"Living Utopia"
Spanish Television documentary

This is a documentary recording the lives of the 
survivors of the "Spanish Civil War" who fought on 
the anarchist side. Since anarchist-bandits such 
as Makhno never carried out much social change, the 
anarchists who care about the real world and not 
just the recitation of dogmas have to hang their 
hat on the events of Spain in the 1930s when as 
the anarchists themselves claim, they organized 
two or three million people.

Of course, Spain is much bigger than two or three 
million people, so the documentary focusses on the 
regional strongholds and questions of local 
economic control. Although we have seen the 
disaster of Yugoslavia where people who never 
cooperated economically on a larger geographic 
plane fell into genocidal war against each other, 
we still have people today trying to tell us that 
Stalin's road of repression was more repressive 
than the road of local control. These anarchists 
do not understand that concrete economic 
cooperation across large geographic territories is 
not only a consideration but a necessity for 
internationalism and the abolition of the state.

"Living Utopia" trots out the idea of "self-
management"--which was exactly Tito's buzzword in 
Yugoslavia too. Yet at the same time, it shows us 
that these local organizations still had to make 
deals with other parts of the country and 
unavoidably some of the anarchists found 
themselves serving on government councils.

Indeed, the anarchists found that they had to 
organize militarily; even though many had pacifist 
educations at schools organized by Francisco 
Ferrer. This should have taught the anarchists 
that Marx was right, that there is a stage of 
"dictatorship of the proletariat" necessary in the 
process of transformation. Merely proclaiming in 
words something else does not make it so. Instead, 
despite the obvious facts of the Spanish Civil 
War, we still find anarchists saying they are 
opposed to states and throwing that at Marxists. 
While it was an interesting proposition in the 
1920s and 1930s to say that non-Leninist anarchism 
could bring greater advance than Leninism, it is 
now obvious from the historical record that that 
is not true. Only the ignorant or utterly dogmatic 
fail to see it.

The Maoists have organized far greater gains than 
anarchists have for wimmin and collectivization of 
agriculture--prerequisites for abolishing the 
state. The non-Leninist anarchists fancy that 
because China restored capitalism and the Soviet 
Union fell apart that their claim to effectiveness 
is as good as the Leninist one. That could be true 
only if effectiveness is recitation of dogma. 
There are more collectives remaining in any 
province of capitalist China today than ever 
existed in Makhno's Ukraine. The advances for 
wimmin in China were the fastest in history and 
they were not rolled back completely even after 
capitalist restoration. There is never a history 
of great struggles that is entirely  circular and 
thus, it cannot be said that the capitalist 
restorations make the anarchists equal to the 
Leninists in accomplishments creating the 
prerequisites for abolition of the state.

In the film, the viewer will see that what MIM has 
said about anarchists is true, in the anarchists' 
own words. We have one womyn anarchist say she 
would fight for anarchism, "even if it never 
happens." It is difficult to argue with people 
unconcerned about results for the same reason that 
it is difficult to argue with devout Christians 
outside their dogma world. It's little wonder that 
the Republican side lost to the fascists, with 
people like the anarchists not coming to grips 
with the realities of geography and the state. 
Among other perfect delusions we hear in the film: 
"We defeated fascism" and "Marx was authoritarian 
and Bakunin wasn't." 

What is more, not only did the Spanish Civil War 
see the anarchists organize a state without 
calling it one, but also everything they accuse 
the Bolsheviks of was also done by anarchists. We 
see for example that collectivization of 
agriculture was voluntary, but one family who did 
not participate in the collective still had their 
produce requisitioned by force by the anarchists. 
There was no attempt to deny that requisitions 
occurred, but then again, there'd be no point in 
the denial, considering that an organized armed 
body of people still existed whether labeled 
anarchist or not.

In another moment, the anarchists inform the world 
that at a crucial moment in the struggle, the 
Leninist enemy sought to attack "our leaders" and 
"leave us without guidance." Thus, on the question 
of leaders, formation of an organized armed body 
which honest people call a state, having 
representatives on government councils, using 
force to secure agricultural cooperation--the 
anarchists had to do everything the Bolsheviks did 
but they used other words to re-label the same 
things anarchism, freedom and democracy. What a 
sham.

The only difference between these anarchists and 
the Leninists is science. Anarchists dishonestly 
referred to their organization as state-less while 
Leninists set themselves up for accountability by 
calling what they did "dictatorship of the 
proletariat." The non-Leninist anarchists sought 
to carry out authoritarian acts in the name of 
anarchism. Leninists openly said that there had to 
be authoritarian acts to establish the 
prerequisites for communist anarchism.

That's not to mention that anyone paying careful 
attention saw that the participation and 
advancement of wimmin in Spain lagged far behind 
that seen in the Soviet Union and China. The 
details on the political differentiation amongst 
POUM, the Communist Party etc. were also pretty 
thin, thanks to a focus on local events seen by 
some anarchists.

We recommend that people see this film and study 
it carefully keeping in mind what MIM has said all 
along
about anarchists. It's all there.

Now we would like to address another question. Why 
do people turn to non-Leninist anarchism when the 
progress brought about by Leninism toward 
communist anarchism was so much greater? Why is it 
that the anarchists started ahead of the Maoists 
in China, but fell so far behind with the most 
famous non-Leninist anarchists ending up in the 
Guomindang dictatorship in Taiwan or working with 
police, but non-Leninist anarchists persist in 
upholding anarchism? There are a few answers. One 
is that anarchism can fill a need similar to 
religion for those raised with religious 
backgrounds or in circumstances that would 
ordinarily give rise to organized religion. It's 
no accident that anarchism came about in Spain 
relatively strongly, while in relatively secular 
Confucian China where no religious authority 
dominated completely, Leninism fared vastly better 
than anarchism. Two is that it is easier to recite 
slogans and the best of intentions than to compare 
what actually happened in the real world by the 
practitioners of various intentions--something 
that requires studious effort. For these sorts of 
slogan-oriented but lazy anarchists we can say 
"the road to hell is paved with good intentions," 
which is why non-Leninist anarchism has had more 
of a role in propping up capitalism than bringing 
it down. Three is that having easy slogan-oriented 
answers is appropriate for those who resent 
profound scientists--an undercurrent running 
through the anarchist movement ever since Marx 
came to fame. This is an overreaction to the 
existing inequalities in society that rejects 
science and thereby enlarges the advantages of the 
oppressor and deepens inequality. Spouting slogans 
does not eliminate the gap between a scientist 
like Marx and the general public. Indignation at 
such a gap does not invalidate the scientific 
theses of scientific superiors like Marx. Finally 
and overlapping with the above, we have the 
lumpenproletariat that naturally turns to 
anarchism. For such people needing an ideology to 
suit banditry, anarchism is most well-suited. It 
requires no thought. No one will have the 
"authority" to say a bandit is not an anarchist 
and lack of effort to examine comparative social 
change means that anarchism could very well just 
be a lumpen lifestyle or any other lifestyle. 
Marxism does not allow for lifestyle answers and 
surrenders the recruits looking for such easy 
answers to anarchism. That is why non-Leninist 
anarchism persists, especially in the imperialist 
countries where there is no urgent need for 
results relative to that in countries with 
millions
starving.