Marxism and Direct Action

Recent anti-capitalism demonstrations have brought together many different groups against environmental destruction, racism, exploitation of third countries, as well as many young people protesting against the whole situation in general. They have shattered the myth that everyone is happy and that the capitalist system has been accepted as the only form of society.

We see all around us the misery this system has caused. Hunger, war, unemployment, homelessness, and despair, these are all the acts of violence that this system causes to millions of people every day. Witnessing and experiencing the destruction and chaos, young people everywhere are compelled to protest.

However, involvement in political organizations is not in the interest of many young people, who understandably want to do something, and do it now. In fact, the attempt to contrast organization, discussion and debate with "direct action" is misleading. The ideas of Marxism are not the subject of mere academic study. Marxism is a guide to action. We all support action, but action must be carefully planned, with real and objective goals if it is to be successful. Otherwise, we will end up with aimless action. Moreover, without political organization, who determines what action will be taken, when and where?

There is no greater action than the majority taking control of their lives. In that action, there is the essence of revolution. Not just aimless action, but democratic and conscious mass action; the struggle not only against capitalism, but the struggle for a new society, socialism.

The recent demonstrations on May Day [a reference to the May Day demonstrations in 2000 in London] were used by the capitalist media to spread their usual hysteria. They exaggerated the action of doodles on historic monuments and statues of Churchill. However, this news was marred by the fact that it turned out that the individual who was guilty was not a "young delinquent", but a former marine soldier now studying at the University of Anglia in Cambridge (a top university in England). Standing before the judges, he delivered a speech condemning Churchill's anti-Jewishness and imperialism. The speech influenced the judge, who demonstrated his class position by ridiculing the young ex-army for his reliance on student loans. "You see for yourself,

It also appeared that a pupil from Eton school (a very famous high school in England) took part in breaking glass at a McDonalds restaurant. This is a symptom of a society that has reached an impasse, not only the working class and middle class youth who have rebelled, even the upper class have rebelled.

So, how's it going? The organizers of the demonstration told us that this was not a protest to win reform, because reform was seen as a waste of time. No, simply by participating in what they call the "carnival" we will become better people, and eventually more and more people will participate, until a critical mass is reached and we can all ignore capitalism, not pay our bills, until everything's gone. What a childish dream! We do not question the good intentions of the people involved in this protest. However, the road to hell is opened by many such good intentions. Do we really believe that if we all "put ourselves outside of capitalism", the capitalists will do nothing to defend their system? This ostrich tactic, where we bury our heads in the ground until they all go away, is not serious. This is not an act. In reality, this is an irresponsible non-action.

"Independent Organization"

Anarchist organizations have always hidden behind the facade of "self-organizations". They claim that they have no leaders, no policies, etc. But, who makes the decisions? If there is no leadership and no policies, then there will be no action of any kind. The demonstrations have recently been organized and coordinated on an international scale. Great, that's how it should be. However, without organization and democracy, no one, except for a small group at the top, has a voice in deciding why, where, and when these demonstrations take place. Such a movement will not shake the knees of international capitalism.

One of the most well-known anarchist groups in England, Reclaim the Streets , demonstrated this through their May Day publication, "Maybe". Who writes the articles, who decides what articles get published and which don't get published, who edits the articles, where does the money come from? Our point here is not to accuse them of suspicious bookkeeping - we just want to point out that "lack of leadership" is a self-help organization myth.

On page 20, they state " Reclaim the Street is a non-hierarchical, spontaneous, self-help organization. We have no leaders, committees, boards of directors, spokespersons. There is no central unit for decision making, strategic planning, and planning." ideology. There is no membership and no formal commitment. There is no master plan and no agenda."

There are two problems here. First of all, who is "we", who made the above statement, and who decided this. Second, if this is true, it is not something to be proud of. Like it or not, it is impossible that the capitalist system will be brought down by such haphazard and unscrupulous methods. There is no theory, no logical analysis of society. To boast of a lack of direction, a lack of purpose and an absence of logic, in the face of the highly organized and brutal enemies of international capitalism, is simply irresponsible.

In reality, the leaders of this movement have an ideology. They are anarchists. Anarchism is not just an empty term. Anarchism comes from the Greek word "anarchos" which means "without government". For anarchists, the state - the institution of government, army, police, courts, etc. - is the root cause of all that is wrong in the world. The state must be destroyed and replaced not by a new form of state, but by the immediate implementation of a stateless society.

This opposition to the state and authority resulted in the conclusion to reject all forms of parliamentary activity, political parties, or the struggle for reform, namely the rejection of political change through the state.

Of course Marxism also opposes the brutal domination of the capitalist state. Marx championed a society without a state, "a society in which the development of each individual is the condition for the unhindered development of all." It is the people who organize themselves. The question is how to achieve this.

Because anarchism sees that the root of all problems is the state, anarchism believes that these problems can be solved by destroying the state. On the other hand, Marxism sees the division of society into classes -- namely the minority class which owns the means of production of wealth and the majority class whose labor is the source of this wealth -- as the root of the problem. It is this division of society into classes that gives birth to the state, because the minority class needs a special power to maintain its power over the majority class, that is, the state has evolved over thousands of years into the complex structure we see today.

Country extermination

The modern capitalist state may wear many masks (monarchy, republic, dictatorship), but in the end the goal of the capitalist state is the same, to maintain the rule of the minority capitalist class. Therefore, the goal of Marxism is not simply to eradicate the state, but to end class society.

The state was born out of the division of society into classes to protect private property. As long as there are classes, the state will always exist. So how do you end class society?

Not by ignoring it, but simply by the victory of one of the conflicting classes. The victory of capitalism means the destruction of millions of human beings. As Marx explained, the choice we face is not socialism or the status quo, but socialism or barbarism. The constant pursuit by capitalism for financial gain will push millions of people into poverty and hunger. Their attempts to control markets and raw materials will lead to endless wars and destruction.

The victory of the working class can only mean the downfall of the capitalist state. Will the capitalists accept their defeat with sportsmanship, calmly retreat? No, all history shows that they will not accept their defeat. The workers must build a new state, for the first time defending the rule of the majority over the minority.

Lenin in his masterpiece, State and Revolution , argued, "The proletariat needs the state only temporarily. We do not at all differ from the anarchists regarding the annihilation of the state as a goal. We still maintain that to achieve this goal we must temporarily use instruments, resources and methods of state power to fight the exploiters."

"Marxists fully agree with anarchists regarding the ultimate goal: the liquidation of the state. Marxists are statists only in the sense that we cannot achieve the goal of liquidating the state by simply ignoring it."

From the start, the workers' state would not be like the previous state machines. From day one, the country was in fact a semi-state. The task of all previous revolutions was to take state power. From the experience of the Paris Commune in 1871, Marx and Engels concluded that it was impossible for workers to simply use the old state apparatus (the bourgeois state), they had to replace it with an entirely new state, to serve the interests of the majority and build the foundations of a socialist society.

To ensure that the workers retained control over the state, Lenin proposed that all officials should be elected and recallable, and paid no more than the wages of a skilled worker. All bureaucratic tasks must be rotated. There is no special armed body standing above the people, and may we add, all political parties except the fascists are allowed to organize.

The task of the workers' state is to develop the economy to eradicate poverty. The less poverty, the less need to organize society, the less need for a state. Class society and the state will begin to disappear when people's government, the rule of one class over another, is replaced by a system of administration, the planned use of resources to meet the needs of society.

Anarchism's utopian call to destroy the state overnight demonstrates neither a sense of the state nor the program of action necessary to achieve its self-imposed goals.

As a modern philosophy, anarchism flourished in the 19th century along with the rapid development of capitalism and its state machinery. Anarchism represents the uprising of the petty bourgeoisie which has lost its position in society, squeezed by monopoly developments.

The interests of this petty bourgeoisie were represented by Mikhail Bakunin and his supporters in the First International. At the Anarchist Conference of 1872, they argued "The aspirations of the proletariat must have no other aim than the establishment of an economic organization and a federation which is truly free and based on work and equality and completely independent of political government, and such an organization can only be formed by spontaneous action." the proletariat itself... political organization can only be an organization of power for the benefit of a class and to the detriment of the masses... the proletariat, when it takes power, will become the ruling and oppressing class..."

Conquest of Power

As radical as this sounds, however, the above argument is tantamount to a recipe for inaction and disaster. As Trotsky explained, "The denial of the conquest of power is tantamount to voluntarily leaving that power to those who wield it, namely the oppressors. The essence of every revolution is to put a new class into power, thereby enabling that class to carry out its own program in life. It is impossible to wage war and refuse victory. It is impossible to lead the masses into rebellion without preparing for the conquest of power."

Anarchists saw the degeneration of the Soviet Union into a totalitarian dictatorship as proof that Bakunin was right. In fact, only Leon Trotsky and Marxism could explain the causes of this degeneration, finding the roots of this degeneration not in the human head or personality, but in the real conditions of life that flowed from civil wars, foreign interventions, and defeats of revolutions. in Europe. This position of anarchism only confirms the slander of the bourgeoisie that Stalinism is inseparable from Bolshevism.

At first, this modern anarchism found some support among the workers. However, throughout their struggle, the workers realized the need for organization in the form of trade unions, and also for political organization leading to the formation of a mass workers' party. Bakunin et al. rejecting participation in parliament, or the struggle for reforms as a betrayal of the revolution, they "rejected all political action, which, in their opinion, had no immediate and immediate objective of workers' victory over capitalism, and as a result, the annihilation of the state."

Marxism strove for the conquest of political power by the working class and the building of a socialist society, in which the state would cease to exist. Before that, should workers distance themselves from political activity? Should they reject all reforms that could improve their lives? Nothing pleases Blair (Tony Blair, British prime minister at the time) and capitalists more. Of course not, we must defend the struggle for every slightest improvement, and seize every opportunity that opens up to us. Only an idiot could refuse better wages or a public health care system. Through this struggle, and the struggle to change labor organizations, trade unions and labor parties,

Reform under capitalism

The Marxists fought for every reform, and at the same time made it clear that this achievement was not safe if capitalism continued. Only socialism can solve society's problems.

Our modern anarchists, Reclaim the Streets and others, have no support from organized British labour. However, some young radicals are attracted to their "direct action." There was a vacuum because there was no Labor Party youth organization which, in its struggle for a socialist program, could interest young workers and students. With no leadership from top trade unionists, and the Labor Party in government attacking young people, for a while the vacuum was partly filled by groups like Reclaim the Streets .

What action are they proposing? In their media statement (2/5/00), they explained, "We are not protesting. Under the shadow of an irrelevant parliament, we are planting the seeds of a society where the common people have control over their land, natural resources them, their food, and their decision-making process. This garden is symbolic of an impulse to be self-sufficient, rather than dependent on capitalism."

The fact that the parliament seems powerless to stop layoffs or environmental destruction only shows that the parliament is serving the interests of capitalism. However, under pressure from the people, it is possible to introduce reforms for the benefit of the common people through parliament. There is no point declaring that parliament is irrelevant, and leaving parliament when the majority disagrees and still expect the government to make their lives better. This is a reflection of the sectarian attitude towards the Labor Party. All avenues that can be used to improve our lives must be used.

"Self-subsistent"

After all, "self-help" is not an alternative. Swadaya will not bring electricity to our homes, educate our children or treat us when we fall sick. There is more than enough wealth to meet all the needs of society, the problem is that we don't have that wealth. Individualism (swadaya) cannot be an alternative to socialism, in which all the wealth of society is in our hands, and we all contribute what we can to society in a commensurate manner.

Guerrilla farming and similar activities that have sprung up in various places, are simply a continuation of old, utopian ideas to transform society by exemplary methods. The roots of the idea come from idealistic philosophy. The idealist philosophy refers to the concept that a person's actions are a consequence of their thoughts, that it is ideas and not our living conditions that determine our outlook on life. If, through a prolonged process of accumulation, we change people's way of thinking, then they will live differently, capitalism will become redundant. The capitalist class will sit quietly and watch their system fall.

Although anarchists believe in the revolutionary struggle to conquer capitalism, they argue that capitalism must be replaced with... nothing. However, without a central apparatus, without organization, how can the trains run on time, how can organ transplant operations be organised, how can the wealth of the world be channeled to permanently eradicate poverty.

In their publication, 'Maybe', Reclaim the Street tells us "This increasingly unified radical social movement does not want to seize power, but wants to liquidate power. It dreams of many alternative forms of autonomous social organization, forms that linked to specific locality needs. What would be an alternative to capitalism for people now living in housing in Croydon is completely different from what would suit people living in the slums of Delhi."

New forms of society in different countries or different regions should concern us. The economic power we have built up over centuries can and must be used in a planned and rational way to eradicate hunger, disease and illiteracy. This economic power must be used for the benefit of the whole of society. This can only be achieved by planning a democratic society where the power at our fingertips can be wielded in respect for the future of this planet, maintaining the planet's wealth, our working conditions and standards of living. Like it or not, planting a few carrots on bare ground isn't going to eradicate hunger.

We have the ability to end hunger, but only if we combine new technology, industry, and the expertise and active participation of millions of human beings.

The economic power we have created can be compared to the destructive power of lightning, wild and chaotic in the market, but when it is organized into wires and conducts electricity it will change our lives. Our enemy is not industry, nor machines. The state is our enemy, but the state is only a symptom, not a disease in itself. The disease is capitalism and its economic ownership, it is the management of society by capitalism that we must replace.

Our task today is to combine the strength and experience of the working class and its all-powerful organizations with the strength and energy of young people on an international scale, on the basis of a clear understanding of capitalism, the state and a program to change society. This requires a combination of theory and action. In this combination lies the power of Marxism.

If you want to fight against capitalism, fight with the weapons of the socialist program and the perspective of socialism. Join us in the struggle for the transformation of socialism on this planet.