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Swedish politicians invited anarchists for debate about the

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Wendal
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Feb 1 2005 14:53
Swedish politicians invited anarchists for debate about the

Anyone who has any idea on how to react on this?

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Some scandals have chaken the Swedish left. Feminists who has worked into the goverment without any real positive results for the feminist agenda(surprise!) started a breakoutgroup and a feminist-party has even been debated. Members of parties who are feed up with their parties neoliberal ideas has also shown intrest for starting a new party or at least change the way Vänsterpartiet( the Swedish left party, smaller than the bigger more reformative social-democratic party) is going. The spokesperson for Vänster partiet has also refused to stop calling himself communist and an documentary that showed that there is still people in the party that is pro-authorian communism has made the party worried after the scandal that this documentary created. The fact that many (exspecially young)people on the left in Sweden works in autonomous groups but dont vote has also been noticed by the parlamentalists.

When the workgroup for a new left in Sweden called Vägval Vänster*(that might turn into a party)had its first meeting they invited one ex-editor of the Syndicalist paper Arbetaren(she was also invited as a represantative for the new feminist movement). That created a spectacular scene when she took up issues that has been more or less avoided in the debate between politicians. The whole debate was sended directly on public TV

After a debate between her and a member of the green party parlamentarists and syndicalists entered the stage all of them talking in positive words about libertian socialism and syndicalism. They also invited a 17-year woman who participated in the debate to join the party.

Vägvalvänster has earlier seemed to turn into a more neoliberal version of Vänsterpartiet. It would be good to know now if there could be a serious atemp from this network/party to work together with libertian socialists/anarchists. They might also have sudenly started to talk about working with the new left to make them pacive while they modernise the swedish left into another neoliberal party.

Anyone who nows about anything like this that has happened before? Has it happened in your country? What should we do? An anarchist revolution demands after all a spontanous uprising of the masses, so being able to reach people this way might not only be bad. Please reply to this news post.

*Crossroad for the left

http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1042&a=372026

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Mike Harman
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Feb 1 2005 15:22

Wendal, do you know anything about Democratic Alternative - which I think covers Norway as well as Sweden? Can't find much on the web about them - they anything to do with this?

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Steven.
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Feb 1 2005 17:59

Sorry wendal I find that quite hard to understand.

What was the full title of the thread meant to be cos at the moment it's "Swedish politicians invited anarchists for debate about the"

confused

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cantdocartwheels
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Feb 2 2005 02:50

sounds a little like what happened with the german green party in the 80's when they had their hard left charter of principles thing and used to involve marxists/anarchists in political discussion fairly openly.

I can think of at least one die hard member of the swedish left party i sort of know, and he's openly an unorthodox leninist so who knows ,mind you tho he has contempt for most forms of left communism, maybe i'll ask him about this.

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Nick Durie
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Feb 2 2005 08:01

I know the SNP and the SSP definitely have contained members with council communist views. Many members of the Scottish Socialist Youth are very radical and there are some among them who'd self-identify as anarchists. Nonetheless I don't think people stay in the parties if they arre in open disagreement with them for very long if they have a spine.

I'm interested in your statement: "An anarchist revolution demands after all a spontanous uprising of the masses"

I totally disagree with this as an anarchist. I think this 'spontaneous' stuff is actually quite dangerous as an idea. I think that a revolution (and I use that term loosely because I don't see there being one big event in the old school sense) is something that we have to build. There may be mass uprisings but these have happened before and have gotten nowhere because the civil infrastructure needed to wrest power from capitalists and the state has not been in place.

For Communism

red n black star Nick Durie red n black star

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Wendal
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Feb 2 2005 11:30
John. wrote:
Sorry wendal I find that quite hard to understand.

What was the full title of the thread meant to be cos at the moment it's "Swedish politicians invited anarchists for debate about the"

confused

Oh sorry man, it should be Swedish politicians invited anarchists for debate about the new left

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Wendal
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Feb 2 2005 11:37
Catch wrote:
Wendal, do you know anything about Democratic Alternative - which I think covers Norway as well as Sweden? Can't find much on the web about them - they anything to do with this?

Not as a whole group. Its more a result of politicians breaking free from their parties for various reasons combined with an atemp to work together with autonomous groups. Most group mentioned inside Democratic Alternative would be of intrest for one part of VägValVänster. The other part is the one that even think that the left-parties of sweden is to far to the left and they are more likely to work towards a parlamentialistic neoliberal socialdemocracy. Other want to keep their parties the same but with more issues about feminism and ecology. Its a new network and might end up as a party.

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Wendal
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Feb 2 2005 11:40
cantdocartwheels wrote:
sounds a little like what happened with the german green party in the 80's when they had their hard left charter of principles thing and used to involve marxists/anarchists in political discussion fairly openly.

I can think of at least one die hard member of the swedish left party i sort of know, and he's openly an unorthodox leninist so who knows ,mind you tho he has contempt for most forms of left communism, maybe i'll ask him about this.

The swedish left party(and those who are still authorian communists in it for sure) looks at this as a division that will give more power to the right. The only trouble tough is that we right now dont have any left party to vote on, and as an anarchist there is no party that is even close to participating with my people until now. If VägValVänster turns up ok i might just give them a vote. That wont stop the agenda to overthrow the goverment tough. smile

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Wendal
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Feb 2 2005 11:56
Nick Durie wrote:

I'm interested in your statement: "An anarchist revolution demands after all a spontanous uprising of the masses"

I totally disagree with this as an anarchist. I think this 'spontaneous' stuff is actually quite dangerous as an idea. I think that a revolution (and I use that term loosely because I don't see there being one big event in the old school sense) is something that we have to build. There may be mass uprisings but these have happened before and have gotten nowhere because the civil infrastructure needed to wrest power from capitalists and the state has not been in place.

For Communism

red n black star Nick Durie red n black star

Who are we? We the people? We the communist intelectual elite? This wasnt meant to be hostile, just an honest question.

Today we dont need the bosses. We dont have to sit around and look silly when the capitalists flees the field like the bolsheviks had too. The workers nows about every part of the production(except from the capitalism, that we are going to abolish anyhow) and are totaly experienced enough to make inteligent decissions in their production unit through voting in union without any expertise. That was not the case during the russian revolution. Therefore they needed to have a party that told people what to do. Parlamentarism and to an even bigger degree is a cul de sac for the revolution. Authorian regime during war against capitalists who together with other countries try to take back the power can also have the same fatal effect. If ten countries starts a war against your country after the revolution it might be tricky to create and autonomous resistance that can put up a real fight against the invaders ruled by their generals under faschist regime(the highets degree of effectivness). To find alternative ways to defend your country or avoid war would be great for the result of the revolution tough. I find the atemps by the capitalists to take back power to be the thing that would be the biggest trouble to answer in an anarchist way. I have a strong belief that the production could be organised in a functional anarchosyndicalistic network of factories, farms and so on and also that people who dont want to participate in that will have a possibility to make a life of their own outside the network(which would mean a lot of more work for them to produce their basic needs tough).

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blindsheep
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Feb 2 2005 15:25
Nick Durie wrote:

I'm interested in your statement: "An anarchist revolution demands after all a spontanous uprising of the masses"

I totally disagree with this as an anarchist. I think this 'spontaneous' stuff is actually quite dangerous as an idea. I think that a revolution (and I use that term loosely because I don't see there being one big event in the old school sense) is something that we have to build. There may be mass uprisings but these have happened before and have gotten nowhere because the civil infrastructure needed to wrest power from capitalists and the state has not been in place.

For Communism

red n black star Nick Durie red n black star

I agree with what Nick said, to me 'spontanous uprisings' historically are coup d'etats and not 'mass' at all. An anarchist revolution requires mass public support. How can this appear out of nowhere 'spontanously' on a mass scale? Perhaps there is a mass collection of other examples to back up Wendal's statement? However I do know that the collectives in Spain were certainly anything but instant in their development or through their actions.

Perhaps I'm just interpreting Wendal's use of 'spontanous' in the wrong way.

Wendal wrote:

Who are we? We the people? We the communist intelectual elite? This wasnt meant to be hostile, just an honest question.

I believe Nick was referring to the anarchist movement as a whole.

Wendal wrote:

Today we dont need the bosses. We dont have to sit around and look silly when the capitalists flees the field like the bolsheviks had too. The workers nows about every part of the production(except from the capitalism, that we are going to abolish anyhow) and are totaly experienced enough to make inteligent decissions in their production unit through voting in union without any expertise. That was not the case during the russian revolution. Therefore they needed to have a party that told people what to do. Parlamentarism and to an even bigger degree is a cul de sac for the revolution. Authorian regime during war against capitalists who together with other countries try to take back the power can also have the same fatal effect. If ten countries starts a war against your country after the revolution it might be tricky to create and autonomous resistance that can put up a real fight against the invaders ruled by their generals under faschist regime(the highets degree of effectivness). To find alternative ways to defend your country or avoid war would be great for the result of the revolution tough. I find the atemps by the capitalists to take back power to be the thing that would be the biggest trouble to answer in an anarchist way. I have a strong belief that the production could be organised in a functional anarchosyndicalistic network of factories, farms and so on and also that people who dont want to participate in that will have a possibility to make a life of their own outside the network(which would mean a lot of more work for them to produce their basic needs tough).

I guess I just feel that the 'functional anarcho-syndicalist network of factories, farms, and so on' requires some level of infrastructure development before a revolution would take place. This would make it something other than spontanous.

Again, the Spanish spent over six decades preparing and practicing with collectives of various scales... The vast majority of the public today has minimal administration experience because the elite hoards all administrative tasks. It's not an ability issue, but an experience, knowledge, and education issue. Anything beyond the primativist goal would require alot of administration (of things, not people) which means we would presumably require some level of practice first or any post-revolution period is going to be vastly more difficult than it needs to be.

--Blindsheep

-----------------------

Progressive Anarchist Think Tank - phub.org

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Wendal
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Feb 2 2005 16:23

The word sponthaneous chould be used while at the same time comparing it to Bolshevik revolution, i.e. an intelectual minority takes the power and creates an "temporary" dictatorship that will prepare for a land where class is abolished and the people rule supreme. We have public schooling and an organisation of the industry that is different from the patriarch model with a hand and a brain. Beacuse the workers are no longer only the hand the need of organisation is a whole less smaller than it was in for example spain. Preparing for the post-revolutionary world through unions and other networks is great tough and if anyone is worried if we will be organised enoug to have good standards without the bosses then i sugest that those people keep that in mind when creating networks and movement. Lets also not forget that if we get rid of the capitalists then the whole society will be able to share the whole production which means a lot less work. That might lead to that in the begining of the postrevolutionary world when the network isnt totaly finished we might work as much as usual but since it is in the labourers intrest to work as little as possible to get what she need the unions will probably do their best to make the conections between the productionunits more effective.

It feels great to think about a postrevolutionary world in these gloomy days by the way.