COLLAPSE OF COLD WAR POLITICAL FRAMEWORKS AND RISE OF ANARCHISM

The Marxist Leninists, of the Stalinist variant, as in the USSR, and
its export of its ideology abroad, largely believed it takes ten years
to ÎéÎíre-educateÎéÎí a person to the point of adequate political
conversion. That means conversion that is adequately internalized
psychologically. Essentially the difference between conversion to
ideas and internalization is the level of unquestioning acceptance of
the framework of ideas as governing how one perceives reality. Knowing
what the wold looks like through ideological glasses is different from
no longer needing those glasses and simply seeing it that way all of
the time, without significant exceptions. You no longer see the rose
colored world through rose colored glasses, but the world is rose
colored, and you no longer need the rose colored glasses. With
ideology it can work exactly that way if the conversion is
psychologically deep enough.

The fact is that even when that internalized  belief is broken, by
some traumatic shock concerning the perception of reality, there is no
returning to a prior condition as if the conversion never happened.
There is no return to a prior mental condition such that everything
can go on as it did before. No, when that conversion fails, due to
sufficiently traumatic experiences that break down the framework of
inculcated ideological beliefs as determine perceptions of reality,
that means that two frameworks of beliefs are now in hopeless ruins.
The one prior to ÎéÎíre-educationÎéÎí and the one that was brought about by
means of ÎéÎíre-educationÎéÎí. The conversion having been internalized
already did far too much damage to the preceding ideological framework
for it to ever be rebuilt as it once was accepted to be. Something new
is necessary to fill the void created by that failure of worldviews.

We know that under primarily American influence and control we have
seen the ÎéÎíre-educationÎéÎí of Marxist Leninists, of whatever persuasion,
across a span of some decades. The Marxist Leninist frameworks,
comprising the Marxist Leninist worldview, have been very largely
broken down into no more than ideological rubble, in a vast number of
instances. This is particularly true in Europe, portions of the former
USSR, and the Americas, but not limited to those regions. Yes, I am
referring to a failed system of beliefs, and then subsequent
conversion of many of its followers to American style free enterprise
capitalism. Sixteen years since the end of the Cold War, and the ÎéÎíre-
educationÎéÎí was unrelenting, extending beyond its previous ideological
and geographic bounds. It had begun its work in the McCarthy era of
the 1950s, if not before. We see indications of it as early as the
1920s, in AmericaÎéÎ÷s growing oppositions to Marxist Leninist communism.
(Stalinism simply being a subspecies of that species.) Western
capitalist ideology found it could quite readily step right in where
Marxist Leninist ideology had already crumbled, as a worldview, as a
framework, even more readily than capitalism could convert those who
still saw promise and future in Marxist Leninist communism.

With that as background we now arrive at today. For many, caught up in
that turbulence of ÎéÎíre-educationÎéÎí (brain washing and ideological
manipulation no matter who does it and no matter which ideology is
being promoted) both Marxist Leninist communism and free enterprise
Capitalism have now  had their frameworks largely destroyed. The
sudden, massive, extremely traumatic and unexpected, near to total
collapse of the American led system has, in many instances, been
sufficient shock to cause the ideological framework irreparable
damage. In some instances it crumbled completely. In other instances
it is a mere rubble heap compared to how it was built up. The
emptiness that is created when frameworks have been destroyed calls
for a new framework to be found. Human beings cannot typically really
function without such frameworks of ideas governing perceptions of
economic, social, and political realities. Such worldviews are more
essential today than are religions which once took on more of that
role, but today have lost much of that function in favor of
secularized systems. Some people are likely to cling to religious
ideas, if they have those available. Some framework is better than
none. Some structure and meaning is better than none. Particularly
when events are more chaotic and there is more uncertainty than
normal. However, for most, finding adequate and sufficient answers as
to a religious framework that replaces the crumbled frameworks of
secular systems that predominated over most facts of economics, and
social and political realities, as they were being experienced by the
experiencers of them, is not so common or likely in todayÎéÎ÷s world. The
quest for a secular answer tends to predominate. With Marxist Leninist
variants all hopelessly damaged by the persistence of the American
conversion machine, shattering those frameworks and re-educating to
free enterprise capitalist ideology, that rubble heap, already
weakened by Stalanist interpretation and excesses, has little chance
of providing satisfactory answers to those needing a new framework. It
is, after all, for all practical intents and purposes, an already
failed framework. It hardly matters whether that failure was a
pragmatic failure in life, or the destructive and reconstructive
process of re-education to capitalism. In actual fact it was both.

Similarly now Capitalist free enterprise ideology, as a framework of
beliefs about reality, comes into question. It is morally wounded, and
crumbles, appearing to be another failed system. The shock and
traumatic effect of a damaged and crumbling ideology is always made
worse in relation to the persistence and intensity of the violence
with which re-education to it was accomplished. In simple terms, the
more aggressive, invasive and damaging the brain washing was the more
damage to the framework when it actually crumbles. The cost of a
deeply internalized framework being demonstrably proven failed. The
patching up and restoring of such agressively forced and deeply
internalized frameworks is either extremely difficult or impossible.
After all we are talking about a total failure of what had become
blind faith in a system. That faith is not readily restorable once
shattered. The framework tends to be abandoned.

What then does that mean now ?  It explains why the Anarchist
communism ideological thread, which lost out against the Marxist
Leninist ideological thread during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia,
is gaining ground and is being considered as being one of the last
remaining viable ideologies. It has not had a chance to fail. It has
not been a matter of ÎéÎíre educationÎéÎí. Socialism was too tainted with
its identifications with the National Socialism of Nazi Germany. In
some regards that falls into the same category of ideologies that have
used brain washing tactics, have failed, and where brain washing into
a new, alternative, ideology has followed that failure. Socialism was
severely damaged by what happened in Germany in the 1930s and early
1940s. Rightly or wrongly it tends to resemble those ruins to those
who have sufficient grasp of European history. Again, that leaves
Anarchist communism ascendant. We see it in an upsurgence in many
areas of the world, and particularly in Europe, as the frameworks of
both Marxist Leninist communism (in their several variants) and
American free enterprise Capitalism are seen by many as themselves
reduced to no more than ruins. The quest for a new ideology, a new
framework, that offers a way to understand and give adequate meaning
to, social, political and economic matters, now leads to Anarchist
communism.  What results that will bring in terms of actual political
power being achieved by that system of ideas, remains in question.
That it is likely to gain significantly in power is a certainty. The
political stage was set by both the USSR and America in their
violently deadly dialectical struggle. Anarchist communism provides
the one existing opportunity to reject both ÎéÎíre educatorsÎéÎí, ie. ÎéÎíbrain
washersÎéÎí as an unwelcome and unacceptable form of authoritarianism.

The consequence of psychologically violent, and even worse yet
physically violent, opposition to the anarchist communist ideology
would be to reduce to pure nihilist violence without the framework of
ideas that tends to moderate against purely emotional explosive
outbursts. The anarchist communist position offers some restraint, and
some opportunity for dialogue, but when that is lost, due to past
errors being repeated, only the purified nihilistic violence
derivative from the existing processes and systems themselves would
remain actualized.  Even more true where the social, economic and
political trauma, and resulting loss of faith, have greatest impact.
So the same tactics used against Marxist Leninist and Capitalist
ideologies by the two sides in the Cold War struggle, are decisively
not recommended. They would be very counter productive in the long
term, worsening the long term outcomes. Traditional authoritarian
oppressive tactics to counter and neutralize the anarchist communist
political force and its ideas, would only lead to a worse outcome than
the anarchist communists offer in the current scenario as toworldwide
and extremely traumatic failures of the worldÎéÎ÷s major ideological
framework contenders, as they were promoted by the USSR and the United
States. Excess of new oppression or excess of continued oppression
against the political involvement and freedom of expression that is
being sought, would tend to lead towards a growing political climate
of even more extreme frustration exploding as mindless, purely
emotive, purely nihilistic, political violence. That then would be a
framework, but not a framework that is as open to any forms of re-
education, due to its reliance on base instincts rather than
intellectual resistance, predominated over by reason. Yes,
intellectual resistance can be more readily oppressed, suppressed, and
brain washed, but where that leads to a more basic reaction, those
very tactics are contrary to their own purpose.

Robert Morpheal

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