First of all, I thank Comrade Magsalin for writing his piece on exegetical and scientific traditions in Marxism. While I do not necessarily agree with him on everything, he does raise a point I consider somewhat lacking in Marxism, and one which is becoming somewhat pressing. On the year of the 100th anniversary of Kronstadt, and a year where anarchists just love to critique Lenin as a bloody counterrevolutionary, we have to recognize that an up-to-date and thorough piece on the failures of anarchism still has to be written. The two texts which we usually use to counteract anarchist tendencies are “On Authority” and “State and Revolution”, but I think they are ultimately unconvincing, especially compared to something like “the tyranny of structurelessness” which points much better at anarchism’s weaknesses.
A present day critique of anarchism still has to be written by someone way more familiar than myself with that tendency, but I suspect there should be three main thrusts on it: First, a development of the points of “the tyranny of structurelessness”, along the lines that unacknolwedged power does not mean that power doesn’t exist. Second, a critique of anarchist methods of building counter-power, acknowledging that one cannot exist outside the state, and that we refuse to engage with the state, we let the state set its own terms for class struggle. We cannot liberate ourselves in isolation, and as Garcia Linera: “If you aim to inhabit a reality outside of the State, the State silences you, cancels your place in the relation among individuals that’s embedded in the State”.
Third and last, and maybe the most polemical of my points, an argument that while anarchism appears to allow for more freedom at the individual level, it only allows for this at a low level of practical actions, ie. it seems to promise that today I can decide today to play music, or write poetry, but what is glossed over is that it requires a much level of cohesion at the level of morals and cosmovision. There is little room for dissent in an anarchist commune, as has been repeatedly borne out from history.
Wanting to build an anarchist totality for the entire world would involve a much smaller level of freedom and debate than what has been historically allowed in some socialist societies such as Vietnam, Yugoslavia or the DDR. Marxist states have often been too centralized, but following Stafford Beer, having central strategic vision and planning doesn’t preclude autonomous action and freedom, it’s a prerequisite. This strategic vision should be flexible enough– and in this, some AES states have at least attempted to grapple with the problem. Anarchism seems to ignore that it forces the acceptance of a rigid totality if it is to triumph worldwide.
I hope with this letter to persuade someone to take up this task.
Comradely,
Renato Flores
