Homage to Catalonia
Continuing the trend,
I'm re-reading George Orwell's
Homage to
Catalonia. It remains just as
interesting as the first time I read it.
Of special interest is his description of the days
of May in Barcelona, when a near internal civil-war broke out, during the middle
of the civil war between the republic and Franco's rebels. This internal
conflict was between the worker-controlled, decentralist Anarchists, who were
quite strong in Catalonia (headquartered by Barcelona), and the U.S.S.R-backed
strong-central-government Communists. The Anarchists lost, and shortly
thereafter there was a large-scale purge of the Anarchist and POUM (of which
Orwell was a member) parties. Several lives were
lost.
This was the beginnings of Orwell's increased cynicism of the socialist movement. Catalonia was a near workers paradise at the time, with the militia, industry, and even police forces controlled by worker's communes. All decisions were subject to very local-level democracies, land and industry was being collectivized, and a whole new way of social living was apparently succeeding. I'm sure in the long run cracks in the foundation would have appeared, but in the one year of Anarchist-controlled Catalonia, I'm sure it looked like Eden to many true-believer socialists. And for Russia to abandon it, for tactical reasons! Surely, the communists of the West, such as Orwell, were beginning to see the hypocrisy of the Soviet Union, just as Russia's own intellectuals were already well aware of.
It look longer, it seemed, for America's leftists to be similarly disillusioned; intellectuals were cheering Maoist China on, even during the horrific days of the Culture Revolution. The body count had to reach the millions before anyone paid attention. All because of the dependence, nay even necessity, of a strong central government with iron-fisted, nearly-mythical, leadership.
What if communism had taken a decentralized path instead? No central power, no absolute power, hence no absolute corruption. Communism was still bound to fail, as many of its central tenets are ... oh, untenable (such as the abolition of money and private property), but, maybe it would have involved, instead, to worker coops, and other voluntary forms of ownership. And worker cooperatives are just a part of thriving free market society as is any other voluntary organization, like stock corporations. I'll venture to say that some of the tenants of modern-day business corporations aren't exactly free-market oriented; big business law has evolved along with, and supported by, the big State, with a lot of exclusive protections not afforded the "little guys". While I'm not a communist by any means, I certainly sympathize with that glorious, but abortive, movement that happened in Catalonia back in those heady days of the Spanish Civil War.
Viva la Anarchists!
This was the beginnings of Orwell's increased cynicism of the socialist movement. Catalonia was a near workers paradise at the time, with the militia, industry, and even police forces controlled by worker's communes. All decisions were subject to very local-level democracies, land and industry was being collectivized, and a whole new way of social living was apparently succeeding. I'm sure in the long run cracks in the foundation would have appeared, but in the one year of Anarchist-controlled Catalonia, I'm sure it looked like Eden to many true-believer socialists. And for Russia to abandon it, for tactical reasons! Surely, the communists of the West, such as Orwell, were beginning to see the hypocrisy of the Soviet Union, just as Russia's own intellectuals were already well aware of.
It look longer, it seemed, for America's leftists to be similarly disillusioned; intellectuals were cheering Maoist China on, even during the horrific days of the Culture Revolution. The body count had to reach the millions before anyone paid attention. All because of the dependence, nay even necessity, of a strong central government with iron-fisted, nearly-mythical, leadership.
What if communism had taken a decentralized path instead? No central power, no absolute power, hence no absolute corruption. Communism was still bound to fail, as many of its central tenets are ... oh, untenable (such as the abolition of money and private property), but, maybe it would have involved, instead, to worker coops, and other voluntary forms of ownership. And worker cooperatives are just a part of thriving free market society as is any other voluntary organization, like stock corporations. I'll venture to say that some of the tenants of modern-day business corporations aren't exactly free-market oriented; big business law has evolved along with, and supported by, the big State, with a lot of exclusive protections not afforded the "little guys". While I'm not a communist by any means, I certainly sympathize with that glorious, but abortive, movement that happened in Catalonia back in those heady days of the Spanish Civil War.
Viva la Anarchists!
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Posted: Tue - February 22, 2005 at 01:23 AM
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Published On: Feb 22, 2005 01:23 AM
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Published On: Feb 22, 2005 01:23 AM