Welcome to the official An Anarchist FAQ (AFAQ) blog!
This will be used to summarise new releases, make announcements, make supplemental additions to the FAQ, clarify points, reply to any relevant criticism and so on. It is doubtful that it will be updated that often, but it is useful to have.
Welcome to the official An Anarchist FAQ (AFAQ) blog!
This will be used to summarise new releases, make announcements, make supplemental additions to the FAQ, clarify points, reply to any relevant criticism and so on. It is doubtful that it will be updated that often, but it is useful to have.
The most obvious thing to note is the AFAQ has a new mirror on this site. The original webpage will still be maintained, but this will be the main focus for AFAQ from now on — partly because of the blog, partly because it is hosted on an anarchist website and partly because of the lack of annoying advert pop-ups! The main mirror will remain at infoshop (although it is not 100% sure that all the updates have been applied).
The second thing is that AFAQ is now at release 13.0. So What’s New at the FAQ?
The section on Marxism has been revised substantially, although the basic arguments remain the same.
Most notable change is the new section on the Russian Revolution. This is an expansion of the old sections H.3.15 (on how Bolshevik authoritarianism started before the civil war started) and H.3.16 (on the role of Bolshevik ideology on the failure of the revolution), which are now no longer, plus a totally new section on labour protest under Lenin. This was considered essential to refute Leninist assertions that the Bolsheviks had to implement their dictatorship due to the working class becoming atomised. It is hard to argue that once you have an awareness of the level of strikes, and state repression of them, under the Bolsheviks. Simply put, an atomised working class does not require martial law to tame!
Also, the section on vanguardism during 1917 has been put back into the main FAQ (it was moved to an appendix previously). What happened in 1917 and its relation to the vanguard party is too important to leave out.
The section on Marx’s position on smashing the state has been revised to include more evidence (i.e., more actual quotes from Marx and Engels). Somewhat ironically, most “Marxists” now agree with Bakunin on this issue rather than Marx and Engels! The section on Bakunin’s critique of Marxism has been expanded.
Sections H.2.15 and H.2.16 have been removed as the issues discussed are covered elsewhere in the FAQ.
This is just a summary of the changes, most sub-sections of H have been revised — hopefully for the better!