From: miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Michael Ballard)
Subject: Re: Bakunin on Marxism (was Re: Engels on Bakunin)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 20:00:04 GMT

In article <anand.718927729@cds705> anand@Cadence.COM (Anand Bemra) writes:
>miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU (Michael Ballard) writes:
>
>>Note that what Bakunin is saying here is that he wants to abolish the state.
>>Engels says above that he too wants to abolish the state.  The difference,
>>as Engels points out, is that Bakunin mentions nothing about the necessity
>>of ridding society of capital--the social relations based on wage labor
>>which result in the basic class divisions in modern society--before one can
>>abolish the state.  This, in Engels' opinion, is a mistake for both Marx
>>and Engels thought that the modern state rested on the social relations
>>built on wage labor.  So, they thought that as long as you had wage labor
>>and capital and class divisions, it was nonsense to talk of abolishing the
>>state.
>
>From what I understand of Anarchism, like communism, it does not believe in 
>private property either. [Anarchism - Daniel Guerin]
I would agree with Guerin here--neither an anarchist nor a communist society
could rest on private ownership of the means of production--sorry 'propertarians.  Private ownership of your own personal stuff, like your underwear, car and
computer is not what we're talking about here.  It's things like factories,
mills and mines.

>>Both Marx and Engels thought that if classes existed after the 
>>ascent of the workers to a governing position in society, that form of 
>>governance would be a state.  If the workers ascended to power and had the
>>ability to socially own the productive apparatus of society, then the social
>>relation of capital/wage labor would no longer exist and classes would
>>be a thing of the past, along with the engine of class rule, the state.
>
>If we look around, this bogus 'withering away of the State' notion obviously 
>hasn't worked. Once the governance of the country is by a few people , no 
>matter even if its members came from the working class, they would not
>let go of power. 

If this is some sort of veiled critque of Lenin, Stalin and company, I agree.
Although Lenin considered himself a marxist and Stalin considered himself
a Leninist, I think it's a safe bet that Marx would not have considered him-
self a Leninist and that Lenin would not have been a follower of Stalin.
As for the state, I think I've explained that above.  I don't care what
the libertarian right says, you cannot get rid of that old state 
without ridding society of classes.  Classes rest on the wages system in
the modern era--whether they are/were Soviet wages or capitalist wages--
the social relation of capital and wage labor creates the conditions
leading to class struggle over the product created by labor.  As Wobblies,
we see labor as the source of all wealth and people who merely own 
property--like mills, mines and factories etc.--as parasites on the backs
of people who work. 

>>>Bakunin:
>>>"One asks oneself how a man as intelligent as Marx could conceive of such
>>>a heresy against common sense and historical experience as the notion that
>>>a group of individuals, however intelligent and well-intentioned, could
>>>become the soul and the unifying and directing will of a revolutionary
>>>movement and of the economic organization of the proletariat of all
>>>countries ..."
>>If one could quote Marx somewhere as saying that he thought that, "a 
>>group of individuals, however intelligent and well-intenioned, could
>>become the soul etc.", I would be most interested in reading it.
>
>That was not a Marx quote. Bakunin was explaining the centralizing tendency
>of Marxist philosophy. 
Precisely!

>>>Red Bureacracy:
>>>
>>>Bakunin summed it up as follows: "Take the most radical of revolutionaries
>>>and place him on the throne of all the Russians or give him dictatorial
>>>powers ... and before the year is out he will be worse than the Czar himself."
>>What Bakunin has summer up here could be agreed to by almost anyone i.e.
>>anyone given singular power in a state, even if they were really nice or
>>really, really revolutionary like Marx or Bakunin, would be (maybe could
>>be) worse than the Czar himself.  After all, look at Stalin.
>
>Amen. That is why anarchists say no to centralized power.
Ah hell!  And that's why Wobblies favor democratic, non authoritarian,
non bureaucratic ways of doing things. 
>anand@cadence.com
>--
>Screw PBS & NPR news. Tired of news "sanitized for your protection?". Try:
>misc.activism.progressive, "Lies Of Our [NY]Times", "Z" magazine (Boston).
>KPFA 94.1 FM (Bay Area), 90.7 (L.A.), 90.1 (Houston, TX), 89.3 (Washington, DC)
>These are my opinions, not my employer's. 


-- 
Mike Ballard 
Time is money. Steal some today!
Don't just complain, organize! e-mail iww@igc.org  Ph: (415)863-WOBS.