Plant a Seed

[Guest]

i've been thinking on revolution and many other things.. and I guess it came to me today. If we are ever to have a revolution, we need to become a major political party (30% i'd say). I have been debating over this topic for weeks upon end as to how this could be achieved, and then it occured to me. We need a writer like Karl Marx. If we can get one piece of amazing literature that becomes well known by the public, we will have planted the seed of revolution. It seems almost every peice of anarchist literature i come accross is written for anarchists, but never toward just the opressed in general. <br> <br>If we are ever to smash this state, we must plant the seed now. We need 1 great peice of anarchist literature, that is brief (between 70-100 pages), gives a full explanation of anarchism, and lights a raging fire in the hearts of those who read it. If we can get a book out like this, and make it reach the general public, we can have a revolution tomorrow. <br> <br>Our struggle has failed for hundreds of years, because our numbers are remaining low. On the other hand, Karl Marx was able to start a revolution for the marxists in a few short years, and completely change the world. Now I'm not saying that Marx's ideas were right, but his method in starting a revolution was extremely successful and i think we should learn a lesson from him. We need great authors who can truly reach the entire world and make a difference for years to come.

[perpetuality]

If his method was so successful, how come we're not all living under communism/Marxism? There's a reason it's called a revolution: it's a full turn-around. <br>Also, I think that's the wrong way to go about it in general. I believe in evolution over revolution, and fervor, or "lighting a raging fire in their hearts," as you say, would die with bad results. Going into it straight-on is kind of like what Bush is doing with Iraq. <br>"'Orange' you glad I didn't tell you what a pain in the ass it would be to stabilize Iraq?" --GYWO

[Insecuritykiller]

While i agree with you on some points i must point out that karl says there will be leaders in the revolution. Ofcourse any revolution needs leaders. Drones love leaders, cause thats all they are drones. <br> <br>You need more than political thoery to break people from dronedom. Upriseing is alot more preferabal, that way we know 100% it isn't going to bounce in our faces and we are just going to have another totalitarion state. Thats possibal even under anarchist revolution if it's not done right. just sit and wait for the evolution i say. help it along speed it up. grow the leadership within the masses and start a trend. I prefer inner revolution.

[Din]

[color=green]If we are ever to have a revolution, we need to become a major political party (30% i'd say).</font color=green> <br> <br>And if we are ever to live in anarchy, we need to dispense entirely with State politics. <br> <br>[color=green]We need a writer like Karl Marx.</font color=green> <br> <br>Oh, dear lord in heaven... <br> <br>[color=green]If we can get a book out like this, and make it reach the general public, we can have a revolution tomorrow.</font color=green> <br> <br>Rather utopian, aren't you? <br> <br>[color=green]On the other hand, Karl Marx was able to start a revolution for the marxists in a few short years, and completely change the world.</font color=green> <br> <br>Few short years? Completely change the world? I don't think so.

[Guest]

Ok, first of all you guys are picking my words way too harshly, and this is exactly the type of thing that is keeping our numbers so slow. As i see it now, everyday our system become a little bit more like facsism. We aren't going anywhere over time and unless this world makes a serious change our movement will eventually be so small that it is worthless. <br> <br>Din, when i said political party i meant a mass of people, with a generally accepted idea. I'm not talking about becoming a part of this system and you know that. <br> <br>When i said Karl Marx, I was NOT referring to his politics, i was reffering to his ability to connect with thousands of people and start a revolution. <br> <br>Yes, I dare to dream, I have watched as our movement has done very little but march around and try to get people to listen who don't care about us. No black bloc or protest is going to lead to revolution as our numbers are as they are now. <br> <br>Karl Marx shaped history and the amouint of time he did it was VERY short considering anarchists have been failing for hundreds of years. Please keep in mind I'm not trying to put down the movement, I just think we need to take a stand, and become a serious threat to the state, or we will be doomed to an endless struggle which will always be won but the rich and the state.

[Guest]

everday the system becomes a little* <br> <br>as our numbers are as low as they are*

[Din]

[color=green]Din, when i said political party i meant a mass of people, with a generally accepted idea. I'm not talking about becoming a part of this system and you know that.</font color=green> <br> <br>No, I do not know that. I tend to think that a political party is a political party. <br> <br>[color=green]When i said Karl Marx, I was NOT referring to his politics, i was reffering to his ability to connect with thousands of people and start a revolution.</font color=green> <br> <br>I also tend to think that a revolution is part of his politics. Not mine. <br> <br>[color=green]Karl Marx shaped history and the amouint of time he did it was VERY short considering anarchists have been failing for hundreds of years.</font color=green> <br> <br>Even if that is remotely true, I would still rather have the so-called "failures" of the anarchists than the supposed "successes" of the marxists.

[jacobhaller]

Unless this is a party in the Marxist sense; we all understand that "the Communists do not form a seperate party opposed to the other working-class parties..." as they demonstrate every day; why when is the last time we saw rival Marxist groups selling newspapers in the back? <br> <br>The more I consider the Communist Manifesto, the less influence I think it has had on the emergence of Marxism. State-Socialism has had a set program and a set strategy since the end of the 18th century and it has not changed a whit. Where Marx copied the existing LOTJ line, he has been followed; where he deviated from the existing line, he has been ignored.

[Guest]

Din, what I am stating is that we should take up the method communism was spred to the people to create a revolutionary situation, and replace the politics of communism with our own. If we refuse to learn from history we will never be able to succeed.

[Insecuritykiller]

again, "palnting the sead" will not change people it will only offer false hopes. unless the book says "You have to do the work!" Which then it will become completely usless, because no one will take notice of it. People love leaders, thats why communism is so popular revolutionaryly.

[Morpheus]

We should not use the methods of authoritarian communism, they result in bureaucratic dictatorship and mass murder. The reason Authoritarian Socialism rather than anarchism became so popular was because of the Bolshevik destruction of the Russian Revolution, before that Anarchism was more popular on a global scale. Many erroneously saw the USSR as some kind of good model to immitate, and it built mass movements. This had nothing to do with good literature; most of Marx's theory was ripped off from previous socialists. <br> <br>See http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/panparty.htm for a critique of "revolutionary" political parties. There is a difference between a party and a movement. <br> <br>A great piece of anarchist literature won't suddenly make us sucessfull. There are already many good pieces of anarchist writing, some of it quite old. It doesn't matter how good your literature is when the system is set up so that only a small number of people will have the change to read it. That's not to say literature and theory don't contribute to building our movement, they do, but the idea that one piece of great literature is going to change the world is bollocks.

[Guest]

I don't think there is anything wrong with writing a great piece of anarchist literature that reach the general public and create a general understanding and knowledge of anarchism. This isn't necessarily a method of authoritarian communism, but rather the communists proved that they could reach people through this method. It has nothing to do with communism, it is simply a method of reaching people. As I see it now, we are not reaching as many peopole as we should. <br> <br>As for Marx ripping his literature off of other communists/socialists, that is irrelevant. I'm not even talking about the actual theory that was in The Communist Manifesto, I'm talking about how he took the communist ideas from all around, put them in one short book, and made a serious impact on the world. The information was already there, he just gave it to the people. <br> <br>Although there is already alot of great anarchist lliterature, most of it is published by people like AK Press, who can't get the books out to the public. I know it would be difficult to find one, but we need to find a publisher who can make our ideas go into the mainstream.

[jacobhaller]

My point is, the Communist Manifesto was a fringe publication at first - it was translated not because of its inherent merit but because the LOTJ vastly overestimated its own influence. Marx himself gradually came to overshadow the older leadership over the next few decades, but it took all that time for people to write serious, careful translations. <br> <br>There have been a few state-socialist authors to aquire a world following (Maxim Gorky, Jack London, George Orwell, Howard Fast) but they have always stayed on the periphery of the movement. Contrast this with anarchist authors and poets (of various stripes) (like Leo Tolstoy, Haywire Mac, Joe Hill, JRR Tolkien, Ian Banks). Perhaps we forget because anarchist authors tend not to beat us over the head with it (both Tolkien and Tolstoy emphasize religion more than politics). And I believe "The Conquest of Bread" far outpaced "The Communist Manifesto".

[Morpheus]

[color=blue]the communists proved that they could reach people through this method.</font color=blue> <br> <br>They didn't reach people through that method. They reached people by sabotaging a popular revolution, creating a totalitarian state, and then using that sabotage to convince people to follow them. <br> <br>[color=blue]I'm talking about how he took the communist ideas from all around, put them in one short book, and made a serious impact on the world.</font color=blue> <br> <br>Marx didn't do that. The Communist Manifesto did not have a big impact when it was written, it was ignored for decades. What made him famous was a really long book called Das Capital, which many people find difficult to read. Much of Marxist literature is unnecessarily complicated, long, and difficult to read, often written for an academic audience and/or using specialized terms that non-radicals don't use often ("bourgeoisie" "valorization" "dialectical" "commodification" "alienation" etc). In fact, on the whole anarchist literature tends to be easier to understand for the layperson than Marxist theory. There have been many introductions to anarchism written (including my "Basic Principles of Anarchism"), some good and some bad, some short and some long. Perhaps a better one could be written, but I don't think writting the best intro ever written is by itself the key to building a mass movement. The authoritarian socialist movement was a complete failure, we shouldn't be imitating them. <br> <br>[color=blue]Although there is already alot of great anarchist lliterature, most of it is published by people like AK Press, who can't get the books out to the public. I know it would be difficult to find one, but we need to find a publisher who can make our ideas go into the mainstream.</font color=blue> <br> <br>Mainstream media, bookstores, etc. are controlled by corporations and the state. We want to overthrow them, so it's not surprising that our writings are not allowed in the mainstream. If we managed to break their controll over the media, bookstores, etc. we would already be half-way to the revolution, new intro or no new intro. And doing that is far more difficult than writing really good anarchist literature.

[Din]

[color=green]There have been a few state-socialist authors ... (Maxim Gorky, Jack London, George Orwell, Howard Fast)</font color=green> <br> <br>Orwell?