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Recent articles by Wayne Price
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Monday April 24, 2017 07:28 by Wayne Price - none drwdprice at aol dot com
The Danger of Substitutionism The Russian Revolution of 1917 demonstrates the dangers of a revolutionary minority taking over, setting up its own state, and substituting itself for the working class and oppressed. The following is based on my notes for a panel presentation. I was invited to give it at the April 8, 2017, convention of the Platypus Association, a rather academic Marxist organization. The panel topic was on the meaning of the 1917 Russian Revolution for today. This is a topic widely discussed on the Left this year, the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. I was to express the minority viewpoint of an anarchist (antiauthoritarian socialist). However, a rainstorm and a flight cancellation intervened and I did not give the presentation. This is more-or-less what I was going to say. Revolutionaries study revolutions. Many lessons might be learned from looking at the 1917 Russian Revolution and its aftermath. It began with such promise, bringing hope of a world without war, oppression, capitalism, imperialism, and states. How did it result in Stalinist mass murder and state capitalism, finally to collapse back into traditional capitalism? Possibly the most important lesson of the Russian Revolution is the difference between capitalist revolutions and working class revolutions. By “capitalist revolutions,” I mean the upheavals which replaced medieval-feudal societies with bourgeois-democratic societies, including the English Revolution of Cromwell, the American Revolution, the great French Revolution, and the mostly failed 1848 European Revolutions. By “working class revolutions”, I mean mass rebellions in which the working class plays a major role, in alliance with other exploited and oppressed sections of society—to replace capitalism with the beginning of some sort of cooperative, non-profit, system. Today many people on the Left, including Marxists and anarchists, have given up the goal of working class revolution. Yet working class revolution was the central concept of the Marxism of Marx and Engels, as it was of the historical mainstream of socialist-anarchism, from Bakunin to Kropotkin to the anarchist-communists and anarchist-syndicalists. Depending on the definition we use, the working class (proletarians) is either a large minority or the big majority of the population of all industrialized countries. As such, they overlap with all other oppressed sectors of the people, including women, LGBT people, people of color, immigrants, youth, oppressed nations, people with disabilities, etc., not to mention those threatened by global warming. Because of their role in the process of capitalist production, workers have a special strategic power (potentially). As workers, they have their hands on the means of production, distribution, transportation, communication, consumption, and services. If they wanted to, they could stop society from working, shutting it down. And they could, if they would, restart the economy on a new, radically democratic, cooperative, and ecological, basis—antiauthoritarian socialism. Both capitalist and workers’ revolutions are uprisings of the mass of people against the old ruling class and its state. But what a capitalist revolution did was to replace the old masters with a new ruling class—the aristocracy with the bourgeoisie. The majority of people did get some benefits (it is better to live under a bourgeois democracy than a unlimited monarchy), but the main function of the capitalist revolution was to replace one set of rulers with another. This means that the ideology of the leaders of the revolution was always a falsehood. Bourgeois revolutionaries could not tell the peasants and artisans that they were only changing rulers. A minority would still be powerful and wealthy while all others would labor for them. Subjectively, the revolutionary leaders may or may not have believed that they were bringing “liberty, equality, fraternity” and the “rights of man” to the people, or “inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” What mattered is what they actually did. In contrast, the workers’ revolution must be based on the consciousness of the people, an awareness of what they are really doing. The big majority of the people—the workers, their families and dependents, peasants (still a big group around the world), and women, as well as people of oppressed races, nations, and religions, etc.—will rise up and make a revolution in their interests, under their control. Working class revolutionaries must tell the truth. Even at times when it is unpopular to do so, they must say what is. Differences Between Capitalist and Workers’ Revolutions |
HauptseiteSupport Sudanese anarchists in exile Joint Statement of European Anarchist Organizations International anarchist call for solidarity: Earthquake in Turkey, Syria and Kurdistan Elements of Anarchist Theory and Strategy 19 de Julio: Cuando el pueblo se levanta, escribe la historia International anarchist solidarity against Turkish state repression Declaración Anarquista Internacional por el Primero de Mayo, 2022 Le vieux monde opprime les femmes et les minorités de genre. Leur force le détruira ! Against Militarism and War: For self-organised struggle and social revolution Declaração anarquista internacional sobre a pandemia da Covid-19 Anarchist Theory and History in Global Perspective Capitalism, Anti-Capitalism and Popular Organisation [Booklet] Reflexiones sobre la situación de Afganistán South Africa: Historic rupture or warring brothers again? Death or Renewal: Is the Climate Crisis the Final Crisis? Gleichheit und Freiheit stehen nicht zur Debatte! Contre la guerre au Kurdistan irakien, contre la traîtrise du PDK Meurtre de Clément Méric : l’enjeu politique du procès en appel Russia / Ukraine / Belarus | The Left | en Fri 19 Apr, 15:28 Statement of left and anarchist organizations about "Borotba" organization 15:19 Thu 06 Mar 1 comments We, the collectives and members of Ukrainian leftist and anarchist organizations, announce that “Borotba” union is not a part of our movement. During the whole time of this political project’s existence, its members tended to be committed to the most discredited, conservative and authoritarian “leftist” regimes and ideologies, which do not represent the interests of working classes in any way. Anarchism in the context of civil war May 12 0 comments The events at the House of Trade Unions in Odessa are a tragedy, and it is possible, that among those who died there were also people who played no part in flaring up the violence. People who threw molotov cocktails at the House should have understood the consequences. Even if the fire igniting was not solely due to them, it is not for lack of trying. In case civil war spreads, these deaths are just the beginning. No doubt that on both sides the majority only wants a better life for their close ones and their motherland, and many hate governments and oligarchs to an equal extent. The more sincerely naïve people die, the greater the pressure to support one of the factions in the war, and we must struggle against this pressure. [Italiano] [Français] The Degeneration of the Russian Revolution; Jun 11 26 comments How did the Russian revolution go from an extreme popular democracy to the horrors of Stalin’s totalitarian state capitalism? How did this happen and when did this happen? What does this tell us about the nature of socialism? European Social Forum in Greece: a Russian anarchist's impression May 16 0 comments Personal account of ESF-2006 from Vyacheslav Danilov, a participant from Russia's delegation and a member of the Sibirskaya Konfederachiya Truda* (SKT | Siberian Confederation of Labor). ...While the idea of Party politics has less and less meaning for the general population, the division over the means of achieving success -- through the siezure of State power or via initiatives from below -- remains, as it was 100 years ago. Freedom and Revolution - The Bolshevik experience Apr 18 0 comments The question thrown up by the October revolution is fundamental. Once capitalism has been defeated, how is communism to be achieved? While there are certainly faults to be found with aspects of the anarchist movement, at least it cannot be criticised for getting the basics wrong. Anarchists have consistently argued that freedom and democracy are not optional extras. Rather they form part of the conditions necessary for the growth of communism. Statement of left and anarchist organizations about "Borotba" organization Mar 06 1 comments We, the collectives and members of Ukrainian leftist and anarchist organizations, announce that “Borotba” union is not a part of our movement. During the whole time of this political project’s existence, its members tended to be committed to the most discredited, conservative and authoritarian “leftist” regimes and ideologies, which do not represent the interests of working classes in any way. |