Nepalling: Nepal, Prachanda, Lenin, Miaow

    Crack Pot Kin, May 2, 2008: So how is ‘Anarchy’ doing these days…which revolution are you lot leading in the world, must be everyone is too dumb for ANARCHISM?! I notice you didn’t mention Nepal – but reality doesn’t really suit you does it? What a pity that the Nepalese haven’t taken up your ‘First World’ petty bourgeois Anarchism and instead have opted for “Authoritarian, Stalinist, Leninist, blah, blah, blah”.

________________________________________________________________________

Nepal; a nice little earner for the Maoist ruling class – in Lenin’s footsteps

Ret Marut
May 12, 2008

Nepal’s Maoist Party has won around 220 seats in the recent Constituent Assembly (CA) election, about one-third of the total. Though the largest party, they don’t have an overall majority; they have stated their wish to lead a coalition government.

But as the result became clear Maoist leader Prachanda told journalists “I will be declared the acting President of this country very soon…which will be followed by occupying the post of the all powerful President of New Nepal…this is the peoples’ mandate…no force on earth can disobey this mandate” (I am the all-powerful first president of New Nepal: Prachanda, Telegraphnepal.com, April 26, 2008); the man who has long talked of his wish to ‘abolish royal autocracy’ now speaks of his “all powerful” role.

Recent news reports reveal the wages and expenses of the newly elected members of the Assembly. While they spend an indefinite period drawing up a new national Constitution they will be paid – by Nepali standards – enormous wages; each CA member will receive net salaries of 23 thousand one hundred rupees per month [£176/$345/Eur224]. On top of this they’ll get expenses for drinking water, electricity, telephone, rent, newspapers & “miscellaneous”. These expense allowances bring the total income of a CA member to 45 thousand 98 rupees [£345/$674/Eur437] each per month.

The CA President (probably Maoist Party boss Prachanda) will have a monthly salary/expenses income of 60,600 rupees [£463/$905/Eur588] – plus a petrol allowance of 24,500 rupees [£187/$366/Eur237]. The vice president will scrape by on a few thousand less.

So the ruling class, led by the Maoist ‘proletarian vanguard’, feather their nest. These salaries must be compared with the Nepali average wage of just $200 a year [£102/Eur129]; Nepal is the poorest country in Asia. Around 10% of the population takes 50% of the wealth, the bottom 40% takes 10%. 85% of Nepalese people don’t have access to health care. So the monthly income of a CA politician is well over three times the annual national average wage! Jobs within the CA are already being allocated by all the various member parties to their friends and family.

In a public appearance last week Maoist leader Prachanda said “I had the opportunity to play the role of Lenin itself in Nepal” (I am Nepal’s Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Prachanda says, Telegraphnepal.com, May 4, 2008). With his fat salary and perks he is certainly following in Bolshevik footsteps; Lenin travelled in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, as did other government officials. “Autocracy’s main enemy, Vladimir Lenin, had no reservations about inheriting the hated old regime’s automobile collection. Lenin used the Tsar’s Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost to drive around town while his colleagues divided up the rest of the collection among them. But two revolutions and a civil war had taken their toll on the cars, and in 1919 [during a time of famine and extreme hardships for the poor] the Council of People’s Commissars had to order 70 more from London” (Aeroflot). Lenin moved into a dacha (country house) previously owned by a millionaire, while much of the other Bolshevik leadership took occupation of the luxurious Lux hotel in Petrograd, dining on preferential food rations. Then and now, for those who inherit the State, its perks and luxuries are clearly irresistable and seen as just reward for their conquest and devotion to power. And so the new Nepalese republic is born – the furniture and faces at the top have been shifted around a little, and that is all.

There’s another interpretation (though less likely) of the reference to Lenin – as a coded pointer towards a historical precedent; that Prachanda’s long-term plan is for the Constituent Assembly in Nepal to share the same fate as it did in Russia. When the Bolsheviks were ready to seize sole power for themselves, a revolutionary guard (led by Anatoli Zhelezniakov, an anarchist sailor) dismissed the CA, dominated as it was by indecisive bourgeois moderate politicians. The Bolsheviks saw its dissolution as a decisive step in the progress from a bourgeois to a proletarian revolution (though the fact that, unlike Nepal’s Maoists, the Bolsheviks did not emerge victorious from the CA elections may have influenced their choices too). The Maoists might, ideally, like to achieve a neat Leninist orthodoxy by replicating this state of affairs, but they know the necessities of ‘realpolitik’. External geo-political pressures and economic realities mean that – for the moment, at least – they need to play the democratic game in order to attract foreign investment, so as to try and build up a sound politico-economic base. A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards.

________________________________________________________________________

See also : Devil’s Advocate: Prachanda on Indo-Nepal relations, Karan Thapar, CNN-IBN, May 18, 2008:

Karan Thapar: What will you think will be the impact on Indian Maoists by your coming to power in Nepal?

Prachanda: I think a strong message has already gone. After the elections, there was a wave in favour of our policy. After the elections, a Maoist has sent a letter to me congratulating me for this historical victory in elections. I think there will be a serious discussion and debate within the Maoist circles in India and we have already given a message to not only Maoists in India, but to all over the world.

Karan Thapar: Looking at your own experience in Nepal during the last two years and six months in particular, would you advice the Indian Maoists to give up the peoples war, to join mainstream, to use the ballot rather than the bullet as a way of acquiring power?

Prachanda: I think that I cannot directly address them, but our behaviour and our policy and our practices give out the message of the power of ballot.

Karan Thapar: One of the top Maoist leaders in India, Azad in an interview to The Hindu has said that the Nepali Maoists are unlikely to succeed and that the Nepali Maoists will soon realise that they have made a mistake.

Prachanda: Right now, the same person Azad has sent a letter congratulating me and that he thinks it is a very serious victory for the Maoists. I think it is before and after the elections, that he has evaluated it in a different way.

Karan Thapar: Many people think, Comrade Azad, as you call him, is saying two things. He says one thing to you in the letter and praises you and on the other hand, says another thing to the press and sounds sceptical and cynical. Is he double-faced?

Prachanda: Is there a written statement somewhere?

Karan Thapar: Yes, it is in The Hindu on Friday.

Prachanda: I see. I have not gone through that interview and statement.

Karan Thapar: So right now you are not aware that Mr Azad speaks with two voices. He says something to you and something else to the others. Does that worry you or disillusion you?

Prachanda: No, I have to go through that statement in detail. I cannot blame anything on anyone.

Karan Thapar: At the moment you will reserve your judgement.

Prachanda: Yes.

(Interview with Azad: The situation in Nepal and India are completely different, K. Srinivas Reddy, The Hindu, May 17, 2008.)

There are a mountain of Maoist parties in India. They include the Centre of Indian Communists : Communist Party of India (Maoist) : Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Janashakti : Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Mahadev Mukherjee) : Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Naxalbari : Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Flag : Provisional Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

In Australia, Maoist currents experienced some small degree of popularity in the 1960s and ’70s — one, Jim Bacon, even became Premier of Tasmania (albeit much later and after having joined the ALP) — but have been in terminal decline since. Extant groups include the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) and a handful of brave if aging souls on lastsuperpower.net.

For a Maoist perspective on events in Nepal, see Revolution in South Asia: An Internationalist Info Project.

On a completely fucking bizarro note, see the Maoist Internationalist Movement and its declaration of February 15 2008: “The masses have less than three days left to break the encirclement of MIM, and we see them trying, but in case they do not punch through, we have already started preparations for tidying up. There is a new website, “MIM Lite”.” As it happens, it appears that the masses didn’t rally to MIM’s cause, despite their posting this plea on their site. “In the end, it can be as simple as the politics of death threats against MIM. It is not accountable for MIM to allow various political forces to play both sides. People promoting those making death threats against MIM are not MIM’s friends. For this reason MIM is leaving the field to the leaders the so-called masses deserve. The masses did not bail MIM out and re-organize the struggle as requested, and so we are left in a form of intra-bourgeois struggle only, a struggle that might be better taken up in other ways, perhaps as bourgeois politicians or single-issue activists. “MIM Lite” will try to organize where there is still some opportunity.” As is the way of things, ‘MIM Lite’ has also announced its political suicide, set for today!

The Good News for English-speaking Maoists is the continued survival of The Great Leader, Bob Avakian. The World requires radical change: “That demands leadership. And that is where Bob Avakian comes in… He built, and today leads, a revolutionary party, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA—a party that has mobilized thousands to fight against the system in different ways through the past decades and that has continued to promote revolution and communism. But Bob Avakian is more than that. He is someone who has persisted in confronting the hardest, most excruciating questions before humanity. In so doing, he’s taken the communist understanding of the world and how to change it to a new place. The answers he’s brought forward and the pathways he’s forged demand a serious look—a deep engagement—from everyone concerned about the future of humanity.”

He’s also modest.

Other Maoist (Marxist-Leninist) groups in the United States include the (rival) Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Workers World.

In the United Kingdom, Maoist and Marxist-Leninist political formations include the Communist Party of Britain, the Communist Party of Britain Marxist-Leninist, the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), the New Communist Party of Britain, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and last — but by absolutely no means necessary least — the Stalin Society.

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
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22 Responses to Nepalling: Nepal, Prachanda, Lenin, Miaow

  1. grumpy cat says:

    Did you add Kasama? Its a pretty good read. They discuss a lot, no obvious party line, no craziness.

  2. @ndy says:

    Not Kasama but writings on Nepal from Kasama.

  3. grumpy cat says:

    Well it is certainly a huge step above the zaniness of the usual online Maoism. You also left out the post MIM Maoist-Third-Worldists such as Monkey smashes heaven and Shubel Morgan. They hate all other Maoists (just about), everyone in the First World, and love guns. Awesome.
    rebel love
    Dave

  4. @ndy says:

    Shubel Morgan:

    Shubel Morgan does not under any circumstances communicate by email. Interested parties who have even the slightest genuine proletarian fighting spirit should have enough motivation to create their own website and engage in public communication via that website. Persyns without that modicum of dedication to revolution and the necessities of security can simply fuck off.

    Long Live the Victory of Peoples War!

    Sample post:

    Maoism-Third Worldism celebrates International Women’s Day, March 8, 2008: Smash the first world!

    Celebrate International Women’s Day by decisively breaking with First Worldism. Embrace Maoism-Third Worldism! Denounce First World so-called feminism! Denounce White so-called feminism! Stand for proletarian feminism! Women of the Third World, stand against imperialism, especially U$ imperialism!

    Monkey Smashes Heaven:

    Monkey Smashes Heaven is a journal dedicated to smashing the old world to smithereens. The old world is rotten to the core. The First World as a whole exploits, rapes and plunders the whole planet and its peoples. It’s time to turn the tables.

    Sample post:

    Monkey Smashes Heaven responds to “Solidarity”
    May 7, 2008

    Duncan… spreads the false claim that It’s Right to Rebel (IRTR) “was made up of former MIM members.” Serious communists do not answer pig questions about their identity, but IRTR did clearly say on numerous occasions that it was not part of MIM or even associated with MIM in any particular way. Again, politics takes precedence over everything else, including identity. It would be correct to say that MIM is one of IRTR’s ideological predecessors, and that IRTR’s line is basically compatible with MIM’s. Who is or was a member of which organization is really none of anyone’s business and should not be the subject of public discussion or speculation, which would only help the pigs to vamp on the international communist movement.

    I surfed through some ‘post-‘Maoist blogs a while ago (many months). They appear to be almost all from the US. And Germany. And ah, elsewhere. Unfortunately, I can’t find any from Australia. (Presumably they’ve all been smashed, or perhaps subverted by the pigs. About the closest thing I can find is Australia Watch; having very briefly surveyed it, it ain’t half bad… maybe I’ll come back to it. See also: Melbourne Maoists Go International, July 31, 2007, about the involvement of the CPA (ML) in the International League of Peoples’ Struggle.) Solidarity blog (referenced above) has a collection of links. Here’s some more English-language ones:

    Leftspot
    The Marxist-Leninist
    Good Morning, Revolution
    Red Flags
    Maoist Resistance

    Rural People’s Party

    ^ Brilliant ^

    — and finally —

    Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement- Denver

    Good vid; Chomsky on 9/11 Truthiness:

  5. vents says:

    well, here’s to raping the third world, and i must say it is not an entirely unenjoyable experience

  6. @ndy says:

    Slackbastard is a journal dedicated to smashing First World hip hop to smithereens. First World hip hop is rotten to the core. First World rappers as a whole exploit, rape and plunder the beats of the whole planet and its peoples. It’s time to turn the turntables.

    Slackbastard does not under any circumstance communicate by drum and bass. Interested parties who have even the slightest genuine proletarian fighting spirit should have enough motivation to create their own small wooden instruments and engage in public communication via that medium. Persyns without that modicum of dedication to revolution and the necessities of security can simply fuck off.

    Celebrate May 20 by decisively breaking with First Worldism. Embrace Slackbastardism-Third Worldism! Denounce First World so-called hip hop! Denounce White so-called rappers! Stand for proletarian folk! Women of the Third World, stand against imperialism, especially U$ imperialism!

    Long Live the Victory of Peoples War!

  7. Warsaw Pact says:

    Slackbastard is the rag of the international nerd-anarchist-gothic conspiracy. Andrew is a agent of ASIO. The Stalinist League of Australia will destroy the conspiracy and bring about a new era of freedom, democracy, socialism and sex. As the great Chairman Watson said “The agents of capitalism (ie anarchists, fat people, old people, teachers, nerds, geeks, nazis, fascists, trotskyists, and revisionists) are simply a moment of time holding back the progressive movement of international socialist proletariat”.

    LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN WATSON
    LONG LIVE THE STALINIST LEAGUE
    LONG LIVE MARX, LENIN, MAO, AND STALIN
    VIVA THE REVOLUTION

  8. @ndy says:

    Peter,

    See you again in June.

  9. @ndy says:

    Go Albert!

    I mean, Arthur.

  10. Crack Pot Kin says:

    “A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards.”

    A succinct exposition of the whole of anarchism there. Really grooovy man, I mean I really dig your opposition to the STATE man.

    So how did Russia’s leading anarchists of the day deal with the Bolshevik attempts to establish a “strong and stable state power”?

    By siding with counter-revolution of course. Crackpotkin supported Kerensky, Makhno supported the White Guard.

  11. @ndy says:

    Crack Pot Kin.

    Like, dude.

    Get into the groove
    Boy you’ve got to prove
    Your love to me, yeah
    Get up on your feet, yeah
    Step to the beat
    Boy what will it be

    Critique can be such a revelation
    Dancing around you feel the sweet sensation
    We might be lovers if the rhythm’s right
    I hope this feeling never ends tonight…

    Gonna get to know you in a special way
    This doesn’t happen to me every day
    Don’t try to hide it love wears no disguise
    I see the fire burning in your eyes…

    A succinct — er, rather lengthy — exposition of anarchism may be found at the anarchistfaq. In any case, to ascribe the proposition that “A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards” to anarchism — and to claim that this is a succinct exposition of anarchism — is mistaken. Marx, for example, and Marxists generally, argue much the same. Lenin: “The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”

    Capiche?

    The anarchist critique of the state, as I understand it, shares this conception, but augments it by reference to ‘the state’ as a particular set of social relations which provides ‘the state’ with a certain degree of autonomy from the realm of the purely economic… on the other hand, I detect a certain inability to engage in serious discussion of such matters so like, dude, maybe I’ll just like leave it at that.

    Regarding the role of Russia’s leading anarchists vis-a-vis the Bolsheviks, I mean like, hey man, I don’t wanna bring you down or bum you out, but like, dude. Serious. I’m confused. I thought you were Crackpotkin?

    Are you like, “Wow man, dig this: I gotta time-machine and like, I went back in time — yeah? — and dude: Kerensky. Oh man…”

    As for The Anarchist formerly known as Prince Kropotkin: He returned to Russia in 1917, after an absence of forty years (having escaped from a Russian prison in 1876). For the previous twenty, beginning in the 1890s, he’d largely withdrawn from ‘activism’ and the anarchist movement, and shifted in his thinking on a number of crucial issues, especially those concerned with internationalism and anti-militarism. His declaration of support for France in WWI further isolated him from the anarchist movement, and his contacts in Russia, when he finally returned there, centred largely on the Social Revolutionaries rather than the anarchists. It was partly for this reason, as well as his broader standing as an anarchist intellectual and revolutionary, that he was offered a post as Minister of Education in Kerensky’s Government — an offer he rejected, preferring instead to resume his literary efforts, although also meeting with Lenin in 1919 and again in 1920, largely in order to express his concerns over political repression.

    The actually-existing Russian anarchist movement pursued a slightly different course.

    As for Makhno, you’re absolutely correct. That is, if by “Makhno supported the White Guard” you mean declared war on them and did his best to, like, kill them:

    H.6.12 Did the Makhnovists support the Whites?

    No, they did not. However, black propaganda by the Bolsheviks stated they did. Victor Serge wrote about the “strenuous calumnies put out by the Communist Party” against him “which went so far as to accuse him of signing pacts with the Whites at the very moment when he was engaged in a life-and-death struggle against them.” [Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 122]

    According to Arshinov, “Soviet newspapers spread the false news of an alliance between Makhno and Wrangel” and in the summer of 1920, a representative of the Kharkov government “declared at the Plenary Session of the Ekaterinoslav Soviet, that Soviet authorities had written proof of the alliance between Makhno and Wrangel. This was obviously an intentional lie.” Wrangel, perhaps believing these lies had some basis, sent a messenger to Makhno in July, 1920. “Wrangel’s messenger was immediately executed” and the “entire incident was reported in the Makhnovist press. All this was perfectly clear to the Bolsheviks. They nevertheless continued to trumpet the alliance between Makhno and Wrangel. It was only after a military-political agreement had been concluded between the Makhnovists and the Soviet power that the Soviet Commissariat of War announced that there had never been an alliance between Makhno and Wrangel, that earlier Soviet assertions to this effect were an error.” [Op. Cit., pp. 173-5]

    Needless to say, while the Bolsheviks spread the rumour to discredit Makhno, the Whites spread it to win the confidence of the peasants. Thus when Trotsky stated that Wrangel had “united with the Ukrainian partisan Makhno,” he was aiding the efforts of Wrangel to learn from previous White mistakes and build some kind of popular base. [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 220] By October, Trotsky had retracted this statement:

    “Wrangel really tried to come into direct contact with Makhno’s men and dispatched to Makhno’s headquarters two representatives for negotiations . . . [However] Makhno’s men not only did not enter into negotiations with the representatives of Wrangel, but publicly hanged them as soon as they arrived at the headquarters.” [quoted by Palij, Ibid.]

    Trotsky, of course, still tried to blacken the Makhnovists. In the same article he argued that “[u]ndoubtedly Makhno actually co-operated with Wrangel, and also with the Polish szlachta, as he fought with them against the Red Army. However, there was no formal alliance between them. All the documents mentioning a formal alliance were fabricated by Wrangel . . . All this fabrication was made to deceive the protectors of Makhno, the French, and other imperialists.” [quoted by Palij, Op. Cit., p. 225]

    It is hard to know where to start in this amazing piece of political story-telling. As we discuss in more detail in section H.6.13, the Makhnovists were fighting the Red Army from January to September 1920 because the Bolsheviks had engineered their outlawing! As historian David Footman points out, the attempt by the Bolsheviks to transfer Makhno to the Polish front was done for political reasons:

    “it is admitted on the Soviet side that this order was primarily ‘dictated by the necessity’ of liquidating Makhnovshchina as an independent movement. Only when he was far removed from his home country would it be possible to counteract his influence” [Op. Cit., p. 291]

    Indeed, it could be argued that attacking Makhno in January helped the Whites to regroup under Wrangel and return later in the year. Equally, it seems like a bad joke for Trotsky to blame the victim of Bolshevik intrigues for defending themselves. And the idea that Makhno had “protectors” in any imperialist nation is a joke, which deserves only laughter as a response!

    It should be noted that it is “agreed that the initiative for joint action against Wrangel came from the Makhnovites.” This was ignored by the Bolsheviks until after “Wrangel started his big offensive” in September 1920 [Footman, Op. Cit., p. 294 and p. 295]

    So while the Bolsheviks claimed that the Makhnovists had made a pact with General Wrangel, the facts are that Makhnovists fought the Whites with all their energy. Indeed, they considered the Whites so great a threat to the revolution they even agreed to pursue a pact with the Bolsheviks, who had betrayed them twice already and had subjected both them and the peasantry to repression. As such, it could be argued that the Bolsheviks were the only counter-revolutionaries the Makhnovists can be accurately accused of collaborating with.

    Every historian who has studied the movement has refuted claims that the Makhnovist movement made any alliance with the counter-revolutionary White forces. For example, Michael Palij notes that Denikin “was the main enemy that Makhno fought, stubbornly and uncompromising, from the end of 1918 to the end of 1919. Its social and anti-Ukrainian policies greatly antagonised all segments of Ukrainian society. The result of this was an increased resistance to the Volunteer Army and its regime and a substantial strengthening of the Makhno movement.” He also notes that after several months of “hard fighting” Denikin’s troops “came to regard Makhno’s army as their most formidable enemy.” Makhno’s conflict with Wrangel was equally as fierce and “[a]lthough Makhno had fought both the Bolsheviks and Wrangel, his contribution to the final defeat of the latter was essential, as is proved by the efforts of both sides to have him as an ally.” [Op. Cit., p. 177, p. 202 and p. 228] According to Footman, Makhno “remained to the end the implacable enemy of the Whites.” [Op. Cit., p. 295] Malet just states the obvious: “The Makhnovists were totally opposed to the Whites.” [Op. Cit., p. 140]

    We will leave the last word to the considered judgement of the White General Denikin who, in exile, stated that the Makhno movement was “the most antagonistic to the idea of the White movement.” [quoted by Malet, Op. Cit., p. 140]

    In summary, the Makhnovists fought the White counter-revolution with all their might, playing a key role in the struggle and defeat of both Denikin and Wrangel. Anyone who claims that they worked with the Whites is either ignorant or a liar.

    Finally, you may wanna exercise your obviously great intellect by considering the distinction between ‘anarchist’, on the one hand, and ‘Kropotkinist’ and ‘Makhnovist’, on the other.

    Peace, love and mungbeans,

    @ndy.

  12. Crack Pot Kin says:

    “The anarchist critique of the state, as I understand it, shares this conception, but augments it by reference to ‘the state’ as a particular set of social relations which provides ‘the state’ with a certain degree of autonomy from the realm of the purely economic…”

    Wow, I mean right on, so really profound “the realm of the purely economic”, so deep maaaann. Makes me wanna pierce my nipples, walk around in black clothes and listen to Crass.

    You found a quote from Lenin where he is writing about the bourgeois state in particular and tried to equate that to anarchist nonsense theories about the state in general.

    Every state serves the particular class which is in power in that state.

    Makhno sought to overthrow Soviet power, his activities assisted the White counter revolutionaries every time his troops attacked the institutions of the Soviet state.

    Read about Anarchism here kiddies –

    W. B. Bland., ANARCHISM, THE MARXIST-LENINIST RESEARCH BUREAU, NEW SERIES : NO. 8

    Have a nice weekend in whatever “realm” the drugs take you.

  13. @ndy says:

    Oh dear.

    I see that the three principles of edjumakashen are somewhat lacking in the British skooling system: reading, writing, and sarcasm. Mind you, you’ve obviously graduated with a ‘C’ in the third arena at least.

    A few points:

    1) Given your silence over Kropotkin, I assume my point has been made.

    2) The utility of Lenin’s quote is that it mirrors the one you provided as being peculiarly ‘anarchist’. In fact, the whole of ‘anarchism:

    a) Pseudonymous Internet Stalinist:

    “A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards.” A succinct exposition of the whole of anarchism there.

    b) @ndy the Drug-Addled Anarchist:

    “…to ascribe the proposition that “A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards” to anarchism — and to claim that this is a succinct exposition of anarchism — is mistaken. Marx, for example, and Marxists generally, argue much the same. Lenin: “The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”

    The point being:

    First, you claimed that the ‘whole of anarchism’ is contained in the statement “A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards”. In reality, this statement is in fact a fairly standard (Marxist) definition of the state as an instrument of class rule (and the more efficient the exploitation, the more stable the state). Why you should confuse the Marxist definition of the state with ‘anarchism’ is for you to explain, not me.

    Secondly, in relation to my use of Lenin (State and Revolution), the rather obvious point Lenin was making is that the state exists where there are class antagonisms. Where there are no class antagonisms, there is no state. Thus the communist society of the future will be both classless and stateless. Lenin’s statement does not apply simply to the bourgeois state, in other words, but ‘the state’ as such. You’ve simply misunderstood Lenin.

    Finally — and self-evidently, given the above — I haven’t tried to equate Lenin’s conception of the bourgeois state with the anarchist theory of the state. And to understand that would require a little less juvenile delinquency and a little more effort on your part I’m afraid. You’ve also got to crawl before you can walk, so I suggest you actually read Marx and Lenin first before attempting to understand anarchism.

    3) On Makhno. Once again, you’re absolutely correct. That is if by “overthrow Soviet power” you mean attempt to defend it from Bolshevik subversion.

    In reality — a concept with which you’re obviously on very poor terms — the principal base of operations for the Makhnvoschina was the Ukraine, and from July 1918 through to August 1921. It was an autonomous movement, which sought to remove from the Ukraine foreign powers and to overthrow the rule of the local, Ukrainian elites. It did this in the name of constructing a communist society. The Makhnovists supported the formation of soviets of workers, as well as rural peasant communes — in brief, the socialisation of the means of production — but opposed Bolshevik state control of these institutions. In this context, it should be noted that the treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 13, 1918) between the Bolshevik State and the Central Powers effectively ceded control of the Ukraine to the German state. Beyond this:

    The Makhnovists worked with the Bolsheviks in three periods. The first (and longest) was against Denikin after the Red Army had entered the Ukraine after the withdrawal of the Austro-Germans. The second was an informal agreement for a short period after Denikin had been defeated. The third was a formal political and military agreement between October and November 1920 in the struggle against Wrangel. Each period of co-operation ended with Bolshevik betrayal and conflict between the two forces.

    As such, the relationship of the Bolsheviks to the Makhnovists was one of, at best, hostile co-operation against a common enemy. Usually, it was one of conflict. This was due, fundamentally, to two different concepts of social revolution. While the Makhnovists, as anarchists, believed in working-class self-management and autonomy, the Bolsheviks believed that only a centralised state structure (headed by themselves) could ensure the success of the revolution. By equating working-class power with Bolshevik party government (and from 1919 onwards, with the dictatorship of the Bolshevik party), they could not help viewing the Makhnovist movement as a threat to their power (see section H.6.14 for a discussion of the political differences and the evolving nature of the Bolshevik’s conception of party rule)…

    As can be seen, the relationship of the Makhnovists to the Bolsheviks was one of constant betrayal of the former by the latter. Moreover, the Bolsheviks took every opportunity to slander the Makhnovists, with Trotsky going so far as to report Makhno was living well while he was rotting in a capitalist prison. This is to be expected, as the aims of the two groups were at such odds. As we discuss in the next section, while the Makhnovists did whatever they could to encourage working-class self-management and freedom, the Bolsheviks had evolved from advocating the government of their party as the expression of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” to stating that only the dictatorship of their party could ensure the success of a social revolution and so was “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” As the Makhnovist movement shows, if need be, the party would happily exercise its dictatorship over the proletariat (and peasantry) if that was needed to retain its power.

    Your pig-ignorance of history does your argument no favours. And the essay by Bland on ‘anarchism’ is likely useful only for a worker who has undergone a lobotomy: the Bolshevik ideal, but happily not the reality. Well, not for most of us anyway.

    For Crass Unity,

    @ndy.

  14. @ndy says:

    PS.

    The article you recommend as being a repository of wisdom on the subject of ‘anarchism’ was penned by William ‘Bill’ Bland, a dead Stalinist. Here’s an obit:

    William B. Bland
    1916-2001

    The death took place in London on March 13th of the British communist Bill Bland. His political work and literary output was situated in the complex, tumultuous period inaugurated by the death of J.V. Stalin and the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, the harbinger of the downfall and dissolution of the socialist and democratic camp. Alongside the decades long decay of the USSR and the people’s democratic states of Central and Eastern Europe the period witnessed the polemics on the general line of the international communist movement in which salient roles were played by the CPSU, the Party of Labour of Albania and the CPC, and the consistent defence of Marxism and socialism by the PLA and the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania. In the former colonial world the great Chinese democratic revolution embarked upon profound anti-imperialist and anti-feudal social transformations, the great leap forward and the cultural revolution. The national liberation struggles of Cuba and Vietnam scored their striking successes. In Britain the Marxist-Leninists were confronted by the revisionism of the Communist Party of Great Britain and the need to advance the cause of the labour movement.

    Bill Bland was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, on 28th April 1916 in a family which was financially well-off, his father being the director of a printing works. He studied in the local primary school before going on to Manchester Grammar School which was then a private school. With the onset of the great depression his father’s works were closed down and he was compelled to leave school at the age of 15. He found employment as an optician’s assistant and studied part-time at the Manchester College of Technology. At the age of 21 he visited Moscow on holiday, in 1937 where he learnt that bread was available free in the stores. Before the beginning of the Second World War he migrated to New Zealand. It was there that he joined the Communist Party of New Zealand. In Auckland he held the post of district secretary, conducting classes in the Marxist School, and was a member of the Executive Committee of the CPNZ. He returned to England in 1950 and his membership was transferred to the CPGB.

    It was while he was the district secretary of the Seven Kings’s branch (Ilford) that Bill Bland became increasingly unhappy with the CPGB programme ‘The British Road to Socialism’ and later with the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU. In an interview given in 1994 he revealed that he was one of a handful of persons who dissented from the new party policies. In 1957 he played a key role in establishing the Albanian Society which had the aim of disseminating information about the history, culture, language of that country in Britain. Three years later he become secretary of the society, a post which he held almost continuously for 30 years until the restoration of capitalism in Albania. He was Editor of the journal of the society, Albanian Life

    A w e s o m e!

    Long Live the Great October Socialist Revolution!
    Long Live the Immortal Ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin!
    Long Live the Solidarity of the Working Class and Working Peoples Throughout the World!

  15. Brother number one says:

    [Fly away Peter.]

  16. Crack Pot Kin says:

    In reference to the statement in the original article –

    “A strong and stable State power is always a class relation based on efficient exploitation and its rewards”

    you wrote –

    “In reality, this statement is in fact a fairly standard (Marxist) definition of the state as an instrument of class rule (and the more efficient the exploitation, the more stable the state)”.

    You are so ignorant of what constitutes Marxism-Leninism, that you present a caricature of it in order to try and defeat it. What you consider a “fairly standard (Marxist) definition of the state” is entirely the creation of your own infantile imagination.

    Stirner, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Makhno’s anarchist-bandits have all been consigned to the dust bin of history. Only petty bourgeois first world hippies pick through such shite these days.

  17. dj says:

    Whereas Zombie Stalin is coming to eat your BRAAAINS BRAAAAINS!

  18. @ndy says:

    If so, I think he’ll be bitterly disappointed when he takes his first bite out of one of his followers.

  19. prachanda says:

    Prachanda is such a disgrace to the Nation and to the 21st century as a whole. Quick question, who do you think will have the last laugh between Prachanda vs Baburam?

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