Marxist Revisionism and Anarchism

1
Marxist Revisionism and Anarchism
2
Marxist Revisionism

• Dictatorship of the Proletariat
• Marx "the emancipation of the working class is
  the task of the working class itself".
• Lenin "modern socialist consciousness can only
  be brought to the working class from without".
• Translation Lenin believed the proletariat
  needed the leadership of those (the
  intelligenstia) who understood their interests
  and how to carry out revolution on their behalf
  (this would create a vanguard movement in which
  proletarian consciousness would be taught to
  the peasnants of Russia). Trotsky claims the
  leadership could ignore the "temporary
  vacillations" of the working class.

3
Marx vs. Lenin

• Democracy
• Marx Marx saw the state as the "executive
  committee" of a ruling class. In a socialist
  society, he affirmed, the state, as the
  government of people, would give way to a simple,
  democratic "administration of things".
• Lenin Democratic centralism is the name given to
  the principles of internal organization used by
  Leninist political parties, and the term is
  sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist
  policy inside a political party. The democratic
  aspect of this organizational method describes
  the freedom of members of the political party to
  discuss and debate matters of policy and
  direction, but once the decision of the party is
  made by majority vote, all members are expected
  to uphold that decision. This latter aspect
  represents the centralism. As Lenin described it,
  democratic centralism consisted of "freedom of
  discussion with unity of action.

4
Marx vs. Lenin

• The International Revolution
• Marx Marx had argued that revolution would come
  first in countries in the most advanced state of
  capitalism, such as Germany. In 1916 in
  Imperialism Lenin provided a justification for
  launching revolution in comparatively backward
  Russia - it would trigger revolutions in more
  advanced countries which would in turn assist the
  Russian revolution. As it turned out, the
  Bolsheviks found themselves in charge of a
  country desperately in need of development but
  cut off from foreign investment.
• Lenin Lenin fought to maintain his view of
  international socialism and prepare the ground
  for a new International of the working class. For
  Lenin, the international was in essence
  programme, policy and method. Under these
  conditions of world war, the internationalists
  Lenin, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, John MacLean,
  James Connolly and others would concentrate on
  wooing oppressed third world nations over to
  the economic design of socialism.

5
Marx v. Lenin

• Communism
• Marx Marx envisioned a utopian nation of
  collectives in which workers voluntarily
  cooperated to build industry and democratically
  enjoy the fruits of their labor
• Lenin Lenin envisioned a rapidly industrialized
  Russia using the following paradigm
• All industry was nationalized and strict
  centralized management was introduced.
• State monopoly on foreign trade was introduced.
• Discipline for workers was strict, and strikers
  could be shot.
• Obligatory labor duty was imposed onto
  "non-working classes".
• Requisition of agricultural surpluses from
  peasants in excess of absolute minimum for
  centralized distribution among the remaining
  population.
• Food and most commodities were rationed and
  distributed in a centralized way.
• Private enterprise became illegal.
• Military-like control of railroads was
  introduced.

6
Leon Trotsky

• Leon Trotsky
• Support for a strategy of permanent revolution
  (as opposed to the Two Stage Theory of his
  opponents)
• Criticism of the post-1924 leadership of the
  Soviet Union, support for political revolution in
  the Soviet Union and in what Trotskyists term the
  deformed workers' state in Russia. Trotsky
  claimed that the state was controlled by a
  bureaucratic caste with interests hostile to
  those of the working class
• Support for social revolution in the advanced
  capitalist countries through working class mass
  action
• Support for proletarian internationalism.
• unwavering support for a true dictatorship of the
  proletariat based on democratic principles.

7
Joseph Stalin

• De-emphasized the role of workers in advanced
  capitalist countries (for example, he postulated
  theses considering the U.S. working class as
  bourgeoisified labor aristocracy). Also, Stalin
  polemicized against Trotsky on the role of
  peasants, as in China, whereas Trotsky wanted
  urban insurrection and not peasant-based
  guerrilla warfare.
• Socialism in One Country rather than
  internationalism
• The theory of aggravation of the class struggle
  along with the development of socialism, a
  theoretical base supporting the repression of
  political opponents as necessary.

8
Joseph Stalin

• Economic Policy
• At the end of the 1920s Stalin launched a wave of
  radical economic policies, which completely
  overhauled the industrial and agricultural face
  of the Soviet Union. This came to be known as the
  'Great Turn as Russia turned away from the
  near-capitalist New Economic Policy.
• The NEP had been implemented by Lenin in order to
  ensure the survival of the Communist state
  following seven years of war (1914-1921, World
  War I from 1914 to 1917, and the subsequent Civil
  War) and had rebuilt Soviet production to its
  1913 levels. However, Russia still lagged far
  behind the West, and the NEP was felt by Stalin
  and the majority of the Communist party, not only
  to be compromising Communist ideals, but also not
  delivering sufficient economic performance, as
  well as not creating the envisaged Socialist
  society.
• It was therefore necessary to increase the pace
  of industrialization in order to catch up with
  the West.

9
Joseph Stalin

• Forced Collectivization
• Collectivization in the Soviet Union was a policy
  pursued under Stalin, between 1928 and 1940, to
  consolidate individual land and labour into
  collective farms. The Soviet leadership was
  confident that the replacement of individual
  peasant farms by collectives would immediately
  increase food supplies for the urban population,
  the supply of raw materials for processing
  industry, and agricultural exports generally.
  Collectivization was thus regarded as the
  solution to the crisis in agricultural
  distribution (mainly in grain deliveries) that
  had developed since 1927 and was becoming more
  acute as the Soviet Union pressed ahead with its
  ambitious industrialization program.
• The peasantry hated the program
• The Great Purge Great Purge was a series of
  campaigns of political repression and persecution
  in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin
  in 1936-1938. Also described as a "Soviet
  holocaust" by several authors, it involved the
  purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
  repression of peasants, Red Army leadership, and
  the persecution of unaffiliated persons,
  characterized by widespread police surveillance,
  widespread suspicion of "saboteurs",
  imprisonment, and killings. Estimates of the
  number of deaths associated with the Great Purge
  run from the official figure of 681,692 to nearly
  2,000,000.

10
Maoism

• Unlike the earlier forms of Marxism-Leninism in
  which the urban proletariat was seen as the main
  source of revolution, and the countryside was
  largely ignored, Mao focused on the peasantry as
  the main revolutionary force who, he said, could
  be led by the proletariat and its vanguard, the
  CCP.
• Unlike most other political ideologies, including
  other socialist and Marxist ones, Maoism contains
  an integral military doctrine and explicitly
  connects its political ideology with military
  strategy. In Maoist thought, "political power
  comes from the barrel of the gun" (one of Mao's
  quotes), and the peasantry can be mobilized to
  undertake a "people's war" of armed struggle
  involving guerrilla warfare in three stages.
• Maoism emphasizes "revolutionary mass
  mobilization" (physically mobilizing the vast
  majority of a population in the struggle for
  socialism), the concept of New Democracy, and the
  Theory of Productive Forces as applied to
  village-level industries independent of the
  outside world.
• A key concept that distinguishes Maoism from most
  other left-wing ideologies (save for "mainstream"
  Marxism-Leninism and Trotsky's theories) is the
  belief that the class struggle continues
  throughout the entire socialist period, as a
  result of the fundamental antagonistic
  contradiction between capitalism and communism.
  Even when the proletariat has seized state power
  through a socialist revolution, the potential
  remains for a bourgeoisie to restore capitalism.
  

11
Maoism

• The Great Leap Forward
• The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic
  of China (PRC) was an economic and social plan
  used from 1958 to 1960 which aimed to use China's
  vast population to rapidly transform mainland
  China from a primarily agrarian economy dominated
  by peasant farmers into a modern, industrialized
  communist society.

12
Maoism

• The Hundred Flowers Campaign
• The Hundred Flowers Campaign, also termed the
  Hundred Flowers Movement is the period referring
  to a brief interlude in the People's Republic of
  China from 1956 to 1957 during which the Chinese
  Communist Party (CCP) encouraged a variety of
  views and solutions to national policy issues,
  launched under the slogan "Letting a hundred
  flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought
  contend is the policy for promoting progress in
  the arts and the sciences and a flourishing
  socialist culture in our land."
• In reality, The Hundred Flowers Campaign was a
  deliberate attempt to flush out dissidents by
  encouraging them to show themselves as critical
  of the regime, before wiping them out. The
  campaign was a political trap, allowing Mao to
  persecute those who had views different from the
  party. The ideological crackdown following the
  campaign's failure re-imposed Maoist orthodoxy in
  public expression.

13
Maoism

• The Cultural Revolution
• It was launched by Mao Zedong, the chairman of
  the Communist Party of China, on May 16, 1966,
  who alleged that liberal bourgeoisie elements
  were dominating the party and insisted that they
  needed to be removed through post-revolutionary
  class struggle by mobilizing the thoughts and
  actions of Chinas youth, who formed Red Guards
  groups around the country. Although Mao himself
  officially declared the Cultural Revolution to
  have ended in 1969, the term is today widely used
  to also include the power struggles and political
  instability between 1969 and the arrest of the
  Gang of Four as well as the death of Mao in 1976.
  
• Many intellectuals were sent to rural labor
  camps, and many of those who survived left China
  shortly after the revolution ended. Many
  survivors and observers suggest that almost
  anyone with skills over that of the average
  person was made the target of political
  "struggle" in some way.
• The authority of the Red Guards surpassed that of
  the army, local police authorities, and the law
  in general. China's traditional arts and ideas
  were ignored, with praise for Mao being practiced
  in their place. People were encouraged to
  criticize cultural institutions and to question
  their parents and teachers, which had been
  strictly forbidden in Confucian culture. This was
  emphasized even more during the Anti-Lin Biao
  Anti-Confucius Campaign. Slogans such as "Parents
  may love me, but not as much as Chairman Mao"
  were common.

14
Anarchism

• Anarchism is a political philosophy encompassing
  theories and attitudes which consider the state,
  as compulsory government, to be unnecessary,
  harmful, and/or undesirable. Specific anarchists
  may have additional criteria for what constitutes
  anarchism, and they often disagree with each
  other on what these criteria are.

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Anarchism

• Individual Anarchism
• William Godwin
• In 1793, Godwin who has often been cited as the
  first anarchist, wrote Political Justice, which
  some consider to be the first expression of
  anarchism. Godwin, a philosophical anarchist,
  opposed revolutionary action and saw a minimal
  state as a present "necessary evil" that would
  become increasingly irrelevant and powerless by
  the gradual spread of knowledge. Godwin
  advocated extreme individualism, proposing that
  all cooperation in labor be eliminated on the
  premise that this would be most conducive with
  the general good. Godwin was a utilitarian who
  believed that all individuals are not of equal
  value, with some of us "of more worth and
  importance' than others depending on our utility
  in bringing about social good. Therefore he does
  not believe in equal rights, but the person's
  life that should be favored that is most
  conducive to the general good. Godwin opposed
  government because he saw it as infringing on the
  individual's right to "private judgement" to
  determine which actions most maximize utility,
  but also makes a critique of all authority over
  the individual's judgement. This aspect of
  Godwin's philosophy, stripped of utilitarian
  motivations, was developed into a more extreme
  form later by Stirner.

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Anarchism

• Max Stirner The most extreme form of
  individualist anarchism, called "egoism," was
  expounded by one of the earliest and best-known
  proponents of individualist anarchism, Max
  Stirner, Stirner's The Ego and Its Own,
  published in 1844, is a founding text of the
  philosophy. According to Stirner's conception,
  the only limitation on the rights of the
  individual is their power to obtain what they
  desire, without regard for God, state, or moral
  rules. To Stirner, rights were spooks in the
  mind, and he held that society does not exist but
  "the individuals are its reality"  he supported
  a concept of property held by force of might
  rather than moral right. By "property" he is not
  referring only to things but to other people as
  well. Stirner advocated self-assertion and
  foresaw "associations of egoists" where respect
  for ruthlessness drew people together. Even
  murder is permissible "if it is right for me."

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Anarchism

• American Anarchism
• Another form of individualist anarchism was
  advocated by the "Boston anarchists," American
  individualists who supported private property
  exchangeable in a free market. They advocated
• the protection of liberty and property by private
  contractors, and endorsed exchange of labor for
  wages.
• all natural opportunities requisite to the
  production of wealth be accessible to all on
  equal terms and that monopolies arising from
  special privileges created by law be abolished."
• That state monopoly capitalism (defined as a
  state-sponsored monopoly) prevented labor from
  being fully rewarded.
• A major cleft occurred later in the 19th century
  when Tucker and some others abandoned natural
  rights and converted to an "egoism" modeled upon
  Stirner's philosophy. Some "Boston anarchists",
  like Tucker, identified themselves as "socialist"
  a term which at the time denoted a broad
  concept by which he meant a commitment to
  solving "the labor problem" by radical economic
  reform. By the turn of the 20th century, the
  heyday of individualist anarchism had passed,
  although it was later revived with modifications
  by Murray Rothbard and the anarcho-capitalists in
  the mid-twentieth century, as a current of the
  broader libertarian movement, and the
  anti-capitalist strain by intellectuals such as
  Kevin Carson.

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Anarchism

• Mutualism
• Mutualism began in 18th century English and
  French labor movements before taking an anarchist
  form associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in
  France and others in the United States.
  Proudhon's ideas were introduced by Charles A.
  Dana, to individualist anarchists in the United
  States including Benjamin Tucker and William
  Batchelder Greene.
• Mutualist anarchism is concerned with
  reciprocity, free association, voluntary
  contract, federation, and credit and currency
  reform.

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Anarchism

• Social Anarchism
• Social anarchism is one of two different broad
  categories of anarchism, the other category being
  individualist anarchism. The term social
  anarchism is often used to identify communitarian
  forms of anarchism that emphasize cooperation and
  mutual aid. Social anarchism includes
  anarcho-collectivism, anarcho-communism,
  libertarian socialism, anarcho-syndicalism,
  social ecology and sometimes mutualism.

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Anarchism

• Collectivist Anarchism
• Collectivist anarchism, also referred to as
  revolutionary socialism or a form of such, is a
  revolutionary form of anarchism, commonly
  associated with Mikhail Bakunin and Johann Most.
  It is a specific tendency, not to be confused
  with the broad category sometimes called
  collectivist or communitarian anarchism.
• Unlike mutualists, collectivist anarchists
  oppose all private ownership of the means of
  production, instead advocating that ownership be
  collectivized. This was to be achieved through
  violent revolution, first starting with a small
  cohesive group through acts of violence, or
  "propaganda by the deed," which would inspire the
  workers as a whole to revolt and forcibly
  collectivize the means of production.
• However, collectivization was not to be extended
  to the distribution of income, as workers would
  be paid according to time worked, rather than
  receiving goods being distributed "according to
  need" as in anarcho-communism.
• This position was criticised by later
  anarcho-communists as effectively "upholding
  the wages system". Anarchist communist and
  collectivist ideas were not mutually exclusive
  although the collectivist anarchists advocated
  compensation for labor, some held out the
  possibility of a post-revolutionary transition to
  a communist system of distribution according to
  need

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Anarchism

• Anarcho-Communism
• Anarchist communists propose that the freest form
  of social organisation would be a society
  composed of self-governing communes with
  collective use of the means of production,
  organized by direct democracy, and related to
  other communes through federation.
• However, some anarchist communists oppose the
  majoritarian nature of direct democracy, feeling
  that it can impede individual liberty and favor
  consensus democracy. In anarchist communism, as
  money would be abolished, individuals would not
  receive direct compensation for labour (through
  sharing of profits or payment) but would have
  free access to the resources and surplus of the
  commune.
• According to anarchist communist Peter Kropotkin
  and later Murray Bookchin, the members of such a
  society would spontaneously perform all necessary
  labour because they would recognize the benefits
  of communal enterprise and mutual aid. Kropotkin
  believed that private property was one of the
  causes of oppression and exploitation and called
  for its abolition, advocating instead common
  ownership. Kropotkin said that "houses, fields,
  and factories will no longer be private property,
  and that they will belong to the commune or the
  nation and money, wages, and trade would be
  abolished.

22
Anarchism

• Anarcho-Syndicalism
• In the early 20th century, anarcho-syndicalism
  arose as a distinct school of thought within
  anarchism. With greater focus on the labour
  movement than previous forms of anarchism,
  syndicalism posits radical trade unions as a
  potential force for revolutionary social change,
  replacing capitalism and the state with a new
  society, democratically self-managed by the
  workers.
• Anarcho-syndicalists seek to abolish the wage
  system and private ownership of the means of
  production, which they believe lead to class
  divisions. Important principles include workers'
  solidarity, direct action (such as general
  strikes and workplace recuperations), and
  workers' self-management. This is compatible with
  other branches of anarchism, and
  anarcho-syndicalists often subscribe to anarchist
  communist or collectivist anarchist economic
  systems. Its advocates propose labor
  organizations as a means to create the
  foundations of a non-hierarchical anarchist
  society within the current system and bring about
  social revolution.