The History of Anarchism Part 1 - Pre-Anarchy - Social Revolution

in #anarchy6 years ago (edited)

The Dialectics of Liberation: Anarchism, Existentialism, and Decentralism.
The History of Anarchism Part 1 - Pre-Anarchy - Social Revolution

"Anarchy is the only possible social order for the affirmation of all human beings" - charlie777pt

Introduction

Direct action is an anarchist ideal principle and the primer strategy for a direct democratic action.

After the French Revolution starts a very confusing time with social convulsions, an explosion of new political philosophies, and all kinds of conspiratory revolutions and counter-revolutions.
We are going to talk about the pre-anarchy cradle of social revolution and transformation like a boiling water pan from where emerged basis of the ideals of anarchism.

Most of these ideas were ahead of its time, and sometimes were impractical, but become myths and legends floating in the air, that sooner or later can be used and become realized utopias and reality concepts.
The Internet is the first anarchic technological solution that can support a consensual and collective social hive for a decentralized communal organization and the individual exercise of power of the will, to create a more fair Humanity.

At the same time it permits the global spread of this theories, information, and knowledge that are now shared and being working practical examples of realizable social utopias that had no grounds to flourish in the time they emerged.

1 - Insurrection

The Directorate was a five-person committee, governing after the French Revolution during the transition of five years, from the revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre (1758 – 1794) until the dictator Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) that overthrew it.
The Rebellious (Les Enragés) appear in 1783 with a petition subscribed by abbot Jacques Roux, inciting a radical and dangerous revolutionary movement focused in the working class, under the idea of a kind of "popular democracy" and a society with classes.

"If there is a class of men who can impunity to starve another class, then liberty is a vain word. Equality is a hoax while the rich, through monopolies, exercise the right to life and death over their fellow citizens." - Jacques Roux

Jacques Roux was the most extreme spokesman on the left-wing, when he took power in the Directorate in 1792 aligning with the Enraged Ones (Les Enragés) defending the poor working class with radical demands, with Jacques Granus a people's leader quoting "communism as the full realization of the Republic".
The Republic incarnated the desires and hopes of the poor people, but the Enraged Ones were pursued by Marat and totally erased by Robespierre.

The Directorate was the cradle of classic liberalism after the Revolution, while at the same time communism was rising.
Marx points out that Gracchus(Jean-Nöel) Babeuf, and his friends Sylvian Maréchal and Filippo Buonarroti, start pushing the political revolution to the social level was the founder of the first communist party.

Gracchus comes with the first socialist points of view stating that "The land belongs to no one and individual land ownership must cease to exist" ... "We declare that we can no longer bear the fact that the great majority of men work for the benefit of a minority and according to their whims." "one education and food should be the same for all".

1.1 - The Republic of Equals

A Manifesto is the carefully organized in the "Conspiracy of The Equals" to create a Revolution by force initiated by Babeuf, the nominated first communist that prepared an Insurrection.

"The French Revolution was nothing but a precursor of another revolution, one that will be bigger, more solemn, and which will be the last." - Gracchus(Jean-Nöel) Babeuf.

And the first institution is set in motion to create the dictatorship of the proletariat and disarm the bourgeoisie, but the conspirators are arrested and sentenced to death or deportation.
Filippo Buonarroti (1761-1837) publishes the work "History of the Conspiracy for Equality according to Babeuf" becomes the manual for the future development of socialism.

After Babeuf, Louis Auguste Blanqui ( 1805-1881) a socialist and political activist, bring his revolutionary theory of Blanquism and comes up with the proletarian dictatorship, wanting to arm the people, disarm the bourgeoisie and suppressing its media, to destroy the old society and open the roads for a new social order that he didn't define, and he was attracting a lot of discontent people in the hope to make a revolt.
Blanqui starts to congregate communists, Proudhon's followers and revolutionaries more interested in removing the existing order than in the doctrines for the coming society.

"Catholicism is the tomb of intelligence, of thought, of brain; Protestantism, the tomb of conscience, of feeling, of heart". - Louis Auguste Blanqui

2 - Intelectual Action

This early tradition of socialism was an intellectual activism with lots of discussions and doctrines that will involve several movements, like the theocratic dictatorship of Saint Simon, the total freedom of Fourier, the centralized state by Louis Blanc, and the federalism of Proudhon.

2.1 - The parable of Saint Simon

In a parable "The Organizer" wrote by Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon(1760-1825) expresses his feelings towards the working people and his despise for the governing politicians, analysing the consequences of the disappearance of a growing number of each the professional involved in science, arts, and jobs producing for the Nation.

In the second part he considers losing lots of members of the royal family, ministers, generals, cardinals, dukes, judges, public servants, big proprietaries, and so on, that would make the good Frenchman feel sad but it would be only an emotional grief, because there would be no negative implications or political loss for the state.

Saint-Simon was earlier attached to the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and he was in jail in the early years of the Revolution until 1794 when the Reign of Terror ended, and he starts proclaiming to all the government members the success of his ideas.
But after 40 years old, after a divorce, he gets poor till the rest of his life and shot himself several times attempting suicide because he didn't see the effects of his ideas propagating.

"I have been given the task of withdrawing the political powers from the hands of the clergy, the nobility, and the Judiciary class to pass it on to the hands of the industrialists." Saint-Simon In his book "Industrial System".

He was the first man to show an opposition to the feudal (industrial) and military complex, proposing a technocratic socialism replacing the government by the producers as rulers, and Church by Science.

2.2 - The Reformists

Charles Fourrier (1772-1838) loses his interest in the political involvement, but his disciples in 1841 published "The Manifest of the Socialist School", and came up with the concept of Social Engineering to test new social mechanisms, in experiments where people could approve or refuse the system. The first thinking of social experimentation that could be verified if it could make the ancient system obsolete, instead of removing the power by violent means.

Fourrier disciple, Victor Considérant a romantic socialist (1808-1893) enphasises the revolutionary forces of communes like a "need to throw the seed on the soil of the Nation", but science would be the measure of the social results in the "social elementary workshop" of communal organization.

Considérant in 1847 comes up with a new book "Manifesto for a Peaceful Democracy", dreaming of a social change, but maintainingthe power structure, even saying "The peaceful democracy is the monarchy", as a way to avoid war and violence to reestablish new powers and evisioned that "A constitutional government always follows the law of oppinion and of the effective forces of one country.", as the first sketch of social oppinion representation in governement.

Considérant and Proudhon were the mentors who attracted Marx to socialism and in the end of his life to the anarchist interpretation of the nature of the state

Dostoyevsky's in his novel "The Possessed", use the 'Saint-Simonist' and 'Fourierist' as insults between the political personas.

3 - Political Action

3.1 - Changing Public Oppinion

Besides some political activity of Considérant in his intelectual action, socialist influence remained very weak, besides for some intellectuals of the small bougoiesy and some self-educated workers.

In one side stands the almost cult of a sect of the "Saint-Simonists" and they are not a psrty for pollitical action.
On the other side, the ideas of Fourrier, Proudhon, Cabet , Louis Blanc, about proletarian associations become outlawed, and there is no fertil soil for it to grow, and the conception of workers representatives is lost in favor of the idea of equality of rights.

Louis Blanc"proudhon" comes up with the idea of socialism replacing Revolution by force with peaceful transformation by universal suffrage, and a different vision opposed to the Reformists in the mater of State being a tool and not an obstacle that generates tyranny.

“In the Saint-Simonian doctrine, the problem of the distribution of benefits is resolved by this famous saying: To each according to his ability; to each ability according to its fruits.” - Louis Blanc

They wanted loans for economic change by the creation of Social Ateliers in industry, with statutes voted in general assembly and work as Laws but to work in competition with the private industry.
The Social Ateliers were later developed by Philippe Buchez (1796-1865) with the Group "Atelier" that didn't want to overthrow the State.

Buchez brings the concept of Cooperatives as an alternativ eeconomic system to capitalism and socialism, and created the operating cooperativist standards that are still used today.
He also was a founder of the movement of the Carbonary (La Charbonnerie modelled in the Italian Carbonari) to succeed in overthrowing the government by the force of guns

They saw the ministers of the time as an accident that they were serving the burgoisie interests and was not a problem of politics, and let's see how they caracterised it.

"Created by money, and for money, existing only through conditions created by money in favor of men of money, the government can not wish to destroy the state which founded it and maintains it" .. "we ask always and we will continue to ask so that it may be profoundly through the application of the democratic principle "- Le Journal d'Ouvriers: L'Ateleir (1840-1850)

The most funny thing about this is that until today no reform could be done about this, and nothing as changed since then.This is a base for Proudhon's pessimism about the way he judged the Revolution, that is the subject of the next post.

4 - Anarchism in the US

Josiah Warren (1798-1874) is considered one of the first Individualist Anarchists in the United States, but he never mentioned the term anarch but he was the first to talk about "the sovereignty of the individual".

He discover the"social system" of Robert Owen (1771-1858) a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperativiste movement, and invested all his fortune in an experimental socialistic community at New Harmony, Indiana, the first model for the utopian society of Robert Owen, where children where early educated without the constraints of the authoritarian approach to learning.

"Man seeks freedom as the magnet seeks the pole or water its level, and society can have no peace until every member is really free." - Josiah Warren

Video:
Public Enemy - What A Fool Believes

Lyirics:
"What A Fool Believes"

[verse 1]
Power to the people
Cause the people want peace
Have no fear
You're safe right here
You are protected
You are respected
The people gotta voice
The people gotta choice
The who, the when, the why, the what
The who, the when, the why, the what
The who, the when, the why, the what
The who, the when, the why, the what
A fool believes.....
[verse 2]
Who the government?
Who the terrorists?
Where the hit list?
Pump the raised fist
Make em spread the wealth
As long as you got your health
Cause I know I cant get no help
So I jump back and kiss myself
The who, the when, the why, the what
The who, the when, the why, the what
The who, the when, the why, the what
The who, the when, the why, the what
A fool believes......
[verse 3]
Swear to god
You thought the yard was hard
Come get your god with a credit card
Preacher lyin on the truth to raise his roof
Cmon holla preacher flow got yo dollar
Devil succeeded in never
Givin you what you needed
Playin with religion
So the people believe it
They playin with god
While preyin on god
While you prayin to god
They playin with god
The who, the when, the why, the what
The who, the when, the why, the what
The who, the when, the why, the what
The who, the when, the why, the what
A fool believes.......

The Dialectics of Liberation: Anarchism, Existentialism and Decentralism.
Published Posts:

Introduction to the Dialectics of Liberation: Anarchism, Existentialism and Decentralism

I - Anarchism

Next posts on the Series:
I - Anarchism

  • The History of Anarchism
    • Part 1 - Pre-Anarchy - Social Revolution - this post
      • 1- Insurrection
      • 2 - Intelectual Action
      • 3 - Political Action
    • Part 2 - Anarchy: Revolution Against The State
      • 1 - Anarcho Federalism
      • 2 - Libertarian Anarchism
      • 3 - Anarcho-Syndicalism
  • Anarchy Today

II - Existentialism

  • What is Existentialism?
  • The "Existentialisms"
  • Humanism and Existentialism
  • Existentialism and Anarchism

III - Decentralism

  • What is Decentralism?
  • The Philosophy of decentralism
  • Blockchain and Decentralization
  • Anarchism, Existentialism,and Decentralism

IV - Dialectic for Self-Liberation

  • The Dialectics of Liberation Congress
  • Psychoanalysis and Existentialism
  • The Anti-psychiatry movement

Further Reading:

Anarchism-- Wkipedia
Anarchist schools of thought - Wikipedia
Existentialist anarchism - wikipedia

References:

Bey, Hakim (1991) 7:A.Z.: the Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
Byas, Jason Lee, Toward an Anarchy of Production - Parts I and II
Marshall, Peter, Demanding the Impossible A History of Anarchism, Fontana Press (1992 )
Oizerman, Teodor.O Existencialismo e a Sociedade. Em: Oizerman, Teodor; Sève, Lucien; Gedoe, Andreas, Problemas Filosóficos.2a edição, Lisboa, Prelo, 1974.
Rothbard, Murray N., The Ethics of Liberty (1982)
Rothbard, Murray N., For a New Liberty The Libertarian Manifesto, Revised Edition
Tucker, Benjamin, Individual Liberty, Selections From the Writings
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A great history and really wonderful publishing
Democracy must be a prophecy from within the human to achieve in society
Really great article

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