Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

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