ANARCHIST THEORY;

WHY ANARCHIST PROJECTS FAIL PART 2/THE GENERATIONAL PROBLEM:

The medieval woodcut on the left by Cornelis Anthonisz depicts the 10 stages of life, from infancy to death. On the left a baby lies in a bed. On the right a man sits with his legs dangling over the grave. Each stage of life is accompanied by a representative animal. The symbolism is thought provoking, and we should examine the question of "generations" in the anarchist movement today in relation to "why anarchist projects fail". This is the second instalment in the series of "why anarchist projects fail".

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To begin with there are very few countries in the world where there is a living continuity of generations in terms of anarchism. We are hardly in the situation of pre-Civil War Spain where families such as the Urales family passed their anarchism on from generation to generation. The conditions of modern totalitarianism, either fascist or communist, basically exterminated such families. In my own family I had a grand-uncle who fought with Nestor Makhno, but he was killed by the Nazis in his "refuge" of Germany after fleeing the Soviets(his family language of a mixture of French/German/Russian persuaded him that Germany was a good place to go to-silly guy). My mother became an anarchist in her old age after both studying Russian and reading Kropotkin. But still...my basic upbringing was left social democrat, as per the politics of my Irish father.This sort of upbringing made it actually quite easy to transit to the type of gradualist anarchism I hold to today.

Only France and Italy preserve the real continuity of anarchist generations, unaffected by mass extermination. When I visited Spain and the offices of the CNT in Barcelona there was a collection of quite elderly men in the "meeting room" in one section. The editor of Solidaridad Obrero was somewhat younger than me, and we tried to communicate through our mutually bad French. What I noticed was an absence of "middle-aged people" on the premises. The headquarters of the CGT in Barcelona was a little bit better, with a better mix of generations- but not by much. The youth of the staff was quite obvious. Well, and good. What does this mean, especially in the situation of most of the world where anarchists are overwhelmingly young, as in Canada.

Anarchism is in the throes of a revival, and it is to be expected that most of its adherents will be quite young. This has both its good points and its bad points. Let's travel through them.

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THE SPRINGTIME OF ANARCHY:

People generally come to anarchism when they are quite young. This may be as little as 13 years. It may be as late as graduate school. The complaint that the vast majority of people who adopt anarchism as a younger age are not anarchist in a few years is actually quite ancient. Emma Goldman commented on it almost a century ago, and she waved it away (as she waved away so many things in her life-yes, Molly has never liked Goldman) withn the snappy one-liner that "we have had the best of them". Insofar as this goes it is true, but it obscures many things.

When people first come to anarchism they usually infused with "the light of conversion". Their enthusiasm is boundless, but so are their expectations. They far too often imagine that all they have to do is present "the idea" , and huge numbers of people will flock to the banner. When this, inevitably, doesn't happen they are left with stark choices. One of them is to adopt a rational long-term view of the anarchist project. A small minority-the best- take up this option. They may adopt any number of long term strategies. One of the most popular today is the "platformist" option. Another is to simply wipe the whole commitment off their memory and go on to different things. This is the option of the vast majority of ex-anarchists. Their choice may indeed be rational, especially if they have seen the worst of the anarchist movement close up. A third, the worst option, is to take their emotional frustration as a guide to action and enter into what Molly calls "kindergarden terrorism" under the false assumption that more militant actions will impel the "masses" that initially rejected them to join them. A pretty silly delusion actually, as the vast majority of such wanna-be terrorists usually pick ideological positions that are rock solid guaranteed top be rejected by the ordinary person. Whether it be the end of civilization or neo-Maoist nostalgia in terms of crime "in the name of" racial minorities the end result is the same. The ordinary persaon sees them as one more "urban nuissance", and applauds the police actions against them with the same emotions that they applaud city actions against other pests such as mosquitos. The comparison is quite apt as the actions of such groups are on the level of "increased insect populations", not the "great threat to the rulers" that they imagine.

It is hardly surprising that "student anarchists" will rethink their ideological position after a few years. Their life situation is, of course, inherantly unstable. For the majority it lasts 4 years, and then they go on to what is sadly called "reality". In developed countries the majority of young people attend some sort of "institution of higher learning", whether it be university or a technical college. It is there where they first meet anarchism, but it is an anarchism that is specfic to their circumstances. It is rootless and ahistorical, lacking any long term perspective. It imzagines great things can be accomplishd in a tiny bit of time. Some will go on from this apprenticeship into the opportunities offered by the "established left" after their graduation. Insofar as they "remain anarchists" they will eternally compromise their original ideals. Sometimes they will lie about such compromise and claim that they haven't changesw their opinions at all. This tactic, traditionally associated with (ex)Trotskyists, depends upon the modern illusion that anarchism is no different from fashionable leftism. If Molly were to give a "corrective" to this I would suggest that every would-be "anarchist" adopt at least ONE position that is at variance with the leftist subculture and defend it vigorously. The actual content doesn't matter. The reaction of the leftists will be the education that is needed. Adopting such a position would provide a bridge to maintaining anarchist opinions in the world that faces a person "after graduation", if for no other reason that it would provide training in "being contrary".

THE HIGH NOON OF ANARCHISM:

As I said above there are very few "middle-aged" people active in anarchism in most countries today. This may be understandable as people enter their reproductive and career-building stage of life. Nobody who hasn't had children can appreciate the great, humungous time-sucking commitment that this requires. To be quite frank it is entirely understandable-and admirable in Molly's view- that the preservation of one's genetic heritage should take precedence over any political ideology, anarchism included. The alternative is a cancerous growth of belief that would lead to immense suffering, as the disastrous career of murderous Marxism has proven in the last century.

Still, it is sad that so few of our younger recruits manage to carry their anarchism on into their further life- beyond that they decide to extend their adolescense into middle age (cheered on by a tiny minority of evil people enscounced in the anarchist movement who encourage such actions for profit-you know the type). THIS is a failing that a mature anarchism will eventually correct. Whether it be by the gradual building of anarchosyndicalist unions that offer people an opportunity to carry their anarchism forward into the real world- something that is being done as we speak. Wherther it be by the formulation of long term plans such as the platformists are trying to do today. Whether it be by the gradual growth of other anarchist alternatives that aim for long term growth. All these things come together, and they are considerations that anarchists should think about if they are not enraptured with the illusion of "revolution" or, worse, simply sticking their finger up the nose of ordinary people as certain primitivist and "post-leftist" sectarians do.

THE AUTUMN OF ANARCHY:

We all eventually reach this point, and many who first came to anarchism in the late 60s/early 70s, have done so already. Such is Molly's sad situation. As such she gets to observe such atrocities as "presuned elders" of the anarchist movement who have been alive less than the time that she has been active advocating the continuation of silly, self destructive tactics that, incidentaly, will rebound to the financial benefit of the advocates. The advantage of age is to be able to cynically recognize crooks because one has seen their like dozens of times before. The disadvantage is that we get stuck in the thought patterns of our youth. Memory is not thought. It may be an advantage to recognize patterns that were great and gross failures before, and the same "justifications" that are offered for them today which are the same as those offered years ago. The example of "kindergarden terrorism" was mentioned before.

What is sad is that there is little "opportunity" offered for older people in anarchism today. Most older anarchists, when retirement finally comes about, immerse themselves in the struggles of ordinary people that have little connection to anarchism. In some ways this is a great thing, as they carry the struggle into exactly where it should be, amongst people that younger anarchists are often too snotty to approach. The gradual growth of anarchism means that there will be an increasing number of such people who will spread the anarchist idea in a much more efficient way than flashy demonstrations can. But it is still sad that there is so little interchange between this older generation-who now exist in greater numbers than they did when I first became an anarchist-and the younger people who come to anarchism imagining that it was invented with punk rock.

So what does this mean in terms of "why anarchist projects fail" ? The limitations of projects initiated by younger people whose life situations are inherantly unstable should be obvious. To make them survive the "graduation" of their founders requires exquisite planning that often-usually- is not possible. The limitations of anarchism in "middle-age" are also obvious, and they will only be overcome by gradual growth, something that younger people don't see as necessary. As to older anarchists one may say that they should very much carry on as they do now, but perhaps they should make a greater effort to reach out to (and if necessary argue with) younger anarchists who are in need of their experience.