Post-Left Anarchism and Gustav Landauer

Knowing that I am an Anarchist, you probably assume that I am a Marxist too because Anarchy has always been associated with Marxism and Marxism, in turn, reads in the minds of most people thus: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

I am not a Marxist and have never subscribed to violent revolution.

An excellent description of my "school" of Anarchy is described in the excerpt below, the author of which is unknown to me:

THE BENEFITS OF NON-CLASS STRUGGLE ANARCHISM TO THE MOVEMENT AS A WHOLE

"Revolution is a process ever going. Like a river it flows; changing shape, altering its course, sometimes slowing down, sometimes becoming a rapid. At times we lose sight of it behind the dogma of some ideology or another. But it can never be stopped. Since the first slave said 'no', since the first people rose up against the tyrants, since the concept of Freedom was formed, the Revolution has always been there. As a comrade wrote to me, "Revolution is a process, not an historical event". The nature of the Revolution stems from the forces it encounters, the aspirations of those within it, and the strength of the reaction. If it can progress unrestrained, then it is likely to be peaceful. The ends will never justify the means, they are inextricably bound together and what better way is there of taking someone's freedom than by killing them. Violence is the basis upon which government stands, and as such it is the counter Revolution. From the writings of Kropotkin up to Colin Ward there have been attempts to hi-light points in existing society where the river may flow - worker co-ops, food co-ops, alternative welfare and education, and countless examples of how order is spontaneous, and springs up from the very act, and point of association itself: "What kept us together was our work, our mutual interdependencies in this work, our factual interests in one gigantic problem with its many specialist ramifications. I had not solicited co-workers. They had come of themselves. They remained, or they left when the work no longer held them. We had not formed a political group, or worked out a programme of action...Each one had made his contribution according to his interests in the work...There are, then objective biological work functions capable of regulating human co-operation. Exemplary work organises its forms of functioning organically and spontaneously, even though only gradually, gropingly and often making mistakes. In contra-distinction, the political organisations, with their 'campaigns' and 'platforms' proceed without any connection with the tasks and problems of daily life". Like the fishermen in Brixham, or the miners in Durham or Brora, Scotland, workers co-operatives provide small, rare examples of how a task provides its own point of association, and provides the associates with a focus, that transcends any necessity for coercive pressure. In short, the act of society provides its own order internally, whereas all ' governments attempt to impose it externally, stifling and smothering the social instinct. These examples exist in modern society. They are not memories of an age before the nation-state, but are modern facts. Paul Goodman once described anarchism as both conservative and radical, for we must attempt to conserve those places where liberty may be developed in full, as well as create new ones. Gustav Landaur also wrote along the same lines "The state is not something which can be destroyed by a revolution, it is a condition of human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently". Even, according to the film 'Michael Collins', the Irish Republican leader Eamon de Valera spoke along the same lines by claiming roughly that "We defeat the British Government by ignoring it".

Of course, the name of any government can be substituted for the word "British" in the last sentence of the excerpt.

Other Anarchists are catching on. There is, of late, a school of Anarchism that describes itself as "post-Left". They are Anarchists who were once Leftists, who became disenchanted with the Leftist movement, even while they retain the principles of Anarchy.

There are very interesting articles that constitute an ideological back-and-forth between the post-Leftist Anarchist Jason McQuinn and the Leftist Anarchist Peter Staudenmaier.

You can find their articles on the following URL:

http://www.anarchist-studies.org/publications/theory_politics

I wrote that I am not a Marxist, but I did not write that I am not a Leftist. I am a Leftist, in the most absolute sense of the word. I am an Anarchist-Leftist as was Gustav Landauer who called himself a Socialist always.

Gustav Landauer was an anti-Marxist. With preternatural prescience he predicted what would happen if Marxist Leftist governments would come to power.

It was Gustav Landauer who wrote:

"The State is a condition, a certain relationship among human beings, a mode of behavior, we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one and other... We are the State and continue to be the State until we have created the institutions that form a real community."

"One can throw away a chair and destroy a pane of glass; but those are idle talkers and credulous idolaters of words who regard the state as such a thing or as a fetish that one can smash in order to destroy it. The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of behavior; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently toward one another – One day it will be realized that Socialism is not the invention of anything new, but the discovery of something actually present, of something that has grown…We are the state, and we shall continue to be the state until we have created the institutions that form a real community and society of men." – Gustav Landauer"Schwache Stattsmanner, Schwacheres Volk!"Der Sozialist, June, 1910

"…The realization of Socialism is always possible if a sufficient number of people want it. The realization depends not on the technological state of things, although Socialism when realized will of course look differently and develop differently according to the state of technics; it depends on people and on their spirit…Socialism is possible and impossible at all times; it is possible when the right people are there to will it and to do it; it is impossible when people either don't will it or only supposedly will it, but are not capable of doing it." – Gustav Landauer
"For Socialism", quoted in Martin Buber,Paths in UtopiaTranslated by R.F.C. Hull

About him Martin Buber wrote: "Gustav Landauer fought in the revolution against the revolution for the sake of the revolution. The revolution will not thank him for it. But those will thank him for it who have fought as he fought and perhaps one day those will thank him for whose sake he fought."

In response to Jason McQuinn's article "Post-Left Anarchy: Leaving the Left Behind" I wrote:

I fully agree with Mr. Quinn that the Anarchist movement should distance itself from the ills that have beset the Left for all of the reasons he states in this article and more.

However, I must ask: why did the author find it necessary to indulge in the sarcasm that has gone past being ubiquitous to the point of being de rigueur?

Can't a bit of Anarchist spirit be applied here too and can we not resist the temptation to use expressions like: "Duh!" and "Wow!" that litter so much of the writings on the internet and mar an otherwise intelligent essay that pains were obviously taken to craft?
There is simply no room for sarcasm, which evinces surrender to one's visceral emotions, when writing an essay that also expresses the wish to be accepted on its intellectual merit alone.

Secondly, and more importantly, why is post-Marxist/Leninist /Maoist Anarchism called post-Leftist?

Gustav Landauer was a Leftist also, yet he was anti-Marxist and predicted with preternatural prescience what would happen if governments were to be based on Marxist theory. Yet, he called himself a Socialist and published a paper called Der Sozialist.

You, Jason, speak against the reification of the state, and quite correctly so. Was it not Gustav Landauer who spoke most eloquently against the reification of the state?
Most importantly, and this is what Landauer's Socialist Anarchism included that Marx's did not, was his full acceptance, nay embracing, of Geist (Spirit). Landauer was not only a great mind and a great heart, he was a man of great Spirit, who did not shy away from using the term Spirit. Fom that Spirit derived his vision, his energy, his perseverance and his bravery even when being faced with murder.
Had the Socialism of Landauer not been eclipsed by that of Marx the entire 20th C. would have been different. It behooves us to delve deeply into the human psyche to understand why the teachings of Marx were found to be so very attractive, while those of Gustav Landauer were rejected during his lifetime for the most part and thereafter as well.

When I think that while the Nazi machine churned, the Stalinist purges ravaged the USSR and the orgy of violence that was called the "Cultural Revolution" raped The People's Republic of China, even as the words of Gustav Landauer went unheard in obscurity, I feel an indescribable depth of sadness at the needless tragedy.

And so, Jason, I would recommend to you not to call the Anarchist movement that you set yourself in contradistinction to "Leftist Anarchism" or call it "lame", but rather call it what it is – soulless. Being soulless was the undoing of Marxism from its inception.

May we have the robustness and the courage to embrace an Anarchy that is infused with Spirit.

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A good discussion on this topic is going on on the following thread on usenet:

http://tinyurl.com/8cpz8


Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com