Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Price of Rebellion

Recently had an exchange here in Anarkismo and was particularly surprised by one of the responses of a supposedly learned theoretician of this platformist anarchst group .
"An alternate strategy? I would recommend general strikes and other forms of mass actions, the arming of the working people and their allies..." (my emphasis)

I half remembered a Murray Bookchin quote to offer as a riposte and now eventually found it .

From his Anarchism , Marxism and the Future of the Left :-

"...human beings cannot be free - except under very rare conditions , such as during revolutions and for limited periods of time ; even then , they must still leave the barricades and return to work to satisfy their needs and those of their families . They have to eat , if you please....."

Bookchin continued with an example:-

" ...In May 1937 in Barcelona , the workers had to conquer the Stalinist counterrevolution then and there . But they delayed , and after four days they had to leave the streets to obtain food..."


1 comment:

Frank Partisan said...

I live in Minneapolis, near where the Republican Party will have their convention, to crown their presidential candidate.

The anarchists are leading a coalition to demonstrate. They think having a program, or set demands is authoritarian. Their events will be bring your own tactics and bring your own demands. I'm not making that up.