New FAQ Mirror and blog and more…

Okay, two new “old” articles.

Okay, two new “old” articles.

The first one is a talk I gave at a debate with some Trotskyists. It was a disappointing experience, as the Trotskyist speaker obviously had not prepared, he waffled on and ran over his time. It was, to be honest, quite insulting as I had taken a lot of time to get my speech down to the correct time while concentrating on the key issues. The subsequent discussion was not that good either. I’ve taken the liberty of updating the footnote links to point to the new An Anarchist FAQ mirror.

The second is a review of an TV Programme by Tony Benn on democracy. It basically points out that “democracy” covers a wide range of positions, from extremely elitist perspectives to extremely libertarian ones. It should be hyperlinked, but I cannot be bothered just now!

The other big news is that I’ve created another mirror for An Anarchist FAQ here, complete with its own blog! I’ll post extracts here and keep the FAQ blog for official updates and comments. And, boy, did creating that mirror take a long time! I’m sure some of the html mark-up will be incorrect so I’ll try and fix it as and when I (or others) notice it. I’ve updated 3 of the 4 forwarding urls to that webpage.

The section on Marxism has been revised substantially, although the basic arguments remain the same. See “What is New in the FAQ” and the AFAQ blog for details.

I would also like to recommend a newly published, and very good, introduction to economics, namely Economics for Everyone: a Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism by Jim Stanford. It is coming from a radical post-Keynesian position and covers everything pretty well in easy to understand language. The webpage has extracts (in pdf files). Covers most of the ground discussed in section C of AFAQ but in a much shorter fashion 🙂

Finally, here is another letter to the Weekly Worker. My last letter was published (the plug for the new Black Flag was removed, as I expected!) but did not get a response this issue. Perhaps the next one will shed some light on the objective differences between Leninism and Stalinism. This new letter is in response to members (or all?) of their student wing continually complaining that other Leninists will not support their attempts to impose a Marxist programme on student activist groups.

Dear Weekly Worker

I see that Dan Read and Dave Isaacson still fail to learn the lessons of history and are still stuck in full1905 Bolshevik mode (“Old wine, new bottles”, Weekly Worker, no. 744).

Faced with the potential for a United Front of all radicals in education, they still seek to impose a Marxist programme onto it! They complain that other Leninists are “opposing our attempts to force the Marxists in the room to openly come out as such” as the “conference then went on to vote down our attempt to fill this formulation with concrete meaning – ie, by committing the new student grouping to the ideas of Marxism.” There “is no desire for AEIP to become a vibrant, democratic student organisation,” they assert.

Yet Read and Isaacson also have no such desire, for they want it to become a Leninist student organisation. Can they not see that if their amendment “on the need for a Marxist programme” were passed then all non-Marxists are automatically excluded from the organisation? They moan that “incredibly, in a room full of self-proclaimed Marxists, the ENS comrade who spoke won a round of applause for stating that he was ‘not a Marxist.’” If they got their way, that comrade (and others like him) would not only not be a Marxist, they would not be a member!

I’m all for all political tendencies “seeking to win [others] to their politics” and despair at attempts to “dumb down our politics” for the sake of recruiting. However, I fail to see how turning a united front into yet another Leninist sect will help this – unless, of course, it is to exclude anarchists and other libertarian socialists from winning others to our ideas within it.

Then there is the question of what “Marxist” programme this would be, given how divided the Marxist sects are (as they note, the left “cannot even unite around these insufficient and vague politics”). Assuming that the various sects could agree on such a programme, where does not leave those who do not confuse state ownership with socialisation? So I object to the identification of a “Marxist programme” for a “programme for socialism.” I agree that it is “the masses that we want to win to socialism” but I would suggest that what the CPGB, like Lenin’s CP, considers as being “socialism” would not be what anarchists, the SPGB, and others would consider as such. But I guess our opinions would not matter in any CPGB approved organisation as, by definition, we would not be in it as we would not subscribe to its “Marxist programme”!

Finally, I see that Read and Isaacson desire “a programme capable of providing the leadership we need.” I assume that they are speaking for themselves with that “we” as I know few anarchists who think we need “leadership” of the kind suggested by would-be Bolsheviks. As with the soviets in1905, we consider attempts to impose party programmes on popular organisations as a hindrance to the task of changing society.

Iain McKay

www.anarchistfaq.org