Preface to Ida Mett’s “The Kronstadt Commune” by Maurice Brinton
The fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution will be assessed, analyzed, celebrated or bemoaned in a variety of ways.
To the peddlers of religious mysticism and to the advocates of “freedom of enterprise,” Svetlana Stalin’s sensational (and well-timed) defection will “prove” the resilience of their respective doctrines, now shown as capable of sprouting on what at first sight would appear rather barren soil.
To incorrigible liberals, the recent, cautious reintroduction of the profit motive into certain sectors of the Russian economy will “prove” that laissez-faire economics is synonymous wit... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Note from Marxists Internet Archive
Between 1961 and 1965 Socialisme ou Barbarie published (in its issues 36–40) an important article by Paul Cardan entitled Marxisme et Théorie Révolutionnaire. Part I dealt with ‘the historical fate of marxism and the notion of orthodoxy’ and this pamphlet is based on that section. Part II went on to discuss ‘the marxist theory of history’. We published it under the title History and Revolution in August 1971. Further sections, not yet translated, deal with ‘the marxist philosophy of history’, ‘the two elements in marxism and what historically became of them’, ‘the balance sheet’, and ‘the nature of revolutionary t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
A Note from Solidarity
We are pleased to bring our readers a further installment, in English, of Marxisme et Théorie Révolutionnaire by Cornelius Castoriadis (Paul Cardan). The original French text appeared (between 1961 and 1964) in issues 36–40 of the now defunct journal Sociallsme ou Barbarie. The first chapter of Marxisme et Théorie Revolutionnaire (‘La situation historique du marxisme et la question d’orthodoxie’) was first published in English by Solidarity (London) in 1966 (vol. IV, no. 3) under the title The Fate of Marxism. It was later reprinted as a pamphlet. We published the second chapter (’La théorie Marxiste de l’histoire’) in 1971, calling it &lsquo... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Part Three
[Introduction]
We have tried to show[56] that socialism is nothing other than people’s conscious self-organization of their own lives in all domains; that it signifies, therefore, the management of production by the producers themselves on the scale of the workplace as well as on that of the economy as a whole; that it implies the abolition of every ruling apparatus separated from society; that it has to bring about a profound modification of technology and of the very meaning of work as people’s primordial activity and, conjointly, an overthrow of all the values toward which capitalist society implicitly or explicitly is oriented.
This elaboration allows us in the first place to unmask the mystificat... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The downfall of the Roman Empire lasted three centuries. Two years have sufficed, without the aid of foreign barbarians, to dislocate irreparably the worldwide network of power directed from Moscow, its ambitions for world hegemony, and the economic, political and social relationships which held it together. Search as one might, it is impossible to find a historical analogy to this pulverization of what seemed just yesterday a steel fortress. The granite monolith has suddenly shown itself to be held together with its saliva, while the horrors, monstrosities, lies and absurdities being revealed day after day have proved to be even more incredible than anything the most acerbic critics among us had been able to affirm.
At the same time... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Note from Marxists Internet Archive
This article was first published as an introduction to Alexandra Kollontai’s The Workers Opposition, but it can stand alone as a refutation of the standard Leninist/Trotskyist claim that the Soviet Union only degenerated post 1924, i.e. after Lenin’s death, and as such has been published in pamphlet form by a number of groups.
[1. The Significance of the Russian Revolution]
We are happy to present to our readers the first translation into French of Alexandra Kollontai’s pamphlet The Workers’ Opposition in Russia. This pamphlet was published in Moscow at the beginning of 1921, during the violent controversy that preceded the Tenth Congress of the Bolshevik party. Th... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Notations by Cornelius Castoriadis (1957)
Annotations by <em>Solidarity</em> (1972)
[1] “Production” here meaning the shop-floor, not “the economy” or “the market.”
[2] The belief that socialism can be achieved through Parliament is, therefore, naive in the extreme. Moreover, it perpetuates illusions in the significance of this kind of popular “representation.”
[3] In the first chapter of his book, The Workers’ Councils (Melbourne: 1950), Anton Pannekoek develops a similar analysis of the problems confronting socialist society. On the fundamental issues our points of view are very close.
[4] Bakunin once described the problem of socialism as being “to... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Remarks
This text and the following one [Trans.: i.e., “The Proletariat and Organization, II,” which is not included in the present edition] were written during the summer of 1958 and circulated within the S. ou B. group in the autumn of the same year. The references to Claude Lefort’s text, around which the comrades who left the group were united, are given later. I do not have anything of great import to add to the description of circumstances surrounding this scission furnished in the following text, for otherwise I would have to go into detail about the history of the group from its beginnings, a task that does not strike me as particularly urgent today. On the antecedents to this whole discussion, see also &ldq... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)