Difference between revisions of "Anarchy 89/Reflections on the revolution in France"
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− | '''{{w|Sorel|Georges_Sorel}}.'''  | + | '''{{w|Sorel|Georges_Sorel}}.''' Is he so com­pletely for­got­ten? He is pretty well dis­credited as a seri­ous in­tel­lectual figure (and of course he wasn{{t}} an anarch­ist or a the­oreti­cian of syn­dic­al­ism), but he did have some good ideas, and it{{s}} odd that they haven{{t}} been men­tioned. The general idea of the func­tion of myths{{dash|{{qq|not de­scrip­tions of things but ex­pres­sions of a de­term­ina­tion to act}}}}and the partic­ular idea of the myth of the general strike both seem relev­ant. Add the myth of the bar­ri­cades, the myth of the work­ing class, the myth of the soviet, and you have a fairly good pic­ture of what has hap­pened. How he would have en­joyed the at­tempt to burn down the {{w|Bourse|Paris_Bourse}}! |
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+ | '''Com­mun­ists.''' Will the part played by the Com­mun­ists at last con­vince people that Com­mun­ism is not a re­volu­tion­ary but a counter-<wbr>revolu­tion­ary force? The {{w|French Com­mun­ist Party|French_Communist_Party}}, the {{w|Gen­eral Con­feder­a­tion of Labour|General_Confederation_of_Labour_(France)}} (CGT) which it con­trols, and the paper ''{{w|L{{a}}Humanité|L'Humanité}}'' which it pub­lishes, have to­gether been one of the main factors pre­vent­ing the suc­cess of the re­volu­tion, after the gov­ern­ment, the army, and the police. Here is the cul­mina­tion of {{w|Bol­shev­ism|Bolsheviks}} after fifty years. (And the tradi­tional Trotsky­ists were better only be­cause they were weaker.) But the Com­mun­ists have now sur­vived so many ex­posures{{dash}}{{w|Kron­stadt|Kronstadt_rebellion}}, {{w|China|Maoism}}, {{w|Spain|Communist_Party_of_Spain}}, | ||
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Revision as of 17:39, 28 March 2018
revolution in France
Revolution. A timely reminder that when you come down to it you have to go out into the streets and confront the forces of the state. That in the end ony a tremendous and terrifying change in the way society is organised can bring about what we want. That this will not happen by itself, but that someone has to decide to make it happen. That we have to be premature (only premature action leads to mature action), that we have to make mistakes (people who don’t make mistakes don’t make anything), that we have to take risks (the blood of martyrs is still, alas, the seed of the faith), that we have to begin by looking ridiculous and end by looking futile. A reminder of William Morris, in A Dream of John Ball, pondering “how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name”. A reminder of the danger of revolution, in being what Engels called “the most authoritarian thing imaginable”, in provoking counter-
Tragic to be so near and yet so far. The young people taking the streets, the intellectuals taking the universities, the workers taking the factories, the farmers on their tractors—
Comités d’action. The action committees which sprang up in Paris are the obvious descendants of the councils and committees (Soviets) which have always spontaneously appeared in popular risings of this kind. Here is the natural administrative unit of society which we want in place of the parliament, executive committees, representative council, or whatever, which takes decisions out of the hands of the people they affect. Here is the administration of things which must come instead of the government of people.
Marxism. Interesting how it has managed to survive what the Communists and Social Democrats have done to it between them, to say nothing of the sociologists. The libertarian Marxists seem closer to Marx and Engels than the orthodox Communists, Trotskyists and Maoism one one side, and the various revisionists and reformists on the other. It is good that the anarchist strain in Marxism should be remembered. At the same time we should remember the Marxist strain in anarchism; the early anarchists always acknowleged Marx’s immense contribution to socialist thought, and most of us still stand on his analysis of the class society. If we are glad to see some Marxists moving towards us, perhaps we could see how far we can move towards them; Marxism without the party or the state isn’t very far away. In the London demonstration of solidarity with the French on May 26th, it was significant to see the International Socialism and Solidarity groups welcoming the anarchists in a common front against the Socialist Labour League when Healy and Banda tried to keep things under traditional Trotskyist control. The same kind of thing on a much larger scale seems to have been happening in France; the March 22nd Movement is described as an informal coalition of anarchists, situationists, Trotskyists and Maoists, united by common action. The new unformed, unnamed Fifth International may get back to the original aims of the First International after more than a century.
Syndicalists. It seems to be forgotten that the CGT, which has played such a disgraceful part, was not always a Communist organisation but was in fact the original syndicalist organisation, being formed in 1895 precisely to free the French trade union movement from part political control and prepare for the social revolution by way of the general strike. The Federation des Bourses du Travail should be equally well known because of Emile Pouget, the great editor of its paper, La Voix du Peuple—
Sorel. Is he so completely forgotten? He is pretty well discredited as a serious intellectual figure (and of course he wasn’t an anarchist or a theoretician of syndicalism), but he did have some good ideas, and it’s odd that they haven’t been mentioned. The general idea of the function of myths—
Communists. Will the part played by the Communists at last convince people that Communism is not a revolutionary but a counter-