The following excerpt comes from a larger narrative written by Frederick Engels in 1891, on the occasion of the 20th anniversery of the Paris Commune. It was published as a split Introduction/Postscript to Karl Marx's The Civil War in France, itself reissued for the event.
anaxarchos
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/w ... script.htm
From the outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself,and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment. What had been the characteristic attribute of the former state? Society had created its own organs to look after its common interests, originally through simple division of labor. But these organs, at whose head was the state power, had in the course of time, in pursuance of their own special interests, transformed themselves from the servants of society into the masters of society, as can be seen, for example, not only in the hereditary monarchy, but equally also in the democratic republic. Nowhere do "politicians" form a more separate, powerful section of the nation than in North America. There, each of the two great parties which alternately succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics, who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well as of the separate states, or who make a living by carrying on agitation for their party and on its victory are rewarded with positions.
It is well known that the Americans have been striving for 30 years to shake off this yoke, which has become intolerable, and that in spite of all they can do they continue to stink ever deeper in this swamp of corruption. It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. and nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends – and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality exploit and plunder it.
Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society – an inevitable transformation in all previous states – the Commune made use of two infallible expedients. In this first place, it filled all posts – administrative, judicial, and educational – by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, with the right of the same electors to recall their delegate at any time. And in the second place, all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies which were also added in profusion.
This shattering of the former state power and its replacement by a new and really democratic state is described in detail in the third section of The Civil War. But it was necessary to dwell briefly here once more on some of its features, because in Germany particularly the superstitious belief in the state has been carried over from philosophy into the general consciousness of the bourgeoisie and even to many workers. According to the philosophical notion, the state is the "realization of the idea" or the Kingdom of God on earth, translated into philosophical terms, the sphere in which eternal truth and justice is or should be realized. And from this follows a superstitious reverence for the state and everything connected with it, which takes roots the more readily as people from their childhood are accustomed to imagine that the affairs and interests common to the whole of society could not be looked after otherwise than as they have been looked after in the past, that is, through the state and its well-paid officials. And people think they have taken quite an extraordinary bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap.
Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Frederick Engels
London, on the 20th anniversary
of the Paris Commune, March 18, 1891.
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To be honest, there isn't that big a distance between...
...Socialism and "Anarchism".
Historically, Anarchism and rural Socialism are often identical with one another. There are theoretical differences, sure... The commies have no time for Proudhon or for institutions such as "hierarchy" which stand apart from the economic underpinnings of society. There are also some tactical differences about the role of "combat". But on the State, the main difference is "all at once" versus "Dictatorship of the Proletariat >> Socialism >> Communism". The commies put the emphasis on the transformation of the underlying social relations, i.e. the elimination of commodity production, while anarcos focus on the immediate political/cultural stuff.
'Course, the anarcos have evolved into some really weird stuff these days, mainly due to the elimination of their class roots (no peasants left), but there is no shortage of weird ass commies, either ("council communists"?).
The real irony is that by far the most anarco of commies, V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin), is also the guy that current anarcos hate the most... (Can't have no "Leninist Parties", etc.)
- anaxarchos
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I don't think there is much in the way of "anarchism" nowadays
Like as not, your neighborhood anarchist is going to lecture you on "really, really free markets".
But then, you probably met 'im at the Unitarian Universalist so this hypothetical probably ends in a wash (although the time I met it was just a bunch of boring old people)
There is also some militancy groups that call themselves anarchists but its so focused on being "decentralized" that no one actually no knows anything about it.
- KOBH
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We are the ones who grew up in an Age of Illusions...
The truth is that a century is a very short time unless history is propelled forward by very significant events. In many ways, those events hit the United States least of all. We are just now coming to the end of an era that began a little over a century ago. In the process, what we thought about it all changed... and now seems to be changing back. We wake up to an era in which what contemporary critics write seems foreign and irrational, while those long dead have a familiar ring.
We aren't the first to notice, either...
- anaxarchos
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the reactionaries mock that observation and deny it
"None of that stuff applies now, things are different" and "those old dusty books have nothing to offer" and "those long dead authors have nothing to say" and "we all read that stuff in college and it has all been disproved long ago" etc.
Reply:
Agreed, but they are highly selective...
They will also go the other way, without batting an eye. They will quote "timeless" documents such as the Constitution, or even the Magna Carta, - without context -when the importance of such works is rooted solely "in their time". They will combine writers across centuries as if they represent a single "idea"... hell, they will quote Socrates on judicial elections in Arizona in 2010, despite the fact that the only similarity is a single word, thrice translated and entirely without commonality.
They have no root, no context, no history and no "soul".
By far the worst are the educated ignorants of the middle-classes, who learned a simple business catechism, and who cling to their thread-bare "summaries" of people they have never read with a desperation far far worse than anybody in Pennsylvania ever clung to guns or religion.
That, too, will have to change. We are social animals. EVERYTHING we think comes from someone else and we lose even the ability to mediate that when we deny it.
- anaxarchos