Quotes from this article:
Revolutionary anarchism is the program of a self-organized, cooperative, decentralized, and thoroughly democratic society. All social needs will be provided by a network of voluntary, self-managed associations. This means the overthrow of all forms of oppression, including, but not limited to, the domination of the working class, women, gays and lesbians, African Americans, Latinos, youth, neo-colonies, and nature. Self-organization of the people is both our vision of a new society and our program for reaching the new society.
This may be from 1997, but it's still something that a lot of anarchist groups overlook: We need to be explicit in talking about ableism and disability because it often goes entirely overlooked. This is as true now as it was in the 90's. (I get that it says "not limited to," but disability needs to have a stated position far more than it's ever had, especially now.)
Anarchism’s mistakes occur within a basically liberating vision. They include:
ultimatism, the idea that one can abstain from limited, reform struggles,
anti-organizationalism, opposition to organization,
permeationism, the idea that anarchist institutions can grow up within an authoritarian society and supplant it without a revolutionary struggle, and
opportunism, the idea (as in the Spanish revolution) that, under emergency conditions, one can join the state to defend it from anti-democratic enemies, instead of building an alternate to the state (such as federations of popular councils).
Ultimatism: I think that there are degrees to which one can or should abstain from reform struggles; this is very much the case with things like single-issue politics that actually can harm people and leave them in worse positions. Just because a reform helps some people does not mean it helps enough (or that it won't cause harm), and we need to leave room for people to make that decision. Otherwise, we may end up chasing a bunch of single-issue struggles and exhausting ourselves (as has been the case).
Anti-organisationalism: Any anarchist that is opposed to organisation is genuinely confused, full stop.
Permeationism: Agreed. This is where I think we need to spend more time with the insurrectionary anarchists.
Opportunism: This is also true. Dual power is far more effective, and people are recognising it. They're also seeing how organisations that had developed within the community to meet the community needs but shifted to support a political candidate have fallen apart (e.g., Chile, Greece in 2021).
We must learn from other traditions of struggle, such as Black nationalism or feminism or ecology, but what we learn must be integrated into revolutionary anarchism. What matters is not anarchism as a label but anarchism as a vision and a program.
Especially, Marxism should be seen as an opponent of anarchism. Whatever value its parts may have, Marxism was meant to be a total vision, a combination of economics, politics, historical analysis, and philosophy.
This is actually one of the struggles I have with elements of Marxism, as I can appreciate individual pieces but not the total vision. This also means that those individual parts that I do like are things that can be acquired from elsewhere, as it's likely what Marx (and Engels) did.
But I also struggle with the "Marxism is an opponent." While I see a number of people labelling themselves Marxists who I would not work with under any conditions (see: anti-Roma Marxist in my national government), there are some who I do believe have good intentions.
Despite historical defeats, Marxism remains a living danger. As radicalism increases, Marxism is likely to revive, due both to its strengths (its large body of theory and practice) and weakness (its authoritarianism, which many find attractive). Anarchists must work at analyzing, discussing, and refuting Marxism.
And we're also seeing this with contemporary Marxist-Leninists (particularly within North America and Europe). There are a lot of people interweaving "human nature" into it, claiming that we need centralisation and some version of authoritarianism in order to ensure people "act accordingly."
The impression that Marxism “works” because of China or Cuba or (retrospectively) Russia, and that anarchism “does not work” because it has never built a lasting free society, will be attractive to many. It is hard for people to believe in their own ability to create a new, just society, when states have been so successful in co-opting and crushing such efforts. Many find it easier to believe in authoritarianism because it seems to “work.” Unfortunately, this lack of confidence may appear even among anarchists.
The mainstream of anarchism has historically opposed capitalism in favor of a cooperative, nonprofit, self-managed, economy — that is, libertarian (or anti-authoritarian) socialism. To win this goal requires the participation of the international working class, but it also requires the participation of all oppressed people.
This is something I feel like we're losing sight of. Yes, we're building new networks of mutual aid in some cases, but it's... not enough. People will talk and talk about mutual aid, but I'm not seeing it being done.
The most revolutionary forces are likely to be found at the intersection of various oppressions — such as Black workers or working women. These are least corrupted by the relative privileges and benefits which the ruling class uses to buy off potentially rebellious people.
I still see a lot of people who haven't moved on from this, but here are a few things:
- Include disabled and queer people in these statements. While there's no limiting factor, we just need to say it because otherwise people forget and overlook it because we're often ignored unless we can be propagandised into heroic figures or demonised.
- I'm tired of the "least corrupted" kind of thing because it plays into tokenising people, which can mean being easily led astray by the first voice you hear from a marginalised group, even if that person's a problem. It's happening right now with anarchists and some ML nationalists (who are literally harming anarchists!) in former colonies... Just because that was the first voice they found from an area with few people speaking out.
One thing Westerners (especially white Westerners) need to wrap their head around is that sometimes a marginalised person can be wrong, and you need to investigate that. Many of us have grown up having "representation" pushed at us, which isn't inherently bad (because we do need it!), but it has been co-opted (see: the queer Latina with as many intersecting marginalised identities as possible being a CIA ad). Listen critically, see who else is talking about the same things or how they respond to that person, explore farther. We cannot afford to get stuck in these traps.