Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The Duping of Anarchist Revolutionaries - The Modern Anarchist Movement and The Russian Revolution

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Brandon Turbeville
February 10, 2015

Whenever an individual or group of individuals is confronted with the realities of the oppressive State apparatus, there exists a number of choices – either accept one’s slavery and do nothing, agitate for a change in the State apparatus, or advocate for the abolition of the State altogether.

The first choice, simple acceptance of one’s own oppression, is the most vile of all choices, of course. But, while the attempt to change the State apparatus into a more suitable and beneficial institution is often weak, tepid, and insufficient in the way it is carried out by those attempting to do so, the attempt to remove all vestiges of order and regulatory policy is a very close second.

Nevertheless, it is this ideology that has not only become so attractive to activists for decades it is also one that has been easily co-opted and used against the very activists that advocate for it. Indeed, anarchists have unfortunately been used by the world oligarchy as battering rams and cannon fodder for ushering in its own agenda for generations.

Out of the many examples in world history where the use of anarchists by the world oligarchy can be demonstrated, the Russian Revolution(s) of Kerensky, Trotsky, and Lenin (the Communist Revolution) is one that exemplifies the technique of using dedicated idealistic anarchist youth to act as the spearhead for a "revolution” not of their own making. Indeed, it is also an example of how such revolutions almost always lead to a situation that is infinitely worse than what the discontented foot soldiers might envision.

In addition, the history of 20th Century anarchism in Russia might come as quite a surprise to the many modern members of the anarchist movement who seem perplexed at the suggestion that such a thing as a “left-wing anarchist” exists. Indeed, the “left” was promoting anarchy before anarchy was cool.

Unfortunately, modern anarchists (who no doubt mean very well), are often deceived into fighting for the very same interests as Wall Street, major corporations, and even, ironically, government. For instance, the argument against the ban on GMO food, against regulation of banks, against social safety net protections, pro-austerity, and against the regulation of major corporations etc. are all desires of major banks and corporations. However, if these institutions, who are often largely hated amongst even those who are only informed of basic affairs, argue openly for their desires, the activist community might come to suspect these points of argument as the poisons they truly are. Instead, providing the cover of the “free market,” “anarchist societies,” “community culture,” to the actual goals of the oligarchs creates the “revolutionary” edge to what, in reality, will produce nothing other than a Hunger Games society.

While a detailed study of all instances of the use of anarchy to achieve the goals of the world oligarchy are beyond the scope of this article, we can briefly examine one instance in one location during one point in history as an example.

The “Anarchist” Movement In Russia

As mentioned above, the question of anarchists and anarchy being used to usher in the agenda of the world oligarchy was precisely the method used to usher in the Communist Revolution in Russia. However, the presence of anarchist revolutionaries (which would come to be known as Communists) existed long before the actual Red Banners flew over St. Petersburg.

Indeed, the revolutionary terrorists had been organized under the communo-anarchist banner even long before their successful assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1885. The assassination of Alexander II, of course, could be seen as a clear example of how these “revolutionaries” were not working for the benefit of the working class and peasantry as they had professed but instead working at the behest of the world oligarchy, wealthy elites, and powers that were not necessarily native to Russia. This, of course, is despite the fact that many of the revolutionary anarchists were convinced that they were indeed fighting for a better world for the underclass. (Note: This statement applies to many of the lower level revolutionaries but by no means all and by no means those at the higher levels.)

From the very beginning, the anarcho-communists worked against the best wishes of the Russian people. Despite the rhetoric surrounding workers, peasants, liberation, and liberalism in general, the early Communists, in the form of anarchists,[1] worked against the interests of the Russian people at every turn. Each time the Russian ruling class would make an overture toward greater rights for Russian peasants, the revolutionaries would be there to assassinate the initiators of the reforms. Each time the Russian monarchy would move forward with an attempt to meet some level of demands made by the anarchists, the revolutionary groups would step up their attacks against the monarchy so as to preclude any tangible change.

As Robert K. Massie wrote in his biography of the Tsar and Empress, Nicholas and Alexandra,
For Nicholas, the most dramatic proof of Pobedonestev’s teachings against the dangers of liberalism was the brutal assassination of his grandfather, Alexander II, the most liberal of Russia’s nineteenth-century tsars. For his historic freeing of the serfs, Alexander II was known as the ‘Tsar-Liberator,’ yet his murder became the preeminent objective of Russian revolutionaries. The assassins went to extraordinary lengths.
Tsar Alexander III was also targeted by the same network of so-called “anarchists” and “revolutionaries.” Indeed, the Ulyanov family [Vladmir Lenin’s family] was one of the prime actors in the attempt to kill Alexander III early on. As Massie writes,

In the spring of 1887, his [Lenin’s] older brother Alexander was arrested in St. Petersburg, along with four other university students, on the charge of trying to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. They had been apprehended with a crude, unworkable bomb concealed inside a hollowed medical dictionary. Alexander did not deny the charge. To his mother, who hurried to his side, he declared, ‘I tried to kill the Tsar. The attempt failed and that is all there is to it.’[2] [3] 

These “revolutionaries” had succeeded in assassinating Alexander II in 1881 by means of a bomb. The organization responsible for the assassination was called the Naradnaya Volya, a “revolutionary society” that Lenin’s older brother had been a part of.[4] Naradnaya Volya itself had descended from another “revolutionary” organization called Land and Liberty.

Eventually, with Nicholas II on the throne and the Anglo-American backed ‘revolution’ having shifted its focus on killing him, the new push for what amounted to a color revolution began in earnest. In 1905, there was an attempt by the ‘revolutionaries’ to organize a march on the Winter Palace as well as an alleged attempt to assassinate Nicholas II. This uprising came amidst the Putilov workers’ strike (which itself came as a result of the stunning mismanagement of the war).

Interestingly enough, while the Tsar’s Russia was being painted as an iron fisted dictatorship over the working class and average citizen, American leaders were calling for violence against striking workers on a regular basis.

During the Pullman strike of 1894, William Howard Taft, then a judge, called for the killing of the striking workers by the U.S. military. In 1900, Theodore Roosevelt called for summary executions of striking workers. In Russia, however, the Tsar is painted as somehow very different from the ruling class of the United States and other industrialized nations.[5] As is the case of every target of the Anglo-American establishment, the Tsar was painted as a brutal dictator that killed his own people and crushed all dissent. While such claims may be true in many cases, even in the case of the Russian Tsardom, the claims are often wildly exaggerated and/or repeated in order to engender the overthrow of the regime. The intended overthrow, of course, is not for the benefit of the citizenry, it is generally geopolitical or internally tyrannical in nature.

Tsarism, of course, with its autocratic rule of genetic royalty, was not only an oppressive system of government but an insult to the collective worth of the Russian people. Despite the fact that the serfs had been freed, the Russian people en masse tended to live a life of poverty, hard work, and quiet desperation. The “revolutionaries,” however, while playing on the justified resentment of many affected parties and the apathy of the vast populace, had much worse plans for Russia and its people.

The Killing Of Stolypin

As mentioned above, the ‘revolutionaries’ and ‘anarchists,’ at every turn managed to attack, oppose, and/or assassinate those individuals in the government who were working and achieving the greatest gains for reform. The case of Peter Stolypin also serves to prove this point.

Throughout the “revolution,” Stolypin was responsible for negotiating peaceful settlements to disputes between participants in uprisings, striking workers, and the government. Tasked with suppressing the uprisings, Stolypin did not use the force of police or military soldiers but walked directly into the midst of the “rebels,” discussed the situation with them, and ultimately persuaded the leaders to lay day their arms, all while keeping the soldiers at bay.[6]

Eventually, Stolypin was made Prime Minister. Once in his new position, Stolypin sought to address root causes of discontent by the Russian peasants. It was this legitimate discontent, after all, that allowed uprisings to occur and gave the “Communist Revolutionaries/Anarchists” the ability to latch on to these issues and co-opt the energy of angry Russians for the purposes of using them as cannon fodder for the color revolution.

As Prime Minister, Stolypin first ordered the capture and hanging of assassins of government officials in order to stem the tide of violence, destabilizations, and murder that was taking hold of the “revolution.” He then began to tackle the issues that were facing average Russian people such as land ownership, farming, education, economics, transportation, and freedom of religion and of the press.[7]

Notably, the farming conditions of Russian peasant farmers were what many would consider to be an anarchist paradise despite the fact that whole of Russian land was owned by genetic royalty. Most peasants were entirely agrarian who eeked out their lives from the land. They lived largely in leaderless communes, they made communal decisions regarding that land, and worked the land in coordination and partnership with one another.[8]

Of course, this method was incredibly inefficient. As Massie writes “within each commune, a single peasant might farm as much as fifty small strips, each containing a few thin rows of corn or wheat. Often, the peasant spent more time walking between his scattered furrows than he did plowing the earth or scything the grain.” It was Stolypin, as an agent of the government, that introduced the concept of private property to Russian society.[9]

By decree, Stolypin declared that any Russian peasant who so desired could pull out of the communes and claim from that commune a share of land to farm for himself. Stolypin also declared that the land claimed by the peasant was to be in one piece, not disheveled strips which could then be passed on to his children. The Tsar then ordered 4 million acres of “Crown-owned” land be sold to the government, which itself would sell them to the peasants at “easy terms.”[10]

As agrarian life of the Russian peasant class improved, the Russian economy improved. Free education was introduced, censorship of the press was ended, and religious tolerance grew.[11]

Yet it was Lenin and his group of “revolutionaries/anarchists” that were the most staunch in their hatred of Stolypin and his policies. Their hatred was based upon the fact that any improvement in the condition of the Russian people reduced their ability to recruit cannon fodder and the will of the people for their cause. As Massie writes, “Revolutionaries hated to see any amelioration of a system which bred discontent. For Lenin and his dwindling band of exiles, the Stolypin era was a time of fading hope.”[12]

The lifting of the burden of discontent was studded, however, by the assassination of Stolypin in a scene that mirrored the assassination of an American president. As Stolypin rose during an intermission of an opera, an assassin walked down the aisle, stood face to face with Stolypin, pulled out a Browning revolver and shot Stolypin twice in the chest.[13]

While the leading Russian regime was indeed corrupt, autocratic, and oppressive, it was at all times those who lead the charge for reform who were targeted by the “anarchists” and “revolutionaries.”

The Duping Of Anarchists and Revolutionaries

Without attempting to summarize the history of Russia, the Communist revolution, or the history of anarchism, color revolutions, or other mass movements, it can be seen how movements largely seen as popular and organic by the public and the activist community can, in reality, be used to usher in a system that is not only worse than the one it replaced but one that is antithetical to human dignity and even the professed goals of the movement itself.

This article is not meant to single out anarchists as the only dupes of mass social movement and false revolutions. Without a doubt, every division of political thought has seen its “members” become dupes of color revolutions, co-opting, and false group consciousness. However, within the alternative media and modern day activist culture, anarchy has grown to become one of the dominant ideologies.

Anarchy, while openly embraced by some members of the left who espouse Marxism, Socialism, or Communism, is often viewed by the right as the opposite of these ideologies. For right leaning anarchists, there is no such thing as a left wing anarchist. For them, anarchy simply means following Libertarian-style principles, Laissez-faire economics, localism, and tribalism to its natural ends.

But it is important to understand that each and every one of these ideologies have also been pushed across the world by ruling elite. Anarchy is by no means an exception. In fact, anarchy and anarchists have been used successfully by agents of international banks, major corporations, and other intelligence agencies/secret societies over the last two centuries. Note that I am not referring to anarchist provocateurs such as the Black Block, but the ideology of anarchy as well as the “anarchist movements” in general. Not every person that takes part in a color revolutions is an agent of the government or the color revolution apparatus nor is the necessarily a conscious willing participant. The Communist Revolution is but one example out of many.

Without attempting to provide a detailed book-length study into the history of how anarchists and anarchism has been pushed as an outlet for individuals unhappy with government control, oppression, low living standards etc., we can move forward to take a short look at the anarchist movement of today to see the same promotion of anarchy from the very halls of society that would allegedly fall from power if anarchy was ever realized. We can see that, not only are big banks, corporations, and even governments satisfied with the anarchist ideology becoming pervasive in the activist community, but they are pushing this ideology due to its inability to ever bring about legitimate positive change regardless of whether or not it succeeds. This is the case whether one espouses Anarcho-Communism, Anarcho-Capitalism, or any other hybrid ideologies and denominations in between.

The Modern Anarchist Movement

Modern anarchists – regardless of whether they may be well-meaning – consistently find themselves on the side as the ruling elite. From questions that involve banks, corporations, economics, national infrastructure, privatization, policing, benefits, wages, and even societal structure itself, anarchism consistently come down on the side of big banks, big corporations, and the robber barons who helped fashion this burdensome economic and oppressive society to begin with.

In short, anarchism consistently pisses in its own drinking water. Anarchism almost always makes (or proposes to make if its goals are ever actually implemented) the outcome of their movements worse than the system that existed before it. Where they do not succeed, they manage to poison legitimate movements with ideas that make the movement unpalatable to the general public and entirely lacking in terms of programmatic necessities and demands. Simply put, anarchism cripples movements. Despite the fact that it professes populism and the will of the people, it castrates that will and prevents it from ever being put into motion.

Consider briefly the anti-GMO movement as one case in point. The concern over the proliferation of Genetically Modified Food in the American (and world) food supply is one that largely unites activists from a variety of political pedigrees. These activists can generally agree that GM food production should be stopped and, generally speaking, these sides can agree that such a cease and desist order should come from the State or Federal government. Anarchists, however, argue for the opposite. To the benefit of the major international food corporations, the anarchist argument relies on the “market,” self-sufficiency, and communitarianism. While these solutions are important at the individual and grass-roots building level, they are not national solutions nor are they practical in terms of national policy or demands of a movement.

However, the major international corporations – while antithetical to home gardens, food sharing, and opting away from their products – are in no way concerned about the anarchist solutions. In fact, anarchist solutions are entirely beneficial to them. The lack of regulation, the lack of bans on GMO, the lack of support for family, local, or organic farming – all of this is a tremendous boon to these corporations.

Unfortunately, while generally meaning well, consistently join movements such as the anti-GMO movement, only to tear it apart from within and poison the well of mass movement and organized demands.

The question of reasonable environmental protections, regulation of banking, government ownership of its central bank, social safety net protections for the elderly, sick, and disabled, minimum wage laws, and other protections receive the same response from anarchists as does the anti-GMO movement. In other words, regardless of how well-meaning the activists may be, the anarchist response to each and every one of these questions matches up entirely with the position held by large banks, corporations, and on many occasions, governments.

Indeed, activists who find themselves consistently on the same side as Goldman Sachs, Monsanto, and BP should re-evaluate their methods and ideology. Likewise, any activist that conversely finds themselves consistently on the side of the government should also re-evaluate their strategy as well.

This applies to all activists, not just anarchists. Activists who oppose the evisceration of the social safety net and the implementation of austerity must not allow themselves to be fooled into calling for socialism/communism as a solution. Activists who support the cause of human rights must not allow themselves to be co-opted into believing that their own government works for the benefit of those rights and that such a thing as “humanitarian bombing” actually exists. Likewise, activists who oppose the systemic abuse of American citizens at the hands of police must not allow themselves to become pathetic Social Justice Warriors that target races who exist on the same level of victimization and social class as themselves.

Knee-jerk reactions from the activist community never benefit the activist or the population that the activist believes he is fighting for. Simplistic solutions that either spin the activist off into a never-ending exercise of complaining and griping or those that require throwing the baby out with the bathwater serve only to castrate the activists’ movement or to make it susceptible to the control of the ruling elite by virtue of its emotions.

Following one’s own common sense, intuition, logic, and observations while still managing to organize on a mass scale is the only hope for any movement seeking to become national, international, or at least large enough to have the desired effect. Relying on emotions and reactionism is a recipe for failure.

[1] It is well-documented that Marx argued for a form of Anarchy in his writings, although the level to which anarchy was truly envisioned is a point of contention. It is likely that the calls for anarchy were nothing more than an attempt at utopian populism designed to capture the energy of idealistic youth.

[2] Alexander Ulyanov was ultimately hanged. The Anglo-American Vladmir Lenin, however, reacted in his typical fashion – unfeeling and undeterred from his personal goals. Such was not the first nor was it the last of Lenin’s documented psychopathic reactions and interactions with others.

[3] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. P.77.

[4] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. Pp.10-20.

[5] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. P. 101 – 103.

[6] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. Pp. 216 – 219.

[7] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. Pp. 216 – 219.

[8] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. Pp. 216 – 219.

[9] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. Pp. 216 – 219.

[10] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. Pp. 216 – 219.

[11] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. Pp. 216 – 219.

[12] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. Pp. 216 – 219.

[13] Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. P. 226.


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