It
is said, and accurately, that “people starved under Communism”.
What
is typically meant by “Communism”, of course, is the ideology of
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), which was founded
by Bolshevik revolutionaries
in Russia in 1917 and collapsed in 1991. [Note: soviet means
“council”, and Bolshevik means
“majority”].
The
ideology of the U.S.S.R. was predominantly influenced by
Marxism-Leninism, Lenin having been instrumental in developing
Marxist theory, and in leading and organizing the October Revolution.
In Marxist theory, socializing control of the means of production
(“socialism”, for short) can empower workers and associations
between them sufficiently, such that the state is no longer needed,
and withers away, giving way to moneyless,
classless, stateless communism,
while at the same time a new kind
of “state”; a “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Marxism-Leninism
combined the idea of a revolutionary vanguard party with democratic
centralism and council communism; while Stalinism ran with
vanguardism practically to the point of ignoring the risks of
imperialism and of stifling international attempts at communism that
did not wish to stay in communion with the U.S.S.R.. However, Russia
and the other former members of the U.S.S.R. are not the only
countries that have tried communism.
Additionally, Bolshevik socialism,
with communism as its stated end goal, is not the only form of
communism that has ever been proposed.
Leninism,
Stalinism, Trotskyism, Luxemburgism, Juche, libertarian and
anarcho-communism, the utopian communalism of Owen, Fourier, and
Mill... Not only are there are many varieties of communism, but there
are many kinds of socialism, and they don't all have communism as
their end goal (whether we mean Bolshevism or anarcho-communism).
Whomever
makes such a broad statement as “people starved under communism”
should be cautious as to which form of communism he means. Sometimes
it ought to be enough to differentiate theorized stateless communism
from Bolshevik Communism
with a simple difference in capitalization, but that difference
cannot be understood voice-to-voice without explanation. Using
capitalization to make a distinction is just like capitalism: it only
works on paper.
Communism
can and does work. Regimes that were communist in intent and/or name
have made extraordinary achievements in fields such as agriculture,
industry, literacy, social justice, and aeronautics. Communist
militias have been formed. Anarchist communes have been founded,
settled, and lived in. Nations have been formed out of the voluntary
associations of communes with one another. Paris was a commune twice
in the 19th century.
The autonomous republic of Transnistria is arguably still
communist or Soviet.
There are regional and national federations of anarchists and
communists, that have associations with one another, all around the
globe.
Communism
can exist, has existed, and does exist. Some people have starved
under communism, and some people did not starve while under
communism. When communism fails, and when people starve under
communism, it is usually the result of attack, sabotage, or natural
calamity. The Paris Commune ended when the French aristocracy took
control back from the Communards. Communists' attempts to control
Vietnam and South Korea - and socialists' attempts to control various
Latin American and South American countries (even via democratic
election) – were sabotaged by the capitalistic American Empire. The
Ukraine suffered a famine in the 1930s, called the Holodomor.
Other
causes of the collapse of communist societies ought not be blamed
solely on communism, but on those self-described communists who
ignored the principle of autonomy in the organization of workers, and
who chose centralization over decentralization as a way to ensure the
needs of the populace were met (namely, Marxists). Nationalization
and centralization of industries, over-bureaucratization of
management, micro-management, strict discipline of workers; these
practices neglect all impulses to guard against
the bourgeoisie spirit,
and against the treatment of the working class as a “reserve army
of labor”, both of which workers should despise.
But
the Left is not prone to authoritarianism just because its members
are sometimes hypocritical. Nor is collapsed communism the only
system prone to hypocrisy. For instance, the modern-day Russian
Federation criticizes Western imperialism while arguably acting just
as imperialistic as either the United States or as the U.S.S.R. under
Stalin. Readers also ought to note the irony of the fact that
Stalinists and American imperialists both conspired
to crush international attempts at communism during the 20th century.
Although they appeared to do that for different reasons, it makes one
wonder whether the old rumor is true that American banking interests financed
the October Revolution.
It's
entirely possible that Jacob Schiff and other Western banking
interests helped finance the Vanguard of the October Revolution
(which included Lenin and Trotsky) – and if they did, then British
and German banking interests were likely involved as well. That the
same three imperialist nations all later
fought the U.S.S.R. and Soviet influence,
should be no surprise. Western imperialist nations have profited off
of the desperation of the second and third world in such a manner;
America for at least two centuries now, the others for much longer.
This will continue to happen as long as nations desirous of communism
keep “trading” with capitalist enterprises and governments
representing capitalist interests.
What
this is, is a scheme to undermine successive regimes, by sowing the
seeds of discord and revolutionary activity in the public; the goal
being to cause regime after regime to fall, no matter its ideology,
intent, or goals. This is done in order to pressure fledgling regimes
to sell their assets to the U.S. government and American businesses,
to seize assets from their citizens in order to find more to sell,
and to open up their countries' land and labor to foreign interests
who want to export nearly everything of value out of the country in
question.
While
it may seem hypocritical to help destroy the regime you just helped
put into power - to bait all countries
and governments against each other for your profit – it is actually
a very consistent method
of seizing power. Through differential interest rates on lending, and
through cartelization and fixing of monetary exchange rates, the
banking elite make bets on which nation will best be able to exploit
its citizens and their property, and force them to join militaries to
murder foreigners for their property, so they can give it to the
banks to repay the debts which the government and/or public owe the
banks.
This
system is innate to capitalism, mercantilism, fascism, and
indeed any purported
“free”-market system that tolerates any degree
of state interference. This is so for the simple reason that
militaries and banking monopolies do not behave like normal actors
engaging in voluntary exchange. By their nature, their very
presence in markets destroys the
freedom of markets. True choice cannot take place under conditions of
monopoly or coercion.
If
communism is defeated or sabotaged by an outside force, we should not
blame the victims, nor encourage them to feel ashamed on account of
it. Just as it is in the nature of militaristic, belligerent
imperialist nations to crush attempts to live outside of their
purview, it is in the nature of trading capitalist nations to legally
exploit the natural resources and work-power of the
countries agreeing (or
reluctantly assenting)
to trade with them.
Trade
itself poses
a dangerous question, and threat, to communist regimes. That is, the
danger is the issue of whether a communist nation is supposed to
trade, or whether it should be entirely self-sufficient. What's so
dangerous about trade is that the “freedom to trade” usually has
force to back it up, rendering trade a “force” in and of itself
(that is, at least in “market” economies that tolerate any degree
of state influence). The “freedom” to pressure, leverage,
manipulate, isolate, and intimidate a government into confiscate its
people's lands and selling their jobs, futures, and homes out from
underneath them, is not a freedom, because it destroys the liberties
of others. Nor is it a natural “freedom”, because it requires
coercion to enforce.
That
is why it is so unfortunate that spreading truly
free-market systems has proven difficult, and has sometimes failed.
Perhaps that's because proponents of this idea have always hoped that
a central government, in whatever form, can ensure that trade stays
free. Federations of council republics, and systems of common markets
and free interstate commerce, are difficult to craft, because they
require some level of military and managerial will-power to organize
whole communities and nations of people, to try new systems of
political and economic self-governance.
When
critics of Soviet “Communism”
(if indeed it really was Communism; many Leftists will argue that it
was not because it did not achieve statelessness) blame the economic
ideology that led it, and also blame all
other vaguely associated and vaguely similar ideologies,
it usually seems to be motivated by the desires to find a scapegoat,
and simplify things to fit their preconceived narrative and
confirmation bias.
Turning
nationalist movements into territorial nation-states is not something
that happens without some bloodshed, and people in uniforms telling
other people what to do. Furthermore, if any society
exists for long enough, anarchist or not, it will eventually suffer
from some sort of famine or other natural disaster. Are we to blame
communism for even the weather? Should we blame the Governor of
California every time there is a wildfire in his state?
Every
time we pretend that more control and fire-power, or better
government management, could have prevented a national tragedy or a
natural calamity, we give
in to
the Statist idea that government is like a God, that it can stop evil
at-will, that it can save people from natural disasters. It's true
that government agencies have rescued people from natural disasters,
and that government employees put fires out; but it's also true that
government mismanagement has resulted in lots of people living in
flood-prone areas, exposing them to the risk of natural disasters. It
does liberty no service to attempt to criticize communism and statism
while ascribing godlike powers to those who practice them.
In
Jamestown colony, John Smith echoed the words of Paul the Apostle:
“If a man does not work, then neither shall he eat.” Yet the
Jamestown settlers resorted to cannibalism. Lenin espoused the same
idea, and some people starved under the U.S.S.R.. Why should we try
to blame the failure of a colony in America, or the
failure of the U.S.S.R., on either communism or Christianity, when we
could blame the drought that afflicted the settlers, or the famines
that afflicted the Communists?
The
Marxian material conception of history tells us that the material
conditions of
those community-building attempts determined their destiny much more
than any political or economic system ever could have.
In
the early 20th century, before fascism
swept Europe - with its ultra-nationalism, nationalization of
property under the pretense of privatization, and command-and-control
economics measures such as rationing and price controls – tens
of millions died
of Spanish influenza following the conclusion of World War I. Between
ten and twenty years after that, in the United States, agricultural
mismanagement exacerbated the already severe financial conditions.
Next, for Europe and America alike, it was that perfect storm -
severe natural and material conditions, combined with the pressure to
choose between the fascists and the communists - which caused liberal
democracy after socialist republic to fall victim to the pressure to
impose rigorous controls on the economy and society.
The
result was what some call “socialists acting like fascists”.
Events like the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentropp treaty showed that
the Stalinists were just as expansionist as the Nazis, and just as
much without regard for the fate of Poles, Jews, and other people
living in the giant World War II hot spot known as the Russian Pale.
Socialists and Communists caved into military, natural, and economic
pressure, and started focusing on centralizing control and
consolidating power to guard against outside threats (namely,
fascism). And anarchists and Communists alike built work camps, and
worked people to death.
The
tactics employed by both the anarcho-communists and the fascists –
namely, economic controls and coerced labor - were similar.
However, to suggest that those facts alone makes them the same, is
almost to say that a fascist militant, once captured, doesn't deserve
to be treated with the torturous methods which his ilk invented.
There is a time for justice, and a time for mercy; but mercy is by
definition something which is undeserved.
Even
if anarcho-communists and fascists did share some of
the same goals in maintaining their forced labor prisons (or justice
and rehabilitation systems, whatever you want to call them), that
does not mean that all anarcho-communists “become what they
despised”, or “became authoritarian” or became Nazis. Whether
they deprived anyone of liberty wrongfully or not, their actions
should not discredit all anarchists, nor all socialists, communists,
nor “Leftists” (however you wish to define that term).
I
could blame any crimes of the anarchists of the Spanish
social republic on
the U.S. Republican
Party if
I wanted to, but I wouldn't make such a ridiculous claim. It may take
a little extra time to criticize different types of communist regimes
for different activities, but it's worth it compared to the
non-existent benefits of oversimplifying things by lumping-together
everyone with a slightly similar philosophy or name.
In
the 1930s, as nationalism swept Europe and imperialism swept the
world, the need to unify in a solid front against the fascists grew;
specifically against the Francoists in Spain, the Mussolinian fascists
in Italy, and Hitler's National Socialist Nazis in Germany.
In
1936, to contain the spread of Franco's sphere of influence, mechanic
and revolutionary Buenaventura Durruti erected the Durruti Column, a
militant organization comprised of thousands of anarchists from all
over the world. The Durruti Column worked in close coordination with
the C.N.T. and F.A.I. to organize resistance to the Francoists. The
C.N.T. (Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo) is an anarcho-syndicalist
union, and the F.A.I. (Federacion Anarquista Iberica) is a group of
militant anarcho-communists who are active within affinity groups
inside the C.N.T..
Solidarity
between anarchists, syndicalists, communists, and other anti-fascists
was essential, given the small numbers of radical anti-fascists,
considered against the magnitude of the threat posed by Franco (and,
later, the Axis Powers). [Note: At times throughout this essay, I may
refer to the entire anti-fascist front as either “anarchist” or
“communist”, or both.]
Beginning
in 1937, the leadership of the C.N.T.-F.A.I. began imprisoning people
in coerced labor camps; including fascist sympathizers, clergymen,
members of the bourgeoisie,
and “reactionaries” and “subversives”, as well as thieves,
drunkards, and delinquents, and even C.N.T.-F.A.I. officers who
abused their power. According to the C.N.T.-F.A.I.'s defenders, these
prisoners were not held in as brutal conditions as those in Stalin's
gulags, as they still had contact with the outside world.
Some
of the anarcho-communists' decisions at this time – in particular,
the decision to maintain work camps – were framed in the context
that the only alternative was fascism. If one did not work hard
enough, one was treated with suspicion of sabotage. It is said that
this is because if military activities lag behind, and if the
civilian work which gives the military its support structure lags
behind, then the fascists will take advantage of the communists'
vulnerability, and take over.
The
anarchists' treatment of their prisoners of war may seem cruel;
however, they deemed it necessary to face the fascist threat. In
order to fight against the fascists, one had to join forces with
whomever was fighting them, in order to overcome overwhelming odds.
If one wanted to fight with the anarchists, one had to tolerate
fighting alongside communists, and obeying the officers of the
military unit. If you had to fight fascists and Nazis, your
willingness to tolerate a little “authoritarianism” within your
own ranks might prove advantageous in the long term.
Enemies
at the gates breed desperation inside, and desperation and pressure
breed coercion and control. And whomever puts in the most initiative
to organize people, organize their labor, and organize the military
and its support structure - and whomever is the best at directing
resources, in a way that balances the needs of those needing
protection and incapable of defending themselves, versus the
militants doing the protecting – is going to look authoritarian by
contrast to the people they are empowering.
The fact that Spanish anarchism eventually lost-out to Franco, or that the U.S.S.R. eventually collapsed, should not be mistaken so as to prove that all political and economic systems will fail if they are to any extent “radical”, “extremist”, “Leftist”, or “collectivist”.
Nor
should they be construed to prove that only private property rights
and market systems guard against starvation or authoritarianism. Nor
should they be taken to prove that all of these systems require
corruption into Statism, nor that they cannot survive without
imposing extreme economic controls (such as rationing, or
collectivization or nationalization of resources).
Anarchism
certainly seems to embrace liberty, and not all communism opposes
liberty. If anarchism and communism do not succeed often, it is not
necessarily because there is something intrinsically wrong with them,
nor with their name, nor even because they did not embrace liberty
enough. Actually, at times, some anarchists and libertarians have
been too tolerant
of people who are not willing to tolerate them, and their mercy and
benefit of the doubt betrayed them.
But
the reasons that anarchists and communists didn't often succeed in
the 20th century,
as I have hinted at already, are that there are military, commercial,
and rhetorical forces mounted against them from secure places of
power and influence. Additionally, because the inferior agricultural
technology and medicinal science, coupled with poor agricultural
conditions, compounded the already enormous politicoeconomic
pressures of the time, which caused poverty conditions and
starvation. Aside from that, it also came down to how efficient the
distribution system was, whether it focused on government management
or market-based pricing mechanisms, whether there were multiple
supply lines, and how much the black market thrived.
Wars,
famines, droughts, natural disasters, health epidemics, deficiencies
and inefficiencies in transportation and distribution
infrastructure: any
one of these things alone could
bring a nation - even a whole continent - to its knees. The early
20th century
was fraught with
those problems, and it had to solve them with early 20th century
technology, industry, and science.
In
light of all these difficulties, and the dire domestic material
conditions of the time – alongside the extraordinary threat posed
by authoritarian controls coming from outside the
country – it should be easy to understand why the
anti-authoritarian anarchists of the C.N.T.-F.A.I. were willing to
tolerate these controls; seemingly authoritarian, though designed to
keep communities safe from fascist military advances.
It
should be even
easier when
one considers that no particular political nor economic system ought
to be blamed for imposing command-and-control measures upon the
economy, such as rationing and price controls. Minimum
wage laws are
price floors on the value of labor, yet they continue to exist in
nearly every country in the world, with hardly anyone calling them
controls on price. More directly to the point, even the staunchly
market-oriented liberal democracy of the United Kingdom nearly
succumbed to fascism.
That
is to say, even if the British regime in London didn't fall due to
continuous Nazi bombings, Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler several
years prior, Churchill had admired Hitler early-on in his reign, and
Churchill oversaw rationing, and made racist comments about the
people of India. But then again, Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler as
well. It is true, as they say, “politics breed strange bedfellows”,
and “desperate times call for desperate measures”. It's just too
bad that “all our national heroes were psychopathic, murderous,
racist sexual predators” isn't a snappy enough phrase to catch on.
In the grand historical scheme of things, hopefully we've made it
past the worst of that. Taking baggage with us from the 20th century
isn't going to help us; not anywhere nearly as much as making
sure we're all on the same page.
The
way we can make sure we're all on the same page is by talking to each
other - specifically, to people with different economic and political
views from us, and different backgrounds - making sure we're
understood when we use particularly loaded political terms, and
making more questions fair and open.
One
particular question which it might help us to ask is whether people
who make private property claims are depending on the
state to
enforce that claim, while putting minimal or no effort into
protecting the property themselves. Additionally, whether this
expectation predisposes propertarian market systems to value the
protection property and control, instead of the protection people and
their freedoms; by welcoming coercive governments to intrude upon the
market for the protection of property, and then to seize and sell
that property.
For
as we have seen throughout history, governments wielding a monopoly
on protecting the people, all too often neglect their duties, fail to
even assume those
duties through any form of legal obligation, or simply confiscate and
sell the land (and the people on it) which they were charged with the
task of protecting.
I don't know whether, nor how, any particular one of my readers might distinguish work camps, internment camps, concentration camps, and gulags from one another; nor whether they would differentiate slavery, involuntary servitude, or coerced or forced labor, from “mandatory volunteering”. But whatever you call the facility and the practice, it should be easy to see why, under any political or economic system suffering from production and distribution difficulties (and/or any number of other major problems), command-and-control measures are natural and predictable responses to dire military and economic circumstances.
But
that is not to suggest that we ought to tolerate authoritarian
economic nor social controls, nor that command-and-control measures
nor work camps are unavoidable whenever there is a major problem. Not
only are those measures avoidable, the supposed solution to those
problems (forced labor) does nothing to solve the problem, nor even
to alleviate it. Imposing long hours of coerced labor for little or
no compensation, - whether done by Nazis, Bolsheviks, anarchists, or
even liberal democracies – causes the hoarding of labor-hours in
the hands of the workers (really, in the hands of those who make them
work).
When
the bulk of necessary tasks in a society are performed by people in
chains - living in camps and ghettos and other densely populated
centers - the distribution of labor-hours becomes uneven, and all
areas outside of the most densely populated areas are drained of
laborers. That is why the use of work camps - although they promised
the destitute that they could “work themselves free” or “buy
their freedom” - breeds concentration of wealth in the hands of the
few. That's because it concentrates wealth into small areas
(namely, urban areas,
and densely-populated areas, where the most people are working), and
it brings with it vast inequality of income and opportunity. And not
just due to the poverty of unemployment, and depending on one's
location; being employed was
obviously no picnic either.
Fortunately,
today, the risks of natural disasters and bad farming weather have
become easier to alleviate with modern technology, and extreme
poverty is nowhere near as much of a problem now as it was in the
early 20th century. Today, though,
we have new industrial and scientific technologies.
We
also have new developments in political
and economic science;
as technologies like improved protection of the rights to speak and
communicate will help us guard against the risks of control and
authoritarianism in the 21st century.
Hopefully, too, will the freedoms of, to, and from political
association will become better protected; unfortunately, the issue of
who we expect to do that protection is beyond the scope of this
essay.
Decentralizing
power away from cities and central governments could help distribute
wealth and power geographically in a more equitable way. Moreover, it
could help reverse the flow of workers and jobs from rural
communities to dense population centers, and undo a lot of the damage
caused by the territorial enclosure of the Commons.
Additionally,
eliminating all subsidies and bailouts, reducing or eliminating
unnecessary taxes on sales and imports, and drastically reducing the
durations of the terms of patent protection (or else the complete
abolition of
government protection of intellectual property) could all help
accelerate the process of making goods easier to afford. These
measures would diminish most of the ill effects of the concentration
of military and economic power, as well as the inordinate powers of
governments - and the “innovators” and “developers” they
protect – to determine prices, and to control production and
distribution.
With
pirating and peer-to-peer file-sharing, the free and open
collaborative commons, the “sharing economy” and “gift trade
barter share” economies, and technological innovations such as the
rise of automation and 3-D printing, obtaining resources (especially
information) without going through governments and monopolists has
gotten easier. With the rise of the internet, the black market of
underground voluntary exchange
has grown, and has been conducive to freedom, but so too has
the red market
(the market for violent exchange).
The difference between them is the difference between “piracy”
(sharing) and theft.
The
benefits of owning rather than sharing notwithstanding, the easier it
becomes to share resources, and to use substitutes or unlicensed
versions of those resources, the more affordable those resources
become. Even if those counter-economic measures only succeed in
increasing the affordability of the substitute, then
there is, at least, still some pressure on the monopolist to
lower his price,
at least prospectively.
The
more affordable resources become, the easier and cheaper it becomes
to transport and distribute them. That is why avoiding government and
its beneficiaries in “private” industry like the plague - and
crafting market-oriented liberal-democratic policies that respect the
civil liberties and social freedoms of the people, as well as the
autonomy of the citizen, worker, and governmental jurisdiction - are
the best ways to ease the strains which result from inefficient and
insufficient distribution infrastructure. Coincidentally, and
conveniently, they are also the best ways to create equal justice
under the law, and equality of opportunity, and to erect a unified
front against fascism.
Freedom-loving
supporters of the markets can criticize “left-authoritarianism”,
“social-authoritarianism”, or “feelings-fascism” as much as
they please; but if libertarians, classical liberals, modern
liberals, progressives - and, yes, even socialists or syndicalists,
communists anarchists alike, do not fight
against fascism together -
then there might not be enough anti-fascists to save the people,
their communities, and their property from being seized by
authoritarian regimes. And if there is no respect of even the most
basic property rights, then there can be no free market system,
because you can't make a trade if you don't have anything to trade
with.
The
“authoritarianism” that was characteristic of early 20th century
anarcho-communists and fascists alike, was motivated by a desire to
provide for the needs of the most trustworthy members of the given
communities (or nations, as the case may have been).
Fascist
or anti-fascist, the people who contributed the most to the cause
reaped the most rewards, while those who could but didn't were
treated as if they were aiding the enemy. But it's hard not to
wonder, had the early twentieth century been a time of
extraordinary sustained growth and prosperity for nearly all sectors
of society, rather than the mess it was, would the Nazis and
Bolsheviks have ever even resorted to economic controls?
If
they certainly still would have, then perhaps they would only have
expected the political enemies they imprisoned to follow them? After
all, nobody who
runs a prison system should be expected to treat their prisoners
better than civilians (save for a few modern Scandinavian countries
that arguably come close). Naturally, such “equal treatment” does
not happen without some public criticism, and any people
would have every right to be concerned about such a policy. People
like to think that the people who are in prison, are in there because
they did something wrong,
and they're there because they're being punished –
not rewarded –
for it.
When
you have to decide between killing large numbers of
active, attacking, militant
fascists, versus trying
to put them all in prison - so you can give each of them a fair
trial, letting them plead their cases in front of juries of
their peers -
you have to consider which choice conserves your effort, which choice
is less likely to get you killed, and which is more realistic. And
handcuffing people on the battlefield is hardly a realistic military
strategy.
Unfortunately,
neither is allowing cronies, monopolists, usurers, racketeers,
profiteering land hoarders, and hawkish and imperialist military
generals, run amok, and try to control the flow of resources,
controlling society and labor in the process.
Anarchist,
Communist, or fascist, they all did what they did, and imprisoned
whom they imprisoned, because they wanted to wreak vengeance upon
those they thought responsible for causing, or contributing to, the
inequality of just rewards to those they considered “parasites”.
Or, in the fascists' case, they at least said they
did.
Anarchists,
Communists, and fascists all seem to agree on at least a few things,
like that usury is bad, that getting defeated in a war is bad... and
that's about as far as their agreements go. The difference,
however, is that the anarchists and Communists prioritized ending
inequality, while the fascists focused on scapegoating Jews and other
minorities as such parasites.
This
is not to say that there have never been Judeophobic communists; of
course there have been. The contributions of the U.S.S.R. to
liberating Auschwitz and to helping win World War II notwithstanding,
after the October Revolution, there were anti-Jewish pogroms in the
Soviet Union, and Jewish revolutionaries were purged from Communist
Party ranks.
However,
anarchists and communists in Spain, unlike the Soviets during
the later years of Stalin's regime, did not arrest
people solely for being foreigners, nor for being Jewish. Nor did
they characterize parasitism as a character of a particular race or
religion. On the contrary; their ideology was specifically
anti-racist and internationalist, and as such, they accepted fighters
from around the world.
This
is not to say that zero of
the Spanish
anarchists were
Judeophobic; many of the anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists
who fought Franco indeed were atheists and agnostics (while atheism
was considered the “state religion” of Communism), and many may
have even hated all religions,
Judaism not excepted. However, the anarchists' aversion towards
religions is easier to understand in light of many Spanish Catholic
priests sympathizing with the Franco regime and papism, and the
Catholic Church's later complicity in aiding the Nazis (albeit while
giving aid to Holocaust victims, while on the other hand, the Church
has also apologized for not having done more to help the victims of
Nazism).
Ownership
of private property (as Proudhon and Marx defined that term) arguably
requires either unanimous public support, or else protection by a
state. Bureaucratic controls on pricing and distribution, too,
require a certain level of coercion and discipline in order to
enforce. Whether it's private ownership or participatory democratic
planning, any semblance of coercion or state influence, or diminution
of choices, has only ever served to exacerbate any existing
inefficiencies and insufficiencies in distribution.
But,
then, without enforcement, discipline, or strict management, how may
we ensure a good distribution, which is both fair and free? The best
response seems to be to simply allow people to take what is freely to
given to them and shared with them, and allow them to freely give and
share, without imposing any taxes upon them (which have sometimes
intentionally, sometimes unintentionally,
punitive effects upon the behavior being taxed).
Additionally,
to allow each person to take their fair share of natural resources,
including land, so that they may do on that land whatever they please
with their own product and property. Also, that they may keep all
they make on that land, and retain possession of the parcel, and
trade properties with one another, and pool their properties together
(whether contiguously or not). But if you did not make the land, then
you may not destroy the land; the parcel's being in your possession
does not give you the right to destroy nor burn down any part of it
which you did not create.
Although
it could be argued that this might result in a distribution which is
still uneven, it cannot be said that it would be insufficient to meet
any particular person's needs. To declare the slightest inequality
unacceptable is almost to argue that it is unacceptable to give
something away without expecting anything in return. Ensuring
reciprocity of voluntary exchange is one thing, but it should never
excuse coercing a person into making a transaction they do not wish
to make. Nor should it excuse taking away a person's right to be
charitable, nor their right to do something that needs to be done,
but which nobody is willing to pay for
it to be done.
If
people are free to give, then they are free to have slightly less
than others. If a person voluntarily renounced all possessions, and
claims to rent and tenancy and property, then to continue to burden
him with licensing agreements, rental contracts, furniture, and the
material trappings of which he is trying to rid himself. Just as well
as the need for reciprocity, the freedom to give away our things
should also not
be used to excuse intentionally putting people into a state of
inequality.
Having
less currency, or a different or less numerous set of possessions,
does not determine your wealth, nor does it determine your class.
Your wealth is determined not by your riches, but by your subjective
definition of what wealth means to you. And your class is
determined by your relationship to the means of production
(factories, assembly plants, large machines), and also your
relationship to the land (i.e., whether and under what circumstances
you may own and attend it).
Whether
ownership of land or factories is free or prohibited,
if everyone with good standing in society at least has access to
these things, then class conflict becomes less pronounced. But then
again, access only guarantees the “freedom” to rent and borrow;
while on the other hand, the risks of absolute domination in
ownership risks exploitation and destruction.
But
whether with property - or whether with only access, use, and
occupation – free and open common access (or anything better)
should still be sufficient to ensure that a person be free to perform
any task; without it being overly taxed and regulated, and without it
necessarily being treated like work or like a profession; and these
diverse life-sustaining labors would be sufficient to sustain any
person with minimal physical effort. Technological achievements, in
the way of automated production and distribution - along with
economic and political liberalization reforms – will help ensure
that this occurs.
Equal access to land, and mass individual and collective ownership of automatons, will help ensure that anyone can own as much as he wishes - and as much as he can build, grow, and transform - using his share of land. That's because any kind of labor and any kind of capital can be combined upon any type of terrain. Land, not the pistol, is the true Great Equalizer. Indeed, land is freedom; free land breeds a free people. That's why the land issue is so important. And that's why autonomous communities, voluntarily associating in federations, should be free to decide what degree of private property rights in land they shall allow; additionally, in order to balance the needs of human beings with that of the ecosystem that sustains us.
Equal access to land, and mass individual and collective ownership of automatons, will help ensure that anyone can own as much as he wishes - and as much as he can build, grow, and transform - using his share of land. That's because any kind of labor and any kind of capital can be combined upon any type of terrain. Land, not the pistol, is the true Great Equalizer. Indeed, land is freedom; free land breeds a free people. That's why the land issue is so important. And that's why autonomous communities, voluntarily associating in federations, should be free to decide what degree of private property rights in land they shall allow; additionally, in order to balance the needs of human beings with that of the ecosystem that sustains us.
While
it pains me to admit that sometimes a binary choice may be necessary,
or even voluntary,
the posing of choices between fascism and communism, fascism and
chaos, and fascism and democracy in the 20th century,
happened so often because it was a reality. Twice in that century,
the whole continent of Europe was framed by two long battle fronts,
and in World War II the theaters of conflict spanned entire oceans.
It's
natural for anti-fascists, anti-authoritarians, and just plain
freedom lovers to want to advocate maximizing choice when it comes to
democracy (who we're voting for, or what we're running for) and
markets (what we're buying and selling). But when you're caught near
a war, and governments and anarchists and terrorists are coming from
all over the world to fight each other, the “only choices”
that nature and the
circumstances “dictate”
be given to you, are “fight or flight”.
At
that point, the only real choices you'll find, lie in your decisions
concerning where to flee to, by what methods you wish to defend
yourself, and whom else you wish to protect. Those may not be enough
choices for you, but those are the choices you have left. We must
also accept that some choices are irreversible; and that as such,
making them constraints the future sets of choices we are able to
make. Most importantly, as John F. Kennedy cautioned, "Those who
make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution
inevitable."
If
only it were as easy to know when you are really consenting to
what your peers goad you into doing (or if you are just going along
to make them happy) as it is to know whether you are starving.
Note:
I would like to thank author and I.W.W. historian Peter Cole for
bringing the history of the C.N.T.-F.A.I. to my attention.
To
learn more about C.N.T.-F.A.I., please visit:
and
To
learn about Peter Cole, please visit:
To
learn about the communists' betrayal of anarchists in Catalonia in
May 1937, please visit:
or
read "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell
Written
on February 1st and 2nd, 2018
Based
on a post written on January 30th, 2018
Originally
Published on February 2nd, 2018
Additional
source note added on February 28th, 2018
Edited
on March 7th and April 26th, 2019
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