An article written to provoke

[alanjjohnstone]

The Tyranny of the Consciousness-Raisers: Leninism, Anarchism and Jesus

[ALB]

Actually it’s more us than anarchists who say that there must be a majority in favour (“educated” or, rather, “self-educated”) before the social revolution to end capitalism is attempted.

Most anarchists (of those who are communists, that is) believe that communist consciousness (or socialist consciousness, as we usually call it) will develop during the course of trying to end capitalism initiated by an “active” or “conscious” minority. All Leninists and, if there are any these days, followers of Blanqui believe that a majority communist consciousness can only develop after capitalist rule has been overthrown in an insurrection led by a conscious vanguard at the head of a mass of merely discontent workers and others.

So he has a point. Anarchists and Leninists do share a common belief in a minority-initiated insurrection against capitalist rule. To be fair, though, that’s where it stops. At least the anarchists don’t want the minority to become the new ruling class — though a new one could well re-emerge if the majority don’t come to want communism.

[Anonymous]

The point of some anarchists is what some  Maoists used to call: Taking the theory in route

[Author]

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