Two contributions by Juan Sorroche: “The Mutual Agreement of Non-Systemic Revolutionary Anarchism or the Myth of Systemic Revolutionary Anarchism” and “A Misinterpretation of the Concept of Anarchist Individualism”
– THE MUTUAL AGREEMENT OF NON-SYSTEMIC REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM –
OR
– THE MYTH OF SYSTEMIC REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM –
Should ideological principles, concepts if not deepened nor confronted nor recognized in anarchism be assumed, assumed and accepted?
Once again, workers’ organization, strike, general strike, direct action, boycott, sabotage and armed insurrection itself are but means. Anarchy is the end.
Errico Malatesta, Syndicalism and insurrectionist organization, Monte Bove Editions, 2023
This is the second response in continuation of the critical-dialectic to certain evaluations and analyses regarding the article in “Vetriolo,” No. 7, “Revolutionary Anarchism versus Desistance.” I will use the text of “Vetriolo” as a compass for my reflections and to set forth conclusions. I don’t think they are anything groundbreaking, just a mixture of old and “new” ideas and concepts remixed. However to be honest it is also because of my little ability to write and follow with linearity certain discursive concepts that are very complex for me. And that the article touches, and they are different notions such as ideological principles, even historical, the organizational methods: the economic question in anarchism, as written in the first text, and different and very different tactics and strategies of struggle in anarchism. It also touches on what we call the more “visceral” subjective-objective conceptions of individual anarchist sensibilities. It also touches on anarchy-utopia if we want to deal in depth with the concept of revolutionary anarchism and thus the individual-collective notion of organizing.
These different notions as we see in reality are very complicated and complex of much of action anarchism. So please don’t blame me if I will be long-winded and use the writing of “Vetriolo” as a crutch and to thus develop my ideas with more linearity of analysis and criticism, more complex. But I want to try to write and take advantage to deepen the theories of the experiences of my individual vision of anarchism and anarchism-utopian. Without delegating to others.
And finally, for convenience, I will come out with separate and specific chapters as I go along. But as I said in the previous paper, which came out in the journal “Days and Nights [I giorni e le notti]” No. 15, it will be part of a whole, of a fuller pamphlet that I will title: “The Anarchist Organization of Change” “The Middle Way Planning” and “The Individual-Anarchist-Action.”
To begin to question the comparison of a complex range of concepts for me it is essential first, to understand each other, to have a conceptualization of mutual agreement. And, mind you, in common in sharing does not mean to flatten it into the all the same, but rather to be recognized in diversity in order to understand each other a little more deeply.
The article begins with this big question, “Revolutionary Anarchism?”
To begin to clarify. In part, only in part, I agree with the article by “Vetriolo,” who writes that “the revolutionary principle is inseparable from the anarchist idea.” So yes, anarchists and the whole anarchist movement and anarchism historically to date is in its majority revolutionary. So I could follow the same logic and say that even in the great majority it has been ideologically of anarchist-communist principles.
But, be careful, because to say that “the revolutionary principle is inseparable from the anarchist idea” to me is not really correct, either personally or historically.
Because in anarchism from the late 1800s until today there are anarchist individualities who do not believe, and have not been willing to take on, consciously denying it, the revolutionary principle.
Of course can I, can we, say that these anarchist comrades can be counted on the fingers of my hand? Yes. But they have been there and this cannot be erased by a majority criterion.
I believe that in anarchism, and in anarchism in general, one should not, by force of majorities or minorities, attach reasons or principles, and all the more so if they come from principles of revolutionary anarchism. Because I sincerely believe that so principles become absolute single idea, with their perfect method that everyone must adopt, they become myths, beliefs.
I believe that we must accept of the past and present the various diversities as such in anarchism, even those that are not in the least for revolutionary social transformations. But moved by other infinite motives and interests that of anarchist individualities have assumed for themselves:
For individual enjoyment? Revenge? Love? Despair? Revolt? Selfish egoism? For the sake of chaos? For the pleasure of destruction?, etc.
And this is beyond whether one likes it or not, or whether these different principles are conflicting. Just as there is no denying that there have been these non-revolutionary anarchist comrades, and that they have made their own contributions to anarchism of attack and not surrender. And I say all this from firsthand experience because I was one of these anarchist comrades who only believed in destruction and chaos and did not think about it, nor was I absolutely and consciously interested in social and revolutionary change. And this I do not want to ignore as if it were nonexistent, but instead as a constant development and part of me as an anarchist and of the contribution to anarchism that, however limited, I was able to make. This is a fact.
I would like to remind that concepts should be usable in both intuitive and logical relationships, and practical! And above all, first thoroughly discussed and shared, then acknowledged and accepted. And then, when they are accepted and enter into our articulation of theoretical-practical notions, then, for me, they are part of an anarchic collective whole. For me collective should be thoughtfully chosen by mutual agreement. Which very often, and systematically, is not done. It is a self-criticism. Continue reading “Two contributions by Juan Sorroche: “The Mutual Agreement of Non-Systemic Revolutionary Anarchism or the Myth of Systemic Revolutionary Anarchism” and “A Misinterpretation of the Concept of Anarchist Individualism””
