip.php?article583)
He regarded as a priority the daily struggle for increasing wages and reducing working
hours (Bakunin, "Politique de l'Internationale"[Policy of the
International]http://monde-nouveau.net/spip.php?article501).
Malatesta sees the International only as a propaganda tool because since the Verviers
Congress (1877) it is no longer a class organization but an affinity organization.
This must be borne in mind when Malatesta speaks of "we, anarchists."
Moreover, the examination of the texts of Bakunin reveals that he used the reference to
"anarchism" only with great reluctance.
WAYNE PRICE: But actually, there was little direct discussion of theoretical disagreements
between Marxism and anarchism.
There was little substantive debate between the "Marxists" and the "Bakuninians" simply
because Marx refused the debate. All the texts in which Marx speaks of the tendency of
Bakunin are contemptuous caricatures of refutation. On the other hand Bakunin exposes his
divergences at length, even if he is wrong to assimilate Lassalle's positions with those
of Marx, especially on statism - much of what Bakunin says of the statism of Marx actually
concerns Lassalle. But in the absence of Marx's public distance from Lassalle, Bakunin had
no way of making a difference.
In their correspondence, Marx and Engels show that they fully understood Bakunin's
approach, but they did everything to avoid public debate.
WAYNE PRICE: Marx and his friends accused Bakunin of organizing a secret conspiracy behind
the scenes.
That Bakunin created clandestine organizations is indisputable, but it was largely for
security reasons: democratic organizations were banned almost everywhere. We must also
distinguish the clandestine organizations created before he was an anarchist, whose
programs had some "pre-anarchist" character but which cannot be called anarchist. One
forgets that Bakunin was an "anarchist" only during the last six years of his life. Many
so-called savvy authors develop a critique of Bakunin as if he had always been an anarchist.
It is true that before being an anarchist he had a mania: writing statutes of secret
organizations. I wrote somewhere that this corresponded to periods of inactivity or
depression (an inactive Bakunin = a depressive Bakunin). I also wrote that one of these
statutes is so long and detailed that it is, in my opinion, practically the sketch of a
"pre-anarchist civil code" (1866. The Revolutionary Catechism.-Principles and Organization
of Revolutionary International Society).
We can say that the longer these statuses, the less credible and effective they are. By
way of illustration, the statutes of the Alliance are two pages long.
The famous "Alliance" has caused a lot of... black ink to flow, but it has also made many
anarchists fantasize.
But there was also an informal clandestine structure, made up of close friends, which some
anarchists of today want to transform into a kind of prefiguration of the Platformist
organization, which is totally anachronical. The group around Bakunin did nothing more
than what the group around Marx did - defend a political orientation - except that the
group around Marx controlled the apparatus of the International without being supported by
any federation. Marx and his relatives were generals without troops.
(See: L'"Alliance bakouninienne", mythes et réalités
http://monde-nouveau.net/spip.php?article639
WAYNE PRICE: Instead they proposed that each section be able to decide for itself whether
to run in elections (which was how the International had been operating from its inception).
The autonomy of the federations advocated by Bakunin meant that they could decide their
own path to emancipation (including by elections), which obviously goes against the thesis
of those, like Hal Draper, who say that Bakunin intended to take control of the General
Council - which he wanted to suppress! The idea that the IWA should be a party
organization has spread rapidly in the German-speaking world (see my commentary on the
Olten Congress in The End of the First International). Iuri Steklov writes in his History
of the First International that the IWA operated according to the principles of
"democratic centralism"!!! A beautiful anachronism!!!
WAYNE PRICE: Yet Marx and Engels continued to push for workers' electoral parties, and
even argued that they might get elected to state power in some countries, such as Britain
and the U.S.
Marx and Engels justified their electoral strategy because they were convinced that the
working class was a majority, and that it would ultimately vote for the Socialist Party.
For Bakunin, the working class being a majority or not has never been decisive. This is
where lies the divide between taking political power (through elections or not) and taking
social power through the class organizations of the proletariat. Bakunin says very clearly
that if an elected socialist government implements a policy contrary to the interests of
the bourgeoisie, the latter will manage to overthrow the government, in all ways.
The facts have widedly proved he was right.
Moreover, Marx and Engels neglected the fact that within the complex social structures of
an industrial society, the socialist parties would be forced to do what Bakunin called
"unnatural alliances". Marx-Engels had a very schematic vision: they believed that by the
concentration of capital the bourgeoisie would diminish numerically, the petty bourgeoisie
would proletarianize, and the working class would represent the great majority of the
poulation, which is obviously false. Proudhon, who had a much more pertinent sociological
view than that of Marx, had perfectly understood that the middle classes would weigh
heavily in politics.
The Civil War in France is, according to Bakunin's terms, a "clown travesty" of Marx's
thought. In this book Marx says the opposite of what he had said before, and immediately
after the event, he returns to his original point of view. Those who think they can build
an alternative policy on the basis of this book, and who want to find there another
"Marxism", are mistaken. It's a hoax. Bakunin has very well analyzed this, as well as
Mehring, the biographer of Marx. Mehring being the only honest Marxist historian of the
time explains why Hal Draper hated him.
WAYNE PRICE: The Marxist David Fernbach writes ... "the remaining condition for the
transformation into a more centralized and disciplined body was a certain degree of
ideological homogeneity"
What Fernbach says is interesting because he points to one of the main divergences between
Marx and Bakunin. Bakunin insisted on the need not to impose a particular program on the
IWA (that is, not to transform it into a political party) because its power resided in the
fact that it brought together the mass of the proletariat, on the basis of solidarity.
He said that if a program were imposed on the IWA, it would create splits and there would
be "as many internationals as there are programs" .
Bakunin had perfectly understood that the more "ideological homogeneity" was in the
organization, the fewer people there were ... Franz Mehring, a perfectly orthodox Marxist,
recounts in his biography of Marx that when the Social-Democratic Party developed in
Germany, the earlier organization of the International declined.
I think most of Marx's anarchist commentators would benefit from following Fernbach's
advice: read the very texts of Marx and Engels, starting with their correspondence. The
"collected works" (Lawrence & Wishart) are an essential tool.
WAYNE PRICE: Marx denounced Bakunin as being a "pan-Slavist" reactionary
Marx and his followers focused all their attacks on Bakunin on the fact that he was a
"pan-Slavist", which was of course false. (See: Bakunin panslaviste?
Http://monde-nouveau.net/spip.php?article629)
For Bakunin, pan-Slavism, that is to say, the idea that the emancipation of the Slavs was
conditioned by their submission to the Russian Tsar, was absolute horror. To be accused of
"Pan-Slavism" was for him the worst of insults. A real conspiracy was organized against
him by Marx and his entourage, starting in 1869, operating in the mode of: "slander, there
will always remain something". These slanders provoked in him a real trauma.
WAYNE PRICE: In general, it was a network of Bakunin's fellow-thinkers and friends, spread
throughout Europe. At times it had a mass membership
The case of Spanish "Alianza" is particular and complicated. The choice of the name is
obviously not a matter of chance. (See "About the Spanish 'Alianza'",
http://monde-nouveau.net/spip.php?article649). Even Lafargue, who was particularly
ill-intentioned, had clearly explained that the Spanish "Alianza" was a strictly Spanish
affair in which Bakunin had nothing to do. This organization had quite a large number of
members, but it developed on the margins of the Bakuninian Alliance, and when James
Guillaume and Arman Ross, for instance, speak of the "Alliance", they have in mind the
small group of followers and friends who are directly around Bakunin.
The Alliance never had a "mass membership". Its strength has never exceeded at best a few
dozen contacts. There is a tendency today in the "especifistas" circles to make it a
prefiguration of a platformist organization but it is an anachronism. The Alliance has
indeed existed as an official section of the IWA in Switzerland. It also existed as a more
or less clandestine group whose function was to develop the International, as Wayne Price
says very well. But Bakunin and his close friends did nothing but what Marx and his
friends were doing on their side. Reading the correspondence of Marx and Engels reveals a
large mass of acts of conspiracy to which they have devoted themselves.
The testimony of the close relatives of Bakunin (Guillaume, Ross, etc.) confirms what
Wayne Price says, "they ... saw the Alliance as a loose association of comrades" and did
not take seriously his delusions about the "invisible dictatorship."
WAYNE PRICE: Especially this included his writings (many not published at the time) which
denounced Marx for being a German Jew, and denounced both Germans and Jews in vicious
racist terms.
Bakunin's anti-Semitism has not been really studied, if I'm not wrong. I have a large
manuscript on this subject, which I wrote a long time ago, but the more I dug into the
question the more obvious appeared to me the dialectical relationship between Bakunin's
antisemitism and Marx & Engel's virulent antislavism. I'll certainly never publish this
text which does not fit with the present-day «political-correctness» and which is bound to
raise endless polemics.
However, here are some indications. Using the CDRom of his works published by the IIHS of
Amsterdam, I made a thematic research on the terms "Jewish" and associated. I discovered
roughly this: there is no anti-Semitic allusion until 1869 (a violent anti-slav and
anti-Bakunin article by Hess, followed by many others) and there is no longer any after
1872-1873 (after Bakunin's expulsion of the IWA). I conclude that if a researcher were to
study Bakunin's anti-Semitism, he or she should wonder what can push a guy to be an
anti-Semit for three years of his life.
Bakunin's antisemitic argument lacks originality, but remains faithful to his cultural and
linguistic explanation of the peculiarities of each people: the oppression suffered by the
Jews shaped their history and shaped their collective behavior. The Jews constitute a
"formidable power," says Bakunin, the usual stupid cliché characterizing anti-Semitism -
as if there were no Jewish workers... Bakunin's "solution" to the "Jewish question" is
surprising, and ultimately in conformity with the nature of the personage: "This power was
created by more than twenty-five centuries of persecution, the broadest liberty alone can
dissolve it." ("To the Companions of the Federation of the International Sections of the
Jura", February-March 1872.)
Of course, there is no question of relativizing his anti-Semitism, which remains inexcusable.
However, the question to be asked is: does his anti-Semitism invalidate his whole thought,
on the assumption that it reveals flaws in his way of defining values; and these flaws
could inevitably have implications in the rest of his thinking.
WAYNE PRICE: The anti-Jewish sentiments[of]Bakunin's...were often a byproduct of his
anti-German attitude.
I think it is more complicated than that.
First of all, Bakunin was not "anti-German" by principle. He clearly distinguished the
German people, and especially the proletariat, for whom he had great esteem, on the one
hand; and the ruling classes and the state on the other, for whom he was very critical.
Moreover, he had too much admiration for German culture, especially philosophy, of which
he was impregnated, to reject it totally. Not mentioning music, especially opera.
But if you say that is anti-German a person who is against the politics of the German
State, or against the German ruling classes, the German military, so then Bakunin was
anti-German. However he insisted on the fact that despite his opposition to Marx, if there
was a strike in Germany and the German workers needed support, they had to be supported
without hesitation.
The policy advocated by Marx was naturally assimilated by Bakunin to a state policy.
I am quite surprised to see so many anarchists take over the typically Marxist argument of
Bakunin being anti-German whereas he never incorporated the German working class into his
criticisms of the dominant classes of Germany.
Despite his disagreements with the German Socialists, he declared unambiguously to the
Slav workers in Austria: If you have no choice, join the German-speaking Social Democratic
Party, alongside your fellow workers, rather than a Slavic nationalist party! Bakunin told
the Slavic workers in Austria that they were confronted with the following choice:
1. Following the example of the German workers, "their brothers by social condition, by
the community of condition", they adhere to a party which promises them a German state, no
doubt, but which is "fundamentally popular, with all the possible economic advantages to
the detriment of the capitalists and the possessors and to the benefit of the proletariat".
2. Or, driven by the Slavic patriotic propaganda, they can join the party "at the head of
which are their daily exploiters and oppressors, bourgeois, manufacturers, merchants,
speculators, Jesuits in cassocks and owners of immense estates." Such a party promises
them "national prison, that is, a Slavic state". Without hesitation, Bakunin says that if
there is no other solution, the Slav workers must choose the first solution: "even if they
are wrong, they share the common fate of their brothers of work, of convictions, of
existence, German or not, it does not matter". (Etatisme et Anarchie, éditions Champ
libre, IV, 247-248.)
I wouldn't say that this is an «anti-German» attitude.
But there is more to it. Between joining the German-speaking socialist party and a Slav
nationalist party, there is a third issue: "the formation and the federal organization of
associations of industrial and agricultural workers based on the program of the
International".
Bakunin's point of view on the question of the multinationality of the workers of the
Austrian Empire is interesting because it shows once again the priority given by the
Russian revolutionary to the class criterion on the national criterion
It is true that Bakunin assimilated Jews and Germans. His point of view was as follows:
all of Eastern Germany consists of ancient Slav lands conquered and occupied by the
Germans since the Middle Ages. Prussia, for example, is an ancient Slavonic land. The Slav
peasants were dominated by the German nobility, by the bourgeoisie. The Jews accompanied
this conquest and were a decisive factor in the Germanization of the Slavs. Bakunin simply
mentions the fact.
When he makes a sort of monograph of the nationalities which make up the population of the
different countries of Central and Eastern Europe, he does not distinguish between Jews
and Germans. For instance, when he quotes the demographic statistics of the different
regions of Central Europe, Germans and Jews are mentioned together. "In Cisleithania,
there are 20,500,000 inhabitants, including 7,200,000 Germans and Jews". Citing statistics
on the Grand Duchy of Posen, he counts Germans and Jews together.
In the kingdom of Hungary, there are "1,800,000 Jews and Germans". In Austria, there are
"9,000,000 Germans and Jews". The "subcategory" constituted by the Jews does not even
benefit from a particular quantification: among these 9 million Germans, one will not know
how many Jews there are: for Bakunin this does not seem important. This indistinction
still appears when Bakunin blames the Germans of Austria for wanting political supremacy
in the empire, "although with the Jews they constitute only a quarter of the population."
(Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy)
In Statism and Anarchy, which I refer to, the Jews are considered only from the point of
view of their historical function - germanizing the Slavs. They were, thought Bakunin, an
element in the process of Germanization of Slavic regions.
Engels does not contradict Bakunin's approach to this question: he writes about Central
Europe that Jews, "insofar as they belong to any nationality, are in those countries
certainly more German than Slavic" (Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany). So he
too considers that there is a sort of fusion between Germans and Jews and it does not seem
to bother him more than it bothers Bakunin: the process of denationalization of the Slavs
by the Germans is described in a surprisingly identical manner by Bakunin and Engels,
although they do not give this process the same meaning: according to Engels it is a
positive fact because the Germans brought civilization to the Slavs.
When Bakunin remains in the field of historical reflection, as is the case with Statism
and Anarchy, there is no anti-Semitic remark. Besides, Statism and Anarchy was written in
1873, so after the "deadline" of Bakunin's anti-Semitic period...
(See: Engels and the "Nonhistoric" Peoples. The National Question in the Revolution of
1848, Roman Rosdolsky (1898-1967), Critique Books, UK, 1986.)
WAYNE PRICE: «Mr. Marx is a[German]patriot no less ardent than Bismarck....He desires the
establishment of a great Germanic state» (Bakunin)
There is no possible doubt that Marx and Engels were passionately in favor of a unified
German State: the reading of their correspondence removes all doubt on this point. And
their correspondance shows with no possible doubt that a German victory would mean the
victory of their positions over those of Proudhon. For them, the creation of a great
unified national State was the indispensable condition for the constitution of the German
proletariat as a class adopting a parliamentary strategy. Parliamentary strategy had no
sense in a Germany divided into 49 different States.
When the Franco-Prussian war broke out, Marx and Engels hoped for the defeat of France
because that way Germany could realize its unity. Their correspondence reveals their aims
very clearly, Engels goes so far as to write "Bismack works for us". Marx advised the
French not to move and to do their duty by going to vote, for the German victory had
offered them a republic! All this is known (but often forgotten). Marx even went so far as
to blame the Socialists of Brunschwig because they had signed an internationalist appeal,
which he qualified as «ridiculous»!
It was only when the insurrection of the Commune broke out that he changed his mind,
because of course he could no longer do otherwise. That was when he wrote The Civil War in
France, in which he took up the theme of federalism when he hated federalism, which he
assimilated to an archaic political form of the Middle Ages responsible for the division
of Germany: "The conflict between centralization and federalism in Germany is a conflict
between modern culture and feudalism", says Marx ("The Programmes of the
Radical-Democratic Party and of the Left at Frankfurt", Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 7 June
1848, MECW vol. 7). - Which does not speak in favor of its approval of federalism after
the Commune of Paris...
WAYNE PRICE: He[Bakunin]claimed that the Slavs and Latin "races" were naturally
libertarian, while the Germanic people were invariably authoritarian
Wayne writes "races" in quotation marks, as if to distance himself from the word. In the
19th century the word did not have the same meaning as today.
Bakunin says somewhere that the unity of the "Western world of Europe" must be attributed
to the "natural unity of the Germanic race". This thesis is interesting in that it gives
Bakunin the opportunity to define what he means by "race": it is the "identity of the
natural temperament, customs, manners, sentiments, ideas, and primitive organization
brought by the Germanic peoples into the different countries of Europe" (Œuvres, Champ
libre, I, 133). We then see that the concept of "race" is exclusively limited to the
cultural field; It does not include any "ethnic" or "genetic" characteristics. In fact, it
is synonym to "people".
By saying that the Slavs and the Latins were "naturally" libertarian but not the Germanic
(and Northern) peoples, Bakunin was clearly mistaken, but he nevertheless perceived a real
problem. Of course the Latin and the Slavonic peoples are not "genetically" revolutionary
and the northern peoples "genetically" reformist. What creates the fracture is the use of
mediations. In France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Russia the slightest popular claim comes
up against the army and the police who shoot the workers. There is no negotiation, no
mediation structures like trade unions and Parliaments (and public opinion). There is
therefore no place for reformism: the smallest claim necessarily turns into a
revolutionary act. In Northern Europe it is quite different. Political power itself
encourages the establishment of mediation structures, even if it occasionally uses repression.
However, France and Belgium were in intermediate positions. When the Belgians had obtained
the universal suffrage after two very violent general strikes, the revolutionary tendency
of the IWA disappeared. In France the massacres of workers ceased gradually after the
unification of the Socialist party which appeared an alternative to the direct action
strategy and permanent confrontation with the power.
There is a funny remark by Bakunin in an article he wrote in 1864 when he was in Sweden.
He was amazed at this happy people who had no habit of class struggle because the State
went ahead of their claims! He found it quite shocking!
Bakunin thus had the intuition of a real situation, but without understanding its causes.
WAYNE PRICE: This anti-Germanism was not unique to Bakunin. His closest comrade, James
Guillaume, wrote a book, Karl Marx, Pan-Germanist. This racist anti-Germanism later played
a part in persuading a minority of prominent anarchists to support the imperialist Allies
against the imperi alist Germans in World War I-including Kropotkin and Guillaume.
Karl Marx pangermaniste et l'Association internationale des travailleurs de 1864 à 1870
(the complete title) was published in 1915 during the First World War. To qualify this
brochure as "anti-German racist" does not seem to me right. I re-read it for the occasion,
it contains nothing different from what Guillaume already wrote in L'Internationale,
documents et souvenirs. Vigorously Anti-Marxist, it certainly is, but how can one be
surprised? But the accusations of J. Guillaume are supported by precise references to
texts, which are perfectly verifiable. Guillaume provides numerous quotations from Marx
and Engels which confirm his thesis concerning Marx being "pan-German" (although the
matter is much more complicated if you take the time to weigh things). But in the 1870's
and even more in 1915, James Guillaume was in no mood for subtleties.
It would be interesting for Wayne Price to explain in what way Karl Marx pangermaniste is
racist.
Moreover, Kropotkin did not need James Guillaume to determine his opinion on the conduct
to be held in case of war between France and Germany: he had long made his choice. It is
worth pointing out that Kropotkin's arguments in favor of France are exactly the same as
those of Bakunin forty years earlier: France was the repository of cultural values which
were considered as being progressive in relation to German militarism.
Bakunin did not pass to posterity with the same negative image as Kropotkin because there
was the Commune insurrection, and the war turned out into a revolution! But from the
beginning of the war Bakunin had taken sides for France, without hesitation.
But Bakunin and Kropotkin had expected a reaction from the people against the invaders to
turn the war into a revolution. This eventuality occurred in 1870 but not in 1914. What
would Bakunin have done if there had not been the Commune?
Kropotkin made three incredible mistakes, which in my opinion stem from a certain form of
intellectual arrogance: first he imagined that signing the «Manifesto of the Sixteen»
could have changed something; Then he neglected to consider whether there were any other
means of getting his message across than by signing such a compromising document; But most
of all he did not see that when one is not able to change events, it is essential to
remain firm on principles. This is what the overwhelming majority of the anarchist
movement has done.
(Concerning Kropotkin and the war, see: René Berthier, Kropotkine et la Grande guerre. Les
anarchistes, la CGT et la social-démocratie face à la guerre, éditions du Monde Libertaire)
WAYNE PRICE: This issue was somewhat confused, in my opinion, due to the anarchist
approach to "power." Anarchists often declare that they are not in favor of the workers
"taking power."
I have always been irritated by the scruples of anarchists before the use of the word
"power". "Power" is also "to be able to achieve something". For a long time I have settled
this question by saying that anarchists are opposed to the exercise of political power but
favorable to the exercise of social power. It obviously satisfies most comrades when I
make conferences.
WAYNE PRICE: Up until World War I, the anarchists still were the mainstream of the far
left within the movement.
Before WWI the anarchists were the only revolutionary current. The few small socialist
opposition groups who made incursions alongside the anarchists quickly went back home to
their social-democratic parties. Rosa Luxemburg was accused by her social-democrat
comrades of being an anarchist, which infuriated her because she hated the anarchsits. We
must not forget the syndicalist movement, which had close relations with anarchism but can
not be confused with it. This is a very complicated question, involving many
determinations. I have been working on this for several years. I would simply say this
(provisionally): I think that the anarchist movement would have survived as a movement
with real visibility (in France at least) if the anarchists had been able to find
realistic modalities for defining their relations with the syndicalist movement (I speak
for France, at least). The anarchist movement and those syndicalists who were closest to
the anarchist movement have been unable to counter the unprecedented methods used by the
Bolsheviks to control mass organizations. This is valid at the international level.
I think Wayne Price perfectly understood my thinking on these issues if I judge from the
comments he makes on the weaknesses of anarchism. If one wants to "learn from our mistakes
and our successes", as Wayne rightly says, we must begin by defining where our errors lie
- something many anarchists are probably not ready to do.
https://www.anarkismo.net/article/30452
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Message: 5
Every three years or so, New Zealanders get to exercise their democratic rights of marking
a piece of paper and vote. Gripped by election fever, and because from a young age we have
all been led to believe that voting is a something to be treasured and is crucial in
deciding our own, and the countries future, you will hear people claim that it is the most
important act a citizen can get involved with and that if you don't vote you can't
complain. ---- One of the saddest things of an election run-in is to witness even people
who consider themselves radicals for the rest of the time suddenly get interested in
parliamentary politics and declare themselves for a party who while offering slightly
better outcomes for some of the more vulnerable of society, put forward very little else
of substance.
It is our choice that will decide the election we are told, but time and time again the
reality is that all that is on offer for us to exercise our democratic right is a choice
between a few uninspiring mediocrities, who have already been chosen for us by their
uninspiring mediocre parties, offering a similar array of uninspiring mediocre policies
that lie within a very narrow range of political and economic ideas.
If you don't like the choices then vote for the lesser of two evils we are advised...your
vote can make a difference. Even when there is a ‘better' party (the Greens, if they are
to believed, maybe will make life slightly more bearable for beneficiaries for example),
or ‘better' candidate (Yes Jacinda you have a lovely smile and are very media friendly,
but why do you make me think of Tony Blair in a dress), that difference will not mean
anything unless the people are asserting their power outside of parliament, in ways that
whoever forms the next government will find difficult, even dangerous, to ignore.
Vote if you must, but if you want to live in a democratic society, outside of the few
minutes that it takes to go into the polling station and register your choice on the
paper, our time really needs to be spent on educating, agitating, and organising our
fellow citizens in our workplaces and communities. Our aim has to be to build a movement
that will challenge the established parties into changing their policies on matters of
social justice in the short-term and to do away with the lot of them and revolutionise
society in the long run.
Despite Labour and the Greens caring, sharing rhetoric, they do not offer what is really
needed, such as well paid jobs for everyone, radical changes in taxation to ensure a
fairer distribution of the wealth, guaranteed housing needs met for those facing
homelessness, and a transformation away from the unsatisfactory way many of our country
are living now. They are still parties very much of the establishment, and only a popular
upsurge will move them away from the centre. Governments of all colours have only ever
given the people what they want when faced with actions that make them sit up and take
notice. Without such pressure, they will renege on promises, ignore us, and continue
thinking they know what is best for us.
We need to free ourselves from the election madness that engulfs most of us, including
those who position themselves on the radical left. Either side of those few minutes we
spend at the polling station we need to be taking actions against what prevents us from
leading freer, more comfortable lives.
The radical US historian Howard Zinn said that "Voting is easy and marginally useful, but
it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned
citizens." He is right, and all citizens concerned about the direction this country is
taking need to ask themselves what they are going to do the day after election day to
address that concern.
http://www.awsm.nz/2017/08/29/democratic-rights-and-tony-blair-in-a-dress/
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