Russian Party of Pensioners Manifesto

[Ken Brown]

mattd wrote:

[...]

> If you are into cryptoanarchy with the emphasis on the anarchy,you may
> enjoy this...

[...]

> We used to say, NO to Western Imperialism and NO to Soviet Imperialism
> both. Self determination for ALL PEOPLES!
> One Empire has fallen. One still has to fall. But we should not mourn the
> passing of the Soviet prison of nations.

[...]

You miss the point. James & many of the other Libertarians present are
aware past attempts at left anarchism.  But they think that  such
attempts will inevitably  develop into state socialist tyranny, or else 
collapse into a bloody war of all against all, or else  be defeated by
some other group that has already become a centralised tyranny. (In
Makhno's case all three happened, at least partly).

In other words they think that - to nick a Marxist term they probably
wouldn't use themselves - socialism has "contradictions", that you can't
have socialism without tyranny. From their point of view there is no
logical space for "libertarian socialism" or "socialist anarchism".
Someone who claims to be a socialist and yet opposed to state control
will, they think, be either a liar who will turn out to be a Statist in
the end, or someone who hasn't thought things through, who will turn out
to be a capitalist in the end.

I happen to think they are wrong. But stirring quotes from well-known
texts about the Russian revolution won't persuade them. 
The few who are at all interested will have read such stuff before and
already know the (very persuasive) arguments against it. (After all the
Russian revolution really did collapse into ten years of bloody war,
followed by 30 years of Stalinism, then another 30  of mind-numbingly
boring militarised dictatorship and petty cruelty from which anyone in
their right minds would have gladly escaped to America or western
Europe. They aren't making this up)

Of course most of the US libertarians neither know nor care about that
1920s stuff, and going on about it will just confirm their prejudices
about it. Americans tend to be well immunized against socialism - the
only way to get it past their mental blocks is to call it something else
:-)  It was still fun a few years ago when someone posted a chunk of the
Communist Manifesto with references to "the Bourgeoisie" changed to "the
Net" and quite a few of them took it as some recent anarcho-capitalist
rant...


Ken