You’re onto something with your mentioning of revolution being formed around the notion of a final, sweeping moment of change. It’s an easy way of conceptualizing it, but I’d like to elaborate a bit on that point. This includes aspects of prefigurarion and mutual aid as well
The elevator pitch for anarchism (as I’ve come to understand it) is freedom, equality, solidarity. Those are the founding principles that guide our praxis of mutual aid and direct action. You can see these threads in library economies, makers spaces, co-ops, union organizing, time banking. These practices encourage self determination, communal independence and solidarity within and with other organizations/individuals. As an empowering and liberating force, these actions gradually strip away power from dominant hierarchies in society. They’re all acts of revolution.
The anarchist recognition of Revolution is not necessarily a deterministic prescription for how the world will come to adopt anarchy, but an acknowledgement that, much like we seek to shape the world to our own ends, the dominant hierarchies also seek to shape it to their own ends. This aggregate of heirarchies such as capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, white supremacy (which I will refer to as “the system” for brevity, please excuse the mild cringe lol) has a life and momentum of it’s own through years of social conditioning, accumulation of infrastructure and capital among many other things. As that life is drained from the system, as it’s power wanes, it will seek to take it back. Much akin to ones immune system kicking into overdrive when you get a cold. The system doesn’t want to die and it will do what it can to maintain it’s existence by any means necessary.
So it’s.not necessarily a “Revolution is inevitable and necessary”, but “there is significant evidence that Revolution may happen if we are to be successful and we should be prepared”. You’ll find in your studies of the CNT-FAI, they weren’t really instigators of violence, it happened to them and they defended themselves. Even in the early days of the russian Revolution, citizens were victims of state violence and they merely stood up for the power structures they built. Not to say that anarchists haven’t been instigators in the past, they certainly have. Makhno is a favorite of mine and he hit the ground running. But it’s come to be recognized by libertarian socialists at large that starting shit isn’t a winning strategy and community defense is not only more tactically advantageous, but it’s been shown to work better. If your project is successful, it will gain its own momentum and spread further than you could ever hope to impose. It all kind of plays into that old saying of politics is about who has monopoly over the legitimate use of violence. It started in violence and it is likely to end there too.
I don’t have much else to say on prefigurarion outside of you hit the nail on the head. It’s a much more sustainable way of transforming society.
Its often described as “building the new in the shell of the old”. Part of this is included in labor organizing and utilizing the tools provided by the system, but shaped towards new ends. We don’t necessarily need to build new factories, stores, logistical infrastructure. Having a healthy, horizontal labor force in these places could very well be enough to start that transformation. So it’s not necessarily about, say, having a CEO who is sympathetic or even a comrade. It’s about having the ones doing the work as part of a horizontal council within these companies, offices, services who will resist the efforts of capital and the state from within. As you’ve said, power corrupts. And people in the proximity of power in these larger heirarchies are molded by the reality of their occupation and status in society to act in certain ways. Through labor we can strip power, and with enough support, remove them from these entities to be controlled by and for the workers. Abolishing heirarchies within and supporting the cause. Seizing the means of production if you will.
You were correct in saying these changes need to happen at a lower/local level. It’s not Marxist-leninist at all to suggest it. That’s just baseline socialism. Where Lenin went wrong was thinking that this sort of action was applicable to the state apparatus due to a pernicious interpretation of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” mixed with being convinced that people were unable to govern their own affairs and needed to be instructed on how to live. Bakunin called out Marx on his phrasing before Lenin was even on the scene and gave an eerily accurate prediction on where this train of thought would lead.
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat… In reality it would be for the proletariat a barrack regime where the standardized mass of men and women workers would wake, sleep, work and live to the beat of a drum; for the clever and learned a privilege, of governing: and for the mercenary minded, attracted by the State Bank, a vast field of lucrative jobbery.
An anarchist approach to achieve similar ends would involve delegates. People sent out to achieve a stated goal, immediately revocable at any time. Their power extends as far as they are permitted by the community and once their task is complete, they cease to have power. Perhaps there are some instances that this could be useful in infiltrating hierarchical structures, but it would need to be managed with the utmost care.
I’m also at work so I’ll leave it here haha. Despite my novel, I was trying to be brief and I’ve almost certainly left things out. I appreciate the conversation and if you’re interested in continuing by all means feel free to comment more or DM me! I’ll leave some reading/watching/listening suggestions below and come back to actually link them in a bit, so keep an eye out! My book suggestions will largely focus on the study and analysis of power, as what we’ve discussed largely pertains to that.
Kropotkin’s mutual aid is a wonderful piece. There are audiobooks versions available on YouTube and copies on the anarchist library. As I’m sure you know, he was the one that coined the phrase and studied it.
Rudolf Rocker’s nationalism and culture is lengthy but well worth your time. It focuses on the history, philosophy, and implementation of power. Also available on YouTube in audiobook form. Audible anarchists version has a narrator that does an excellent job.
Rocker’s anarcho syndicalism: theory and practice is shorter and lovely. Largely a history of anarchism and the development of syndicalism but at the very least I think you’ll find the first chapter to be great. It’s the best summary of anarchism I’ve personally come across.
James C. Scott’s seeing like a state is a bit lengthy but very informative. He isn’t an anarchist but you’ll soon see why many of us gravitate towards this book. The title does a good job of summarizing the booh
And last Rebecca Solnit’s a paradise built in hell. A book about elite panic, using the fires in San Francisco (LA? Can’t remember off the top of my head) as a case study.
I don’t have any specific suggestions for general anarchism outside of Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin’s anarchism and the black revolution. Another self explanatory book that I feel should be required reading for any would-be/self identified anarchist. In general Malatesta, Bakunin, and Kropotkin are often featured in many “Anarchism 101” style reading lists and they all do excellent work. Bakunin may be of particular interest to you as he was a contemporary of Marx and they often wrote/debated with one another. It may give you a broader lens on early socialist history and ideology.
For general media id love to suggest Anark, Andrewism, and Zoe Baker. They’re all youtibers that focus on theory and praxis.
Anark does longform video essays (1 hr+) on theory mostly. Great stuff that goes in great depth while not dragging. His essays on constructing the revolution, power, and the state is counterrevolutionary series were foundational in my adoption of anarchism. He’s also doing a synthesis series at the moment called “a modern anarchism” that is worth your time. He’s more of a “why anarchism” sort of guy in essence.
Andrewism does shorter work (10-30) minutes focusing more on social aspects of anarchism, intersectionality and lifestyle. He is passionate about solarpunk and degrowth, very much a “dreaming of utopia” sort of vibe that is hopeful and encouraging. He’s more “how to do anarchism” oriented
And lastly Zoe Baker. She’s a PhD in anarchist history that does a bit of both of the above as well as covering the history of anarchism (surprise surprise). She’s also written a book on means and ends, titled the same. Very informative and enlightening. I would definitely recommend picking up a copy!
Just commenting to say, ive read your novel, and ive more to say, but it takes me a while to do these sorts of things, and right now i need to go pretend to be an artist so ill DM u in the vaguely nearby future. Prolly with quotes from this.
You’re onto something with your mentioning of revolution being formed around the notion of a final, sweeping moment of change. It’s an easy way of conceptualizing it, but I’d like to elaborate a bit on that point. This includes aspects of prefigurarion and mutual aid as well
The elevator pitch for anarchism (as I’ve come to understand it) is freedom, equality, solidarity. Those are the founding principles that guide our praxis of mutual aid and direct action. You can see these threads in library economies, makers spaces, co-ops, union organizing, time banking. These practices encourage self determination, communal independence and solidarity within and with other organizations/individuals. As an empowering and liberating force, these actions gradually strip away power from dominant hierarchies in society. They’re all acts of revolution.
The anarchist recognition of Revolution is not necessarily a deterministic prescription for how the world will come to adopt anarchy, but an acknowledgement that, much like we seek to shape the world to our own ends, the dominant hierarchies also seek to shape it to their own ends. This aggregate of heirarchies such as capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, white supremacy (which I will refer to as “the system” for brevity, please excuse the mild cringe lol) has a life and momentum of it’s own through years of social conditioning, accumulation of infrastructure and capital among many other things. As that life is drained from the system, as it’s power wanes, it will seek to take it back. Much akin to ones immune system kicking into overdrive when you get a cold. The system doesn’t want to die and it will do what it can to maintain it’s existence by any means necessary.
So it’s.not necessarily a “Revolution is inevitable and necessary”, but “there is significant evidence that Revolution may happen if we are to be successful and we should be prepared”. You’ll find in your studies of the CNT-FAI, they weren’t really instigators of violence, it happened to them and they defended themselves. Even in the early days of the russian Revolution, citizens were victims of state violence and they merely stood up for the power structures they built. Not to say that anarchists haven’t been instigators in the past, they certainly have. Makhno is a favorite of mine and he hit the ground running. But it’s come to be recognized by libertarian socialists at large that starting shit isn’t a winning strategy and community defense is not only more tactically advantageous, but it’s been shown to work better. If your project is successful, it will gain its own momentum and spread further than you could ever hope to impose. It all kind of plays into that old saying of politics is about who has monopoly over the legitimate use of violence. It started in violence and it is likely to end there too.
I don’t have much else to say on prefigurarion outside of you hit the nail on the head. It’s a much more sustainable way of transforming society.
Its often described as “building the new in the shell of the old”. Part of this is included in labor organizing and utilizing the tools provided by the system, but shaped towards new ends. We don’t necessarily need to build new factories, stores, logistical infrastructure. Having a healthy, horizontal labor force in these places could very well be enough to start that transformation. So it’s not necessarily about, say, having a CEO who is sympathetic or even a comrade. It’s about having the ones doing the work as part of a horizontal council within these companies, offices, services who will resist the efforts of capital and the state from within. As you’ve said, power corrupts. And people in the proximity of power in these larger heirarchies are molded by the reality of their occupation and status in society to act in certain ways. Through labor we can strip power, and with enough support, remove them from these entities to be controlled by and for the workers. Abolishing heirarchies within and supporting the cause. Seizing the means of production if you will.
You were correct in saying these changes need to happen at a lower/local level. It’s not Marxist-leninist at all to suggest it. That’s just baseline socialism. Where Lenin went wrong was thinking that this sort of action was applicable to the state apparatus due to a pernicious interpretation of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” mixed with being convinced that people were unable to govern their own affairs and needed to be instructed on how to live. Bakunin called out Marx on his phrasing before Lenin was even on the scene and gave an eerily accurate prediction on where this train of thought would lead.
An anarchist approach to achieve similar ends would involve delegates. People sent out to achieve a stated goal, immediately revocable at any time. Their power extends as far as they are permitted by the community and once their task is complete, they cease to have power. Perhaps there are some instances that this could be useful in infiltrating hierarchical structures, but it would need to be managed with the utmost care.
I’m also at work so I’ll leave it here haha. Despite my novel, I was trying to be brief and I’ve almost certainly left things out. I appreciate the conversation and if you’re interested in continuing by all means feel free to comment more or DM me! I’ll leave some reading/watching/listening suggestions below and come back to actually link them in a bit, so keep an eye out! My book suggestions will largely focus on the study and analysis of power, as what we’ve discussed largely pertains to that.
Kropotkin’s mutual aid is a wonderful piece. There are audiobooks versions available on YouTube and copies on the anarchist library. As I’m sure you know, he was the one that coined the phrase and studied it.
Rudolf Rocker’s nationalism and culture is lengthy but well worth your time. It focuses on the history, philosophy, and implementation of power. Also available on YouTube in audiobook form. Audible anarchists version has a narrator that does an excellent job.
Rocker’s anarcho syndicalism: theory and practice is shorter and lovely. Largely a history of anarchism and the development of syndicalism but at the very least I think you’ll find the first chapter to be great. It’s the best summary of anarchism I’ve personally come across.
James C. Scott’s seeing like a state is a bit lengthy but very informative. He isn’t an anarchist but you’ll soon see why many of us gravitate towards this book. The title does a good job of summarizing the booh
And last Rebecca Solnit’s a paradise built in hell. A book about elite panic, using the fires in San Francisco (LA? Can’t remember off the top of my head) as a case study.
I don’t have any specific suggestions for general anarchism outside of Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin’s anarchism and the black revolution. Another self explanatory book that I feel should be required reading for any would-be/self identified anarchist. In general Malatesta, Bakunin, and Kropotkin are often featured in many “Anarchism 101” style reading lists and they all do excellent work. Bakunin may be of particular interest to you as he was a contemporary of Marx and they often wrote/debated with one another. It may give you a broader lens on early socialist history and ideology.
For general media id love to suggest Anark, Andrewism, and Zoe Baker. They’re all youtibers that focus on theory and praxis.
Anark does longform video essays (1 hr+) on theory mostly. Great stuff that goes in great depth while not dragging. His essays on constructing the revolution, power, and the state is counterrevolutionary series were foundational in my adoption of anarchism. He’s also doing a synthesis series at the moment called “a modern anarchism” that is worth your time. He’s more of a “why anarchism” sort of guy in essence.
Andrewism does shorter work (10-30) minutes focusing more on social aspects of anarchism, intersectionality and lifestyle. He is passionate about solarpunk and degrowth, very much a “dreaming of utopia” sort of vibe that is hopeful and encouraging. He’s more “how to do anarchism” oriented
And lastly Zoe Baker. She’s a PhD in anarchist history that does a bit of both of the above as well as covering the history of anarchism (surprise surprise). She’s also written a book on means and ends, titled the same. Very informative and enlightening. I would definitely recommend picking up a copy!
Just commenting to say, ive read your novel, and ive more to say, but it takes me a while to do these sorts of things, and right now i need to go pretend to be an artist so ill DM u in the vaguely nearby future. Prolly with quotes from this.