Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

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CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM to revolmionary social activity, and enforced their view that this ought not to be a revolution but simply the defence of a legal government ... communist policy in Spain was mainly dictated not by the necessiries of the Spanish fight but by the interests of the intervening fo reign power, Russia," a country "with a revolutionary past, nO( a revolmionary present." The Communists acted "not with the aim of transforming chaotic enthusiasm into disciplined enthusiasm lwhich Borkenau feels to have been necessary] , but with the aim of substi(llting disciplined military and administrative action for the action of the masses and getting rid of the latter entirely." This policy, he points our, went "directly against the interests and claims of the masses" and thus weakened popular support. The now apathetic masses would not commit themselves to the defense of a Communist-run dictatorship, which restored former authority and even "showed a definite preference fo r the police fo rces of the old regime, so hated by the masses." It seems to me that the record strongly supportS this interpretation of Communist policy and its effects, though Borkenau's assumption that Communist "efficiency" was necessary to win the anti-Franco struggle is much more dubious-a question to which I return below/5 It is relevant to observe, at this point, that a number of the Spanish Communist leaders were reluctantly forced to similar conclusions. Bolloten cites several examples, 7 6 specifically, the military commander "EI Campesino" and Jesus Hernandez, a minister in the Caballero government. The former, after his escape from the Soviet Union in 1949, stated that he had taken for 4 9 granted the "revolutionary solidarity" of the Soviet Union during the Civil Wa r-a most remarkable degree of innocence-and realized only later "that the Kremlin does not serve the interests of the peoples of the world, but makes them serve its own interests; that, with a treachery and hypocrisy without parallel, it makes use of the international working class as a pawn in its political intrigues." Hernandez, in a speech given shortly after the Civil Wa r, admits that the Spanish Communist leaders "acted more like Soviet subjects than sons of the Spanish people." "It may seem absurd, incredible," he adds, "bur om education under Soviet tureiage had deformed us to such an extent that we were completely denationalized; our national soul was rorn our of us and replaced by a rabidly chauvinistic internationalism, which began and ended with the rowers of the Kremlin." Shortly after the Third World Congress of the Communist International in 1921, the Dutch "ultra-leftist" Hermann Gorter wrote that the congress "has decided the fate of the world revolution for the present. The trend of opinion that seriously desired world revolurion ... has been expelled from the Russian International. The Communist Parties in western Europe and throughout the world that retain their membership of the Russian International will become nothing more than a means to preserve the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Republic."77 This fo recast has proved quite accurate. Jackson's conception that rhe Soviet Union was a revolutionary power in the late ] 930s, or even that the
OBJECTIVITY AND LIBERAL SCHOLARSHIP 50 Soviet leaders truly regarded themselves as identified with world revolution, is without factual support. It is a misinterpretation that runs parallel to the American Cold Wa r mythology that has invented an "international Communist conspiracy" directed from Moscow (now Peking) to justify its own interventionist policies. Turning ro events in revolutionary Spain, Jackson describes the first stages of collectivization as follows: the unions in Madrid, "as in Barcelona and Valencia, abused their sudden amhoriry to place the sign incautado [placed under workers' control] on all manner of buildings and vehicles" (p. 219). Why was this an abuse of amhority? This Jackson does not explain. The choice of words indicates a reluctance on Jackson's part to recognize the reality of the revolutionary situation, despite his account of the breakdown of Republican authority. The statement that the workers "abused their sudden authority" by carrying om collectivization rests on a moral judgmem that recalls that of llhiel Pool, when he characterizes land reform in Vietnam as a matter of "despoiling one's neighbors," or of Franz Borkenau, when he speaks of expropriation in the Soviet Union as "robbery," demonstrating "a streak of moral indifference." Within a few momhs, Jackson informs us, "the revolmionary tide began to ebb in Catalonia" after "accumulating food and supply problems, and the experience of administering villages, frontier POStS, and public utilities, had rapidly shown the anarchists the unsuspected complexity of modern society" (pp. 13-14). In Barcelona, "the naive optimism of the revolutionary conquests of the previous August had given way to feelings of resentment and of somehow having been cheated," as the cost of living doubled, bread was in short supply, and police brutality reached the levels of the monarchy. "The POUM and the anarchist press simultaneously extolled the collectivizations and explained the failures of production as due to Valencia policies of boycotting the Catalan economy and favoring the bourgeoisie. They explained the loss of Milaga as due in large measure to the low morale and the disoriemation of the Andalusian proletariat, which saw the Va lencia government evolving steadily toward the right" (p. 368). Jackson evidently believes that this left-wing interpretation of events was nonsensical, and that in fact it was anarchist incompetence or treachery that was responsible fo r the difficulties: "In Catalonia, the CNT factory committees dragged their heels on war production, claiming that the government deprived them of raw materials and was favoring the bourgeoisie" (p. 365). In fact, "the revolutionary tide began to ebb in Catalonia" under a middleclass attack led by the Communist party, not because of a recognition of the "complexity of modern society." And it was, moreover, quite true that the Communist-dominated cemral government attempted, with much success, to hamper collectivized industry and agriculture and to disrupt the collectivization of commerce. I have already referred to the early stages of counterrevolution. Further investigation of the sources to which Jackson refers and others
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OBJECTIVITY AND LI BERAL SCHOLARSHI
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LRNGURGE FIND FREEDOM human spirit
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LRNGURGE FIND FREEDOM In every anim
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LRNGUAGE AND FREEDOM
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LRNGUAGE AND FREEDOM other facultie
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LRNGURGE FIND FREEDOM 1. 1. 4 deriv
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LRNGUAGE AND FREEDOM ty, or even in
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THREE NOTES ON ANARCHISM (1970) U8
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM through (he taki
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM 1. 22 shabby, an
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM meO( of a man, b
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM bourgeoisie. It
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM 1. 28 remarks by
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM NOTES This essay
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NOTES ON RNRRCHISM 27 For discussio
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THE RElEVANCE OF ANARCHO-SYNDICALIS
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PREFACE TO ANTOLOGIJA ANARHIlMA
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PREFACE TO ANTOLOGIJA ANARHIlMA of
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CONTRINING THE THREAT OF DEMOCRACY
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CONTRINING THE THRERT OF DEMOCRACY
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SEVEN ANARCHISM , MARXISM AND HOPE
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RNRRCHISM, MRRXISM RND HOPE FOR THE
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EIGHT GOALS AND VISIONS (1996) In r
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GOALS AND VISIONS It should be adde
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GOALS AND VISIONS 1928 that "Labour
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GOALS AND VISIONS understand what l
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GOALS AND VISIONS 1. 98 assisted ma
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GOALS AND VISIONS Medicine cites th
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GOALS AND VISIONS power lies elsewh
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GOALS AND VISIONS Minnesota Press,
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NINE ANARCHISM, INTELLECTUALS AND T
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ANARCHISM, INTEllECTUALS FIND THE S
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ANARCHISM, INTEllECTUALS AND THE ST
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTEMRN I was
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTEMRN every
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTEMRN My son
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INTERVIEW WITH BRRRY PRTE MRN it-th
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ELEVEN INTERVIEW WITH ZIGA VOD OVN
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INTERVIEW WITH ZIGA VODOVNIK J thin
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INTERVIEW WITH ZIGA VODOVNIK onize
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INTERVIEW WITH ZIGA VODOVNIK What i
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