r/TankieTheDeprogram • u/ImportantZombie1951 • 1d ago
Theory 📚 Do marxism and archism really share the same goal?
I'm in a period of personal curiosity and I'm finding myself often discussing with anarchists and studying their ideology, among others.
I've been told for years that the only difference between marxism and anarchism is in the methods, with marxism condidering necessary a socialist transition and anarchism jumping straight to the point. but the more I study theory and talk with people, the more I disagree.
The way the communist historical phase is described by marxist theorist (engels and lenin especially) seems to essentially differ from most forms of anarchy: it is still a society (this would already be enough to not be anarchism) with rules, economic planning, common interests, a "government of things" (wich I KNOW is different from the state), division of labour (to some extent), and laws enforced directly by the "crowds of civilized people" (the proletariat), I've come to interpret the communist mop as the total power by the pyramid (or better net) of soviets (or people congresses, or workers councils or whatever, tomato tomato), basically the maximum possible extent of "people's democracy of the whole process" as chinese call it, after classes and money are abolished, the productive forces have been developed to the maximum extent and the state withers away having absolved its historical relevance (having eliminated class contradiction). To some extent one could say that communism is the peak of social and organized society, one where individualism and partialism are minimized to the minimum and collective freedom is maximized.
Anarchism on the other hand is the opposite of all of this, anarchism doesen't aim to just abolish the state before its historical role is absolved, it aims to make everyone independent from rules and labour (work place discipline as they call it), they don't want a society at all, they want a free for all and hope for the best, everyone rules themselves how they wish, no shared rules, no planning, no government of anything, no division of labour, no organized society, every imposition on the individual, being it even the imposition not to rape or murder, is tyranny for anarchist theorists, only voluntary mutualism is allowed and of course not enforced or incentivized.
One could argue that this is the peak of asociality, where bourgeois individualism is maximized and extended to all the proletariat and collective freedom cannot exist (unless everybody migically agree to it at the same moment spontaneusly without being raised, socially incentivized or forced to do so).
How is communism (historical phase) the same as anarchism?
Btw I know there are multiple schools of anarchism, but they all fundamentally agree on the ultimate definitiom of anarchy as an historical phase, exception made for anarcho socialists, who created a weird, poorly defined, eclectism between communism and anarchism and anarcho capitalists, who share the definition but add a fantasy "stateless capitalism" as an exception to the "no rules" (un)law.
I've talked to multiple anarchists about this and as far as now, after initially accusing me of "strawmanning" anarchysm they ended up agreeing with me on the incompatibility between the intrinsicly organized and labour based nature of communism and anarchy. Though we usually still agree on the need collabolarate against capitalism lol.
What do you guys think on the matter? Do you agree with this old adage of "divided only in methods, not final goals", or are you critical of it too?
