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The Libertarian Communist ---------------------------------------------------------- A Discussion Bulletin: In Opposition to the Rule of Capital in all its forms and for Anti State, Non Market Communism _________________________________________________________________ What was the Soviet system? Part 2 Flag of the USSR 1923-55 Analysing the Nature of the System of the Soviet Union? Issue 22: Spring 2013 £1.50 2 The Libertarian Communist Issue 22 Spring 2013 The purpose of The Libertarian Communist is to promote discussion amongst the Anti State, Non Market sector irrespective of whether individuals or groups consider themselves as Anarchist, Communist or Socialist as all such titles are in need of further qualification. If you have disagreements with an article in this or any other issue, wish to offer comment or want to contribute something else to the discussion then please get in touch. If any article focuses on a particular group then that group has, as a matter of course, the right to reply. So please get in touch with your article, letters and comments. You can do this by contacting us at [email protected] or writing to Ray Carr, Flat 1, 99 Princess Road, Branksome, Poole, Dorset. ==================================================================================== Contents Page 2: A summary of Issue 22 Page 2: Editorial: “There is no Alternative” Page 4: Letters Page 5: The Impotence of Revolutionary Groups: Sam Moss (1939) [International Council Correspondence] Page 7: What is the Relationship between Activism and Revolution? Ricardo Monde Page 10: Scientists: Co-operation is Natural and Beneficial: Joe Hopkins Page 12: A Life Worth Choosing: Lyla Byrne Page 15: What was the Soviet System? Part 2: In what sense (if any) was the Soviet System Socialist? Page 20: “Marxism” and Anarchism: Ricardo Monde Page 23: Anti State, Non Market Directory of Groups Summary of Issue 22 This issue continues to examine the concept of the class struggle via Laurens Otter’s comments on our editorial in issue 21 [page 4]: The Impotence of Revolutionary Groups: this dates from 1939 by Sam Moss [page 5] and: What is the Relationship Between Activism and Revolution? Ricardo Monde [page 7]. Two articles focus on the impact of capitalism on human behaviour. The first of these looks at how this may effect the change to a society based on co-operation rather than competition: Scientists: Co-operation is Natural and Beneficial: Joe Hopkins [page 10]; whilst the second examines how property society and in particular the profit system impact on the way we behave; Lyla Byrne A Life Worth Choosing [page 12]. Elsewhere Stefan presents the second and concluding part of his analysis on the nature of the system of the Soviet Union What Was the Soviet System Part 2 [page 15] We conclude with a second article by Ricardo Monde about the relationship between “Marxism” and Anarchism [page 20]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “There is no Alternative” The horrific consequences of the capital system are all around us. They are constantly projected via newspapers, magazines and on our computer and television screens. This list includes pictures of children and adults starving to death or living lives of either absolute or relative poverty: the effects of war and how it devastates the lives of those innocently caught up in it as well as those who joined the military because they mistakenly thought it was their duty to do so or because the system left them with few other choices. In addition there is the all too visible consequences of the 3 The Libertarian Communist Issue 22 Spring 2013 damage reeked on the ecological system by commodity production as utopian. As much as capital which the system, not so much won’t they participate in the partial class struggle come to terms, with but cannot limited as it is within the capital system they are limited to by the inhumane goal of capital accumulation perpetuating that struggle rather than seeking at all costs. That is the fact about all these to end it. As John Crump wrote in the late problems, it is not merely the fact that the 1980s: capital system will not deal with them, it is the fact that it cannot. It cannot even deal with “The ‘left’ and the ‘right’ are different only to the problem most close to it, the world-wide the extent that they provide a different economic downturn of which no end is in political and organisational apparatus for sight. The truth is that there can be no end to administering the same capitalist system …A the current economic crisis that would entail a permanent solution to the problems which are meaningful improvement for the majority. Not inherent in wage labour… …can only lie in the only have such circumstances been virtually abolition of the wages system. Yet the non existent throughout the history of abolition of the wages system is a demand capitalism but now there is the contradiction which cannot be located on the ‘left’ – ‘right between the very nature of the system and political spectrum.” [1] the technology it has created which cries out for a new system based on common We in the anti state, non market ownership and production directly for communist/anarchist sector can have no truck need/use. with participation in the class struggle in anyway but that which seeks to end it and by As these problems are so evident why, it must so doing ending the working class itself. Our be asked, are we struggling to build even the message to the trade unions and left is that it beginnings of a world-wide mass movement is utopian to try and deal with the effects of for change? There are the obvious obstacles capitalism without seeking to do away with the that we have recognised for some time: the system itself in all its guises. For once we ideas that dominate in society are the ideas of agree with Margaret Thatcher, a demon for those in power. Related to this concept is the left, “There is no Alternative (Tina) No social conditioning such as family and alternative that is to ending the rule of capital education which support the status quo. The in all its forms and establishing a humane system is also extremely good at providing system that can start to deal with the horrific commodities that distract people, dominated problems we face, some will be able to be nowadays mostly by a range of high dealt with immediately but many will take technological gadgets. In addition most people time. Common ownership and production lives are so occupied with earning enough directly for need/use will merely provide the money to provide them with the necessities of base for dealing with the dire situation we life such as food, clothing and shelter with presently find ourselves in. perhaps a few small luxuries thrown in that they have little time to examine the causes of {1}John Crump: The Thin Red Line: Non Market why the world we inhabit is in such a mess. Socialism in the Twentieth Century pp.35-59 in Crump and Rubel Ed Non Market Socialism in the In addition to the above there of a variety of Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. groups and organisations such as charities, trade unions and left wing political parties, ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ from social democratic type labour to Trotskyist and Leninist who all advocate that From Manifesto against Labour Gruppe Krisis something can be achieved within the confines of a reordered capital system. Charities For this reason, it doesn't matter what is being produced as provide much information on many of the well as what use is made of it - not to mention the problems we have highlighted here but cannot indifference to social and environmental consequences. solve these self same problems as they are Whether houses are built or landmines are produced, whether books are printed or genetically modified tomatoes not designed to confront the system itself but are grown, whether people fall sick as a result, whether the merely to try to deal with these issues in air gets polluted or "only" good taste goes to the dogs - all isolation. Trade unions and the left do more this is irrelevant as long as, whatever it takes, commodities harm than good as they have been successful can be transformed into money and money into fresh in convincing many people that there is an labour. The fact that any commodity demands a concrete use, and should it be a destructive one, has no relevance alternative short of getting rid of capitalism for the economic rationality for which the product is nothing and view any alternative to a society based on but a carrier of once expended labour, or "dead labour". 4 The Libertarian Communist Issue 22 Spring 2013 Letters Surprisingly for someone who was in the 1970s Libertarian Communist group there was The following comments on our previous issue were no mention of Castoriadis/Cardan/Chaulieu. all included in one letter but we felt it best to divide Who though not original did promote the them into three so as to separate out the three thesis in a way that explained it to a whole different articles/issues they were dealing with. We new generation of libertarians. Less hope this will give readers a better chance to surprisingly there’s no mention of Buck Taylor, comment on any particular issue/s. who had done the same. Unfortunately in internal Common Wealth documents in the Commenting on Issue 21: late 1940s. ‘The Inherent Unhealthiness of Laurens Otter Hierarchical Systems’ Lyla Byrne ============================ Dear Lib Com Changes: Editorial in Issue 21 Concerning the above article Lyla Byrne, in writing; “that it’s wrong to say capitalists are Regarding the following Laurens Otter asked self-interested”; neglects the possibility that us to point out that this was a hurried they are so caught up with their short-term comment intended to fill, what he felt was, a interests, that the capitalists cannot see that gap in the editorial in the last issue.
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