https://anarchistnews.org/content/myths-about-anarchism-democracy-and-decision-making
representative government being as deficient in a city as it is in a nation” (Kropotkin 2019, 38). Kropotkin’s friend Élisée Reclus, who was a survivor of the Commune, lamented in 1880 that it had been insurrectional below, but governmental above (Fleming 1979, 109).
A similar critique was made by Malatesta, who described the Commune as “a government like all the rest” which produced “a great deal of declarations of principles, very advanced but never implemented” (Malatesta 2019, 242-43). In this respect Malatesta was correct. The Commune’s government was a converted municipal council composed of around sixty-five male delegates who had been elected via universal male suffrage. These delegates, unlike those in an anarchist organisation, wielded decision-making power and their decrees were enforced by a miniature coercive apparatus composed of mayors, police, and national guardsmen (Merriman 2014, 54-57; Tombs 1999, 73-75, 80-83, 86). This police force functioned like any other, despite the fact that the Blanquists in charge of it rebranded the Prefecture of Police as the Ex-Prefecture
No comments:
Post a Comment