Neosyndicalist ManifestoOriginal language: English
Original publication: 2 February 2024
Written by: Gubrin (Goober)
Translated by: N/A
License of this version: CC0
Other language versions: N/A
Link to PDF: N/A
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Preamble
Ever since the October Revolution and the subsequent rise of Marxism-Leninism in most of the former Russian Empire the ideology of Syndicalism was considered "old-fashioned", "outdated" and even "dead". During and after the events of 1917-1922 more and more leftist parties in Western Europe began rejecting the ideas of anarchist ideologues like Proudhon and Bakunin, the fall of the Makhnovshchina put the last nail in the coffin of that, and began flirting with "the big three" of the Russian Revolution: Lenin, Trotsky and Bukharin. By the time Stalin got into power, Syndicalism fell out of the mainstream: slowly being less trusted thanks to the German Revolution and how brutally it was put down.
But those events are over: the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore, China is de-facto a capitalist state, and more and more people are being disillusioned by Capitalism. Is this the time for Syndicalism to make a comeback?
Chapter I: The state and it's monopoly in Violence
To find out what makes the state so bad, we need to look back at the history of how an idea of a state even came to be. The ideas of "government", "leaders", etc. were created in Ancient Mesopotamia in regard to those who had the most grain. People naturally followed those who had all the food, and the "food owners" could become so influential that they controlled whole cities. To keep the plebs loyal a welfare system for free food was created, which was a widespread practice until the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
From the very start the state has been nothing but a monopoly. As the ages went by and weapons became more advanced they became a tool of not just war, but also a tool of suppression of people that resisted the system, which was common thanks to a little thing called "Feudalism". Peasants rising up to kill their lords and try to take the king's palace by storm were common. After that it all went downhill, with the state restricting the armament of civilians in most of the world to prevent it from being overthrown.
But even with that most countries in the world pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into the police, military-industrial complex, etc. In most of the world only the state has the right to produce so many tools of violence. It has a monopoly on violence.
Chapter II: The failure of Democracy
However, this violence was attempted to be levelled out via a system that allows the plebs to choose their future: democracy.
But there is one problem: people are impressionable. With democracy anyone with good promises can get on top and implement their preferred future, even if they break their promises.
Nowadays, people never vote FOR someone, only AGAINST someone. Prime examples of this are the USA, UK, France, etc.
Another problem that comes with this is that the government doesn't have much incentive to reform the system or improve the people's lives until there are elections. In an attempt to get popularity politicians will do anything. Once they get trust they get elected again and proceed to freeze all progress.
This issue is most apparent in Post-Soviet states.
Chapter III: Modern Geopolitics and the rise of Neo-imperialism
In the modern world we are stuck between a rock and a hard place in a "second cold war" between the US-led west and the Russia-China alliance in the east.
The parallels between the Cold War era and modern day are astounding: The same tactics of proxy warfare, civil wars and paid revolutions are being used everywhere. Spheres of influence are disguised as international blocks.
Any sane anarchist must never take a side in any of these conflicts, only supporting the people living there and their rights to have a peaceful life.
Chapter IV: How the capitalist mode of production destroys nations
It's no surprise to many that capitalism in itself is materialist. Such a mode of production, regulation and work reduces life to a depressive, repetetive fraction of itself.
A very sad fact is that the original founders of capitalism would have killed themselves if they saw what modern capitalism is now. Their vision of a market economy was more distributist than anything, they supported worker associations and self-employment.
But a negative of capitalism not many people talk about is how it can destroy nations. We saw it with the former USSR and Post-colonial states. A quick transition to a market economy led to crime, poverty, corruption, neglect.
This is caused by the fact that in most cases people are foolish and can't regulate themselves well enough, and those that can can exploit those that can't. As such a hierarchy forms and those that can lie the best always get top positions.
Chapter V: Collaboration as the means to an end
A large flaw with "radical socialist" ideologies is the overly excessive focus on collectivisation and class war. Time and time again we saw how such an investment into a radical flip-over of the system led to millions of deaths.
As such I believe that collaboration with the other classes is an acceptable means to a socialist goal. Socialism at it's core doesn't go against it, and developing the nation is more important than theoretical authenticity.
A similar situation happened in the USSR with the "NEP" in the 1920's, which saw a period of stabilisation in the Union, but at the same time bribery in the party kind of ruined the policy, but I digress. It was a much needed change in socialism in the USSR.
Chapter VI: An analysis on Nestor Makhno and his accomplishments
The man, the myth, the legend. He is the one who almost all anarchists look up to due to his accomplishments.
But to understand why that is the case we must understand how it happened.
Arguably he was the most successful Ukrainian warlord of that era because he acted independently. The UPR (At first the Centralna Rada and the Directory post-1918) was effectively a puppet of surrounding great powers (mainly Germany and then Poland), all the Soviet governments were well, Soviet, the Ukrainian State was a glorified German resource colony, the WUPR was fairly independent but under constant pressure from Poland and most of the Entente, which hindered it's power and the Chołodnyj Jar republic was too small to accomplish anything.
From this we can see that the borderline Machiavellian policies of Makhno did good for the anarchist society, which only collapsed after constant war with the White Movement and a subsequent Bolshevik invasion.
Chapter VII: A renewal of the Platform
One of Makhno's ideas he developed while exiled in Paris, France, was the Platform - a stateless form of organisation in which the whole society agrees on certain aspects and works together towards them, "Organisation without opression", if you may.
In the modern world I believe that a renewed, modernised form of Makhno's envisioned platform could be achieved.
This new form of the platform should be similar to a worker union or a co-operative and work using the same "mechanisms".
In a world where even the smallest political vacuum is taken up in mere seconds, the platform is the most pragmatic, realistic form of anarchy.
Chapter VIII: The Issue of the Nation and Patriotism
Most modern self-proclaimed nationalists are childish. They romanticise people and events that don't exist anymore, claim borders from hundreds of years ago, and do nothing to improve the nation they "love so much". Most of them would flee their country as soon as a war starts, as much as they claim they want to fight for it.
I believe that in a rapidly changing world, we must not focus our love to our nations on what we did in the past, but what we can do in the future, sometimes using historical precedent.
A nation can not progress without intelligent people, so we must engrave the idea that love for the nation is shown via education in society's brains, a nation can not progress without a stable working class, so we must propagate the idea that love for the nation is shown through hard work, and so on. As utopian as it might sound that people will buy this, we must do our best to achieve it.
Chapter IX: An analysis on the Italian Futurist Novement
The Futurist movement that formed in Italy in the 1910's and 1902's is certainly interesting. Aside from being an art movement, it was a political one as well.
Futurists fought for progress, modernity, and youth. They wanted to achieve a bright future where the Italian nation is united and free, without opression of anyone, that the next generations will bring about strong sense of unity that persuades the Italian people away from crime or bad deeds towards one another.
I believe that every nation should have its own "Futurist renaissance", that such unity should be established all over the world.
Chapter X: The revolutionary ideals of Early Fascism and Sanselpocrism
An Italian ideology from the same time period that was deeply tied to Futurism was Fascism. As understandably vile and horrible that word might sound to us today, in the 1920's, right after World War 1, it was the only sane option for Italy.
The Early Fascism envisioned by Mussolini was a socialist ideology that emphasised national unity and youth. It believed in many things the Futurists believed in, and was partially established int he Italian Regency of Carnaro. This ideology later became known as "Sansepolcrism".
However, as a result of mere Populism, Mussolini became a self-declared supporter of Laissez-faire economics, and the ideology went downhill from there into a horrible future we all know too well.
Chapter XI: The value of Organisation
Organisation is the true driving force of history. Every organised state that came and went birthed multiple after it, every political organisation that existed impacted the sphere it wanted to make a change in, every organised crime group made it's mark on history. I call this the "Great Organisation Theory".
From history we can learn that without organisation pain and suffering will come, but too much of it is just as bad, if not worse. "Co zabardziej to nie zdrowie", as they say in Poland.
The anarchists symbol as a small detail not many notice. The ring around the "A" is actually an O, and it stands for "Order". The anarchist movement advocated for non-olressive organisation ever since it's inception.
Chapter XII: The utopian nature of Anarchy
The order I talked about in the previous chapter is important because if we don't establish anarchist order, statist order will take it's place.
The state, or, at least, order, is like the Hydra from greek mythology. If you cut off one head two grow on it's place. Heracles only defeated it by using a torch, and that torch in our case is the Platform.
If you destroy a government, at least two new ones appear, it is natural for humans to exploit vacuums, especially those that can get them power, AKA those left after the absence of order.