Anti-Autocracy

 

Marxist theory today is in many ways quite sophisticated, but it is politically immature.

There's one question that any self-respecting Marxist theorist should be confronting, with laser focus.  Namely:

How come all the attempts at communism become autocratic?

Not only has every state that has claimed to be "Actually Existing Socialism" developed an autocratic structure, but even soi-disant Marxist movements in other countries (like the United States, the UK, France, etc.) have a fairly strong and undeniable tendency towards autocratic structure. 

No, but seriously, why?  This is not a rhetorical question.  It's a real question.  I honestly, genuinely don't know the answer, and I want to know.  

Obviously, answering this question is the absolute priority for any kind of left theory.  After all, so many other problems spring from this fundamental problem.  Marxist movements have a reputation for being autocratic, which leads to many people seeing them as cults.  To be sure, anti-communist propaganda amplifies this reputation - and yet, the reputation is not entirely unearned.  There is some truth to it.  In no small part because they are seen as controlling, autocratic cults, many people are very wary about joining Marxist movements, and keep their distance.  Marxism fails again and again to be a mass movement among workers - and since, according to Marx, "The emancipation of the working classes must be accomplished by the working classes themselves," Marxist movements, failing to be workers' movements, fail to be Marxist in any meaningful sense.  Perhaps it's a bit of a vicious circle.  But what causes it in the first place?  Despite the obvious vital practical importance of this question, it is truly astonishing how seldom supposed Marxist theorists actually take it up and consider it seriously.  To which I must say that I have to wonder whether it even makes sense to call them Marxist theorists, or theorists of any kind.  Their only notable quality is their capacity for avoiding thinking.

I have heard some feeble attempts at answering this question, and none of them satisfy me.  Many of them sound vaguely plausible, but they all sound simplistic, and I want to carefully avoid all easy answers, or at least to resist the temptation to say that any of them explain everything. 

Some obvious, and obviously incomplete, answers:

1. One answer is that communists have faced intense persecution from the capitalist powers of the world, and that in the face of this unrelenting persecution, they have adopted a "security culture," a culture of secrecy, militancy, and the discipline necessary to maintain secrecy.  In order to protect their prospects for having a decent life, and making a decent living, revolutionaries must maintain a web of intrigue, with the inevitable result of rather rigidly structured organization.  The seriousness, dedication, and, when necessary, ruthlessness of these organizations is thus a mere reflection of the brutality to which they have been subjected.

2. A second response to this question might be to say that, try as they might, the communists of the past failed to overcome and fully purge themselves of capitalist and pre-capitalist aspects of the organization of the societies in which they sprung up.  Russia and China, as well as many of the other geographic regions in which so-called "Marxist" experiments arose, so we are told, were "backward" nations, with many elements of feudalism and archaic social structures, from which the new regimes never perfectly freed themselves, and which, we are told, stubbornly persisted - including various forms of "chauvinism."

3. Another proposal, in some ways the ideological opposite of number 2 in this list, is that communism lacks an inherent economic incentive structure and thus the only way of compelling action therein is through violence and the threat of violence.  The result is a competition among gangsters in which only the most sociopathic may triumph.  As I say, this is in some ways the opposite of number 2, but on the other hand it could also be seen as the same essential point - that lack of economic (and cultural) development is to blame.

4. Finally, another way of looking at this is to say that there is nothing unique about communism in this respect - that in fact, all human organization tends towards autocracy.  The capitalist enterprise, no less than the communist regime, is led by the executive - the President, the CEO, the Managing Director or what have you.  And why should that be?  Perhaps because the mammals known as humans tend towards social organization into tribes, led by an alpha male?  (Robert Anton Wilson used to joke about anarchist movements being led by alpha males.)  Or perhaps it has something to do with game theory.  Or... insert explanation here.  Yadda yadda yadda.

Anyone who is persuaded that any of these explanations, on their own, or even all together, in some kind of combination, is enough to answer the question of the reason for autocracy, is nothing but a damned fool.  There are some basic common sense reasons why these answers are not sufficient.  We could begin with the fact that, while all three may point in the direction of status, hierarchy, and control, none of them really explain autocracy - that is, one person rule.  Added to this, it might be pointed out that none of these explanations are really offered from the left.  All of them are essentially conservative or reactionary talking points, with the possible exception of number 2 - and I would even consider that explanation to be right wing.  It could be interpreted as being grounded in fairly essentializing ethnic stereotypes or issues of "national character."  There's something quite patronizing about it, and in any case, it's scarcely a theoretically sophisticated position.  All of these contentions are quite questionable and dubious, and none of them are really scientifically sound.  I consider this question completely unsolved.

But as difficult and as important as the above question - why does communism tend toward autocracy - is, there's actually an even more important and pressing question, namely: what can we do about it?

Even if there is some kind of truth to contention number 4 above, that makes this question all the more salient.  For we must oppose every kind of autocracy - not only communist autocracy, but also the autocracy of the CEO, the President, and every kind of executive.

Why?  My opposition to autocracy is not primarily one of moral outrage.  Not at all.  It is a practical question.  Autocracy is weak.  Autocratic social organization is fragile and brittle.  It is simply bad strategy.  As the old saying goes (I've seen it attributed to Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, though I don't think either attribution is correct), "Cut the head off the snake and the body will die."  An organization that is too dependent on a single person is an organization that is perpetually in danger of collapsing - or, more likely, being co-opted.  Especially in an era of global imperialism, an organization under one-man rule is easily manipulated.  If your enemy can get the leader to sell out, the entire organization is defeated with one easy move.  Violent repression may not even be necessary.  An organization in which power is distributed among several nodes is much more difficult to corrupt or defeat.  Which helps explain how all supposedly communist movements have been successfully defeated or co-opted.  Although there may indeed be some kind of vicious circle at work, I see the arrow of causation as mostly pointing in the opposite direction than explanations 1 and 2 would have us believe.  It's not that communist movements became autocratic because they were overwhelmed by the forces of capitalism and other pre-modern modes of production and social relation.  It's that these movements were overcome by the forces of capitalism and other pre-modern modes of production and social relation because they were autocratic.  Their idiotic strategy and the socio-economic relations it engendered caused them to fail and to be defeated.

By the same token - since my opposition to autocracy is rooted in science and strategy, rather than morality, I want to make it clear that I am not condemning any particular autocrats per se; I'm not trying to attack any individuals as "bad guys".  Rather, I am pointing out the problems with the system known as autocracy.  It is a weak, poorly constructed system, no matter who is in charge.  No matter who the autocrat is, I am radically opposed to autocracy and will work to undermine it and ultimately dismantle it.

Of course, it goes without saying that, not only am I opposed to the autocracies of pseudo-Marxist states, but I am also opposed to the kind of autocracy that a person like Elon Musk controls, and for exactly the same reasons.  In both cases, one person has too much power, and the institutions that person controls would function more efficiently if there were a force capable of checking their power - preferably one that somehow represents the interests of the people they order around.

I will even go so far as to say this: Why does capitalism keep on defeating communism? In major part, it is because, although there certainly have been many “captains of industry” and “robber barrons” in the history of capitalism, nonetheless, there is and has been no one person in charge of all of capitalism. Despite the etymology of the word “capitalism,” there is no single “head” of capitalism (to cut off) – and that makes capitalism extremely difficult to defeat. It is hydra-like – slay it here, and it will pop up elsewhere. The autocratic structure of historical communism has made it worthlessly weak by comparison.

Which brings us to the most sound strategy for combating autocracy.  There are some anarchists who, reflecting on the history of autocracies, especially those of the 20th century, conclude that the best thing to do is to oppose every kind of institution, to make every kind of social relation informal.  I come to the exact opposite conclusion.  I am very much in favor of institutions - new institutions, strong institutions, durable institutions, powerful enough to be capable of preventing autocracy.  Indeed, I think that constitutional order is best - with duly designated authorities capable of enforcing constitutional protections, acting as a check and a counter-weight to autocracy.  Examples of such institutions include: regular elections, term limits, well-written and strictly enforced laws to regulate campaign finance, independent legislature, independent judiciary, law enforcement that is not politically beholden to any faction, independent and adversarial press, art and music of protest, philosophy that teaches critical thought, science that is free to follow the evidence where it leads, academic institutions of free inquiry and tenure, and on and on and on.