Question Everything

The Spanish Communist Party sabotaged the Spanish Revolution. The Fascist coup in July 1936 was defeated because of the anarchists, with the assistance of rank & file members from the left-wing of the socialist party. The CNT, an anarcho-syndicalist union, called a general strike to fight against the fascist coup. The left-wing socialists tried to get the government to release weapons to the workers so they could fight against Franco's coup but the government refused. So the anarchists broke into the barracks and distributed arms to the people. After they did this the government decided to give weapons to the people. The anarchists, with help from the left-wing socialists, defeated the coup in 2/3rds of Spain, begining the civil war. In the anti-fascist areas an anarchist revolution began, anarchist collectives were formed and the state was smashed. It's military was in rebellion and police forces had disintigrated during the fighting. The anarchists made the mistake of allying with statist groups including the Spanish Communist party, which was very small at the start of the civil war. The Spanish Communist party, following orders from the USSR, decided to attempt to impose it's own dictatorship on Spain. They became the leading counter-revolutionary group in "Republican" Spain, denouncing the collectives and calling for the protection of private property. Starting in 1937 the Communist party began consolidating it's dictatorship and suppressing the revolution. They used troops, some of which were taken away from the front, to forcibly destoy the collectives and restor private property in some cases, state property in others. They eventually suppressed all opposition groups starting with POUM (Party of Marxist Unity - anti-Stalin Leninists) and continuing against the anarchists and other groups. Opponets of the party were put in jail and/or shot, their newspapers censored and organizations harrassed and/or outlawed. The Communists weren't primarily trying to save democracy from fascism, they were trying to impose their own dictatorship - a dictatorship as bad as what Franco put into place after the commies lost the civil war (due partly to their suppression of opposing groups & destrution of the collectives). This has been proved by the opening of the soviet archives, which conclusive demonstrate that the Communists weren't out to "defend democracy" or the working class revolution which broke out, but to impose a one-party dictatorship.

Fascism and Marxist-Leninism (Red Fascism) aren't that different. Leninist states put millions of people in prison, murder millions and suppress all opposition, including other revolutionaries like anarchists. See "The Guillotine at Work" by GP Maximoff Hitler called himself a national socialist, nationalized many industries and implemented 3-year plans. Remember Stalin's 5-year plans? Hitler's were like that, but only 3-years instead of five. Most fascist states implement some degree of central planning.

The USSR fought WW2 out of it's own self-interest, not out of some benevolent anti-fascism. It didn't enter WW2 until the Nazis attacked them, after first signing the Hitler-Stalin pact. The Communist Party USA (correctly) denounced WW2 as "the second imperialist war" until the USSR invaded, then it became a "people's war against fascism." Just becase Red Fascism goes to war against Brown Fascism doesn't change the fact that it's fascism. Stalin's regime wasn't any better than Mussolini, Franco, etc. Anarchists also fought against fascism in WW2, including in partisan units, the French resistance and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Anarchist partisans in East Europe were put in the gulag and/or killed after the Leninists took over.

Bolsheviks like to use the same kind of nonsense used by Bush & co. - if you don't support us you support Bin Laden & the terrorists! Authoritarian socialists do the same thing - if you don't support our dictatorship you must support imperialism & the US! It's the same crap used by the McCarthyists. "If your'e not with us your'e with the evil enemy." Reality isn't so binary. Of course US imperialism is bad, so is Soviet (and British, French, etc.) imperialsim. But that doesn't translate into support for any of the states/ruling classes who happen to be victimized by imperialist powers, some of which are quite brutal in their own right. All should be overthrown in favor of libertarian communism. In Cuba anarchists are shot and jailed, why should we support a regime that suppresses anarchists and independant worker organization? Cuba is state-capitalist, not socialist. Castro is not a revolutionary, he is a counter-revolutionary. He just took advantage of a revolution against Bastita to install himself as a new dictator. He didn't even claim to be a Marxist-Leninist before seizing power. He even negotiated with the US to become the US's new puppet government after coming to power, but negotiations broke down so he decided to make Cuba the whore of the USSR (another state-capitalist society). This is the same kind of crap the US uses to suppress dissent. Anyone who opposes the regime is demonized as a supporter of the official enemy ("terrorist" "communist" etc.). The Leninists do the same thing, demonizing all dissidents as "state deparment lackeys" or "counter-revolutionaries" or "Kulaks" etc. It's is a standard technique of those opposed to the self-liberation of the workers.

What existed in Eastern Europe was just a different form of capitalism, state monopoly capitalism. It stratified society between the haves and the have nots just like what we have now. On the top were the party members, with the central committee and politburo being the tip top, and on the bottom were the workers. And just like what we have now, it was possible to move between different hierarchies (although it didn't happen much). In the USSR there were people who managed to go from construction worker to joining the Politburo. Everybody had to obey the orders of the politburo. This is a hierarchy, and thus the very opposite of anarchy.

Cuba was one of America's first client state, and is very close to the US. So the US power elite would certainly like to take it over again. And there are also idiots on the left who try to portray it as something other than a brutal dictatorship. For some reason Cuban propaganda has been more effective in creating foreign followers than most other surviving Leninist states. The general thrust of American activism with regard to Cuba should be to oppose US Imperialism against it, but this should be done in the knowledge that it is a BRUTAL DICTATORSHIP, just like many other victims of American Imperialism (Iraq, Yugoslavia, etc.).

If you trace the emergence of the idea of the state 'withering away' in Marx & Engels thought to find it emerging as a responce to anarchist criticisms. The Communist Manifesto didn't say the state withers away, it said "the public power loses it's political characteristics." In their vision after the stae 'withered away' society would still be highly centralized and what we call a 'state' would still exist. They do not call this a state because they define a state as the use of violence by one class to suppress other classes. Since there are no classes there can be no state. But in reality society would still be highly centralized with all the characteristics of what we call the state. The state only "withers away" if you accept their specific definition of the state. See this article (in pdf format), it explains all this and has the evidence to back it up.

Down With the International Socialist Organization (ISO)

See infoshop's page on the ISO. There's lots of good criticisms there. As many former ISO members have reported, the ISO is basically a cult. The ISO also have a long history of attempting to take over other people's groups and subordinate them to the ISO. A recent well-known example of this was their attempt to take over the student anti-war movement (which failed, fortunetly). It is not healthy to work with the ISO or most Leninists. Non-Leninist Marxists can be okay, but Leninists are supporters of brutal dictators (like Lenin) and their organizations are usually cults that subordinate everyone to a few leaders.

"In Defense of October" by John Rees, of the same tendency, is full of lies and misquotes historians in extremely dishonest ways. See refutations of it here and here.

Leninists aren't really socialists but are actually left-wing fascists. They defend brutal dictatorships (like Russia under Lenin) that suppressed all opposition. If the ISO ever came to power they would shoot most of the people on this list, just as Leninists have done in every revolution. George Bush talks about freedom and democracy too, but just like the Leninists he doesn't implement it in power. What matters is their record, not their manifesto.