I guess it depends on how you interpret ‘hostile’.
Considering that a DotP is a form of government, and that Anarchism seeks the abolishment of government, I imagine we have very different ideas about what hostility involves… or we have very different ideas about how hostile a pacifist would be to a DotP!
Before I can exist in anarchy, I would first have to abolish the conditions that make dictatorships of the proletariat historical probabilities (if not inevitabilities) in the first place… it does very little good for me to attempt to convince others of the advantages of decentralization if the reasons for establishing or preserving centralization are too compelling for people: whether I like it or not, many workers do want to keep dictatorships of the proletariat established, and demonstrating unambiguous hostility to them can be either useless or counterproductive.
The material conditions that make dictatorships of the proletariat so probable are, I’m presuming, already familiar to you. Only by attacking those, and not the proletarian dictatorships themselves, can I hope to make proletarian dictatorships completely unnecessary.
Isn’t the main difference between Anarchism and Communism the question of when the state should be removed? I don’t think anyone would disagree that government should be removed when it’s no longer necessary, it’s just that one of those necessities is ‘Capitalists exist and want to destroy us’. Which is a very pertinent one for Cuba with the US constantly breathing down its neck.
Some anarchists disagree. Regarding external threats, some of us argue that if we can destroy the government, we can defend against others as well. That said, the Republic of Cuba’s formal defences and self‐sustainability are matters of historical inevitability and not of choice. We would be far better off doing whatever we can to abolish Imperial America rather than somehow convincing Cubans to abolish their state.
While I am skeptical about it, I still have to understand the reasons why so many proletarians turn to it, and figure out whatever I, and others, can practice to eventually invalidate those reasons; acting overtly hostile against it is only going to alienate proletarians more than anything else.
So while it isn’t my preference, I cannot, in good conscience, tell other oppressed people how they ought to be defending against their oppression. My stance is probably best described as ‘neutral’.
I’m an anarchist, who’s no more ‘hostile’ to dictatorships of the proletariat than a pacifist is.
Does that make me a subordinator of the working class to bourgeois politics too?
I guess it depends on how you interpret ‘hostile’.
Considering that a DotP is a form of government, and that Anarchism seeks the abolishment of government, I imagine we have very different ideas about what hostility involves… or we have very different ideas about how hostile a pacifist would be to a DotP!
Before I can exist in anarchy, I would first have to abolish the conditions that make dictatorships of the proletariat historical probabilities (if not inevitabilities) in the first place… it does very little good for me to attempt to convince others of the advantages of decentralization if the reasons for establishing or preserving centralization are too compelling for people: whether I like it or not, many workers do want to keep dictatorships of the proletariat established, and demonstrating unambiguous hostility to them can be either useless or counterproductive.
The material conditions that make dictatorships of the proletariat so probable are, I’m presuming, already familiar to you. Only by attacking those, and not the proletarian dictatorships themselves, can I hope to make proletarian dictatorships completely unnecessary.
Isn’t the main difference between Anarchism and Communism the question of when the state should be removed? I don’t think anyone would disagree that government should be removed when it’s no longer necessary, it’s just that one of those necessities is ‘Capitalists exist and want to destroy us’. Which is a very pertinent one for Cuba with the US constantly breathing down its neck.
Some anarchists disagree. Regarding external threats, some of us argue that if we can destroy the government, we can defend against others as well. That said, the Republic of Cuba’s formal defences and self‐sustainability are matters of historical inevitability and not of choice. We would be far better off doing whatever we can to abolish Imperial America rather than somehow convincing Cubans to abolish their state.
Fair. So maybe the Cuban wikipedia should say some Anarchists are hostile to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
So what’s the difference between an Anarchist that thinks State Socialism is an acceptable means to the end goal, and a Communist?
We prefer decentralization.
Depends… if you’re ideologically against proletarian organization (as is the case for most types of anarchism), then yes.
Not really.
While I am skeptical about it, I still have to understand the reasons why so many proletarians turn to it, and figure out whatever I, and others, can practice to eventually invalidate those reasons; acting overtly hostile against it is only going to alienate proletarians more than anything else.
So while it isn’t my preference, I cannot, in good conscience, tell other oppressed people how they ought to be defending against their oppression. My stance is probably best described as ‘neutral’.