Post-Left Anarchism and Gustav Landauer
Those who know me
know that I am an Anarchist. You probably assume that I am a Marxist too
because Anarchy has always been associated with Marxism and Marxism, in turn, reads
in the minds of most people thus: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
I am not a Marxist
and have never subscribed to violent revolution.
An
excellent description of my "school" of Anarchy is described in the
excerpt below, the author of which is unknown to me:
THE BENEFITS OF NON-CLASS STRUGGLE ANARCHISM TO THE
MOVEMENT AS A WHOLE
"Revolution
is a process ever going. Like a river it flows; changing shape, altering its
course, sometimes slowing down, sometimes becoming a
rapid. At times we lose sight of it behind the dogma of some ideology or
another. But it can never be stopped. Since the first slave said 'no', since
the first people rose up against the tyrants, since the concept of Freedom was
formed, the Revolution has always been there. As a comrade wrote to me,
"Revolution is a process, not an historical event". The nature of the
Revolution stems from the forces it encounters, the aspirations of those within
it, and the strength of the reaction. If it can progress unrestrained, then it
is likely to be peaceful. The ends will never justify the means, they are
inextricably bound together and what better way is there of taking someone's
freedom than by killing them. Violence is the basis upon which government
stands, and as such it is the counter Revolution. From the writings of
Kropotkin up to Colin Ward there have been attempts to hi-light points in
existing society where the river may flow - worker co-ops, food co-ops,
alternative welfare and education, and countless examples of how order is
spontaneous, and springs up from the very act, and point of association itself:
"What kept us together was our work, our mutual interdependencies in this
work, our factual interests in one gigantic problem with its many specialist
ramifications. I had not solicited co-workers. They had come of themselves. They
remained, or they left when the work no longer held them. We had not formed a
political group, or worked out a programme of action...Each one had made his
contribution according to his interests in the work...There are, then objective
biological work functions capable of regulating human co-operation. Exemplary
work organises its forms of functioning organically and spontaneously, even
though only gradually, gropingly and often making mistakes. In
contra-distinction, the political organisations, with their 'campaigns' and
'platforms' proceed without any connection with the tasks and problems of daily
life".
Like the fishermen in Brixham, or the miners in
Durham or Brora, Scotland, workers co-operatives provide small, rare examples
of how a task provides its own point of association, and provides the
associates with a focus, that transcends any necessity for coercive pressure.
In short, the act of society provides its own order internally, whereas all '
governments attempt to impose it externally, stifling and smothering the social
instinct. These examples exist in modern society. They are not memories of an
age before the nation-state, but are modern facts. Paul Goodman once described
anarchism as both conservative and radical, for we must attempt to conserve those
places where liberty may be developed in full, as well as create new ones.
Gustav Landaur also wrote along the same lines "The state is not something
which can be destroyed by a revolution, it is a condition of human behaviour;
we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving
differently". Even, according to the film 'Michael Collins', the Irish
Republican leader Eamon de Valera spoke along the same lines by claiming
roughly that "We defeat the British Government by ignoring it".
Of course, the name of any government can be
substituted for the word "British" in the last sentence of the
excerpt.
Other Anarchists
are catching on. There is, of late, a
There are very
interesting articles that constitute an ideological back-and-forth between the
post-Leftist Anarchist Jason McQuinn and the Leftist Anarchist Peter
Staudenmaier.
You can find their
articles on the following URL:
http://www.anarchist-studies.org/publications/theory_politics
I wrote that I am
not a Marxist, but I did not write that I am not a Leftist. I am a Leftist, in the most absolute sense of
the word. I am an Anarchist-Leftist as
was Gustav Landauer who called himself a Socialist always.
Gustav Landauer was
an anti-Marxist. With preternatural prescience
he predicted what would happen if Marxist Leftist governments would come to
power.
It was Gustav
Landauer who wrote:
"The State is
a condition, a certain relationship among human beings, a mode of behavior, we destroy it by contracting other relationships,
by behaving differently toward one and other... We are the State and continue
to be the State until we have created the institutions that form a real
community."
"One can
throw away a chair and destroy a pane of glass; but those
are idle talkers and credulous idolaters of words who
regard the
state as such a thing or as a fetish that one can smash in
order to
destroy it. The State is a condition, a certain
relationship
between human beings, a mode of behavior; we destroy it by
contracting other relationships, by behaving differently
toward one
another – One day it will be realized that Socialism is not
the
invention of anything new, but the discovery of something
actually
present, of something that has grown…We are the state, and
we shall
continue to be the state until we have created the
institutions that
form a real community and society of men." – Gustav
Landauer
"Schwache Stattsmanner, Schwacheres Volk!"
Der Sozialist, June, 1910
"…The realization of Socialism is always possible if a
sufficient
number of people want it. The realization depends not
on the
technological state of things, although Socialism when
realized will
of course look differently and develop differently
according to the
state of technics; it depends on people and on their
spirit…
Socialism is possible and impossible at all times; it is
possible
when the right people are there to will it and to do it; it
is
impossible when people either don't will it or only
supposedly will
it, but are not capable of doing it." – Gustav
Landauer
"For Socialism", quoted in Martin Buber,
Paths in Utopia
Translated by R.F.C. Hull
About him Martin
Buber wrote: "Gustav Landauer fought in the revolution against the
revolution for the sake of the revolution. The revolution will not thank him
for it. But those will thank him for it who have
fought as he fought and perhaps one day those will thank him for whose sake he
fought."
In response to
Jason McQuinn's article "Post-Left Anarchy: Leaving the Left Behind"
I wrote:
I fully
agree with Mr. Quinn that the Anarchist movement should distance itself from
the ills that have beset the Left for all of the reasons he states in this
article and more.
However,
I must ask: why did the author find it necessary to indulge in the sarcasm that
has gone past being ubiquitous to the point of being de rigueur?
Can't a bit of Anarchist spirit be applied here too and can we not resist the
temptation to use expressions like: "Duh!" and "Wow!" that
litter so much of the writings on the internet and mar an otherwise intelligent
essay that pains were obviously taken to craft?
There
is simply no room for sarcasm, which evinces surrender to one's visceral
emotions, when writing an essay that also expresses the wish to be accepted on
its intellectual merit alone.
Secondly,
and more importantly, why is post-Marxist/Leninist
/Maoist Anarchism called post-Leftist?
Gustav
Landauer was a Leftist also, yet he was anti-Marxist and predicted with
preternatural prescience what would happen if governments were to be based on
Marxist theory. Yet, he called himself a Socialist and published a paper called
Der Sozialist.
You,
Jason, speak against the reification of the state, and quite correctly so. Was
it not Gustav Landauer who spoke most eloquently against the reification of the
state?
Most
importantly, and this is what Landauer's Socialist Anarchism included that
Marx's did not, was his full acceptance, nay embracing, of Geist (Spirit).
Landauer was not only a great mind and a great heart,
he was a man of great Spirit, who did not shy away from using the term Spirit.
Fom that Spirit derived his vision, his energy, his perseverance and his
bravery even when being faced with murder.
Had the
Socialism of Landauer not been eclipsed by that of Marx the entire 20th C.
would have been different. It behooves us to delve deeply into the human psyche
to understand why the teachings of Marx were found to be so very attractive,
while those of Gustav Landauer were rejected during his lifetime for the most
part and thereafter as well.
When I
think that while the Nazi machine churned, the Stalinist purges ravaged the
And so,
Jason, I would recommend to you not to call the Anarchist movement that you set
yourself in contradistinction to "Leftist Anarchism" or call it
"lame", but rather call it what it is – soulless. Being soulless was
the undoing of Marxism from its inception.
May we
have the robustness and the courage to embrace an Anarchy that is infused with Spirit.
There is a good
discussion of this going on on the following thread on usenet:
Doreen Ellen
Bell-Dotan,