Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

Deco ionization , 39
revolutionary myth capable of revitalizing and reinspiring
an alienated, moribund modern society.
As the bearer of libidinal energy or Bergsonian elan
vital, the myth, in Sorel's view, must recharge the potency
of the heroic revolutionary class through militant struggle.
Sorel had no doubt that the needed revitalization must
come about through violence, which he differentiated from
force, meaning the physical dominance of the state that was
inherent in its foundation and the institutions of its preservation.
Either class struggle or external threat would do the
trick, though the latter would more sharply stimulate the
national myth and the former the social, in which case the
mythic icon of the general strike would serve to motivate
the working class, while icons of the counterrevolution fo r
which the workers' opening move was the stimulus would
rouse the bourgeoisie from its decadent stupor. Regardless
of who won, the struggle would have done its work. This is
why the Sorelian logic of prewar revolutionary syndicalism
bore within it the seeds of both the Right and Left radical
movements of the 1920s. It didn't really matter what that
myth might be; it only mattered that it did the job.
But of course, it does matter quite a lot to the outcome.
From this perspective the significance of these moments
of dual potentiality is not that anarchism converges
with the Right but precisely that it does not. At a crossroads,
choices matter most; here is where ethical orientation
and content make the difference. What determined
whether the myth of right-wing populist rhetoric or libertarian
socialism would prevail? The key distinction is in the
prefigurative content of the emancipatory vision, not in the